The Labyrinth: Chapter Nine
For several seconds, I felt like the world had frozen in place. A thick silence followed the thunderous rumble of the Doors closing. Bringing with it a vile darkness that covered the sky. It was as if the sun had cowered away from whatever lurked in these corridors.
Twilight had fallen and the giant Walls loomed over me. Acting as giant tombstones in a weed-infested graveyard. I let myself slide down the edge of the wall until I was on all fours, still struggling to regain my breathing. I shifted myself so my back rested on the cool stone, my hand clutching my chest for dear life.
You're gonna die.
The blood pounded in my ears. My heart thudded in my chest. Something clutched at my throat and pressed harder. Breathing became laboured, difficult. A bead of sweat formed at the top of my lip, a flush of heat racing through my body. I lifted my hand to wipe it away. My body felt so weak. My fingers. I stared at them. They were shaking uncontrollably.
There is no one to help you. You should have stayed in the Doors.
There was no one to help. I was alone. Tears started to trickle down my face as I soon came to the realisation that this was going to be the end of me.
Bile rose in my throat.
You're gonna die.
"Come on," I breathed, every motion a painful spike when I spoke. "This won't be the end of me."
I screwed my eyes shut and focused on other things. I counted in the breaths and out. I placed my shaking hands on my chest and stomach and continued to breath in and out. I stayed like that for who knows long. Every time an inch of panic crept up. I restarted the process all over again. This was not something I could be caught out on. I had to regain control of my body and plan out what to do next.
I just had to wait it out and hoped the Grievers never found me.
When I finally opened my eyes again, the Maze was flooded with darkness. Not a single light peaked above, the side or below. It was only thanks to the low light of the vacant moon that I was even able to see at all in front of me. Otherwise I was doomed before it even started.
You're gonn-
"Get up," I instructed myself. "Get up."
I let out a long shaky sigh and placed my hands to the side of me. They shook violently as I forced myself from the floor. The motion almost unsettling me and causing me to remain stuck where I was. I sprawled forward. My arm alighted in fire when I crashed into the floor. I yelped in surprise from the sudden pain, and momentarily cradled my hurt wrist.
I groaned in pain, hoping that I hadn't just broken my wrist in the first few minutes I had spent here. I peaked at it, the burning sensation never relenting. With my good hand, I poked at the side of my wrist. My nerve endings prickled at the sensation, but no major pains came out of it. I moved my injured hand with me free one, bending it as far as I could before the pain came to much. After the first few attempts, tears swelled at the corner of my eyes. Soon enough, my injured hand could move on its own, with pain of course. Luck had been on my side. It wasn't broken, from what I could tell. Just very sore from the sudden movement. That had to mean for something.
I rose from the floor again, placing most of my weight on the injured hand. There was no way that I could stay here. Something in my belly told me that was the worst option to make. I had to keep moving, to keep ahead of those creatures and for my own sanity's sake. I tiptoed to the small creatures body that I had flung earlier. The others had not retrieved them on their retreat, instead had left them there with weird dark goo surrounding them. I chose the closet one to me and sucked in a large breath. Who knows if they were both still alive and waiting to attack? Anything seemed possible, so why didn't this?
I planted one foot firmly on the ground and edged the other until it touched the edge of the creatures skin. I nudged it at first, then full on it moved it around with my foot. The lights didn't blink red, neither the arms react in rage. The creature was dead.
I let out the breath.
Take it's legs.
I bent down and wrenched the metallic legs from its body. Goo and bodily stuff pulled itself through the skin and it took all it had in me not to throw up right there. I gathered four in total, shaking the ends violently to get the disgusting stuff off it. I would not touch it.
"Ew ew ew." Bodily fluid flew into my face, with droplets landing in my mouth. I gagged, spitting out the horrid stuff from my mouth. "Ew, gross."
Whrrrrrrrrr.
I froze. The sound ringing through me. The blood rushed to my ears.
It came from deep within the Maze, followed by a low haunting noise. A constant whirring that had a metallic ring every few seconds, like sharp knives rubbing against each other. It grew louder by the second, and then a series of eerie clicks joined in. A hollow moan filled the air, and then something that sounded like the clanking of chains.
I can't do this.
You can.
Not wanting to meet the creature that the noise belonged too, I jumped over the fallen bodies of the Beetle Blade's and ran down the left corridor away from the ominous noise. I had no idea where I was going, no way of knowing what I would discover at each turn. My only instinct was to outrun the noise. The roar of engines interspersed with rolling, cranking sounds like chains hoisting machinery in an old, grimy factory. And then came the smell – something burning, oily. I didn't want to find what would happen if it caught up with me.
I must have run the furthest that I had ever in my life, twisting and turning at every given turn. I lost track of my way a while back, the number of lefts and rights had dissolved into one big blob. There was no longer a route that I was taking, because there wasn't one that I knew. I left it all to instinct. I must have spent more than an hour running around the Maze, turning corners led to more corners to turn. But, the haunting moan followed me everywhere. Always sounding like it was close, yet it was never that close to be nearby.
Eventually, my luck ran out and I made the biggest mistake within these walls. It's all good taking the turns in random order, but maybe if I paid more attention, it wouldn't have happened. A definite maybe.
I ended up in a dead end, the worst place to be when there are creatures hunting you. I backed up down the end of the corridor when the frightening sound of a Griever grew closer, echoing off the stone walls of the Maze. This Griever sounded loud and close, meaning that there was nowhere to go. I would have to somehow get passed this thing without it even knowing. I had to create a plan there and then to save myself.
A plan formed in my head. It all depended on the unknown abilities of the Grievers, but it was the best I could come up with under the circumstances. I stuffed the Beetle Blade leg's into my pockets and walked a few feet along the wall until I found a thick growth of ivy covering most of the stone. I reached down and grabbed one of the vines that went all the way to the ground and wrapped my hand around it. It felt thicker and more solid than I would've imagined, maybe half an inch in diameter. I pulled on it, and with the sound of thick paper ripping apart, the vine came unattached from the wall. When I had moved back at least ten feet, I saw that I could no longer see the vine way above; it disappeared in the darkness. But the plant had yet to fall, so it must have been attached somewhere.
Hesitant to try, I braised myself and pulled on the vine of ivy with all my strength.
It held.
I yanked on it again. Pulling and relaxing with both hands. I lifted my feet and hung onto the vine; it swung my body forward.
The vine held.
A sharp crack echoed from within the Maze, followed by the horrible sound of crumbling metal. I swung to around to look, my mind so concentrated on the vines that I had shut out the Griever; I searched the corner which I turned. I couldn't see anything coming, but the sounds were louder – the whirring, the groaning, the clanging, the air had brightening ever so slightly. I could make out more of the details of the Maze then I'd been able to before.
I remembered the odd lights I'd observed through the Glade window with Newt.
Newt. The Glade.
You're getting distracted.
The noise grew louder.
I swallowed the panic and continued.
I wrapped the vine around my hand, placing myself at the edge of the wall. I etched one foot into the ivy, and grabbed the vine I had ripped off the wall. This wasn't going to be so hard, like rock climbing. Clangs from the Maze. Whirrs. Buzzes. Moans. I saw a couple of red flashes to my left. The Grievers were getting closer.
I got back to work.
I slowly made my way up the stone wall, two or three feet at a time. I climbed until I was at least five feet above the ground, wrapped the vine around my chest for support. I continued to climb.
One leg there.
Slide your hand up.
Untie, tie.
Watch your footing.
I was in the zone, like I had done something like this billions of times before. Like this was second nature to me. That and the Grievers moved incredibly slower than I had anticipated. When I first saw them, they seemed to look as if that could out run anything. Now, they were idly wandering the Maze.
They are hunting.
Exhaustion over took me. The constant motion of moving up the Wall weighed down on my muscles. My arms screamed in agony, my wrist loudest of them all. Sweat covered every inch of my body. My palms slick, forcing a tighter grip on the vines. My legs ached from the constant pressure on the stone wall.
Still, I had further to climb.
When I reached the highest point, I stopped, allowing myself to catch my breath. My body swayed with the vine, the motion unsettling as I fear it would snap at any moment. Using my drained, rubbery arms, I turned myself around to face the Maze. An exhaustion I'd not known possible filled every particle of my body. I ached with tiredness; my muscles screamed. I was ready to pass out with exhaustion.
Here was my best bet.
There was no point running the Maze. I didn't know the layout. It would have taken one wrong move from me and I would have ended a long metallic rod pierced through my chest as a Griever ripped away at my body.
I shuddered at the thought.
The legs I had stolen earlier were still stuffed into my pocket. They were thin and from first glance fragile. But I reckoned that they were sturdier and incredibly useful. There was a reason I grabbed them.
A few minutes passed before I saw the first glimmer of light shine off the walls. The terrible sounds I had heard escalate for the last few minutes took on a high-pitched, mechanical squeal, like a robotic death yell. I gripped the legs tighter in my hands, the fear grasping for something to protect itself.
A red light to my left, on the wall, caught my attention. I turned and almost screamed out loud – a Beetle Blade was only a few inches from me, its spindly legs poking through the ivy and somehow sticking to the stone wall. I squinted at the thing's body, its eyes to bright to focus on.
"Go away," I mouthed to it. It was going to give my location away to the creature that prowled not far from here. With one of the long legs, I wafted it in its general direction, pleading that it would do something to deter it from me. After my last encounter, I didn't need any trouble right now. I hoped the thing only detected movement as long seconds passed, my lungs screamed for air.
With a click and then a clack, the Beetle Blade turned and scuttled off, disappearing into the ivy. I sucked in a huge gulp of air, and then another, feeling the pinch of the vines tied around my chest.
Another mechanical squeal screeched through the Maze, close now, followed by the surge of revved machinery. I tried to play dead, making my body a hanging lifeless limp in the vines.
And then something rounded the corner, and came towards my hiding place.
Something I had seen before, but through the safety of thick glass.
Something unspeakable.
A Griever.
