I notice them in the distance.
Of course, I decide to hide straight away so that I'm... well hidden.
But to my great surprise, they... they ignore me.
They literally ignore me.
"What? Since when are monsters so nice?"
I watch. Catch a breath I hadn't even noticed. They crawl towards a gallery to the side. A crack in the rock, wide but low. Too low for me to squeeze through with dignity.
Fortunately for me, they're not looking for me. But still, why they're ignoring me intrigues me... so I decide to follow them from a distance.
Stupid idea? Yeah, I know.
And I end up in a bigger room, lit by bluish mushrooms. It's... quiet.
And in the centre, I see the spiders gathering. And why? I've no idea!
I hear a strange noise, but I can't work out where it's coming from. The spiders are finally getting restless.
I try to look everywhere for something, and I notice a hole at the top.
The spiders... are they waiting? Why are they waiting?
Just as I'm asking myself a thousand questions, something falls out of the hole.
Up there, ten metres high, I see a baby literally fall out of the hole.
It's crying... Wait, is it alive?
And just as it's about to hit the ground, it's torn into several pieces. Dozens of spiders jump on him.
The spiders fight amongst themselves to eat him. I hear the baby's cries, which break my heart. I want to react, but my body freezes.
The number of spiders makes me shiver.
"Bloody hell!"
I step back. Slowly. Silently. One hand in front of my mouth, as if I could hold back the rising nausea. I can't scream. Not here. Not right now. Not in the face of this.
I'm not human. Not really. But right now, there's a part of me that screams, that scratches, that scratches until it wants to get the hell out of my own skull.
A baby.
Thrown away like rubbish.
And the filth devours it before it's even touched the ground.
Wait a minute, wait a minute. How did they know a baby was coming? How could a human baby be here in the first place, given how dangerous the maze is?
Is it possible that it was thrown in on purpose? How else would they have guessed?
I look down, and in the middle I see bones. Small ones. Cracked skulls. Pieces of tissue. Others have gone before. Others will follow...
And here I am. A useless witness to a world rotten to the core.
"System, what's going on?"
[ From my observations, I count several thousand bones, which indicates several dozen human babies thrown away on a regular basis. ]
I turn around and start vomiting. Even on this fucking blue planet, nobody did that. We were fuckers, but good fuckers!
I hear another cry coming from the hole. No... another one?
"What's my probability of surviving if I want to..."
[ Analysis in progress... Danger level: very high. Probability of success in extracting the baby alive: 6.2%. ]
"...Fuck.
I inhale. Long. Awkwardly. My body wants to run away. My heart wants to burst. But my legs keep moving.
I'm not going to let it end like the other one. Not a second one.
Not while I'm still alive.
"System, guide me."
[ Activating danger perception. Mapping optimal trajectories. ]
The spiders haven't lifted their heads yet. The ground is trapped by their legs, their moving shadows. One mistake and it's all over.
But I'm moving forward. Every step is a scream in my head.
And the cry continues. Faint. Muffled. Alive.
I leap.
My axe in my left hand, a flame in my right. I wave it in front of me like a desperate woman. A spider turns. Another follows.
Too late. I'm already there.
The baby falls from the sky, and I jump straight up to catch it.
I grab the baby. He's warm. He's breathing. He's still crying.
I hold him against me and scream:
"Move again, and I'll burn you all, you bastards!"
The flame bursts into my free hand.
But they don't hesitate. Dozens of them charged at me as I caught myself and started to run.
"Bloody hell, System! Do you know how many there are?"
[ Estimate in progress... 788 hostile entities detected. 358 in rapid motion. ]
"What?! Is this an army or a goddamn doomsday incubator?!"
I run. I jump. Breathless, the baby clutched to me. Every turn is Russian roulette. Every step a gamble.
They scream. Scraping the walls. Some try to cut me off.
I ignite the air in front of me. An improvised barrier. It slows them down. It's not enough.
One grabs my ankle. I roll, the axe splits. A crack. She moves back.
The baby cries louder. Maybe I am too. I don't know.
"System, nearest exit?
[67 metres. Heading northeast. Tunnel unstable. 47% chance of cave-in.]
"I like suicidal statistics. Lead the way."
Fuck, I say that, but 67 metres is a long way. And with the baby screaming, I'm not going to be able to hide.
And then I hear another baby cry.
"No... don't tell me there are others?
I want to turn around and run to save them, but I'll die. Now they know I exist.
[430 entities stay where they're supposed to.]
"Wait... won't they all come after me?
[Negative. Guard protocol activated. 358 individuals have been instructed to neutralise the intruder. The others protect the site. ]
"Great. They've got a strategy now?! The mutant cockroaches just didn't have enough military tactics."
I go for it. The walls are closing in. The air becomes heavier. The rock crunches beneath my feet.
The unstable tunnel is straight ahead. The ground trembles. The first landslide occurs behind me. Not enough to block, but enough to make me realise: it's now or never.
I pull the baby close to me.
"You're not crying now, are you? If we survive this, I swear I'll teach you how to bite monsters."
A spider emerges from the wall. Too close. I narrowly avoid it, my axe splits the air and slices off a leg. It screams, but doesn't stop.
I dive into the tunnel.
The ceiling vibrates. Stones fall. I roll along, protecting the baby as best I can.
[Warning: landslide imminent.]
I cling to a rocky protuberance, slip, right myself. One last push. The faint light of an opening in the distance.
"Go, go, go!
A black mass rushes through the tunnel. Too fast. Too close.
I grit my teeth.
And I jump.
The air whips around my face. The baby lets out a shrill cry. The light grows. A moment suspended in the void, between death and a miracle.
And then the shock.
I roll, crashing to the ground, muffling a cry. I hold the baby in my arms, protecting him as best I can. The baby is alive. And so am I.
Behind us, the tunnel collapses. A wall of rock, dust and silence.
Not a sound. No more screams. Just my torn breath, my beating heart, and that baby still crying.
[Status: You are alive. Escape: successful. Enemy: temporarily blocked. ]
I lie on my back. I laugh. A dry, nervous, hollow laugh.
"Fuck..."
I turn my eyes to the baby. He's staring at me. No fear. Just... a kind of animal curiosity.
"You'd better be worth it. Because right now, I've taken more lives than a suicidal cat."
And for the first time in a long time, I close my eyes. Not to run away. Not to sink. Just to breathe.
While I want to make sure the baby is perfectly healthy, I look at him from all sides.
First of all, he's human. Well... I think. I can't find anything special about him. After all, I don't know this world. On the other hand...
Wait... what's wrong with him?
I look at the back of his head. There's a language and some sort of barcode.
"System, is that something special from your world?
[Elvish script.]
"Translate for me. Can you?"
[Number 2364]
Can you?
And as my mind tries to take in what's going on, there's some kind of earthquake.
What the hell is going on here?
I turn my head in the direction of the noise, and what do I see?
A fucking spider's leg cutting through the rock.
But this one... it's clearly much bigger.