Time had nothing to do with it.
We’d stopped in the umpteenth room with an arrow painted on its floor. I’d yet to touch it with Eirexis, knowing it would yield the same result as before. Nothing changed. The wall it pointed at would pull back with a few clicks. It would slide aside and reveal yet another hexagonal room. This maze went on forever.
“So, what could we possibly try differently?” Varga asked, no longer hiding his doubts.
Dismay had settled over us. Hopelessness threatened to dull our minds into inaction. And inaction meant death—for ourselves, either physical or spiritual; for our worlds, our families and friends; and for the many undiscovered planets out there that were dealing with this Hermessi nightmare without fully understanding what it entailed or why it was being carried out in the first place.
“The arrow is no longer an option. Let’s start there,” Amelia said, holding on to the little thread of hope that still lingered in a few of us.
She toured the room, checking every wall, every joint and corner. Her study offered no new insights, though. Suddenly feeling that inkling of hope slipping through her fingers, Amelia put her back against the wall and slid down, settling on the cold floor. “I’ve got nothing,” she admitted, tearing up.
Raphael joined her, crossing his legs and putting an arm around her shoulders. He pulled her close and kissed her forehead, closing his eyes in the process. Riza sighed and sat with them, swiftly accompanied by Herakles, who took Amelia’s hand in his, squeezing softly.
“It’s not over yet,” he said.
Soon enough, Lumi, Nethissis, Eva, Varga, and Eira had also taken their places around Amelia, each of them comforting her whichever way they knew best. Amelia was the first to come apart at the seams, and none of our crew seemed able to bear watching that. No one wanted to see her suffering like this. It was one thing to endure physical exhaustion and gaping wounds, and another completely to succumb to hopelessness, to unravel and unwillingly hurl toward utter despair. It wasn’t in our nature to give in, and we couldn’t let any of our friends surrender, either.
“There’s something we’re missing here,” Lumi said after a while. “Something we’re taking as normal and expected, but it isn’t. Not really. It’s staring us right in the face. We just need to see it.”
“Ironically, it’s when we know it’s there that we don’t see it,” Nethissis replied. “The more we look for it, the better it hides.”
Amelia sobbed quietly, surrounded by Raphael and her friends. I stood on the outside, not because I didn’t want to comfort her as well—I did, with all my heart. But I had to stay focused, to dig through the patterns and the apparent nothingness that we’d stumbled into, in order to find a way out. My father was Brendel’s prisoner, and he was also under the Hermessi’s influence. We were cut off from the rest of the world, and my mother was probably climbing the walls, unable to reach me. The Hermessi were still racing to push us into the apocalypse and to wipe us all off the map.
Those I cared for most beyond these wretched walls were grieving and scared out of their minds, struggling to fight against the current as the stream of hazards continued to swell and drag them all down with it. We’d managed to get Eirexis. Zetos was within our reach. We’d made it farther than anyone else before us. Why give up now, when we were so damn close?
But Lumi had a point. Something here wasn’t right. Something here was escaping us. And judging by the distant booms outside, I wasn’t sure how much longer we had to investigate. The Hermessi would eventually come down and break this spell. They wouldn’t be able to do anything to Zetos or the Soul Crusher, but they could easily pull us out and torment us, kill whomever they could, and force us out of here, without remorse.
And it would all have been for nothing, unless I walked out of here with Zetos in my hands, first.
“Is it just me, or are you kiddos stuck?” the Soul Crusher asked.
I rolled my eyes. “I think at least one of us has said it before, but, unless you want to help us, you should hold your tongue,” I said.
“Oh, testy. Okay. Well, just to let you know, this puzzle won’t last much longer. Your friends outside are putting up a good fight, but the Hermessi outnumber them, and Brendel… ugh, she’s relentless,” the Soul Crusher replied.
“So not helping!” I snapped. “What did I just say?”
He giggled, but his voice faded away. Glancing at my crew, I noticed Amelia staring at Eirexis in my hand, her tears drying up. Deep down, hidden in the depths of my sullen consciousness, an idea blossomed. A fleeting thought, something so faint and fragile that it might die before it could see the light of day… on the tip of my tongue.
“Tae,” Amelia started. “Have we considered touching the walls with Eirexis?”
As if the fates had aligned and conspired to put Amelia and me in the same orbit, thinking the same things, I felt a smile take hold of my face. “Not until now, no,” I said.
I didn’t need anyone else’s input, at this point. As if guided by a remote, I straightened my back and walked over to the nearest wall. I had no clue as to how this faint possibility, this anemic idea, had wiggled its way through more than one mind, after all the time we’d spent down here, but it inspired frightful hope inside me. As if this move, right here, was our last. Our final option which, if it failed, would bring about our doom and the end of days, all rolled up into one devastating apocalypse.
Eirexis itself wasn’t glowing when pointed at any of the walls. It had only reacted to the painted arrow. This was a gamble, placing my faith in one slice of what-if, but it was sorely needed, in the absence of other, perhaps more viable, options.
I’d picked a wall that the arrow didn’t point to. I pressed Eirexis’s end against the stone, and the symbols lit up white. I held my breath, and we all heard the gears turning, somewhere beyond. There was something happening. Not to the wall, but to everything around us. The entire room was responding to what I’d just done, and my heart skipped more than a beat.
“Is he serious?” Amelia blurted. “He put an arrow on the floor in every room, pointing at a wall. And all you had to do this whole damn time was to press Eirexis against any wall in the room? Really?”
I nodded. “Not even the wall to which the arrow pointed.”
“What was the point of all this?!” Herakles shouted.
The Soul Crusher laughed. “It was simply a test of your psyche. When all else fails, what else have you got to lose, huh?”
“A lot of time in here, to begin with!” I replied, feeling my blood boil. He’d been messing with us this whole time. We’d been running from room to room, trying to follow Eirexis’s lead. “Why did Eirexis glow when pointed at the floor arrows then?”
“Oh, red herring,” the Soul Crusher replied. “I didn’t want you to rely on an object. I needed your brains squeezed properly.”
The ground shook. The floor wobbled, suddenly loose, startling us. I could barely stand, as the rumble swelled and thundered through what sounded like the entire maze that the Soul Crusher had built for us.
“Needless to say, we all hate you,” Varga said, pale and alarmed, unsteady and wobbling.
“Pretty sure this is not supposed to happen,” Raphael managed, his voice trembling with the floor, as he toppled over.
“Oh, but it’s absolutely necessary,” the Soul Crusher replied. “As for your frustrations regarding my games, puh-lease! Had Taeral not listened to his instinct, you’d all still be rotting here. Only despair and desolation bring out the best in people, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s about time you all learned that.”
A spine-tingling screech emerged from beneath as the floor simply… vanished. Blackness awaited blow, and gravity did not forgive us. We all dropped, shouting and screaming, through it. We hit something hard, but we did our best to land on our backs or shoulders to minimize the impact.
Seconds passed in heavy silence—except for the ringing in my ears. That persisted for the better part of what felt like a minute. We were out of the hexagonal room, for sure. We’d broken the pattern by randomly pressing Eirexis against one of the walls. How ridiculous, after all the time we’d spent following those blasted arrows. Fury boiled through my veins, and I embraced it. I deserved it. I didn’t stop it from raging inside me like wildfire.
“Is everybody okay?” I asked, grunting from the physical pain.
We’d fallen quite far. It was bound to hurt long after the landing. I wiggled my fingers and toes, thankful to still have feeling in them. I doubted I’d broken anything, but I couldn’t say the same about the others until I’d heard from them.
“Ugh… Yeah, I think,” Raphael replied. “Hold on… Amelia?”
