The Gate of Pages
The last echo of Selence’s voice faded as the Library folded behind me.
Light stretched thin, becoming a bridge of dust and thought.
When I stepped forward, the bridge dissolved—
and I fell.
It was not falling through air, but through memory.
Pages of light spiraled around me, turning themselves as if the story of my life were being rewritten mid-fall.
When I landed, there was no ground—only reflection.
An endless corridor curved upon itself, alive, breathing.
The walls shimmered like liquid glass, woven from fragments of my own past.
Each surface rippled with scenes I had lived, forgotten, or dreamed:
the day Rhelon was born, the night Selence vanished, the first time I touched the Primordial Window.
Every memory pulsed faintly, waiting to be seen again.
This was not a creation of the System.
It was something deeper—
something that had grown within me all along.
The Living Maze
I took a step.
The corridor bent, responding like a living thing.
Where I walked, light followed; where I hesitated, the walls darkened.
And then I saw her.
Not one Selence, but hundreds—
each flickering within a wall of glass, caught mid-gesture, mid-smile, mid-goodbye.
One was the woman who laughed beside our son.
Another, the Custodian wrapped in silver threads.
Another still, the whisper of wind that had called my name across the void.
Each image looked at me, and for a moment, they knew.
Every reflection murmured the same word:
“Elias.”
The air trembled.
I realized this labyrinth wasn’t built to trap me.
It was reaching for me.
Selence wasn’t gone—she was trying to return, piece by piece, through the maze of my mind.
Echoes of Her Memory
I touched one of the glowing walls.
Instantly, warmth surged through me—a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.
The reflection changed: Selence standing beneath twin moons, her hair rippling in wind that shimmered like liquid time.
She raised her hand toward me.
“If you find this place,” her voice whispered,
“don’t be afraid. I left these paths so you could follow me back.”
The vision flickered.
Behind her, shapes moved—threads of light, weaving the walls themselves.
The labyrinth was her consciousness, scattering itself through my forgotten lives.
Each corner I turned was a door she had left ajar.
Each pulse of light, a memory she refused to let die.
I wasn’t wandering her maze.
I was walking through her love.
The Core That Breathes
The air thickened with golden mist.
The further I walked, the more the space began to hum—a deep, slow rhythm, like the breathing of an ancient heart.
I felt it resonate with my chest.
Two pulses, then one.
My rhythm and hers, finding each other.
A thousand reflections collapsed into a single corridor of light.
At its end, a gate shimmered, formed from the same light that once built the Primordial Window.
It flickered between being a door and a memory.
I understood.
This was the entrance to her core—the place where all versions of Selence converged.
The labyrinth wasn’t awakening for me.
It was awakening because of me.
The Realization
For the first time, I spoke aloud.
My voice didn’t echo—it dissolved into the walls, spreading through every surface like a heartbeat shared.
“Selence… if this is you… I’m coming.”
The mist stirred.
The corridors pulsed brighter, like veins carrying light.
And as I stepped toward the final gate, the entire maze whispered in unison—
her name, my name, and the sound of memory remembering itself.The labyrinth had awakened.
And it knew who I was.
