After finding that I’d wasted a bunch of time walking along a mobius strip, I decided that the wisest thing I could do would be to assume that every avenue I came across would be equally spatially fucked.

That being said, I did have a potential solution.

If I left a trail of breadcrumbs behind me everywhere I walked, I’d at least always know where I’d already been. And if I kept going wherever there weren’t breadcrumbs, I could brute force my way to the exit.

Of course there was an obvious flaw with that plan. If someone fucked with my breadcrumbs, I’d be going in circles again. So unlike Hansel and Gretel, I would use something that couldn’t be eaten by a wandering duck.

I wasn’t some poor European child. I was a Modern American Adult, with access to permanent markers. I grabbed a green sharpie from my inventory and knelt down to experimentally scribble on the floor.

The floor in this case just being whatever wall I happened to be standing on at the time.

The ink stuck, and the pen wrote smoothly. Apparently those etched patterns weren’t actually etched. Or they were, and the etching was on the other side of the glass.

Either way I knew I could write on the walls now. Just occasionally jotting some marks down didn’t seem to be sufficient to me though. I couldn't tell at what point the corridor I was traveling along looped after all, or even if there was a specific point like that in the first place.

If it looped in any way that made any intuitive sense I should have been able to see myself when I looked down the hall, but that didn’t happen. Instead there was nothing but more walls.

So I needed to draw one constant line then. Running my pen along an adjacent wall as I walked could have worked. Except then I’d be walking while trying to lean away from the wall that was drawing me towards it. That was pretty awkward, as it turned out.

I could have tried to just write on non-gravified fractal walls, but those weren’t placed around all that reliably.

The solution I settled on was to duct tape my sharpie to a yardstick, and just sort of drag the tip of it along as I went.

That was a little awkward, but it worked well enough with some practice.

I first looped around the same hallway one last time, as a test. I came across a rough line of ink after some time, so my strategy seemed like it would work.

I wrote down a note on the floor for Madeline with a red permanent marker, explaining that the hallway was a loop, and that I was leaving a trail for her to follow.

I’d write more notes as I went, I figured. That way if I wasted a bunch more time on a dead end, Madeline wouldn’t have to, giving her a chance to catch up.

***

Madeline quite quickly ended up getting stabbed again. Multiple times, actually. After the not-horse impaled her with her own sword, which felt more than a little insulting, it drew the two long scimitars it kept on its side and impaled her with both of those as well.

She now had three different blades sticking out of her torso. She was in so much pain that it was literally mind numbing.

But at least her chair hadn’t tipped over again.

The mock-mare looked at her curiously, wondering why she wasn’t dead yet. If Madeline still had the capacity for rational thought, she probably would have wondered the same. Instead she just did her best not to pass out.

Breathing only sort of happened, given that at least one of her lungs was filled with fluid. She was making an unpleasant rattling noise every time she exhaled again.

She was in shock, so healing herself hadn’t occurred to her yet. If the beast had simply left her there, she very likely would have died just like that.

Instead, either out of malice or curiosity, it pulled its warped countenance close to hers in order to look her in the eyes.

Madeline punched it weakly in the face. The monster barely flinched.

It gasped the hilt of one of its curved armaments, yanking it free from her stomach in one torturously slow pull.

Madeline slapped at it ineffectualy.

It pulled the other sword out after twisting it.

Madeline’s arm fell to her side.

It reached for the final blade, lodged just left of her heart.

Madeline had arrived at that unfortunately familiar point where she didn’t really feel pain anymore. The tingling numbness in her extremities felt like pins and needles, but also welcomingly warm.

Still, what little was left of her to think with didn’t want to let the not-horse take her sword. Not again. She’d just gotten that thing back.

She raised her left hand back up to claw at the monster’s face. It seemed to enjoy her struggling.

Just then, Madeline dimly remembered that there was something she should have done far earlier.

She straightened the curled digits of her hand, and then used Strike to pierce it through the sadistic fucker’s skull.

Horse and rider tremored as one for a moment before they disintegrated.

Madeline opened her mouth to say one final fuck you, but just coughed weakly instead. Still, she’d won.

Now, two large holes in her stomach, a sword barely plugging another hole in her chest, and her left hand shredded to pieces by forces it couldn’t withstand, she just had to not die.

Hopefully another first-aid kit would take care of that. Those things had worked substantial enough magic before.

She should probably get that sword out of her chest, first. Unless she was just planning to live the rest of her life with it in.

She attempted to lift a hand in order to grasp the hilt. She was met with a complete lack of response from her left arm. Trying a little harder, she managed a twitch. That was about it, as far as functionality went.

Also, her vision had tunneled significantly at some point. Darkness continued to encroach around the borders of her eyesight with every passing second. Or minute. The passage of time was an unknown quantity.

She gave up on removing the sword.

Instead she focussed every last functioning synapse in her oxygen starved brain towards the task of maneuvering her right thumb along her display.

Her entire right hand was numb, so it wasn’t as easy as it should have been. It was like trying to talk after getting shot up with novocaine at the dentist, except if she didn’t somehow make it work she would die.

She passed out at some point mid-process. She wasn’t sure for how long. Probably not more than a second or two given that she didn’t bleed out entirely before her eyes opened again. It took her shock riddled thoughts far too long to re-organise themselves.

But she remembered what she was trying to do after coughing up some sort of dark fluid. She had a bit of a contentious relationship with ol’ righty even on the best of days, but the fact that her thumb was turning traitor now of all times was frustrating beyond belief.

She just had to press a single button.

Why was that so difficult?

She managed it through sheer blind luck, like a monkey at a typewriter. It hurt like being burned alive from the inside, just like always, but not for very long given that she shortly passed out again.

***

I worked my way through a number of corridors whose connections made cartoonishly little sense, my line of permanent marker proving to be the only reliable guide post.

Eventually I came across another gaggle of reanimated charlatans. About eight or so whose state of decay, chosen arms, and outfits all varied widely.

I hadn’t really thought about it prior to that point, but the fact that no single zombozo ever really resembled another seemed a little odd. Their armor, for instance, came in a large variety of styles made from all sorts of different materials. The one at the head of this particular pack was a withered mummy in samurai gear. Red lacquered plates strung together with yellow cordage of some sort.

The guys behind it varied from skeletons in rotting leather rags to well fleshed crusaders in chain mail.

If these monsters were from a single army you’d think there’d be a bit more uniformity in their uniforms at least. Instead they looked to be plucked from all sorts of different time periods and locales.

Definitely odd. Not something I really had time to ponder over though. I put down my yardstick in order to raise my rifle.

I thought better of simply shooting them, however. I didn’t have infinite ammo. And besides, my floating friend had a plasma rifle we’d yet to try.

I pulled my welding goggles back over my eyes and mentally signaled to Psy that he could fire at will.

The resulting beam was impressive, being far larger than even the mech itself was. Granted, that only put it at about a foot and a half in diameter, but that much plasma was nothing to scoff at. I could feel it instantly dry my lips and singe the exposed skin on my face.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The range was nothing to scoff at either, easily traveling fifty feet to pierce through multiple armored humanoids.

I, and my foes, were both a little stunned.

I shook my head, and wiped the tears the bright light had brought to my eyes, before I finally got to dismantling the surviving enemies.

Three had been immobilized, and one more out right killed. That left me with a few stragglers that I needed to dispose of with the minimum amount of ammo expended.

Another beam or two would have solved the problem, sure, but Psy only had eight shots total, if I remembered correctly. I didn’t want to waste them.

Ultimately I shot the most threatening, least decayed specimen first. Three bullets for that one, easily inserted into the throat and face. They were on the same plane as I was, so it wasn’t exactly a complicated affair, even if they were moving.

The other three managed to close the distance significantly in that time frame, having overcome their surprise. I managed to immobilize another by kneecapping them, and barely dodged a daring poke from his comrade’s spear afterwards.

I used my flying vibraknife to take that one out, and got a hefty hit to the side with a mace from the last asshole for my trouble. That knocked me clear over, and hurt like a bitch besides.

I just about managed to deflect the followup swing with some luck, foresight, and a little telekinesis. I pulled my knife through the back of his head shortly afterwards.

I then curled into the fetal position and groaned. There were still a couple more guys crawling on the floor towards me, but I was a bit more focussed on the fact that I’d probably broken a couple ribs.

It felt like I was being stabbed everytime I breathed in. Removing my hand from my side, I saw there was blood on my palm. I was gonna need to heal.

Man, I really hoped Madeline was having an easier time of it.

***

Madeline was mentally curled up in comfortable oblivion when some sort of persistent sensory stimuli started bothering her. She tried to ignore it at first, but wherever it was just kept doing it.

Eventually her mind surfaced from its warm, oblivious pool enough to recognise the stimuli as something hard being pressed into her thumbnail.

It was irritating as all shit. She was comfortable, what business did the world have fucking with her?

And now that she was feeling things again, she felt pain too.

Goddamnit.

She finally opened her eyes, not because she was willing to, but because she started coughing so violently that it woke her all the way up.

After that initial coughing fit ended, she looked up to see an unfamiliar young man staring at her.

He looked beat up, tired, and scared.

That was fair. She felt much the same. The problem was that she didn’t know this person, and while he didn’t seem to intend her any harm, she couldn’t know that for sure.

Also she still had that goddamn sword in her chest. Apparently that thing was just living in her now.

She attempted to speak, but found herself cut off at the first word by another hacking fit. The coughing hurt. Probably because of the sword.

There was something on her lips. She tried to raise her left hand to wipe away the substance, but was met only with a tearing pain in her chest and back for the effort.

Apparently she wasn’t as healed as she would have liked to be. The blade was sticking partially out of her back, it felt like. The tip of it was caught in the canvas of her chair’s backrest. Moving had disturbed it, which had resulted in another trickle of blood flowing down her spine

“Are you ok?” The man asked, seemingly out of legitimate concern despite the complete redundancy of the question.

Madeline couldn’t quite stop herself from scowling. She was a bit surly even at her best, and this was most certainly not her best.

“No. Who the fuck are you?” She groaned, punctuating the query with another painful bout of coughing.

“Micheal.” He said.

Looking properly at his face for the first time, Madeline saw that he had a small, flat nose, and short tightly curled hair atop dark skin. He wore a denim jacket with so many patches and pins affixed that they almost entirely concealed the original blue material beneath. His pants were a torn and faded pair of baggy jeans that were best described as ‘well loved’, rather than distressed.

Not a bad looking guy, even despite the fact that he clearly wasn’t having the best of days either.

“Anything I can do to help?” He offered.

Madeline immediately felt herself wanting to say ‘no’, but recognised the foolish impulse for what it was. She almost certainly needed help.

Still, she wasn’t one for admitting that, especially to strangers.

“I’ll be fine.” She whispered, contrary to her earlier statement, and all available evidence.

The man sighed, rubbed his eyes with one hand, and stared a hole in the floor just in front of her feet.

“Ma’m, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but that sounds like a load of bull.” He said, raising his gaze back up to meet hers.

Madeline wasn’t prepared to refute that statement.

***

Micheal had wandered into this hellmaze at the behest of a rather insistent roommate of his. He’d agreed on account of the fact that he rather liked his roommate, almost certainly in the romantic sense, though he’d had yet to quite admit that to himself.

The man he’d followed in here, an unfortunately likable and glib tongued individual who went by the name Jesus (pronounced like hey-zeus), had been separated from him after some sort of burning specter leapt out of a television and attacked them.

Since that point he’d been attempting to find a way to escape, but the place seemed impossibly vast and he’d had little luck so far. He had been sticking to the left hand wall and following it, but that hadn’t worked so well. Possibly because the labyrinth was three dimensional.

Eventually he’d come across what appeared to be a corpse in a wheelchair. Micheal was a nurse by profession, so it wasn’t his first time seeing a corpse, but it was never a pleasant thing to witness.

Ordinarily he’d flag a doctor down to pronounce the time of death, feel a little depressed, and then move on with his job. But there were no doctors here. Some part of him felt the need to follow procedure nonetheless.

First thing to do was to make sure that the person in question was actually dead. They had what looked to be a single edged greatsword through the chest, but he’d seen people survive worse.

One guy he’d spent a couple shifts monitoring had survived being shot thirteen times with an AR-15 during a mass shooting. Nice guy, that one. Any one who stepped up in a crisis like that generally was.

So first Micheal checked to see if they were breathing. To his surprise, they were. This was in spite of the fact that they were covered in enough blood to paint the sets of multiple slasher flicks, and their clothes visibly torn in a number of places.

No visible wounds other than the blade in their torso, so that was a good sign. He got to checking their pulse next. Their heartbeat was remarkably strong and stable, he noted.

There might actually be hope for this one.

Assuming they could get the appropriate surgery and after care. Micheal couldn’t make that happen for them, so he just focused on what he could do. Next was checking for responsiveness.

They hadn’t so much as twitched when he’d touched them earlier, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything yet. He grabbed his house key from its home in his jacket pocket, and pressed the side of it against the back of the person’s thumbnail. They stirred a little, and he put another hand on their neck to check again for their pulse.

And then they woke suddenly, coughing.

***

I had another encounter with a smaller pack of zombies. I challenged myself to re-decease those ones without using fire-arms of any kind, figuring that if I was going to run out of ammo eventually anyway, I might as well get some more practice dealing with them up close.

It went predictably wrong with near immediacy, but long story short I got stabbed again. In the kidney, this time.

Turns out that hurts much worse than being stabbed in most other places. I know because I got stabbed in a whole bunch of other places shortly before the aforementioned kidney stabbing.

I’m not built for melee combat.

God, this is going to lead to a lot of unprocessed trauma.

I mostly operated in emotionally-numbed-animal mode at that point. Thoughts and feelings didn’t vanish from my noggin entirely, but they were all distant from the self that was busy surviving.

For those that haven’t dealt with that sort of mental state, it's not a great time. Not a bad time, because you can’t really feel all that good or bad about things while busy trying not to die for extended periods, but still not a great time.

Eventually I crossed out all but one path with my permanent marker. It was one that I’d been avoiding. There were a couple reasons for that.

First was that ghost tentacles all pointed down the direction of that path. I wasn’t sure on that front at first, but I’d encountered enough undead, and observed enough of the twisting transparent tails that drifted off of them, to be confident now.

Second, the path led into a pitch black pit from which no light escaped, even when my flashlight shined upon it.

I wasn’t exactly eager to find out what was waiting for me in the dark, but I was running out of other options.

I’d already put it off for as long as possible, going back along my traced lines over and over, writing new notes and crossing out old ones. I’d even waited for a while, hoping that Madeline would show up.

But she hadn’t. And According to my phone’s clock, I’d been in this dungeon for at least a couple hours by that point. Either Madeline had already moved on, or we’d just missed each other because I couldn’t sit still for long enough.

I supposed it was also possible that the dungeon had separated us into entirely isolated areas. If that was the case, then we weren’t going to meet each other no matter what happened.

I decided to wait a little longer, just in case.

***

Madeline, as it turned out, required a fair amount of convincing when it came to the Idea that she could accept a stranger’s assistance. That mostly came down to childhood trauma. It hadn’t often been safe for her to ever ask for help as a kid, so she ended up with a strong aversion to doing so as an adult.

You know how it goes.

And whenever things got difficult she leaned into her isolationist tendencies even harder. It was a sort of self-reinforcing trauma response.

The problem was that if she didn’t get help here she was probably going to die, and Micheal was very well aware of that fact. To top it off, he was the sort of person who had spent his life helping others in positions very much like Madeline’s, so he wasn’t really taking no for an answer.

Madeline eventually explained that she could just heal herself, as soon as she got the sword out of her chest.

Micheal accepted this argument with surprising ease, showing that he too had a Stigmata on the back of his hand. It was in the shape of a cross, or possibly a plus.

“So miss. . .?” Micheal prompted.

“Sorry. Madeline.” she said, her voice hoarse.

“Madeline, it's nice to meet you. But I don’t think there's a chance in hell you're going to be able to pull that thing out of yourself all on your own.” Micheal pointed out.

“Well. . . I haven’t tried it yet.” Madeline said, before coughing weakly. Her left lung was filling with fluid again.

“And that's probably for the best.” He said, nodding. “Look, ordinarily I’d just focus on keeping you alive while the operating table got prepped and ready for you. . . But in case you hadn’t noticed, actually getting you somewhere where a surgeon could fix you up is going to be difficult right now.”

“More like-” Madeline was interrupted by more coughing- “impossible. But I can fix myself once this thing is out.” She insisted.

“That right there is the crux of the issue. How are you planning to get that five-foot long piece of metal out from between your ribs, Madeline?”

“I was just gonna-” Madeline attempted to lift her right arm this time, only to find that doing so came with that same tearing pain as trying to use her left arm. She hissed between her teeth in pain.

“Yeah no. Whatever your plan was, it sucked.” Micheal said.

“Your bedside manner sucks.” Madeline spat.

“Unfortunately for you I’m not on the clock, so I don’t care. But I am a professional, so I can do damn sight better at pulling that out of you than you can, I bet.” He responded, completely unbothered by her irritation.

Madeline squinted at Micheal, discontented with the fact that he was probably right. But she’d spent five minutes now arguing with someone who clearly only wanted to help, and it was starting to occur to her that being obstinate wasn’t actually going to get her anywhere.

“Fine.” She said.