He didn't answer her.
He couldn't.
Not because he lacked words — but because they wouldn't form. They swirled in his chest, half-shaped and heavy, like breath caught in wet stone. Instead, he stared.
Kesh's spiral eye glinted.
"Yeah," she said. "It's weird the first time. Being recognized. Heard. Dragged into all this."
She leaned back against the wall and slid down to a crouch. "But if the Hole said your name, then you're in it now. The Spiral. There's no going back."
That night, he dreamt someone was sewing his mouth shut.
Not in pain. Not in punishment.
In preparation.
He stood on the edge of the tether-path, cliffs yawning wide, wind like teeth against his skin. Far below, the Hole pulsed — not visually, but in a rhythm he felt in his ribs. Each beat echoed a word.
Kesh.
Kesh.
Kesh.
Then: his name. The true one. Spoken so softly it undid something in his chest.
He turned.
Behind him stood a child.
No face. Just a shimmer where features should be.
The spiral on its hand spun backward.
When he woke, his pillow was wet with blood.
Kesh acted like nothing was strange.
She handed him a stale protein bar, told him they'd be moving again soon, and asked if he'd seen anything "echo-shaped" in his sleep.
He just blinked at her.
"You'll learn to tell," she said, not unkindly. "Dreams start lying after the first whisper. Some days you won't know if you woke up or not. The Hole likes to leave breadcrumbs inside your thoughts."
She tapped her temple.
"Especially once the first Truth gets a foot in."
They moved during midlight.
Kesh led him through the broken spine of a maintenance rail line, then down a side shaft that reeked of mildew and old oil. She didn't say where they were going.
He didn't ask.
His body felt wrong.
Not injured. Not sick. Just… wrong.
His heartbeat slowed too easily. His thoughts felt floaty, disconnected. He watched a rat dart across the corridor and realized he couldn't summon any emotion — not surprise, not disgust, not even curiosity.
It's starting, he thought.
The spiral on his wrist pulsed once.
A slow, painless burn.
"Stop," Kesh whispered.
They were close to a threshold — a rounded door cut from scorched steel, half open. Faint echoes drifted through it. Not voices.
Footsteps.
Wrong ones.
Too light. Too measured.
Kesh pulled him back into the shadows, eyes narrow.
"That's a Scribe."
He blinked.
"Splinter scout," she whispered. "Too early for them to be this deep. Must be trailing truth scent."
The footsteps faded.
She didn't move for another minute.
Then finally: "Come on. We're taking a different way."
By the time they reached the coil-depths, the MC could barely feel his fingers.
Kesh noticed. She looked at him like she was seeing something subtle.
"You're muting," she said. "That's the first mutation. Pain slips out the sides. Body stops warning you when it should."
She tossed him a small, spiral-marked shard of bone. "Keep it. Press it to your chest when you wake up. If it doesn't sting, you're slipping further."
He nodded once, slow.
She turned, walking ahead into the lightless corridor.
Behind them, somewhere in the dark, the Hole whispered again.
Not words.
Just a feeling.
Falling.