Level One

  Just about the only thing that hadn’t happened to Cooper yet was that he hadn’t run into any animals. Like despite all the other shit that had gone down since he entered the maze, he hadn’t seen so much as a housefly. Of course, that didn’t occur to him in the moment. He only realized it after it stopped being true. And that happened maybe two minutes after he left the Bakery.

  It started with a snake. It was about three feet long and covered in bands of orange, white, and black that kind of made it look like a Halloween decoration. It wasn’t doing anything in particular. Just snaking around in the middle of a hallway. Still, Cooper slipped past as carefully as he could. (He fucking hated snakes.) Next was a jackrabbit. Then a couple of mice. Then another snake even more obviously harmless than the first one. Then a trail of ants. Then a fox. After that, the dam broke. Suddenly, every corridor Cooper entered had a deer or a muskrat or a hedgehog or something in it, sometimes more than one. Pretty soon, it wasn’t just the hallways, either. He began to pass rooms jam-packed with animals. First, a room full of shallow ponds stocked with fish that might have been trout. Then, an enormous flower bed surrounded by beehives - at least 20 of them - with the biggest, fattest bees he’d ever seen. Then a room full of stubby little aspen trees on which a moose was grazing contentedly. It was like someone, somewhere, had flipped a switch that made the maze go from “Completely Deserted” to “Fucking Zoo”.

  Cooper did his best to ignore all this, trudging on in the direction he hoped was east. He was making slow progress because his legs were getting tired, and also because he kept stopping to examine every single floor tile that looked like it might be a millimeter higher than the one next to it. The crazy naked chick ring was in his pocket now. He’d had it on for a while after leaving the bakery, but right around the time he passed the trout room, he felt a shooting pain in his pinkie finger, and when he took the thing off, there was an angry red welt rising just below his first knuckle. He would still use the ring in a pinch, of course, but it was just his luck that he was allergic.

  It was a few hallways past the moose room that Cooper finally found what he was looking for, which was a dead end. Just off a four-way intersection, one of the hallways turned right and then terminated in a little alcove with walls on three sides. In the middle of the alcove was a pedestal holding some weird-ass statue of a dark-haired woman in a long dress waving a snake in each hand. Ignoring the statue completely, Cooper sat down behind the pedestal, pulling out Laughing Boy’s canteen and a piece of flatbread.

  He probably should have changed out the water in the canteen first, but it smelled like nothing, so Cooper took a sip and it was fine. As he ate, Cooper considered whether he ought to change clothes. He was still wearing the JC Penney business suit he’d had on when he boarded the plane, though by now it was completely destroyed, having been torn up by tree branches, drenched with rain, caked in mud, spattered liberally with gladiator blood, and, in the case of his pants, slashed open with a knife. He had hiking boots and a fresh pair of 501s waiting in his duffel bag. He’d been hoping to save them until he got back to civilization, but he was pretty sure walking around covered in the blood of the two people you just shot was a bad idea. Also, he was in a shitty mood, and there was a chance fresh clothes might make him feel better. Finally, the change would force him to do something he’d been actively avoiding, which was to check up on the knife scratch on his shin.

  If he was being honest with himself, Cooper was more than a little worried about that scratch. He was feeling pretty good otherwise. His knee was suddenly limber, and the pain in his ribs had decreased so much that it no longer hurt to breathe. Yet at the same time, there was a strange warmth radiating up his right thigh, and he could feel the leg of his suit pants pulling tight around the meat of his calf. It was probably nothing, but Cooper took his sweet time polishing off his flatbread, until finally, taking a deep breath, he brought his knee to his chest and carefully pulled up his shredded pants leg.

  “Fuck,” Cooper said to no one. His shin looked like a beachball. His calf just below the knee was horrifically swollen, the area around the scratch covered in a spiderweb of red and purple streaks. Meanwhile, the wound itself was pulsating in time with Cooper’s heartbeat, and he could swear he saw a dingy green glow emanating from the veins of his lower leg. Cooper was not a doctor, nor was he a scientist, nor a priest. But he was pretty sure this was bad.

  Forgetting all about the change of clothes, Cooper immediately got up and started walking again, trying his best not to think too much about where exactly he was going. After all, he’d been wandering around in the maze for hours already. If there was a fully-stocked hospital somewhere inside, staffed by doctors who took cash and didn’t ask questions, he probably would have found it by now. But the other option was to just lay down and die, so what else could he do?

  “Stop it,” Cooper said aloud to himself. He was not going to die, so there was no point thinking about it. Attempting to distract himself, Cooper decided to think about the San Francisco Giants. The club had had a good year that year, winning 90 games on their way to a 3-1 loss to the Pirates in the National League Championship. There was reason to hope they would be even better next year. On the other hand, Willie Mays had just turned 40 and was starting to play games at first base. Cooper had been planning the hijacking all summer, so he never had time to deal with all the emotions that welled up when he thought about the looming retirement of the Say-Hey Kid. Turning the problem over in his mind, Cooper decided Mays could probably play another 2-3 years at first base so long as he didn’t get injured, which was actually a good long time when you think about it. He had just started grappling with the Giants’ bullpen issues when he stumbled for the first time.

  It was no big deal really. His foot just happened to catch the edge of a floor tile, causing him to take an extra step to recover. But it made Cooper realize just how wobbly his legs were, and how dry his mouth was, and how all of a sudden there was a buzzing in his ears like he’d just shotgunned a beer. In short, Cooper was high. Not Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds or anything. Just mildly toasted. The good news was that he had plenty of experience operating this way. It was something he practiced every single week on Friday and Saturday nights. The bad news was Cooper hadn’t drunk or smoked anything lately, so the buzz he had on could be a sign that the poison in his shin had reached his brain. That realization would probably have freaked him out more if he wasn’t so high.

  Taking a deep breath, Cooper jammed a thumb into his ribs, hoping the pain might clear his head. It hurt, but not nearly as much as it should have. He tried again, just above and below and below the injury, only to discover that his entire right side was numb. And that wasn’t all. Glancing down at his hands, Cooper noticed that the little white half-moons at the base of his fingernails had turned green. Like the wound on his shin, they were actually glowing slightly, and pulsating along with his heartbeat. That little nugget would definitely have freaked him out more if something much worse hadn’t happened like two seconds later.

  Despite all that was going on, Cooper had been pretty careful about watching his step ever since leaving the Bakery. Any floor tiles that had drawings on them, or that seemed the slightest bit unusual in any way, he avoided them like the plague. And this particular tile he spotted from a mile out. There was a drawing of a bunch of grapes on it - it was next to a room full of grapevines - and it was a solid half-inch higher than its neighbors. So again, Cooper saw it coming, and despite all the awful discoveries he was making, he had no problem charting a course that would have taken him safely around the suspicious tile. What happened was that as he approached the entrance to the grapevine room, Coope stumbled again, causing his foot to catch on a different tile, and he ended up accidentally stepping on the crack between the grape tile and the next. And the moment he touched it even slightly, the grape tile immediately sank into the floor, causing Cooper to eat shit and roll his ankle. Meanwhile, he heard a distant thwunk!

  “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” Cooper shouted, his voice echoing off the walls of the maze.

  In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that he fell, because it meant that the arrow caught him in the arm rather than directly between the shoulder blades. Again, that was in retrospect. Cooper only came to that conclusion much, much later. In the moment, it was really hard not to get hung up on all the mind-shattering pain.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Motherfucking fuck!” Cooper added, staring down in horror at the bloody arrowhead now sticking out of his right forearm just below his broken wristwatch.

  “Piece of shit fucking maze ass!,” he continued thoughtfully. He tried climbing back to his feet, but his legs were like noodles. Also, his right hand was completely useless now, and even the slightest pressure on the arrow hurt so much it made him want to vomit. Eventually, he slumped back to the floor, shouting curses at the wall, the maze, God, and everyone else he could think of. He had just finished with parachute manufacturers and had begun laying into weathermen when he heard a snort from the next hallway over, and a furry face appeared around the corner.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Cooper said, reaching for his .28.

  It was a bear. Black, not brown, and a relatively small one at that. Not a cub necessarily, but definitely not full-grown. It was also painfully skinny, so much so that it could almost have been just an especially shaggy dog. Still, it was definitely a bear. It weaved its way clumsily across the hallway, sniffing at the grapevine tile like a Schnauzer exploring that spot on the floor where you once dropped a slice of ham. Then looked up at Cooper with glassy eyes.

  Cooper leveled the .28, cursing himself for not bringing a larger gun. The good news was his head was clear suddenly. The injury must have given him a burst of adrenaline or something. The bad news was he was left-handed now, and he was pretty sure a .28 shell would only take down a bear if his aim was perfect. Also, he just had the one shot left, and if he winged the fucker it might eat him just for spite. Furthermore, the bear was clearly starving, and Cooper couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for it. Most likely it had wandered into the cave by accident and was now stuck looking for the exit, just like him.

  “You’re hungry, is that it?” Cooper demanded of the bear, pointing the .28 directly at its right eye. “What makes you think I have any food?”

  It was only then that Cooper remembered the flatbread. He thought for a moment. Then moved the revolver over to his mangled right hand, fishing a piece of bread out of his duffel.

  “Is this what you want?” The bear’s jaw dropped open, a dry tongue lolling out.

  “Fetch!” Cooper said, flinging the piece of bread over the bear’s head. The bear snorted once. Then turned and loped off down the hallway.

  “You’re welcome!” Cooper shouted after it. Then put the gun away and again set about climbing to his feet. He had thrown the flatbread as hard as he could, but it still hadn’t gone very far. It would probably only take a minute for the bear to wolf it down and come back looking for more. Also, Cooper was losing a lot of blood. He could actually feel himself getting weaker. If he was ever going to get back on his feet, he needed to do it now. But every time he tried, he just ended up falling to the floor in a heap.

  “Fuck!” Cooper shouted again after his latest failure. The situation was hopeless. The bear would surely be back any second. He racked his brains, looking around in desperation for some solution to his problem. What he found instead was a bird.

  It was perched on an ivy-covered trellis that ran around the inside of the grapevine room just below the ceiling. It was small, no more than an inch or two in height, with bright blue feathers, a straight, sharp beak, and a little ruff of white around its neck like a priest’s collar. It wasn’t doing anything in particular. Just staring at Cooper with an oddly serious expression, as if it was extremely concerned about what he might do next.

  “The fuck do you want?” Cooper demanded from the floor.

  The bird didn’t reply. Just kept staring at him with those tiny, unblinking eyes.

  “Let me guess,” Cooper shouted. “You’re hungry too. Well here. Catch!”

  The piece of flatbread missed completely, bouncing off the wall several feet away, but the bird seemed to get the message. It took flight, winging over to another bit of ivy on the next wall over. But then it did something unforgivable. It landed and turned to stare at Cooper again.

  “What, are you too good for my bread?!” Cooper roared, suddenly furious, reaching into his duffel bag again. “Well how about this?”

  The second throw was better than the first, but it still missed, bouncing harmlessly off the wall. The bird casually flew out the doorway and off down the hall, eventually landing on a crack in the wall, where it again calmly turned to stare Cooper down.

  “Big mistake,” Cooper muttered through gritted teeth.

  Thinking back on it later, Cooper was never able to explain where, exactly, he found the strength to drag himself to his feet, despite the poison, and the broken bones, and the blood loss, and the God-knows-what-else. Nor could he ever say why, precisely, he spent what could easily have been his last moments on earth staggering through the halls of the maze after a bird, pelting it with insults and flatbread. The best answer he ever came up with was that people do strange things when they know they’re dying, and it all made sense at the time. Also, that bird was objectively fucking annoying. At any time, it could have simply flown away and left him to die in peace, but it never did. No matter what he threw at it, all it ever did was fly off to the next twig, or branch, or sconce, or pedestal, whatever, and then turn around to wait for the next assault. He should probably have realized there was something special about that bird, but he was so angry and exhausted and sick and delirious that all he could think about was teaching the little fucker a lesson before he croaked.

  Unfortunately, it was not to be. There must have been 15 pieces of flatbread in Cooper’s duffel bag when he left the grapevine room, and he went through all of them one by one. Once he was out of bread, Cooper threw the poison knife, his canteen, his belt, then his loafers one by one. It was while he was taking off his second loafer that Cooper lost his balance and kissed the floor again. This time, he made no attempt to stand. He was done. He knew what it meant if he didn’t get up, but at that point, he no longer cared.

  “Bunch of horseshit,” Cooper said to himself, or tried to say, though what came out was mostly just mumbling. It occurred to him that there was still one bullet left in the .28 in his duffel. He would have to shoot left-handed, but with a little luck he could still blow that fucking bird out of the sky. Or he could put himself out of his misery rather than wait for the poison to kill him. But all that was assuming he could still find the duffel bag, which he had either dropped or thrown at the bird at some point - he couldn’t remember which - and that was too much work. Better to lie here and wait for the inevitable, Cooper decided. He closed his eyes, cursing his shitty luck and willing the darkness to come take him. And it did come, eventually. But not before the girl.

  It started with a rumbling sound, like stones grinding against other stones. It was coming from the far end of the hallway - which was, of course, identical to all previous hallways - and while Cooper had absolutely no desire at that point to ever move again as long as he lived, he decided to crane his neck just a little so he could at least see what was happening.

  What he saw was a doorway in what he was pretty sure had been bare rock just moments before. Standing in the doorway was a girl, short, maybe 5’3”, maybe 19 or 20 years old and painfully thin, her hair dark and curly, her skin pale. She was also beautiful. Not like regular, girl-next-door beautiful, but insane, ridiculous, “what are you even doing on planet Earth?” beautiful. The kind of beautiful that makes it hard to have a normal conversation. The girl wore an old-timey red and blue Renaissance Fair dress with a blue ribbon in her hair that matched her eyes. She also had some sort of weird leather wrist-guard on one arm, on which the little bluebird was now perched. Both the girl and the bird were staring at Cooper with the same expression of profound concern, as if they had both known all along this might happen.

  There was a lot Cooper could have said right then, but all he managed to get out was…

  “Hi.”

  After that, he passed out cold.

  * * * * *

  Name: Cooper of Vancouver

  Gender: Male

  Affiliation: None

  Age at Entry: 29

  Current Level: The Labyrinth (1)

  Jing: 1/10

  Qi: 0/9

  Shen: 0

  Status: Injured, Poisoned, Unconscious

  here.