Jinyoung knew they should never have gone inside the Horror Maze.

“It’s okay, Sooji. I’m right here.”

Tightening his grip on Sooji’s hand, he exhaled and closed his eyes wondering what he was supposed to do now. Of course, the obvious solution was to just get out of the maze, but getting a scared-to-death Sooji was the hard part. He was surprised that he could feel her trembling through the layers of clothes that separated them. The Horror Maze was spooky, but he didn’t realize someone would be that scared. It wasn’t until her shaking stopped that he assumed she had calmed down a little. Shining his flashlight above her head, Jinyoung insisted they hurry up so they could leave; she simply nodded slowly.

As he started walking again, Jinyoung was pulled back. Turning around, he saw Sooji shaking her head, eyes glistening as they started to well up with tears again. Her voice was desperate as she whispered, “I can’t, Jinyoung. What if someone pops out again? Or worse – starts chasing us?”

Jinyoung’s expression softened as he watched Sooji hang her head low, embarrassed because of the way she was acting. Taking a few steps towards her, he tugs her by the hand he was holding and pulled her close. He could hear her breathe a relieved sigh when he embraced her. “Just close your eyes and keep walking forward.”

“But-” Sooji started to ask.

Jinyoung cut her off, “I want you to trust me.”

Sooji stared at him as best as she could under the quickly dimming lights of their flashlights before finally closing her eyes. Had it been any other person – say Jihoon – she would have thought twice about closing her eyes. With a deep breath, Jinyoung whispered to himself that everything was going to be over soon and entered then next room. Now that he was technically experiencing the maze alone, he needed to make sure that he kept his nerves down. Not only did he need to make sure Sooji was okay, but he needed to make sure he didn’t freak himself out either. As he guided Sooji through the room filled with bloody, once-used hospital beds, he silently prayed that none of the bodies underneath the blankets would get up suddenly. Living dead weren’t exactly up his alley. In fact, he wasn’t sure whose alley they were welcome in. Perhaps a madman. They were almost out of the room when – like he predicted – a wounded patient sat up from their bed, snarling. Even though he was anticipating it, it still caught him by surprise, making him jump a little.

As they reached the end of the room and stumbled upon the hallway leading to the next part of the maze, Jinyoung heard a distant high-pitched scream coming from the other side of the wall. He stopped walking briefly, and listened for it again. When a second scream followed, his spirit went up – it was Jihoon and Miyoung! Turning towards the wall, he yelled their names and was ecstatic when they responded. They had finally found each other… somewhat. Jihoon explained that he was with Miyoung who had dropped her flashlight after the scare from earlier and asked if Jinyoung was with Sooji – which he was. They agreed to meet up again at the end of the maze.

The remainder of the maze was more of a walk-through than the earlier rooms of the maze. The one that Sooji basically dragged Jinyoung through was the last hallway of holes where ghouls grabbed at their ankles with their cold hands. Jinyoung let go of Sooji once they breathed the outside air again, and placed his hands on his knees, bending over to catch his breath. They sprinted through that last segment. Not long after, Jihoon and Miyoung emerged from the exit, clutching one another as if their lives depended on it. Jihoon’s teeth were gritting against each other as he tried hard to forget about how those bony fingers felt against his skin. Jinyoung was about to call out to them, when he remembered Sooji. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw she had found her way to a bench and was hunched over her knees, head hanging in her hands.

Miyoung called Jinyoung’s name, but he told her to hold on as he jogged over to Sooji. Jinyoung began rubbing her back reassuringly once he sat down, asking if she was okay. Jihoon and Miyoung followed asking if she was okay as well. Sitting up, Sooji wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, keeping her head low so that they wouldn’t see her swollen eyes. Though it was already obvious she had cried, she didn’t want them to have to see that. Forcing out a nervous laugh, Sooji sniffled and insisted she was fine and just a little startled. Though Jinyoung knew otherwise, he decided he shouldn’t press further since she was trying to laugh it off.

“I’m sorry for letting go,” Miyoung apologized, placing a hand on the younger girl’s shoulder, “Jihoon scared me when he started running away from that guy earlier and I guess I kind of reacted without thinking.”

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” Sooji managed to smile from behind the scarf wound tightly around her neck to prove to the other three that they had nothing to be concerned about, “I was just a surprised, really! I’ve never been in a haunted maze before and I guess it was a little more than I expected.”

With that last attraction, the four friends decided it was time to head home and split up at the entrance. Because Jihoon and Miyoung lived further north, they were going to take a different bus than Jinyoung and Sooji. As they separated ways, Miyoung began teasing Jihoon about how much of a scaredy-cat he was while things were quiet between Jinyoung and Sooji. It wasn’t until they boarded the bus that Sooji finally started talking again. With a frustrated huff, Sooji sunk lower into her seat so that her seatbelt was high up her ribcage, “I’m so sorry for being a crybaby, Jinyoung. I just… I didn’t want to go inside, but… I don’t know… I guess I just didn’t want to take the fun away. It seemed all of you wanted to go inside so I didn’t want to be that one guy who held everyone back.”

“But in the end, it was you who got stuck taking care of me instead of experiencing the maze the way you should have been,” Sooji shook her head at herself before sitting properly again in her seat. She looked up at Jinyoung with an apologetic look on her face, “I’m really sorry, Jinyoung.”

“Don’t be sorry. It took a lot of guts to go inside. If anything, I should be sorry. I should’ve told Jihoon to do something else instead of the Horror Maze,” Jinyoung said. There was a brief pause in their conversation before he poked her in the forehead, chuckling, “And stop frowning. It’s prettier when you smile.”

A million butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she rolled over and over on her bed. She could practically hear the beating of her own heart in her ears as it’s thump-thump sounds grew louder and louder. Rolling over once more, she grabbed one end of her comforter and pulled it over her so she looked like a cocoon of some sorts. Closing her eyes, she thought back to half an hour ago on the bus and grinned. However, as soon as she caught herself, she covered and pinched herself to make it stop. Sooji wasn’t sure how it felt like to win the lottery, but if she did, she assumed she would feel this way.

Unwrapping herself from her comforter cocoon, she climbed out of bed and made her way out to the hallway and into the restroom. There, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She sighed at her overall image. Like every morning, the same four-eyed, plain jane looked back at her. Removing her glasses, she squinted at her reflection to see if that was any better. She couldn’t really tell. Her reflection was blurry this way. Her shoulders slumped as she grabbed her toothbrush from its place on the wall holder, “Get a hold of yourself, Sooji. Jinyoung only said that to make you feel better. You were crying, so of course you would look ugly.”

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter