It's only forever, not long at all, lost and lonely

Vivian’s first reaction when she woke up was a feeling of blind panic. Her heart pounded in her chest and she looked around frantically, trembling like a leaf.

“Oh no…” she whispered, shaking her head. Terror surged through her body. “No, no… no… not this… oh, please…”

How could she not have realized it until now? What sort of place she would end up? It should have been obvious given the situation!

This was an underground labyrinth.

Of course it would be bathed in darkness.

“No…” Tears began to well up in Vivian’s eyes as her legs started to shake. She crouched into a ball and hugged herself tightly, fighting the fearful impulses surging through her. She knew she couldn’t waste any time in this place, not if she was serious about winning this competition, but…

“Octavia, where are you?” She asked, her voice soft and **** like when she was a little girl. “I don’t like this, please…”

It wasn’t complete darkness. There was a faint amount of light, just enough to barely make out the stony brick walls around her. She could tell that she was in a wide chamber of some sort, but beyond that…

She was too scared to properly take stock of her position.

In the back of Vivian’s mind, where her rational self was still holding on, she knew she had to keep going. She couldn’t let her fear of the dark overwhelm her, not if she wanted to win this challenge. And she needed to win.

But she just couldn’t move.

---

“Huh, this is weird…” Gina peeked her head out of the chamber she’d ended up in, and found herself standing in a long corridor that seemed to stretch on for miles and miles. As far as she could see, anyway. The hallway was lit by flickering candles, bathing the stone walls in an eerie glow.

She had to admit- she liked the ambience. It was pretty dark cool.

But there were still some problems here.

Like, for example, the fact that Gina would have to do some actual exercise. What a pain in the ass!

“Wasn’t the last challenge bad enough?” She asked aloud, not speaking to anyone in particular but hoping Dakota could hear her. “I had to run all over the damn island last time!”

Yeah, she’d won. But still! These challenges were supposed to be sexy, right? Gina could do sexy.

What she couldn’t do (well, didn’t want to do, anyway) was boring physical exertion stuff. No, thank you! How would that help her be a more appealing member of Nick’s harem?

As far as she could tell, it wouldn’t.

Sighing, Gina scratched her head and looked left and right. There was a choice to be made here, obviously. But both directions looked identical.

Biting her lip, she was about to flip an imaginary coin and make a choice, when she remembered what Dakota had mentioned about having access to a map.

And all she needed to do was get herself off to figure out the right direction?

Gina cracked a grin, fishing her fingers down under the hem of her pants.

And who says Dawn is the smart one? She thought with a giggle.

---

“I’m… outside? H-how?” Morgana shivered as she felt a chilly breeze run across her. She looked around the foggy field, squinting. It didn’t make sense. The labyrinth Dakota had showed her, it was supposed to be underground, right? So how did she end up outside?

…Or was she outside?

Morgana looked up at the sky, and saw the moon brightly illuminated in the fog, drowning out the stars. She gasped. So not only was she outside, but it was night out!?

That was even more confusing.

“Dakota? Anybody?!” Morgana called loudly, cupping her hands over her mouth. “Hello? Is anyone here?!”

She really wanted to find someone soon. Sure, Dakota had said that it was a bad idea to end the maze in a group, because they would all get less points, but she also said there were benefits to working together… and besides, Morgana was only one Victory Point away from getting 100! So it didn’t even matter if she won the whole competition, right?

Morgana bit her lip. No… I’m still thinking like a loser. I got so high in the Popularity Poll this round… I think that’s the highest I’ve ever gotten! But I’m still acting like I can’t win this? Maybe… maybe the audience really wants me to win after all… maybe?

She’d avoided thinking about it until now. In past challenges she’d always played to win, but in the back of her mind, she hadn’t really expected to.

But maybe… she should try hard.

She took a deep breath and summoned her courage, exhaled, and delved deeper into the fog.

---

“So any idea where we are?” Carly asked her sister, looking around. They were in a chamber that was perfectly rounded, and made of flaming red bricks. They were polished so brightly Carly could almost see her reflection in them…

…Wait, no, that was Marley.

“…Yeah, we’re in a room,” Marley answered her sarcastically. “In a maze. On an island-”

“Yeah, I got it,” Carly interrupted her. She rolled her eyes and snickered. “You’re lucky you’re cute, sis,” she teased, playfully socking her sister in the shoulder. “Anyway, it looks like we only have one exit, right?”

She pointed to the wooden door in front of them. It was the only thing that broke the even flow of the shimmering walls.

“Yep,” Marley nodded. She walked over and tried the door. “Oh, of course. It’s locked.”

Carly groaned. “So it’s like one of those escape rooms? Marley, you like puzzles like that, right? How do we open it?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Marley asked. “You joke around all the time like I’m the smart one, sis, but you’re not exactly an idiot! Why do I have to do all the work?”

Carly cupped her hands over her chin and batted her eyelashes at her sister. “Oh, please, onee-san? You’re so smart and sweet and cute and adorable and clever, I just know you’ll do so much better than me!”

Marley rolled her eyes in disdain. “Aren’t you the older one?” She muttered. There was absolutely zero chance she was going to fall for her sister’s games.

Still- they needed to find some way out of this room.

---

“Ugh… my head…”

Headaches were nothing new for Ella. She’d been dealing with a pounding in the back of her skull for as long as she could remember. Mostly, it was Cinder trying to take control over her body. But this wasn’t like that.

She was pretty sure.

Cinder was being unusually quiet for once.

That gave Ella the opportunity to take stock of her current position.

It caught her by surprise when she saw the state of her starting point.

Everywhere Ella looked seemed to be covered by a sticky, oily black substance. It was like tar, or really thick mud. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sight. And there was a strange odor hanging in the air as well, making her gag.

“What is this place?” She grumbled, taking an uncomfortable step forward. It felt like walking in glue, her shoes were stuck to the floor. “How am I supposed to move here?”

She walked carefully, and stepped out of the stinky chamber of oil. But the next room she found wasn’t a lot better. It smelled nicer, but the floor and the walls were just as sticky as before.

Ella moved a little faster, or she tried to, at least. But it was getting harder. And the tension in her chest wasn’t helping matters, either.

“Thwap!” She snapped her rubber-band to recenter herself, and kept walking. She didn’t know what she’d find, but she knew she needed to keep going.

---

“This seems almost ordinary,” Dawn said aloud, looking around. To her surprise, it seemed like she hadn’t started inside the maze. Looming walls towered over her diminutive form, like skyscrapers stretching up as far as the eye could see. Or, at least, until it reached the fog covering the ceiling of the chamber she was standing in.

Dawn looked over her shoulder. Behind her, she only saw rocky walls and darkness. Ahead of her was a single gap in the labyrinth.

Yup, ordinary. This looked like the start of every maze she’d ever seen in the “Junior Puzzle Solvers” book she’d finished when she was just a toddler.

“So Dakota thinks I’m such a threat she wants me starting outside the maze, eh?” Dawn asked with a wry grin. She almost felt flattered.

Almost.

Should Dawn even enter the maze? Or double back and see what was behind her?

Wait… unless this is just a game and I really am in the maze, and Dakota’s just messing with me, she realized. Yeah, it would be just like her to make my starting room question whether or not I’m even in a maze at all.

Dawn sighed and rolled her eyes. Well, she wouldn’t get anywhere if she didn’t move forward, so she decided she might as well get started.

So she stepped into the maze, wondering how much of it she could figure out on her own.

---

“Ugh, what the hell!?”

Rose was not in a good mood.

A challenge focused on walking around a maze? That was bad enough as it was! And she wasn’t exactly in the best mood after her severe slip in her placement, dropping her all the way down to sixth in the Popularity Poll! And it was a shared sixth place as well, with her roommate, for added humiliation! That was basically like placing seventh!

She’d done so much this round to try and appeal, and yet it seemed that the audience had ranked her in the bottom half of the contestants!

…Yeah, so with that in mind, Rose was absolutely not interested in wading through an icky, gunky swamp. Which was where she’d found herself in.

“Why am I even outside!?” She demanded, looking furiously at the grove of moss-covered trees around her. “What, is this just the ‘ugly swamp’ portion of the maze or something?”

That bitch.

“Dakota, I know this is your fault!” She shouted at the bog, shaking her fist at the murky pool of water. “You’re just trying to crush my motivation out of spite because you know how much Nick loves me! And I’ll bet you rigged that popularity poll, too! Well, you won’t break me! It takes a lot more than some mud to get Rose Beausoleil to back down, I promise you!”

Taking a moment to catch her breath, Rose decided that the first thing she’d do when she was out of this maze was plant a big kiss on Nick’s lips. Just to spite Dakota.

She was so focused on getting payback that she didn’t notice the water of the bog stirring, like something was moving just under the surface…

---

Run. Run. Keep your eyes open. Run. Be alert.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin had trained her whole life for situations like this one. Well, maybe not exactly like this one. Obviously not.

But being dropped into unknown territory, left to fend for yourself, not knowing where the enemies and threats were around you, and needing to overcome whatever obstacles you encountered through sheer **** of will, skill, and the occasional kill?

Oh, yeah, she was made for this.

She pulled to a stop at a fork in the corridor, and swung her head from left to right. Not seeing any difference in the two paths, she closed her eyes, and focused with her ears. Her long, pointed ears had turned out to be quite an exceptional boon for her, she found, and with her enhanced hearing, she should be able to tell if there was anything that might pose a threat.

No, she could hear only silence.

That was fine.

Silence was familiar with her. She could live with silence.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin slowly opened her eyes, and made a choice.

Left it was.

The assassin turned on her heel and headed down the left path, ready for anything that might pop out at her. She tightened her grip on her umbrella and brandished it in front of her, prepared to strike. Even another contestant if need be.

She wouldn’t be getting any favors from the audience. She wasn’t the brightest but she knew that much.

So she would have to take care of herself.

---

“I’m gonna kill that fucking bitch. I know she’s already dead… and technically immortal… but I’m gonna kill her…”

Dakota had claimed that she’d sent the girls to random parts of the maze.

Bullshit, random.

That’s why Kim had landed headfirst in a pool of lotion?

Yeah, no fucking chance.

It had taken the tomboy FAR too long to scramble her way out of the Olympic swimming pool-sized tub of slimy liquid, mainly because you couldn’t swim in it and with her body slick as a newborn baby, she couldn’t get a firm grip on any fucking surface.

But she’d managed to free herself.

“At least I have my transformation,” she said, soaking her clothes with water to wash the slimy gunk off her. And when that was done, drying herself off proved just as easy a task.

Not that Kim was happy to be in this position.

No fucking way.

“Dead, she’s so fucking dead…” After that little stunt, Kim knew she had to be way behind the others. She walked carefully, avoiding slipping on the lotion-drenched floor, and made her way for the exit. Or at least what she hoped was the exit.

She didn’t care that the audience might vote against her for having a bad attitude about this. That was the last thought on her mind, in fact.

---

“Well, this isn’t what I expected,” Dani said, staring up at the ceiling. She’d been expecting rocky walls, humid air, and the rank odor of sex and debauchery, like this maze was some kind of twisted sex dungeon.

…She’d found herself in some kind of sex dungeon, judging by the satin mattress she’d woken up on, but one of far greater quality.

Dani sat up and looked around. It almost reminded her of being back in her room. Everything was so fancy and elegant, it almost sparkled. She felt like she was in the parlor of some fancy highborn lady or something.

Well… if that was the case, she probably didn’t want to stick around. She had a challenge to win, after all.

Dani hopped out of bed and stretched her arms over her head, cracking her neck. She headed for the door and swung it open, only to find that the corridor ahead of her was not at all as high-quality as the room she’d started in.

A blast of moldy air practically slapped her in the face.

“Oh well…” Dani sighed in remorse. She looked longingly over her shoulder at the wonderful room behind her, and stepped into the dreary, disgusting hallway. Not the best way to start the challenge, but it had been nice when it lasted…

She knew she’d probably never get a taste of that luxury elsewhere in the maze. Too bad she didn’t have time to make the most of it.

---

“Hmm, did we always have a labyrinth like this under the island?” Sylvia wondered, tapping her chin. “I mean, I probably woulda known about it if we did, right?”

Obviously, no one answered her. But that was fine.

Sylvia was mainly talking just because she enjoyed the sound of her own voice.

It was way better than the void of nothing that she was hearing otherwise.

Sylvia was standing in a very strange room. It was made entirely out of glass, everything from the walls to even the floor. And every time she took a step, it make a strange cracking sound, like the glass was about to crack beneath her feet.

She looked down and saw nothing below her. Just an inky black void.

“…Yup, don’t wanna fall in there!” Sylvia was pretty sure this was one big psychological trick of Dakota’s. After all, she could see clearly that the glass wasn’t actually cracking. Just to confirm, she banged her heel on the floor.

Yup, it was pretty damn solid. It must have been like a foot thick!

And yet, when she took another step? More cracking.

Other girls might have been worried or nervous, but not Sylvia. She knew there were no real threats in a challenge! Everything was all about having fun and appealing to the audience, after all!

So with a smile on her face she skipped forward, heading right for the glass door ahead of her.

---

“Bizarre.” Amelia had woken up in a room that reminded her quite a lot of home. Most old, musty castles did. But when she’d stepped out of the room and into the corridor, and followed the path, she found herself confronted with quite an interesting conundrum.

Whoever had designed this maze seemed rather split about their decorative decisions, judging by what Amelia was confronted with at the fork she reached.

The path to the right was exactly like the path she’d been walking so far. It was made of uneven brick and stretched out into the darkness, like one would expect from any eerie labyrinth.

But to the left was something else entirely. Wood and painted walls covered the pathway, in a strange design. It looked half-finished and incomplete, like it was encroaching over the dungeon itself. Almost like an invasive fungus or something. It wasn’t moving, but it seemed to have spread, overwriting the natural design of the corridor itself. Amelia felt like she had just walked onto a half-completed and abandoned construction project, like someone was trying to convert this drab, dreary hallway into a residence.

Which direction should she go, then?

…Ultimately deciding that whatever was spreading this suburban expansion was probably not something she wanted to deal with, Amelia decided to keep going to the right.

Just out of earshot, able to be heard if she strained her ears and listened, was the sound of skittering footsteps and a detached, disembodied giggle.

A pair of blue eyes watched her from the dark path behind her, and a twisted smile stretched across pale, sunken features…