Prison of the dead (Labyrinth of Monsters' sequel) A hermitcraft/3rd life fanfic

Chapter 4 - Tango

TW: PTSD and lots of blood 

I'm walking alone in the maze, sword in hand, following a trail of blood.

My ears are strained for any noise, footsteps as quiet as they can, practically tiptoeing, eyes desperately fixated on the path below me as it glistens in the faint light. 

I hear someone's panicked yells as they're killed. 

I run. I know exactly who it is. Their pleading echoes through the endless paths and corners, even after it cuts off into an equally horrifying silence. Skidding around the bend, I stop, panting, and step forwards towards where I know the sound had come from. Etho's corpse lies in the middle of the room, the writing on the wall, and another person lying against another. 

Impulse. 

Bleeding.

Laughing. 

Knife in hand. 

The final words. 

I run towards him too late. 

Always too late. 

He bleeds to death in my arms, and I howl his name. 

I wake up. 

Screaming, I scramble into a sitting position. Duvets tangle around me and I tear them off, panting, crying, the image of Impulse's body refusing to go from my mind. 

'Tango?!' Zedaph's on his feet. I try to recover, telling myself it's just a nightmare. I'm barely able to speak, but somehow manage to force out reassurance that I'm ok. My friend isn't convinced, and he walks over, sitting next to me. I'm shaking, tears down my face, eyes tightly closed in a desperate attempt to get the image of my head. I feel Zed's comforting arm around my shoulder and let him hug me. I hug back, weeping into his shoulder, the sound muffled. After a long time, he speaks. 'Was it about Impulse again?' 

All I can do it nod. It takes ages for me to calm down enough to explain the dream. Zedaph listens sympathetically as I tell him. There's a moment after I finish when neither of us do anything, before Zed's on his feet.

'Why would they make us go through this stuff?!' He snarls. 'Why would they make us face so much, and then call it an experiment?! Claim that we were ok with it?! Consented to their F*****G mind games as we watched out F*****G friends die around us?! It isn't right!' 

I shrug back wordlessly. Someone knocks on the door, and Zed lets them enter. It's Skizz, and he instantly notices that something is up.

'What happened?' He asks. 

'I had a nightmare.' I explain briefly. 

'Oh... anyway, there's a group of us meeting today, and I wanted you to come along and tell us what happened after we'd all... died.'

'Ok... when is this?' 

'I don't know. But we're going to see each other now. Zloy said we're all gathering for breakfast.

With a glance at Zed, I stand up, sighing internally at the prospect of seeing other people. Skizz leads us out, and we walk down the corridor of rooms, and into the huge eating area behind. Food is laid out on one table against the wall, and the rest of the space is filled with smaller tables. EX, Zloy and someone else we haven't been introduced to are watching us. Zedaph glares at them, and Skizz runs off to join his new friends. I follow behind, and Zed behind both of us, as we all sit down. 

'Hey guys!' Skizz greets the others. Martyn, Jimmy and Scar. They all say hi back, before conversation begins. 

'How was last night for all of you?' I'm forced back into remembering my nightmare, but try to ignore it as the group all agree how painful it was having to sleep in a room they'd shared with their best friends before they all died. Me and Zedaph share an awkward glance, knowing we haven't had the same. 

'Meeting this evening?' Martyn suggests. 'We could sneak all of us into one of our rooms to have it.'

'Good idea. Which one?'

'As long as it's not mine, I'm happy.' Scar mutters. 

'There's not much stuff in mine and Ren's room. We can all meet there.' 

'Yeah! And can Tango come along too?'

'Why?'

'So I can tell you all what happened.'

There's silence for a moment, before they all agree. The conversations continue, but I don't join in, thinking, trying not to let thoughts of Impy take over again. 

'Bring me to the afterlife, brother. I've had enough of this maze.' I hear his final words in my head, clear as they were in the dream. Etho howls for his life to be spared. Blood. Dying. Murder. 

I scramble to my feet in panic, yelling out. The entire room goes silent. Zedaph tries to get my attention, concerned. I barely hear it, heartbeat throbbing in my ears, before I run.

Skizz is the first person to find me. I'm curled up on my bed, crying, given up on blocking the memories. I could've saved him. I should've saved him. I let him kill himself. Impulse. My friend. I let him down so hard and he couldn't survive the fall.

'Tango?' I don't reply. Why should I? He knows I'm upset. 'Are you alright, buddy?'

'Do I look alright!?' I snap back at him and his stupid questions. His death caused all of this. HE caused all of this. Right now, he's the last person I want to talk to.

'I'm sorry. I just wanted to check on you. EX has been telling us about what's going to happen now. Apparently there's all kinds of activities to try out...'

'I don't want to know what that idiot is saying! He sent us in there! He's the one that's f*****g stupid enough to not think that if we're all in a confined space with our friends dying, we might want to kill ourselves to get out. He's the f*****g monster that decided that we were going to go into that s***hole of a place in the first place.'

'I know...' It's all Skizz can say in reply. I can tell he's as mad as I am about it. I turn to face him.

'I'm sorry for shouting.' 

'It's ok. Anyway, we've all been allowed to head off and do stuff, so we can find something to do together.'

I let him lead me out, wiping away the last of my tears. Neither of us really know which way to go, so we wander aimlessly, trying to find someone who can help. 

It's then that I see him.

Blood. Darkness. A single spotlight straight over the corpse. White hair. Every nerve in my body tells me to get away as everything flashes back to Etho's death. I'm hyperventilating, unable to speak, holding back a sob of terror at the sight of the body. 

The body of EX.

Woo... PTSD and murder... 

I genuinely didn't expect Tango being upset to take up an entire chapter but somehow it did.