Chapter 4

In the maze Cor was awake again and his rumbling stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten something in quite a while.

From what I can tell is that I'm meant to stay here, this place is built like a sort of sick prison ... I wonder if they put any food somewhere. So far I've been mostly exploring the east section of the maze, or what feels like east anyway, it's hard to tell with no sense of direction. Perhaps it's time to move more inward and see if I can find some rooms where they keep food, I didn't get the impression that the Doctor wanted us to die from starvation.

Walking around like an ape still hurt his hands and legs a lot, but alternative ways to walk weren't really an option either.

I hope my muscles adjust to this soon enough. Why the hell did that Doctor come up with such low ceilings!? Cor asked himself for the hundredth time, still at least it beats crawling around like a dog.

Cor crawled around for several minutes when he sniffed the air, Hey! There is that musky fragrance again!

Realizing the maze would likely change shape soon he immediately tried to run after his nose. Up ahead he faintly heard somebody moving over the carpet and his bet was that the perfume was from that person.

Should I make some noise so that she knows somebody else is here, or should I approach her silently first? Hmm ... She might run away if she hears me and it'll be hard to find her again if the maze changes ... I guess I better stay as silent as possible and stalk her for a bit before notifying her that I'm here too...

Moving ahead as fast as he could with as minimal amount of noise as possible he quickly gained in on the woman.

From his earlier experiment Cor knew that the maze in his nearby vicinity wouldn't shift, but he hadn't figured out the exact distances yet when it would. It also seemed that some of the corridors were permanently open. He found this out when he went into what he took four corners of equal length and ended up finding one of his shoes back.

I wish I could see something, this total darkness makes things so much harder.

The noise ahead stopped and Cor stood as still as he could, has she detected me?

After a minute it continued again and Cor let out a slow breath of relief that he wasn't detected yet.

She seemed to be less than ten meters ahead now and her smell was getting stronger.

I never knew perfume would smell this seductively, her smell is driving me nuts. For all I know she has a serious overweight problem and looks like Medusa's sister. I guess total darkness does have its advantages since I won't have to worry too much about her looks now, Cor considered, God, what am I thinking? It's not like I'm planning to have sex with her ... At least not immediately, he added as an afterthought, while he considered that some company might be welcome.

Cor was now less than five meters away from her and it was hard to disguise his sounds now, great so now what? I gotta let her know that I'm right behind her somehow or she'll definitely freak out on me. Hmm ... Oh wait, perhaps a simple cough will do?

Making a loud coughing noise he could literally feel the woman in front of him freeze in shock, not wanting to wait and let her escape, Cor quickly closed the distance between them and grabbed her ankle.

"Let me g..." was all he heard, before he felt the woman in front of him go into shock, getting punished again for talking.

Well this is one easy way to catch women, Cor grinned, just stay silent and let them do all the talking ... At least I know she's from the Netherlands, that was definitely a Dutch accent!

Crawling up next to her, he laid down and softly patted her back in an attempt to relax her and showing her that he meant her no harm.

This also allowed him to feel her up, Why I definitely don't have to worry about her having an overweight problem ... From what I can feel she has a pretty slim figure.

Despite the fact that he didn't want to come across threateningly to her, Cor did feel himself getting hard, basic instinct trying to take over. Luckily for the woman he kept his feelings well under check and his crotch away from her bum, least he'd give himself away. Once she had sufficiently recovered from the shock he tried to communicate with her through touch by writing, "Hi I am Cor," in the palm of her hand with his finger.

It was the best he could come up with, but it did seem to have a soothing effect on her. At first she didn't quite understand what he was trying to do, but after repeating his message she understood what he meant.

Sighing a breath of relief, she wrote with her finger in his hand, "Hi I'm Janneke."

What followed was a time consuming conversation in which they both exchanged information in how they got here and what they had figured out of the maze so far. At least they could cut down on time spent writing by using the same language people use in text messages.

It was mostly Cor that had new information through his experiments with the maze and Janneke decided to follow him, figuring two would have a bigger chance of getting out of the maze then one. She opted that Cor would lead, since he seemed to have more experience with the maze.

Though honored Cor didn't have any clue where to go to either. He did his best not to let that show, however, and since Janneke couldn't see his face in the darkness anyway she couldn't see his doubt either.

Together they crawled through the total darkness, Cor seemed to keep getting ahead of her and Janneke requested that they stop for a bit by pulling on his pants.

Next she asked him through writing, "How come you crawl fast?"

Cor replied, "Walking like ape, not like dog."

"Let me try," was the request he got back.

He could feel Janneke struggling to walk like an ape and then heard her business skirt rip, while she let out a yell and tumbled over.

Women ... I guess my way of walking doesn't really work when you're wearing a tight skirt...

Crawling over to her, Cor took her hand and wrote, "Pull skirt up, walk easier than. I promise I won't peek."

He ended that last line with a winking smiley, which earned him a soft slap on the shoulder and a snicker.

Cor heard Janneke pulling up her skirt and wished he did have some light to see what she'd look like, Just my luck ... Finally I'm in a room with a woman who is half undressed and I can't see a thing!

Cor heard Janneke trying to walk like an ape again and she seemed to have more luck at it this time. Making a short clicking sound she indicated that he should take the lead again. Cor passed her in the small corridor, nearly knocking her over and continued his search for something to eat for the both of them.

Elsewhere in the maze Jean finally figured out he could actually move around without getting shocked, as long as he kept quiet. He was too afraid to touch the collar and thus prevented himself getting shocked by attempting to remove it.

Having less trouble with staying quiet than with not moving around he finally started to explore his surroundings. He thought they might come and get him at any moment, so he kept moving back to his start location, wandering out only a little bit further every time. When he finally moved more than ten meters away though his start area became inaccessible.

Jean walked back and bumped into a wall where he expected his safe hide out to be, instead there was only a corner to the right. Realizing his safe hiding place was now gone he nearly started to hyperventilate, due to the stress this revelation gave him.

It took him several minutes to calm down and to realize that it wasn't the end of the world. He decided that there was no turning back now and had to move on.

Carefully feeling around in the dark he got lucky, as he found a bigger room. More interesting was the fact that there seemed to be a ramp leading a level down. Jean was unsure of what he could expect down there though. At least the higher level was something he was familiar with and he didn't know if it'd be a smart idea to head down.

After pacing back and forth for a while his curiosity finally got the better of him and he went a level down.

The ceiling here was just as high as the level above him, but the corridors seemed three times as wide. Jean concluded that this basement level was build up out of several big rooms, a lot of smaller rooms and corridors that connected the rooms together. Some of the rooms even seemed to have special functions.

He discovered that there was a room with tiles on the floor and a hole in the ground. When he moved out of the room he freaked out when a sprinkler system was activated to clean the room and he also heard a flushing noise. After he pulled himself together he figured that it must be a bathroom with a toilet.

Since he had a full bladder anyway he decided to relief himself, even finding some paper he could pull out of the wall to wipe his butt.

He considered it very demeaning that he had to squat down like a dog in order to do his business, but since beggars can't be choosers he did so anyway. The place seemed hygienic and that took most of his worries away about catching nasty diseases. He was happy to find that he could also wash his hands with a foam that killed bacteria and dried rapidly after applying.

Searching for what else he could find he came across a room with warm food and water. He didn't find any cutlery and was thus forced to eat with his hands, but as before; beggars can't be choosers and on an empty stomach the food tasted delicious. The water was in a bowl that was welded down to the floor, forcing him to lap the water up like an animal. Feeling around he noticed that it had a sort of fountain system that automatically replenished the consumed water. It was still a mystery to him how the food got delivered, but he figured that there was some clever mechanism for that too.

Having some dignity left he decided to scoop the water up in his hands instead and bring those to his lips.

Wondering what else he might find he kept looking around until he eventually found another room with tiles, though with a different texture. He soon found out that there was a bath in this room that was large enough to fit several people comfortably.

After pushing a button on the wall it filled itself with water that was at body temperature.

Jean decided that a bath wouldn't be a bad idea. He took off his bathrobe and boxer shorts and slid into the relaxing water, soaking in the heat and deciding that he would stay in this bathing pool for quite a while, finally feeling human again for the first time since he entered the maze.

Lucia felt as if she was being stalked. She had no idea how she knew, but she just did. Somehow her subconsciousness picked up signals that she couldn't pick up with her active senses. She regularly stood still to hear if she could hear any noise made by other people, but the humming of the machines above her masked all of that.

She wasn't very happy as she kept forgetting that she wasn't allowed to talk, frequently earning her a shock when she muttered a curse after bumping into a wall again.

Right now, however, she felt too uncomfortable to do even that. She hoped to find a bathroom and something to eat sometime soon. In a worst case scenario she could pee in a corridor, but she knew for sure her grandmother would turn around in her grave if she did as much. Not to mention she considered it extremely filthy to do so too.

Trying to move around as quickly as she could she hoped to get away from her current location as fast as possible.

When she heard a noise again, this time close behind her, fear got the better of her and she crawled even faster than she was already doing. Unfortunately she missed the hints that there was a corner to the left ahead and bumped with her head straight into a wall again...

Moaning in pain she exclaimed, "Ouch! That hu..." which earned her an additional shock and while her body was still on the ground her pursuer finally caught up with her...

Like everybody else Karin had woken up with a headache, but since she was sedated and drugged on a daily basis this was nothing new to her. After shaking off the worst of her headache she noticed her new environment ... Total darkness.

Compared to the bright lights in the psych ward of prison it was a blissful change and she was thrilled that she had to use her other senses to get around. The long dark winters in the north of Sweden had made her sensitive to light and the psych ward was a total hell for her. She felt quite at home in the darkness and despite it being too dark to see anything at all she preferred this over the bright lights she had to endure the years before.

She quickly found that the low ceiling would force her to crawl around, but if anything this only improved her mood. Using her nose as her main way to get around she picked up the scent of another woman within an hour.

Unfortunately the maze kept changing shape which made tracking that other woman somewhat difficult. She was tempted to take new direction, when she heard another woman cursing in Italian and then heard something that could only be described as a painful groan right after that.

Being curious what that was about she decided to stalk the woman ahead of her and find out what she was about.

Like a predator she kept sneaking closer and closer, obviously this woman was rather clumsy and lacked the finesse of a hunter such as herself.

Karin had been raised on her grandfather's farm and he had often taken her out hunting in the woods when she was young. The skills he taught her as a child were invaluable in her later life and stuck with her as she grew up into a stunning brunette.

Despite her beauty and the interest of many boys, she discovered during her teenage years that she wasn't very attracted to men. Women, however, got her going every time she got near them, but unfortunately for her, none of her female friends were interested in her in that way.

She did end up experimenting with two of them, but after they declined further advances of her Karin became depressed and resorted to other means to get what she was after. Her high sex drive lead her to drugging her friends by putting a party drug in their drinks and then seduce them when they were too inebriated to care what happened to them.

She had gotten away with abusing several young women like that until one of her victims finally realized what had happened. It still took that girl over a year to get over her shame and report Karin to the police. All the while Karin kept making more and more victims.

When several other girls also stepped up Karin quickly found herself locked behind the bars of a detention center, sentenced to two years of prison. The prison she ended up in was for women only and somewhat of a dream come true. While she was in prison she picked up a lot more tricks on how to seduce women, many of the inmates being insecure girls, often bored to death and with a high sex drive like herself. Since there was a lack of men they kept themselves entertained through other means during the long dark hours of winter.