“NICK! WAKE UP!”

“Mmm…” Nick murmured, reaching for a nonexistent alarm. She groped around blindly, until her hand grabbed a warm, fleshy object. “Eeek!” she shrieked, recoiling.

Exflibberaguil was cradelling his arm. “Ow…” he whined, pouting with a hurtful expression. “That hurt!”

“It was that gas they used on me earlier, wasn’t it? When they tried to wipe my memories?” Nick was now fully awake, though her brain was still slow to turn on.

“Hm, I think so. I’ve been through too many of them, and my memory wasn’t great in the first place. But I doubt they would randomly switch sleeping gases that worked so well.”

“Never mind that, where are we?”

The scene was completely different from the blank-white rooms Exflibberaguil was so used to. The place was completely dark, except for two spotlights that illuminated Nick and Exflibberaguil. They seemed to be in the middle of a large circle. Branching off of them were dozens of black hallways. Nick was unable to see into any of them. She cautiously ventured forward, but it only led her out of the spotlight and into the all-consuming darkness.

“Welcome to the mirror maze,” Exflibberaguil proclaimed, acting like a tour guide. “Where you can have fun spending hours, or days, or years, or lifetimes trying to get out.”

“But you must know this room!” Nick replied. “You don’t happen to know how to get out, do you?”

“Don’t worry. I know this place like the back of my ear.”

“I believe the phrase it, ‘Like the back of my hand.’”

Exflibberaguil shrugged. “How well do you know the back of your hand? I certainly don’t. And I’ve never once seen the back of my ear. In short, we are completely lost and hopeless. Besides, it wouldn’t have been much help anyway even if I did have a mental map of this maze. There are hundreds of potential exits that can easily be changed. And that’s if we are playing fair, which I doubt these rabbits will. Though I don’t blame them…” Exflibberaguil trailed off.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing you need to stick your nose in. Now, I believe our first objective should be to find those other useless adults. I have a suspicion they are here in this maze with us. I am also fairly certain I hear the archeologist’s snoring somewhere in the distance. Come on, start looking for a real hallway. Be careful, half of these are mirrors I believe.”

“Tell me what you know about this maze,” Nick demanded, standing up and walking to the nearest hallway. She hit it hard and fell back, rubbing her nose. “Ow. This one’s a mirror.”

Exflibberaguil approached a hallway carefully, his hands in front of him. “I’ll tell you what I know, but I figure it’ll only make you more dispirited.”

“Hit me.”

“Okay,” Exflibberaguil sighed, flinching away from the hard mirror. “Get ready.”

“Each room is a triacontatrigon, that is, a thirty-three sided polygon. This is, of course, discounting the number of secret rooms that sometimes is needed to be found to reach certain exits. For most rooms, about half of the hallways are fake reflections, but this can of course vary. Some rooms have traps that lead you back to the start. Other rooms are or can appear to be dead ends.

“There are close to two thousand rooms, and a three hundred fifty-four possible exits. Seventy-two of them are extremely difficult to reach. Some rooms are escape rooms, where instead of hallways there are locked doors and puzzles to solve. Knowing the rabbits, I shouldn’t be surprised if they take away all the hints to the locked doors, and make us try to guess the password out. And I expect there are hundred of possible obstacles and alterations the rabbits could have done to this place.”

“Alright, I see what you mean by depressing,” Nick groaned. “But on the plus side, I found a real exit.”

“Me too,” Exflibberaguil replied, sticking his arm in to prove the corridor was indeed valid. “Which one do we take?”

Nick frowned and considered this difficult question. She fished in her pockets for some object, eventually brandishing a short stubby pencil. “I’ll throw this up. Whichever one it points to, we’ll take.”

“You’re basing life decision on a pencil?” Exflibberaguil said incredulously.

“I don’t see what’s so bad about it. My theory is, the less I think about it, the less I get blamed for it. Anyways, you said yourself that half of these hallways are real. Chances are, none of us has it right. We’ve got nothing to lose.” With that, she tossed the pencil in the air, watching it intently as it clattered to the ground. “Yours, it seems,” Nick said distastefully, as if the pencil should have none better than to chose Exflibberaguil’s path.

As they started down the corridor, pinpricks of light flicked on automatically, illuminating their path. The light bounced and reflected off the mirrored walls, making the maze seem even more confusing than before.

After an awkward length of silent walking, Nick coughed to break the tension. “I—I think I hear Timothy’s snoring a bit clearer. This must be the way.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. Even after we find him, we have no way of finding the exit. I propose we stay in one room to conserve our energy.”

“Shouldn’t we at least try to find the exit?”

“I don’t see why. I don’t even see the point of finding the rest, except that them may lend a bit of body heat and clothing garments should it get cold.”

“But…I mean…that makes sense, I suppose,” Nick sighed. “Yet, it seems to be lacking in spirit I believe is the word.”

“Second time I heard the word,” Exflibberaguil murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing you need to ask about. Come on, we need to split up now. This is the next room. Have your pencil handy.” This room was illuminated by the pinprick of light.

Nick obeyed, and set off to the left side of the room. “Couldn’t you tell my why the ferret and the robot want you dead?”

“I think ferret would be much more satisfied to tell us itself. Besides, I can’t say I remember very well. I now have most of my memory, but the events closest to the wipe are still very hazy. Oh, lucky me. I only needed to search two hallways to find an open one. Have you found yours yet?”

“Hold on,” Nick mumbled, carefully reaching inside a hallway, “yes I believe I have found mine.” She tossed the pencil in the air.

“It seems like we’re going my way again.”

Nick threw the pencil her nastiest look, before untwisting her face into face of surrender.

This was going to take a while.