The building had never been kind to Gareth.
It had always felt him—like a nervous twitch in the corner of its sprawling halls. He was one of the few who never fully belonged, yet never fully left. He was a fragment, a page turned with no ink on it, drifting through corridors that tasted of bitter air and half-forgotten screams.
But now, Gareth had become something more.
The glyphs on his skin had begun to change. Not just crawl in slow, unsettling patterns, but grow. They had been simple sigils—scribbles that made no sense. Now, they rippled, expanded, bloomed. The symbols stretched from his arms, across his neck, and onto his chest, each curve and line writhing with a kind of life that made his breath hitch in his throat.
His heart pounded like it was trying to escape, but he couldn't outrun what was happening to him.
He was back in the Hall of Mirrors.
Gareth couldn't say why he kept finding his way back here. Maybe it was because the glass whispered his name—in secret, when the world wasn't watching. Or maybe it was because the reflections in this place had always known him, even if he hadn't known himself.
He reached out, fingers trembling, and touched the nearest mirror.
The reflection didn't show his face.
It showed another version of him. This one was clean-shaven, hair cut short, eyes wide and too alert. A man who'd never known fear. Never seen the dark in this building—at least, not the way Gareth had.
Gareth watched as the figure in the mirror—not him—smiled back.
"Ready to join us, Gareth?" the reflection asked, its voice like glass breaking. It stepped closer, the mirror warping, the world behind it twisting into shapes he didn't recognize.
"No." Gareth's voice came out ragged. "Not yet."
But his reflection was insistent. It stepped out of the glass, now standing in front of him, wearing the same clothes, the same expression, the same body—yet it felt wrong.
The reflection's smile twisted. It grinned wider, showing teeth that weren't quite human.
"I'm not the one who has a choice here, Gareth. The building isn't letting you go."
The walls shifted around them. The floor cracked. But the reflection held its ground.
Gareth stepped back, his breath catching in his throat.
Something tugged at the back of his mind. A memory, buried deep in the spaces where the building had erased him.
The day he first felt the glyphs come alive.
It had been quiet back then, too.
FLASHBACK
Gareth had been alone in the building when the marks first started appearing. He'd been wandering, searching for something he couldn't remember, as always, when he felt the first twinge across his skin. A cold, almost indifferent sensation that crawled beneath the surface.
At first, he'd thought it was just exhaustion. The building had a way of wearing you down—hunger, thirst, sleep—until they all blurred together. But this… This was different.
A sharp line cut across his wrist—like a symbol carved deep enough to tear into the very fibers of his soul.
Gareth had screamed, but nothing had heard him. And when he looked at the mark, it was already beginning to shift, curling into shapes that felt familiar and yet strange.
By the time he realized what was happening, it was already too late. The glyphs had spread across his body, each mark a piece of the puzzle that the building was constructing—around him, inside him, through him.
And somewhere in the shadows, he heard it.
The Watcher. The entity who lived in the silence, who guided the unseen parts of the building's madness.
BACK TO THE PRESENT
The mirror-man was still standing there, staring at him, the smile on its face now splitting wider, unnatural.
"You think you can fight this, Gareth? You think you can resist what the building is making of you? The rewrite has already begun."
Gareth's breath hitched. He could feel the glyphs beneath his skin. They burned, each symbol pulsing with the rhythm of the building, growing stronger. His own body was betraying him.
"No," Gareth whispered. "Not me."
But the reflection didn't care. The smile twisted into something more cruel, more insistent.
"It's already decided, Gareth. You belong to this place now.
Gareth's heart was hammering. He could feel the weight of the building pressing down on him, its unseen hands gripping his mind, his soul.
The mirror was showing him what he could become—what he was becoming.
He could feel it in his bones.
The door behind him swung open without warning.
A voice—soft but insistent—called out: "Gareth."
He turned.
It was Mira.
But not the Mira he remembered. She looked… changed. Eyes wide, lips parted as if she had just come from somewhere else.
Her silhouette was fragmented, torn by shadows that stretched unnaturally across the room. She stood like she didn't belong there, like she wasn't fully real.
Mira's voice was a whisper carried by the wind. "You're not alone in this."
The building flinched. The walls seemed to shudder in recognition, as if the mere presence of Mira could fracture the reality of the room. The mirror-man's smile faltered for a moment.
Gareth felt the coldness inside him retreat slightly.
Mira's gaze met his. "The glyphs won't control you. Not if you don't let them."
Gareth swallowed hard, looking at her, then at the reflection still grinning in the mirror.
"I'm not sure if I can stop it, Mira."
"You can," she said softly, stepping closer. "You have to. This place is feeding off your fear, off your confusion. You've been lost in it for too long, but you can still fight it."
The reflection in the mirror screeched, its body distorting violently as the walls around them seemed to tighten, pulsing like a living thing.
And then the Watcher made itself known.
A figure formed in the shadows behind the mirror. A tall, featureless entity, its limbs extending too far. Its presence wasn't felt through the air. It was felt in the mind, scraping at the edges of perception.
It didn't need to speak.
Its gaze was all-consuming.
But for the first time, Gareth didn't feel afraid.
Not anymore.
He stepped forward, towards the mirror.
And just before the reflection could reach him, before the Watcher could devour him whole, Gareth did something he hadn't done in a long time.
He decided.
He reached out with both hands and tore the mirror apart.
The shards fell to the ground in slow motion, the building itself groaning in protest, but Gareth didn't hesitate.
The glyphs on his skin began to fade, their power dissolving like mist.
And for a moment, everything stood still.
Then—crackling and low, resonant—something in the walls shuddered.
And Gareth realized the truth: The building had made its move, but he had countered it.
And for the first time in years, he felt something he thought he had lost.
To be continued...
The building knows it chosen. It knows its victims. But it hasn't learned how to break them.
The pieces are beginning to fall apart. And what comes next… well, it's too dangerous to predict.