SpoilerWarning - this chapter is not part of the main story it’s just a te Halloween chapter I couldn’t finish then. It contains little spoilers for future chapters here and there if you look hard enough but that’s all.

  [colpse]

  The cell around me grew hazy, the stone walls fading into mist as I drifted, half-asleep, half-lost. Shadows began to stretch and twist, taking on shapes I could almost recognize, like memories trying to cw their way back into my mind. A chill crept into the air, pricking my skin, filling the space with the scent of autumn—crisp leaves, cold earth, and the faint, sweet smell of candle smoke.

  When the mist cleared, I found myself somewhere else entirely.

  A vilge spread out before me, nestled beneath a darkened sky, with nterns casting warm, flickering light onto cobblestone streets. Familiar somehow, as if it were a pce I’d known in another life. The houses were old, their roofs steep and their windows glowing softly. But it wasn’t an ordinary night here. No, it was a night of magic and mystery, a night where even the shadows seemed to watch with silent, waiting eyes.

  The air was thick.

  I walked slowly, my footsteps echoing against the stone, passing by doorways draped in twisting vines and dried corn husks. Jack-o’-nterns grinned from every doorstep, their faces twisted into expressions both mischievous and menacing, the flicker of candlelight within casting an eerie glow. As I moved closer, I saw one carved with a crooked smile, another with hollow eyes that seemed to follow me.

  A sudden, distant ughter broke the quiet, a sound that echoed through the narrow streets, and I felt a pang of something I couldn’t name nostalgia, maybe, or longing.

  It was the ughter of children.

  Turning down another street, I saw shadows dart past, little figures with capes and masks, their voices like echoes from a memory. I could almost imagine them children dressed in makeshift costumes, clutching woven baskets for treats, their eyes wide with excitement. For a moment, I felt an ache deep inside, a memory that I couldn’t quite grasp. A wish for a simpler time, a time when maybe… I was just a child.

  The nterns flickered, their warm light casting twisted shadows along the walls, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched.

  “You seem to be enjoying yourself,” came a voice, smooth and familiar, cutting through the quiet.

  I turned, and there she was. Baloria.

  She stood beneath the light of a swaying ntern, her crimson eyes gleaming, her form almost ethereal. There was something different about her tonight, something that made her seem… otherworldly, like a specter in the night. Her dark hair flowed down her shoulders, blending with the shadows, and her smile was sharper, edged with a strange amusement.

  “This pce… it doesn’t suit you,” she said, taking a slow, deliberate step toward me, her gaze sweeping over the ntern-lit vilge. “So quaint. So full of life.”

  I kept my eyes on her, uncertain of her intentions, as always. “It feels… familiar,” I murmured, gncing back at the houses, the decorations, the silent shadows that seemed to shift and dance at the edges of my vision. “Like somewhere I once knew.”

  Baloria’s gaze followed mine, her lips curving into a smirk. “Humans and their fondness for illusions. Dressing up, hiding behind masks… as if they can forget who they really are.” She tilted her head, her eyes gleaming. “Do you feel safer here, Sam? Protected by these… silly customs?”

  I looked away, the ache in my chest growing. “Maybe… maybe it’s not about feeling safe. Maybe it’s just about… forgetting. Just for a little while.”

  Baloria ughed softly, a sound that was more chill than warmth. “Forgetting,” she repeated, a hint of mockery in her voice. “As if forgetting will change anything. No matter what mask you wear, no matter what you hide behind… you are still you, little one. You can’t escape that.”

  I swallowed, her words cutting deeper than I wanted to admit. “Maybe not. But it doesn’t mean I can’t pretend.”

  “Pretend all you like,” she said, her gaze softening slightly, though her smile held that same, sharp edge. “In the end, pretending is just another way of lying to yourself.”

  I shivered, her words a cold reminder that even here, in this strange, dream-like pce, I couldn’t escape reality. But before I could respond, something caught my eye a glimmer of movement, a reflection. I turned to find myself facing an old, weathered mirror propped against the side of a house, its surface rippling with an unnatural sheen.

  The person staring back at me wasn’t who I expected.

  I saw myself, but not as I was now. Instead, I saw different versions of me, yered one on top of the other like the shifting faces of a mask. There was the young child from my old life, small and bruised, eyes wide with a fear I remembered too well. Beside him was the broken figure I’d become after the experiments started, my skin pale, my body warped by injections and pain.

  And then… I saw something else.

  A girl stared back at me from the mirror, her hair silver and her eyes hollow, haunted. My own face, but different softened, more fragile, more… beautiful. Her expression was bnk, emotionless, yet there was something about her that seemed… sad. As if she, too, was trapped, just as I was.

  I reached out, my fingers brushing against the gss, and the reflections wavered, each face shifting and merging, taunting me with the pieces of who I had been and who I was becoming.

  “Do you like what you see?” Baloria’s voice was close now, and I felt her hand on my shoulder, her touch cold. “Is this who you are? Or are you still clinging to that old, broken version of yourself?”

  I didn’t answer, my throat tight as I stared at the shifting reflections. Each face felt like a reminder of everything I’d lost, every part of myself I was forced to shed just to survive.

  “Are you afraid of what you’re becoming?” Baloria’s voice was soft, almost gentle, but there was a flicker of satisfaction in her eyes. “Afraid that you’re finally losing the parts of yourself you tried so hard to keep?”

  I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe, steadying the anger, the sadness that churned inside me. “No… It’s not about what I’m becoming,” I murmured, opening my eyes to meet her gaze in the mirror. “It’s about what was taken from me. I don’t have a choice in any of this.”

  Her ughter was soft, hollow. “You never did, Sam. But choices are illusions for people like you. For all your struggles, all your dreams of freedom, you still end up here… every time.”

  Her words cwed at my chest, and as I looked into the reflection of that pale, silver-haired girl, I felt a sense of despair, like drowning in a memory I couldn’t escape. Baloria’s fingers brushed my hair, tracing the silver strands.

  “Remember tonight,” she murmured, her voice a mix of taunt and tenderness. “Remember this glimpse of your past and your possible future. You can wear all the masks you want, but they won’t change what’s inside.”

  She paused, looking over the vilge, the jack-o’-nterns flickering with an eerie glow in the dark. “And, Sam? Enjoy these fleeting moments. After all, every mask must come off eventually.”

  I didn’t respond. Instead, I stared at the shifting reflections in the mirror, the faces I had worn, and the person I was slowly becoming, feeling the weight of Baloria’s words settle in my chest like a stone.

  The mist began to creep back in, swallowing the mirror, the vilge, and the flickering lights until I was once again in the cold darkness of my cell. Baloria was gone, and I was left alone, staring at the shadowed walls, my mind tangled in questions I wasn’t sure I’d ever have answers to.

  Queen