Jason grimaced, closing his eyes in frustration. That wasn’t much help. There was no assurance that she would be in the library, but what the hell else was he going to do? The school had been turned into some sort of labyrinth and Riley had just been taken hostage by a giant spider. And now he was talking to a doppelganger of his younger self. Clearly, they had passed normal and were well on their way to crazy. So, Riley might very well be in the library – as little sense as that made.
“I could show you the way,” the boy offered when Jason didn’t reply.
Jason opened his eyes to find his own youthful face staring down at him, looking uncertain and nervous. He wasn’t sure he saw any other option. “That would be helpful,” he finally replied, struggling back to his feet with a groan. “Why don’t you lead the way?”
The boy nodded quickly and set off down the hallway once more, seeming to ignore the webs. Jason could only look after him for a second, his thoughts spinning. He had no idea if he was heading in the right direction. No prompt or message appeared in the air. And even if Riley was in the library, what could he do against that creature? He was unarmed, and a few failed attempts at casting a curse confirmed that he couldn’t even cast spells here.
He took a deep, calming breath, suddenly missing the numbing chill of his mana.
It doesn’t matter, he finally told himself firmly.
He couldn’t turn back now. This was just a challenge. He was in a game, which meant that this puzzle had to have a solution. He just had to find it. He had to believe that. Once he found Riley, he could figure out some way to save her. Besides, it wasn’t like he had any other options right now.
With that grim thought, Jason steeled himself and set off after his younger self, venturing even deeper into the abandoned school.
Chapter 46 - Distrustful
Jason wasn’t sure how long they had been walking through the abandoned hallways of the school. He had belatedly noted that the clock on his system UI had disappeared and each intersecting corridor looked just the same as the last. He had tried counting the room numbers but had given up after the numbers had reached four digits. Regardless, they had been wandering the halls for a long time – which had become painfully obvious.
His companion hadn’t made the experience any easier. His younger self had stayed completely mute, only making the occasional detour, turning left or right at an intersection. Otherwise, he had barely acknowledged Jason’s presence after their initial conversation.
For his part, Jason found himself becoming even more frustrated. Riley was trapped somewhere in this labyrinth – possibly in the library or maybe somewhere else altogether. While this situation wasn’t real, that didn’t change his desire to free her. He knew from firsthand experience how real the game world could seem. He needed to find her and save her as quickly as he could. And then they needed to complete this damn challenge and get the hell out of here.
His patience finally starting to fray, Jason opened his mouth to ask the boy how much further they had to go. However, his younger self chose that moment to glance at him quickly. “Why are you here?” he asked.
Jason was caught off-guard, both that the boy had actually spoken and at the nature of the strange question. “I… Well, we’re…” he fumbled, trying to think of how to respond while dancing around the truth – that he was talking to a younger version of himself in some sort of surreal dream-like memory.
“I didn’t ask who you are or where we are,” the boy clarified. “I already know the answer to those questions. No, I asked you why you’re here.”
He could only stare at the boy in response. He knew who Jason was? And what this place was? What did that mean? Was the boy saying that he knew he was Jason’s younger self and they were trapped in some sort of mental maze?
“I… This is a test,” Jason finally replied. “I need to complete it. It’s important in order to protect my city and my friends.”
The boy nodded, his eyes still fixed on the dark hallway. “What sort of test is it?”
“I don’t really know,” Jason admitted reluctantly, shaking his head. “All I know is that it has something to do with trust.”
This earned him a snort from the small boy. “Figures,” he muttered.
“What does that mean?” Jason asked in confusion.
His younger self met his eyes briefly. “What’s the point of trusting others? They just give up on you or let you down,” the boy answered, anger tinging his voice.
Jason hesitated. The boy’s response resonated with him on some level. Was that really how he felt? Or was this just Alfred messing with his head? He felt confused as he watched anger flash across the boy’s face.
“That’s not true,” Jason offered tentatively. “There are others worth trusting. Not everyone is like our parents.”
The boy actually laughed at this response. “Really?” he asked in a skeptical voice. “What about the girl? Do you trust her?”
“Of course,” Jason replied automatically. “Riley is amazing.”
“I wasn’t asking you if you liked her,” his younger self said. “I asked if you trusted her.”
“And I answered the question.”
“By saying she’s amazing?” the boy insisted, not letting up. “Have you confided in her? Have you told her the truth about what you’re going through? Any of our secrets?”
“I…” Jason began, hesitating as he considered his doppelganger’s words. “There are some things we need to keep from others to protect them.”
“Is that what you’re doing then? Protecting her?”
Of course, he was trying to protect Riley. If he told her what was going on, she would only become complicit in Alfred’s crazy scheme. There were already going to be serious consequences once Senator Lipton determined that both Claire and Robert had perjured themselves. Yet a niggling voice in the back of his head wasn’t convinced – and even his younger self watched him skeptically. Was that the truth or was he lying to himself?
He shook his head in irritation. “Yes, I’m doing it to protect Riley,” he said finally. “That’s also what we’re trying to do right now, by the way. Assuming we can find this damn library.”
“Hmm, well if you’re sure that’s why you are keeping the truth from her,” the boy offered with a shrug. He didn’t seem convinced. “Either way, we’re almost there. I can’t wait to get to the library. I really like that place.”
“No, you don’t,” Jason snapped.
“Of course, we do,” the boy insisted, looking at Jason in surprise.
Jason didn’t miss his word choice. We do? He had no idea what that meant, and this whole conversation was getting on his nerves. He met the boy’s gaze evenly. “Really? You like getting abandoned here by our negligent parents and hanging out with a creepy old man and his spiders?” he demanded, waving his hand at the webs that still riddled the hallway.
The boy simply looked back at him sadly, his expression making Jason uncomfortable. “Is that how you remember it now?” he asked quietly.
“Should I remember it another way?” Jason countered.
“I guess not,” the boy answered with another shrug, turning his attention back to the hallway.
They lapsed into silence again, Jason’s thoughts spinning. This memory – if that’s even what this was – was becoming progressively more surreal. Had he really enjoyed visiting the library? He couldn’t remember. Just the idea of this school made him angry, the memories colored by his frustration with his parents. He spared a glance at the boy and saw the same sad expression lingering on his face, his shoulder hunched and his feet now shuffling across the tiled floor.
As Jason was about to apologize for snapping at him, the boy held up a finger, pointing down the hall. “There it is!” he declared, a small smile creeping across his face.
Jason could see that the hallway now terminated in a single door, a worn and faded sign beside it indicating that this was indeed the library. This wasn’t at all how Jason rememb
ered the entrance, but he was past comparing this strange experience to his actual memories. They had likely wandered outside the normal bounds of memory – and possibly sanity – when he had started arguing with himself.
“Finally,” Jason muttered, approaching the entrance quickly and pulling the handle.
The door swung open easily, revealing a hellish landscape on the other side. The library looked like a tornado had swept through it. The bookcases were toppled against each other, and hundreds of ruined books were strewn about the floor. Beneath the destruction, he could see that the walls had been coated in silk webbing – the substance covering almost every surface and hanging in the air in thick bands.
Jason entered cautiously, worry replacing the frustration of talking to his younger self. Riley had been taken by a giant spider, and he was beginning to realize that it might not be the only creature inhabiting the school.
As he inspected the room, Jason realized that the library was larger than he remembered. It spanned nearly a hundred yards, and the ceiling towered twenty feet above them, glass windows framing the roof. Jason saw only starless darkness on the other side of the transparent panes. Perhaps it was now night time? He vaguely seemed to recall that it had been dusk when they had entered the school.
He scanned the shadowed corners of the room as he crept further inside, on the lookout for the spider that had captured Riley. Meanwhile, his younger self stepped in after him, making no effort to conceal his movements and seemingly unconcerned that the library seemed to have been overtaken by giant spiders. Not for the first time, Jason wished he had a weapon, or maybe a flamethrower.
“She’s not here,” Jason whispered softly. He didn’t see any sign of Riley or hear any movement within the massive room.
The boy shrugged. “We might need to look closer. The library is pretty big.”
Jason supposed that his younger self might be right. The thick webbing and debris concealed much of room. The boy had also gotten them there – albeit in a roundabout way. Jason supposed he might as well take his advice.
He stepped further into the room, avoiding the books and collapsed shelves while pushing the silk threads out of the way. He was soon standing in the center of the ruined library. Yet he still saw no sign of Riley or the spiders.
“I don’t think…” he began.
He stopped as he heard a shuffling noise from the far wall, his view obscured by the thick bands of silk. For a second, he thought he had imagined it. But then it came again. It sounded like something massive was scraping across the floor, punctuated by the occasional rustle of paper. Whatever was making that noise must be big. Really big.
“I think this was a mistake,” Jason murmured. “We need to leave.”
As he turned back toward the exit of the library, two gigantic spiders dropped from the ceiling, blocking the exit. As their multi-lensed eyes focused on Jason, their mandibles clicked furiously. Jason could easily make out their fangs even at this distance, green venom dripping from their tips.
“Damn it,” he muttered. Clearly, the beast that had captured Riley wasn’t the only spider in the school. His odds of rescuing her had just dropped from terrible to hopeless.
“Shh, this is a library,” his younger self admonished Jason, earning the boy an incredulous stare. They were trapped in some sort of post-apocalyptic hellhole of a library with a pair of enormous spiders, and the kid was concerned about the library’s rules?
“Ahh, tasty treats enter our lair,” a voice whispered from the back of the room. It echoed and reverberated strangely, as though the creature was tasting the air with each word.
Jason turned slowly to face the other side of the library. A dark shadow loomed behind the veil of silk that hung from the ceiling, the silhouette towering nearly fifteen feet into the air. He could feel his stomach lurch. This couldn’t be good.
A form shuffled out from beneath the webs, and Jason’s fears proved to be correct. This spider dwarfed even the dragon they had encountered in the Sea’s Edge, and he found himself staring in shock. The creature’s body had grown to the size of an eighteen-wheeler, dwarfing its smaller cousins. Its spindly legs struggled to drag its bulk across the floor. A quick inspection revealed that this thing was called the Spider Queen, although he didn’t glean much else.
The Spider Queen came to rest only a dozen or so yards from Jason, its face towering above him. Unarmed and without his magic, he had few options. Fighting would likely mean his death, which left just one reasonable strategy. He needed to try to reason with the beast.
“We’re not your food,” he ventured, trying to keep his voice even.
“You look like a treat, though,” the spider replied in the same eerie voice. “So ripe and full of juices. Are you not here to feed us?”
“No. We are here for our friend,” Jason replied. “A blond-haired girl. A spider took her.”
“Then, you are here to take our treats?” the spider demanded, its voice growing louder. It waved a leg through the air, and Jason just barely ducked the limb in time. It stopped, pointing at a far wall, although Jason couldn’t see anything through the webbing.
As he watched, more spiders descended from the ceiling and pulled back the silver strands. What Jason saw next caused him to clench his fists and his heart to race. A series of cocoons hung along the wall, moving and squirming as he watched. One of the spiders dragged back the silk of one of the bundles and a tumble of blond-hair spilled free, followed closely by Riley’s confused and fear-filled face – her mouth bound by webbing. Upon seeing Jason, she struggled harder against her restraints, and her voice came out as a muffled groan.
“Riley!” Jason shouted, stepping forward.
The spiders guarding the cocoons whirled at his sudden movement, their mandibles clicking in warning.
“Ahh, is this the treat you are looking for?” the Spider Queen asked, its voice taunting.
“Yes,” Jason snapped. “Release her.”
“I think not,” the spider queen answered coyly. “She is food. As are the others.”
“Others?” Jason murmured, refocusing his attention on the cocoons. As the spiders pulled back the silk one by one, he could feel the bottom drop out of his stomach. The other cocoons were all filled with people he knew. Frank was there. And Angie. Claire and Robert.
“What the hell is this?” he muttered.
“Look at all the little flies that wandered into our web,” the spider queen cooed as she stared at her prisoners. Then she shifted her focus back to Jason and the boy. “And we can add more plump treats to our collection now.”
She ambled forward menacingly, and the other spiders began to skitter toward the pair from all around them, their mandibles clicking in a discordant rhythm. Riley strained harder against her bonds, screaming into her gag. Jason watched them approach, dread filling his mind and clouding his thoughts. He didn’t have any weapons. He couldn’t fight them, and he couldn’t run. Which left him with what?
He shook his head to try to clear his frantic, jumbled thoughts. He needed to think. This was a challenge, which meant it had to have a solution. He clung to that thought. The point of this challenge was trust. Rex had been clear about that. But how did that help him?
The spiders were close now. One swiped its leg at Jason, and he leaped to the side to avoid the blow, tumbling and rolling back to his feet in one fluid movement. This only put him in range of another of the hairy creatures, the beast lunging forward. Jason threw himself to the side to avoid being crushed by the spider’s mass, his shoulder slamming into a ruined bookcase.
“Ahh, the flies dance and spin. Only to be caught in our web again,” the Spider Queen spoke in a singsong voice that echoed harshly through the room. She seemed entertained by his feeble attempts to avoid capture.
“Tarantulas don’t catch their prey with webs,” the boy said suddenly. He still stood in the center of the room, seemingly unconcerned by the spiders that pressed in on him from every side. He had stooped over and
seemed to be inspecting a book he had picked up from the floor.
Jason’s brow furrowed in confusion. He had remembered thinking something similar earlier, which was strange. That idea felt important. Tarantulas only spun silk to protect their dens, to keep out dirt and debris. But how was that inane fact important?
His thoughts were interrupted again as a hairy leg crashed into his side, sending him toppling across the room where he landed in a heap of sticky silk. He looked up and saw Riley’s cocoon resting only a few feet away. Her eyes bulged, her shouts muffled by her gag. He had to help her. He had to focus.
“Webs. Why are the webs important?” he muttered to himself.
In a flash, his younger self seemed to teleport across the room. One moment he was standing sedately in the center of the library and in the next he was directly in front of Jason, meeting his gaze firmly. “You know the answer to that. You told me in the hallway.”
The boy leaned closer until his face was only inches away, whispering as though telling him a secret, “The better question is what is this place?”
Jason’s eyes widened as the pieces began to click together in his head. Rex had told him he needed to let Riley in and that this challenge was about trust. This was also clearly both a memory, and, at the same time, it wasn’t – that point made abundantly clear by the giant spiders and the way this world kept shifting and changing. Hell, he was talking a younger version of himself!
But that only left one option.
Maybe this wasn’t a memory at all. But that would mean that…
He raised his gaze to look at the spiders as they crept toward him. They towered over him now, their legs reaching toward him. “You are part of my mind, aren’t you? I… I’m fighting myself.”
As soon as the words left his lips, the spiders stopped in their tracks, and the Spider Queen froze. Jason slowly pushed himself to his feet, feeling something shift uncomfortably in his mind. In another flash of movement, the boy was standing in front of him again.
Awaken Online: Dominion Page 47