Me, Chloe and Oki stood alined in front of the maze"s entrance, each one of us dreading what we would face inside. After all, the truest terror is our own mind.I took a deep breath, glanced over to my companions and finally entered the maze.
"Stay behind me," I said,"We don"t want to get separated."
"Which direction should we head in?" Chloe asked nervously.
"We should take the first turn we see. Cover the outside first, then the inside."
We continued heading forward, until we came across a crossroad. There were 3 paths we could take- forward, left or right.
"Hey look at that." Oki said, pointing in the direction of a stone slab in the center.
For someone reason, I got a very bad feeling from just looking at it. Oki began walking towards it.
"Hey Oki, I wouldn"t do that." I shouted anxiously.
"It"s a stone slab, what"s the worst that could happen?" He replied, while bending down and placing his palm in the center of it. Sparks of black flying from it followed.
"Never ask that question." I replied, while face -palming.
The sparks grew more manic - black flying everywhere, only to boomerang back to the slab, where a shape was beginning to take form.
We all watched in cautious awe, waiting to see what would emerge from the slab. However, the more it formed the more danger I felt we were in. And then it clicked. I was so busy being mesmerised by dancing black sparks, that I temporarily forgot what lurks in here!
The final sparks were slotting into place, the shape coming to life.
"Oki get away from there! It"s a shadow!" I shouted.
The shadow had taken the form of a humongous Wolf Hybrid, a breed of dog that has very unpredictable behaviour patterns, however this dog looked like it was a hound from h.e.l.l. As it was made out of shadows, it"s entire body was pitch black, the only colour was it"s demonic red eyes.
"Wait a second, aren"t the shadows meant to take the form of what we fear? Oki your scared of dogs?" Chloe asked, highly confused. Oki obviously never mentioned this phobia to her before.
"Nevermind that!" I shouted, "Oki just get out of there!"
But Oki wasn"t listening. He was staring up at the beast in a terrified trance. It was fully formed now and it began scanning the room for its prey. It saw me and Chloe, but before it could attack, it noticed Oki on the floor beneath it. With one swish of its paw, it flung Oki into the giant concrete wall. Ouch, that"s gotta hurt. Luckily, it was a sort of wake up call, breaking him out of his trance.
Me and Chloe looked at eachother, nodded and then looked back at our target. Guess it"s up to us now - first shadow we"ve encountered and one of us is already down, splendid!
The hound was coming towards us now, it"s blazing black jaw growling loudly. It swung it"s paw in our direction, I managed to dodge it but Chloe was a second too late and was thrown into the wall behind us.
Just as I readied my dagger, a loud rumbling came from the ground beneath us. I looked around and saw that the walls were moving! The maze was changing!
"Guys the maze is shifting! We need to stay together!" I shouted. But that was impossible, two walls were appearing either side of me, creating 3 pa.s.sageways, with each of us in one. At least the shadow beast is with me, the other two need to recover from being flung into a wall. But I spoke two soon, just before the wall was completely going to cut off any way of reaching my friends, the beast bounded over to Oki"s side.
It"s his shadow. He touched the slab and it came from his fears, neither me or Chloe was it"s main target.
"Oki be careful!" I screamed.
"Don"t worry, I got this. My fear has been put behind me, I"ll beat this thing!" He replied.
"Ok, guys we"ll have to try to meet up in the middle. If the maze keeps shifting this may be even harder. Use the earpieces to communicate and stay alive!"
"Got it" they both shouted.
I took a deep breath. The shear terror on Oki"s face earlier said it all. These shadows don"t only hunt for your fears, but traumatized memories. My guess is Oki has a rough time with a dog and the shadow is playing on that memory. If I"m right, then I could be done for. My traumatized memories are darker then those shadows.
I shook my head, pushing those thoughts behind me. Let"s just beat this thing and then I can destroy that Devil King!