Chapter 7: The Path to Wyrm’s Mouth

I wake up in a bed that smells like incense and mildew. For a second, I forget where I am.

Then I see the spiral painted on the wall. The cult symbol. The creepy eye. The faint outline of my vomit stain on the altar rug.

Right. Prophet problems.

[Status check: nausea 60%, existential dread 80%, escape plan loading.]

"Glyph," I whisper, rubbing my temples, "we need to get out of here."

[Agreed. Cult vibes are so last season.]

The guest room is unguarded, just like before. Which means they still trust me. Or think I'm too broken to run. Honestly, fair.

I dress fast. Same wine-stained shirt. Same boots that smell like fear and river mud. The spiral-marked staff leans against the wall like a sleeping snake.

I don't take it.

We slip out during the third chant cycle. Spiralites are busy reciting nonsense scripture that I might've accidentally invented yesterday.

"Every lie is a step forward," they murmur in unison.

Great. I've started a theology.

The tunnels wind like intestines—organic, damp, echoing. Glyph pulses faintly in the back of my skull, projecting a flickering exit map.

[Okay, 100 feet forward, then left at the mural of the screaming angel. If we hit the blood fountain again, we've looped.]

"I hate this place."

[Spoken like a true messiah.]

We emerge into cold night air like we're being born from the earth. I nearly collapse from the sudden oxygen.

The city stretches above us—rooftops and spires and the distant glow of Castle Vesche.

But we're not headed up.

We're headed down.

To the Wyrm's Mouth.

[Reminder: Coordinates match a dead canyon on the city's southern edge. Officially sealed. Unofficially haunted.]

"Of course it is."

[You want the truth, you go where no one's stupid enough to look.]

We steal a horse from a prayer stable.

Technically, it's a goat-horse hybrid. Big horns. Smells like tragedy.

I name him Regret.

[Best supporting actor, honestly.]

We ride under cover of moonlight, down crumbling backroads, past hollow statues and forgotten shrines.

The landscape changes the farther we go.

The trees thin.

The ground splits into jagged seams.

And then—

The canyon opens up.

The Wyrm's Mouth.

It's not a place. It's a scar.

A cracked riverbed twisting through the cliffs, pulsing with slow, viscous water that looks like oil mixed with starlight.

My breath catches.

Because now I remember this place.

Sort of.

Like a set I walked through once, in a fever dream. In someone else's script.

[Memory sync destabilizing. You're glitching.]

"I'm fine."

[You're shaking.]

"I'm—"

My fingers twitch. My face feels wrong.

Then the voice hits me.

Not Glyph. Not mine.

But one I've used before. One I became.

"Elias Gray," I whisper.

That was the character. From Fall of the Magelords. The one with the eye patch and the hero complex.

I used his voice last month for a con. But now it's coming back on its own.

"Glyph—what's happening to me?"

[Method Actor side effect. You've crossed too many roles. Identity bleed.]

I double over. My hands flicker. For half a second, I see not my hands—but older ones. Scarred. Familiar in a way they shouldn't be.

[Memory lapse: escalating.]

"What's real?" I ask, voice shaking.

[You are. Kind of.]

We reach the canyon lip.

A black river churns beneath us, slow and silent. No birds. No wind. Just the whisper of water and something else.

Breath.

Like the canyon's alive.

[Coordinates lock confirmed. There's a cave ahead. 40 meters down.]

"Of course there is."

[Want to turn back?]

"No," I say. "I want answers."

We descend into the canyon via a jagged goat path. Regret refuses to follow. Sensible creature.

I nearly lose my footing twice. The wind whistles through cracks in the stone, sounding too much like speech to be natural.

Halfway down, Glyph buzzes.

[Okay. This next part? You're not going to like it.]

"Try me."

[Look left.]

I do.

And I see it.

Floating down the black water, limbs loose, hair drifting like kelp—

A body.

The body's lips were slightly parted

—not bloated, not decayed, like it had just stopped breathing mid-sentence.

Male. Pale. Early thirties.

Face turned toward the moon.

My face.

My knees give out.

I sit hard on the stone and stare.

He looks exactly like me.

Not Audric.

Jeremy.

Back when I still wore my own skin. Before the stage. Before the isekai. Before dying.

"Glyph," I whisper. "Is that… me?"

[Confirmed. 99.6% match. That's your original body.]

The corpse drifts slowly, passing under a jagged rock arch like a ghost entering stage left.

"I'm seeing things," I say. "It's a trick. It has to be."

[Nope. This is real.]

"How can it be real?"

[We don't know.]

I scramble down, slip on loose shale, tear open my palm on a rock.

But I don't stop.

I run to the river's edge and plunge my arm into the current.

The body's gone.

Not floated away.

Just… vanished.

No ripple. No sound.

Just absence.

"Am I dead again?" I whisper.

[No.]

"Then what was that?"

[Best guess? Your death didn't end clean.]

I shiver. My hand is still bleeding.

"Glyph. Be honest. Did I ever really leave Earth?"

[Define "leave."]

We find the cave twenty minutes later.

It's carved like a mouth, teeth-like stalactites ringing the entrance.

Inside: darkness, old tech, and something humming.

I light a glowstone.

The walls are covered in spirals.

But not drawn.

Etched. Laser-burned. Meticulous.

Glyph scans them.

[That's not religious. That's circuitry.]

"Are you saying these are machine runes?"

[More like encoded memory maps.]

There's a panel in the back. Metal. Hinged.

I press it.

It opens.

Inside is a mirror.

Shattered.

My reflection stares back at me.

Except it's not just me.

It's Jeremy. And Audric. And Elias Gray. And every role I've ever played—flickering, cycling, overlapping like an old reel skipping frames.

I reach for the glass.

And the mirror bleeds.

The mirror didn't just bleed —it wept black tears, each drop forming a spiral where it hit the stone.

Dark liquid leaks from the crack, swirling into spiral symbols.

Then something behind the mirror moves.

Something watching.

"Glyph," I whisper.

[We triggered something.]

"I want to go home."

[Define "home."]

I don't answer.

Because I don't know anymore.

Back on the canyon floor, the river has risen.

Fast. Wrong.

And in the center—

Floating like a forgotten secret—

The same body.

Jeremy.

Face up.

Eyes open.

Smiling.

[This is not natural.]

"I know."

Then he opens his mouth.

And speaks.

My voice.

"My cue," he says. "Is almost up."

Then the water swallows him.

I fall to my knees.

Breath caught in my throat.

I can't tell if I'm crying or bleeding or glitching out of existence.

[We have to go. Now.]

We scramble up the canyon in silence.

The cave behind us shudders.

Like the world knows I saw too much.

Back at the top, Regret is gone.

The stars have shifted.

And Glyph is flickering.

[Warning. Memory sync failure. Multiple identity anchors compromised.]

"Glyph, stay with me."

[Trying.]

I hold my head.

Feel too many names pressing against my skull.

Jeremy Blake.

Audric Solvane.

Elias Gray.

J. Pierce.

And something deeper.

Something older.

A name I didn't recognize-but my tongue did, shaping syllables too old for my throat.

I look back one last time.

The Wyrm's Mouth yawns behind us.

And for a moment—

I see myself on the canyon rim.

Watching me.

Same face.

Different eyes.

Cold.

Hungry.

Like he's waiting for me to finish my role so he can take his turn.

END OF CHAPTER 7.