They walked in silence.
The woods behind them had vanished, replaced by shifting salt flats, gleaming white beneath a stormless sky. It was neither day nor night. The sun hung low but cast no heat, and the moon hovered too close, trembling like it might fall.
Vampher kept glancing at his hand—the one that had held the crown's ashes.
There was a mark now. Faint. A spiral of ink threading across his palm, pulsing softly.
"Still with us?" Dee asked.
"Yes," Vampher said. "But something's… following."
He wasn't wrong.
Behind them, a trail of bootprints stretched for miles—their bootprints—but with one extra set, always exactly five steps behind, perfectly matching their pace. The sand didn't shift. The air didn't move. But the fourth presence was undeniable.
"Let's not look back," Hiro muttered. "Feels like the sort of thing that gets real if you acknowledge it."
Then the world hiccuped.
Time stuttered.
One blink—and they were standing on tile.
Not sand. Not forest.
Polished marble—cracked in places, but gleaming.
The sky above had collapsed into a dome of stained glass, each panel showing a memory none of them had lived: Dee being crowned by faceless kings, Hiro kneeling before a burning city, Vampher smiling as a puppet army danced behind him.
"It's not real," Dee whispered. "Don't believe it."
A chime echoed.
The ground pulsed.
And the Room of Doors appeared.
Hundreds of doors, arranged in a spiral, each one bearing a symbol from their lives. A broken compass. A silver flute. A dead bird. A cracked mirror. A teacup. A letter never sent.
In the center stood a figure.
Not cloaked. Not monstrous.
Just… ordinary.
A woman. Slightly older than them. Wearing clothes a little too big. Her hair braided in loops that defied gravity. A soft, amused smile on her face.
"I've been waiting," she said.
None of them moved.
"Don't recognize me? That's fair. I was… cut."
"Cut?" Hiro asked.
"Edited. Removed. From the story. You chose not to remember me."
She stepped forward.
Each footstep echoed with familiarity.
And then Dee gasped.
"…Sinna?"
The woman's smile grew tender. "Hello, Dee."
"You were…" He staggered back. "You died. You never existed."
"All stories lie," she said. "Even yours."
The room rippled.
Vampher clenched his fists. "This is the fourth lock, isn't it?"
Sinna nodded. "I'm the lock you tried to forget. The one you loved."
Hiro frowned. "Wait—all of us?"
She looked at each of them in turn. "In different ways. As a sister. A rival. A lover. A betrayer. I was the thread that linked you before the story started."
"But you were cut," Dee whispered. "We had to. You—you broke."
"I evolved," Sinna said, voice still gentle. "I became a choice you couldn't face. So you buried me. And the story obeyed. But I was still there… behind the fifth footstep in the sand."
The trail.
The shadow.
The constant sense of watching.
Hiro stepped back. "So what now? You want revenge?"
"No. I want you to choose."
With a wave of her hand, the doors shifted. Three glowed.
One for each of them.
Dee's had a cracked star etched into the center.
Vampher's bore a mirror reflecting a world upside-down.
Hiro's was wrapped in chains of gold.
Sinna pointed.
"One of you must open your door. The one that faces the memory you buried."
Dee shook his head. "I can't. I remember now. I—what we had—what you became—"
"You have to," she said. "Or I stay."
Vampher stepped toward his. "If I open mine—what happens?"
"You face the life you could have had," Sinna said softly. "The one where we stayed together. Where I never died. Where I never betrayed you."
Hiro swallowed hard. "And if we don't choose?"
"The story resets," she said. "All progress undone. All locks restored. You wake up before the first thread snapped."
Silence.
The weight of truth settled like fog.
Vampher reached for the doorknob.
Paused.
"No."
Dee blinked. "What?"
"I won't open it alone," Vampher said. "We all loved her. We all lost her. We all buried this."
He turned to the others.
"Together. Or not at all."
Hiro sighed. "Stupid poetic vampire."
But stepped beside him.
Dee gave a broken smile.
"Fine," he said. "But if I see that awful haircut you had in our first life, I'm leaving."
They placed their hands on their doors.
Three at once.
The doors opened.
And they were pulled through—
—
Into a city of stars.
Not space. Not sky.
Just floating lights—memories, wrapped in skin.
Each version of Sinna walked past them.
One teaching Dee how to hold a violin.
One stealing Hiro's sword and replacing it with a flower.
One leaning against Vampher's shoulder beneath a sky full of falling glass.
They walked through the moments. The good. The brutal. The endings.
And came to the final one.
A room.
Empty, save for a table.
On it: a cup of tea, untouched. Cooling.
And a letter.
The same one that had never been sent.
Vampher stepped forward, picked it up.
His name was on it—but the ink changed with every blink.
To Hiro's.
To Dee's.
To all of theirs.
He opened it.
Inside, just three words.
"You chose well."
The room faded.
The stars collapsed inward.
And Sinna was before them again.
Tears streaked her cheeks—but she smiled.
"I'm free," she said.
Not angry.
Not vengeful.
Just… peaceful.
"I was a lock," she said. "But not a prison. I was the silence you feared. And now you've broken it."
A single thread floated from her chest.
She plucked it free and handed it to Dee.
It shimmered gold, then burned away in his hands.
The lock dissolved.
And she was gone.
This time, truly.
No trail.
No fifth footstep.
Only memory.
Only choice.
—
Back in the real, the salt flats had turned to wind.
The sand swept upward and vanished into the sky.
Three stood where four once had.
But none felt empty.
Only whole.
Dee exhaled. "That was the fourth."
"Barely," Hiro muttered.
Vampher didn't speak.
Just looked at his palm.
The spiral was gone.
In its place—a word, etched in ink:
"Remember."
Far away, the Room of Threads twisted.
The weaver's hands stilled.
"Four undone," it said.
The crowned figure didn't smile this time.
It only watched the fading trace of Sinna's thread.
And said, almost sadly—
"…They're learning."
Then turned toward the fifth lock.
And whispered:
"Let's see if they survive this one."