The pressure against his chest made breathing nearly impossible. Mai pushed against the wooden palm with everything he had left, muscles burning, teeth grit in stubborn defiance. It changed nothing.

  The creature leaned close, amber eyes hovering inches from his. Damp earth and rotting wood crowded his senses. He kicked against the pillar, each movement weaker than the last.

  Then a soft chime rose from beneath his shirt.

  The creature froze. Its head turned with a sharp, unnatural tilt, attention sliding from Mai to the sound at his chest. Its bark-like features shifted, corners of its mouth dragging upward until its face split into a grotesque approximation of human expression.

  It was... smiling.

  The twisted grin spread wider, splitting the wooden face into a mockery of delight. A low, grinding sound emanated from the creature's throat, more mimicked laughter.

  The chime sounded again, louder. The smile stretched impossibly wider.

  Mai felt something brush his neck. A thin branch sprouted from the arm pinning him, creeping upward with eerie precision. It curled around the leather strap at his throat and tugged.

  The purple pendant emerged, glowing wildly. Light pulsed in time with the chimes.

  Mai’s confusion sharpened into dread. "No," Mai whispered, understanding crashing over him.

  That crystal was their safeguard—their guaranteed escape if the exam became too dangerous. If someone was gravely injured, the crystal would extract them from the exam. No one was supposed to die during the trials.

  The wooden fingers released his chest just enough to seize the pendant. With a slow, deliberate motion, the creature tore it free, snapping the cord. It dangled the glowing gem in front of Mai as if pleased with itself.

  “Don’t,” Mai choked, fighting against its grip. “Please.”

  The creature regarded him with amused indifference, its eyes bright with cruel curiosity. Another grinding laugh escaped it before its massive fingers closed around the crystal.

  A brittle crack rang through the chamber. Purple light spilled between its fingers, then went dark. When the creature opened its hand, only shimmering dust sifted to the floor.

  Mai’s heartbeat slammed against his ribs. That crystal was his lifeline. Now, nothing stood between him and death.

  “Why?” he whispered, barely audible at all.

  The creature answered by squeezing him harder against the pillar. His vision freckled with white spots as air fled his lungs. His fingers clawed at the wooden arm, useless.

  The wisp darted desperately around the monster’s head, its blue glow flickering in agitation. It bobbed close to the creature’s face, then toward Mai as if urging him to move—though there was nowhere to go.

  Mai clamped down on the rope, inching it toward him. The dagger scraped across the stone, star-dark metal glinting in the chamber’s dim light. If he could just get it back—

  The creature lunged. Wood clamped around his wrist, crushing down with terrifying strength. Pain shot up his arm. His fingers spasmed, the rope slipping away. The dagger skidded across the floor, spinning out of reach.

  Mai met those amber eyes again. Nothing in them spoke of hesitation.

  The monster repositioned its grip. A sharp sting cut through his side.

  A thin branch pushed from the creature’s palm and pressed into his abdomen. Mai’s breath vanished as the wooden spike punctured skin and muscle.

  Fire shot through him. His back arched against the pillar, a raw scream tearing from his throat and bouncing violently around the chamber. The wooden tendril burrowed deeper, widening the wound with a slow, merciless twist.

  Those unblinking amber eyes watched him suffer, grin still carved grotesquely across its wooden face. The branch thickened as it pushed further inside, splitting muscle, tearing tissue.

  Blood soaked into his shirt, warm and slick against his skin. His vision began to smear, shadows warping into a dark ring around the world.

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  His consciousness wavered like a flame in wind. Through the agony, his thoughts cut brutally clear.

  After everything—being kidnapped, escaping, clawing his way through the years—this was how it ended. Pinned to a pillar in a trial gone wrong.

  I'm so weak.

  He had trained until his body shook. Studied until his eyes stung. Learned because knowledge was the only thing no one could take from him. And still, here he was—skewered like prey while others fled.

  Faces drifted through the encroaching dark. His parents—smiles frozen in memory; his sister Ari, caught mid-laugh. The teal-haired boy from the facility. And Iruminai, somewhere in this same labyrinth, probably fighting with that reckless, maddening confidence.

  I’m abandoning them.

  The thought settled over him like a slow, crushing weight. These were the people who had shaped him, the ones he promised to keep moving for, to come back to…

  And Iruminai…

  They had promised to survive Edgewater together. To search for answers. Now he would be left alone, wondering why Mai hadn’t kept up. Wondering why he wasn’t strong enough.

  The wooden spike twisted deeper. Blood bubbled in Mai’s throat.

  I'm sorry, Mom.

  I'm sorry, Dad.

  I'm sorry, Ari.

  I’m sorry, Iru.

  I’m so sorry.

  The thoughts barely formed before everything went silent. Not the chamber, but him. Something inside him simply… let go.

  The world peeled away, leaving him weightless in a vast, blank space, suspended in a quiet that felt too gentle for what had come before.

  Pain and stress bled out of him. Breathing no longer mattered. He sensed only the slow pull of blood through his veins; crystal clear one moment, distant the next, like a rhythm that refused to hold still.

  A soft image flickered through the emptiness: his family eating lunch on a sunlit hill. It hovered, fragile, then drifted away on a faint breeze that brushed across him, impossibly calm.

  He was at peace. It was both familiar and new... Is this it?

  The question drifted away in the breeze as the darkness around him stirred.

  Soft waves of color slid into the emptiness. First the blues, then greens. Hints of violet washed over them, mixing like watercolor on a canvas. They curled and unfurled with grace, drifting in long ribbons as they wisped past him.

  More memories began forming within the colors, each arriving gently. His sister cuddled up on the couch, a stuffed fox cradled in her arms. Her dark hair stood up in unruly clumps. She blinked, her sleepy eyes fighting to remain open.

  "Read it again," she mumbled, leaning against him.

  Mai watched himself chuckle, the sound echoing in the quiet room, as he opened the picture book for the fourth time that night. The memory lingered a moment longer before being whisked away.

  Behind it, another scene painted itself before him. He sat in the kitchen, his mother stirring a pot on the stove, steam swirling up before gracefully dispersing as it hit the ceiling. She hummed a tune, motioning to his father. He leaned over her shoulder as she raised the wooden spoon to his mouth. A bright smile spread across his face, noting it tasted perfect.

  The moment softened and slipped away just as the last. Further along the drifting colors, deeper shades of violet emerged, embracing the tranquility of twilight. The night sky eased into place above him, revealing Mai and Iruminai talking on the grassy hillside behind Windy Peaks, catching up after a long day.

  Iruminai propped himself against a tree, casually flicking a pebble downhill. Mai lay a few feet away, tracing the early-night stars while a breeze stirred the grass around him. They were scattered and imperfect, disrupted by clouds and the glow of the city, but in that moment, they felt surreal.

  The hillside dissolved grain by grain; the stars dimmed until they were nothing but specks of white inside the drifting aurora. And then those too went out.

  The void welcomed him back; the colors lingering in the dark. Slow waves of color sailed through the black expanse; the hues drifted inward, drawn to one unseen center.

  The strands twisted together, mixing in slow spirals, as they formed a small concentrated ball. Shades lightened, bleeding together and brightening unnaturally. All the ribbons converged, leaving only a bright white light.

  The ball melted away, spreading a pool of brightness under Mai. It then shot out with immeasurable speed, covering the limitless space around him in mere moments.

  Mai raised an arm over his eyes as the light overtook everything. As the radiance settled, he lowered his arm and blinked at the flat, endless world of white, the gentle pull of gravity grounding him on the vast expanse. He stood for a long moment, acclimating to his own weight again as a calming, muffled hum rose from all around him.

  As he shifted his feet on the featureless ground, the lack of texture made him feel unstable. He steadied himself with a slow inhale. The sensation was strange; his weight was there, yet it sank into the ground, swallowed by the white void.

  He stared out at the blank space. With nothing to focus on, his thoughts thinned, slipping away until only the quiet hum remained. He wasn't sure how long he'd stood there, but the shadowless ground beneath him began to feel comforting.

  At some point, his eyes closed. An uneasy calm washed over him, faintly reminding him of the black void he'd been pulled from. When his eyes opened again, it wasn't by choice. Nothing around him seemed to have changed, yet something deep within him felt wrong. It ached with the quiet sense that more time had passed than he could recall.

  He turned his head, then his shoulders, his movements sluggish as he took in the same unbroken white in every direction. A thin edge of acceptance settled in his chest. Then—

  He spotted it.

  A single black speck sat far off against the white. It didn't move or grow; it simply sat there. Mai couldn't tell if it was far away or merely a small stain of darkness on the otherwise purely white plain.

  The longer he looked, the harder it became to change focus. The thin acceptance he'd settled into gave way to a faint, tightening tension. He couldn't name the feeling, only that it hovered somewhere between fear and longing.

  He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The idea of having a choice sat with him for half a second before a soft, breathy laugh slipped out. Who am I kidding…

  A trace of determination flared inside him as he drew a slow breath. There's nothing else to wait for. With a sigh, he shifted his weight forward, beginning his long journey forward.