Atlas jolted awake, his body hitting the ground with a soft thud. Disoriented and dizzy from the sudden weightlessness, he took a moment to gather himself. When he finally opened his eyes, he found himself lying on a vast expanse of sand.
He quickly assessed his body—two arms, two legs, two eyes—and found everything to be normal. But the surroundings were far from ordinary. He was enclosed in a massive sand-filled arena, surrounded by towering walls that confined the sandy expanse. Above him, nine moons and six planets hung in the sky, casting an eerie, otherworldly light.
Atlas took another look at the walls and realized he was in a box-like structure with three large hallways leading outwards. From his vantage point, it resembled the entrance to a grand and intricate maze.
Before he made an attempt to explore his surroundings, he remembered that this was a trial, and danger could lurk around any corner. If he died here, there would be no coming back. Death was death.
He also realized that there was no immediate danger, so he first thought of longevity. The sand around him made it clear there would be no water, and from the looks of it, there was nothing but a barren desert-like environment in this square, leaving him no food sources either. This also left him no places to hide from potential predators.
Atlas felt a little lighter, as if the gravity of this strange trial was off. He tried jumping and went way higher than he would have back home, leaping well over two meters into the air. He tried it a couple more times and tried to adapt himself to running as well, in case he had to make a quick exit.
After about thirty minutes, he decided to enter one of the three hallways. It was a decision made without any particular reason. He chose the one to the left and walked into the large hallway that was ten meters wide. He stuck his hand out to the left wall, remembering what he had learned about solving mazes when he was younger. If he just kept his hand on the left wall and traced it, he would eventually find a way out. This only worked if there were no floating pieces of the maze, but without any other strategy in mind, he went with the most rudimentary one.
Atlas made a mark on the wall using his belt to remember where he started. He turned the first left and kept walking, no longer able to see the sandy square.
The moons overhead cast enough light for Atlas to see, but some corners were still covered in immense darkness, leaving him a little scared of what might be lurking. He knew that a weak human without any Skills from a door would not be able to compete with any monster these trails faced. His best bet was to run away.
As he walked, he eventually came to a dead end with a weird symbol of an eye staring at him. He took a mental note of the symbol and walked away.
He made it back to the corner before he turned into the sandy square, but the hallway that was connected to the mark he made was no longer there. Instead, it was the same wall going down.
Filled with dread but also a strange calmness, Atlas had to quickly settle his mental state. He knew this was not going to be a simple maze, and something like the walls changing couldn't be out of the picture. But something happening so soon threw him off and without any warning. He did the only logical thing he could: keep walking, but every two hundred or so meters, he would make a mark on the wall again to see if the rest would change.
He kept running into more and more dead ends, each with an eye symbol above them. Eventually, though, Atlas made it to a gateway that was open on one side. He got close and inspected it thoroughly, before yet again making a mark and peering through the crack. What he saw was surprising to say the least.
On the other side was a strawman, like the ones you see in cornfields, except he was standing normally. The walls in this hallway were also different, with the width only being five meters and the ground turned from sand to slab.
Atlas knew that entering this without any weapons or a plan was suicide, because this strawman could be powerful beyond belief despite his looks. He turned yet again to go and explore the other pathways, only to be met with a wall. Without a sound, the maze had changed again, and he was now met with a dead end.
Atlas looked around in disappointment, knowing now he was truly stuck with this doorway or nothing. He wondered how the maze functioned. Was there a being controlling the maze to mess with him? This wall suddenly being here was too perfect of a coincidence to not force him to challenge this strawman. Could he wait it out and the maze change again? Or could the floor he was standing on also be moved out from beneath him? Too many things to think about, and too many problems could occur from waiting. What if while he was waiting, a more powerful-looking creature showed up?
Atlas wanted to exhaust every possible resource available to escape this situation alive. He even thought about scaling the wall before him, but it was no use. Even with the gravity being affected, the walls were simply too tall, reaching hundreds of meters into the sky.
He then came to the conclusion to just try and challenge the strawman. I mean what if he was friendly anyway?
Atlas collected his thoughts and entered the doorway, trying to hide in the shadows as much as possible. The strawman was facing away from him, looking down at the other door that was also slightly cracked open.
Slowly walking until he got to just before the peripheral vision of the strawman, he thought about two options: trying to sneak behind him and kill him through strangulation, or simply trying to walk or run past him, ignoring him altogether.
He decided to not make an enemy of this strawman, because he wasn't moving and could potentially just be an inanimate object. With a hurried pace, he walked into the field of view and headed straight for the door. Right before he was able to slip through the cracks, the door slammed shut.
A voice rang into his ears, coming from what seemed like all directions. "Where do you think you're are going?"
Atlas was hit with a wave of shock and despair. He should have just struck preemptively. But also, he was left with some questions. Did that strawman just talk? And how the hell did the door close perfectly? Does he have a way to move a door with his mind, or does he—Before he could ponder any more, a piece of straw slammed into the wall next to his head. It cracked the stone wall as if a piece of a metal pipe was shot out of a gun.
Another wave of shock was sent into Atlas's heart. His natural instinct to evade kicked in before another piece of straw landed right where his head would have been if he was a split second too late.
Atlas kept moving while watching this strawman raise his hand, a piece of straw shooting out at a high speed as if he was shooting from a gun. He knew that if he kept just dodging along the walls, he was a dead man, because the strawman could either close the distance until his aim couldn't miss, or he could keep shooting these straws at him until he got lucky and one hit.
Armed with this information, he came to the conclusion that he had to gamble on closing the distance and try to actually fight. Right now, he was a rat trapped in a cage with a cat who could shoot out its claws.
Atlas got ready to rush and kicked off the wall, gaining as much speed as possible. The strawman was still immobile in the center of the room, so he could only keep shooting straw at a slow pace. For some reason, he wasn't backing up, but Atlas didn't think about it and instead focused on trying to dodge these high-speed projectiles. He closed the distance one step after another until he was just three meters away. At this distance, the odds of the strawman missing were slim.
But who said he had to miss? All he had to do was not hit a vital organ of his, and he could reach him. Prepared to sacrifice a part to save the whole, he turned his side, intending to make the strawman hit his arm. But the strawman did something unthinkable. He dashed backward. Atlas was surprised. Not only had this strawman not moved the whole time, but he suddenly dashed backward at the moment Atlas was close. He was a lot stronger than he thought.