The corridor narrowed as Callum and Seraphine moved deeper into the Labyrinth, the air turning colder, heavier… and somehow listening. Every footstep felt amplified, stretched into a whisper that slithered along the stone walls.
Seraphine stopped.
"Do you hear that?"
Callum nodded. He heard it too — faint, fractured voices overlapping like shards of broken glass.
—turn back—
—he sees you—
—the door remembers—
"It's not real," Callum muttered. "Just illusions. Or remnants of past traversers."
"Well," Seraphine said, exhaling, "it's working. My nerves are shredded."
The corridor opened into a vast circular chamber.
And waiting at the center…
was a door.
A massive obsidian slab, engraved with swirling runes shaped like spirals and eyes. Its surface reflected nothing — even the torchlight seemed swallowed.
Callum's pulse quickened.
He'd seen this before.
Not here.
Not in this life.
But in a fragment — one of the Visions he had experienced when touching Seraphine's sigil.
A door that remembers.
Seraphine stepped closer. "What is this place? It feels like…"
"Like a memory," Callum finished.
The chamber shifted, the air vibrating as faint silhouettes emerged around the door — blurry figures repeating motions, replaying fragments of events from decades, maybe centuries ago.
Ghost-like echoes of previous explorers.
One silhouette reached toward the door —
and was instantly shredded into ash.
Seraphine staggered back. "Okay. Definitely not a normal door."
Callum moved forward, eyes narrowed. "It reacts to intent… not touch."
"How do you know that?"
He hesitated.
What could he say?
Because I've seen this door in a life I don't remember living.
"…Instinct," he said softly.
Before Seraphine could question it, the chamber pulsed.
A voice — deep, resonant, ancient — filled the room:
"Bearer of the Broken Crown…
Prove your identity."
Seraphine whipped her head toward Callum. "Callum — who is it talking to?"
Callum's throat tightened.
He didn't know.
Or maybe he did, but the memories were buried too deep.
The door illuminated with swirling patterns, forming a singular sigil:
A crown made of seven fractured pieces.
Seraphine whispered, "That symbol… it looks like the one from your nightmare."
Callum clenched his jaw. "It wasn't a nightmare."
The door repeated:
"Prove your identity… or be unmade."
The runes brightened, the entire chamber trembling as the echo-figures flickered faster and faster.
Callum inhaled slowly.
He stepped toward the obsidian door.
Seraphine grabbed his wrist. "Callum—! If you're wrong—"
"I won't die," he said quietly.
"I've already done that once."
Seraphine's eyes widened.
She didn't understand what he meant — not yet — but something in his voice made her release him.
Callum lifted his hand.
The crown-shaped sigil blazed.
A force surged through his mind — not hostile, not gentle — just overwhelming. A cascade of foreign memories slammed into him:
battles, screams, darkness, a throne that never truly existed, and a name—
Not Callum.
He staggered backward, choking on the onslaught.
Seraphine caught him before he fell. "Callum! Hey—stay with me!"
He gripped his head, gasping as silver sparks flickered in his irises.
When the pain finally lessened, he forced out the words:
"…The door recognizes me. But I don't recognize myself."
The chamber deepened into silence.
Then—
CREAK.
The obsidian door slowly, impossibly, began to open.
A gust of cold wind burst outward, carrying the scent of ink, storms, and something older than the Labyrinth itself.
Callum steadied himself.
Seraphine looked between him and the opening with a mixture of fear and awe.
"What now?" she whispered.
Callum's eyes sharpened.
"We step inside."