[Floor B84: The Penitent Spiral]
Rule: No deception permitted.
Task: Witness yourself through the eyes of those you've harmed.
The elevator opened into a long hallway, lined with doors. Each bore their names.
Lucien.
Naia.
Calen.
A voice echoed through the Tower:
"You lie to survive. But the Tower remembers. And now... you will see through its eyes."
"Begin Penitence."
Calen's Door
He stepped through first.
And into a memory he didn't recognize.
He stood beside a man—an old friend, maybe.
But this time, he wasn't Calen.
He was the friend.
He watched "Calen" promise safety.
Then abandon him to rot in a collapsing stairwell.
"He needed a distraction," a voice whispered.
"You were convenient."
He felt it all.
The terror.
The betrayal.
The slow, suffocating end.
Calen staggered back.
The door shut behind him.
"That wasn't me," he whispered.
"But it was a choice I made."
Naia's Door
She entered and immediately gasped.
She was Cassandra.
Through her eyes, she saw Naia—herself—draw a blade.
Not in anger.
Not in grief.
But in certainty.
"She knew too much," Naia's own voice said.
"And I couldn't let her tell them."
The knife slipped in cleanly.
Cassandra's last emotion wasn't fear.
It was understanding.
Naia collapsed to her knees.
"I told myself it was mercy. But she never asked for that."
When she exited the room, her hands trembled.
Her sword wouldn't stop humming.
Lucien's Door
He expected horror.
He got silence.
He was a boy.
Terrified.
Looking up at a figure in shadows.
Lucien.
His own face.
"Help me," the boy whispered.
"I don't know what's real."
Lucien—himself—walked away.
Not out of cruelty.
But indifference.
"You don't matter yet," he had said. "Survival first."
The boy curled up, forgotten.
Lucien opened his eyes.
He wasn't crying.
But something inside him cracked.
They returned to the hallway.
Silent.
Each changed.
Each marked.
But the Tower wasn't finished.
A new voice spoke—calm, female, unfamiliar:
"Final Penitence: You must now watch yourselves through the eyes of someone who still loved you."
"And you will see what you broke."
Calen's Love
A sister.
She believed in him.
Even after he chose his path.
Even after the war.
She died waiting for his letter.
Clutching it.
Unsent.
"I was your anchor. You forgot me."
Calen broke then.
Naia's Love
A lover in the resistance.
Burned by a decision she made to protect the cause.
He smiled, even as fire took him.
"You always burned brighter than me. Just wish I'd had time to say goodbye."
Naia fell.
Didn't rise for a long time.
Lucien's Love
A mentor.
The first person who saw him.
The last person who warned him.
"I told you that climbing over corpses meant becoming one."
"You didn't listen. So I became your first corpse."
Lucien reached out.
But the vision turned away.
The Tower chimed:
[Floor B84 Cleared.]
Emotional integrity verified.
Proceed.
The hallway opened.
A staircase down.
No elevator this time.
Each step echoed with choices they couldn't take back.