In a certain place far far away, there were two person running, in an abandoned building. The building was a 3-storey building, with broken windows and there were nothing but dust filling the room inside. It was dark with only the light of the moon illuminating the building. The bluish light of the moon was clear with no cloud covering the sky. There was only one road leading to this building but it is rarely used. Thick forest surrounded the building with different noises and howls, echoed across the land. The closer the it is to the building, the more lifeless the trees were; wilted, up-rotted and broken branches with flocks of crows flying by. Pieces of rock which looked like a tombstone scattered around the building. However, for the two persons inside, it was definitely different. What they saw with there own eyes was a luxurious mansion, beautiful flower garden around the mansion. Inside, every room were decorated with expensive looking furniture. Weird paintings and animals head; dears and even tigers, were hanged on the walls. The whole mansion was brightly lit with candles on numerous golden chandeliers. The most striking thing about the mansion was that almost everything was red; the carpet, the wall, the door, the window. So red that it can be easily mistaken as blood itself, or perhaps it really was blood. Looking out the window, the moon can be seen through the window but it was not blue, it was red, the infamous blood moon.
The two person ran and ran, through the hallway, went in and out of the rooms, and ran again. Everything was repeated as if it was a film that will play forever. However, both of them knew, they were running aimlessly. Somehow, they wanted to stop but their body just kept running, wanting to find the correct door, wanting to find the end of the hallway, wanting to stop this marathon. They knew they have already fallen for the trap, a trap that led to a maze, an eternity maze.
The two pairs have been running for the past three days. They were sent by an organization that governs the world secretly, the World Order. Their mission was to collect information on a magical beast that infiltrated the real world. A magical beast, was what they say but the truth always hurt.
Despite expecting it to be powerful but the thing that they did not consider was a possibility of it being another race. The chance was very low so they did not consider it, but if it was very low it does not mean zero possibility. Yes, they encountered another race. A race that was very good with trickery and illusion that made them ran aimlessly in circle. In their mind, probably a vampire or a wil-o-wisp. Although these two have not confirmed it with their own eyes but with this superb illusion, it was not possible for a magical beast to pull this off.
It was cold, very cold. Even though they were running, the body heat was easily lost to the surrounding, making them shiver as they run. The fact that they did not know how they got into these trap pissed them off. They both are very experienced in recons and espionage. Before entering the building, they checked everything correctly, mana fluctuation, magic barrier and many others.
Nothing was found even after entering the building. Things got out of hand after they took a step out of the building. Everything suddenly changed into a luxurious hallway and now they were actually like a puppet being control. They cannot do anything other than just running aimlessly and talking with each other.
“Tch, why is this place so freaking cold,” said the older one as he clicked his tongue. It was clear that he was really annoyed from his tone.
“We can’t do anything about this. All we have to do right now is to think of a way to free ourselves from this ordeal,” the younger of the two spoke calmly as he assess the situation.
“Easy for you to say. We can’t even control our own body, yet you want to do something! What I think is that we should just wait for reinforcement to come.” the older one started to speak loudly with anxiety.
“That’s too dangerous! If the reinforcement came, they might even get trapped like us. Then there will be more victims!” unable to hold himself, the younger one raised his voice in rage as he try to give the older one a piece of his mind.
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“Then what should we do?!”
“Like I said, think something out!” they both quarrelled as they ran everywhere.
Little do they know that the same quarrel also happened yesterday, this was definitely a rewind of their action. What could they do?
In a dark room, somewhere in the building, a sinister looking silhouette laughed as it saw them looked like idiots. “Let’s get as many of your friend here, then it will become more lively!”
The light from the orb was bright but the silhouette still cannot be seen. The eerie laughter echoed throughout the building making chills run down those two person. This was also not the first time they heard the laugh, but they were still shocked as if they heard it for the first time. The laughter cannot be determined whether it was a man’s or a woman’s voice. The voice was a mix of high and low pitched voice, resounded together creating a single eerie voice of dozens of people.
*****
In another part of the world, there was a meeting being held in the World Order head-quarter. The meeting was held in a dimly lit room, with a big round table in the middle. There were other furniture too but it was still too dark to determine what it was.
The dim light only shines to the middle of the table, making the face of the people sitting around the table covered with shadows. All 14 person sitting around the table was accompanied by one secretary standing behind them.
“Have we received news on the recon team?” said one of them, with a grumpy voice. Even with the dim light, anyone could easily identify this person was a huge and obese man.
Hearing this, one man answered “We haven’t received anything. It seems we have lost contact of them after the entered the target’s location.”
After a brief silence, a woman voiced out, “We should send the extermination squad immediately before the situation worsen! This beast is definitely a threat. T-those two are experienced contractor, it just swept them without leaving a trace!” the voice of this woman can be heard trembling, with some words stuttering.
“Wait! Hold up! You can’t send them just like that. We have no information of this beast. It might even be a trap. They could get wiped out instantly you know!” another person joined the conversation.
“They are veteran contractors! They will know what to do. Just like what they have always do, search and kill!” then, more and more people joined the conversation until it was hard to determine who was speaking.
“Then it’s a more reason to stand by. If this was a trap, then these veterans would be wiped out and we will be on wits end with only half-baked contractors on our side!” …
“Nonsense! A mere trap won’t do that much damage to veteran contractors!” …
“What proof do you have to say that this will be a mere trap!”…
The people started to quarrel because their difference in opinions. Some started to stand and pointing fingers at each other. There were some who remain silent throughout the hot debate. There was one particularly, waiting for the right time to speak his mind out. That person was wearing a suit, slick-combed hair with 19’s styled-mustache. It was the Principal.
As the debate started to get out of hand, he hit the table with his fist and stood up. Then everyone started to quiet down and sat on their chairs. “Then, let’s put another card on the table.” the Principal said while folding his arm.
“What do you mean?” a lady replied.
“I’m adding another card on the table, that is the new contractor.” with confidence, he took out a card, a joker card.
“W-wait, you’re way out of line now! Those contractors are not ready yet! Even if they are ready, we can’t just give out order to them. That would be breaking the treaty!”
“Not them, but ‘him’. It won’t hurt to just send one. It will be a search and rescue mission and I think he’s already good enough to put up a fight. Plus, this one is quite hard to control and have already caused quite a trouble. This might be a good opportunity to test and dispose him off.” An evil smile suddenly emerged from the Principal’s face.
“The opposition might notice your plan and if they find out about this, it won’t turn out well. How are you going to explain it to them”
“Luckily for me, he was under punishment. If he were to die, we can reason out with the opposition that it was as a punishment and we did not expect that it would turn out that way. Even if he survived, we can say it was a test to see the potentials of the new contractors and we could even get the information about the beast. It’s a win-win opportunity.” he sat back again after saying those words. He sat with his leg crossed on the table.
“So who are going to send out with him? We definitely are lacking veteran contractor so we don’t want to sacrifice any of them.”
“Do not worry. I have someone in mind and they are not veteran contractors. They are the less controllable people around and seem to doubt our authority. So I’m just throwing out the trash.” After all the explanation, everyone in the room gave out an evil smile, making this scene a straight out from a mafia movie.