Day Two

There were bodies everywhere, motionless and heavy, heaped in piles as far as the eye could see.

Flesh bloated, eyes bloodshot, faces veiny and crusted with black blood, limbs missing and torn from sockets, stretched at unnatural angles.

Wheezed breaths left her in sobs, her hand stretched towards the sky, towards light.

"I'm alive!" She whimpered, voice getting lost in the wind. "I'm alive! Please, I'm not one of them, I'm not-"

She was crushed underneath two bodies, her clothes torn and bloodied, the smell of rotten flesh permeating her senses until she was dizzy.

All she could feel was their rotted, bloated flesh on hers, pressing in from all angles.

They were everywhere, the world was burning, she was trapped, alone, desperate-

When her eyes opened for the second time, she noticed one fundamental difference between this and the last time she woke. There was a memory, barely there, a small dent in the blockade in her mind, but a memory nonetheless.

Who were those people? Why was she surrounded by corpses, and why did they look like that? No human should look like that, like they were rotting from the outside in, all fundamentally wrong.

Her name.

She remembered her name.

"She's awake." A voice came from her left, and she turned her head to see Muscles and the young boy sat beside her bed. The child was holding her hand, and dark bags smudged under his eyes. He looked as if he'd aged ten years in a day, and her heart lurched.

She felt sick - from the head injury or the pressure of his palm on hers, all she could think about was that damn memory, but either way she removed it under the guise of holding her head and moving into a sitting position. She cast her eyes around the room, and saw that she was lying in the bed in that single room in that wooden building they had found earlier. One glance out the hole in the wall that passed for a window revealed that the sky was pitch black and riddled with stars.

Holy fuck her ribs hurt.

She winced, raising one hand to cup her side, and let out a groan. "What the fu- shuck, happened?" She asked, and Muscles leant back in his chair, crossing his large biceps over his chest. His dark skin was slightly paler than usual.

"You clonked your head when the doors closed. Wouldn't wake up."

Memories of what had happened assaulted her, and her eyes widened. "Luke-"

"Didn't make it out." He said bluntly. Her stomach rolled with nausea. "He pushed you out, saved your life. You would have been a pancake if it weren't for him."

"I'll have to thank him the next time I see him then."

The young boy leant forwards in his chair, curly hair bouncing across his forehead. "You gave us all a real scare. Even this shank was worried. You clonked your noggin real hard."

"Where's George and that other dude?" She asked.

"Out by the doors. They haven't opened since they closed."

"Which was when?"

"Hours ago. You've been out nearly the whole night. Got no way of knowing, but we recon it's gonna be dawn soon. We tried to call out for Luke but he didn't answer." Muscles responded. A crease had formed between his brows, and he ran a hand over his bald head in worry.

"Do you think they'll open again?"

"Lord knows." He shook his head, and a dark silence enveloped the shack, thick and heavy with unspoken words and terror.

"He's... he's alright, isn't he?" The young boy asked. "Luke, I mean. He's alright, right?"

"'Course he is." She smiled soothingly at him, but feared that the strain around her eyes undermined the comfort she was trying to offer. "He just got locked in there, that's all. Until we figure out a way to get the doors open again, the worst thing he has to worry about is lack of food. But he can eat when he gets back." She didn't fancy bringing up the severe lack of anything edible on their side of the walls. "He'll be fine, there's nothing out there."

Speaking of food, how the hell were they going to eat?

She nodded her head, looking a lot more confident than she felt, and decided promptly to change the subject. "I - I remembered my name. Not that it's very helpful," she said. "It's Ada. Not sure if it means anything to you or something, but yeah."

"Ada." The young boy nodded. "It suits you. I still can't remember shuck about who I am, but this shank remembered his name when you were out." He kicked Muscles' shin, and the dark skinned teenager responded by thwacking him upside the head.

"Names Alby." He nodded curtly.

"Pleasure to meet you." Ada grinned, and he smiled back, looking as polite and well mannered as she had seen him so far. She glanced out the window, seeing the beginnings of dawn start to unfurl as the sky lightened to a deep purple. Her stomach gave a reminding grumble of her starvation.

"Do we have any food?" She asked, and Alby stood up. She followed his lead, wincing slightly at the pain that flashed through her skull and rib, and the younger boy followed as Alby led the way out of the room.

"We were thinking about checking that box we came up in. George said he remembered seeing crates and boxes and stuff in there. Might be something useful in them."

When they reached the exit of the building and made their way across the glade, the sky was lightening at a rapid rate to a light purple. She realised with a jolt that she must have been out for longer than she thought if the sky was already getting lighter - it had barely been dark when she almost got trapped in the maze.

She could distantly spot George and the other boy pacing by the north doors, gripping their hair and conversing in frantic whispers. She shuddered, unease prickling across her skin. Poor Luke was trapped all alone in that maze for the night, and although the temperature may not have changed a degree since the previous day, who knew what was lurking in the corridors of that place. With what she had seen, anything was possible.

The guilt rose inside her before she could stop it. Luke had sacrificed himself for her, not knowing who she was or if he would survive, and he had still pushed her through those doors when he could have just as easily saved himself. He made a choice, and though she was glad to still be walking the earth, she still trembled at the thought of whatever could be happening to him right now because he chose to put her over himself.

Alby and the young boy didn't look like they were blaming her though. They were both obviously exhausted, with dark splotches staining under their eyes and their movements sluggish from lack of food or water, but their expressions were painfully blank. She couldn't figure out what they were feeling at all, and that unsettled her more than it should have.

The box was in the centre of the Glade, and Ada, Alby, and their young friend made their way towards it quickly. They reached it within less than a minute, and Alby hauled the doors open. Dozens of crates and boxes littered the inside, leaving very little room for much else, and she wondered briefly how the hell all six of them had managed to fit.

"Jesus Christ, there's a lot of baggage in here."

"Yeah, hopefully they've got something decent to eat in them. I'm starving. Help me get these things out."

The three of them began to haul the crates out of the box and onto the grass, and Alby cracked each one open with a large rock he found on the ground.

"Oh thank the gods."

Three of the boxes were crammed with food, ranging from fresh fruit, breads, vegetables, raw meat, all neatly separated. Another contained dozens of bottles of water, but there was a tap in the kitchen that she had spotted earlier, so Ada wasn't too worried about hydration. There were a few boxes with spare clothes and medical supplies, basic necessities such as bandages and salve.

"Oi George! Other kid I don't know the name of yet! C'mere!" She called out, and the two made their way over to them.

"I remembered my name." The dark haired boy said, and although the news should have inspired joy his eyes were heavy with sadness. "My name's Carson."

"Ada." She tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace as Carson nodded once before glancing down at the assortment of food and whistling.

"About time." He said as he dug into a loaf of bread. "Any longer and I think I may have starved."

"Don't be so dramatic." George huffed. "You can last a week with no food. It's the water you've got to watch out for."

Ada hummed in agreement around a mouthful of bread and cheese. Beside her, her young friend was dramatically attacking his own loaf and guzzling mouthfuls of water until she had to pry them away from him in fear of him throwing up.

"Hey! I was eating that!"

"If you don't slow down you're gonna be sick."

"Yes mom." The young boy rolled his eyes. Ada stuck her tongue out at him in response. There was a heavy silence, a pregnant pause, and George looked out to the maze doors with a miserable expression.

"What do we do now?" He asked, and Ada bit the inside of her cheek in thought.

"There's not much we can do. The sky's getting lighter now, and it would probably be best if we could get an idea of what time it is, maybe then we can keep track of the doors if they open and close at certain times."

"Good idea." Alby nodded, discarding his apple core in the grass beside him. "I can get to work on finding a place for all this food to go so it doesn't go stale or melt or something."

Carson stood to his feet, shaking out the cramps in his legs, and jerked his chin towards one of the old sheds attached to the main building. "I'm gonna go see if there's anything in there, take a good look around. If there's any weapons or supplies or something it'll be useful to know where they are."

"Smart." Ada nodded, a curled tendril of fiery hair spilling into her vision. She reached up impatiently to move it away. "What do you say little fella?" She looked down at her young friend. "Wanna go take a look at those walls?"

The boy nodded, and together they set off across the Glade and towards the monstrous walls, towering in their might and glory. In the early daytime, shadows danced in the cracks in the old stone, and the ivy swayed in the light breeze. The innocent gesture was somehow threatening, although perhaps that was because she was considering everything as a threat ever since she woke up in that box.

"How do you think they made these things?" The boy asked, wide eyes flickering with curiosity. "I mean, can you imagine how much manpower and time it would have taken to construct an entire maze? Especially one of this size and height." He blew out a breath through his round cheeks. "It's fascinating, isn't it?"

"You like building things, huh?"

His face dropped. "I can't remember. I think so, though. Something about it excites me."

Ada had just opened her mouth to answer when a sickening grinding sound filled the air, the exact same as the night before. She clamped her hands over her ears, recognising the sound immediately. Painfully slowly, the massive slabs of metal and stone itched open, a chilling breeze greeting them as they watched the maze appear. Ada's jaw dropped as she lowered her hands, the horrendous crunching sound now no more than a ringing in her ears.

"Holy shit." She muttered in disbelief. "Alby! Carson! George! C'mere, you gotta see this!"

The three boys appeared at her side in less than ten seconds, all out of breath. George's hands were covered in dirt and Carson clutched a knife in his hands, three more strapped to his belt. He held them out to her, George, and Alby, claiming that he found them in the shed.

"The doors opened." Alby said, the disbelief in his voice matching his bemused expression. "What, do they open every day and close at night or something?"

"Looks that way." George nodded. His eyes lit up as he raised his hand to cup over his mouth. "LUKE!" He yelled. "LUKE, THE DOORS ARE OPEN, COME ON!"

Silence met them.

"LUKE!"

"Where is he?" Ada muttered to Alby, who was bouncing his leg anxiously beside her. "Did he try and find a way out? Do you think he got lost?"

"I'm going to go look for him." Alby said, taking a step forward.

Carson's hand clamped around his large bicep, a look of worry marring his freckled face. "Hang on — you sure that's a good idea? What if they close again?"

"The sun's only just come up, I'm sure it'll be fine. Even if they do close, what's one night in the maze?"

Ada nodded and edged closer to the gaping entrance. "I'll come with. Two pairs of eyes are better than one." Alby nodded his approval. "George, Carson, little friend who's name I do not yet know, if you could stay behind and start working on patching this place up that would be great. Little guy said he likes building, right? Maybe you could start patching up the... homestead." At Alby's raised eyebrow, she shrugged. "That's what we'll call it. Besides, if we're gonna be sleeping there, it needs to be a bit more stable than what it already is."

Five pairs of eyes moved towards the practically collapsing building at the other side of the glade, and the twelve year old winced at its condition. "Alright." He nodded. "Carson, wanna help?"

Carson cast a wary glance towards the maze and his three companions and pursed his lips, but wisely kept his mouth shut as he nodded firmly. "Sure. Just don't spend too long out there, okay? Last thing we need is another Luke. See you later."

Ada winced at his words, but nodded curtly and turned to George. "Maybe you could-"

"Oh hell no. First of all, the only person I take orders from is me. Second of all, I want out of this place as much as you guys do. If it takes going out there to do that, then that's what I'll do." He gripped his knife firmly in his hand, and Ada tried to ignore the fact that the dull blade would be a practically useless defence as she fiddled with her own weapon.

"Alright then. We'll keep an eye on the sky." Alby said as he turned to the maze. "We'll cover more ground if we run it. You ready?"

"As I'll ever be." Ada nodded. They didn't speak again, rounding the corner and vanishing into unknown territory.

—

"Is it possible to die from exhaustion?" George whined as he collapsed against the sturdy stone wall. Sweat clung to his shirt and stuck it to his apparently very well defined chest, and he pulled at it bitterly as if wishing it wasn't there. "Because if it is, I'll see y'all in the afterlife. Peace out."

Ada scoffed and kicked his foot, shaking her head as she took a seat on the stone expanse that made up the dusty ground. They had been running for hours now, although she had no exact way to tell, and the colour of the sky was a brilliant shade of blue. The sun was just beyond its peak, its light a small comfort in the dark corridors. If she guessed correctly, the doors would be closing in around five hours, leaving plenty of time for them to explore a little more and make it back before that happened.

Alby had come up with the brilliant idea of marking the walls with an X to make sure they didn't get lost, and she paused to carve another into the wall beside her. She had noticed less than a minute in that the walls had changed. The opening she and Luke went down yesterday and closed up, and when she pointed this out to Alby he nodded and said that they had all heard the grinding and crunching of the walls continuously throughout the night.

"Don't be so dramatic."  Alby  scoffed.

"Dramatic?" Ada repeated, seemingly offended. "I'm with him on this one. We have been running for hours." She emphasised her point by flopping bonelessly onto the ground with a cheeky grin. "I can't feel my legs – oh the light... is this heaven? Jesus take the wheel-"

She saw Alby roll his eyes, but a small grin tugged at the corners of his lips. "I'm sure you'll both survive." He shook his head. "And if not, we'll make sure to put 'death by running' on your gravestones."

"With the quote 'Jesus take the wheel' in italics." She added with a grin.

George's head rose as he looked at Alby with a hopeful expression. "Will it be in a fancy font?"

"As fancy as his handwriting is, yes." She laughed. "Unfortunately we don't have access to computers, so engraving it is pretty much as good as it's gonna get."

"What a shame." George pouted. "Guess we'll  just have to hold on a little longer then, Ada. At least until you can remember us with a fancy font."

Ada snorted and took a sip of the water bottle Alby handed her, relishing in the feeling of the cold liquid soothing her burning throat. Her legs hurt like hell, and there was a fire raging in her bruised ribs that knocked the breath right out of her lungs. George was in no better shape as he groaned out a string of curse words and began to massage his legs.

Alby, however, seemed to be completely unaffected by the long run, and was idly stretching as he cast his gaze around the narrow corridor. The towering walls on either side of them cast thick shadows, the cold on them more pronounced now that she had stopped running and her heart was slowing in her chest once more.

"Looks like we still have some time before we need to head back. Luke couldn't have made it too far. He would have collapsed from exhaustion at some point."

"I know the feeling." Ada grumbled, a hand on her ribs.

George scoffed and shot her a grin, which she quickly returned as Alby turned to them with his hands on his hips. "You two ready to go?"

"Already?" George looked like a wounded puppy as he stared up at his friend with wide eyes. "But- but-"

"Come on." Alby huffed, pulling him up with a groan. He bent down to do the same to Ada, but the girl was already on her feet, brushing off her sweat-damp clothes.  

"You guys are cooking dinner tonight, that's all I'm saying." She said with a huff.

They set off into the maze again in a comfortable sort of silence, broken only by the scratching of the knife on the wall and the ragged breathing that came with gradual exhaustion. Corner to corner they turned, lost in a sea of stone, and just as she was about to ask to take another break Alby's hand shot out to halt them in their tracks.

"What's wrong?" George asked, peering over his shoulder as Ada took a step forward, suddenly anxious.

It wasn't unusual for ivy to line the Maze's walls. In fact, it became a common sight on the run, draped over a large majority of the stone and swinging from atop the mighty structure in strings.

The ivy lining this wall, however, was completely torn to shreds, as if hacked away by a blade, strewn over the floor and across the walls in clumps.

But that wasn't what made her heart jam into her throat. It was the blood that stained the earth red, splattered across the walls, staining the floor, the putrid stench of death pungent in the air.

"What the actual fuck-" George cut himself off with a gag as the three finally registered the iron like scent of someone's insides staining the air. It was pungent, choking her, and Ada gagged on it as she pressed the back of her hand to her face to cover her mouth and nose.

When Alby caught sight of Ada taking a step forward, his hand darted out to catch her arm, but missed. "Hey, Ada, maybe you shouldn't-"

But she was already moving, hands trembling slightly despite her determination, to inspect the blood splattered across the walls and ground. There was so much of it. No one could lose this much blood and still be alive. It was impossible.

She pushed down the logical part of her brain telling her that there was only one person this could belong to.

"What do you think happened?"

"Looks like someone got butchered." She couldn't help the bitterness that seeped into her voice. She brushed her hair back away from her face and crouched down in order to run a finger through the clotting red substance. She rubbed her fingers together, the blood slick on her skin, and fought to push down the nausea as she turned to her friends. "It's relatively fresh. Some of it's clotted, some's still drying. It's hard to say how long it's been there, but my guess is a night at most. No longer than 12 hours. Maybe less."

George blanched and ran a hand through his brown curls. "Do you think... Luke?"

"Let's not jump to conclusions." Ada's voice wavered as she spoke. "Whatever happened to whoever's blood this is... they can't still be alive, but there's no reason to think that it might be Luke."

Both George and Alby were staring at her with blatant horror, and she opened her mouth to ask why when she felt a drop of something fall onto her cheek.

Was it raining?

She reached up to brush it away, but then it happened again, and again, and it took her a few seconds to recognise that it wasn't water that was dripping onto her cheek, but rather something red.

Blood red.

Ada gulped. "... something's above me, isn't it?"

In sync, Alby and George slowly raised their heads and cast their gaze to the upper sections of the walls, and Ada winced in fear at the way Alby's face drained of colour and the strangled broken gasp that tore its way from George's throat. Another drop of blood fell against her cheek, and as she finally raised her head, she wished with every fibre of her being that she hadn't.

She couldn't keep the scream in her throat as her eyes met the twisted and broken body suspended in the ivy above her. Luke's eyes were wide and glassy, his face ashen and blue and splattered with blood and still twisted with horror and so overall dead it was like a slap to the face.

His arms were tangled in the ivy, one obviously broken, keeping his dead weight suspended, and one of them had such a deep gash by the elbow she could see the faint glimmer of bone in the afternoon light. His torso was slashed at and littered with purple bruises that were barely distinguishable beneath all the clotted blood that stemmed from the deep gashes and chunks torn from his stomach and chest. His legs — or more accurately leg — was torn to shreds. One of them was missing and hanging from the ivy several feet from his body, and was missing a foot.

She couldn't hear George throwing up behind her, or hear Alby's muffled curses and disgusted gags, couldn't hear anything over the rushing of blood in her ears and the pounding of her heart in her chest. She was suspended underwater, trapped as she drowned, the entire world on pause as she stared into the glossy eyes of the dead teenager who had saved her life.