The absolute darkness that had swallowed Andrew whole began to crack—not like shattering glass, but like a corrupted video file, glitching at the edges, skipping frames of nothingness. The void pixellated and bled into a blinding white. Light roared into his senses without warning.
His eyes slammed shut.
But even behind his lids, he could see it—that green, pulsating glow from the labyrinth still etched into his vision like a radioactive scar.
When he forced his eyes open again, the world had changed. The labyrinth was gone.
And in its place stood something far worse.
He stood in the middle of a street—his street. Recognition was instant, and so was the dread that followed.
The cracked asphalt. The sagging gutters choked with sun-dried leaves. The graffiti-smeared bus stop. The dented mailbox his bike once crashed into. Every detail screamed home—and yet, nothing felt alive.
It was like a wax figure of his childhood. Familiar... but wrong.
