The Threads Tighten

"I'll hold you to that promise of your gun, Kent." Charlie clapped him on the shoulder as they went through the yellow gate, and turned to the team as they followed "Which means that no more than two of you are allowed to pass out from this cacophony of light."

Wayde grinned and shook his head, but Asher Elliot kept his stoic face smooth and barely even blinked when Malcolm punched him on the shoulder and said "lighten up, old man."

As Asher didn't looked much older than thirty, Christina found this comment more amusing than it was meant to be taken.

She could see the other teams over the walls, and kept Rebecca's blonde hair in sight to her right. To her left, in the blue zone, Giulia waved at her a little.

As they trekked through the path, guns out, Charlie noticed her lack of weapon. "Didn't the Guides give you anything?" he asked in surprise. She shook her head, feeling stupid.

"I guess they didn't think you had much in you. Well, we'll prove them wrong, won't we?" Charlie smiled. "When we stop, I'll teach you how to use a gun. In the meantime, take this." he pulled a thick knife from a sheath and handed it to her. "Just be careful where you swing it."

Christina felt the heavy blade and thanked Charlie, and felt oddly better than she now had a line of defense, if a small one.

Christina had prepared herself for an interminable walk, but they hadn't gone more than fifty yards into the maze when a low whining began to fill her ears. She glanced timidly at Malcolm to see if he had noticed, and sure enough his brown was furrowed and he shook his head slightly.

"Hold it." Kent held up his hand, slowing his steps, and called out "Caster!"

Adrian's voice sounded thinly from the team to the left. "I hear it. Keep your eyes open."

They began to advance more warily, and suddenly Scarlet's voice sounded from the far left "what is that thing?"

"Jump!" said Max in ringing tones, and there was a bang as twelve feet leapt into the air and came crashing back down.

"There!" Orion's voice came near Adrian, and the team next to them leapt as one.

"I guess we're next." Charlie said grimly, his eyes on the floor in front of them. Christina's heart was pounding in her throat.

A shining beam of golden light came skimming across the floor towards them, bringing a wave of heat. Christina did not need to be told to leap over it when it got near to her feet. It swept underneath them and receded into the darkness behind them.

"You alright?" Wayde asked her when they had landed, Christina somewhat unsteadily.

"Yeah. What was that?"

"I don't know." Kent said, his turning from the right where he had looked to make certain that the last team had gotten through it safely "But I think it might come back."

They continued forward, but had not gone far when it was Malcolm who spotted it. "It's coming back!"

They leapt again, but when the heat passed safely beneath them it hit the corner they had been nearing and ricocheted back so that they had to jump again.

"It's bouncing." Charlie snarled, then called to the other teams "They bounce!"

"Like lasers on a mirror." Wayde said wonderingly, bending to touch the corner. "How is the physics of this possible?"

"Ask your glowing skin." Malcolm said dryly. "Let's just keep moving."

Charlie nodded, and looked at Kent, who looked at the blurry lights that were the other teams as if to guess the distance with his eyes, then nodded. They kept forward. Every three minutes the bouncer would come back, then every five, then every ten. Sometimes it would bounce around, and once Christina had to leap twice in a row so fast she landed on her back on the floor, feeling the excess heat burn her arms.

Wayde and Malcolm pulled her up. "You alright?" Wayde asked in concern. She nodded, out of breath and rubbing her spine. Charlie and Kent retraced their steps back to her. Asher looked on from the side.

"I'm fine, I just lost my balance." she insisted. She appreciate their attentiveness all the same, however.

Charlie examined her elbows, which were red and stinging from the burns. "No more than second degree, nothing a little time won't fix." he blew on them, then patted her shoulder. "We had to ration out the healing equipment equally, so if it's alright with you we'll save it in case something worse happens."

"Yeah, of course." Christina nodded and wiped her hair from her eyes. "Let's keep going."

"She's a trooper." Wayde smiled and followed the Captains.

In the back of their minds they were all waiting for that one sound, that ear splitting cry of pain that seemed fated to come from somewhere. Christina knew they all feared it would be their own lips forming the agonizing scream, and each jump became more and more desperate. She could tell, also, that the teams were getting farther apart. The winding mess of lights made it impossible to tell if a corner led to a dead end or not, if a path was taking them closer to the heart of the maze or to the sides. Kent's eyes got darker as they continued and more frequently he looked around, locking his gaze onto Adrian, Alpha or Max. Charlie seemed to be picking up some of his restlessness and would scratch his head and look about more often than not. Malcolm became as silent as Asher, and Wayde gave up attempted conversation in favor of rubbing his eyes and muttering what sounded like Shakespearean sonnets under his breath.

The darkness became heavier as the lights became brighter. Christina's head was heavy and her eyes ached. Her feet began to drag and despite the food and water given to her by Kent only a few minutes earlier, she felt weak, much like her first day on the Beach.

After a little while Wayde tapped Kent on the shoulder and jerked his head towards Christina. Kent stopped the walking and turned around to face her. "Getting tired?" he asked kindly.

"Well...yeah, but I'm fine." she said staunchly. His outline was becoming fuzzy. His eyes narrowed, and caught her as she stumbled. "Yes, definitely time to stop and sleep." she heard him say as black spots danced aggravatingly in her vision. "Max!"

Max's voice was faint but audible, and the Captains reached common consensus to stop for six hours.

"We're at a good stretch where we can see if any Bouncers are coming." Kent said as he eased Christina down and handed her a water bottle. "Cage, you and I take first watch."

Christina drank a little water and meditated for a few seconds on the kindness of men before falling asleep, the lights burning in her brain.

There is nothing quite like waking up to the screams of a human in terrible pain. It jerked her out of her slumber so quickly that her head hit her knee as she sat up. "What happened?" she asked, her voice rising in panic.

"Alpha!" bellowed Charlie. "What is it?"

"No one from here!" the voice came back, very faint.

"Adrian!" Kent shouted. "Who?"

There was a tense pause while the scream dissolved into gasps and wails. Then, the light of Adrian's jacket was seen glowing brightly as he stood on top of a wall about half a mile away.

"Giulia!"

"Good God." Kent ran a hand through his hair. Charlie kicked a wall and the remaining four sat silently. Christina felt cold. How bad was it? Was it a Bouncer? Would she live? Her skin felt clammy.

"Get ready to jump." Kent said tersely, pulling her to her feet. "It'll come by here soon."

And it did. Gleaming and burning the Bouncer came by, shining. They all leapt higher than before, remembering the pain in Giulia's voice and having no wish to experience it for themselves.

"Jett's with that team." Malcolm said in a thin voice when they'd landed. "He'll fix her."

"Let's hope so." Wayde said grimly.

"Couldn't we walk on the walls?" Christina suggested timidly.

"I checked, the Bouncers go right through them as well." Charlie said.

"Then how do they Bounce off the corners?" Malcolm asked.

"If I knew, I'd tell you." Charlie snapped. "We have to keep moving."

"Something's going to happen soon, I think." Asher said. It was the first time Christina had heard him speak.

"What makes you say that?" Wayde asked curiously, but with a hint of sarcasm.

"Someone finally got hurt. So now something else has to happen."

"You think that's how it works?" Charlie asked.

Asher jerked his head a little and turned away. Wayde pursed his mouth and kept going down their path. He hadn't taken more than three steps when a rumble like an earthquake filled the maze.

"What the hell?" Charlie stared at the floor, then at Kent, who touched the wall next to him.

"It's breaking." he murmured. "The maze is breaking. Everyone get to the white zone now!"

It must have been a pre-designed plan that if anything went seriously wrong, the group would meet back at the blue zone, because Christina heard Adrian and Alpha echoing the order. Her team began to scramble over the walls. Charlie took her hand and helped her over the shuddering barriers.

Without warning, glowing cracks appeared in the floors. And from them large, pulsating beasts, not unlike the dogs from level two but larger, with more teeth and claws, began to come forth, uttering eerie cries like the dead emerging from their graves.

Charlie and Kent had their guns off their shoulder in an instant, and Wayde only moments behind. Malcolm began to throw knives. The bullets and steel buried themselves in the luminous flesh, and sparkling liquid oozed forth. The beasts shivered but did not stop coming out.

"Get to the white zone, damn it!" Kent sent a barrage of ammunition at the nearest creature, who at last curled up like a bug, and it's light blinked out. Christina started to climb to the top of the wall.

Something like a blade whizzed by Christina's face, cutting her cheek, and she stumbled back. Something grabbed her leg in a spiny grip, and she was pulled off the wall. A monster reared it's claw at her, and instinctively she pulled out the knife Charlie had given her, swinging it wildly from side to side. It advanced, and she shouted for one of her team members, though she knew they were busy and in the din they would not hear her.

Her pessimism was short lived, however, for Wayde saw her plight and in an instant bore down on the creature. Some bullets found their mark but other went pinging from the shell, endangering Christina. Still swinging the knife, she wondered whether it would be better to die by glowing animal or bullets.

The decision did not have to be made, however, for amazingly someone pushed her flat against the wall and used his body as a shield from both aggressors. She heard a low moan and prayed desperately that her savior wasn't getting killed. She clung to the person's shirt and buried her face in it, trying to block out the noise as if it would help her stay alive.

Abruptly the huge light in front of her died and she realized that the beast must have finally been killed. The place still shook, but it seemed that, for now, the danger of the animals was past.

The person shielding her stumbled backwards, and to her coinciding relief and horror, Christina saw that it was Asher, and that he was not dead, but that she had plunged her knife halfway into his thigh in her wild swinging.

She ran to him as he doubled over, breathing heavily. "Oh my...I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, are you ok? Speak, say something, please don't die or something, I'm so sorry -"

He fell heavily to his knees and shook his head, waving her away. She backed up, a tentative hand still on his head.

"Good hit, you got the bastard." said Wayde, and Christina turned with rising anger until the realized that the creature also bore a wound from her knife.

"I got Asher too." she said miserably. "Can't you help him?"

"I'm not sure there's much I can do." Wayde said, his brow furrowing in concern.

"I'm fine." Asher said weakly, and Wayde snorted.

"You won't die." he consented "But you're bleeding like hell. Kent!"

Kent and Charlie appeared, with Malcolm striding behind them. All three were covered in phosphorescent blood.

"Asher got hit from Christina's knife." Wayde explained. "Damn good thing, too, or one of the bullets might have hit her." He slapped Asher's shoulder, then patted it awkwardly as the man's face tightened in pain.

"I'll see what I have." Kent knelt and began pulling things from his pack. A small medicine bottle with a syringe proved to have pain relief and blood clotting ointment, and he injected it near the wound.

"You're a good man, Asher." he said without a trace of sarcasm. Asher didn't move, and Christina hung back, a terrible guilt gnawing at her stomach.

"Are we in the white zone?" Wayde asked, looking around.

Kent looked grim as he stood up from Asher's crouching form. "No. We're in pink."

"Adrian's zone." Charlie said.

"We can help Asher get over." Wayde said, standing up. "Let's get out of here."

No one else moved. Wayde looked around. "Kent, what the hell happened?"

Kent went over to a wall and slammed his fist into the air. It hit a solid, invisible wall.

"We can't get over anymore." he said. "We're stuck in pink until we find a different way through, and my gut tells me that's out."