The kitchen was gone.
Just… gone.
One blink, and we were standing in an endless white corridor, like the inside of a dead hospital—sterile, echoing, lifeless. The system didn't say anything.
Even Harper looked uneasy.
Adrian broke the silence. "Where the hell are we now?"
I looked ahead.
Down the corridor was a single black door.
Heavy. Metal. Bolted shut with six locks. Symbols burned into its surface like wounds.
And hanging from it—a sign.
> DO NOT OPEN.
Not without permission. Not even then.
---
Then the system buzzed. For the first time, its voice glitched.
> [SYSTEM WARNING – LOCATION BREACH DETECTED]
Zone: Unknown
Security Level: Black-Class
Note: This door is not part of your assigned path.
Recommendation: Do not proceed.
Override Detected. Accessing system file…
---
Harper's voice dropped.
"No. No, we are not doing this."
"What is it?" I asked.
She stared at the door like it was a coffin.
"That's a Black-Class Door. Devil Hunters are forbidden from going near them."
Adrian stepped back. "So why are we here?"
Harper didn't answer.
The System spoke again, weaker this time:
> Trial Not Approved.
No mission present. No reward guaranteed.
This is a place of exile. Of memory erased.
You were not supposed to find it.
---
Then the door breathed.
We all felt it. Like the hallway exhaled—and something behind that door inhaled.
I stepped forward.
One lock clicked open by itself.
Harper grabbed my arm.
"You open that door, Kai… you don't come back the same."
> I didn't care.
> I needed to know why the system was afraid.
I pulled the second lock.
It snapped like paper.
The moment I touched the third, a flood of voices rushed into my head.
Screaming.
Laughing.
Begging.
> "YOU LEFT US HERE—YOU PROMISED—WHY DIDN'T YOU—WE'RE STILL BURNING—"
---
The fourth lock disintegrated.
Adrian shouted, "Kai, STOP!"
Harper aimed her blade. "That's not a door. That's a tombstone!"
But the fifth lock opened on its own.
And a memory hit me like a truck.
> A girl in a hospital bed.
Hooked to machines.
Me standing outside the door.
Not going in.
Too afraid.
Too ashamed.
Her whispering my name—
And me walking away.
The final lock turned.
> And I remembered her name.
Emily.
> She was my sister.
---
The door swung open.
Inside was black fog, twisting like a storm inside a box. It didn't move like smoke. It moved like it was alive. Like it was watching.
Then the System roared.
> "CLOSE THE DOOR."
"CLOSE THE DOOR."
"CLOSE THE DOOR."
But I saw something in the fog.
A child.
Standing alone.
Her eyes were hollow.
Her skin gray.
And she whispered:
> "You forgot me, Kai."
---
Suddenly the fog lunged.
Harper tackled me to the floor just as the black mass slammed into the hallway—burning through the walls like acid. Adrian screamed and drew his blade, but the weapon melted in his hand.
> "It's not a devil," Harper shouted. "It's a system anomaly!"
The child stepped forward.
She wasn't human.
Not anymore.
Her face cracked like porcelain. Her voice echoed in pieces:
> "We are the ones the system erased.
You're next.
Unless you bring us back."
---
Then the System overrode itself.
A glyph exploded between us, tearing space apart.
We were yanked out of the hallway and slammed into—
—darkness.
---
I woke up alone.
Back in the subway tunnel from Chapter 1.
Only this time…
No Harper. No Adrian. No system voice.
Nothing but a wall of mirrors ahead of me.
And in each one—
A different version of me.
Some smiling.
Some bloody.
Some wearing system robes.
And one, far in the back—
Wearing no face at all.
---
[SYSTEM FAILURE: UNABLE TO TRACK USER STATE]
PATH: DISRUPTED
INTEGRITY: FALLING
Next Trial: Unknown
Objective: Survive. Reconnect. Remember. Or be rewritten.