Page 11 of Noire Moon
Each provides a temptation. Calling my name to duck inside and try to evade the men who are after me.
But those rooms will all be dead ends. There is no doubt in my mind each door I pass is all just a giant trap, and I need to try to find my way back to the main stairwell.
Besides, I know they are coming, and I know they are faster than I am.
My half-stumble, half-run in this ridiculous outfit is the least sexy thing imaginable.
There’s a wall up ahead, and I pray that as I round the corner at the end of the hall, I might have found my way back to somewhere close to where we entered. Maybe I’ll find some other people. In between forgetting to breathe, I’m also freaking the fuck out that I haven’t seen another soul.
Something feels very wrong. This evening started with a crowd of guests, and now I seem to be entirely alone. There’s not even the sound of distant screams anymore to at least indicate where other people might be inside the mansion.
I’ve been thinned from the herd with ruthless efficiency.
Jesus Christ, I’m an idiot for coming here.
Suddenly, the corridor spits me out onto a wide landing. One bathed in red light, but this time, there’s no hall of mirrors. Only a staircase leading down, which must be the way back to where we came in.
I almost fall down the stairs, clutching the railing and feeling certain I’m going to be caught at any second.
Then, I arrive at the final step and freeze. I’m completely disoriented. This isn’t the same way we arrived, and I’m now surrounded, enclosed on all sides, right in the midst of tall mirrors and a flickering light overhead that beats erratically like my heart.
Maybe this is the back of the maze?
Fuck. Either way, I have to push on. There’s no going back the way I just came.
So I don’t think and start to move. What feels like a hundred fractured reflections of myself rebound back at me. It’s confusing, immediately disorienting, and my throat tightens at the knowledge I’m oh, so alone in this.
At that thought, I pull out my phone, silently saying a thank you that it hasn’t fallen out of my pocket or been taken while I was trapped in the dark with three possible murderers.
No notifications.
No messages.
I unlock the screen as I fumble my way forward, keeping one hand outstretched to stop myself from walking face-first into a mirror. Which I do almost immediately, colliding with a thud into a solid surface.
Turning, I glide my shaking hand along the cold glass, touching my outstretched reflection, and keep walking. There’s no running now in this enclosed space. Only the light pulsing chaotically above my head and the eerie multitude of glimpses of myself I keep running into.
For a second, the wordMoonlightweighs on my tongue. I taste the word. Mouthing those syllables to myself in silence just to practice what it would be like to utter them out loud.
If I scream it loud enough, will someone come and get me out of here?
The prospect of being dumped outside in the dark and cold night, all alone, doesn’t exactly feel any safer either. In fact, it would surely increase my chances of being dumped in the woods like an extra in a slasher movie tenfold. So I try to type a quick text to Rita with thumbs that refuse to cooperate. With flashing lights overhead and a stuttering heartbeat filling my chest and shaking fingers, I can barely get to function properly in order to swipe my phone screen to open the damn thing, let alone write anything that makes sense.
Where are you?
I waitfor the comforting sight of a read receipt, or three bouncing dots to appear, but neither comes. With a whimper, I lock my phone screen and reach out to touch the unforgiving mirror in front of me, then glance up.
My stomach drops through the floor.
Right behind me is a man in a skull mask who towers over me. His sinister reflection flickers with a reddish glow, the lighting has changed to an ominous announcement of his presence, and his head tilts to one side, oh so slowly.
My phone slips from my fingers and shatters like the snap of a bone when it collides with the polished marble floor.
I don’t bother to stop and try to pick it up, I’m already bolting. Both hands outstretched as I careen through the rest of the mirrors, bouncing off reflective surfaces so hard I wince with the bruising sting of running into so many immovable objects. Catching a thousand awful glimpses of skulls that I’m unable to tell what might be real or reflections or just figments of my imagination.
Sweet relief arrives when I finally find my hand disappearing into thin air. A break in the maze is right in front of me, and I take the opportunity to squeeze through a gap. Out here, the air feels chilled all of a sudden, and upon my makeshift exit from the maze, I find myself at the top of an impossibly narrow set of stairs. From the steep drop down, they seem like they’re headed for a basement. The kind that might be an emergency exit. And I don’t think twice before racing down them.
It’s only when I reach the bottom that I realize my mistake.
