Dead Memories

51

Chapter Fifty-One

Thor was convinced that the walls were alive and watching them. It was a disconcerting feeling. They only had Wanda's magic, Tony's armour and Sam's small flashlight to light up the darkness around them, but the tunnel was low and narrow so at least they were not forced to walk cautiously. They were marching forward with a much faster pace than before, the urgency of the situation descending down on them once more with Steve leading them forward with such speed. Thor wanted to ask Sam and Wanda if they were all right, since he could hear how their breathing picked up from moving this fast for this long, but he did not want to insult them by implying that they were unable to keep up with the rest of them.

Traps of course they found plenty, not magical in nature, but heavy doors Tony needed override, pitfalls disguised as steady ground, and even more automatic cannons that were likely lethal to most humans, but actually caused them very little trouble. Thor wondered again if it were the Darkholders who built all these defences, or if they just took the place over from someone else, but it mattered very little in the end.

They didn't run into any other demons, but that feeling of being watched remained with Thor, so his muscles tensed at every small noise that caught his ears.

'I feel like this is a maze,' Wanda said all of a sudden, as she stopped abruptly. The rest of them came to a halt and turned back around to look at her. 'We passed this crack in the wall once already.'

Nobody asked her if she was sure, because she wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise.

'The way we took turns doesn't add up into a loop,' Tony said.

'I didn't say it made sense,' Wanda told him.

'There's more than one way to make a maze,' Thor said. 'I, for one, expected to run into more difficulties.'

'Can we test it out to be 100% sure?' Sam asked.

'Not unless we go our separate ways,' Loki said.

'I would very much advise against that,' Vision protested right away.

'Let's keep going,' Steve said. 'See if anything else seems familiar.'

That was the best course of action for now, so they once again started moving down the seemingly endless series of hallways. Thor kept a close eye on everything that seemed even a little unique, trying to memorise the things they passed, like the crack on the wall Wanda pointed out, a small hole on the far right, a piece of dried plant on the ceiling, a little pile of pebbles scattered around.

They kept walking until Steve and Loki both came to a stop again. Thor only needed to take a few more steps closer to see that both of them were staring at the distinct crack in the wall Wanda pointed out earlier.

'Oh, good, I always wanted to be trapped in an endless loop of nightmares,' Tony sighed.

'This was less than a twenty minute walk,' Sam pointed out.

'So what now?' Wanda asked.

'I'd hate to be the one asking the obvious questions,' Tony said. 'But I don't suppose we can bust our way out of this with brute force.'

'I really don't think so,' Steve answered. 'Things are never that easy. And I'm not sure we should try.'

'I could try going through the wall,' Vision said. 'See where that leads me.'