We spent the rest of the hour arguing about different actors who could take on the mantle of the Doctor successfully, and had come to the mutual agreement that Tennant could easily take the role on again. Jye, however, had been adamant that the next Doctor should’ve been their one acting friend from high school who’d apparently made it back to screen tests but hadn’t passed. Axel didn’t even try to humour them.
Talking with Tam like that so contrasted the fact she had tried to kill me. Would’ve succeeded too if it hadn’t been for Wren. But she was just another mostly normal person. Another human being thrown into this crazy situation. I guess I understood why she’d done it. If I’d been alone without Axel and this had all happened… Maybe I would’ve done the exact same thing. Still, her condescension wasn’t appreciated. And she refused to answer questions about who Mumma was, much to my chagrin.
Apparently my command tied to the [Collar of Control] didn’t count her divulging that information as helping the party. I probably should’ve thought a little more deeply about the wording I’d used. Well, what was done was done. I couldn’t risk undoing my command and letting her run amok even for a second. Though we’d developed a cordial rapport just now, it did not mean I was willing to let her off the literal and proverbial leash. She might not be allowed to directly harm us but that didn’t mean she couldn’t put us in danger. And without knowing more about what or who Mumma was, we’d have to keep her at arms reach.
Eventually we chose to just stay awake for the next shift together and then to reset it from there. Conversation drifted from TV shows to our favourite films and music artists. Wren had surprisingly old taste in music, favouring 80’s love ballads, while Tam liked “electropop bubblegum bass” musicians with names like Diveo. Jye unsurprisingly was into the kpop scene and confessed of their shrine dedicated to Blackpink in their closet. Axel was just straight up into pop music and whatever was in the top charts at the time. He didn’t disclose it to anyone else, but I knew his favourite song was nothing of the sort. But that was his secret to divulge if he wanted to. When asked I couldn’t supply my preferred genre. I liked a little bit of everything and saw the artistry in most content—so long as the song was pleasant to listen to I probably liked it.
The rest of the party seemed dissatisfied with my answer. Well, that wasn’t my problem.
“Sunshine, what’s the plan, by the way?” Tam asked.
Realising she was referring to me, I said, “Well, first we need to figure out how to clear this Dungeon.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s child’s play. You gotta find a way out.”
“What do you mean?” Wren said.
“Well, Mumma told me the domain this Dungeon falls under is [REDACTED], so it’s probably something like a puzzle or a labyrinth that we have to solve. She said they love that sort of stuff.”
Jye swore as Tam’s words were censored, slapping their hands over their ears. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. Gesturing at them with her thumb, she whispered, “What’s the deal with your local Bigfoot?”
Unsure how much we should divulge about Jye’s status, I hesitated in responding. Axel intervened. “They just sometimes do that. PTSD or something.”
Aghast at using a serious psychological condition as a cover, I began to explain, “Jye’s got this issue where–”
“Where I have these random tics, you know. Clutching my ears and stuff like this,” Jye cut me off, smiling through their pain.
It was bad when Axel and Jye agreed on something. Even though the lie didn’t sit well with me, it meant they thought it was better to not tell Tam the truth, at least not yet. Maybe that was for the better. It seemed like she was especially close to her sponsor and if the sponsor had any say about the game maybe they’d report Jye for “cheating.” Despite the fact their glitch gave them no advantages, I could see some people arguing that it was unfair. Since technically you could leave your party in this system, it meant it was highly possible she still viewed us as competition, especially if she managed to trick me into removing her collar somehow.
“So, you think this is a puzzle or a labyrinth?” I tried redirecting the conversation.
Tam rolled her eyes. “I don’t think, darling. Mumma knows.”
“Mumma this, Mumma that. If she’s so amazing, why’d she nearly let you die?”
The muscles in Tam’s square jaw tensed, a vein visibly throbbing, as she glared at Axel. Unfazed, Axel stared back with the same level of animosity. I pinched the bridge of my nose in an attempt to control the exasperation building in me. With any luck they’d end each other and I’d be free of both of them.
“It’s a puzzle or labyrinth…” Jye murmured, having either not noticed the palpable tension between Axel and Tam or simply deciding they didn’t have any skin in the game.
Wren followed suit and commented, “It can’t really be a labyrinth.”
Maybe the two hotheads would simmer down if we ignored their antics.
“We’re thinking it’d be a puzzle then? Maybe back inside the cabin?”
Wren and Jye nodded.
“None of you cowards have stepped into the desert, have you?” Tam said, voice simmering with loathing.
The rest of our party exchanged a glance. We actually hadn’t approached the sand since we had received that random off-white request. With everything that had happened so far, we’d all decided it was safer and easier to remain upon the porch of the abandoned cabin. Not to mention that the request had implied surviving in the desert was not supposed to be easy. All that combined had kept us far from considering the desert as a viable route.
“No, and we’ve no intention of doing so,” Axel replied.
“The second your feet touch the sand, walls form in all four directions, creating a maze. I assume the cabin is in the centre, which would make the singular correct pathway out lead to our exit.”
“Why should we believe you?”
I was concerned that she was being so open about her experiences and knowledge. In the past day that I’d known her, she didn’t seem the type to willingly give us an advantage. Maybe she was leading us into a trap.
“Why do you think I accepted the request to steal your food? I wouldn’t be able to survive long in a maze that has no clear exit in sight without it. I’m not a goddamn idiot.”
It seemed like a reasonable explanation. In fact, it was even stronger justification than her simply doing it for the sponsor rewards alone. Food was essential. But back on Earth, agriculture had ground to a halt—which meant the only food accessible outside of Dungeons was going to be potable or from vegetable gardens in people’s yards. The latter of which would not last that long either. Ultimately, beyond credits, food would come to be the most important thing to other players. I stored that thought in my mind for when we escaped the Dungeon.
And then I caught myself. For when we escaped it? I was jumping the gun. Mentally, I corrected myself. If we escaped the Dungeon, we needed to get our hands on more food.
“If you’re confident it's a maze, why would you say it could also be a puzzle?”
Today Axel seemed to be asking incredibly relevant questions. If only he could be like that all the time.
While I lamented the idea, Tam responded, “[REDACTED] is a bit of a wiley one. They like to make people work mentally for their wins, so Mumma said not to rule out either of them.”
“You’re saying we should just assume it’s a combo?”
Jye hmm’d loudly, and then added, “A labyrinth often has puzzle-like aspects. Just like in the Labyrinth where Sarah has to go through all those different trials to get her little brother back from the Goblin King.”
“Yeah, or like in the Shadows House where they have to rescue their counterparts by solving puzzles and using teamwork to achieve success,” Axel murmured.
I was only vaguely familiar with Shadows House because Axel had mentioned it in passing. He’d watched and read more manga and anime than I knew existed. Jye, who apparently seemed to recognise the name as well, was nodding along in approval. It was hard to read Tam’s expression since she always looked like she’d rather not be involved with us at all. But there was a certain glint in her eye that seemed to suggest the title was not unknown to her. Was my party full of weebs? There were worse things, I guess.
“Isn’t the oldest labyrinth the one with the minotaur?” Wren asked.
Every once in a while Wren said something that was strangely astute for a ten-year-old girl. Despite the way she had phrased it in a way that a child might say it, the fact she even knew about Greek mythology enough to recall the story of the minotaur was odd. It wasn’t often that I was reminded that we knew nothing about Wren apart from how she’d discovered her classes, but whenever it did occur to me I usually just ignored it. In time I had hoped she would further expand on her past. I guess now the vast majority of my party were people I didn’t know much about sans Axel.
“I don’t remember there being many puzzles in the classic Greek story,” I said.
Jye frowned. “There’s not in the original telling, but a lot of YA authors eventually added them. Consider Mazerunner, that’s gotta be a kinda inspired same story, and there’s definitely puzzles in that. Or at least in the films. Never read the books.”
I sighed. Were we really about to base our approach to this Dungeon on our collective knowledge of David Bowie, a strangely poignant dark fantasy manga, and a post apocalyptic film? As the question ran through my mind, it occurred to me that if someone started playing Lazarus, then all these points technically would’ve reflected our current position to a T.
Were the events that had unfolded so far not just unsettling but philosophical? It’d been just a week and I felt like an entirely different person. Was our world technically not in the death throes of an apocalypse? The world we knew was over. The fact that we could draw such a clear thematic connection to other stories and narratives couldn’t be just a coincidence.
There was an arc unravelling as we journeyed…
Jye’s words from earlier echoed in my head regarding this all being some sort of Truman Show streaming service for future humanity. What if they were right? Maybe not who was doing it, but what it all was. If we combined it with my idea that the better we “performed” the higher XP we received, it all made a weird sort of sense. The moderation and censorship of certain content also tied perfectly into it. Whoever or whatever was orchestrating this thing was wary of letting us know too much too soon and giving us an unfair advantage that could ruin the show.
We were someone’s entertainment.
Our suffering, our struggles, was media for consumption.
What kind of heartless audience would get enjoyment from this?
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Let’s play it safe and expect puzzles in the labyrinth,” I said, scared of speaking my thoughts to the others. “That could extend into traps, as well as problem solving challenges.”
If I was right, if I had caught onto what this all truly was, I didn’t think I would come out unscathed. At least not so early on. The system liked to grant us new information with no explanation as we progressed. Coming to this understanding so early could be dangerous.
Glancing around the party, I realised that I also didn’t want any of them to know either. It wasn’t clear how Tam would react, but she could very well know exactly what this whole thing was thanks to her sponsorship with Mumma. Jye would love that I was rolling with their conspiracy, but they definitely wouldn’t be able to keep their mouth shut. On the other hand, I was worried the idea would scare Wren or confuse her too much. She’d taken everything surprisingly well, but to explain to her that this whole situation was for the viewing pleasure of something or someone else might’ve really been the end of her optimism. Though truthfully, it was Axel’s reaction I was most concerned about.
As my roaming gaze finally reached his form, I noticed he was watching me from half lidded eyes. Wren and him had been awake the longest since our watch shifts had been messed up. He looked tired. I guess under it all, we were all tired. As his eyes caught mine, the corners of his lips curled into a soft smile that disappeared as soon as it appeared, leaving me to wonder if I’d imagined it. Yeah, that cinched it. With Axel’s mental instability I wouldn’t be burdening him with my theory any time soon.
“So, what’s next, boss?” Jye asked seriously.
With far less respect, Axel echoed, “Yeah, boss?”
“We do one more sleep rotation and then try our luck in the desert on full alert.”
The party murmured their agreement, and after a brief exchange about who’s turn it actually was to stay on watch, we all settled into our individual roles with startling and practised alacrity. Like we’d been a team much longer than we really had. Even Tam rolled into the swing of it.
Maybe that’s just how it was going to be now. Connections forged these days had a different kind of weight, a different value, than they had a week ago. Now they would very well mean life or death.
When the sleeping shift awoke from their rest, we packed up our makeshift camp, and rationed out our supplies. It wasn’t a far reach to predict we might get split up in the labyrinth somehow and it’d spell ruin if any one of us weren’t carrying any food or water. Granted, we didn’t have that much left. If we ate minimal amounts, our party could probably survive another six days in the labyrinth. Hopefully we’d find the exit by then.
I also handed Tam one of the watches I’d picked up from Kmart. It had been a good idea to grab all of them. She ungratefully took it and instead of wearing it around her wrist, added it to the various charms that dangled from her chunky necklace.
“By the way, how’d you end up in the cabin with us?” I asked as I zipped up my backpack.
“Funny thing, that. Strange as it sounds, darling, I went through the same Gate as you.”
I watched her as she stretched, not unlike a cat.
“At the same time as us?”
“No. Your boyfriend gave you a love tap into it, then the child and ranga Terminator were sucked in. Then I leisurely strolled in.”
Unable to process anything she said past “boyfriend,” I blanched. “Axel isn’t— We’re just friends, actually. It’s a common mistake though.”
She laid a hand on my shoulder, and gave me a long, long look. “Oh, honey.” Her hand came off, and then she walked to the edge of the cabin porch. “Well, it’s none of my business.”
Not appreciating the pity in her voice, though I wasn’t sure who it was directed at, I mulled over her explanation of the events that had transpired that led her to the same cabin as us. She hadn’t entered simultaneously with us. Which meant that maybe it had just been pure chance she had encountered us. If she hadn’t, her starving before finding the exit might’ve been entirely possible. I hoped her luck was contagious.
It also meant that there might be other players appearing soon, or even somewhere else in the maze already. If what Tam said was true, the whole desert was simply a mirage, and there could very well be a dozen other cabins scattered around the Dungeon that we weren’t aware of.
“Everyone good to go?”
“Let’s go!” Wren shouted, pumping her fist into the sky.
After a little yawn, Jye said, “I’m keen,”
“It’s not like we have any other choice,” Axel said tartly.
“I was ready yesterday.”
“You really weren’t,” I scoffed. “You didn’t have any food.”
Tam’s lips curled downward in distaste, but she said no more.
I took the front position on the last cabin step, my staff in hand, and glanced back at the cabin. Tam never said we’d be stopped from going back, but I was fairly certain at some distance it would be blocked off or even possibly deleted. Having a safe port of call would be too easy and there’s no way that was entertainment.
Breathing in deeply, I left the cabin porch. Just as she’d explained, the second my foot touched the sand beneath it, walls sprang up on all sides, rising from below. With a thunder, they grinded to a halt once they’d reached about three metres tall. When had Tam triggered the labyrinth, if she had already experienced it before? Perhaps it was when she’d run after I’d nearly accidentally killed Axel.
Speak of the Devil. “At least it’s something to look at.”
The walls weren’t the same yellow sand as what had previously surrounded us, instead formed from a strange fusion of rock and crystal, just opaque enough to not be able to see through, but transparent enough to still glimpse obscured shadows. As the sun caught a few jagged edges of the gem wall, it sparkled in a way I could only compare to animated sparkles. The sand itself at our feet had dissolved, leaving only the same stone that made up the walls. The entire formation was ethereally beautiful and it left something of an ache in the depth of my heart. Nothing like this existed on Earth. Nothing like this could exist.
“You couldn’t dream this shit up,” Jye said, following me to the start of the labyrinth.
We took up our positions. Tam, Axel, me, Wren, Jye, in a line. As we moved, it occurred to me that the request we’d received upon arriving would’ve been unsuccessful. It had asked us to remain in the desert for a certain amount of days. There was no desert now. We’d have failed. Our entire party would’ve been killed.
A chill crawled up my spine as goosebumps formed on my arms despite the beating rays of the sun which was the only remnant of the desert biome. Axel had been the only one who had wanted to refuse the request. If it hadn’t been for him, we’d all be dead. He’d been 100% right about it not being a system notification, about it being sketchy.
We came to the first left and per our previously agreed approach, we all kept one hand on the left wall, and turned into it.
“How’d you know?” I asked.
“As much as I’d like to claim I can read minds, I can’t.”
I rolled my eyes. “The request. How’d you know it wasn’t any good?”
“Like I said, it just didn’t seem right.”
“You basically saved our lives. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
His back was to me, so I couldn’t see his face, but his shoulders were imperceptibly hunched over. Part of me wanted to spin him around to check his expression. What face was he making? Was he breaking down again? It frustrated me that I didn’t know. Couldn’t know. There was something profoundly sad in his posture. It made me feel uncomfortable. I knew he wasn’t okay. But what was I meant to do? I’d fucked up last time I wanted him to share.
When it came to Axel, I was always misstepping. Despite our emotional distance as people, though we spent spare time together, living with Axel made me feel like I should be doing more, living life like him, and those thoughts were… What’s the saying when they find people injured beyond survival? Ah, incompatible with life. That’s part of why I had wanted to move out. It was a pressure on me. It was like being forced to experience FOMO 24/7, except it wasn’t just fear of missing out, but also fear of having to engage.
That felt like so long ago. Building up my courage to tell Axel that I didn’t want to live with him. I couldn’t fathom sharing that idea with him now. I’d seen the unbalancing his psyche was going through right now. If I told him I had wanted to move out, it would probably break what little thread he was hanging by.
I’d never tell him.
I’d take that to the grave. And if there did turn out to be something beyond that, the words would never leave my mouth. I’d sew my lips closed before seeing Axel’s expression upon hearing I’d wanted to leave him. Yeah, he’d once abandoned me in my time of need. It’d cause a divide so deep that I’d tried to stop caring about him because of it.
But I couldn’t bear to be the person to scar him as he had done me all those years ago. Especially not now, when it felt like… we were friends again. Or something like it. He somehow needed me, and I’d be damned if I’d be the one to walk away this time.
I was so preoccupied by thoughts of Axel that I lost sense of my surroundings. There was a sudden difference in temperature and texture under my hand, the coolness and roughness of the stone becoming warmth and softness. I paused in confusion and I looked to the crystalline wall.
I had reached where Axel had stopped, my hand now lightly resting over his. Before I could blink, he snatched his hand away as if stung. Then for a few beats he didn’t react, holding his hand in front of him. He appeared to be examining it.
Then Axel looked back at me with a shit-eating grin. “Trying to hold hands?”
I scoffed. “Not in this lifetime.”
And then he was walking again, as if nothing had happened, and I was walking after him. I checked behind me to ensure that Wren and Jye were still following. Yep. Good. At least the party was still together. That was the bare minimum for the day to be going well. It helped that I generally had low standards.
We continued on like that for a few hours, making idle conversation about our knowledge of rocks and stones, comparing the maze walls to each and every crystal we knew. Eventually we concluded it was probably some type of quartz. It didn’t do anything to nullify the strange beauty of it. The unnatural shimmering caused by the unsetting sun still took my breath away.
“I think we might have a trap ahead.”
Tam turned around to face us.
I peeked ahead of her, seeing nothing but the same crystalline maze that stretched behind us. Either she had some sort of skill that allowed her to sense traps or she just simply had better eyesight. Both my parents had needed glasses by their thirties, but I’d not needed them yet. Maybe the stress of this whole situation was ageing me early.
I hadn’t thought about my parents for awhile, probably as a sort of defence mechanism. If I allowed myself thoughts of my parents, my mental stability would probably spiral. I couldn’t afford that, not with the safety of my party on my shoulders.
Instead, I pushed Tam for more information. “What makes you say that?”
“You got eyes, don’t you?”
Jye and Wren came up beside the rest of us, leaning around me to look ahead as well.
“I see fuck all,” Jye commented flatly.
“Is it that thing?” Wren asked.
She had raised a hand and was pointing to something I couldn’t identify.
“At least the actual baby here is capable of sight,” Tam said.
Axel tilted his head, blue eyes narrowing. “The trap is the singular crystal of different colour?”
“Oh, two of you aren’t blind. Yes, that’s it. This is the only different crystal I’ve seen the entire time we’ve been in here.”
I squinted, trying to follow the direction of Wren’s finger. Briefly the shimmer of a crystal closer to a blue than the milky white of the rest surrounding it drew my attention. It was smaller than a fingernail, and at least ten metres in front of us. I was glad Tam had been leading us because I wouldn’t have even noticed it if I’d been standing right before it. That’s if it was a trap. But it wasn’t like it was worth risking our lives to assume otherwise. It was a distinct and deliberate change to the maze. We had to approach it as if it was a risk.
Jye held a flat hand above their brow, eyes searching for the same crystal. With a huff, they folded their arms in defeat. Pitying them, I gave them a general description of where the crystal was and they muttered their appreciation.
Afterwards, I suggested, “We turn around then?”
Tam shook her head. “Better to trigger the trap than leave it alone. That way if we need an escape route, we can always backtrack.”
I didn’t like that she was anticipating us fleeing something in the future, but at the very least it suggested she was actively looking out for the party. Or she could be trying to get one of us killed off by triggering the trap? God, it would have been so much easier if she hadn’t attacked us. Though when I thought about it, I guess Axel had attacked her first in the cabin. Actually, he had been fairly intent on killing her. Fucking Axel.
“Jye, can you throw something and make it around the weight of a person?”
The giant grinned and pulled a small bag of rubbish they’d been collecting, having muttered under their breath about not being a litterbug. “I knew this would come in handy.”
I heard the static of an ability, and Jye weighed it carefully in their hand. Then they pulled their arm back, in the form of a shot putter, and pelted it forward. It flew from their hand, and at its top arc Jye applied four more Loads and it plummeted to the floor just around the blue embedded crystal, rolling ever so slowly forward. I took a step closer cautiously, trying to get a better look.
Both the team behind me and myself waited with bated breath for some reaction.
Nothing.
Axel snorted. “Well, that was disappointing.”
“I guess we turn around then,” I said with a sigh.
The heavied bag of rubbish came to a halt about a ruler’s length past the blue crystal. There was a small click. The entire party was once again staring down the walled pathway. Then came the ticking, a consistent soft tock like that of a watch hand. A countdown? Had whatever designed this labyrinth given the potential victim a chance to escape the trap? It would make for more drama, that was for sure. Fit in with the whole streaming theory.
Another click.
We watched on, eyes wide, unsure what would follow.
And then all hell was set loose.