The crash of impact was distant, like thunder rolling underwater. Then—stillness.
Kullen groaned, pushing himself up from the cold, marble-like ground. Nathan was already on his feet nearby, staring up at a ceiling that seemed miles above, etched with enormous gears. The room around them… no, the maze around them… ticked.
Looming walls made of obsidian and bone towered in every direction, shifting slightly each time a massive, hanging clock ticked. Some walls breathed. Others blinked. Some twisted into new passageways as if deciding what path the intruders deserved to suffer through. Some clocks ran forward. A few ticked sideways, their hands twitching like they were trying to escape their own faces.
Kullen stood first, brushing himself off. "Where the hell are we?"
The cavern reeked of time.
It ticked. It echoed. It moved.
Nathan didn't answer right away. He stared at a nearby clock—its face wasn't numbered, just black with faint scratches. It pulsed. Tick. Tick. Tick. The wall behind it slid away with a low rumble, revealing a twisting hallway that hadn't been there before.
Nathan reached out with a hand, trying to halt the ticking with a temporal freeze.
Nothing happened.
He frowned. Tried again.
Still nothing.
Each tick still echoed.
Each tick still twisted the corridor.
Each tick still erased the one behind it.
"This place ignores me," he muttered. "Time doesn't… exist here the way it should."
Kullen narrowed his eyes and activated his own ability, the veins around his temples glowing faintly as his pupils dilated unnaturally. Slowly, the walls peeled back, and what he saw shocked him.
Beyond the walls: faces.
Dozens of them.
Some pressed into the stone, others grinning within it.
And one, directly in front of him, staring back.
Its face filled his vision, distorted and upside-down, pupils spinning, grin never faltering.
Kullen's nose bled immediately. His eye throbbed in pain. His body dropped.
The Smiling Man.
His translucent, grinning visage stared back, upside-down, inches from Kullen's face—but buried in the wall like a parasite. Its lips didn't move, but Kullen heard it.
"Keep looking. Keep peeling. Peel until you're the one on the wall."
Kullen screamed and ripped his sight back, clutching his face. Blood leaked from beneath his eyelids. "Stop—get it out of my head!"
Nathan rushed to him, grabbing his shoulders. "Kullen—hey—stop looking. It's not real. It's not real."
Kullen's breathing slowed. "He was there. I saw—"
The Smiling Man's voice oozed between the walls like oil, low and close.
"Curiosity's such a dangerous little itch, Kullen. Keep scratching, and you might peel something important."
Both men spun around.
The Smiling Man was behind them, touching their shoulders like an old friend reunited. He leaned between them, lips near their ears.
"You boys are the most fun," he whispered.
He dragged a finger down Nathan's spine.
Nathan flinched.
"You crack when you think too hard," the Smiling Man said, licking his lips. "All loops and logic. But what if time didn't want you anymore?"
He turned to Kullen. "And you… You want to be king of what, exactly? What happens if you and your friends manage to find a way home? Will you leave the kingdom to perish?"
Then he was gone.
No footsteps.
Just laughter.
The walls shimmered.
And then he merged into the stone, his body stretching grotesquely across the moving corridor, becoming one with it—his smile embedded across every surface.
He began to chant.
Whispers. Backward words. Incantations from no language ever meant for the living.
The cavern rumbled.
From the cracks in the maze spilled memories with feet.
Shapes appeared across the stone: enemies. Figures both men had faced before. Soldiers, beasts, failures.
A Drow general, Kullen, once killed in Everlock's uprising, stepped into the corridor ahead—eyes glowing red, grin twisted into the Smiling Man's own.
A mirror version of Nathan, from one of his earliest loops—his arm still scarred from a failure long buried—appeared behind them, silent, smiling.
Dozens more spilled in, circling through the maze.
All bearing his grin.
"They're you," the Smiling Man whispered. "Each one… something you've broken."
He dissolved into the wall again, leaving the cold echo of his laughter behind.
The enemies didn't scream. Didn't shout.
They just charged.
Nathan and Kullen moved back to back, fighting as the maze rearranged itself with each tick—blades clashing, time magic stuttering. Nathan's powers sparked but failed. He tried to rewind a creature, only to find his own breath reversing instead, choking him.
Kullen swung and swung until his arms felt like lead. The air was thick. Not with smoke—with memory. The weight of things that should've been forgotten, pressing in.
Every second drained them more.
Every strike felt slower.
Inside their heads, the Smiling Man cackled.
"Oh, sweet little gears in the clockwork… just give up. Let go. Rest. Haven't you earned it?"
Then his voice turned sharper.
"Someone's going to open the wrong door. One of you. You'll think it's for the right reasons. But you'll doom them all."
Kullen froze mid-strike, chest heaving. "What does that mean?"
The voice didn't answer.
Only laughed.
"Nathan!" Kullen gasped, dropping to one knee. "We can't—!"
"I know!" Nathan roared, eyes wild. "I can't feel the flow anymore. My anchor's gone."
"Then we run," Kullen snapped.
They broke through a knot of smiling foes, turned a corner—
And the corridor ended.
Just… ended.
No floor.
Just void.
The clocks behind them shattered, raining sparks.
And from the black—
The Smiling Man emerged once more, massive now, as if wearing the entire maze as a cloak.
"Tick," he purred. "Tock."
Kullen closed his eyes.
And jumped.
Nathan followed.
They fell into the void—
And then—
The void trembled.
The Smiling Man's voice returned, louder now, booming and intimate all at once.
"You run from the things you don't understand…"
His voice circled them like a predator.
"Boys reincarnated from a different land… waltzing around as if you deserve to be here."
A slow, wet clicking followed. Then a gleeful giggle.
"One, a king with a prosperous kingdom—constantly expanding, as if stability is a right and not a lie."
He paused for emphasis, mock admiration bleeding into contempt.
"Another, who plays with time like it's a toy… yet still hasn't grasped the depths of his own power."
The darkness tightened.
"And two more…"
The tone shifted—hushed, reverent.
"One born with divinity—stubborn, savage, unstable. The other, who has inherited it, unknowingly becoming what he runs away from. A man who is tired of war, yet he continues to fight."
A shiver raced down both their spines.
"I can't wait to snuff them all."
Then—
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
His laughter cracked through the void like thunder wrapped in broken glass, followed by a silence that consumed everything.
Kullen exhaled slowly. "He knows everything about us."
Nathan clenched his jaw. "Clearly not. He said two gods.. the only one with us is Jalen."
"But for how long, you said time here is weird, what if he can see ahead…" Kullen rose to his feet, battered, broken, but not beaten.
"I'm not counting us out just yet, let's go find the others!"
The void stretched ahead, lying with the unknown.