In the morning, they headed out on the first leg of their journey. Ation equipped them with some food and spears, and gave Baston a large knife. One of the women had also made them blankets out of torn rags and leaves. It was woven together beautifully. Baston thanked her and took them, passing them out. He was the only one with a bag, so a little boy had brought Cherie one he’d found. Where he’d found it they weren’t sure, but she took it graciously.

“Thank you. I won’t forget how nice your tribe was to us.” The whole town was out watching them leave. Baston wondered for a minute if they could simply stay with them instead of going on the dangerous journey, but he already missed Sarta. He knew at first it would be okay, but then he would miss the things he’d grown used to, having lived near a town.

“Good luck. We wish you the best,” Ation said, smiling. The others wished them well in their language – at least he thought that’s what they were doing.

“Couldn’t we just go around the obstacles?” Cherie asked Ation as she stepped up to tell him goodbye. She hugged him and Baston thought that was a strange thing to do. It must be an Earth thing, he thought. He felt stupid that he hadn’t thought of going around the obstacles himself.

“No, my child. The obstacles span the entire planet. We don’t have any way to rise above them.”

“So, all we had to do was land on the other side of the planet and there would have been no stupid journey?” Cherie asked.

“Yes,” Ation answered.

“Great,” Cherie said. “That’s just our luck.”

Baston couldn’t help but agree with her. They headed out of the safety of the mountain community and into the unknown. Their first task consisted of navigating a maze of rock that stretched the entirety of the planet. The explanation Ation had given was that Adna had once been a training ground for the soldiers during the war between Jupiter and the interlopers where everyone took sides. They’d studied it in school and knew it was a massive battle that lasted for years.

The training facilities were still left behind. They entered the maze with their spears in hand. Baston had his large knife out in front of him. The rock walls stretched at least nine feet high, and the narrow path fit only one of them at a time. They moved forward cautiously, increasingly wary of their surroundings. Ation had said the maze could be tricky, and in such small quarters, running into an adversary would prove a difficult fight.

As they made their way inside, he noticed the wall wasn’t a uniform height. The rocks were stacked in different heights and some were much taller than nine feet. He wondered what would happen if they tried to climb the wall. Would they end up on the other side and find a way out? It couldn’t be that simple.

“Give me a boost,” he said to Sca, and jumped up on his friend’s hands. He made it to the top and looked over to see nothing but darkness. It was like a void on the other side of the wall, and seemed like they would fall through space forever if they tried to scale it.

“What do you see?” Cherie asked.

“Not the way out, that’s for sure,” Baston answered with a sigh.

Once they’d been walking for around five minutes, the wall started to vibrate around them. Looking up to make sure they weren’t coming down on them, Baston didn’t see the first obstacle. His legs sunk quickly into the sand, and he couldn’t help but struggle, which only sent him deeper. The quicksand stretched in front of them longer than they could possibly jump.

“Stop moving, Baston. It will only take you deeper.”

Sca moved forward and held the blunt end of his spear out for Baston to grab a hold of. He pulled him out with a lot of effort, grunting as he lifted him out of the sand and onto the maze floor in front of him.

“We’ll have to get across somehow,” Sca said, looking at the sand.

“The spears,” Baston replied, out of breath. “The spears can be attached together, and we’ll crawl over the quicksand one at a time. Don’t be like me, everyone keep your eyes open from now on.”

They tied their spears together with some rope Baston had in his bag.

“Cherie, go first,” Baston said.

“No way. I weigh less than you two, we need to see if it’s going to hold. You go first.”

Sca pushed past her and bent down, pushing on the spears. They were just long enough to reach the other side of the sand. One slip and he would be in trouble.

He inched his way onto the spear and nodded, finding that it held him. The wood the spears were crafted from was sturdy, and soon they’d all made it across and each taken their weapon back.

“Okay, let’s go.”

The walls didn’t vibrate again, but the long, loud cry of something large came towards them. They looked at each other, not sure what kind of animal had made it. Soon they were shown what they were up against, and they wished they hadn’t known.

A large cat-like creature with two heads ran at them, the maze opening to accommodate its large size and closing back behind it. The ground shook beneath its large paws.

“Steady yourself,” Baston said, as one of the large black heads opened its mouth and spit fire. Baston hit the ground, but Cherie screeched as the fire burned her. Sca pulled her towards him before the flames engulfed her.

“Shit!” she yelled and moved forward, stabbing the cat in the leg. It reached up one large paw and effortlessly batted her into the rock wall.

Sca yelled, running at it with his spear and stabbing it in the cheek. The cat pounced on him and picked him up with its mouth. His shirt caught on one massive jagged tooth.

“Sca!” Baston yelled, running at the cat and sliding beneath it. He caught hold of its tail and climbed up onto its back. Without thinking, he grabbed the back of its neck below the two heads and pulled the skin there. The massive cat went to its belly and lay still.

“What the hell?” Sca said. “Did you hypnotize it?”

“Who knew?” Baston breathed, amazed. “They’re just like house cats.”

The cat licked its leg where Cherie had stabbed it with the spear. Smoke came out of its mouth. It didn’t seem to be in attack mode anymore.

“Well, almost like a house cat. Come on, I think you can get around it easily now.” He continued to hold onto the massive creature while they made their way around it. It didn’t move to go after them. He slowly let go of its neck and slid off its back to the ground. They moved forward in the maze once more, ready for the next obstacle.

“Is it bad?” He looked behind him at Cherie’s burn, trying to see where it got her.

“No, it’s not that bad. What’s next?”

“I’m not sure. The way the walls moved for the cat, I wonder if they move somehow to let people out.”

“It doesn’t seem like they would design it to be that easy,” Sca said.

“I know, but maybe it’s not easy. Maybe you have to find a door or a lever or something,” Baston said, thinking out loud. As he said this, the walls rumbled again and the large rocks started to fly at them.

“Run!” Cherie yelled as a large rock flew past her head.

They broke into a sprint, the rocks continuing to pelt them in a variety of sizes.

Sca cried out in pain as a rock hit him and sent him tumbling to the ground. Baston circled back and helped him up as Cherie ran ahead. The rocks kept coming as Baston deflected some with his spear. He held Sca up with one arm as they moved forward in the maze. After what seemed like an eternity, the rocks stopped coming at them and they stopped for a rest.

“Let me see,” Cherie said as she climbed over Baston to get to Sca, and carefully straightened his leg out as much as the path would allow. “It’s just a gash, not too deep.”

She took a bottle of water from her bag and poured some over it, causing Sca to hiss. She turned and ripped Baston’s pants to form a bandage.

She ignored his protests and went about tying the strip of cloth around Sca’s leg.

“Thank you,” he said, looking into her eyes. The two stared at each other for a minute before she stood up and extended her hand out to help him up.

“Don’t sweat it.” She moved forward, then added, “I might need you to save my life before this is over.”

“We’ve got to get out of this stupid maze.” Baston felt the walls in an attempt to determine whether there was a pattern in the way the stones had flown out. There didn’t appear to be one. He thought back to things he’d read about mazes and the different ways you could trick one. He started looking for interesting marks or distinctions in the wall that might be concealing a door or opening.

They walked for a while, reaching dead end after dead end. It was hot on the planet and each of them was growing weary. The suns blazed down on them and Baston felt the tops of his arms burning. Having a job where he worked mostly at night meant he wasn’t exposed to the sun as much. He wondered if Sca was being burnt as well.

They came to another dead end and Cherie threw her hands up, leaning against the wall. Baston noticed vines in a rectangular pattern on the rock and pressed at it with his hands. To his surprise, it moved. When he opened it, he saw that it concealed a deep, dark hole. Sca grabbed the back of his pants to keep him steady.

“Holy shit, what the hell?” Cherie was taken aback and peered down the dark hole as well. There didn’t appear to be anything but darkness inside for miles. It was like a black hole in the middle of the maze. Baston pulled the door shut and ran ahead.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“What do you mean?”

“The doors. One of them will take us to the end.”

“How do you know?” Sca asked.

“I just know a bit about mazes,” Baston said and rushed forward. He moved quickly through the maze now that he knew what he was looking for. The walls rumbled and spikes shot out from both sides. One got Baston’s shirt, ripping it from his shoulder, but didn’t penetrate the skin.

The spikes shot in and out, and the three had to dodge each one in an uncomfortably small space.

The next door opened only a crack when thousands of black insects with more legs than he could count poured out. Sca let out a high-pitched noise Baston had never heard before, and ran the opposite direction. Cherie laughed but backed up as Baston desperately tried to close the door on the bugs. They flew at them and some of them chased Sca as he continued running the opposite way they'd come.

"You're going the wrong way," Cherie yelled at him, swatting a bug off her back.

He screamed again and ran back towards them, passing them as the bugs continued to chase him. It was clear that wasn't the door to the end, and if it was, the bugs weren't worth it. They continued on.

Baston came across another door soon after. The rectangle was marked with rocks that were slightly grayer in color than the others. He felt certain this was it. The color difference was so slight and it would be difficult to notice at first. He took a deep breath and opened the door, looking in with optimism. It was dark and didn’t look much like the end of a maze.

Slowly, a thick orange mist started to flow out towards them. It stayed in one long line, waving with the slight breeze. It looked like a giant snake lazily crawling towards him. He assumed that it could be nothing good. An orange mist with poison in it?

He backed away, shutting the door, disappointed.

“How many more of these can there be?” Sca was apparently getting impatient with their trip through the maze.

“There’s a bug on your arm,” Baston said, pointing to the back of the top of his arm.

Sca turned around quickly, trying to get it off of him and Baston laughed. They moved forward again and continued to run into more dead ends and doors with terrifying consequences. The ground started to shake again as they moved forward, causing them to lose their footing.

Baston crashed into the rock wall and wasn’t sure what they were about to be up against. He decided that whatever it was, it was coming from below them. The dirt beneath his feet moved, causing a cloud of dust to blow up in his face.

He turned around to see Cherie frantically slapping at her legs. One was completely black from a massive moving cover of bugs. The same bugs they’d found in the doorway were now coming up out of the ground to get them.

“What the hell?” He heard Sca say as he bent down to look at Cherie’s leg.

The ground erupted like a living volcano, and a sea of black bugs each the size of Baston’s thumb covered everything around them. The wall became a wiggling wall of legs and flapping wings. Then they were on him and covering every bit of his body.

He could hear Sca screaming but it sounded far away. The bugs had made their way into his ears. He felt his throat tighten and his desire to run growing. He tried swatting them away, moving his hands up and down his body trying to knock them off, but he only managed to dislodge a few. He became aware at some point he was running and flailing his arms. The only thing that stopped him was running right into a dead end. He couldn’t see because if he didn’t keep his eyes squeezed tight their little legs would be inside them. Their pinchers bit into his skin everywhere and he moaned in pain. He didn’t dare cry out for fear they’d go into his mouth.

As he fell onto his back, he felt them bite harder. He hoped he’d at least squished some in the process. The panic was causing his breathing to come in heavy pants, and he felt like the air wasn’t getting to his lungs. He lay on the ground and rolled around, despite the movement making the bugs bite harder.

He felt a warmth coming from somewhere and decided he was dying. The heat got more intense and was right next to his face. He realized the bugs weren’t on his face anymore. He finally opened his eyes to see where the heat was coming and saw Cherie had taken it upon herself to light a large piece of wood and was sweeping it over his body.

She let out a battle cry as she moved on to Sca and did the same thing for him. Baston took deep breaths and lay on the ground. He looked to his side and saw Sca a few feet away in the fetal position

“It’s okay,” Cherie said. She got down beside him and rubbed his arm. Sca shook his head violently.

“I can still feel them crawling on me. I can still feel them.”

“Look, they aren’t. I promise.” Cherie had let her voice lower and it sounded sultry as she tried to encourage him to get up.

After what seemed like forever, Sca finally sat up and looked at his body.

“Bastards bit us all over,” he said and stood on wobbly legs.

Baston clapped his friend on the back and they continued forward with their journey. Another hour passed if he was reading the sun right. They came to a dead end again and Baston leaned on the wall, putting his head on the rocks.

He almost moved away when he noticed the flowers on the ground made a perfect square. Could that be the way out?

He kneeled and gradually noticed a tiny handle to pull up a door that was made into the ground. When he peered inside, he saw a set of stairs descending.

“What the hell?” Sca asked as he moved forward to see what Baston was doing.

“I think it’s the way out,” Baston said and descended the stairs.

“Be careful,” Cherie said. “You don’t know if it’s another trap or not.

Somehow, Baston could feel it was the way out. The stairs went down to a small platform, and there was another set of stairs that led back up. He made it to the bottom and followed the set of stairs up the other side. They were underground and all there was above them was dirt.

The door they’d come through had slammed, and he had a brief fear that they might have trapped themselves in the ground. He pushed hard on the ground above the steps, and was relieved when he pulled himself up into the open air. There were no rock walls around them and Baston sank to his knees with relief.