Corridor (A MythWorks Novel)

by Robin Parrish

  “What? Is it a trick?”

  A second spotlight flickered to life, but this one was red, and it shone down on a red door about twenty feet to his right. There was no emblem on this door; it was a solid, blood red. The Black Room, it turned out, was triangular in shape, with a door at each point of a perfect triangle.

  “No, no, no!” shouted Victoria, her voice shaking. “I won’t do it! No!”

  “Do what? Talk to me, Victoria! What’s going on?”

  “It’s…” she let out an angry breath. “I can’t believe it. I mean, I should’ve seen this coming—”

  “What is going on?”

  “The Corridor,” Victoria moaned, “is making you to choose.”

  “What, like which door is the real Exit? So I only get a fifty-fifty chance—”

  “No,” she said sadly. “The white door is the real Exit. The red door…is me.”

  Troy’s heart was beating with a heavy, thudding pulse. He took a deep breath to calm himself just enough to maintain his connection with Victoria. “You?”

  “That’s where I’m being kept. I’m behind that door.”

  A smile cracked across his sweat-crusted face. He immediately began hobbling toward the red door. He couldn’t believe it—the Corridor was giving him the chance to save her, too! He was finally going to see her, see what she looked like, and gaze into her eyes. She’d called herself a “plain Jane,” but he didn’t care if she was a leper.

  “My key will open the red door, too?”

  “It will. But wait! Troy, this choice is yours alone to make. Escape, or come to me.”

  “What kind of a choice is that?” But he stopped ten feet from the door. “Like I’m just going to leave you.”

  Victoria sighed again, long and slow. “You were willing to earlier.”

  “I was lying! I was coming back for you one way or another.”

  “Troy, you don’t under—”

  Why was she arguing with him? This was stupid. “No!” he shouted. “This doesn’t happen! No way! Not like this, not today! There is no way on God’s ever-blessed green earth that I’m going to leave you here!”

  “Only one of us can leave.”

  Troy had already taken another deep breath to continue his diatribe, but all the air escaped his lungs like a deflating balloon. “Come again?”

  “This is your choice,” she said. “You can walk through the Exit door right now and not look back. And you’ll be out, free and clear. Or you can choose to open the red door and release me from my sleep or whatever you call it. But if you let me out, you have to take my place. The Corridor must have a Conduit.”

  Troy closed his eyes, felt his body go limp and crash to the ground, and the whole world followed his example. The injustice of it all. The Corridor’s cruelty knew no bounds, forcing him to make this impossible choice. The Black Room really was the hardest Room. He couldn’t believe it was going to end this way…

  Suddenly his eyes snapped open. The Corridor required a Conduit…

  Forcing himself back to his feet on will power alone, he turned toward Victoria’s red door, and marched slowly, painfully up to it.

  “Don’t.” An aching sadness suffused her voice. “Troy, you have to go! Just leave me, please!”

  “Stop. Just listen. Something’s been bothering me ever since you said the Corridor’s alive. If you’re right, and this thing is some kind of advanced super-intelligence, and it has access to all this incredible technology—stuff so advanced that it can reconfigure itself on the fly and change its configuration for each new Runner, not to mention that it was able to pluck me out of time and bring me here—whenever and wherever ‘here’ is...

  “See, here’s the thing. If the Corridor really is this powerful, even sentient enough to be considered alive in some measure, then why would it need to borrow a human voice?”

  Troy listened to the thud of his heartbeat in the silence.

  “I—I’m not sure. I don’t… I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t think you were brought here to speak for the Corridor,” said Troy. “And you’re not here to help me, either. It was never about that.”

  “I… You don’t think I’m working against you?”

  “No!” Troy said quickly. “Absolutely not. But back in the Purple Room, with all of those names scratched into the ground? There were dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe thousands. And every one was a male name. Every last one. I’m willing to bet that all three thousand, seven hundred and thirty-five of us were guys. Think about it: all seven of your Runners were male. Including me. Seven guys, for just one girl. One Conduit. Your job wasn’t to help us get to the end. It was to lure us to it. The Corridor has been using you—just not the way you think it has.”

  “What… What are you suggesting?”

  “This is another puzzle. The last one. There’s an answer, there has to be. A way for us both to get out. I just have to figure it out.”

  Victoria was silent, and her silence usually meant he was wrong.

  “It’s one of those things, isn’t it? You know, where I save you, and the Corridor will deem it a—a ‘pure-hearted sacrifice’ or something, and let us both leave?”

  Victoria’s voice trembled with sorrow. “No. This is not ‘one of those things’. There’s no way for us both… Troy, I’m begging you to leave. Please, do it for me. Get out of here and go live your life.”

  The red door was a blur in Troy’s weary eyes. “How am I supposed to survive without you to guide me?” he whispered.

  “You’ll find your way.”

  Troy shook his head. “I don’t want to leave if you’re not with me.”

  He listened to her sobbing, and understood. He would never leave. He would serve as Conduit for countless Runners to come—probably girls, to properly motivate them to keep going, the way Victoria had unwittingly motivated him. He would never get to fall in love or go away to college or find a dream and chase it.

  But his heart would shrivel up and stop beating if he left her here.

  There was only one choice.

  Victoria looked at the red door through Troy’s bleary eyes. If only she could destroy the ugly, hateful thing. She longed to hide it, to push it far away from Troy, or put up a wall between him and it.

  For his benefit, she suppressed the scream of rage building up within her, even though she felt she might explode. She’d gotten used to feeling helpless, but this…

  Why would he do this for her?

  She watched him crawl the last few inches up to the red door, knowing that when his arm waved in front of that door, her freedom would be purchased. Her very soul ached.

  How could she stop him? He wasn’t listening to her anymore. He was going to do it. But he didn’t owe her anything. He’d won his freedom, his second chance. It was his right to claim it.

  A wave of nausea washed over her as she watched him raise his arm in front of the door.

  But he froze. At that moment, she heard a woman’s voice.

  Singing.

  Troy turned toward the sound. Slowly, his neck twisted to face the white exit door.

  Behind it, his mother was singing. She was singing to him just as she had when he was a child.

  He listened, unable to speak or move. He was five years old again, shivering under his covers after a bad dream. His mother sat on the edge of his bed, holding his hand and singing the most beautiful lullaby he’d ever heard. He listened until her song was done.

  “Troy?” Her voice was muffled on the other side of the white door. “Honey, aren’t you coming?”

  It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t let himself believe it.

  But it was her. It was her voice. Her inflections. Her song.

  “Mom?”

  “It’s me, honey. I’m right here. I’ve waited so long for you to get here. I can’t wait to hold you—”

  “It’s a trick,” Troy tried to sound confident, yet even his soul was wholly exhausted. His face was betraying him,
plainly showing his uncertainty and a brutal kind of hope and longing. “The Corridor is trying to trick me…”

  “Honey, no! It’s me! It’s mommy! I was brought here right before I died, just like you.”

  “I don’t… believe you…” His body turned back to the red door, but he couldn’t peel his eyes away from the white one.

  “Troy,” said his mother, her voice tightening and raising in pitch. “The fire, where you think I died. They never found my body, did they?”

  No. They didn’t. It was burned beyond recognition. Matched to her dental records, but maybe it was a fake, sent back through time and space by the Corridor…

  “I know you’re hurt, and I know you’re worn out,” she called through the door. “But I’m right here, honey. I’m ready to make it all okay again. I’ll sing to you, and I’ll hold you for as long as there is time. All you have to do is step away from the red door, and open the white one. I’m right behind it, and I’m ready to catch you. Just come on out. Please.”

  Step away from the red door…

  His shoulders set, he turned away from her and waved his arm in front of the red door. The sound of his mother’s voice went silent, just as he suspected it would.

  “No!” cried Victoria. “Troy, don’t!”

  “Look at the bright side,” he said softly as the doors began to part. “You’ll finally get to see what I look like. And believe me—it’s the real me. Warts and all. There’s nothing else left.”

  “No—!”

  He caught a glimpse of a human-sized stasis pod, like a high-tech coffin, tilted almost fully upright just inside the door before he collapsed to the ground. Nothing was left but to give himself over to the Corridor.

  For her.

  For the first time in a very long time, Victoria’s eyes opened. She turned her head from side to side. The sterile scent of metal and wires entered her nose.

  Troy! She could already feel his absence inside her head, their connection severed by her release. As she watched, tubes, wires, and mechanical arms that had held her in place were retracting from all over her body. The technology that had connected her to the Corridor, and to Troy, was gone, along with whatever life-sustaining fluids her body had required for however long she’d been here.

  He’d freed her. He really did it.

  She didn’t have to be the Conduit anymore, a barely-alive tool of the monstrous structure. She was alive again.

  The pod slowly unfolded around her, rippling outward like ocean waves until it was open. She took a tentative step down out of the pod, which was elevated a couple of inches off the ground. Her muscles were weaker than she remembered them. Her knees gave out, and she stumbled to a crawl.

  The red door in front of her was already open, revealing the triangular Black Room.

  And there he was, sprawled out, chest-down, on the ground at her feet. Tears poured from her eyes as she stared at his nearly naked, decimated form. He didn’t look like much more than a little boy.

  Troy’s eyes fluttered open for a few seconds, and landed on Victoria.

  She was crawling toward him from behind the open red door. She wore a calico dress that had probably once been quite lovely, but was now faded and filthy. Her dark-colored hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but it had nearly come loose and was matted to her head, her neck, and back. Her pale face was covered in freckles instead of makeup, and punctuated with sad, weary eyes. Grime covered her from head to foot.

  She was the most angelic creature he’d ever seen.

  No.

  It wasn’t fair. It couldn’t end this way. Not for him. No matter that the siren of freedom called to her from that white door, and the bright, bright light that shone through the tree symbol etched into it.

  From here, she couldn’t see what was out there, outside of the Corridor. Of course it was calling to her. It was her Exit. Her moment. Her escape. Life. A chance to find happiness. The promise of limitless possibilities. Beyond that door was everything she didn’t have, and everything she ever wanted. It was impossible to say no.

  But Troy couldn’t stay here.

  The whirring of the pod’s mechanical arms coming to life behind her was an unnecessary confirmation that the irreversible process had begun. Those arms were coming for Troy, while she was free to leave. They would reach out and grab him, reel him in and attach him to the same machinery she’d been attached to. They would keep him alive—if what that pod had done to her could be called living.

  It shouldn’t be like this. Troy didn’t deserve this fate. He’d done everything the Corridor required, and he had rightfully earned his freedom.

  But what could she do to stop it? It was done. The die was cast.

  The Corridor had won.

  END

  The light is piercing, reaching behind their eyelids to blind them. Its glow outshines the sun itself, and it destroys everything it touches. They stumble in the light. Most of them fall. Many die. But some survive. They band together, leave the light behind, and set out in search of a new home.

  Escaping the destruction of their home, they enter the untamed wilderness. A harsh, unforgiving desert carved out of bedrock long ago refuses to sustain them. Some die. The rest move on.

  The effects of the destructive light are spreading. The whole world catches fire, and they cannot escape it. It blocks their every move, the flames killing many of them. But after much wandering, a narrow escape route is found for those who survive.

  Their journey brings them to the foot of a volcano, where the destruction the light caused has angered the molten rock beneath the ground. They are caught in an incredible eruption that destroys a significant portion of them. The remainder run for their lives.

  At last they find refuge in a system of small, underground caves. There they stay and live for many years, carving homes for themselves, and a new society. But even the shelter of the caves refuses to give them what they need to live. They have no choice but to leave it behind.

  They no sooner leave the caves than they are nearly drowned by an incredible flood. A cataclysmic rain pours, and when the water starts to freeze, the smartest among them believe that a new ice age has begun. They flee the waters as quickly as they can.

  Finally they believe they have found the haven for which they have been searching for so long in the form of a lush jungle. A miniature ecosystem, hidden far away from the endless destruction, and it has everything they need to flourish. It is a rain forest, filled with plant and animal life that have managed to survive. But the flora and fauna of this savage land refuse to welcome them, and again they must go.

  They find a dried-up sea, and believe that they may find shelter on the far side. But in crossing it, they are met by a ferocious sandstorm that suffocates almost half of them.

  The rest emerge from the empty sea to a land of eternally gray skies, where volcanic ash rains day and night. Even through this hardship, they press on, and at last, they—

  Troy’s eyes fluttered open. He was dizzy, sleepy. Everything was slightly tilted, as if the world was off its axis. He must have been given some powerful medications.

  He couldn’t get his eyes to focus. Was he inside Victoria’s pod, being tended to by the Corridor to facilitate his service as the next Conduit?

  Did she get out?

  Wait, if he was inside the pod, then his eyes wouldn’t be open, as they were now. Victoria had said that she was only able to see through his eyes, via their psychic connection. And everything was so warm and bright here…

  Maybe he was seeing through another Runner’s eyes.

  He glanced down at his wrist and his heart skipped. It was still bandaged, but not with his own wound-up shirt sleeve. Instead some kind of hard cast braced it. It looked like white canvas with a remarkably tight weave, yet it was surprisingly lightweight.

  It was his own broken wrist. He was out!

  Troy blinked when his eyes went out of focus to look just beyond his wrist to the man standing at the foot of his bed.
He gasped.

  “Wuh—!” he tried to say, but found his mouth lazy, unresponsive.

  “Slow down, Troy.” He wore glasses and a shoulder-to-toe robe of deep purple, with a hood cast back to reveal a head full of long, jet black hair pulled into a ponytail. He was tall, with light brown skin, and he had a powerful, deep voice with a thick accent that was Middle Eastern, or perhaps Indian. He was at least sixty years old, maybe seventy, and his kind eyes were both weary and focused.

  “Did you—? Was it you?” Troy managed to blurt out. When he couldn’t get his tongue to form anymore words, he gestured down at his broken wrist and his other wounds, noticing for the first time that he was wearing a loose-fitting shirt and pants that made him think of a doctor or nurse’s scrubs. His bare feet were both bandaged, the crushed one in a hard cast like his wrist, the other in something softer for the cuts on his foot’s sole. His body had yellow boils from the frostbite, and his back had the telltale itch of stitches and maybe even skin grafts. Fluids ran into his arm, and wires were connected here and there, monitoring his heart rate and who knew what else. Although everything about this room was advanced enough to feel foreign, it was unmistakably a hospital room.

  “What you mean to ask is, ‘Did I build the Corridor?,’” said the man, his bright, piercing eyes watching Troy’s every tic. “Did I place you inside it and force you to Run?”

  Troy didn’t nod. Didn’t speak. He just watched the man with fearful, angry, hungry eyes.

  “That was the work of the Corridor alone. It is self-sustaining, and acts of its own accord.”

  Troy’s expression hardened. He was already swinging his legs off of his bed and trying to pull the tubes and wires from his body.

  “Sit down, Troy.” The man calmly placed a strong hand on Troy’s chest and forced him to sit back on the bed.

  “No!” Troy shouted, wrestling against the man’s arm. “I don’t believe you! I don’t believe! It’s another trick, the Corridor is—”

  The man used his free hand to roll back his sleeve, revealing a metal band bonded to the skin around his wrist.