Location: Sub-Layer of Cradle Gorge — Beneath the Battle City
Time: [Core Sync: Weak / Map: Broken / Paranoia: Rising]
Ren stumbled down the spiral steps, hand pressed against his side, blood trailing like an afterthought.
The others followed, quieter now.
No jokes.
No quips.
Just that heavy silence that says:
"Something down here doesn't want to be found."
The walls weren't made of stone anymore.
They were made of memories — flickering images of timelines he didn't live.
His mother laughing.
A world he never grew up in.
Kael dying in different ways.
Lira screaming his name through a storm of light.
None of it was his.
All of it hurt anyway.
FROST (softly):
"These aren't echoes.
They're… intrusions."
BLAZE (looking behind them):
"Someone's feeding the maze.
Adding memories that shouldn't be here."
Ren looked ahead.
A huge stone door stood at the base of the descent.
No lock.
No handle.
Just a flat surface — smooth and waiting.
He reached out.
AETHERIUM CORE (weak flicker):
> VISUAL DATA: NULL > SYSTEM NOTE: SOMETHING'S WRONG > I CAN'T...SEE...
The second his palm touched the stone—
everything glitched.
The lights broke.
The ground shook.
And the map?
Stopped glitching.
It just turned black.
SNARKSTEEL (from Ren's back):
"Uh. Not to ruin the tension but…
this feels like the part in the movie where someone dies screaming."
Then—
a voice.
Not from the Core.
Not from inside Ren.
From the maze itself.
GLITCHY VOICE (stuttering, corrupted, full of static):
"Th–Th–ThIS… Is Not Y–Yours To Re–Reclaim…"
Everyone froze.
BLAZE (backing up):
"What the hell was that?"
TIME (for once, deadly serious):
"That wasn't a test.
That was a firewall."
FROST:
"Someone's trying to lock the truth inside.
This maze… it's not just old. It's tampered."
The lights flickered again.
A nearby wall cracked open — not by design.
By force.
Something broke it from the inside.
REN (barely whispering):
"This place was buried…
not to hide me.
But to hide something about me."
The glitching voice returned—louder this time. Angrier.
GLITCHY VOICE:
"REJECTED V–VE–VERSION.
SURRENDER CORE.
LOCK REMAINS.
LOCK—REMAINS—LOCKED."
The room twisted.
Paths folded in on themselves.
Walls looped.
Time bent.
And before them — another maze appeared.
But this one was different.
It didn't spiral or stretch.
It descended.
A staircase made of light and data dropping into an infinite, shifting hole.
FROST (glaring):
"We're not walking into that."
REN (breathing hard):
"We have to.
Whatever's down there…
It's what they don't want us to see."
The Core glowed faintly again. Weak. But present.
AETHERIUM CORE:
> SYSTEM BLOCKED > OBSERVER CODE: EXTERNAL > WARNING: MANUAL IDENTITY LOCK > YOU ARE BEING STOPPED.
And Ren took a single step down.
His foot touched light—
And everything went quiet.
Not peaceful.
Not calm.
That kind of quiet where the world holds its breath
and waits to scream.