Black.
That was the first thing he knew.
Not darkness. Darkness you can see through, squint into, break apart with flame or faith. But this — this was black. The kind that weighed. The kind that whispered. The kind that remembered.
He lay still.
Stone beneath him. Cold. Smooth. Cut with care.
Not a cave.
A chamber.
Man-made.
No, he thought. Not man-made.
Mine.
But he couldn't say his name. Couldn't shape it. His tongue felt foreign in his mouth. His hands trembled — not from fear, but familiarity. The lines in his palms were wrong. The calluses in the wrong places. The fingers were a craftsman's, but he didn't know what they had crafted.
He stood.
The chamber was round. Narrow. The walls curved in a way that told him they weren't meant to contain. They were meant to confuse.
A faint glow pulsed above — not light, but memory. It flickered as he moved.
Stone corridors stretched in three directions, each identical in shape, in silence. No markings. No color. No scent of wind or open air.
He breathed.
And then he heard it.
The first whisper.
"He forgot his own crown…"
He turned. Nothing. Just stone. Stillness. Not echo — memory.
His legs moved on their own, guided by something deeper than instinct. The path bent left, then curved right, then spiraled down.
Another whisper.
"The King feared the architect more than the beast."
His breath caught. He touched the wall. Every corner, every shift — familiar. This wasn't a prison.
This was a puzzle.
And he was the missing piece.
He found the first door an hour later.
It was etched with a sigil — a spiral of feathers, molten wings, and a hand holding a chisel.
He reached to touch it.
A flash — burning wax, a boy falling, screams swallowed by sky.
Then black again.
He staggered back.
He knew that symbol.
He carved it.
But he didn't remember why.
"The King took his son. So he took the world."
The whisper again. Closer.
It wasn't a voice behind him.
It was inside him.
He ran.
Down halls that bent like intestines. Past rooms filled with mirrors that didn't reflect. Over bridges that ended in walls.
Always forward. Always deeper.
Until he hit the center.
A round room. Towering. Open above — but black as ever. In the center: a throne. Cracked. Empty.
He stepped toward it.
And it spoke.
Not with words. With memory.
He saw a boy.
Icarus.
Falling.
He saw wings. He saw wax. He saw his hands — his own hands — fastening the straps.
And he saw the King.
Crowned, smiling, clapping iron around his wrists.
"You built a god's maze," the King had said. "Now walk it."
Then everything burned.
He screamed.
The chamber didn't echo.
It absorbed.
Like it had done a thousand times before.
The man collapsed.
Not from pain.
From knowing.
He wasn't a prisoner.
He wasn't a victim.
He was the curse.
The Labyrinth didn't want to be solved.
It wanted to be understood.
And so did he.