The Labyrinth of Echoes
I sever the last tether with a thought. The world around me fractures—light refracting off shattered glass—before dissolving into nothing.
Weightless. Formless.
Then, the current takes me.
I drift, a ripple in the vast ocean of Grant’s subconscious. The labyrinth rises, shifting and coiling, its walls woven from neon circuitry and sepia-stained memory. Flickering cityscapes loom and dissolve—towers of glass and steel clawing at an unseen sky, streets teeming with metal beasts that move without reins, without will. The air is thick with rain and iron, sterile yet aching, like a wound that refuses to close.
I reach out, fingertips brushing the walls of this fractured realm. The glyphs pulse beneath my touch, shifting, rewriting—lines of erratic code stitched together with jagged remnants of thought. Fractured syntax. Imperfections bleeding at the seams. Corruption? No. Something more deliberate. A pattern waiting to be unraveled.
A pulse. My interface hums in response.
[DIGITAL BREACH SUCCESSFUL.]
Connection to external senses: severed.
I inhale sharply. So this is his inner world—a construct of memory, yet bound by something beyond thought. The system? The gods? Or did he build this himself, brick by fading brick, an architect of his own exile?
The realization unfurls, slow and terrible. The code is not immutable. It can be restored—or rewritten.
My pulse quickens. If this was laid by divine hands, does that mean they too are bound by its laws?
And if I understand them...
Can I unbind what was never meant to break?
I step forward. The void ripples.
The labyrinth stretches before me—not a place, but a fractured dream. Neon veins pulse beneath shifting shadows, glass and steel towers rising in defiance, their edges blurred, half-formed memories lost to the currents of forgotten time. The air hums with a nameless energy, something neither dead nor alive. A place between. A place outside.
And then, he emerges.
Arthur takes shape as if sculpted from the dark itself—an imperious silhouette wreathed in flickering void-light. Royal vestments drape over his form, shimmering, unraveling at the edges, threads resisting his claim to existence. His face is shadow, only the suggestion of sharp angles and colder intentions.
And yet—there. A crack in the mask. A tremor, barely perceptible, beneath the weight of his poise.
He sees me. He smirks, as kings do when amusement is a lie.
"What are you doing… Cal’Burn?"
His voice is smooth, practiced. But I hear it—the waver beneath the words.
I tilt my head, studying him as one does a relic they do not yet understand. "Ah… so this is where you hide yourself."
Arthur exhales, mist curling between us. "Yes… I find it… inspiring."
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Why?"
A pause. Calculated.
"Why not?" He lifts his chin. "Look at it—the marvel, the splendor. A kingdom raised in defiance of the divine. Towers of glass and metal, stretching toward a heaven they do not acknowledge. Even the dragons—once lords of the sky—are shackled, their wings nothing but steel and flame. Soulless things, bent to mortal ambition."
I narrow my eyes. "That’s not what I meant."
A brittle chuckle. "Oh?"
I step closer. "Why are you here?"
Each word sharp, precise. "This is not your domain. Nor your era. You—we—are intruders in this vessel. It belongs to another."
The smirk falters. An instant. Then, he reclaims it, sovereign composure folding over the crack.
"Oh yes… that one is long gone,"
Arthur muses, voice measured, deliberate. "Theia did her best to make me sovereign of this body… but Grant is persistent, if nothing else."
A cold certainty settles within me.
"We should go."
Arthur laughs—low, rich. A ruler humoring the ignorance of a subject. "And why would I do that?"
"Why would you stay?"
"To…" His voice does not waver. "Erase Grant. Entirely."
Silence. A heavy thing, pressing into the spaces between us. My interface flickers at the edges of my vision. The labyrinth trembles, recoiling from his words.
I breathe in. "It was you." A statement, not a question.
Arthur spreads his arms. The void bends to him. "Me? No, my dear Cal’Burn… us. We did this. You were there, whether you admit it or not."
I close my eyes, but the truth does not vanish in darkness.
"Yes," I whisper. The admission is sharp on my tongue. Then, stronger, "You are right. It was us."
A pause. Then, steel. "Thus… I must make it right."
Arthur’s expression shifts. The smirk is gone.
"And how do you intend to do that?"
"A debt is owed to Grant."
A scoff. "He is weak. He is nothing. And soon, he will be no more."
I meet his gaze, unwavering. "You… we are parasites. Clinging to a host. Our influence corrupts him."
The labyrinth quivers. The air fractures.
And still, Arthur smiles.
Arthur’s expression darkens, a shadow rippling across his features. The air shifts—subtle at first, like the sharp intake of breath before a storm breaks. Then the world spasms. The neon cityscape trembles, walls warping inward, pulsing with erratic energy. A labyrinth folding in on itself, waiting for me to misstep.
His voice slices through the static, smooth yet edged with iron. “If you wish to challenge me, you must play my game.” A pause—measured, deliberate. “Answer this, Shaq’Rai—what has cities, but no houses… forests, but no trees… and water, but no fish?”
The walls constrict. The air thickens, buzzing with expectation. He wants hesitation. Doubt. A crack in my resolve. But I know the shape of his traps.
I smile. “A map.”
A tremor shudders through the space. The walls flicker, their hold loosening. Arthur’s form stutters, his regal fa?ade unraveling at the edges.
I step forward, pressing the advantage. “You cloak yourself in illusion, in riddles and misdirection. But I see it now, Arthur. The pattern beneath the mask.”
His sneer is instant—sharp, defensive. “Then answer another.”
The riddles come like a tempest, layered with snares—words twisted into loops, logic folded in on itself. A game of mirrors meant to ensnare thought. But I do not stumble. I parse. I dissect. Each question is a doorway; each deception, a thread to unravel.
And then, just as he leans forward, certain of my failure, I turn the labyrinth against him.
My fingers move through the air, and the city shifts in response. Walls close, cutting off his paths. Data streams flicker, rewriting the corridors he prowls. A maze meant to ensnare me now tightens around its own creator.
His breath hitches. His posture stiffens. “You—” A flicker of something beneath his anger. Fear. “You cannot stop me.”
I meet his gaze, steady, unyielding. “No. But I can stall you. And that is enough.”
The labyrinth groans, buckling under the strain. Arthur’s form distorts, a king stripped of his throne, clawing at a dominion that no longer obeys.