the birth of a name

In the depths of the concrete labyrinth, silence reigns supreme, and the shadows shift with quiet intention. Hallways stretch and spiral in impossible directions, lined with cold white doors that wait in stillness—sealed, patient, watching. Each passage is another question, every corridor a riddle with no answer.

But somewhere deeper, beyond the tangled skein of endless halls, a chamber breathes with stillness and purpose.

There, beneath an open void in the ceiling where no stars shine, kneels a figure of glass.

Regal in posture. Solemn in presence.

Its form echoes the same cracked elegance of the one who wanders—yet complete, unmarred, radiant. It rests unmoving, not asleep but waiting, as if the moment it rises, the world will shift on its axis.

Light spills from its body in waves, illuminating the great hall that encircles it. The concrete stretches wide and far in all directions, a nexus from which every passage of the labyrinth emerges like spokes from a wheel.

Its light does not burn.

It beckons.

For all paths—twisted, broken, winding—lead here in the end.

....

It's been… days, I think, since I ended up in this desolate maze of LOCKED. GODDAMN. FUCKING. DOORS.

At least, it feels like days. Time's a blur in this place. No day-night cycle, no clocks, no sun—just endless corridors and the same oppressive dark pressing in from all sides. Makes it hard to tell if I've been wandering for hours or weeks.

Not that it matters much.

One of the weird perks of this glass body? I don't get tired. No hunger, no soreness, no aching knees or cramping muscles. I'm like a human glowstick on an infinite power supply. I've climbed staircases sideways and I could probably scale concrete like a deranged spider, and still feel like I just woke up.

"...You know," I mutter, glancing up at the endless stretch of wall looming above me, "that's actually not a bad idea..."

I mean, I glow. Literally. I light up everything around me. I don't tire, I don't need rest, and—most importantly—I have no better plan. So why not climb? See what's up there? Maybe it's not just more wall.

...Then again.

I glance down at myself.

I look like a sentimental vase that's been dropped a dozen times, glued back together, and placed on a high shelf out of sheer nostalgia. One bad fall, and I'm not sure I'll just crack—I might shatter.

If I had sweat glands, I'd be drenched in anxiety by now.

Still.

"...Well, there's only one way to find out," I say aloud, more to fill the silence than anything.

And with that, I start looking for handholds.

The wall is smooth concrete—cold, blank, and stubbornly uncooperative. No real handholds in the traditional sense. But with an open mind, a bit of creativity, and the stubbornness born of too many locked doors, you can make the impossible feel doable.

In some parts of the maze, the doors line up just right—angled, offset, spaced in a way that suggests a challenge more than a trap. And while the concrete doesn't offer much naturally, it isn't flawless. With enough patience, you start to notice subtle imperfections: hairline gaps, shallow alcoves, tiny protrusions hiding in the seams of the design.

That's where I make my move.

I approach one of these irregular sections and leap, grabbing the top frame of a waist-high door. From there, I haul myself upward and use the momentum to fling myself a meter higher, latching onto a narrow depression in the wall just above it.

My body dangles, light as air. I swing once, twice—then launch sideways, catching a fingertip grip beneath a doorframe embedded four meters off the ground.

One of the strange benefits of this new body? No fatigue. No lactic acid. No screaming muscles. As long as my grip is right, my hold is like a vice. I won't fall unless I let go.

...At least, that's the theory.

And I'd really rather not test it.

As i climb higher my whole body feels stimulated, each new height feels like an achievement. I never thought of myself as a climber, then again i don't really know much of myself anyway so I'm just to find i have some sort of talent.

I sit at the edge of a long, narrow ridge carved into the wall—just wide enough to walk if you don't mind the vertigo. The row of doors along it makes the whole thing feel like one of those motel walkways. You know, the cheap ones with bad lighting and worse wallpaper.

I've been climbing for what feels like hours. There were other ridges like this one along the way, but the terrain has shifted. The further I go, the stranger things get—and in this place, that's saying something.

At first, it was straightforward. Hard, sure, but logical. Up was up. Down was down. Gravity worked. Geometry made sense.

Then nature handed in its resignation, physics packed its bags, and Euclid threw himself out the nearest fifth-dimensional window.

The walls started to tilt. Then they curved. Archways began to crisscross midair like giant rib cages. Parallel walls pulled apart and slammed together again, close enough for me to wedge myself between them. I've climbed shapes that shouldn't exist—folding corridors, Möbius ledges, and angles that look like they were drawn by a sadistic god.

And the doors? They're no longer doors. Stars, triangles, spirals. One was a skull—three meters tall, hyper-realistic, just sitting there like a grim warning. I didn't touch it. Whatever's behind that door, even God gave up on it.

The air is different up here—fresher, not physically, but... spiritually. It's like taking a deep breath after suffocating in a sealed room. The dread is still here, but quieter. More distant. The darkness hasn't lifted, but it no longer chokes.

In a strange way, I feel more connected to this place now.

This whole monolithic labyrinth—cold, empty, impossible—it feels like a room. A home. Still, silent, but mine. A place where I can just... be.

So why am I sitting here, legs dangling over the ledge?

Because I'm tired.

Not physically—we've been over that. My body doesn't strain, doesn't sweat. But my mind? My soul? That's another story.

The higher I go, the more I find. Not just strange doors, but shards—pieces of myself. And every time I touch one, memories come back. A life. My life. Faded at first, then clearer.

I was an engineer. Military. Air force to special ops—though I still don't know what country. I had a wife. Kids. A little gremlin of a sister. A father who smiled like the world hadn't beaten him down yet. And my mother... She died at home. Cancer complications. I remember that.

I remember them.

And I miss them with everything I have left.

I died. I know that now. There's no other explanation. And this body—this glass form—it's not a shell. It's my soul.

I don't know if this is limbo, or hell, or something in between. But it's where I am now.

And maybe, just maybe... this place is my home..

It was in that moment of melancholy—grieving what I'd lost forever—that I felt something new. Something impossible.

A whisper. So faint, it barely qualified as sound. It was like the last breath of a dying man brushing across my skin.

Which made no sense. This place—this maze of stone and shadow—had been dead from the moment I arrived. The air doesn't move here. It's still, stagnant, more concept than substance. Nothing flows. Nothing breathes.

And yet… this whisper stirred something in me.

I stood, shaken from my brooding, and looked up into the vast darkness devouring the walls above.

There's something out there. Someone.

For what felt like days—maybe weeks—I believed I was utterly alone in this godforsaken place. But now, for the first time, I felt a presence. However faint. However fleeting.

That sliver of connection lit something inside me.

Longing.

And that longing gave birth to obsession.

I locked onto that distant sensation like a man lost at sea spotting a single light on the horizon. I needed to find it. Not just to know what—or who—it was, but to silence the storm that had awakened in me since the memories began returning.

Grief won't answer anything. Sitting here only deepens the questions. But action—movement—might offer clarity, or at least quiet the ache.

So I climb again.

This time, not just to escape. Not just to survive.

This time, I climb with purpose.

That whisper, whatever it was, carried emotions more real than anything I've felt since arriving here.

It was grief. Deep, agonizing grief. Not mine—theirs. A sorrow that mirrored my own, but older. Heavier. It spoke of failure. Of losing what mattered most. Of breaking in silence, alone, with no one left to remember what once gave you purpose.

Forgotten.

And slowly forgetting.

I don't know who or what that presence is—but I know I have to reach it.

Even if it kills me.