Jax had walked these corridors a thousand times. He knew every doorway, every creak of the hinges, every faint hum of the void beyond.

Or so he thought.

At the far end of a forgotten bend—a stretch of hallway he’d passed without thinking for months—a door stood slightly ajar. Dust clung to the frame. The paint was chipped, the colors faded, as if the room itself had been holding its breath.

VESPER.

The avatar on the door was a fox—sleek, dark, painted in deep purples and midnight blues. The eyes were closed, the tail curled around its feet. It looked older than the other avatars. More worn. But it was still there.

But no one came out.

And the hallway behind him stayed empty.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that, somewhere behind him, a pair of eyes had just opened.