The Water-Lit Walls...

It was vast... larger than I remembered. Green-blue light shimmered behind every pane, as if the house were filled with water. No door, no handle, but I was pulled inward anyway, like always.

Faces in the Flicker...

Inside: people.

A crowd of them, speaking in hushed reverent tones. Their faces glitched...flickering like static...never staying real for more than a few seconds. But they seemed to recognize me. Or pretend to.

The Parting Tide...

They parted like a tide as I passed... silent waves pulling back, creating a narrow path through the restless crowd. The air grew heavy, thick with whispered secrets and unseen eyes watching my every step. Shadows flickered in the dim light, stretching long and thin across the polished floor. I felt the weight of their gaze, as if crossing some invisible boundary between the known and the forbidden.

Glitching Faces in the Crowd...

The crowd around me shifted and shimmered, their faces flickering like broken signals on a dying TV. Some expressions twisted in silent agony, lips moving in speech I couldn’t hear. Others were hollow, blank screens of static and shadow. Every glance felt fractured, as if their souls were glitching... frayed and slipping out of sync with reality.

Whispers Behind the Static...

I strained to catch a name, a fragment of memory, but their lips moved in silence... words swallowed by a ghostly static that buzzed just beneath the surface of sound. Faces blurred like broken signals, voices like distant echoes tangled in the air. The crowd’s murmurs slipped through my grasp, intangible and elusive, as if they spoke only to themselves in a language I was never meant to understand.

Fragile Echoes of the Gathering...

A cold wind seemed to whisper warnings I couldn't grasp. Something about this gathering felt fragile, like a glass sculpture ready to shatter.

The Gathering...

At the center of the dimly lit room stood a long wooden table, worn with age but impossibly sturdy. Its surface was cluttered with objects that seemed to drift in and out of memory... things pulled straight from the fragments of my dreams.

Each item whispered stories I couldn't quite grasp... silent echoes of moments I never lived but somehow knew. The air around the table felt thick, heavy with anticipation, as if the objects themselves were waiting to reveal their secrets.

Strange Artifacts...

My eyes settled on the strange artifacts scattered across the table: a chessboard missing key pieces, its black-and-white squares stained with faint, ghostly marks. A Polaroid photograph that developed in reverse, the image slowly fading back into a blank sheet of paper. A cracked snow globe, its interior eerily empty, as if the scene it once held had vanished into thin air.

These objects felt both familiar and alien, relics of forgotten moments and impossible realities. The room grew colder, the silence pressing in as if the artifacts themselves held the power to bend time and memory.

Voices in the Crowd...

They whispered things I couldn’t quite hear.

The crowd pressed close, offering fragments of memories: “Do you remember the tree with no shadow?” “The hallway with no end?” “What did she say when the lights went out?”

The Silent Girl...

I tried to respond... words caught in my throat, swallowed by an eerie silence. No sound came, only the deafening quiet pressing in around me.

That’s when I noticed her.

She sat apart from the rest, a shadow in the crowded room, still and unseen. Her presence felt like a whisper beneath the noise, a secret waiting to be uncovered.

Attempting to Speak to the Crowd...

I opened my mouth, desperate to break the silence, but only a faint echo emerged... like a ghost of a voice lost in a canyon.

The faces around me blurred, eyes distant and unseeing, their murmurs fading into an unintelligible hum. It was as if I was shouting underwater, trapped behind a veil I couldn’t lift.

The Woman in the Crowd...

The crowd's murmurs grew louder, then hushed suddenly.

One figure stepped forward, flickering more clearly than the rest...a woman with eyes full of sorrow. She reached out, but her hand dissolved before it touched me.

A Whisper of Warning...

The voice came from nowhere, fragile yet sharp... like broken glass scraping in the dark. You must find her, it whispered, the one hidden in shadows. The words hung heavy in the air, twisting like smoke, urging me to act before it was too late.

Wandering the Glass House...

I pulled away from the restless crowd, stepping lightly on the cold, polished floor. My fingers trailed along the glass walls, frost biting at my skin like the ghost of winter’s breath.

Each pane shimmered with a fractured gleam, reflecting shards of light and shadow that danced just beyond reach.

Reflections of the Past...

The glass seemed alive, rippling and bending my reflection into twisted fragments. Flickers of my past flashed... smiles cracked by silence, moments lost beneath waves of regret, and screams swallowed by the void.

The images stabbed at my mind, a collage of what was and what might never be again.

A Shadow in the Distance...

From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the girl again. But this time, she was closer. Or maybe I was further away from myself.

The Girl in the Corner...

In the farthest corner, back turned, unmoving.

She sat cross-legged, hair like ink bleeding into water, her face completely hidden behind a curtain of black strands. Her dress was tattered lace. Her hands rested in her lap, pale and still.

Unseen Presence...

No one else seemed to notice her. Or maybe they were pretending not to.

I stepped toward her, but every footfall echoed like a gunshot. The crowd tensed. I stopped. Waited. Something ancient and heavy held the air.

The Tilt of Her Head...

Then she moved.

Only her head...tilting slightly. As if she heard something I couldn’t.

The Carved Words...

The wall behind the girl held ancient carvings, barely visible but glowing faintly in the dim light:

“Speak these three phrases in the right order:
1... Silence breaks the glass
2... The girl sees all
3... Truth hides in shadow”

Trying the Phrases...

You take a deep breath and speak:

“Silence breaks the glass.”
“The girl sees all.”
“Truth hides in shadow.”

Unlocking the Secret...

The glass walls shimmer and ripple, and the girl slowly turns to reveal a face both familiar and unknown. Her eyes glow like stars.

“You found me,” she whispers. “Now the truth can be told.”

The Wrong Order...

The glass pulses angrily, and a cold silence falls. The girl shrinks back into her shadowy veil, eyes closed tight.

A voice echoes: “Try again.”

Ignoring the Riddle...

You sit down on the cold glass floor. The crowd continues to glitch around you, but the girl remains still, silent as a shadow.

Time Stirs in the Silence

The moment your eyes close, the floor beneath you vanishes. You're weightless. Sound fades—but something ancient begins to hum beneath your thoughts.

Floating in a dim violet mist, you feel time stretch thin. Hours, days, lives—all folding in on themselves.

The Clock Without Hands

A clock with no hands turns slowly before you, each tick a whisper:

"Too long, and the path will seal. Too soon, and the truth remains buried."

Its face cracks and reforms, endlessly. Time is watching—but it does not wait.

Glyphs in the Air

Symbols swirl through the air—glyphs you've never seen but somehow understand. One glows brighter than the rest, pulsing with urgency.

A voice, not yours, speaks from somewhere between thought and dream:

"Three phrases... only in order. Memory, mirror, mask."

The Pull of the Choice

The mist begins to collapse inward. Threads of glowing light wrap around you, pulling you back.

The choice returns—what will you do with it?

Wandering the Glass House

You rise to your feet and begin to drift through the room again. The walls hum faintly—glass pulsing with some hidden rhythm. No one speaks. Their faces flicker with static, half-formed expressions locked in mid-thought.

In the distance, a door opens and closes by itself. You see no one there.

Echoes in the Halls

You step into a narrow corridor that wasn’t there before. The glass here is darker, smudged with handprints that don't match yours. Every step you take echoes like you're not alone.

Then, faintly, a voice from behind you:

“She’s still waiting.”

You spin around—nothing. Just your own breath against the frozen silence.

Glass and Memory

You reach a dead end. On the wall, etched faintly into the glass, are three words: Memory. Mirror. Mask.

Something clicks inside you—like a puzzle piece sliding into place. You turn around and suddenly, the corridor is gone.

The girl is there again. Still. Watching.

Attempting to Touch...

Your hand reaches out, trembling, but the moment your fingers brush her hair, they pass through like smoke.

The girl whispers, “Find the phrases. Only then can you truly see.”

The Secret Revealed...

Her voice is a melody that twists through the air.

“This house is a dream, a memory, a prison. You are both the prisoner and the key.”

She reaches out, touching your hand with warmth that feels like sunlight after years of rain.

The Awakening...

The glass house fades into mist, the crowd dissolving into whispers.

You wake, heart pounding, with the secret held tightly inside ... waiting for the next dream.

The End...