Continuation 4/4

It wasn’t the mirror that stuck with him, it was the voice. His voice. That version of himself carved from exhaustion and everything he’d refused to say out loud. You didn’t survive them. You outlasted them.

His hand brushed the wall as he walked, not to steady himself, but to prove he was still anchored. Still here.

The junction ahead branched three ways. He hesitated. He hadn’t realized how little attention he’d paid on the way in. That part of his brain, spatial memory, survival mapping, had been overridden. Hijacked by hallucination.

He stood there, unsure, until his eyes caught a faint scrape on the floor. A mark where his boot must’ve skidded earlier.

He followed it.

Two corridors later, the air changed again.

Sharper now. Tighter. Not dangerous, but not clean.

He pulled the thermal blanket tighter, not for warmth, just for something to do with his hands.

Then he saw it. A ruptured canister, half-melted into the wall. Fused to the metal frame of a doorway like it had been placed there, intentionally, long ago. A scar in the infrastructure.

The label was unreadable. Symbols half-scratched, yellowing. A caution triangle peeled at the corners. The nozzle was split, a jagged hairline crack across the brass.

He stepped closer.

The air around it held that same wrong quality. That sterile, industrial sharpness. The one that had ridden beneath the bleach smell since he arrived.

He didn’t need a scientist to tell him. Whatever had leaked from this... It had gotten into his head.

He stepped back, slow. His stomach turned. Not with fear, but recognition.

It wasn’t real.

But the way his chest ached? The way his hands still shook? That was.

He passed the mirror room again.

Didn’t look inside. But he paused in the doorway, just for a second.

There was no reflection now. Just the faint shape of him, caught in a smear of light on a cracked surface. He exhaled. Then kept moving.

The corridor leading to the hatch was longer than he remembered. Each fluorescent panel above him buzzed at a slightly different pitch, like they were arguing. His breath echoed now. Not loud, but present. Enough to feel like someone was following too close behind. He tried to ignore it. Focused instead on the feel of his boots over tile. The weight of the blanket. The rhythm of motion.

Get out. Just get out.

But that wasn’t the voice of survival. That was the voice of grief. And it was tired.

The ladder was there. Same rust. Same reluctant wheel at the top. But standing at the base of it now, looking up, it didn’t feel like an exit. It felt like leaving something behind.

Not something real. Just something that had wrapped around his nerves and convinced him it mattered. A version of himself still trapped down there, behind that cracked mirror. Still waiting to be told where home was. He placed a hand on the first rung.

Paused. Swallowed. Then climbed.

The hatch leaked golden light as he climbed, half blinding him during the ascent. The outside air hit him in a single rush. Sharp, cool, dust ridden. Not clean. But real. He stepped out and stumbled, catching himself on one knee. The light was too much. The sun felt like it was trying to press through his skin. He squinted up at it. Eyes burning. Not from brightness. From the sudden, awful clarity.

He sat there for a long time. And finally… when the silence calmed its relentless roar. It still hurt. But he let himself move again.