Are you sure you know the words?
Aris skidded to a stop, his skates sending little ice shavings flying into the air as he glided around to face her. It was amazing how quickly the two of them had both picked up skating so naturally, given their mere few days in the Spring.
Nearly glaring at her now, he spoke out loud in reply. "I'm not an idiot, Rach. Yes, I'm perfectly capable of remembering-"
A bloodcurdling screech from above made both of them go rigid, a terrifying reminder that there were more important things than bickering at the moment. That their friends were out there, risking their lives holding the Shades back with nothing but spears, all so the two of them could get into The Hole and end the monsters' reign once and for all.
"Hurry!" Rachel emphasized, whirling back towards the entrance to The Hole and away from her closest friend, ready to attempt to hold off one of the creatures should it pursue them down here.
Aris glided over to the computer console as fast as he could, digging the jagged fronts of his skates into the ice for some stability as he feverishly jabbed in the code he and Rachel had discovered from the maze's patterns.
F-L-O-A-T, C-A-T-C-H, B-L-E-E-D, D-E-A-T-H, S-T-I-F-F. That's all the machine would take, no space for the last four letters.
It won't let me type the last word! He called out to Rachel mentally, clearing the screen and typing it all again in case he'd done something wrong. But the second attempt yielded the same results: four letters short.
Rachel ditched her spot and skated over to Aris with such a force that her momentum almost drove her into the wall. Her eyes flickering around for an answer, the girl let out a puff of cloudy breath into the cold and stale air, muttering. "Push, Push THIS." She crouched and slammed the heel of her hand into a red button underneath the screen and by the floor that was labeled 'KILL THE MAZE.' A howl from behind them cut off abruptly as a Shade crashed into the ground, having been plucked out of mid-air by the sudden deactivation. It lay limp, not so much as a twitch of the wings of movement. Where are the others? The girl asked, looking over at Aris with her lips pressed flat in concern.
Before he could even respond, as if to answer her question, another body fell onto to turned-off monster with an "OOF!" Aris and Rachel's heads both instinctively snapped in that direction, where Miyoko was jerking her leg upward in attempt to free her foot; one of the blades of her skates had pierced the Shade's skin and wedged itself into its flesh. Finally ripping it free, albeit with some residual Shade-guts still on the silver metal blade, the blonde girl scrunched her nose. "Nasty," she muttered to herself, before sliding off of the creature and finding her footing on the ice once more.
"Miyoko!" Rachel shouted, filled with relief. "Are you okay? What about everybody else?"
The girl didn't answer at first, but rather looked up the tunnel she'd fallen down and cupped her hands around her mouth in attempt to call out to her best friend. "Sonya! There's a dead Shade down here; don't get your skates stuck like I did!"
As if on cue, the blonde haired girl came plummeting down next, her fishtail braid whipping over her face as she landed equally as ungraceful as Miyoko had. "It's a mess up there," the dark haired girl finally addressed Rachel, heaving deep breaths now that the adrenaline had worn off some. "I can't believe it actually worked." Sonya rolled off the Shade's leathery skin, making way for Alejandra to land on it next, then the rest of the surviving girls, followed up in the rear by Harriet, who'd taken up the leadership position of the Icers ever since Ximena was killed by a Shade during their first attempt at escape.
"The rest?" Rachel asked, almost fearing the answer when nobody came down The Hole after Harriet.
"A third of us," Sonya said, her voice weak. "Dead."
It was too many. Far too many. But at least they didn't lose more, and what was done was done.
"You know what?" Harriet spoke, clapping Sonya on the shoulder. "A third of us may have died, but two thirds of us sticks lived. So let's get the hell outta here."
Rachel pointed down a long and dark corridor, contributing to the conversation. "I heard the door open down that way."
"Well- let's go." Harriet said stoically, before gliding on her skates in the direction Rachel pointed, and disappearing as quickly as their visible breaths dissipated into the air. Sonya started ushering the other girls down to follow, and one-by-one they did so until only she, Aris, and Rachel were left.
"I'll go last," Rachel offered, and nobody complained. After a short period of silence, they heard a girl shriek up ahead, and then another, and another. Dread flushed over Rachel's face, as she slowed to a stop and bumped into Aris in front of her.
"It ends in a slide up there, shooting downward." He passed along the message that had been buzzing between the Icers that hadn't fallen yet, before swallowing the fear bubbling in his own throat. Guess we have no choice, he said to her mind.
Guess not. She replied, and the rest of the girls continued forward once more, the scraping of their stakes on the ice and shrieks from being swept down the slope echoing off the dark caverns' walls ominously. Her own body slipped down last, the curly-haired girl's legs being knocked out from beneath her as she plummeted.
The slide was-oh-so shockingly- slippery, iced-over, and bitingly cold. Rachel's fingers stung as she pushed to get her feet back on the ground and stand again after reaching the bottom. The other girls were collecting themselves as well, helping each other up and coughing from the wind being knocked out of them. The air was even colder down here than it was in the Spring, and that was saying something. It was mildewy too; all around not a pleasant atmosphere to be breathing in.
"What now?" Aris asked, tugging his thick jacket closer to his body for additional warmth. The chill was uncomfortably sinister in this room.
Rachel shrugged, her mouth agape as she honestly had no answer. Even though everyone knew she'd been associated with the Creators before being sent up into the Spring, they still swiped her memory as well. She had no clue where to go from here.
A harsh, alarm-like beeping filled the room, followed by one of the doors to the room sweeping open and two figures emerging from it.
One was a woman, probably in her 40s, if Rachel even remembered what adults looked like correctly. She was dressed for the elements as the rest of them were, except all of her snow gear was pristine, as if she'd just bought it. The Icers' were covered in dirt and blood and probably tears. Her puffy jacket was blindingly white, with a logo on the breast- WCKD spelled in blue capital letters. Her pants and boots were a stark black, glistening in their cleanliness. The other figure stood with its fuzzy hood pulled up over their head, concealing their face in the shadow completely due to the already-dim room. The thick clothing made it impossible to make out their figure as well, and Rachel let it go when the business woman started talking.
"Welcome back," she greeted in the driest way possible, as if not actually welcoming at all. "Over two years and so few dead. Amazing."
"Excuse me?" Sonya interjected, her hands on her hips at the woman's incredulous statement. Yet the older woman pressed forward without so much as acknowledging the younger blonde's existence.
"Everything has gone according to plan, although we expected a few more of you to give up along the way." She reached over and practically ripped the hood off of the shadowed figures' head, revealing the girl's long brown hair to cascade down as it typically did. She looked up, and looked broken, in pain, tears glistening her eyes. All of the Icers drew in a unanimous sharp inhale of surprise, the color completely draining from Rachel's face as she recognized who that was.
Beth.
Rachel's breathing quickened, the blood flushing back to her cheeks all at once in a flash of anger and surprise and raw emotion.
Beth.
The girl who'd hated Rachel since the moment she arrived at the Spring, who treated her like she was the spawn of Shade herself.
"What's she doing here?!" Miyoko shouted, throwing her hands forward. They'd all taken Beth for dead for days now.
Sonya furrowed her eyebrows, tucking a flyaway hair behind her ear as she tilted her head to the side. "Beth," she said softly. "What's going on?"
It was then that Rachel noticed it too; something was off about the strong girl. More than there ever had been before.
The brown haired girl's eyes flared for a moment, almost struggling, but she didn't respond. Her whole body trembled, almost convulsing in a very... unnatural manner.
"There is, of course, one final Variable," the older woman spoke again, sidestepping as if to get out of Beth's way. The ex-Icer shuddered, sweat dripping off her forehead despite the fact it was definitely below freezing in the room. Her eyes bulged and were pink around the edges: she really did not look alright at all.
"...Beth?" Rachel asked, suppressing her supreme dislike of the girl.
Beth burst out her speech, hurrying the words as if they could be taken away from her at any moment. "They...! T-They can control me, I don't-!" Her eyes rolled back into her head, the girl gargling as she struggled to breathe. "I...!"
It was horrifying, really, and yet none of the girls could look away. In one fluid motion, Beth reached into her back pocket and withdrew something long and silver, glinting in the minimal light that the room provided. She gripped it so tightly her knuckles went white. And then, making direct eye contact, she hurled it, the blade slicing through the air as it rotated in almost slow motion, directly at-
"RACHEL!" Aris screamed, before it sunk into the girl's chest, making her collapse to the floor almost instantly. The only boy of the group already had tears in his eyes as he gripped the hilt that was protruding from her chest, before remembering that removing lodged items only made it worse. "You're going to be okay," he muttered, the other girls already surrounding Rachel as well in heavy concern. "Everything's going to be okay."
Rachel's vision was growing blurrier by the second, and she heard shouting and felt someone rip Aris's body away from hers.
And then it was all black.