Salem's feet hovered above nothing, or maybe everything. Time swirled like spilled ink, each droplet a memory, a possibility, a fragment of someone he might have been—or might yet become. The threads around him pulsed, tugging, whispering, laughing. Or maybe that was just him, echoing into himself. He couldn't tell.
"Well, this is inconvenient," he muttered, twisting mid-air to avoid a thread that darted like a snake, its glow reflecting a version of him screaming silently. "I swear, one day, I'm just going to walk out of this mess and—oh no, wait. That's the problem. I can't."
A hand, older, scarred, leaned against a ribbon of light threading through the void.
"You don't get to choose that, Salem," the older version said, voice tired but sharp, like a blade folded in sarcasm. "Every step you avoid is another thread tightening, another possibility snapping."
Salem groaned, spinning to face him. "And you? What's your excuse? Standing around looking like burnt toast in a thrift store ad?"
"I'm you," the older Salem said. "But with better posture and more regrets."
That earned a strangled laugh from somewhere deep in his chest. But it wasn't entirely real; it was layered, like a joke told in five parallel realities. A laugh in one, a scream in another. He wasn't sure which one came out of his mouth.
Suddenly, the shadowed figure from the portal stepped closer. Its outline shimmered and collapsed, as if reality itself forgot to render it fully. Time flickered around it; seconds rewound and advanced without rhythm.
"You've come far," it said, voice like glass cracking over water. "And yet… the choice is still yours."
Salem blinked. "Choice? Don't tell me I actually have one now. After all this… chaos… threads… infinite me's… I can't even remember which me is supposed to be me."
"Exactly," the figure said. "You must decide without certainty. You must act without knowing. That is the lesson."
A ripple of threads twined around Salem, lifting him gently—violently—off the patchwork floor of memories and collapsing cityscapes. One thread cut across his vision, forming an image of a child laughing. A hospital corridor. A hand he had once held and forgotten. The threads pulled him toward all these echoes at once, stretching him thin like taffy.
"I don't—" he choked.
"You do," the older Salem hissed. "The threads want you to break. Don't let them. Don't—"
The words dissolved as a sudden burst of impossible numbers rained from above, cascading like fireworks made of mathematics. The shadow figure gestured, and the threads twisted into a spiral staircase of light, coiling up into nowhere and everywhere.
Salem stepped forward cautiously. Each thread he touched sparked a vision: versions of himself failing spectacularly, loving fiercely, screaming silently, or disappearing entirely. He flinched from one, recoiled from another, but the threads didn't care.
"Step carefully," the older Salem warned. "One wrong choice, and you'll—"
"I know," Salem snapped. "You've been telling me that for… forever! Stop! Just stop!"
The shadow figure tilted its head, impossibly calm.
"Stop? Oh, no. Stop isn't in the vocabulary here. Stop would unravel everything. You must… proceed."
Salem's hands gripped a thread that shimmered brighter than the rest. It tugged, pulled, whispered something he couldn't fully hear. "This is you… or not you… or both… choose… or not…"
He swallowed, heart hammering, mind bending. The older Salem's eyes were sharp, burning into him.
"Do you see it now? The gap between what is and what could be? That's your path. And it ends… only where you decide it does."
The threads coiled tighter. The cityscape below warped into impossible geometry. Streets folded like origami, buildings melted into sky, shadows stretched into themselves, and somewhere, a carnival laugh echoed—faint, teasing, untrustworthy.
Salem's pulse roared. He reached toward the apex of the spiral staircase. Every thread pulsed in response, every memory, every possibility, every "you" screaming in layered chorus.
"I… I don't know if I can!" he shouted.
The shadow figure leaned closer, voice soft, yet every word struck like lightning.
"You already have. Every moment brought you here. Now act. Step. Choose. Or let the threads decide for you."
Salem took a shaky breath, gripping the thread tighter. A step forward. The world shuddered. Time itself stuttered. The older Salem's hand hovered beside his, hesitated, then pulled back.
"Your choice," he whispered.
A single, glowing thread stretched ahead, pulsing like a heartbeat. It called to him, a mix of promise, danger, and inevitability. Salem swallowed. His foot lifted.
"Here goes everything," he muttered.
And with that, he stepped into the unknown, threads of infinite possibility curling around him, the shadow figure watching silently, and the universe holding its breath.