Turn 10 of 12

Turn around and face Wren in the dark

The sudden darkness is absolute, a heavy velvet shroud that renders the hallway’s architecture invisible. You turn on your heel, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird, and strain your eyes to pierce the gloom. Somewhere to your left, Dario’s ragged breathing has ceased, replaced by a tense, heavy silence that suggests he has frozen in place. You can smell her now—not just the ozone, but a faint, cloying scent of ancient rain and pressed flowers, a fragrance that belongs to a different century entirely.

"Wren?" you say, your voice barely a rasp. You don't know if you're speaking to the air or to the woman who has been choreographing your movements since you sat down in that seminar room. There is no shift in the air to mark her location, no sound of fabric moving, yet you can feel her presence. It is a weight, a prickle of static along your skin that tells you she is exactly where she was, standing with that same lethal, practiced stillness.

Then, a faint, bioluminescent glow begins to seep from the edges of her silhouette. It is not electric light; it is a pale, sickly shimmer that illuminates the space around her, casting long, warped shadows that seem to detach themselves from the brick walls. She stands ten feet away, her eyes reflecting the dim light as twin points of starlit void. She isn't angry—she is something far more chilling, composed and expectant, like an architect waiting to see if the structure will collapse under its own weight.

"You were told not to wander, and yet you seek out the opinions of the living," she says, her voice echoing in the darkness as if the hallway has become a vast, hollow cathedral. She takes a single, slow step toward you, the floorboards beneath her feet making no sound at all. The light around her pulses, rhythmically, matching the frantic tempo of your own pulse. You are pinned by her gaze, the sheer force of her will turning the hallway into a space where her rules are the only physical laws that apply.

"Dario collects stories because he is afraid of disappearing," she murmurs, her form blurring at the edges as she draws closer. "But you? You are looking for something you can hold onto, and you think he is the one to provide it." She stops inches from you, the air between you turning frigid, a cold that seeps into your bones and makes your teeth ache. She reaches out, not to strike, but to brush a lock of hair away from your forehead, her touch surprisingly light and agonizingly slow.