Chapter 63: Another Date
Alex collapsed against the stone wall of his cell, exhaustion crushing his enhanced frame like a vice. The suffocating silence of the underground chambers smothered him, punctured only by the distant grinding machinery of the arena complex’s relentless operations. His body still blazed from the coordinated assault against the SS-ranked Devourer, but the Enhanced Recovery skill was already weaving together the worst of his wounds.
The gray slop materialized on schedule, delivered by the same Ironhide servant who never dared meet his gaze. Alex devoured it hungrily, his mind churning through the implications of his recent advancement. Level 3 had shattered his relationship with the suppression field where before it had strangled his abilities completely, now he could siphon a trickle of his vast essence reserves even while imprisoned.
Hours crawled by in contemplative silence. As the endless day dragged on, Alex discovered himself growing drowsy despite his enhanced constitution. The exhaustion felt different than normal fatigue heavier, more insistent, like molten lead pouring through his consciousness.
His enhanced senses detected a faint, cloying sweetness threading through the air. The meal. Something had been laced into the processed substance.
Alex struggled to rise, to battle the encroaching unconsciousness, but his legs buckled beneath him. The stone floor rocketed up to greet him as darkness devoured his vision.****
Consciousness crawled back slowly, accompanied by the nauseating sensation of movement. Alex maintained his breathing rhythm, feigning continued unconsciousness while harvesting information. He was being transported on some kind of stretcher, his arms and legs bound with restraints that hummed with suppression energy.
"Kresh-thuul mekthari," one of the guards rumbled. "Zhel-vorth nakul thurvani."
Through barely parted eyelids, Alex glimpsed corridors he’d never witnessed before. Polished obsidian walls carved with intricate sigils that pulsed with malevolent light. Ancient tapestries depicting arena battles from centuries past legendary conflicts where beings of impossible power had shredded each other apart for entertainment.
They hauled him through massive doors into a space that defied conventional architecture. Corridors branched in directions that shouldn’t exist, walls curved back on themselves in ways that made his enhanced perception shriek in protest.
Finally, they halted. The restraints were severed, and Alex was deposited on a floor of polished obsidian. The guards retreated, their footsteps evaporating into nothing.
Only when he was certain he was alone did Alex crack his eyes completely.
A labyrinth sprawled before him. Corridors branched off in all directions, their walls shrouded in sigils that seemed to writhe when he wasn’t staring directly at them. The air tasted thick, saturated with energy that hammered against his consciousness.
Alex hauled himself to his feet, testing his connection to his abilities. The fire manipulation responded immediately at full strength. The suppression here was negligible, almost nonexistent.
That’s when he heard it the sound that froze his blood to ice.
Laughter. Familiar laughter echoing from somewhere deeper in the labyrinth.
Haley’s laughter.
Alex’s flame sputtered as phantom agony pierced through his chest. The sound was impossible Haley wasn’t suppose to exist in this world . But the laugh was perfect, exactly as he remembered from those early days when he’d thought she actually cherished him.
"Hello, Alex."
Her voice drifted from the central corridor, warm and inviting in a way that made his soul core throb with remembered betrayal. Despite every rational thought shrieking warnings, his feet began moving toward the sound.
**[System Alert: Psychic Attack Detected]**
**[Mental Defense Protocols Activating]**
**[Warning: Hostile Memory Reconstruction in Progress]**
The system notifications helped anchor his consciousness as he forced himself to stop walking. This wasn’t real. Haley was gone. But understanding the illusion intellectually didn’t make the emotional impact any less devastating.
Alex extinguished his flame and pressed his back against the wall, controlling his breathing as he battled waves of panic that threatened to drown him. The surgical table, the clinical voices, the betrayal all of it crashed over him in vivid detail.
’Focus. Analyze. This is just another test.’
"Don’t you want to see me again?" Haley’s voice called from deeper in the maze, carrying that same playful tone she’d used during their first coffee date. "I’ve missed you so much, Alex. We could try again. Do things differently this time."
The rational part of his mind catalogued the psychological warfare being deployed against him. Use beloved memories twisted into weapons, exploit emotional vulnerabilities, shatter mental defenses through carefully crafted illusions. Standard techniques, really, just executed with supernatural precision.
But knowing the mechanics didn’t make the assault any less effective.
Alex forced himself to move away from Haley’s voice, choosing the left corridor instead of the central path. Whatever entity controlled this labyrinth wanted him to follow that particular route. Basic survival instincts suggested doing the opposite.
The left corridor stretched for what felt like miles, though distance seemed negotiable in this space. The obsidian walls gradually gave way to something that looked disturbingly like hospital tile clean, sterile, white surfaces that reflected harsh fluorescent lighting from an invisible source.
’No. Not again.’
But even as he tried to retreat, the corridor behind him had transformed. Where polished stone should have been, he now saw the familiar doorway of an operating theater. Through the reinforced glass windows, he could see figures in surgical masks preparing instruments that gleamed under bright lights.
"Subject is responding to stimuli," came a clinical voice that he recognized with growing horror. "Proceed with the harvest."
Alex sprinted. He raced through corridors that shifted and morphed around him, hospital tiles becoming Academy dormitory walls becoming the blood-soaked earth of the dimensional battlefield. Each environment brought its own torments familiar faces twisted into masks of betrayal, moments of triumph corrupted into failure, every fear and regret given physical form.
Professor Leo materialized in Academy robes, his expression filled with disappointment. "You let your classmates die, Alex. Sarah trusted you, and you abandoned her."
The accusation struck harder than any physical blow because part of him believed it. He’d been thinking tactically about Sarah’s abilities, calculating how they could be useful rather than worrying about her wellbeing. Just like Haley had done to him.
"I didn’t abandon anyone," Alex said through gritted teeth, creating flames around his fists as he prepared for combat. "And I’m not that naive boy anymore."
But Professor Leo’s form was already dissolving, replaced by something far worse. Kael Ashford his own reflection stepped out of the shifting walls with a cold smile.
"Aren’t you?" the duplicate asked. "You’re still the same weak, trusting fool who got harvested like livestock. All this power, all this advancement, and you’re still just pretending to be strong."
"I am strong," Alex replied, but even he could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
"Strong?" The duplicate’s laugh was bitter. "You’re burning away pieces of your soul just to compete with opponents who aren’t even trying. You nearly died fighting creatures that proper warriors would crush without effort. Face it, Alex you’re just a glorified organ donor playing at being dangerous."
The words struck home because they contained truth. His victories had come at terrible costs, requiring him to damage his own essence structure just to survive encounters that more experienced fighters might handle easily. Was he actually growing stronger, or just finding increasingly desperate ways to punch above his weight class?
Alex felt his flame powers wavering as doubt crept in. The duplicate pressed its advantage, moving closer with predatory confidence.
"Even now, you’re terrified. Afraid of being weak, afraid of being used, afraid of caring about anyone because they might betray you. That’s not strengththat’s cowardice wrapped in trauma."
"Then what would you call strength?" Alex asked, genuinely curious despite the psychic assault.
The duplicate paused, seeming to consider the question seriously. "Strength is accepting who you are without needing to prove it to anyone. Strength is caring about people despite the risk of betrayal. Strength is—"
Alex struck while his opponent was talking, a concentrated lance of flame punching through the duplicate’s chest. But instead of ichor or blood, the wound bled memories—images of his life before awakening, moments of genuine happiness that had been poisoned by betrayal.
The labyrinth shuddered around him, walls cracking as something fundamental shifted in the psychic architecture. The hospital corridors faded, replaced by the original obsidian construction. In the distance, he could hear the sound of something massive moving through the maze not toward him, but parallel, hunting with purpose.
A section of wall slid away silently, revealing a passage that hadn’t existed moments before. This corridor was different from the others—instead of oppressive darkness, it was flooded with soft white light that felt warm and welcoming.
Alex approached cautiously, every instinct warning him that anything welcoming in this place was probably a trap. But as he drew closer, he caught a familiar scent that made his heart race.
Coffee. Fresh coffee, brewed exactly the way he’d always preferred it.
Through the passage, he could see what looked like a small café wooden tables, comfortable chairs, the gentle murmur of conversation from invisible patrons. At a corner table, a figure sat reading a book, long brown hair falling across features he knew better than his own reflection.
Haley looked up as he approached, and her smile was exactly as he remembered from their first meeting. Before the betrayal, before the operating table, before everything went wrong. This was the Haley he’d fallen in love with genuine, warm, interested in him as a person rather than an asset.
"I’ve been waiting for you," she said, her voice carrying none of the clinical detachment from his memories of that final night. "We have so much to talk about."
Alex stood at the threshold, understanding that crossing would mean accepting whatever reality this labyrinth wanted to create. But despite everything the trauma, the betrayal, the certainty that this was another trap part of him desperately wanted to sit down across from her and pretend that coffee dates and genuine affection were still possible.
’This is the real test. Not the illusions or the duplicates, but whether I can resist the offer of what I want most: to undo the past and try again.’
Behind him, the sound of hunting grew closer. Whatever else inhabited this maze had noticed his presence and was closing in. Forward meant confronting a perfect recreation of his greatest emotional vulnerability. Backward meant facing an unknown threat while carrying the weight of unresolved trauma.
Alex created fire in both hands, the flames casting shifting shadows on the obsidian walls.
"Hello, Haley," he said quietly. "We need to talk."