The staircase was suspended in the endless sky, glowing softly in a milky blare. Shin sighed lightly and ascended in silence. His body still ached from the guardian fight, but his steps were steady. He told himself to focus as he passed—this place was anything but simple.
Eventually, the stairway curved upward into a floating platform surrounded by archways carved from colorless stone. There were no signs or markers, but the wind—strangely warm, then suddenly cold—seemed to brush against one entrance more than the others.
The moment he passed through the arch, the world reassembled around him. He looked hurriedly, but the path behind disappeared, replaced by a dense forest of trees with spiraled bark and translucent leaves. The radiance above blended green and gold, pulsing like a heartbeat behind the unseen clouds above.
The atmosphere was also strange, not only in color but in its thickness and weight. He stopped by one tree to inspect it closely. Its branches twisted unnaturally, pulsing faintly, as if alive. He realized some trees had no leaves at all; they bloomed with unknown plants that seemed like white feathers.
Just as Shin was about to crouch beside one trunk, a low growl echoed in the distance. It was a sound that definitely didn't come from any common animal. Shin moved slowly, keeping low to the ground. He didn't know what it was, but he didn't want to find out either.
He crept through the brush, weaving between roots, using natural dips in the ground to stay hidden. Occasionally, he'd press himself against the bark and hold his breath. Once, a shadow passed overhead—gigantic, winged, and with a body that seemed like it came from a myth.
He dropped down immediately, holding his breath, hiding inside a silver bush. Fortunately, the beast didn't notice him. He stood and circled wide around a clearing, walking around a pale tree. He nearly stepped into a stream of light-blue sap that hissed when it hit the ground. He was reminded again that this place wasn't just foreign—it was trying to test him in every step he made.
Then he spotted a rotting tree nearby, its trunk leaning precariously. A good kick would bring it down, he thought. He picked up a loose stone and eyed a curtain of hanging vines across the clearing—just within throwing distance.
He waited.
As the winged shadow passed overhead again, Shin hurled the stone into the vines and immediately kicked the tree. The crash echoed like thunder.
The beast swooped, drawn by the noise, but Shin didn't waste a second and sneaked toward the coldest edge of the wind. He ran through the trees until the landscape began to change again.
A slope opened into a stone corridor flanked by tangled roots and moss-covered pillars. The forest had ended. But in front of him, a maze was revealed.
Twisting paths. Branches overhead that blocked the light. The walls weren't walls in the traditional sense—immense hedges formed them, some laced with thorns, some quivering like a restless hurricane—as if trying to rip anyone foolish enough to touch them. He strolled slowly, letting the current guide him. Some paths smelled stale, while others carried a faint chill within them.
He considered his options. Eventually, he decided to trust his senses again. Well, that was until he stepped on a stone that triggered a soft hum—and the hedge beside him momentarily parted, revealing a new path.
"Shit," he said. The maze could shift.
He had to mark where he'd been now, so he started scratching the bark with broken pieces of thorn he found on the floor. The wind changed subtly with each turn. Sometimes it swirled behind him, whispering as if disagreeing with his direction. Twice, he doubled back.
After what felt like hours, he found something unexpected: a pedestal hidden inside an alcove, almost buried beneath a tangle of ivy. Upon it, a small orb of polished glass was faintly humming. He touched it, and the wind stirred from a newfound enthusiasm. The orb glowed for a moment, but then dimmed again.
He didn't know what it was supposed to do, but it might be helpful. He took it with him and continued walking. The maze now had fewer dead ends, but unfortunately, this meant more obstacles—thorned archways he had to crawl under, roots that bent unnaturally when he passed. Finally, he reached what looked like the exit—an archway of crumbling stone wrapped in glowing roots.
But just beyond it—he froze—in front of him, barely fifty steps away, dwelt the beast.
It stood near the arch, partially cloaked in mist. Its head tilted slightly, nostrils flaring. It hadn't seen him directly. But Shin knew it sensed him. Its gaze swept past the entrance, then turned back. For some reason, it didn't enter.
He crouched behind the hedge wall, watching as the creature paced outside, never crossing the threshold. It was as if something about the maze repelled it—or perhaps it merely wanted Shin to step out himself.
Shin didn't dare move. Motion invited notice, and notice could kill. Stillness, though—stillness could listen. He waited for the air to settle around him until the pounding in his ears matched the rhythm of the place, and only then did he reach inside his jacket and draw out the orb.
No miracle. No expectation. Only a hunch, and the quiet faith that nothing existed here without a reason. Now, with time and cover, he could examine it more closely.
He turned it in his palm and let the wind touch it, and a faint hum answered. Like glass learning to breathe, a soft glimmer surfaced from within. The glow gathered itself into an image so thin he almost doubted it—it was his own outline, suspended as if the orb had just learned to draw him.
He focused, his eyes narrowing on the shape.
The shadow moved, not as a reflection but as a thing with its own patience. The orb pulsed once, and the figure stepped out of the light and into the fog.
Shin flinched. His disbelief turned into shock. The figure, now standing before him, mirrored his posture, waiting.
A clone?
He could feel it. It wasn't a puppet string tugging through his fingers—it was a thread tied to intention. His intention. He thought "Walk," and the copy walked. He raised a hand, and the copy raised the same hand with the same weight of wrist and an indistinguishable angle of knuckle.
"Perfect," he whispered.
He crouched low, then guided the clone mentally, sending it running from another exit further down the maze edge.
The clone burst through the fog, loud and clear, instantly making the beast snap to attention. With a guttural hiss, it lunged toward the clone with a force that made the floor feel temporary. It struck the decoy and tore it apart in a spray of light.
But it was too late. The moment its attention broke from the entrance, Shin slid from the arch's shadow, his steps fast but silent. By the time the creature realized its mistake, its hunger had the wrong address. Shin crossed the threshold, and the maze closed behind him like a mouth losing interest.
His breath came sharp. His pulse was loud but clean. Not panic—awe. The orb dimmed in his grip, hollow now, as its purpose spent. A realization came with a clarity that made the world tilt: even the tools here were questions with a single correct answer. He pocketed the empty glass and stood to look ahead.
The terrain had changed again. A single column poured downward onto a round platform inset with worn lines. Above it, a chain of floating slabs hung in the dark like a vertebrae of stone. It was a staircase, wide at the base, then narrowing as it rose. He tried to find its end, but it coiled toward a height the eye perhaps could measure, but the heart did not quite believe.
He stepped onto the first tread. Solid. He found its balance, then climbed. Every five or six steps, a slab far below winked out of existence as if the tower disliked clutter. Never the last, always the furthest. It felt like courtesy at first, then like pressure in a different vocabulary; a chance to turn back while turning back was still a choice.
On the eighth step, he paused. The lowest stair vanished, but the next had not yet formed.
Cold spread through his chest, thin and quick as a spill. He pictured the arithmetic of a wrong guess: him stranded midair, the path erasing itself, leaving him with nowhere to fall and nothing to hold. His toes curled against the stone. His heel shifted back.
Glitter bloomed ahead. A new step grew from the dark, exact as a word arriving just before the sentence failed. He leapt forward, jarring his knees. Sweat slid along the line of his neck. It wasn't just high. It was endless. Each step felt steeper than the last. His legs began to burn. His breath grew shallow. A stabbing pain hit his side every time he twisted.
He sat once when the world below dissolved into mist. Maze, forest, even the steps he'd already taken vanished into a pale floor of light. He folded his legs on a trembling stone and let one long exhale drain the noise from his thoughts. What if it never ends, came the simple, stupid question. What if eventually a stair disappears, and the next never comes?
He opened his eyes, rubbed the grit from them, and stood—one more.
Some treads rotated just enough to complicate the landing. Others tilted underfoot and demanded a blind leap to find the balance point. "Is this a survival game?" he muttered through his teeth. He heard the answer in his own voice: Not a trap—a dare.
The wind climbed with him now, not helping, not hindering, just observing as pain threaded his muscles, and with it a brightness he refused to name joy. It was the particular clarity that arrived when the world asked exactly as much as you hoped it would.
The chain narrowed to a final span that rose into blank cloud. Sound thinned to the hiss of his breath and the whine of air along stone. He set his foot on the last edge and pulled himself higher.
The mist parted to reveal a slab broad enough to be an island, with a tall gate right at its heart. The wind gathered and cried, and for the first time, Shin knew: not a warning, but recognition.
Shin placed his hand against the gate. The surface thrummed, alive beneath his palm.
And the last door opened.