The Clockwork Maze 2:A lurid explanation

I pushed open the door and took a step before leaping backwards at what I saw. A body lay decapitated right in front of me. Whilst the head was nowhere to be seen, the body wore a lab coat. Beneath the lab coat, the person was very well dressed in a suit with buckled shoes and a bow tie. The puddle of blood around the body had dried long ago and the smell that hung in the air stuck to ones lungs  and remained there for ages. I was frozen to the spot, gaping in horror at the gruesome sight before me. Never before had I seen a human carcass with my own eyes, let alone a victim of decapitation.

    The door behind me swung shut, waking me from my transfixed state. I turned to see a white door and only now did I notice that I was in a white corridor that travelled as far as I could see in either direction. Periodically there would be a white door just like the one I had just emerged from. The second thing that I noticed was that as well as having a handle at the usual hight, each door had a handle at a hight accessible to me. I got a fright when a large green arrow appeared on the smooth white floor, it pointed to my left and as I looked in that direction, I saw another arrow light up in the distance. I decided to ignore the arrows for the time being and go back into my room. I turned the handle but was shocked by what I saw.

    My room was no longer there, in its place, there was a small room with many doors inside, there were two in each wall and the number twenty two was carefully printed on the ceiling and floor. Upon each door there was a rectangular indentation but no handle. Confused, I walked back into the corridor and decided to follow the arrows. I followed them for what seemed to be hours until I finally reached the end of the corridor. On the wall there was a large screen. Just in front of the screen I spotted a platform that was flashing green.

    As I stood on the platform, the screen burst into life. A white haired man appeared on the screen and addressed me "Tiny?" the man checked his watch "your rather late what took you so long?" he said with a grin. I was about to respond when he continued "but of course you can't talk. No doubt your one of the dim witted ones that can't even follow arrows. You have chosen or been chosen to take part in an experiment. Now..." he shuffled through a number of papers before a look of satisfaction crossed his face and he selected one of the papers. After reading it, he looked up "You were converted using an oddity cog, were you not?" he held up a sheet of paper with a detailed picture of the bizarre circular device and two panels lit up on the wall in front of him beneath the screen. One panel had a green tick on it and the other had a red cross on its surface. I raised my arm, being careful to make the action look feline, and pressed down on the first of the two.

    The man grinned "Perhaps not as dim witted as I first thought, half of them couldn't even tell which one meant yes and which one meant no. Anyway, this entire place is a test, a place designed to test your abilities as a modified feline..." a different panel appeared in front of me, this one contained a question mark. "sufficed to say that you won't reach the end. It gets extremely difficult before the end and most humans can't do it." he chuckled. I was beginning to get frustrated with the man. "This test will involve making your way through a large number of rooms and corridors that will seem increasingly like a labyrinth and somewhere in that labyrinth, you will die and your carcass shall serve as a warning for the next participants. Have fun!" the screen suddenly went black and the panel vanished.

    I was severely disheartened by this depressing and incomplete explanation and I felt a very odd sensation as my pointed ears dropped down against my head. I knew that cats ears changed position depending on their mood but had never known that it would feel so weird. There was an odd noise that came from the wall. I turned to face it apprehensively as the screen sank into the floor and the wall separated into nine squares. The lights above me flickered and died. I began to run in the opposite direction from the strange wall as the nine squares began to move of their own accord, hurtling toward me at twice the speed I was running. I made a snap decision, tearing the door open to my right and diving through.



                                                                                      ***



(From the viewpoint of Tom Jeffrey)

    I woke up on a metal table in a sterile white room. I had absolutely no recollection of how I got here, all I could remember was winning some sort of contest and... flashing lights. I sat up and looked at myself, I would have looked like a dragon were it not for the coat of white fur that surrounded my body. I looked to my right and saw leather briefcase  with a metal panel on it. Above the panel, his name had been scribbled in permanent marker and beneath the panel there were three liquid crystal panels which displayed the names: Lucy, Jason and Tiny and above these names were three separate pads of green gel.

    I stood up, holding the briefcase, and looked around me. The room had two identical doors, one in front of the metal table and one behind it. To the right of the table was a large screen with a platform in front. The platform was flashing green and a large green arrow illuminated the floor pointing directly toward the screen. I strode toward the screen and stood on the platform which in turn activated the screen.

    The screen showed a young, brown haired man in a lab coat.

"Greetings Tom." he said with a warm smile.

"Where the hell am I?" I yelled at the screen.

"Oh! Hang on!" the man on the screen appeared to be at a computer terminal as his fingers moved swiftly off screen and I could hear the clickety clack sound of typing on a keyboard. Suddenly a section off the wall beneath the wall unfolded to reveal a microphone panel. The man on the screen looked up again "Now, if you could please repeat what you just said?" he said with a smile. "Where...the hell...am... I" I said slowly in a patronising manner.

"Your in a testing facility, Tom. You see, you volunteered to be modified and take part in this test.".

"So what is this test!?" I practically yelled at the man.

"Well you are to go through this place, solving the puzzles, escaping the threats but the worst thing about it is that this entire place is like a maze. You're not on your own by the way, there are many others taking part but not many of them still have a human mental capacity like you, you should consider yourself lucky." he said in a matter of fact sort of voice.

"Well... what's with the briefcase?" I asked curiously.

"Contained within that briefcase is something vital to your continued existence within the testing area?" he replied as if quoting from a book.

"How?" I asked nervously.

"You have to find the three people listed on the panel and get their hand or paw print in the gel, once you get all three prints, the case will open. However if one of the people die, their name will be replaced by another name randomly...OH! Speaking of which!" he pointed to the briefcase which I had placed by myself as the name, Jason, began to fade. The man on the screen looked at what I suspected was another monitor. He cringed as the name faded completely "That was a bad one." he said in a pained tone of voice. The name, Emily, appeared in its place.

    Suddenly, a dull noise emanated from the door.

"What was that!?" I cried.

"I'm not quite sure." he said in a rather puzzled voice. The sound was getting closer and closer and from what I'd learned, I didn't think it was good.

    The door abruptly burst open and a small black cat tumbled through. Before the door closed, I saw three square tiles speed by. "Ahhhhh Tiny" said the man on the screen. The cat looked up, its body seemed strange to me as it looked a little more human than a normal cat and this was only proven when its face contorted with rage

"MY NAME IS ROBERT!!!" it (or judging from the voice HE) screamed angrily at the man who, in response, gasped and appeared to press a button which triggered an alarm. The sterile white light coming from the walls and ceiling became flashing red and the doors sealed themselves. I looked back down at the cat to see him holding his paws over his mouth, his eyes wide with fear as the name, Tiny, on the case faded into the name, Robert.





           



                                                      To Be Continued