While returning to her wedding scene, Chase crossed paths with Melissa C. in the dark.

“Mel C.!” called Chase.

Melissa C. was looking around. Her eyes were not quite as keen at night as Chase's. “Is that you, Chase?”

“Yes! Is me!” Chase replied. She grabbed Melissa C.'s wrist and led her into a corridor that was a bit brighter.

Melissa C. sighed, and scratched her head through her hood. “Glad I ran into you. I got kind of turned around.”

Yellow Christmas lights running along the bottoms of the walls lent a sulfurous glow to the fog which swirled around their ankles. Some cracks had been cut in the walls, with yellow-tinted light shining through them from behind.

Melissa C. looked around with an awed smile. “It's really amazing how it turned out, isn't it?.” She slung her scythe over her shoulder and the two started walking, taking it all in. “Alicia's incredible, pulling something like this together. I could never do what she does.”

“What Leash do?” asked Chase.

“Everything!” praised Melissa C. “She thinks of our chants and routines, she keeps everybody upbeat and keeps drama to a minimum, she organizes stuff like this...She's just a fantastic captain.”

Chase smiled and looked at the floor. “Yes, Leash great. Much good cap and friend.” There was a great deal of fondness in her voice. “But Mel C. could do those things! Mel C. make good cap too!”

Melissa C. looked at her, surprised. “Really? You think so?”

“Yes!” said Chase. “Leash is best cap, but Mel C. still good cap, much wise and lead, and have more years.”

They passed a pile of skulls and human remains. “Well, that's nice of you to say. From what I know about my old self, though, taking on that kind of responsibility wasn't really in my personality. I liked cheerleading, but I was mostly interested in getting ready for college and hanging out with my friends.”

Hearing her mention her friends caught Chase off guard. Chase knew these friends were the ones she'd killed and eaten.

The mountain girl felt a stab of guilt. For the first time, it occurred to her that she remembered these people and Melissa C. did not. Chase wondered what happy memories Melissa C. had made with them that were lost now, while memories of their horrific final days and memories of what they tasted like were the ones that lived on, with Chase. And here she was, walking with Melissa C., being buddy buddy with her, like nothing was wrong.

Her thoughts returned to Serena. Her guilt had made her want to quit her squad, leave her friends. Though in the end she didn't do it...Sometimes Chase thought about that. It wasn't the lesson Chase was supposed to take away from that experience...but she still thought about it. Something about it seemed kind of noble, like the right thing to do. Especially in moments like these.

“I guess that's changed now, though,” said Melissa C. “Having amnesia...it's been kind of hard, honestly. A lot of the time, I feel...I don't know, so alienated? It feels like I've been dropped into this life, and one day I'm going to have to go back to wherever it is I came from. None of it feels real to me. Everybody I meet in this town knows a girl named Melissa C., and I'm just here in her body trying to figure out who that person was, how to act like her, how to be that person for them.” She smiled. “Cheerleading has really given me a tether. Getting to know you guys, spending time with you guys, reassures me every day that I belong here, that I'm not the stranger or outsider or interloper I sometimes feel like I am. No matter what I was like in the past, being a cheerleader is definitely my number one passion.”

Chase listened thoughtfully. “Feel much same, Mel C.”

At that moment, a figure stepped out from behind a corner, about thirty feet ahead. A girl, about Chase's age. She was dressed in a crisp black suit, with a sword at her side.

Neither Chase or Melissa C. recognized her from school. A visitor from a neighboring town? No...Chase didn't think so. She sensed something off about this girl. Could it be...a killing intent?

“Reeepeeent, mortal!” intoned Melissa C., swinging her scythe down off her shoulder and gripping it in both hands. She slowly advanced on the girl, thinking she was any other mazegoer. “Reepeeeent!”

“Wait, Mel C.,” warned Chase, uneasily.

The stranger pressed two fingers to her ear and spoke. “I have located the target. The cyborg is with her.”

“The what?” asked Melissa C.

“Administering short-range EMP.”

The girl yanked something off her belt and chucked it at Melissa C.'s feet. It stuck to the ground there: a metal ball with lines of glowing blue cris-crossing its surface.

A burst of blue light erupted from it, accompanied by a brief, but almost painfully loud noise, like a concentrated, piercing electronic hum.

When the light and noise faded, Melissa C.'s eyes went blank. The girl collapsed backward to the turf.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Mel C.!” cried Chase, alarmed, rushing to her squadmate's side. She checked Melissa C.'s pulse. Nothing. But then, she wasn't entirely sure she was supposed to have one. Fog flowed around the tossed ball like it was a boulder in a river. It had gone dark, along with all the lights within about a fifteen-foot radius.

A shink of metal scraping metal made Chase's eyes flit up. The stranger was in mid-leap. The sound was that of her sword leaving its sheath.

Chase jumped aside, letting the sword slash the air. The girl's foot hit the grass. She twisted and sprang off it in Chase's direction, so quickly even Chase could barely see it. A girl with ordinary senses, ordinary reflexes, would have been cut down. Chase dodged the blade a second time, to the left.

The girl stopped in a crouch. She looked over at Chase. “I would advise you not to mourn this abomination. You simply don't have the time.”

“Mel C. not nation!” argued Chase. Her savage mind was being ravaged by warring emotions. She feared for Melissa C.'s life. That fear, that fear of the worst, brought with it horror and sadness. She felt pressured by a desire to get her to safety. And she felt very angry.

Thinking of nothing, emotions controlling her absolutely, Chase yanked the scythe out of Melissa C.'s hands. She pounced at the girl, swinging it at her.

Clash! The girl deflected with her sword. Chase swung again! Clash!

“Who you?!” Chase demanded. “Why you hurt Mel C.?!”

The stranger slashed down at Chase. Chase barely blocked with the handle of the scythe. This girl was fast. “I'm not at liberty to disclose that.”

She kicked a foot into Chase's stomach, sending the blonde crashing through a wall and into an adjacent corridor. This corridor was painted like an egyptian tomb. She smashed a piece of pottery and ended up with cobwebs tangled in her veil. The place Chase had been kicked throbbed with pain. Not only was the stranger fast, she was also strong.

The stranger leapt through the new opening, and brought the sword down on Chase. Chase sat up, lifted handle of the scythe, and caught the blade again. The impact forced Chase's back down against the grass, but the handle held. Chase kicked her right leg up, catching the stranger under her jaw. Agent Han staggered back, and Chase swung the scythe again.

The girl didn't have time to bring her sword up to parry, so she ducked under the swing. Chase whipped the bludgeon end of the scythe around, hitting the stranger in the cheek, then followed up with a roundhouse kick to the same spot. The stranger was thrown down the Egyptian hallway, where she crashed through another wall. Chase could see her in the room beyond. She was stirring, but slow to get up.

Chase's first instinct was to follow her, to continue, and maybe finish, the fight. But then, she remembered what happened at Lawman Creek. She remembered what her priorities were now: protecting her friends. Chase didn't know what an electromagnetic pulse was, or even really wrap her head around what a cyborg was, but if Melissa C. was in life threatening danger, she couldn't waste so much as a second being delayed by a fight.

Chase returned to Melissa C's side and tried to lift her. Good lord, she was heavy. With all her considerable might, Chase heaved Melissa C.'s slackened body up on her shoulders in a fireman carry. She looked around for the quickest way out of the maze, and saw it overhead. She leapt up on top of the cardboard wall, then hopped from wall to wall across the top of the maze toward the entrance.

......

Caitlin leaned forward in her metal folding chair to slot a couple's money into her cash box, then smiled and gestured them inside. Flor was sitting up on the card table that served as Caitlin's counter and saying, “They're really cute together, aren't they?”

It was getting later now, and the initial crowd of people which was there at the beginning had been successfully filtered into the maze. Caitlin and Flor were alone, with only the occasional latecomer passing through. “Oh, they're SO cute,” said Caitlin, leaning back and looking at her. “They're like Romeo & Juliet. You know, like we're the Montagues and you're the Capulets.”

“Hey now, I thought Montague was one of the Three Musketeers,” said Flor. Caitlin laughed. “You were in my classic literature class right? Did you actually read that when Mr. Sharp assigned that? Romeo & Juliet?”

“Well, yeah,” said Caitlin. “Didn't you?”

“No way. I couldn't get more than a couple pages into that. I just watched the movie.” Sounding impressed, she added, “You must be pretty smart, huh?”

“Eh, not really,” said Caitlin humbly. She looked around. “So where's what's-his-name that you always hang out with? Uh, Willard?”

Flor shrugged. “He saw this chick he knew from his art class and went in the maze with her.”

“Yeah?” asked Caitlin. She sighed and turned her eyes to the maze. “God, everybody has a date tonight except me. I want to walk the maze with somebody so bad.”

“Seriously? YOU don't have a boyfriend?”

“At the present time, no.”

Flor hesitated a moment. 'What the hell,' she thought. “Well, when your shift's over, wanna go through with me?”

Caitlin looked at her, surprised. It took her a moment to respond. “Er, Flor, thanks, I'm flattered, but I'm straight.”

“Oh, sure, I know,” said Flor quickly. “But I just mean as friends. Friends, you know?”

“Friends, huh?” smiled Caitlin skeptically. She took a moment to really look at Flor for the first time. She was a short girl, not as short as Victoria but shorter than Caitlin. Her face was friendly even with her nose stud. Caitlin tried to remember what her hair looked like beneath her pink wig. She thought it was shoulder-length, maybe not quite that long, black or almost-black, with a single purple streak in it.

Flor cracked a playful grin. “Sure. I mean, you don't HAVE to be a couple to walk the maze, right?”

“Well, no, but-”

At that moment, Chase landed right in front of Caitlin's table, Melissa C. slung over her shoulder. Caitlin yelped and jumped up to her feet. “Ch-Chase!” she shouted.

Chase dropped to one knee and lowered Melissa C. to the ground, on her back. Caitlin ran around the table and joined Chase at Melissa C.'s side. Caitlin looked from Chase, to Melissa C., then back again. “What happened?”

Flor dropped down next to her as well. A male voice called, “Did somebody else faint?” They looked up to see Willard running over from the exit area with his date.

“No! Strange girl hurt Mel C.!” said Chase.

Caitlin looked at her, wide-eyed. It was unbelievable to her that anyone could hurt Melissa C. Even when Chase had done it, it took ingenuity and a lot of luck. “How? What did they do?”

“Not know. Throw ball, it glow...” said Chase. Frustrated at her inability to explain, she went a different route, “Take to smart kid. Him make Mel C., him know.”

“Lawrence?” asked Caitlin.

“No, smart kid,” explained Chase.

“I'm pretty sure his name's Lawrence,” said Caitlin. She looked at line of people. “Show's over guys, everybody leave! There's something wrong inside!” She grabbed Melissa C. around the shoulders and tried to lift her. It was impossible. She looked at Willard and Flor. “You guys help!”

Flor and Caitlin each took a leg, and Willard and his terrified-looking date grabbed her arms. With great effort, they managed to lift her.

“My car's close, we can put her there,” grunted Caitlin. She looked at Chase. “What are you gonna do?”

“Must go back and stop strange girl. Her have blade. Hurt Mel C., not know who else would hurt! Bye Cait!” She turned and jumped back onto the maze.