Everyone watched Zed in worry, waiting.

They seemed to be hanging on his next words. If he was rarely ever given any attention, he had every attention now. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. One thing was certain, though, the Berserker liked it.

Thoughts flowed through Zed’s mind as he stared at the new timer. It had lost a whopping three eight hours in the space of barely thirty minutes. Why?

He frowned as he wracked his brain to find an answer. If it could lose eight hours in thirty minutes, then how could he trust the fifty minutes he’d just been given. For all he knew, he could step out of the room right now and find that he’d lost thirty minutes.

By that logic, I could also gain three hours, though, he thought. He almost laughed at the thought. When have I ever been so lucky?

But it was worrying. He thought of what he knew about the notifications; what could possibly have happened. It didn’t take him long to develop a theory. It was born of old knowledge, experience of the notifications before the second awakening. It had given him rewards that had been—in a manner of speaking—predictive. A military knife had been the reward and had been gotten by simply being at the right place at the right time. His pocket memories had been designed to help him keep some modicum of himself at a future date to help him survive. Even when he’d awoken, he’d been offered food as a reward for killing a monster, then clothes as a reward for running into Oliver and the others.

Somehow the notifications either affected events around him or… they are affected by the things that happen.

It was a long shot but the latter seemed more logical than the former. If the notifications determined its contents based on what was happening around him, then the updated time would be based on the events happening around him currently.

“… Someone has made a decision they shouldn’t make,” he muttered to himself, thoughtful. But who?

For all he knew, it could be the danger the notification was warning him off. It could also be Daniel. By the concept of the butterfly effect, there was always a chance some animal had looked at some piece of shrubbery the wrong way.

Zed ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. They scattered his neatly kept hair, rumpled it. He didn’t like not knowing. He didn’t like being unable to know. A greater question lurked behind all the others as his mind pulled together a new plan.

How did the notifications know what was happening in the world around him for it to be dictated by them? Doctor Shequifa had said they were a kind of defense mechanism, a mental one designed by his mind to protect him. He could believe that when it applied to the dreamscapes back in the Institute, but not in the real world.

There was far more to the notifications than met the eyes. Could there be some higher power guiding him?

He dismissed the idea with a snort and a half-chuckle as he brought himself from his mind and back into the present.

I don’t even believe in God.

He found everyone still staring at him, waiting. Just for re-confirmation, he checked the timer on the quest notification.

----------------------------------------

* Time remaining: [00:51:57].

----------------------------------------

He let out a relieved sigh. Thinking always seemed longer than it was. He looked up at everyone, met each expecting eye, met the point of the syringe still held pointed to the ground in Trevor’s hand.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he told them. “And we need to do it now.”

“Why?” Oliver asked.

Despite his question, he was already on the move, checking on Chris, removing things from the table beside her hospital bed. Shanine looked around, clearly searching for something. In the end, she turned to Trevor.

“Do you know where they kept my shoes?”

Zed could scarcely remember what her shoes looked like, or if she had even been wearing… Nope. He remembered it clear as day. It was a green simple shoe, sneakers that were a bit tattered but wearable.

That’s odd, I don’t remember ever even looking at it. He shrugged. Magic powers for the win again.

He smirked. “Twelve points to Gryffindor!”

Ash looked at him like he was stupid, but it was Oliver that spoke.

“Why?” he asked.

“And that right there,” Zed pointed at him. “Is why we’re almost besties. You always ask the right questions.”

“Almost?”

Zed nodded. “Almost.” He turned, looked around the room. They were still alone. Shanine was still waiting expectantly for Trevor. They were killing time that they didn’t have.

He couldn’t have that.

“Shanine, you don’t need shoes to walk in the forest. You’re a mage now, your skin can take more damage than you know. Ollie, I have no idea what you’re grabbing in a hospital but it better not be Vicodin. Ash…” Ash stood with arms folded over her chest. She was clearly waiting for everyone to be ready. “I guess you just keep doing what you’re doing.” He turned to Trevor. “Now, Doc, if that injection isn’t carrying a burst of adrenaline shot that can magically wake Chris up, I’d suggest you put it down and let Oliver pick up mean girl.”

Trevor raised the injection and squirted out the tiniest bit of the liquid in it. “Actually, that’s exactly what it does.”

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“Oh.”

Trevor moved to Chris’ arm, leaned over it, then injected her. In a second, the content of the syringe was gone, its chamber empty. Zed nodded.

“Alright, let’s—”

“Brace her down,” Trevor told Oliver, interrupting Zed. “The shot will wake her up but won’t do anything for the pain.”

Oliver turned to him, mouth agape. “That means…”

“Yes, she’s going to be in a lot of pain.”

Zed thought about it. He remembered when he’d suffered burns from his flame rune. He had his opinion of what she could do with the pain, but kept his mouth shut. Not everyone handled pain the same way.

He checked his timer.

Time remaining: [00:50:47].

Two minutes, he thought. Fifty minutes felt so very small with the possibility of some of it suddenly disappearing lurking in the background.

“Alright, everyone. Time to go,” he told them, turning to the exit.

Shanine was behind him almost immediately. Ash’s movements were a bit hesitant. Stale. She was clearly torn between hurrying at the urgency Zed was instilling and waiting for her brother. The next thing that happened was loud and all consuming.

Chris screamed.

It felt as if the ambient mana in the room shook and Zed couldn’t help but turn. He found her thrashing against Oliver on her bed, screaming her head off in pain.

I guess people really do handle pain differently.

……………………………….

Chris’ scream accompanied them as they made their way out of the room. Zed led the way, which now that he thought about it, he wasn’t supposed to.

“Trevor!” he called as he ran ahead, refusing the distraction of looking back, having to raise his voice so that it soared over the sound of Chris’ screaming. “Get up here, and hurry.”

Trevor was somewhere at the back of the line, running beside Oliver. He was keeping a medical eye on Chris. He had appointed himself the duty of making sure she didn’t relapse into anything serious from the pain.

Now that Zed had called him, he picked up his pace, hurried up front.

“Alright,” Zed said when Trevor was beside him. “I have recently been told I tend to look very confident when I do certain insane things.”

“Please tell me this urgency is really urgent,” Trevor pleaded.

Zed nodded. “It is. Have a little faith in people, Terent.”

Trevor looked down and away even as they continued forward.

“Wall,” Zed warned as the path in front of them finished, making a corner to the right. He followed the pathway as it turned, everyone else following beside him.

Trevor had almost run into the wall if not for the warning.

“You need to keep your eyes up and about, Tony,” Zed told Trevor. “As I was saying. A little faith in people is a good thing.”

“Hard to have faith in someone that won’t call me by my name,” Trevor muttered.

Zed’s eye darted to the timer that was comfortably rested at the bottom right corner of his periphery. They’d lost another three minutes in their hurry.

“How about we do it like this?” Zed said. “I think about your name very deeply and you take the lead and show us the way out—wait…” Trevor came to a stop and Zed was forced to grab him by the hand and drag him along while he stared at the lights through narrowed lids. “I didn’t mean wait wait, I meant wait.”

“Zed!” Oliver scolded from behind. “Stop confusing Trevor and say what you want to say.”

Zed was still looking around. “Did the lights just get brighter?”

Trevor looked around. “Maybe?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter.” They came up to a path where the hall diverged, split into two paths. “It’s like a fucking labyrinth in here. Toga, please be nice enough to show us the way to the exit.”

“You’re trying to escape?” Trevor asked, aghast.

“Escape?” Zed shook his head, they were standing in place now, contemplating on what path to take, left or right. “You know that’s quite the choice of words. You make it sound like we are prisoners.”

“Does Festus know we’re trying to leave?” Ash asked suddenly.

Zed didn’t need to think about it. “I was going to tell him next if we hadn’t suddenly started running out of time. Trigger, the way. Please. But if we make it to the exit on time, I could try looking for him if we have the time.”

Trevor pointed to the path down the left.

“Can we trust him?” Shanine asked suddenly. “I mean, he just asked if we were escaping. Sounds like a red flag to me. If I was the one, I wouldn’t show us the way out.”

Zed chuckled as they went down the path Trevor showed.

“He’s an Awakened and Oliver’s already a Rukh. I’m sure he knows what can happen in a split moment of decision if we find out he’s showing us the wrong path. Gravity spells can be quite brutal on the body.”

Beside him Trevor gulped visibly. “Maybe this might not be the path.”

Zed came to an immediate halt. “We don’t have time for this, Tess. Everybody back. The other path’s the right way. And what’s it with people and only reacting positively to threats. How are we even sure Chris isn’t in pain specifically because of what you gave her and not her healing injuries.”

Trevor’s silence was almost as loud as Chris’ scream. It was all the answer they needed.

“Fucking asshole!” Oliver swore.

“Not now, Ollie.” Zed led them down the right path. “Let’s get out first, then you can vent your anger out on the danger outside.”

They continued on in silence. With the lingering threat over his life, it felt easier to believe that Trevor was now leading them down the right path. Though Zed hadn’t meant the threat. There was no way he was going to ask Oliver to attack an innocent person. That was just wrong.

According to Trevor, they were almost at the exit pad when they ran into an Olympian. Their steps slowed, eyes grew wary, muscles alert. Trevor’s earlier use of the word escape had left them with a new appreciation of what was happening. It didn’t matter if it had merely been a slip of the tongue. Whether he was right or wrong was no longer of relevance.

They were in front of an Olympian and they were alert. Suddenly the Olympian felt just as the Olympians had all those days ago when one had pierced a hole in Zed’s chest. They were suddenly the enemy.

“Hey! Dagon!” Zed hailed cheerily, walking up to the man. “How’s it been?”

The Olympian stared at him, confused. Then he looked behind him as if someone might be there. Finding no one, he looked back at Zed.

He pointed a finger at himself. “Me?”

Zed upped his smile, widened it. “Who else, dude? Where the hell have you been?”

“Uhhh… In the cafeteria?”

“Since when have you been an eater?”

“I don’t know what’s going on but why’s that mage screaming?” he asked, pointing at Chris who was still bucking in Oliver’s hold.

“Minor slip up,” Zed told him, attention darting between the Olympian and his timer. “Doc over here gave her the wrong shot now we need to get her to my room. I’ve got a pain relief potion. Last one I’ve got really. Can’t trust him to give her the right thing but can’t trust myself to give her the right dose, so here we are.”

The Olympian’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“That doesn’t sound like the kind of mistake Trevor would make,” he said.

We’re losing him, Zed realized. There wasn’t much to it, he’d said words, tried the trick of confusion and failed. Now, they were left with very few options. Violence? He pondered as his timer ticked on by, queried him with the necessity of haste.

“As ashamed as I am to say it,” Trevor stepped up to them with a sheepish expression. “I was a bit confused and gave her endicarth instead of endocarth.”

The puzzled expression on the Olympian’s face was enough to show that he had no idea what the doctor was talking about.

“I still have enough to ease her pain back at the infirmary but his lack of trust is justified,” Trevor added. He patted Zed amiably on the back and pushed past the Olympian. “We’d better hurry. With all that screaming I’m surprised we don’t have more people to explain to.”

Zed nodded. He followed after Trevor and the others followed after him. As they passed, the Olympian took one look at Shanine.

“Where’s your shoe?” he asked.

“Somewhere around,” Zed answered, stopping so that everyone began to move past him. “I have no shoes on in case you’re wondering.” He raised one of his feet to emphasize his point.

Then he was off.

The exit didn’t feel very far, but his timer felt very fast.