The morning after Chapter Zero retreated, Echo stood over the salt circle with a look I hadn't seen before.
Not fear.Not even concern.
Resolve.
"We're binding him," he said.
"Not forever. But long enough for you to finish what you started."
"Long enough to claim the apartment for real."
I raised an eyebrow. "What exactly are we binding him with?"
Echo walked to the kitchen and came back with a dusty wooden box carved with bone-white symbols.
"Your memories," he said."And mine."
Inside the box:
A lock of hair.
A melted key.
A tooth.
A photograph with no image—just smudges of faces.
And a black string, pulsing faintly.
"This is an Echo Binding," he said."A ritual used when two identities blur."
"You and Chapter Zero are colliding. If you don't reinforce the line between you, the contract might merge you both."
"This stops that."
I sat on the floor with him.
Salt in a circle.
Mirrors angled inward.
Candles lit with a wick of regret—literally. That's what Echo called it. He said it's made from paper soaked in unsent letters.
"We're anchoring you with story," he said.
"You'll have to relive a memory so painful it defines you."
"Chapter Zero can't mimic pain that's true."
"Only borrowed echoes."
I hesitated.
"What memory?"
"You'll know."
"Just let the string show you."
He wrapped the pulsing black thread around my wrist.
It grew warm.
Then hot.
And suddenly—I wasn't in the apartment anymore.
I was sixteen.
Rain hammered the rooftop of a rusted car.
I sat inside it, parked behind my old high school.
The door beside me hung open.
And beside it stood my mother—half soaked, face pale, lips trembling with fury and disappointment.
"You think this is a joke, Elias?"
"They found pills in your locker."
"The school called the cops."
I remembered the shame like it was tattooed in my chest.
But the real pain wasn't the accusation.
It was what came next.
"I told them you weren't mine," she said.
"Not really. Not anymore."
The scene cracked.
I screamed.
But I couldn't move.
I was frozen in it, forced to relive every heartbeat.
Every cold drop of rain on my skin.
Every second of watching her walk away from the car, leaving me there.
Alone.
Unclaimed.
Forgotten.
The black thread pulsed violently.
Then snapped.
I shot back into the present, gasping.
Eyes wide.
Sweat-drenched.
But awake.
Echo's eyes glimmered with understanding.
"That memory," he said quietly."That's the anchor."
"You felt erased once. But you survived it."
"Chapter Zero never did."
He took the broken thread and stuffed it inside the image-less photo.
Then placed the photo into the wooden box and sealed it with wax and blood.
"It's done," he said."The Echo Binding is sealed."
I blinked.
"Will it stop him?"
"No," Echo said, not cruelly—but honestly."Nothing stops what the apartment creates."
"But it'll make him think twice."
The walls didn't scratch that night.
No tapping.
No whispers.
But I could feel it.
That pressure.
Like someone pacing on the other side of the mirror.
Waiting.
Watching.
The next morning, a new door appeared in the hallway.
One that hadn't been there before.
Painted red.
No handle.
No frame.
Just there—daring me to knock.
Echo saw it and froze.
"That's his next move," he said."A door made of temptation."
"He can't get in. But he can invite you out."
"If you open that, you trade places."
"You become Chapter Zero."
I wrote my name in chalk across the red paint.
Elias Marr.
It fizzled. Cracked.
Then vanished.
I tried again.
Same result.
"He's testing you," Echo said."Trying to shake your sense of self again."
"You just bound your pain to memory—he'll try to tempt it loose."
I stood before the door, silent.
Then whispered:
"I'm not trading places."
"You had your chance."
"I earned this name."
"I bled for it."
A low sound echoed behind the door—like laughter made of static.
Then silence.
The red paint peeled away.
Revealing only bricks beneath.
He wasn't gone.
But for now—he was contained.
Echo grinned faintly.
"You passed again."
"You're more stubborn than I thought."
I didn't smile back.
I was too tired.
But for the first time—I felt rooted.
Like I wasn't just borrowing this life.
Like it was mine.
And every ghost knew it.