Chapter 13: The Reverse
They had left the Sanctuary at dawn.
Not through the door.
Through a mirror.
Orane had guided them to a forbidden room deep in the building's underground tunnels. There, hidden behind a concrete slab, a liquid surface gleamed in the darkness — a mental rift, a passage between the Real and the Reverse.
"Over there, everything is inverted," she told them. "Memories are ripe, nightmares reign, and your thoughts… betray you."
Kelvin didn't hesitate.
He stepped through the mirror.
The Reverse was not a simple reflection.
It was a consumed world.
The sky was not black: it was red, beating like raw flesh. The buildings from the real world still existed, but twisted, corroded, as if swallowed by the void. Shadows walked freely there — some human, others… too large to be so.
Kelvin felt his steps heavy.
Even the ground seemed to judge him.
"Where are we?" Lila asked, her voice trembling.
Echo, still fragile, answered little. The Inverted Eye had marked him. He still heard voices — memories of others. Cries of children dead at Klinik-13, lodged in his nerves.
Orane stopped.
"We are in the city of Veil-Earth. But here, it is known as Threnos."
"And what are we looking for?" Kelvin asked.
"Coordinates. A name. A trace of the Director. He always leaves something… in the reverse of those he breaks."
They ventured deeper into Threnos.
In an alley half swallowed by an abyss, Kelvin felt a shiver run through him.
Not a physical shiver.
A shiver of memory.
He approached a wall. There, carved in stone, he saw letters… in black fire:
"Kelvin M. // Subject 17-B // Failure — Complete linkage rejection — Unstable fragment"
Lila came closer.
"Is that you? What they said about you?"
Kelvin touched the inscription. A pain exploded in his skull.
Images.
A laboratory.
Men in lab coats.
A voice:
"He rejects conditioning. His shadow acts alone. It's dangerous."
And a response, graver, colder:
"Then… let's give him a reason to remember."
Kelvin stepped back, breathless.
He understood better now.
He was not a failure. He was an anomaly. And Klinik-13 had tried to forcibly transform him.
Meanwhile, Lila drifted away.
A chant called to her.
Softly. An ancient language, yet one she understood.
She walked to a collapsed chapel. Inside, a broken mirror.
And in the reflection…
A version of herself.
But taller. Paler. Eyes slitted with lightning. Voice saturated with echoes.
"I am what you will become," the image said. "Iskara grows. And soon, you will no longer contain her."
"Am I going to die?" Lila asked.
"No. You will remember. And memories… change everything."
A black tear ran down Lila's cheek.
She didn't return to the others right away.
Later, the group reached a corroded building: an old mental school. According to Orane, it housed the archive of rejected thoughts — a forbidden place in the Reverse where the Shadows deposited the fragments they deemed too dangerous.
Inside, endless libraries. Books made of flesh. Pages written in screams.
Kelvin stepped forward. He felt a calling.
A door.
Behind it, an office.
A man, seated.
The Director.
No flesh. No bones.
But a blurry silhouette. Wearing a white coat.
He looked up. He had no face.
"You came, Kelvin."
Kelvin clenched his teeth.
"Show me your true face."
"You've already seen it. In dreams. In screams. In fear."
He stood up.
"Klinik-13 is not a place. It is a seed. A plan. An infection. And you… you are its incomplete weapon."
Kelvin stepped forward.
But suddenly, Lila screamed.
Her body twisted.
Black marks appeared on her skin.
Iskara was awakening.
Echo shouted:
"She won't hold! We have to help her fuse, or she will explode!"
Orane stretched out her arms toward her, whispering ancient words.
Kelvin stepped back from the Director.
"This isn't over."
"No," the Director answered. "It's only the beginning."
He vanished.
The ground collapsed.
And Lila screamed.