Rowan’s body urged him forward as he fought for control of his faculties. Regaining bodily autonomy wasn’t easy, so he’d start small by coaxing his eyes open. He relaxed the tension in his face, his eyes fluttering open in time to see the wall he was heading toward. Any further hesitation and Rowan would’ve tested the durability of the labyrinth firsthand. He abruptly halted his momentum, stumbling and catching himself before falling over. He could feel the unruly sea that was his chest rocking back and forth, his lungs struggling for air not unlike when the nameless one had him by the throat. His knees throbbed as they met the ground, his hands trying to stabilize him amidst the threat of total collapse.

  The offscape, the nameless one, the small child, the prisoners, Mogrim, the labyrinth, the beast, his stomach: it was all too much to focus on. Rowan’s body demanded he turn his attention to the last thought, it seemed. Rowan dug his fingers into the rocky terrain as his stomach gurgled angrily, searching for something to expel: it had been too long since his last meal. The yellowish vomitus creating a small pool between his hands was a firm reminder that Rowan was working off an unsated appetite. His vision was blurry at times, his hands were sticky with sweat, and his stomach was officially trying to kill him from the inside—the concept of time was difficult to hold onto in the offscape, but Rowan took his symptoms to mean he’d be okay if he just had a meal.

  Not that eating was something Rowan was even sure he could do at the moment. The image of that creature was burned into his mind, disassembling that man like a toddler with mashed meal. His hand was so pendulous when Rowan finally had it in his grasp, like he’d already given up. Rowan didn’t even look him in the eye back there, the fear of seeing the man’s surrender repelled Rowan’s gaze. And then, there was that sound—

  “Hey,”

  Rowan heard a voice, looked around for its origin, and saw the little girl from before.

  “Oh. It’s you,” Rowan said. His heart drummed rapidly in his chest as he looked at the girl’s matter-of-fact face.

  “You’ll die if you stay there, you know,” she responded flatly.

  Rowan perked up at her words, goosebumps spreading over his flesh as a familiar groan came from behind him. Through shuddered breath, Rowan looked over his shoulder at the sight of the creature in the distance. It was too far away to know for certain, but Rowan couldn’t mistake the wail thrumming along his ears.

  “No. No, no, no,” Rowan repeated, shaking and sobbing on all fours.

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  “This way, this way.”

  The small child hummed colorlessly, gesturing with her hands for Rowan to crawl over to her. The absurdity of the situation collided with his fear and Rowan simply let it carry him along. He crawled, slowly at first, toward the child calling to him like one might a small animal. The ground rumbled as the beast roared out, drawing Rowan’s attention over his shoulder and back to it again. The noise sounded like someone took the glee of an infant finding a new toy and dipped it in tar and oil. The image in the distance bounced, increasing in size as the shaking of the ground grew stronger. The creature reminded Rowan of the clew of worms on the surface, every arm of the beast’s ‘legs’ competed independent of each other to reach their target first. As a result, instead of galloping like a typical quadruped would, the movement on display was more like an endless repetition of stumbles. The beast bounded forward, careening into every wall along the way. Rowan hastened his crawl, following the child into a dark crevice. No sooner that he reached the child, a gust of wind filled the fissure they were in, the beast crashing into the wall past the pair. Rowan trembled as the small child pet his head, the wave of pity washing over him.

  “Good boy,” she said with her signature dull tone.

  Rowan felt a tinge of embarrassment as he smacked her hand away. Even he could only take so much patronization before he had to respond. Rowan’s mouth opened to speak his piece, but words never did quite reach her as the light from the corridor behind him was blotted by darkness. Rowan turned and saw small arms reaching for him. He yelped in a panic, falling on his backside, and kicked at the ground, backpedaling away from the claws’ reach. The monstrosity was massive, so much so that it’d never reach Rowan in the crevice—he screamed just the same. The child tugged on the back of his collar, pantomiming dragging Rowan along the ground.

  “This way, this way,” she repeated.

  The crack they were crawling through—well, Rowan was crawling, the child was short enough that she was practically walking upright—bled more light in the direction they moved toward. Rowan estimated this wasn’t actually part of the maze and was instead a result of the creature’s careless ricocheting off the walls.

  “What are we doing?” Rowan asked. He hated how feeble his tone sounded to himself. He knew desperately needed to shake off the fear still nipping at his heels, but there was no give.

  “Crossing the street.”

  Her response was brief, though whether it was due to a lack of vocabulary or interest, Rowan couldn’t say. He gave up inquiring further and instead shifted his focus to other curiosities.

  “What’s your name?”

  His question was met with silence.

  “Are you from around here?”

  More silence. Rowan racked his brain trying to come up with a question she might actually answer when she spoke once again.

  “We’re all shembals, now.”

  Rowan’s nose twitched in annoyance at her words. Because they weren’t her words: they were Mogrim’s. She must have been here for quite some time to echo his crude sentiment so easily.

  “I’m no shembal. And neither are you.”

  The girl paused at Rowan’s rejection of the grim philosophy, her eyes searching for the source of the light in his. She shook her head of the nonsense as a noise drew her attention beyond the crevice. She placed her index finger to her lips, signaling to Rowan as a shadow stepped past the crack in the wall.

  The child exhaled in relief until an arm plucked her from the dark refuge.

  “No,” Rowan screamed out, reaching out to grab her hand.

  He missed it.