The PREDATOR And PREY

chapter 5

GRAYSON

As the three of them carefully maneuvered across the treacherous floor, following the path of darkened tiles, the air felt heavier, almost as if the hall itself was holding its breath, waiting for the moment to strike.

“Almost there,” Grayson muttered, his focus unbroken. His gray eyes stayed locked on the next tile, his movements precise and measured. Behind him, Avery and Jameson followed closely, their eyes flickering between the floor and the looming doorway ahead. The hall was so deathly silent that their footsteps seemed to echo louder than before.

Just as they reached the final few tiles, something shifted. The ground beneath them trembled slightly, and Avery’s breath caught. “Did you feel that?”

Jameson glanced around. “Yeah, I felt it. This place is—”

Before he could finish, the floor split beneath them with a sickening crack. The dark tiles they had trusted so much began to shift, and with a violent jerk, the room seemed to ripple like water. Avery and Jameson were suddenly pulled to the side, the ground beneath them slanting. They stumbled, their hands grabbing at the air as a different door, one they hadn’t noticed before, slid open on the opposite wall.

“Avery!” Grayson called, his voice sharp with alarm.

Before she could respond, Avery and Jameson were sucked through the new door, as if an invisible force had dragged them away. The door slammed shut with a deafening thud, leaving Grayson alone.

“Grayson!” Avery’s voice echoed faintly from the other side, but there was no response, no sound except for the low hum of the mechanisms

Before the door shut, all that Grayson could see on Jameson and Avery’s faces was a mix of devastation and fear. Jemeson's wide-eyed gaze held an intense urgency, as if he was reaching for him without words, his lips parted in shock. There was a flicker of disbelief in Avery's eyes, the kind that showed she couldn’t fully process what was happening. Those fleeting glances haunted Grayson as the ground swallowed him, the looks of helplessness and shock lingering in his mind.

Grayson spun, his heart pounding, but before he could react, the ground beneath him gave way. His feet slipped, and with a swift, terrifying jolt, the floor opened up, swallowing him whole.

For a split second, there was nothing but darkness—a void of silence. Grayson felt himself falling, weightless, his mind racing to make sense of what had just happened. Then, with a bone-rattling thud, he landed hard on a cold surface. His vision blurred for a moment, but when it cleared, he realized he was in a new room.

GRAYSON

It was unlike anything he’d seen before. The walls stretched high into the darkness, but they weren’t walls at all—they were mirrors. Hundreds of them. Each one tall and imposing, standing side by side, reflecting Grayson’s image in every direction. His reflection stared back at him from every angle, multiplied a thousand times over.

Grayson stood slowly, his body tense, his eyes darting around the room. He was surrounded, trapped in this eerie maze of glass and reflections. The light in the room was dim, flickering as if struggling to stay alive, casting strange shadows on the mirror-covered walls.

“Great,” he muttered to himself, his voice low and bitter. “Just what I needed.”

His own reflection stared back at him, unblinking, but something was wrong. It wasn’t just the repetition of his face—there was something off about the room, something twisted. As he took a step forward, one of his reflections moved differently, just slightly out of sync. His eyes narrowed, trying to track the anomaly, but it disappeared as quickly as it came.

Grayson’s mind raced, every instinct on high alert. He knew this wasn’t just a room of mirrors; it was a trap. “A test,” he whispered, his voice steady, his breath slow. “Another puzzle.”

He took another step, careful, watching his reflections. The air in the room felt heavy with anticipation, like the mirrors themselves were alive, waiting for him to make the first move.

"Okay," Grayson said to himself, his voice echoing slightly in the cold, mirrored space. "Think. How do you get out of a room full of mirrors?"

He recalled the poem from the previous room, the puzzle that had guided them. Nothing here felt familiar, but he knew that every room in this mansion was crafted to challenge them, to push them to their limits. There had to be a clue. He turned slowly, scanning the endless walls of glass, searching for something, anything, that might be out of place.