With each step forward, Marcus felt the ground whisper beneath him. Sneaking doubts that dripped like melody, he looked down, expecting to see a different oneself in mirrored form ahead of him. Yet, there was only darkness stretching below, a well filled with echoes. It wasn't just descent; it felt like returning to the moment where choices split endlessly, an intersection appearing out of the fog of time.

Footfalls seemed familiar on the cracked stone path, repeating within the chambers of his mind. Each ricochet bore the burdens of ages, stories woven into the very fabric of the earth. His heart raced — could it place him in those narratives if he lingered? Or were those accounts pushers into something absolute? Perhaps merely illusions of sameness winked at in passerby glance.

"This is no longer the path of descent," he muttered silently, words undulating into unknowing realms, casting long shadows into the mysterious veil. A statue carved eons past stood guard still atop a nearby boulder, holding a fractured orb — its eyes the very ones that scrutinized antiquity.