"How long have we been here?" I asked, my back against the wall.

Cameron shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe twenty minutes or so?"

"Feels like hours."

We had made it to the center, and had been waiting there for Notch knows how long. No one had shown up.

"You sound like Jenna and Jeremy." Shane commented. He had made himself busy by pulling a slime ball out of his backpack and bouncing it off of the wall.

"That has got to carry some sort of germ." Skylar muttered, watching Shane bounce the slime off of the wall for the hundreth time.

"The slime, the wall, or Shane?" I joked, hoping to ease whatever tension was between us. I didn't understand why she was so freaked about the thing the clone said.

She smiled a little. "All three."

"Hey!" Shane exclaimed.

"Where do you think they are?" I asked, staring at one of the entrances to the center. "It's been a while."

"Tyler, I swear, it's been like twenty minutes." Skylar replied, her normal stoic expression back on her face.

"Besides, we have no clue how big this maze is. They could anywhere. It could be hour-"

Just as he spoke, I heard a loud, familiar voice shout from one of the entrances.

"That's the center, Quinn! We made it! We freaking made it!"

"Jenna?" Shane called. "Jenna, we're in here!"

"Are you nuts?" Skylar exclaimed. "They could be clones!"

"Clones?" Jenna asked, walking through one of the entrances with Quinn at her heels. "Oh, tell me we get awesome clones that fight for us and stuff! That would be so cool!"

"Hardly." Skylar muttered.

"I don't see anything off about either of them, Skylar." Cameron reasoned. "I think this really is them."

"Uh-duh? Who else would we be?" Jenna asked, tilting her head.

"Clones that want to kill us." Skylar said, narrowing her eyes at the both of them.

"Woah dude, chill. I'm all Jenna. And hey, if we do run across any of those clones-"

She pulled an axe out of her backpack. "I have an axe! REET! REET! REET!"

Skylar stopped glaring. "It's them."

"No kidding." Shane agreed.

Jenna put her axe back in her bag. "So, have any of you guys seen my doofus brother?"

"If any of us had, he'd be with us." I pointed out.

"Oh. Right. So let's see, we've got Tyler the kid, Stoic Skylar, Shane with the sword, Cam Cam the brain, me, Kippers, and the Mace. So that means we're missing..."

Jenna counted on her fingers. "Alyssa Jetson and my bro bro. Sweet! Only two more!"

"Make that one."

I spun around at the sound of another voice, only to see Alyssa, with another Alyssa pressing a gun to the back of her head.

Instantly, Skylar and Shane had their swords in their hands, pointing them straight at her.

"Watch yourselves." The Alyssa clone smiled. "One more step and your friend here will truly be 'out of this world'."

None of us moved a muscle, except Macey, who inched a little closer to me, her knuckles white from gripping the dagger.

"Now, let's get down to business, shall we?" The clone spoke. "Here's the deal. You are all going to stay here, nice and quiet, and let nine of us escape."

"And if we don't?" Shane asked, staring her down.

Skylar glanced at Shane as if to ask, 'What are you, stupid?'

The Alyssa clone shrugs. "Your friend here dies. Let me tell you, I've only had this gun for a little over an hour, but dang, is it ever effective. I'm sure you'd rather stay in here then let Alyssa here die?"

No one said a word.

"That's what I thought." She smirked. "And, by the way, I wouldn't try and attempt escape either."

At her words, clones walked through each entrance. Almost exact copies of myself, Macey, Jenna, Quinn and Jeremy blocked every entry.

"You aren't my brother...where is he? Where's the real Jeremy?" Jenna demanded, her axe in her hands.

"Haven't been able to track him down quite yet." The Alyssa clone muttered. "I'll give him credit, the boy's fast for a bacca, but that's not saying we still won't win."

The Jeremy clone, standing to the left of the Alyssa clone, stared directly at Jenna, who glared in response. I'd never seen her so mad.

A few seconds passed, however, and Jenna's face changed to one of confusion, and then realization.

"Jenna, what's- Cameron started to say, presumably having seen her expression, but was immediately cut off.

"TAKE THIS, COPY PASTED!"

The Jeremy clone launched his axe straight at the Alyssa clone's head, and it hit it's mark. The clone dissipated.

That wasn't a clone.

That was definitely the real Jeremy.

Jenna turned towards the clone of herself, launching at it and tackling it to the ground, slicing her axe into it.

Before I could think 'Hey, I should probably start helping', the clone of myself  shoved me backwards, knocking me off balance. He reached toward an amulet of his own, although this one's center was red, not purple, and his sword appeared in his hands with zero effort.

Unluckily for me, my sword had vanished back into the amulet while we were searching for the center.

My clone didn't waste any time on a monologue. He sliced the sword at my arm, but thankfuly I managed to dodge, attempting to kick his foot out from under him.

He stumbled a bit, and I used the time to get back up on my feet.

'Come on, I need my sword...' I thought. 'If I get my sword I can help beat these guys...'

My amulet glowed, the cool metal hilt of the sword once again in my palm.

I thought I had the sword thing figure out, but there was no time to dwell on it. Clone me wasn't fazed by my sword, and took a swing for my arm. I stumbled backward when the blade hit my skin, cutting a gash into it.

Gritting my teeth, I stabbed my sword forward, thankfully hitting my clone square in the stomach. He dissipated into smoke. 

"These suckers go down easy!" Shane shouted from the other end of the room, taking out the Macey clone. 

I felt a tug at my stomach, watching what looked like my sister go up in smoke. 

It's not her, I reminded myself. Chill out. 

I shook my head, and turned my head to see Skylar finishing off the Quinn clone. 

Macey looked up, her hands shaking. "Is...is it over?" She whispered, her voice barely audible. 

"I think so." I responded. 

Of course, that immediately jinxed it. 

An explosion burst a hole through the ceiling, knocking us all backwards onto the ground. 

I looked up to see a group of Shadows in front of us. 

"Sorry to crash your little dress-up party, Inlusios, but there's a new guy in town who says that it's past these children's curfew." One of them spoke.

There had to be at least twenty of them. We wouldn't be able to take them all at once, not even with luck on our side. 

"Can't get a break today, can we?" Skylar, who was beside me, muttered, pushing herself to her feet. 

Alyssa was staring up at the sky, seemingly transfixed, while the others were all getting to their feet. 

"Oh man, you guys again?" Jenna asked. "Come on, we've beaten you guys before!" 

While they were focused on Jenna, I moved over to Alyssa to help her up. 

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked, keeping my voice quiet as Jenna shouted at the Shadows, Jeremy joining in. 

"I think I can get us out of here. I couldn't fly out of here earlier because I couldn't bust a hole in the ceiling, but now we've got one, so..." She responded, keeping her voice quiet. 

"How can one jetpack-" 

"Don't worry, Tyler, I'll do the work. You just get everyone to get in a circle, okay? That's all I need." 

"Hey! You two!" 

I stood up straight when I heard the Shadow speak, and Alyssa did too. 

"I wouldn't attempt to escape. Someone's just going to hurt, and we don't want that at all." The Shadow spoke, a sadistic tone in his voice. "Now, if you kids will kindly just come with us, this will be a lot easier for all of us." 

"If you think we're going down without a fight, you are mistaken." Shane said, his grip on his sword tightening. 

The group of Shadows suddenly disappeared, reappearing in a circle around us, trapping us. 

We moved inwards, I was thanking Notch that we were in a circle already. 

"Well then." Another Shadow spoke. "If it's a fight you want-" 

"Guys! Hold on to someone!" Alyssa's voice rang out, and I immediately did what she said, grabbing Cameron's arm with zero hesitation. 

The others took a second to figure out what she meant, but they all did. Jenna latched on to my other arm. When Alyssa, one of the happiest girls in our group, starts barking orders, you listen. 

"Oh, that's cute. They're all holding hands." One of the Shadows laughed. "What, are you going to beat us with the power of teamwork?" 

"Not quite." Alyssa grinned, pulling a switch on the back of her suit and grabbing onto Skylar's hand. 

We shot up into the sky, a chain of people desperately clinging to each other so that we wouldn't fall. 

"Stop them!" A Shadow screamed. 

"Alyssa, get us out of here!" Shane, who was a few people away from me, yelled. 

"Trying!" Alyssa called back. "Having trouble controlling this thing!" 

We started moving to the left, not as fast as when we went up, but still fast enough for me to squeeze Cameron's hand as hard I as could and try not to look down. 

The entire chain suddenly lurched to the left, and Jenna let out a blood-curdling scream. It took me a second to realize that she wasn't just screaming, she was screaming someone's name. 

Jeremy.

I broke my rule of not looking down, and saw Jeremy falling, falling, falling, a scream echoing through my ears coming from him. 

I couldn't do anything, I couldn't look away. 

All I could do was sit and scream and watch as Jeremy hit the ground, and stopped moving. 

Screaming launched from our chain, and at the wrong time, we started moving faster and faster away. 

"No, no, take me back! Take me back, he's okay, we have to go help him! Tyler, tell them we have to go back!" Jenna screamed, hysteria taking over. 

I was frozen in place. Jeremy was dead. Jeremy was gone. 

By now, the Shadows were tiny specks in the distance, but that didn't stop them from taking one final shot. 

I didn't register that something had gone wrong until we were all free-falling towards the ground. A river was only a few blocks away, but we wouldn't hit it in time.

Somehow, my thoughts resonated through all of the screaming. 

I thought, Jeremy is dead. 

I thought, I'm going to die. 

I thought, we're all going to die. 

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*insert evil laughter here*

This chapter's where things really start going down. If you thought the kids were going through hell before, just you wait. 

There will be no new chapter next week. I'm going to be on vacation with my family in Disney World, so you guys have to wait a few weeks for the next chapter! I'M SO EVIL TODAY!!!

Also, I'd like to apologize for why this chapter is so late. Basically, technological issues made me have to redo a school project three times, and it was the end of the marking period on Friday, so yeah. Didn't exactly have time for Wattpad, but hopefully I made up for it with the extra long chapter today!

(Inlusio is the Latin word for Illusion, I thought it was a nice name for the creatures in the maze :D)