Chapter 37: The Door That Dreams

Light. Blinding, infinite, devouring.

Caelum felt his body dissolve into it, his thoughts unraveling like threads pulled from a frayed tapestry. The sensation was neither pain nor peace, but something beyond them—an erosion of self that defied description. The threshold had not simply been a door. It was a rupture in reality, a passage into the unknown.

Then, as suddenly as it had consumed him, the light fractured.

He awoke on the cold marble floor of a vast, cathedral-like chamber. Above him, the ceiling stretched into an abyssal sky filled with constellations that flickered in and out of existence, their patterns shifting unpredictably. The very architecture of the room was paradoxical—columns that spiraled endlessly yet remained rooted in place, walls that breathed as if alive, windows that opened not to the outside, but to other places, other times.

He had stepped beyond the mansion. And yet, the mansion had followed.

The air in this space was heavy, thick with the weight of memories not his own. Statues lined the hall—figures cloaked in shadow, their features blurred as if erased from existence. Some reached toward him, frozen in expressions of agony or reverence. Others bore his face.

Then came the sound. A deep, rhythmic pulse, neither mechanical nor organic. It was the heartbeat of the mansion itself. The walls pulsed in sync, as if the structure was alive, sentient, waiting.

A whisper, no louder than a breath, slid across the room:

“You are not ready.”

A sudden surge of vertigo seized him. He staggered forward, and the marble beneath his feet shattered like glass. In an instant, the cathedral dissolved, replaced by a labyrinth of mirrors stretching endlessly in all directions.

Reflections surrounded him, each one distorted—some versions of himself older, others younger, and some in forms he could not recognize. They spoke in a chorus of overlapping voices, fragments of thoughts he had long buried:

“You were never real.”
“The mansion is your prison.”
“No, it is your mind.”
“What happens when you remember?”

Caelum clenched his fists, his heartbeat hammering against his ribs. This was no mere illusion. The mansion was forcing him to confront himself in ways he had never dared.

One mirror stepped forward. No, not a mirror—a version of himself. The reflection smirked, tilting its head with eerie familiarity.

“Tell me, Caelum,” it said, voice identical to his own. “If you wake up… who will you be?”

The two figures faced each other in the shifting labyrinth. The air between them crackled with tension.

Caelum narrowed his eyes.

“You’re nothing but a fragment. A broken piece.”

The reflection laughed—a hollow, knowing sound.

“And what are you? Whole? Is that what you think?”

Silence stretched between them. The walls of the maze pulsed, reacting to their words.

Caelum stepped forward, his voice cold.

“I am not you.”

The reflection’s smirk faded. It studied him, eyes sharp and piercing. Then, it asked the question that made the mansion itself shudder.

“Then why do you keep running?”

A tremor rippled through the mirrors, and suddenly, the walls of the labyrinth collapsed into a swirling void.

Caelum fell.

The void around him screamed with color—shades of black and violet that should not have existed, twisting like liquid shadows. His descent slowed, and beneath him, a new floor materialized—smooth obsidian, stretching into infinity.

At its center stood Elias.

Unlike before, Elias was solid now, more real than the shifting world around them. His dark suit was pristine, his gaze sharp, unreadable. He stood with the poise of a monarch, hands clasped behind his back.

“You made it further than I expected.”
His voice was calm, but there was something beneath it—approval? Amusement? A test?

Caelum steadied himself. The mansion no longer felt like an enemy, nor an ally. It was something else entirely—a force beyond him, neither cruel nor kind.

“What is this place?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.

Elias took a step forward.

“The last threshold.”

Behind Elias, a door appeared. Unlike the countless others, this one was simple—wooden, unmarked, its presence impossibly mundane amidst the grand surrealism of the mansion.

Elias gestured toward it.

“Beyond this door, Caelum, lies the truth you’ve spent your life avoiding. But truth is… complicated.”

Caelum hesitated. His entire being screamed at him to move, to run, to resist. But something deeper—something buried beneath the fear—urged him forward.

Elias’s expression darkened.

“Once you open it, there is no turning back.”

The mansion itself seemed to lean in, listening. Waiting.

Caelum exhaled, reached for the handle—

And the world shattered.

He was no longer in the mansion.

He stood on a street. A city stretched before him—skyscrapers piercing the sky, neon signs flickering in the distance. People walked past him, unaware, uncaring. The air was thick with rain, the scent of asphalt and electricity.

Caelum’s breath hitched. He knew this place.

It was the real world.

But the door was still there.

It stood in the middle of the street, untouched, as if it had always existed. People walked past it without seeing. He turned, searching for Elias, but he was gone.

A single whisper reached him from the other side of the door.

“Who are you, Caelum?”

His hand trembled. The choice was his.

Enter and know.
Walk away and forget.

The mansion watched. And for the first time, so did the real world.