Chapter 19 #3
My eyes shot open. I was in a clear, underground pool, about four by six feet.
It was contained by glass and bathed in a soft blue light.
I kicked upward, breaking above the surface just in time to see the panel close above me, slotting in with the rest of the four panels that made up the ceiling.
My first instinct was to force one open.
My feet could touch the glass base of the pool, so I had some leverage.
But it was useless. There was nothing to grip on the panels, and all I achieved was two sore hands. Nothing budged in the slightest.
I felt a thud against the glass beneath my feet. It drew my attention downward for the first time.
It was all I could do to not scream.
Another container of water lay beneath mine—separated by the sheet of glass—and a large, round mouth lined with rows of jagged teeth had latched onto the other side, its rubbery lips sucking against the surface.
The creature was like a warped version of a piranha, only far more terrifying than any I’d ever seen in the jungle.
It looked large enough to tear off my leg.
A snakelike tongue darted between its spiked teeth, licking at the glass.
Its round, dirt-brown body reminded me of a puffer fish as it heaved, then contracted, as though it were increasing its suction.
It was.
A hairline crack appeared on the glass.
Before I could scream, the male voice returned, emanating from somewhere within the small tank.
“You have approximately five minutes before the glass breaks,” it informed me, its tone flat. “Answer four questions correctly, and the ceiling will open.”
“Questions?” I gasped.
The voice didn’t answer, but when I gazed wildly around the small room, looking for anything I’d missed before, I spotted a mini rectangular screen illuminating on the wall opposite me, above the water’s surface.
A message flashed up: “Touch the screen to begin.”
I rushed over and pressed a trembling finger to its smooth surface, my skin tingling at the sound of the creature’s muffled suckling.
More instructions followed: “Answer four questions correctly before the timer runs out. Speak your answers. You may say ‘pass’ for any questions you do not wish to answer.”
A timer then appeared on the top right-hand corner of the screen. Its current reading: 4 minutes 19 seconds.
I’d already lost over half a minute.
The screen went black for a split second, then lit up with the first question:
“I am full of holes but also full of liquid. What am I?”
The question was a riddle.
I frowned hard, trying to think. But the sucking beneath my feet sounded like it was growing louder. The answer wasn’t immediately obvious to me, so I said in a shaking voice: “Pass.”
The screen lit up red, then presented me with the word:
“Sponge.”
I could have smacked my head against the wall. The answer seemed obvious in hindsight.
The next question flashed up:
“I become wet while drying. What am I?"
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to forget the monster attempting to break in and eat me, and think. But again, nothing was coming to me… save for the image of the fish’s greedy, lashing tongue.
“Pass.”
“Towel.”
Dammit. FOCUS!
My eyes shot to the timer—the reading now 3 minutes 31 seconds—and a coldness settled into my core. I had to get this next one.
“I am yours, yet others use me more than you ever do. What am I?”
I gritted my teeth and clamped my eyes shut. Focus. Breathe. Focus.
“My name,” I blurted after a moment, praying to every higher power in existence that I’d gotten it right.
The screen flashed green, and the figures appeared:
“1/4.”
One out of four questions, it had to mean. I’d gotten it right.
But crap. Three more questions.
I swiped at the screen anxiously, needing it to hurry up and present the next one.
“The faster you run, the tougher I am to catch. What am I?”
“A monkey?” I blurted—it was the first thing that came to mind.
The screen lit up red.
“Your breath.”
I cursed, but to be fair, I felt my answer was valid.
The next question appeared:
“I can take you a thousand miles away in the span of a second and raise people from the dead. What am I?”
“A memory,” I said after a beat.
The screen flashed green.
“2/4.”
Somehow, that one had come easier to me.
I held my breath for the next.
“I blossom, yet have no petals. What am I?”
“A child,” I replied—the answer again coming intuitively. Perhaps because I remembered Martha using the word “blossom” when describing the kids. And I knew Fairwell’s attitude regarding them.
The screen flashed green. Thank heavens.
“3/4.”
I had under two minutes left. I dared not look down to check the state of the glass, but who was to say that monster couldn’t crack it sooner?
Focus. Breathe.
“You need me, yet you give me away. What am I?”
I hesitated. “Love?”
The screen flashed red.
“Money.”
Crap.
“I clap, yet I have no hands. What am I?”
I parted my lips to attempt a guess, but nothing came to me at all. “Pass.”
“Thunder.”
Ugh.
“I am broken without being held. What am I?”
I passed again, even as my nerves frayed, my heart thundering in my chest.
“A promise.”
I cursed. 1 minute 5 seconds.
“I am something you always have, yet always leave behind. What am I?”
I bit down hard on my lip, then again grated out “Pass!” I couldn’t afford to keep passing, but I also couldn’t afford to waste too much time on a single question.
“Fingerprints.”
“Next!” I urged.
“I am easy to get into yet hard to get out of. What am I?”
My breath caught as the timer dipped below a minute.
“This stupid tank?!” I cried.
“Trouble.”
I had to get this next question. I had to. I already got three in the bag. Just one more. Just… think.
“Say my name and I’ll disappear. What am I?”
I stilled, knowing I didn’t have the time to pass again.
I forced my eyes closed once more, trying with everything I had to focus. Willing everything else around me out of existence. The water. The glass. The screen. Everything, until there was just…
“Silence,” I said softly.
Creaking sounded above me.
My eyes shot open. A panel gave way.
I immediately reached up to the gap, my hands frantically feeling around for purchase, then hauled myself upward, adrenaline lending strength to my weakened arm muscles.
Once my upper body was over the edge, I hurriedly swung my legs out of the water, bringing them thumping onto the firm metal flooring. The panel sealed itself shut, blocking out the blue glow of the tank and leaving me once again immersed in the dim red haze of the chamber.
I rose shakily to my feet, staring about the empty room, my harried breathing loud in my ears.
Was that it?
I heard panels opening somewhere above me, and then something heavy slammed down against the floor all around me, trapping me in pitch darkness.
A mechanical growling erupted near my feet, the type that would come from an engine or a rotor. Hot air blew at me from all angles. I closed my eyes to prevent my eyeballs from drying out and felt for the edges of my entrapment. It was cylindrical and lined with vents from which the air emanated.
I struggled to breathe for almost a minute, as the hot air continued to engulf me, and then the growling cut out, the cylinder lifting just as suddenly as it had come down. It shot through a hole in the ceiling, the panels resuming their formation a moment later.
I patted myself down, feeling my clothes and hair. They were still damp, but I was no longer dripping. Which I guessed had been the purpose of that particular surprise.
Inhaling, I gazed once more around the chamber, only to realize that it looked completely different. So much so that I half wondered if that cylinder had transported me to a different room entirely.
The dim red lighting remained, but a high metal wall loomed in front of me. It spanned the length of the room, stretching from edge to edge and trapping me in one quarter of the chamber.
I was about to run to the edges to be doubly sure there was no way through it when small blue lights glowed in the wall ahead of me. They illuminated the outlines of two doorways.
I approached cautiously.
Two long passageways stretched beyond the doorways, both leading in different directions. As if to emphasize the point, two arrows blinked to life above the doors—one pointing left, the other pointing right.
I moved to the threshold of the right entry, my eyes fixed on the gloomy passageway beyond.
A child’s cry pierced the silence.
It sounded like a young girl, either terribly frightened or in some kind of pain, and it carried distinctly from somewhere behind the wall on the far right. It was so realistic that the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, even though I knew it had to be some kind of simulation.
I stepped backward, away from the right entrance, and approached the left doorway instead, peering through at the seemingly identical passageway.
The crying stopped.
I stalled in the doorway, confused.
What am I supposed to be doing here?
Enter one of these two doorways, I assumed, but…
Another noise punctured the quiet. This one much louder than the child’s cry. It was a chorus of shouting and screaming: pleas for help. They came from men and women—a crowd of at least five to ten, from what I could tell—and originated distinctly from my left.
I stepped back, my heart hammering against my ribcage. The child’s cries started up again, mixing with the adults’ screams and filling the chamber with a cacophony of desperate voices. They echoed off the walls, piercing through my ears and reverberating in my head.
“Choose your entrance to the maze,” the male, computerized voice returned, its cold, clinical tone somehow cutting above everything else.
I stared between the two entrances and the murky passageways that stretched beyond them. This was a maze?
“Whichever party you reach first will be saved,” the voice went on. “The other will perish.”
My gaze lifted to the ceiling where the voice had come from, as if I were hoping to find a face up there and give it an incredulous stare.
It was asking me to choose between saving the lives of possibly a dozen men and women, and a single child?
I wet my lips, my stomach tensing as I considered it. If I were to be honest, my first instinct was to dart toward the child, but perhaps that was just because I had a sister who sounded her age.
And this wasn’t about personal inclinations. I needed to figure out which option Fairwell would most approve of. I knew their protective attitude toward children, but against a crowd of adults, would they really expect me to save the child?
Some of the adults could be young, for all I knew. Going after the child would feel to me like a purely emotional reaction rather than one based on logic, which I guessed was not how Fairwell’s outreach branch operated.
So, after another long moment of deliberation, I approached the left doorway.
Blue lights flashed along the floor of the passageway when I stepped onto it, giving me a better idea of how far it stretched. And then, after I’d walked five feet, there was a sharp metallic clang. I whirled to see a door slam down behind me, trapping me inside.
A moment later, everything went dark.