The Echo Chamber

The tunnel narrows until the walls breathe. Your lantern gutters, then steadies, throwing shapes that don't match your own. Somewhere ahead — or behind, you can no longer tell — a voice murmurs. Your voice. Older. Tired in a way you don't yet understand.

Then another: younger, sharper, frightened. The two of you are arguing across a distance no map could measure. One pleads for the brightness yet to come. The other begs for the morning you left behind, for goats and grandmother-songs and the simple shape of a known life.

The echoes are closing on each other like hands around a moth. Whichever voice you follow, the other will fall silent forever. You have to choose, Wren. Now.