Chapter five
When I woke up, I was in a completely different outfit and in a creepy grungy basement looking space. My outfit was something I recognized, a simple white dress with a gold design around the bottom hem that kind of reminded me of a pool mosaic. There was a small golden pin around the golden collar, I took it off. It seemed to be real gold, it was a little heavy and roughly the same size as a cookie. The design particularly caught my eye, at first it just looked like somebody had splattered different lines all over the thing though as I looked closer I recognized what it really was. It was a beautiful spider lily, more formally known as either the red spider lily or lycoris radiata, sometimes Mom called it the corpse flower. I reached into my sneaker, pulling out the small object Mom had given me. It was her dagger…I traced my finger over the small dragon carving unsure of myself. I got up noticing that there was another kid by my side, Luke. He was wearing what was basically the same outfit though it was a tunic, and his pin had a pelican on it. Gods pelicans are such weird looking birds. They have chins bigger than Dream, or Choen, they both have pretty giant chins. I stood up looking Luke over before deciding to not wake him up, I didn't want to listen to him talk about himself the whole time. I started to head off, searching for Miriram and Basil. I ran my hands along the walls of the Laybarinth, it was all smooth cool stone with mosaic detailing with a torch every now and then. I could see a camera at nearly every angle, I fought back the urge to flip off the cameras. Miriam would kill me if I got on the crowd's bad side so quickly. I held my dagger tightly, trying to keep it out of the camera's sight as much as I could. I paused at a particularly beautiful mosaic. It was the Gods, just the major twelve, all sitting at a table. My fingers lingered for a moment longer on the face of Athena, she sat next to her father, the man who would f anything with a hole and as Miriam would say when we were younger good ol' sky daddy himself, Zeus. Then I kept going, I had to be fast, Goddess above I can practically hear Mir screaming at me to make haste! She was just like that, an awesome sort of strange. But when is strange not awesome? I picked up the pace turning corner after corner, this place was so intricate, Gods I wish I had a map or something. Not that a map would do much, there were almost no landmarks to use pace myself on so it might not even work. I decided it might be a good idea to grab a torch off the wall so that I could light a fire later. I think that's one of the tactics we went over in the library, had that only been yesterday? It felt like so long ago we were all sitting together happily and calling Miriam paranoid. I heard soft footsteps, Mirirams, her shoes had small heels that were missing the bottoms causing her to make loud noises when she walked. I turned the corner nearly crashing straight into her, Miriam hugged me close, she was wearing the exact same outfit as me, save the shoes, same pin, same dress, everything. It was just uniform after all. Michel wasn't with her, had she left him behind as well? Miriram wasn't the kind of person to do that and she had never really had any sort of dislike for Michel the way I did. "Where's Michel?" I asked "I'm not sure, he was gone when I woke up. I bet he ran off with Victoria and Luke though, he's got a soft spot for her" Miriam mentioned. Luke and Michel were pretty good friends, they both played soccer together at recess with all the other guys. I think they all just go and do that together at every recess since I never see any of them. Miriam took my hand "Let's go find Basil, plus Opal and Penelope , those two seem good to stick with," Miriam and I headed off in our search. "Thanks for getting a torch, that was smart" Miriam praised "Thank you, learnt it from the best" I teased, bumping her shoulder with mine. I held the torch out in front of me as it started to get darker and darker. I knew from watching past games that we would be spread out a bit and the places people were dropped in changed every year so we had no way to tell where the others would be. It was pure luck that me and Miriam found each other. We came upon a large hallway with the floor missing, I peered down using my torch to illuminate the area. There was a set of monkey bars stretching over the pit which I couldn't see the bottom of, Miriam grabbed a small rock off the ground and tossed it down. We waited…and waited…and waited some more but…never heard it hit the ground. "Well…is this a bad time to mention that I suck at monkey bars?" Miriam said nervously "Maybe we shouldn't go that way," I suggested. Miriam nodded, we turned to head in the other direction before realizing our surroundings were different. There was a wall where we had come through which I knew hadn't been there last time I looked over. "…Guess we don't have much of a choice" I mumbled angrily, Miriam groaned "I should've known this would happen. New rule, don't take your eyes off the exit" She told me. "Do I leave the torch or should I try and take it with us?" I asked, Miriam thought "We should be able to find another one, just leave it here" She suggested. "Wait! I have an idea" I tossed the torch down into the pit, it fell…and kept going, the light disappeared out of our view before it ever hit the bottom. Miriam gulped "Gods I hate heights" She mumbled. I grabbed a monkey bar slipping in between two rungs then pulled Miriam up "Come on, let's just crawl over instead. Since y'know, I'd rather not die from some random obstacle," I said, starting to crawl from bar to bar. Miriam followed close behind, her breath was quick and shallow as she mumbled off a couple curses every once and a while. "Don't not look down" I suggested "Do you mean don't look down?" Miriam questioned "No, don't not look down, you could miss a bar, though I don't think you'd die" I told her. "Why not?" Miriam questioned, sounding more curious than panicky now, we were reaching the end. "It is't the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop. I know that because I am a nerd who wants to know how to not murder Miss Applebottom and still be able to push her down the stairs" I mentioned. "You mean our English teacher Miss Applebottom?" Miriam asked me, I turned to look at her for a moment and nodded. We made it to the other side of the monkey bars, I paused for a second before jumping down. "Come on Mir," I looked up at Miriam who was shaking. Her eyes were wide and I could see her hand starting to slip, she was sweating and I could tell she might fall soon. "Miriam, you need to get down from there, I'm going to catch you don't worry but you need to get down" I told her trying to stay calm. I watched Miriam's hands slip as she tumbled forwards, I reached out to try and catch her but she was too far. She was about to fall in but one of her hands caught the edge. She screamed in pain, her hands starting to bleed "Addison!" She cried out to me. I grabbed her hands holding her tightly "Miriam! Hold onto me okay!" I started to try and pull her up as she used her free hand to hold onto my wrist. "I'm not losing you," I blurted out through clenched teeth as I tried to pull her up. "Mir, I need you to let go" I told her "What are you insane!" Miriam screeched "Trust me! Please" I begged her. After a few moments Miriam started to slip, there was a pool of deep red blood around her hand. "Fine, I trust you," She shook slightly, grabbing my wrist with her other, bloody, hand. I pulled Miriam up, falling backwards with the release of tension. Miriam sighed in relief "T-Thank you" She stuttered still a bundle of nerves "Anytime Mir, I would rather my best friend not fall into an oblivion pit" I gave her a quick thumbs up despite being on my back and on the floor which is very much not a thumbs up situation. Miriam held up a thumbs up bumping her hand against mine like a fist bump, a tumbs up fistbump. "I think…I think I'm gonna go to sleep" Miriam laid down on my chest, burying her face in my neck. I held her close, hugging her tightly. Goddess above it was so cold in here, and I know Miriam likes to sleep in the cold and even she's shivering. So you know it's cold. Which especially sucks because I personally prefer sleeping in warm conditions, usually smothered in blankets and surrounded by pillows. Miriam was warm…I didn't actually mind being this close to her, it felt rather nice and I was sort of glad I wasn't cold anymore. Though her hand was on my chest and…still bleeding, we should probably bandage her…I don't want to get up. I was laying on a rock too but I didn't want to wake Miriam up by moving and there were rocks everywhere anyways so there wasn't much of a point. I held her tightly as we fell asleep together.