There was no transition this time.
One moment, they stood on the saltless flats beneath the fractured sky.
The next, they were inside a room with no doors, no windows, and no shadows.
Just—sound.
At first, it was static.
Then whispers.
Then a chorus.
Thousands of voices humming, chanting, screaming, laughing—all at once, overlapping, echoing phrases none of them understood and all of them felt.
Dee stumbled, clutching his ears. "Make it stop—"
But there was no source.
No direction.
Just sound—pouring from the seams of themselves.
Vampher knelt, hands splayed against the unseen floor. "It's language," he murmured. "But not spoken. It's remembered."
"Memories?" Hiro asked, looking around, blade drawn and useless.
"No," Dee said slowly. "Worse. It's us."
A silence slammed into the space like a fist.
And then—they arrived.
Three figures stepped into view.
Not summoned. Not conjured.
Simply there.
Each was them—Dee, Vampher, Hiro—but younger. Sharper. Louder.
Angrier.
"You took too long," the other-Dee said coldly.
"Typical," the other-Vampher muttered.
"You're not supposed to be here," the other-Hiro whispered.
Real Hiro narrowed his eyes. "Let me guess. Echoes?"
"No," his echo said. "We're what you left behind."
A tremor ran through the room.
Walls bent into blades of light, forming a battlefield of memory. Flags half-torn, names half-forgotten, regrets half-buried.
And at the center stood a platform.
On it: three shards of obsidian, each floating above a pedestal. Each pulsing with a distinct rhythm.
Regret. Choice. Pain.
"The Fifth Lock," Dee said, exhaling.
The echoes nodded.
"Not a guardian," they said in unison. "A reckoning."
"One of you must break your shard," the other-Dee said. "But only the one you've never forgiven."
"And if none of us do?" Vampher asked.
"You stay here," his echo replied, "until the sound becomes silence. And silence becomes you."
They stepped forward.
Dee's shard: burning red. A promise he failed to keep—to protect someone he loved, but failed.
Vampher's: deep blue. A life he took in cold logic—for a kingdom that abandoned him.
Hiro's: pale grey. A face fading from memory—someone he left behind to survive.
None of them spoke for a long while.
Then Dee, quietly: "What if I don't want to let go?"
"Then you never leave," said the echo.
"But you don't have to forget," Vampher added gently. "You just have to face it."
Dee reached for his shard.
It burned his fingers.
He winced. Hesitated.
Then—shattered it.
It screamed, not in pain—but in release.
The battlefield shifted.
Now only two shards remained.
Vampher stepped forward.
"I still think I was right," he said. "But I carry it anyway."
His echo nodded. "That's all we ever wanted."
He raised a hand.
Crack.
Feathers, black and heavy, fell.
And vanished.
Hiro looked at his shard.
Didn't move.
"I can't even remember her name," he said.
"That's the lock," Dee murmured. "That's why it's still here."
Hiro stared at the shard.
Closed his eyes.
Whispered: "I'm sorry."
And let it fall.
It shattered with no sound.
And the room exhaled.
Their echoes smiled.
Then faded.
And with them—the fifth lock unwound.
Not exploded. Not broken.
Just… let go.
A ripple passed through the air.
And in its wake—
A door appeared.
Wooden. Familiar. Etched with a crooked sun and a blade.
Not the final door.
But close.
Five down.
Two to go.
"Still breathing?" Hiro asked, voice shaky.
"Barely," Dee muttered, wiping his eyes. "That one hurt."
Vampher didn't speak.
He just reached out and opened the door.
They stepped through into a field of mirrors.
Each mirror showed not reflections—but versions.
A Dee who never turned poet.
A Hiro who never drew his sword.
A Vampher who accepted the crown.
"Parallel selves," Dee murmured. "Ghosts of decisions we never made."
"They're watching us," Hiro said.
And they were.
Eyes gleamed behind the glass. Some hopeful. Some horrified.
Then one cracked.
Just a hairline fracture.
Then another.
Until the entire field began to tremble.
The mirrors didn't shatter.
They melted.
Dripping into the earth like sorrow too long buried.
From the ruin, a figure stepped out.
A woman.
Tall. Elegant. Clad in robes woven from silver thread and twilight.
Her eyes were stars.
"Who—?" Hiro began.
She raised a hand.
"I am not the Sixth Lock," she said. "I am its messenger."
Dee took a step forward. "Then what's the next challenge?"
The woman smiled—soft, sad.
"You've survived the first five by strength, memory, choice, and denial. But the sixth… the sixth is not yours."
She raised her hand again—and the world bent.
And Vampher vanished.
Dee and Hiro spun around.
Gone.
Just… gone.
"No," Dee whispered.
The woman turned to them.
"He has entered his trial. Alone."
"Why him?" Hiro demanded.
"Because the Sixth Lock is bound to his story."
"And you?" Dee asked.
"I am his mother," she said quietly. "And his wound."
The mirrors reformed—now showing Vampher, alone in a throne room of gold.
A child stood across from him.
A boy, eyes too wide. Voice too hopeful.
"You came back," the child whispered.
Vampher fell to his knees.
"I never should've left."
And the Sixth Lock began to bloom.
But that was a chapter still unfolding.
And far above, the seventh thread began to twitch.
Waiting.