The labyrinth never truly slept.
Even in its quietest hours, you could hear it breathing: stone shifting deep below, ancient gears grinding, walls humming with a magic older than language. Every heartbeat seemed to echo against the cold walls, reminding me that this place was alive — and watching.
Sophia led me through a narrow passage slick with moss and age. Her steps were quick but careful, dagger held low, ears twitching at every distant scrape or sigh.
"You need to stay close," she whispered without looking back. "The labyrinth listens. If it thinks you're lost, it might decide to keep you."
I swallowed, the damp air sharp in my lungs. "What… does it want?"
"No one knows," she answered, her voice flat. "Some say it hungers. Some say it remembers. But most who ask… don't live long enough to find out."
---
After what felt like hours, we reached a small chamber carved by patient hands centuries ago. Crumbling statues lined the walls, worn beyond recognition — guardians, priests, or prisoners, their stories lost to dust.
In the center burned a single crystal lantern, its pale light steady and strangely warm. Around it lay scraps of cloth, a cracked water jug, and two packs patched from old leather.
"This is where I rest between searches," Sophia murmured, sinking onto a flat stone. She tossed me a waterskin. "Drink. Your head's probably splitting, isn't it?"
Now that she said it, a dull ache throbbed behind my eyes, pulsing in rhythm with the mark over my heart. I took a sip; the water tasted faintly of minerals, but it soothed the dryness in my throat.
"Thank you," I managed.
Sophia shrugged. "Don't mention it. We new ones have to stick together."
---
A silence settled between us, broken only by the drip of unseen water.
Then she spoke again, softer. "When did you wake up?"
"Today," I said. "I don't remember much. Only… dying. And then… this."
She nodded. "Happens to all of us. Your memories — of the world before — they fade faster the longer you stay. Hold onto what you can."
I hesitated. "Do you… remember yours?"
She looked away, ears drooping slightly. "Not all. Just flashes. A village by a silver river. Someone's voice calling my name in the snow. The rest… gone."
A bitter note crept into her words — not anger at me, but at the labyrinth, or perhaps at the cruel magic binding us here.
---
For a while, we just listened to the low hum of the walls.
Then Sophia spoke again. "The mark on your chest — did it burn when the beast came?"
"Yes," I said. "It felt like… fire under my skin. And then everything was clearer, just for a moment."
She nodded. "That's the Echo Mark. Some of us get it when we wake. It means… you're different."
"Different how?"
"You might hear the labyrinth," she said, voice dropping almost to a whisper. "Or it might hear you. Either way, it's dangerous."
She traced a small scar on her wrist, half-hidden by leather wraps. "And it doesn't come without cost."
---
My gaze drifted to the broken statues around us, wondering if they too had once been like us — marked, lost, searching for answers they would never find.
"How long have you been here?" I asked.
Sophia hesitated. "I'm… not sure anymore. Days blur together. Could be weeks. Could be years."
Her words chilled me more than the cold stone.
She studied my face, then added, "But you're not alone now. Tomorrow, I'll take you to the Echo Chamber. If your mark truly awakened, you might hear… something."
---
That night, or what passed for night in a place without sky, I lay on a threadbare blanket beside the lantern.
Sleep came in ragged breaths, torn by dreams of impossible halls and voices whispering through the stone. Shadows moved beyond the edge of the light, and sometimes I thought they watched me.
Somewhere in the dark, the labyrinth itself spoke — words not in any tongue I knew, yet somehow understood.
> *"Return. Remember. Reclaim."*
I awoke with the taste of dust on my tongue and a single thought seared into my mind:
*This place is not just a prison. It is a question… waiting for an answer.*
---
Sophia was already awake, sharpening her dagger, ears alert.
"Ready?" she asked.
"No," I admitted. "But let's go anyway."
She smiled faintly — the first true smile I'd seen from her — and stood. "Good. The labyrinth favors those who move forward."
We stepped into the shifting halls, the air cool and alive, stones whispering secrets older than kingdoms.
And so, my second life truly began — in darkness, among ruins, carrying a mark that burned with every heartbeat, and questions that might yet burn away my very soul.