This is a choose-your-own-adventure kind of story. You, the reader, will at the end of every chapter decide between two options, write the option that suits you best in a review, and when an option has reached FIVE reviews I will continue the story in that direction.

I hope you enjoy your time in the Maze!

I

FIRST IMPRESSION

You don't remember your name.

That's the first thing your disoriented mind can process. You are aware that you are a boy, and you have an idea of what you look like without looking at yourself in a mirror. You do know what a mirror is. It puzzles you, that you know the looks and purpose of a mirror but you can't recall that you've ever looked into one. All of it is confusing, like every thought that goes through your head is chopped off. There's a fog in your head that makes everything uncertain, out of focus somehow. And you can't remember your name, no matter how hard you try.

As you slowly come to and the fog in your head starts to lift from your senses. Every few seconds, a high-pitched screech rips your eardrums, and there's the humming of machinery and the rhythmic whining of metal against metal. Your head is spinning violently, spastically throwing your body left and right. But your muscles are relaxed, numb even, yet the movements continue. You realize that the floor is moving beneath you, in sync with the screeching and the whining. Suddenly, every muscle in your body is on high alert, sending you jumping to your feet.

You hit your head hard into whatever is above you, and you sprawl back onto the floor. Now your head is spinning for real. Nausea takes over and you feel your stomach emptying itself into your mouth. The vomit falls straight through holes in the metal floor, down into the black pit below. You can see it now, as red lights pass by on either side at a steady pace. You are in some sort of cage, maybe fifteen feet wide and ten across. Through the cage you can see only the red lights on the outer walls, going down and down, from blackness to even more blackness. Or are you moving upwards? The more you think about it, the more the cage resembles an elevator.

Is scares the living hell out of you.

With your head still throbbing from the blow, you start screaming. "Help! Somebody help! Help!"

Your words echo empty against the metal walls outside your cage, and the wires attached to the top of it continue to pull you up. A horrifying through crosses your mind — what if they snap and the cage starts falling? Panic grips at your heart, making your brain go viral. You can't remember anything about this, how you got here or where here even is. What it is.

Your ascent seems to increase in speed as the whining and the humming intensifies considerably. You crawl away from every wall, seating yourself against something — a crate? It feels like wood — in the very middle of the cage. You pull your knees up to your chin and can't stop looking down between your legs at the red lights disappearing into the darkness beneath the floor.

Then, sounds and movements altogether, everything stops. You feel like you lift form the floor when the elevator halts abruptly, then you fall back down and grip frantically at the wooden crate behind you. The red lights have gone out, every single one as far as you can see, and an eery silence falls over everything. Nothing moves, not even you, and as frozen by fear as you are, you wait.

And wait. You breathe heavily, your heart racing in your chest. A clicking noise interrupts the silence far, far below you, only the echoes reaching your ears. To listen, but nothing more comes. Time seems to slow down to a full stop, and you keep looking around yourself even though the darkness is so complete it's almost tangible. Your ears register another sound, so distant and muffled you can help but think you're imagining it.

No, it's there, alright. You're sure of it.

Voices.

The next sound is so loud and close it explodes in your ears, like a sledgehammer banging into a metal wall. Hinges scream terribly as some kind of doors open up above your head. Then follows the light, so bright it is like a thousand burning needles driving into your eyeballs. You cover your eyes, too scared to think of what is going on. Your animalistic instincts to flee overcome you, so you hurl yourself toward one of the cage walls and start climbing it.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," comes a voice above you, then follows a thump as if something just landed in the cage. "Calm down, man, calm down. It's okay."

Hands brush your back and you spin around, pressed against the cage wall and your hands hitting blindly at whoever the voice belongs to. The boy — for the voice sure sounded masculine, but not very old — calls out in pain as your nails find skin and tear at it. You hear footsteps as the boy scrambles backwards, then another loud thump. A pair of hands clasp your shoulders and press you hard against the cage wall. A new voice speaks this time, calm and just slightly irritated.

"Easy!" this boy says. "You don' need to bloody kill someone. You're safe, so chill."

For the first time since the light blinded you, you open your eyes to look. In the space between your raised arms you see a mess of blond hair and a pair of dark, almost black eyes looking back at you. Adrenalin is still pumping through your veins. You want to get away, flee, hide. Everything is scary, and nothing seems trustworthy enough to calm you down. Almost without thinking, you curl your hands into fists.

Do you punch the blond boy in the face and try to escape?

OR

Do you faint from the stress of it all?