Becky pov
When I woke up, Chase was gone. "Chase...Anya owes you a favor." I groaned, walking into a grassy field that had wilted flowers and dead plants. "Chase!" I called, pausing as I took in the mountain of dead bodies. I saw him, sitting at the trunk of a dead willow tree. All was still and quiet.
A few more steps ahead grows a bank of wildflowers. As I approached, I saw they weren't really blossoms, not at all. The weed was disguised as wildflowers with shades of violet and yellow. I gathered an armful and began my way to Chase.
He sat there, an anguished look all he could muster. Two dead girls laid side by side, a blonde speared cleanly in the chest and the brunette with multiple bullet wounds. Chase was plucking the wilted flowers around him and tucking them behind their ears.
There wasn't any words as I offered him a portion. We decorated their entire bodies with those deceptive weeds one stem at a time. Masking the gashes on the blonde girl's neck. Over the ugly, jagged wound across her temple. I fashioned a garland for her to clutch.
Chase weaved the brunette's hair with those same wilted flowers, occasionally adding a dash of vibrancy. "I'm sorry." There was silence. Chase closed their unblinking eyes, covering it with a strip of cloth. "Hush, you're in a better place now."
I can't tear my eyes from the emaciated girls, smaller than ever, and I don't have the willpower to leave. Not without knowing where they'll go. Another meaningless sacrifice, the purpose lost in vain. "They wield no power."
I can't bring myself to scorn— let alone hate— Chase.
My fury surges as I think about the cruelty and inequity they imposed upon these test subjects. Yet, no hovercraft. No descending parachutes. Nothing, only silence remains.
Then the anklets seemed to vibrate, squeezing the flesh as a bright laser-like beam pointed directly at the sky. The anklets tremble from pressure and shot up zapping cords all around the children's bodies.
Somewhere, two timers finished, a loud beeping noise ringing across the labyrinth. Times up. The cords flashed red, and their bodies exploded from inside out, inner organs and parts bursting and spilling out as the skin bulged and tore.
I have no idea where to go now. My feet wander with Chase, and I'm not even slightly watchful of who might be targeting us. This makes me an easy victim. Except now I'm armed with three knives and a shotgun, which I won't hesitate to use on anyone I meet on sight.
No one materializes though. The beeping of finished timers had gone off multiple times in a row for the last few hours. There aren't many of us left, and it's a big maze, according to Chase.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" I ask, holding onto the back of Chase's new backpack. We found it resting in another clearing soon after I witnessed my first death in this place.
"Yes, there is a tracker that alerts the top competitors whether we're in a 10-mile radius. We're 2 miles away." It alerts the top competitors...so it's a double-edged sword. One could locate someone with ease and kill them quicker, or find someone they need to protect, like in our case.
Damian pov
"You can trust me to lead you out of here—"
"Don't listen to Damian, Anya! Let's get out of here now."
"Come with me and Chase, we know how to leave this place!"
Anya distanced herself from the clones, her back hitting a dead end. She was cornered. She looked straight at me, but instead of ecstasy and relief, her eyes were pained and lost.
This wasn't what I had imagined.
I- I was supposed to be her beacon of salvation.
I advanced slowly, wary of the clones that could kill me, and stood in front of Anya. "Hey," I whispered, "I'm not a clone. Your parents, your nasty uncle, Becky and me came here for the sole purpose of finding you."
"They probably gave up years ago." She smiled sweetly and slapped me so hard I knocked out other clones as I went flying upwards.
Yup, this is the slap of full hatred and revolt. Better back away for now.
"Damian, how's the situation faring?" As I turned a corner, Loid popped up. He saw what just happened, and from the look on his face, he was probably reminiscing about sometime when that happened to him too. "Not good." I pointed at my stinging cheek.
"I can see that, I meant whether Anya is in any state to hold a proper conversation with her father." I checked the scene behind us.
"So. You're a hallucination since clones can't say anything else beyond the programmed phrases." Anya had snuck up in my blind spot silently, face way too close to mine for comfort. The worrying thing is how'd this place know what we'd say.
Her eyes glazed over, and in her pupils I could sense an incoming fear far beyond her control, flashing red lights, dizzying her. And when I look into her eyes, I can also see what's happening in her eyes.
The world began to bend in unfamiliar ways. The clones slowly melted into pools of blood that seeped into Anya's boots, avoiding her anklet, and trickled up her legs. The several slices on her arms took the shape of maggots, squirming and fleshy.
Anya flailed her arms, but the larva stayed glued, worming their way up her arms and twisting around her neck. She's screaming, a high-pitched scream that never breaks for breath. Then the maggots burrow into Anya's eyes, and she crumples.
All the things she dreads manifest in her nightmare. In such vivid detail, and I can't help but believe they're real.
"I have to find Chase." That's what she's repeating over and over in her mind as she scavenged through a thicket. I see Chase first. He's dangling, a body against a pine, neck imprisoned by a masked stranger with a hannya mask.
Obsidian black with splatters of dried blood, the crimson red at the bottom like dancing fire, the flames licking the cheekbones. The towering figure held Chase like a rag doll, holding a stone the size of my head in the other hand.
Anya also sees the stone and loses it. "Chase!" She screeched. "Chase!" The oni mask whipped his head around, and strangely, those violet eyes stared intently in my direction, as if he could see me. A white mist sweeps from either side, the fog so thick that it practically acts as a barrier. We heard the unmistakable bash of a rock connecting with a skull, and I knew he was a goner.
But there's more. A ferocious snarling and ripping as both human and mutt tries to overpower one another. The real nightmare is listening to Chase begging and whimpering for them to stop, as the mutations work away at him.
I don't even care who he is or who he's killed in those moments, I just wish that his suffering would end. I could see that this had completely consumed her mind. She's fighting, it's obvious enough, probably more than me, by the looks of how bloodless her face has become. The mist parts, allowing us to run towards the hunk of meat that used to be Chase.
Anya reached Chase just as another timer went off. Could it be his? I even surprised myself with this horrendous thought. This is a dream, Damian.
Chase was unrecognisable. His features had been eradicated, his neck thrice its usual size. It must've been a mutation of some sort, prancing about looking for its next kill. The lumps where he must've been attacked spewed out a vile green liquid. In his limbs, I could see a gun. A shotgun.
"The bullets are in his palm," Anya said shakily, as if she's decided that she's going to survive, Chase or no Chase. She breaks several stiffened fingers before retrieving the packet, then shuffles to the other side where his limbs guard the weapon.
"She's scary. Don't mess with her." I whispered to myself, quite shocked. Anya tried to roll him over because she couldn't break off his limbs either. She pulls him over with one arm, but the muscles tear, and inside his bones eating away at him. The ferrying flesh disintegrates in Anya's hand.
"Is this another hallucination?" So she thinks this is all real. It's not, but she doesn't know that. And somehow, I know that I couldn't interfere no matter how much I can try to reach out to her.
"...Damian. Damian!" I jolt, Loid was shaking me rather violently. "Yes?" Yuri stood a bit further off as Loid and Yor asked for the details, of what Anya's seeing right now.
"So he's our magical telepathic communicator now?" Yuri grumbled, a cranky and sour mood on his face. Nobody wants you here anyway gramps. "From what you've told us, I think the worst of it has to be gone by now, so I think it's safe to give her the analgesic."
I injected her with the painkillers and rocked her gently, whispering sweet nothings in her hair.
That's all it was.
Sweet nothings.