Joe stared back, speechless.

Then, Eddie turned slowly, and walked off. The lines of perspective of the school detached from him, almost begrudgingly, and were left ruined and zany, like the hallway had become a carnival funhouse. He rounded a corner and then was out of sight.

Joe took off after him. He screamed as he ran, and his own voice sounded distant and muffled.

“Where is she, Eddie? Fuck you, where is she?”

He reached the end, turned the corner, and saw no one.

With no other recourse, Joe kept running. He arrived to a perpendicular hall and saw not a soul in any direction. With a helpless feeling he chose a path at random and kept running. More intersections kept coming, and Joe kept moving, with an awful, helpless feeling eating at him. Their school was not this big, and so he realized a hard truth—it was not their school at all, not anymore. It had become a twisted labyrinth. And worse yet—he was a mouse running through it.

He groaned in anguish but kept running anyway, barely realizing that he screamed her name all along, his panicked voice echoing up and down the ghostly halls. The tears came too. The veil had been fully removed—this was an outright nightmare, and he was trapped in it.

The thunder struck again, shuddering the entire school, and Joe heard glass shattering in its wake. His hand dropped to the floor to keep his balance, but it was just for a moment and then he kept sprinting.

The classrooms he passed were dead inside—disused and in disrepair, and strewn with debris. Shattered glass was on the floors and Joe heard it crunch under his feet as he ran. Outside, the lightning flashing in the sky became a strobe light in the hallways, and a second later the thunder rumbled yet again, this time sounding like bombs dropping just outside in the courtyard. The school shook in a violent quake, and a hard rain of sand and dust pelted the walls around him. Through cracked and shattered windows he saw the trees outside shake and then collapse like twigs. A set of bleachers on the athletic fields twisted and folded like tinfoil. His body hit a few of the walls like a foosball ricocheting in play as dust seeped down from the ceiling above. Finally the shaking stopped. Undeterred he got up quickly amidst the broken glass and debris and kept running.

He began to realize he wasn’t alone like he thought he was. He’d see someone watching him from time to time, first as a shadow in an adjoining hall, or as a reflection in a glass door that was yet unbroken. The person wore a cheerleader costume too, albeit shoddy and dirty. Her hair was in pigtails. Her eyes were weary, like she’d been awake for days.

Joe froze, sensing she was all around him, and watching him with each step. His body heaved with each tired breath as he listened for her. She wanted to be found, he realized. She wanted to be acknowledged. Even the storm outside had stopped completely, as though it were her doing. Suddenly it was so quiet he could hear a pin drop.

“Chrissy,” he said. “Come out.” His voice was grave.

Somewhere she giggled and the sound of it raised the hairs on his arm.

“What has he done to you?”

Her giggle came again, and Joe waited in silence.

“Hi, Joe,” she said. Her voice was sweet and terrifying. “It’s been a while.”

“Let me see you,” he replied.

Several seconds passed before all the various reflections of her coalesced and she took form, walking lightly on her feet from one of the empty classrooms. The glass crunched beneath her athletic shoes.

She was an anti-cheerleader, if that were possible. The heavy eyeshadow, the black lipstick, and the ragged uniform, all together with the expression that said she was operating on some other level that was twisted and faraway. She held tattered pompoms that ruffled with each step.

“What has he done to you?” Joe asked again, his face twisted in concern.

“You mean what have we done.”

Joe stared at her skeptically. “You used to shit on Eddie,” he said.

“Maybe I still do.”

“He did something to you back then...” Joe muttered, searching for it. “Something to ensnare you in his web.”

She glowered at him, an expression truly that of a hateful teenager.

“He hacked your photos.” Joe nodded in remembrance. There were a lot of vicious rumors circling around about how those photos had gotten out, and rumors usually contained some seeds of truth. “He found all your private ones, your naked ones. And he blackmailed you. Right?”

She gave no indication, neither confirming nor disputing this. She only stared back with frightening weariness in her eyes, which were lazy and unable to focus. Joe could only wonder what she’d seen, and what she’d been through.

“I’m getting you out of here, Chrissy,” he said firmly. “I’m ending this.”

She finally spoke. “But why? The party is just getting started.”

Joe turned toward her, that sinking feeling returning, like a heavy stone in his stomach. “What party?” he asked.

“Oh, you know. It only happens once.” She posed with her pompoms in a mock cheer.

Oh, God, he thought. Here we go. “What only happens once?” he asked nervously.

Her pompoms rattled noisily to the floor. She put a hand on his chest. “It’s the End of the World Party, Joe.”

She was much closer now, and so he could observe more acutely what kind of state she was in.

“We’ll all get there eventually,” she added.

“Are you drunk?” he asked. “I mean… like in real life?” Joe imagined her somewhere, passed out, having this dream.

Her knee dipped gently into his crotch. “Did we ever hookup?” she asked. “I can’t remember.”

Joe tried her. “Wouldn’t Eddie get mad about that?”

“He’s not here now,” she replied.

Joe thought that was a useful nugget of information. Her voice even hushed like she hadn’t meant to say it.

“So where is he then?” he asked, hesitantly.

Chrissy backed away. “You better go and find your girlfriend.”

The thunder rumbled again, as though it could come and go with her mood. More dust and plaster seeped down from the ceiling. The labyrinth all around him made a sound like rending metal, like it was a breathing, growing thing, organically becoming more and more twisted, and infinite.

“It’s impossible, though,” Joe said, gambling. “He made this maze impossible.”

She shrugged cutely.

“Why would he leave, Chrissy?”

She shrugged again, her pigtails bouncing around.

“The maze is impossible. I’ve already been running through it like an idiot. It’s futile. Right?”

She only stared at him smugly, as though enjoying to watch his struggle.

“What is that music playing?” Joe asked, his face wrinkled.

Chrissy smiled. “I told you. The party is getting started.”

It put chills down his spine. The music came alive as they’d been talking, and at first Joe tried to ignore it, but it became undeniable. The sound was distorted, like a radio station coming in and out of static, while still it grew louder, and more pervasive.

“He’s coming after you, Joe. You better wake up.” Her face lost its drunken glimmer, and she actually looked serious.

“I’m not leaving until I find her,” Joe declared.

He faced her, head-on.

“Tell me where she is, Chrissy. God damn it. Tell me.”

She shrugged. “How would I know where she is? You should know. You guys dated for a like a year. That was adorable.”

He stared at her, grasping at her words.

Fuck the labyrinth, fuck Eddie, it’s my dream and it’s a goddamn date. We’re skipping school, and… she’s waiting for me, right where she normally would.

“She’s waiting at my car…” Joe said. “That’s where she is. That’s where she’d be.”

He gaped out of a nearby window desperately. The school had a sizable parking lot, but it was devoid of any cars. The pavement had been shattered during the earthquake, with some sections having risen high into the air, and some having descended deep into the ground. But Joe looked beyond this destruction, and out onto a distant side street. He had always arrived to school on the cusp of tardiness, when the lot was full, so he generally had to opt for that side street, as a few other stragglers did.

His car, his shitty little car he’d driven in high school, the one that made weird noises and had chipped paint on the hood—it was there, parked on that side street where it usually was. It was the only car in sight. He’d never been so glad to see it.

Joe looked down the hall and saw the exit doors, just where he’d hoped they’d be, as if they’d materialized there. Dashing toward them, they burst open and Joe made his way outside.

The schoolyard was littered with debris, and the building he emerged from was a ruined shell—it looked more like a bombed-out structure from a war zone than their actual school. But his car was there, and the storm had passed. Overhead, the sky was a dazzling sheen, albeit unnatural—it looked like an oil slick on the water. And always, the wicked music carried on, like the soundtrack of doom. It sounded like DJ music, electronic grooves, but horribly distorted. The drum and bass were like a quake deep within the earth while the keys on top of it were sharp pinpricks that actually stung his ears. It was the sound of an apocalyptic opera.