SCREAM!!!

5. The Glass Labyrinth 1

The corridor outside their metallic room was already changing. The walls pulsed from silver to a deep, electric blue, the signal that the next round was beginning. Cedric felt the vibration in the floor through the soles of his shoes, a low hum that wormed its way into his bones. The walls shivered, reshaping themselves as if the building itself were alive and impatient, breathing in tandem with the hundreds of terrified survivors.

When the doors opened again, the survivors stumbled forward—pale, hollow-eyed, trembling. Cedric held tightly to Kevin’s wrist, refusing to let go. Around them, the hallway stretched into infinity, reflecting their faces a thousand times over, each echoing the fear he felt in his own chest. Through the shimmering glass panels at the far end, a maze awaited, twisting impossibly, the paths shifting as though waiting for someone to step wrong.

Baran’s voice rolled over them like a velvet blade.

“Welcome to the second challenge,” he said smoothly, the words carrying over the metallic hum, precise and lethal. “The Glass Labyrinth. Only those who find their way out will live. The rest… will join the ashes.”

Cedric’s pulse thundered in his ears. His stomach flipped. He recognized the labyrinth instantly—it was a recreation of one of his own drawings. Every corridor, every false wall, every reflection had been born in the margins of his sketchbook. The game wasn’t just a challenge. It was his imagination made real, and it had teeth.

The hallway trembled. A cold wind slithered through the corridor, raising goosebumps across his arms. He looked at Kevin, whose face was pale, eyes wide with fear. Cedric swallowed, dry and raw, trying to summon calm he didn’t feel.

The hum escalated into a pulse, vibrating through the soles of his feet. The mirrors in the corridor began to shift, sliding and folding, multiplying themselves into impossible patterns. The light above flickered, dimming and brightening like a heartbeat.

“Move!” someone shouted, and chaos erupted.

Students ran in every direction, the sound of pounding feet echoing endlessly off the mirrored walls. Cedric gripped Kevin’s arm. “Stay close! Don’t separate!”

The twins ahead of them collided with a mirrored wall, and the reflection didn’t stop them. It didn’t mimic them—it advanced. The twins froze, eyes wide with panic. Then the reflection stepped out of the glass, a perfect duplicate. Its lips curved in a smile that Cedric knew was wrong, unnatural. It reached toward them.

One of the twins screamed as the reflection grabbed them, dragging them into the glass. Their bodies twisted like smoke, folding in on themselves, and then they were gone. Cedric’s chest felt like it had dropped into his stomach. The corridor seemed to pulse in response to his fear, the reflections warping, multiplying, and whispering things he couldn’t hear.

“Keep moving,” Cedric hissed to Kevin, though his voice trembled. He tried to focus, tried to think logically, but logic had no place here. Every mirror showed something slightly different—a version of him with bloodied hands, Kevin screaming silently, faces of people who were already dead, staring at him from the glass.

Every step felt like walking on the edge of a knife. The maze was alive. It didn’t just reflect them—it hunted them, feeding off their fear. The louder someone screamed, the faster the walls moved, the closer the mirrors came to closing them in.

Gina ran alongside them, her small frame trembling, clutching Cedric’s arm like a lifeline. “Everything’s… moving! The mirrors… they’re watching!”

“I know,” Cedric said, swallowing hard. His throat burned. “Just… don’t look at them too long. Keep moving.”

He could hear whispers now, faint and sibilant, curling along the mirrored walls. They weren’t voices he recognized—they were echoes of the worst things he’d ever imagined, voices of despair, of betrayal, of pain. His reflection whispered back to him, a mirror image smiling when he wasn’t, blinking too late, as though mocking his fear.

The group stumbled into a junction. Three mirrored tunnels stretched before them. Each looked identical. The middle one pulsed faintly with a soft, bluish glow, unnaturally perfect.

“That’s the exit,” Gina said, voice trembling.

Cedric shook his head. “No. Too obvious.” His mind raced, remembering the way he had designed the labyrinth. The safe path was almost never the one that called attention. The glow was a trap.

Before he could explain, someone stumbled out of the left tunnel—a junior girl named Clara. Her uniform was torn, her eyes wide and frantic.

“Don’t go that way!” she gasped. “It—moves! It—it—”