“Did you find out where the room is?”

  “Yeah. I was stupid.” She said, her demeanor changing once we turned to a different subject. “It was just the main camera room, I thought it was going to be a hidden room or something because of last time.”

  “Ok, where is that?” I asked, flipping my hand back and forth.

  “Just follow me. And remember, whenever you see a camera, launch your gift at it.” She lectured while making a *pew* sound effect.

  We snuck down the halls of the facility, our footsteps barely making a sound on the cold floor. Before turning each corner, we pressed ourselves against the wall and cautiously looked to make sure the coast was clear before proceeding.

  We hadn’t been moving for that long until we spotted a facilitator roaming the halls.

  “He has those infwuhwed glasses or something right?” Zero whispered to me.

  “Infrared, and yes. He can see our heat signatures, rendering the dark cover we have useless.”

  “How did we get by the last one again?” She asked, unable to remember something that happened less than a month ago.

  “We got lucky.”

  “Hrmmmmm. Looks like we have to fight.” She said, giving barely any thought to the matter.

  “Yeah—wait, huh? No, what? We can’t cause a scene, remember, they can alert each other.”

  “Uh, yeah. That’s what you’re here for.” She stated while poking me in the chest. An ability that stops electric stuff. Remember?”

  “I’ve already been knocking out all the cameras; it’s not limitless. Also, what if we leave evidence behind?”

  “Who cares if we leave evidence behind? We’re leaving tonight. We either succeed and never look back or we fail and die. Besides, everyone who works here knows what this place is; they’re all evil.” She said as she unsheathed her sword.

  I could tell how desperate she was to get out of here. In a matter of days, she had gone from styling my hair to becoming willing to kill. It was such an abrupt change that it left me speechless for a couple of seconds.

  In those seconds, Zero sprang out from the corner at a much faster speed than I was expecting.

  “Hey!” He said as he pulled out a device from his pocket.

  I reacted quickly and charged forward, launching a pulse of energy across the hallway.

  “1-4! 1-4! We got two subjects here! Hello? Hello?!”

  He looked down at the device to see it unresponsive, and by the time he looked up, Zero was already upon him. He tried to hit her with the butt of his rifle, but she was too quick and slid on her knees to slice both of his ankles.

  He fell on his knees, and I saw her hold her hand out to activate her gift. Before she could, I vaulted over his shoulder and jammed a knife into the back of his head. Without a sound, he collapsed to the ground.

  I swung my knife to the left, and countless drops of blood splattered on the wall.

  “You can’t just use your gift in this situation; it’s too loud.”

  Zero didn’t respond as she was just staring at the body, trembling.

  Despite understanding we might have to kill, she still can’t handle the act of killing.

  I softly grabbed her shoulder and looked into her eyes.

  “Just leave the killing to me, ok? Just because you realize what has to be done, doesn’t mean you have to do it.” I said softly in an attempt to reassure her.

  She snapped out of it and placed her hand on top of mine.

  “No, because of me, so many people in this place have been turned into monsters. I’m not gonna make you become my personal killer and turn you into one too.”

  She took a deep breath and then put on a confident smile.

  “If we have to, I can do the job. No more hesitation.”

  I nodded my head and then bent down over the dead facilitator. I grabbed his radio and the gun he was holding, placing them in one of the holsters in his uniform.

  “What are you doing?” Zero asked, watching me with curiosity as I fiddled with the dial on the radio.

  “You’ll see. Let’s keep going.” I responded, turning the dial back and forth. I urged her to continue moving and to stop focusing on what I was doing, spurring an eye roll from her.

  We crept about the facility, and thankfully didn’t have to fight any more facilitators. We saw two, but one was facing the opposite direction, and the other was cleaning his glasses, so we were easily able to slip by.

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we got to the main camera room.

  “Ok, here’s the plan. You sprint in and disable all the electronics, and then I’ll take out the loser in the chair. Cool? Break.” She said as she took a menacing step toward the door.

  “Stop….” I sighed as I grabbed her shoulder.

  “What? Why?”

  “First of all, what if disabling the mechanism for the maze makes all the walls malfunction and prevents us from escaping? We should just turn off the wall mechanism, then disable everything else.”

  “Can you target just that guy with your EMP then?”

  “No, it can only shoot pulses. I can’t refine it to a person’s width.”

  “Damn! What do we do then?”

  “Just open the door, I’ll handle it,” I said as I pulled out my quiver and nocked the arrow.

  “You ready?”

  “No, tell me what the height is of the chair in the room.”

  “How the heck am I supposed to know that?”

  “Estimate.”

  “Uhhhh, I don’t know. Maybe a head taller than me?”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Got it, open the door.”

  I aimed my arrow slightly up and pulled back on the string. She opened the door, and before the door could even slide fully, I had launched my arrow. It flew straight and went straight through a couple of inches below the top of the chair.

  We saw two hands slump to the side as a pool of blood started forming.

  “Alright, I’ll leave, turning off the mechanism to you then. I’ll keep watch.”

  “Got it, got it.”

  Zero ran in as I turned around to keep watch. There was silence in the room for about 30 seconds until I suddenly heard loud banging coming from the room.

  I immediately turned around with annoyance and stepped in the room to see Zero punching the keypads.

  “Stupid thing! Why is this so complicated?!”

  “What the hell are you doing? Stop playing around.”

  “Does it look like I’m playing around?! I don’t know how to work this thing!”

  “Then why did you sound so confident?”

  “I thought it would be easy!”

  I walked over to the keypads Zero was furiously typing on and stared at them.

  “Well?!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Exactly! See?! You're just as dumb as me!”

  “I’ve never worked on a computer before! I lived in a literal wasteland!”

  “Then, what do we do?” She grumbled, puffing her cheeks.

  “Hmm, well, I doubt they change shifts during the night. It may be good enough that we incapacitated the facilitator here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No….but it’s better than fiddling with the controls and accidentally activating some sort of alarm. And disabling the electronics could cause the maze to malfunction, so in my opinion, this is the safest option.”

  “Alright….let’s go to the exit then.”

  She pulled out her poorly drawn map and looked at it closely.

  “Hmm, I didn’t draw this part because I didn’t know where it was at first. But from here, I’m pretty sure we make a left, go straight for a while, then make another left. Then we’ll be in the map area.”

  “Alright.”

  We stealthily left the room and made sure to close the door behind us as we progressed onward. The walk down the hall didn’t feel as long as before, most likely because of how long it took to get to the main camera room. The eerie feeling that plagued these halls before was completely gone, as a milestone had just been cleared for our escape.

  “Alright, here’s the left.” Zero whispered.

  We hugged the wall and looked around the corner and immediately saw a facilitator a few feet from our faces. We dove back under cover before he could see us.

  “Psst! What do we do?”

  “You don’t even need to say psst, I’m right next to you.”

  “Can you stop nitpicking every single thing and come up with a plan!” She whispered fiercely.

  “I already have it covered,” I said, taking out the radio. I flipped the transmission on and cleared my throat. “We did it, now let’s make our way to the main exit! We’re almost there!” I said in a slightly higher-pitched voice.

  My message played on the transmitter, and the facilitator immediately looked down in shock, running in the direction of the main entrance.

  “Now, by the time they realize they’ve been duped, our whereabouts will be unknown.”

  “Ooooh! Good thinking! Let’s go!” She said, punching me on the shoulder.

  “We continued onwards, and once we got into the area that we knew from the map, we were able to quickly make our way to the emergency exit.

  It looked like any other door, except there was a keypad on the right with a blinking red light.

  “I got this.”

  I walked up to the keypad and placed my hand directly over it. Then, I launched a pulse of EMP where my hand was placed, and the keypad short-circuited and turned off. This resulted in the door in front of us opening without any problems.

  “Sweet, we’re almost there. We just need to get through this maze now. No one guards inside the emergency exit so we don’t have to be stealthy anymore. Let’s run through it and get outta here as fast as possible.”

  “Right.”

  Abandoning our previous stealth, we sprinted through the exit. It was a straightforward path. We ran straight for quite a while before we faced our first crossroads.

  “Zero, left or right?!”

  “Right!”

  We turned right and continued to run until there was another crossroads, except this time there were four paths.

  “Which one?!”

  “Second one to the left!”

  We turned that direction and continued our run, only to find ourselves in the same room we were in before.

  “What?”

  Zero looked around, confused as she eyed the other three paths.

  “I must’ve gotten it wrong, I guess it’s the first one to the left.”

  We ran through the first path on the left, only to once again find ourselves in the first crossroads path we were in earlier.

  “How is this even possible?” I asked while eyeing the structure around us.

  “I don’t know! I swear I knew the right way! Could the maze controls be working again?” Zero asked, looking left and right frantically.

  I walked over to the wall on the right and placed my hand on it. What was odd was when I placed my hand on the wall, it didn’t feel like a wall. It was metallic, but it felt spongy at the same time.

  “Let me try something….”

  “Scan!”

  The world around me changed color and particles, little dots of all colors, and the strings connecting them filled my view.

  Along every fiber of the wall were orange particles; not a single speck of the wall was left uncovered. When I had activated Scan previously before entering this place, the walls outside had no particles directly on them, yet this one did. The only time I had ever seen orange particles was when No.3 and No.7 were activating their gifts.

  ….

  Oh no!

  I turned around and sprinted toward Zero.

  “This isn't the maze mechanism! This is someone’s g–!”

  Before I could even finish my sentence, the floor was split in two and a giant wall separated Zero and I.

  “963!”

  “Zero!”

  The wall closed, and any sight of Zero was now gone.

  “963! Are you ok?” I heard from the other side of the wall.

  “I’m fine! You?”

  “I’m good! What were you saying earlier?”

  “This maze is somebody’s gift! I can tell with my ability. Meaning there are other ways to control this place!”

  I heard a low rumble and activated Scan again, and saw a congregation of green and red particles right in front of me.

  “Shit!”

  “963? What happened?”

  “Just try and find your way to the exit, I’ll meet up with you later!”

  “.....Fine! I trust you 963! I expect you to do the same for me!”

  “Right!”

  As I said that, a rectangular portion of the wall shot out at me as I jumped back. Once I did, three more walls rose up in front of me, further blocking me from Zero.

  “Whoever’s controlling this place is trying to split us up.”

  As I said this, I felt something enter my Scan radius at lightning speeds and I immediately jumped to the left. Once I did, a green tendril stabbed the ground where I was just standing.

  “Hahaha! On your left!” A boy said behind me.

  I immediately turned around to see No.4 with his hand balled up into a fist.

  “Tch!”

  I put up my guard, but the force of his punch was heightened by his speed, which sent me sliding in the opposite direction. When I looked up, I saw No.7 standing in front of the path forward trembling.

  So that tendril from earlier was her hair.

  No.4 quickly ran next to No.7’s side and leaned on her shoulder. He then pointed at me and smiled cockily.

  “Gonna go crying to your mommy?” He said, brushing his blonde hair back.

  I got played completely.

  I pulled out my knife in one hand and a katana in the other. I bent my knees and put up a high guard, staring them down.

  “No, but stay in my way, and I'll send you to yours.”