The Archive of Echoes, as the sign on the wall above the door indicated, wasn’t a place so much as a mood.

  We stepped onto a floating walkway made of glass and old words. Pages drifted through the air like lazy ghosts, each one whispering some half-remembered conversation. The air smelled faintly of cinnamon and laser printers. It was both cozy and terrifying—like being trapped in a nostalgia trap designed by a sadist.

  “This feels wrong,” Lily murmured. “Like the inside of someone’s diary.”

  “Technically,” I said, “we are inside someone’s filing cabinet. Emotional filing cabinet.”

  Eury’s snakes flicked the air. “You say that like it’s better.”

  The ground shifted underfoot, soft as a sigh. Shadows lengthened, bleeding color into the white world until everything around us was a faint, rosy hue.

  And then we saw them.

  They stepped out from behind the floating drawers one by one.

  Me.

  Or at least, versions of me—reflections, younger, cleaner, some scruffier, some sharper. One wore my Elysium Solutions work uniform. Another had on the same hoodie I’d ruined on my first hangout with Elly. One version carried the aluminum bat, and another had a prop from a forgotten nerdy Halloween costume.

  There were a dozen of them. Maybe more. All smiling. All slightly wrong.

  Lily groaned. “Oh, perfect. A Mercer multiverse. Just what I needed.”

  Eury’s grin was audible. “Always knew she had a girly boner for you, Dan.”

  “Eury,” I said, glaring.

  “What? Look around. The girl’s subconscious is basically a scrapbook of your dumb face.”

  Lily crossed her arms. “This is… private. We shouldn’t—”

  Her voice cut off when one of the doubles turned toward her and spoke.

  “Tiny car for a revenge mission,” it said, voice perfectly mine, soft and genuine.

  Lily went pale. “That’s—”

  “Exactly what I said to Elly before the warehouse,” I finished quietly.

  The echoes smiled wider.

  “You were always good at pretending, Daniel.”

  “You saved me once.”

  “You almost believed you could again.”

  The air thickened with whispers. Each version of me flickered between moments—memories caught mid-laugh, mid-fight, mid-kiss. Each one played a different chapter of our story.

  Eury tilted her head. “They’re fragments of her memory. She’s remembering you the way she felt you—admiration, frustration, attraction.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Obsession,” Lily added under her breath.

  The nearest copy stepped forward, eyes glowing faintly green. “I tried to make her smile,” it said softly. “She liked that.”

  “Okay,” I muttered, “this is getting creepy.”

  I swung The Debt Collector through its chest. The echo burst apart into a thousand fluttering scraps, whispering as they fell. It felt strange destroying my reflection, but the others didn’t flinch. They just… shifted closer.

  Eury reached out a hand. “Don’t destroy them. Even if they look like you, they’re her. If we erase them all, we might lose pieces of her.”

  I grunted. “Yeah, well that part sucked.”

  “Then how do we move forward?” Lily asked.

  Eury looked at my copies thoughtfully. “Balance. She left these as a map, not a trap. They’re all built around emotional anchors.”

  “Like therapy with weapons,” I muttered as another memory flashed…

  Elly, sprawled on the couch, phone in hand.

  “You have the emotional range of a potato,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “But I’m a supportive potato.”

  Her laughter—sharp, bright, unguarded.

  Then, quieter: “Don’t ever change, okay?”

  The echoes began to hum—a low sound that wasn’t quite human. The pages around them lifted into the air, orbiting each fragment like electrons. The words across them bled into new text, forming sentences.

  “He won’t save you.”

  “He’s not worth the ink.”

  “Forget him.”

  The whispers came from all sides, voices layered, persuasive.

  “She’s fighting it,” Lily realized. “But the doubt in her, the nature of this place, it’s trying to push us away—keep us from finding her.”

  “Then we push back,” I said, stepping forward.

  I walked up to the nearest echo—me in my work shirt, tie askew, holding a cup of coffee. He looked tired. Human. “Hey,” I said quietly. “She doesn’t belong here.”

  He smiled faintly. “Neither do you.”

  He lunged.

  We collided hard. The impact felt like hitting memory foam that punched back. I jammed the hammer upward, cracking him in the ribs. He burst apart into paper and static, voice fading.

  “She loved that joke you told about the printer…”

  The rest swarmed.

  Lily ducked one’s swing, snarling. “Can we not have to kill your face every five seconds?”

  Eury killed a version of me rather brutally. “At least it’s his face.”

  “Trust me,” I grunted, swinging again, “I’ve been wanting to punch me for years.”

  Eury moved with eerie precision, deflecting their blows with her forearms, eyes glowing faintly behind the bandage. “They’re getting weaker. We’re getting through.”

  One of the echoes hesitated mid-attack. Its eyes cleared for half a heartbeat.

  “Elly,” it whispered, voice trembling. “Please hurry.”

  Then it folded into dust.

  Another flash…

  Rain. Neon lights reflected in puddles.

  Elly’s hand clutching my jacket.

  “You’re an idiot,” she whispered. “But you’re my idiot.”

  The kiss that followed felt like a dare we both lost.

  “You guys kissed?” Lily’s voice came in flavors of surprise and accusation. “That’s not a peck on the cheek. I think there’s tongue in there!”

  “Not like that. Not yet.”

  “Not yet?” Eury’s eyebrows rose.

  “You know what I mean. I mean, things happen in emotionally charged supernatural situations, but that’s not happened like that.”

  “So, it’s a fantasy of hers.” Lily frowned, taking in the details.

  “The Tinkerbell costume is cute.” Eury commented.

  I felt my cheeks flush. I probably wasn’t the only one. Lily noticed, casting a glance my way.

  I was spared when the last of the echoes dissolved, leaving the air still and heavy. The floating pages settled into a soft snowfall, covering the glass floor.

  For a long moment, none of us spoke.

  Then Lily exhaled loudly. “Well,” she said finally, “that was traumatic foreplay.”

  Eury snorted. “Admit it. You’re jealous.”

  Lily glared. “Of what? His ability to ruin women’s lives with noble intentions and unclear romantic boundaries?”

  Eury shrugged. “Among other things.”

  “Danny, I look good in green, too.” Lily offered sweetly.

  “Enough,” I said, though I couldn’t help the grin tugging at my mouth. “Let’s move. If this was the Archive of Echoes, there’s got to be something beyond it. Something that holds her file.”

  Eury frowned at what that meant. “Then that’s where he’ll be waiting.”

  “Good,” I said, lifting The Debt Collector. “I still owe him interest.”

  The glass underfoot shimmered, showing a reflection that wasn’t ours—Elly, eyes glowing faintly, hand pressed against invisible glass. She mouthed a word.

  Hurry.

  Then she was gone again, swallowed by white light.

  We kept walking.

  And the next door opened on its own.