The door slammed shut behind us, its metallic cry resonating through the air, sending plumes of dust swirling from the ceiling like specters of the past. Luthen leaped forward, grasping the handle with desperation. It remained stubbornly fixed.
"What--what was that?!" he gasped, his voice trembling with fear. "There's nothing out there--there can't be--"
"Quiet." I strained, every sense on high alert.
Absolute stillness enveloped us. Then--a drawn-out, low sigh.
Not from our lips. From the very confines of the room.
The candle's flame flickered, bending as though some unseen presence had breathed upon it.
I clutched Luthen's sleeve tightly. "Do not touch the door again. We must search for another way out."
He swallowed hard, nodding with an almost frantic urgency. His gaze darted wildly across the chamber, unfocused and alarmed. I had never witnessed him so rattled. Not even amidst the eerie echoes of the Mirror Hall.
The walls loomed around us, adorned with shelves full of forgotten relics, old hooks, and journals cloaked in layers of dust. Yet, now that we found ourselves ensnared, the atmosphere felt palpably altered. It pressed upon us, thick and warm--like the suffocating embrace of a lung.
The mirror shard upon the table rippled once more. Something beneath its surface stirred--a whisper of a face. Not my own. Not anyone I recognize. Those eyes were fathomless, the mouth an unsettling stillness.
I tore my gaze away, wary of reflecting too long, as if such a connection could summon the darkness lurking just beyond.
"Vaerin..."
Luthen's voice quivered, fixated on a row of ancient bricks near the floor, haunted with anxiety.
"What is it?" I asked, steeling myself.
"There are markings." He stooped, his fingers tracing the symbols crudely etched into the stone. A spiraling design. A deliberate sequence of slashes and crosses. Not random. Cognizant. Repetitive, echoing an ominous purpose.
"What do they signify?" he asked, his voice strained and hollow.
His breaths grew shallow, almost rasping against the heavy air.
"Stop--do not touch--"
But it was too late. He pressed one of the ominous symbols.
A low groan echoed through the room. The shelves quivered in eerie anticipation. A wave of hot air surged forth from the cracked bricks. The candle flickered violently, sputtering before steadiness returned.
A seam slithered open across the far wall--so faint I might have missed it entirely. A hidden passageway.
"There," I breathed softly. "It's a maintenance corridor. Someone sealed it from within."
Luthen remained silent, his gaze fixed upon his hand as if it were foreign to him. The symbol's touch left a fine, gray residue upon his fingertips.
"Are you okay?"
He snapped back to reality. "Yes--of course. I'm-I'm well. Just...dust."
But the mark was not mere dust. Not truly. It shimmered faintly, reminiscent of ancient mirror powder.
I chose not to press him further. Not yet.
Instead, I pried my fingers into the seam and pulled. The panel relented with a brittle crack, unveiling a narrow crawlspace lined with rusted pipes and forsaken tools.
"Come," I urged. "It leads beyond this forsaken wing."
Luthen hesitated. For a fleeting moment, it seemed he would not follow. Then he nodded, albeit timidly. Reluctantly. As if every fiber of his being yearned to remain with that eldritch mirror.
Something was amiss. Profoundly, dreadfully amiss.
But for now, I had no choice but to place my trust in him.
The crawlspace loomed small and shadowed, forcing us to crouch low, moving in a grim line beneath the drenching stones and the tangled webs of long-forgotten wires. The air hung heavy, stagnant, suffocating.
As we advanced, I felt Luthen pause behind me, his presence suddenly tangible, yet unsettling.
"Vaerin..."
His voice drifted like a soft echo from a distant realm, shrouded in fog. It was as though he spoke through water, muffled and far away.
"Yes?"
"You heard it too, didn't you?"
In an instant, I froze. "Heard what?"
"The breath. The whisper."
I swallowed hard. "...yes."
"It calls names."
His words slithered down my spine like icy tendrils, sending shivers coursing through me. "Luthen--"
He murmured on, trembling, filled with a quiet dread. "It said mine. Last night. While I was sleeping."
My breath hitched in my throat. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because it didn't say Luthen," he whispered, each syllable laced with fear. "It said my full name."
I turned sharply, our faces mere inches apart in that shadowed passage. Sweat clung to his brow, and his eyes glimmered wide with terror--pupils heavy with an unnatural darkness.
"Luthen, listen to me. We can't let it--"
Then came a sound from behind him, a sharp scraping. Claws? No. Fingernails--dragging slowly against the confinement room's wall, each stroke echoing like a death knell.
We both froze in place.
Another scrape, longer this time, dripping with hunger.
Then--like a caress upon the twilight air--came a whisper, faint as a lover's secrets.
"...Vaerin..."
The sound slithered through the crawlspace, an unsettling entity of its own.
Luthen trembled violently, surging forward. "GO."
We scrambled, racing aginst time as the passage twisted sharply upward, beckoning us toward a service hatch.
I pushed against it--nothing happened.
"Help me!"
Luthen joined me, shoulder braced against the cold metal. Together we heaved, the hatch groaning under the strain before it burst open, unleashing a gust of stale air steeped in the scent of decay.
We tumbled into a narrow hallway above the western wing, gasping, our bodies cloaked in dust and the weight of a long-forgotten terror.
Behind us, the hatch slammed shut with a resounding finality.
Luthen sank against the wall, trembling. I caught my breath, straining to listen. The whisper had vanished; the strange warmth of the confinement room faded into my skin like a distant memory.
Turning toward Luthen, I found him staring at his own hands, confusion clouding his gaze. The dust on his fingertips crept up his wrist, shimmering faintly--like something alive and sinister.
"Luthen..."
He snapped his gaze to mine, too suddenly. His breath steadied unnaturally, as though another force had quelled it for him.
"I'm fine," he insisted, his voice unfathomably calm.
A chill coiled within me. "Luthen...you're not."
He offered a smile, faint and disquieting--not reassuring, not friendly, just wrong.
"Come on," he urged, standing. "We should get back before someone notices we're gone."
For the first time since our paths had crossed, I hesitated, my feet refusing to follow.
Because the man in front of me--the one whose voice echoed Luthen's--no longer felt like the boy I had known.
But I nodded, rising from my uncertainty.
For if something awakening within him cradled darkness, then trailing behind was safer than allowing him to drift behind me into shadows unknown.
