Chapter 11
LIORA
The stars are real.
That’s the first thing I register—sharp, cold pinpoints of light beyond the curved glass. Tiny fires burning in an infinite black sea. No distortion, no glitch edges. Just the vast nothing, pressing wickedly beautiful against the transparent wall.
I freeze. Because I’ve spent so long expecting screens and fakery, I forgot what real looks like.
Borzen’s voice rumbles behind me. “We’re not in a holoprojection anymore.”
Dravven takes a step forward. “Off-world.” He sounds like he’s tasting the words. “They brought us somewhere real.”
Behind us, the civilians—two of them left—press against the opaque walls, faces pale. One whimpers. The other has already begun shaking.
“Stars,” she whispers, as though she’s testing the word. “We’re... in space?”
I press my hand to the glass. It’s cold, hard. Real. The vacuum beyond presses on the chamber in silence.
I don’t dare look down. The floor is smooth, seamless—no grid lines, no simulation illusion. Just metal and glass and the breath of the stars.
One of the civilians—Callan—drops to his knees, tears sliding down his cheeks like acid. He sobs, “I knew it was real! I knew I was dead—somewhere out there!”
He reaches out as if he can touch the stars. His voice breaks. “Please, let me go home.”
Borzen’s fist slams the wall. Crack.
A jagged fracture blooms from his palm, spreading like spider veins. He stares at the cracked metal, jaw clenched. “Home,” he growls. “Home wasn’t this.”
Everything’s caught in that moment: wonder, fear, grief. Electrified silence.
Suddenly, click.
The lights die.
Darkness swallows us whole.
I gasp. The hum of machinery recedes. The chill in my skin snaps in sharper without light to dull it.
The stars vanish. The glass port is just another black patch. My heart thuds so loud I can hear it in my ears.
A countdown hums beneath our feet.
10… 9… 8…
Panic claws at me. The civilians scream. The mute boy curls into a ball and shudders. Borzen and Dravven shout names—my name—hoping I’ll answer, but my voice is stuck in my throat.
My compad flickers in the darkness—blinking soft white light.
It glows with one word: TRUST
Just that. No interface, no menu. TRUST.
I swallow. Trust. God help me.
I whisper into the void: “Follow me. Stay close. Don’t panic.”
I can’t see them. I can only feel their presence. I edge forward, lungs burning, senses stretched thin.
7… 6… 5…
I step on tile that hums electric. My boots echo. Heat prickles under my soles.
“Liora!” Borzen’s voice cracks close behind me.
4… 3…
I hear fabric tearing. Someone stumbles.
2… 1…
A scream. High, sharp, cut off.
0
Lights return.
The chamber blinks back to life.
A spray pattern splatters across the far wall—blood, threads of bone, fragments of skin.
At the center, a still-spinning boot, warm to the touch. The rest of him is gone. Just gone—poof—as though the Maze devoured her before we could blink.
Dravven staggers, hands over his mouth. Borzen roars, pounding his fists into the floor till cracks spider outward.
Dirk’s Maze Master avatar flickers to life on every screen, clapping slowly. “You got farther than expected,” he says in a tone dripping with surprise. “Maybe you’re not all NPCs after all.”
My knees buckle. I drop near the boot, cold metal against my fingers. It’s real.
Dravven crawls to me. Borzen stalks the room.
I throw up a hand. “Don’t touch him. Let me—let me see.”
Borzen pauses a hair’s breadth from me. I feel his anger heating the air between us.
I slide on my knees to the boot. I breathe the blood-scented air. The Maze hums. The glass window no longer shows stars. It flickers. Distorts. The void above us becomes a smear.
Tears leak down my cheeks, hot and indescribable.
I turn to them, voice small. “I built this. I built this. I made the maps, the doors, the trap logic. This was my skeleton. And now—now someone took it. Twisted it into a murder box.”
Dravven’s eyes burn. “You didn’t do this, Liora. Someone corrupted your code. But you can still fight it.”
Borzen steps back, his chest heaving. He grips his arm, voice harsh, “We will.”
My heart rips in half. The boot feels wrong in my hands. A symbol of something lost. The chamber pulses, lights flicker, and I know—this is no longer a game.
This is blood and ghosts.
I lift the boot. Carry it in my arms like a dream that died.
Outside the chamber, somewhere in corridors built to kill, I hear my own name echoed in the wind. The Maze has broken its promise. It’s showing us the dark.
And I have to be ready.