You Always Come Back

Jessica stood before the sealed door, the cold stone pressed against her palm.

EXIRE NON PERMITTITUR.

Not permitted to leave.

Her breath was steady, controlled. But inside? Something was unraveling. She could still feel the weight of the dagger from her vision. Still hear the whispered voices. Still see the torches flickering against the chamber walls—as if she had been here before.

Leanna and Olivia stood behind her, their flashlight beams sweeping across the dust-laden air. None of them spoke.

Jessica pressed harder against the stone.

Nothing. She exhaled, stepping back.

“This door has been sealed for centuries,” Olivia muttered. “We’re not just walking through it.”

Jessica studied the surface carefully. There were no handles. No hinges. No mechanisms. No way to open it, unless you already knew how. Her stomach twisted as she reached into her jacket pocket, fingers brushing against the small blade she always carried.

She swallowed.

The dagger in her vision. The way she had held it, like she was about to do something irreversible. Jessica pulled the blade from her pocket. She turned it over in her fingers. The weight of it felt too familiar. She inhaled sharply. And then she pressed the tip of the blade against her palm.

A shallow cut. A drop of blood. The moment it touched the stone the door shuddered. Dust and ice trembled loose. Jessica’s pulse hammered in her skull.A deep, grinding sound echoed through the chamber and the door began to slide open. She didn’t move. She just watched as the darkness beyond revealed itself.

Leanna let out a slow breath. “That’s not normal.”

Jessica swallowed hard. “Nothing about this is.”

Then, without another word, she stepped inside.

The corridor beyond was narrow and ancient. The walls were lined with faded carvings and symbols that didn’t belong to any known language.

Jessica’s flashlight flickered slightly as she moved deeper. The air was colder here. Thicker. It wasn’t just a tomb. It was a memory.

She could feel it pressing against her skull. Something waiting. Something wanting to be remembered. Then the corridor opened into a chamber.

Jessica stepped inside, and stopped cold because the room was not empty. The chamber stretched high above them, the walls curving into a perfect dome. And at its center, a circle of stone chairs.

The chamber was still. Airless. Dust hung in golden shafts, unmoving. Jessica’s pulse ticked up. They weren’t empty. There were figures seated in each one. The seated figures around the stone table had not stirred in centuries. Mummified, robed, frozen mid-deliberation as though the world had ended in the middle of a thought.

Jessica stood before them, silent.

Her fingers twitched at her sides. She knew they were dead. Every rational part of her mind confirmed it. And yet, something lingered in the stillness. Not presence. Not magic. Memory.

Olivia muttered, “What the hell is this?”

Leanna shook her head. “Some kind of council?”

She stepped closer to one of them. A woman, or what was left of one. Her skin drawn tight like parchment, her hands folded in a gesture that looked almost… expectant. Jessica wasn’t sure. Because she wasn’t just looking at them. She was remembering them. Her stomach twisted more.

And then the figure moved. Jessica felt disoriented and detached from her reality. She had become accustomed to these flashes of memories, but this was not a memory. This was something different.

It shouldn’t have been possible, but the figure of the woman was stirring. She heard the sound of creaking leather, shifting fabric. She heard the rasping breath. Jessica’s fingers tightened around her knife.

The figure lifted its head, and in a voice that was barely more than a whisper, it spoke.

“You came back.”

Jessica froze. A slow, cold dread crawled up her spine. She swallowed hard. “Who are you?”

The figure let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh.

“You don’t remember?”

Jessica’s grip tightened. She had heard those words before.

“You are not the first.”

The room tilted. The walls weren’t walls anymore. The torches weren’t flickering. Because she was not here. Not in the present. She was there. The Moment It Began Jessica’s vision blurred and suddenly, she was standing in the chamber.

Not abandoned. Not ruined. Whole. Alive. The air was thick with candle smoke, the flicker of torches casting long shadows against the walls. She could feel the weight of the dagger in her hand again. She could feel the heat of her own breath. She was in her own body, but it wasn’t hers.

There were voices around her. Urgent. Desperate.

“We cannot let it continue.”

“It always continues.”

Jessica’s chest tightened. She saw herself. But it wasn’t her. A woman wearing her face. Her pulse slammed against her ribs. She wasn’t Jessica. Not here. Not yet.

The air shimmered with heat that didn’t exist. Her heartbeat echoed like footsteps down a corridor she hadn’t built. Everything was her. It was her hands, her breath, her anger, yet none of it was hers. And she was holding a dagger at someone’s throat.

“It ends tonight.”

The figure in the chair, she was smiling.

“No. It begins again.”

Jessica drove the knife forward. There was blood, so much blood. Then a whisper filled her soul

“You always come back.”

Jessica snapped back. She stumbled, her breath ragged, her skin cold and clammy. The chamber was silent again. The figures were still.

But the whisper was still in her mind.

“You always come back.”

Her knees felt weak. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to stand. She wasn’t just chasing the past anymore. She had been part of it. And whoever these people were, whoever she had been, it had never ended. It had only ever started again. The Choice That Was Never Hers

Jessica swallowed hard, forcing herself to breathe. She turned back to the seated figures. The one who had moved was still watching her. Jessica clenched her fists. And in a voice that was barely above a whisper, she asked— “Who am I?”

The figure tilted its head. And then replied softly-

“You are the reason it begins again.”