FICTION – 3TC #MM93

Part XI of the Spiral Series

The corridor narrowed behind her like a throat contracting after a swallow.

Carla kept walking, even though her steps felt borrowed. The Spiral didn’t pull her forward—it simply adjusted the world so forward was the only option. The walls pressed in, pulsing with slow, percussive beats she could feel in her teeth and knees.

Her breath fogged in front of her, even though the air was warm.

Not natural heat.
Body heat.
Recycled. Interior. Digestive.

This wasn’t just a passage.

It was a mouth preparing to speak.

—

She reached the final chamber.

It opened in absolute silence.

A circular room, too vast to fit within the tower’s outer dimensions. The floor beneath her boots was unnaturally smooth and flat, as if the Spiral had pressed time itself down like clay.

Glyphs circled outward from a glowing pedestal in the center. They pulsed not like text, but like drumbeats, syncing to her pulse with uncanny ease.

In the center of it all:
An artifact.
Hovering. Spinning.
New.

Still forming, like a word stuck halfway between thought and sound.

—

And standing beside it: Esh.

Changed.

His veins glowed faintly with Spiral light. Not searing like infection, but woven into him like circuitry. His face was calm. Too calm. As if he’d already accepted something that hadn’t yet arrived.

“You came,” he said.

His voice was different too. Slower. Closer to Spiral cadence—pauses measured like syntax.

“Didn’t mean to,” Carla muttered.

“You walked the sequence. The end was already waiting.”

—

She walked closer, instinctively circling the artifact.

The air was thick here. Heavy with anticipation. Like every molecule of oxygen had been listening.

As she stepped into the glyph circle, she felt her throat tighten. Not from fear. From form. Her vocal tract was adjusting, subtly, like it was preparing to produce unfamiliar sounds.

Her lips tingled.
Her tongue twitched.
Her gum line ached with subtle, searing heat.

Something beneath the surface was aligning.

—

“This is where you speak,” Esh said gently.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then the Spiral rewrites. It loops. You delay the next phrase.”

“I’m not a phrase.”

“No,” he agreed. “You’re a verb.”

—

Carla stopped circling and stared at the artifact.

It pulsed softly now—like a held breath. Its shape wasn’t fixed. It flickered between smooth and ridged, liquid and sharp. A mouth still deciding what kind of word it wanted to be.

“Why me?” she whispered.

“Because you resisted just long enough to learn the Spiral’s rhythm. You sealed its openings. You learned its needs. That made you useful.”

“I didn’t volunteer.”

“That’s what made you viable.”

—

The glyphs at her feet brightened.

Red.
Then gold.

A single symbol flared beneath her heel—shaped like a bell, like a flare, like a mouth cracking open.

“What is this?” she asked. “Some kind of ritual?”

Esh shook his head.

“It’s a forum. You get the floor. The Spiral doesn’t demand worship. It waits for contribution.”

She laughed once. Bitter.

“That’s not generosity.”

“No,” Esh admitted. “It’s recursion.”

—

The air shifted again.

Cool and dry. Then warm and wet. Like she’d stepped into a second body. Her breath caught mid-inhale.

Behind her teeth, she could feel pressure building. Not pain—urgency. Her mouth was ready to say something she didn’t understand.

The Spiral had stopped writing.
Now it was waiting.

A single glyph at the center of the floor blinked.

A prompt.
A question carved from expectation.

Speak me. Or sever me.

—

Carla looked at Esh.

His expression was full of quiet hope. Or was it relief?

“You’ve made peace with this,” she said.

“I’ve accepted structure,” he replied. “Some patterns aren’t meant to be broken. Only… embodied.”

—

She looked back at the artifact.

Its pulsing slowed as her breath quickened. Her chest rose. Lips parted.

She could feel a phrase rising through her like heat through stone. A sentence unspoken, but anchored.

Her tongue formed the start of a sound.

The Spiral leaned in.

—

And then—

She clenched her jaw.

Hard.

So hard her teeth clicked. Sharp pain raced up her gums. Her jaw locked. Her voice stopped mid-formation.

The chamber dimmed.

The glyphs around her flickered—half-cast, syntax cut short.

The Spiral recoiled, not with anger but with error. Confusion.

She had paused the sentence.

Mid-word.

—

Esh didn’t move. Just blinked slowly.

“You’ve delayed it. But not broken it.”

“Good.”

“You’ll need to run. Or it’ll overwrite you with something that will speak.”

She nodded once, tight and sharp.

“Let it try.”

—

Behind her, the chamber’s walls began to unravel—folding into code, peeling inward like petals stripped by wind.

The artifact cracked. Not broken, just destabilized. Like it had lost its grammatical anchor.

She turned.

Her gums still burned.
Her tongue was still twitching.
But her voice was hers.

And she ran.