Bill and I walked in silence, both of us in deep thought. My mind keeps going back to that scene, back to that face, back to those eyes. ‘Is that going to be me? Torn open and slumped against a wall, with no one to mourn me? Does it even matter, I mean even if there was someone who cared about me I would only cause them pain. Maybe it’s for the best that I have no one who cares about me?’ Deeper and deeper my mind went into an ocean of dark thoughts.

“We’re going to be fine Josh.” Bill says pulling me from the cold depths of my thoughts. “We’re not going to end up like him. We’re going to survive this, whatever it is, and make it back in one piece.”

“How can you be so sure Bill.” I ask. “How do you know that we’ll get out of here.”

“Josh, I don’t know, but I can’t just give up hope. If I give up hope then there is no way I’m surviving, but if I have hope and I keep on trying then at least there is a chance that I will survive even if it is 1%.” Bill responds. “I know that what we saw terrifies you, but we can’t let despair take us, now stop moping and let’s figure out how to survive!”

“Sorry Bill, it’s just I don’t know what to think after seeing what happened to the thin dude. Jesus, I don’t even know his name.” I look down at my hands in dismay at that thought.

“I know Josh, no one should have to see something like that but we need to get ourselves together if we want to survive. The thing that got him could just as easily get us so we need to do something before that happens. After we survive we’ll have time to reflect, but not now.” Bill says placing one hand on my shoulder.

“You’re right Bill.” I stand up straight. “Sorry again for breaking down like that.”

“Stop apologizing kid your reaction was normal.” Bill assures me.

“Right, so what should we do?” I ask Bill.

“Well, first things first, we need to find weapons to defend ourselves, after that we should try to find a place to hold out until someone comes to help us, and if no help comes we’ll need to find a way out.” Bill responds.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Why can’t we just try to find a way out now instead of waiting for someone to come help us?” I ask.

“ Remember kid there is something out there hunting us and that thing has the ability to kill a man in seconds. Do you really want to face that?” Bill asks. I shake my head. “I thought so, let’s get a move on.”

Bill and I begin walking again, this time with a renewed sense of purpose. We continue walking through corridors of steel crates in search of a means to defend ourselves. Unsurprisingly we find nothing but we continue searching. Seconds pass, then minutes, slowly time ticks on until an hour had passed.

“I don’t think we’re going to find anything around here Bill.” I say to Bill as we continue walking.

“We can’t just give up now. We must continue searching, NO MATTER WHAT!” Bill responds while speeding up his walking pace.

“Bill it’s been an hour and we haven’t found anything. I know that you don’t want to give up, but we need to be realistic here.” I tell him as I speed up to match his pace. “We should try to find the others, who knows maybe they have found weapons already?”

“You talk about being realistic but do you really think we can find the others in here. Unless you’ve been keeping track of the way we’ve been going it will be near impossible to get back to the place we all started at. This place is like a maze. All of the corridors look the same with the same steel containers stacked to the ceiling and the same lights on the ceiling.” Bill responds while speeding up to a jog.

‘He’s right, it would be impossible to get back to our starting spot.’ I sigh. ‘Besides we would have to pass the body again to get back.’ Shuddering at the images rushing back into my head I try to think about something else.

We jog in silence, passing row after row of steel containers. ‘Everything looks the same. No matter how many containers we pass, no matter how fast we jog, it all looks the same. Why, why is this place so confusing? What is the point in making this like a maze? Is it to stop us from getting out?’ I keep asking myself questions to pass the time. ‘Maybe it’s not to stop us from getting out, but that thing, whatever it is, that got the thin dude. It’s pointless to speculate on things like that. I need to focus on the task at hand, even if that is also pointless.’

“Thump”

“What was that?” Bill looks back and asks.

“What was what?” I question. I look behind me and see nothing.

“I heard something.” Bill insists, slowing down his pace he turns around and starts to scan the steel containers.

“Are you sure you heard something Bill?” I slow down and turn around. “We’re both at our wits end Bill maybe it was just your mind playing tricks on you?”

“No, I definitely heard something.” Bill insists slowing down further.

“Well if you really did hear something we shouldn’t be slowing down.” I say. I start to turn around and that’s when I see it.