"Drowning? But how can you be alive to tell us the story?" Marcus asked, having managed to stop the bleeding and make sure that his nose wasn't broken.

Beor gave him a death stare for interrupting and addressed his subsequent words to Tyson instead of answering Marcus's question.

"The story will go much faster if no one interrupts me with stupid questions," Beor said.

He was clearly still resentful at the words exchanged between him and Marcus, which Tyson couldn't blame him for as his friend had no tact.

"I apologize. Marcus just has a curious nature," Tyson said, getting tired of apologizing for Marcus all the time. "Marcus, I am sure that Beor will explain everything to us as well as he can, so let's just hear him out for now. After he finishes, if you still have some questions, you can ask them, okay?"

Marcus wasn't satisfied with that idea but having in mind that it was the best offer that he would get, he decided to agree.

"Fine, I can keep my mouth shut," Marcus said.

Tyson wasn't sure that was the case. Still, he did hope that at least this time, Marcus would be able to keep his word as Beor seemed to possess some information that might help them figure out the whole time-maze business. Besides, he seemed easily agitated, and Tyson didn't want to be put in a situation where he would have to physically defend his friend. Tyson really disliked violence.

After all, violence never solved anything. For that reason, Tyson always preferred to only use it as a last resort when all the other methods had failed.

"As I was saying," Beor said, clearing his throat. "One moment I was drowning in the lake the next I found myself in pitch darkness completely dry."

Marcus was about to interrupt and say that the same thing happened to them as well. However, as he opened his mouth, he remembered his promise and closed it again.

"At first, I thought that I had died and had gone to hell, which was confirmed even further when a large beast appeared out of nowhere," Beor said, shivering at the memory. "Before that thing could run me over, Lorelai appeared and saved my life."

"Lorelai? So, you returned the favor by stalking her and making inappropriate advances," Marcus said, forgetting himself.

"Shut up!" Tyson warned, unsure what might bring Beor over the edge and into another fit of rage.

"Is that what she told you?" Beor asked, pain dancing in his eyes. "That's definitely not true, but I can't say that I am surprised that she lied to you. The maze changes you, and sometimes it's in the worst possible ways."

"What do you mean?" Marcus asked, not understanding anything.

"Marcus, please stop interrupting him. I am sure he will tell us all in his own time," Tyson said sternly.

Finally, Marcus clamped his mouth shut, and Beor could continue with his story.

"So, she took me to one of those hidden safe places and explained more or less what was going on," Beor said, sighing deeply. "At the time, Lorelai was very kind and almost as scared as I was. Still, she explained that since she had been there, she had traveled in time and space and told me about how she stumbled into the safe space away from the monster that roamed the corridors."

Beor ran his fingers through his hair as he recalled how scared, yet happy he was that he wasn't alone in that crazy new world.

"From that day on, we started trying to figure things out together. Having spent so much time together, constantly in danger, we ended up falling in love and becoming a couple," Beor said, smiling lightly at the remembrance of those days. "We weren't safe, but at least we had each other, our feelings for each other."

From the change in the tone of his voice, Tyson knew that the turn in the events was coming. Also, he had a feeling that he could guess what happened.

"Then, one day, we ended up in a place and time neither of us recognized. It terrified both of us, and we scrambled to find any help we could get. That was where we met them, the people who made this whole odd ordeal even more difficult," Beor said.

"Who were they?" Marcus asked with the eagerness of a small child listening to a bedtime story.

Neither Tyson nor Beor reprimanded him as his curiosity was understandable, and it became clear to both of them that Marcus couldn't just keep quiet. It wasn't in his nature.

"We never really learned who exactly they were. All we got is that the couple was far better informed about everything than we were and that they weren't nice people," Beor said, shifting uncomfortably. "I should have known better than to trust them, but we were all alone and scared. So, when they told us they were just like us, we accepted their help, no questions asked."

"What happened?" Marcus asked.

"They robbed us, kept us hostage for some reason," Beor said.

"Wow, how did you get out?" Marcus asked, looking at Beor with fascination.

"Well, they weren't the best of kidnappers as they didn't really keep a close watch on us. They were far too busy making out to pay much attention to anything else," Beor said.

"Sunshine!" Marcus exclaimed in recognition.

"Yes, that's the name she used! How did you know?" Beor asked, suddenly distrustful of Marcus and Tyson.

"We had an encounter with them as well. We managed to escape for similar reasons," Tyson said as simply as possible, hoping that the simplicity of his words would convey the honesty of his heart.

"Well, I guess it didn't harm them as much as we thought it would," Beor said, seeming rather pensive.

"What didn't?" Tyson asked.

"While we were escaping, we took their teleport thingy with us. We had seen them using it earlier on, and we thought it might've been a way out of all this," Beor said.

"Since you are here, I am guessing it's not a way out?" Tyson asked.

"Not as far as we know. It can help us teleport to one place in time, but unfortunately, it's not our own. Still, we found a few useful things along the way," Beor said, allowing a small smile to blossom on his face. "At least she didn't take everything."

"Which gets us back to Lorelai. What did she steal from you and why?" Tyson asked.

"How do you know she stole from me?" Beor asked.

"From what you've already told us. That you've both been played and that Lorelai didn't take everything," Tyson said patiently, having in mind that the guy was justified in not trusting anyone.

"You are definitely much smarter than your friend," Beor said, impressed at how closely Tyson followed everything he said.

"Hey!" Marcus yelled out indignantly, but one look from Tyson stopped him in his ranting tracks.

"After we escaped from those two lovesick lunatics, Lorelai was never the same. She was acting odd and shifty, but I thought she was just scared and traumatized by being kept a prisoner. Only recently did I start realizing it might be more than that when I started catching her in lies and sneaking out when I was asleep. Maybe that's why she decided to make a move now," Beor said.

"Were you kept in different places while you were their hostages?" Tyson asked, getting an idea of what might have happened.

"Yes, how did you guess?" Beor asked.

"Because Lorelai's strange behavior might have been a consequence of them turning her to their side, or at least their way of thinking," Tyson said, thinking things through.

He remembered all the cases he read about where the kidnapped formed a psychological bond with their captors, sometimes even protecting them.

"What do you mean?" Beor asked.

"Psychological torture or some other methods could make her think that her way of dealing with this whole situation, with other Mazers, was a wrong one. Maybe they convinced her that the only way to get home is by being on their side," Tyson said.

"And how do they plan on doing that? By killing other Mazers?" Beor asked, unable to even imagine that the woman he loved so much could do something as horrible as that.

"It's possible," Tyson said, thinking about it. "Still, if she doesn't have it in her to commit murder, she might just be precipitating their demise."

"How?" Beor asked.

"Do you have any of that powder or whatever it is that makes people forget things?" Tyson asked.

Beor started rummaging through the bag again only to get up disappointed.

"We used to have some of that stuff. We used it to make people forget when they saw us suddenly materializing before them. Why would she take that?" Beor asked.

"I think she might use it on Mazers to make them forget everything they have learned about the maze," Tyson said.

"Why would she do that?" Beor asked.

"Because that way, they don't have to actually kill anyone. They end up dead anyway because they forget about that Minotaur thing or make some other fatal mistakes. As far as we know, they might even die of old age after never finding a way out of the maze," Tyson said.

"Tyson, I don't want that to happen to us," Marcus said with a trembling voice.

"It won't happen to us," Tyson said firmly.

"How can you be so sure?" Marcus asked.

"Because we will find her and stop her," Tyson said, hoping they could do so before the fall of the Alamo.