The light, which had seemed so bright just moments ago, began to slowly fade, leaving the room in a dim half-light. Every step Lumis and Eili took echoed in the silence, and only the clock continued its relentless ticking, as if offering them no respite from its presence.
“We can’t just leave this,” Eili said quietly, her voice trembling with tension. She gazed at the clock, now more of an obsession than ever, but a sense of dread began to fill her eyes. “It’s like it’s bound to our fate.”
Lumis stood still, his gaze fixed on the clock’s hands, which now moved erratically, as if trying to escape the passage of time. His thoughts were tangled. What he felt here, in the heart of the labyrinth, was something far more serious than he had ever imagined.
“This clock… it’s not just a timepiece,” he said, almost as if awakening from a deep thought. “It’s part of something bigger. It holds more than just seconds.”
Eili looked at him, trying to grasp what he meant. Her eyes fell on the clock again, but this time, there was no wonder—only fear.
“What if we can’t change what’s happening?” she asked, her voice anxious but tinged with a bitter hope. “What if it’s already written?”
“You’re right, it could be what we’ve been searching for,” Lumis said, feeling the heavy truth begin to settle in his mind. “But I don’t know what will happen if we try to change its course.”
Gradually, the room began to shift. The walls began reflecting images—those same ones they had first encountered at the beginning of their journey. Faces appeared on them, shifting with the changing light, blending with shadows of their own memories. As the light dimmed, they became clearer, almost as though they were coming to life, filling the space with past events.
Eili stepped back in fear. “This… this is what we left behind, isn’t it?” she asked, her gaze troubled. “This isn’t just a labyrinth. It’s like a place that holds our worst moments.”
“Maybe this is the truth we need to understand,” Lumis replied, his face calm, yet his eyes were ablaze with an inner light. “We can’t just avoid this. We need to go through it to understand who we really are.”
The shadows on the walls began to move, as if they were aware of their words. These were not just reflections of their fears or past. They were part of what had happened before—and what, perhaps, they were meant to leave behind. Their gazes crossed with the same images they had feared when they first began their journey.
The feeling of both calm and fear merged within him. It was hard to say where one ended and the other began, but it was inevitable.
“We must move forward,” he said, taking a deep breath. “We can’t let the past hold us. This is part of what we must go through, and only by doing so will we understand why we are here.”
Eili stood quietly, her heart pounding. She looked again at the clock, still ticking, but now its hands seemed as weary as they were.
“We can’t let this define us,” she said, her voice firm. “We can’t let this reflection keep us in the dark.”
She took a step forward, and Lumis followed. Though every step was heavy, every echo a reminder in the boundless space, they both knew this was the only right choice. The labyrinth was not just a trial but a test that would ultimately lead them to the truth.
And so, they walked on.