Lizz's crimson eyes twitched slightly from the side, her cheeks still puffed from the gum she had been chewing without care.
"Right... Now I get it." she finally said, exhaling with a flick of her lips and a soft crackle from the gum she blew. She tilted her head to the side, the twin buns of her blonde hair bouncing lightly as she walked a small circle, her fingers twirling the edge of her shirt casually.
"We were never just a few steps away from the safe zone." She grinned. "We were already in it. But you said that to trick the evolved Maze Crawler... to keep it from realizing it. That line about the distance? That was your bait. A little word puzzle to buy time until the grenades did the work..."
Her red eyes sparkled, wide with admiration, and maybe a bit of glee. She nodded again to herself, arms folded confidently as if solving a riddle gave her power.
But when she didn't get a reply, no praise, no nod, no soft chuckle... she paused.
Slowly, she looked ahead.
Tess was watching her.
And so was Berk.
Both girls were silent.
Tess's expression was unreadable, calm as always, like a painting from a forgotten era. And Berk... Berk's dull green eyes were glassy, emotionless, and locked directly onto Lizz with such intensity it felt like being dissected on the spot.
Lizz blinked once, then twice.
"Hey, hey, hey!" she said, backing up half a step and lifting her hands, palms out in mock surrender. Her grin returned, playful and proud. "Don't devour me with your eyes, alright? I'm on your side! You both do know I wouldn't survive this long if I wasn't smart!"
She tossed her hair with a light jerk of her head, raising her chin as a self-satisfied hmph left her lips.
For a second, nothing.
Until... tess smiled.
It was soft, brief.
But it was real.
Her eyes softened, and her shoulders loosened just slightly, like a string being unwound inside her chest.
"Yes," Tess said, her voice calm, but no longer cold. "You're right."
Her gaze swept between them, lingering on Berk's unmoving figure before returning to Lizz.
"You both are right about that."
But even as she spoke those words aloud, her mind was drifting elsewhere... slipping behind her own eyes.
A shadow passed across her expression. Her lips pressed together faintly.
Jordan.
Her brother.
Her eldest sibling, the eldest of her triplet siblings.. eldest not just by minutes, but by heart.
If not for him...
Her chest ached.
She remembered him sitting cross-legged in his room, screen lit in the darkness, fingers moving with practiced speed across his phone. He had played the tutorial more times than he could count. At first, because he was bored.
But later on, something began to happen as he played it..
He had to call her.
His voice, frustrated but curious.
"There's something weird," he had said. "A lag. Something's not responding properly during the second test... at the start."
He thought it was a bug.
But it wasn't.
It was a secret mission. One hidden behind layers of repetition, of failure. One that only triggered when the tutorial dragged on longer than intended, triggering the evolved Maze Crawler.
Again and again, he'd tried. Failing. Dying. Restarting.
But eventually, he found it. A key... a hidden item buried deep in the maze. It didn't look like much, but when he used it, it pulled him into a small, hidden room, the safe zone.
There, the weapons manifested. Not traditional ones.. strange tools, raw and unstable. Capable of harming the evolved Crawler.
But they came with a warning.
If used poorly... the creature adapts.
That was what made it worse.
That was what made it nearly unbeatable.
Tess... Nyx, back then, had watched him fall. Again. And again. But also, she had learned. Every retry, every misstep, every wrong tactic. She had memorized it all.
So in this life, in this world...
She'd chosen it as her last resort.
The grenades, though, they weren't part of the plan. Not exactly.
Those had been hers.
Her final gamble.
If they couldn't reach the safe zone or activate it...
Then maybe, just maybe, a big enough disruption would force it to activate.
And it did.
[Weapon Inventory Activating....]
The mechanical voice rang across the room like a bell.
Bright light pulsed from the floor in three perfect rings, spinning outward in intricate geometric patterns that crawled across the ground. The cold metal walls reflected the glow, making it feel like the room itself had come alive.
Weapons began to materialize.
Not all at once. Slowly. As if the system was thinking, deciding what each of them needed.
A hum filled the air... like electricity singing through wire.
Tess stepped forward first. Her steps echoing through the silent chamber with each movements. Her orange eyes narrowed slightly as she stared down at the glowing panel beneath her feet.
Then she turned her head slightly, looking at the other two.
Berk,
And Lizz, who still had that wide grin on her face, though her eyes now flickered with something quieter beneath the surface.
Tess exhaled slowly, then opened her mouth.
Her voice was calm, but it carried purpose. A small smirk rose to her lips.
"We're about to re-equip." Her eyes gleamed like sunlight slipping through autumn haze.
"After that... we plan how we're going to hunt that thing."
"And finally... complete this test, once and for all..."