Chapter 9
LIORA
There’s something uniquely humiliating about realizing your own code is mocking you.
We’ve been walking for hours—at least it feels like hours—but every ninety seconds, the hallway resets. The light flickers, the air pressure hiccups, the temperature drops one degree, and suddenly we’re back where we started.
Same corridor. Same flickering panels. Same faint chemical smell—sweet like coolant, sour like rot.
If I listen carefully, I can hear the Maze humming, almost smug.
“Left,” Borzen grunts for the seventh time. His voice sounds like a collapsing avalanche.
I grit my teeth. “We’ve gone left six times already.”
“Then maybe the seventh’s lucky.”
“I designed the algorithm,” I snap. “Luck doesn’t exist here.”
“Clearly neither does progress,” Dravven mutters behind me.
I spin on him, ready to tear into his smug face, but the sight stops me. He looks exhausted. We all do. His normally sharp eyes are ringed dark, his coat torn, and his blaster looks like it’s been welded back together with chewing gum and spite.
Behind him, three civilians shuffle forward like ghosts. There used to be ten. Then five. Now three. One’s a mute boy who hasn’t spoken since the gas chamber incident. The other two—Callan and Shira—cling to each other like being separate might get them killed faster.
Which, honestly, it probably will.
The walls hum again, that low-frequency thrum that means the Maze is thinking. Or feeding. Hard to tell the difference.
I shove my hands through my hair. “This isn’t random. It’s a recursion exploit. The Maze has us in a timed feedback loop.”
Borzen snorts. “English, please.”
“It’s an error,” I say, pacing. “A bug from one of my old test builds. It loops player movement if the positional data doesn’t sync with the world matrix.”
Borzen stares blankly. “Still not English.”
“She’s saying the Maze’s eating its own tail,” Dravven says quietly. “We’re hamsters in a goddamn simulation wheel.”
I look at him sharply. “Exactly. It’s looping coordinates. And if it’s still using my old base code, there’s a way out.”
Borzen folds his arms. “You better start conjuring magic, Engineer.”
“I don’t need magic,” I mutter, dropping to one knee and pulling out my compad.
It flickers weakly to life. I don’t question why—it had a brief power surge two rooms ago, maybe piggybacked on one of the Maze’s voltage resets. Doesn’t matter. I’ve got a minute, maybe two.
The others crowd around, silent except for the sound of Borzen’s heavy breathing and Shira’s quiet sobs. The compad’s display glitches, static bursting across the screen. I shove past it, opening the root command line from muscle memory.
“Come on, baby,” I whisper. “Talk to me.”
Borzen grumbles, “You’re talking to it like it’s alive.”
“It is alive,” I murmur, fingers flying. “That’s the problem.”
The debug console loads. Ancient, ugly, from a version of the Maze that never made it public. I still remember the lines by heart.
Backdoor codes I used to use when beta testers got trapped in unwinnable zones. I’d left them as emergency failsafes. They were never meant to stay. But Dirk must’ve ported the entire development environment into his twisted build.
Which means if the Maze has my ghosts, it still has my cracks.
Dravven leans over my shoulder. “You can’t possibly remember all that.”
I grin without humor. “I built it. I remember everything.”
The Maze hums louder, as if it can sense what I’m doing. The lights flicker red, warning me to stop. I don’t.
“Liora,” Borzen warns. “You’re pissing it off.”
“Good.”
I type in the override string, hands shaking:
/dev.cmd -root /loop_error -force_exit TRUE
The screen blanks. My heart stops.
Then the wall ahead of us ripples.
Metal melts into light, opening into a circular portal that glows pale blue.
It’s a door.
A way out.
“Oh, you clever girl,” Dravven breathes, grinning despite himself.
I grin back, exhilarated, adrenaline rushing through every vein. “Told you—debug mode.”
Borzen claps my shoulder hard enough to nearly dislocate it. “Remind me never to underestimate you again.”
“Damn right,” I mutter, standing. “Everyone through. Now.”
We hurry forward. For the first time in days—maybe weeks—the Maze doesn’t resist. The hum fades. The air smells cleaner. For a heartbeat, I let myself believe we’ve won something.
The room on the other side is plain. Metallic. Unadorned. The silence feels almost wrong.
Borzen takes point. Dravven covers the rear. I take the middle, guiding the civvies through. The light is soft, neutral white, no flicker, no distortion. Real light.
“Is it over?” Shira whispers.
“Not yet,” I say. “But it’s progress.”
Callan laughs—small, nervous. “Progress feels weird.”
Then he steps forward, brushing his hand against the smooth wall like he’s touching safety itself.
He turns to say something.
And disappears.
No scream. No warning. One second he’s there; the next, he’s gone—disintegrated mid-breath, his glasses clattering to the floor.
I freeze.
Borzen spins, weapon drawn. “What the—”
Dravven stares, horror flickering behind his bravado. “He just—”
The wall glows faintly where he stood. Then the Maze Master’s face stretches across it—Dirk’s stupid animated grin, exaggerated like a clown on stimulants.
“Oops!” His voice is syrupy sweet. “This level has anti-cheat measures. Naughty girl.”
The others stare at me.
Borzen’s hand tightens on his weapon. Dravven’s mouth opens, then shuts. Shira lets out a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh.
And me?
I start laughing.
At first, it’s small. Just a snort. Then it’s louder. Then it’s unstoppable. Hysterical. Ugly. My chest shakes with it. My vision blurs. The sound bounces off the walls, echoing until it sounds like the Maze itself is laughing with me.
Dirk’s avatar smirks wider. “Someone’s cracking under pressure.”
I can’t stop laughing. My knees give out. I drop to the floor, clutching my stomach. Tears mix with grime on my face. I can’t tell if I’m laughing or sobbing anymore.
Borzen crouches next to me, rough hand on my shoulder. “Engineer. Breathe.”
“I—can’t—” I gasp out, choking. “Anti-cheat—oh god—he coded in anti-cheat—”
Dravven’s voice is gentler than I expect. “It’s not funny, Liora.”
“It is,” I wheeze. “I built this. I made the skeleton of this whole nightmare. Every trap, every door, every sound cue. It’s all mine. And he took it, polished it, made it murder.”
The laughter dies in my throat, leaving just tears. “I built a game. And now it’s a grave.”
Borzen doesn’t flinch. “You made a tool. Someone else made a weapon. Don’t confuse the two.”
“I made the weapon possible,” I whisper.
“Maybe,” Dravven says quietly. “But you’re also the only one who can turn it off.”
I look up. His face is dirty, smudged with soot, but his eyes are steady. Not pitying. Grounded.
“Yeah,” he says, half a smirk tugging his lips. “We’re still breathing, so maybe twist it back.”
I let out a shaky breath. “You make that sound easy.”
He shrugs. “I play with what’s in front of me. You build things. So build us a way out.”
For once, I don’t argue. I don’t even want to.
I wipe my face, the tears smearing grime across my cheek. The Maze Master’s avatar flickers and vanishes, leaving only silence.
The room feels heavier now. Smaller. Like the air itself is grieving.
Shira hasn’t moved. She’s staring at the wall where Callan vanished, mouth open but no sound coming out. Then, softly, she says, “I don’t think he felt it.”
It’s the first thing she’s said in hours.
Borzen glances at her, gruff voice softening. “You need rest.”
She nods without looking. “There’s no rest in here.”
The mute boy curls against the wall, knees to his chest, rocking. His eyes are open, unfocused. His lips move, forming words without sound. A prayer or a curse—I can’t tell.
I look around the room, forcing myself to think. Every wall, every seam. There has to be a pattern. An escape.
Suddenly, I see it.
In the corner. Faint, almost hidden behind a flicker of light.
A symbol.
Carved deep into the alloy. Not projected. Not printed.
A glyph.
It glows white for a moment, then fades.
Not Dirk’s design.
Reaper script.
My breath catches.
I crouch down, fingers tracing the mark. It’s rough, uneven, carved by claws or blades. The metal is warm where it shouldn’t be.
He was here.
I know it the way I know my own name. I feel it in my bones, in the rhythm of the Maze’s pulse syncing to my own.
I glance back at Borzen and Dravven. “We’re not alone.”
Borzen grunts. “Yeah, no kidding.”
“No,” I whisper, touching the glyph again. “Not like that.”
Dravven tilts his head. “Then how?”
I shake my head, unable to explain the impossible certainty coiling in my chest. “Someone’s fighting the Maze from the inside.”
“Another player?” he asks.
“Maybe.” I pause. “Or maybe something else.”
The Maze hums louder, like it’s listening. Watching.
I straighten. “We can’t stay here. It’ll reset again.”
Borzen nods once. “Then lead.”
Dravven flashes me a crooked smile. “After you, boss.”
I pocket my compad and square my shoulders. My heartbeat thunders against my ribs. The air feels charged—like a storm’s coming.
Maybe it already has.
Because somewhere out there, beyond these walls, something carved my name in a language I don’t speak.
And for the first time since I woke up in this nightmare, I don’t feel completely alone.