Page 64 of Stay Scared

The blue floor light dies before I can take another step.

Darkness swallows everything. The padded walls hold the stale warmth around us. Without the floor strip, I can’t tell where the corridor ends or how close the black vinyl sits to my shoulder.

“Owen, tell me where you are.”

“I’m ahead of you.”

The same words come from behind me with the same volume and the same voice.

“Keep talking.”

“What do you want?”

“Give me something the recording wouldn’t know.”

Silence lasts a second before his real voice comes from somewhere ahead. “You chose Cade first because you needed to see whether he still knew how to let you go.”

The speaker behind me remains silent.

I move toward him and catch my boot on a raised seam, recovering before I fall. The scrape scatters through the maze.

Owen comes closer. “Stop where you are.”

“I’m already stopped.”

“I’m coming to you.”

A padded wall slides inward to my left as another mechanism starts beyond him.

“Maintenance mode failed,” Owen says.

“I noticed.”

“Stay where you are while I get to you.”

The panel keeps closing. I reach into the dark and find empty air.

“Where are you?”

“To your left.”

His copied voice answers from the right.

I turn toward the one I think is real just as a wall slips between us. The pressure changes immediately, and his footsteps disappear.

“Salem, answer me.”

“I’m here.”

The panel behind my back begins advancing. I step away and hit another padded wall with my shoulder, the vinyl compressing under the impact before pressing back.

“Owen, it’s closing.”

“I’m working on it. Keep talking to me.”

Metal strains beyond the padding. He is forcing at something.

I turn sideways as the wall continues inward. My shoulder brushes one side while my hip finds the other. The smell of heated vinyl thickens with nowhere for the air to move.