It didn't run like a man.
It scrambled — like a starving rat down a sewer pipe, like a corpse remembering muscle too late.
Daedalus moved.
Not with grace. Not with memory. Just survival. Pure, primitive, blood-drunk reflex.
The thing — whatever it was, whatever he had become — crashed into the wall behind him, shoulder-first, screaming in that guttural, wet voice like it was vomiting pieces of its soul.
Daedalus didn't look back.
He ran through the corridor. Bare feet slapping the stone, slick with blood that wasn't his — yet.
The whispers followed.
Not from the thing.
From the walls.
From the fucking walls.
"You carved the lock and swallowed the key."
"You drew the map and burned the exits."
"You built us to forget yourself."
He slipped, hit the stone with a grunt — elbows, ribs, chin.
A tooth skittered across the floor. His.
He didn't stop.
He crawled, bloody hands dragging across symbols he once chiseled into place like prayers. Symbols he now couldn't read. Couldn't remember.
Ahead — a chamber. Square this time. Marked with seven archways. Each identical. Each a lie.
Behind him — it scraped. That sound of bone over stone, slow now. Mocking.
It didn't have to catch him.
It just had to watch him break.
He stood, dizzy. Blood down his teeth. His own breath sounding like a stranger's.
His fingers reached for the wall, tracing an etching.
A sun. A boy. A chisel in hand.
"He built wings once."
The voice wasn't the creature's.
It was his own. Echoing.
Remembering.
"Wings for a boy. A boy who flew too close. Who fell."
A scream split the dark. But it wasn't his.
The creature had stopped at the threshold. Snarling. Hissing. Its body twitching like it was made of bad wiring and worse memories.
It couldn't cross into the room.
Daedalus turned. Eyes bloodshot, jaw cracked. "You afraid of something?"
It howled.
The room itself groaned. Not metaphorically — the stones moaned. As if ancient gears were turning beneath him. As if the Labyrinth wasn't just built — it was alive.
A sigil pulsed beneath his feet.
A door dropped from the ceiling — fast, brutal, final. It slammed down between him and the creature, sealing it out. For now.
He collapsed to his knees. Not in relief. Not even exhaustion.
He was laughing.
Fucking laughing.
Short. Bitter. Raw.
Because it wasn't the monster outside that scared him.
It was the altar in the middle of the room.
Made of bone.
Human. Child-sized.
On it — a pair of waxen wings. Melted. Charred at the tips.
And a crown. Not of gold. Not of iron.
Of teeth.
His teeth.
He touched it.
The room screamed.
The sound wasn't sound. It was memory flayed raw. A psychic blade, slicing through time. Showing him flashes. Images burned into bone:
A boy screaming, flames devouring him in mid-air. A King laughing while Daedalus screamed in chains. Hands — his hands — sealing doors, walls, mazes with people still inside.
This wasn't a prison.
It was a fucking altar.
A cathedral of guilt.
And he?
He was the high priest.
He stumbled back, clawed at his own face like peeling it off would help him forget.
But the whispers were louder now.
Every wall bled them.
"You were the maze."
"You were the monster."
"You were the God they buried beneath stone."
And worst of all —
"You asked for this."
He didn't scream.
He howled.
A low, animal sound that came from a place older than language.
And then — silence.
Heavy.
Crushing.
The throne in the center lit up with cold fire.
And a voice spoke.
Not from the walls.
From below.
"Walk, Daedalus. Bleed. Remember.
You have one chamber left.
And then you'll meet the boy again."
His legs failed. His fists clenched.