Tracks in the Sand

Chapter 4

Lee pressed his first foot down, and all of a sudden felt a very real sense of dread closing in on him. He closed his eyes for a moment, and tried to clear his head. He managed to focus on a single thought, and hoped that he could cling onto it.

Stay alive.

Lee opened his eyes again and looked around. The sandstone walls must have been at least nine or ten metres tall. There was something very claustrophobic about all of this, Lee thought. It was almost as if they had a life of their own.

Lee looked forward into the long, dark maze of passageways that fell before him, and took another step forward.

"craaaaaaaaack!"

Lee instantly turned backwards to see where the noise; a horrible grinding sensation, was coming from. He turned just in time to see another section of sandstone wall that had emerged from one side of the passage, and, with an almighty clap, halt as it met the other side, closing off any escape back into the capsule.

Lee listened, and sure enough the same resounding booms were echoing throughout the maze, both to his left and his right. It took fifteen seconds for the final crack of sandstone on sandstone. Lee counted the "thunderclaps" up.

Seven in total.

The other contestants had made their first move.

Lee turned his attention forward into the tangled abyss, and continued to walk. After about a minute of walking in a dead straight line, he came to an intersection. The path, it seemed moved off in another three directions; straight ahead, left or right.

Lee weighed his options for a moment. His years in the military had proved that strategy was always a key factor in almost every situation. He remembered a saying that had been stuck up on pin-up boards, bedroom walls and even mess-hall menus all around the compound that he had trained in:

"A plan is nothing. Planning is everything."

Couldn't be any more relevant now.

Lee started with left and right. He had seen previous Tournaments in the past, and knew for a fact that the maze was oval shaped. Four contestants would begin on each of the longer sides of the oval, usually at one-quarter intervals.

Lee remembered estimating the length of the maze when he'd just landed in.

Maybe twenty kilometres. Good.

That gave him roughly five free kilometres on either side. And he probably had anywhere between fourteen and fifteen kilometres directly ahead of him. Eventually, Lee decided that he would stand a far better chance if he moved straight ahead.

And he recalled, again from previous games, that the closer you got to the centre of the maze, the more supplies there were scattered in certain areas, mostly in small crevasses and dead ends. As well as this, the supplies in the centre were also better. Things like bags of fruit, bottles of water, swords axes and Lee had even seen a handgun used once or twice in the maze.

And so Lee took off at a jog, further into the depths of the maze. He checked every turn he could, making sure that the next would guarantee him moving further towards the centre.

It wasn't long after Lee had continued to run ahead through the intersection, when he noticed something peculiar about the maze.

Embedded into the ground, (which was sandstone covered by actual sand) was a very thin thread of gold. Lee puzzled over this for a minute, and also began to notice that It wasn't in every passage. It continued to run through a very specific path.

Lee eventually decided, with no better plan in mind, he may as well give it a try.

And so he set off, following the golden twine everywhere it went. Left, right, forward and around, Lee didn't stop following. He could feel that the more he followed the golden trail, the deeper he was getting into the maze. The eerie cold silence felt as though it was getting quieter.

Eventually, after about an hour of walking, Lee began to pick out differences in the "landscape".

Here and there, small, dark crevasses in the walls began to pop up. In the crevasses, you could find either one of two things.

You could find a) some supplies.

or you could find b) that you've lost your hand and/or head.

You had a fifty-fifty chance of getting something, and usually the supplies located in the wall crevasses weren't worth the risk.

Lee had witnessed things like knapsacks, bowls, and empty soft drink cans being found in the gaps in the maze walls, and nearly every time the looks of pure anger, fear, hopelessness and countless other demeaning adjectives had crossed the faces of those who found them.

And then, of course, there were the unlucky ones. Those who stuck their hands into the crevasses, usually out of sheer desperation, only to scream in terror and pain as they hopelessly tried to pull their hand free. Usually the ones who managed to pull free did so at the cost of their own hand, or on more than one occasion, their entire lower arm.

Lee felt a tingle go through his spine, as he peered into one of the small black holes, and for a moment, he wondered if it was worth a try. He began to weigh out the options, as he had done earlier. There was a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right, and chances were even if he did get hold of something, chances were it wouldn't be worthwhile.

And then Lee remembered something. It was from a Tournament a few years back.

One of the contestants, a young Pyron, he recalled, of maybe seventeen years old, had reached into one of the crevasses. He had waited there for a moment or two, obviously nervous that he would come out of it, missing a hand.

But he didn't lose his hand.

It had been night-time during this event, but Lee had seen the boy pull out something that you would only expect to see in the centre of the maze. The young Pyron had pulled out a sword. Unfortunately, the boy was attacked and killed mere moments later by a pack of Contestants that had ganged up on him, but nonetheless, the thought still stood:

Is it worth it?

Lee stood in silence for a moment, thinking. Before he finally decided.

Yes.

The chances of Lee succeeding in the Tournament were probably 25% at most, and the way he saw it, he may as well give winning a shot, even if it did mean risking one of his hands.

And so, without so much of a second thought, Lee raised his arm and shoved it into the crevasse. It was a very long hole, Lee felt, in fact, when he found the back of the hole, his shoulder was nearly touching the wall. Lee felt around for a moment, looking for something that might be of use.

His hand eventually found itself gripped around a small, spherical object. He tugged on it, and instantly, a strange mechanical whirring could be heard from within the wall itself.

Before he could move, Lee felt an almighty weight come down and around over his wrist. His eyes widened when he realised what he'd done.

Lee was stuck.

Trapped.

And if that wasn't bad enough, a mere few seconds later, Lee heard the unmistakeable echo of footsteps, coming from just around the corner.