Lost in a maze of ghosts

My name is Armaan. Today, the story I am going to tell you is not just a story... it is a truth so horrifying that it will steal the sleep from your eyes. I've seen it all, felt it all...and now I'm writing it down. Maybe this is my way to escape those memories. All this happened in 2019. I had gone to my village, in a remote place that people no longer even remember the name of. There is an old palace, everyone calls it the "Labyrinth Palace". People say that those who pass through it never return. But we were young... we found excitement in fear. I had my cousin Yassin with me, he is only 9 years old. There was a strange sparkle in his eyes, a stubborn curiosity...an urgent desire to know more. The first time he heard about the palace, his eyes lit up. He said: "Arman, let's go there? I want to see him." At first, I refused, but his words and innocence broke something inside me. I said, “Okay, but only for 15 minutes.” The next afternoon, while the villagers were sleeping, we sneaked inside the palace. The door was old, made of iron. Like the kind you see in old castles. There were spots of blood on it, dried but still an eerily fresh color. I was afraid, but Yassin moved forward without fear. It was as if his steps were being controlled by someone else. Inside the palace there was a long, dark corridor. The walls were yellowed and bore traces of old hands. Sometimes we would hear a child laughing, but when we turned around, we would find no one. Yassin went to a corner and said: “Arman, someone is calling me.” The flashlight slipped from my hand. I tried to catch him, But he crawled into a small tunnel. I kept screaming: "Yassin! Come back!" But his voice began to echo inside: “Come...Come...Come...” I ran after it, but the tunnel was something else entirely. It was like a portal to another world. At every turn, there were new doors, new paths, and at the end of every path - only darkness. In one place, I found Yassin's shoes...just the shoes. Then a woman's voice echoed - but he shuddered inside. “You woke me up...” I felt like someone was watching me. I looked back - there was a doll - a humanoid doll, But her eyes seemed alive. She winked. I screamed, but the sound only echoed inside my ears. Then, inside the maze, I found some photographs. Each photo had one face - Yassin's face. In some of them he was crying, in others he was smiling with tears of blood. I kept wandering, deep into the maze. I had no idea how much time had passed. I felt like I was going crazy. Then I found an old notebook. It reads: “Whoever loses a child in the maze loses his soul here too.” My legs started shaking. Yassin is no longer visible, But his voice was coming from every corner. “Arman, take me with you...” she ran. The walls started moving. At every turn, there was a face - some men, some women, some children... all of them lost in the maze, and now part of it. In one place, I saw Yassin sitting in a corner crying. I hugged him, but his eyes were white. It wasn't Yassin. It was just a face... a mask. From inside that mask came a voice: “You called me, and now you're leaving?” I started suffocating. The air became heavy. Every breath felt like I was breathing through a corpse. Then a woman appeared - in a white dress, without feet. Her face only had two cuts. “Children never die in the maze,” she said. “They only change...on the inside.” I kept running. Every door closed behind me on its own. Laughter echoes from one place, screams from another. Somewhere, a child shouted, “Mama… Mama…”. In the middle of the maze, there was a room. A cradle was swinging inside. In the cradle there was a picture of Yassin... but in his eyes it was me, me... the one who is writing all this now. I carried him. He was alive...or I thought he was alive. “Arman, inside the maze, everything happens exactly as you imagine it,” he said. I couldn't understand. As I exited the maze, each back door closed automatically. I kept running... Finally, a light appeared... and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was home. The villagers said I had been missing for 3 months. But the scariest thing is... Yassin died 3 years ago. After that, I received a message on my phone – “When are you coming back to the maze, Armaan?” And then, every night at 3:00 a.m., A new photo appears in my phone's photo gallery - Yassin. But in each photo, his face becomes more and more disfigured. In my dreams, I see a map of the maze, new paths, new rooms. As if she was calling me to come back. I sleep with my door closed now, but when I wake up, there is dirt on my feet. Maybe I'll come back at night... Or maybe the maze will never let me go. If you hear this story, do one thing - look under your bed, are your shoes covered in dirt? If so... the maze is starting to touch you. And yes... Yassin wants to meet you.