The stairwell narrowed the higher I climbed.
Walls constricted.
Lights dimmed.
By the time I reached the last step, I was crawling through a passage no wider than a coffin.
Breathless.
Claustrophobic.
And then—
Air.
The rooftop opened like a gasp.
Huge. Flat. Wrong.
It wasn't the top of a building.
It was an island in space.
A square of concrete floating in a vast, black void.
No stars.No skyline.Just void.
And wind that wasn't wind—more like the apartment exhaling.
He was waiting there.
Chapter Zero.
Wearing my face.
Same jawline.Same scars.Same stubble.
But the eyes were colder.
Brighter.
He looked like someone who had made peace with being erased, and enjoyed it.
"You made it," he said, stepping toward me.
His voice sounded like mine—but double-exposed.
Two tones layered.
Elias and something beneath.
"I didn't come to talk," I said.
"Then don't," he replied."Just hand it over.""The burden. The guilt. The pieces you reclaimed. They're too heavy for you.""Let me wear them better."
He opened his arms.
Mocking embrace.
"I'm not splitting again," I said."I know who I am now."
"Do you?""Then prove it."
He gestured to the center of the rooftop, where a circle of symbols had been burned into the concrete.
An ancient ritual ring.Smoldering.Pulsing.
In its center: a shallow pool of black water.
"A baptism," Chapter Zero said.
"Step in with what you are. Only one of us walks out."
I didn't hesitate.
I stepped in.
The water was colder than anything I'd ever felt.Like stepping into grief itself.
Each ripple echoed with voices:
Failures I buried.
People I let down.
Truths I never admitted.
But I didn't sink.
I stood.
Whole.
I saw Chapter Zero mirror me, stepping in from the other side.
His water didn't ripple.
It boiled.
Then it began.
The confrontation wasn't physical.
It was identity warfare.
He lunged at me—not with fists, but with versions of my own past.
He showed me:
My brother calling me that night.
Me ignoring it to go out drinking.
The call I never returned.
The guilt I buried.
"You're not someone who deserves peace," he hissed.
"Let me carry that for you."
I stayed silent.
Not because I agreed—but because I'd already made peace with it.
I'd read the file.Held the folder.Owned the pain.
He threw more memories:
The ex I ghosted.
The friend I lied to.
The day I looked in the mirror and hated who I was.
Each one twisted into a dagger.
But they didn't pierce.
They passed through me.
Not because I was empty—but because I was solid.
"You can't win," I said quietly.
"You were born from denial."
"I was reborn from acceptance."
He faltered.
His smile cracked.
For the first time, he blinked.
Then I reached into my jacket and pulled the last folder.
The one I hadn't shown Echo.
The one even I had forgotten was in my coat.
Hope.
I opened it.
And read aloud:
"Hope is not the belief that things will get better.""Hope is the decision to keep walking even when they don't.""Hope is carrying pain without letting it own you.""Hope is choosing self when nothing else does."
Chapter Zero screamed.
The water boiled.
The sky above cracked—fractured like glass under heat.
And suddenly—
He started to drown.
He sank into the black pool.
Not like someone dying.
But like a reflection being erased.
His eyes wide.
His hand reaching up.
No longer in hatred—
But fear.
Fear of not existing.
He mouthed one last phrase:
"Take care of us."
Then he was gone.
Gone like smoke.
Like a story whose ending was finally written.
The pool drained.
The rooftop steadied.
And the city returned below—quiet, night-lit, and whole.
Like the apartment had been holding its breath and finally let go.
Echo appeared beside me.
Not as a ghost.
Not as an echo.
Just… a man.
Solid.
Breathing.
Real.
"You did it," he said.
I nodded, exhausted.
"Is it over?"
"Not quite. But the final door has opened."
"And this time, you don't need a key."
He handed me a piece of folded paper.
The original lease.
Blank now.
Every clause struck through.
Only one line remained:
"This agreement shall remain until self is complete."
I folded it.
Put it in my pocket.
And turned toward the rooftop's exit.
I didn't know what floor I was heading to.
What the next room would hold.
But I walked now with every part of me.