Kei's breath came in ragged gasps as he crouched in the ruins of a once-glorious chamber, his hands pressed against the cold stone floor. His mind reeled from the revelation of his newly awakened ability—TimeFragments. The prison was shifting around him, twisting its corridors and playing tricks on his sense of space. It was as if the very fabric of reality was mocking his escape attempt.
He clenched his fists. "I have to master this power... before it's too late."
A flicker of movement caught his eye. The Faceless Man stood atop a crumbling balcony, watching Kei with silent amusement. The air around him shimmered unnaturally, warping like heat waves on desert sands. Kei instinctively took a step back, but before he could react further, a voice echoed inside his head.
"You're learning, but you are still a prisoner of time."
Kei winced. The words sent a chill down his spine, not just from the voice but from the weight of the truth behind them. He was evolving, but his control over time was still fragile, barely scratching the surface of what he needed to escape.
Suddenly, a surge of Time Fragments pulsed through his veins. The world around him slowed to a crawl. Dust particles hung motionless in the air. The flickering torches cast elongated, frozen shadows. Even the FacelessMan remained locked in his position, though Kei had the eerie sense that his adversary was aware of everything happening.
Kei focused, reaching deep into his power. If I can control this, I can gain the upper hand. He extended his fingers toward a broken pillar, willing time to rewind. The stone trembled, cracks sealing up, dust retracting into solid form. For the first time, he was reshaping reality.
Then—pain. A crushing weight pressed against his mind, as if thousands of years of history were forcing their way into his consciousness. His vision blurred, the prison walls flickering between past and present states. He saw echoes of past prisoners, their desperate attempts at escape, their failures.
A single phrase whispered through time: "BewaretheShadowofTime."
Kei staggered back into the present. The FacelessMan had moved. Now, he stood just meters away, his presence suffocating. His hollow, featureless face seemed to stretch unnaturally, as if shifting between countless unseen expressions.
"You cannot escape what you do not understand," the FacelessMan said, his voice layered with a thousand overlapping tones. "Survive long enough, and you might earn the right to know."
Kei's heartbeat thundered. This wasn't just about escape anymore. It was about understanding the prison itself—the entity that bound him here, the fragments of time scattered through his existence.
He had power. Now, he needed control.
And soon... he would have his answers.