The Faceless

Task five: Courage

  I rush out of the door and into the next passage. I sprint to the end ignoring Bailie's calls, my feet slide over the stones as I try to turn to the left.

"Carina stop wait!" Bailie shouts.

  I plough on ahead but my foot catches on a loose stone in the floor and it sends me sprawling. Bailie catches up to me as I pick myself up again, my body aching. I try to keep moving but Bailie grabs me by my arm.

"Slow down if you injure yourself it'll hurt your chances of passing the next task!" he yells.

  I don't want to admit it but he's got a point. I stop struggling and look hard into his face.

"Well let's go then, my friend is waiting for me to save her."

  An emotion I can't place flickers across Bailie's face, "I wouldn't trust them."

  I pull myself out of his grip, "I don't have a choice; if I want to see Addie again I have to trust them!"

"Why do you care about this girl so much," he shouts "you're still alive that's all that matters isn't it."

"No," I scream "Addie is my friend I've always looked after her and I promised I'd get her home!" I glared at him, hot tears pouring down my face again.

"How can you be so heartless?" I shriek and shoved him hard in the chest "Haven't you got anyone you care about?"

  He scowls at me. His face is the picture of utter hatred, it's an expression of anger so intense that it paralyses me, even the tears stop falling.

"No I don't." he says coldly "As a child I was close to my mother, she was a beautiful woman and I loved her, but when I was eight The Faceless took her from me. My father decided her disappearance was somehow my fault and hated me for it. I learned young that the only one who is going to care for me is me. I was even relieved when he was taken when I was fifteen."

  Bailie garbs my shirt and pulls my face so close to his I can feel his breath as he speaks.

"And there is no way I'm letting a depressed old goat, two pathetic women and a pair od PMSing teenagers get me killed!"

  He pushed me back so I stumble and fall against the wall. The story about his parents bounces around my skull. In particular the part about his father leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

"It doesn't matter to you what I do," I snarl refusing to let myself feel any kind of sympathy for the man "Let's just find the next task."

  We walk in silence refusing to look at each other or acknowledge each other's presence. That is until we reach yet another dead end."

"What is the point of this maze?" I yell frustrated.

"It's to give us chance to talk," Bailie says, he's regained his cool demeanour "So we grow to like or loath one another."

"Why?" I ask.

"So we can watch them perish. It's a way of making us feel alone, singling us out and cutting us off the way they did with Edmond and Sienna."

"So my clinging to Addie is a way I can beat them!" I cry.

  Bailie scoffs, "Look how well that ended for Sienna."

  I ignore him. I will see Addie again, The Faceless won't take from me. We backtrack and take the other path. We walk for what felt like an age. Eventually we come to a heavy steel door similar to the one in the room we woke in only this one was guarded by The Faceless.

"The fifth task is courage." They say in the voice that sends shivers down my spin "Inside this room fifth time you will have earned your place in our new world."