RESET

In the stone tower, Chinatsu and Peony were locked in a battle of attrition.

“Reset the labyrinth,” Chinatsu demanded once more.

“But what if I don’t wanna?” Peony crossed their arms. They were decades older than Chinatsu, but acting with the immaturity of a middle schooler.

“What can I do to convince you?” He was not going to back down.

“Nothing,” Peony replied. They weren’t going to back down either.

Before, Peony had seemed eager to prove their god-like powers. Maybe he could goad them into doing it. “Maybe it’s not that you don’t want to. Maybe you just can’t!”

Take the bait…

Peony had been staring off into space, but focused their gaze on Chinatsu once more. They crossed their arms and frowned. He was finally annoying them.

“When I inherited the power to control this place from the creator, I learned how it all works. I know what I can and can’t do,” Peony scoffed.

“And what is that exactly? Please tell me,” Chinatsu urged.

“I can reset the world. I can open the portal. I can sense when people are drawn into the labyrinth and when they die within its walls…” Peony trailed off. There was a spark in their eyes. “Actually, there are people still inside the maze. Do you really want to reset and send them to the beginning? Do you wanna reach the end and just abandon them here? What if they need you?”

Chinatsu clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. In the short time they’d spent together, Peony had him figured out. He pushed Miyabi through the portal because he couldn’t leave her behind in this world, and he would have done the same even if they were still swapped.

“Fine,” Chinatsu said. He sucked air in through his teeth. “I’ll play the game. I’ll save as many people from here as I can. So…reset it. I’ll endure as many times as I need to.”

Peony sighed. They rummaged through their bag for a moment before pulling out and rolling out their map on the floor. Then, retrieving a charcoal stick from their bag, they marked several points on the map.

“All I can give you is a hint. I don’t know what they look like or who they are. For example, this person started here,” Peony explained, pointing at a mark located at an entry point on the map. They dragged their finger to another point further in. “Right now they’re here. They’ll likely take the same path on the reset if they can remember it.”

He understood the intent as Peony rolled up the map once more and handed it to him. Chinatsu quickly gathered up the discarded weapons and bag he and Miyabi had dropped when they’d entered the room.

“Peony,” Chinatsu said as he readied himself for what was about to happen. He wasn’t going to take advantage of Peony or lie to them for his own gain. He wanted nothing but honesty between the two of them. “I promise I’ll set you free too.”

The Elf said nothing. They simply smiled at him with sadness and hope written all over their face. Then Peony clapped once.

Everything went black, and the sensation Chinatsu felt next was like going over the first drop on a tall rollercoaster. When it feels like your organs are moving at a completely different speed than the rest of your body.

When it stopped, the sound of crickets chirping slowly increased like someone turning up a volume dial. He opened his eyes to a view of the cloudless night sky, a full moon, and familiar walls. As he sat up, he realized he was back where everything had started.

Chinatsu got to his feet. There was no time to waste, even if it was dangerous. He’d go as far as he could before exhaustion hit. Maybe if he were lucky, his feet would carry him until dawn.

He moved quietly, unsure of what to expect around the next few corners, given his past experience. Turning familiar corners, he found himself facing a familiar monstrosity–the Minotaur.

Except it was frozen. He slowly moved past it. It felt necessary to sneak even though the creature was completely immobile.

Chinatsu wondered if the monster was intelligent enough to be reasoned with. Shaking his head, he pushed away the thought. There was no way he was going to take his chances on that first thing in the morning.

A cold chill filled the air as he moved past the Minotaur. He remembered all of the bones littering the ground under its feet and knew what it meant. He hurried along.

As Chinatsu began to see his breath, he remembered that light–any light–could keep them at bay, so maybe it would work. He dug through the bag and found Miyabi’s cell phone once more. Chinatsu powered it on as he kept moving, hoping that it still had some battery left in it.

When he turned it on, he was met with a lock screen prompting him for a four-digit passcode.

“Damn it!”

The Wraiths were beginning to materialize in his vision. Their glowing eyes moved silently towards him.

What kind of passcode would someone like her enter? Lucky numbers? He entered all sevens, but it didn’t take. He didn’t have time to sit there and try to guess different combinations of lucky numbers.

Then maybe a birthday? Month and day? He entered Miyabi’s birthday. Wrong again.

“Shit!”

He was starting to feel short of breath. Was this suffocating feeling what Miyabi had experienced the first time they had encountered a Wraith?

As he tried to think of what other combination of numbers the passcode could possibly be, he realized the picture on her lockscreen wasn’t a selfie. It was a picture of the two of them at a festival that she’d sneakily taken under the guise of a selfie.

She was smiling–posing with a candy apple–and there he was in the background, stuffing his face with several different things on sticks. Even faced with death, he couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it.

This girl…

Chinatsu’s fingers hovered over the numbers.

“There’s no way…” he mumbled to himself before plugging in his own birthday.

The phone was unlocked.

As the Wraiths had nearly descended upon him, he turned on the flashlight. Full brightness. They scattered like bugs.

Chinatsu ran onward, following the familiar old path.