Altered Intents

The maze seemed to warp around Demian as he continued his hurried steps, his thoughts fraying at the edges. He couldn't shake the suffocating weight that pressed in on him from all sides. The air felt thicker now, as though the very space around him had changed somehow. It wasn't a tangible shift, but something... off. He could sense it without seeing it: a distortion, subtle but undeniable, in the rhythm of time itself.

The time he stole, hadn't simply been "borrowed" in the traditional sense. No—time had been added. The world was not slower. It hadn't gone backward, but something had interrupted the linear flow. If time were a straight line, something had inserted itself—broken the pattern and woven a new thread in between. Like a line of continuity suddenly interrupted by a jagged fragment, an extension added, disrupting the natural passage. Time had been stolen in the most literal sense—taken and added to the fabric of his surroundings.

This was different from anything he had experienced with magic before. Time hadn't been paused or reversed. It had been... expanded, warped into the fabric of this place. And now, Demian could feel it. The air thickened, his movements sluggish, his senses slightly dulled, as if the space itself had grown stretched, strained.

Four to five minutes.

He didn't know how he could sense it, but he knew. The stolen time would only last that long—five minutes, at most—and with each passing second, he could feel the mana flickering. His reserves were exhausted. The borrowed time had eaten away at whatever energy he had left.

Panic clawed at him, his thoughts spiraling. He was still lost in the maze. The path seemed endless, twisting in impossible directions, as though mocking his every attempt to escape. Every turn was identical. The walls shifted with unnerving regularity, closing him in. He had to get out. He had to.

How much time do I have left? His mind screamed as he tried to focus. He needed to move faster, but the heavy weight of the stolen minutes kept him from thinking clearly.

A sudden, sharp realization pierced his thoughts—there was more to this place than just the maze. This wasn't a simple challenge. It was designed to trap him, to keep him here. This wasn't just a test. It was a ritual,spell ; one that anchored its victim in the very fabric of the place.

Wait…

A fragment of memory stirred in his mind—something he had once read, perhaps heard something in his database . A spell that required a binding, a sacrifice to keep something, someone trapped. The maze was the manifestation of that ritual. But it wasn't meant for a mind to be caught in—it was meant to trap the very presence of a being, to anchor them in place, bending their existence to the ritual's design.

His heart began to pound in his chest as the connection snapped into place. The ritual had not been designed to catch his mind. It had been crafted to hold his presence—his very being, his essence. And it wanted something. He had to sacrifice something.

His shadow.

The thought struck him like lightning, and he realized that if he wanted to escape this trap, he would have to sacrifice his shadow. Not just the physical darkness cast behind him, but the very essence of his presence—what made him known to the world, the signature of his existence. If the ritual was meant to keep something in this place, it could be undone by offering up that presence.

It wasn't just a shadow—it was everything that made him visible to others, everything that made him part of the world. He would leave it behind, become less noticeable, less real to the world, but it would free him. The cost of escape.

Without another thought, he focused inward, bringing the last of his magic into focus, and willed the spell to anchor onto his shadow ,his presence itself. He could feel it pulling away, a heavy, dark presence, moving like a liquid thread away from his being. It was both liberating and terrifying.

He could feel the change immediately. The world shifted again—this time in a way he could not ignore. He felt the loss, not in his body, but in his presence. He was less. Less visible. The world seemed to react to his disappearance, a sense of emptiness filling the space around him. He could no longer feel the certainty of his own form. It was as though he had become an echo in the void.

He stepped forward, finally the place showing way and not looping around itself.

As he stepped through the alley, he realised he is finally out.