Eryon sprinted down the spiraling hallway behind the Archivist's library, each step echoing like it was falling through an empty world. The moment he crossed the threshold, the air shifted—cold and sharp, like the breath of something watching him.
Behind him, the battle shook the entire archive.
BOOM.
A shockwave bent the walls outward.
CRACK.
Another explosion of warped reality.
The Archivist's voice thundered:
"YOU WILL NOT HAVE HIM!"
And the Messenger laughed—a haunting, ringing sound.
Eryon swallowed hard and forced himself to keep moving. The hallway stretched ahead like a long throat leading to darkness. The Whisper inside him murmured:
"Faster… he's coming."
Eryon's pulse jumped. He ran harder.
At the end of the hallway was a tall, ornate door covered in carvings of eyes—hundreds of eyes, some weeping ink, some wide with terror, some carved shut.
The moment Eryon touched the handle—
—the door opened on its own.
---
THE MIND LABYRINTH
The room beyond wasn't a room.
It was an endless corridor twisting in impossible directions—floors curving upward into the ceiling, stairs leading nowhere, walls breathing like they were alive. Floating shards of broken mirrors hovered around him, reflecting pieces of memories he didn't recognize.
This was no physical space.
This was a mental dimension.
The Whisper spoke softly, almost reverently:
"We are home."
"What… is this place?" Eryon asked aloud.
A voice answered—not the Whisper.
Not the Messenger.
A voice smooth and emotionless:
"The Labyrinth of Cognition."
Eryon spun.
Out of the bending shadows stepped a figure wearing a hooded robe. Their face was hidden completely except for a faint glow where eyes should be.
"Who are you?" Eryon demanded.
"I am a Caretaker," the figure replied. "A guardian of the Archivist's forbidden chambers. He sent you here to survive."
"Survive what?" Eryon snapped.
Behind them, a thunderous crack split reality. A howl roared through the hallway he had escaped.
The Caretaker said simply:
"Him."
The Messenger.
Eryon's heart dropped.
"But… why can't he enter?"
"He can," the Caretaker corrected. "But slowly. This place responds to minds, not bodies. And your mind is stronger than his."
Eryon frowned. "Stronger? He nearly killed me."
"Power does not equal control," the Caretaker replied. "Your mind is unshackled, undefined. He is shaped, limited, conditioned by the Cult. You are not."
The Whisper purred proudly.
Eryon ignored it and stepped forward. "How do I get out?"
"You don't," the Caretaker said.
Eryon froze.
The Caretaker lifted a finger to the shifting walls.
"This place reads your thoughts. Your emotions will create doors. Your fears will create traps. Your memories will create paths."
"So… I have to think my way through?"
"No," the Caretaker said. "You must understand your mind… or you shall die inside it."
The walls groaned deeply.
And the world shifted.
---
THE FIRST TRIAL — THE ROOM OF UNWANTED TRUTHS
The floor beneath Eryon cracked open like a mouth, swallowing him into darkness.
He hit solid ground.
A single light flickered on above him.
The room around him was small—almost like a childhood bedroom.
His childhood.
The Whisper said nothing now.
Too quiet.
Eryon looked around slowly.
It was his old room—blue walls, a cracked window drowned in moonlight, papers scattered across the floor. On the bed sat a younger version of him—maybe twelve years old—crying quietly into his sleeves.
Eryon stared, breath trapped in his throat.
"I remember this…"
His younger self looked up, eyes red.
"You left me," the boy whispered.
Eryon stepped back. "That's… not real."
"It is real," the boy said. "You abandoned who you were. You locked me away. That's why your mind is unstable."
Eryon clenched his fists. "I didn't lock you away. I grew up."
The younger Eryon shook his head.
"No. You hid me. Because you're afraid of the memory that broke us."
Eryon's stomach twisted.
"What memory?"
The boy pointed at the window.
Something stood outside.
Something tall.
Something wrong.
Its hands pressed against the glass, its head tilted in unnatural angles.
Eryon's heart hammered. His Manifestation pulsed inside him.
"This is what you fear most," whispered the younger version of him.
Eryon backed away. "That's not—"
But the creature slammed its face against the window—
A crack.
Another.
The glass began to splinter.
Eryon shouted, "STOP!"
The younger Eryon's voice grew dark.
"You created it long ago. Before the disease. Before the Manifestation. This fear was born from you."
The creature's mouth split open across its entire face.
The window shattered.
Eryon's eyes blazed gold as the creature charged inside—
—and the world exploded in white light.
---
THE SECOND TRIAL — THE CHAMBER OF NOISE
He fell again—into deafening static.
He landed on a floor made of hundreds of screaming mouths. Their screams were silent, but the sound filled his bones.
This was his overthinking.
Every anxious thought.
Every whisper of worry.
Every doubt he ever suppressed.
They formed a living floor beneath him.
Eryon gagged and jumped back.
Suddenly all the mouths spoke at once:
"YOU WILL FAIL."
"YOU ARE WEAK."
"YOU CANNOT CONTROL IT."
He covered his ears, but it didn't help.
The noise was inside him.
The Whisper snarled:
"Crush them."
"No!" Eryon yelled. "Get out of my head!"
The mouths screamed louder.
Eryon's Manifestation surged. The air twisted into a massive, shadowed arm erupting from his back, smashing the ground—
—but the mouths multiplied.
The more he fought, the stronger they grew.
Then he remembered the Archivist's words:
"Your mind is the key."
Eryon took a deep breath.
He closed his eyes.
He listened to the screams.
They weren't attacking him.
They were echoes.
Echoes of his own fear.
He whispered:
"I hear you.
I accept you.
But you don't control me."
The noise stopped.
The mouths closed.
The floor turned into solid stone.
Eryon opened his eyes.
A door appeared in front of him.
---
THE THIRD TRIAL — THE MEMORY HE NEVER FACED
He walked through the door.
And found himself standing in front of a hospital room.
His heart clenched violently.
"No… not this," he whispered.
The Whisper trembled inside him, as if shivering.
The Caretaker's voice echoed distantly:
"The final trial is always the buried truth."
Eryon pushed the door open.
Inside lay a woman on a hospital bed—pale, fragile, barely breathing.
His mother.
Eryon's throat tightened.
He took a step toward her, but the room flickered.
Suddenly, he was in the bed.
A younger Eryon stood beside him, crying silently.
Then the scene shifted again.
He stood outside the hospital, looking up at the building while rain drenched him.
He was alone.
Completely alone.
"No… stop this," Eryon choked.
The Whisper whispered weakly:
"We hid this. You forced me to hide it."
Eryon fell to his knees.
This memory—the night he decided emotions were weakness.
The night he cut himself off from his past.
The night he split his subconscious from his conscious self.
The birth of Helunsntion.
He whispered:
"I'm not running anymore."
The room froze.
Eryon grabbed the memory.
Held it.
Accepted it.
His mother's image smiled faintly… and dissolved into light.
The Whisper spoke again—not as a monster, but as a part of him:
"We are one now."
Golden light erupted across the labyrinth.
Everything trembled.
The Caretaker's voice boomed:
"YOU HAVE PASSED."
---
THE EXIT
A glowing doorway formed ahead.
Eryon stepped toward it.
But before he crossed, he felt something—
A presence entering the labyrinth.
A voice he knew too well:
"…Found you."
The Messenger.
He had broken inside.
Eryon's eyes flashed gold.
But now his Manifestation didn't roar wildly.
It stood behind him—a shadow figure with glowing cracks, but calm, controlled.
Eryon faced the doorway.
"This time," he whispered, "I'm not the one running."
He stepped through.
The labyrinth shattered behind him.