Chapter 3

Encounter

They say that all fledglings leave the nest eventually. I suppose Hadda, being a bird himself, would eventually let go of me as well?

…Heck no.

First of all, Hadda is not a bird. Hadda is Hadda, and he will come back. He’s not as irresponsible as to abandon me when he was the one who took me here in the first place. Heck, he knew the maze like the back of his wings. Knowing him, it shouldn’t be too hard for him to find his way back here. I’m sure he’ll come around…

……

...Another roar. This time it’s clearer and I know for sure now that it’s not just my imagination. It was clearer, and closer. It was the same roar, I’m sure of it.

The horned lifer is coming.

Now should I run away?

If I do, then for how long?

There’s another option involving a certain wolf. I still remember the way back... I think. The last place we met was at the great passage, which is where the lifer would be coming from.

Should I risk running into the lifer to get to the wolf, when it’s not certain that he’s still there, or if he’d even help me in the first place?

That would be too risky. Then again, if I run, it’s only a matter of time before the lifer gets me.

Uuh... where are you, Hadda?

Where did you go?

If you come back, you can bully me as much as you want.

But please, don’t bully me like this.

…No, calm down. This is perfect!

Everyone needs to grow up in the end, to take full control of their lives without the protection of parents Hadda.

This is me, depending on myself.

With a clear, if shaky resolve, I start running.

I don’t know how long I can do this, but if I am to meet my end here, I sure as hell will not go down without a fight.

◊ ◊ ◊

Every time I hear a roar, it sounds closer than the last.

Just as I’m thinking that, I come upon an elevation that seems to rise above the walls of the maze. Getting a vantage point might allow me to see the lifer, but that would mean it seeing me as well.

Should I risk it?

The lifer’s tracking me already, so it shouldn’t get worse than this. At least, I’d know which direction I should avoid.

As I make my way up the stairs, the walls become lower, but also thinner. By the time I can see beyond them, the walls have become thinner than my wrists, making it impossible to walk on.

For the first time, I can see the maze at its whole. The new section that I’m currently in has much lower walls and there are parts with multiple levels, with stairs and slopes as if it wasn’t confusing enough. Meanwhile, the portion of the maze before the great passage resembles a colossal dome from the outside, even though it’s really just a section where the walls are much higher.

Like this, rather than a maze, I feel like I’m trapped within a massive underground city instead.

I narrow my eyes and attempt to search for the lifer around the low-walled sections, lowering my form to prevent it from seeing me as well.

...Well, turns out it’s not that hard to find.

Shivers run down my back when I see its pale form hulking through the corridors. It’s closer than I thought, and way closer than I’d like it to be, which means that it’s time to go.

Wait, it’s stopped moving for some reason. Also, doesn’t it look like it’s looking this way? It can’t be, right?

…Shite. Who am I kidding? My clothes and hair stick out like a sore thumb.

Now this is where I run, and now that I know where the lifer is… uhm, speaking of which, where did it go? It was definitely there a second ago.

……

Another roar came.

But it should be impossible.

I clearly saw it just a second ago, yet this roar came from the opposite direction. Could there be more lifers?

No, that can’t be it. Hadda said there’s only one. Could the maze be distorting the sound somehow?

…At any rate, let’s run towards neither direction for now.

The lifer doesn’t know its way around the maze. Its basically in the same boat as I am, and that’s where I get my advantage. Unlike me who has everywhere to choose, there’s only one route that the lifer has to take to get to me. As long as I keep moving, that route will keep changing and it becomes impossible for the lifer to make logical choices, leaving it all to chance and endurance.

Another roar, same direction, same distance as the last one. As I conclude that, I return my focus to running and breathing. It’s life-saving-ly important that I run as long as I could. It doesn’t matter how fast I am or which direction I am going, as long as it’s not towards the sounds, that is.

…Talking about which, that just happened.

A third roar came and for some reason, it came from directly ahead. It sounded close as well, but that should be… impossible. It couldn’t have moved that fast. As I thought, the sounds must be distorted, but in the off chance that it’s not… ugh. should I keep going forward, or should I─

……

T─The heck…?

How? This time it came from just behind the wall to my right.

What is this? Some kind of trick, a predatory ability to let my guard down? Is it masking its position so that I wouldn’t know where to run?

Before I can come to an answer, another sound came. A familiar sound. Then it’s silent again.

I take a couple of steps, and the sound comes back. The sound of footsteps, dull and heavy, coming from just behind the wall.

It’s right there, with just a thin wall separating us, so why isn’t it moving anymore?

I continue to run again, and the footsteps, they... they’re following me. I stop running, and it... when I stop, the footsteps stop as well.

…I understand now.

I had a feeling, but I didn’t want to recognize it because it was too terrible to be true. There’s no question now. This thing, it’s… playing with me.

This is a question of life and death for me, but for the lifer… I’m just a toy for it to play around with, am I?

I understand that, but why?

Why is it doing this to me?

Is it fun to torture me so?

Why is this happening to me? Why did I do to deserve this? And why can’t I remember a SINGLE FUCKING THING?!

…It knows.

It knows that I’m afraid, that my mind is crumbling beneath the fear it had staged for me.

And it’s amused by it.

My sight is… am I... am I crying? Huh, how pathetic.

Just what did I do to deserve this? And this thing here, this thing I call lifer seems bent on making my life for the worse.

I start with a pace. It paces after me. Then I start running, and it runs after me. Even with a wall between us, we know exactly where the other is. Now it’s left to chance on whether the next turn joins our paths or gives me a way to go further away from it.

Luck is still on my side as the latter turns true. As soon as I make the turn, I run as fast as I can, ignoring the fact that the place ahead seems to be a puzzle area.

The place is large and as all puzzle rooms are, has no other paths other than the one I entered from.

…The lifer is right on my tail, and now this… could be my chance!

Before, I had asked Hadda about the puzzles, and he told me that it would revert back after a certain amount of time. If I could just go through, then maybe it would close on the lifer’s big, fat, ugly face.

The puzzle itself is a large, thick, circular slab with drawings etched on its surface. There are five layers of the drawings separated by very thin gaps, going from the outer rim to an inner circle. There’s some kind of slot on the center, just as there are some on the other layers.

Figuring its’s some kind of handle, I insert my hand and find a grip inside. I try moving it and to my great dismay, find it to be extremely heavy. Fortunately, the rings seem to turn on their own if I give it a tug.

After testing the waters, I find that each layer of rings act differently than the other. One would rotate normally, another would only go one direction, and some would trigger other layers to turn along with it or does so after several turns of that particular layer. The duration of which they rotate also differs, making it all the more tricky.

Looking closely, the drawings are somehow interconnected between the layers, so I probably have to connect them all to solve the puzzle. With that set as my goal, I start doing work, quickly but carefully. The whole ordeal with the lifer had awakened some innate instinct within me, and through it, I know that it’s close.

Driven by adrenaline, my mind works faster and before too long, I can see the finish line. I quickly work on the circles, not stopping even as my arms strained to handle the weight.

Just a couple more.

Just one more.

There! Now all that’s left is...

Oh, crap.

I messed up.

All the layers are about lined up; the drawings connecting the layers into one big, cryptic picture. All the layers, except for the middle layer, which is… one step off.

One. One rotation away from its desired position. One push away. The problem is, that particular ring can only turn in one direction, and I can’t just turn it all the way either because every three turns I make with the middle layer… would also trigger the outer and innermost circle to rotate, destroying all the work I had done.

Damn it.

Damn it, damn it, damn it!

FUCK! This isn’t the time to make mistakes and I...

Huff... calm down. There’s always a way.

I would start again from scratch, but there just isn’t any time. Is there some kind of trick or loopholes I can use? Maybe just force it to turn?

.........

That roar again. It probably noticed my lack of movement a long time ago. Is it trying to make me run by constantly bellowing out? Well, sorry, but this is the end of the line. I can’t run any further unless I found a way to cheat this puzzle.

…Actually, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to cheat.

I start by tracing my fingers, sensing for indents and the like on the surface of the big, cubic structure to which the puzzle is attached.

Nothing lasts forever, no matter what kind of cruel god designed it. Not even the universe itself is exempted to the destructive eventuality of time. There should be some way to make maintenance possible. There has to be.

Huh? This… Ah, finally!

There’s a detent; a pin of some sort. There’s a ring on it, which I promptly pull on. Doing so reveals a slot with a shaft in it. There are two shafts that are joined together, which has another ring on the connection. Bingo.

I start pulling, and holy, it’s heavy!

Guaaaah!

Give up, you bastard!

- Clank -

With a hard yank, the coupling finally comes off. The shafts disappears to the sides and a part of the cube’s surface slides open. Alright, here we go.

I look inside and what I see is… well, something. It looks like an elaborate, convoluted union of gears, bearings, clevises, and other sorts of parts that I can’t even comprehend the function of.

As I cursed at the complexity of it, a sound came from behind me; the same heavy footsteps that will haunt me forever in my sleep. It’s still a distance away, but the fact is, it’s close enough for me to hear it.

I run back to the puzzle and turn the middle layer. As soon as it starts rotating, I hop back to the aperture and observe the moving parts. Among all the moving stuff, there’s one that looks like a ratchet.

Gods, I hope this works.

I yank at the pawls and even though I can’t pull it off, I made it so that they wouldn’t block the ratchet. Then I go back to the puzzle try turning the middle layer on the opposite direction.

Heck yeah, it works!

Upon completing the puzzle, there’s a loud clunk and a crumbling noise, followed by the opening of a passage. However, feeling an ominous presence, I look at the passage behind me.

Ah, fuck…

I was too focused on the puzzle to notice.

It’s right there, standing just a leap away.

I can’t help but take a couple of step backs under its gazw, hitting my back against the circular slab. Seeing me like that, the lifer just… laughed. A depraved and malign laugh, gripping my body with fear.

I run back to the open hatch. Looking inside, I find another a new set of parts moving, rotating and clicking.

The lifer slowly makes its way towards me, breathing in the smell of my fear.

At the center of the machine, a long shaft being inserted into a slot as the passage opens. It’s located deep inside the mechanism.

I can hear the lifer’s heavy footsteps, now less than ten strides away from me.

In a gamble, I reach in at the shaft and pull hard while it’s still in motion. The countless moving parts grazes my flesh, causing excruciating pain as I let out a voiceless scream. After I’m sure that I changed something, I pull my bloodied arm out and dart towards the new passage.

Please, let this work.

There’s a growl from behind me, which is immediately followed by heavy steps, going faster… and faster, and faster.

I dive into the new passage. My weariness has finally caught up, and I can only look up in horror at the approaching lifer. The ingress fully opens, there’s a click and in a sudden, abrupt manner, the gate snaps back, shutting close on the lifer’s face.

............

....I did it. I got away.

Haha....ahahaha...!

IN YOUR FACE, YOU BIG FAT BULLOCK!!!

Haha… phew.

I can’t believe it. I got away.

There’s still a gap there, probably because I broke the gate somehow. The shaft I pull must’ve been a detent to hold the passage open for some time after the puzzle’s completion, and by removing it, I made it close when it’s supposed to be open. There’s no way the lifer could get through now. Even if it’s somehow able to complete the puzzle, it’s broken now. There’s no way to get the door open unless the mechanism is fixed.

I can still hear the footsteps. Then I realize it’s there, peeking through the gap, looking at... me.

I stand up, staring at the horned beast right in the eye.

Why? Why are you doing this?

It responds with silence.

Is it for survival? For amusement? Why?

…..

Can it not hear me?

…No, it seems to understand, because I can see a glint of its teeth. It’s grinning again, as if it’s finding my attempt at communication to be funny. Then it starts laughing.

「 Just keep running, little doe. 」

I froze yet again as the lifer spoke, its voice beastly and chilling to the core.

「 Keep running, and then, when I finally get to you... 」 its long tongue snaked out to lick its own lips.

「 Oh, I will enjoy this. 」

「 Keep running, little doe. 」

「 Just keep running... 」