"Hey, Arthur, can I ask you something?" a young girl spoke in a soft voice, barely a whisper.
In the depths of a subterranean cavern, two children—a boy and a girl—conversed amidst a silence so heavy it felt suffocating.
"Sure. What is it?" Arthur asked, turning his gaze toward her.
"If you were given the chance to make just one wish... what would it be?" the girl asked, her voice wavering with a mix of hesitation and curiosity.
Arthur fell silent at the question.
All his life had been spent within the confines of this cave, a place of hollow darkness. He had never truly been given the chance to ponder concepts like "hope" or "desire." To him, the world was a place for survival, not for dreaming.
Yet, despite that, he tried to answer. He didn't want to disappoint her.
"If it were me... just being able to stay with you is enough to make me happy," Arthur said softly, averting his eyes slightly.
"That's such a boring answer, you know," the girl teased, puffing out her cheeks in mock disappointment.
Not wanting the mood to turn awkward, Arthur quickly steered the conversation back.
"Well then, what about you?" Arthur asked, this time looking her straight in the eyes.
The girl went silent for a moment.
Then, slowly, a thin smile began to form on her face—a smile whose meaning was difficult to decipher.
"That's a secret," she whispered.
"Hey, that's cheating!" Arthur protested.
The girl only offered a small giggle.
Before long, they were laughing together. Their faint laughter stood in stark contrast to their surroundings—a dark, silent, and empty cave that should have left no room for even the smallest shard of happiness.
Yet, it was in a place like this that the memory was forged.
That ten-year-old memory remained vivid in Arthur's mind.
In the dark recesses of his thoughts, that conversation looped endlessly—as if time had never truly moved forward.
"If only... it could all happen again," Arthur murmured within his subconscious.
However, before he could sink deeper into the memory, a foreign hum suddenly resonated inside his head.
[Adjustment to User's consciousness initiated.]
Arthur jolted.
"Huh? What was that voice?" he thought.
[Resonance of desire initiated.]
The voice spoke again. Flat, alien, and void of emotion. The words felt strange, as if they originated from a language he wasn't meant to understand.
"Hey! Who are you?!" Arthur shouted within his mind, trying to strike back.
There was no response.
"Am I finally going crazy because I've been trapped here too long...?"
Before he could process the situation, something else emerged.
Scraps of paper.
Sheets of paper fluttered within his consciousness, swirling with increasing velocity.
"What?! What is this?!" he cried out in panic.
Without giving him a moment to react, the papers began to lift him—forcefully pushing his consciousness upward, as if dragging him out of his own mind.
"No—wait...!"
His body, which had been lying flat, suddenly jerked violently.
He gasped for air, as if he had just been forcibly yanked from the depths of a dream far too deep. His consciousness returned in a brutal fashion, leaving a searing pain throbbing through his skull.
"Argh... it hurts!" he groaned, clutching his head.
The pain felt like thousands of tiny needles pricking him without end, making it difficult to even fully open his eyes. He winced, trying to adjust to the reality he had just been thrust back into.
But then—
The pain vanished instantly.
Just like that.
As if it had never existed in the first place.
Arthur slowly opened his eyes.
And that was when he realized—
This place... was not the cave.
"Huh...?"
His eyes widened.
"WHAT?!"
He bolted upright.
In front of him, the familiar rough, dark, and damp stone walls were gone.
Instead, he found himself in a vast, circular chamber.
The walls were adorned with intricate ancient carvings, stretching from one side to the other without interruption. The surface gleamed with a golden-brown hue, reflecting a dim light from an unknown source, creating an atmosphere that felt alien yet... majestic.
"Why am I here...?" he whispered.
His voice echoed faintly, as if the room held a void much larger than it appeared.
He tried to steady his breathing.
But before he could truly grasp the situation—
The voice returned.
[Resonance 1%]
Arthur's body tensed immediately.
That same sensation washed over him. Every time the voice spoke, his body felt heavier, as if something were pressing down on him from the inside.
"Was it this voice that moved me here?" he thought, his brow furrowed.
He paused, trying to connect the dots of everything that had just transpired.
For the first time in his life...
He was somewhere that wasn't a cave.
The air here felt different.
Lighter.
More... alive.
He took a deep breath. Something felt... off.
Slowly, he stood up—his legs were shaky, but he managed to steady himself. With cautious steps, he approached one of the walls.
He reached out.
His fingertips brushed against the surface.
Smooth.
Incredibly smooth.
A flicker of shock crossed his face. This wall was fundamentally different from the jagged, cracked walls of the cave. There were no stone shards, no biting chill.
Only a flat surface, polished to near perfection.
His fingers moved slowly, tracing the contours of the carvings. The engravings felt shallow.
He looked up, scanning the entire room.
No furniture.
No objects of any kind.
Only this circular hall... and a single long corridor on one side.
The corridor looked dark. The air within felt colder, and every step he took bounced back as a faint echo.
"Looks like... that's the only way out," he muttered.
He swallowed hard.
Fear still clung to him, creeping through his body like a shadow that refused to leave. Yet, at the same time, there was no other choice.
If he stayed here, he would find no answers.
Arthur hesitated for a moment. His gaze swept the room once more—hoping for another path. There was none. He stepped toward the corridor.
His footsteps rang out rhythmically. Unlike the carvings in the previous room, the patterns in this hallway... seemed more coherent.
The designs were divided into two sides: the left and the right.
"Maybe this means something," he thought.
He chose the left side. On the left wall, the carving began with a giant circle—occupying nearly half the wall's height.
"It's huge... but... why does it look so perfect?" he wondered after inspecting the first engraving.
Then, the pattern changed. That perfect shape began to fracture. Small cracks appeared—then widened and spread, until it shattered into three large fragments and several smaller shards.
"What is the point of this...?"
There was no clear pattern—or perhaps he simply lacked the capacity to understand it.
His focus shifted to the cracks emanating from the once-perfect circle.
The first fragment crumbled into nothingness—becoming mere dust.
The second transformed into the figure of a human—a girl.
The third turned into a pile of stones—the amount felt... too precise, with a shimmering crest at the top.
Meanwhile, the remaining small shards from the shattered circle merged together, forming twelve small, perfect circles.
Arthur narrowed his eyes, disappointed by the thought that these patterns might be random.
Until he noticed that beneath the twelve shapes, there was neatly engraved text.
Arthur squinted, trying to read the word.
"Axiom…" he muttered under his breath.
"What does that even mean?"
No one answered.
"Stupid of me to think there'd be someone here," he added.
Realizing his inability to decipher the carvings or the text on the left, he moved on.
In the end, he had no choice but to keep walking. At the very least... these carvings warded off the boredom.
After the engravings and text regarding the twelve small circles, the pattern repeated, signaling the end of the left-side sequence. Thus, he turned his attention to the right side of the corridor.
On the right, a different pattern emerged. It began with a small, abstract circle. As Arthur walked further, the shape "split"—giving birth to twenty-two small, abstract forms, similar to itself.
The further Arthur ventured, the more these shapes began to sprout arms and legs until they fully took the form of human bodies. In the end, those twenty-two circles had become eleven women and eleven men.
Now, text appeared again at the bottom of the twenty-two figures.
Arcana.
Arthur paused this time.
"Arcana…" he read softly.
A warm sensation washed over his heart upon seeing the word, though he still maintained a look of confusion. Eventually, he resumed his pace.
The pattern and text closed the sequence on the right, and then the same cycle repeated.
After observing the entire array of patterns and text on the corridor walls, Arthur reached a single conclusion.
"The creator must be out of their mind."
"What are they even trying to explain? It breaks... and then becomes something else?"
"Do they seriously expect me to understand all this from just one word? I don't even get what the word means," he complained, his irritation rising.
He went silent for a moment, then clicked his tongue. "Forget it."
He continued down the corridor toward his destination, accompanied by the echo of his footsteps, though frustration still clouded his mind.
"It's so lonely here..."
[Resonance 21%]
"Except for you... you weird voice," he added.
The foreign voice had become a sort of companion as he walked. It always appeared as a sign that the resonance was increasing.
"But where is this voice actually coming from? And what does 'resonance' even mean?"
In the midst of his confusion, he suddenly found himself standing directly before a massive stone door.
"Whoa... the size of this thing," he whispered in awe.
On the door, there was yet another carving: a girl with long hair. Her ears were longer than a normal person's, and a shimmer of light glowed around her.
"Is she the owner of this place?" Arthur wondered.
Arthur moved his hand, intending to push the door open. But before his hand could make contact, the door slid open automatically. It opened with a heavy grrakk sound, followed by a dull thud once it reached its limit.
On the other side of the door lay nothing but a vast, pitch-black void. A room that looked far too dangerous to enter. However, Arthur was out of options; he stepped inside, his heart hammering with fear.
Once he entered, nothing happened. He looked around—empty.
He scanned the area slowly, clockwise. Still, there was nothing to be seen. Finally, he turned back toward the door. The door was moving on its own, attempting to close.
Panicked by the thought of being trapped, Arthur ran with all his might to get out, but the door slammed shut before he could reach it. He was now imprisoned in a silent, dark, empty room, alone with nothing.
"Dammit!" he yelled, striking the door.
At that exact moment, torches suddenly flared to life across the walls of the circular chamber. The room that was once dark and silent was now filled with firelight and the crackling sound of flames.
"Huh?"
Before he could make sense of it, a flame erupted in the center of the room, and from within that fire, a small creature emerged.
The tiny figure drifted out from the embers. Transparent wings shimmered behind her. Long silver hair cascaded down, while her green eyes glowed sharply amidst the shadows.
Floral and leafy ornaments adorned her body, blending seamlessly with her bright, almost radiant skin.
At the mere presence of the creature, Arthur's body froze instantly. The figure approached slowly, each flap of her wings accompanied by a soft glow.
The creature stopped right in front of Arthur. She bowed slightly and spoke,
"Velkomin, Kleifari."