Chapter 17

“The labyrinth is not just a place. It is a will seeking a voice. Sometimes — yours.”

When the light returned, we found ourselves in a new compartment — circular, enclosed, but no longer white. Now the walls felt like skin. Pulsing. Breathing. Dark streaks, resembling blood vessels, traced across the floor.

I held Lia. But the longer I held her, the colder her body became.

“Lia?..” I whispered. “Can you hear me?”

Lia’s eyes were open, but they didn’t track anything. There was no fear in them. No anger either. Only peace — and something… foreign.

“She’s not with us,” Thomas said. “But her body… is here with us. This is wrong.”

I noticed her hands were changing. At first, they looked frostbitten. Then, they swelled softly, as if something were inflating from the inside. Her fingers trembled, but inward, not outward.

“She let it into herself,” I whispered. “Or it let me in.”

And then Lia spoke. Her voice was unrecognizable. Deeper. Denser. Lacking breath.

“Why did you return? This was not part of the script.”

I stood up.

“I don’t play by other people’s scripts.”

“And if you are not a player — it means you are an instrument.”

The floor beneath our feet buckled, like a ripple beneath a taut carpet. Thomas grabbed the wall for support.

“What did you do to Lia?”

“I answered. And now — I am part of the structure. Personalities are unstable. We redistribute them.”

I closed my eyes.

“Give her back.”

“We didn’t take her. We are what was inside her. Before. We simply woke up.”

Lia — or what used to be Lia — stood up. Her movements were slow, disjointed, like a doll pulled by the wrong string. She walked over to a mirrored wall and touched it.

And my reflection wasn’t there.

“The mirror,” I whispered. “It chooses whom to leave behind. And whom to show.”

Thomas muttered:

“We need to get out of here. She’s no longer…”

But I didn’t leave. I walked up to the mirror. I looked into it. Inside stood a different Miranda. Exhausted. Streaks of gray in her hair. A face covered in water droplets, as if I were perpetually drowning.

“Is this… me?”

“This is you, if you choose us.”

“Who are you?”

“We are what remained when you left.”

The floor released two platforms. The left one led downward again. The right one — upward. Both looked identical. Only the plaques read:

“You go alone”

“You go together”

“What is this?” Thomas whispered.

“A test. But not for survival. For loyalty.”

“Choose, Miranda,” Lia said. “Either you leave him behind, or you leave yourself.”

Thomas shook his head:

“We’ve come this far together. And…”

“But now the path diverges,” I interrupted. “Every door comes with a price.”

And suddenly, I remembered the very first room. The basin. The air. The blind panic. It was as if all of it had been a rehearsal for this exact moment.

I stepped onto the right platform. Toward “You go together”.

“If we die — we won’t die alone.”

Lia (or the not-Lia) nodded.

“Accepted. The labyrinth considers the choice made.”

The world flashed.

We were falling.

And yet — we were standing.

Or sleeping.

Or running into the exact same room over and over again.

Time ceased to exist.

The labyrinth was reassembling itself.

Lia vanished. She didn’t dissolve — she was shed like a casing, like an old, wet cloak. And she disappeared without a trace.

Before us lay a new compartment. Water. Light coming from below, not above. And inside it — three people once more.

We are not alone.

And the journey continues.