Day Twenty Two

"Carson, respectfully, this has to be the worst thing I have ever tasted." Ada gagged, pushing the vegetable stew away from her. The bowl slid across the table, some of the putrid green sludge from inside sloshing over the edge. She grimaced at the sight of it, the foul taste still tormenting her tongue.

Carson, who was still standing by the stove, crossed his arms and glared at her. "Oh yeah? I'd like to see you do better. Why don't you come up here and cook for us, huh Ada?"

"Oh I get it, sure, make the only woman do the cooking." Ada grumbled. "Sexist pig."

"Slim it, you two. You're acting like children." Alby said, putting his own spoon down and frowning at them. "It's really not that bad, Ada."

"Oh yeah? Is that why you took one bite of yours and decided to call it quits?"

"George likes my stew, don't you George?" Carson asked, looking at George, who was sitting at the other side of the table.

"Mhmm." George's face was noticeably green. "Delicious."

"I think Avin's the only one here who can actually stomach your food, Carson. Doesn't bode well for you." Ada grinned, pointing her spoon at the young boy who had already finished shovelling his face full of food and was eagerly reaching for seconds. He had remembered his name two days after they had woken up in the box, and now three weeks later they all remembered their names, but all their other memories remained missing.

"I'm sure it's not that bad." Carson reached for a bowl and shovelled a spoonful into his own mouth, which immediately twisted in a grimace. "Oh Christ, that's disgusting."

"Exactly!" Ada slammed her spoon down. "Three weeks, Carson! Three weeks of suffering through meals. I love food, okay, love it, and somehow you made me dread dinner time. Congratulations." She exclaimed. George snickered.

"I stand by my statement that you could always cook us a meal for once."

"Do you not remember the last time I tried to cook for you idiots?"

Alby winced at the reminder. Four days in and Ada had decided that it was time they all sat down for a proper meal instead of snacking on whatever food was in the nearest crate. She and Avin had banded together and taken control of the kitchen, and had only stopped when half of the homestead had gone up in flames. It had taken days to rebuild what had burnt down, and Carson had forbidden Ada from ever stepping foot in the kitchen again.

Not to mention the fact that the food she had put down in front of them that night led to three of them being in bed for nearly a week with food poisoning.

"Yeah, I don't fancy a repeat performance, thanks. You traumatised me." Alby said.

"You did no better." Ada huffed. "How did you somehow manage to burn water?"

"Well I did better than George! Do you not remember when he nearly sliced off his finger and ended up bleeding into our tomato soup?"

Avin gagged. "I can't believe no one told me it wasn't meant to be that red."

"We didn't actually think you were going to eat it!"

Carson huffed and began piling the bowls into the corner, where they would be rinsed under the tap later. They were simple, carved of wood, and each person had carved their initial into the side of it so they would know whose is whose. Those first few days where they hadn't been claimed made for plenty of interesting arguments. Ada still remembered Carson and George's brawl because neither of them could agree on whose bowl was whose. They had only stopped fighting when Alby had physically lifted them apart. They had spent the night sleeping in hammocks next to each other on the opposite end of the homestead for what Alby called a 'bonding experience' but was really just a way to let them continue fighting without waking the others.

"I wonder if Luke would have been a good cook." George mused, and just like that a harrowing silence descended over the table. When he glanced around and saw the tightly drawn expressions on the others faces, he blushed and looked down at the table again. "Sorry."

Ada shook her head. "No, it's alright. We don't talk about him much."

Alby frowned down at the table, using his spoon to idly chip away at the rough wood. "What's there to talk about? We barely knew the shank. Can't mourn someone you don't know."

"I disagree." Avin said quietly. "He was still one of us. We may not have known him for long, but he was still one of us. He was trapped here just like the rest of us, no escape, no way out. We may have barely known him, but he barely knew himself. He was at least in this together with us. And he saved Ada's life, we can't forget that."

Ada frowned down at the table at the reminder, guilt swimming making her stomach squirm.

George let out a low whistle. "Deep." His smile faded slightly as he looked towards the maze. "I can't stop thinking about what could have done it. What could have butchered him like that."

Ada's already pale face went white. "I've been thinking about that, actually." She rolled up the sleeves of her back jacket and crossed her arms, leaning them against the table in front of her. "I think it's safe to assume that we were put in here against our will, what with the whole memory wiping and trapped in the middle of a maze thing."

"Yeah, can't imagine any sane person would agree to that."

"Shut up, you moron, let me speak." Ada tossed a bread roll at Avin's head. It bounced off his forehead and fell onto the table with a dull thud. "The maze changes every night. We've all heard it when we're trying to sleep." For a moment, her mind was filled with the echo of the maze as it shifted and turned, walls grinding across the floor, stone crushing against stone, creating a racket so ungodly it masked the frightened murmurs of the teenagers at its heart. "What happened to Luke wasn't an accident. But think about it, we know nothing is in the maze during the day. We've been inside it, and whatever did that to Luke must have been big. It would make a lot of noise and we wouldn't exactly miss it if we ran into it."

"And?"

"And the doors are open during the day. I don't think they'd stay open unless the creators of this place knew nothing was going to wander out of them. So that means whatever killed him had to have done it at night, right?"

Alby frowned. "It makes sense, but I'm not sure how that helps us."

"Hang on," George learnt forward, "The walls close at night for a reason, let's presume it's to keep us from going inside the maze after dark. Why would they need to do that unless something is in the maze at night?"

"Something like whatever killed Luke." Ada nodded.

"Let me get this straight." Alby said, crossing his massive arms over his chest. "You two think there are some sort of monster things in the maze at night, and one of them killed Luke?" When they nodded, Alby shook his head. "Why? Why would the people who did this deliberately put things in there that can kill us?"

Carson's eyes went wide with excitement. "Maybe they're guarding something."

"Like the way out!" Ada grinned. "Carson, you're a genius!"

George huffed. "I helped solve it and she didn't call me a genius. Picking favourites, I say." He muttered to Avin, whose laugh was cut short when yet another bread roll was sent flying his way.

"Hang on a goddamn minute." Alby huffed, glancing between Carson and Ada with a frown etched on his face. "Even if these monsters or whatever, which we have no idea actually exist by the way, are guarding the exit to the maze, how exactly do you idiots plan on finding it?" Upon receiving their blank stares, he rolled his eyes. "It's guarded by monsters that only come out at night, but the doors close at night. We can't get in even if it were a good idea to follow these monsters and see where they're guarding. And even so, I'm not marching all of us in there on a hunch to come face to face with these creatures, not after what they did to Luke. Two or so would have to check. And even if you were right, you wouldn't be able to go back the next night. The maze changes every night, remember. Any progress we make with mapping a way out would be eliminated pretty much immediately."

Ada blinked thrice before collapsing back into her seat. "Oh screw you, throwing your stupidly correct logic in my face like that."

"Okay, fine." Carson leant forward. "If we can't go through the maze, then surely there must be another way out, right?"

"I have an idea!" Avin clambered to his feet, clasping his hands together in front of him with a wide grin on his face. "What if we climbed the maze!"

"... what?"

"The ivy, on the walls! Makes for a pretty good ladder don't you think?" At his words, Ada turned to face the towering walls surrounding them, eyes analysing the ivy that stretched from top to bottom. It was thick, sturdy, definitely clime-able. Probably. In theory.

"What exactly are we supposed to do when we get to the top?" 

"We can use it as a vantage point, see what lies beyond the maze, if there's a way out that way. That'll be useful if nothing else comes from it."

George cocked his head to the side. "He's got a point, actually. It will be useful to know if the answer lies beyond the maze."

"Okay, well it's not worth all of us climbing it if nothing comes of it." Ada noted. "It's going to be difficult to get all the way to the top, you'll need a lot of strength and stamina to get it done."

"I'll do it." Carson shrugged. "I can make it to the top. I'll let you guys know if there's anything there and if there is the rest of you can follow."

Ada nodded. "Okay, you get to work on that. In the meantime, we continue as usual. George, Avin, you two work on finishing up the farm set up. We'll plant the seeds sometime tomorrow, and then hopefully we'll have a fully functioning food source to make up for the fact that we're running out of supplies."

"Speaking of," George interrupted, "are we going to talk about the fact that we're nearly out of food? We have enough for a week more, maybe two if we ration, but I don't like those odds."

"Which is exactly why we're making a farm."

"Do you really think we'll be able to live off plants for the rest of our days?"

"It's just until we get out of here." Ada said placatingly. "Who knows, maybe the wall plan will work and we're just a hop, skip, and a jump away from freedom."

"Or a long climb, an even longer journey, and an even longer fall to the sweet freedom that is death." Carson muttered.

"Aren't you charming this morning."

"You insulted my food, I'm allowed to be as charming as I want to, thank you very much."

"Well, if it doesn't work, it's not like we don't have a solid meat source." Alby jerked his head at the corner of the Glade where the pigs and cows grazed lazily in the early morning light.

Ada's jaw dropped. "You wouldn't dare."

"I'm with Alby, I could really go for a beef burger right now."

"Carson, I swear to you, you lay one finger on my animals and I will castrate you."

Carson raised his hands in defeat.

"We'll work on the farm." Avin nodded, grabbing George by the sleeve as the two of them got up from the table.

"Great. Alby, you're with me, we need to finish putting together the mapping room."

—

"You see anything from up there?" Alby shouted from the bottom of the wall, cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting as loud as his lungs would allow.

He, Ada, George, and Avin were hovering anxiously at the base of the wall Carson had chosen to climb, the one just left of the homestead. He was almost at the top, and had been climbing for almost half of the day now. From what she could see of him so far from the ground, Ada could tell that his limbs were beginning to shake from exhaustion. She didn't know how he was going to manage the journey back down.

"Not yet! Almost there though – just a little further!" He called back, his voice carrying over the wind.

Ada raised her fingers to her mouth and began to bite at them in anticipation, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and she flinched away from the hold before she could register what she was doing. She turned to see George staring at her with furrowed brows.

"You alright?" He asked, tilting his head to the side. A single brown curl fell onto his forehead.

"Just nervous, I guess. I mean, we've been here for weeks with no sign of a way out. This could be it, George. We might actually be able to get out of here and escape."

A grin slowly began to form on George's face. "Yeah, I know. It's exciting isn't it. I can't believe we-"

"What the hell are those things?" Alby's alarmed voice cut George off, and Ada turned just in time to see a flash of silver dart up the side of the wall.

"What? What did you see?"

"It was this small little silver thing, with – look, there's another!"

She spotted it this time. There, scuttling up the wall through the ivy, was one of those mechanical lizards she had unconsciously dubbed beetle blades. It was scurrying up the wall with urgency, tiny body rhythmic and solid as it weaved in and out of the ivy and made its way skyward.

"Why are there so many of them?" Avin asked, and when Ada looked back down she saw to her horror that Avin was right. There were dozens of them, scuttling along the wall, shrieking mechanically, creating a rippling wave of silver and red speckles.

Ada's stomach dropped when she realised that they were headed directly to Carson.

"I've seen those before." She said urgently, not daring to tear her eyes away from Carson's climbing form. He was so close to the top now, his head was nearly brushing the top of the wall. "They're cameras, I think they were put here by the Creators. Luke and I saw one when we were in the Maze the night he died. They're dangerous, they have little blades in their mouths, they made him bleed-"

"Wait, that means that..." Alby trailed off, horrified.

George slowly raised his hand to cover his mouth. "They were watching. They knew the plan. This whole time they were watching. Why are they heading towards Carson, though, why would they do that?"

"Maybe to watch him at the top?" Avin asked hopefully, but his voice was thin and wavering.

Ada's mind span. Why would the beetle blades climb to the top of the walls, when she knew damn well there were some stationed there already? She had seen them flickering across the top of the walls occasionally, glinting in the morning sun. So they weren't going up there to watch him succeed, which left only one option.

"Oh god-" she choked out. "They're going to try to stop him."

"Carson!" George bellowed, voice frantic as he waved his arms around.

"Carson!"

"Carson stop!"

"You need to come back down!"

"CARSON!"

"CARSON LISTEN, YOU NEED TO COME BACK DOWN!"

Carson's voice drifted down from the top of the wall, where his head had finally crested the edge. He craned his neck as far as he possibly could, and Ada watched as his shoulders went slack with shock. "Oh – oh my god, guys there's-"

His words were cut off by a scream.

His own scream.

Ada watched, helpless to assist, as a swarm of silver lunged for Carson, lashing out at his hands and arms, his face, his legs. Any part of him that clung to the wall, the beetle blades latched onto.

Blood splattered, creating red arcs across the stone that were visible from the ground, and George let out a terrified yelp as Carson's fingers and hands were shredded.

Time seemed to slow, the clock turning to sand that moved sluggishly through the universe, one grain at a time, prolonging the inevitable because one moment Carson's fingers were clinging onto the ivy, his feet planted firmly on the cracks in the wall, and the next he was falling.

Ivy slipped from his blood soaked fingers, his feet lost their grip, and Ada screamed as Carson tumbled backwards, losing all contact with the wall.

He seemed to fall in slow motion. She watched every flail of his arms, heard every desperate drawn out scream and cry of pain, and all she could do was freeze as Alby's arm banded around her waist, yanking her out of the way right as Carson's body hit the floor with a sickening crunch, his screams abruptly silenced.

They stared in shocked silence as blood began to pool around Carson's head, stared at the grisly way that his arms and legs seemed to be bent at unnatural angles, the flesh torn at and freely bleeding. His eyes, which were full of laughter just this morning, were vacant and unseeing, still flooded with absolute terror.

Black dots began to dance in front of her eyes, and she distantly saw speckles of silver where the beetle blades, finished with their task, scurried back along the wall, receding into the cracks that made up their homes.

"Oh – oh my god – OH MY GOD-"

Avin was throwing up somewhere behind her, and she saw out of the corner of her eye as George sank to his knees.

But she couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't bring herself to do anything other than stare as the blood pooled in the grass around Carson's body.