Ren clenched his teeth, silently watching Yuna. Nautilus's words still echoed in his mind, "We don't need you."
If what he heard was true, then Yuna should've shown some sort of reaction, a hint of distance, annoyance, or at least a trace of hesitation.
But she simply kept walking, her expression void of any coldness or anger. Instead, her brown eyes still shimmered with a vague worry, as if she were trying to figure out how to escape this maze.
She didn't look like someone who had just uttered such a cruel statement.
An uneasy feeling swelled in Ren's chest. He gripped his sword hilt instinctively, his palm slightly damp with sweat. Something was off.
It wasn't just tension or exhaustion, he'd grown used to those long ago. This was something different.
He slowly pondered, eyes scanning the faint white mist swirling around them.
Every distorted word they had heard since stepping into this place shared one thing in common: a negative undertone.
Nautilus's words had been twisted into a bitter rejection. Yuna's voice had vanished into the void.
Ren also remembered the moment when his own hearing dulled, like he was catching vague whispers he couldn't quite make out.
This couldn't be a coincidence.
Was the maze manipulating them? Or was something else distorting their perception?
Ren took a deep breath, trying to steady his voice. "Yuna."
She turned reflexively, her steps stopping. "What is it?"
"Try saying something."
"Huh?" Yuna blinked, surprise flickering across her face. "What do you mean all of a sudden?"
"Just something simple," Ren insisted, eyes fixed on her lips. "Like… 'Shall we keep going?'"
Still confused, Yuna didn't argue. She gave a small nod and parted her lips:
"Shall we…"
In that instant, Ren's whole body went rigid.
Her voice came out, but what he heard didn't match what he saw.
"Don't trust them."
The words echoed by his ear, belonging neither to Yuna nor anyone in the group.
It was distorted, hollow, like it had come from deep within the thick fog. Yet Yuna's lips had clearly said what he asked: "Shall we keep going?"
A chill ran down Ren's spine. He stepped back, eyes wide, watching Yuna as if expecting some reaction. But she only tilted her head, eyes filled with confusion.
Far off, through the whispering wind, something echoed, a faint, warped sound, like someone murmuring right by his ear, unable to fully articulate their words.
A swallowed sentence. A voiceless echo repeating endlessly.
He felt unseen eyes watching him.
Ren turned quickly. But beyond the drifting white mist, no one was there.
Every instinct screamed that something was here, something lurking within the maze, manipulating sound, twisting truth, planting seeds of doubt between them.
It didn't want them to trust each other.
It was trying to turn them against one another.
Ren narrowed his eyes, his hand unconsciously tightening around the hilt, the cold metal biting into his fingers amplifying the tension brewing inside him.
No. It couldn't be.
He had seen Yuna's lips move.
She had said what he asked, "Shall we keep going?", not a word out of place, each syllable perfectly matching what he expected.
But the moment her voice reached his ears, it had been warped into something entirely different.
"Don't trust them."
Ren stood frozen.
His fingers clutched the sword hilt, knuckles pale white, palm slick with sweat despite the chill creeping through his sleeves.
In the maze shrouded in white mist, that voice didn't seem to belong to anyone in their group. It came from somewhere else, echoing directly into his ear, distorted, fragmented, yet disturbingly clear.
Who was it?
Ren whipped his gaze back to Yuna, scanning every expression on her face. She was still there, brown eyes full of confusion and concern, with no sign of deceit or coldness.
If she had said those words, there should have been something, discomfort, hesitation, at least a flicker of avoidance in her eyes.
But there was nothing. She was still looking at him, waiting for a response, as if completely unaware of what had just happened.
But if Yuna didn't notice the distortion… that meant he was the only one who heard it that way.
Doubt sparked inside Ren.
He glanced at Nautilus. He had also heard the distorted voice. But if that's the case… how could Ren be sure the words Nautilus had said to him were the truth?
If even the voice of someone standing right in front of you can be distorted, then how can you be certain that what you heard from Nautilus wasn't twisted in some way too?
What if…?
His mind was in turmoil, thoughts crashing into each other like disjointed fragments, impossible to piece together into a coherent picture.
A chill ran down his spine, not out of fear, but from realizing something far more terrifying: doubt.
Ren took a deep breath, but the air here was too cold, too heavy, making it feel as if his lungs were being crushed.
He whipped his head toward Nautilus, staring at him as if searching for a crack, a strange expression, a sign of deception, anything that could confirm that what he was hearing, seeing, was real.
But Nautilus was simply frowning, forehead damp with sweat, his hand gripping the hilt of his short sword on instinct.
And that was the moment Ren realized.
He wasn't the only one on guard. Nautilus was too.
Both of them were watching each other with probing, wary eyes, as if the other could become an enemy at any moment.
Everything collapsed in his mind.
The true plan of the one behind this maze wasn't to attack them. It wasn't about traps. It wasn't about separating them.
It didn't need to do anything—just sow doubt between companions.
As long as they didn't trust each other, as long as they turned their backs on one another, then even teammates—people who had once saved each other's lives—would end up destroying themselves.
Ren blinked, feeling like he'd just missed a step on an invisible stair, a place where solid ground was supposed to be but didn't exist.
His thoughts spun like a furious storm, chaotic, overlapping, but the harder he tried to grasp them, the further they slipped, like fragments of memory swept away by a rushing current.
He knew something was wrong. A prickling, invisible sense clung to him like a shadow coiling around a dying light.
He knew he had just realized something important, a gap, a tiny detail that could change everything, a truth hidden behind all these scattered pieces.
But the moment he tried to hold onto it, it slipped away, vanished into the void as if it had never existed.
The doubt remained. Heavy. Piled in his chest like a massive stone, cutting through every breath, cold and sharp like a blunt knife sinking into flesh.
His hand clenched tightly around his sword, not in preparation for a fight, but as an anchor amid the chaos in his mind.
And when he glanced sideways, he saw Nautilus doing the same, his fingers gripping the short sword so tightly the knuckles had turned pale under the unconscious pressure. No one spoke.
No one tried to reach any conclusion. But for a brief moment, their eyes met, and Ren understood one thing:
He wasn't the only one doubting.
He wasn't sure anymore.
About Yuna. About Nautilus. About himself.
A low voice whispered in his mind, slow, cold, each word like a blade slicing through his consciousness:
What if, from the beginning, you misheard?
What if that voice wasn't distorted at all… but your memory was the thing that had been altered?
Ren furrowed his brow. A sharp pain spread from his temple, and his heartbeat quickened, as if his body was reacting to something… or trying to resist something.
But resist what? And why did he feel this way?
What had he heard?
What had he truly heard?
"Ren?"
Yuna's voice called out, gentle, but hesitant, pulling him from the storm of thoughts.
But the moment he turned to her, her lips moved… and he couldn't hear a word.
In that instant, Ren felt a chill run down his spine, every muscle freezing in an invisible fear. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
He wanted to ask. He should have asked. But the voice in his mind kept whispering, a hidden stream seeping through every crack in his consciousness:
Are you sure? Are you truly sure the next thing you hear will be real?
Nautilus suddenly spoke.
"Let's keep moving."
His voice was hoarse, maybe from exhaustion.
But unlike before, there was no trace of suspicion or alertness. No protest. No questions. No mention of what had just happened.
Ren opened his mouth… then closed it.
And he didn't ask anything either.
No one said another word.
As if all their doubts, all their fears, had been sealed away by something, an invisible mist slipping through the crevices of their minds, dulling their awareness, making everything feel distant and vague.
They kept walking.
But they didn't realize.
They didn't realize they had forgotten something.