10… 9… 8…
Panic claws at me. The civilians scream. The mute boy curls into a ball and shudders. Borzen and Dravven shout names—my name—hoping I’ll answer, but my voice is stuck in my throat.
My compad flickers in the darkness—blinking soft white light.
It glows with one word: TRUST
Just that. No interface, no menu. TRUST.
I swallow. Trust. God help me.
I whisper into the void: “Follow me. Stay close. Don’t panic.”
I can’t see them. I can only feel their presence. I edge forward, lungs burning, senses stretched thin.
7… 6… 5…
I step on tile that hums electric. My boots echo. Heat prickles under my soles.
“Liora!” Borzen’s voice cracks close behind me.
4… 3…
I hear fabric tearing. Someone stumbles.
2… 1…
A scream. High, sharp, cut off.
0
Lights return.
The chamber blinks back to life.
A spray pattern splatters across the far wall—blood, threads of bone, fragments of skin.
At the center, a still-spinning boot, warm to the touch. The rest of him is gone. Just gone—poof—as though the Maze devoured her before we could blink.
Dravven staggers, hands over his mouth. Borzen roars, pounding his fists into the floor till cracks spider outward.
Dirk’s Maze Master avatar flickers to life on every screen, clapping slowly. “You got farther than expected,” he says in a tone dripping with surprise. “Maybe you’re not all NPCs after all.”
My knees buckle. I drop near the boot, cold metal against my fingers. It’s real.
Dravven crawls to me. Borzen stalks the room.
I throw up a hand. “Don’t touch him. Let me—let me see.”
Borzen pauses a hair’s breadth from me. I feel his anger heating the air between us.
I slide on my knees to the boot. I breathe the blood-scented air. The Maze hums. The glass window no longer shows stars. It flickers. Distorts. The void above us becomes a smear.
Tears leak down my cheeks, hot and indescribable.
I turn to them, voice small. “I built this. I built this. I made the maps, the doors, the trap logic. This was my skeleton. And now—now someone took it. Twisted it into a murder box.”
Dravven’s eyes burn. “You didn’t dothis,Liora. Someone corrupted your code. Butyoucan still fight it.”
