The long, winding trek to the outer gates felt less like an escape and more like a funeral march.
Silvia walked in a numb haze, the silence between the retreating survivors thick enough to choke on. Inside her mind, the guilt was a corrosive acid, eating away at her sanity. The memory of Reo's face—the absolute devastation in his eyes as he chose to stay behind, handing over Alpha to watch her back—played on an endless, agonizing loop. *He didn't abandon me. I abandoned him.*
Every step felt heavier than the last, the emotional bruising far sharper than any physical wound.
Lyra, noticing the pale, trembling state of her silver-haired friend, slowed her pace and gently reached out. "Silvia... talk to me. Let it out," she murmured, her voice laced with empathy.
Silvia violently jerked her arm away, shrinking back as if burned. "Don't touch me," she snapped, her voice cracking with suppressed venom. She couldn't bear the pity. She couldn't bear the comfort.
A sudden, horrifying thought pierced through her self-loathing. *Olivia...*
Her mind flashed to her best friend back home—Olivia, who had already endured so much heartbreak staying by Kyle's sorry side. How was Silvia supposed to look Olivia in the eyes and tell her that her brother, Luke, had been dragged off to a monster's altar while Silvia walked away with her life intact? The sheer weight of that impending confession felt like a death sentence of its own.
As the jagged, ominous silhouette of the outer gate finally loomed ahead of them through the eternal mist, both Lyra and Silvia froze in absolute terror.
Waiting for them in the center of the threshold stood the towering, grotesque shape of a humanoid golem skin-walker.
Before either of them could even raise a hand to cast, Maya stepped forward. To Lyra and Silvia's utter shock, Maya bowed slightly toward the monster. Silvia's entire body began to shake uncontrollably; terror seized her throat, freezing her blood.
"We have done as you asked," Maya said, her voice eerily calm, devoid of any fear. "Now keep the end of your bargain and let us go."
The skin-walker's distorted face twisted into a wide, hideous grin. *"What about the rest?"* it hissed.
"They chose to stay back," Maya answered instantly, without a moment's hesitation.
Silvia stared at Maya, a cold wave of horror washing over her. *Did I... did I make the right decision?* She whipped her head around to look at Lyra, searching for answers, but Lyra only stared back at Maya, her face entirely drained of color, paralyzed by betrayal.
Before a word could be spoken, the skin-walker reached out a clawed hand and touched them.
*Flash.*
In a blink of warped space, the oppressive atmosphere vanished. They tumbled out onto the safe, solid ground just past the outer gate—they were finally outside the labyrinth of Gorgoroth.
Silvia and Lyra instantly scrambled backward, putting as much physical distance between themselves and Maya as humanly possible.
"What the hell... *what just happened?!*" Silvia screamed, her voice dripping with raw, unadulterated rage.
Maya stood tall, brushing a speck of dust from her clothes, not feeling a single ounce of guilt. "I did what I had to do."
"You sold our teammates out to a monster, and you're standing there acting self-righteous?!" Lyra yelled, her voice breaking as tears of fury spilled over.
Maya remained entirely unbothered.
"Tell me," Silvia stepped forward, her voice trembling so violently she could barely articulate the words. "When... when did you betray us?"
A horrifying realization was already taking root in her mind. Those stare they felt, those creaks weren't random. The skin-walkers hadn't attacked their group randomly. They had always known where they were, tracking their every move.
Maya sighed lightly, crossing her arms. "After our very first encounter with the black skin-walkers, I realized we stood a zero percent chance of survival. That's when the creature approached me with a proposal. It wanted Luke isolated. If I managed to help set that up, it promised to let the rest of us walk free."
She paused, looking directly at Silvia with dead, calculating eyes.
"What should I have done? If I rejected the offer, it would have slaughtered me on the spot. If I fought back, it would have wiped out all of us and taken Luke anyway. There was no other winning move." Maya shook her head. "And then, as I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to isolate him, Luke suddenly fell into that deep, inexplicable sleep. Wasn't that a sign from the divine itself? I informed the skin-walker instantly. That's why we weren't able to leave at first."
Maya took a slow step forward, reaching out a hand as if to comfort her. "Silvia, try to understand. You said it yourself back there—we needed to regroup and come back with better odds. I just secured our exit."
Silvia violently recoiled, stepping back until her spine slammed hard against the damp stone of the tunnel wall, trapping her. There was nowhere left to run.
Maya closed the distance, her smile turning predatory. Her character had undergone a profound, terrifying metamorphosis.
"You know..." Maya whispered, reaching out not to comfort, but to grab Silvia by the chest. With a sharp, merciless yank, she tore through the top layer of Silvia's clothing, exposing the skin-burrowed communication rune inscribed beneath. She pressed her thumb down hard against it.
"when the creature first made a deal with me, it revealed all your secret little plans," Maya continued, ignoring Silvia's wide, horror-struck eyes. "You, Azula, and Luke... thinking you could outsmart me."
Maya channeled a crackle of raw mana into her fingertips, activating the frequency.
*"Azula,"* Maya spoke directly into the open channel.
### The Final Trap
Back in the distant safehouse ruins, Azula froze in sheer, paralyzing shock as her bracer flared to life.
*"You're listening right? You've been listening this whole time,"* Maya's voice echoed directly in her mind. *"I guess that means you also know that dozens of elite skin-walkers are currently stampeding your way right now. Good luck."*
Azula gasped, but before she could utter a single syllable, the rune went dead.
Back at the outer gate, Maya sent a sharp jolt of electricity straight into the rune matrix, deliberately overloading it. With a violent hiss of burning flesh and ozone, the tiny pebble embedded deep beneath Silvia's skin—the physical material used to anchor the tracking spell—shot outward like a smoking bullet, clattering uselessly onto the stone floor.
Maya let go, stepping back. Silvia slid down the wall, utterly broken and paralyzed by the sheer malice of it all. What were they supposed to do now? They had walked straight into a trap, played like pawns from the very beginning.
"You know..." Maya murmured, a dark satisfaction curling her lips, "I'm actually quite grateful Reo decided to stay behind. If he had come with us... my plans would have been thoroughly ruined."
From the absolute darkness of the surrounding shadows, three pairs of glowing, predatory eyes slowly blinked open.
Lyra's breath hitched. Her staff was gone, and without it, her spellcasting was crippled—reduced to clumsy, unstable incantations. But survival instinct kicked in, and she began frantically weaving a wind current.
Maya gestured lazily toward the dark. "Go," she commanded.
Three grotesque, four-legged skin-walkers lunged out from the dark. Their hides were thick, shimmering with dense anti-magic properties.
Silvia reacted purely on adrenaline, throwing a massive gale of wind straight at them. The spell struck their hides and harmlessly bounced off, dispersing into the air.
Lyra cast a rapid acceleration spell, her body feeling as light as a feather. She grabbed Silvia by the arm. *"Run!"* she screamed at the top of her lungs.
The two girls bolted down the tunnel, two of the grotesque skin-walkers dropping to all fours and tearing after them in a blur of terrifying speed.
Maya stood her ground, watching them go. "Two...?" she muttered, her brow furrowing in sudden confusion.
She slowly turned around.
The third skin-walker hadn't chased the runners. It remained right there, standing a few feet away, its hollow eyes locked onto Maya, dripping with absolute, ravenous hunger.
Maya swallowed hard, a sudden knot of dread forming in her throat.
She raised her trembling, broken arm, and a network of volatile electrical sparks wrapped violently around her wrist.
As the creature lunged, Maya's piercing screams instantly echoed down the dark, empty tunnels.