When my vision returned to me, I wasn’t even sure I was on Gateway Island anymore.

Six meter walls stretched up around me forming various corridors. Wherever I was, it seemed to be a maze of some kind. Looking up, I could see the sky so I had to be outdoors. Was this some secluded area on the island? Or somewhere else entirely?

I took out my terminal and pressed the button. It brought up a pale blue square screen, ten inches long and wide. On the screen was a birds eye view of my location, with white lines that likely indicated the walls of the maze I was in, and a blinking green dot that I assumed referred to me. It only seemed to show about a five meter radius around me so I wouldn’t be able to rely on it too much other than for back tracking. On the top right of the screen there was a stick figure of a person with the number zero next to it. That probably referred to the number of people that had passed, as Amane had mentioned. Finally, the top center of the map showed a timer counting up, showing how long the exam had been going for.

Staring at the map wasn’t going to get me anywhere so I closed my terminal and put it back in my pocket. The corridor I was in gave me two directions to go. Of course, that was only if I decided to go through the maze the conventional way.

Taking a few steps back to get a running start, I sprinted towards one of the walls. Once I had built up enough speed, I jumped at the wall. I pressed my foot against the wall and kicked off to get some extra height. Six meters was nothing I couldn’t clear.

Unfortunately, it turned out height wasn’t going to be the issue with my plan.

As my head reached the top of the walls, it slammed into some invisible force. I fell down and hit the ground on my back. My body ached in pain from my failed attempt to get to the top of the walls. I suppose I should have expected they wouldn’t make it so easy to make it through the maze. I was going to have to clear this the old fashion way.

When the dizziness in my head finally subsided, I got back to my feet. I decided to not waste anymore time and went left.

Turning the corner at the end, I saw an intersection at the end of the corridor. When I reached it, I looked down the two paths available to me. To my left was a dead end. To my right was a path leading to another intersection.

Right it was.

I turned and began to head down the path. Or at least I would have, had something not caught my eye and caused me to stop short. On the floor of the intersection, right before the path before me, was a golden line. At first I had thought it was simply a random design choice. But looking at the dead end path as well as the path I had come down, there were no similar lines.

Two possibilities came to mind. The first was that this was a hint meant to show the right way to proceed. A subtle clue for anyone observant enough to catch it. The second however was that it was a warning.

I cautiously stepped forward, pressing my left foot on the floor past the line. Almost immediately, the floor opened up and I jumped back. From the start of the line to the next intersection a fair distance away, there was a pit with a raging current of water flowing under the ground. If I had fallen in, no doubt it would have swept me away and probably led to my death. This was likely one of the traps that we had been warned about beforehand.

A few seconds later, the floor closed up again. Neither of the paths this way were going to work, so I made my way back to where I had started. Between my stunt trying to go over the maze and my wrong decision in which direction to go, I was already off to a bad start. Of course, there was no way to tell if the others hadn’t already had bad luck like me, so I would simply have to hope I could make up for my mistakes.

The other path branched out with intersection after intersection as I went down it. Each time a path I took led to a trap or dead end, I turned around and tried another way. The traps I found varied in their design. Some were pitfalls like the one I had found and would lead down to a series of spikes that would skewer anyone who fell in. Others had holes in the side walls that fired darts. The one thing they had in common was that they were certain to kill anyone who fell for them. Thankfully, there were warning signs for each, just like the first trap I had discovered.

One by one I was thinning the list of places I could go in the maze. After about ten minutes of running around however, I had to check my terminal’s map to confirm my suspicions. I had mapped out a decent area compared to where I had started, but after taking a look at the map now I was certain.

Every single path led to a dead end or trap.

I stopped to ponder my conundrum. There had to be more to this. Something I was missing. Was there some way to avoid triggering a trap and slipping past it? Possible, but unlikely. I had triggered enough traps where I would have probably noticed if there was a way to avoid them. But in that case, what was the answer?

My mind went back to the first trap I had triggered. The water current flowing under the maze I was in. It was impossible for me to see where it led, but was it possible that it was the only way out? A test to make us think outside the box? There was a chance I was right, but if I was wrong it would almost certainly guarantee my death.

The minutes ticked by as I racked my brain for an alternative answer. With every passing second, I was growing more impatient with myself and had to try and keep a level head. While I was standing around here, others could be well ahead of me.

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Reluctantly, I began making my way back to where the water trap was. My nerves had me feeling tense. Was there really no other way than to risk everything on a fifty fifty gamble? I could only hope my hunch was right at this point and it would lead me outside.

However, as I walked, something caught my attention. It was subtle, but there was a slight shift in the breeze flowing through the corridors. I looked around for any noticeable signs of what might have changed. But other than the breeze, everything looked the same.

Maybe I’m just imagining things. I thought to myself. I leaned against a nearby wall to clear my head. As I ran my fingers through my hair however, something caught my eye while I was looking down.

Due to us being outside, I could clearly see my own shadow. Likewise, I could also see the shadows of the walls. However, there was one area, about a meter in width, where there was no shadow from the wall. I hadn’t noticed it at first due to the shadow being rather thin, but there was clearly a gap in it despite the wall seemingly continuing along it.

Key word, seemingly.

I walked up to the part of the wall with no shadow and reached out my hand. Rather than feeling the touch of the wall however, my hand phased through. A slight smirk came to my face as I walked through the wall and discovered a brand new corridor.

Now I was really glad I hadn’t decided to try my idea of jumping into the water trap. I dreaded to think what would have become of me had I done it. I brought out my terminal to check the map. The terminal’s map seemed to show the wall as normal, as if the hologram section was real. A clever ruse so we couldn’t use the map to figure the trick with the maze out ourselves. But now that I had figured it out, I just had to keep moving. I kicked off the ground and hurried along, desperate to make up for lost time.

Thankfully, the rest of the maze had proven to be relatively simple once I had figured out the trick with the hidden paths. There were still traps scattered about, but they had the same telling signs as the ones before. I simply had to pay attention to the shadows of the walls as I progressed.

Eventually, one of the corridors led to a part of the maze with a ceiling. As I walked inside, I noticed there were two other paths. One was a doorway leading outside, like the one I had come in from. The other had a long corridor, but I could see light at the other end which implied it also led outside.

However, the primary focus of my attention was not the other two paths. It was the brown wooden chest sitting in the middle of the room I was in.

I recalled Amane’s words. In addition to the traps, she had also mentioned treasure chests scattered about with useful tools. Whether those tools were weapons for fighting other examinees, or things that would help us get around difficult terrain I had no way of knowing by standing around here.

Kneeling down, I opened up the chest. Inside was a black gun-like item. However, at the end of the barrel, a three pronged metal claw was in its place. What exactly was this item?

My thoughts were interrupted however when I heard a sudden click. Suddenly, the door behind me and the other one nearby shut tight. After that, the ceiling began to slowly descend.

My only way out was the exit at the far corridor. Not wasting another second, I took off running. The ceiling kept descending, threatening to crush me if it fell all the way. Was this a trap designed to trigger after I opened up the chest?

What’s the point in wondering about that now? Just keep running! I told myself. I made it about seventy percent of the way down the corridor before the ceiling finally reached my head. I bent my body forward slightly as I continued to run. But the ceiling was gradually getting lower and I was running out of room to bend.

Once there was only a few meters left, I dove forward, sliding along the floor and outside the exit. I looked back and saw the ceiling fall all the way, sealing the way back.

Finally safe, I breathed a sigh of relief and got to my feet. But as I looked forward, I widened my eyes in shock.

Stretching out before me was a massive ravine. Unlike the maze I had been in until now, this had a very natural feel instead of manmade. I couldn’t see the end of it, meaning I still had a ways to go before I reached the goal. Looking up and to my side, I could see the maze we had come from was blocked off by a massive wall. There were several openings like the one I had come out of, each likely leading into the maze of another examinee. If nothing else, that explained why I had yet to encounter anyone else. There was also a loud waterfall coming out from the wall, likely where the water trap from before led to.

Suddenly, I could hear a faint cry, but it was gradually getting louder. Seconds later, the owner of the voice came flying out from a waterfall connected to the wall. They plummeted down to the river at the bottom of the ravine. I could barely make out a splash when they reached the bottom. There was no way anyone was surviving a fall from that height.

Definitely glad I decided not to jump into the water before.

Other than the person who had just taken the world’s most fatal high dive, there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the area so I decided to take a closer look at the item I had acquired. No matter how closely I inspected it though, it still seemed like a gun with a claw at the end. I had training with firearms back during the program, but I had never seen a weapon like this before.

Well there was no better time than now to test it out. I aimed the barrel at the cliff near me and pulled the trigger. Rather than a bullet though, the claw shot out from it. A line of wire connected it to the barrel as it lodged itself into the rocky cliffside. I tried pulling back on it, but the claw was securely in it.

Suddenly it made sense to me. This wasn’t a gun, or even a weapon. It was a grappling hook. I continued to inspect it, and experimented with it for a couple minutes. There were a couple buttons on it, one that reeled the line in and another that sent a signal to the hook to let go. No doubt an item like this would come in handy traversing a ravine.

I took a quick look at the terminal. Almost an hour had passed since the exam began. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be anyone who had reached the goal yet. I needed to make sure I was one of the ones that did.

Sliding both the grappling hook and terminal into my pockets, I took off running down the path through the ravine. As I ran, I thought about the other four program graduates who had started this exam with me. Were they ahead of me? Were they behind me?

Or were they among the players who had already died?

There was no point in thinking about it now. They were more than capable of taking care of themselves. All I could do was hope I met up with them somewhere before the goal.