Chapter 4: Weiren Part 2

Frozen in her tracks Aria for the first time witnessed the inner labyrinth from the eyes of a Weiren.It was more a feeling than a visual aid for Aria, everything felt black, there was some small light from moss on the cavern walls but it was too deep and foreboding. What really stuck out was how quiet and still everything was even though she was just chasing Weiren. The air was dry and strangely crisp, you can almost smell the brine in the air and the taste of sterile metal. 

Suddenly, movement caught her eye—barely perceptible amidst the dark crevices. She froze, breath hitching, and squinted toward the shadows. A figure emerged, their silhouette distinct and deliberate. They weren’t aimlessly wandering like the exiled. No, this person was guiding them, gesturing subtly, their path cutting through the maze with unnatural precision.

Aria’s heart raced. Protocol dictated she should call it in immediately, but instinct urged her to pursue. She lunged forward, her pace quickening as she navigated the unpredictable terrain. The figure darted ahead, their movements fluid, almost rehearsed. Instinctively like a predator giving chase, Aria took off. Each turn they took seemed to bend the labyrinth’s walls, as though they held sway over its very structure.

“Stop!” Aria shouted, her voice bouncing off the stone, swallowed by the labyrinth’s silence. She dare not scream again the air was so dry it almost choked her.

The chase led her deeper than she’d ever dared venture. The air grew colder, sharper with the bite of salt, and the dim light seemed to recede, leaving her in a void punctuated by glowing moss and eerie reflections. She was close now—close enough to see the figure’s cloak fluttering as they turned sharply into a hidden passage. Noises started to pick up disorienting her. Every foot step seemed to echo and she eventually couldn't distinguish between the shadows' and her own.

Then it happened. A blinding pulse of light erupted around her, blinding and relentless. Aria stumbled, her vision blurred by a sudden, searing pain. The council’s drones had found her. Too late, she realized her error in defying procedure.

Aria woke in her quarters, her memory fragmented and distorted. She knew she had seen something in the labyrinth, something forbidden, yet it slipped from her grasp like sand through fingers. The council’s methods were meticulous silencing her questions with fabricated clarity. The Core hummed with quiet efficiency, as though nothing had happened.

But a seed had been sown.

Kade had been replaced and she was given a protocol partner but Aria began to notice fractures in her own mind—details that didn’t align, echoes of forgotten chases in the labyrinth. The patrol nights felt hollow now, her steps heavier with the weight of uncertainty. Soon, she went on unsupervised patrols that took her further from the Core, her movements more deliberate as she exploited a secret space—a rusted ventilation shaft barely wide enough to squeeze through. The shaft led to the outer layers of the labyrinth, unmonitored and untouched by the council’s omnipresent surveillance.

As Aria ventured into this uncharted territory, the labyrinth’s mysteries began to unfold. The walls whispered secrets in patterns she could almost decipher. It was here, beyond the council's reach, that she resolved to uncover the truth hidden in the shadows—and perhaps, to find the figure again.