Chaos Theorem

Chapter 16: When Things Go Wrong

"So I guess this is what they meant by crossing the gap, huh?" Ava grumbled, looking down darkly, before looking back to the rest of us, "Let's get out of here!"
  She didn't need to tell me twice! I'd never run so fast, and I had a feeling I'd be running for a very long time to come. I felt hot and sweaty, and my glasses steamed up from my heated face and my burning anger at the twistedness of this place. My legs also quickly started to hurt, of course...
  "Come on, Penny, don't slow down!" Null rolled his eyes at me upon seeing me lag behind.
  "Trying... not to." I panted, feeling like an ant under a magnifying glass.
  Why was this hall getting longer, too? Was it just me? Was this place just full of illusions, or a heat haze?
  These were questions I asked myself all the way up until I was treated by the view of the track curving up and around. A collective grown emanated from everyone's mouths, but nobody said anything. Our brains were elsewhere.
  I wiped sweat from my forehead, but the waterfall kept on coming. I struggled to see, but I could see enough to get where I needed to go. Hopefully.
  When the curve arrived, it literally became an uphill battle. Running was exhausting. Running on a slope was worse. It almost made the previous section of the track feel like nothing...
  Then a tile fell beside me.
  The falling tiles were catching up!
  Was this what impending doom felt like?
  Who am I kidding? Of course this was what impending doom felt like!
  I tried to step around all of the loose squares of death, but in true Squid Game fashion a tile fell beneath my foot and I ended rolling my ankle, and then ended up rolling onto the ground. The falling tiles threatened to catch up to me, and I used my hands to pull myself away. My glasses misted again. Now I couldn't see a thing.
  When I finally went to make the futile attempt to get up, the tile I put my hand on fell through too. That was when I knew that all hope used here was to be wasted and discarded, like broken glass.
  And we'd probably be broken too if we fell through. My eyes widened as I saw the fuzzy shapes of what looked like spikes down below.
  I wished I hadn't looked down.
  I didn't want to imagine myself on a skewer. However, I was a bit late to be thinking that...
  That's when the hand of Death pulled me up and away. That was if the hand of Death happened to look just like Yenn. No, did he just save me? He was putting himself in danger!
  And why him, of all people? Did he feel obligated to do so?
  But before I could think anything else, he tripped, falling over like a bag of bricks. And, like the clumsy girl I was, I fell over harder, slamming my head onto the ground and sending myself into the inky black.

***

  I awoke as if from a nightmare. Well, this was a nightmare, really, but you know.
  I grabbed my glasses from beside me and was transferred from an oil painting to a full-definition view of...
  ...Of the burger restaurant?
  The door at the back of the room opened, and Kat, Nate, Tricky and Will all entered, one after the other, single file. They all looked exactly how they did before we got on the train. They also all looked suprised to see me at the other end of their gazes...
  "Oh, you're awake!" Kat grinned, running on over to me, but not touching me, just standing there.
  "What... what happened?" I asked, trying to stay bubbly even though I felt slightly sick.
  "We found you passed out in the street. We were actually hoping you could tell us..." Kat shrugged, still smiling.
  It was really quite odd; why did I feel so empty? They were here! I'd found them, or they'd found me. Perhaps it was the absence of Yenn and the others, or was it the weirdness of the last game that was getting to me? I should be happy. I should be grateful.
  But this was... it was like a fragment of reality.
  Kat proceeded to take my hands in her own, her larger fingers enveloping mine in a caring grasp. I smiled at her.
  And then I looked down at her hands. It was strange, like the skin was sagging, like she was old. But the Kat I knew was still young! What was this? I decided that it was definitely not the Kat I knew when I started to see bones poking through the sallow, yellowing skin. It was a corpse.
  I looked up, swallowing, only to see that Nate, Tricky and Will were more dead than she was.
  Their blood was spread all over the floor, and chunks of their flesh had been removed as if eaten by a beast. Their eyes were glassy and unmoving and yet also all watching me. My stomach lurched. This was wrong. This wasn't real.
  Kat placed her rotten hand on my shoulder and made me flinch and look at her. Black blood dripped from her mouth and her eyes looked dark. But then they looked darker and darker, and then they started to grow larger, because a small stare wasn't enough.
  "Kat, what's happening?" I asked, frozen in place. This was wrong. So wrong.
  "Ah... fresh meat." Kat whispered, her voice deep. Not her voice. Not Kat.
  And then her eyes exploded, spraying blood onto me. And from their insides crawled flies, and maggots, and spiders, and all sorts of bugs and hideous creatures. I recoiled, but Kat's grip was firm. My shoulders started to bleed as they became stabbed by bone. I screamed, not wanting to succumb to this thing.
  And then Kat pounced at me.

***

  I woke up writhing.
  I didn't wait, I just reached for my phone and shakily tapped through my apps to get to the minigames app, and then through to the leaderboard.
  She was second place. And very much alive. Oh, Kat...
  I set my phone down and rubbed my eyes, the sick feeling I'd felt in my dream ebbing away all at once.
  I did find that I was in the burger restaurant, but Kat wasn't there, not was Nate, Will, or Tricky. They were alive, and elsewhere. As were my current teammates, who were all spread around and asleep. I noticed that Yenn's arm was covered in scratches. That was probably my fault...
  I crawled over to Matt, who was closest to me, after I peeled away from Yenn. His hazmat suit seemed full of still-attached flesh, but regardless I reached out an arm to make sure that this wasn't just nightmare phase two.
  "You shouldn't do that," Yenn advised, rolling over to face me, "Matt doesn't sleep well. If you poke him, he'll be tired for all of tomorrow."
  I sighed and smiled weakly, "I can't believe you saved me. Why did you do that?"
  "Well, for one, I felt bad for you." Yenn admitted without a beat.
  "How?"
  "I guess... I've been a bit downbeat. I was a bit rude to you. And it was a bit unnecessary." he shrugged, rolling over again to face the ceiling, "I should've considered your feelings more. Sorry."
  I nodded, appreciating his apology, "Thanks, Yenn. I do miss my friends, but you're pretty neat too. I still want to find them, though."
  "And we will. Just give it time."
  I smiled slightly more strongly this time, and then I got up to stroll over and then sit down beside Yenn. He looked at me briefly before going back to staring into space.
  "Hey, what happened to Null and Elise, by the way?" I asked, twiddling my thumbs.
  "Oh, they're fine. They just also happen to be lone wolves." Yenn let me know.
  I grumbled, "Of course they are. Haven't they heard of safety in numbers?"
  Yenn chuckled but didn't say anything more. My view of him was blocked as soon as the sun broke through the window and into my eyeline, drawing my attention like a moth to a flame. I looked at it (not directly at it, obviously) and squinted in confusion, turning back to Yenn.
  "How long was I out?" I asked.
  "It's been about a day, I think. Maybe more, maybe less." Yenn answered.
  "WHAT?" I gasped. His approximation only added to my confusion and the nightmare still leaked into my thoughts, "Well, when the sun gets high enough we need to get out of here! We have to find the others!"
  Yenn shrugged, "Makes sense."
  We both stared at each other, waiting for the other to continue, but there was nothing more to say. And as such, I grinned and picked myself up, wandering over to the window. It was at that moment that our phones decided to have their own input.
  "Did my body just vibrate?" Matt grumbled, rolling over to reveal that he was lying on his phone.
  "It's just your phone." Yenn rolled his eyes. Actually, it was all of our phones, and I needed to see what was going on.
  I looked down at Yenn as he got up, "It's a vote?"
  We both stared at my phone. On the screen were two options, one for having a tracking tool for other players, and one for having double points for the rest of the game. It was funny. The way it was written almost implies that this was a board game or a battle royale or something. Like it was just a bit of fun. Not life and death.
  And then I reread the options.
  A tracking feature! Me and Yenn looked at each other with a sense of accomplishment. This was what we'd been waiting for!

To be continued...