Nightmare Game
Copyright© 2025 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 136
Mason froze at Victor’s shout.
A dozen thoughts collided. Victor found the exit, then doubled back for him? Under the boy’s pursuit?
Blind luck?
It tracked. And the man had risked his neck to return.
Yesterday they’d moved as a unit. Compared to the others, Mason felt a thread of trust. Mutual saves. Victor had pulled his weight; nothing screamed betrayal in two days’ contact.
Exhaustion and panic left no room for doubt.
“Come on!”
Victor’s second yell snapped him out of it. Mason lunged after him on reflex.
The boy’s footsteps never faltered.
They dove into another fork.
Sprinting did nothing. The ticking grew louder, faster, a metronome of doom.
Sweat stung their eyes. Faces flushed from exertion or terror; impossible to tell.
Mason’s single thought: faster. Follow Victor. Escape.
He prayed for yesterday’s fifth-level glow, a beacon through the dark.
Instead—
Darkness deepened. No light ahead, only swallowing black.
When the wall finally registered, despair slammed home.
Legs buckled. Strength drained like water through cracked stone.
Dead end.
Heaven sealed. Earth barred.
The passage ended in solid concrete.
Mason’s head spun. Voice came out gravel.
“What ... the hell?”
“I—I don’t know.” Victor’s shock looked genuine, eyes wide. “It wasn’t like this before.”
Mason’s mind reeled.
The maze lived? Shifting with time, or some unseen hand?
His markers—black scraps—useless if walls rewrote themselves.
No.
If terrain mutated, the boy’s scattered chunks wouldn’t have stayed put.
Tick—
The sound cracked inside their skulls, soft but thunderous.
Victor felt the chill crawl up his spine. No time. He twisted, darting toward Mason, baiting the boy.
But the child ignored the nearer prey, locked on Victor.
Why?
Victor’s mind raced. After the split, the boy had dogged him alone.
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