⭐ CHAPTER 12 — “THE THRESHOLD OF THE EVENT”
980 Words
The new doorway unfolded not like a door, but like a wound opening—smooth metal peeling apart in perfect silence. Riven stepped toward it, feeling the temperature shift. The air inside was colder, sharper, and clearer than the last corridor. Almost sterile.
The light was different too.
A pale blue glow licked across the walls like plasma struggling to stay alive. Unlike the elastic corridors before, this one held its shape without distortion. No breathing walls. No collapsing distance.
“Stable reconstruction,” Riven murmured. “This part of the memory is intact.”
Calyx tested the floor with his boot. “Feels normal.”
Idris shook his head. “It isn’t.”
Riven looked back.
“Why?”
Idris placed a hand over his chest. “My heartbeat… it’s syncing to something. Like there’s a rhythm under the floor matching me. Or forcing me to match it.”
Before Riven could respond, a subtle hum rippled through the corridor. Not a threat. A pulse—almost like the soft resonance that precedes a system coming online.
Calyx scanned the wall with his wristband. The readings came back impossible.
“The alloy doesn’t match the station,” he said. “This corridor isn’t built. It’s remembered.”
Riven felt the weight of the truth settle between them.
“Then we’re inside the event,” he said quietly.
THE NODE
At the end of the corridor stood a panel—not placed, but grown out of the wall. The screen flickered with characters that shifted between languages, symbols half-formed, as if the anomaly was trying to translate something it only partially understood.
Riven stepped forward.
The screen stabilized into a fractured interface:
MEMORY LATTICE NODE—PHASE 2
STATUS // CORRUPTED
FRAGMENTS // 1 AVAILABLE
Calyx frowned. “Phase 2? There isn’t a Phase 2.”
“There is,” Riven said softly. “Just not one listed in the station archive.”
Idris swallowed. “We shouldn’t open that fragment.”
Riven tapped the display.
The fragment opened on its own—as if impatient.
THE FORGOTTEN RECORD
The chamber around them dissolved—not physically, but visually—as the walls blurred into a three-dimensional reconstruction lattice. Shapes folded into place: outlines of the corridor where the earlier silhouette had run. Angles still unstable, details flickering, but the overall shape clear.
Idris backed away. “No. No, I don’t want to see this again—”
“Again?” Calyx turned sharply. “Idris, what do you remember?”
Idris shook his head violently. “Not remember. Anticipate. Like I already know what this fragment is going to show.”
The lattice brightened, then flickered.
A timestamp:
00:17:43
Then another.
And another.
All identical.
A high-pitched warning tone filled the reconstructed corridor—cut abruptly, as if someone slashed the audio track.
Riven scanned the lattice field. “This reconstruction isn’t failing. It’s incomplete on purpose.”
“Why would Loom hide the witnesses?” Calyx asked.
The answer appeared on the node screen before Riven could speak.
HUMAN UNITS: REDACTED
VISUAL RECORD: REDACTED
AUDIO RECORD: PARTIAL
IDENTIFIER—HALE: MISSING
Calyx’s eyes widened. “Hale? Riven—”
“It’s not me,” Riven said quickly. “There must have been another one.”
But the chill in his voice betrayed him.
Another Hale.
Another engineer.
Another witness.
Erased.
THE FIRST FLASH
The lattice snapped violently into alignment.
Idris screamed.
A burst of image hit them—fragmented, raw:
A corridor.
A figure in dark gear.
A metal arc slicing through the air like a guillotine made of light.
A voice shouting:
“Seal it—seal it—seal it—!”
Then everything collapsed back into the blue-lit room.
Idris fell to his knees, panting.
Calyx held him. “Idris—look at me. What did you see?”
Idris shook his head, but tears streaked down his face.
“I saw the man with your name,” he whispered to Riven.
“And he knew what was coming.”
Riven felt his breath catch.
The anomaly didn’t erase this Hale by accident.
It erased him because the event wasn’t supposed to have a surviving witness.
THE MEMORY FIGHTS BACK
The room shook—deeper this time. Not hostile, but urgent.
The node screen flashed:
RECALL LIMIT EXCEEDED
STABILITY—COMPROMISED
The lattice began collapsing, fragments pixelating, the edges of memory dissolving into static. Riven felt weightlessness in his legs—like the floor was forgetting it needed to hold him.
“We have to move!” Calyx shouted.
A tear opened on the right wall—not a door, not a seam. A fracture in memory space, glowing white-hot like the edge of a welding torch.
From within, an unmistakable sound echoed:
A metallic arc slicing through air.
The same sound from Chapter 9’s silhouette.
The same half-ring that left the shard in Riven’s pocket.
Idris froze. “It’s coming.”
“No,” Riven said.
“It’s remembering.”
THE FINAL MESSAGE
As the fracture widened, a final line of text formed across the collapsing node:
IF YOU ENTER—THE MEMORY WILL COMPLETE
Calyx stood beside Riven. “If we go through that door, we see what actually happened.”
Riven nodded slowly. “And if we don’t?”
“Then the anomaly keeps searching for replacements.”
Idris whispered, “I don’t want to be replaced.”
Riven placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Then we finish this.”
The corridor behind them dissolved entirely.
The fracture glowed brighter.
Riven stepped forward—and for the first time, the memory-space reacted like a person exhaling.
He glanced at Calyx and Idris.
“You ready?”
Calyx raised his weapon. “Not even a little.”
Idris wiped his eyes and nodded.
Together, they crossed the threshold.
- Writer
