I barely made it.
The second my body hit the floor, I rolled forward, gasping, half-expecting the stone beneath me to melt away, to dissolve into fire like the last room. My hands pressed into solid ground. Cool. Unmoving.
The door behind me slammed shut with a finality that sent a shudder through my spine. I half-turned, expecting it to glow, to shift, to pull me back into that hellish inferno, but the stone remained motionless.
For a moment, I just lay there, my breath ragged, my chest heaving as I tried to force air into my lungs. My heartbeat crashed against my ribs like a war drum, refusing to slow.
I forced myself to my feet.
I had survived this far.
Now, I just had to survive a little longer.
I wasn't sure how long I had been running, minutes, hours, seconds. Time had lost all meaning. My world narrowed to frantic footsteps, heaving breaths, and the relentless churn of my own survival. Every turn of the labyrinth revealed a fresh impossibility, each room a new horror waiting to swallow me whole. My running came to a stop when I found myself facing a staircase. It spiraled downward, a yawning tunnel of polished stone, so smooth it looked unnatural, untouched by time.
I hesitated.
Then, with no better option, I descended.
Step after step. Downward. Deeper.
No sound echoed. Only the soft tap of my boots against stone, a rhythmic, lonely drumbeat.
Twenty steps.
Fifty.
A hundred.
A prickle of unease crawled up my spine.
I had been descending for minutes now. But something was wrong. The air hadn't changed. The space hadn't grown tighter or wider. The feeling of depth, of moving down, was missing.
I slowed.
Then I stopped.
I looked up.
And my stomach plummeted.
I saw myself.
Still climbing.
Still descending.
Still in the exact same place.
No. No, that wasn't possible.
I turned, only to find myself at the bottom of the staircase.
But that…that wasn't right.
I had just been going down.
I swallowed hard. My pulse thundered against my skull, my breath coming too fast, too sharp.
I took a step up.
And found myself at the bottom again.
Panic coiled around my ribs, squeezing tight.
I wasn't moving in circles. I wasn't trapped in a physical loop.
This was perception magic.
There was no way forward.
No way out.
My breath came fast and uneven. My hands clenched into fists.
The labyrinth wanted me to believe I was stuck.
Which meant the only way forward was to trust the unknown.
I took a breath.
And jumped into the void.
For half a second, nothing existed.
No up. No down. No walls. No gravity.
Then, but of course, I hit solid ground, hard, the force knocking the air from my lungs. Pain jolted through my legs, rattling my bones. I gasped, pushing myself up.
The staircase above me twisted.
The stone bent like a serpent, curling in on itself before folding, compacting, vanishing.
I had escaped again.
But I wasn't safe.
The labyrinth was still waiting.
And it was still hungry.
****
The next door led into a chamber bathed in cold, flickering blue light.
The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the temperature plunged, biting through my clothes, sinking into my bones.
Before I could even move… another version of me walked in.
I held my breath.
The second Asher, identical in every detail, from the tension in his shoulders to the dried blood beneath his fingernails from hanging to dear life in the lava trial, moved with careful, measured steps, his eyes locked on something I couldn't see. His face was blank, void of recognition, as if I didn't exist.
Then… another entered.
This one had a fresh cut running down his cheek, the wound still raw, glistening under the cold light.
Then another. Limping. Panting. Blood soaking his sleeve. His breath hitched with each step, as if every movement sent fresh agony through his body.
I stumbled back. My heart slammed against my ribs, a frantic warning drum.
And then….
The last version appeared.
This one wasn't just injured. He was broken. His eyes were wild, wide with desperation. His fingers clawed at his own arms, nails digging into flesh, leaving deep red welts. His lips moved soundlessly, as if whispering to something unseen, something lurking just beyond perception.
He screamed.
The sound ripped through the room like shattering glass, a raw, guttural wail of terror and madness.
And in the space between one breath and the next…
He was gone.
I stood frozen, my own breath strangled in my throat.
I had lingered too long.
The room wasn't showing me the past.
It was showing me the future.
If I didn't escape, I would become one of them. Another doomed fragment, another Asher trapped in an endless cycle, repeating over and over until I unraveled, until my own mind broke.
I had no idea how much time I had left.
No clock ticked down. No warning burned against the walls. But the logic was clear: the longer I stayed, the worse I became.
I scanned the chamber, my pulse a relentless hammer in my ears.
There were no open exits. No paths forward. Only walls lined with identical doors, each one marked with shifting symbols, runes that twisted and rearranged themselves the moment I tried to focus. I racked my brain, looking for any indicator, no matter how small, and that's when I noticed the torches, their flames dancing lazily near each door.
However, one torch caught my eye. I focused all my being, comparing its flickers to the others, and indeed, it was burning ever so slightly slower than the others.
I lunged toward it, reaching for the nearest door.
And every single other Asher turned.
Their heads snapped toward me, their eyes locking onto mine. Their movements were sharp, synchronized, too fast, too sudden, as if they had only just realized I was real.
A whisper slithered through the chamber.
Soft. Unintelligible.
Coming from them.
The chill in my veins turned to ice.
I didn't wait.
The moment my fingers curled around the handle, a violent pulse shot through the room and the other Ashers lunged.
I tore the door open and threw myself through, just as the chamber behind me collapsed into darkness.
I hit the ground hard (AGAIN), pain jolting up my arms, my breath becoming somehow ever more ragged, my pulse still hammering.
I didn't dare look back.
But I swear I could still hear their otherworldly screams.
****
The room ahead was bare.
Just a stone floor stretching into the distance, no cracks, no traps, no tricks. At the far end, another door, sturdy, iron-bound, the kind that should feel reassuring.
But as always, there was a catch.
Beside it, carved into the cold stone wall, was a message.
"DON'T THINK ABOUT FALLING."
The words were deep, uneven, like someone had scratched them in a hurry, like they hadn't had time to finish before…
I swallowed. My throat was dry.
I could ignore it.
I should ignore it.
But the longer I stood there, the heavier the words became, settling in my mind like a seed taking root. Falling.
I clenched my fists and forced myself forward.
One step.
The floor held firm beneath my boot.
A second step.
Still solid.
I exhaled, half-laughing, the tension in my shoulders loosening. This is nothing. This is the easiest room yet.
Then….
A terrible thought crept into my mind, unbidden, insidious.
What if it isn't safe?
The moment the doubt took form, my foot sank.
The stone turned to mist.
A cold, hungry pull yanked at my leg, and in a heartbeat, my knee was already vanishing into the void. A scream tore from my throat as I jerked back, heart hammering against my ribs. I stumbled, scrambling onto what should have been solid ground, but now the entire room was shifting, warping beneath me, the floor thinning like vapor under the weight of my own uncertainty.
I had been standing fine just moments ago.
But now, it was devouring me.
I fought my instincts, fought the rising panic clawing at my throat. My body screamed at me to run, but if I ran, if I hesitated for even a second, I knew I would fall.
I clenched my jaw, forced my thoughts into a single, unwavering belief:
The floor is solid. The floor is solid. The floor is solid.
The sinking stopped.
Every step forward was a battle against my own mind. I had to believe. Believe that my footing was secure. Believe that nothing waited beneath me, no abyss yawning hungrily for my fall.
But the doubt was always there, just waiting, coiling like a snake in the back of my mind.
One wrong thought. One second of hesitation, And I would be gone.
Sweat dripped down my back, my pulse a steady, merciless drum. The door loomed closer, but the floor thinned with every step, the mist rising around my ankles, creeping higher, the whispers of my own uncertainty brushing against my skin.
I reached the end, every muscle in my body locked, frozen in place. Don't think about falling. Don't think about falling.
I grabbed the handle.
Turned it.
Threw myself through the doorway.
The moment my foot left the room, I collapsed.
My whole body was shaking. My fingers dug into the stone floor, desperate to feel something real, something solid. The cold sweat soaking my skin made the air feel icy, every breath a shuddering gasp.
But I was alive.
****
After resting for God knows how much, I pushed forward, lungs burning, my body screaming for more rest. To my left, a glowing platform jutted from the ground, the words SAFE ZONE carved into its surface.
A cluster of students sprinted toward it, gasping, shaking, their faces streaked with sweat and terror. Some had burns along their arms, others clutched bleeding wounds, their uniforms torn. A girl collapsed the second she stepped on the platform, her chest heaving.
For ten agonizing seconds, nothing happened.
Then, the platform vanished.
The students plummeted, their screams piercing the air before they were cut off in a sickening, wet squelch. A pit had opened beneath them, writhing with magic-sucking leeches, each one the size of a forearm, their translucent bodies pulsing as they latched onto their prey. The air filled with the sound of desperate, gurgling gasps as the leeches fed, draining their victims dry in seconds.
Then the pit sealed shut, as if they had never existed at all.
A choked breath caught in my throat.
I staggered back, eyes wide, but there was no time to process.
Ahead, the corridor trembled violently.
A low rumble filled the air, deep and primal. Stone ground against stone. Dust rained from the ceiling.
Then—
A boulder the size of a carriage materialized out of thin air.
The students in its path barely had time to react.
Some dove to the side, throwing themselves into alcoves too small to be safe. Others weren't fast enough.
The boulder rolled forward, and the screams turned into wet, broken things.
By the time the boulder reached the end of the corridor, nothing was left but the hollow silence of an empty passage.
My whole body shook viloenlty, and after moments of absolute shock and denial, I continued running.
The labyrinth was growing more violent. More unstable.
The dust clogged my throat as I moved towards the next room, my heart slamming against my ribs. My legs barely held me upright, my body shaking with exhaustion.
I swallowed, forcing my breath to steady, and looked ahead.
What fresh horror awaited me now?