The Adventures of Rin and Aya

Soren grabbed onto Rin and Aya, forcefully pushing them forward a few feet before all three of them tumbled down to the ground. He faintly felt the large rock brush the back of his shirt before it crashed into the ground producing a huge indenture. “Get up!” he shouted at them. Grabbing onto the back of their shirts he hauled them up off the ground and shoved them in the direction of the large tree that would serve as their refuge.

The two girls let out terrified (yet somewhat muffled) screams as rocks started showering down on them. Most were only the size of every day stones, but some of them grew to be the size of tennis balls. Aya cried out in pain as one made contact with the middle of her back. “Keep going!” Soren dragged the two frightened girls after him, counting his steps as he went, hoping that they would make it to the tree.

---

“Are you sure it was a good idea to keep going?” asked Luka who had stepped closer to Chase for reassurance looking like a frightened little kid. “It seems wrong to just leave the others back there.”

“We had no choice,” snapped Sin. He was the one that forced everyone to keep going and he kept them at a rather fast pace. “More then likely they kept moving too and it wouldn’t have made any sense for us to stay there like sitting ducks. I doubt that moving walls are the only trick this maze can pull off.”

Just as he averted his eyes back to the path they were following he came to a quick halt, the other two almost running into his back. Chase looked at him wearily before noticing he was looking towards the ground so the blonde carefully stepped up next to him and held his hand, which was cradling a glowing sphere of light, towards the ground. “It’s water,” he stated.

“Water?” Luka asked more to himself than anyone else, not understanding why there would be a pool of water in the maze. To water the hedge walls? “How much water? How deep is it?”

Looking back once more Sin’s cat-like eyes flashed. “There’s a lot. I don’t know exactly when it ends, if it even ends at all, but as far as I can see it’s all water. It’s deep too,” he added when he looked down into the murky, brownish colored water. It looked like something that one would find in a swamp or a very muddy pond.

“Oh well then. Looks like we’re just going to have to go back the way we came.” Luka turned with a nervous grin on his face but instantly ran right into a hedge wall, one that had been so quiet that they didn’t even notice it block off their only way of escape. Pushing away from the hedge Luka quickly spit a few leaves out of his mouth with a disgusted look on his face.

Chase sighed. “Looks like this is our only option.”

“Wait! We’re not actually going to swim in it are we?! Couldn’t we just fly over the water?” The short, brown haired boy practically jumped onto Chase and shoved his face right up next the blonde’s, waiting for an answer.

“The ceiling is too low. The water is our only option.” As Sin spoke Chase pushed Luka away from him, not wanting to be too mean about it but it was uncomfortable having him be that close. “I’ll go first.” His voice had been strong, but deep down Sin was nervous about going in the water, not only did it look like trouble, but there was something not right about it that Sin sensed…something sinister.

Not even bothering to take off any of his clothes, not even his boots, Sin stepped forward and plunged into the water which he found to be just short of freezing. As soon as he surfaced and brushed his soaked hair out of his face he nodded to the other two, and Chase followed his example and eventually so did Luka though he was a little hesitant. The two of them started following Sin as he began to swim down the watery pathway. “Luka, stay as close to Chase as you can.” The blonde man glared at Sin when Luka eagerly agreed and wrapped himself around Chase’s neck. “And try not to get too far behind. We don’t want anyone else getting separated so--” Suddenly Sin felt something wrap around his ankle and not even a second later he was pulled underneath the water’s surface.

---

“How many lefts have we taken?” Ra’ Shari asked, her voice strained by the effort of shifting Raf’s feet in her grip.

“Ra’ Shari I really don’t know.” Saying Micah was getting a little frustrated by their current situation would be an understatement. He, of course, was extremely irritated by it, but for Ra’ Shari’s sake he tried not to show it. It seemed like they had been walking for at least an hour now and still they had seen no sign of Sin, Luka, or Chase. Ra’ Shari might not have given up hope of finding them, but he sure had. “Look, let’s just stop and rest a while. There’s got to be a better plan than aimlessly wandering around hoping we’ll find someone.”

Sighing in defeat and not wanting to upset him further, the blonde woman simply nodded and gently set Raf’s feet down on the ground. Micah followed suit, though he was about to prop the unconscious man’s body up against the hedge wall, he quickly thought better of it and simply laid him down on the ground. They couldn’t risk anyone getting strangled by the vines a second time.

“So what do you think we should--” Micah looked up at Ra’ Shari as soon as her words were cut off. He knew he needed to stop worrying and being to overprotective, but he ignored those thoughts. He could work on that some other time, perhaps a time when they weren’t running around in circles in a killer maze. The blonde woman’s eyes were squinted as if she were trying to see something from a far off distance. “Do you see that light?” she asked.

Diverting his worried eyes away from Ra’ Shari, Micah looked down the path they were following. All he saw was endless darkness. “No, Ra’ Shari, I don’t see a light. There’s nothing but darkness…and I don’t want you moving too far away,” he added when he noticed her taking a few steps away from him.

“But there’s a light,” she replied, clearly not listening to him.

“Ra’ Shari,” warned Micah in a dead serious tone. Still she ignored him by continuing to walk towards the darkness. “Ra’ Shari!” Just as he jumped up a hedge wall to his left raised up from the ground and shot in front of him, completely separating them. “No!” Simply going on pure instinct he practically threw himself at the wall hoping that with enough force he just might be able to break through. He ignored the vines that wrapped themselves around his wrists and lower arms as he continued trying to barrel his way through the hedge. Every time he pulled himself back the vines would snap, but after struggling against the wall for at least a minute sweat was covering his forehead and it seemed like he didn’t have the strength to snap the unusually thick vines that had ensnared him. They pulled him up against the wall, but instead of trying to pull him in they simply held him there.

Another gentle breeze picked up in the maze and Micah heard the wind pass by his ear. He stopped his struggling and listened. It had sounded like he heard a voice on the wind, a faint voice telling him not to worry, everything was going to be okay.

---

Ra’ Shari spun on her heels and stared at the hedge wall that had just separated her from her friends. Oddly though, she wasn’t afraid in the least. Her attention was quickly drawn back to the dim light illuminating the path in front of her. Ever so slowly she started walking towards it. Her eyes were transfixed on the light with it’s odd pinkish glow, but just when she thought she could reach out and touch it, it vanished. The pupils of her eyes dilated, searching for and trying to catch any possible light it could find, but it came up empty and Ra’ Shari suddenly felt the panic she should have experienced a while ago.

Stumbling to the side she reached out her hand in search of the hedge wall, wanting nothing more than to be close to something familiar despite the fact that she would most likely get strangled to death. Her hand hit something ice cold and hard as rock. Ra’ Shari brushed her hand against it again and her brow furrowed. It felt like a metal door.

Jonan?

She got no reply. That’s alright,she told herself. Jonan is probably just…running an errand for Amaranta. That’s all. Probably just too busy to respond.Ra’ Shari searched the door some more, trying to find a handle or a door knob or one of those push bars or something at least, but she found nothing. Not knowing how else she could possibly get through the door she gave it a light push and felt it shift slightly. Pushing a tad bit harder the door swung open and her eyes were instantly greeted with a dim light.

That same urge to simply get near the light, close enough to touch it took her over once more and her feet started inching forward. Her almost moth-like behavior was broken, however, when the thick metal door slammed shut, trapping her into the room. She jumped slightly but all worry was far out of her mind, at least it was out of her mind before she looked around the room. It was a simple, small room made out of what looked like large gray stones and the floor was littered in chunks of rock that had broken off from the walls. Floating just below the center of the ceiling was a fuzzy, bluish-gray light faintly illuminated the room except for the shadowy corners, and resting just below the light was a high-backed arm chair that was facing away from Ra’ Shari.

Squinting her eyes in confusion she lightly stepped towards the chair not understanding what it would be doing in such a room. If Ra’ Shari was ever going to imagine a chair in the room she could only picture a wooden rocking chair caked in dust instead of a polished, comfortable, and expensive looking chair like the one before her. Perhaps this is what they were sent here to get…psh! Ra’ Shari mentally laughed at the thought. There was no way Amaranta would send them to such a deadly place just for a chair.

As she got closer she started seeing more details: the texture of the red leather back, the details and the grooves in the legs, the glossy black paint of the arms. As she looked closer though she noticed something was off. She sidestepped slightly, trying to get a better view and as soon as she did she forced herself to hold back a pitiful cry of surprise. The blonde woman could clearly see the human arms clad in a simple black sleeve resting over the equally black arms of the chair, but besides that and a little bit of their torso she couldn’t see much else.

The person sitting in the chair sighed heavily as they gripped the chair arms with their hands to support them as they stood up, and their head hung low, black hair blocking their face almost as if they didn’t want to be seen. As soon as they were standing they turned their head ever so slightly in Ra’ Shari’s direction, just enough for her to see their face. “Nice of you to visit, Ra’ Shari.”

Nausea washed over her and it felt like any second now she was going to double over and empty her stomach. What kind of sick, twisted nightmare was this? Her conscience was screaming at her to leave the room and get as far away as possible, but her mind was so overworked that it couldn’t even comprehend the messages. “Oh God,” was all she could whisper as she lifted her hand to cover her mouth, perhaps in an attempt to stop herself from screaming like she so desperately wanted to.