The sound of the door slamming shut behind him still echo in Kael's skull long after the echoes had faded. The room he stood in was small—barely big enough for him to stretch his arms—and yet, the sensation of being trapped was overwhelming. It wasn't just the walls, closing in with a suffocating certainty, or the door that refused to open. It was the weight of the silence, thick and absolute, pressing down on him.
At the center of the room sat the stone table, its surface etched with intricate carvings. They spiraled outward in dizzying patterns, intersecting lines and circles that seemed to shift when Kael wasn't looking directly at them. His fingers hovered above the stone, but something in his gut told him not to touch it.
He took a step back instead, but it wasn't enough to ease the pressure in his chest. The walls seemed to pulse, as though they, too, were alive—alive in a way that no human could ever comprehend.
Then, the whisper returned. A soft, drawn-out sound, as faint as the wind, yet distinct enough to make his hair stand on end.
"You're not alone."
Kael froze, heart hammering in his chest.
It came from nowhere, from the shadows pooling around the edges of the room. There were no figures—no shapes—nothing except the empty space. But the whisper was there, a soft breath in the dark.
He took another step back.
"Who's there?" His voice was shaky, but it was all he could manage.
Nothing. The air grew colder. The only sound was the faint scraping of his boots against the stone floor.
But then, a distant echo—footsteps.
Kael's breath caught in his throat. He turned, expecting to see someone behind him, but the room was still empty. The sound of the footsteps grew louder, coming closer, yet no one emerged from the shadows. The air shifted. He could feel it, a slight brush against his skin, like fingers caressing his shoulder.
"Who's there?" he repeated, his voice harder this time, a semblance of command creeping into it. "Show yourself."
Still nothing. The footsteps, now unmistakable and slow, continued to draw closer, their rhythm steady, measured. A thump—another, closer still.
He stepped toward the door, hand outstretched, but the handle was cold—ice cold—and refused to budge. Something in the distance moved again, but this time, the sound wasn't footsteps. It was a hum, low and vibrating, a hum that seemed to come from the walls themselves.
Kael pulled his hand away from the door, his pulse pounding in his ears, and turned toward the table. The map etched into the stone had shifted, ever so slightly. The lines were no longer the same. The circles seemed to be turning—moving—shifting in a pattern he couldn't follow. But he didn't need to understand it. His instincts told him it wasn't the map that had changed. It was the room itself.
The hum intensified, and suddenly, the silence was shattered by a loud, cracking sound. The walls—those impossibly still walls—rippled, like water disturbed by a stone. And with that ripple, something emerged from the shadows.
A figure.
Tall, cloaked in dark robes, face hidden beneath the hood. Its presence was not like a man's; there was something inhuman in the way it moved, the way it flickered in and out of focus, as though it was both there and not there all at once. Kael's heart stopped in his chest. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. Every instinct told him to run, but his legs felt like stone.
The figure didn't speak, not at first. It simply stood there, its head tilted slightly to one side, as if it were studying him—waiting. Kael's hand tightened around the lantern, but the flame inside flickered weakly, almost as though it was afraid.
"You are marked," the figure said, its voice cold, yet somehow familiar. The words seemed to hang in the air, suspended in that unnatural stillness.
Kael's fingers twitched. His Mark. That was what this was about. The same strange sigil that had appeared on his skin the moment the Labyrinth had taken him. The same burning ember in his skull.
"I don't know what this is," Kael said, his voice trembling despite his best efforts. "I don't know what you want."
The figure didn't respond immediately. Instead, it stepped forward, moving with a fluidity that defied logic. It was closer now, standing just out of reach, its hood still shadowing its face. Kael could feel the weight of its gaze, a presence that pressed against him like a physical force.
"You will learn."
The figure reached into its cloak and pulled out a small object—a stone, no larger than a fist, smooth and dark. It held it out to Kael, and for a moment, the space between them seemed to contract. Kael hesitated. What was this?
"Take it," the figure urged, its voice a low, rasping whisper. "And the path will be clearer."
Kael hesitated. Something about the figure—its tone, its presence—made his skin crawl. And yet, the lantern in his hand pulsed again, brighter now, the flame within it flickering as if in response to the stone. The urge to reach out, to take it, was almost overwhelming.
Slowly, almost unwillingly, he reached for the stone. His fingers brushed against the cold surface.
The moment he touched it, the world seemed to shift. The floor beneath him trembled, the walls seemed to waver, and the very air was sucked from his lungs. He gasped, but no sound came. His vision blurred, then sharpened, and in that instant, he saw them: images, flashes of places and faces he didn't recognize.
A towering city, covered in ruins. A dark figure standing over a crumbling throne. A girl with hollow eyes, crying in the shadow of a crumbling tower.
The images vanished as quickly as they had appeared, leaving Kael breathless, disoriented. The stone fell from his hand, clattering to the ground, and the figure in front of him had vanished. The room was silent again, the hum gone.
The door opened with a creak.
Kael blinked, dazed, and stumbled forward. His heart thudded in his chest as he stepped through the door and back into the corridors of the Labyrinth. The walls still shifted, still twisted, but now… he wasn't alone. Somewhere, deep within the maze, the path was waiting.
And he was already walking toward it.