The wind no longer whispered.
It gnawed.
Elías and Tirian wandered into a new region — not a village, not a forest, not ruins — but a space between places. A gray plain where no architecture stood, yet doors floated in the air, untethered to walls or reason.
They hung at varying heights. Some swung open. Others bled. A few cracked silently as if aging in fast-forward.
"What is this?" Tirian asked.
Elías touched a door with no knob. It vibrated beneath his hand like a dying heartbeat.
"It's the Border of Forgotten Choices," he murmured. "The doors we never opened. The ones we shut too late."
Then one of them moved.
Not swung — turned.
As if it had noticed them.
---
They heard it before they saw it.
A sound like wood screaming.
Not breaking.
Begging.
From the far end of the field, a figure crawled into view — tall, stretched unnaturally thin, with limbs that bent like hung hinges. Its body was composed of doors, fused together. Handles for teeth. Hinges for ribs. Peering from its chest, a keyhole blinked like an eye.
Tirian stepped back. "Is it… a god?"
Elías shook his head.
"No."
"It's older than that."
---
The Devourer of Doors approached.
Its movement was not fast, but inevitable. Wherever it stepped, the ground folded, accepting its weight with mournful creaks. It exhaled locks. Keys spilled from its mouth and evaporated before they hit the soil.
It did not speak with words. But still, it asked.
"Which door is yours?"
Elías reached for his feather — but paused.
This thing was not made of flesh. Not of thought. It was memory that refused resolution. You could not kill it.
You had to outlive it.
"I don't know which is mine," Elías said carefully.
The Devourer smiled. Hinges shrieked.
"Then I will choose for you."
---
One door trembled — bone white, marked with a symbol Elías had seen once, long ago: a spiral wrapped in teeth.
Tirian yelled, "Run!"
But they didn't move fast enough.
The door flung open.
A voice dragged them through — no hands, no force. Just the sheer gravitational pull of regret made physical.
---
Inside the door, there was no floor.
Only consequence.
They tumbled through skies of memory, where scenes played and unplayed simultaneously: Elías killing someone he'd never met. Tirian dying in a fire that never burned. A version of the world where the Refuge had fallen before Elías had been born.
"This is not real," Elías whispered.
But the pain was.
Each moment struck like a blade made of guilt. Not wounds — infections.
"You're seeing the paths you refused," said a voice behind them.
It was the girl from the city.
But now she wore no skin. Only words — phrases, confessions, half-formed apologies clinging to bone.
"You must pass through your door," she said.
Tirian screamed as another vision wrapped him in flame.
Elías knew what to do.
He pulled the feather.
Wrote not on paper.
But in the air.
A single word:
"Denial."
---
Reality ripped.
The door shattered.
They fell back into the gray plain, gasping, coughing — bleeding ink and light.
The Devourer was gone.
But its question remained, echoing through every joint of their bones:
"Which door is yours?"
---
They rested in silence.
The doors floated, now still. Watching. Waiting.
Elías turned to Tirian. "That thing will return."
"I know."
"What do we do when it does?"
Tirian didn't answer. Instead, he pointed to a door nearby — one shaped like a coffin. Its knob was a jawbone.
"Next time," he said, "we open the door first."
---
As they moved forward, the plain changed. Doors grew sparser. The air thickened with thought. A horizon formed, burning not with fire — but decisions left unmade.
And far ahead…
A tower of mirrors.
Each pane reflected a different version of Elías.
Some smiled.
Some wept.
Some bled.
But all stared back with one shared thought:
You're still not ready.
---
That night, they camped between thresholds.
No fire. No food. Just stillness.
And in the silence, a final thought crept into Elías' mind, sharp and cruel as truth:
What if the door you fear most is the one that leads to who you really are?