Chanyeol had been walking for more time he ever had been before in his life. At first he was getting really aggravated with the whole situation, finding himself in dead-end after dead-end. But now enough time had gone by for him to just accept it, and keep moving along. He wasn’t sure of it, but he felt like it had been days since he started walking.

It was never day or night in the maze, just that endless darkness he could see above. And he was totally buying the whole magic thing now, because the entire time, even with no apparent lights, he could see the paths and walls clearly. It was like the maze itself was emitting light. A gloomy one, but more than enough for him to see his path.

And thanks to the bracelet, he didn’t feel hungry or thirsty, or even tired. He just kept walking. He didn’t even need to go to the bathroom anymore. All he needed to do was walk, and that was what he did, for many hours already.

All that time alone in that place, he had started putting his life into perspective. He used to complain so much, but just now he was realizing what a good life he had.

He missed his mom.

She only nagged him because she worried about him, he knew that. And he knew that he should’ve been smarter. He should’ve listening and obeyed to everything she said. If he had, he wouldn’t be trapped in this mess. He would be safe at home, sleeping, eating his mother’s delicious cooking.

He regretted having been so difficult to her. She tried her best as a single parent, and he kept defying her time after time. The thought of never being able to go back home terrified him, but more than that, it made him want to apologize for all the bad things he ever did. He didn’t even enjoy some of them; he just did them to make her mad.

Like purposely staying out late, or trying out drugs for the first time. He regretted it all. He hated the feeling he got, but he still went through with it to make his mother mad. He had been a terrible son. If he ever got out of there, he’d be good to her.

But he really didn’t know how, or what would happen after he got out. He wasn’t completely sure he wanted to complete that trial the man talked about. That whole ‘Knights of the Exodus’ seemed like trippy stuff to him. The kind of stuff he heard from his classmates when they were doing drugs. And it was exactly because of all that weird and trippy stuff that he never did drugs again, and why he thought he really wouldn’t want to be one of those knights.

Still, if the way out of the maze was the same way to become a knight, that was the only choice he had, and he’d have to just solve things when he got to them. For now, there was no use worrying about knights and magic, all he should worry about was finding his way.

He had to keep walking, no matter what. And find the way back home safely.

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It was getting boring, walking around, and seeing the same grey and green walls all over, always the same. Sometimes he even wondered if he had gone back a way he already went through. He didn’t feel like he did, but the maze went so many ways, and it all looked alike, sometimes he couldn’t really tell where he had come from after hitting a dead-end. He’d just guess, and keep going forward, for his own good.

And the silence was maddening. All he could hear was his own footsteps, and nothing else. He took breaks from time to time, not because he was tired, but just to stop hearing that obsessing sound of his shoes hitting the floor. He felt that little by little he was going crazy. So many days had gone by already, and the loneliness was killing him. It was like he would never see another living thing again.

He sat down during one of his rest times, stretching his feet and legs. They weren’t really aching or tired, but even with a magical bracelet glued to his arm, his body was feeling the weight of the constant identical movement. He felt like his joints were wearing out, and it wasn’t a good feeling. But it was somewhat refreshing. Even though it was somewhat painful, it was the first human thing he felt in days, and it made him feel alive.

In that moment, all he could hear was his own breathing, and a faint ringing in his ear, that the excessive sound of the echoing thumps his feet had caused. He almost felt like he was still hearing footsteps, in a calm pace, getting louder and louder.

With a sudden realization, he got up in a flash, looking around. He was hearing footsteps, and it weren’t his, not the impression of his. It was getting louder, and closer. There was definitely something moving around the same area he was at. The thought terrified him. The entire time he assumed he was alone in there.

Nothing was coming through both sides of the hallway he was at, but the sound was now really loud, like it was precisely next to him. Logically, he was hearing steps through the maze’s walls. He took a step away from the cold, grey barriers, forgetting for that instance that his feet would also make noise as he moved.

As soon as his step rang out into the silence, mixing with the constant pace he was hearing, everything was quiet again. Whatever it was, it had stopped moving, and it was very close, probably right next to the wall he was looking at.

His heart was racing, and his entire body was shaking. He didn’t know what to do, and the words came out of his mouth before he even could stop it.

“Who’s there? Is anyone there?”

Speaking was probably not smart if that was something that wanted to hurt him, but for a moment he thought differently. It could be someone else trapped there for that crazy trial. Maybe someone who actually knew what was going on, and who could clarify that whole magic knight’s craziness.

But the silence kept reigning; there was no answer at all, no sign of movement. Chanyeol started to feel he definitely shouldn’t have spoken up. If that was some sort of creature of the maze – like the Minotaur in the labyrinth – he was surely in a lot of trouble. Things that live in mazes know the ways, and could get to one point to other quickly, without fussing about.

Suddenly, in a flash and very loudly, he heard the footsteps quickly running away, fading out into the distance.

He felt scared. What if that thing was now coming to kill him? Panicking, he moved quickly, running in the opposite direction. He ran as far as he thought was needed, and then stopped again, this time to listen for noises. But he wasn’t still for long, feeling a desperate sense to continue moving, always keep moving.

He’d continued walking forward, but a lot more attentively, taking various obsessive breaks to check if he could hear anything close to him. He knew he wasn’t alone now, and that made the whole experience a lot more nerve-wracking.

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He was walking. There was nothing more for him to do than to walk. But now the need to get out of there was huge, and he felt constantly scared. He moved trying to make minimal noise, which was practically impossible in that echo filled environment, and was only causing his legs to hurt.

But he still tried, because he was convinced that the way he was walking was making less noise than before. Not that he stopped and tried to compare, because just the thought of willingly making a louder noise freaked him out. What if something came to get him?

He hadn’t heard any more sounds ever since that encounter with the fleeting footsteps, but he still kept taking breaks to listen for it.

His awareness of the time had gotten better as well. It had been two days since he heard the sounds.

“God bless this thing.”

He whispered, practically only mouthing the words, since he didn’t want to have his voice echoing out. He tapped his bracelet, which now not only felt like part of his arm and skin, but like his life source. That thing was keeping him alive and he knew it.

He was trying his best to absorb the surroundings. Even though it was all grey walls and mossy green plants, there were a few markers, differences, which he could notice. That helped him stop from going back the ways he had come from. Two or three times he had started moving back the same hallways, but recognizing patterns formed by the plants in the walls made him aware.

Now he felt more confident of finding the exit, because he was always going on through new paths. Nothing really changed, it was all the same wherever he looked, but he had to hope, and give himself strength he was close. If he didn’t, he would just give up, and be lost in that maze forever, never even able to die, because of the magical thing on his arm. He’d live forever trapped in those walls.

There was no way he’d let that happen.

And apparently all the confidence was working, because something different finally happened.

As he turned around a corner, instead of the same moody hallways, he saw a glow, something bright to the left. He watched for a few seconds, seeing as the glow held, and looked to be coming from just the next turn.

It wasn’t foolish of him to think it was the sun light. He wished so much for it to be the exit, that even if it wasn’t, he might have not even noticed.

Not caring anymore about making noise, and just wishing that whatever was in that maze wouldn’t be able to follow him outside, he started running. He moved quickly towards that beautiful and refreshing light. But that more he ran, the more it started to fade. When he finally made the turn, to see the source of that fading brightness, it was gone. All he could see was another identical hallway, as gloomy as all the other ones he’d been through.

He felt stunned, like his mind had played a trick on him. It was the first time in all those days there that he actually felt tired. He didn’t even have time to question if the bracelet had stopped working, before he slid down the closest wall and fell asleep, instantly.