The moment the chamber door sealed behind her, Sera expected darkness.
Instead, she was met with warmth.
A golden haze filled the room, diffused like morning sunlight through a curtain. The chamber was empty. No furniture, no screens, just floor and light and a humming that reminded her of the old electrical box behind her school gym.
Then came the voice.
"Sera Lin. Age sixteen. Guilt designation: Arson. Status: Confession required."
"I didn't mean to—" she began.
The walls answered not with words but with image.
They rippled like water, and then sharpened. A bedroom. Hers. Walls lined with posters of bands she didn't listen to anymore. A notebook on the floor with the corners chewed. The scent hit her before the sight—the sick-sweet tang of gasoline and smoke.
"No," she whispered.
The image zoomed, impossibly, to a flickering frame: her holding a lighter. Her hands shaking. A soft, deliberate flick.
"I didn't want anyone to die," she said aloud.
But the room didn't care for intention. The next image came faster—flames licking up curtains, smoke curling under the door. Screams, faint but rising. Not hers. Her mother's. Her sister's. Her sister.
"No, stop it, stop it!"
The walls shifted again—and the room became the hallway of her old home. She turned and there it was: her sister's door, half-open, smoke trailing out like fingers. She backed away instinctively, but the walls pushed inward. Herding her forward.
"I already confessed," she said. "I told the courts. Juvenile detention. Therapy. I paid for it."
A beat of silence.
"Did you tell the truth?"
The voice was quieter now. Not robotic. Not distant. It sounded like her father, who hadn't spoken to her in two years.
She stepped into the hallway, and the moment she crossed the threshold, it all snapped into place—heat, smoke, the distant whine of sirens. But no fire touched her. No pain came. It was all there and not there, like a dream she couldn't wake from.
A door opened to her left.
Inside was a girl. Small. Curled up in the corner.
"Sera?" the girl said.
It was her sister. Emma. Five years younger, still wearing that ridiculous rabbit hoodie.
"Is it a game?" Emma asked.
Sera stepped back. "You're not real."
Emma smiled. "Neither are you. Not anymore."
And then she began to burn.
The fire started not with flame, but with ash. Her hoodie blackened, peeled, turned to cinders. Her mouth opened to scream—but no sound came. Just the hiss of combustion.
Sera fell to her knees, sobbing.
"It wasn't supposed to—Emma, I didn't—"
"Confession incomplete," the voice said, distant again. "Truth resisted."
"No!"
The fire vanished.
The hallway dissolved.
Only Sera remained, curled on the cold, featureless floor of the chamber, shaking.
And then—black.
---
The atrium lights flickered once.
The Confession Chamber door reopened.
Sera stumbled out, face pale, eyes glazed. She said nothing, just walked to a far corner and sat down, legs tucked to her chest, mouth drawn tight.
Elian watched in silence. No one moved to comfort her.
No one asked what she'd seen.
A tall man with sunken eyes muttered something under his breath—something about performance art. Another participant, a woman with close-cut silver hair, scoffed and crossed her arms.
The voice returned.
"Participant Two. Adrian Glass. Confession initiated."
A man with sharp cheekbones and bloodshot eyes stood. He moved like someone used to being obeyed, or feared. As he walked past, Elian caught a glimpse of the icon that had lit beneath him: a chess piece—the black king.
Adrian vanished behind the chamber door.
Elian turned to Sera.
The girl didn't look up.
---
Elian sat back against the wall, eyes scanning the others again. Twelve strangers. No way out. A game—or an experiment—that demanded guilt as currency. But hers was missing. No memory, no name attached to sin.
And yet, she felt the pressure behind her skull growing.
Like something wanted out.
Like she'd buried something so deep it was starting to rot.
She reached into her pocket. Empty.
Of course. They'd given them no tools. No items. Nothing to distract.
The only variable was truth.
But truth, Elian realized, wasn't the goal here.
It was leverage.