Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 101: Ch99. Pain as a teacher (23) - Lost to self

Chapter 101: Ch99. Pain as a teacher (23) - Lost to self

Darkness swallowed Miles as he plummeted, the ruined structure collapsing above him in a storm of shattered stone and twisted metal. Wind rushed past his ears, his limbs flailing against gravity as his stomach lurched. For a split second, he felt weightless, adrift in the void.

"Oh shit oh shit oh shi-"

Then, he hit something.

Hard.

The impact drove the air from his lungs. He tumbled across jagged debris, rolling uncontrollably before slamming into a pillar with a sickening crack. Stars exploded behind his eyelids, and pain seared through his ribs. His scythe clattered somewhere into the dark, immediately dismissing itself in a storm of black sparks.

Everything went dark, and after a while, Miles woke up with a startle, but everything around him was silent.

No Revenant, No Kurt. Just him, pain, and stillness.

Miles coughed, tasting iron. Every part of his body ached, but he was alive.

Barely.

He groaned, dragging himself up on shaking limbs, his fingers brushing across damp stone. The air down here was different. It felt thicker, heavier.

It carried a strange scent, like burnt parchment and something else he could not quite name.

And then, the silence was not silent at all.

Even before Miles could think of summoning the [Ether Teapot] to heal him one more time, the sound drew his attention even more than the pain that made his body scream.

A whisper.

Not from above, not from the rubble, no. It came from deeper.

Slowly, Miles turned his head, and what he saw sent a chill crawling down his spine.

The chamber he had fallen into was massive, stretching far beyond what his limited light could reveal. The architecture was alien, unlike anything else he had seen in The Horizon – or anywhere else, even – it was smooth, with impossibly symmetrical walls, lined with swirling patterns and glyphs that pulsed faintly with a dim, dark glow.

And it felt like the glow was calling to him.

A shiver ran down his spine as he forced himself to his feet, one hand clutching his aching ribs as he stepped forward, drawn toward the glyphs as if something had hooked into his mind, pulling him closer.

Then, the whispers grew louder. Not in the air. Not in the walls.

It resounded in his head.

The glyphs were not just markings. They felt like words, and as Miles’ gaze moved over them, he realized something impossible.

"What the..."

He could read them.

The symbols rearranged themselves in his vision, shifting from unfamiliar etchings into legible phrases, filling his thoughts with a meaning that made his world spin dizzyingly fast.

[The lost shall wander, the broken shall forget. The ones who remember, though... Their stories shall be rewritten.]

Miles’ breath caught in his throat. It felt like this place – wherever he was now – knew him. And before he could stop himself, he reached out, his fingers brushing against the glyphs.

And the world shattered.

A violent pulse of energy ripped through his mind, sending him reeling. His knees buckled, his vision spiraling, the dark glow consuming everything. The whispers turned into laughter, wild and unhinged, curling around his skull like fingers digging into his brain.

His body convulsed, but he was no longer just Miles, no. Something else was there.

And then there was the voice.

"Did you miss me, boy?"

Miles gasped, his vision swimming. The laughter... It was his. But not his. Not anymore.

He staggered, gripping his head, his pulse pounding as the world around him blurred. His thoughts cracked, splintering into something else, into someone else. A presence too familiar yet utterly foreign clawing its way to the surface, stretching, twisting...

And the room around him twisted with it.

Shadows stretched unnaturally, flickering with vibrant hues of color that should not exist. The ground felt wrong, like he was standing on something that was not quite real. The chamber seemed to laugh along with him as if the walls had been waiting for this moment.

Miles tried to move, tried to speak, but his body did not respond.

He did, however, glimpse a few of the strange glyphs, pulsing more violently, more maddeningly, this time. And he was able to read it.

All of it.

[Here lies the veil between worlds.]

[Here lies the memory of the forgotten.]

[Here lies the price of power.]

A gloved hand reached forward, tracing the edge of the glowing glyphs.

His own hand, but not.

"Oh, it’s been quite some time, hasn’t it?" The words slithered from his own lips, but the voice was not his.

It was smoother, more theatrical. Laced with amusement and madness.

It was the Mad Hatter, but he was not in Miles’ mind anymore.

And Miles was not able to speak, trapped inside his own body.

***

For what felt like hours, Miles was helpless, lost between lapses of being able to see what he was doing and complete blankness, caught in the tide of something that was not him, but at the same time was.

The Hatter moved his hands, flexing his fingers as though savoring the sensation of existing once more. His smirk widened as he turned his attention to the chamber, eyes gleaming with an emotion Miles could not place.

"Oh, you poor thing." The Hatter chuckled, brushing his fingertips over the ancient carvings. "Left to rot, forgotten in the fringes of the story. But don’t worry..." His grin stretched wider, the stitched lips in the mask that had appeared without Miles having summoned it splitting almost unnaturally. "I remember you."

Miles fought against the force holding him still. He pushed, and screamed in his own mind.

"Let go! Get out! Get out!"

"Oh, but I am out..." The Hatter merely tilted his head. "So, why would I?"

"Because this body isn’t yours!"

"Oh, but it is. It always was, and it will always be." The Hatter hummed.

Something snapped. The pressure inside Miles’ mind cracked like glass, and suddenly, he could move again.

His body lurched, his control slamming back into place as he gasped, falling on his face, the pain reminding him that he was alive – thankfully.

The laughter faded, though it still echoed at the edges of his thoughts. The chamber settled, the shadows retracting, the unnatural colors bleeding away.

Miles gritted his teeth, clutching his pounding head. His breath came in ragged gasps, his body shaking violently.

He had just been possessed by himself.

No.

Not himself.

By him.

By the Mad Hatter.

His hands shook as he pulled them away from his face, noticing that the mask was not there anymore, and the gloves were gone, his pulse still racing.

He had known. He had always known that his artifacts, his powers, were tied to Wonderland. That they were remnants of something older, something buried beneath the surface of this game.

But now...?

Now, he was not just carrying the Hatter’s legacy.

It felt like he was carrying the Hatter himself, and it terrified him more than anything else in The Horizon.

***

The silence in the chamber was suffocating, and for the first time since arriving in this place, Miles felt small, helpless.

The glyphs still pulsed faintly, the words lingering in his mind like an afterimage burned into his thoughts.

[The lost shall wander, the broken shall forget. The ones who remember, though... Their stories shall be rewritten.]

He didn’t understand it. But the Hatter did.

Miles knew it, and he knew that it was a problem.

"What the hell was that, kid?" Miles heard Kurt’s voice behind him, and turned around to see the figure of his cocky companion stumbling on his footsteps for the first time since he got there.