Chapter Text
Cold was the first thing he knew.
His cheek was pressed against an icy, hard floor, his body crumpled up in an agonising position that, judging by the soreness in his muscles, he'd been in for a long time. His hip burst into pain when he moved, like someone was lighting fireworks below his skin. He pressed his hands to the side of his skull in an attempt to salve the pounding pain in his head. It didn’t help.
He was in an elevator, he realised, peeling his crusted eyes open to get a closer look. Different sheets of metal flew past outside the grating of the elevator. It was moving upwards rapidly, the whir of the pulleys the only noise in the silence. He squinted in the darkness in an attempt to identify anything around him, barely managing to make out the silhouettes of boxes and various tarps and ropes.
He tried to think why he was here, but there was just a void, like someone had scratched out everything that made him him. Something – someone – had taken crude oil to his memories and smeared it all in the substance, obscuring it from him. The memories were just out of reach, hidden away.
He didn’t even know who he was, he thought, his breath speeding up. His heart hammered in his chest, the sound of it thumping through his ears, almost overlaying the sound of the elevator. He didn’t know anything about himself.
Taking a deep breath in, he tried to calm down, tried to remember his name. Nothing came to him. His age, he tried next. Nothing. There was nothing. A blank space in his brain where he knew his identity should be. Bile rose in his throat. This was wrong, it was all wrong.
The room seemed to be getting brighter, the darkness having turned to more of a dark grey, the outlines of the crates around him growing increasingly visible. He tried to stand, but he immediately fell back to the ground, the elevator’s movement causing him to stumble.
His name was Hax, he realised as he scrunched himself into a corner, resisting the urge to slam his head into the wall to try to dislodge some memories. Anything, to remember, to scrub the oil from his brain. Hax had been allowed a small piece of information, a small trickle of water from the reservoir. Hax.
Hax didn’t understand how he only knew that, but nothing else. Hax knew he was in an elevator, he knew he was looking at rope, which by extension could be used for climbing, which reminded him of lush forests filled with towering trees and sea-spit covered cliffs. He – Hax, he reminded himself again, he couldn’t forget again – knew about this world, that he was on a planet, he knew how it worked, just nothing personal. Hax couldn’t pin down how old he was, his birthday, his family, friends, anything. He had nothing of his own.
The small room had got a lot brighter now – sunlight, he knew, he must be close to the surface. Hax could see words on the boxes – Ranked, over and over, like some sort of label – a company? Perhaps they put him there?
The pulleys and chains rattled with the effort of hauling the cage Hax was in upwards. He could see the metallic encasing surrounding him, allowing him to see the walls beyond the elevator flying past, various shades of grey filling his vision.
The elevator jerked to a stop. The entire room shook, every movement causing the elevator to clang against the side of the elevator shaft. Hax dragged himself up, using the walls as support. His legs shook both with exertion and fear. There was another clang and the roof of the elevator opened like a trapdoor, revealing blindingly bright sunlight.
Hax squinted through the relentless pain of the light. He could just barely make out a large group standing above him, all their faces staring right at him with undisguised curiosity. “What the fuck,” Hax breathed. His heart was still going crazy.
Someone landed into the elevator, causing it to shake with the added weight. Hax’s legs gave up on him yet again as a result. The man in front of him winced, before offering him a hand.
Hax blinked up at the guy, taking stock of this new person. He had bright pink hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in at least a month and a friendly, welcoming smile, one that immediately put him at ease. This new person was a sanctuary in this new, confusing world, and Hax felt a desperate need to latch onto him and never let go.
Hax accepted the hand, despite his own being slick with sweat and probably disgusting to hold onto. He’d almost feel bad if he wasn’t still caught up with the confusion of it all. He would really like an explanation of, well, everything. How he got here, where he was, what was happening.
“Hey newbie,” he said, pulling Hax off the ground. He was strong, Hax noticed dimly. His mind was foggy, his thoughts felt like they were moving through quicksand. “What’s your name?”
Hax stared at him. His eyes matched his hair, they were both dulled, the pink warping into almost a grey colour, like ash. “Hax,” he rasped out, his voice hoarse with lack of use, presumably. He must have been in the elevator a while.
“I’m Mongey,” the pink-haired guy said. “How are you feeling?”
Hax couldn’t help but bark out a laugh at that question. “I’m feeling awesome, absolutely awesome. I totally know what’s going on, and I’ve got zero issue with waking up in an elevator with no memory whatsoever.”
“Fuck,” someone cursed from above. “Not this one.”
“Mime!” another called out in a singsong voice. “That’s another two nights!”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” Hax could hear a loud scuffle above the two of them and a few shouts.
Mongey gave him a sheepish grin. “Ignore them,” he said with clear amusement. “Fulham has a betting pool and Mime was so convinced that the next new guy – you – would be the one. Something about number thirty-six being important for whatever reason.”
“It's divisible by a lot of shit, okay!” the same voice yelled out. Mongey couldn't hold back his chuckle.
“The one?” Hax questioned weakly. He was still clinging to Mongey's hand. He dropped it in embarrassment. His head ached.
“A certain group are convinced that one day some guy with all their memory is gonna show up and guide us out, obviously it has not happened yet but–” Mongey cut himself off, thinking over his words. “It keeps people hopeful.”
“Out of what? This elevator?” Hax asked. Stupid question, he instantly knew, there was obviously more above him.
Mongey laughed at that. “No, no. Come on.” He pushed himself out the elevator, scrambling up the side of it in a shocking display of strength that Hax didn’t see coming.
Mongey offered out his hand yet again, but Hax ignored it in favour of pulling himself out. His arms shook with the strain of it, but he managed, pulling himself up onto the dry dirt. Hax took short, sharp breaths where he lay on the ground until he could will himself to stand up, still puffing breaths of air.
“You good?” Mongey asked as he stood up.
Hax nodded. He blinked, trying to clear his vision of dark spots that concealed most of his view. He squinted through the painful light and did his best to make out what he was seeing.
There were about twenty-something strangers standing, still staring at him. What were they seeing, Hax wondered, someone useful, or another burden. They probably thought he needed a shower, honestly. The clothes he’d woken up were covered in dirt, though they were decent quality and didn’t appear damaged from what Hax could tell, which was a relief.
An unnatural tension fell over them. Hax waved awkwardly in their direction. He got a couple waves back, yet there was still a thickness in the air that was suffocating. Mongey grabbed his shoulder to get his attention, pointing towards a huge wall at the edge of a grassy plain.
“You see that?” he asked, twisting to stare Hax in the eyes. “The wall?”
“It's hard not to,” Hax joked, but it fell flat. The rest of the strangers were still staring at him. They kept a polite distance, but they didn’t try to hide their watching. It was really fucking weird. “Where are we?”
“The Maze,” Mongey told him, a seriousness in his voice that hadn’t been there before. “This,” he gestured at the wide grass covered plain, occasionally broken up by haphazard structures and a forest in one of the corners. Far off, near a collection of houses, was a glimmering lake that shone in what sunlight could reach them. Most of the light was blocked by the towering walls that were higher than anything Hax could remember. “Is Spawn.”
“Spawn,” Hax repeated, the word foreign in his mouth. “Why Spawn?”
“It's where we start. Where, as far as we know, we were created.”
“Okay, right. Sorry, I’m still confused. What do you mean, a maze? How long have you all been stuck here? Where is here, actually?” Hax asked. No one was really explaining anything. His head hurt and he was confused, and apparently he was trapped in some stupid maze with a bunch of strangers. And he had no fucking memories. Hax’s life was awesome.
“I mean, we are in a giant maze, and this is the center, as far as we understand. The guy that’s been here the longest – Feinberg – has been here three years now. Every month, a new person arrives. You’re lucky enough to be this month’s.” The sarcasm was clear in his voice.
“Lucky,” someone scoffed in the small crowd, just to drive home the point.
“What’s your name?” another guy in the crowd asked. He was near the front, and tall with curly brown hair and rounded glasses. One of the frames had a crack through the middle.
“Hax,” Mongey responded before he could even open his mouth. “I’ll give him the tour, yeah?”
No one seemed to disagree with that declaration. The group all scattered, most heading back to the largest building next to the lake. A pair headed towards the forest instead, and Hax couldn’t help but ask: “Where are they going?”
“Who?”
Hax pointed at the pair, who had started jogging at a reasonable pace.
“They’re runners,” Mongey informed him, starting to follow after the group, heading for what Hax assumed was the main house. “They go out into the maze and map it out.”
“Map it out? How big is it?” Hax asked, breaking into a short jog to catch up with Mongey’s quick pace.
“Do you need to ask that?”
Hax shrugged, looking at the walls again. Now that they were getting closer to them, they appeared even bigger, towering over Hax. It was almost impossible to imagine them being built by humans. They dwarfed the forest, let alone the two of them.
“The maze goes for miles on the inside. It's impossible to cover it all, not even considering the constant changing. There’s a reason we haven’t found an exit, even though we’ve been running through it for the better part of three years.”
“Damn. The changing?”
“The walls shift every night, and sometimes during the day as well. Our doors into the maze shut, those four entrances you see,” Mongey gestured vaguely at one. Hax could just make out how the walls continued on further at a ninety-degree angle.
“They shut? That’s insane, no? Where’s the power coming from? How does that even work?”
Mongey shrugged. “We don’t know. We don’t know why we are in here, who put us in here. We don’t even know where here is. If you want to be the one to solve these mysteries, be my guest, but I, for one, would not want to go into that maze. Bad things happen in there.”
“What do you mean ‘bad things happen’? Do people get shut in?” Hax asked.
“Yes, but that’s only one part of it. There’s these– these monsters. We call them Enders, because if you see one, you’re literally ended. You will die. If you lock eyes with one, you get this– disease. No one has ever survived it for longer than a day, most don’t even get back. We didn’t know about it, for a bit, because of that.”
They disappeared. Hax connected, horrified. They went off into the Maze and just didn’t come back. If the doors shut at night, they couldn’t even go and search until morning, and then they’d have to search in a maze. Mongey’s rose-coloured eyes were covered in a sheen of dampness. He didn’t point it out.
“That’s why most don’t run any more,” Mongey told him. They'd almost reached the main house. Mongey slowed his pace slightly. “Almost everyone who arrived year one did at some point, most of year two as well, but people got scared. We weren’t getting closer to an escape, everyone knew it, since everyone took shifts running.”
“They lost hope,” Hax filled in. Years of running the same footsteps, marking the same walls. He could only imagine the weight of hopelessness that must press down on the people of this place.
“Yes, we all did. There’s not many runners left. Most don’t even go out every day any more.”
“Can I talk to them?” Hax asked. Something was pulling him to the maze, he didn’t know what, perhaps a suppressed memory or some internal instinct. He needed to see inside.
“Maybe later I’ll introduce you to Feinberg,” Mongey said, thoughtfully. “Most of us have been out at least once, just to see. Fein takes people on tours for the fun of it. He’s got the whole place memorised like the back of his hand.”
“Is he sane?” Hax blurted out. He wasn’t sure why he said it.
Mongey blinked at him. Hax offered a smile that he tried to make reassuring, but he wasn't sure if he succeeded. “He's mostly sane,” Mongey said. “I hope? If anyone's insane here, it would be me.”
Hax laughed. “What do you mean? You seem pretty normal to me?”
Mongey didn't answer in favour of calling out to a guy with shoulder-length, brown hair just exiting the main house – he still needed to ask Mongey what that place was.
“Beef!” Mongey yelled. The guy turned his head before offering up a small wave. “I’ve got someone new for you to meet!”
The guy – Beef, he assumed – beelined towards them, offering up a friendly smile reminiscent of the one he received from Mongey. Honestly, it was a miracle that the people here weren’t insanely unwelcoming – Hax knew he’d be pretty pissed off if he was trapped in this place for years.
“Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Hax.”
“I know. Nice to meet you too,” Beef glanced at Mongey who was standing next to Hax. He looked… bemused? For lack of a better word. Hax couldn’t come up with a reason why that might be. “I’m BeefSalad. Beef, for short.”
He had red eyes, Hax noticed. His hair was shockingly clean as well, considering where they were. Hax couldn’t help but think he was intriguing, someone who didn’t quite make sense. “Well, my name’s Hackingnoisess if we’re doing full names.”
“BigBigMongey,” Mongey offered. “Sometimes I wonder who came up with it.”
“Knowing you, probably yourself,” Beef said with amusement. “I was just heading over to the kitchen to borrow some food, want to come?”
“Of course,” Mongey said, quickly starting to walk off in what Hax presumed was the direction. “Hurry up,” he called out, startling Hax and Beef into motion.
“Where do you get food?” Hax asked Beef, who was staring at the ground in silence. Occasionally, he’d kick the odd leaf.
“It comes up in the lift,” he said. “You didn’t see it when you were in there?”
“I was a bit distracted by having no memories and being trapped in a moving underground room. Genuinely thought I was going to die, like it was actually insane. I mean, I saw the boxes and ropes and shit, but I didn’t really think anything of it at the time, you know? I didn’t even remember my name for a solid like – ten minutes – I was freaking the fuck out,” Hax said in one breath.
Beef nodded and said: “That’s. That’s fair enough. I only came up like – five – I think five, people ago. So I still remember, uh, vividly, the experience. Well, I say vividly, I think I’ve blanked most of it out of my brain. I remember seeing the food, though, for whatever reason. I tore through all those boxes to try to find something that could help me escape,” Beef said, thoughtfully. “They weren’t happy with me when I arrived. The lift looked like a storm had run through it.”
“I clearly don’t have much survival instinct because I just panicked,” Hax said.
“I mean, fair enough. I did as well, I think you’ll talk to anyone here and they’ll tell you the same thing. It's a terrifying experience.”
“I just. I dunno? It's not like I could have done anything better, but it feels like I should have. That makes no sense, does it. It just feels like I messed up somewhere, even though I didn’t, like I was doing a jigsaw puzzle and I got to the end, but the last piece didn’t fit because I put a piece in wrong somewhere else and now everything was fucked. Actually, no, that makes no sense.”
“I get the idea,” Beef interrupted. “I know what I did may sound smart, but I really wasn’t thinking straight. Mongey will tell you that the first thing I did when I reached the surface was hit him over the head with a tin of tomatoes, launch myself out the lift and sprint for the maze.”
“Seriously?” Hax said, incredulously. “Do people do that a lot?”
“Quite often. Not the majority, but a lot. At least I’ve heard, haven’t been around to actually witness anyone else do it. Coop people up long enough, and they’ll want to escape, they’ll want to run. This place survives on it. They wanted me to run, and for a bit, I did. Maybe a month or two?”
“Why did you stop?” Hax asked.
“Got tired of it. We weren’t getting anywhere. I don’t know if we ever will.”
“What do you mean? I thought you were looking for an exit? Are you sure you’ve just not found it yet?”
Beef visibly hesitated. “I–” he paused again, thinking it over. “I shouldn’t explain it. Fein – Feinberg – should. I don’t know if you’ve met him.”
“No, but I keep hearing about him. He’s been here the longest, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Beef said.
“That first month must have sucked ass.”
Beef laughed. “You’ll never hear the end of it if you talk to him. He flips between claiming it was the worst month of his life or the best month, depending on how annoyed he is.”
Mongey was ten paces ahead of them, looking back impatiently. “Come on, you guys walk too slow.”
Beef and Hax exchanged a look before jogging to catch up.
—
The cafeteria, Hax found, was pretty standard and shockingly clean considering it was run by a group of young adults. It wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing building, it was apparent most of the people here did not have much of a knack for art. It was good, though.
Hax liked this place. It felt wrong – wrong to like a place he’d been forcefully put in, left without any memory of who he actually was – but he did. He liked the people. He liked the buildings, how it was all run. There wasn’t one person in charge, Mongey had explained earlier, there was a council, and they made decisions. Everyone had to do their part, and generally, everyone did. It was good, a small piece of goodness in this new, confusing world.
Mongey had shown him where everyone slept. All of them got their own hammock fastened out of rope and a scratchy piece of tarp. It wasn’t much, Mongey had told him, but they made do with what they had. He was lying in his now, staring up into the leaves, Mongey in his below him, both of them avoiding the midday sun.
There was constant noise in the center – the center of Spawn, as Mongey had called it. They used odd words here, Hax had noticed, almost creating their own language. There were endless inside jokes, everyone seemed to get them except Hax. It was isolating, yet it was almost fun to try to guess at what they meant. Hax could rarely work it out, but he still tried.
Beef was nice too. They’d introduced him to a few others in the cafeteria, Vstrid, Lowkey, Aquacorde, Silverr, Edcr, more that he’d already forgotten, despite his best efforts. The names had washed through one ear and out the other mostly. There had been too many names and faces to keep track of Hax just tried his best to focus on a select few. It was overwhelming, the constant socialising. Everyone wanted to meet him.
Mongey tapped the side of his hammock, causing it to unsteady itself, nearly causing Hax to fall out at the surprise. “Do you want to try catch the runners?” he said softly, voice nearly a whisper. “They’ll be back soon.”
Hax did. He wanted to talk to Feinberg, to whoever else ran. He wanted to understand everything happening in this place. He wanted to know why it was happening. Why they hadn’t got out yet. Mongey had said that Feinberg could explain.
“Yeah,” Hax said. “Can I get that explanation?”
Mongey chuckled. “If Fein’s in a good mood, I don’t doubt it.”
Hax jumped out of his hammock, almost causing himself to fall and the tarp to flip over in his haste. “Let’s go then,” he said.
It took them only minutes to jog over to one of the maze exits – the north one, judging by the sun. “How do you know which one they’ll come from?” Hax asked as they jogged, the sun beating against his neck.
Mongey shrugged. “I asked Infume this morning, he told me probably north? Odds are probably about fifty-fifty on him correct.”
“Does shit just happen sometimes?” Hax asked.
“Shit just happens.”
Once they reached the door – apparently, Hax was still having trouble convincing himself that he was actually looking at a door and that the gap would actually close – Mongey flopped onto the ground to rest. Not out of breath, so presumably just to be dramatic.
“Sit down,” he said. “It's good to relax. You gotta take it while you can, y’know.”
Hax sat down next to him, staring at his hands. “This is so weird.”
“What’s weird?” Mongey asked.
“Just everything,” Hax said, twirling a finger through the sand and grass beneath him. “Like, what am I doing here?”
“Who knows,” Mongey said dispassionately. “And who cares, honestly. It doesn’t matter much.”
“But it matters completely,” Hax objected, yanking a blade of grass from the ground as if to emphasise his words. “What’s our purpose? Who made this maze? Why bother? Are you not curious? Do you not want to escape, to find out why?”
“I do, of course I do, it's just,” Mongey hesitated, gazing at the sky as if he could find the answers in the clouds.
“Did you lose hope?” Hax questioned. “Is it impossible?”
“I don’t think it's impossible,” Mongey said carefully. “Just we haven’t worked it out yet.”
A memory of a box with the word stamped on the front floating to the forefront of his mind. “Who are Ranked?” Hax asked, “Did they put us here?”
Mongey closed his eyes. “We don’t know. Our best guess is that they’re some sort of company. We don’t know anything beyond that. The word just appears everywhere, the food, the ropes, the tarp, the water, the fucking walls of the maze.”
Mongey took a deep breath as if to try to calm himself. “If I could pick one thing to hate in this world, it would be whoever put us in here, whether that be Ranked or some other entity.”
“It does things to you, this place. Being trapped within four walls and a square mile. It's a miracle none of us have gone insane, that no one’s– no one’s jumped off the walls.”
Hax could hear that there was a story there, but he didn’t ask. If Mongey wanted to tell him, he could, but he wouldn’t ask.
“Hey, Mongey,” a voice called out from the maze. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Hax watched as Mongey offered a half-hearted wave, not bothering to get up. Hax did, though, and he watched as a blue-grey haired guy approached him. He wore a white hoodie, the hood placed over his head. Hax offered a wave, and he got a wave and a beaming smile in return.
“Just you today, Infume?” Mongey asked from where he lay on the ground.
“Just me,” the guy – Infume – confirmed. “Fein’s resting his leg back at base, Silverr’s doing– something? Couri, probably with Fein, or he could be doing some no reset attempts,” Mongey gave him a thumbs up to indicate he heard. “Are you the new guy then?”
He was staring at Hax, looking him up and down in a way that felt judgmental. “Yeah. That’s me. I’m Hax, it's nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Infume said easily. “I’m Infume, I’m one of the runners around here.”
“I’ve heard,” Hax responded. “Mongey’s mentioned you.”
“Has he,” Infume said, smiling. “Well, I’m the best in the business, so it's good that my reputation is being spread,” he said, amusement colouring his voice.
“Yep, I’m doing my part!” Mongey said cheerily. “Told him all about how terrible you are and how Fein’s only letting you run because you were too terrible at everything else.”
Infume rolled his eyes. “You did not say that.”
“Oh he did,” Hax said, sarcasm clear in his voice. “Told me right before you arrived.”
“Mongey, we can no longer be friends.”
“Thank god.”
Infume flipped him off, redirecting his focus to Hax. “Do you want to see the maze?”
“Uh– now?” Hax asked. “I thought the doors were closing soon?”
“Yeah, they are in–” Infume checked the small, digital wristwatch he had on. “Five minutes. That’s enough time for a quick peek.”
“Why not,” Hax said.
“Do you wanna come, Mongey?” Infume asked.
“Absolutely fucking not,” Mongey said. “I know what happened the last time you did one of these ‘quick trips’.”
“We both got out alive didn’t we,” Infume said, rolling his eyes. “This guy is so overdramatic. We just had to slip in through the closing doors. It was all under control.”
“Maybe we should get going,” Hax said. “Just a look, yeah.”
“Yeah. Four minutes. Let’s go,” Infume broke off into a run. Hax easily followed, the walls rising up beside him as they entered. The maze was even more intimidating when he was in it, Hax found. The walls blocked the sun, leaving the floor of the maze shadowed and murky. A thin mist had found its way into the maze, weaving through the sand and plants on the ground. It was beautiful, in a way. The walls were covered in moss and life, butterflies fluttered by every so often and dappled light dotted the tops of the walls.
“It's beautiful,” Hax said, entranced. They had rounded a corner, just barely out of sight of Mongey. They stopped running to take it all in.
Infume gave him a soft smile. “I agree. I love it in here. The maze is worth the danger.”
“Yeah. I see why. It must be pretty at night,” Hax said wistfully, gazing up at its embrace.
“I’ve been trying my best to get Fein to let me stay out for–” Infume’s watch beeped twice.
“Two minutes,” Infume said. “Let’s go.”
“Just–” Hax reached out to touch the walls. They were icy cold, as he expected. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
They broke off into a run again, closer to a sprint than a jog. Infume was slightly faster, but Hax could definitely hold his own. They reached Spawn as Infume’s watch beeped again for a minute. Mongey hadn’t moved a muscle, but he glanced up at their footsteps, naked relief on his face. “Good trip?” he asked casually.
“Yes. Can I run tomorrow?” Hax asked Infume.
“Absolutely,” Infume said. “Let’s go ask Fein.”
“Fucking hell, you all are insane,” Mongey said, shaking his head.
The walls creaked at those words. Infume’s watch beeped for the final time. A loud crumble began, louder than he’d ever heard before. The ground shook with it, like an earthquake. This felt worse than an earthquake, though, this felt like the world was coming to an end.
Infume didn’t seem bothered by it, and neither did Mongey, but Hax could already see the pale look on his face. He’d known it was coming, but he wasn’t sure that he could ever get used to that.
“Want to go?” Infume shouted over the rumbling movement of the walls. “I like my hearing as it is.”
They gave their acquiescence and began walking towards the Runners’ Building – well, more of a hut. The walls banged shut loudly, the sound echoing through Spawn. Hax glanced back to make sure the walls were fully closed – they were.
It wasn't a long walk to reach the small, out of the way structure. The flimsy wooden door hit the wall loudly as Infume propelled the door open, announcing his arrival. “Hello?” he called out, stomping sand into the hut without a care in the world.
“Hey,” a voice responded from further inside. Infume darted further inside, leaving him and Mongey to follow. At the end of the small corridor that held the entrance, the hut expanded, revealing a round, well lit room. A large, wooden table with a map made of patchwork paper and carefully drawn lines sat in the center, detailing what looked like the maze. It appeared complete.
There were candles scattered across the shelves on the walls, alongside analogue clocks that ticked at different rhythms, a constant soundtrack. Hax couldn’t help but wonder where they got the clocks, the watches, the candles, everything. If they all came in through the elevator or if someone had made them.
“New guy,” the guy sat at the table said. He had a piece of paper in front of him. It was completely blank. “What’s your name?”
“Hax, nice to meet you,” he parroted off.
“Couriway, but you can just call me Couri,” the guy said, smiling. He had dark circles under his eyes, visible even in the gloom of the small room they were in.
“You’re a runner?” Hax asked.
“Yeah,” Couri said, giving him a half-hearted smile. “Been running a long time.”
Someone hammered on the door and a foreign voice called out, muffled slightly by the wood: “Couri! Could you lend me a hand for a second.”
Couriway sighed, shaking his head, before heading towards the door. He threw it open to reveal a lanky man who was dragging a large– Hax didn’t know what it was. A rock?
“Feinberg,” Couri said, grabbing onto whatever Feinberg was holding. “What in the world is this?”
“Just something I saw out and about, could be useful, could not be. It was getting dark, so–”
“For fuck's sake Fein, what were you doing out this late, what if something happened like–”
“Like what, Couri?” Feinberg shot back. “I can handle myself. If you should be telling anyone off, it should be Infume, he and the new guy were out in the maze literally a minute before closing.”
Couri spun around to redirect his glare towards Infume. “Have you learnt nothing. Fucking hell.”
Hax glanced at Infume, who was biting his lips and tapping his foot, giving off exceedingly anxious vibes. “I asked him to,” Hax said, attempting to redirect the blame.
“He should really not have listened, though,” Couri sighed. “We had someone, a guy called Doogile, he was too late back.”
He didn't say anything more, but Hax could fill in the blanks. “I see.”
Feinberg had slipped in at some point. He was leaning heavily against the table. Couri left the – now Hax could see it closer, it appeared metallic. It was covered in a viscous dark purple substance, like blood, if it came in that colour. The shape was – weird, for lack of a better word. It was like nothing Hax had ever seen before. The shape was like an insect wing, but the patterns on it looked to be a language Hax had never seen before.
“Nice to meet you, new guy,” Feinberg said, offering a smile. Couri darted over to him, placing a hand on his back and whispering hurried words to him. Feinberg shook his head and Couri took a step back.
“I've heard you can give me a tour of the maze, Feinberg,” Hax said. He locked eyes with Feinberg, who stared right back.
“Just Fein is fine,” he said hurriedly. “And yeah, I can do that. The one time experience.”
“Are you sure, Fein,” Couri hissed in his ear, just loud enough for Hax to hear.
Fein shoved Couri away. “Yes, I'm sure,” he said firmly.
Hax exchanged confused glances with Mongey, who had been hovering near the back of the room. Infume rolled his eyes dramatically next to them.
“Can we do this when we don't have guests?” Infume said pointedly, raising an eyebrow at Fein and Couri of them.
“Whatever,” Couri said, rolling his eyes. “My fault for being considerate. If you kill yourself out there, Fein, it's your own fucking fault.”
With that, Couri walked out the room, letting the door slam shut behind him. “Right,” Fein said, frowning. “Sorry about that.”
Hax twisted his lip in worry. “If you're injured, don't worry about taking me out, I'm sure there are loads for me to do without going out to the maze.”
Fein chuckled. “I'm always injured these days. Couri's just worries.”
“For good reason,” Infume interjected. “Fein, you've been taking increasingly more risks over the last month than ever before. We've all noticed.”
“Oh for the love of– look, one trip out with a newbie is not going to kill me,” Fein exclaimed. “I will be fine, and if anything by some insane chance goes wrong, I will have– sorry, what's your name?”
“Hax,” Hax filled in.
“–Hax with me to help.”
“I could come with you as well?” Infume offered. “I have a couple spots I want to show Hax, and it would help get Couri off your back.”
For a moment, it looked like Fein might say no, that he would remain stubborn in his belief that he could handle it alone. “Fine,” he said. “Meet at open time?”
Infume and Hax both offered their agreement.
“Dinner?” Mongey asked.
Fein shook his head. “I got some things I want to finish up here.”
“If I see Couri, I'll send him your way,” Infume said. Fein opened his mouth as if to protest, but visibly reconsidered.
“Okay,” he said, collapsing into the chair Couri was using earlier.
They said their goodbyes and walked to the cafeteria. The sun was setting, bathing Spawn in fiery hues of copper and gold. As Hax walked, he felt warm for the first time since he'd left that elevator, since he'd escaped one prison and entered a new one.
Dinner was mediocre – the soup tasted of nothing and the bread was stale – but the people brightened it. Hax probably talked to everyone in Spawn by the end of it, tens of strangers coming up and introducing themselves, offering welcomes and being generally pleasant, despite the horrific situation they were in.
Beef also made an appearance, alongside Vstrid. They both seemed inseparable as they bounced off each other for what felt like an hour, talking quietly between themselves about who knows what. Hax honestly felt like he was third wheeling, sitting in on them.
He stayed for as long as he could, talking long after his plate was empty and Mongey had already retired to bed. Eventually though, when his eyes started drooping close, he had to make an exit, promising that he'd see people another time. It was nice to be wanted. It felt– unfamiliar.
Mongey was already asleep by the time he found his hammock. He lay down, gazing up at the sky covered with stars, and tried his best to trace the constellations through the leaves. He fell asleep smiling.