“This is River’s fear,” I murmur.
“He’s afraid I’ll never choose him?” The sentence tastes wrong as soon as I say it, like I’ve exposed something private I had no right to touch. Heat prickles at the back of my neck. Yes, I knew he liked me—once. Before our disastrous date, before everything changed, and we agreed to be friends.
Or… I thought we both agreed.
My chest tightens as the weight of it settles.
River standing here, forced to watch this… forced to watch me choose Ryder—his twin—over and over again. No wonder his fear looks like heartbreak.
The mist curls inward and swallows the vision whole.
The illusion dissolves, gentle as a sigh.
Only one opening remains.
My body already knows what waits inside the final slit; every instinct claws at me, urging me to turn back. My pulse thrashes against my ribs, faster than it ever has, louder too—like it’s trying to break free.
Still, I force myself to move.
The moment I cross the threshold, darkness swallows me whole. Not simple darkness—this feels thick enough to touch, to drown in. A living void that holds its breath around me. I can’t see my hands, can’t see the floor, can’t tell if I’m standing or sinking.
Then a single sound slices clean through the black.
Boots.
Sharp. Precise.
Rhythmic in a way burned into my memory.
Cold floods my veins as a shape peels itself from the shadows. The General steps into view as though the dark itself created him—tall, rigid, his uniform immaculate, his expression carved from stone. His eyes lock onto mine instantly, with that same predatory calm that hollowed out entire nights of sleep.
“You will watch the world burn, Asha,”he says. His voice is low, controlled, the kind that never needed to yell to terrify.“Knowing you could have stopped it.”
My throat closes. I can barely breathe.
Not here. Not now.Pleasenot him.
“No,” I whisper, though the word barely escapes me. “You’re not real. You’re not—”
He takes a step closer.
“Everything you fear becomes real here.”
The shadows cling to him like armour. When he lifts his gloved hand toward my face, I flinch so hard my teeth clack together. My legs want to run, but the dark tightens around me like tar, holding me still—forcing me to face him.
A whisper curls around my mind again, soft and merciless:
Name your fear.
Claim your truth.
My vision swims. The air feels too thin to pull in, too cold to warm my lungs. This is the fear I never speak aloud. The one that digs into my spine at night. The one that tells me I will never escape his prophecy. That I made a mistake that day, in the mountain.
My hands curl into fists until my nails bite my palms.
“This fear…” My voice fractures. “This is mine.”
The General’s smile spreads, slow and poisonous, but he doesn’t fade like the others.
