Labyrinth: Stranded The Series (bxb)

The Labyrinth's Heart

(Dillon's POV)

The walls of the labyrinth twist and grind around us, stone grinding against stone as we approach its center. Every step feels heavier, like the air itself is thickening, turning into something almost solid. Joshua's beside me, his face pale but determined, and I can see the exhaustion in his eyes. But we don't stop. We can't stop. Not when we're this close.

I glance at the others—what's left of them. Matt and a couple of others, their faces pale with fear. They've been through hell, same as us, and it shows. Cuts, bruises, haunted eyes. But the worst part? The silence. No one speaks. No one dares to, as if the labyrinth itself might hear and devour the words. The creature has been picking us off one by one, dragging students into the fog, never to return. Except for us. It spared us—for now.

"Why us?" I whisper, my voice barely audible over the sound of the shifting stone.

Joshua shakes his head, his jaw clenched. "I don't know, man. But whatever's waiting for us up ahead? We'll find out."

He's right. We're walking straight into the heart of this thing. The maze has been feeding off us, warping reality, turning our worst fears into weapons. But why not us? Why weren't we taken like the others? Why weren't we ripped apart like Emily?

Her name sends a cold wave of nausea through me. Emily's body had been splayed out in front of us, pale, lifeless, her face twisted in terror. The creature had left her there like a warning—like a goddamn message. And we had to keep moving, leaving her behind, a horrible reminder of what this place can do.

Matt stumbles beside me, his breath ragged. "We shouldn't be here," he whispers. "We're not supposed to be here."

"No shit," I mutter, but my mind is racing. The creature... it's taken so many of us. Why not Joshua? Why not me?

The air grows colder as we step into the center of the labyrinth, the fog thickening, becoming almost tangible. And then I see it.

The creature.

It's unlike anything I've ever seen, a twisted mass of shadow and bone, its form constantly shifting, its edges fraying like it's not fully part of this world. It stands tall, towering over us, its eyes—if you could call them that—glowing with an eerie, hungry light. And wrapped around it, woven into its very being, are the souls of the students it's consumed.

Emily's face flickers in the mist, her mouth open in a silent scream, and beside her are others—people we knew, people we lost. Their faces twist and contort, trapped in eternal agony, feeding the creature, making it stronger.

And then it hits me.

Why it hasn't taken us.

Joshua and I... we've been feeding it all along. Our fear, our anger, our unresolved shit—it's been feeding on us without having to kill us. The creature thrives on despair, on the darkness inside people's hearts. And Joshua and I? We've been carrying so much of it, it didn't need to take us physically. We were already giving it what it needed. Our fear, our pain, our guilt—it was feeding off us the whole time. That's why it didn't kill us. That's why it let us get this far.

And now, it's here, waiting for us to give it more.

"What the fuck is that?" Matt stammers, his voice shaking.

The creature shifts, its form rippling like it's made of smoke and nightmares. Its eyes fix on Joshua, and I see it—the moment the thing decides it's done playing. Joshua staggers back, his face pale, sweat beading on his forehead. I can feel it too, the weight of the thing's gaze, the way it seems to reach inside you, pulling at everything you've been trying to hide.

"No," Joshua whispers, his voice cracking. "Not again."

The memories flood back—his brother's arrests, his mother's cold indifference, his sister's drunken rage. It's all here, swirling around him, crushing him under the weight of it. I see him falter, his knees buckling as the creature moves closer, feeding off the darkest parts of him.

And I can't fucking let it happen.

"Joshua!" I shout, stepping forward, grabbing him by the arm, pulling him back from the edge. "Stay with me. Don't let it take you."

He's shaking, his eyes wide with fear, but he nods, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The creature is pushing into his mind, dragging him back into his worst memories, and I can feel the pull too. My own demons, my own unresolved fears—Samantha, my parents, the constant pressure to be perfect—it's all rising up, threatening to swallow me whole.

But I'm not letting this thing win.

I pull Joshua to his feet, my heart pounding. "We can't fight it like this," I say, my voice barely steady. "It's feeding on us—on our fear. We have to stop giving it what it wants."

Joshua looks at me, his eyes filled with a mix of desperation and understanding. "How?"

I don't know. I'm grasping at straws here, but I know one thing: we can't let it control us. We can't let it keep feeding off our pain. The more we let it in, the stronger it gets.

And then, something clicks.

The creature has been using our worst memories, our worst fears, to break us. But what if... what if we don't fight it? What if we face it?

The thought sends a chill down my spine, but it makes sense. This whole labyrinth has been about making us run from our pasts, from our trauma. But what if we stop running?

"Joshua," I say, my voice low, urgent. "We have to face it. All of it. We have to stop being afraid."

He stares at me like I've lost my mind, but there's something in his eyes—something that tells me he understands. He nods, his jaw clenched, and together, we turn to face the creature.

Its eyes flicker, confused, like it wasn't expecting this. Like it wasn't expecting us to stop fighting.

"We're not afraid of you," I say, my voice louder now, more certain. "You don't control us. We control you."

The creature roars, its form twisting, writhing in fury. But we don't back down. We stand our ground, facing it head-on, and I feel it—the fear slipping away. The guilt, the anger, the pain—it's still there, but it doesn't own me anymore. It doesn't own us.

The creature lunges at us, but it's different now. We're different now. We're not running. We're not afraid. It can't feed off us anymore.

The fog around us thickens, the walls of the labyrinth shaking, but we stand firm. The creature howls, its form unraveling, and then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it begins to break apart.

The faces of the students it consumed flicker in and out of existence—Emily, Matt, the others—until they fade into the mist, free at last.

The labyrinth collapses around us, the stone walls crumbling, the fog dissipating. And in the chaos, I hear Joshua's voice, steady and strong.

"We did it."

But it's not over yet.

The ground beneath us shakes, and the last thing I remember is the creature's final roar, a sound that rattles my bones and shakes me to my core. Then, darkness.

The world goes black.

The next thing I know, I'm lying on the cold ground, my body aching, my head pounding. I open my eyes, and there's Joshua, lying beside me, breathing but unconscious. The labyrinth is gone, replaced by the quiet stillness of the real world. We made it out.

But not without scars.