Unease hit them the moment they woke.

  It sat on their chests like a stone, weighing them down, making every movement sluggish. Fear pressed so hard against their thoughts that there was room for little else.

  Harlada tied her shoelaces six—maybe seven—times.

  Bert re did his belt twice.

  Leo checked their escape routes over and over again.

  Tension hung in the air, a sour stench mixing with the sweat of fear.

  “Ehhh… guys?” Bert said from the window.

  He had raised his hand to wave at the unibrow team—then stopped. Slowly, he pointed at the window next to them.

  “What is it?” Leo asked, joining him, Harlada close behind.

  “Look at that,” Bert said, pointing again.

  They all froze.

  In the chamber beside the unibrows stood a strange sight: a silver-haired man.

  Man was perhaps an understatement.

  A silver-haired demigod—muscles like a gorilla, proportions sculpted to excess, smooth, flawless face—was standing there doing something utterly baffling.

  “What is he doing?” Leo asked, pushing his glasses back into place.

  “He’s miming walking up stairs,” Bert said.

  Then he laughed.

  It was sudden and loud—and welcome.

  “He doesn’t look like any of us,” Harlada said, squinting as if she were missing something important.

  “What is he doing now?” Leo asked.

  He stared, stunned.

  “I think it’s an elevator,” Harlada said, laughing. “He’s quite good.”

  “The other guy is off too,” Leo added, pointing at the smaller man standing next to the living, chiseled statue of what looked like a Greek god who had lost his shirt in a bet.

  “Yes,” Harlada said. “Is he a halfwit? Or is that what we look like when Bert does something?”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Something stupid?” Bert frowned.

  “Pretty much anything,” she said, winking.

  Leo nodded, adjusting his glasses again. “Checks out.”

  “So… another group?” Bert waved enthusiastically. “They look friendly.”

  “They look dumb,” Harlada said. “You have a certain taste.”

  “Maze?” Leo asked the air. “Explain.”

  The maze pulsed.

  Does not compute.

  “Well,” Harlada said, “that was helpful.”

  Then it pulsed again—slower this time, deliberate.

  Maze run #70843 commencing in 5 minutes.

  “New plan,” Bert said immediately. “We search them out. They’re in the room closest to the puzzle room. Let’s go to the puzzle room.”

  “The monks will go there too,” Leo said, tracing lines on his map.

  “The monks will not stop,” Harlada said. “We can’t outrun them—run after run.”

  Leo covered his eyes with his hands and shook his head slowly.

  “So we gamble.”

  “We either face the big guy,” Bert said, “or the three insane monks.”

  “Death and death,” Harlada summarized. “At least with the big guy, there’s a chance we can talk.”

  She turned to Leo.

  “So,” Bert added, “certain death… or maybe not dead.”

  Leo looked back through the glass at the smaller man beside the larger one.

  “Is he pretending to swim?”

  “Clearly a multi-talented man,” Harlada said, barely holding back a smile.

  “And the floating ones?” Leo asked, pointing at another chamber. “They look stupid too.”

  “You trust something without legs?” Bert said immediately.

  “They’re mirrors of ourselves,” Leo countered, “just in another skin.”

  “Would you trust yourself?” Harlada smirked.

  Leo grimaced. “Fair.”

  “Fine. We search them out.”

  Then, more quietly—but harder:

  “A few more Maze runs with the monks, and we’re dead anyway.”

  ***

  The maze pulsed. The hum had changed—not enough to notice immediately, but wrong all the same.

  Run #70843 commencing.

  The doors opened.

  The trio moved toward the puzzle room. They knew every trap, every corridor—the map was burned into their minds now.

  “What about the strange room?” Harlada asked Leo as Bert disarmed another trap.

  “Which one?” Leo checked the map. “The one with the orange hat?” He pointed at the symbol. “You think we broke the Maze?”

  They looked at Bert.

  “Bert broke the Maze by wearing the hat?”

  Harlada frowned. “It doesn’t seem like something that should break so easily.”

  “Something very weird is going on,” Leo said, removing his glasses and staring into the corridors ahead.

  “The frog trap is disarmed,” Bert said, wiping sweat from his brow.

  Harlada and Leo exchanged a glance.

  “Something weirder than normal,” they muttered in unison.

  “Meow.”

  The sound rose through the walls of the Maze.

  Every one of them froze.

  The maze pulsed.

  What the—

  The Maze of Many. I’m not interested in debates about what color best represents hunger.

  deeply philosophical take on that, I’m curious.