Villain's Last Chance

Falling.

It was not like tumbling through space or plummeting from a height. There was no wind rushing past, no gravity pulling me downward. It was more like sinking into an ocean of ink, the weight of it pressing in on all sides, filling my lungs, swallowing my thoughts.

The Codex had claimed me.

I was inside it now.

Memories that were not mine flickered like firelight in the dark.

—A girl with silver hair, standing before a throne of bone, her face hidden behind a veil of shadows.

—A hand, pale and delicate, resting atop a war-scorched book, its pages stitched together with sinew.

—A crown, broken in two, dripping with something darker than blood.

And then—my own reflection.

Except it wasn't just me. It was her.

Elara.

The real Elara. The one who had died before I woke in this body, whose story had been written long before I entered it.

She stood before me in the void, her gaze unreadable. She looked like me, but not—sharper, colder, wrapped in the quiet weight of a thousand choices gone wrong.

I tried to speak, but my voice was lost in the ink.

She tilted her head, studying me as though I were the stranger here, not her.

"You took my body."

The words weren't spoken aloud, but I felt them settle in my bones.

I gritted my teeth. "I didn't ask for this."

Her eyes darkened. "Neither did I."

A pause. The ink around us trembled, shifting with unseen currents.

Then she took a step closer, and the air cracked between us.

"What will you do with it?" she asked. "With my name? My story?"

I clenched my fists. The Codex had always been pulling me toward something, some hidden truth buried within its pages. And now, standing before the girl whose life I had inherited, I realized—

This was never just my story.

It had always been hers, too.

And maybe, just maybe, I was here to rewrite it.

I met her gaze, steady. "I won't waste it."

A silence stretched between us.

Then—a smirk.

Elara tilted her head back, laughing, and suddenly the ink wasn't swallowing me anymore. It was lifting me, carrying me, pulling me back toward something solid.

The real world.

The Codex had tested me. And this time—I had passed.

---

I gasped awake.

The chamber around me blurred at first, but then the details sharpened—the cracked stone walls, the pedestal where the Codex still lay open, and the two figures hovering over me.

Cairon and Marek.

Marek let out a sharp breath. "Holy hells, she's not dead."

Cairon was less relieved. His jaw was tight, his golden eyes locked onto mine. "What did you do?"

I pushed myself upright, my limbs aching like I had run for miles. The Codex no longer glowed, but I could feel it in my chest, deeper than before.

Something had changed.

I swallowed hard. "I saw her."

Cairon's brows furrowed. "Who?"

"Elara." I exhaled. "The real Elara."

Marek blinked. "Wait. What?"

I pressed a hand to my temple. "She was there. In the Codex. Or maybe… she's always been a part of it."

Cairon's expression didn't change. But something flickered in his eyes—concern. Suspicion. Fear.

Marek, on the other hand, just groaned. "So let me get this straight. Not only are we trapped in a death maze with a book that keeps trying to kill us, but you're also having conversations with the original owner of your body?"

I hesitated. "It wasn't just a conversation. It was…" I trailed off, struggling to find the right words. "She asked me what I was going to do with her story."

Cairon's grip on his sword tightened. "And what did you tell her?"

I met his gaze, unwavering. "That I won't waste it."

A beat of silence.

Then, slowly, Cairon exhaled, tension bleeding from his shoulders.

Marek shook his head. "You know, I was hoping this journey would come with some normal levels of existential crisis, but nope. Just straight to 'haunted by past selves' territory."

I almost smiled. Almost.

But then the chamber shook.

The Codex pulsed on the pedestal, and the walls trembled in response. The symbols carved into the stone began to shift, glowing faintly. The entire labyrinth was reacting to whatever had just happened.

Cairon cursed. "We need to move. Now."

Marek looked at me. "Can you stand?"

I nodded, though my legs were still weak beneath me. "I'm fine."

We turned to leave. But just as we reached the chamber's threshold, a voice whispered from behind.

"You are running out of time."

I stiffened.

The voice wasn't Cairon's. It wasn't Marek's.

It was Elara's.

I turned sharply, but the chamber was empty. The Codex lay still on the pedestal, as if it had never moved.

But the message was clear.

The labyrinth wasn't just testing me anymore.

It was warning me.