In the morning, the sentence was still there, carved clearly on the wall beside Niro's bed. It hadn't faded, hadn't cracked, as if it had been born with the wall itself.
Alicia sat on the floor, staring at the words, while Kairn flipped through the notebook filled with marks and lines written in bursts of panic or confusion.
Alicia spoke slowly:
– "What if one of us… didn't leave, but entered… what does that mean?"
Kairn replied in a low voice, as if the walls themselves were listening:
– "Perhaps what we saw isn't something coming from outside… but we who passed through, unknowingly."
A heavy silence fell over the room.
Then Niro spoke, as if his voice had been cut from a dream:
– "I saw Kairn again… but it wasn't him."
Kairn stared at him, uneasy:
– "How? When?"
– "He stood at my feet while I slept… staring at my face, then whispered something… something I hated."
– "What did he say?"
The boy fell silent. Then he whispered:
– "He said: I see you from within, not from without."
Alicia gasped. She looked at Kairn, who seemed stunned, then he suddenly rose and walked to the small mirror in the corner.
He stood in front of it for a long time.
He said in a chilling calm:
– "If someone resembles me… and walks in my name… how will I know that I am myself?"
Alicia answered:
– "When doubt begins, you've started losing yourself."
Niro approached, taking the small pocket mirror from beside the bed and handing it to Kairn:
– "Give this to yourself… if it refuses you, then it is not you."
Outside, things were worsening.
Rumors spread through the district: a woman saw her daughter walking the streets, even though the girl had died two years ago. A child disappeared, only to return holding a strange notebook detailing a day that hadn't yet occurred. Every day, a new sentence appeared on the walls of houses, while a previous one vanished, as if the walls themselves were breathing language.
Kairn wrote in his notebook:
> "These aren't writings… they are messages. No one writes them. The district itself records what it sees."
That night, the copy appeared.
Kairn was in the alley behind the building, holding a lantern and the pocket mirror, when he saw the tall shadow reflected on the wall.
It emerged slowly from the darkness… same body, same face, same clothes. But its eyes did not reflect the light. They were empty, as if they did not know how to look.
Kairn lifted the mirror in front of it.
The copy did not move.
– "Take it," Kairn said.
It did nothing.
Step by step, it advanced.
Then the copy whispered, hollowly:
– "You try to remain… but they chose me."
– "Who?"
– "Those unseen… whose names you forgot when you were born."
Kairn suddenly raised his pick, but the copy did not react.
It said:
– "Everything you've done… will happen again, but not for you."
Suddenly, it began to crack.
Its body disintegrated like ash, scattering into the air, leaving behind a cold scent… as if absence had its own fragrance.
Kairn returned inside, his face frozen.
He said to Alicia:
– "I saw it. It was me… but it wasn't alive."
Then he looked at Niro:
– "It's not alone… there are more. Each of us has a shadow waiting for the moment we break."
Alicia stared at him, then asked:
– "What do we do now?"
He looked at the notebook, then out the window, where the walls outside began shifting from gray to deep red, as if the city itself was preparing to overturn.
He said:
– "We do not run. We do not wait… we write our story before it is written for us."
On the last page of the notebook, a new sentence appeared, written by no one:
> "When your face is erased, do not forget to keep your name."
The next day, when they awoke, there was no morning.
The sky was covered in a dense layer of dark dust, as if the sun was ashamed to rise. The district itself seemed to breathe with difficulty, and the sounds of life that once came from the alleys—even chaotic—had vanished completely.
Kairn stepped slowly from the room, followed by Niro and Alicia, to find the neighboring doors open, yet no one appeared. The houses seemed empty—no food, no sounds, not even footprints in the scattered dust.
– "Where is everyone?" Alicia whispered.
But no one answered.
Kairn pointed to the opposite wall, where a new sentence was deeply engraved:
> "Those who are unseen, are erased."
Suddenly, Niro said:
– "It erases them… one by one."
Kairn looked at him:
– "Who? Who is doing this?"
The child replied in a cold voice:
– "The one who bears the empty faces."
They walked through the abandoned alleys, hearts beating as if in a living grave. At the crossroads, they saw something strange: countless footprints, all heading toward the center of the district, then… vanishing.
As if those who walked never reached, but melted away halfway.
Suddenly, the air around them shivered with a faint sound, like a whisper—but not a human whisper. Fragmented words, in languages they did not understand, as if the walls were speaking from beneath their cracked skin.
Alicia grasped Kairn's arm:
– "We cannot stay here."
Kairn replied:
– "Nor can we leave… not yet."
Niro's voice trembled:
– "Maybe no one has ever left this district… because those who leave, never return."
At night, the red light returned.
But this time, it was not alone.
Four lights appeared on the edges of the district, like eyes encircling them, each in a corner. Then smoke began seeping under doors, through cracks, between broken tiles.
And they heard the voice:
> "Begin the clearing."
> "Objective: Complete the first phase."
The three ran inside, closing every window, placing a wet cloth against the door.
Kairn murmured:
– "They're not just searching for us… they're testing something."
Alicia said softly:
– "Do you think… they're emptying memory?"
He looked at her, surprised:
– "What do you mean?"
She answered:
– "The people… the district… those who survive remember nothing. Maybe… that's what they do."
Niro added:
– "They erase the story and write it instead. That's how people live in this hell, unaware they are in hell."
Kairn grabbed his notebook, writing quickly:
> "We must keep the story. Whatever happens. No one will tell the truth but us."
> "We will write… even if no one remains to read."
In the back alley, on a wall opposite their entrance, a new sentence appeared:
> "When names disappear, those who dared to write remain."