𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐄 [ᴍɪɴʜᴏ]

CHAPTER ONE

[ one ].
CHAPTER ONE
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    THE SPRING was covered in snow. The Icers were up, getting ready for another long day of work. The almost zero temperatures didn't stopped them from going outside to do their job. It's not like they weren't used to it, some of them have been doing this for almost four years.

    The sun was shining bright in the sky but not even that brought some warmth to the girls. They wore several layers of clothes to keep them from freezing during the day. Some even wore fur that had been skinned from the animals that they had had.

    A deafening sound broke the peaceful atmosphere that lingered. The enormous stone walls that lead to the maze were sliding back. For some, it still amazed them how such heavy structures could move so easily. Then there were the other Icers that with time come to just accept this unusual place.

    For the Sprinters that sound was the signal that their day had officially begun.

    In front of the entry to the maze stood a small group of girls. Their clothing was slightly different from the rest of the Icers. Instead of thick clothes, they wore thinner clothes that were still capable of keeping them warm. Fingerless gloves cover almost all of their fingers. Their feet were warmed with two pairs of socks, sometimes, if the weather required they wore three, as long it fitted with their boots it was fine.

    All of them had their hair tied in some way. Some in a braid, others in a ponytail, and one of them even in both. This last one was at the front with a blank expression on her face, arms crossed over her chest, waiting for the doors to fully open.

    "Let's go!"

    She sprinted through the gap, the rest of the group following close behind. Reaching the first crossing they parted ways.

They did this. Every. Single. Day. Running the maze, mapping it, memorizing it, trying to find a way out.

Three years had passed and still, they didn't seem to be any closer of getting out, however, they never lost hope.

    Running through the corridors, following the route that leaded to section eight, was the one they call Guardian of the Sprinters. Her long ponytail swayed from side to side as she ran. Braids securing the wavy dark brown hair to her scalp, preventing it from falling to her face.

    The only sound that could be heard was the pounding of her dirty combat boots against the hard ground along with her controlled breaths.

Frost decorated most of the stone walls and floor. It would probably make any other person fall face-first on the ground but not her, no. She lost count of how many times she have been in the maze. It had become part of her life - if it could even be called that.

The maze was her escape.

It's ode how a place that most people could get easily lost was the place where she felt freer. The girl would run for hours without looking back, without having someone telling her to stop, to rest. Just feeling the cold breeze against her frozen red cheeks. It was a feeling that she would wake up every morning too.

    The sprinter slowed down to a jog. The towering wall - the number 8 painted in a dirty red, that was once as red as blood - come into view.

    Every crack of the surrounding walls seemed to have been burned in the girl's memory. It's extraordinarily how the human brain was capable of capturing all the little details of a certain place and carved them in someone's mind almost unconsciously.

    Nothing seemed to have changed since the previous day. Even the weeds that somehow have found their away through the cracks on the stone floor seemed to haven't grown an inch.

    Was that even possible? Or were the founders just trying to mess with her head? Making her feel even more lost and desperate than she already felt.

   

    Sometimes the girl wondered when will come the time when she will finally lose it. Lose her sanity to this place. That time was close and she could fill it, like an insect devouring her brain bit by bit, until there was nothing left.

    It infuriated her more than anything that she couldn't do more to help find a way out. Even though she explored this freaking maze every damn day nothing seem to change. And they were in a desperate need of change. Without them, we get stuck in time, and the time has been three years and the clock kept counting.

    Like every other normal day, the brunette started by taking notes on some pieces of paper that were always secured in her small bag, as well as a pencil and her lunch. Her notes were messy and overall completely disorganized. But that didn't seem to be a problem for the young girl. It was already hard to write every theory, every possibility that pass through her mind so fast, like a bolt of lightning, it would be even more of a challenge if she was to be concern about such pitiful things as organization.

    As usual, after assessing every small detail of the section, the brunette sat against the frosty covered ivies - with not care that her clothes got wet - and lost herself drawing her surroundings as the sun covered by the clouds made its course through the grey sky.

    Somehow she managed to capture every little detail - the white frost that delicately covered the weeds, like they had always belong together, making them seem much more special then they were. That was one of the aspects that she loved about the icy weather, it could make anything - no matter how plain it was - turned into the most beautiful things.

    And so the day slowly passed like every other. A waste of time was what it was.

    Every sunrise the sprinter would wake up with the thought that today was the day, the day she would discover the way out and bring her friends closer to their homes, parents and perhaps siblings, who knew. But as the time to go back came, with nothing but useless screeches on wrinkled pages, reality truly hit her and she would feel all of her hope vanishing like it was never there.

Was this the way that she was going to spend the next years of her life? Would she die in this place with no memory of whom she once was?

    The girl knew that she wasn't the only one with this kind of degrading thoughts but for some reason, their failure on finding a way out took a much larger impact on her.

    Perhaps it had to be with her leading role as the Guardian of the Sprinters, or maybe she just couldn't forget the words, the words that together made a promised to her...a promise that she could no longer keep.