The Murder Maze

Chapter 23

Iyan sat down in one of the small pink chairs from Crowheart's section, holding his key in one hand and a broken soft toy in the other. He would use both items to squeeze to relieve the pain he'd feel in the process of inserting the microchip. Roxanne bent down to reach the midpoint of his neck while Heather and Grayson stayed around Lizzie just in case she woke up. Roxanne brought the knife to his neck and slowly made a small x-shaped cut into his skin. Iyan's jaw clenched and his hands tightened around the objects as he felt the knife pierce his skin. Iyan was tough, there was no denying that, but even he felt like screaming at that point in time. Foxy took away the knife and watched the maroon blood trickle down his neck. She sighed and wiped off some of it with her shirt. It was definitely not the most sanitary option but it was the only one they had.

She picked up the little device that was blinking blue from Heather's open palm. It was a strange piece of machinery for sure. Something so advanced shouldn't even exist in the first place. It was a small square and flat metallic object, no more than two centimeters in width and length and hardly four millimeters in height. The gadget seemed so easy to break that Foxy had trouble holding it in her fingers by fear of crushing it. It had a solid silver background with luminescent blue streaks going all across itself. There was a large light in the middle, perhaps was it the source of the power? When they'd found the appliance in Lizzie neck, the light blue piece shone very dimly but as soon as Foxy had extracted it, it started blinking. The blinking wasn't alarming, it was slow and was probably present only to inform the user that the chip was implanted properly. Foxy continued to wonder, just like everyone else had, where such a breakthrough in technology had appeared and why had it been kept a secret? Those thoughts had to be stored away for the time being as they had more important worries to take care of at that time, embedding it into Iyan's neck.

Roxanne meticulously placed the small object on the cut she had previously made, letting it rest on the wound. She took yet another deep breath before pushing it in. She made several checks to assure that the microchip was indeed placed on the incision and not on any uncut skin. She did this to avoid as much pain for Iyan as possible. Pain in itself was unavoidable with a procedure like this but if she could do anything to limit the pain, she would do it without any hesitation. Once she was sure that the chip was in the best possible spot to avoid unnecessary discomfort, she pushed the little device into the wound. Iyan began making sounds of pain such as groaning, whimpering and a few yelps once or twice. Foxy took her time when pushing the chip in, although this method was a lot less painful than just shoving it into the cut, it still caused a solid minute or two of agony for the poor boy. Just as she'd finished pushing in the chip, the blue streaks across the chip began to expand onto his skin, giving it a fluorescent blue shade. The bright blue lights travelled all across his neck, shoulder and some down his back. As soon as the lights had started roaming his body, Iyan fell from the chair and rolled onto the floor, dropping the broken soft toy in the process. His hands stayed pressed to his head as he screamed out in torture, the small key pressed to his skull had begun digging into his skin and a small streak of blood ran down his forehead. The three friends stood around him in fear, they knew that the process was going to be painful but they didn't expect this much pain.

As the lines started to fade and the larger blinking blue light stabilized, Iyan's hands began to loosen grip from his scalp and his screaming turned into heavy breathing. Heather, Grayson and Roxanne all waited for him to make a sign to show that he was okay or at least that he was going to survive. The young boy used all the strength he had despite the pounding in his head to sit on his knees and give a small thumbs up, making the rest of the group gasp from relief. They all exchanged glances of happiness, hope and comfort knowing that they now had a chance to leave the maze, alive. Heather looked at Iyan with a smile that travelled from ear to ear,