When Ren opened his eyes, the pale morning light had already slipped through the canopy, casting a hazy grayish hue over the forest.
A thin mist drifted lazily in the air, curling between the leaves and clinging to the tall tree trunks.
He blinked, a heavy feeling spreading across his body, a dull ache from a restless sleep.
Not far away, Nautilus sat leaning against a tree trunk, looking groggy, while Yuna was hastily packing up their belongings.
No one said much, as time was working against them. They didn't have time for a proper meal, just a few pieces of dry bread hastily stuffed away from the day before. But none of them had the appetite to chew.
And so, two hours passed in vain.
The mist grew thicker, curling into dense white tendrils that wrapped around twisted tree trunks like claws reaching from the earth.
At first, they believed that if they just kept walking in one direction, they would eventually escape the forest. But reality proved far crueler.
Ren froze, his heart suddenly pounding faster. He looked down at the ground, where massive roots sprawled like slumbering serpents.
For the first time in his life, he sensed a strange presence right beneath his feet. A feeling… as if he were standing on something far more than just ordinary plant life.
With a flicker of doubt, Ren crouched down and drew a thin line across one of the exposed roots with his sword.
The blade left a clear cut on the rough surface. But when he stood up, turned away for just a moment, and looked back...
The cut had vanished.
Ren inhaled sharply, unease rising in his chest. He tightened his grip on the sword, eyes scanning the surrounding roots.
Nautilus and Yuna quickly noticed it too. Every footprint, every trace they had left on the damp earth had vanished without a trace.
No… not vanished. Erased.
These roots weren't stationary.
They contracted and shifted ever so slightly, almost impossible to notice with the naked eye. But Ren saw it.
When he focused, he could see the rough bark subtly rising and falling to a slow rhythm. Not random. Not the wind.
They were breathing.
"This… isn't normal," Yuna murmured, stepping back, her voice trembling slightly.
She turned to look behind them, the path they had taken, only to see that it looked exactly like every other path around them. Identical. As if the forest itself was trying to deceive them.
Nautilus frowned, his hand tightening around his sword hilt.
Ren didn't respond immediately. He closed his eyes, filtering out every unnecessary sound. The wind rustling through leaves. The steady breathing of the three of them. His own quickening heartbeat.
And… something else.
A low, faint sound echoed from beneath the earth.
A subtle vibration, almost undetectable. But rhythmic.
Ren opened his eyes, his grip tightening on the sword. "The roots move at regular intervals," he said quietly. "If I'm right, they're rearranging the paths."
Yuna and Nautilus were stunned. They both looked down at the ground, hoping to spot some sign that would confirm his words.
And just as Ren said, the roots were shifting little by little when they weren't paying attention, altering the terrain around them completely.
A constantly shifting maze.
"Damn it…" Nautilus hissed under his breath. "Then how the hell do we get out?"
Ren remained silent. He was thinking. If the ground changed, if all traces were erased… then there had to be another way to navigate.
But before he could work it out, a faint, unusual movement stirred within the stillness of the mist.
Ren's head snapped up. Something was crawling along the roots, making tiny rustling sounds, almost inaudible without focus.
At the same time, the already thick mist became denser, heavy and slow, as if being guided by some unseen force.
The air suddenly grew heavier.
Ren slowly raised his sword, a chill running down his spine.
"…We're not alone in this maze."
…
They kept walking, hearts filled with doubt, hoping the exit lay somewhere ahead, hidden beneath the thick white fog, a veil slowly swallowing every contour of the forest into silent oblivion.
The tree trunks lining their path grew twisted, unnaturally bent, as if they weren't standing still but gradually rotating under some unknown law they couldn't perceive.
Unease clung to their minds, but they pressed on, teeth gritted, because to stop now was to be swallowed whole by the murky mist.
But it was here that it began. At first, only small misunderstandings, enough to draw confused frowns, but not enough to spark real suspicion.
Ren was the first to notice something odd. Several times, he responded to Yuna's questions, only to have her frown, eyes narrowing in distrust, as if he had just said something deeply offensive.
Nautilus, too, sometimes hesitated at Ren's words, pausing with a conflicted look, as if trying to decide whether Ren was being serious or not.
At first, Ren assumed they were just tense from being trapped in this strange forest. But by the third time it happened, he couldn't ignore it anymore.
"We should just keep going straight," Nautilus said calmly.
Yuna froze instantly. She turned to him sharply, eyes wide, a flash of shock and hurt lighting them. "What did you just say?"
Nautilus blinked, startled by her reaction. "I said we should keep going straight."
Yuna shook her head, suspicion clouding her gaze. "No, you said, 'You're not trustworthy. Go on your own.'"
A cold chill passed between them. Nautilus stared at her, clear confusion on his face. "What? I never said that."
Ren stopped just behind them, eyes sharp, listening intently to every sound around them. He had a strange, creeping feeling, something wasn't right.
"I didn't say that," Nautilus repeated, his voice now noticeably tense. "All I said was to go straight."
Yuna didn't respond, but the hesitation in her eyes was unmistakable. Could she really have misheard?
And yet, she was sure, absolutely sure, that Nautilus's voice had held a cold, mocking tone he had never used with her before. So… what was really going on?
No one had an answer, but the air between the three of them grew heavier than before. No one spoke again, only the soft sound of their footsteps on the mossy, damp ground.
But then… it happened again.
This time, Yuna only mumbled something very faintly, almost like a question to herself:"Should I go back and check?"
But what Nautilus heard was something entirely different, a voice cold as ice, devoid of any emotion:
"We don't need you."
His heart clenched in an instant. His eyes widened, and his entire body froze in shock. For a moment, his breath seemed to lock tight in his chest, impossible to release.
He jerked his head toward Yuna, hand tightening instinctively around his sword's hilt.
But Yuna kept walking, showing no sign she had just uttered something so cruelly indifferent.
The white mist still blanketed the area around them, seeping into every crevice like a living entity, slowly eroding the boundary between what was real and what wasn't.
Doubt crept in. The first cracks had begun to form in their hearts. When you can't trust each other's words, when every sentence might be twisted into something else...
How much longer can they still believe in one another?
Ren stopped a few steps behind them, eyes narrowed, taking in both of them carefully while straining to catch every sound around them. His focus was so intense, he could clearly hear the thudding of his own heartbeat echoing within his chest.
There was a strange feeling crawling at the edge of his awareness, something vague but persistent, threading through every nerve in his body, refusing to be dismissed.
But… was it just paranoia brought on by exhaustion? Or was something truly bending the fabric of reality around them?
"I didn't say that," Nautilus stated, voice now stripped of the earlier patience tinged with frustration. Instead, it was taut with real tension, as if an invisible weight was pressing down on him. "I just said we should keep going."
Yuna didn't reply right away, but her eyes flickered with something, hesitation, a subtle unease that betrayed a sliver of doubt. Did she really mishear? Or was it something else entirely...?
Ren bit his lip, trying to force himself to stay calm, even though a growing sense of unease was beginning to churn in his gut.
Maybe they were just worn out, tired minds playing tricks after a long, stressful journey. Or maybe their mental states were being distorted by this eerie space, this place where even light itself seemed to be swallowed by the creeping mist.
Maybe the labyrinth didn't need monsters lurking in the shadows. If it could make their own minds turn against them, warp their senses, drown them in invisible suspicion...
Wasn't that even more terrifying?
Ren took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice level as he spoke, almost as if saying it out loud would make his theory feel more real, more believable.
"Hey... maybe it's just the environment messing with us. This fog, what if it's affecting our hearing somehow? Like... distorting sound?"
Nautilus stared at him, eyes still sharp with tension, but after a brief pause, he gave a small nod, like he was clinging to Ren's explanation to steady himself. "Maybe. Yeah."
Yuna slowly looked between the two of them and gave a faint nod as well. But her voice, when it came, was so soft it was nearly drowned out by the unnerving silence of the forest. "Mm... maybe."Even so, the doubt in her tone was painfully clear.
They continued walking, trying to push aside the tightening anxiety pressing down on the air around them.
But then, it happened again.
This time, Yuna muttered something barely audible, maybe even unconscious, just a fleeting thought voiced out of habit as she walked:"Should I go back and check...?"
But Nautilus, walking right beside her, once again heard something entirely different.
A sentence that sounded nothing like Yuna's usual tone. No hesitation, no warmth, just cold, merciless detachment:
"We don't need you."
His heart clenched again, like an invisible hand had grabbed it and squeezed. His breath caught in his throat.
His whole body tensed, a jolt running down his spine, every muscle tightening with instinctive alarm.
He whipped around to look at Yuna, eyes wide in shock, mixed with a flicker of wariness. His hand had already tightened on his sword's hilt, a subconscious reflex to defend himself.
But Yuna kept walking, eyes forward. She didn't look at him, didn't flinch, there was no sign she had said anything that could cut so deeply, so carelessly.
Ren swallowed hard, though his throat had gone dry.
Logic told him it was just a hallucination, that he couldn't let these strange occurrences shake his grip on reality.
But... if even his own ears began to deceive him, what then?
The white mist floated lazily around them, light as breath but chilling in an unnatural way. It felt like it was slipping through the cracks of reality itself, slowly corroding the line between what was real... and what was just the warped echo of a fragile mind.
Could he really still trust what he was hearing?