The Huntress Descent

The Labyrinth: Chapter Seven

The lights blinked.

Buzzed.

Blinked.

The sound.

An alarm.

Muffled at first.

Gaining traction as the world softened from a harsh white to the colourful surroundings.

I was pressed up against the wall, my heart racing. The alarm now blaring above me.

Left. Right.

I was in a corridor, with no escape unless I picked a direction.

A rope looped itself round my lungs, forcing the air out. I clutched at my chest, the pain doubling me over.

"Check down that corridor!" a deep voice screamed from the left.

Go!

I pushed myself from the wall and darted in the opposite direction. I clambered down the hallway and blindly took a turn, running as fast as I could away from the voice. I steadied myself on the wall as best I could, the world swimming in front of me. I did my best to run in a straight line, but it felt like I was being thrown around wildly. I felt numb and dizzy with a protruding pain in the back of my head.

Keep running.

The wind in me forced itself out quicker. My stomach churned from the disoriented corridor.

I stopped and hurled up a dark black bile onto the white shiny floor. It tinged a copper colour when the light flickered above. I wiped my mouth as best I could.

"She's going to the lift."

I glanced over my shoulder and caught sight of tall shadow and sandy brown hair. I launched myself from the wall again and sprinted to the end of the corridor.

"Stop her! Don't let her in there!"

I turned the corner and slammed into a metallic door that was half-open. Lights flickered in a panel beside the door, numbers racing past as the doors slowly closed.

The area left unprotected.

Footsteps further down the corridor pushed me into the idea.

"Wipe her mind! She's going to ruin the experiment!"

I squeezed myself through the gap and fell forward into an abyss of darkness.

Don't trust anyone.

Don't trust anyone.

Startled would be the word that I would have used. Confused would be the other.

The sandy brown hair. I had seen that variation. The voice too. Nothing made sense. For a dream, it felt very real. The emotions, the breathless. I had no memories, so this clearly wasn't that.

In the end I determined that the previous evening's events had stirred my brain to react in a very violent way. Turning to nightmares instead of trying to soothe me. I rubbed my eyes. Outside the window, the sky was still dark. The inkiness dominating the Glade.

Sleep troubled me. The things I witnessed seeping in and disturbing.

Ben's face burned into my mind at the thought of yesterday. The flashes of my nightmare soon following.

I ran my hands over my head, trying to stop the thoughts from entering. "Stop," I whispered, hoping that that would do something. I had to find out answers. Maybe the Greenie asking them so much wasn't actually the annoying part. When come to face with something so terrible that the few who know won't save you from the misery of not knowing. Then it was clear that I had to seek my answer elsewhere.