Endless War (Complete)

Chapter 30 "A Maze"

We quickly make it over to the small entrance into the maze, a diagram appears in my mind. We have to use Sebastian's knives to push back strange hooks that secure the door in place. I quickly take the necessary blades off of him before he can even react to my taking them, and insert them into the cracks around the edge of the doors. I am able to engage the hooks and the door makes a swooshing sound as it opens.

We have to get on our hands and knees to make our way into the tunnel of clear acrylic, that aught to make this a little more difficult to traverse. We are finally able to stand up and are in front of another doorway. The Curators enter my head again and this time speak rather than just showing a diagram. "Once you activate the mechanisms on the door it will form an airlock in this space. Generally, when this space is accessed you have the proper identification chips, and you are leaving rather than entering."

"The dome is sealed from any contamination that may be on the outside, the small door has already closed. You will have to hold your breath until the pressure is equalized." Before exiting my mind it flashes a new diagram before my eyes. This time however it requires three hands.

I turn to Sebastian. "So, looks like we are both going to have to work on this door. There are mechanisms at the top and bottom of this door as well as in the center." I quickly take the extra blade off of him and insert them into the proper places. "So on three we will have to move them all at the same time. I will signal you by tapping on your knee when to do so because the air will be sucked out of the room as soon as one of them is triggered." I quickly talk through the last part.

"Hold our breath, no air?" He quickly processes the information I attempted to minimize.

"It will be really fast. So, no worries." I smile extra large.

He grasps the lower blade and looks up at me. Still smiling, I place my foot on his leg, and grab the other two knives. We both take a deep breath, on the third tap we both move our knives. The air is quickly sucked from around us but the door remains closed.

Sebastian looks up at me, and smiles really big. I close my eyes and enter his thoughts, shit he slid the blade the wrong way.

I smile and point in the direction he needs to slide the blade and he nods his head. We go through the tapping process once again, and I swear it feels like my lungs will implode due to the pressure in the room. Quickly on the third tap we both move our blades in the proper directions. To my relief the door opens with the satisfactory swishing sound.

I turn to Sebastian. "So, luckily from here on out I don't think we will have to worry about not being able to breath while you go the wrong way." I fuss.

"To be honest, you never said which way I was supposed to slide the knife." He raises his right eyebrow, looking so damn cute. I realize at that moment I could never stay mad with this man. Not only that, he speaks the truth.

"You have to stay close, cause with us going the wrong way in there will be traps. Please don't trigger them. Just step where I step." I nod my head and he nods his in affirmation.

The Curators overlay the map over my view, now this looks really neat. I didn't realize that we could do that, but I like it. I follow the map to a "t" making sure not to trigger any of the foot plates, when suddenly I notice an in-discrepancy. There is a small black square on the floor opposite a trigger, making getting past them both without touching one impossible. "I don't know what the black square does."

Quickly Sebastian moves down to ground level and examines the black square. "It is a trigger plate. Someone added this, and I see wires. They tried to hide them, but I can't tell what they trigger. Everything is made of this strange clear material."

"I will just throw you over the two of them." He quickly takes me in his arms before I can react and tosses me safely over the traps. "Now I run and jump."

He backs up quickly and before I can stop him he runs and leaps on the very end of the black square. Suddenly a clear blade begins to descend from the ceiling, just before it manages to cut his leg off it stops and he rolls to safety. I realize that it is me holding the blade with my mind, I caught it. I blink and it quickly continues its decent, as it meets the floor it shatters.

He looks back at the broken glass strewn about on the ground. "I didn't make it." He looks up at me then back to the glass. "You did that, you stopped it. That's amazing." He takes me in his arm and spins in a circle.

"Stop, you don't know if there are any more triggers." I interject and he sets me back on the floor. "At least that one is disarmed so that we can make our way back out without any problems."

"We, you said we." He happily observes.

I shake my head. "I didn't mean it like that, I don't know if I will make it. Please." I close my eyes, I don't want to think about what may happen to me.

He wraps me in a hug, "I am sorry, I was just on a high."

We quickly manage to make our way through the maze, and end up in a long white hallway. I can hear my boots echo as we begin to walk down the hall. To my right a door I didn't even realize was there swooshes open. There was no sign of a door there before. After we both jump, my hand is quickly taken by another. I recognize the face attached to the hand pulling me into the room. "James." I gasp.