Level One

  At first, he thought he’d somehow stumbled into a nuclear missile silo. That was the only reason he could imagine why someone might want to build a maze of tunnels under some forest in the middle of the Cascades. But of course, that didn’t make any sense at all. If this were a military base, why weren’t there locks on the door? Also, the military loves concrete. Any sort of nuclear bunker would be all concrete everything. There definitely wouldn’t be any decoration. And this place was decorated to the tits.

  The walls of the tunnels were made of some light-colored stone that had been cut into neat blocks and stacked together without mortar. The floors were covered with enormous, cream-colored tiles, some of which were painted with animal shapes - a rabbit, a deer, a bull, et cetera. There were no visible light fixtures, yet a pleasant natural light filled the halls, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. In short, it was the exact opposite of every military building Cooper had ever been in.

  He walked to the end of the current tunnel, turning the corner. Whatever lingering doubts he had about this being a military base were gone the moment he saw the room. It looked like a waiting room at a New York art gallery, or maybe the high-roller’s lounge at Caesar’s Palace. It was about 30 feet by 60 and had two rows of thick, red columns running down either side. In the middle was a shallow stone bowl, maybe 5 feet across, in which a water fountain was burbling. The fountain was surrounded by low leather couches that looked like modern art. The floors were made of some highly-polished stone that could have been marble, and the walls were covered with antique-looking murals that all had to do with the sea - dolphins playing, fish leaping, fishermen, things like that - all except for one bare stretch of wall with a weird green symbol carved into it that looked like this:

  Despite all the pain he was in, Cooper couldn’t help gawking like a tourist. He had never seen anything like it in his life. It could almost have been a hallucination, only Cooper had been high before plenty of times and he had still never seen anything quite this wild.

  Once he was done being amazed, Cooper dropped the duffel bag and buried his face in the fountain. He took a long, luxurious drink, washing the dye from his hair and the make-up from his cheek. His head sopping wet now, he collapsed into one of the odd leather couches with a sigh. He was tired, and his fucking ribs hurt. Also, he had a headache and his knee was starting to throb from all the walking. What he really needed right now was a nap. Even ten minutes would do him a world of good. Sure, it was also the stupidest thing he could possibly do under the circumstances, since he had no idea what this place was, or who owned it, or when they were coming back. But still, a guy could dream.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing them. The smart play was to get the hell out of there. He’d be comfortable enough spending the night in the cave. Then as soon as the sun came up, he could go out and look for his lost supplies. The broken rib would complicate things, but it wouldn’t change his plans. He was sure they had decent hospitals in Belize. Any second now, Cooper solemnly swore, he would climb up off the couch and retrace his steps until he found the way out. Maybe not this second, but any second.

  * * *

  When Cooper awoke, the sound was all around him. At first, he thought it was some kind of earthquake, but it was less a rumble than a roar. It was like some combination of a lion’s roar and a man howling in pain, only deeper and much, much louder. The roar seemed to be coming from far away, but also from every direction all at once, and then, just as quickly as it started, it stopped. That turned out to be all the motivation he needed. Cooper dragged himself up painfully from the couch. It was time to go.

  Cooper had always prided himself on his sense of direction, so he hadn’t figured he’d have any trouble finding his way back to the entrance. Yet around the second or third time he had to backtrack from one corridor to another, both of which looked exactly like every other corridor in “the maze” - which was how he had started thinking of this place - Cooper had to admit he was hopelessly lost. Actually, it was even worse than that. People who are lost at least know what they’re looking for. Cooper, meanwhile, didn’t actually remember what the entrance to the maze looked like. He remembered a sparkle at the back of a cave, and he remembered wandering the halls, but in between, nothing. So if he didn’t even recall what the entrance looked like, how would he know when he found it again?

  As he was considering this problem, the light around Cooper dimmed slightly. Instinctively, he threw himself up against the nearest wall, holding his breath. It was good that he did so because a moment later, he heard a gentle clip-clop in the next corridor over. The footsteps traveled up the hall to the intersection he’d just passed through, then stopped. Cooper stayed right where he was, keeping his breath slow and calm until the footsteps moved off again in the same direction. Shortly after the footfalls faded, the lights around him returned to normal.

  Cooper had been tempted, briefly, to poke his head out to get a glimpse of the walker, but he had resisted. Too much chance of him being discovered. Also, something else had distracted him. While Cooper had been huddled up against the wall, mentally tracking the progress of the walker in the next corridor over, he had suddenly caught the unmistakable scent of fresh-baked bread.

  It made no damn sense obviously, but it was hardly the most ridiculous thing that had happened to him today. Also, he was fucking starving. He hadn’t eaten anything since Portland. Not even peanuts on the airplane. And while it seemed like the dumbest, most Hansel-and-Gretel shit he could possibly ever do, following the smell of fresh bread through a fucking maze, where else was he going to go? It’s not like he had the slightest clue which way was out. Cooper leaned against the wall for another minute, weighing the pros and cons, the bread smell working on his stomach the whole time. Eventually, he decided that since the footsteps had gone off in roughly the opposite direction, heading towards the bread was the right move. If he ran into anything hinky, he could always turn around again.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The source of the smell turned out to be another room, even bigger than the first one. The opening was right in the middle of the hallway. On the floor just outside was an enormous tile, raised slightly over the level of the surrounding tiles, which had been painted with an image of a squat little beehive. The room itself was dolled out like some kind of restaurant. There was a planter in one corner with a sad-looking bush in it, but most of the room was full of round, low-topped stone tables like you might find in some cafe downtown where the coffee costs 75 cents. The walls were covered in murals of food - apples, grapes, farmers planting seeds, wheat blowing in the wind, that kind of shit. Cooper completely ignored all that. What interested him were the ovens.

  There were two of them. One was a great black metal pot like a witch’s cauldron that hung over a fire pit suspended by a metal chain. That one was broken, the cauldron part split into three pieces like it had exploded or something. The other was a squat little brick thing that looked just like the beehive painting on the tile outside - which, Cooper now realized, was probably meant to be an oven. The smell was coming from there. It was so strong it was driving him crazy.

  He walked over to the beehive oven and looked inside. It was blazing hot. Stuck to the inside walls of the oven were 20 or 30 little circles of what appeared to be flatbread, like the kind they serve at an Indian restaurant. Cooper had an Indian place he liked to visit back in Vancouver. It wasn’t as good as the ones downtown, but it was cheap enough, and the waitresses were good-looking, and while you waited, they brought you tons and tons of flatbread. The memory of it made his mouth water. In that moment, Cooper made up his mind. He knew it was probably a mistake. He knew it might even get him killed. But he was going to have some of that fucking flatbread.

  The real question was how to get it out of the oven. Cooper looked around for some sort of utensil, like one of those big wooden spatulas they have at pizza places, but there was nothing to be found. He briefly considered just reaching into the oven and peeling the bread off by hand, but it was way too hot. Even wrapping his jacket around his hand wouldn’t be enough. He would burn both the hand and the jacket. He began inspecting the contents of the room, looking for something that could be used to get at the flatbread. Eventually, his eyes fell on the other oven - the broken witch’s cauldron - and specifically on the metal chain that held it over the fire. Cooper was halfway through some cockamamie plan involving that chain and a piece of broken cauldron when suddenly the lights dimmed again, and he was forced to scamper off to the corner to hide.

  The planter turned out to be more than big enough for a man to hide behind. The main thing was he had to lie on his left side to take pressure off his fucked-up rib. Otherwise, the walker would have easily found him simply by following the sound of vigorous cursing. But while the good news was he was able to get comfortable enough to keep quiet, the bad news was the footsteps didn’t pass by this time. Instead, they walked directly into the room and stopped somewhere near the ovens. Then there was a clunk sound, and the sound of someone muttering under their breath. Cooper couldn’t help but think the walker was going through the exact same thing he just had: trying to figure out how to get at the flatbread. As the clunking sounds continued, Cooper decided to risk a look. After all, whoever it was seemed awfully focused on flatbread. He edged over a bit and peeked around the side of the planter with one eye.

  There was no one there. He could still hear the clunking, and the muttering had slowly turned into someone humming some tuneless song, but the space in front of the ovens was completely empty. He poked his head out a little farther, scanning the rest of the room. Despite the noise, there was no one there but him.

  Just then, the clunking and humming stopped. Cooper immediately crept back behind the planter, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Had they spotted him? How could they when there was no “they” to begin with? The room was empty except for him. It occurred to him that maybe there was some sort of hidden loudspeaker somewhere that was producing the clunking and humming noises. That made no sense at all obviously, but it was neither more nor less crazy than everything else that had happened to him since he jumped out of that fucking airplane. Still, Cooper carefully unzipped the duffel bag and put his hand on the grip of .28, just to be safe. In the end, it probably saved his life.

  It’s hard to see a punch coming when the puncher is invisible, so there’s no shame in the fact that the first hit put him on the ground. Before he even had a chance to register what had happened, someone was on top of him, sinking a knee into his ribs. A split second after that, there was some kind of wire around his neck, choking him. Cooper tried to slip a finger between the wire and his neck, but it was too tight. Meanwhile, he heard some kind of cackling sound, and it occurred to him that someone was laughing at him. For whatever reason, that was the last straw. On the verge of blacking out, and with no other option really, Cooper did the only thing he could do, which was to draw the .28 from the duffel bag, point it around his back, and fire.

  The gun popped three times. Immediately, the wire around his neck went slack. He heard shouting in a language he didn’t recognize, then the sound of running feet, then a distant thwunk, after which the room fell silent. Taking deep breaths now to deal with his screaming ribs, Cooper rolled over, pushing the dead weight of his attacker off of him before standing.

  That corner of the bakery had turned into a slaughterhouse. There was blood everywhere - also flatbread everywhere - plus all the nearby tables had been knocked over. In the middle of the mess was the body of the guy who’d jumped him, or at least Cooper assumed that’s who it was. He was smallish, maybe 5’7. He was also wearing sandals and a metal helmet and shirt, plus a weird leather dress that made him look like one of the gladiators in Spartacus. He was young, too. Like 20 or so.

  Cooper’s eyes drifted away from the dead man, landing on a piece of bread near his feet that didn’t have too much blood on it. He bent over painfully, picked it up, and dusted it off. He took a bite. It wasn’t bad.

  * * * * *

  Name: Cooper of Vancouver

  Gender: Male

  Affiliation: None

  Age at Entry: 29

  Current Level: The Labyrinth (1)

  Jing: 5/10

  Qi: 6/9

  Shen: 0

  Status: Injured

  here.