The shadow didn't advance.
It hovered.
A writhing mass of black static, suspended just above the floor, as though waiting for permission to exist.
Jonas stared into it, unblinking.
It wasn't fear anymore.
It was recognition.
Mara whispered behind him, "It's not moving."
"It doesn't have to," Jonas said quietly. "It's already in."
The mass shifted not forward, but inward, folding itself into a vaguely human outline. Shoulders. Head. No face, only the suggestion of where one should be.
A figure made from negative space.
Jonas stepped forward. "You remember me."
It tilted its head.
Like a dog hearing a name it wasn't sure was its own.
Then, it spoke.
Not aloud. Not even telepathically.
But directly into Jonas's memory.
A voice made of regret.
"You fed me your sorrow. You fed me your guilt. You said: Take what I can't hold."
Jonas's body stiffened. He hadn't heard that voice in two years.
Not since the collapse.
Not since the lab burned and everyone inside had become wrong.
"I was trying to stop the loop," he said. "Trying to save...."
"You gave me shape."
The shadow surged, just slightly, as if its confidence had returned.
"You wore me like a mask. You called me a cure. But I am the wound."
Jonas staggered back, breath shallow.
Mara grabbed his hand. "It's growing stronger the more you talk to it."
"I have to know what it wants."
But even as he said it, he already knew.
Because Eris didn't want to feed.
Eris wanted to be remembered.
The Gate wasn't a weapon or a key.
It was a mirror. One that had seen the darkest parts of Jonas and chose to become them.
Suddenly, from the upper corridor, a new sound broke the tension:
A metallic clang.
Followed by footsteps.
Mara froze. "Jonas… there's someone else here."
He turned. "That's impossible. The lockdown "
CLANG.
Closer now.
Jonas's mind raced. "Backup? A recovery team?"
"No," Mara said, eyes wide. "I locked the perimeter. Nobody could get in."
They both looked toward the stairs swallowed by shadow.
Then back to the hallway behind them.
And from the dark emerged a silhouette — not of smoke, not of shadow…
But of a man.
He looked just like Jonas.
Down to the scar beneath the left eye.
Same build. Same face.
But the eyes…
Empty.
Jonas whispered, "What the hell…"
The doppelgänger stepped forward, silent.
Then it spoke with his voice:
"You gave me everything, Jonas. I'm just here to return it."
And behind him, dozens more shadows began forming shapes.
Not monsters.
Not creatures.
Copies.
All of them Jonas.