Allen pressed onward along the corridor, each step echoing in a space that felt more like a living organism than an engineered maze. The stone beneath his boots had become uneven and unpredictable; the corridor's walls, once smooth and abstract, now pulsed with a raw energy that mirrored the turmoil deep within him.
He had just emerged from the Emotional Construct, where memories and inner voices had battered him with a fierce confrontation of his true self. Although he had managed to pull himself together, the corridor offered no true refuge—only a relentless grind of instability and doubt.
Here, the corridor stretched interminably, a dark tunnel with walls that continuously morphed. In some stretches, the stone would ripple as if it were liquid, and in others, it seemed to bulge outward, creating sudden dips and peaks that forced Allen's body to instinctively duck or brace.
Every so often, faint, distorted echoes of his own thoughts returned—a murmur of "You're slowing down" or "Trust nothing but yourself"—making him pause for just a fraction too long. The very air was thick with unseen force, as though the corridor itself were trying to sap his resolve. Small fissures cracked along the walls, releasing brief, almost musical chimes that became alarms for a misstep; at other moments, the floor vibrated in unpredictable pulses, disturbing his balance and inviting him to question whether his progress was even real.
Allen's eyes—now burning with the raw, emergent clarity of his early Sigil—scanned this shifting passage. The interplay of light and shadow was sporadic and eerie, and in the periphery, he could swear he saw brief images of faces—echoes of his failures and distant regrets—slipping away into the gloom. With every breath, his pulse pounded the rhythm of determination and doubt.
For what felt like hours, he navigated this corridor, his mind straining to chart a steady course among its ever-changing corridors. The psychological toll was cumulative: with each misstep, every sudden tilt of the ground, his confidence wavered, and the omnipresent whispers of his own insecurities grew louder. But he forced himself on—each step a defiant protest against the labyrinth's oppressive whispers.
Then, unexpectedly, the corridor began to transform. The space widened imperceptibly until Allen found himself at the entrance of a vast chamber, the floor now no longer solid and continuous but segmented into a series of floating, fractured steps. These steps—jagged and irregular—hovered in mid-air, suspended over a deep, inky darkness. The walls of the chamber bore more pronounced seams and cracks, echoing the theme of fractured truths. It was here that the next trial revealed itself in its brutal simplicity
Allen stepped tentatively onto the first floating slab. Immediately, he sensed that the path was treacherous. The steps were not fixed; they quivered underfoot, shifting unpredictably as if controlled by the very emotions he carried. Each step forward triggered a subtle vibration—a pulse of pain that made his muscles contract and his nerves burn as if to remind him of past failures.
The chamber was dimly lit by an ambient, eerie glow emanating from the seams between the steps. The light itself seemed to pulse in rhythm with his heart, providing a fragile measure of time and distance amidst the chaos. As Allen advanced, he could hear the whispers of the labyrinth intensify, warning him with clipped echoes:
"Hesitate and fall… your steps betray you."
"Doubt turns victory into ashes."
His mind raced, and with each step he attempted to force himself into the pattern. The steps shifted intermittently; some would hold firm for a split second before giving way to a sudden drop or lateral slide. When Allen faltered, the fall was swift and jarring—a burst of crushing impact that left him gasping and momentarily broken on the cold, damp floor. But with every fall, his resolve hardened. He began to notice patterns amidst the chaos: a slight glimmer of a step's edge before it shifted, a tremor in the wall that signaled a change in the floor's layout, a barely perceptible pause in the echo of his footsteps.
Pain lanced through his legs as he rose again, his face set in grim determination. "I won't let this break me," he whispered, more to himself than to the indifferent stone. With each careful, calculated step, he learned the language of the Fractured Steps—a language of balance, timing, and the reconciliation of his inner doubts with external danger. The experience was a visceral reminder: every misstep was not just a physical fall, but a confrontation with the part of him that dared not move too quickly, that feared failure above all.
Even as he began to master the rhythm of the shifting steps, the chamber seemed to challenge him further. Occasionally, a step would vanish entirely, replaced by a void of darkness that threatened to swallow him whole if he misjudged its extent. When Allen's foot found solid ground, the floor would vibrate, sending shards of scattered stone around him—a demonstration that the labyrinth cared little for human frailty.
But with persistence, Allen's movements grew more assured. His eyes, still glowing with the early light of his Sigil, became the anchors that drew him back from the brink each time the hallway threatened to overwhelm him. His body remembered the patterns, and slowly, pain became a guide rather than a paralyzing shock. The corridors of the Fractured Steps, merciless yet alive with meaning, began to yield to his focused will.
Finally, after countless harrowing moments and near-falls, Allen set his final, measured foot on a step that held firm. For a split second, as his heart pounded and his breath steadied, the chaotic movement subsided; the steps aligned, and a calm, eerie stillness fell over the chamber. That brief moment of order was like the eye of a storm—a place of clarity amid the overwhelming turbulence.
Allen closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the heat of his exertion and the raw edge of his adrenaline. It was in this fragile pause that he allowed himself to reflect on the struggle—the cumulative weight of every twist in the corridor, every echo of self-doubt that had driven him here. He knew that although the Fractured Steps had nearly undone him, they had also forged a new resilience. Each fall had, in its own painful way, taught him a lesson in determination and the price of progress.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, setting his gaze on the door beyond the chamber—a narrow, unassuming passage that beckoned him onward into the next stage of the labyrinth. The Fractured Steps receded behind him, their memory a mix of agony and empowerment. As he stepped forward, Allen knew that the path ahead would only grow more challenging. But for now, he had learned to move with purpose—and that was a victory worth any amount of pain.
The corridor leading to the next chamber was narrower than any he had passed through so far. The walls closed in, their surfaces unnaturally smooth, and the ceiling hung low, barely a hand's breadth above his head. Breathing here felt harder, not from lack of air, but from the sense of compression—like the space itself was judging him for daring to continue.
It didn't help that the whispering echoes had returned.
Not the angry, accusatory murmurs from before, but subtle ones. Kind. Friendly. Familiar.
He hated them more.
By the time the corridor flared open into Room VII, Allen was sweating cold and hollow. He expected another maze of pain and platforms, some physical challenge to beat into submission. What he found instead was a room full of mirrors—and himself.
The room was circular, with mirror-lined walls and no visible ceiling—just a dusky void above that seemed to watch. The floor was white stone, polished enough to reflect like glass, and Allen's reflection stared back from every angle.
Except... it wasn't always his reflection.
The first mirror warped just slightly—his eyes a shade too bright, his expression a little too calm. The second wore a grin he hadn't made. The third didn't move when he did. By the tenth mirror, the variations had grown grotesque: Allen smiling while crying, Allen laughing mid-scream, Allen with hollow sockets, Allen whispering things Allen didn't want to hear.
Then one stepped out.
A perfect replica of Allen—calm, composed, warm-eyed. "You've come far," it said. Its voice was his, but soft. Reassuring.
Allen tensed. "You're not real."
"I could be. If you let me." The Mirror Allen stepped closer, gesturing to the mirrored space. "This room isn't meant to break your body. Just your certainty. Here, you'll be given help—if you accept it."
A thin shimmer passed over the mirror behind him, and another figure stepped through. A girl Allen had once trusted. Then a boy he'd looked up to. Then a version of Kael—face earnest, hand extended.
Each was a symbol of some broken trust. People who had failed him. Or people he had failed. They began to speak—not mockingly, but kindly.
"We're here to help," said the girl.
"You can't do this alone," added Kael's voice.
"You're allowed to lean on others."
Allen backed away, breath shallow. He knew this was a test. Knew that accepting help from illusions would cost him. But a part of him wanted to believe—wanted to reach out.
He tried to ignore them, but the rules of the room didn't allow it.
The door on the far end refused to open. The platform beneath his feet shifted, revealing a glowing rune etched into the floor. A whisper from the mirrors explained it:
"You cannot leave alone. Someone must walk beside you."
And so began the challenge.
Each false companion offered solutions: how to rearrange the mirrors to create a path; how to solve whispered riddles from the walls; how to bypass traps that would otherwise trigger. Their answers were always correct—at first. The first riddle, solved together, let Allen pass a glyph-lock. The second kept him from stepping into a trap of falling glass shards.
And then the third answer nearly killed him.
It had been small. Just a slightly-off suggestion, given by the Mirror Kael: "Press the left glyph, then step back." Allen followed it—and a lance of reflective energy carved past his shoulder, burning straight through stone.
He turned slowly. Kael still smiled. "Oops."
It clicked in Allen's mind then: the room had conditioned him to trust them just enough—to lower his guard. They were part of the test, and now they would turn.
The illusions began to speak in different tones. Not aggressive, not malicious—just wrong. Twisted comfort. Gentle lies. They followed Allen now as he moved, calling out how tired he looked, how lonely he was, how easy it would be to stop fighting and listen. One of them even mimicked Allen's own voice, whispering inside his ear:
"What if the real trial is your need to do everything alone?"
Allen faltered. The room was working.
But then he stopped, standing perfectly still amid a chorus of beckoning echoes. He took a breath, slow and sharp.
"I am alone," he said. "And that's fine."
The reflections flickered. Some smiled wider. Some frowned.
Allen looked around at them all. "You're not real. And the moment I treat you like people instead of puzzles, I fail."
He began to run.
The illusions gave chase, mimicking screams, begging, warning. The entire room shifted, tilting as if it were falling inward on itself. But Allen moved straight through them. Every time he made a decision without listening—trusted his instinct over the voices—a section of the floor lit up. A path began to form. Not guided by others, but by his own rejection of falsehood.
Finally, the mirror at the far end cracked open.
He stood before it, ragged but steady. In the reflection, all the false companions stood behind him, silent now. Waiting.
Allen didn't look back. He stepped through.
The corridor beyond the mirror was quiet.
No whispers. No shifting walls. Just stillness.
Allen stumbled forward, nearly collapsing to his knees as the door sealed behind him with a click that sounded too much like a sigh. He leaned against the cold wall, hand trembling as he pressed his palm to his forehead.
He hadn't realized how much he'd been sweating.
Not from heat, but from something worse—prolonged exposure to false trust. The mind might distinguish illusion from reality, but the body? It responded as if every betrayal had been real. His heart was still racing, throat raw from breathless tension. His legs felt like they'd been running for hours.
Worse than the exhaustion was the ache.
Small cuts marked his arms where he'd collided with glass reflections that had lashed out during the escape. He hadn't even noticed them in the moment. Tiny splinters of mirrored glass had embedded along his skin, like transparent thorns. Some glittered faintly under his skin as if resisting removal.
He bit back a hiss and tried to pull one free. It felt... warm. Almost alive.
The pain wasn't sharp—it was deep, like the echo of something trying to root itself in him. The Tower, ever testing, had left more than psychological bruises. It had marked him again.
His hands shook as he reached into his satchel, pulling out gauze and water. No magic healed this. These wounds weren't meant for spellwork. They were symbols. Scars.
"Trust leaves a mark," Allen muttered under his breath, echoing a phrase the Mirror-Kael had whispered.
He didn't sleep. Couldn't. The corridor ahead was dark and narrow, and he'd long stopped expecting rest between rooms. But before he stood to move forward, he reached toward a small shard of mirror embedded in his palm.
He gripped it and pulled.
Blood welled up, slow and dark, but behind it was something else—clarity. The pain grounded him. Reminded him what was real.
He let the blood drip onto the stone floor in silence, then wiped his hand, rose, and kept walking.