I couldn’t see what was behind it. In front of me was just a huge, slightly dark, hallway. There were no doors or ceilings, just a hollow hallway with no lights to brighten the way. I panicked a bit as I felt my heart beat inside my mouth. I turned to see Lexus on my left, three entrances away from me, looking so confident. I wish I had her confidence. I turned to my right and saw Mason right next to me; he gave me an assuring nod. I gave him a small smile in return. This really was not the time to be cheerful, but Summer didn’t seem to agree. She stood in a ready position with a very wide smile. I saw Isaac at the last entrance; he looked like he was ready to face anything. But his face looked dark and worried. He turned to look at me. “You and me,” he mouthed the words to me. I nodded, trying to put on a hopeful smile.
The Phoenix leader began, “When the buzzer sounds, you may enter the Unknown. If you enter the Unknown before the buzzer is heard, you will immediately be rejected.” he said in a serious tone, “Best of luck to all of you…”
“I can do this. Yes I can do this.” I kept telling myself.
I heard a boy near me scream. I glanced to my right to find guards tackling the boy named Dex to the ground.
Breathed in.
“Focus…” I told myself.
I squinted from the horrible struggling sounds coming from Dex just a few yards away from me. I hated seeing him struggle. He was forced against his will to come here, it wasn’t his fault that he tried to runaway.
Breathed out.
“Forget everything around you, just focus…” I said to myself once more.
The loud, booming sound of the buzzer erupted.
I ran as fast as I could and the last thing I heard was the loud bang from the guard’s gun that was aimed at Dex’s head.
Chapter 6
I ran through the hallway as fast as my legs could carry me, but my legs were shaking so badly that I had to stop. I heard something closing behind me and turned my head. Behind me, a very large metal shutter quickly closed the entrance of the Unknown and there was a ceiling above it now. I think they closed the entrance so they can easily suck the oxygen out,
“Ugh, focus!” I told myself. Why did I keep forgetting that the time I had was short and limited? I couldn’t waste a single second or else I’d end up suffocating to death.
I continued running down the Unknown as it became a bit darker than before. Further down, I saw three entrances: right, left or straight ahead. I made up my mind and ran to the right. I saw another entrance to the left and ran through it.
Well, this is easy I thought to myself, but where are....
And there it was: My first obstacle.
I slowed to a walk in front of the oval shaped mirror on the wall in front of me between the two entrances: Right and Left.
I approached the mirror, cautiously; though two yards away I could see my reflection. I had a bad feeling about that mirror; this was the Unknown, so anything that looked harmless could be extremely dangerous. I looked around, trying to find something to throw at it. I spotted a good-sized grey rock, big enough to break the mirror. I picked it up and threw it as hard as I could, shattering the mirror to pieces. The loud sound of breaking glass echoed throughout the maze.
I looked at the shattered mirror, happy about the harmless obstacle. I laughed,
“That’s it? No lizards, no cockroaches. I just needed to shatter a mirror?” I said to myself. My voice ricocheted off the walls of the Unknown. Somehow, I was hoping that the leaders might be listening to me; they seemed to have run out of ideas for the obstacles. No sooner had I taken in my surroundings that I began to smell smoke. I turned to the mirror to find that there was smoke spewing from it. Was it possible to make a mirror angry? I braced myself for whatever creature that might materialize from the smoke. I waited and waited but nothing happened yet the smoke just kept pouring out and started to fill up the area around me. Soon enough, my lungs started to fill up with polluted air, making it hard for me to breath. I realized something, I didn’t have to “stop” or “kill” the smoke. The smoke wanted to kill me.
My eyes started to sting as I coughed violently.
My solution: Run.
I tried to wave the smoke away as I ran but it was too thick. Wherever I ran, the smoke did not lighten; it actually became denser by the second.
I ran to the left, the smoke was still there. I ran to the right, the smoke was still there, and possibly, even denser to the point where I had to squint through the smoke. My coughs became more violent and forceful. I had to get out of this situation, but it seemed like the smoke was following me. I was probably half a mile away from the mirror. How could it have drifted behind me that quickly?
My legs were turning into rubber and dizziness overwhelmed my whole body, threatening to make me fall on my knees. But I had to keep going; I only had an hour to complete this nightmare. I had to…
I gave in to my tiredness and fell to my knees. I felt something rising up in my esophagus. I tried to resist the urge, but I couldn’t keep it in. I went to the dead-end corner and threw up everything that was left in my stomach.
I crawled back and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. I tried to get to my feet, but I was too weak. I tried again with all the strength I could muster but fell again after taking only three steps. I had to keep moving. If I couldn’t walk, then I would just have to crawl.
I used both my arms to pull myself forward. I kept crawling until I couldn’t see any more of the thick cloud of smoke that formed around me. It hurt too much to keep my eyes open, so I close them as I crawled. I coughed and spit as I tried to crawl further away from the deadly smoke.
Minutes seemed to stretch into hours as I lost the energy to crawl. The rough ground rose up to meet my face as I finally lost consciousness.
++++++++++
I opened my eyes slowly. I could see clearly now; the thick smoke was gone. I pushed myself up with quivering arms, forcing myself to straighten up as much as I could.
As soon as I regained my balance, I remembered that we only had an hour. I panicked. How long was I unconscious? I looked at my watch and saw that there were only thirty minutes left. I had to keep moving. This time I didn’t run; I jogged instead, fearing that I might fall unconscious again.
I turned to the right and immediately saw my next obstacle; a very odd looking flower in the middle of the hallway. After the mirror incident, I knew that I should be more cautious about attacking my obstacles.
The flower was probably six feet high. A green, sphere-like metal ball with no petals stood on top of it. It looked like a painter’s lame attempt to make it look like a young bud. It had a furry stem and spiked leaves, which looked realistic enough but still a very strange looking flower. I headed towards the flower, forgetting that I was in the most unpredictable and dangerous place.
I examined the flower carefully; it had weird markings on its stem, like some kind of language written on it. I tried to touch the smooth spot of the stem with no markings on it. Bad idea. I could somehow put my finger through the stem, but as soon as I did, I couldn’t get my finger out.
“Aah!” I screamed in shock. I pulled my finger as hard as I could and, eventually, I extricated myself. I fell back but stood up immediately, facing the plant. The plant was no longer a plant. The sphere-like green ball exposed small holes the size of a marble ball. Spikes started to crack through its stem, stretching the markings to reveal metal instead of the green epidermis.
I took one step back, trying not to take my eyes off the plant or whatever it was. All of a sudden, it started to spin around itself like a drill, turning faster and faster. I couldn’t understand what in the world it was doing until the spikes started to shoot out of it like bullets.
I quickly ran back to the nearest corner. I felt a sharp pain cross my back as I ran. I turned around the corner and sat near the