The chairs in the windowless classroom they eventually barricade themselves in are all broken, so they sink to the floor instead.
Pete clutches the rope he managed to grab with his good hand, distantly noticing that Steph has a tiny purple pack slung over her shoulder.
"Are you hurt?" He pants, scanning her up and down. She is slumped over, hands braced against the floor, but her eyes are sharp and she doesn't seem to be in pain.
She turns her gaze, glaring and terrified all at once, to bore through him.
"Me? What the hell happened to you?" She shakes her head. "All you had to do was get out of there Spankoffski."
"What?" He all but shrieks. "I was trying to find you."
"Well I didn't ask for that!" Steph has shifted now to face him, is pulling her bag open on the ground and shifting through the contents.
"We're Allies, remember?"
"And how do you plan on defending me with one working arm, my Knight in shining spandex?"
Pete tugs at the sleeve of his ridiculous jumpsuit nervously. "It was Jägerman, but Grace took care of it."
"Shit, really?" Steph laughs. "Guess I misjudged her."
"What do you mean?" Pete frowns, but then something shiny catches his eye.
Steph unfolds it and triumphantly holds up a foil blanket, shimmering in the dim fluorescent light.
"Aha!" She grins, before draping it around his shoulders.
"I'm not cold." He protests weakly, though his body is wracked with shivers.
"No, but you're hurt. In shock, maybe." Steph retrieves a small cylinder from the floor next, clicks it on to reveal a beam of light shooting from it. "Blanket, torch..." She lists off. "What is this?" She's holding a small bronze disc up to the light. She pockets it with a shrug.
"Your leg." Pete shudders as he speaks, leaning forward and reaching our.
"Oh, it's alright." She'd fallen and grazed her knee at some point, the fabric over it become damp and rust coloured with blood. "It isn't deep, but we've been running so it's bled a lot."
Pete holds out a corner of the blanket haphazardly.
"I should keep watch." She says.
"We're literally in front of the only door to this room. If someone tries to get in, we're gonna know about it." The boy protests, and Steph rolls her eyes but says no more as she slides to the floor next to him, shoulders touching and blanket wrapped around them both.
"Tell me when you start feeling ready to go again." She whispers. "We have to keep moving."
"Why? What's out there that doesn't want to kill us?"
Steph doesn't think she should answer that question honestly with cameras and microphones on them at all times. Instead, she shrugs. "We need water, and food too eventually."
"Hm, and we might meet some new friends whilst we're at it." Pete hums.
"Hey, the last friend I made just saved your ass buddy!"
"Grace? You hate her."
"Yeah, but I think she kind of liked me." Steph smiles, and Pete huffs out a laugh.
"Give me a few minutes." He breathes deep, in and out. "And then we can make a plan."
...
They pack everything up and use the blanket to make a sling for Pete's arm. It barely holds but is better than nothing - they're going to need to run and it's going to hurt.
The corridors are suspiciously quiet and clean, the only sound their breathing and the padding of their feet on the wooden floor.
Pete remembers something he learned once about mazes - he thinks it was his brother who told him. "If we stick to one wall, run one hand along it like this and always follow it, we can find..." He trails off. "The exit or the centre?" He thinks. "I can't really remember. But I think it's worth a shot."
Steph doesn't point out that this might not actually be a literal maze, because she doesn't have a better plan. So they half-crouch as they run, pausing at each corner and peeking around in case somebody is there to catch them off guard.
Eventually, they find a set of double doors that have a blue glow emanating from inside them. The shadow passes down the hall and they see the dancing shapes that it makes before they even round the corner. Their footsteps seem quieter, almost insulated as they approach.
"Should we?" Steph takes a step towards the heavy door.
"The system - it depends if we count doors as continuations of the wall or not, because we should probably be bypassing them; mazes don't have doors-" Pete frowns, glancing around him as he whispers.
"Yeah but, this isn't a maze." Steph supplies, running a tentative hand around the frame. "It's a building; a hellscape for sure and definitely built to mess us up, but the mechanics aren't the same."
Pete blinks. "You're right." He says. "Shit. Ok."
"We doing it?"
Pete clenches his fist at his side. "Yeah." He nods vigorously.
Steph reaches for the door but Pete stops her. "On three." He whispers.
Steph holds her hand up with one finger, two fingers, three-
The door creaks open and they slip through, back to back and arms raised defensively. Steph finds herself dropping them almost immediately, jaw going slack as she spins to take in the room.
There is moss crawling up the walls, turquoise and glowing, almost pulsating. The carpet is damp underfoot and blue from the light emanating from the walls and ceiling - there is furniture in here but it is overgrown and crumbling.
It's almost... alive.
"What the hell is this?" Pete murmurs, turning to Steph; but before she can answer, movement catches his eye from behind a furry looking table in the far corner. "Steph!" He hisses, and she spins and pushes him behind her.
There is a sniffling sound coming from the other side of the room, and a trainer sticking out from behind the table leg.
"Hey, who's there?" Steph shouts, voice stern. Pete pushes forward against the instinct to shrink back. This room is making his skin crawl.
"Go away!" A young sounding voice shrieks. Steph's shoulder drop.
"Hannah?" She frowns, and a memory slides into place - a short girl in training, District 12, a thin voice and trembling hands as she tried to sheath a knife. "Hey, we aren't going to hurt you."
Pete swallows down the thought that someone will eventually, if they haven't already.
Steph is edging towards the table, but shudders to a halt when another voice lets out a keening cry.
"Is somebody there with you, Hannah?"
A pair of round hazel eyes peer over the top of the desk. "S-stuck, bad blood..." Hannah mutters, shaking her head. Steph finally rounds the corner and takes in the situation.
Hannah is crouching over the body of another young boy, with a blue headband and blood streaming down his side. She isn't touching him now but her hands are slick with blood, and the boy himself is shivering so hard his teeth are chattering.
She lets out a gasp and Pete joins her a second later.
"Ah, shit." He groans. He drops to his knees beside the boy and reaches with his good arm to feel his forehead, but before he makes contact, Hannah launches herself at him and pins him to the floor. "Woah, woah!" He cries out. Steph grabs the girl from behind and hauls her off, holding her arms to her sides as she kicks and scream.
"Hannah!" The boy on the floor shouts, coughing as he levers himself up to reach for her. He elbows Pete in the face weakly but quickly drops back down to his knees, unable to hold himself up. Hannah is still screaming.
"Hey!" Steph shouts. "We're not going to hurt you. Calm down!" She gives the girl a shake, and Hannah gasps in a breath like she's coming up from underwater, eyes wide.
"You have to go. We have can't leave." She pants, going limp.
The older girl waits a moment before releasing her, to be sure she isn't going to lose it again. As soon as she can, Hannah drops back to the injured boy's side.
"Why, what happened?" Pete murmurs. He feels queasy all of a sudden, and reaches to steady himself on the table. It's slimy and soft.
"Daniel, he was hurt and so we ran in here to hide." Hannah shakes her head. "It was bad, a bad idea, a bad room..." Her words blur messily into one another.
"Hey, stay with me." Steph orders.
"It makes you feel..." Hannah is trying to explain, but Pete is finding it harder to focus on her words. "And now it's just... can't..." She cries out in frustration.
"What does, Hannah? Are you hurt?" Slurring slightly, Steph eases herself onto the ground beside the girl to give herself a minute to recover.
"Stand up!" She cries suddenly. "The room, this place!" She shakes her head.
"Steph, I think this blue shit..." Pete sways and Steph drags her head up to see him. "Something is wrong with it. I feel..."
"Crap." Steph hisses. "Alright, come on; outside." She pushes herself to her feet unsteadily.
"We can't leave! Daniel!" Hannah insists, so Steph grabs him under the arms. Between them, he manages to stand, and she reaches for his side in case he falls.
His breaths are coming quickly now. Pete staggers ahead of them until one of his feet catches on something and he crashes onto his already throbbing arm, white hot pain flaring so bright that it takes him a minute to realise what has happened. We looks down in alarm and sees it - blue vines are crawling up his leg. The floor is moving, pulsating, and it's coming for them.
He tugs away from the slime but it won't give - he hears Steph crying out and realises that it has Daniel too. Hannah has her hands clasped over her ears tight.
"Hannah!" He shouts. She closes her eyes. "Alright, ok." He takes a breath. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry Hannah, I shouldn't have shouted." The vine has found its way to his other leg, and he flicks it away from his broken arm. "You need to help Steph, alright? So she can get us out."
"Stuck. Can't leave!" Hannah shakes her head, voice ragged.
"No, no not..." His head feels like its being speared with something and he loses the power of speech for a moment. "Hannah, this place isn't right, we need to go now or we might die." Spent, he turns back to tugging at the fuzzy blue shit that is wrapping itself around his arms. He looks up for a second but Hannah is gone. He is hyperaware of his heart pumping in his chest for a moment, and the world feels suddenly underwater, before he feels heat, and wonders if this plant is poison, and this is how he will die. Then, some of the pressure releases; there is a howling sound echoing around the room but it sounds more like anger than pain, and it definitely isn't human. Hannah reappears at his side. In her hand she has flicked on a lighter, and is waving it over him, singeing the vines and watching with determination as they retract.
"Burn." She whispers. "Can't die, Lexie said." As soon as he is free, they both sprint across the room - Daniel is flat on his back again and Steph is limp against the wall, a tendril wrapped around her neck.
Pete tries to rip at it with his hands as Hannah frees Daniel, but he can't get through it, it's like wire.
He calls for Hannah in his panic, and she tosses the lighter at him - in the most coordinated move of his entire life thus far, he catches it one handed and shoves it at Steph. The vines melts away in an instant, but the flame catches her neck, and her eyes fly open with a gasp, hands coming up to her face.
"Ok, you're ok." Pete hands the lighter back to Hannah and pulls Steph's arm over his shoulders. Hannah has somehow got Daniel back on his feet, and they lunge the final few feet to the doors, tripping out of the turquoise light and into the corridor.
Suddenly, Pete finds he can breath again. As the doors swing shut behind them, he does a quick head count - 1,2,3,4 - and he collapses to the ground, head swimming with pain.
The boy lands in his lap as Hannah slumps next to him. Her eyelids flutter and Steph groans.
"What the f*ck was that?" She rasps.
"I-" Pete's voice breaks. "I don't know... but it definitely wanted to kill us."