Salem's heart was pounding like a drum in a canyon, echoing back at him from every possible timeline. The threads of fractured light had contracted into a narrow tunnel, a glowing corridor of impossibility, and at the end, a figure waited. Not quite solid. Not quite shadow. Not quite human. Not quite… anything.
He took a hesitant step forward. The threads underfoot pulsed in response, vibrating through his feet, up his legs, and into his chest, making every nerve in his body hum with a dissonant, electric energy. It was as if the universe itself had leaned in to watch him, and Salem wished—briefly—that it hadn't.
"Alright," he muttered, trying to sound braver than he felt. "Let's see what horrible, mind-bending thing you've got for me this time."
The figure shifted slightly, a ripple in its form like heat over asphalt, or smoke twisting around a candle. It didn't move exactly, but it changed, and Salem felt that movement in his chest, in his stomach, in the deepest parts of his mind he wasn't even aware existed.
"You… are real?" he asked, voice trembling. He hated that he sounded like a child who had just stumbled into a nightmare funhouse.
"Real?" the figure replied, voice layered, multiple tones overlapping each other. "I exist wherever threads converge. I exist wherever decisions collide. I exist wherever the forgotten meets the inevitable. Do you need me to be more real than that?"
Salem blinked rapidly, trying to focus. He could feel versions of himself pressing against the sides of his mind—shadows, echoes, possible Selams screaming silently, urging him, warning him, mocking him. The threads around him writhed, tangling, untangling, forming and reforming into impossible patterns, like an ouroboros made of light, memory, and fragmented timelines.
"Ohhh great," he groaned. "I'm arguing with an abstract concept now. Fantastic. That's… progress, I guess."
"Progress is relative," the figure said softly, almost mockingly. "To you, it may feel like chaos. To me… it is precisely what it should be."
Salem swallowed hard. His throat felt dry, as though the threads themselves were sucking the moisture from him. He took another step, and the tunnel around him warped. For an instant, he glimpsed a version of his childhood home. His younger self stood at the doorway, holding a tattered notebook, scribbling furiously, unaware of anything beyond that threshold. And then, just as suddenly, it was gone.
"Stop showing me… everything," Salem muttered, voice cracking. "I can't… I can't handle all of it at once."
"Then stop trying to handle it," the figure said, moving slightly closer. Shadows—or maybe threads—licked the edges of its form. "Let go. Let the chaos guide you. Only then will the next step reveal itself."
Salem hesitated. Let go? He had been trying to control the chaos for what felt like years. Days? Hours? Skipped moments? He wasn't even sure anymore. The older Salem's voice echoed in his mind: "You must feel everything. Only then can you see what truly matters."
"I… don't know if I can let go," he whispered, his fingers brushing a pulsing thread. It reacted instantly, wrapping around his wrist like a living thing. The thread pulsed against his skin, transmitting images, sensations, possibilities he couldn't name.
The figure in the glow tilted its head, observing him. Not judgmentally, not cruelly, but… expectantly.
"You're afraid," it said, almost gently. "And rightly so. But fear is a tool, Salem Grey. Fear sharpens the edges of the impossible. Fear teaches you where to step. Do not reject it."
Salem gritted his teeth. Fear had been his constant companion through every skip day, every fractured timeline, every echo of a memory that didn't belong to him. But somehow, it felt heavier here, more… corporeal. Tangible. Malicious in a polite sort of way.
"Fine," he muttered, gripping the thread tighter. "I'll play your game. Happy now?"
The figure didn't respond with words. Instead, the threads around Salem pulsed faster, weaving into a lattice of light that formed a hallway of shifting impossibilities. Each panel of this hallway contained a version of him—or them—trapped in scenarios he recognized from memory and some he didn't. There was the child screaming in a hospital corridor. The teenager hiding from a shadow that bore his own face. A man laughing alone in a burning carnival. A woman—her—smiling faintly, reaching toward him, impossibly out of reach.
"Stop it," he shouted, panic rising. "I can't… I can't—"
"You must," the figure said simply. "Every step is a decision. Every decision is a thread. Every thread is a possibility. And every possibility—"
"I know, I know, I know!" Salem shouted, spinning in place as the threads tightened, wrapping around him, pulling him toward a glowing panel in the hall. He wanted to resist, but resistance felt futile. Every fiber of his being screamed to run, but there was nowhere to go. There never was.
The panel glowed brighter as he approached, illuminating a figure that seemed… familiar. A version of himself, older, scarred, eyes hollow with the weight of countless skipped days, countless failed choices.
"Ah," the older Salem said, voice tired but sharp. "You've found me again."
Salem staggered back. "Again? I… I can't—how many versions of me are there?"
"Too many to count," the older Salem said. "And not enough. All at once, you are the observer and the observed. The prisoner and the key. The chaos and the calm. The question and the answer."
Salem's chest heaved. The threads pulsed around him like a heartbeat, faster and faster. Shadows stretched from every corner, forming shapes that shouldn't exist. One of them—an echo of himself from a timeline he barely remembered—reached out and whispered, "Don't step forward. You'll break."
"Thanks," Salem muttered, brushing past it. "I feel super reassured."
"Step anyway," the older Salem said. "Because stepping is the only way forward. Even if forward doesn't exist."
Salem's hand touched the glowing panel. The moment he did, memories exploded across his mind: laughter, screams, kisses, lost days, shadowed corridors, the smell of rain on asphalt, burnt sugar, ozone, the Carnival Barker's laugh, Eryon Vale's cryptic smile, The Watch ticking. They collided and fused, twisting into a kaleidoscope of impossibility.
"Too much… it's too much!" he gasped.
"It is exactly enough," the older Salem replied. "Now look. Really look. You're not just seeing threads—you're living them. Every choice, every path, every step you didn't take… it's all here. And it's waiting for you to decide."
The figure in the glow shifted closer, their outline shimmering. "And what will you choose, Salem Grey? Will you let the threads control you, or will you control the threads? Will you step forward… or fall apart?"
Salem's chest tightened. His eyes darted across the hall of impossibilities. Every thread, every echo, every version of himself was watching. Waiting. Judging. Begging.
"I…" He hesitated, voice trembling. "I… I don't know who I am anymore."
"Good," the figure said. "Because who you are is irrelevant. What matters is who you will become. Step, or let the chaos decide for you."
Salem took a deep, shaky breath. Every part of him screamed to flee, to curl into nothingness, to erase every memory of every skip day, every fractured timeline. But deep down, beneath the fear, beneath the exhaustion, beneath the layers of himself, a spark—tiny, fragile, stubborn—flickered.
"Fine," he muttered. "I'll step. I'll step and… we'll see what happens."
The moment his foot left the ground, the threads erupted around him, twisting into spirals, weaving through time, through memory, through possibility. The older Salem's eyes were wide now, not with fear, but… awe? Respect? Maybe both.
"Good," the shadow figure said. "Now, see."
The hall exploded into a supernova of fractured realities. Salem felt himself stretched thin, pulled in every direction, every timeline, every choice. And then—a singular point of calm. A glowing doorway appeared ahead, radiant and impossibly still, cutting through the chaos like a knife.
"That," the figure whispered, "is where your next decision waits. Step through, and nothing will ever be the same."
Salem swallowed hard, gripping the threads. His foot hovered over the threshold. His mind screamed. His heart roared. And