Chapter 123: Nailed Down (Part 2)
Glancing down at her stomach, Ember hums, “Huh… there is. Never really noticed it ‘til now.”
The tattoo looked like a simple design for a radio tower or mast. But instead of a tower being displayed at the center of the tattoo, an eye took its place. And on opposite sides of this eye were three radio waves.
I swear I’ve seen something like this before…
Putting her shirt back on and reaching behind her for her empty backpack, Ember opened up the other pockets, wanting to be thorough in their search.
“Heh,” she muttered before beginning to chuckle. “Hahahaha, that damn bastard.”
Reaching her hand inside a small pocket on the right side of her backpack, she unveils a beacon that was planted inside her backpack.
Looking at her, confused, I say, “I thought you had a beacon with you this whole time?”
Ember shakes her head, “No… when we were in the maze above ground, I tossed my beacon behind me when we got caught in a trap. Back then, I had the red beacon, beacon one.”
That’s the beacon Scar found on the ground… it adds up.
“And this green beacon…” Ember hands me the beacon. “Is beacon two. It’s the beacon that Faith had when I found her dead. That bastard must’ve gone back to Faith, taken the beacon off her body, and planted it on me to track my movements with the map model.”
Shoot… so he has our location! And if he’s been listening in on the radio, he knows I’m with Ember now! And that Hunter will get here soon! Considering that he killed Faith… Scar’s goal might be far more simplistic than we’re chalking it up to be. Only one can remain… he might just be trying to eliminate all of us by himself! Is this why he spared Ember earlier? So he could lure more of us into the same location to save himself some time? With the map model, he knows exactly where we are, and it’s highly likely that he’s already reached this point, so he knows how to get here!
“Forest?”
We can’t communicate anything to Hunter because Scar can hear everything we say! And talking in code to Hunter won’t work because he’s not observant enough to pick up on any disguised signals, and even worse, Scar is perceptive enough to pick up on them! Damn it, we can-
“Forest!” Ember shouts at me with a vigorous shake. “This is not the time to go cold on me, man!”
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” I say, my forehead slick with sweat. “Scar knows where we are and knows we’re together…”
“That much is obvious, but he hasn’t done anything yet. And he doesn’t know we found the beacon he planted.”
She’s right! But…
“Scar could just be waiting for Hunter to arrive… I don’t know if we can afford to wait for him.”
“Yeah,” tsks Ember. “Pretty sticky situation we’ve found ourselves in.”
“Let’s take a second to lay out everything we know. One, we can confirm that besides us, Hunter and Sky are still alive. Two, we can confirm that Faith is dead. Three, it is extremely likely that Scar is also still alive and that he murdered Faith. Four, we can confirm that Scar planted this beacon on you at some point after you found Faith dead, which was after you found the painting. This means, considering that you found this room about an hour after that point in time, and then adding on the time you waited for me… Scar planted this beacon on you in the past two to three hours. And five, we can infer that Scar has already climbed this staircase, and he knows that at least you and I are here in this room. Is that everything?”
“Six, with the five people you mentioned still being alive, that leaves three others. Odds are that Code is still lurking about, as I can confirm that he actually planted this green beacon on Faith,” adds Ember.
“What do you mean?”
“Were you in a room with a television screen before arriving here?”
“Yes.”
“So… before our group broke apart, Code and Sky held onto the two beacons; I had already gotten rid of mine by then. Anyway, I’m positive that Code had possession of this very beacon. You know how clever Code is, and he knew Scar had the map model. I'm confident he planted this shit on Faith before they split up. And once Scar arrived in the maze, he used the map model to track down Faith since she now, unknownst to her, carried the beacon."
I click my tongue, “So Sky has the other beacon… but she’s still alive, right?”
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“As far as we know, yes. This is a big maze, and the map model only displays so much locational information. I’m guessing that Sky and Scar entered the maze on completely different sides, while Faith was relatively close. Sky just got lucky… or I suppose… Faith got unlucky.”
“Yeah, so you think Code is still alive?”
“There’s a good chance, considering he threw Scar off the scent of his trail, but I can’t confirm it. We don’t know about Delta either… however, if our people app is correct in displaying that eight people are alive, and we know Faith is gone… we have to assume that Ace is here.”
Ace… yeah, the number did initially display the value of ten.
“If Ace and Code make up two of the other three unknowns, who do you think the last person is?”
“It could be Zeris…” she tilts her head. “It’s unlikely from what we know, but it could be… yeah. Cliff mentioned that Zeris had already gone through these trials in the past. And Zeris didn’t wake up at the campsite like us. I think that more or less rules him out; what do you think?”
“Yeah… that’s logical. But who could be the last person? Delta?”
Ember ponders, “Delta… she’s the only person who came down here with us. Everyone else is kind of dead by this point, so it’s not like we have many people to pick from.”
“Okay…” I pace a few steps away. “We’re straying too far off track from our main concern; we need to figure out what to do about this beacon. As far as we know, Scar is sitting at the top of that staircase, waiting to jump down and kill all of us the second Hunter shows up.”
“You want my honest opinion…?” asks Ember, and I raise my eyebrows at her and nod.
“We leave the beacon behind here and stop worrying about what we can’t control,” she follows up, and I’m left standing there speechless.
“Think about it. All we have to do is hope Scar doesn’t do exactly what you just said, and we’re in the clear. Suppose we try to move the beacon anywhere. In that case, Scar can see wherever we go, and attempting any separation tactic now would not end well.”
I bite down on my bottom lip.
“Be straight with me, Forest; you got any better ideas?”
I open my mouth to contest her proposal, but no words spill out.
She’s right. This is out of our control…
“Think of it this way, if only one of us can truly survive these trials… we’ll inevitably cross paths with Scar, won’t we? And when we do, we’ll give that bastard a run for his money. You got your fancy steel sword, and I got… well… I got this shitty wooden sword, but that doesn’t matter. We aren’t going down without a fight against that son of a bitch, you hear me?”
I smirk and lie down on my back, “Yeah… I hear you.”
Ember smiles, and my shoulders relax for the first time in a while. But only for a second, as an invasive thought soiled my mind.
“If only one can remain… what if it comes down to us two?” I ask, staring up at the ceiling.
“Well, if it was up to me… I think losing in an exhilarating fight to the death is far more epic than dying to something lame like dehydration.”
Once again, I smirked at her statement.
Yeah, that sounds like a pretty epic way to go out too…
“Forest!” a voice faintly yelled from an indiscernible direction.
Sitting up and looking around, I ask, “Did you hear that just now?”
“Nah… what was it?”
“Forest! Ember!” the voice shouted again, this time a little louder.
“Okay, what about-”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Guys! I’m over here!” the voice repeated, and this time, I nailed down the direction it was coming from.
Staring at the wall to my right-hand side, Hunter sprints out from behind one of the hallways and immediately locates us upon entering the room, “Guys! I’m here!”
As he made a beeline right for us, I broke out into a relieved laugh.
Damn… didn’t think I’d be this happy to see him again.
Running runs up to me, he goes in for a hug, and I open my arms. But not even a second after we made contact, I immediately retracted my steps and broke off the embrace.
“Holy shit, you’re sweaty,” I say, already trying to wipe his sweat off my arms with my shirt.
“Oh, screw off, Forest! Get back over here!” says Hunter before grabbing my arm and reeling me right back into a hug. “I missed you, bro…”
Still chuckling, I don’t attempt to leave the hug this time around, “Me too, man.”
I am happy to see Hunter is doing well, even though he’s dripping in sweat from head to toe and soaking my last pair of clothes. I think the time apart actually made us grow even closer…
After letting him end the embrace on his own terms, I nod, and he immediately spins his attention toward Ember.
Approaching her with open arms, Hunter wags his fingers in his direction while he merrily says, “Come on, Ember, it’s your turn!”
“Yeah… that’s not happening,” she says, already taking a step back in preparation.
“Ember…” Hunter creeps up another step. “You must… accept… your fate!”
And as the last word left his lips, Hunter lunged toward Ember in a bold attempt to hug her. Genuinely caught off guard by Hunter following through on his audacious threat, Ember barely dodges him and books it to the other side of the room.
As she looked over the shoulder to see if Hunter was following her, only to see that he very much was, Ember frantically remarked, “Oh helllllllll nah! A little help here, Forest?!”
Laughing at what was happening before me, I raised a hand and replied, “All you, bro!”
As Ember flashes another glance behind her after scarcely escaping Hunter’s clutches again, I chuckle. As I watched and waited for one of them to give up, I couldn’t help but notice that a joyful, amused expression was pressed across Ember’s face. And seeing that… I smiled.
It seems even Ember could use a break sometimes… we needed this; we really did. I can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard. Thank you, Hunter, for giving us this because in a few minutes… I have a feeling that this final test will become far more difficult.