Page 63 of Daemonium

There were no visible timers, just the cold, mechanical announcement to signal our time ticking away. The walls around us began to move. They slid in different directions, like pieces on a massive, deadly chessboard. We moved instinctively, just as one of the walls came sliding toward us on hidden tracks. The song played through twice, its repetitive, haunting tune driving us forward. As it reached the verse, "Down came the rain," large square sections of the floor flipped like a checkerboard. Metal grates appeared sporadically, the lights dimming even further until we were nearly plunged into darkness.

At first, I didn’t think much of it until the sprinklers over the grates activated, and the sound of someone screaming—a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream—echoed through the room. My heart hammered in my chest as I realized what was happening. Just as Dion had predicted, the squares in the upper part of the walls slid open, revealing ladders that descended to the floor. Simultaneously, doors that had been seamlessly blended into the walls swung open, and masked figures entered the room, their LED masks glowing ominously in the dark.

The grates flipped back over, the sprinklers shut off, and the chutes and ladders vanished as if they had never been there. "Twelve minutes," the robotic voice announced, the walls seeming to grow more aggressive, as if they were sentient, pushing us toward the center of the room.

We moved quickly, trying to navigate the shifting maze and now the added threat that seemed to navigate the space with ease. Each turn was identical to the last, the walls pressing in with no discernible pattern. Suddenly, a wall slammed between us, separating our group. I found myself with Ky, Mel, Brody, and Dion, while Lana and the others were cut off on the opposite side.

"Keep moving! Get out as soon as you can," Ciaran's voice called to us, muffled but urgent.

We didn’t have time to process. The maze was relentless, its shifting walls giving no reprieve. There didn’t seem to be any set reason for the grates and chutes—only when the eerie tune randomly doubled back.

“It’s going in two-minute intervals,” Dion pointed out when the time clicked down to ten minutes.

We pushed forward, but the danger wasn’t just from the maze.

As we rounded another corner, a masked figure appeared out of nowhere, nearly knocking me over. Ky was instantly there, moving faster than I could blink. He placed himself between me and them. I barely registered his small grunt beneath the cacophony of the music, but when I looked down, I saw the glint of metal protruding from his side.

Blood welled up, dark against his shirt, but he barely reacted. Instead, with a controlled fury, he lifted the masked person by the throat, his fingers tightening around their windpipe. As the walls began to slide again, he one-handedly shoved me toward the others, separating himself from us. “Get her out,” he ordered, voice strained but unyielding.

“Ky!” I screamed, trying to push past, but Brody pulled me back, his grip iron-tight.

Another wall slid into place, nearly crushing me against the one Ky had just used to separate us.

This wasn’t like before—he wasn’t playing a game under the guise of finding his brother. He was hurt. And now, he was alone.

“Mel,” I choked out, struggling in Brody’s hold. “He’s hurt! We can’t leave him!”

“He’ll be okay, Gracie,” Mel said, her voice surprisingly steady. “We have to keep moving.”

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I knew she was right. We couldn’t stop, not here. We pressed forward, moving through the labyrinth with increasing urgency. The timer counted down to six minutes when Dion shouted loudly enough for everyone to hear. “We’re inside a maze! That’s what the walls have been forming. Focus on the chutes, not the walls—they’re our way out!”

His revelation gave us a new strategy. We began moving with more purpose, avoiding the walls, eyes scanning for the chutes Dion had mentioned. Just as we started to make progress, the floor beneath us flipped over, sending us sprawling like bowling pins. The sensation of falling was disorienting, my knees and palms stinging as I hit the ground hard. We scrambled to help each other up, the adrenaline masking the pain. But then, a new sound reached my ears—the rapid thudding of footsteps, heavy and purposeful, coming right at Dion.

“Dion, look out!” I shouted.

Everything happened too fast. Mel, with an instinct that spoke of a deep bond, shoved Dion out of the way, taking the hit herself. The masked figure crashed into her, the force of it knocking them both into the path of the acid spray from the sprinklers.

“No!” I screamed, my voice ragged with terror and disbelief.

The smell of burning flesh filled the air, sickeningly sweet and acrid. I tried to rush forward to help her, but Dion was suddenly there, pulling me back. “You can’t! Gracie, you can’t—” His voice was desperate, pleading, knowing the same fate would befall me if I got any closer.

“No!” I screamed and fought against his hold. The acid splashed onto my hand, burning through my skin like fire. I screamed, the pain searing through me, but all I could think about was Mel. Her eyes met mine, and in them, I saw the love and loyalty that had always defined her.

She mouthed, “I love you,” just as the acid consumed her. The sight was unbearable—her skin blistered, blackened, and began to slough off in chunks. The masked figure fused to her managed to withdraw a weapon—something sharp and brutal—and slammed it into Mel’s throat, ending whatever suffering she had left.

Her blood sprayed across the floor as Brody and Dion dragged me away, my legs numb, my mind reeling. A choked sob escaped me, raw and broken. The floor flipped back over, taking Mel and whatever was left of her with it, the walls closing in even tighter around us. Everything around me blurred—sights, sounds, and smells all merging into one horrifying cacophony. The taste of bile rose in my throat, the scent of charred flesh burning into my senses. My best friend was dead, and the realization crashed over me like a wave, threatening to pull me under.

“Gracie!” Dion’s voice broke through the haze, shaking me back to the grim reality. “We need to keep moving. We have to survive this.”

But my body felt like it was moving through thick, suffocating air, each step harder than the last.

I was barely aware of the pain in my hand, the bloodied skin raw and exposed. All I could think about was Mel—her sacrifice, her love, her brutal end.

“Gracie, stay with us,” Brody urged, his voice tight with emotion. “We can’t do this without you.”

I nodded numbly, forcing my legs to keep moving, to focus on getting out of this nightmare alive. With every step, the weight of what I had just witnessed pressed down on me, threatening to crush what little resolve I had left.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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