I'm awake.
But I don't open my eyes. I can't. Someone's here. In the trailer, sitting at the end. I can hear every breath. Every disgusting inhale and exhale. I am terrified.
It feels like they've been here for hours. And I have this feeling they're not going to leave anytime soon.
Suddenly, I hear them stand up. Every step towards me is agonizing and makes my heart want to beat out of my chest. Every slow step is almost enhanced. I can hear the tiny pebbles on the ground crunching beneath their feet.
They're coming towards me. Closer and closer. I can feel their undeniable presence fill the trailer with fear. My fear. Their eyes are burning through me. Searching my body, making me want to wriggle and squirm. But I have no choice but to stay completely still. Their breathing grows heavier and heavier as they got closer and closer, then...
There was nothing. The world fell silent. The presence was gone, along with my fear.
Finally, I opened my eyes. It was all in my head. No one was over me. A yellow light flickered overhead, barely lighting the room. I slowly sat up. Looking around, I saw someone sitting at the end of the trailer. It was the sad masked man. He didn't move for what felt like forever. Making me question whether he was real or not.
The man stood up. His boots hitting the cold floor, echoing through the entire room. He stopped only ten feet away from me and emptied his pockets. Every type of knife fell to the floor. Except for a rather small one, which he held onto. He took off his grey blazer and the vest that was under that. He also unbuttoned the first few buttons of his light blue shirt.
He took only four more steps towards me. Four. Agonizing. Painful. Steps. And when he got to me, he simply sat down.
He leaned up against the wall, just like I was. He looked at me, with dark brown eyes that swallowed you whole. Our eyes connecting. Then, he spoke.
"Take it," he said, voice muffled by his mask, "it's your choice. You can take a chance and try to kill me, or you can join me."
He handed me the bloodstained knife. I looked down at it. Then I looked back up to see that he had taken off his mask. Revealing his white face paint, surrounded by tangled green hair. Around his eyes were black. But, somehow, the feature I was most attracted to was the scars around his mouth. They were turned up into a gruesome, red smile.
I shivered, obviously not knowing the answer. He grabbed my empty hand softly and pulled me to him. His warm hands fell on my waist. My arms automatically, wrapped around his neck and shoulders. I rested my head on his shoulder.
I knew my choice. I threw the knife to the other side of the trailer. It hit the wall and clattered to the ground.
For some reason, I already trusted this man, whom I knew almost nothing of. I wanted things from this man. I wanted to learn.
The only thing I did know about him was that he was a psychopathic murderer. How was I already so comfortable with this so called "monster"?
Our body heat radiated together. And suddenly, his scars weren't so scary anymore.
He wasn't a monster in my eyes, he was my savior.

For the rest of the night, we didn't speak. All we did was lay there. In the very back of a truck trailer, with hardly enough light to see.
All we did was lay. In our own warmth. In our own silence.
Then I broke the silence. I was surprised by my own voice, "Why am I here?" I whispered, looking up to him.
He gazed back at me with those gloomy eyes. He chuckled, "The tests that are before you, will not be easy."
"I don't understand."
"You'll understand soon enough. I can tell you that you are extremely different. It's a good thing," he laughed softly, "You have eight hours before you begin. Get some sleep," he smiled. The sweetest sadness filled his ebony eyes.
He wrapped me tighter in his arms. Pulling me into him. Into his world. I took in everything about him. His distinct peppermint scent. The feeling of his rough hands around me. His chest rising and falling, filling his lungs with the musty air from the trailer.
But what I love most is the sound of his heart beating. It was almost beautiful to me. The sound almost made me forget about the "test" that I would have to be unwillingly put through in the next seven hours now.
A state of nausea filled my stomach once again. I was scared. But I pushed back the rising tears. And I thought of the comfortable sound of his human heartbeat. It was so divine. So alive. So rhythmic.
The rhythm put me into a sleep between being conscious and becoming unconscious. I was left in the dark with only his heartbeat to guide me. Only the motion of his chest, rising and falling. Only him. Rocking me to sleep with the melody that played in his heart. Only him.
He woke me up. I was so scared. I didn't want to leave him.
He helped me up, "Are you ready?" He asked quietly.
"I don't know," I couldn't explain it to him. I looked forward--expecting any second for the people with the clown masks to come barging in. I was trembling.
His hand slipped into mine and his fingers intertwined with mine. I looked at him and squeezed his hand, "You'll be just fine," he gave me a half-hearted smile. I looked down at the floor. But his other hand tipped my chin up, "You're going to win, you're going to be the first."
And with that his lips met mine. The heat between the two of us was electric. Sending electricity all through my body. In that moment, I forgot the situation that was held before me. I forgot about the world. It was just us. I felt like it should always be just us. Always.
I never wanted that moment to end.
I wanted more of him.
I was addicted.
But all good things must come to an end.
I opened my eyes to be blinded by the light of the open, unlocked trailer end. I was pulled away from him. Someone held me back. I tried so hard to get back to him. I needed him. My lips begged and ached for his. Tears streamed down my face as I struggled to free myself of the many bodies that restricted me. I screamed for them to free me but none of them would budge. My attempts were pathetic. They were all laughing as they tackled the sad masked man.
Suddenly, all of the thoughts that I had pushed down with a heartbeat, came flying back up. I was going to die. It's going to be painful. I couldn't think about anything. My mind was mixed. With feelings of loss and disgust. My heart ached. Longing to be with him once more.
They threw me in the back of a police van (stolen I suspected). And slammed the doors in my face. It was dark. There was what seemed to be bullet holes through both sides of the truck end. I tried to peak through them but each time I tried to look, I would be horribly blinded by the sunlight.
The road was rough. I could feel each rock beneath us. The bumps threw me around. I had suddenly become extremely sensitive to everything. I was horrified.
Hours upon hours passed a we traveled the rocky road. The sun was no longer in sight and the darkness had completely taken over. Suddenly, I saw a building. It was lit up like a Christmas tree. The truck came to a bumpy stop. I heard speaking.
"Did you bring the girl?" One asked.
"She's in the back, get on with it!" The person who seemed to be the driver said.
The man opened some type of gate and the truck lunged forward, throwing me backwards. We only drove a little ways more before the doors burst open again. One man jumped on top of me and held me down while another handcuffed me. Then threw me out of the truck.
My bare knees hit the cold, wet pavement. It was raining, I smiled. I haven't seen rain in forever.
I tried to get up, but before I could react one of the men grabbed me by the back of my neck and pushed me forward, forcing me to walk. Holding a gun to my back the entire time.
We entered the building. It was dirty. Everywhere.
The blue lights flickered overhead and c***roaches crawled around on everything. Every surface they could find. Someplace, in the distant, someone was screaming. Begging for mercy. Begging for their life.
I wasn't scared anymore. I was beyond words.
We took numerous turns, getting lost in the maze of rooms and cells. We finally came to a large room where I was given a set of hospital scrubs. The room was crawling with every type of bug you could think of.
I almost puked at the sight of what sat in the corner. There was a decomposing body that was leaned up against the corner. It was infested with maggots and flies. Everywhere. They were coming out of it's eyes and mouth. The flesh looked as though it had been singed off. Half of the head was missing and the brain was gone.
I put my hand over my mouth to stifle the scream that arose in my chest. My heartbeat was exploding in my head. Then I realized I was holding my breath. I slowly released the air from my lungs.
Then the smell hit me. The putrid scent invaded my nostrils and I tried to hold back the puke that was lodged in my throat.
I don't think it was the fact that the smell was horrific or that there were most likely hundreds upon thousands of maggots living inside it.
It was everything, plus the fact that it was a little girl.
What was left of her hair was braided. And she wore a tiny pink dress with a watermelon embroidered on the front.
I tried so hard to move on from that.
I pretended it wasn't watching my every movement. Longing for that movement she would never be able to feel again.
But I.
Moved.
On.
I realized there was a shower head and I pressed the bloodstained button. A trickle of unfiltered water came out. I removed my underwear and washed myself. Running my fingers through my dirty, tangled hair. The water was never right. It was either boiling hot or so cold that you couldn't feel you toes after three minutes.
Suddenly, the shower stopped working altogether. I dried myself the best I could, then put on the clean hospital scrubs. I walked out the the waiting clown masked men. They walked me down a long corridor to another room.
A woman was waiting there. Dressed in a slightly revealing tight, white dress. Her dark brown hair was swept up into a tight bun. She had round, black tinted spectacles. I guess she could've been considered attractive but her face was aged by stress. You could tell.
They strapped me down in a chair and turned to talk to the woman. One clown handed her a Manila folder and a fat envelope.
"What were the results of Stage 1?" The woman asked as she opened the envelope and started to silently count a large sum of cash.
The clowns were almost startled by her simple question. One clown was pushed forward, "U-uh... P-pass."
"There must've been interference then," she sighed, removing her glasses.
"T-there wasn't-" the guard started but was interrupted by the bullet that was lodged in his head.
"Leave," the woman said as she sat down in a rotating chair in front of me. The clowns quickly left. She turned to a set of medical supplies sitting next to her, "You resemble him," she said confidently. She turned back to me with a syringe, filled with some type of illuminating orange fluid.
Without being asked, I held out my arm. She looked at me and laughed, "You're just like him. Volunteering for pain."
She injected the serum into my arm. The effects were almost immediate. I lurched forward. Vomiting only bile.
The woman cackled. But I looked up at her and smiled. Flashing my pearly, white teeth. Soon, I started to laugh too, "I-I'm going t-to k-kill you," I whispered. But the woman had stopped laughing and was injecting something else into my arm.
Then everything went black.
When I woke up, I found myself in a room with many white doors and large white walls. I was clothed in the same dull color.

The woman's monotone voice came on over a speaker.
"Welcome to the maze."