Chapter 3: Shards of the Forgotten

The hallway stretched endlessly before Caelum, each step they took swallowed by an unnatural silence. The mirrors on the walls seemed to lean inward, their glassy surfaces pulsing faintly, as if alive. The mansion had taken on a suffocating stillness, its air thick and heavy with something unspoken.

Their reflection watched them with an unnerving intensity, its movements fractionally out of sync, a beat too slow. In one mirror, it smiled faintly. Caelum hadn’t smiled in weeks.

"You feel it, don’t you?" the voice cooed, its tone softer than before, almost conspiratorial. "The mansion… it knows you. It’s a part of you."

Caelum ignored the voice, their fists clenched as they kept walking. The corridor curved gently to the right, a slow, disorienting arc. No matter how far they walked, the end remained out of sight.

They passed another mirror, this one larger and more ornate than the others. A flicker of movement caught their eye, and they stopped.

The glass rippled.

Inside, a scene unfolded: a small child crouched in the corner of a dimly lit room, their arms wrapped tightly around their knees. The child’s face was obscured, buried against their legs, but the tremor in their shoulders betrayed quiet sobs.

Caelum stepped closer, their pulse quickening. They recognized the room—it was the closet from their childhood home, the place they would hide when the shouting became too much.

“No,” they whispered, their breath fogging the glass.

"Do you remember now?" the voice asked, its tone dripping with feigned sympathy. "All the little pieces you tried to bury."

The child in the reflection looked up suddenly, their tear-streaked face unmistakably Caelum’s. But their eyes… their eyes were wrong. They glowed with a pale, sickly light, empty and all-consuming.

Caelum stumbled back as the reflection reached out, its hand pressing against the glass. For a moment, the boundary between reality and memory seemed to dissolve.

“Stop,” Caelum said, their voice shaking. “Just stop.”

The child’s lips moved, forming a single word that Caelum couldn’t hear. Then the mirror shattered, its shards raining down in slow motion, dissolving before they hit the ground.

The hallway twisted violently, the walls contracting like a living thing. Caelum fell to their knees, their vision swimming.

When the world steadied, they found themselves in a new room.

It was circular, the walls lined with bookshelves that stretched impossibly high, vanishing into darkness. A massive chandelier hung overhead, its flickering candles casting long, distorted shadows.

The floor was a mosaic of broken mirrors, each shard reflecting a different fragment of Caelum’s life: fleeting images of childhood, glimpses of unfamiliar faces, and dark, faceless silhouettes.

In the center of the room stood a desk, impossibly pristine amidst the chaos. On it rested a single item: a mask.

Caelum approached cautiously. The mask was identical to the one worn by the man in the void—smooth porcelain with a single jagged crack running across it.

“What is this?” they murmured.

"It’s yours," the voice said, almost gently.

“I don’t want it.”

"You don’t have a choice."

The mask seemed to pulse faintly, as if alive. It was both repelling and magnetic, its presence commanding Caelum’s full attention.

As they reached out, their hand trembling, the room seemed to shrink around them. The walls closed in, the shadows growing darker and more oppressive.

And then, they heard it: the sound of footsteps, slow and deliberate, echoing from somewhere unseen.

A figure emerged from the shadows, their appearance sending a chill through Caelum’s body.

It was the man in the mask.

“Why do you keep following me?” Caelum demanded, their voice cracking.

The man tilted his head, his movements eerily fluid. “I’m not following you,” he said. “I’m leading you.”

“Leading me where?”

The man gestured to the mask on the desk. “You already know the answer.”

Caelum’s chest tightened. “No. I don’t want this. I never asked for this.”

The man took a step closer, his presence overwhelming. “The truth isn’t something you ask for. It’s something you face.”

The room darkened further, the shards of mirrored floor glowing faintly beneath Caelum’s feet. Images flickered across their surfaces—visions of arguments, of slammed doors, of a young Caelum standing alone in the rain.

“Why are you showing me this?” Caelum asked, their voice barely above a whisper.

“Because you need to remember,” the man said. “You can’t move forward until you face what you’ve forgotten.”

Caelum shook their head, tears welling in their eyes. “I don’t want to remember.”

The man knelt in front of them, his mask inches from their face. “But you already do, don’t you?”

The shards beneath them began to shift, rising into the air and circling Caelum like a vortex. Each fragment reflected a different version of them—a child, a teenager, a hollow-eyed adult.

The voice in their mind spoke again, soft and insistent:

"It’s time to let me in, Caelum. I can help you carry it. You don’t have to face this alone."

“No,” Caelum whispered, clutching their head. “I don’t need you. I can do this myself.”

The voice laughed, a low, mirthless sound.

"You’ve always needed me. You just won’t admit it."

The man in the mask reached out, his gloved hand brushing against Caelum’s shoulder. The touch was cold, sending a shiver down their spine.

“Choose,” he said.

The mask on the desk pulsed again, brighter this time. The room seemed to hold its breath, waiting.

Caelum stared at the mask, their mind a whirlwind of fear, anger, and doubt.

“I don’t know,” they whispered.

The man stood, his figure towering over them. “You will,” he said, his voice calm but final.

The room dissolved into darkness once more, leaving Caelum alone with their reflection in the fragments of glass.