Shadow Slave: Flaw of Gods.

Darkness was not merely the absence of light—it was a living, pulsing substance that enveloped everything around. In this endless gloom, as if in the embrace of oblivion, he awoke, unaware of who he was, where he had come from, or why he was here. The only thing that remained with him was a strange, tireless feeling of inner struggle, a quiet but persistent spark that the flow of oblivion could not extinguish.

His first moments were wrapped in icy cold and silent stillness, broken only by the echo of his own steps on the damp stone tiles. The labyrinth he found himself in stretched out in every direction: winding corridors illuminated by the faint, flickering light of unknown sources, and walls etched with ancient symbols, as if frozen in the pain of the past. Every crack, every whisper of the wind in the narrow passageways reminded him that oblivion sought to erase everything, even this place itself.

He moved forward, driven by an unclear inner impulse, trying to fill the emptiness with fragments of vague emotions—anxiety, loneliness, echoes of lost pain. But deep inside, through the veil of forgotten feelings, hope flickered—a thin thread connecting him to some past, slipping away like a dream at dawn.

The labyrinth's corridors merged into an endless chain of similar yet simultaneously alien images. Every turn, every gloomy hall filled with distant whispers—voices that he could not believe belonged to him. Sometimes it seemed these sounds were foreign, like the souls of long-departed people trapped in oblivion. But through this chaos, there also came a quiet call from his own soul—gentle, melancholic, but unyielding.

One day, while wandering through the winding corridors, he felt a slight tremor. His fingers instinctively reached for the rough surface of a wall, where, on the peeling paint, something ancient had been scratched. The words were illegible, their meaning lost in the dust of centuries, but in these marks, he felt warmth—a reflection of something important, almost forgotten. As his palm traced the relief, a soft call of lost memory flashed in his mind, and his heart began to beat faster.

The labyrinth grew darker: the corridors narrowed, and the walls seemed to breathe with ancient memories intertwined with pain and fear. Every step became a trial, for the labyrinth had been created to erase any trace of identity. But even in this relentless world, his inner will did not give up—it fought desperately for every fragment of his essence.

In one hall, shrouded in silent oblivion, he discovered a tiny room, barely discernible in the gloom. In the center, on the floor, lay an old medallion, covered with a thin layer of dust. Not knowing why this particular object drew his attention, he instinctively reached out. The touch was cold, and then, a warm, almost forgotten energy spread over his skin.

As soon as his fingers touched the medallion, fragments of images flashed before his eyes, vague, like reflections in murky water. At first, he saw only shimmering silhouettes—barely distinguishable shadows flickering in his mind. In one image, the gentle face of a mother with a quiet smile, so familiar, yet long erased from memory. In another, the silhouette of a father, with confident features and a look full of kindness and strength, the kind he had longed for in his solitude. The images changed, like scenes from an old film, where key moments of life flickered for an instant, only to dissolve in the depths of oblivion.

And suddenly, deep within him, something sparked—the very spark the darkness had tried to extinguish. These fragments of memories became his first weapon against oblivion. He felt how every drop of pain, every gleam of joy and loss filled him with new meaning. It wasn't just a revival of memory—it was a return to himself, the beginning of a path strewn with the thorns of oblivion and torment.

At the end, he saw the final vision: himself, standing on the threshold of light, in a mirror that reflected not only his appearance but his soul. In this image, he saw not just a person—he saw the ghost of a lost identity, the echo of past lives, and the promise of a new destiny. In that moment, when the labyrinth was about to consume the last sparks of his memory, he found that thin thread that connected his past to his future.

Tears, unwittingly running down his cheeks, mixed with the dust of the labyrinth, and with a quiet, almost imperceptible voice, he wandered through the forgotten corridors: "Who am I?" No answer came, but inside, it was already clear—this question was only the beginning of the journey. He understood that even if the world around him sought to erase his essence, even if oblivion aimed to carry away the last remnants of his former life, within him still burned a spark capable of dispelling the darkness.