'What now?' Ethan ponders, taking in the sight of the golden gates. They lie open, with beams of light directing attention to them. 'I guess that after purgatory, the thing missing was heaven. I doubt Michael will let me enter though.'

Ethan glances down at his shadow where Russ' eyes open, reassuring Ethan of his presence. Ethan triggers Predator's sight and then Prescience to scan the surroundings.

Finding no sign of life or foretelling ghosts, Ethan strides to the open gates. The choirs grow louder and sharper, the hundred singers reaching their highest note.

Ethan passes the gate, and the world turns to the insides of a building. The sudden spatial change shocks Ethan, who takes a second to adapt to his new surroundings. He looks to the right, where the corridor he's in bears wide windows through which he sees a garden. 'I'm home,' he realizes.

Ethan's sensations diminish – his appetite satiates, and his burgeoning thirst leaves him. 'I doubt that place actually feeds me. If I stay long, I need to make sure I eat, even if I'm not hungry.'

A man, his face away from Ethan, tends to a rose bush at the feet of the mansion. His clothing feels familiar, but Ethan is unable to remember who he was.

A door opens at the end of the corridor. A woman, wearing a fitted, waist-length jacket in a deep forest green, steps into view. Underneath, she wears a high-necked blouse with soft lace frills that peek out. It looks dated, older than Ethan is.

Her auburn hair floats behind her as she steps through another door. She leaves the corridor for the main living room. Ethan's glances to the side where a portrait, one that was destroyed in the fire, hangs. It depicts his parents, his mother wearing the same outfit as the woman.

Ethan breathes in deep, apprehending the mind games this place will try to play. He walks down the corridor and enters the room she vanished into.

His father stands along the bar, as he was on his last day, studying old maps sprawled on the marble. He places down a glass of liquor and turns to Ethan, motioning for him to approach.

The familiar scent of old books, leather, liquor, and a hint of his father's cologne fills the air. Ethan's mother stands in front of a window, her face away from him, looking outside in silence.

"Ethan," his father greets, his voice warm, filling the room with calm authority. He gestures at the maps with a glint in his eyes. "There are artifacts hidden within those mountains that beg to be discovered. And now that you have some time… well, I figured you'd want to come along."

Ethan realizes that he never saw his father from this angle. He even needs to look down, the man being a few centimeters shorter. Ethan swallows hard. His father's excitement feels so genuine, so real, that Ethan nearly forgets that he's gone.

"Dad…" The word rings hollow in Ethan's mind. His voice is a whisper, laden with grief. "You've been gone for over two decades."

His father chuckles, lifting his glass as if toasting to Ethan's confusion. "Gone? I know my last expedition lasted longer than expected, but not that much." He takes a sip, studying Ethan.

Ethan's mind dulls, and for a moment his father's words ring true. Memories overlap with each other, mixing up Ethan's sense of time. His gaze falls on a journal laid on the piano, where his father is thanked for donating artifacts to a museum.

Ethan closes his eyes, touching his brow. Trying to focus on reality, he recalls his training with Lucian, yet his father takes Four's place. He remembers his father teaching him how to shoot, not with a m40a5 but with an old hunting rifle.

Ethan seeks another memory. He imagines the heat and places himself within the vision of his father's death. Yet, nothing emerges – he can only see the desk room, but not the killer, nor the fire.

'It's trying to trap me into a… dream,' Ethan thinks. He forces himself to remember, to burn in his mind that he's in the labyrinth, pursuing Hayes. He reopens his eyes and turns around, moving towards the door.

The knob refuses to turn. Ethan forces, breaking the metal knob with his overwhelming strength. He looks at it and then breaks down the door with a kick.

"What are you doing?" Ethan's father demands. "I doubt you learned to behave like an animal in Cambridge. Just what kind of life have you been living since?"

'It can invade my mind with foreign memories. Why ask about my life? Is it because I never wondered what it would have been?' Ethan ponders. He looks back at the living room and states, "I am an assassin, a monster who kills when law, when society, fails to. Thousands lie dead because of me, and you killer is to blame for it!"

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The weight on Ethan's mind lightens, stating reality aloud weakening this place's power.

Ethan's father rushes to him and grabs his arm. His grip binds Ethan with a strength that overshadows his, surprising Ethan. "Boy. What's happening to you? Tell us. If you are ill, we can call –"

Through his skin, Ethan can feel his father's aura, stronger than his. In a way, it reminds Ethan of the intensity of Decay's aura. Ethan pushes him away. Feeling his right memories returning, he insists, "I won't play along. End this game already and send me to the next trial."

"Why?" his father asks. His voice is the same, but his tone shifted to a more solemn one. Straightening, he moves away from Ethan and crosses his hands behind his back. "Why would you reject the opportunity to abandon your wretched life and live the one that was taken from you?"

Ethan steps forward, mentally fighting the influence of this place. "You're not real. You're merely another twisted challenge of the labyrinth. For a moment I thought you brought back their souls, but they are only made from my memories. What you dared dress as my mother hasn't spoken a word, but how could she? I never heard her voice."

"Is it not better than the pain awaiting you outside? There is no one waiting for you, so why not give into the dream? Let me show you; let me give you all the things you deserve." Its influence batters against Ethan's mind, creating lapses, as if Ethan were dazed.

"No," Ethan growls, gritting his teeth. "I don’t want your lies."

His father's face darkens; he tilts his head, scrutinizing Ethan. "You've built walls so high, you no longer know who you are without them," he says. His voice returns to Ethan's father's tone. "You love no one, and no one loves you. The world would be better off without you. You failed everything I stood for – you steal, lie, and murder! What purpose are you clinging to that justifies such misery?"

The accusations, shouted in his father's voice, shake Ethan's soul. Ethan narrows his gaze, his shadow flickering as Russ' eyes grow brighter. He summons flames in his hand, letting them drip onto the floor.

"This is nothing more than a twisted echo made from my memories and mind," Ethan growls. He flicks his hand, bathing the living room in flames. He stops himself from moving the flames to his father, his guts twisting at the idea. "This is what really happened, and I will have the head of the one who haunts my sleep for it. Now release me!"

They hold gazes, the orange flames flickering in his father's eyes. The room fills with black smoke that swallows the furniture and his mother's form. The acrid smell and heat rekindle his memories, finally reminding Ethan of his trauma.

Ethan's mind clears, giving him back his clarity, his pain, his hunger, and his thirst. His father straightens up, his features softening. The burning mansion vanishes and turns into an endless ocean of white. Only the creature, still dressed as Ethan's father, remains.

"What now?" Ethan asks.

"Clearly, there is no reunion I have to offer that you will accept. Therefore, it is my duty to see you to your next trial," Ethan's father says. "None of those that preceded you were able to refuse my gift as fast as you did; it pains me. I have seen a mighty king and heroes, yet I wouldn't have thought the strongest willed of them to be an assassin."

"A king…?" Ethan mutters. Among the two men he seeks, there is only one king. "Are you speaking of Christopher Hayes… Aranthor Elarion?"

"I'm indeed referring to the man you seek," his father says. "By some act of fate, it seems that, despite your tardiness, you'll meet in the end."

'Is it another trap?' Ethan ponders. It spoke of reunion, but implying that it can only use the dead could be a ruse to trap Ethan in a dream of his goal. Perhaps trying to change the subject could reveal its ruse. "What are you? … I wasn't teleported, which means you can shape this place at will in the most minute details. It's clear you are amongst the strongest beings of this labyrinth."

"I am but a servant given a goal and the means to attain it," it begins. Ethan's father circles Ethan, scanning him from a distance. "I feel a presence on you, one I… revere. There is another here, similar but opposite, for I hated him the moment he entered my domain. Tell me, assassin, what is it?"

"I can only presume you sense the goddess of death. For reasons I do not know of, she seems to have taken a liking to me," Ethan answers. "As for the other, if his hatred for me is anything like it, I think you detest his link to Seraphel, the god of light. Didn't you see all that in my memories?"

It closes its eyes, and Ethan feels a pull on his mind. He resists it, apprehending the creature's attempt at pulling him back into a dream. Yet, after only a moment, his mind clears.

"I see," it says. "My memories are, I think, clouded. Before the first of your kind reached my realm, I thought the labyrinth was all of existence. And yet I find myself learning that I'm just a twisted echo of a real god's influence."

"Listen," Ethan cuts. "I do not have time to listen to your existential crisis. Could you do as your duty dictates and send me to the next trial?"

"It cannot be an existential crisis, for I live only for my purpose," it says. What an odd thing to say; doesn't it fear vanishing with the labyrinth? It moves its hands to the front, an orb forming between its palms. "Perhaps you could deliver my essence to her, for a part of me to exist beyond the labyrinth's end."

"You reanimate my dead parents, toy with my mind, insult me, and you think I would help you?" Ethan asks, anger boiling inside him. How does this thing, who still wears his father's face, dare make demands?

The creature pauses, studying Ethan's reaction with an unsettling calmness. The orb between its hands pulses, flickering like a heartbeat.

A pool of dark green forms at Ethan's feet, expanding like a stain on the immaculate white. Russ eyes open in it, larger and brighter than they should. The creature recoils, holding the orb close to its heart. Ether expands from the darkened ground, electrifying Ethan by its touch.

"I don't understand," the creature stammers. "Such anger at me. What have I done to offend her?"

'Is there something I cannot hear? Or sense?' Ethan ponders. He looks down at Russ' eyes and thinks, 'Leave it.'

The presence recoils into Ethan's shadow. Thinking of it, how can he have a single, defined shadow in this place lit from every angle by white infinity? "Send me to the next trial. Now."

With a resigned sigh, the creature makes the orb vanish and raises a hand. Light envelops Ethan, and soon he feels himself vanishing, swallowed by it.

"You completed your sixth trial of the Labyrinth of Death, Heaven."