Chapter Twenty-Two: Run Cold

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 Kuboyasu awoke in a cold sweat– the sound of roaring metal against metal made him jolt awake. The place was all too familiar for him. The rusted chain-link fences as the dark walls behind them moved downwards quickly. The boxes of supplies overwhelmingly toss about him. He tried to stand, to grab onto the fence to miraculously break out– to stop the elevator from ascending, but he felt too weak to do so. This was all too familiar. Too familiar. And he didn't want to do it again.

When the elevator finally halted, the screech it made when it stopped hurt his ears. He looked up at the doors– was someone going to open them? When he concluded that he didn't care, he pushed them open himself. The sun beat down on his face the moment his head popped out into the light. "No..." A look of pure terror etched his face as he looked around himself.

The walls he's seen far too many times now surround him once again. The walls he was forced to stare at for almost three years. Though this time, when he looked around, he didn't have Hairo's optimistic face to tell him everything was going to be ok. This time he was completely alone. "... Hello?" he called out, feeling a pit form in his stomach. Why was he here again? If LMTLSS put him back in the maze, why does he have all of his memories? Was it to torture him? To punish him?

He climbed out of the elevator and when he turned his head, he saw smoke from amidst the trees and decided to go investigate. "Hello?!" He yelled out when he made it to the camp, a fire still burned in a pile of wood, meat hanging from a stick situated above, though he did not smell the aroma and concluded it was probably tasteless. He looked around, inside the small tents, crates of supplies– this place couldn't be empty, otherwise there wouldn't be a camp set up. But where was everyone? An eerie feeling crept up the back of his neck, making him shiver.

Rustle rustle

When he heard someone walking behind him, he quickly turned his head, ready to attack if they were hostile. But he was met with a young face of a boy almost half his height, maybe a bit taller, with roughed up light blue hair and clothing consisting of a dirty school uniform. The boy's expression was unreadable and Kuboyasu couldn't believe how young he was. "Um... hey, what's your name?" Was all he asked before he took a step closer. He didn't want to scare the poor child, but once he heard the crack of a lone stick beneath his foot, the boy ran like a terrified deer. "Wait!" Kuboyasu tried to reach out to the young boy with light blue locks, but it was in vain. The stick he had stepped on caught onto his pant-leg and he ended up tripping forward.

He yelped out when he landed, head hitting the surprisingly hard and cold ground. He wondered how dirt and leaves could feel so painful until he opened his eyes and he was no longer in the glade. "What the hell...?" He picked himself up off the marble flooring and up at the buzzing lights above him. He seemed to be in a series of dark corridors now. This place was unfamiliar. And in the faint distance he could only hear strange tapping noises. He balled his fists and yelled out to whoever put him in this situation. "Is this some kind of sick joke?! Let me go!!!" He felt his heartbeat race in both anger and fear.

He ended up walking down the corridor, arm held against the wall to keep him from falling over– the fall before really threw him off. He started to feel cold beneath his skin, and the corridor was quiet besides the sound of his own footsteps. There was this feeling of doom deep within him that he couldn't quite place.

Scratch scratch scratch

He froze before he completely turned the corner. His blood ran cold and his eye twitched with fear as he stared at the large creature. It was undeniably recognizable, though he had hoped to never come across those horrific things again after escaping the maze, yet here he was staring at one and it's metal pointed legs scratched the floor as it walked, its mouth dripping with mucus onto the floor, leaving a trail behind itself. "Holy shit..." he whispered under his breath as he took multiple steps backward, still staring at the corner before turning around to run the opposite direction. Why is that thing trapped in here with him? Where is the exit to this place? How did he even get here in the first place? He turned each corner, hoping there would be a door, somewhere he could use to get out of these corridors. "...!" Finally, by the grace of God, he found a door. The exit sign hung above it tantalizingly, the buzz of the red led sign became Kuboyasu's choir...

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