Victor stood up and looked at the eye.
"Let’s keep going," he said. The eye understood and turned around, moving between the soldiers’ corpses.
The rain in this stormy memory was growing heavier. As he followed the eye, Victor glanced back, where Brika was still kneeling, her eyes lifeless and fixed on the ground.
She was still a child in this memory, even smaller than the Brika Victor knew. However, he couldn’t stay in this place forever, so he left the memory behind and continued following the eye.
They walked for several minutes toward a dead horse lying among the corpses. The animal was riddled with arrows, just like all the soldiers surrounding it, leaving a bitter taste in Victor’s mouth.
[Cogito, ergo sum. Here. Here. Move forward.]
"The horse?"
[Move forward. Move forward.]
Victor had no idea how the hell he was supposed to get out of this memory. Before, it had been the forest, then the door, and then the chest. Where was he supposed to go this time?
He frowned as he tried to make something out, until he noticed that the blood beneath the horse hadn’t been diluted by the rain. In fact, the blood was completely black, as if it were a pit leading into the deepest darkness.
"It’s here..."
He reached out and touched the blood. Immediately afterward, he was transported to the next scenario.
A forest of gigantic trees stretched across an endless swamp. Bestial roars echoed in the distance, while buzzing sounds filled the sky. Victor opened his eyes to find himself facing that mysterious landscape.
Before doing anything else, he surveyed the area. The first thing that made his hair stand on end was a gigantic insect flying overhead. It was an enormous golden dragonfly, its red eyes reflecting the sunlight.
[Move forward. Move forward.]
"Yeah, I heard you."
Ignoring the fact that he was in a place inhabited by gigantic creatures, Victor continued following the eye.
As long as he kept it nearby, this maze wasn’t nearly as difficult as the Wendigo had made it out to be. Certainly, considering how sadistic Richard Graves was, Victor had expected him to throw in monsters or something similar, but the memories had been much more peaceful than he anticipated.
They continued toward the next exit. Along the way, they spotted a strange lizardman staring at the sky with a sorrowful expression, but Victor cared so little about other people’s lives that he simply ignored him and kept walking.
Eventually, the eye found a completely black lake. As expected, it was the entrance to the next memory, so it went inside without hesitation.
As he fell into the darkness, he thought:
’How many more memories do I have to go through? Time keeps ticking. What if the Wendigo’s plan is to make sure I never finish this maze? What if he’s just playing with me, laughing at how I’m doing all this for nothing?’
He was backed into a corner. This game of the Wendigo’s was the only thing giving him a chance to stay alive.
The next scenario took shape before him: a massive city filled with towering buildings. Victor had appeared on top of one of them. Strange retro-style flying cars zipped back and forth across the sky. Even the buildings had wildly different designs.
This reminded him of a certain cartoon about a family from the future...
[Move forward, Victor. There’s no time left.]
Victor didn’t even bother arguing anymore and simply followed the eye. They exited through the rooftop’s emergency door and went down the stairs toward the rooms below. The eye guided him through hallways lined with advertisements for retrofuturistic gadgets.
After a couple of minutes, they came across a broken door.
[Here. Here.]
Victor opened the door and stepped through. Darkness swallowed everything once again, and Victor traveled to the next memory.
"Let’s pick up the pace, eye. Let’s run through these memories."
In the darkness, the eye stared at him and said:
[Good. Good. Just don’t look back.]
"What?"
Now that he thought about it, the darkness wasn’t fading as quickly as it had in the other memories. He instinctively glanced behind him, but his eyes widened in horror when he saw dozens of shadowy monsters advancing toward them.
Outside Victor’s mind, Richard Graves let out a laugh. All around him, those shadows were connected by hair to the Wendigo’s Soul Gaze ability, which kept them tethered to the Maze of Memories.
Back with Victor, he turned his gaze forward again.
"What the hell are those things?!"
[What an idiot! Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Simple.]
[Stupid Mr. Hope.]
Fearing for his life, Victor had no idea what to do. However, the next memory appeared before him: an office filled with salarymen. Victor froze when he recognized the place.
[Move forward. Move forward. Quickly,] the eye said.
"Ah, right. I’m coming."
Victor ran between the cubicles while following the eye, but his brow furrowed in irritation.
’This is my memory.’
The salarymen were corporate slaves, their dreams crushed, something reflected in the tired expressions on their faces. Among them was a younger version of Victor, who was on his way somewhere.
Victor passed close to his younger self, but kept going because the eye had found the next exit. It was a door leading to a room filled with documents.
The eye was waiting for him in front of the door, but behind it, the shadowy creatures were moving like a wave. Victor looked at them and froze for a moment before opening the door, closing it behind him, and letting the next memory swallow him whole.
A moment later, the new scenario appeared before him. It was a dark place filled with sinister, abandoned bunk beds. Small flames, like candle flames, floated through the air, faintly illuminating the darkness.
[Move forward.]
Victor followed the eye, but those monsters appeared behind him once again.
’Damn it! This is that bastard’s doing! Where the hell did he get those monsters?!’
There was something about the Wendigo’s ability that he still didn’t understand, but as he pondered it, he continued following the eye toward the next memory. He crawled underneath one of the beds and was transported away.
The next memory that appeared before him left him breathless.
A city of dwarves.