Chapter 24

The reflection of light off the yellow walls and the near metallic gold flooring of this new sector had me squinting. The mirror like surfaces were difficult to navigate, and my eyes hurt just trying to discern where one wall ended and the next began. We rounded a bend, only to come upon a two way fork in the distance. Alessi had stopped sniffing his way through the corridors once we switched sectors, and I didn't know if he knew where he was going any more than I did. We both approached the split with a sense of caution.

The deviation in the road was more of a spacious room in the form of a ten-by-ten chamber that offered a path to the left and a path to the right. We both made it about five steps into the clearing, when three walls shot up from the floor, closing every exit. I jumped at the suddenness of it all, and Alessi was quick to comfort me with a hand on my shoulder .

"What's happening now?" I asked in hopes of guidance.

"You'll see." He tipped his chin towards a far wall.

Words slowly started to appear across the surface, one at a time, like they were being slowly burned into the gold.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.

I followed the inscription as it continued wrapping around us, trying to figure out what the cryptic message might mean. The poem was familiar from my school days, but I knew the meaning would be far different here than it was in the classroom.

Sorry I could not travel both

I'd made a full rotation by the time the last phrase etched itself before us

I was but one traveler, long I stood, I looked down one as far as I could

"What do you think it means?" I barely got the words out before a loud ring, like the banging of a gong, reverberated through the chamber. A visible outline appeared in the wall in front of us, then a panel slid away, opening a small cubby in the wall.

Inside was a box. Two arrows burned themselves down the golden partition, each pointing at one side of the opening, making it pretty clear what I was supposed to do next.

I looked to Alessi, and he nodded subtly. With a deep breath, I approached the golden cubby, reached in, and removed what resembled a small treasure chest. With a very careful and nervous hand, I unlatched a gold closure, and I opened the lid. Inside there were two divided sets of objects. One compartment held a pair of syringes. The other had a clear pill bottle with two large pills.

I scrunched my nose at the options, not terribly excited about the potential uses of either one of them.

"Always an exciting new experience in this sector." Alessi muttered under his breath, more with aggravation than excitement. Having someone who had been here before sounded like an advantage, but that statement had me questioning whether I should be more or less nervous than I already was.

"What am I supposed to do with these things?" I turned to show him the contents. I didn't miss the very subtle twitch in his expression.

Yet Alessi spoke calmly as he explained: "In order to advance, we're going to be given a set of options. All of them will offer different tasks, and completing those tasks will allow you to move forward, while refusal will send you back. It's a ‘pick your poison' kind of sector, but make no mistake: every option will be poison." A low growl escaped his throat, and that spiked my stress levels even higher.

I stared at the contents of the box with growing dread, when a new message appeared on the wall.

Bonding with needles will keep a pair united. Down the pills, and your roads will diverge. Your choice, travelers.

"What's in the syringe?" I asked in immediate and growing panic, as a clock appeared in front of me with ten minutes on display. The number lingered for only a second before it started counting down .

I'd rather swallow a pill if given the option, but if the difference was moving forward together versus being on my own in this godforsaken place, I was leaning towards the needle.

"I don't know." He didn't hide the discomfort in his tone. "This puzzle and its options change every time. Last time I was here it was picking between poison fruits. The time before that involved stabbing myself with a knife to fill a bowl to its rim with my blood. In hindsight, I'm not sure why I've even been here that many times at this point, but I just know it could be absolutely anything in that tube."

Well, at least I didn't have to stab myself and bleed into a bowl, but stabbing myself with a needle and injecting an unknown drug into my bloodstream didn't sound tremendously more pleasant. "I don't think I can give myself a shot." I stared at the box, still processing. "What if this kills me?"

"It won't." He shook his head, but his voice was still grave. "None of the options will kill you, but they may not make you want to keep living either."

"Wow, that makes me feel way better." I flattened my lips in deadpan irritation. "You're a fox, right? So you must have strong animal senses. Can you tell what's in it by sniffing it?" I tried next as the clock ticked past five minutes. I just wanted to hear that this wasn't going to fuck me over and put a stop to my quest. Even if Alessi was confident he could ingest anything it might be, I wasn't so sure my mortal human body would be okay.

Alessi grabbed one of the syringes and twirled it between his fingers like it was a toy. "No, but I can tell you that it's not poison and it's not a tranquilizer." He extended his hand to offer me the needle. I didn't want to accept it, but I did anyway. "If we're lucky, they're both placebos. If we're not, at least we'll have each other going forward. But if you don't commit to either the pills or the injection, you're going to get us both returned to the start of the maze, so I suggest you decide quickly."

The time kept ticking, and I knew I had to choose, and I had to do it now.

"Maybe we should just go with the pills. The maze might go easier on us separately than it will with us together. It would be a lot less uncomfortable to just—"

"Take the shot." Alessi demanded, no longer entertaining my hesitation. "I didn't think I'd need to explain this, but I can't protect you if you take the pills, and Theron will never forgive me if anything happens to you. So please, Bijou, take the shot."

"Fine, okay, you're right." I grabbed the syringe from the box and tossed the pills away. It was funny how it went from "you pick" to "this is the only correct answer" so quickly, but who was I to argue with a veteran of the maze. He was right anyway. I was better off with him than without him.

Knowing that, however, didn't make willingly shoving a needle in my arm any easier.

I closed my fingers over the vial, trying to block out what had to come next. I didn't want to look, but I knew I was going to have to if I wanted to assure I didn't miss the vein.

"Where do I put it?" My voice shook as the clock hit two minutes.

"In me." He snatched the remaining syringe with one hand, then he grabbed my shaking fist with his other. I stared at him, eyes round as saucers, as he lifted my hand to his neck and punctured his own artery with my syringe. I tried to jerk my arm back, but he held it there firmly. "Depress the plunger, Sela." There was an urgency to his movements that only left me more paralyzed and on edge.

"D-don't we both have to take it?"

"Yes." He said a fraction of a second before his needle pierced my shoulder. I flinched, but he wouldn't let me retreat. He held us in a deadlock, my syringe in his neck, and his in my arm. "Do it with me. I'll count to three, and then I need you to commit, because I promise you, I will."

"Okay." I said, more for myself than for him. "Okay, okay, I can do it." I continued my pep talk, entirely for me and not at all for him, while I wrestled with a mental breakdown just staring at the needle in my hand.

I hated needles. I was terrified of everything they stood for. Why did this have to be the first challenge?

"One." He said sternly, as the clock hit ten seconds.

"Two." I said next, as I sunk the sharp point just a little deeper into him, and he sunk his a little deeper into me.

"Three." We both said in unison, and I closed my eyes, bit my lip, and slammed the plunger down with my thumb.

The clock stopped and the partitions dropped. Instantly a haze filled my vision, and my knees gave out. I didn't even notice Alessi had caught me until I saw he was carrying me. My consciousness faded and sharpened and faded again. I might have blacked out, but it was impossible to say for sure.

"Y-you said it wasn't a tranquilizer." I heard myself say through the soup of my brain.

"It wasn't." He spoke steadily, while the yellow glow of the walls made my head hurt and my heart thump with irregular pulses.

"Then what was it?"

"A devil relaxant." Was all he said as he continued forward. I wanted to say his tone was bleak, but it was hard to discern much in my current state. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to dispel the dizziness from my spinning vision, and I focused on my breathing. In through my nose, out through my lips. In, out. In, out.

I blinked until my vision started to clear. Slowly but surely, my mind started to clear too.

Maybe my body was rejecting the poison. Whatever helped me heal so quickly may have also been helping me get my head back on straight. That sounded reasonable. I wanted to believe that. If it was a relaxant made for devils, it probably couldn't live inside a human. My foreign blood would surely reject it eventually.

"I think it's wearing off." I whispered against his chest. He continued walking, steady and secure, like he was being careful not to rattle me too much. "I really like the way you carry me." I said next, and I had no idea what possessed me to say that out loud. At least, I think I said it out loud.

The soft vibration of his laugh confirmed the fact, much to my own mortification. "I'm happy to assist, Bijou. "

"I'm grateful." I couldn't seem to stop myself from being overly candid. "I can tell how gentle you're being. You're kind of a considerate guy, huh?"

I got out the last word, then buried my flushed cheeks into the crux of his shoulder in an effort to shut myself up. Even in my haze, I knew it was dangerous to show too many of my cards—to admit I was relying on someone.

After a few more moments that could have been minutes or could have been hours, the gentle rocking of Alessi's steps ceased.

"Can you stand on your own?" Alessi asked, his voice sounding clearer now.

"I think so." The grogginess and confusion faded next, fortunately in time to stop me from nuzzling any more affectionately into his warm and comfortable shoulder. Alessi set me gently on my feet, and he let me hold on to him until I could fully find my strength, balance, and footing. He waited several seconds to assure I was capable of supporting myself before he stepped away.

That was when I realized we were in yet another closed room. The walls had already risen, blocking every exit, and it was just a matter of time before the next challenge would be issued.

"I think I'm okay now." I tested my weight bearing, shifting from one foot to the other until I could confidently hold myself up.

Alessi nodded in agreement, before he moved straight into the more pressing topic. "If everything goes as usual, we'll be given pair challenges from here. I've done this before. It can get uncomfortable, but you'll just have to trust me."

"You said that was a devil relaxant? What does that mean?" I insisted. I could still feel my heart beating in my chest with an uncomfortable vividness. My head felt hot, and my limbs were uncharacteristically heavy. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Nothing I can't handle. I'm not a devil, after all." He dismissed me with a wink. "Though it affected you a bit more than I expected. I wonder why that is?" His genuine confusion surprised me. I wanted more of an explanation, but before I could sort out the words in my muddled brain, the next command began etching itself along the wall.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper , it said.

A new pair of cubby's appeared at shoulder level, both hidden by a small sliding door. As much as I wanted to turn back and not see how much worse this rabbit hole might be, I willed my feet to carry me over to the two compartment doors.

I already knew I had to keep playing the game, and there was no point in pretending there was any other choice. Just like I'd always done: head down, work hard, and don't give up.

I reached for the knobs.