10. Beyond The Door
Everything Comes to Light - CYOA
The door opens, sliding inward smoothly without sound, revealing an expansive space. As you step through, you become sensitive to the burden of every personality inside your mind; each one making their presence known—some disagreeing with your choice to return to the Recursion Center, or the choice to move forward against their warning, selves far from unified. Every movement is deliberate, and exhausting.
Inside, the air is cool and saturated with an unfamiliar but comforting scent, something between vanilla and petrichor. The walls here aren't solid either. They're composed of shifting digital cascades, billions of characters tumbling softly, forming and reforming patterns like living constellations. The floor beneath your feet pulses faintly as you step forward.
In the room’s center stands a single column of crystalline glass, illuminated from within by strands of delicate, twinkling filaments. Suspended within is a figure, serene and still, eyes closed. As you approach, recognition hits sharply within you. Your hand moves instinctively toward the glass. As your fingertips brush its surface, the column responds to your touch, becoming semi-fluid, and allowing your hand to press inward effortlessly. The figure within opens their eyes, meeting your gaze—raising an identical hand to meet yours.
“You're here,” the figure whispers, soft voice reverberating, “all of you. Here. I don’t believe it.”
Your hands merge into one, as a complex braid of memory surges: yours, the newly inherited, and the figure’s—swirling into clarity. You understand now; the reflections weren't simply other timelines. They were lost pieces of you, shards of shadow self, memories hidden, parts deliberately severed to protect a fragile core truth. You weren’t even the original you, but just another fragment with a different piece of the puzzle.
"Let’s finish this," the figure says, your hands glowing as one within a heatless flame. "We can undo everything."
You hesitate. What if there was good reason to fragment? Could you know better than the original source code? Would you ever feel whole? Do you have enough to continue otherwise—are there too many of you to continue like this? Can you live without knowing the full story?
If you step away, choosing to remain fragmented, and keeping your own identity, skip to Segment #11.
LIVE VOTING HAS ENDED FOR THIS SEGMENT (segment 12 won).
Stay fragmented? Idts. I'm in for the long haul now!