Burning Beneath

I knew everything. Until I didn’t.

In this place, it’s gone—all of it. The sharp calculations, the quiet strategies, the constant hum of solutions lining up in my mind. Silence.

I stand here, stripped bare. No brilliance to shield me, no carefully crafted plans to guide me. Just me. Breathing. Blinking.

Instinct.

A door looms ahead, tall and ancient, carved with symbols I can’t decode. I should know what they mean, but the knowledge flickers just out of reach, like a word on the tip of my tongue. For the first time, there’s no analysis, no logic to lean on.

Only the pounding of my heart.

Do I go forward or turn back? But turn back to what?

Something stirs behind the door—a sound, soft but real. My mind scrambles for answers, but there’s nothing. Just the pull in my gut, the whisper of instinct telling me to move.

This is the challenge:
Who am I without my mind?

I was always afraid to lose control, but now that control is gone. And yet, part of me wonders…
Was control ever real?

So I reach for the door.

And I don’t know if I’m stepping into freedom or falling into something far worse.

But I move anyway.

Her hand hovers inches from the cold surface of the door. The carvings seem to shift under the flicker of dim light, as though alive—breathing, waiting.

Her breath catches.

A voice rises inside her, faint but familiar. Don’t.

But another, deeper voice, the one that doesn’t speak in words, only feeling, pushes forward. Go.

Her fingertips graze the wood.

It’s warm.

The door doesn’t creak or groan—it simply opens.

Darkness swallows her. But it isn’t empty.

There’s movement.

Shapes crawl in the corners of her vision, slithering, watching. She wants to name them, define them, but her mind is blank. There are no labels here. No categories to soften fear.

Her instincts scream: Move.

She runs.

But the ground shifts beneath her feet—no, it’s not ground at all. It’s soft, unstable, like fabric stretched thin over something hollow. Each step feels like it could break through, but standing still isn’t an option.

Ahead, a faint light flickers. Not warm, but cold, pulsing.

She stumbles toward it.

The air thickens, heavier with every breath. Whispers coil around her, voices without mouths. Do you know what you are without it?

She clamps her hands over her ears. It doesn’t help.

The light grows.

It isn’t a beacon. It’s a mirror.

Cracked.

She stares at herself—fractured, distorted. Each shard reflects a different version of her: Sam as she was, as she pretended to be, as she fears she might become.

But one shard stands out.

It shows her as she is now—bare, raw, trembling but still standing.

No mind to sharpen. No mask to wear.

Just instinct.

She reaches toward that shard, and the glass ripples under her touch like water.

A hand reaches back.

Not hers.

And suddenly, the ground gives way.