The gravity pulse slams her upward. She hits the ceiling with a crunch that echoes like thunder. She’s alive for half a second. Then the lights flicker red, and the ceiling becomes a floor again.
She splatters like dropped fruit.
The civilians scream. One vomits. Someone starts pounding on the wall. I just stand there, shaking, the sound of my own heartbeat roaring in my ears.
Dirk’s voice pops through the speaker. “Oops! Someone forgot to read the rules! Tsk tsk. Penalty for lack of teamwork: minus one player!”
Borzen’s shoulders heave. “I’m going to tear that man apart.”
“Get in line,” Dravven mutters.
“Everyone MOVE,” I snap. “Follow my steps exactly.”
We edge through the chamber, single file. I walk them through the old logic—blue tiles are safe, white are resets, red are bad news. It works. For once. We reach the door.
The next room is worse.
At first glance, it looks like an exit. A glowing archway, markedEXITin big, friendly letters. The civilians almost sprint toward it before I throw an arm out.
“Stop,” I hiss. “Don’t touch that.”
“It’s the door!” one of them yells. “We can leave!”
“No,” I say. “It’s bait.”
He doesn’t listen. He runs. Halfway through the archway, the door ripples like water. Thin, shimmering wires slice through him before he even realizes. He falls in sections—perfect, clean cuts. For half a second, his top half looks confused about where the rest went. Then both parts collapse.
The Maze hums, pleased.
Dirk’s voice comes through, dripping with mock sympathy. “Ouch. You really can’t rush these things. Read the fine print, people! Always read the fine print!”
I want to throw up.
The smell of burnt plasma and blood hits hard—like melted copper and ozone. My stomach twists. The civilians press against the wall, sobbing. Dravven looks away. Borzen cracks his knuckles like he’s trying to crush air.
I swallow hard. “Okay,” I whisper, mostly to myself. “Okay, think.”
The floor panels shimmer faintly, coded lines underneath. My brain shifts gears automatically, mapping the old logic, searching for patterns. The mazetalksto me, like it used to when I designed it. Except now it whispers with Dirk’s voice.
“This isn’t a puzzle,” I murmur. “It’s a message.”
“What kind of message?” Allov asks.
“A taunt,” I say. “He wants me to know I’m still playing.”
We keep moving. Each room is worse than the last.
A chamber where the air turns acidic if you stay too long. A hallway where the walls pulse like lungs. A pit that whispers your name in someone else’s voice.
Every time someone dies, Dirk chimes in with that same game-show enthusiasm. “Ooooh, bonus round! You’ve unlockedpain receptors!” or “What a spectacular loss! Ten out of ten!”
By the time we make it through seven chambers, four of the civilians are dead. One vaporized, one crushed, one drowned in something that looked like quicksilver, and one simply gone—swallowed by a floor that closed like a mouth.
Allov kneels by the most recent corpse, murmuring a prayer to Ataxia, her god of chaos and mercy. Her hands shake. “They didn’t deserve this.”
“None of us do,” I say, kneeling beside her. The air smells like burnt flesh. My throat burns with bile. “We’re not just in his maze. Wearethe maze.”
Borzen paces. “We keep moving. Standing still gets us killed.”
