Adrian stood in the center of the small, dark room, his breath heavy and ragged. The air felt different here—thin, as though it barely existed. The walls around him were bare, rough, and cold to the touch, with no windows or doors in sight. Only the distant, muffled echoes of the faceless figures scratching at the sealed door reminded him of the terror he had just escaped.
For a moment, the silence pressed down on him, almost as though the room itself was alive, listening to his every breath. He strained to hear anything that would give him a clue about where he was—or what lay ahead. But the void around him was unnervingly empty.
Adrian took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. His mind replayed the girl's haunting words from the mirror world: "You've buried it, Adrian. But it's time to face it." What truth? What had he hidden from himself?
As he paced the room, his thoughts raced, and something caught his attention in the center of the floor—a faint, circular pattern etched into the stone. Intrigued, he knelt down to examine it more closely. The lines were intricate, spiraling inward as though drawing his gaze toward the center. At the heart of the pattern was a small, glowing insignia—an ancient symbol that pulsed with a dim, unnatural light.
Cautiously, Adrian reached out to touch it. The moment his fingers made contact, the room seemed to ripple around him, as though the very fabric of reality was warping. The ground beneath him trembled, and a soft vibration hummed through the air.
Suddenly, the symbol flared brightly, and the floor beneath him gave way. He felt himself falling—not in the physical sense, but more like being pulled downward into a deep, endless abyss. The sensation was disorienting, his mind spinning as he was swallowed by the darkness.
Then, without warning, everything stopped.
Adrian found himself standing on solid ground, though the space around him was pitch black, save for a dim light in the distance. It flickered weakly, like a dying flame. He felt drawn to it, compelled to walk toward it despite the overwhelming sense of dread tightening in his chest.
As he approached, the light began to take form. It wasn't a flame, but a figure—vague and shadowy, barely distinguishable from the surrounding darkness. The closer he got, the clearer it became until Adrian could finally see it.
It was him.
But this was no mere reflection. The figure before him was an exact replica of himself—dressed in the same clothes, with the same weary expression. Only the eyes were different—dark, hollow, and filled with an emptiness that seemed to echo the vast void surrounding them.
Adrian stopped a few feet from the doppelgänger, his heart pounding in his chest. "Who are you?" he demanded, his voice barely a whisper in the oppressive silence.
The figure smiled faintly, though it was a joyless, hollow grin. "I am the truth you've been running from," it replied, its voice a cold, monotone echo of his own. "The part of you that you've buried deep, forgotten."
Adrian's chest tightened. "What truth? What are you talking about?"
The figure stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and Adrian instinctively backed away. But there was nowhere to go—the void seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction.
"You think you've forgotten," the figure said, "but it's always been with you. The decisions you've made, the lives you've touched… and destroyed. You've buried it deep, thinking it would never resurface. But the Abyss always finds a way."
Adrian's mind raced, images flashing through his thoughts—the girl in the hospital bed, the surgery, the strange symbols, the faceless figures. All of it connected, but how?
The doppelgänger's gaze hardened. "You weren't always a surgeon. You know that, don't you? You weren't always this man you pretend to be. There was something else, something darker—a life you've tried to forget."
Adrian's breath caught in his throat. He had always sensed that there were things about his past that didn't quite add up, moments of his life that felt shrouded in fog, like half-remembered dreams. But this… this felt like a nightmare he was only beginning to understand.
The figure continued, stepping even closer until they were nearly face to face. "You made a choice, a long time ago. And that choice had consequences—ones you've refused to acknowledge. But now, Adrian, it's time to face them."
Suddenly, the darkness around them rippled, and the void began to shift. Faces appeared in the shadows—ghostly figures that Adrian could barely recognize. People from his past, long-forgotten memories, all staring at him with a mixture of accusation and sadness. He saw flashes of his childhood, his early years in medical school, and moments he couldn't place—scenes that felt distant and foreign, yet strangely familiar.
One face stood out among the others—a woman, her eyes filled with sorrow and betrayal. Adrian's heart skipped a beat as recognition hit him like a wave.
"No…" he whispered, backing away from the figure. "This isn't real. This can't be real."
But the doppelgänger only smiled. "Oh, it's real. And now, there's no running from it."
The woman's face grew clearer, more defined, and Adrian felt a surge of guilt and pain rise in his chest. He had loved her once, in a life that now seemed so distant. But something had happened—something terrible. His mind struggled to grasp the details, but the weight of it was undeniable.
The void around him began to close in, the figures pressing closer, their whispers growing louder. Adrian's head spun as the memories flooded back, one after the other, overwhelming him.
The doppelgänger leaned in, its voice a chilling whisper in his ear. "You can't hide from the past, Adrian. The void knows, and it's come to collect."
As the echoes of the past consumed him, Adrian felt himself slipping into the darkness, the weight of his forgotten sins pulling him down into the endless void.
And as the light faded, only the whispers of the abyss remained.