Ethan awoke, but this time, the air felt different. There was no sound, no hum of static or flicker of light. Only silence.
Complete, empty silence.
He blinked, but the room he found himself in didn't feel like a room at all. It was a vast, open space. White walls stretched endlessly in every direction, the surface smooth and featureless. No doors. No windows. Just an expanse of nothing.
But it was more than just empty. It felt… wrong. Like he wasn't supposed to be here. Like the very air he breathed was a distortion.
"Where am I?" he whispered, but his voice made no echo. There was no sound at all.
Suddenly, the air in front of him shimmered. A thin ripple passed through the space, like the surface of water disturbed by an unseen force.
And then—it appeared.
The figure. The shadow.
It stepped into view, its form jagged and glitching, barely holding together. Its outline pulsed with every step. The same voice from before—familiar, but distorted beyond recognition—broke the silence.
"Do you know what this place is?"
Ethan recoiled. "Where am I?"
The figure didn't answer directly. Instead, it stepped closer, and Ethan's vision blurred for a moment. When it cleared, he saw something shocking. A reflection of himself. But this was a version of him he had never seen before.
The other Ethan stood in the middle of the void, his eyes wide with panic, his hands pressed to his temples. He was trembling, his whole body shaking like he was fighting against an invisible force.
"W-What is this?" the other Ethan whispered, but there was something wrong in his voice. Like the words were being forced out of him.
Ethan's heart pounded in his chest. "What's happening?"
The figure—his shadow—moved, its form shifting unnaturally. It reached out and touched the reflection of Ethan, and the moment its fingers made contact, the reflection shattered.
It wasn't like a mirror breaking. It was more like a memory splitting. Cracking into pieces, disappearing into nothingness.
Ethan stumbled backward.
"You broke it," the shadow said again. Its voice cold, detached. "You're the echo now."
"What does that mean?" Ethan demanded, his breath quickening.
The shadow only tilted its head, its movements jerky. "It means you've already died. And now you're stuck, reliving the pieces of a life that was never yours to begin with."
The world around Ethan rippled again. It felt like the fabric of everything was coming undone. The walls blurred. The ground shifted beneath his feet.
"I don't—" Ethan began, but the words didn't make it past his lips. His entire body felt heavy, like the gravity had increased tenfold.
"Do you hear it?" the shadow asked.
Ethan looked around in confusion. But there was nothing. No sound.
"Listen." The shadow's voice dropped, almost to a whisper. "The echo is the truth. You're hearing it now."
For the first time, Ethan realized he could hear something—distant, soft, but unmistakable.
A voice. His voice.
It was speaking in fragments. Broken words. Memories.
"I… remember…"
"I shouldn't… have left…"
"She… it was my fault."
His head spun as more voices joined in, all the same, all different. They echoed from the walls, from the ground, from the very air itself.
"You're not supposed to be here."
"Wake up. Wake up. Please, Ethan."
Ethan's legs buckled beneath him. He fell to his knees as the voices grew louder. His vision blurred again, flickering like the stuttering of a bad connection.
"No," he whispered, hands pressed to his ears. "No, no, this isn't real. This isn't happening."
But the voices kept coming. His own, mixed with the shadow's, merging into one. The memories were overwhelming now, crashing through his mind like a flood.
The car crash. His sister's hospital room. A woman's face—familiar, but distant. Her words, the last thing she said to him.
"It's not your fault."
Suddenly, it all clicked.
The truth, the echo, the break.
This was the part he had forgotten. The part he couldn't face.
He had been running from it. From himself.
The crash. The guilt. The death.
The room around him began to crack again, the walls splitting, the light from above flickering out of existence. Ethan's vision darkened as the world around him collapsed.
"Wake up," the shadow whispered one last time, its voice now a low hum in his mind. "You're not supposed to be here, Ethan. Not like this."
But Ethan didn't listen. He couldn't. The voices, the echo, the memories—they were all a part of him. Part of the world he had created. Part of the reason he was still here.
The shadow dissolved into the air, its final words echoing as the darkness closed in.
"You'll remember. But it will be too late."
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