Thus, the group divided into two teams with different destinations.
Lief turned toward Carrie offering her a reassuring smile and pointed to the passage on the left.
"Let us go there."
They had barely taken about five steps inside the corridor when the entrance mechanism activated.
Clank
The door fell behind them with a definitive sound, sealing the exit and completely isolating the light and the outside bustle.
The darkness enveloped them.
The absolute silence of the outside was replaced by the amplified sound of water dripping rhythmically from somewhere.
Carrie reacted by instinct and clung to Lief's arm tightly. "L-Lief... I do not like this. It is too dark, I cannot see anything."
"Calm down, it is just part of the show. Do not let go and follow me," Lief replied with a steady voice while taking Carrie's hand to guide her, he felt it unusually icy...
They groped forward about ten meters, when suddenly the environment changed drastically.
Bzzzzt
Some blood red lights violently turned on in front of them, accompanied by the sound of a siren.
The hallway revealed itself as a torture chamber.
On the walls of both sides, dozens of executioner's axes began to swing frantically, moving up and down and side to side in a chaotic and crisscrossed pattern, blocking the path ahead like a multiple guillotine.
The edges of the axes, although props, were of real metal and flashed with a malevolent light under the red flickering.
The sound of the wind being cut by the metal was intimidating and although they knew they were in an attraction, instinct screamed danger.
"How are we supposed to pass through there without losing our heads?" asked Carrie, stopping dead in her tracks.
"It is a pattern. We just have to find the correct interval and run," said Lief, studying the mechanism.
However, while observing the rhythm of the blades, he noticed that something was wrong. The trajectories of the axes were aggressive, but there was one in particular, a large axe at head height on the right side, that vibrated in a strange way.
The fastening bolt of the mechanical arm was so loose that it danced on its axis with every swing.
Crack
Physics passed judgment at the worst possible moment. Just as the machine accelerated the rhythm for the climax of the scare, the fastening screw gave way.
The axe detached violently from the mechanical arm due to centrifugal force. It was no longer a haunted house prop; it was a lethal steel projectile flying freely across the hallway.
And it flew, with terrifying precision, directly toward Carrie's head.
"..."
Carrie's mind went blank. Time seemed to dilate every millisecond. She did not have time to scream, nor to duck. She could only look, paralyzed by shock, at that flash of death approaching her face.
Lief reacted instantly, but a pressure wave exploded from Carrie before he managed to do anything.
Zmmmm
The axe stopped dead in mid air.
It did not fall to the ground, it simply remained frozen less than ten centimeters from Carrie's forehead.
"ha... haa...."
She kept her hand extended toward the blade and gasped with a pale face, looking at that suspended blade with total incredulity.
It had been her!
"That is incredible, Carrie," said Lief at her side, with genuine surprise.
Upon hearing his voice, Carrie's confusion gave way to a wave of power, taking a deep breath channeling the adrenaline, and with a sharp movement of her wrist, she pushed the air in front of her.
Clang
The axe was thrown sideways with tremendous force, as if it had been hit by a baseball bat. It crossed the hallway and embedded itself deeply in the wall.
Carrie looked at her own trembling hands and then looked at the axe embedded in the wall.
"I... I did that," she whispered, and an incredulous smile began to form on her lips. "I really stopped it!"
"You have always been able to do it. You just needed to stop thinking so much," said Lief giving her a comforting pat on the shoulder. "Let's go. Let's see what else tries to kill us up ahead."
Empowered by what happened, Carrie's attitude changed radically. The paralyzing fear evaporated, replaced by concentration.
Taking the initiative, walking in front with a firm step. She no longer waited passively for the danger to pass; she controlled it.
With subtle movements of her hand, she pushed the swinging axes out of their trajectory, clearing a safe tunnel so that she and Lief could advance.
However, just when they were about to leave that section, a massive silhouette peeled away from the shadows at the end of the hallway, blocking the exit.
At first glance, it looked like another actor: he wore the dirty gray work jumpsuit of the maintenance staff. But the details were wrong.
His face was hidden behind a mask, a mosaic of leather and metal that suggested something much worse than a costume. And in his hands he carried a demolition hammer.
And without saying a word the man raised the hammer and brought it down with violence on the control box on the wall.
Crash
The blow destroyed the panel. Sparks flew and the mechanism emitted an agonized screech.
The blades began to accelerate wildly, spinning and oscillating without control at a higher speed, turning the hallway into a meat grinder.
And in the middle of that sound of buzzing steel, the killer taking advantage of the chaos, charged forward with a terrifying speed for his size, ignoring Lief and pouncing directly on the nearest prey: Carrie.
...
Meanwhile, on the other side, Jennifer and Maria had entered fully into the mirror maze.
It was a Kafkaesque world composed of countless glass panels, where their own reflection multiplied to infinity. Layer upon layer, their image extended without limits in all directions, making it impossible to distinguish the real path.
"Do not worry, Little Ghost. Follow me closely," instructed Jennifer.
She could not be fooled by these simple optical illusions, distinguishing the true wall from the glass with an instinctive clarity.
But for Maria, it was an optical nightmare.
Being already shy and prone to feeling watched, this environment amplified her paranoia. Every reflection of herself felt like an eye that was watching her, judging her.
"Jennifer... I, really, let's better go back..."
"Go back? How boring you are," replied Jennifer, who took her by the hand and moved through the maze with familiarity. "Relax. With me here, no one, and I mean no one, can hurt you."
But she had barely finished speaking, the guarantee of safety shattered into pieces.
A figure that was neither of the two appeared abruptly in the mirror adjacent to them.
It was someone dressed exactly the same as the aggressor in the other hallway, with a staff jumpsuit and that ugly mask. However, his figure was thinner, and instead of a hammer, he held a long and shiny boning knife.
His reflection multiplied instantly into a thousand copies, all looking directly toward them.
"AAaah!" Maria's high pitched scream was muffled by the fabric, but it was pure terror.
"Tsk. Finally he deigns to come out," Jennifer, far from being scared, smiled.
Immediately, she pushed Maria behind her, lowering her body slightly and adopting a fighting stance.
The figure of the killer flickered rapidly, utilizing the reflections. It was impossible to judge which was the real location, moving at an impressive speed.
Swish
Suddenly, a cutting sound came from Maria's left side!
"Damn it!" Jennifer grabbed Maria's sheet and yanked her abruptly backward.
Sssshhhhhhh
The sharp knife slashed through the air where Maria's waist had been a second before, cutting cleanly through the white fabric and leaving a long slash that reached the ground.
If it had not been for Jennifer's intervention, the cut would have opened Maria's abdomen.
Maria fell to the ground, trembling uncontrollably, the shock of the near death running through her body.
"Hey. No, seriously, do not touch her," hissed Jennifer, placing herself in front of Maria, her eyes shining with an unnatural light.
The masked killer did not answer, simply charged again, raising the knife..
Jennifer launched herself against the killer without hesitation, moving in the confined space with a fluid and lethal agility. With grace, she dodged the knife blade by mere inches, utilizing the glass walls to her advantage, while maintaining her body as a shield between the threat and Maria.
"..."
Meanwhile Maria seemed to have remained paralyzed by terror.
She had curled up on the ground, covering her head with her arms over the sheet, trembling violently while the sound of the struggle resonated around her.
Right at that moment, in one of the mirror panels in front of her, her own reflection changed. It no longer showed her face
Now Airam's face looked at her. And she was furious.
"Hey! Are you going to stay there curled up in a ball crying forever?"
Her sister's voice resonated directly in her skull.
"Look at yourself! You are pathetic! That woman is risking her neck and dodging knife slashes to protect you, and your only contribution is going to be to hide there and tremble?"
"S... Sister..." sobbed Maria, feeling useless. "I am scared... I cannot... I cannot do anything..."
"Dammit, Maria!" barked Airam, her expression in the mirror hardening. "Have you forgotten already? Have you forgotten how Lief praised you? He said that you were incredible! Not me! He said that you were great!"
!
Those words hit Maria.
"That psychopath just tried to slice you open! Are you going to let him get away with it? Are you going to let them trample you and you are not even going to try to bite? You embarrass me!"
Maria raised her head slowly.
She looked at Jennifer's reflection in the mirrors, dodging a deadly slash, and then looked at the back of the killer who was hounding her, cornering her.
The fear was still there, but suddenly, a new emotion, a toxic mixture of shame, anger and resentment for her own weakness, began to burn in her chest, burning away the paralysis.
Right at that moment, the killer lunged forward with a growl, raising the knife for a downward strike against Jennifer, completely exposing his back and the nape of his neck.
!
A thought crossed Maria's mind like lightning.
She saw to her right a thick piece of wood, part of a set support that had broken during the fight.
Without hesitation, she lunged crawling to reach the wood. Her fingers caught it, and propelling herself upward with a strength she did not know she had, she let out a scream that tore her throat:
"AAAAAAAAH!"
She brandished the stick with both hands, using her weight as leverage, and brought it down with a blind violence.
Crack
The wood crashed brutally against the subject's nape.
________
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