What's out there?
Someone shook Harlow awake.
Her eyes snapped open to see a too-close face staring down at her, everything around them still shadowed by the darkness of early morning.
She opened her mouth to speak but a cold hand clamped down on it, gripping it shut. Panic flared until she saw who it was.
"Shh." Wren hushed her pointing to a sleeping Raiden.
Though Harlow was surprised, any alarm melted away immediately. She couldn't help being curious, wondering what she wanted with her.
Harlow nodded, doing her best to say yes with her eyes, until Wren finally took her hand away, then leaned back on her heels.
Wren waved for her to follow as she stood. She reached down and helped Harlow to her feet—she was so strong it felt like he could rip Harlow's arm off.
Any lingering haze of sleep had already vanished from Harlow's mind. She knew she should hold some suspicion, having no reason to trust anyone yet, but the curiosity won out.
She quickly leaned over and slipped on her shoes and followed Wren out of the shack.
"Were are we going?" Harlow whispered.
"Just follow me. And stay close."
They snuck their way through the tightly strewn huts that were scattered about the homestead, Harlow almost tripping several times.
Once they left the lawn area and stepped onto the hard gray stone of the courtyard floor, Wren broke into a run, heading for the western wall.
Harlow hesitated at first, wondering why she needed to run, but snapped out of it quickly and followed at the same pace.
The light was dim, but any obstructions loomed as darker shadows and she was able to make her way quickly along.
She stopped when Wren did, right next to the massive wall towering above them like a skyscraper woven out of vines so large that looked to be trees—another random image that floated in the murky pool of her memory wipe.
Harlow noticed small red lights flashing here and there along the wall's face, moving about, stopping, turning off and on, weaving in and out of the vines.
"What are those?" she whispered as loudly as dhe dared, wondering if her voice sounded as shaky as she felt. The twinkling red glow of the lights held an undercurrent of warning.
Wren stood just a couple of feet in front of the thick curtain of ivy on the vines. "When you need to know, you'll know."
"Well, it's kind of stupid to send me to a place where nothing makes sense and not answer my questions." Harlow paused, surprised at herself. "Asshole," she added, throwing all the sarcasm she could into the syllable.
Wren broke out in a laugh, but quickly cut it off. "I like you. Now shut it and let me show you something."
Wren stepped forward and dug her hands into the thick ivy, spreading several vines away from the
wall to reveal a dust-frosted window, a square about two feet wide. It was dark at the moment, as if it had been painted black.
"What're we looking for?" Harlow whispered.
"Hold your horses. One'll be coming along soon enough."
A minute passed, then two. Several more.
Harlow fidgeted on her feet, wondering how Wre could stand there, perfectly patient and still, staring into nothing but darkness.
Then it changed.
Glimmers of an eerie light shone through the window; it cast a wavering spectrum of colors on Wren's body and face, as if she stood next to a lighted swimming pool.
Harlow grew perfectly still, squinting, trying to make out what was on the other side. A thick lump grew in her throat.
What is that? she thought.
"Out there's the Maze," Wren whispered, eyes wide as if in a trance. "Everything we do—our whole life—revolves around the Maze. Every second of every day we spend in honor of the Maze, trying to solve something that's not shown us it has a fucking solution, ya know? And we want to show you why it's not to be messed with. Show you why the door shuts every night. Show you why you should never, never find your ass out there."
Had Raiden put her up to this after her omission of wanting to be a Searcher last night?
Wren stepped back, still holding on to the ivy vines. Sbe gestured for Harlow to take her place and look through the window.
Harlow did, leaning forward until her nose touched the cool surface of the glass.
It took a second for her eyes to focus on the moving object on the other side, to look past the grime and dust and see what Wren wanted her to see. And when dhe did, she felt her breath catch in her throat, like an icy wind had blown down there and frozen the air solid.
A large, bulbous creature the size of a cow but with no distinct shape twisted and seethed along the ground in the corridor outside.
It climbed the opposite wall, then leaped at the thick-glassed window with a loud thump.
Harlow shrieked before she could stop herself, jerked away from the window—but the thing bounced backward, leaving the glass undamaged.
Harlow sucked in two huge breaths and leaned in once again. It was too dark to make out clearly, but odd lights flashed from an unknown source, revealing blurs of silver spikes and glistening flesh. Wicked instrument-tipped appendages protruded from its body like arms: a saw blade, a set of shears, long rods whose purpose could only be guessed.
The creature was a horrific mix of animal and machine, and seemed to realize it was being observed, seemed to know what lay inside the walls of the Dome, seemed to want to get inside and feast on human flesh.
Harlow felt an icy terror blossom in her chest, expand like a tumor, making it hard to breathe. Even with the memory wipe, she felt sure she'd never seen something so truly awful.
She stepped back, the courage she'd felt the previous evening melting away.
"What is that thing?" she asked. Something shivered in her gut, and zhe wondered if she'd ever be able to eat again.
"Seethers," Wren answered. "Nasty fuckers, huh? Just be glad the Seethers only come out at night. Be thankful for these walls."
Harlow swallowed, wondering how she could ever go out there. Her desire to become a Searcher had taken a major blow. But she had to do it. Somehow she knew she had to do it. It was such an odd thing to feel, especially after what she'd just seen.
Wren looked at the window absently. "Now you know what lurks in the Maze, my friend.
Now you know this isn't joke time. You've been sent to the Dome, and we'll be expecting you to survive and help us do what we've been sent here to do."
"And what's that?" Harlow asked, even though she was terrified to hear the answer.
Wren turned to look her dead in the eye.
The first traces of dawn had crept up on them, and Thomas could see every detail of Wren's face, her skin tight, her brow creased.
"Find our way out," Wre said. "Solve the fucking' Maze and find our way home."
A couple of hours later, the doors having reopened, rumbling and grumbling and shaking the ground until they were finished, Harlow sat at a worn, tilted picnic table outside the Homestead. All she could think about was the Seethers, what their purpose could be, what they did out there during the night. What it would be like to be attacked by something so terrible.
She tried to get the image out of her head, move on to something else.
The Searchers.
They'd just left without saying a word to anybody, bolting into the Maze at full speed and disappearing around bend.
She pictured them in her mind as she picked at her eggs and bacon with a fork, speaking to no one, not even Clint, who ate silently next to her.
The poor guy had exhausted himself trying to start a conversation with Harlow, who'd refused to respond. All she wanted was to be left alone.
She just didn't get it; her brain was on overload trying to compute the sheer impossibility of the situation.
How could a maze, with walls so massive and tall, be so big that dozens of people hadn't been able to solve it after who knew how long trying?
How could such a structure exist?
And more importantly, why? What could possibly be the purpose of such a thing? Why were they all there? How long had they been there?
Try as she might to avoid it, her mind still kept wandering back to the image of the vicious Seether. Its phantom brother seemed to leap at her every time she blinked or rubbed her eyes.
Harlow knew she was a smart woman—she somehow felt it in her bones. But nothing about this place made any sense.
Except for one thing.
She was supposed to be a Searcher. Why did she feel that so strongly? And even now, after seeing what lived in the maze?
A tap on her shoulder jarred her from her thoughts; she looked up to see Raiden standing behind her, arms folded.
"Get a nice view out the window this morning?"
Harlow stood, hoping the time for answers had come—or maybe hoping for a distraction from her gloomy thoughts.
"Enough to make me want to learn about this place," she said, hoping to avoid provoking the temper she knew deep down that he had.
Raiden nodded. "Me and you. The Tour begins now." He started to move but then stopped, holding up a finger. "No questions till the end, you get me?"
"But …" Harlow stopped when Raiden's eyebrows shot up. Why did the guy have to be such a jerk?
"But tell me everything—I wanna know everything."
She'd decided the night before not to tell anyone else how strangely familiar the place seemed, the odd feeling that she'd been there before— that she could remember things about it.
Sharing that seemed like a very bad idea.
"I'll tell yoi what I wanna tell you. Let's go."
"Can I come?" Clint asked from the table.
Raiden reached down and ruffled the boy'shair.
"Stop it!" Clint shrieked.
"Don't you got a job to get to?" Raiden asked.
Clint rolled his eyes, then looked at Harlow.
"Have fun."
"I'll try."
She walked away with Raiden, hoping the Tour had officially begun.