SFX: Thoom… — The lantern's firefly dimmed the instant Shade crossed the threshold.
The crystal door sealed behind him with a sound like a heartbeat stopping.
Darkness swallowed everything except the faint circle of gold at his feet.
The second spiral descended in a tight coil, each step a slab of polished void that reflected nothing—
not light,
not self,
not hope.
Second Spiral: The Hollow Choir
The air was thick—syrupy, pressing against his eardrums.
Each footfall echoed twice:
once as it should,
and once as a whisper a half-beat behind, mispronouncing his name.
Shayd…
Shayde…
Shade-less…
He kept descending.
The lantern's glow shrank from a halo to a coin, then to a spark.
The obsidian shard in his grip grew heavier, as though drinking the dark.
At the thirtieth step—
or the three hundredth; he could no longer tell—
the spiral unfurled into a circular chamber.
The walls were gone.
Instead, the void stretched infinitely, filled with drifting motes of pale light—
like ashes adrift in a dead wind.
Each mote was a word, spoken once and never again,
frozen in the shape of the mouth that birthed it.
Shade saw his own name among them, frayed and unraveling, letter by letter.
In the center of the chamber hung a cage of black iron, no larger than a coffin,
suspended by chains that vanished upward into nothing.
Inside the cage sat Echo.
She was smaller here, knees pulled to her chest, the firefly lantern extinguished between her bare feet.
Her star-dusted skin had dimmed to ash; her eyes were closed.
The shadow-silk tunic hung in tatters.
When Shade's lantern light brushed the bars, she flinched.
"Echo?" he breathed.
His voice cracked—
the chamber drank it,
then spat it back, hollow.
She opened her eyes—still brown, still his brown—
but the pupils had shrunk to pinpricks of fear.
"You weren't supposed to come this far."
Shade stepped closer. The chains groaned above.
"You guided me out of the Glasswood. You gave me light."
"I gave you my light," she whispered.
"Every guide in the Realm is a soul that tried the spirals and broke.
We're the ones the Tower couldn't digest—stitched together to lead others where we failed.
I was supposed to show you the next gate… then dissolve. That's the bargain."
Shade's throat tightened.
"What happens if you don't?"
Echo lifted a trembling hand. The cage bars had bitten deep into her wrists;
silver blood dripped upward, vanishing into the void.
"The Hollow Choir keeps what it names.
If I leave the cage, it will name me again—wrong—until nothing's left to guide anyone."
The drifting motes of ash began to circle the cage,
whispering in a thousand soft, fractured voices:
Echo-who-was-never-heard.
Echo-who-failed-the-climb.
Echo-who-loved-the-boy-and-lost.
Shade's chest burned cold; the map beneath his ribs pulsed in warning.
"Who were you?" he asked. "Before."
Echo's lips trembled.
"I had a name once. A real one."
"I was ten when the Nightmare called. My village burned.
I ran until the trees turned to glass. The Tower promised: if I reached the summit, I could save them."
"I climbed three spirals. On the fourth…"
Her gaze fell.
"…I looked back."
She turned her face away.
"The Choir took my name. Took my village's memory. Took everything but the echo of my scream.
They made me a guide—to watch others succeed where I failed.
Every soul I lead chips another piece of me away."
Shade's vision blurred. He thought of his mother's kiss—gone now, traded for the lantern.
He thought of his father's silence, the clan's pity, the weight of never being enough.
"I won't leave you here," he said.
"You must."
Her voice cracked like thin ice.
"The spiral's trial is choice. Take the lantern's last light and climb. Leave me. That's mercy."
The chains rattled; the ash-words drew closer, brushing his skin.
Where they touched, memories unraveled—
the scent of pine smoke,
his cousins' laughter,
the warmth of his mother's hand.
Each loss left a hollow ache deeper than pain.
Shade looked at the obsidian shard. It had grown, edges serrated with tiny constellations.
He looked at the cage. The bars pulsed faintly with the same starlight that birthed the Tower.
He made his choice.
"No."
SFX: KRRRSHHH! — The shard struck iron.
Starlight flared; the cage screamed.
Echo cried out as silver blood splattered across the dark.
He struck again. And again.
Each blow carved light from the void until the firefly's glow shrank to a dying coal.
The final bar snapped.
SFX: THRAAANG! —
Echo tumbled forward into his arms. She weighed nothing—yet the impact drove him to his knees.
The Hollow Choir howled, the ash-words whipping into a storm.
"You idiot," she gasped, clutching his shirt. "You beautiful, broken idiot.
The Choir will name us together now."
Shade felt it begin—the unraveling. His name—Shade—fracturing into nonsense syllables.
He pressed the dying lantern into her hands.
"Light it."
"I can't," she said. "It's my light—it only burns for—"
"For someone who chooses to carry it."
He closed her fingers around the lantern.
"I'm choosing."
SFX: FWOOOOOSH! —
The firefly blazed white-hot.
The storm froze mid-whirl, every ash-word suspended in the air like shards of glass.
And above Echo's head—
for an instant—
Shade saw her true name written in light:
Lira.
It shattered into a thousand sparks, raining silver fire.
The cage melted away. The chains fell upward and vanished.
The chamber split open, revealing a narrow bridge of starlight stretching across an abyss.
At its far end, a door of living flame burned in silence.
Lira stared at her hands. The silver blood had stopped. Her skin shimmered again with distant stars.
She looked up, eyes clear, unafraid.
"You gave me a name," she whispered.
"No one's done that in a thousand turns of the spiral."
Shade's voice was hoarse.
"Then use it. Get us out."
Lira raised the lantern. The firefly burned gold and fierce.
Together, they ran.
The bridge sang beneath their feet, each step a note in a song older than sorrow.
Behind them, the Hollow Choir wailed—but its words could not cross the light.
They reached the door.
It parted like curtains of flame, revealing the third spiral—
a staircase ascending through a storm of broken clocks,
their gears ticking backward.
Lira hesitated.
"The next trial is Time. It will try to unmake what you just made."
Shade took her hand. His palm was cut; hers was whole.
Their blood mingled—silver and red.
"Then we'll break Time too."
SFX: Tick… tick… tick…
Side by side, they stepped into the ticking dark.