The instant Royce crossed the threshold, the world shifted.
The air grew heavier, as if a thousand weeping souls pressed against his skin.
The walls of the labyrinth rose around him—walls made of writhing corpses, their mouths sewn shut, their blind eyes leaking black tears.
Each step he took echoed, not with sound, but with the whispers of regret:
"You should have saved her..."
"You were too weak..."
"You left us to rot..."
The floor was slick with sorrow—thick, black, and clinging to his boots like oil.
Royce inhaled sharply. The labyrinth was alive.
And it hated him.
---
At the first fork in the path, two corridors opened:
One glowed faintly blue, cold and silent.
The other pulsed red, hot and wet, the sound of distant sobbing leaking from it.
The boy's voice echoed again, distant and cold:
> "One path shows you what could have been.
The other shows you what you have become."
Royce chose the blue corridor.
---
The walls changed.
They no longer screamed, but whispered in sweet, cruel tones.
He found himself walking through memories—but they were not his own.
He passed by a vision of Eryndra laughing, sunlight in her hair, surrounded by friends Royce had never met.
In this world, he had never existed.
She had lived a full, bright life, untouched by darkness.
"She was better without you," the labyrinth cooed.
"You were her ruin."
Royce stumbled, fists clenched, fury and sorrow boiling inside him.
At the corridor's end stood a gate of ivory, carved with scenes of betrayal and death.
It would not open.
Not until he gave the labyrinth what it demanded.
A sacrifice.
---
A figure appeared at the gate.
His father.
But not the man Royce remembered.
This was a twisted, hollow version of him—his face gaunt, his eyes accusing.
"You killed her, Royce," the shade spat.
"You killed your mother. You killed your sister. You kill everything you touch."
The words slammed into Royce harder than any blade.
The truth was: part of him believed it.
The shade stepped closer, brandishing a dagger formed of memories—sharp with the weight of old betrayals.
"Bleed for her," it commanded.
"Bleed, and the gate will open."
Royce hesitated.
The dagger trembled in the shade's hand—waiting.
Waiting for him to reach out and accept his guilt.
To bleed willingly.
---
His fingers brushed the hilt.
A burning sensation coursed through him—memories he had buried deep ripping free like jagged glass.
The moment he turned away from Eryndra in the garden.
The moment he let his sister's scream go unanswered.
The moment he chose himself over everyone else.
The dagger sliced deep into his palm.
Blood, black and viscous, splattered onto the ivory gate.
It shuddered, groaned—and cracked open.
Beyond it lay the Hall of False Echoes.
---
Royce staggered through, clutching his bleeding hand.
The Hall stretched into infinity.
Along its endless walls hung portraits—portraits of Royce at every moment he had ever failed.
Him, turning his back on Eryndra.
Him, weeping over his sister's grave.
Him, alone and hollow, king of nothing.
Each portrait sneered at him, whispered poisoned words:
"Monster."
"Coward."
"Failure."
At the center of the Hall stood a twisted throne made of shattered mirrors.
And on it sat a figure cloaked in black—
Its face was his own.
A mirror-image Royce.
But where his eyes burned with desperate hope, the figure's were dead, bottomless voids.
The Doppelgänger rose from the throne, dragging a chain behind him.
At the end of the chain—
Eryndra.
Bound, blindfolded, and broken.
Her voice, raw and small, barely escaped her lips:
"Royce... why did you leave me?"
---
The Doppelgänger laughed—a sound like glass breaking underwater.
He spoke with Royce's voice, but twisted, hollow:
"You cannot save her.
You are the reason she suffers.
You are the curse."
And with that, it lunged, the ground shattering beneath its feet, the chain dragging Eryndra closer to the abyss yawning behind the throne.
---
Royce drew the dagger from his belt—bloodied, shaking, but burning with grim resolve.
This was not just a battle for her.
It was a battle for what little humanity he had left.
As the Doppelgänger rushed him, the Hall itself howled in delight.
The First Labyrinth of Grief demanded a victor.
And it demanded a price.
---