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LAST ECHO

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LAST ECHO

CHAPTER 1 : The Floor That Shouldn’t Exist

🎭 Character Sketch

Lira Elowen – The Observer

Soft-spoken but intensely perceptive.

A poet trapped inside a realist’s mind.

She notices what others forget—and forgets what she wishes to remember.

Her memory is both her power... and her curse.

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🕯️ “Some echoes don’t wait for sound—they begin the moment silence walks in.”

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🌌 Scene One: The Awakening

The first thing Lira noticed wasn’t the cold.

It was the absence of everything else.

No hum of lights.

No whisper of wind.

No ticking clock.

Just... vacuumed silence.

She opened her eyes to a dim hallway, washed in blue-grey light, like moonlight bleeding through underwater glass. Her cheek rested on a cool tile floor that vibrated faintly—as though the ground was breathing.

A name flickered above her in glowing red letters on the wall:

LIRA ELOWEN – ECHO 07

She sat up, her head pounding with a dull ache. Around her, eleven others stirred in staggered confusion. All dressed in the same sharp, sleek school uniform—black with a faint silver insignia stitched at the collar: an ear, inside a spiral shell.

> “Echo Academy,” she whispered.

But that wasn’t right. She hadn’t enrolled here. She had… she had received a letter? A test score? A scholarship?

The memory twisted in her head like a piece of yarn soaked in oil.

Across from her, a tall boy stood against the flickering wall—sharp eyes, smooth posture. His tag glowed: REN ICHIRO – ECHO 01. His gaze met hers. Calculating. Calm. Like he had expected this.

Further down the corridor, a girl in a crimson braid was banging on an elevator door that refused to open. Her scream echoed down the hall—yet something was off.

The scream didn’t bounce.

It didn’t return.

It was swallowed.

> “Where are we?” someone whispered.

The lights above them flickered—and then a soft, sterile voice rang through hidden speakers.

> “Welcome, Echo Subjects. You are on the 19th Floor.”

Lira froze.

There is no 19th floor.

That was the rule in every school tower. Every brochure. Every plan. The 18th floor was the highest. The 19th… was sealed. Abandoned. Rumored.

A story seniors told to scare freshmen.

A floor built... but never meant to be opened.

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🧠 Scene Two: The Voice That Knows

The voice continued:

> “You have been selected for the Echo Trials. Your memories, behaviors, and emotional integrity will now be tested for truth resonance.”

> “No exits. No signals. No contact with the outside world. You are not prisoners. You are participants. Each of you volunteered. You simply don’t remember.”

The group burst into panicked murmurs.

“No contact?”

“What is this?”

“Let us out!”

“I didn’t agree to this—did you?”

Lira pressed her palm to the wall—it was smooth, warm, and humming slightly. Like it was alive. Her fingertips itched. Her instincts whispered something deeper than fear: this place isn't watching us... it's listening.

Across from her, Ren pressed a hand to his temple, his face still calm. Too calm. Lira narrowed her eyes.

> He knows something. Or he’s hiding something. Or both.

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🕵️‍♀️ Scene Three: The Message Wall

Suddenly, the lights dimmed—and a new message scrolled across the wall in red:

> [GAME 1: Name the Lie]

You have 30 minutes. If a lie remains unspoken… someone will disappear.

Confession Booths activated.

Without warning, sections of the hallway split open like elevator doors. Inside each cubicle was a single chair, a red light above it, and a mirrored wall.

> “This is a joke,” Alec muttered. He looked like a model with confidence turned up to eleven. “Name the lie? Whose lie? What the hell is going on?”

> “The system’s serious,” said a girl near the back—Nyra, maybe. Her voice was low and certain. “It wants us to confess.”

> “Confess to what?” someone snapped.

> “You already know.”

The air thickened. Nobody moved toward the booths.

But Lira felt her legs carry her forward.

She didn’t want to go.

But something deeper than fear—something ancient and broken inside her—needed to sit in that chair.

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💔 Scene Four: Inside the Booth

Inside the booth, the door slid shut behind her with a final click. The mirror glowed faintly with words:

> “Speak your lie. One sentence.”