Gifted Ones

Chapter 33 Haven

The maze starts out just how one would expect. There are turns, twists, branches and dead ends, all made of the same, endless gray stone. I can see the cave ceiling far above us, and think about how easy it would be to fly above it, if the energy field wasn't there. They had to make it complicated, of course. Just leaving the Amulet at the entrance was too easy. I don't really understand the point of the maze anyway. I mean, even if it took us a week to go through every corner of the labyrinth, we would inevitably find the Amulet, right? At this point we're just wasting time.

I find out just how wrong I was after about an hour of wandering the corridors. Garret and my dad walk at the very front of the group, leading the way. Kara and her mother stay about twelve feet back from them. Anne, as always, walls a bit apart from us, way off to the side between the groups. Chase and I bring up the rear, letting our fingers brush against each other discreetly as we go. I let a smile creep up onto my face.

A loud cracking sound splits the silence, as loud as a gun shot. We all jump, frantically searching around with our eyes. Kara lets out a high pitched scream. Far down the passage I see something wrong with the floor. It seems to be changing, large chunks of it turning from gray to black in an instant. I squint at it, trying to tell what it is. . . Oh no. All at once I realize that the floor isn't changing; it's disappearing, falling into an empty abyss below in pieces. And soon the rock beneath us will join it.

We immediately start to run in the other direction, but automatically stop as we see a second fissure opening up there as well. And they're getting closer.

"Flying groups!" Garret calls. We look around for Morgan and Anne in desperation, trying to find them before the cracks join and reach us. Out of the corner of my eye, I see them widen to encompass the whole passage. There's no way to survive it unless we reach one of them in time.

"Haven!" Anne yells, grabbing my wrist and lunging for Chase's as well. Kara already has a hand on her upper arm. Morgan takes my dad and Garret's hands just as the splits join, and the narrow floor space we had disappears, the ground falling away into oblivion. I watch in fascination as the rock drops further and further into the ground before fading out of sight.

We hover there for second, each group on opposite sides of the space. I try to even out my panicked breathing.

"Wow," Chase says. "That was clos-"

Before I can blink, a solid wall of rock shoots up from the center of the fissure, climbing at top speed towards the electrified ceiling.

"NO!" Kara yells, reaching out for her parents just before the wall slams into the transparent barrier with a flash of electricity and a crackling sound.

"Dad!" I call out, eyes widening as I take in the situation.

Below us, the chunks of rock that were the floor start to rise, making their way towards us and recreating the ground we stood on. The already thin corridor has been split in half, leaving us with two mini halls about three feet in width. After a few seconds, Anne sets us down on the newly created stone, as smooth as if it had never been broken.

"NO!" I scream, running towards the new wall and banging my fists against it. "Dad! Can you hear me? Please say something!"

I press my ear against the stone, straining to hear something, anything, but all I am met with is silence. If they're okay, there's no way of knowing. I lean my forehead against the wall and grit my teeth, desperately wishing to be on the other side.

"Haven," Chase says, putting his hand on my shoulder. "We have to keep moving. They'll go forward, further in, right? We will too. If we try to head towards the left and they lean right, we're bound to find them eventually."