Chapter Text
Bolt down the straightaway, keeping ahead of the blow darts. One, two, take the third left and duck the axe. Jump and spin through the laser grid and rush through the closing door at the end.
Breathe. Another breath.
Sprint for all he’s worth.
Danny knows the steps of the labyrinth by heart. He’s run it so many times now, and unless he fucks up majorly, he’s definitely making it out this time.
He leaps over the spike pit, cursing the bracelets that hold his powers captive, and then he focuses on running through the next section, each footstep in the exact right space to avoid triggering a fall into the boiling water below him.
He has to keep up his speed or the walls will crush him, and even if they don’t, the various traps are all set on the same timer, one moving right after the other. There’s no time to think, and each time he’s slowed down something has killed him.
Each death is a gruesome end, but all he can do is shut his eyes as he dies.
Then he blinks and he’s back at the start.
But this run, this time, he’s going to get out.
The last few runs, he’s seen a doorway filled with green light. Surely that’s the goal, the ending of this torment. Soon Danny will be out and home free, and he can finally let himself rest. He’ll have to figure out who stuck him in here eventually, then he’ll kick their ass and make sure they can’t ever do this to anyone else, but first he’s going to take the world’s best nap. He’s so fucking tired.
His body feels new on every run, but his mind is absolutely exhausted, especially because he has to remember all the traps and the ways to move through them.
Crawl through the tunnel, press up against the left wall to avoid the saw in the middle of the floor, wall run, leap to the other side, swing from bar to bar over the acid.
Danny can’t spare any thoughts. Every time he starts thinking about who could’ve done this, he screws up and dies.
But not this time.
There’s the doorway of green light up ahead, and he can see the holes in the walls that hold the arrows that killed him last time.
He leaps over the first batch, ducks the second, and sprints fast past the last group, and then he’s through the doorway and into the light.
But he’s not out.
He has a split second to meet the eyes of a man in a cage of green light, and then there’s a sword through his gut.
“No!” The man cries, but Danny is too busy dying to listen.
He knows he should be looking around for where the sword came from, should be taking the moments of his nth death to check out the traps and pitfalls ahead of him, but he’s officially done.
He keeps his eyes shut, tunes out the lightning-fast babbling of the man in the cage, and dies quietly.
When he blinks back to the start of the labyrinth, he collapses to the ground with a defeated wail.
He shuts his eyes again.
The only thing he can hear is the grinding of the walls as they close.