Chapter 108: A Dead End
I was the last person to be woken up the following morning. Although my eyes weren't exactly thrilled to be pried open, at least Sky was the one that shook me awake. Besides Faith and maybe Forest, Sky might be the only other one I actually like to be around these days. Hearing that thought, I quietly chuckled with a morning gruffness. I never thought a personality like Sky’s could grow on me so quickly.
Almost immediately, Code, Sky, Faith, and myself geared up to enter the maze. Scar handed out three beacons to us, giving one to everybody besides Code. As for Code, he instructed him to take charge of the group and to always stay in contact with him through the radio transceivers, which Code initially accepted but sneered at after Scar turned away.
After we matched each of our radio transceivers to the same frequency, we quickly tested to ensure we could communicate. Once we ensured it worked, everyone except Code turned our radio volume to zero and stuffed them in our backpacks. Then, things got started.
51:28:17… 16…
When Forest opened the doorway, it took a few seconds for the morning sunlight to creep through from the other side. A vulgar distaste suddenly plagued the insides of my mouth, and I forced myself to swallow and bury the frantic emotions that were beginning to seep into my consciousness.
There was no turning back; that wasn’t an option anymore. And as I accepted that truth, a mountain of realizations that were blurred before became crystal clear to me. Then, I ultimately registered… that I had made the wrong choice yesterday.
Hunter and Forest are the only two who’ve been in the maze, and they are staying back with Scar. In other words, our group is going in completely blind, our only navigation guide being what we know from Hunter and Forest. Of course, those two know how dangerous the maze is… Falcon died here, after all. So, why would they ever volunteer to act as Scar’s test dummies instead of us? They wouldn’t, but a small part of me wished they did, and another much more prominent part of me wished I had never thought of that question.
As the doorway behind us remained open, I quickly glanced back and saw Forest with a solemn, dead-eyed expression. At that moment, the blood-curdling reality of how fearsome this maze will be finally set in for me.
Attempting to wipe the image of Forest’s expression from my head as quickly as possible, I looked around myself. On either side were these gigantic, vine-covered walls that towered over us… and with the sun still rising, a shadow was cast across most of the wide pathway.
The first to advance onward out of the four of us was Code, mumbling something undiscernible before declaring that we needed to get a move on. Thanks to Hunter, we had a general route mapped out for us. Additionally, we are all aware of what to keep an eye out for. However, despite the amount of effort we put into avoiding these dangerous outcomes… it seems most of these traps can be activated by things entirely out of our control. Fun.
***
A couple of hours have passed since we began walking, and with each passing minute… no, passing second… it feels like our odds of engaging in a game of death increase substantially. The suspense of waiting for something terrible to happen is gradually eroding all of us from the inside out. By now, we’re all asking the same thing.
Why hasn’t anything happened?
49:08:54… 53…
A little over two days left. Forest and Hunter described the maze as this cruel episode of execrable hell. So… after all this time, how are we still casually strutting down the aisles of death's door unscathed?
There are no boulders, arrows, traps, or tilted paths… which, don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly relieved about. Nonetheless, there isn’t any residue along the trails that Hunter and Forest once raced down... it doesn’t add up with what we’ve been told.
Could they have been lying? Hmmm, that’s unlikely. Maybe they remembered incorrectly, and we have the wrong route written down? No, that’s not it… everything they informed us about the route has been accurate so far.
Using his arm, Code signaled us to stop walking as we approached a sharp turn. From memory, this is where Forest’s group got caught at a dead end. But that’s what doesn’t make sense. We double-checked, and every other turn Hunter and Forest didn’t take led to a dead end. This is the furthest course somebody can take from the cave into the maze, which still leads to a dead end.
This doesn’t make sense. Aren’t mazes supposed to have an exit?
“Alright, this is the last turn you took. Hunter, you said up ahead is a dead end, right?” says Code, the radio transceiver close to his face.
“Yeah… that’s right…” slowly replies Hunter, his voice a little staticky over the radio.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Remember, we can see where you are and what’s ahead–” begins Scar, who definitely has the map model activated back at the cave.
“No shit, now tell me something I don’t know,” says Code.
Unbothered by Code’s hostility, Scar resumes, “If you take the turn and walk to the end of the path, it will still appear as a dead end to you. However, the map model shows something else is behind that wall. Right now, you’re still too far away for us to figure out what it is. Could you move in closer?”
“As you command,” sarcastically says Code before he looks at the rest of us and jerks his chin toward the path.
Turning the corner, the path in front of us was long and narrow. From our current position, we couldn’t even see the end of it. And once again, there was no evidence of traps or anything of that matter as we ventured down it. But, despite that fact, I couldn’t help but feel like we were being watched.
Surveying the tops of the walls, I then saw it. A singular crow perched almost out of view ahead.
Zeris… he’s close!
“Ahhhhhhhh!” abruptly screams Faith, making my heart skip a beat as I whip my head to the side to check on her while all of us come to a standstill.
With a hand covering her mouth, Faith was pointing ahead of us at the ground with a look of distress. As I dragged my eyes in the direction she was pointing, I noticed a bloodstain in the dead center of the path. Taken aback, I glanced back at where the crow should be, and it was gone.
“Falcon… this must be where he died,” says Code, his voice flat.
Why is a bloodstain the only thing left behind, then? Wasn’t he trampled to a pulp by boulders? There’s no proof of dust… there’s not even a pebble here…! But his bloodstain is vibrant and sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of the path!
“Come on,” says Code, carrying on walking. “Staring at it won’t do us any good.”
Following behind him, the rest of us strode around the crimson stain, only breaking our gaze from it once it was entirely behind us. After another minute or two of walking, we arrived at the end of the path. Just as we had been told, it was a dead end.
“Alright, Scar, we’re here,” radioed Code, gazing at the looming forest-toned wall.
“Hold on, it’s still rendering here on our end,” responded Scar.
Right as Scar finished his sentence, the ground beneath us began glowing a hue of violet. But before I even had time to think…
TICK! TICK!
That sound came from behind us!
Looking back, the compartments at the top of the walls started opening up.
GRRRROWCK! GRRRROWCK!
“Ember, look behind us! We seem to be standing on some kind of platform!” relayed Code.
Inspecting the ground, a prominent white hue had outlined itself as the perimeter of a square area. The four of us were within that square, almost like we were standing in the middle of a zone or, as Code said, a platform. The shade of white highlighting the ground within this “zone” was much more relaxed than the bright white displaying the border.
“This feeling, it’s like when he showed up…” quietly remarked Sky, her eyes conveying fear and vigilance as she stood ready for anything.
GRRRROWCK!
Fixing my attention back on the compartments, I instantly recognized that they had finished opening. But no arrows were being shot at us…
Heh, so if we try to go back, we’ll die. That’s a comforting thought.
Locking eyes with Code to see if he had any ideas, he answered my befuddled look with a shrug. Faith and Sky were pretty much in the same boat.
What is Zeris up to?
After about thirty seconds of waiting, I felt a wave of warmth quickly course over my skin. The sensation gave me shrill goosebumps. It almost felt like someone was breathing very close to my skin… but from all sides of my body at once. Bringing my shaking hand close to my face, that same wave of warmth occurred again. But this time, I noticed sparkles of white twinkling off the ground, sweeping over my hand. If I had blinked, I would’ve missed it.
Looking at the others, I realized the same bizarre experience was occurring to each of us simultaneously as it kept repeating itself, the time between each scan lessening with each go. A white light swiftly passed over each person's body from head to toe, scanning them. This happened over and over, maybe a dozen or so times. And then, it abruptly stopped.
“C-, -de, Co-, e-, d- n’t-” the radio sounded, breaking in and out.
GRRRRRRRUMMMM!
The wall in front of us then began to split apart, opening up a space about the size of a double doorway. Exchanging looks and surmising that we didn’t really have a choice, we all agreed to walk through the newly created opening one after the other to see what was on the other side. Before stepping through, though, we decided to leave one beacon behind on the ground for Scar.
One by one, each person traversed to the other side. There, we found ourselves in a small room with stone walls surrounding us. I was the last to pass through the doorway, and as I walked through, the opening behind us briskly closed up. In terms of size, the room was awfully similar to how Cliff described the room he found under the lake, but there was one significant difference.
Ahead of us was a giant monitor that displayed a black screen with a white loading bar. The loading bar was almost three-fourths of the way filled, and a percentage was shown just above it, reading ‘72%’. It then jumped to 84%, then 91%, 96%, and finally, 100%. After it reached 100%, the loading bar and percentage value vanished, and the black screen switched to a white background.
The screen then split into quadrants. At the center of the four quadrants was a circular glowing blue orb with a horizontal white line resting inside it, a golden frame distinctly segregating each quadrant and the central globe. Additionally, the four of us were each displayed on the screen in our own quadrant, with our details listed beside our body silhouettes. I was at the top left, Sky was at the top right, Code was at the bottom left, and Faith was at the bottom right. The design was very similar to the ‘People app’ on our watches, just on a much larger scale. There was also one additional stat line now that was placed beneath our eye color.
Our rank.
“Ember, rank 15. Sky, rank 20. Code, rank 18. Faith, rank 24,” said an AI-generated male voice, the white line inside the orb reverberating in tune with the voice speaking.
“Welcome to the final test.”