Chapter 29 – The Room That Remembers You
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Chapter 29 – The Room That Remembers You
By Dorian Blackthorn
Tagline: In a tower that breaks the soul, only monsters climb to the top.
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It smelled like dust.
Not the sterile kind that lingered in data vaults or broken control rooms, but old dust—human dust.
Floor ? wasn't numbered for a reason.
It wasn't supposed to exist.
The moment Erevan stepped through the wooden door, the Tower's ambient hum faded. The chaos in his veins stilled. Even his suit—restless and alive with entropy—recoiled slightly, folding back like a wounded beast.
The corridor was dim, lined with flickering gaslights. Wooden walls. Brass piping. Picture frames with no pictures.
Time didn't work here.
Neither did rules.
> [Observation Suspended.]
[Administrator Access Revoked.]
[Remembrance: 41% — Critical Emotional Layer Approaching.]
[Warning: Subject approaching Nexus-Level Memory.]
He walked slowly.
Not because of fear.
Because of instinct.
Something in him knew what lay ahead.
The corridor ended at a door.
Iron. Rusted. Covered in carvings—his carvings. Notes he'd scribbled once in a fever-dream, long before he took his first step into the Tower. Equations. Coordinates. A single word repeated a dozen times in a dozen languages.
Forgive.
He touched the handle.
Cold.
The room beyond was… a home.
His home.
From before.
A single desk. A clutter of star-charts. Half-written journals. A cracked tea mug with her name on it. The ceiling projected a night sky that hadn't existed in centuries.
And at the center—
She sat.
Not an illusion.
Not a ghost.
She.
Older now. Aged beyond her last memory. But undeniably her.
She didn't look at him.
Didn't speak.
Just kept working—writing something on parchment that bled with binary instead of ink.
Erevan stepped forward. "You're not real."
She answered without looking up. "And you're not as cruel as you pretend to be."
His hand clenched.
> [Remembrance: 45% – Emotional Anchor Stabilized.]
"Why this?" he asked. "Why show me you?"
She looked up then.
Her eyes weren't sad.
They were tired.
"Because you gave my soul to the Tower. And you need to remember why."
The walls shimmered.
Reality buckled.
And the room reshaped itself—
To the day she died.
Screaming.
Betrayed.
Holding the shard of proto-code they had written together.
He had made a choice that day.
Let her die and save the code—or save her and let the future fall into darkness.
He chose the Tower.
And she chose to become part of it.
Her final words echoed, clearer now than ever:
"Don't save me. Save them."
> [Remembrance: 50% – New Trait Unlocked: "Code of Sacrifice"]
[System Trait Embedded – Class Evolution Pending…]
[Decision Point Approaching.]
She stood now, crossing the room.
Looked up at him.
"Erevan… do you still believe we can save anyone?"
He wanted to say yes.
But all that came out was, "I don't know."
Silence.
Then she reached into his chest—not violently, but gently—and touched the System Core embedded within.
A glitch ran through the Tower's entire structure.
Alarms failed to ring.
The walls of the floor began to disintegrate.
> [System Error: Rogue Memory Access Detected.]
[Administrator Override Attempt Failed.]
[Erevan's System Interface has... Changed.]
His HUD blinked.
And a new symbol appeared beside his name:
∞
He blinked—and she was gone.
Only a single message remained, burned into the ceiling in her handwriting:
"When you reach the Apex, choose better than we did."
The world twisted.
And Erevan fell—
Upward.
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