𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪
chapter zero

CAMERA ON

       The room was quiet, save for the faint hum of machinery in the background. The man sat perfectly still, his posture stiff, his hands resting on the table between them, fingers laced in a deliberate pose of calm authority. His voice, when he spoke, was low and clipped, devoid of warmth.

   "Tell me about the maze," he said.

    The girl flinched at the sound, barely perceptible, but enough to betray her unease. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her fingers restless, twisting around each other. She glanced at the table, avoiding his eyes as if afraid of what she might see there.

     "It was..." Her voice wavered, soft and uncertain. She swallowed hard before continuing. "It was a jungle. Thick trees, vines everywhere. Beautiful, I guess, if you didn't... if you didn't know what it was."

       His expression didn't change. He waited, his silence demanding more.

       "There were walls," she added, her words quick and tumbling over one another. "Big ones. All around us. And the hatch. That was the only way out. Down into the underground maze. But at night..." She faltered, her breath hitching. "At night, it was sealed. The... the things would come out then."

      "What things?" he asked, his tone as sharp as the edge of a blade.

      She hesitated, her gaze flickering to the corner of the room as if searching for an escape. "I don't know what they were," she admitted, her voice barely audible. "They weren't... they weren't normal. Like animals, but worse. They..." Her voice broke, and she bit her lip, hard enough that the tension was visible in her jaw.

     The man tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing. "And WICKED?" he asked.

    She froze. Her breathing grew shallow, and her fingers stilled in her lap. "They... they put us there," she said at last. Her words were slow, like they had to be dragged out of her. "That's all I know. They put us in the maze. They're the reason we were there."

   "Do you remember anything else about them?"

    She shook her head quickly, too quickly, like a reflex she couldn't control. "No," she said. "I—no. Nothing."

    His voice dropped lower, colder, each word deliberate. "What do you remember from before the maze?"

      The girl stiffened, her lips parting as if to answer, but no sound came out. Her brow furrowed, and her hands returned to their restless twisting. "I..." She faltered again, her eyes darting toward the camera in the corner, then back down to the table. "I remember..." She hesitated, her voice trembling. "A woman. I think she was talking to me. She said—she said my name. And to remember... someone. People who loved me. That's it. That's all I know."

     "Nothing else?" he pressed, leaning forward slightly, his voice cutting through her like ice.

       She shook her head again, slower this time, her expression strained. "Sometimes... sometimes there's more. Flashes, maybe. A boy and a girl. I think the girl is me. But I don't—I don't know who they are. It's just pieces, not enough to make sense of anything."

       He leaned back, his posture still rigid, his expression unreadable. "You're not trying hard enough," he said flatly.

       Her breath hitched at his words, her hands clenching into fists. For a moment, it seemed like she might say something, her lips parting as if in protest, but the words never came. Instead, she looked down at the table, her shoulders tense, her silence louder than any response she could have given.

        The man rose from his chair abruptly, the scrape of its legs against the floor sharp and jarring in the stillness. Without another word, he turned and walked toward the door, his movements precise and deliberate. The girl remained seated, her head bowed, her hands trembling slightly as she clutched them together.

       The door hissed shut behind him, and the hum of the machinery was all that remained.

CAMERA OFF : low battery