She walked through the dissolving edge of the labyrinth like stepping between breaths—and emerged into memory, but not hers.
Not entirely.
The sky was a dull, English overcast. A faded kind of gray that couldn't decide if it was mourning or just bored. The air was humid and itchy. The light didn't hit her—it just glided through her like she wasn't there.
Because she wasn't.
She stood unseen, untouched. A ghost in her own past.
The alley opened up into the underside of that old bridge. That day. That place. The one where it all broke. Where the truths she'd buried were scraped raw and made visible in pixels and silence.
And there—on the splintered wood bench under the rust-stained beams—sat Natalie.
Her.
Same denim jacket. Same nervous fingers pulling at a loose thread on her sleeve.But this time, Fatiba wasn't the one sitting across from her. This time, she was just watching. A phantom tucked in the shadow of the bridge's ribs.
Natalie wasn't alone.
Her "friends" were there too. That same group from the party chats. The ones Fatiba had never met in person but had heard enough about. Boys with skin like old paper and tongues too sharp for their age. Girls who looked bored with the whole world except when they were cutting it open.
They weren't cartoon villains. They didn't shout slurs or throw bottles.But they were poisonous in a way that couldn't be clipped or screenshot.It leaked from their posture.Their laughter.The kind that only felt warm when someone else was shivering.
"I mean, c'mon," one of the boys said, sipping from a paper coffee cup. "You can't say she wasn't overreacting. Just because someone made a joke—"
"It wasn't just a joke," Natalie muttered, almost too low to hear.
"What, you on her side now?" The other girl asked, her tone sugary and serrated. "Did she convert you or something?"
Laughter. Small. Sharp. Designed to make people shrink.
Natalie flinched.
And didn't answer.
Fatiba, frozen in the space between time, watched her. Watched her shrink. Watched her fold into the version of herself that had let this go on for too long.
One of the boys pulled out his phone and scrolled lazily. "Did you see that new protest clip? It's like—God, do these people even want to fit in?"
Natalie didn't speak. She just dug her nails deeper into her palm.
And Fatiba remembered—That was the moment.That exact minute.It was right after this she'd confronted her.
Back then, she'd been shaking. She'd asked Natalie what those texts meant.Why her group chat called her "Lady Boom Boom."Why they passed around a video of someone in a hijab getting shoved while the comment read "London's spring cleaning."
She remembered Natalie's face then.
Frozen.
Like she couldn't decide who she was allowed to be.
Now, watching from outside it all, Fatiba saw it differently. Saw the tension in Natalie's jaw. The water clinging to her lashes. The silence she had chosen instead of fighting.
Cowardice.But also… fear.
Natalie wasn't evil.She wasn't pure, either.She was just—trapped.Locked in a cage where loyalty meant silence and silence meant survival.
But watching now—this living memory turned theater stage, this looping wound re-bled under rust-stained bridges—She saw something else.
Natalie's silence wasn't hate.
It was weakness.
And that changed everything.
Because despite everything, that friendship had mattered.Not the betrayal. Not the break. But the before.Late-night calls.That one night sharing fries under a flickering bus stop.The time Natalie had cried about her mom and Fatiba had handed over her scarf just so she'd have something warm.
It wasn't fake.
The truth hit harder than rage ever could.
Their friendship had been real—and it had changed her.Made her softer. Warmer.Taught her what sisterhood could feel like when it wasn't guarded.
And still—none of that saved it.
Because Natalie never stood up. Never said no.And the people she kept around?They said everything.
But this...This wasn't about Natalie.
It never had been.
A sudden hum pulsed through the air.The memory shuddered.
Fatiba stepped back. The bridge groaned.
The shadows cracked open like skin split under too much heat.
A labyrinth peeled into view—inside the flashback.The sky rippled.The streetlights began to buzz with thoughts, not light.
And just like that, the Labyrinth Effect activated.
Around her, the people on the street slowed. Twitched. Froze mid-conversation.
And then they changed.
Not physically.
But something peeled out of them—their truths.Thoughts they never said aloud.Beliefs they buried beneath Instagram bios and polite coffee chats.
The laughter of Natalie's group turned meaner.Sharper.Words like "parasites" and "rats" started slipping into sentences.
And Natalie?
She didn't laugh. She didn't hurl slurs. She didn't join the venom. But she didn't stop it either. She stood there, shoulders tensed and mouth sealed, the silence between her and the others louder than any insult. She didn't become them—but she didn't walk away from them either. And Fatiba, standing unseen in the shadows of memory, saw now what she couldn't back then: Natalie wasn't cruel. Just scared. And fear, when stretched long enough, looks a lot like complicity.
But this wasn't about Natalie.
It never really had been.
The voice came soft and cutting, like silk drawn across a wound, and she knew it even before it spoke her name. The dragonfly named Lamb hovered into view, wings shimmering with the warmth of flame and the judgment of glass. Its presence bent the air slightly, making the edges of memory blur.
"Was it ever about her?" it asked.
Fatiba didn't bother with surprise. She'd learned by now that Lamb always appeared when things got unbearable.
"I was watching them," she said quietly, as if confessing to a priest she didn't believe in. "I was watching from a distance when the Labyrinth effect happened. When it all snapped."
The sky above them trembled. The edges of the world warped like heat haze. Time loosened its grip, and the street shifted into something deeper.
She saw herself.
Not as she was now.
But from two months ago.
The same jacket, same shoes—but those eyes… Those eyes were darker, swollen with fury and betrayal. She remembered that day under the bridge—every heartbeat, every breath before it all turned inside out.
"Well, well, well," the past version of herself said, stepping out of the shadow like a lion testing its own cage. "Lady Boom Boom," she snapped, voice coated in acid, tossing the nickname like a lit match at the feet of the people who had coined it.
The group looked up, confused, half amused, half indifferent. Fatiba from the past didn't flinch. She stalked forward, lips curled in mock civility, the words coming sharp and theatrical.
"I've been thinking lately," she said, her steps deliberate, rhythm controlled like a dancer trained in confrontation. "Let's just go ahead and do what you all think I would."
Her voice was poison laced with performance, but her eyes burned real.
One of the boys stepped forward, shoulders loose, smirk locked in place like a man watching fireworks he thought he'd lit.
The Labyrinth had unzipped his mask completely. There was nothing left in him but that one emotion now, raw and twitching at the edges—hatred. Not just prejudice. Hatred as a worldview. Hatred as identity. Hatred as comfort.
He didn't hesitate.
He reached out and ripped her hijab from her head, his fist clenching the fabric like a trophy.
And that was the moment.
The present-day Fatiba, hidden behind the veil of time, didn't scream. Didn't reach. Didn't even breathe. She just watched herself—the version of her from two months ago—go perfectly still.
No fear. No flinch.
Just silence.
And then—
That silence broke.
Past-Fatiba raised her hand. Calmly. Like reaching for a book on a shelf. She placed her palm flat against the boy's face. There was no scream. No mantra. No chant. Just a flick of her fingers—like snapping her will into place.
And then—
He detonated.
He vanished in a burst of heat and pressure, like the idea of him had been deleted from existence. One second he was smirking—and the next, there was nothing. Nobody. No sound. Just dust. Just absence.
And her hand lowered, steam rolling off her fingers.
"That day…" said the present Fatiba, her voice low, rippling with awe and grief and something she couldn't name.
"…that was the day I found my powers."
The air around her shimmered with quiet energy now. The Labyrinth held its breath.
She stared at her younger self—standing beneath the skeleton of the bridge, eyes wide, face blank, the hijab crumpled at her feet, and a ring of scorched silence where a boy used to be.
The street coalesced, smeared as if a movie reel melted during the middle of a scene. Colors ran. Corners cut. The air vibrated with the afterglow of heat—her heat. Fatiba was immobilized in the here and now, a specter to herself, compelled to see what she had worked so hard to forget.
Two months ago, beneath the bridge, the Labyrinth had curled open like a wound. And she—younger, darker, eyes turned glassy with something raw—was no longer Fatiba.
She was a weapon.
The boys had laughed when the first boy disappeared. Laughing like panic's cousin—too loud, too high-pitched. They had assumed it was a joke. They had assumed it was a nightmare. They had assumed she didn't have it in her.
Until the second one blew.
No warning. No tension. Just the jerk of her pinky, and the boy in front of her exploded like a firecracker— instantaneous, horrifying, definitive. A pop and a puff of smoke. His friends shrieked, a gagging series of shock and primal fear.
One of them ran.
He didn't get two steps before her eyes caught him.
There was no flash, no glow. Just a glance.
He disappeared in a shockwave pulse, body atomized mid-stride.
Past-Fatiba didn't miss a step. Her footfalls were deliberate, unhurried—like she wasn't moving, but pronouncing.
One of the girls, trembling, staggered forward, palms extended in shaking peace.
"Please!" she wept, voice cracking. "We didn't mean it! We were just—joking—"
Fatiba did not pause.
"You referred to me as a threat," she said, her voice dead level, as if reciting off an indictment sheet. "Let me demonstrate how accurate you were."
The girl cried and stumbled backward.
"You weren't kidding when you uploaded those clips," Fatiba said, and raised her hand.
There was no hesitation, no ritual—just light and smoke and nothing remaining but heat.
From the here and now, Fatiba gasped and stumbled backward, seeing herself transform into something hideous. Her breath stalled. She couldn't tear her eyes away. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't believe.
"No," she croaked. "No, no, no—no—"
And then she heard her own voice, again, from that memory brought to life.
"Natalie," past-Fatiba said. "You knew. You always knew."
Natalie was huddled against the wall, mascara smudged, mouth shaking.
"Please… Fatiba. I didn't— I didn't laugh. I didn't say anything. I didn't mean—"
"You didn't stop them."
"I was scared—I was your friend!"
Past-Fatiba moved forward, slowly and radiating.
The air around her hand shimmered. A violet light pulsed softly at her fingertips like coiled lightning, alive with unrelenting judgment.
"Please," Natalie whimpered, backing into the bricks. "Don't—don't come closer—I'm just a student—I didn't—please—no—"
"I trusted you."
The pulse ignited.
A deafening BOOM.
Then silence.
A hollow ck—flesh and bone hitting stone, long after the person was already gone.
Her knees bent as she fell, arms sinking into the ground of the dream-world. Her air escaped in ragged sobs. Her body shook as if it might fold in on itself, her voice splintering apart.
"I didn't know," she wheezed. "I didn't know it was like this—I thought I stopped—I thought—"
"You did," a voice told her beside her—smooth, awed, too composed for the destruction.
Lamb, the dragonfly, hovered just inches from her shoulder. His wings beat in a rhythm that vibrated the air the slightest bit, as if the room itself was eavesdropping.
"But after blowing them the fuck up," he said, nearly with admiration.
She said nothing. Her tears scalded down her cheeks.
It's breathtaking, actually," Lamb went on, as if he were critiquing a movie. "Your mantra doesn't wait for reason. It's not interested in plans. It reacts to faith. That's the secret. Not what you think—but what you believe."
He drifted higher, moving around her in a slow circle.
You thought they were wicked. You thought they deserved it. So your body took care of the rest. Touch something—and it is a living bomb. No rituals. No waits. Just cause and effect."
Fatiba's eyes met his, her complexion pale, her eyes bloodshot. "I killed them."
"Yes," Lamb replied, matter-of-factly. "That is not the lie you have to be afraid of."
She blinked.
The Labyrinth shows you what you are behind the mask," Lamb went on. "The blasts? Those were special effects. The source was in here." He tapped a radiant limb on her heart.
"You weren't made into a killer by the Labyrinth."
"You already had the hate in you."
And then—she saw it.
Her old self, with blackened ground and ashes around her, hair blown back, face smouldered with soot and energy. Smoke wreathing her like a shroud. Her scarf smouldering, half-burnt through. Her eyes glowing pale violet. These are the traces on her face:
A smile.
Not fazed.
Not abashed.
Wide and gleeful. Crooked at the edges. The sort of smile people only don when something within them has snapped and approved.
As if the confusion had tasted sweet in her mouth.
As if the bloodshed had been so perfectly fitting to her second skin.
Fatiba stumbled backward, hand rising to cover her mouth, breathing shallow. Her entire face jerked—nerves firing off as if they no longer belonged to her.
"No, no, no—"
But it was already in motion.
Her lips—today, now—started to twist. Against her will. Slowly. Inch by inch. A distorted imitation of that same awful smile. Her cheeks cramped up. The edges of her mouth stretched back like strings pulled by unseen fingers. Her eyes welled up with tears, but her face grinned.
She scratched at her own face.
Scratched deep. Peeled skin. Not metaphor—real. She felt the layers flake, burn, rip. Her nails scraped over raw muscle as she screamed, attempting to rip the smile from her own face like it was a bug burrowed under the skin.
The blood came quickly. Warm. Metal.
Splattered onto the ground in a thick red splash. Her eyes fell—and in the puddle, she saw herself staring back.
But it wasn't her.
The reflection smiled wider. Eyes too bright. Smile too sharp.
And then the reflection moved.
A hand stretched up from the blood pool like it had waited. Fingers wet, shaking with laughter that had no mouth. They clutched her collar—her soul—and pulled.
Fatiba didn't scream.
There wasn't time.
She was dragged in.
The world turned inside-out. Noise disappeared. Sound killed.
And now—
she was somewhere else.
A world of silence—
Except for the explosions.
One after the other. Distant, muffled, relentless. The sky was purple and gold with flashes. The ground trembled in abrupt, violent spasms. There was no ground, no sky, only infinite horizon bursting with light and power and madness.
And beneath it all—
Laughter.
Not from anyone she could see. Not from any mouth. But it resounded.
Wild. Violent. Guttural. Like joy constructed of ash. Like something holy had been desecrated, and it found it amusing.
Fatiba curled up, hands wrapped around her head. But it wouldn't let up.
The laughter was growing louder. It was her voice.
And the fireworks?
Each one was like another fragment of herself remembered.
And still—her face still smiled.