It began with the stairs.
Rachel didn't remember falling asleep, but she woke with her back pressed against cold, damp stone. Her head throbbed, and her mouth was dry as ash. When she sat up, the air was thick and stifling, reeking of mildew and something metallic—like blood.
The space around her was dimly lit by a faint glow that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. The walls were rough stone, slick with moisture, and the only thing in the room besides her was a staircase spiraling downward into the abyss.
She didn't remember how she got there. She didn't remember anything.
The only sound was a faint whisper—so soft, it was almost imperceptible. It wasn't words, exactly, but it felt like someone breathing right into her ear.
Rachel tried to find another way out, but the walls were seamless, enclosing her like a tomb. The stairs were the only option.
With no other choice, she began her descent.
The steps felt endless.
Her bare feet echoed with each step, the sound swallowed quickly by the oppressive silence. The whispers grew louder as she descended, but they never resolved into anything intelligible. Sometimes, she thought she heard her name.
Rachel...
The stairs seemed to stretch longer with each turn. She would reach what she thought was the bottom, only to find another spiral beginning anew. The air grew colder, and the dampness in the stone seeped into her skin.
She had no idea how long she'd been walking when she saw it: a doorway carved into the wall, its edges jagged like broken teeth.
A faint light flickered beyond it.
"Hello?" Rachel called, her voice trembling and raw.
There was no response.
She stepped inside.
The room was impossibly large, its dimensions stretching far beyond what the staircase should have allowed. The walls were lined with hundreds—no, thousands—of mirrors. They were old, their surfaces tarnished and smeared, but she could still see her reflection in each one.
Except, it wasn't her.
The reflections were wrong.
In one, her mouth was stretched into a grin too wide for her face, her teeth sharp and jagged. In another, her eyes were black voids, oozing darkness. One reflection showed her standing perfectly still, staring back at herself with empty, lifeless eyes.
As she backed away, the mirrors began to move.
The reflections stepped forward, pressing their palms against the glass.
She turned and fled back to the stairs.
Rachel didn't know how long she had been descending. Days, hours, weeks—time lost all meaning. The whispers grew louder, more insistent, and the air felt heavier with each step.
She began to notice shapes in the dark, just beyond the edge of the light. They were fleeting, like shadows that moved too fast to follow.
Sometimes, she heard footsteps behind her, echoing faintly.
When she turned, there was nothing.
The next door appeared after what felt like an eternity.
This one was different. The edges glowed faintly, and the whispers seemed to pour from the gap like a physical presence.
Rachel hesitated, but something compelled her to step through.
Inside was a table.
At the center of the table sat a box, small and unassuming. It was made of dark wood, its surface covered in strange carvings that seemed to shift and writhe when she looked at them.
A single note was placed beside it.
"Open it, Rachel."
Her hands trembled as she reached for the box. The whispers rose to a deafening roar, and she hesitated.
But then she saw her reflection in the polished surface of the table.
It wasn't her.
The reflection smiled—a cruel, sharp grin—and nodded at the box.
Rachel opened it.
The world collapsed.
The stairs, the doors, the whispers—all of it shattered into nothingness. Rachel was falling, weightless and breathless, through a void that pulsed with dark, rhythmic beats.
When she landed, it was on a cold stone floor.
She was back at the beginning.
The staircase loomed before her, spiraling downward into infinity.
But this time, the whispers didn't come from the air.
They came from behind her.
Rachel turned, and her breath caught in her throat.
It was her.
Not a reflection, not a shadow—her. Standing just a few feet away, smiling with a mouth too wide, her eyes filled with endless darkness.
"Your turn," the doppelgänger said, its voice layered with a thousand others.
Before Rachel could scream, the thing lunged, shoving her down the stairs.
And the descent began again.