Yuan crossed the door cautiously, his eyes sing every er of the Pavilion with nervous anticipatio, he saw nothing only a vast, endless darkness stretg before him.
As he walked forward, a sudden bang echoed behind him. He flinched, whipping around, only to see that the door had shut tight.
For a moment, shock paralyzed him.
Then,another ge.
The once imperable darkness began to fade as nterns flickered to life, their pale fmes illuminating the vast space. As the glow spread, the true nature of the corridor was revealed.
A long, dark hallway stretched before him, its walls lined with hundreds of stoablets, eagraved with strange symbols he had never seen before. At the far end of the corridor, a staircase asded, disappearing into the shadows above.
Without any other choice, Yuan stepped forward, his cautious footsteps eg through the silent hall.
His eyes wandered restlessly, sing his surroundings with deep wariness. He had seen what happeo those who failed the trials,the statues at the ke were proof of that. Whatever this pce was, he would not let himself bee one of them.
The nterns, flickering with a strange purple fire, cast eerie shadows along the walls. Yuan reized these fmes,they were the same as the ones in the dining room.
Theiced something else.
A weak wind brushed against his skin, barely noticeable, yet present. If there was wind, then perhaps there ening ahead? Maybe a window or a?
Or maybe... something else.
But that didn't matter right now. He would see for himself soon enough.
And so, he walked on, without any care for how much time had passed.
After what felt like ay, the corridor stretched on without end.
Then, a faint whisper brushed against his ears.
Yuan stopped in his tracks. His eyes darted around, but the hallway was empty.
Was it just his mind pying tricks on him?
Shaking his head, he tinued forward, dismissing the sound as a product of exhaustion.
Yet, the whispers did not fade.
Instead, they grew clearer.
The voices were calling names,tless names.
Yuan frowned, shaking his head again. "It's nothing. I'm just imagining things." He told himself firmly. After all, he could see his surroundings clearly. There was no illusion this time.
Right?
Still, the deeper he walked, the more persistent the whispers became.
And then,he saw it.
Among the tless indecipherable symbols ooablets, one caught his eye.
A name.
A name he reized.
His breath caught in his throat.
"Elliot."
The moment he whispered it aloud, something ged.
The corridor around him shifted, the air growing strangely heavy. His mind—his very thoughts—began to blur.
Memories surfaced.
Elliot.
A man from his vilge. A kind soul who had cared for both the young and the old. The one who had taught Yuan how to read and write, introdug him to the a nguage. Though Yuan had only learned a few words, he had always found it fasating.
He hadn't thought about Elliot in years.
Why was he remembering this now?
Then
A voice.
Low. Hoarse. Cold.
It spoke the name again.
"Elliot."
Yuan froze.
His heart pounded violently in his chest.
He looked around frantically, but there was no ohere. Only the endless, dark corridor.
Yet, he could feel it.
Something was watg him.
Something roag.
Every nerve in his body screamed at him not to look back.
Run.
The thought crashed through his mind, raw and desperate.
And without hesitation, he ran.
Yuan's small legs moved on instinct, pushing forward without care for exhaustion or caution. He did not dare stop.
But something was wrong.
His body was ging.
His fingernails,they were… shifting.
Yet, in his blind panic, he didn't notice.
The whispers, once faint and distant, now surrounded him, calling more names,endless, tless names.
Eae weighed on his mind, sinking into his thoughts, erasing something else iurn.
His body blurred.
His memories twisted.
He couldn't remember why he was running.
He couldn't remember who he was.
The corridor around him darkened into nothingness.
And then
A soft, gray light shone above him.
When Yuan opened his eyes, he was no longer in the corridor.
Instead
He stood in a vilge.
A strange vilge he did nnize.
Beside him, a young boy sat on a wooden chair, reading a book. He had shining green eyes and blond hair, his expression shy but curious.
The boy looked up at him.
"Excuse me, but… who are you? I've never seen you before."
He opened his mouth to respond.
"Oh, yes. My name is… I am…"
He paused.
His mi bnk.
His stomach dropped.
"Who am I?"
The boy's expression turned ed. "You don't know who you are? Are you okay? I call the vilge doctor."
He felt a surge of a the suggestion. "What nonsense. Of course, I know who I am! I just… fot. That's all."
The boy blinked in fusion, then smiled smugly. "That's funny. I know who I am."
He straightened his bad announced proudly, "My name is Alucard! My mother is the homeroom teacher for teenagers, and my father is the vilge historian!"
He felt irritation rise in his chest. "Tch. Whatever. I'm leaving."
But as he walked, every person he passed asked him the same question.
"Who are you?"
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until the words began to break him.
His memories blurred further. He remembered his mother,but then she was gone. He remembered his father,but then he never existed.
Nothing made sense.
Desperate, he ran into an old, broken pavilion, colpsing against its walls, staring bnkly at the ceiling.
"Who am I? Why 't I remember?"
His thoughts began to colpse.
Then
A voice.
A cold, knowing voice.
"Did you fet who you are, child?"
His eyes widened. He turo see an old man standing in the doorway, his dark green eyes eerily simir to the boy from earlier.
The old man chuckled. "Then you don't want to remember? That's fine as well. Goodbye."
Panic surged through Yuan. "No, wait! Old man,tell me how to remember!"
Hearing this, the old man's face twisted into a knowing smile. He raised a hand and poio the side.
Yuan followed his gesture, and his breath caught.
A dark hallway stretched before him, lined with hundreds of t doors and stoablets, their surfaces inscribed with symbols he couldn't reize. A few purple fmes flickered weakly, illuminating the room with an eerie glow.
Yuan's body tensed.
This wasn't here before.
When he had arrived, there had been no hallway, no doors, no glowing fmes.
His mind reeled. Had he simply not noticed? Or had the world around him shifted the moment he spoke to the old man?
But before he could think further,his thoughts vanished.
The moment the doubt surfaced, it was erased,as if something had reached into his mind and plucked it away.
A chill crawled down his spine.
The old man's cold ughter echoed through the room, breaking the heavy silence.
"Walk this hallway and follow the voices," the old man said, his toh mog and ominous. "They will guide you to one of the doors. And that door will tell you who you really are."
With that, the old man vanished, as if he had never been there in the first pce.
But Yuan couldn't care less. His mind was now fully ed by ohing.
Finding out who he was.
He turoward the hallway, taking in the sight of the endless doors before him.
Then, the wind stirred.
A whisper brushed past his ear.
"e inside, child. You belong here."
Yuan's body stiffened.
A strange warmth filled his chest, and his vision blurred for a brief moment. The voice was so soft, so gentle,like a mother calling her child home.
Without realizing it, his feet moved forward.
His eyes dulled.
Oep. Then another.
Slowly, he began tet.
His father,fotten.His mother's death,fotten.The neighb children he once pyed with,fotten.Where he came from,fotten.Why he came,fotten.
Step by step, the memories slipped away, dissolving like mist.
Yet, amid the overwhelming pull of the voice, another whisper cut through.
This one was different.
Sharp. Urgent. Filled with crity.
"Don't go! Don't go, or you will die!"
The words flickered across his fading mind,but they were faint, like a distant echo.
Too soft. Too weak.
He fot them instantly.
Again, he heard the gentle voice calling him forward.
"e inside, child. You belong here."
His pace quied.
The hallway seemed endless, but his feet carried him effortlessly. Before him, one dlowed faintly, its wooden surface covered in blurred symbols he couldn't reize.
His hand lifted.
Just a few more steps, and he would reach it.
He would know who he was.
He would
"That's what the st guy said before he fot himself."
The voice cut through his mind like a bde, cold, hollow, and filled with cruel amusement.
Yuan froze mid step.
His body tensed, an uneasy chill creeping up his spine.
Who… who had spoken?
His mind wavered, torween the gentle, inviting whisper leading him forward and the sharp, urgent warning pulling him back.
Who was telling the truth?
The old man had said to follow the voices, to listen to the call of the door to find himself.
Ahis other voice, the ohat now echoed in the back of his mind, was telling him the exact opposite.
A sharp breath left his lips.
He didn't know who to trust.
His gaze flickered between the glowing door ahead and the darkness behind him.
His thoughts blurred, his own name slipping further away.
"Who am I?"
The question came unbidden, unfamiliar, as if spoken by someone else.
"Where am I?"
His vision swayed.
"Why am I here?"
The more he questiohe clearer his mind became,but with crity came pain.
Pain.
A sharp, splitting headache shot through his skull.
Yuan staggered, clutg his head as a dull, throbbing ache pulsed inside his mind.
The pain was so intense, so unbearable, that it shattered the haze clouding his thoughts.
And suddenly
He remembered.
His eyes snapped open, wide with realization.
The Mansion of tless Tombs.His grandfather's death.His escape into the Ghost Forest.His illness.
The gentle voice was a lie.
This pce,these doors,they weren't meant to help him remember.
They were meant to make him fet.
His eyes widened in shock.
Memories crashed back like a flood, overwhelming his senses.
Yes. That's why he came here.
To get rid of this terrible headache.
And then, more memories rushed in.
His father.His mother.Elliot, teag him to read.The children in his vilge.His grandfather's tless stories.His illness.His grandfather's death.His escape into the Ghost Forest.
And finally
The Mansion of tless Tombs.
Everything clicked into pce.
The voice calling him forward was a lie.
His body trembled, his breath ragged. His fingers curled into tight fists as he turned his gaze to the glowing door before him.
This was a trap.
A beautiful, honey-ced trap meant to erase him.
His lips curled into a small, defiant smirk.
He raised his head, his voice calm, clear, and unwavering.
"I reject this door."
His heart pounded in his chest, but his words carried unshakable resolve.
"I already know who I am."
His firembled, but his voice did not falter.
"I am Yuan."
His chest tightened, but his determination burned brighter than ever.
"I traveled to the Mansion of tless Tombs to search for a cure for my illness. I have nearly lost myself in these illusions"
He exhaled sharply, his vision clear.
"But I have woken up from this hopeless dream."
He lifted his hand
And shattered the illusion.
A loud crack echoed through the air.
The hallway began to break apart,not like a colpsing structure, but like shattered gss, crumbling into pieces that dissolved into the void.
The tless doors colpsed, returning to hundreds of stoablets.
The voices,those whispers that once called to him,let out a final, wretched wail before fading into silence.
The illusion was gone.
Yuan exhaled slowly, his body still shaking from the near loss of himself.
He turned his gaze toward the stairs ahead.
Oep at a time, he asded calmly, his footsteps silent against the stone.
When Yuan reached the sed floor, he saw no hallway, no doors, no illusions.
Instead
A figure floated in the air before him.
It had two arms, a torso, and a head, resembling a human, but its form was not of flesh.
Its body flickered like a pale blue fme, shifting and flowing, as though it barely held onto the shape of a man.
It wore a fine azure robe, embroidered with bd yelloatterns, flowing as if moved by a wind Yuan could not feel.
Yuan stared at the strange being in silence.
Then, the ghost opes eyes and the sharp, clear voice that had saved him spoke once more.
A small smirk tugged at the ghost's lips.
"You almost lost yourself there. I just saved your life. You're wele."
