“Oh, a maze!” Lady noticed the sign and hurried for the entrance without a second thought. “Last one out buys beer for a month!”

“Shit, the opossum and I are in on that bet.” Kendrick walked past him and disappeared into the shadows after Lady.

Zane lingered, watching his friends walk into the shadows that consumed them.

Uneasiness and restlessness picked at the back of his head in constant neediness for attention, and he glanced over to catch the game vendor staring in his direction.

Those painted eyes faced him, a dart twirling in between agile fingers with his shoulders leaning against the worn wood. Zane’s eyes narrowed into a glare his friends poked fun at, a look that often gave people the impression he was someone dangerous—someone looking to hurt people, and seeking satisfaction from the man who ruled the city’s underworld.

The grinning vendor’s attention waned when a group of girls rushed over to his booth, and Zane looked back to the entrance.

Shadows called. They whispered and beckoned him forth until he gave into the voices, and finally followed his friends into the darkness.

Despite the eerie red glow of fairy lights haunting each path, the forest felt darker.

People wandered like lost children. He heard laughter, screams of playful fear, and desperate voices calling out to their friends in hopes they weren’t left behind.

Zane couldn’t tell if Lady or Kendrick were near, but when Lady screamed up ahead and hollered Kendrick’s name in malice, it was dead giveaway Kendrick seized an opportunity to jump scare him.

"Fuck you and that god damn opossum, Kendrick!"

"Suck marsupial dick!"

He snickered at their immature bickering and trailed after their muted voices.

Though, it was strange.

They wandered around this park many times before, hanging out on curved paths and getting lost in between the trees. But, since when had the trees of the park become so dense? Why did the ground feel so hollow?

Zane brushed his fingers against low branches, touching the points that reached down like claws threatening to grab him, and felt threads of spider’s silk on his skin until movements of wind gave life to a scratching, shifting noise from above—the sound of crawling.

Another noise stopped him, the cry of someone in the distance.

The stirring of insect wings.

He turned, half-expecting to see glimpses of strangers running through the woods and down dirt paths like fey, but everyone was gone.

And Zane was alone

“Lady? Kendrick?” His voice was an echo among the silence—a sound swallowed by trees that’d stopped moving.

Glancing around, Zane walked further down the path he chose and shivered when invisible spiders crawled up his back.

Then, movement in the bushes.

Kendrick. It was Kendrick trying to scare him too.

Somewhere, a twig snapped.

Zane exhaled and turned. “Nice try, Ken, but I’m not—”

Pain struck his face in the form of something hard, and Zane dropped to the ground.

For several heartbeats, sounds and movements stopped.

Everything was still and dark, a pool of shadows morphing into the blurry shapes of dancing fairy lights falling from clawed branches. Zane saw demons, shadowy figures with thin wings laughing beyond the void of unconsciousness, and he tasted blood, lots of it.

Elsewhere, in the back of his mind, the hour hand of an old clock struck, and the world started moving again.

Zane sounded in pain when he shifted, rolling over and watching red droplets fell into a small pool of blood under him. With his face against the ground, he stared at the forest floor, and watched the dirt lift.

He looked up and saw Cooper standing in front of him with a branch gripped tightly and a grin stretched across his face that didn’t seem human, but belonged to something unreasonable, something hungry for vengeance in the cruelest way possible.

The trees moved, and one by one, his friends stepped out onto the path.

And Cooper struck Zane again.

The branch slammed over his back and shoulders repeatedly until a sharp whimper escaped him.

“That’s right, bitch, cry for me.” Cooper’s voice spoke through the clouds of dizziness and spinning wilderness. “Beg for forgiveness.”

One of the wolves kicked Zane in the gut, and he inhaled to save what little air remained in his lungs. Someone struck him in the head, and again in the side. And again. And again.

They laughed. And he tasted blood.

A muffled noise of pain and irritation escaped his sore mouth with one of them yanked his head back with a handful of hair, exposing his bloodied and beat face to a camera. Their laughter reached the point of tears.

Cooper crouched before Zane—his eyes too wide and his grin too long, or was it an hallucination?

“Go on, beg,” He said, grabbing Zane’s sore face and shaking it mockingly. “Ask me nicely, and I’ll let you keep all your teeth.”

Zane’s narrowed eyes, clouded by dizziness and shadowed by bruises, stared at Cooper for a few silent seconds before spitting blood and saliva at his feet.

Expressionless, Cooper looked down at his shoes and tightened his grip, squeezing Zane's face and pressing on tender spots until he hissed in misery.

“Fine.” Cooper stood and stepped back, his fingers undoing the latches of his belt. “Stand him up, tie his hands to that branch over there.”

Two of his friends exchanged a look.

All three hesitated.

“Hey, come on,” One of them said, his voice teetering between normalcy and uncertainty. “Isn’t this going…a bit far?”

"Y-Yeah, man," Another spoke up. "We already—"

“Tie. Him. Up.”

The tone of Cooper’s voice was off like he was struggling to remain sane, and his friends knew it. In between minutes, Cooper's fingers or head would twitch, he'd shiver and jolt with a sudden burst of movement that didn't seem right.

But, like sheep, they obeyed him out of fear.

The strongest of them grabbed Zane under the arms, sending pain in waves through his body, and by reflex, he jerked away. Using the last of gathered energy, he elbowed the guy but received a punch to the face in return, and Zane fell back into the arms of whoever stood behind him.

Cooper was snickering, and in a tunnel of aches and stretches of darkness devouring the forest, Zane heard strange voices entangled in those small bits of laughter.

Like a pig ready for slaughter, Zane’s arms were lifted and strapped to a branch hanging low enough to reach, but high enough to lift him onto his toes. And he hung there, broken and bleeding, trying to keep his eyes in focus past blotches of shadows and dots of light, and attempting to find his voice buried under painful panting.

He needed to call out.

He needed help.

But there was no one.

A few blinks brought his vision into an uneven focus just as Cooper approached him with a wide grin, twitching fingers tugging at his shirt and unbuttoning several starting at the top. The shadows of the forest sank his features into dark webs of cruel amusement and ill intentions that would make anyone tremble with disgust.

He moved behind Zane, clammy hands soaked with sweat slid against his face and neck, slipping under his shirt and pinching his skin. The man breathed heavily onto the back of Zane’s neck, releasing the smell of crushed fireflies, and laughing when a dry groan of disgust escaped bloody lips.

“There’s only one way to make a bitch submit,” With sharp and sudden force, Cooper ripped open Zane’s shirt and held him close to loosen his pants

Anxiety rose, threatening to come out as either sickness or rage, or both. Violence and fear clouded Zane’s mind, and he shifted, desperately trying to jerk away from this fucking psycho. “N-no! Stop! Get…the fuck off of me!”

“Fight me more,” Cooper laughed, but his friends stood quietly, watching as the crowd earlier when they bullied that kid. “It’s only fun if you’re afraid.”

A sudden scream joined Cooper’s laughter but turned into a distant glimmer of sound before anyone could focus on it.

Everyone went quiet.

Cooper stood, unmoving and staring over Zane’s shoulder at his two remaining friends.

His lip quivered.

And he spoke.

“Where’s Sam?”