She's in a chair, the plush cushion enveloping, yet repelling her back. Chorong looks down to see her clothes have changed. Replacing the grey bomber jacket and white v-neck is a soft, denim button-up over a white henley. The black jeans stayed the same, but instead of being wet and clinging awkwardly onto her legs, they're dry and comfortably warm. She adjusts the thick rims of her glasses and looks around for the others. Bomi is standing against a wooden bookcase, a thick book with gold embroidering in her hands. The girl almost fits in with the sombre atmosphere of the library- dressed in black jeans and a tight-fitting black tank top, topped off with a light cardigan- at least until Chorong catches the bright snapback turned backwards on her head. Hyeri and Dongwoo are nowhere to be found, but that's okay; they'll find each other sooner or later.

        The silent library feels familiar yet slightly off; an eeriness from the lack of warmth settles in her bones and sinks under her skin. "Let's go," Chorong says, lightly placing a hand on Bomi's arm. She doesn't exactly know where they're going, but at least they're going. It's a start and that's all she needs at the moment. Well, it was until they had to start over and over and over. Somewhere between the fifteenth and twentieth time they saw the same librarian shushing at them, Chorong and Bomi run into Dongwoo and Hyeri, both looking as disgruntled as they feel. "Naeun just had to be an architect, didn't she?" Dongwoo muttered as the librarian shushed them for the upteempth time. Chorong doesn't say anything but admits to herself that it's pretty ing annoying to be on the receiving end of Naeun's intricately looped architecture.

        Bomi heaves a sigh and runs a hand through her hair before slamming her shoulder into a bookcase, effectively knocking it over- and the next bookcase, and the next one- until the entire row of bookcases had collapsed. "Finally!" Hyeri rejoices, pulling out her gun and shooting the shushing librarian. "That was starting to annoy me after the seventh time she shushed me." The girl shoots all the projections staring at them with contempt (which is all of them) but halts when one of them manages to dodge the bullet. Hyeri grins. "So it's been you all along."

       The projection- no, Sentinel- steps up and brushes her short auburn hair behind her ear before smoothing down her navy sweater. "I'm Yookyung," she says calmly, pulling out a gun from the waistband of her white shorts. However, Hyeri was faster and is able to shoot the gun out of Yookyung's hand before running forth and launching herself at the taller girl.

        "C'mon," Bomi urges, "we need to find the Port quickly. Hyeri won't be able to hold that girl- Yookyung off for long."

    [The Sentinel- Yookyung- manages to dodge Hyeri’s lunge and kicks Hyeri’s gun out of her hand in the process. Hyeri growls and maneuvers around the telephone punch Yookyung throws, catching her in a chokehold from the back. Yookyung knocks Hyeri off balance with a swift kick to the shin and flips the point man over.]

        "Why not?" Dongwoo asks, running alongside the girl as Chorong holds up the back. "Hyeri's combat skills are better than Ilhoon's and he was able to take the Sentinel down just fine." Chorong tries to cover both sides of the library, but it's hard. Her eyes are shaking too much. (She's shaking too much.)

    [Hyeri knocks Yookyung to the ground with a sweep kick and ruthlessly slams her body into the Sentinel’s. “You can’t take me down,” Hyeri grins viciously, forearm crushing Yookyung’s windpipe. “I’m the best weapon there is.”

    Yookyung catches Hyeri’s temple with a punch and stands up as the point man clutches the side of her face. “If you’re the best there is, then your team is doomed.” ]

        "Because the deeper we go, the stronger the Sentinels are. It's like they level up," Bomi replies, eyes scanning the towering bookcases. She stops when she sees that Chorong is no longer following her, the older girl staring at the plaque drilled into one of the bookcases. "Unni," Bomi calls out. A slight nod is the only sign that Chorong is still listening. "Did you find something?"

    [The Sentinel attempts to kick Hyeri, who’s still down on the ground. Hyeri manages to grab her foot and twists it, before surging upwards and slams her elbow into Yookyung’s throat. Hyeri grins victoriously as the other girl crumples to the ground. The grins fades, however, as Yookyung picks up the gun she had kicked out of Hyeri's hand earlier.]

       "Maybe," comes the hesitant reply. "Ba-," Chorong stops abruptly, in a deep breath. "Back when I was training Naeun to be an architect, her dreams would always start the same way: We'd be in a library. She'd be pressed against the shelves and I'd be on my tiptoes, whispering into her ear-"

       "How did we get here?" Naeun's breath hitches in as Chorong's fingers trace the contours of the younger girl's side with a purposeful pressure. Chorong's lips brushes against the shell of Naeun's ear, and she smiles when Naeun shivers in response. She's tempted to let her teeth graze the girl's earlobe- just a little bit- but decides against it and instead grasps Naeun's chin, directing her gaze towards Chorong. "Answer the question, Naeun. How did we get here?"

       "We didn't," comes the reply on a trembling breath. Chorong smiles softly, staring into Naeun's widened eyes.

        "Good," Chorong whispers, tucking a strand of Naeun's hair behind her ear. "Now how about a reward," she continues, hand trailing towards the waistband of Naeun's jeans.

        "Unni!" Chorong breaks out of her reverie to see Dongwoo and Bomi looking shocked and scandalized. Whoops. "Gross," Bomi murmurs and Dongwoo nods in agreement, shooting Chorong a judging stare. Chorong opens to reply but is cut off by a gunshot followed by an agonized scream that all three of them recognize as Hyeri's. "Unni, stay here! Dongwoo and I will handle it!" Bomi shouts over her shoulder as she and Dongwoo run off.

    [Black spots fill Hyeri’s vision as she tries to assess her wound. Good. It hadn’t nicked an artery That’s good. But the pain tells her otherwise. She growls and launches herself at Yookyung in one last move. Hyeri flips the both of them over in one swift movement and slams the Sentinel’s head into the ground, rendering her unconscious. “,” Hyeri spits out with a glob of blood.]

        Chorong tries to shake Hyeri’s scream off of her shoulders and instead focuses on the books in front of her. Going down the row, her fingers brush over the book spines until she hits it. She takes out a thick book with navy binding and silver embroidering, opening it as soon as she pulls it off the shelf. Suddenly, a white piece of paper falls out and the library melts away into an endless plane.

     It's dark, yet it's not. Like someone had covered her eyes with their hands on a sunny day.  She can still see- can still see Bomi lifting Hyeri up as Dongwoo carries the Sentinel towards her- but everything's shrouded in a shadow-like light. "What happened?" Bomi asks as soon as they reach her. Hyeri groans into Bomi's shoulder as the she lowers the both of them onto the ground. Chorong doesn't say anything but stoops down to the ground to pick up the paper. "What is it?" Bomi inquires, slowly lying Hyeri down onto the ground to treat her injury- a gunshot wound through the abdomen. It's not exactly fatal. (Yet.)

Chorong opens up the folded paper to reveal a worn slip of paper with Naeun’s writing- soft and faded- breathed into it. “It’s a maze,” Chorong breathes out, lightly tracing the lines that circle the paper again and again as glowing white walls rise all around them. Bomi and Dongwoo look around in panic as they become enclosed by the maze that has fallen out of the slip of paper.

Dongwoo growls. “Just had to be an architect.” Chorong remains quiet and keeps tracing the paper, the tip of her finger scraping against the surface of Naeun’s mind from a time when she was still soft, still a bit blurred around the edges. She wonders what would have happened if Naeun had never met her. (She wonders if Naeun would have been happier.) “Let’s go,” Dongwoo grunts as he once again carries the Sentinel. “It’s obvious the Port isn’t here. Chorong, keep alert. We don’t know when the projections will start appearing again.” Right as Dongwoo was about to start walking, Bomi jolts out of her reverie and hurriedly grabs the man by the arm.

“I have a hunch,” Bomi explains when Dongwoo shoots her a curious look as he lays Yookyung back down. She turns the projection over and lifts up the back of the girl’s sweater to everyone’s confusion. A tattoo of the maze identical to the one on the scrap of paper Chorong found in the book glows brightly on the Sentinel’s back. “Bingo,” Bomi whispers. She touches the edge of the tattoo and lightly scrapes her nails against the girl’s skin. To everyone’s surprise, the tattooed line of the intricate puzzle on the girl’s back shifts along in motion to Bomi’s movements. Even more shocking, one of the walls of the maze they’re trapped in- the wall Hyeri had been leaning against- slides with an ominously low, grating sound according to where the glowing line had shifted on the Sentinel’s back, to here Bomi’s finger had directed it. Hyeri yelps as she falls over, no longer having the wall as support, and Bomi rushes over in a panic, profuse apologies overlapping the younger girl’s continuous whines.

Dongwoo crouches over the Sentinel and watches as the glowing line Bomi had just moved slowly shifts back into place. Suddenly, the ring of the maze the line belonged to darkens to black and the glow of the walls surrounding does as well. Everyone looks up in alert, seeing how the outer wall of the maze had suddenly blackened. There no longer is a shadow-like light, only a heavy darkness that outstretches up until the next ring in the circular maze. “What- what just happened?” Dongwoo asks.

“I don’t know. I-” Bomi stops abruptly and stares past the outer edges of the maze into the blackness. The rest of them follow her gaze and tenses when they see that in the darkness lays an army of projections, standing prone, waiting. But for what?

Chorong is the first one to spring back into action, running up to the unconscious Sentinel and the glowing puzzle tattooed on her back. “Quick,” she commands the rest of them, “we have to head to the center of the maze- that’s where Naeun’s Port is.” Her eyes flit back and forth as she shifts the different pieces of the puzzle. Bomi picks Hyeri back up onto her back and Dongwoo readies his guns as the walls of the maze shift, quicker and quicker, louder and louder. “However,” Chorong warns, “once we get to the center, someone needs to keep a path to the outside continuously open. Because once the path to the maze closes, the projections will attack and it’s game over.” The last line slides into place and a path directly to the center of the maze radiates brightly. “Move!” Chorong commands. Dongwoo scoops up the Sentinel and the group sprints as quickly as possible to the center.

Once they reach the Port, Dongwoo quickly places Yookyung down and Chorong continues to work on the puzzle, trying to keep a pathway open. “You know what this is?” Dongwoo asks, out of breath from the exertion.

Chorong nods and her chapped lips. “When I first recruited Naeun, I gave her two minutes to create a maze that would take me five minutes to solve, as a test. She created a circular maze. It took me seven minutes.” On the side, Bomi slowly lowers Hyeri to the ground and takes off her cardigan in order to turn it into a makeshift bandage. Hyeri winces as Bomi gently presses the cloth to her wound. “She was working on an creating an upgraded version of that maze for a client.” Chorong bites her lip. “I didn’t know she finished it,” she ends softly.

    Bomi works on setting up the PASIV and connects both her and Chorong to it. “Dongwoo,” Bomi addresses, “you have to take over for Chorong. Hyeri’s bleeding out too quickly; we have to take her to the next level to slow it down.” Dongwoo nods solemnly as the unsaid words pass through them. (“We have to take Hyeri to the next level so we might have enough time to get out before she dies.”) Bomi connects Hyeri up to the PASIV as Dongwoo slowly takes over control of the maze for Chorong.

“I’ll see you later,” Dongwoo says in farewell, grin trembling.

.

    Chorong wakes up. A siren sounds in the background.