The first thing Elias Vantheir noticed was the silence.
Not the comforting kind that lives between midnight raindrops or the hush of snow falling over rooftops. This was a dead silence, thick and unnatural, like the air itself had stopped breathing.
The second thing he noticed was the smell.
Copper. Wax. Burnt oil. And blood. Old blood. Stale. It clung to the inside of his throat like a memory.
Elias opened his eyes to find a ceiling of shattered stained glass above him. A fractured mural—the figure of a spiral-eyed saint gazing downward, arms outstretched in eternal benediction. The glass had warped in the heat or time or both, bleeding color into spiderweb cracks.
The third thing he noticed was himself.
All around him—bodies.
Twelve. Maybe more. Scattered across the marble floor of the chapel. Men, all of them. Same height. Same bone structure. Same hair.
Same face.
His face.
Elias sat up too quickly. Pain spidered through his ribs. His breath caught. He scrambled backward, hands slick with grime and congealed blood, his heart pounding like war drums. He stopped only when his back hit something hard and cold—an altar.
"No, no, no," he whispered.
The words came out dry and foreign. Like his tongue wasn't used to his mouth. Like he was borrowing it.
He stared at the nearest corpse. The eyes were open. Cloudy, but not completely. The lips were parted. There was a faint indentation in the marble where the body had collapsed.
He touched his own neck. Pulse. Breath.
Alive.
But for how long?
One of the bodies was missing its face—not peeled off, not mutilated. Just… absent. Smooth flesh where features should have been, like clay left unfinished.
Elias turned away, bile rising in his throat. He swallowed it down with effort.
Who am I?
The thought hit like a stone to the skull. He searched—reached inward for something solid to anchor him.
A name surfaced.
Elias Vantheir.
But it felt brittle. Like parchment soaked in rain. The more he tried to remember, the less real it seemed.
He crawled to his knees, forcing himself to look around.
The chapel wasn't abandoned. It had been left behind. Every surface was covered in a thin film of dust, save for the footprints—his own, circling, pacing, overlapping dozens of times. Candles had melted into bone-white puddles. The scent of incense had long faded, replaced by rot and memory.
The altar behind him was cracked, but intact. On it sat a book, bound in deep blue leather, its edges stitched with red thread.
He hesitated.
Then reached for it.
The moment his fingers touched the cover, a shiver passed through him—like the feeling of a word on the tip of his tongue, or a memory just beyond reach.
The book had no weight. He opened it.
There was only a single page.
You are not the first Elias Vantheir. You are the last chance.
Remember the spiral.
The world is a lie. But you must believe it to survive.
As he read, the air changed.
A whisper curled around him like smoke.
"Welcome back, Spiralborn."
The corpses twitched.
🕯️
They didn't rise all at once. That would've been less terrifying.
Instead, they moved one by one, spasming like drowning men. Fingers clawed at the floor. Eyes rolled. Bones cracked as if bent into new shapes. Their mouths opened—not in screams, but breaths, like they were waking from a long sleep.
Elias staggered back.
One of them—his own face, bloodied and burned—looked directly at him.
"You're early," it rasped.
Another stood, spine bending too far. "Too early. He hasn't begun the Spiral."
They were speaking to each other.
To him.
About him.
"Why am I here?" Elias demanded, voice hoarse.
None answered directly.
The oldest-looking version—eyes clouded white, hair falling out in clumps—approached. His movements were slow. Intentional.
"We've all been here before," the old Elias said. "Some tried to run. Some tried to forget. Some tried to understand."
He leaned in. His breath smelled of ash and metal.
"All failed."
The others nodded.
Elias's back hit the wall behind the altar.
"I don't—I don't understand. What spiral? What am I?"
"You're a story," the old one whispered. "Being told by someone who no longer remembers how it ends."
Then he raised a hand, pointing upward.
The stained glass above them had begun to melt.
Colors bled together into a churning spiral. The spiral-eyed saint was weeping black tears that dripped down in thick, tar-like drops, evaporating before they hit the floor.
Then came the bells.
Not outside.
Inside.
They tolled from deep within Elias's skull—slow, dreadful, inescapable.
DONG.
DONG.
DONG.
Twelve tolls.
Each one made his blood run colder.
With the final chime, the other Elisases froze mid-motion, as if something had cut their strings.
And then—they collapsed, lifeless once more.
The silence returned.
Only Elias remained.
And the book.
🌀
He ran.
Through the shattered chapel doors and into a world that felt familiar and wrong all at once.
The sky above was the color of smoke and bruises. Brass structures hovered in the air—massive gears turning with no engine. A city unfolded below: cobbled streets lined with lanterns that whispered secrets, vendors hawking bottled emotions, automata polishing clocks that ticked backward.
And people. All wearing masks—not for disease, but protection. From something unseen.
From being seen.
Elias wandered through Noetherra, the name sliding into his mind without context. The city moved like a living thing—breathing, shifting. Statues turned when no one looked. Shadows whispered memories. Time felt elastic.
He ducked into an alley and vomited bile onto the stones.
Then he saw it.
A symbol, burned into the brick wall. A spiral with nine concentric rings, each ring etched with unfamiliar glyphs.
It pulsed, like a heartbeat.
He didn't think.
He touched it.
And the world fractured.
✨
For a heartbeat, he stood in a hall of mirrors—endless versions of himself stretching in every direction.
Some wore armor. Others rags. Some had no faces. One had no eyes.
All stared at him.
"Who are you when no one is watching?" a thousand voices whispered.
He stepped forward.
"…I don't know."
"Then you are ready."
A pain bloomed behind his left eye. A searing spiral burned into his mind—a Revelation.
You have glimpsed the First Truth.
The Lie of the Mirror.
Your reflection is not you.
Perception is power.
Use it, or be used.
He collapsed.
Woke back in the alley.
Gasping.
Changed.
And standing across from him—calm, unreadable—was a man with no shadow and ink flowing across his robe like liquid thought.
"Ah," the stranger said. "You survived the first turn."
"Who… are you?" Elias asked, half-mad.
The man gave a small, sad smile.
"Kaelen Orro. Spiral Seeker. Scholar of the Third Echo."
He offered his hand.
"Come with me if you want answers. Or stay, and let the Concord erase you again."
Elias hesitated.
Then he took the hand.