The door closes behind me without a sound. No click of wood, no slam of stone. I wait for an echo, for the groan of hinges, for some signal of finality. Nothing comes. Silence folds over itself, as if the world has drawn a curtain and left me on the wrong side.
The air changes. The damp heaviness of the dark hall is gone; the breathless weight and suffocating black vanish like a tide retreating. In its place stands this room. It has a clarity to it, almost a sharpness. A strange, sterile light pools across the floor though no lamp burns, no torch flickers. The light has no source. It simply exists—steady, unwavering.
The room is unnaturally neat. The walls are pale and polished until they gleam faintly. The corners meet in perfect angles without crack or shadow, as though irregularity has been carved away over and over. The floor shines like new tile, each square precisely cut and aligned, not a line out of place, not a speck of dust. No scratch. No trace of footsteps. It feels untouched, as though I am the first to step here. For a heartbeat it even feels inviting—a place prepared, waiting.
I step forward. The sound rings longer than it should, a note lingering in the stillness like the room is unwilling to let it go. Another step. I look down.
The tiles shine back at me. My reflection shivers faintly across them, fractured into squares—eyes, mouth, hands clutching the compass, all broken apart. I blink. For a moment the fragments knit together into a clear reflection. Then the light bends. On the polished floor a new image forms.
A man's face gazes up. Composed. Still. Beautiful in a way that feels rehearsed. His features are exact, like a portrait painted over too many times. Every line lies flat, every shadow placed with purpose. His gaze fixes on mine, direct and unwavering, as though he has been waiting for this moment.For an instant, I don't breathe.
I should look away. I want to. I can't. Something in him holds me—the stillness, the calm, the unbearable sense that he knows me already. That creeping feeling of being a page someone has read too many times slides up my spine. My throat burns with questions that will not form. The compass stirs faintly in my hand, a weak pulse, as if it would drag me back into my body if it could. I blink again. Only tiles. Only light. Only me, scattered. The silence presses closer, approving.
A voice folds into my ear. It does not break the silence; it arrives as though it has always been here, low, intimate, meant for me alone. "Finally."
I stiffen.
"Do you know how long I've waited for this?" The words curl smooth, velvet, warm—the kind of warmth that lingers too close. "Every step. Every… hesitation. Every ache. I've seen them all. And now…" a pause, deliberate, indulgent "…now I want to hear you."
The light tilts on the walls. Two faint lines glow, stretching, widening until they resolve into doors side by side. Identical. Perfect..
One carved with the word TRUE. The other with FALSE.
"Let's begin simply," the voice says, like a calm host, coaxing a guest into a chair. "No riddles. No games. Just....honesty."
Something in the way he speaks the word unsettles me. I shudder.
"Your grandmother." the voice says.
The name drops into the room like ink into water, spreading until the air itself darkens. The tiles dim, their shine sinking into shadow. A circle emerges at the center of the floor, not built but revealed, spirals knotting into place until my eyes ache to follow. Pale light bleeds from the grooves, and a low hum rises—not music, not speech, but a sound that settles directly into my chest.
A woman kneels at the circle's center.
Recognition strikes like a dream. The slope of her cheeks, the line of her jaw—features I have never known but my blood cannot deny. Her head is bowed. Her lips move, soundless, forming words I cannot hear yet know she has repeated countless times until the meaning is secondary to the act. Her hands rest in her lap, palms up, fingers long and still. No tremor. No hesitation. Devotion without flaw.
I cannot look away. This is her. My grandmother. The name rarely spoken in my home, an absence my mother carried like a stone she would not describe.
And now.
Here she is, alive before me, alive in this circle of spirals.
The glow strengthens. The spirals thrum brighter. Her mouth forms a final word, silent and absolute. The circle answers. Light swells from the grooves, white and blinding. Her outline dissolves like parchment too near a flame. Cloth unravels into brightness. Hair flares and vanishes. Her face remains last—eyes closed, mouth still—until even that is gone.
No scream. No collapse. No pain.
Only fire. Burning without flame.
The circle hums on, unchanged, as if nothing has happened. But the ache opening in my chest is something—hollow and heavy. Not grief. Grief needs memory. This is deeper. A hollow wide enough to pull me through.
The compass jolts against my palm. Heat sears up through the metal, so sharp I nearly cry out. I clutch it until the rim cuts my skin but the pain feels right, the only real thing in this room.
A sigh brushes the air behind my ear. "Oh, darling…"
TThe voice is so close I tilt my head to escape it. Smooth. Deliberate. Like someone savoring wine. "Look at her," he croons, soft admiration in every word. "Every vow. Every word. Not one mistake. Not one falter. Perfection, on her knees." The hum of the circle deepens.
"And still"—his tone dips almost fond—"she burned. Faith without flaw. Devotion without error. And all it gave her was silence. Ash. And…" He pauses, so long it aches. "Do you want to know the sweetest part?" His voice lowers, honeyed, conspiratorial. "She didn't end. Not truly. She never stopped. Not when the light took her, not when the silence came. She goes on kneeling. Whispering. A prayer without end."
The compass flares violently. I gasp.
He laughs softly, indulgent, practiced, enjoying the sound of my pain. "You feel that, don't you? She hates me saying it. Your hand burns. Your pulse stutters. You're afraid even to breathe too loud. I see it. I feel it."
The walls ripple. The doors glow faintly at the edge of my vision. Standing opposite each other. Patient. Waiting.
TRUE. FALSE.
"Tell me, darling," his tone glides like a knife slipping between ribs, "true or false: she lingers with me still, whispering in the dark."
The words hum through the air. The doors brighten. I freeze.
"Mmmm…" he exhales, amused. "You linger. I can taste it—the way you hover there, caught between running and falling. You want to choose, and you don't. You want to fight me, and you ache to stop fighting. Which will it be?"
His voice lowers further, brushing too close, intimate. "So still. So quiet. I wonder… are you bracing yourself to resist me, or savoring the thought of surrender? I can never tell with you. That's what makes it so… delicious."
The circle burns behind my eyes. My grandmother vanished, lips unmoving as the light consumed her. My mother's silence wraps around the memory like a shroud. The compass sears my palm until I nearly cry out.
I stagger forward, pulled by the angry metal in my hand and the ache in my chest. I press my palm against the glowing FALSE.
The surface is impossibly cool, as though warmth itself has never touched it. The vision fractures.
Laughter unfurls behind me—not loud, not cruel. Worse. Measured. Perfect. The laugh of someone who has practiced in mirrors until he knows exactly how it should sound.
"Mmmm…" His hum curls near, indulgent, curling into me like smoke. "How careful. How faithful. You don't want her to be mine. How touching"
I push the door open. It moves without a sound.
"Tell me, darling. Are you certain? That little thing burns you, and you rush to obey. How faithful you are. How sweet." A pause, sharpened by amusement. "But tell me—how many times has faith betrayed the faithful?"
I feel the smile in his voice widen. "So quick to trust the burn in your hand. So quick to believe it's doing something for you." His tone dips low and coaxing, velvet stretched over something sharp. "Tell me, darling… How often has love lied?"
I shake my head and set my gaze forward. The door gives way to a long corridor.
The air is warmer here, though the warmth feels borrowed. Candles line the passage in neat iron sconces, each flame tall and steady. Their light catches the frames on the walls—dozens of portraits in perfect rows. In the flicker the faces shift: strangers, familiar ones, sometimes mine. Each is too carefully painted, brushstrokes neat, precise, obsessive. No canvas bears dust. Everything arranged. Prepared. Waiting.
The flames tremble without moving. The portraits lean closer in their frames. The compass pulses weakly in my palm, struggling against the light. And behind it all his voice lingers, soft, teasing.
"You never really know which truth is yours, do you? Hers? Mine? Theirs? All painted neat, all smiling, all staring. They can't all be right. But one of them will follow you forever."
The hallway narrows as I near the end of it. A door rises, pale and perfect.
I place my hand against it and breathe deeply, preparing for the next question. I wonder again if this is truly where she wanted me to be—what she wanted me to find.
"Shall we see," he whispers, serpentine and poisonous, "what your mother left you?"