"Quiet!", the Guide whisper-cried, looking back over their shoulder at me as we passed through the gallery of my own bruises.
The air in the corridor hummed with a low, vibrating frequency that made my teeth ache. As we stepped deeper into the gallery of my own fractured history, the walls began to bleed into jagged, crimson shapes that pulsed like open wounds. I felt the cyan light of my own essence fraying at the edges, dissolving into the static of old fears. Suddenly, the Guide’s hand gripped my shoulder, their eyes wide with a frantic, desperate warning. In that heartbeat, the red shadows surged forward, threatening to swallow the last of my coherence. I stood frozen as the internal noise became a roar.