Aiden walks us back a few feet on the path so we are further away from the light. “You were right about there being more guards,” Aiden says to me. "We’re going to have to take a different way around. It will probably take longer, but it will be safer.”

I nod in agreement, and then I take another look at the now-sweating Ethen.

“You guys are insane,” Ethen says. His voice is quiet enough for no one else to hear, but I do not miss the way panic and shrill make up his tone. “The guards are right over there, just a few feet away from us. If they are like that everywhere, then I am so dead. We should go back into the room and wait them out.”

"There is no waiting them out," I say. "We got lucky with those two guards coming in the room. Pretty soon, there will be more coming to check the kitchen, and we might not get so lucky again. Besides, once those two guards wake up, they will be doing everything they can to alert the others. Going back there is not an option."

Aiden joins in, "Sam is right. We need to keep moving. If we go back into the room, we will be waiting with our backs into a corner. We can make it out of here as long as we are careful."

"You two are crazy," Ethen says. "I'm going back to the room. They are going to kill the two of you out here, and I want to be as far away as possible when that happens. If they come into the room, I will shoot them. That is the whole purpose of having a gun, right?" By the time Ethen ends his sentence, he is practically crying, and the pitch in his voice has gone up.

I give Aiden a quick, worried glance since I’m not sure I want to go with Ethen anywhere anymore. I’m afraid he is going to panic and get us killed.

Aiden stares at Ethen hard before grabbing Ethen by the shoulders, pushing him to the wall, and giving him a piece of his mind. “You don't have enough bullets. None of us do. You are a grown adult. Stop acting like a child. If you don’t grow up right now, then we will all die. Do you not think we are scared, too? We are, but we are not showing it because right now is not the time to feel scared. We need to be calm so that we can think things through clearly and make reasonable decisions.”

Aiden continues in a sedate voice, “If you want to be scared of something, be scared of me because right now, I am your biggest threat. I want to help you get out of here, I really do, but if you don’t stop and get your shit together, then I will have to leave you here. Do you want that?” Ethen shakes his frightened head no. “Good. Then you are going to follow Sam and I, you are going to do as we say, and we are all going to get out of here alive. Got it?”

Ethen nods his head in understanding, and Aiden lets him go.

Aiden angrily stares at Ethen for another minute and then walks back down the pathway where we came from. We pass the kitchen again and move further down the dark path until we can’t go any further since we are met by a fence with a red tarp over it, like the one around the perimeter of the carnival. Aiden looks at the fence that goes around the back of the kitchen. I try to think if there is a way to climb the fence, but I scratch that idea the second I look at Ethen.

It's not that I don't think he could climb a fence. I just don't think he could do it quietly and without panicking.

“I think we can fit through. There is just enough space for a person to move back here between the fence and the wall. We’ll take this way until we get to the end of the building. Then there should be another spot of games along with another open space we can cross to get over to the other side of the carnival.”

I take a quick look between the building and the fence, and I know that he is most likely right. We can fit as long as we walk sideways. Then, it looks like there are more games at the end that we could hide behind until we get to a spot where it is safe to cross over to the other side, where the Mirror Maze is. I notice that Aiden hasn’t told Ethen about the Mirror Maze being our way out.

Ethen and I nod at Aiden in understanding, and then we each start making our way through. Aiden is in front once again. I’m behind him, and Ethen is behind me. We have to turn our bodies so that our backs are against the fence and we are facing the wall of the kitchen. After a few more feet, the wall to the kitchen ends, and there is about two feet of space between it and the next building, similar to how the game booths are.

We go one by one to the next building, and when I make it over, I quickly notice that there is less space behind here than behind the kitchen. When my back rubs against the tarp-covered fence, and I hear the sound of it creaking, I push myself as close to the building as possible so that it does not happen again.

I hear Ethen breathing heavily beside me, but I do my best to tune him out. I am not too good in small spaces, and if I listen to his rapid breathing and panicking, then I’m probably going to join him.

The last thing I want to do right now is to become like Ethen. Actually, the last thing I want to do right now is get caught, but becoming like Ethen is a close second.

When we reach the end of the building, Aiden gets out and moves behind one of the games. As I am getting out from behind the building to do the same thing, except I trip on a rock and have to use my hand to grab the corner of the building to make sure I don’t fall. Once I’m standing normally again, I realize that something liquid-like and cold is on my hand. When I take my hand off the wall and put it in the small piece of light between where I’m standing and where the game in front of me is, I see that my hand is red.

“Why did you stop?” Ethen asks me in a whisper.

I look at Aiden, and he just says, “Don’t look at it. We have to keep moving.”

It’s not the first time I have seen this much blood tonight, but I just can’t seem to get used to the sight of it. Especially when it is on my hand.

I take a look to make sure there is no one coming before I cross the small piece of light and make it behind the same game booth that Aiden is behind. I wipe my hand against the back wall of the booth, trying to get the blood off. After that, I take a look to see Ethen doing the same thing Aiden and I just did. He looks for any guards, and when he is sure that the coast is clear, he joins us. The only difference between Ethen, and Aiden and I is that Ethen looked like he was going to throw up the whole time.

We stay behind the game for another minute as we hear the sound of a guard walking by. After the guard leaves, we don’t say anything to each other since we don’t want to attract unwanted attention. I am starting to find that I like the silence. It is peaceful and calming, not like the constant chatter I hear every time I walk outside my home.

Although I live somewhat apart from the rest of Treegrass, I can still hear the sound of kids yelling at one another from afar or the sound of adults talking to each other while taking a walk in the woods since my house is located at the end of the road and only a few feet into the woods.

Aiden peeks out from behind the game. He looks around the area and then comes back to our spot. He looks like he is thinking to himself for a minute before looking back at Ethen and me again.

“Okay, here is what is out there. This area is different from the area we crossed originally the first time,” Aiden says to me, “while this one is wider, it’s not as brightly lit up, and there are two different game booths that we can stop to hide inside while we make our way across. There is a fence with a torn up piece of cloth to the right about five hundred feet away, cutting this area off from the other area, but there is an opening that looks like a walkway, so we have to keep an eye on that.”

I vividly remember what he is talking about. I think this is the area where Devin, my Dad, and I played the game that involved numbers and boxes. I think the fence Aiden is talking about was right behind that game. “Since the space is wider than the other one and the game booths are a little bigger, I think that we should move together. It will save time, and I think it will be better since it is relatively safe and it’s darker than the other spot, so the guards are less likely to see us if we move quickly together. What are your thoughts?”

“Are you sure it’s safer this way? What if they see us? Three people together are easier to see, and they make a bigger target. Shouldn’t we go separately?” Ethen asks.

“I never thought I would say this, but Ethen has a point. It might take us longer to go separately, but I think it would be safer.” I tell Aiden.

“I know. I know.” Aiden looks across the area again and then back to us. “What if we go individually across to the first game booth, meet there, and then go separately across to the second game booth until we are together again, and then we go separately across to the other side? It’s still relatively quick and safe.”

“It sounds good to me,” I tell Aiden. We then both look to Ethen

“Okay.” He says reluctantly.

“Okay then,” Aiden says, “I’ll go first.”

Chapter 23

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