It didn't take long for Ymir to reach the fast-approaching ground that was layered with pristine whiteness. The wind whistled past his ears as he plummeted through the frigid air, his black tracksuit flapping wildly around his thin frame. Time seemed to stretch and compress simultaneously—each second felt like an eternity, yet the ground rushed toward him with alarming speed.
He closed his eyes instinctively and braced for the impact, his muscles tensing as he wondered how much it would hurt. Would his bones shatter on contact? Would consciousness abandon him immediately, or would he suffer through agonizing moments of awareness? But to his utter surprise, he felt himself sink into the white, spongy ground rather than crash against it with bone-crushing force.
The sensation was unlike anything he had ever experienced. It was cold, wet, and strangely comforting to a degree—like being embraced by nature itself, albeit a chilly embrace that sent shivers through his already trembling body. The crystalline particles clung to his clothes and skin, melting slowly from his body heat and creating tiny rivulets of water that traced paths down his face.
This was Ymir's first time encountering snow-covered ground, though he had no name for this peculiar white substance that cushioned his fall. Not like he knew what snow was—his understanding of natural phenomena was limited at best. His feet had never touched the surface of a planet before, having spent his entire existence in the sterile, metallic confines of space stations and vessels. Most of the scenery sprawling before him was strange and alien, a tapestry of textures, colors, and sensations that his sheltered life had never prepared him to encounter.
Gathering himself with considerable effort, Ymir wobbled weakly to his feet, his legs trembling like a newborn colt's. His breathing came in ragged gasps, as if he had run a marathon across continents. Each inhalation burned his lungs with the sharp, clean cold of the alien atmosphere. He methodically dusted the lingering snow from his black tracksuit, watching the white flakes scatter and disappear into the wind. His glasses, now bearing a spider web of cracks from the impact of his fall, sat crookedly on his narrow face, one lens completely fractured while the other remained partially intact. He sighed deeply, a sound that seemed to echo in the vast emptiness around him, and carefully adjusted the damaged spectacles, though the network of fractures made them nearly useless for their intended purpose.
His vision now compromised, Ymir squinted and looked around, taking in his surroundings with a mixture of wonder and apprehension. The landscape was both beautiful and ominous, painted in shades of white and gray that seemed to stretch endlessly in all directions. Before him lay the entrance to what could only be described as a maze—an architectural marvel that defied conventional understanding. To his right and left, the maze's walls stretched endlessly toward the horizon, disappearing into the misty distance like ancient fortifications built by forgotten gods.
"Where the hell am I?" Ymir muttered to himself, his voice barely above a whisper, carried away by the wind before it could return to his ears. The question hung in the air like a physical presence, demanding an answer that never came. "Have I stumbled upon a wormhole by chance?" He laughed bitterly, the sound harsh and discordant in the peaceful silence of this strange realm. The laughter died quickly, leaving only the whisper of wind through the maze walls. "Knowing how amazing my luck is, I don't think it's an impossibility."
Suddenly, he felt a peculiar tingling sensation, like thousands of tiny insects crawling across his skin. The movement was concentrated on the back of his right hand, prompting him to examine it with growing alarm. The symbol that had been seared like a black tattoo into his pale flesh—a mark he had carried for reasons he couldn't fully comprehend—began to shift and change before his very eyes. The lines twisted and reformed, morphing into another strangely complex shape that seemed to pulse with its own inner light.
Weirdly enough, despite never having seen such symbols before, he was able to read it with perfect clarity. More accurately, he understood its meaning on an instinctive level, as if the knowledge had been burned directly into his consciousness. The message was simple yet terrifying in its implications: 'Survive the labyrinth for as long as you can, aspirant.'
Ymir stared at the symbol for several long moments, his eyes growing dull and his mind going blank as the reality of his situation began to sink in. The weight of the message pressed down on him like a physical burden, and for a moment, he felt completely disconnected from his body, as if he were observing someone else's life from a great distance. Then, like a dam bursting, consciousness flooded back into his awareness, and he shouted in a voice that was squeaky and unsteady.
He was a man of few words, always lurking in the shadows and observing from the sidelines like a perpetual side character in someone else's story. His voice carried the telltale signs of a person who had spent most of his life in silence—a low tone combined with a high pitch that reflected years of barely speaking or sharing his thoughts with another living soul.
"What!" His eyes widened until they seemed ready to pop from their sockets, and his jaw hung open slightly, creating an expression of comical disbelief. "It worked! It really worked! I can't believe it—the rumor is true! Haha!" The laughter that escaped him was genuine this time, filled with a mixture of relief, excitement, and disbelief that bordered on hysteria.
In his excitement, Ymir attempted to jump, but his weakened legs betrayed him, and he fell face-forward into the snow with a muffled thud. "Ow, cold, cold, cold!" he complained, flailing his arms as he tried to extract himself from the frozen embrace of the ground. "What is this white, cold thing anyway?" He put on a thoughtful expression, his brow furrowing as he contemplated this new substance, before ultimately shrugging his narrow shoulders. "Well, it doesn't matter right now."
Turning his gaze back toward the maze, Ymir found himself speechless once again. The structure before him was, to put it simply, breathtakingly beautiful in its terrifying majesty.
Stretching before him like a living tapestry of menace and beauty was the entrance to a labyrinth that seemed to have been crafted by the hands of mad gods. Its towering walls, easily thirty feet high, were woven from thick, gnarled vines that had been twisted together into labyrinthine corridors. The deep emerald vines glistened with morning dew, each droplet catching and reflecting light like tiny prisms. Threaded throughout the living walls were thorns as long as human fingers, their surfaces gleaming like polished obsidian and promising swift punishment for any who dared to touch them.
Interwoven among the deadly thorns were vivid red flowers, their petals unfurling like bloodstains against the green backdrop. Each bloom was perfectly formed yet somehow sinister, as if beauty itself had been corrupted by some malevolent force. Their scent was sickeningly sweet and intoxicating, carried on the damp, still air that clung heavily around him like an invisible shroud.
The ground beneath his feet consisted of uneven cobblestones that had been worn smooth by countless ages and untold numbers of feet. Moss crept through the cracks between the stones, creating intricate patterns that seemed almost deliberate in their design. The stones themselves were cold to the touch, and each step echoed with a soft, hollow sound that seemed unnaturally loud in the maze's oppressive, tomb-like silence.
An archway gate, ornate and foreboding, separated him from the maze's dark interior. Ymir felt an almost overwhelming urge to rush forward and begin his journey immediately, afraid that this entire experience might be nothing more than a cruel dream or an elaborate joke being played on him by forces beyond his understanding.
But before he could act on this impulse, his sense of reason flickered back to life, and a serious, deeply frightened expression replaced the excitement on his gaunt face. The fear of what lay ahead served as a sobering reminder that his next few steps would throw him headlong into a world he was never prepared for, could never have been prepared for.
He knew with absolute certainty that he had already died once. Though he had initially found peace in that transition, now that his situation seemed marginally more hopeful and the possibilities were numerous, he couldn't help but feel a profound sense of trepidation at the prospect of dying again and losing this chance to grasp at an entirely new life.
He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the cold, freezing air. The shivering sensation that resulted helped shake off the creeping dread that was threatening to overwhelm his thoughts, bringing a measure of calm to his racing mind.
Clearing his thoughts and focusing his attention, his eyebrows narrowed in concentration. "What disadvantages do I have?" he asked himself aloud.
It was a simple question, yet its ramifications were dire and far-reaching. "Oh," he realized with growing dismay, "I think the better question is what advantages I have, since I obviously have more disadvantages than I can count."
He conducted a thorough inventory of his physical condition, and his assessment painted a grim picture. A sour, bitter smile crossed his cracked lips as he catalogued his weaknesses: "Frail body, check. I'm hungry and thirsty since I couldn't get anything for three days, check. No armor or weapons, check. And my glasses are half-ruined, double-check."
Then, as if a light bulb suddenly illuminated inside his head, he began rummaging through his tracksuit pockets with desperate hope. His searching fingers finally closed around a familiar object—a wrench-like tool that was surprisingly light and sleek, its polished surface reflecting the dim light like a mirror.
He grasped it with both his small, delicate hands and whispered, "Yes!" A genuine smile, the first real smile in what felt like years, decorated his cracked lips.
This was a multi-use knife, a precious gift from his late boss and savior—the one person who had shown him any kindness in his short, miserable life. The tool represented more than just a potential weapon; it was a connection to better times, a reminder that he had once mattered to someone.
"At least I have a makeshift weapon," he exclaimed, sighing in profound relief.
Tightening his grasp around the knife until his knuckles turned white, Ymir steeled his resolve and walked forward with measured steps. He had delayed his entry long enough—it was time to face whatever horrors awaited him within the labyrinth's twisting corridors.
The moment he crossed the threshold of the gate, reality shifted around him. The entrance sealed behind him with a sound like grinding stone, the living vines slithering shut like a massive mouth closing, effectively trapping him within the maze's embrace.
Ymir felt the writing on his left hand change shape once again, the sensation both familiar and deeply unsettling. When he examined the new message, what he saw filled him with confusion and a growing sense of unease. The symbols now read: 'Aspirant, as the only piece of advice we give you, never look at the sky. Survive as long as you can.'
Ymir continued staring at the symbol for several more seconds, his mind racing as he tried to decode its meaning. He raised an eyebrow and muttered, "We? And what do they mean, don't look at the sky?"
The question had barely left his lips when, acting on pure unconscious impulse, Ymir lifted his head upward to gaze at the sky above. The moment he did so, he regretted it with every fiber of his being, realizing he had just made what might be one of the worst mistakes of his miserable, short life.
His breath caught in his throat, his eyes widened to their absolute limits, and his entire body froze in paralyzing terror. His already pale skin drained of what little color it possessed, turning an ashen, grayish hue that made him look more corpse than living being. His mind actively refused to process what he was seeing, or more accurately, what was currently observing him with malevolent intelligence.
A grotesque, titanic eye was bulging from the very fabric of the sky itself, its massive form defying all natural laws and rational understanding. The eye's veined, bloodshot iris pulsed with a sickly, phosphorescent glow that seemed to penetrate directly into his soul. Thick, sinewy tendrils—like gnarled tree roots that had been fused with writhing, living flesh—sprawled outward from the central mass in all directions. Each tendril glistened with a slick, crimson sheen that reflected the unnatural light emanating from the eye itself.
Jagged capillaries snaked across the eye's swollen surface like rivers of blood, throbbing with each unnatural heartbeat that seemed to echo through the very air around him. Ragged folds of skin sagged like melted wax around the distorted pupil, creating shadows that moved independently of any light source. The appendages twisted and coiled in hypnotic patterns, some barbed with bone-like protrusions that gleamed wickedly, while others terminated in puckered, fleshy mouths that continuously drooled a dark, viscous fluid that fell like rain onto the maze below.
The only coherent thought that managed to penetrate Ymir's terror-stricken mind as he witnessed this living embodiment of cosmic horror was a simple, desperate question: "What have I gotten myself into?"