Memory Forge
Matthew moved through the narrowing corridors, each step slower. He wasn't tired.
He was remembering.
The deeper he went, the more the air felt… familiar.
School hallways.
Rain on glass.
A phone screen blinking with the message:
生定死 — Enter the game: life or death.
He swallowed hard.
"Don't think about that now."
But the maze did. It did all the thinking for him.
He reached a vast, circular chamber—lit in dull red, pulsing like a heartbeat.
In the center stood a massive anvil—glowing white-hot.
Chains descended from the ceiling, tangled and twitching like nerves.
The walls weren't stone or steel.
They were made of flickering memories.
His brother's face, crying.
A girl screaming his name.
A bus.
A door that never opened again.
And at the center of the chamber:
THE FORGE.
A voice echoed.
Mechanical. Flat. Yet oddly familiar.
"Insert memory shard."
A tray slid out of the forge's side.
He hesitated—but reached into his pocket.
And there it was.
The shard he'd carried since the first night.
He didn't remember picking it up.
But it had his name burned into the glass.
He placed it on the tray.
The forge roared to life.
Images exploded on the walls.
– Matthew skipping school with two friends.
– Matthew watching someone vanish in a firestorm.
– Matthew standing before a mirror, fists bloody.
And one more memory he didn't remember ever having:
A girl in a white coat, handing him a sealed envelope.
She said:
"If you end up in her game, remember this:
You're not the pawn.
You're the reset."
The forge grew silent.
The shard cracked, then reformed.
Now, it bore two names:
MATTHEW / ???
[Fragment Reconstructed: "Reset Protocol"]
He took the shard and the moment he touched it—
He remembered fire.
And that this wasn't his first time playing.
As the chapter closes, a nearby wall slides open silently.
A single phrase is etched in steel:
"THE DESIGNER REMEMBERS YOU."
And in the darkness beyond, gears begin to spin in reverse.
Time, in this part of the maze, is undoing itself.