Words: 3786

(Edited)

 “Dead?!” Yona exclaimed. “Actually?” Yona’s pupils dilated as if she was finally recognizing the danger that this world would bring. No longer was she in the isolated trial room, but an open world where she could die at any moment. This realization struck her hard, causing her to almost faint.

“What happened to her?” Ji-Yoo frowned. “He threw her to the bear when we were running!” The sobbing boy yelled, rushing to stand behind Ji-Yoo. “He’s a monster.”

Adonis sneered, but once again before he could continue to argue the elevator man walked towards their group. Everyone turned their attention to the man who walked up carrying a leg.

“W-Why do you have a human leg!” The boy who was sobbing earlier began to sob even more.

“I have an arm.” Ji-Yoo held up his severed arm, and the boy who was originally hiding behind him ran towards behind Li Yan instead. “Why!?”

“Considering that he has another body part, we may have to collect them all?” The elevator man used the leg to point towards Ji-Yoo who was holding the arm.

“Isn’t this unethical?” The boy behind Li Yan grabbed his shirt. “What’s your name again?” Asked while trying to get his shirt out of the boy’s grasp. “It’s Nikolas..” The boy stopped crying and seemed to almost give up and walked next to Yona who was still going through a crisis.

“There’s something shiny in that.” The elevator man said to Ji-Yoo as he put down the leg he grabbed and looked at the arm Ji-Yoo was holding. He grabbed the shiny thing through the bugs and blood and pulled out a small piece of metal.

“It’s the key.” He confirmed as he grabbed the leg and pulled out a similar piece. Yona seemed to want to vomit, while Nikolas actually vomited. Li Yan stood there a bit stifled but at least he was better off than the other two.

“We,” Nikolas said after gasping. “We saw an arm in the hedge maze, but we didn’t dare mess with it.”

“I found the arm.” Adonis pitched in, but he was less enthusiastic than before. His face was a bit pale, probably from seeing the elevator man digging into the human body parts.

“I’ll go back by myself and get it since some people keep dragging me down.” He glared at Nikolas and walked off.

“That’s really not the brightest idea.” Ji-Yoo shook his head in disappointment as he and the elevator man threw the body parts in a pile. “I’ll hold onto these pieces.” The elevator man said, taking the pieces into his pocket. Nikolas had stopped throwing up and was now staring intently at the man’s pockets. Li Yan noticed his odd look and glanced at him before turning his attention away.

“Where’s Li Bao?” He asked aloud, reminding everyone that one of the groups hadn't arrived yet. “I saw them go into the Rabbit Hole place from the Ferris wheel.” Ji-Yoo said. “Maybe we should go get them?”

Unlike before, the elevator man decided to stick with them and they all headed towards the place that Ji-Yoo led. Once they got there, they saw that it was a two story building with the words “Where’s the Rabbit Hole?” Above it in big bright letters. The lights on this building were on, unlike before, and it was giving off a faint buzz.

“What is this place?” Ji-Yoo inquired looking around.

“A mirror maze.” Li Yan answered, reading the sign next to the entrance. “Two story mirror maze. They must have gotten lost here or got into some trouble.”

“If they had gotten into trouble, it’s not guaranteed that we can save them now.” The elevator man mentioned. “Isn’t your cousin the one in there?”

“Yeah…” Li Yan frowned. Although he wasn’t close with his cousin, he didn’t want her dead either. “Let’s hope they’re okay.”

The elevator man snorted and gestured to them inside. The entrance was dark and a small sign saying “Entrance” was pointing towards a pair of heavy thick black curtains, they walked through one by one and eventually they all were standing at the start of the mirror maze.

“It’s a bit-” Ji-Yoo tried to say, but Soren finished it for him. “Cramped. We should split up.”

“Okay, come with me and you guys go with them.” The elevator man motioned to Li Yan and brushed off everyone else. Yona and Nikolas seemed to want to follow, but the elevator man pushed them towards Ji-Yoo and Soren.

Li Yan walked away with the elevator man with a bit of confusion, but he felt that the elevator man was probably the most trustworthy one out of everyone so he didn’t disagree. Though Ji-Yoo was welcoming, he was too friendly and laid back.

“Why me?” Li Yan asked the forever annoying question. “You’re the easiest on the eyes.”

“...Okay.” Li Yan followed the elevator man through the maze of mirrors and it got to the point where it felt like they were walking for years. The mirrors seemed to have nothing but themselves in it, and the maze was also a lot bigger than a normal amusement park’s maze.

The initial nervousness and anxiety was swept away by the annoying feeling of repetition from seeing the same scene over and over again. Not only was Li Yan bored, but the elevator man was too. They continued to walk while the elevator man would carve a small X on the mirror to show where they had walked before, but oddly enough they never ran into one of the carvings. No markings from the other group were seen either, making Li Yan and the elevator man’s journey a lot more difficult.

~~~

Adonis walked back towards the hedge maze that he was in before. The maze was called “Alice’s Way Home” and had dim ambience lighting in the form of lanterns hanging from the sides of the maze’s walls. Originally, like most other places in the park, there were no lights until the players had come.

He recalled how annoying Francis was in particular when the lights turned on, always whining that she wanted to go home. He thought they were foolish. Obviously they were given such a good opportunity, they were the special ones, yet he was the only one who seemed to have realized this. Adonis felt like a protagonist in one of those novels that he had read when he was alive. Girls like Francis were supposed to fall down on their knees in front of him, but she was too stubborn.

He paled slightly recalling the brutal scene of her death, but he quickly tried to change his expression back. Although he doesn’t recognize it openly, subconsciously Adonis was scared. He wanted to follow the others and not be alone, but the protagonists that he had read about were always on their own so he decided to try to suck it up and be independent. His firm belief was that he was already dead, thus safe. Francis died because she deserved it, but he has not died yet because he is special. That was his thought process.

After entering the maze, it was a bit tricky to find where the arm was, especially because before Francis had found it. Apparently, Francis was an architecture student when she was alive, and she figured out the dimensions and area of the maze faster and more efficiently than they could have. But, Adonis still decided to ignore her contributions and name her as cowardly and weak, forgetting that he was the reason she died.

It took awhile, but he eventually started to see a familiar clearing where they had seen the arm and gotten chased by the bear. After making sure there was no bear, he walked up to the arm and grabbed the key piece from the arm while trying not to throw up. Fortunately, he convinced himself in his head that if the man from before could do it then he should be able to do it a hundred times better.

To his strong regret, the key piece wasn’t as easy to find as it had looked. When he had reached in recklessly before, he pushed the piece further in. In turn, he had to dig further than he should've, making this harder on himself. Before the escape rooms, he was an ordinary rich college student, he had never had to face such hard circumstances in his life.

While focusing on the gutting of the severed arm, he failed to notice the slow and silent footsteps heading toward him before it was too late. When he finally sensed something, he turned only to find his vision had gone black.

~~~

“There are a few possibilities.” The elevator man finally spoke after walking for a while. The fact that both Li Yan and him were not the talkative type led to the situation of them walking in silence before.

“They are erasing our markings. Or, the maze is changing.” The man hypothesized. “Although, I think the second option might be more reliable.”

“How can the maze change so much? If it was simply shifting then we would’ve seen the other teams' marks by now. I think they are erasing our markings.”

The man clicked his tongue. “This is why you’re a newbie and I’m not.”

Although Li Yan was curious about his reasoning, he decided to follow him silently until he explained himself. After waiting a while though, he still got no explanation so he decided to try to map it out himself. He thought about how the maze looked when they first walked up to it, considering how long they stayed in here already they should have been to every possible location on both floors. Floors….Li Yan frowned. They had never gone upstairs. The pieces of the puzzles seemed to connect and he finally connected them together.

“You think that the mirror maze is changing with the second floor?” Li Yan asked to which the elevator man finally stopped walking and looking at him.

“I’m not too sure of the method, but that seems most likely.”

“I played this escape room once in my hometown. In the room, they had a computer desk that I checked first thing in the room and found nothing substantial from.” Li Yan rubbed his fingers together as if reminiscing. “When I went to search the rest of the room, I found almost everything but there was still a piece missing. I ended up failing that room, but when I asked the worker what the answer was, they said that the drawers in the desk had a mechanism where they would rotate, so if I only checked the desk a few times in the beginning interval then I would miss the final clues.”

The man looked at Li Yan in appreciation. “Yes, it should be something similar, but instead of rotating they may be sliding.” They both stopped and looked closely at a nearby mirror.

“You’d miss it if you were walking past casually.” He mentioned as he rubbed the side of the mirror where it had a small bulging line going vertically all the way to the ceiling, almost as if an invisible wire was there.

“Say, if one slides up and one slides down, there is a mirror on both sides. But…” The man trailed off as he grabbed the bottom of the mirror and forced it up. “If both sides are up, then there must be something behind it, right?”

Behind the mirror that the man was holding, there were long empty and dark corridors between the mirrors. Almost like the maze they were in, but reversed. Instead of seeing a mirror, all they saw were the backs.

“Is there someone controlling them?” Li Yan asked. “Although this world has ghosts and the supernatural, most of their actions are still reasonable. If the ghosts here are only Alice and Bunny, there are only two of them. It would not be reasonable for them to observe the whole maze and change the mirrors based on which ones we have passed. My guess is that it’s either automatic or run by some sensors.”

“Controlling tiny mechanical bears counts as reasonable?” Li Yan asked to which he just got a cold glance.

The stiff atmosphere from before seemed to ease a bit as they walked through the dark corridor together. Although Li Yan was socially inadequate, he was quite a talker when it was about puzzle games or things that were similar, the elevator man seemed to be the same in that regard.

“Hey are you stepping on the back of my feet right now?” The elevator man asked.

Li Yan stopped walking and looked down. “Yes.”

“Well, why are you still stepping on them??” He asked.

“I stopped walking just now.”

“...”

“...”

“Run?” Li Yan suggested.

“In here? No way.” The man shrugged, but Li Yan couldn’t see in the dark that well.

“I have a flashlight.” Li Yan suggested again.

“...”

“No?”

“I think…it’s better if we don’t see it.” The man said as he continued walking. Li Yan also followed behind him, kicking the air to see if he could feel anything, but all he ended up doing was kicking the man in the legs.

“Okay, I know that was you.”

“It was.” Li Yan confirmed as they continued walking in a slightly awkward silence.

After walking for a bit aimlessly, they finally saw a small candle light in front of them. They walked up to the candle to see a dim staircase leading up to the second floor.

After getting in the light, the man immediately turned around and looked down, and whatever was stepping on him before had disappeared.

“Does ignoring it always work?” Li Yan asked curiously looking at the man’s heels too.

“No.” The man shrugged and walked upstairs.

After they both walked up, they saw the back of many mirrors along with a few cramped desks and computer monitors.

“A control room?” Li Yan asked, walking to look around the desks.

“It’s probably so the amusement park could put illusions in the mirrors and switch them out easily.” The man confirmed their previous guess as he also began to explore.

“A few strands of pink hair are here? A sign?” Li Yan asked, looking at the purposefully placed hair on the desk.

“Let me see.” The man came over to look, but before he could they heard a beeping noise. They turned to look in one of the cameras and saw the group of Ji-Yoo, Soren, Yona, and Nikolas running from a small animatronic bear in a bunny suit, a familiar X on the left cheek.

“It’s a bit funny watching it.” Li Yan tilted his head watching as Ji-Yoo was practically spitting on Soren's annoyed face. He understood why Soren would run so far ahead beforehand.

“That’s why I didn’t want to stay with him. He’s known as a spit runner around the players.”

“You know each other?”

“Vaguely.”

“How can someone like Soren follow him?”

“I heard they used to know each other in real life.” The man, although cold, seemed to particularly like gossip. Li Yan noted this down for the next time he tried to talk to him.

“Should we help?” Li Yan asked.

“No, they’ll be fine.” The man waved a hand and continued to snoop around. Li Yan looked back to where his cousin’s hair was and then searched around the area she placed it in.

His cousin was a veteran which is what he learned when they were grouping up. Since being a veteran, she volunteered to take care of two newbies while telling Li Yan that going with Ji-Yoo he’d be safer. Li Yan wasn’t too close with her nor did he care, so he obliged.

He picked up the hair, but when he did it turned into dust. The man happened to look over when he did this and told him it was an item.

“Do you know what it does?”

“No, it should be a special item.” The man shook his head. “Special items usually pertain to the person while normal items look like items. For example, that pink hair was personal to your cousin, but if it was a toothbrush it would be a normal item. Does that make sense? I’m trying out my guide techniques.”

The man seemed to be joking, but Li Yan couldn’t take him seriously due to how standoffish he was before. Now it just seemed awkward, and Li Yan forgot to reply so the atmosphere turned duller.

“See this is why I can’t have fun on these easy levels. No one can joke.” He sighed.

“...” Li Yan thought he was the one who was making it tough to have fun, but he didn’t dare to burst his bubble. His personality change might have stemmed from him being more comfortable around Li Yan, but he wasn’t a psychologist so he can’t confirm that thought.

Perhaps it was the ghosts or perhaps it was the piece of hair from before, but one of the mirror backings rolled down and a passageway appeared.

“Come here!” Li Yan heard Li Bao’s voice and he looked towards the elevator man.

“Be careful of a trap.” The man nodded and walked ahead of Li Yan. They both went down the passageway until reaching a room that looked almost like a staff room. Li Bao’s group was sitting around but they were missing one person. Now, it was only Li Bao and the clingy girl from before, Hailey.

The room had two couches, and Li Bao and Hailey sat together on one while the other had some throw pillows. There was a small kitchen area behind the couch they were on and a few vending machines by the place where they entered.

“What happened to the other?” Li Yan asked. “Died.” Li Bao said, and Li Yan didn’t ask further.

“Why didn’t you guys come out?” Li Yan switched the focus and Li Bao followed. “We were searching, but the bear came and we could only trap ourselves in here. I left my hair there as a signal in case.”

“The bear is gone.” Li Yan said, but after he said that they heard mechanical footsteps. “...”

Li Bao rolled her eyes and clicked a button by the passageway and the mirrors rolled back into place.

“She comes once you open the passageway. There must be something here, but we can’t find much.” Li Bao explained.

“You mean this?” The man pulled out a large box from the fridge. “Seems pretty easy to find.” Li Bao seemed to frown thoughtfully and look at Hailey beside her.

“Yeah, but we can’t open it. I just thought it was a fake object.” Hailey snorted. “There are no fake objects here.” The man sighed.

“Luckily we came here.” The man gave Li Bao a special glance and then turned to look at the box. “We need something to open this. Got anything?”

Both Li Bao and Hailey shook their heads, and Li Yan headed for one of the vending machines. He searched the insides of them and found a crowbar in the pick-up area of one of them, but it was in a tough spot and he couldn’t move it.

“A crowbar is in here.” Li Yan motioned for the man to come closer and he grabbed the crowbar like Li Yan had and tried to pull. While they were both bending down by the vending machine, Li Yan felt a cold glance and turned around to look towards Li Bao and Hailey, but he saw nothing. He felt something was off but he couldn’t exactly pinpoint it.

“Li Bao, come over here.” He said. Hailey tried to follow Li Bao, but he gave her a stop motion. “Sorry, I need Li Bao alone.” Before she tried to say something, Li Yan followed up with a random excuse of it being an embarrassing family issue. He emphasized the fact he was new to this game to help Hailey relax her guard.

“I know what you’re gonna say. Don’t say it.” Li Bao mouthed at him. Li Yan nodded and asked her some made up questions.

Li Bao had made a motion with her fingers by her ears, hinting to Li Yan that Hailey could hear everything they said, so he gave up trying to warn her since she already seemed to know.

“I got it.” The man said suddenly, pulling the crowbar out of the vending machine.

“Did you put all of your points into your physical attributes?” Li Bao sighed. “That’s why you Ones are all crazy.” She glanced towards Li Yan. “Except you of course.”

“...” He wanted to feel offended, but he also couldn’t.

“Ah he’s so strong isn’t he?” Li Bao smiled, seeming looking off into midair, probably talking to her livestream.

The man tched. “You actually use that thing?”

“It’s fun when you’re bored. You should try using it more, they like you a lot, the chat could help boost your ego. Maybe you’ll be able to reach the moon soon.” Li Bao sneered at him. “People like him are the worst.” She continued to chat to her audience, Hailey also tagging along and making some forced comedic comments in-between Li Bao’s chatter.

“Bloodsucker.” The man rolled his eyes, not seeming to care that Hailey glared fiercely at him. Li Bao just gave him a glance out of the corner of her eyes and then turned back to talking to her livestream.

“Not a lot of people use the livestream honestly, most people tend to forget. But those that do aren’t simple.” The man warned Li Yan while opening the box. The box had another severed leg in it, to which the man just grabbed the piece of the key without blinking or dripping a sweat. This piece had no insects on it this time, making the process a little more digestible to the eyes. He tossed the key into the pocket with the other pieces and stood up.

“Now we can go.” The man nodded. He had done the whole procedure behind the counter of the kitchen, so both Li Bao and Hailey saw nothing.

“What did you get?” Hailey asked. “Just this.” The man helped up the gruesome leg to which Hailey let out a shriek and hid inside Li Bao’s jacket.

“Don’t be such a rogue on camera.” Li Bao waved him off and stood up with Hailey’s head still bundled up in front of her chest.

“AHHHHHHHH!” They heard the sound of screaming before the glass panel that was covering the passageway was shattered with a fist.

“....”

~~~

Spider_Lily97

AN: The word counts for each chapter are a little uneven. I don't know if it bothers anyone else, but it bothers me a bit. I'm trying to keep them somewhat even but sometimes more words just come out :(