Young Danaël's pace had slowed drastically, and a wall nearly collided with him. The young boy almost twisted his ankle as he tried to get back on his feet.
His concentration failed, and with it, his fantastic mist disappeared at once. He tried to activate it again, but to no avail.
Danaël's cheeks swelled like balloons. The dirt walls kicked up so much dust that Danaël had to hold his breath as he ran at full speed.
"Poor Dod! I hope he's all right!" He thought.
Danaël's head was now reddened by the lack of oxygen. In a meagre gap, spared by the dust, he allowed himself a breath of air that lasted only a microsecond, then closed his mouth immediately.
Danaël saw a light ahead, a light at the end of the relentless tunnel of unpredictable patterns in which he was trapped.
"Is this the way out?" he thought.
The young boy quickened his pace, drawing on his last remaining resources. Time seemed to slow down, as if in a dream, and Danaël felt himself floundering even though he was running with all his might.
He narrowly avoided the ninth wall from the middle, pivoting stealthily on his right foot, and in a well-mannered pirouette managed to stay on course. With only a few meters to go, the lactic acid was burning his legs, but Danaël got over it and, with a last effort, he managed to activate his fantastic mist once again, which gave him a physical boost, albeit only partial, sufficient to keep him out of danger from the ever-moving walls...or maybe.
For out of nowhere, high in the sky, appeared another, presumably in free fall. Danaël realized in a flash that the latter's advance was ten times faster than his own, and this wall would land between two of his companions, blocking the only way out.
With this in mind, young Danaël didn't slow down. Now that he had no walls around him, he took a deep breath and launched himself into a slide of despair.
He couldn't see anything around him, and in his wake, he kicked up such a staggering concentration of dust that he had to stop breathing again.
BOOM!
The wall collided with the ground, shaking the entire labyrinth. It was only in extremis that Danaël found himself on the other side. The boy lay with his eyes closed, struggling to catch his breath.
Young Danaël noticed, however, that he was no longer in semi-darkness at all, for even with his eyes closed, a bright light shone through his eyelids. Danaël sat up slowly and painfully, rubbing his eyes before opening them.
The light was so strong that he immediately closed them before returning to his task. Looking around him, Danaël realized that the place where he had landed was quite small, no more than a square meter at a glance. It was literally a white box. Danaël felt cramped, almost enclosed.
"What is this shit?"
Danaël frowned, looking intrigued. In front of him had just appeared a digital screen, technology unimaginable to the youngster.
"I think I read something like that. What was it called again?"
A message appeared on the screen, admittedly in an ancient Ordinal language, but Danaël managed to read it all the same:
YOU HAVE JUST ENTERED A CHOICE ZONE WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTINUE?
"I guess I don't have much choice, do I? Yeah, I'll carry on," said Danaël dismissively.
The message on the screen faded, and then, accompanied by a slight crackling sound, a second screen appeared. Now, before Danaël's eyes were two very distinct messages entitled Option 1 and Option 2.