Chapter 23: Reflections and choice
SPENCER'S POV
The voice on the other end of the line was not a sound; it was a violation of reality itself. It was a cold, synthetic rasp, a digital distortion that sounded like a chorus of the damned whispering through a corrupted signal, each layer of the voice scratching at a different, primal part of my brain. It slithered into my ear, coiled around my spine, and injected a paralyzing venom of pure, undiluted terror into my nervous system. My heart, which had been a frantic drum against my ribs, seemed to stop entirely, seizing up in a grip of icy dread. This was the voice from the news broadcast, the entity that had possessed Mr. Thorne, but hearing it directed at me, personalized, intimate, and laced with a knowing malevolence, was a thousand times more horrifying. This was no longer a specter on a screen; it was in my head, speaking my name, and it had my best friend.
"Who is this?" I demanded, the question tearing from a throat tight with fear, fueled by a courage that felt as substantial as smoke. My mind, screaming with a primal, protective panic for Allen, overrode my own consuming, personal fear. The thought of him hurt, of him in danger because of me, was an unbearable agony. "Where is Allen? What have you done to him?"
I forgot my first question entirely. The safety of my best friend—the one solid, unwavering tether to my old, sane life, the brother I had chosen—was the only thing that mattered in that instant. The line went dead. Not with a click, but with a final, silent severance, as if the void itself had swallowed the connection, leaving behind an absolute, chilling quiet that was louder than any scream. I pulled the phone away from my ear, my hand trembling so violently the sleek, expensive device felt like a live wire, nearly slipping from my sweat-slicked grasp. The screen glowed, innocent and malevolent in the dim hallway light, and a new message notification popped up from an unknown number, the digits a random, untraceable number.
Unknown: You want to know me, right?
The words were a digital taunt, a predator playing with its food, confident in its trap. My heart, now kick-started back into a frantic, galloping rhythm that felt like it would shatter my ribs, pounded a frantic warning. This was real. The demon wasn't just a news story anymore; it wasn't a distant threat. It was texting me. It had my number. It had targeted me, and in doing so, it had found the most effective lever to manipulate me: Allen.
Me: Yes. What have you done to my friend?
I typed back, my thumbs clumsy and shaking, each tap of the cool glass screen feeling like a surrender, an admission that I was now playing its game on its terms. The act of responding made this a dialogue, a transaction with a devil, and I was already at a catastrophic disadvantage.
The reply was came in immediately, as if it had been waiting, poised to strike. A single, laughing emoji. It was so mundane, so horrifically casual, a slice of everyday internet culture wielded like a psychological scalpel. The banality of it made the threat even more sinister. Then, another message followed, the words appearing one by one as if typed by death itself, each one a hammer blow to my composure.
Unknown: You want to get answers to your questions? Meet me at the rooftop.
The rooftop. The words landed like a physical blow to the gut, knocking the air from my lungs in a painful whoosh. My gaze involuntarily shot upwards, as if I could see through the layers of concrete, steel, and elegant drywall to the top of this damned, luxurious hotel. The building was a towering monument to excess; the rooftop was a sheer, windswept platform in the sky, a place for final confrontations, desperate ends, and cinematic suicides. Why there? The symbolism was not lost on me—a place between heaven and earth, a liminal space for a meeting with something not of this world. My mind, scrambling for any rational handhold in this terrifying freefall, latched onto a pathetic, fleeting hope. Was this some twisted, sophisticated prank? A complex glitch in the new phone's AI? But Siri doesn't sound like a legion of the damned speaking in unison. Siri didn't kidnap your friends and takes their phones.
This had to be Spain. It had to be. The logic was a life preserver in the storm. This was another one of his dirty, psychological games, a new low even for him. He was using an advanced voice modulator to prey on my deepest fears, leveraging my love for Allen to manipulate me into a trap, using the media frenzy around this "Entity" as the perfect cover. The thought should have made me angry, a hot, clean rage that could fuel me, but it only curdled in my stomach into a colder, sharper, more personal fear. If it was Spain, then Allen was truly in unimaginable, physical danger. My own brother, my own flesh and blood, had sunk to a new, despicable abyss, orchestrating a terror so complete it felt supernatural.
Another message. The phone vibrated in my hand, a deathwatch beetle's tick, a countdown to an unknown, terrifying doom.
Unknown: I'm waiting for you at the rooftop. Come alone.
The command was absolute, leaving no room for negotiation. "Come alone." This wasn't an invitation; it was a summons from the abyss. A trap with the jaws wide open, and I was being ordered to walk willingly into its maw. Every instinct for self-preservation, every neuron wired for survival, screamed at me not to go. To run in the opposite direction, to find the police, to call for backup, to do anything, anything but walk willingly into the lion's den. But if I didn't, and it wasn't a bluff… if Allen was really there, held by some soulless goon of Spain's on a ledge twelve stories high, his life hanging by a thread because of my inaction… I couldn't take that chance. The guilt would be a poison I could never purge, a shadow that would darken every remaining moment of my life, however short that might be.
Me: Release my best friend. Then I will come.
My attempt at negotiation felt feeble, pathetic, the desperate bargaining of a man with no leverage. I was in no position to make demands, and the entity on the other end knew it. The response was another laughing emoji, a digital slap in the face that conveyed utter contempt, followed immediately by a message that turned my blood to ice water and my bones to jelly.
Unknown: You should hurry. Because your friend is about falling from this 12-stories building.
My mind, trained in a world of facts, figures, and cold, hard, unyielding physics, involuntarily began the grim, horrifying calculation. It was a morbid autopilot I couldn't switch off. Twelve stories. Roughly 120 to 140 feet of sheer, unforgiving altitude. A fall from that height wouldn't be a fall; it would be a brutal, terminal impact with the unyielding laws of the planet. The human body would cease to be a person and become a projectile, a bag of bone and tissue subjected to forces it was never meant to withstand. I saw it in horrifying, clinical detail my brain refused to shut off: the initial, shattering collision, where bones would not just break but disintegrate—the spine severing, the skull fracturing into a mosaic of fragments against the unyielding concrete. The force would liquidify internal organs upon impact. There would be no survival, no recovery, no miracle. It would be an immediate, messy, and utterly final death. The image of Allen, my cheerful, loyal, endlessly worried friend, the guy who laughed too loud and cared too much, being reduced to that… it was a mental image so vile it would haunt me for the rest of my days, a scar on my soul.
My heart didn't just leap; it felt like it tried to escape my throat, leaving a raw, aching void behind. A violent, full-body tremor took hold of me, a palsy of pure fear, my hands shaking so badly I had to clutch the phone in a white-knuckled, two-handed grip just to keep from dropping it. The panic was a living thing now, a separate entity crawling up my throat, bringing with it a bitter taste of copper and dread, constricting my airways until each breath was a ragged, insufficient gasp that didn't reach my lungs.
The final message appeared, a digital death sentence glowing ominously on the pristine screen.
Unknown: You have 30 seconds to get here.
The numbers materialized in my mind's eye, a blazing red digital readout against a field of black: 30... 29... 28... A clock had started in my soul, its ticking syncopated with my frantic, faltering heartbeat, each second a grain of sand falling in the hourglass of Allen's life. The fear was no longer just an emotion; it was a physical atmosphere, thick, heavy, and suffocating, pressing in on me from all sides. The thought of Allen's life, snuffed out because I was too scared, too cautious, too slow to move, was a more terrifying fate than anything that could be waiting for me on the roof. It was this thought, this single, driving, desperate need to protect someone I loved, that finally overrode the paralyzing terror. It was the key that broke the leash on my frozen limbs, the only force strong enough to combat the primal urge to flee.
With a gasp that was half a sob, half a silent prayer to a god I hadn't spoken to in years, I spun away from the staircase and sprinted down the opulent corridor toward the distant bank of elevators, my dress shoes slipping and skidding on the polished marble floor, their slick soles betraying me with every frantic step. I didn't think. I didn't plan a strategy. I didn't consider calling for Wednesday, a thought that flashed and died in the storm of my panic. I just ran, the phantom countdown in my head a relentless, pounding drumbeat pushing me forward, faster, faster, my lungs burning, my legs pumping, toward the unknown, unimaginable horror that waited for me under the open sky, twelve stories above the ground.
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WEDNESDAY'S POV
I sat on the edge of the bed in the silent, opulent room, the echoes of Spencer's cold, calculated words—"Return the Wednesday I know"—still hanging in the air like shards of glass, each one reflecting a piece of my own fractured resolve and magnifying the pain.
I had exhaled deeply, a futile attempt to expel the turmoil, but the tension in my spectral form remained, a coiled spring of misery, determination, and a profound, aching loneliness.
I was trying so hard, with every fiber of my being, to separate myself from him, to build the five-meter wall Hades had decreed, a wall that felt like it was made of thorns and broken glass.
But with every cruel word I spoke and every step of distance I enforced, it felt like I was performing a slow, agonizing amputation on a vital part of my own soul with a blunt, rusty knife.
I was beginning to miss… everything. The easy banter that felt like a thrilling duel of wits, the shared looks that conveyed entire conversations without a single sound, the simple, profound comfort of his living, breathing, warm presence in a room that otherwise felt dead. This room, which had felt like a temporary sanctuary from the world's chaos, now felt like a tomb of my own making, a gilded cage where I was the jailer and the prisoner. I was feeling lost, adrift in a sea of my own impossible choices, the waves of duty and desire crashing over me, and I felt utterly, profoundly, and eternally alone.
I caressed my own hair, a futile, ghostly gesture of self-comfort that offered no solace, my fingers passing through the dark strands without feeling a thing, a bitter reminder of my state. I exhaled again, the sound hollow and empty in the oppressive, expensive stillness. I needed guidance. I needed someone, anyone, to tell me I was doing the right thing, to reinforce the crumbling walls of my determination before they collapsed entirely and buried me in the devastating consequences of my failure. Thinking of Spencer was like being tied by an invisible, unbreakable cord to the leg and being constantly, painfully drawn back into a pit I was desperately trying to climb out of—a pit of warmth, of connection, of light, of a forbidden future that promised a heaven of belonging and a hell of eternal damnation in the same devastating, irresistible breath.
I got up, my form gliding soundlessly, and stretched a translucent hand towards the heavy hotel room door. With a subtle, focused manipulation of my energy, a power that felt cold and sterile, I heard the heavy, mechanical deadbolt slide home with a solid, final thunk and the delicate, brass chain lock rattle into place with a definitive, isolating clink. Sealed in. Trapped with my thoughts, with my guilt, with my desperate, traitorous desire. I needed to face myself. I needed the one confessor I could not lie to, the one entity that knew the deepest, most hidden corners of my spirit.
I phased through the solid bathroom door, the wood and paint offering no more resistance than mist, and stood before the large, ornate mirror. My reflection stared back—pale, dark-haired, eyes full of a tempest I could no longer control or contain. This was my little secret, a dangerous, double-edged fragment of power king Hades had granted me, a direct conduit to my own deepest, most conflicted consciousness. I exhaled slowly, a show of a breath I didn't need, and my reflection did not mimic me. Instead, it uncrossed its arms and leaned forward, its expression shifting from a perfect mirror image to something alive, independent, and terrifyingly knowing, its eyes holding centuries of sorrow and cynicism that I hadn't yet earned.
"What are you going to do now?" it asked, its voice my own, but layered with a cynical, ancient wisdom that I myself lacked, a voice that had seen countless souls make this same impossible choice.
"I don't know," I replied to my own reflection, the admission a painful, shameful surrender that echoed in the tiled room. "I'm confused. I'm... I'm breaking apart. The rules feel like they are crushing me."
I could speak to my reflection. It was more than that; it was my inner mind, my conscience given form and voice. A dangerous, double-edged privilege that was as much a curse as a gift. We could even swap places—I could become the silent, watching conscience trapped in the cold, unforgiving glass, a prisoner in my own mind, and it could walk in my body, that simply means I can become the conscience and the conscience becomes me, experience the world, the touch, the sensations, the thrilling, terrifying life through my senses. But King Hades had warned me, his voice thunderous with cosmic finality, shaking the very foundations of my spirit, never to swap with my inner mind. 'It is fragile and vulnerable to the pleasures and excitements of the flesh,' he had boomed, the very air in his throne room trembling with his decree. 'It may see the good of a single moment in life, feel the warmth of a single touch, and never return to being the conscience, trapping you as a silent, eternal witness within the mirror forever, while a corrupted, sensation-starved version of you wreaks havoc with your form, damning you both.'"
The warning was a brand on my soul, but the temptation was a siren's song.
My reflection opened its palms, a gesture of stark, unbearable duality, presenting me with the two paths that lay before my feet, both leading to a different kind of ruin.
"On one hand," it said, raising its left palm as if holding an invisible, weighty orb, "stands your mission and justice." On this hand, you accomplish your mission. You avenge your murder. You watch the light leave the eyes of those who betrayed you, who cut your life short with their envy and hatred. You go back to the underworld, your vengeance sated, your purpose fulfilled, and you live a normal dead life, your spirit full and satisfied with your earned justice. It is the path of righteousness. The path of rules. The safe path, paved with the cold comfort of duty done."
It then dropped its left palm as if discarding a worthless stone, and raised its right, this time with a slower, more dramatic, almost seductive flourish. "On the other hand," it began, its voice dropping to a conspiratorial, devastating whisper that seemed to suck all the sound from the room, "it's Spencer. No matter how hard you try, no matter how many walls you build or how many cruel words you fashion into weapons, you cannot stop the fact that you love him. Not by a fleeting, human heart, but by your soul. By the very core of what you are, the essence that remains when all else is stripped away." The words were not an observation; they were a verdict, passed down by the judge within me, a truth I could no longer deny. "It is the total, absolute opposite of justice and accomplished satisfaction. It is a demise. A condemnation for the soul that loves him. A divine retribution and rebuke. A forbidden love that spits in the face of the sacred, ancient rules of the underworld. It is not a path; it is a shortcut, a sheer cliff-face leading directly to your doom, but oh, what a beautiful, thrilling fall it would be."
I exhaled again, a ragged, soundless thing, the truth of its words a weight that threatened to dissolve my spectral form into a cloud of pure anguish. It was the total, unvarnished, terrifying reality of my situation, laid bare before me in the cold, honest light of my own conscience.
My reflection then opened both palms wide, a cosmic scale made of memory and desire, holding my entire eternity in its hands, my past and my impossible future balanced on a knife's edge.
"So pick one?" it said, its voice echoing ominously in the small, confining tiled room, the words bouncing off the walls and hammering into my spirit. "The right palm or the left? The mission or the man? The vengeance you've craved for seventeen cold years, or the love that has thawed you in a matter of sunrises? The decision you make today, in this room, before this mirror, will change the course of your entire future, both in life and in death. There is no middle ground. There is no going back. Choose wisely."
To be continued.....