The first question ca.
"Speak, O Wanderer. What is the vow you will never break?"
The voice echoed like a mory carved into my bones.
My breath got stuck as I stared up at the guardian.
His hollow sockets burned dim with silver-blue light, flickering like dying stars.
"What kind of question is that?" I asked, half to stall him, half to think of the answer.
The silence that followed wasn't still.
It watched.
The first vow.
Sothing I would never break.
This wasn't so magical multiple-choice test.
This was a trial; one wrong answer and I would be dead.
My mind went through a lot of options.
Promises I had made. Lies I had lived with. Oaths I had never voiced aloud.
There were a lot of things I could say.
"I won't betray my friends."
"I won't give up."
"I won't kneel to this world's rules."
But they would all be lies.
Because I could betray.
I had before.
I could give up if it ant winning differently.
And I had already pretended to kneel plenty of tis.
"hah..."
I exhaled softly.
There was only one vow I had kept since the beginning.
Since Earth.
Since the streets.
Since the hunger.
Since the novel that dragged here.
"...I will never forget who I was."
The words ca quietly, but they felt like a blade being drawn.
Slow, cold, and honest.
"I'll lie. I'll manipulate. I'll beco the villain if I have to. But I won't forget the kid who read this world in a flickering corner of a back alley in a cardboard box.
I won't forget why I started.
Who I used to be."
The guardian didn't move. Not at first. Then—
Clink. Clink. Clink.
One of the chains hanging from its ribs snapped and unraveled, dissolving into the stone floor.
"Accepted."
The word struck like a gong in my chest. A pulsing tremor echoed through the temple.
The shadows that watched from the pillars pulled back, just a little.
The guardian's head tilted, and the altar beside him opened, giving way to another downward corridor.
The path led downward again, but this ti... it wasn't stone beneath my feet.
It was sothing else.
Sothing soft.
It gave in slightly with every step, like I was walking across a vein pulsing beneath the world's skin.
The second chamber waited in silence.
A room shaped like an hourglass. No doors. No windows. No exits.
Just one thing.
A massive clock, hanging upside down above .
Its hands ticked backward.
There was no ticking sound, no gears turning.
But still, every second felt stolen. Like the world forgot how ti was supposed to work in this place.
And then, like the breath before a scream, the voice returned.
"What will you surrender to protect that vow?"
I froze.
The vow I had made echoed back in my mind:
I will never forget who I was.
That was mine. Untouchable.
'What will I do to protect it?'
I thought.
It was the one truth I wouldn't trade away.
But the temple wasn't asking for mories this ti.
It wanted control.
I knew it already. Could feel the weight of the question settling in my bones.
"What do you an by surrender?" I asked, voice dry.
The clock didn't answer.
Neither did the voice.
I stood alone, trying to steady my thoughts, but they wouldn't line up.
My mind kept drifting toward the impossible.
Toward fear.
What was I willing to give up to protect my identity?
Ti?
Sanity?
My future?
None were equal to my identity.
That wouldn't be enough.
Not here.
"...Fine," I finally said. "I surrender control."
The words left my lips before I could pull them back.
But it wasn't enough.
Not yet.
"I give up one hour of each day. A full hour, chosen at random. And during that ti..."
I hesitated.
I didn't want to say it.
But I had to.
"...I won't rember anything."
Silence fell.
I could feel the temple listening.
"I won't be aware. I won't be conscious. I won't know what I did, who I beca, or why. I'll vanish and sothing else will take my place."
I gritted my teeth.
"Even if it kills . Even if it ruins everything, I won't know. And I won't stop it."
The air changed.
Behind , the door I had co through vanished. Swallowed into the walls.
Then—
CLANG.
The great clock shattered above , bursting into a thousand pieces of black glass.
Ti didn't stop.
It warped.
I dropped to one knee as the floor rippled beneath , like reality itself was rearranging.
Blood began to seep through the hourglass floor, curling around my boots—cold, thick, silent.
No sound followed.
Not even footsteps.
I looked down.
My feet made no prints.
No echoes.
As if I had already stopped existing in so way.
The voice returned.
Not from above. Not around .
Inside .
"Surrender accepted. The hour is no longer yours."
Then the second chain snapped. I didn't hear it, I felt it.
Like sothing uncoiling in my spine.
I blinked...
And the chamber was gone.
A new path stretched ahead, deeper, darker than before.
And sowhere, far ahead or far below, the third question was waiting.
But in the back of my mind, a truth pulsed like a poison:
'I will not rember what happens in that hour. I will not rember what I beco.'
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