TOBY
The break was too short. I wanted more time with Moira than I had, but at least I can say we made the most of the brief time we did. Or maybe it only feels brief. Time flies right? Isn't that the saying? All I know is one night I fell asleep, all happy, and snuggling with her, and the next I woke up, upside down mind you, in the middle of a hedge garden complete with creepy animal shapes. A lion's ass is right in front of my face.
“Ugh,” I groan and slowly do the most painful ab crunch in the world as I reach up to undo the knots around my ankles. They're pretty crappily done, so I'm surprised I'm even able to stay tied to the tree thing. I don't know what it is I'm connected to. It's a plant. Maybe one of the animals? All I know is the blood is rushing to my head and it hurts like hell. What I don't realize is that once my ankles are free, there's nothing keeping me stuck to the tree which means guess who fell to their ass and bruised their tailbone? Me.
“That was smart,” I hear a guy mumble from nearby. I look over and see some blond dude I've never met before in my life. Something about him is familiar though. Next to him is an unconscious T, and next to him is Ipod. She's awake, but disoriented.
“Who are you?” I look at the new guy.
“Uh, Cory?” He rolls his blue eyes and shakes his head then T. “Bro, wake up. You okay?”
“Yeah,” T says with a soft groan. “I'm okay. You?”
I stare at Cory? And T, and I see the resemblance, but I can't believe it. “You got your body back!”
I'm thrilled. I like Cory. He's cool people, and now I can talk to him on a regular basis instead of on a schedule. Plus it'll be good to have another body. We were at a disadvantage only having four physical members of the team before. But then I notice someone else is missing.
“Uh, where is Ryan?”
That's when the undeniable voice of Chance Cagney could be heard over a multitude of speakers.
“Hello Team Introversion with a three. It's good to have you back for a second go. Now I'm sure you notice you're not quite at home anymore. Oh, and there's someone new and someone old and someone missing. Now, you have two choices. You can take the smooth, easy path to the exit right in front of you and continue on as if nothing was wrong, or you can find your fifth team member in the maze to your left. Keep in mind though that it is littered with hunters who are eager to taze and torment you. The choice is yours. You have about five seconds to get up before the doors open for the hunters.”
“Well, we can't leave Ryan behind,” I say. As much as I'm torn on if I like her or not. We can't because she's been a part of the team since the beginning. It would be weird without her. Besides, sometimes I do like her. She's not always a whiny bitch.
The others all nod, and I'm glad we're all on the same wavelength. I guess that's why we work well together despite being so different and dysfunctional. We take the left, the doors opening for the hunters to come in right as T staggers out behind everyone else. Kind of worried about the guy because he's not quite with it yet. I mean, I had just woken up and I felt fine enough to run.
There are arrows pointing, in various different directions. And they're different colors too. It takes me a moment to realize that they lead down different paths. Maybe each color is a different trail for us to take? Eenie Meanie Minie Moe has us going down the green one. It takes us deeper into the maze, and that has to be right since Chance said it was going to be long and complicated. Boy was it.
Let's just say there was a pit of some rather gross looking mud that reeks like what I imagine the bog of eternal stench from Labyrinth smells like. Nice touch producers, I gotta say, I'm impressed that was added in. There's a cage around us, I can hear hunters coming in from behind. The mud looks too thick to swim through and too deep to simply walk across. The only option we have is to climb over it via the cage. Fun times right? Cory leads the way. Climbing up and dangling upside down like he's on the monkey bars and crawling across. T is next, and he decides to go about it with just his arms. Guy is a lot stronger than I give him credit for. Ipod looks at me and I motion for her to go first.
“In case something happens. Then I can get you,” I say with a nod. I can feel my body getting ready to start hulking out on me. Not something I look forward to doing ever, but controlling myself was better. And Ipod...she's good at keeping me calm. I know I'd be able to help her no matter what.
She climbs up, going about it in a similar way as Cory. I decide to try out my upper arm strength. Probably a bad idea because I see a laser shoot past me then and down below are a number of hunters.
One actually climbs up the grate after us and I'm more or less amazed at how fast this guy can move. It's not natural. The hunter closes in on me, and in about three seconds he leaps at me, knocking me off the grate and into the muddy pit.
The mud surrounds me. It smells and I gag, taking in the disgusting goo like substance into my mouth. The hunters hands are all over me, I can feel my body start to change, my mind going fuzzy and blank. I'm pretty sure they like to make me freak out just so that I can turn into the monster inside of me. It's great for ratings.
Naturally, several hours later I return to my normal state of mind. Like usual, I can't remember much of anything that I did during my monster mayhem. My eyes open and I'm looking up at a perfect blue sky. A girl is leaning over me, and for a moment I think I see Moira.
“I missed you,” I say quietly. Then I realize it's not her, and I start to miss her even more.
The girl is someone I've never seen before in my life. She's got red hair, one of those baby doll faces, and perky boobs that are popping out of her shirt. The only reason I notice them is because they were passing out of her shirt.
“Aww shucks, you missed me?” A soft southern twang says. “And we haven't even been properly introduced.”
“She's not Ryan,” I say. “What the hell!”
“My name is Reesa, so that's kinda close right?”
“Get off of me,” I mumble.
“She's our new team member. Ryan went home.” Ipod's voice comes into my mind.
I stare at her and shake my head. “Great.”
“We have our next clue,” Cory adds. “And keys to a hotel. Something about a reward being there.”
“Cool, you can catch me up there.” I didn't want to hear about being a monster then. All I wanted to do was get back, log onto my laptop, and make sure Moira was okay. If Ryan got sent home, maybe she got to stay back too?
