Seraphina Vale had always been perfect.
Perfect posture. Perfect diction. Perfect flame arcs that could slice through steel like butter.
That was precisely why the Labyrinth hated her.
The moment she stepped into the trial chamber, it triggered a reality fracture with the smugness of a trickster god holding a grudge.
The door slammed behind her. The sigils on the floor flickered like dying stars. Then came the voice:
> "Identity Trial Initiated. Subject: Seraphina Vale. Assessing Emotional Stability..."
> "Error. Subject too stable. Injecting chaos parameters."
Her eye twitched.
"Excuse me?"
The world around her shattered like glass — and she landed in a replica of her House Ignis dorm, only... off.
Very off.
---
Across the room stood Perfect Seraphina.
Gown flawless. Hair shimmering. Glyphs orbiting her head in a spiral of divine fire.
She bowed and spoke in a musical voice:
> "Thou art me. Yet fractured. Let us resolve this dispute with valor and verse."
Seraphina stared. "...Is that Shakespeare?"
Perfect Seraphina summoned a flaming longsword shaped like an exclamation mark.
"Bring it."
They fought. It was glorious.
For exactly ten seconds.
Perfect Seraphina curbstomped her. With poetry. She parried every move while reciting sonnets about honor, balance, and hair care.
When Real Seraphina tripped on a rug and faceplanted into her own fire trail, the illusion sighed:
> "A tragic fall, yet oddly symmetrical."
---
The scene glitched.
Suddenly she was in a gothic ruin, raining ash.
Angsty Emo Seraphina sat on a throne of melted spellbooks.
"Love is a combustion that burns from within," she intoned. "Like betrayal. Like my eyeliner."
"What the hell is this trial?" Seraphina snapped.
"Your inner turbulence," Emo replied, flipping her bangs dramatically.
"I DO NOT HAVE INNER TURBULENCE."
"You shouted that. Therefore, you do."
A flaming guitar summoned itself into Emo Seraphina's hands. Duel round two began. It ended when Emo screamed a spell powered by "the crushing weight of expectations" and summoned a phoenix made of tears.
Seraphina ran.
---
Next, she found herself in a nursery.
Baby Seraphina sat in a crib.
She hiccupped.
A bookshelf caught fire.
"Okay. That one's just disturbing."
---
Then came the worst.
She stood in a rose-colored bedroom, surrounded by candles and fluttering notebooks.
On the bed was Romantic Delusion Seraphina, writing "Mrs. Lucien Drex" in glowing ink.
Real Seraphina gawked. "NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT."
Fanfic-Seraphina looked up and whispered, "He called me 'you' again. Do you think he meant something by it?"
"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" she roared.
Fanfic-Seraphina cast a flirty wink-spell and vanished in a puff of pink smoke.
---
Alone now, Seraphina breathed hard. The room dimmed.
Then the final illusion appeared.
She was back in a flame-sigil classroom — long ago.
Children screamed. A glyph had collapsed mid-demo. Fire spiraled out of control.
And then… a barefoot boy.
Strange. Calm. Bleeding from one hand, drawing a correction glyph using a broken pen and his own blood.
He looked up at her, just once.
"Forget me," he said softly. "It's safer."
The illusion paused.
> "Memory integrity restored: File – Lucien Drex, Subject Class: Obsidian."
Seraphina fell to her knees. Her breath came in short, hot bursts. The room cracked like an eggshell.
She clutched her head. "Why did I forget? Why… didn't he tell me?"
A soft glow appeared beside her.
A note.
Tagged with a very familiar sigil.
> "If this room breaks you, congratulations. That means you're real now. Welcome to the club."
She stared. Then laughed.
Then cried.
Then punched the wall.
It exploded.
---
When she stumbled out of the room later, soot on her cheeks, her expression unreadable — Caelum blinked.
"You okay?"
She nodded.
Lucien held out a water bottle.
"Wanna talk about it?"
She grabbed the bottle. "Not with you."
Lucien shrugged. "Figures."
She sat beside him anyway.
Quietly.
Fire flickered behind her eyes.
And for the first time… it didn't look perfect.
It looked real.