The building trembled beneath Gareth's feet, like a wounded animal drawing its last breath. The air was thick with the electric hum of something that had been disturbed, something that had woken up and realized it was no longer in control.
For the first time since the glyphs had first marked his skin, Gareth felt the building shrink. Not physically, but mentally. The weight pressing down on his mind—the crushing force of its influence—was fading.
He could breathe again.
But the freedom didn't come without a price.
His skin still pulsed with the remnants of the glyphs—small, almost imperceptible now, but he could feel them beneath the surface, like smoldering embers. It wasn't over. Not yet. The building might have loosened its grip on him for now, but the scars it had left behind would be with him forever.
Gareth took a step forward, feeling the floor beneath him shift. The walls, now cracked and scarred, seemed to recoil in the aftermath of the mirror's destruction. The familiar hum of the building's corridors was quieter now, as if it were listening, waiting.
Waiting for something.
He didn't know how much time had passed since he had torn the mirror apart. Everything had become distorted, the fabric of the place unraveling like a broken thread. The hallway before him had changed, but he couldn't say how. The edges of the walls blurred, the shadows shifting like they had a life of their own.
Was this freedom, or just another layer of the trap?
Gareth didn't have time to consider it further.
A door appeared in front of him. It wasn't supposed to be there. It wasn't part of the corridor he had been walking through. The wood was aged, the metal handle slick with rust. But what truly unsettled Gareth was the feeling that he knew this door.
The last time he had seen it, he hadn't been standing—he had been on his knees, waiting.
Without thinking, he reached for the handle.
The moment his fingers made contact, something jolted through him—sharp, like electricity—but colder. It burned with the sensation of memories long buried, and as he turned the handle, the door opened into a room he thought he'd forgotten.
It was his old room. The one they had locked him in when the tests began.
The air inside was stale, heavy with the scent of old blood and dried ink. The room looked almost untouched, like time had stood still. There was a desk covered in stacks of papers—unfinished documents, reports, and notes—too many notes. The same symbols that had marked his body were written across the walls, scrawled in a language that twisted and writhed under his gaze.
But something was wrong.
The desk wasn't the same one he remembered.
It was distant. Like a version of it that didn't exist in the timeline he remembered. It looked almost out of place, like it didn't belong in this reality.
Gareth stepped inside, his breath shallow as his gaze moved across the room. The walls seemed to pulse, almost in time with the beat of his heart, as though they were listening, waiting.
Then, at the far end of the room, a figure appeared.
It wasn't Mira.
It wasn't the Archivist.
It wasn't even human.
The figure was tall, its limbs too long, its body twisted in unnatural ways. It stood as though it had been carved from the very shadows that clung to the walls. Its face was obscured—blurred and shifting like smoke. Yet Gareth could feel its eyes on him, even if he couldn't see them.
The thing tilted its head.
"You think you've escaped, Gareth?" its voice was deep, not quite male, not quite female. It was everything and nothing all at once. "You think you've broken free from what's inside you?"
Gareth's pulse quickened, but he didn't step back.
"I haven't broken free," he said, his voice hoarse. "But I'll make sure you never control me again."
The thing laughed, but the sound wasn't a sound at all. It was more like an image—vivid, overpowering, and maddening.
"You still don't understand, do you?" it said, its voice ringing in his skull. "The building is not controlling you, Gareth. It's becoming you. It is you."
The walls of the room began to contract, pressing in around him. The air thickened, making it harder to breathe. Gareth could feel the glyphs on his skin—burning, searing, alive. The darkness was reaching out to him again, like it always had. It was pulling him back into itself, back into the endless cycle of rewriting.
But this time, he wasn't just going to let it happen.
He closed his eyes, focusing on the pain in his chest, the burning in his veins. It was his choice. The building didn't control him anymore. It couldn't. It was a reflection of what he had become, and the more it sought to bind him, the more it exposed its weakness.
He took a deep breath.
And ripped the glyphs from his skin.
The room shattered.
The walls cracked, the shadows splitting as Gareth tore through the fabric of the building that had tried to consume him. The figure in the corner screeched, its form unraveling as the light of his determination cut through the darkness.
Gareth stumbled forward, feeling the weight of the place fall away from him. The walls dissolved into smoke, the door fading as he took his final steps through the remnants of the building.
And then, there was only silence.
Gareth opened his eyes to a new world. The hallway was gone. The walls, the doors, the shifting shadows—all gone. He was standing in a place that felt alive, but not in the same way as before. This place was not a prison. It was a space between worlds, between times. A place where everything that had happened was free to exist but no longer held him captive.
The glyphs were gone. His skin was scarred, but the burning pain had stopped.
Gareth was free.
But what he had become—what the building had tried to make him—would never be fully gone.
To be continued...
Gareth's journey through the building has ended—but it is not over. The influence of the place is deeper than he realizes. And for those who think they've escaped, there is always the question: can the past ever truly be left behind?