¶. It was eerie how silent the room became. The empty bleaches watched us, a calm silence settled around us, and despite my friends beside me, I felt alone. Jack broke my needless thoughts by asking, "What kind of room is this"? It looked like a collousium, a massive arena where thousands gathered to watch gladiators butcher one another. Lucas shrugged his shoulders, and we settled back into silence. Directly in front of us there was an archway that could have led anywhere, but it was also our only exit.
¶. Right before we crossed the arch, a solid iron gate quickly trapped us in the arena. Dead soldiers rose from the sand, they wore rusted bronze armour and held broken swords. They were nothing but their skeletons, yet they still seemed hostile. Jack's eyes lit up with excitement, he quickly ran up to the corpse and began admiring the bones. "This looks so real, it's amazing"! The skeleton slowly rose its arm in preparation to slice Jack, but before it could make contact, Lucas pushed him out of the way. Jack fell on his butt directly in front of the other challenger, and by a hair Lucas managed to evade the sword.
¶. Suddenly, I heard a racket of metal and bones clashing together behind me. I quickly jumped to the left without thinking. Luckily I managed to evade the blade by a split second. I quickly tried scuttling away from the reanimated pile of bones, but his blade was always an inch behind me. I used all the strength I could muster to push myself onto my feet. I managed to save myself from stumbling over. I ran as fast as I could but the that pile of bones was always a step behind me. I couldn't look behind me, but I knew it was chasing me. I felt it's shallow breath against my neck. I smelled the faint whif of rusted iron. I knew I had little hope of survival. Despite my running, I saw Lucas and Jack fighting off their opponents with relative ease. Jack used the broken sword to parry his opponent, while Lucas used wailed on his opponent with it's dismembered arm until it's skull was smashed open.
¶. When he stood up to celebrate his victory, he saw me running full force away from the pile of bones chasing me. He quickly threw the weapon he had in his hand to me. I don't know how I caught the thing, maybe it was the adrenaline in my system, I don't know. However, once I caught the bone, I slid onto my knees and quickly turned my body in my opponent's direction. I swiftly positioned the bone over my head to block the next strike. For that brief second before the blade met my weapon, I had a million thought, mainly wondering if I had any chance for survival.
¶. When the blade struck, it pierced it's way half way through the bone. Before the skeleton could reclaim it's blade, I twisted my weapon and snapped the rusted blade in half. I quickly pushed myself to my feet and struck the skeleton's arm. The skeleton shrugged off my attack and swiped at me with it's shortened blade. I tried dodging the slash but ended up tripping over my foot. I tried crawling away, but the skeleton towered over me. Before it could stab me, Jack tackled the skeleton to the ground. He ripped it's head from it's socket and threw it at me. I instantly crushed the skull with my weapon.
¶. A bell pierced the air. I fell on my back in exhaustion.There was a second of silence before the gate made a loud clicking sound. Jack stood in front of me and offered a hand. I gladly grabbed his hand and pulled myself up. The two of us laughed out our brains. I was holding my gut about to fall over while Jack leaned backwards. Lucas looked at us like we were crazy, but we kept laughing. We were almost killed by reanimated skeletons in a gladiators arena. This has to be a dream, there's no way this is true. I knew Jack felt the same way.
¶. Lucas threw us a look that mixed disgust with fear. "How can you laugh? We almost died"! Jack wiped the tear that formed in the corner of his eye, "because this is rediculous. We we're just in a weird maze being chased by something and now we fought dead gladiators. We're clearly going crazy ". Lucas stared him dead in the eyes and gripped his shoulder, "Look at me. Don't you feel me grabbing you? Don't you see us here with you? This is real! All of it! I don't know what kind of hell we're in, but we're here". We silenced out laughter and fixed our posture. "You're right, let's just keep going". Lucas nodded his head, and we walked out of the collousium.
¶. There were red bricks surrounding us in the shape of a tunnel. The air was cold, and every step we made echoed back to us, as if to remind us of how bleack this whole situation really is. We walked in silence for fifteen minutes. Jack broke the tension by asking, "If you had choose between; getting black out drunk then having to slowly retrace the steps from the prior which leads to you almost dying several times, and becoming a superhero whose life is about balancing his duties as a hero and living his life, which would you choose"? I stopped in my tracks, "That's just the plot from movies"! Jack and Lucas stopped a step ahead of me and stared at me. Jack burst out laughing, "ya caught me, which would you choose"? Lucas rolled his eyes and started walking. I answered, "the drunk one, its funnier to tell that story then live as a superhero". Jack cupped his hands over his mouth to make his voice louder, "What about you"! Lucas kept walking while he stuck one hand in the air and raised a specific finger. Me and Jack laughed while we ran to catch up with him.
¶. Jack kept asking random scenarios, while I happily endulged, Lucas ignored us most of the way. Occasionally, he'd laugh at one of the jokes we made, but he clearly tried to keep himself out of the conversation. We barely noticed the empty cells that lined the walls or the mess of tattered clothes, rusted weapons, and people that were once alive. It wasn't until we reached a dead end that we took in the full scene we were in. Silence grew a new, the air became sharp, and our senses screamed danger. Lucas silently had a panic attack while I shifted in place. Jack on the other hand didn't seem to care. "What are we going to do?", I asked without expecting an answer. Lucas's voice nearly broke, "I don't know". His words hung in the air. We can't possinly go back to the maze, with that monster on our every step. We nearly gave up hope, then Jack spoke up, "look up there, it has to be a way out". He pointed a small crawl space, barely our size. It wasn't much, but it was our only way forward.