Yet.
The snake keeps moving. The path stays clear.
Perfect. Follow the creepy snake or get eaten by invisible nightmare creatures.
I follow the snake.
Obviously.
I’m busy trying not to die but I notice when things start to change.
The ground stops shifting. Still black, still wrong, but solid. The things fall back further—not gone, but distant. Background static instead of trying to eat me.
My hands stop shaking.
I notice halfway through a step, and it stops me cold.
When did that happen?
I lift them, staring. My fingers are steady. Completely steady. They shouldn’t be steady. Not after the mirror, orhisvoice. Not after any of this.
The cold fades next.
Not warm. Just… less. Less like drowning. Less like being crushed.
My heartbeat slows.
The panic—the choking, suffocating panic that’s been strangling me since I fell—goes quiet. Not gone, but muffled. Like someone wrapped it in cotton and shoved it down deep where I can’t reach it.
This should scare me.
It doesn’t.
I know that’s bad. I know that’s really, really bad.
But the thought doesn’t stick. It slides away like water off glass.
The snake glides ahead, unconcerned. Its path curves left, then right, weaving through nothing like it knows exactly where it’s going.
I follow because stopping probably means the things come back.
I follow because the calm feels good.
I follow because I’m too tired to fight anymore.
Yes.
The voice. Ethos, deep and gravely resounding in my head.
Just there. Everywhere at once.
Come.
My feet move faster without me telling them to.
There’s a light ahead. Like something emerging from underwater.
First, shadows that might be walls. Black stone. Maybe. Or smoke shaped like stone.
