I stretched out my arms, my fingertips brushing against the cool, metal walls on either side of me, and I tried to refocus.
If this was a maze, it meant there had to be other passageways branching off from this one. And, given that the adults were somewhere to my left, it meant I only needed to focus on the left-hand wall. So I moved closer to it, lowering my right arm.
Keeping my left palm flat against the wall, I continued walking.
With each step I took, that metallic scent seemed to grow stronger. About a minute later, when my hand finally felt the wall give way to empty space, my nostrils were twitching from how strong it had become.
I tried to ignore it and focus on entering this next, adjoining passageway I had discovered. I stretched out both my arms again as I moved through it, though this walkway was wider, and my fingertips couldn’t touch both sides at the same time.
In which direction did I need to go from here?
The shouting came from up ahead of me, now, but only in a very general sense. I wasn’t sure whether I needed to start angling to the left or to the right. Gods, I wished the child’s crying would stop. The adult voices would have been a little easier to pinpoint without its constant torment.
I had to settle with bouncing from one wall to the other every few steps, to be sure I wasn’t missing any openings. Which made things slow. The computer man hadn’t mentioned that I was on a timer, but I was pretty sure that I wasn’t supposed to take my sweet time, either. I felt the urge to hurry and increased my pace. I hoped there wasn’t anything in the center of these passageways that I would bump headlong into, since my hands were busy with the walls.
I had been walking for what felt like two minutes, when I remembered my ring. I withdrew my hands and swiped at its little screen. It lit up, casting only a soft glow amidst the gloom, but a glow nonetheless. It cast light that reached a couple of feet in front of me.
I stretched out my right hand to spread the light as far as possible, then continued moving until another opening came into view on my left. Two openings, in fact, directly opposite one another.
I stopped in between them, glancing from one to the other, the exact direction of the adults’ voices still uncertain to my ears.
I made a quick decision and took the one on the right.
When I stepped through, I became aware of a decidedlyfainter metallic scent, and I stopped again. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
I retraced my steps back to the central passageway and poked my head through the left opening. The tang was much stronger there, and I was once again conflicted.
I had a suspicion that the scent was there for a reason, the same way the lights had switched off for some reason. Maybe it was to test how well I could rely on my other senses?
Was I supposed to follow the scent? If it was supposed to be a simulation of blood, that would probably be a logical conclusion. Putting it another way, I wasn’t sure where the logic would lie innotfollowing it.
I abandoned my previous plan and took the left passageway.
I brushed my ring to reawaken the screen as it went dark, then sped up to a jog, keeping my eyes sharp and fixed on the nearest wall. I had made it about fifteen feet when my ears registered a new sound.
It sounded like footsteps. Heavy footsteps.
Coming from somewhere behind me.
I halted and swiveled around, my eyes wide as I angled the light behind me.
But there was nothing. At least, nothing close enough to be revealed by the ring’s light.
Which was how close the footsteps had sounded.
A shiver crept down my spine. But the noise had stopped now, so maybe my imagination was growing hyperactive in the dark and it had just been my own footsteps echoing off the walls.
Shaking it off, I faced forward again and kept moving, my eyes returning to the wall.
The next opening came into view half a minute later, and I poked my head through it, sniffing. The copperyscent was weaker here, so I backed away, figuring I ought to try the next one.
But the second I resumed walking, I heard the footsteps again. This time louder and so close, I could’ve sworn I felt hot breath tickling the back of my neck.
I whirled back around with a gasp, but once more, there was nothing there. Except for an unpleasant, sour scent, strong enough to temporarily overpower the tang of blood.
It reminded me of body odor.Could that really be mine?I sped up as fast as I could in the gloom, needing to get away from the feeling that someone was following me.
This place was creepy enough without an invisible stalker.
