Chapter 21: A Step Too Late

The hallway stretched longer than it should.

Riven felt it in his bones—the distortion. The walls, the floor, the very air itself shifting with each step. The deeper they went, the less real it felt.

The footprints behind them were still there.

Not their footprints. Its.

But the thing that had been wearing his face was nowhere to be seen.

Vera moved like a shadow ahead of him, gun up, slow and measured. Vex stayed close, his breathing too quiet, his fingers hovering near the knife at his side. They all felt it—the weight of something watching.

Something waiting.

And Riven knew—it was getting bolder.

---

They reached the end of the corridor. A rusted metal door loomed in front of them, slightly ajar. The dim light barely illuminated what lay beyond, but there was something about the darkness inside that felt wrong.

It wasn't just a room.

It was a space that shouldn't exist.

Vera turned slightly. "We go in quiet."

Riven nodded. But he wasn't sure quiet would matter anymore.

Because it already knew they were here.

---

They stepped inside.

The room stretched impossibly far. Long rows of metal shelves lined the walls, covered in dust, like a storage area forgotten by time. A single flickering light dangled from the ceiling, casting weak, jittering shadows.

At first, there was nothing.

Then—

A breath.

Just ahead.

Riven froze.

Vera caught it too. She motioned for them to move in formation—her forward, Vex flanking, Riven watching their backs.

They crept further inside.

The whisper of fabric. A shift of weight.

Something moved between the shelves.

---

Riven's pulse pounded. His grip tightened.

Then—

A figure stepped into view.

Him.

At first glance, it was perfect. The same stance, the same clothes, the same tired sharpness to the eyes.

But then it moved.

And Riven knew.

It wasn't him.

The shift was off. Delayed. A fraction of a second too slow.

And the smile.

It spread across its face too smoothly, like a mask stretching into place.

"You're late," it said.

Its voice was his.

But it wasn't.

---

Vera didn't hesitate. She fired.

The bullet should have hit center mass.

But the moment it struck—

The figure glitched.

Not a dodge.

Not a recoil.

A glitch.

For the briefest second, its form fractured—Riven's face splitting apart, reforming like a corrupted file trying to stabilize.

Then it grinned again.

And charged.

---

Chaos.

Vera fired again, but the thing twisted around the bullet. It moved in a way that wasn't human—jerky, stuttering, like a frame skipping in and out of time.

Riven barely had a second to react before it was on him.

It grabbed his wrist—cold, too cold.

And suddenly—

Riven wasn't in the room anymore.

---

He was somewhere else.

The room vanished.

Instead, he stood in an endless, empty void.

Black. Silent.

Except—

Not silent.

A heartbeat.

Not his.

Something larger. Deeper.

Then—

A whisper.

"You are unraveling."

Riven turned—but the world shifted around him instead.

Now he was looking at something familiar.

A city.

No—not a city.

A version of the world that had already fallen.

Everything wrong. Twisted. Warped.

And at the center of it—

The Hollow Monarch.

Its form loomed in the distance, its presence an overwhelming pressure, a force against reality itself.

It was watching.

Waiting.

And then—

It moved.

---

Riven gasped.

He was back.

The void was gone. The copy was still there—its grip still cold on his wrist.

But now—it was staring at him.

And something in its eyes had changed.

Like it had seen everything he just did.

Like it knew.

And it whispered, too soft for the others to hear—

"You don't belong here anymore."

Riven ripped free.

The thing didn't fight back.

It just laughed.

And then—

It was gone.

Like it had never been there at all.

---

Silence.

Vex swore under his breath. Vera was already scanning the area, gun still up.

Riven stood frozen, his breathing off.

Vera glanced at him. "What happened?"

Riven swallowed.

He wasn't sure how to explain it.

Because whatever that thing was—

It wasn't just copying him anymore.

It was replacing him.

And the worst part?

He wasn't sure it hadn't already started.