Seth’s legs gave out. His knees struck the floorboards with a dull thud.
He reached for the thick wool of Virgil’s coat, but not to pull himself up. He just needed something to hang on to.
He didn’t ask how Virgil was here, or why he was a child.
He couldn’t bring himself to care.
Virgil didn’t pull away from the shaking hands gripping his coat. He simply waited until Seth’s trembling grip loosened before stepping inside and closing the door.
For a moment he said nothing.
His gaze wandered across the apartment, passing over the sagging couch, the frost melting across the windowpanes, and Maya’s diner uniform draped over a chair.
Virgil’s eyes lingered on the uniform. He let out a tired breath.
He looked less like a boy, and more like someone who had seen this happen many times before.
"You spent months," Virgil said, crouching down until they were eye-to-eye. "You knew it wasn’t real, but you still tried."
Virgil tilted his head. "And nothing changed, did it?"
Seth couldn’t answer.
He could barely hear the question over the ringing in his ears.
Virgil studied him. His gaze settled on the dried tears on Seth’s face.
"You thought that if you tried hard enough, you could stop it from happening."
"Stop."
Seth’s voice cracked as he spoke.
"No, you were ten. You couldn’t have saved her."
Virgil’s voice grew softer.
"But that doesn’t mean you killed her."
Seth’s chest loosened. He stared at Virgil, almost believing him.
But then his mind snagged onto a piece of logic.
"...You aren’t even real, are you?"
"Am I not?"
"I’m still in the labyrinth," Seth said, his hands tightening on the wool coat. "If you were the real Virgil, you wouldn’t be trying to comfort me."
Seth let out a breath.
"I stole your body. Your bloodline. And tried to offer your soul to a goddess." Find the original chapter at g.com.
Virgil said nothing.
"If you were real, you would want me dead, wouldn’t you?"
Virgil stared at him for a long quiet moment.
Then, he let out another tired breath.
"If I were an illusion built to torture you," he said, his voice dropping to a flat, clinical murmur, "I would have made Maya walk out of the bathroom."
Seth went still.
"Have her smile at you. Tell you she’s okay. Then make her do it all over again."
"I am not comforting you, Seth." Virgil continued, his blue eyes entirely devoid of warmth. "And I don’t particularly care whether you deserve forgiveness. I’m not here to give it to you."
"You took my place. Inherited my problems, too. You think I’m going to complain because you took the burden from me?"
Seth stared at Virgil’s hand.
His fingers loosened around the coat.
For a moment, he wanted to take it.
He couldn’t tell whether Virgil was offering him mercy or asking him to disappear.
"You taking the wheel was a favor," Virgil said. "But now your hands are shaking. You’re punishing yourself for something you couldn’t control."
Seth lowered his eyes.
"So I’m taking it back. Let me reach in and cut that nerve."
Virgil held out his hand.
"Give me the reins, and you’ll wake up empty. Maya will be nothing more than a name you once knew."
Seth stared at it.
He didn’t blink.
All he had to do was take his hand and all the guilt would be gone.
He would be left empty, but he would be safe.
’Just a name you used to know.’
The words echoed in his mind. But instead of soothing him, they caught onto a jagged edge of his conscience.
He dragged his gaze away from Virgil’s palm and looked over his own shoulder, back towards the dark hallway.
"...You’re making assumptions."
Virgil paused.
"You think I’m sad because I have to look at her. I’ve known she was dead for a lifetime. I grieved her. I buried her."
"What breaks me is that before I walked into this trial, I had stopped thinking about her. The only person who actually cared about me, and I was already starting to forget about her."
His gaze moved to the open palm outstretched in front of him.
"Time was already stealing her from me," the words scraped out of his mouth. "And now you want me to erase her on purpose."
"She’s dead. All these memories will do is hurt you."
"I..."
"You know I’m right."
Seth lowered his head.
He didn’t deny a single word.
Everything he had said was true, and that was exactly why he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
"No."
"No?" Virgil’s hand froze, hanging in the air.
"It’s mine."
"You’re choosing to keep a dead weight," Virgil said, his voice completely ordinary now. "It’s going to drag you under."
"Then I’ll let it."
Virgil watched him without arguing. He simply looked down at the floorboards with a clinical disappointment.
"Do you think this is the last time you’ll see her die?" he said, his voice as flat and cold as freezing water. "The labyrinth will find another way to make you watch. And when this memory stops hurting, it’ll find another one."
He took a step forward.
"If you had taken my hand, I would have let you skip this and go directly to the third trial. You never would have had to look at what’s inside that room."
His wool coat stood out against the apartment’s peeling walls and decaying furniture as he stepped into the shadows of the hallway.
He didn’t hesitate. He walked straight to the chipped white door and stopped.
Seth pushed himself up, his knees shaking violently against the floorboards.
A sudden, blinding panic clawed up his throat, shattering the numbness.
"...What are you doing?"
Virgil didn’t answer.
"When the rot reaches your heart," Virgil said softly, not looking back. "Don’t expect me to throw you a rope."
Virgil raised his pale hand and wrapped his fingers around the knob.
The latch clicked as he pushed the door wide open, and without a word, he stepped inside.