The hand clamped around Noah's wrist was ice-cold—colder than anything human.
Its grip was wrong, like too many fingers pressed into his skin at once. He tried to pull back, but the strength on the other side of the door was overwhelming, effortless, inevitable.
"No—let go!" Noah hissed, twisting his arm, but the thing inside the doorway only dragged him closer.
The darkness spilling out of the narrow opening thickened like smoke, curling around his hand, creeping up his forearm. Sensation died under his skin. First the fingers, then the palm, then his wrist. His body wasn't his; the numbness crawled like frostbite overtaking him in seconds.
The voice—his voice—spoke again, inches away.
"You came back slower this time," it murmured. "You're fading faster."
Noah's breath trembled. "What… what do you mean this time?"
A low chuckle—dry, humorless.
"You still don't understand? You were never the only version. You're just the one who lasted the longest."
The words hit Noah like a punch. His heart hammered wildly, but the numbness kept climbing, stealing sensation from his elbow upward.
The system finally managed to break through the interference:
[ALERT: NON-HUMAN CONTACT DETECTED.]
[ENTITY CLASSIFICATION: YOU.]
[WARNING: THIS VERSION IS HOSTILE.]
"Hostile?" Noah snapped. "It's me!"
[NEGATIVE.]
[THIS ENTITY IS A FAILED ITERATION.]
The thing behind the door leaned closer. Noah couldn't see its full face—still hidden in the dark—but he saw the eyes.
His eyes.
Except wrong.
The pupils were too large, too black, swallowing the whites completely.
The grip on Noah's wrist tightened until the bones ground together.
"I would have been perfect," the entity whispered. "If you hadn't replaced me."
"I didn't replace anyone!" Noah spat. "I don't even know what you're talking about!"
"Liar."
The entity jerked him forward, half his body crossing the threshold. Noah dug his heel into the floor, his shoe scraping violently against the wood, but it barely slowed the pull.
On the wall behind him, the photos rustled. The eyes in them—hundreds of Noahs frozen in moments he didn't remember—seemed to swivel, watching the struggle unfold.
The system's voice sharpened:
[INITIATING DISENGAGEMENT PROTOCOL.]
[PREPARE FOR FORCE FEEDBACK.]
Before Noah could ask what that meant, an electric jolt shot up his arm. His muscles seized. The entity hissed, releasing him for half a second.
It was enough.
Noah fell backward, slamming onto the floor. The door snapped shut instantly, as if it had never opened at all. Darkness vanished like smoke sucked backward through a crack.
Noah gasped, clutching his arm, sensation slowly returning in painful tingles.
But something was wrong.
He looked down.
A dark mark—shaped like a hand but stretched unnaturally long—was burned into his skin, as if ink had seeped beneath the surface.
The system immediately scanned the mark.
[CONTAMINATION DETECTED.]
[FOREIGN SIGNATURE MATCH: 72%.]
"Seventy-two percent of what?" Noah demanded.
[…You.]
His stomach knotted.
The walls around him groaned.
Noah turned sharply. The photos on the wall began peeling off, one by one, drifting to the floor like wilting leaves. Every image of him aged rapidly, bleaching white before disintegrating to dust.
The room was erasing them.
No—erasing those versions.
A sharp crack split the air.
The ceiling above him fractured. A slow, deliberate sound echoed through the collapsing room.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Noah's blood ran cold.
It wasn't coming from the door anymore.
It was coming from the ceiling.
He forced himself to stand despite the trembling in his legs. Dust rained around him as the ceiling bowed inward, cracking down the middle. Something pressed from the other side. Something heavy. Something crawling.
"No…" Noah whispered. "No, no, no—"
A pale hand burst through the ceiling. Not human-pale—paper-pale, lifeless, almost flat. Its fingers stretched far too long.
Tap.
It pressed once against the beam, then reached further, tearing the ceiling wide open.
Through the gap, Noah saw a face peering down at him.
His own face.
But it wasn't the one behind the door.
This version was worse—far worse.
The skin stretched unnaturally tight across the bones, the cheeks hollow, the mouth curled into a grin too large, too wide. The eyes—God, the eyes—were pits of absolute black.
The system choked out warnings as if drowning:
[CRITICAL WARNING.]
[VERSION 3-B APPROACHING.]
[THIS ONE DOES NOT NEGOTIATE.]
"Three-B?" Noah echoed, stumbling back. "How many versions are there?!"
A second hand tore through the ceiling. Then a third.
This version had more than two arms.
Noah's breathing hitched as the creature dropped from above, landing silently on the floor despite its weight. It towered over him, limbs unfolding like a spider rearranging itself. The face—his face—tilted with an unnatural tilt.
Then it smiled wider.
"You shouldn't have run," the thing croaked. Its voice was rough, scraping like metal dragged across concrete. "We've been searching for you."
Noah backed against the wall.
"There's no 'we.' There's just—things pretending to be me."
The creature twitched at the word pretending.
It didn't like that.
"Not pretending," it murmured. "We are the pieces. You are the shell."
Its jaw unhinged slightly, stretching past human limits.
"You belong with us."
Noah's heart hammered, adrenaline drowning his fear as instinct took over. He reached for anything he could use as a weapon, but the room was nearly bare now—photos gone, dust settling, nothing but debris.
The creature lunged.
Noah dove aside. It slammed into the wall, cracking the plaster. Its limbs scrambled for purchase, repositioning with sickening speed.
The system surged back to life:
[ENGAGING SURVIVAL SUBROUTINE.]
[NOAH, MOVE.]
"I'm trying!" he snapped, rolling behind a fallen piece of ceiling.
The creature turned sharply, eyes locking onto him like a predator spotting prey.
Its claws scraped across the floor.
Not fingers—claws.
Noah's body jolted with cold realization:
These iterations weren't just alternate versions.
They were evolved versions.
Twisted by time. By the system. By whatever endless loop they had been trapped in.
And now they wanted him to join them.
The creature launched again.
This time Noah didn't dodge fast enough. A claw grazed his side, slicing through fabric and skin. Pain exploded across his ribs. He stumbled, breathing hard.
The system hissed in his ear:
[YOU CANNOT OUTRUN 3-B.]
[INITIATE: RECALL POINT.]
"Recall what—?"
Before he could finish, the floor beneath him pulsed. For a fraction of a second, the world flickered—static, distortion, glitching frames like broken footage.
Then Noah was yanked backward.
Not physically.
Reality itself pulled him apart.
The creature's claws missed by inches as Noah's body dissolved into static and reformed several feet away, as though space had folded him out of the monster's reach.
Noah dropped to his knees, gasping.
The creature shrieked, an ear-splitting cry that made his bones vibrate.
It lunged again—
And everything froze.
The creature mid-air.
The falling dust suspended like glitter.
Noah's own breath stuck in his lungs.
Time had stopped.
A whisper echoed behind him.
"Noah."
He stiffened.
The door behind him—the one with the first version—was open again.
And the entity from before stepped out.
Still wearing his face.
Still wrong.
But calmer than the monstrous Version 3-B frozen in the air.
It walked toward Noah, its steps silent.
"You don't have long," it murmured. "That thing is only the beginning. Every version that failed—they all want the same thing."
Noah swallowed. "Which is?"
"You."
The entity crouched to his level. "You are the stable one. The last complete prototype. We were all discarded, but you—"
Its head tilted, eyes narrowing.
"—you survived the longest. And that makes you the key."
The word key made something inside Noah twist.
"To what?" he asked.
The entity's lips curved faintly.
"To the truth."
Behind them, the frozen creature twitched, time buckling around its limbs. The freeze wouldn't last much longer.
Noah forced his breathing to steady.
"What happens if they catch me?"
The entity didn't hesitate.
"They will break you apart. Piece by piece. Until all that remains is another failed iteration."
Noah's stomach dropped.
"And what happens if… if I go with you?"
The entity's expression softened—almost pitying.
"You will finally understand what you are."
The freeze broke.
Time snapped forward.
The creature lunged, screaming.
The entity didn't move. It simply looked back at Noah, eyes glowing faintly with a strange, hollow warmth.
"Noah," it whispered.
"Make a choice."
He had seconds.
Maybe less.
Run?
Fight?
Follow the entity?
Or face the monster and risk everything?
He didn't know the right answer.
Only that whatever choice he made—
There would be no going back.
The creature's claws swept toward him.
Noah moved.