They left the quiet market and walked until the air changed — colder, like the Labyrinth was breathing through a mouth half-closed. The corridor opened into a wide room lined with pedestals. On each pedestal sat a mask: plain white, cracked, smooth as if waiting to be worn.
The system cut in, flat and steady:
[Room Detected: The Trial of Masks] Rule: Wear a mask. Face the one it shows. Fail: Your face may forget you.
Kael stopped. He looked at the masks and felt a strange pull in his chest, like the Ledger had reached out and touched him.
Riven whistled. "Masks. Cute. Hope mine makes me look less handsome." He grinned, but his hair stood a little on end. He never liked rooms that asked things of him.
Seren crouched, running a careful finger along a pedestal. She wrote, folded, and handed it to Kael: Pick last. Watch reflections. Her eyes were small and serious.
Kael nodded. He had learned not to rush these things. The Labyrinth liked hurry. Hurrying got people erased.
They moved to the pedestals slow. Riven grabbed the first mask like a man reaching for dessert. He put it on, half-joking. The mask fit cold against his skin.
For a moment nothing seemed wrong. Then Riven's shoulders tightened. He blinked and his laugh died on his lips. The mask did not show him a monster. It showed a house — a friend gone, a warm place he could not reach. Riven's face went soft in a way Kael had never seen.
"Hey," Kael said, but Riven didn't answer. His hand went to his throat like he was trying to find a word that had slipped.
Seren mouthed, Take it off, and wrote Now. She slammed her scrap on the pedestal. Riven's fingers fumbled, then ripped the mask free. He staggered, breath coming fast, like he'd run far.
"Hmph." He breathed it out like a joke. "Yep. That's cursed. Next." He rubbed his temples as if he'd been hit.
Kael moved to the next pedestal. He almost reached for a plain mask, but the Compass tugged him. He picked the one that hummed faint — small cracks spidering across its surface. He held it to the light. For a slip of a second he saw something in it: a child laughing in rain. Not his memory. Not the right laugh.
He put it on.
The room folded. Faces in the mask blinked, shifting. His own face in the polished metal looked wrong, older, a stranger who kept a small cold smile. Kael tasted iron. The mask showed him a table with a book and a name carved into it — not his name, not yet, but close. A hollow feeling opened behind his ribs, like a door left ajar.
He tore the mask off fast. His hands shook.
Seren tapped his arm and shoved a scrap into his hand: Don't trust the face. Remember who you are. She looked at him like she could see the mask still trying to stick.
They moved carefully. The third mask Riven picked again — he kept pushing forward like a man who wanted to prove something. This time it showed him a crowd cheering him on, but as he watched, the crowd turned. Faces changed to masks, then to blank stones. Riven froze, fists clenching.
Kael had the odd idea that the masks didn't show truth. They showed what would come true if you believed them.
A voice that wasn't the system slid through the chamber — low, silky. "People change more when they wear masks," it said. "Some masks fit better than others. Some stick."
They searched the walls. No speaker. No shadow moved that wasn't a trick of the torch. The voice could have been the room. The room could have been the world.
The system hummed again:
[Mask Rule Update] Condition: Reflect to dispel. Hint: Look at yourself, not the mask.
Seren pointed at the mirrors set between the pedestals. Small, old glass. She mouthed mirror and tapped her throat: Write. She handed Kael a scrap.
Kael looked at his face in the mirror. No mask. The man in the glass had the same tired eyes he did. He forced himself to name one simple thing: I am Kael. He spat the name like a seed into the dark.
The mask on the next pedestal rattled. One of the masks — the cracked one with the child-laugh — trembled and fell, shattering like thin ice. A scrap of paper fluttered out from its hollow interior. Kael picked it up.
If you forget your face you are lost, it read. If someone calls you Hollow, do not answer. Lie if you must.
Riven snorted. "Helpful." He looked pale. "Who writes this stuff? People with bad hobbies."
They didn't have time to banter. The masks begin to move on their own now, slow, like people at the edge of sleep. The pedestals shifted, making the room smaller, the path tighter.
Then one of the larger mirrors fogged over. A face formed in the glass — not their reflection, but a mouth moving. It formed words without sound. Seren craned in, eyes sharp.
The mirror-mouth mouthed: Hollow.
Kael's hands went cold. The word again. The room had started to use it like a key.
"Don't answer," Seren wrote, urgent. Don't say it.
Riven's mouth twitched. "Like I'll obey a piece of glass."
That was when his face in the mirror blinked wrong. The man in glass — Riven's mirror — smiled and didn't stop. The smile widened until it snapped like a wire. Riven's reflection reached out and pressed his palm flat to the inside of the glass. Riven's own hand, in the room, felt suddenly shoved outward, like he'd been pushed by the wave.
He stumbled back, breath snatched. The mirror cracked in a long line, spidering into a hundred little faces.
The system registered it coldly:
[Room Event] Reflection breach. Identity stress recorded.
Kael grabbed Riven's arm. "Get out. Now."
They ran, dodging pedestals, masks scraping by like silent teeth. Seren pulled a scrap out and stuffed it over her mouth like a mock mask. The movement felt like a dare.
Outside, the corridor slammed shut behind them with a final sound that made Kael's teeth ache.
They stopped in the hall, gasping, hands on knees.
Riven swore, low and quick. "That was messed up. My reflection tried to replace me. Not cool."
Seren wrote: It's testing identity. It reads your fear. She handed him a small folded note: We remember for you.
Kael pressed the scrap to his chest. He thought of the Ledger wall and the name carved there. Hollow. The Labyrinth kept trying to pin him with a label, and then make him wear it until it fit.
From far down the corridor a low sound rolled like a slow bell being dropped into water.
BOOOONG.
It wasn't loud. It was patient. The room counted them and moved to the next page.
Kael's throat felt tight. He kept the mask scrap in his hand like a talisman and walked on. The Labyrinth wanted them to forget themselves. He would not make it easy.