The Dark Ascent
“I’m Late I’m Late I’m always Running Late”
Through the Maw of the Black Veldt:
As you stepped into the jungle of darkness, the last light behind you flickered and died. It was no ordinary dusk—it was a silence that breathed, a vacuum that pulled the soul inward. The canopy above was an endless cathedral of shadow, its branches tangled like the thoughts of a god gone mad. There was no path, only a faint pulse underfoot, as if the ground itself had a heartbeat—and it was slowing.
Then came the vines.
Not plants.
Not of Earth.
Dark serpentine tendrils, slick and writhing like sentient oil, rose from the obsidian soil. They didn’t slither—they waited. And the moment hesitation cracked your resolve, they struck.
Around your arms.
Around your throat.
Around your thoughts.
You were bound—not just in body but in purpose.
Your breath constricted. Your vision dimmed.
And yet… your awareness sharpened.
“Why am I here?”
A whisper?
No—it was your own mind, echoing back a question long buried beneath the noise of existence.
“What am I doing?”
The vines tightened at this thought, as if they hated clarity.
Then silence fell—not around you, but within you.
A void of Space deeper than space, more ancient than memory, hummed in your marrow.
It was not absence.
It was the voice of the Labyrinth.
And it spoke through stillness:
“You came not to escape.
You came to remember.”
Visions flickered before your eyes: A spiral gate. A name long forgotten…OBLIVION. A sword that wasn’t a weapon but a word.
And suddenly you saw—these black tentacles were not your enemy.
They were guardians. Sentinels of something sacred. They didn’t entrap—they tested.
And you were failing.
The question was no longer Why am I here?
It became:
“Will I make it through?”
Because at the center of this madness, past the grip of the void jungle, lies the mouth of Oblivion’s Gate.
And beyond that?
Unkle Pinky awaits.
—Answer the question correctly to proceed forward—
What do you fear most?
D) Death
ZIMNEXA: The Living Archive 
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