One Killing Maze

Chapter 15

The symbol on the door created an ich in the back of Y/n's mind. It tingled with familiarity, but also with some unease and dread. Ann pressed a few fingers on the mark and rubbed the pads of her fingers against it. The red from her fingers smeared pink along the white of the door, but the black material that was used to mark the door did not drag along the path she made.

"Not recent," her voice was dry and somewhat empty. Ann reached out to the doorknob and twisted it, opening the door with ease. Y/n stared at the mark for a bit longer before following her friend through the threshold. Y/n was glad to see that the room they had now entered was smaller than the last. It had a worn bed in the corner, the mattress without sheets or blankets. There were a few toppled chairs scattered around with a table shoved against one door.

There was a mark on the door across from the one they entered.

Ann sighed and walked over to the bed in the corner of the room and sat down. The frame squealed under the new weight, but it would hold. Y/n opted to grab a chair on the floor that looked sturdy enough and sat down a few feet away instead.

"You okay?" Y/n finally decided to break the silence as she finally turned the safety of her gun back on. Ann slouched forward, the axe she had been loosely holding now placed beside her. The brown-haired woman made a shrugging motion, then decided that instead of leaning forward she wanted to lean back on the mattress.

Y/n could understand. The two of them had basically just murdered someone. Some could say it was self-defense, actually, it was self-defense, but that didn't take out the notion of taking a life. The time in the maze where she had these thoughts, the worries clawing at her mind as she had to mentally prepare herself when the time came to kill so she could survive. There were times when she had thought to not fight back, but something kept her going.

"That wasn't my first time...killing someone," Ann murmured, finally speaking. She swallowed to get rid of the dryness that had collected in her throat, "I did it in the maze. A lot of people died because of what I did."

"But you didn't know," Y/n shot back, not in any demeaning way, but to try and reassure her. Ann lifted her head to look at Y/n, then back down at her feet. She began picking at the stray strings that stuck out on her jeans.

"Do you remember what kind of...method they used on you to forget things?" Ann questioned, quickly deflecting Y/n's statement, "we had to take these pills, and they were addictive. I found out later that they were like drugs, and each time one of us in the maze would find one, we'd swallow it down without a thought."

Y/n froze, watching Ann as she spoke so bravely on the topic. She hadn't seen something like that when watching the fourth season, or maybe she did, but it was just too long ago that she had forgotten. The h/c-haired girl shook her head and hung it slowly so she could aimlessly stare down at her shoes. A small beep shook the two of them to their core; the sound of death.

"We were gassed," Y/n murmured after a few beats of silence after the sound. Even in the quiet room, her voice was loud.

Ann snorted, "seems like they found the easiest way to make the poor souls in the game forget." She crossed her arms, her usual attitude finally returning, "but, yea... I didn't know then that I was being televised all over the world. Maybe I wanted to escape and live peacefully after getting out of there... But look at us now."

The two of them laughed unenthusiastically. Ann stood up, shifting her weight on each leg. She turned her head to the mark on the wall, then back at Y/n.

"Sorry 'bout brushing everything off a second ago. You remember some crazy things after..." She motioned a hand over to the door that they came from and Y/n sat up quickly.