The walls of the maze moved slowly as the contestants advanced. Not spectacularly. Not frighteningly.
Just enough to make your stomach churn.
Ezekiel stepped forward cautiously. There was a dull clicking sound beneath the floor.
"Uh… guys?" he said softly. "That's… I don't think it's a normal sound."
The answer was a snap.
In an instant, iron bars slammed down, separating them. Courtney reflexively stepped back—in the wrong direction.
The ground cracked beneath her.
"WHAT THE…?!" The next second, Courtney was gone.
"COURTNEY!" Gwen shouted, running toward her.
The trap wasn't deep…
but mean.
Courtney slid down a slanted, metal-lined shaft, with slowly moving, jagged walls below. Not an instant death.
The kind Chris likes.
"DON'T YOU DARE JUST STAND!" Courtney yelled, trying to hold on.
Ezekiel ran to Gwen's side, panting.
"Is she alive? Still alive?!"
"Yes!" Gwen replied. "But if she hits the bottom, it's over!"
Ezekiel looked down.
Courtney's hands were already shaking. The metal was burning her skin.
"Don't look down on me like that!" Courtney shouted. "DO SOMETHING!"
Ezekiel's stomach clenched.
This is it. It would be easy not to help here.
She always looked down.
Always.
He remembered the first season.
The comments.
The laughter.
The voting.
"Hey… Courtney!" he called out. "Look at me!
"NO TIME FOR THIS!"
"YES!" Ezekiel snapped, shaking a little. "Listen to me, okay? I'm not leaving you here."
Gwen glanced at him. She was surprised. Not mocking. Not uncertain.
"What are we going to do?" Gwen asked quickly.
Ezekiel looked around. On the wall was an old rope mechanism with rusty arms.
"Okay… okay…" he muttered. "It's like a barn door on a farm… only… deadlier."
"EZEKIEL!" Courtney's voice became panicked. "I'M SLIPPING!"
"I KNOW!" he said. "Gwen, grab that lever! Pull it when I say!"
"And you?!" Gwen asked.
Ezekiel took off his jacket.
"We're improvising."
He lowered the jacket through the gap toward Courtney.
"Hold on to it! It won't tear! This is… pretty stinky stuff!
"IS THIS YOUR PLAN?!" Courtney yelled.
"YES! AND IT'S BETTER THAN NOTHING!"
Courtney hesitated for a moment. Then she grabbed it.
"NOW, GWEN!"
Gwen pulled the lever. The trap cracked, the walls stopped for a moment.
Ezekiel leaned back with all his weight, his muscles shaking.
"DON'T LET SHE GO!" Gwen shouted.
"I WON'T LET SHE GO…" Ezekiel's voice cracked. "I WON'T LET YOU GO… I WON'T LET YOU GO!"
Courtney finally slid up far enough for Gwen to grab her arm.
One last tug.
Courtney fell out of the shaft, panting, dirty, shaking.
Silence.
Courtney sat on the ground, gasping for air.
" … " then quietly, "You… came back for me."
Ezekiel sat down, out of breath.
"Yes." He shrugged. "That's… right."
Courtney looked up at him.
Not haughtily at first.
Not contemptuously.
"I shouldn't have," she said quietly.
"I know," Ezekiel said. "But I wanted to."
Gwen smiled slowly. Not triumphantly. More like relieved.
"Okay," she said. "Then… let's move on. Together."
Courtney stood up. She straightened her hair. She hesitated for a moment.
"This…" she paused. "I won't forget."
Not an apology.
But a start.
The walls moved again.
Far away, in front of a monitor, Chris watched the scene.
With a half smile.
"Huh," he said. "This… is TV."
Meanwhile, at the other end of the maze:
This part of the maze was narrower. The walls were closer together, and the floor was…
too smooth.
Lindsay laughed nervously.
"Hey, Heather… do you think this is like a fashion show runway? Only… darker?"
Heather didn't answer. Her eyes scanned the floor. "Don't jump. Don't step sideways. And don't ask stupid questions."
"Okay…sorry…
One step.
CRAP.
The ground cracked under Lindsay.
"AAAAAA!" she screamed as she disappeared into the depths.
Heather ran toward it reflexively.
"LINDSAY!"
Lindsay caught a protruding metal ledge just in time. Her foot was dangling in the air.
Beneath…
spikes.
Long. Sharp. With bloody marks.
"HEATHER!" Lindsay sobbed. "PLEASE! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"
Heather looked down.
And froze.
"Shit… FUCK…" she whispered.
The camera zoomed in on her face. It wasn't mocking.
Shock.
"Heather… my hand hurts… it's slipping…" Lindsay's voice trailed off. "It's so scary…"
Heather knelt down.
"Don't look down. DON'T LOOK DOWN!" she said sharply, her voice shaking. "Look at me! Now!"
Lindsay nodded, sobbing.
"I'm going to hold you. Do you understand?" Heather looked around quickly, then lay down on the floor, one arm bent low. "Take my hand. NOW!"
"I can't reach…"
"YOU'LL REACH IT!" Heather's voice snapped. "DON'T YOU DARE LET ME GO!"
Lindsay let go of the edge with one hand and grabbed Heather's wrist.
At that moment…
RECCS.
The metal she was holding on to snapped off.
"AAAA!"
Heather pulled Lindsay back with all her weight.
They slid out on the edge of the floor, but Heather's elbow caught.
One last tug.
Lindsay flew out of the hole, gasping, screaming, and fell on top of Heather.
The ledge collapsed behind them.
Silence.
Lindsay hugged Heather tightly.
"I… I almost…" she sobbed. "I thought… I was going to die…"
Heather remained still. Her eyes widened.
Then…she started to tremble.
"For fucking life…" she sniffed. "This… this was too close…"
Lindsay held her even tighter.
"You saved me…" she whispered. "That doesn't make me like you...But thank you..."
Heather suddenly started to cry.
"Shut up…" she said, shaking. "Shut up before you do it again…"
They just cried for a few seconds. Holding each other. The camera caught everything.
Heather suddenly looked up at the camera.
"YOU SICK ANIMAL!" she screamed. "THIS WASN'T A GAME, YOU PSYCHOPATHIC SHIT!"
Lindsay looked up too, her eyes watering.
"GO TO FUCK YOU, CHRIS!" she screamed. "I ALMOST DIED! TO TAKE YOU AWAY FROM SORROW!!"
"To hell with you!" Heather snapped. "You fucking perverted, show-off, sadistic bastard!"
"I HOPE YOU FALL INTO IT SOMETIME!" Lindsay added.
The cameras didn't turn off.
Heather finally wiped her face. She took a deep breath.
"Okay…" she said quietly. "We're not friends."
Lindsay nodded, still shaking.
"But… you didn't leave."
Heather didn't look at her.
"I won't."
The walls of the maze moved again.
And they both knew:
this wasn't just a game anymore. This was personal to them.
Behind the monitor
In front of the monitors, there was a sudden silence.
Chris's smile slowly froze from his face as he rewound the footage.
Again.
And again.
Chef stood beside him, arms folded. His face was rigid.
"…That wasn't on the map," Chef finally said.
Chris didn't answer right away. He leaned closer to the screen, zooming in on the trap. The spikes. The rip-off edge.
"No," he finally said quietly. "That wasn't mine."
Chef looked at him.
"It was deadly."
Chris swallowed.
"Too deadly."
On the monitor, Heather was hugging Lindsay, both of them crying. The camera was shaking.
Chef's eyes tightened.
"If Heather hadn't pulled him up…" he began.
"…then we'd be standing here with a dead body," Chris finished.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Chris leaned back in his chair, running his hand over his cheek.
"I design traps. Scary ones. Painful ones. Sometimes dangerous ones," he said slowly. "But this…"
He pointed to the screen.
"This wasn't a show."
Chef nodded deeply.
"Someone reached in."
Chris lifted his head.
"What do you mean?"
"The maze is old. It's made up of several modules. We didn't build them all," Chef said. "And we didn't double-check them all."
Chris's face hardened.
"So there's something here that's not obeying."
Chef said only,
"Yes."
On the monitor, Lindsay was still shaking.
Minutes later Lindsay and Heather was cursing into the camera.
Chris exhaled slowly.
"They were lucky."
"Hether's," Chef corrected. "She made the right decision."
Chris nodded.
"Write it down," he said quietly. "If this happens again…"
"…then we'll shut it down," Chef finished.
Chris didn't answer right away. He looked at the screen, where the walls of the maze had started moving again.
"I hope not," he said finally. "Because if this isn't my game…"
He looked up at Chef.
"…then it's not just a show anymore."
Chef stood silently beside him.
The monitors continued to run.