The door closed behind us, but this time, it didn't seal the room away.
It lingered.
As if the building hesitated.
I felt it immediately—the air pressing closer, the subtle awareness sliding over my thoughts. The key in my pocket pulsed once… then stopped.
Cold again.
"This place," I said quietly, "is watching me."
My companion turned sharply. "Not us?"
I shook my head slowly. "No. Me."
The room was different from the others. No obvious anomaly. No shifting walls. No tricks of light or shadow. Just a wide, circular space with smooth walls that reflected nothing.
And yet… the floor was etched with patterns.
Not random ones.
They were familiar.
I knelt, tracing one with my fingers—and froze.
It was the same symbol I'd seen in the earliest anomaly. The hallway that stretched too far. The clock that reversed. The shadow that moved before I did.
"This room…" my voice tightened. "It has records. Of me."
The air vibrated.
Then the voice spoke—not aloud, not in my head, but everywhere.
"You have been observed since your first notice."
My heart pounded. "First… notice?"
"The moment you recognized inconsistency."
"The moment you did not look away."
Images rippled across the walls.
Me, standing in the impossible hallway.
Me, staring at the reversed clock.
Me, pausing—choosing not to dismiss what I saw.
The building had been watching long before I understood it existed.
My companion stepped closer. "Why him?"
Silence.
Then:
"Because awareness is rare."
"Because curiosity without fear is rarer."
"Because you continue even when the cost is clear."
I swallowed hard.
"So this wasn't random," I said. "None of it was."
"No."
The word hit harder than any anomaly.
The floor shifted, revealing a single path leading to a pedestal. Atop it floated… nothing.
And yet, I knew something was there.
An absence shaped like purpose.
The key pulsed weakly.
"Anamnex does not choose heroes," the voice continued.
"It prepares observers."
The walls flickered, showing fractured glimpses of others—people who noticed, briefly… then turned away. Their paths ended quickly. Their symbols dark.
"You're saying…" my companion hesitated, "…he's being trained?"
"Yes."
The room grew colder.
"To maintain. To interpret. To intervene when thresholds break."
My chest tightened. "Intervene in what?"
The silence this time was deliberate.
Heavy.
"Reality."
The pedestal shimmered faintly. The air hummed.
"You are not ready yet," the voice said.
"But you are becoming necessary."
The key pulsed once—warmer than before.
I felt something shift inside me. Not power. Not confidence.
Responsibility.
The door appeared behind us.
As we stepped through, my companion glanced at me, expression unreadable. "You realize," she said quietly, "that means this place won't let you leave unchanged."
I n
odded.
Because deep down, I already knew the truth.
The building didn't just remember me.
It was shaping me.