Chapter 13: Distorted Truths

Nathan's mind was a storm of fragmented images, flashes of memories that weren't entirely his own. The factory had taken something from him—or perhaps it had given him something, an unwelcome knowledge that slithered through his thoughts like a venomous whisper.

The moment his fingers had grazed the pulsating structure, his reality had fractured. He had seen his parents, not as he had known them, but as desperate figures wrapped in the factory's shadow. His mother's face, twisted in terror, her lips moving in silent pleas. His father's form, consumed by darkness, flickering at the edge of comprehension like a ghost caught between worlds.

Nathan stumbled back from the grotesque machinery at the heart of the factory, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The room pulsed around him, alive, aware of his presence. It knew him. It had been waiting for him.

"You see now, don't you?" The voice slithered through the air, neither male nor female, neither young nor old. It was layered, an amalgamation of voices speaking in unison, overlapping like a discordant symphony.

Nathan's pulse pounded in his ears as he turned sharply, his flashlight flickering. The shadows stretched and coiled, forming a figure—something almost human, yet impossibly wrong. Its features were blurred, shifting like ripples in disturbed water.

"Who are you?" Nathan's voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper.

The figure tilted its head, considering him. "We are memory. We are hunger. We are truth."

A chill slithered down Nathan's spine. "Truth?"

The shadows pulsed, vibrating with laughter—or something like it. "Truth is an illusion, shaped by those who fear it. Your father, your mother… they thought they understood. They thought they could escape."

Nathan's hands clenched into fists. "What happened to them?"

A tendril of darkness slithered forward, grazing his arm with an icy touch. Images flooded his mind—his parents whispering in hushed tones, the weight of fear in their eyes. His father, standing in this very room, staring into the same abyss. And then—

A scream.

His father's scream.

Nathan gasped as the vision shattered, leaving behind a sharp ache in his skull. He staggered, gripping the edge of a rusted console for support. "They were trying to stop this," he muttered, more to himself than to the entity watching him.

"They were trying to deny what was inevitable," the voice corrected. "But you, Nathan, you are different."

Nathan swallowed the bile rising in his throat. "I'm nothing like you."

The shadows trembled, recoiling briefly before surging forward with renewed intensity. "Aren't you? You hear us. You feel us. The whispers have followed you since childhood, haven't they?"

Nathan's heart skipped a beat. He had never spoken of the whispers—not to anyone. Yet, somehow, this thing knew.

It had always known.

A sick realization clawed at his chest. "It's not just the factory, is it?" he asked, his voice barely steady. "It's me. I was always meant to come back here."

The figure shifted, its form disassembling and reforming like smoke caught in a vacuum. "You are the key."

Nathan's fingers tightened around the diary in his grasp—his mother's last words, her warnings, her fear. And yet, she had left something else within those pages. A secret. A way out.

The factory wasn't just feeding on the souls of those who had perished within its walls—it was searching for something. Something Nathan's parents had tried to hide. Something only he could uncover.

A deep hum resonated through the factory, the machinery awakening, gears grinding in protest. The air thickened, the weight of unseen eyes pressing against Nathan's skin. The shadows lashed out, coiling around him, desperate to keep him in place.

His breath steadied, resolve hardening within him. He shoved forward, wrenching himself free from the phantom grips, his voice a growl. "Then let's see what happens when I turn the lock."

The shadows recoiled violently, as if sensing his defiance, their whispers rising to a crescendo of distorted fury. The factory groaned, the walls pulsating like an enraged beast, but Nathan was already moving.

He tore through the darkness, his flashlight barely cutting through the suffocating void. Doors slammed shut behind him, the factory closing in, trying to trap him within its ever-tightening grasp. But Nathan had come too far. He wasn't a prisoner. Not anymore.

If the factory had been waiting for him, then it was about to learn that he wasn't here to be devoured.

He was here to end it.