Collision

Chapter Twenty Three

Ellie's P.O.V.

We had three seconds to bolt it inside the wall, and so we did. Daryl quickly shut it as we urged him to. The three of us collapsed once we made it in, safe again.

"How did you know we were out there?" Michonne asked, the question was in each of our thoughts.

"I didn't," Daryl replied bluntly. He looked shocked and confused, but all the more with a gleaming smile on his face.

"Then why did you open the wall?" Carl asked, standing up after catching his breath. 

"At first I was hesitating, the voice in the room told us to, but we didn't listen. We thought it'd be a trap and a hundred walkers would come in, but then he started talking about how a life depended on it, and so I opened."

At the corner of the room, a quick movement happened from the corner of my eye. I turned my head and found Joel, sitting up while rubbing his face with one hand, his eyes pierced shut from his sleep. 

"What in the hell is the ruckus?" He asked. I didn't give anyone time to reply, I simply ran to him and crushed him in a hug.

This felt like deja vu. Joel and I had been separated so many times, but in each and every time, we always managed to find our way back to each other.

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After an hour of sharing knowledge and catching up on everything that's happened in the past few days, we decided to call it a night and take a rest for what was about to happen tomorrow.

Tomorrow, we were going to find out a way out of here, as fast as possible. Although none of us knew entirely how to do that, we had at least six brains to help each other out. Rick started with planning about how we would all feel the edges of the wall, searching for every possible creak and crevice. But not shortly after that, Joel suggested that we go to the middle of maze, see if there's anything useful there.

The group paced the room, thinking of every possible way to get out. 

"Has no one ever tried climbing these walls?" Carl asked, slumping his shoulder as if exhausted from thinking.

"Well, the game master told us that many have tried, but many have also fallen to their deaths," Joel answered, his tone sounding bitter. I noticed the lines on his forehead becoming sharper. He must've been under a lot of stress lately. Well, I couldn't blame him. We were all under pressure.

"Has anyone ever seen these circles in person?" Carl asked, pointing at the small dot on the map. Everyone took a closer look at it, but shook their heads.

"We've always disregarded it. We think it might be some sort of trap or something," Daryl stated, shrugging off the detail.

"But that wouldn't make sense. A trap is supposed to be unknown, this wouldn't be a very smart trap if they actually placed it on a map. Maybe it could lead us somewhere. Maybe it's a clue to getting out of here?" I suggested, thinking about the many different possibilities of what the circle might be.

"It's vice versa. Like you said, they wouldn't be smart if they put a trap there, but they wouldn't be smart if they put an escape there either," Daryl continued, wiping sweat from his forehead. 

 This caused the rest of us to go into deep thought, desperately trying to find a way out.

"How about we just visit one of these things? I mean, we'll stay back, but we'll just observe what it is," Michonne suggested, wiping clean her katana with the hem of her shirt.

The group nodded, showing interest in what Michonne had to say.

Soon enough, we were jogging through the maze, straight into the little circle.

At first, we were confused, we didn't see anything. It was just a big space surrounded by gray walls, but as we inched closer, we realized what it was. Well, we were close to realizing.

"Do we drop something on it? See if there's a hole under there, or if it's a mine or a trap of some sort?" Joel voiced out, taking out the empty bottle of water from his bag. He was ready to test this 'giant button'.

"Alright, stay back. I'll drop it and if something happens, you all run away from here as fast as you can. There's no time to waste so let's do this now," Rick strenuously demanded with his head hanging loose. He seemed afraid but he was covering it up nicely with his leadership awareness as the sheriff in the group.

No words were exchanged as we stepped back, giving Rick and the button five meters of space as he looked at Carl with pure discomfort.

Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Rick dropped the bottle. We cringed, but nothing happened since the button hadn't moved at all. The empty water bottle must've been too light. 

I was about to yell at Rick to try something else, when he did something expected but worth shutting my eyes for. It seemed as if it were a horror movie, with the audience knowing what would happen to the victim. I thought Rick would get shot, blow up or die in some other way, but surprisingly he didn't. As Rick stood on the button, all his weight pushing down, there was an eerie sound that echoed the halls of the maze.

"What was that?" I slowly whispered, looking around to identify the source. It was no use, the sound felt like it was coming from everywhere.

"Dad, get out of there!" Carl screamed, urging him to step away from the button on which he stood.

Rick did so, and it caused another sound to erupt. They were both clicking noises, familiar to my ears. I tried my best to reminisce my past and try remembering how that sounded as if I'd heard it before. 

"It sounds like the gates when they unlatched to open up," I stated, gaining a few nods.

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well," Michonne furrowed her eyebrows, looking intently at the ground.

Rick jogged his way towards us, but before we could say anything, he basically read our minds. "That sounded like a door unlocking itself. That giant circle right there must be a trigger for opening a door or two doors."

"It could be the trigger for our way out."