The clicking of my heels on the cement echoed throughout the whole building. At the sound of our footsteps, every officer in the room turned their heads towards us. They all stood, and one started walking towards us. He must be Deputy Johnson. “Agent Morgan, glad you could make it,” The middle aged man offered his hand to me as I neared. He was white, chestnut hair mixed with gray strands, balding slightly, and had a stomach that stretched his tan uniform. Typical of a small town Police Chief.

“Glad to be here, Deputy. We came as soon as we were called in by our lead, but he never explained the case to us. Would you mind telling me why I’m here?” I questioned, looking behind him, taking in the thirty some officers staring at me with wide eyes, which admittedly, considering the size of Oakton, had to be the entire department. They all surrounded a screen that was projecting from a small digital camera. It was black, but from the looks of it, they had already seen what was on that camera. It didn’t take much for me to guess that whatever it was, it was why I’m here. My eyes found Deputy Johnson again, and he scratched his head, looking down at the ground.

“Two days ago we received a 911 call from this warehouse, but when my officers arrived on the scene, no one was here. However, there was that cam recorder on the ground,” He pointed to the camera connected to the projector. “So they brought it back to the station, but we came back here to investigate after seeing what was on it. Honestly, I have no explanation for what we saw, and we have no idea how to handle it,” He voiced, exasperated. “My higher authority suggested we call your supervisor, and he recommended you. Said you’ve dealt with summin’ like this before,” He finished.

Suddenly it all made sense why I was here, and my blood ran cold. I took in a shaky breath, and I could feel my partners hand grip my elbow. “We don’t have to take this case if you don’t want,” He assured. He picked up on what was happening too, it seemed. I was prepared to tell the officer that we weren’t able to help them, but then I looked at the desperation in his face and let my eyes travel to his department behind him, watching their shoulders deflate and their heads hang low. I knew that whether I liked it or not, I was the only one who would be able to solve this.

As if he could sense my inner turmoil, the officer rushed to convince me, “Before you say no, just watch the video, please?” He begged desperately. I knew I needed to say something, but the words seemed to be stuck in my throat. I sighed loudly, and closed my eyes.

“Show me.”

We walked over to the projector, and the officer behind the computer pressed the play button on a file in their computer. We all turned our heads to the screen. The first shot was a teenage boy. He wore glasses and had large, bushy eyebrows and dark hair. We could only see his upper face, considering he was shoving it in the lense of the camera.

“Is this thing on? Yes, okay, it is. So we have been sitting here waiting for like, what? An hour now and--” He was abruptly cut off.

“Sam, dude, what are you doing?” Another deep voice amusedly asked.

The camera panned to another teenage boy who looked similar to the first, just without the glasses. Brothers, perhaps.

“I’m documenting, duh. Ok so get this, we all got these papers that said ‘You are the Chosen,’ creepy, right?”

The ‘Sam’ boy then holds up a familiar white sheet with the simple four words to the camera, and it sends shivers down my spine that make me shuffle uncomfortably.

“Anyways, we all got it so it told us to go to this old warehouse and everyone in town thinks this place is honestly haunted, like everyone, so originally I wasn’t going to go but then I found out all these guys got the same cards,” Sam explains in a rush of jumbled words. “This is Anthony, Livy, Sarah, and I’m Sam, obviously.”

He shifted to a group of uncomfortable looking teenagers. Sarah had dark skin and curly hair, while Livy was a stark contrast with fair skin and strawberry blonde locks. Sam kept animatedly talking to the camera while all the teens stared at him in annoyance. My knuckles were ghostly white from clenching them so hard as I became enraptured by the screen, waiting with labored breaths for the inevitable fate I knew was coming, the same fate I see every time I close my eyes. And it came when suddenly the video shook and Sam turned the lens down to the ground that was shifting each of the four away from one another.

“Yo wait, what’s happening? What is this? Guys I’m scared!” A mix of each of the kids voices muddled together in one big panic. Sam felt the fear in his chest, as did everyone else. Before any of them could protest further, the ceiling suddenly lit up like a scoreboard and everyone looked up to read it, “Don’t touch the walls. You have one hour. Survive,” They all read together. Before they could question it further, walls came up on every end, separating the four friends.

I watched in anguish as the other threes panic could be heard and reflected on Sam’s face, even through the separation. I watched as he made sure the camera stayed on his face as he started running in any random direction until he hit dead end after dead end. I watched as he screamed hopelessly at the sound of Anthony and Livy who, out of anger, started pounding on the walls to be let out.

“Livy! Anthony! Stop! It said not to touch the walls!” Sam cried in fear. He heard Sarah somewhere within the confines of the maze relay the same message. It stood to no avail though, as it only fueled them.

“Shut up Sam!” Anthony yelled. “Hey let us out A-holes! We’ve had enough!” He heard Livy doing the same. However, he suddenly took his fists off the walls when he felt the floor shift again, and all at once, he felt the floor disappear beneath him and the wind rush past his face as he was immersed in darkness. Sam and Sarah felt their panic increase hearing Livy and Anthony’s shouts, and then complete silence.

“Guys!” They yelled together.

Tears slowly seeped from my eyes, and rolled down my cheeks. Livy and Anthony were gone. That was Emily and Jake. I watched again when suddenly Sam turned down another corner and Sarah’s shaking form could be seen at the other end of the hallway. He ran towards her, when the video shook again and this time, you could tell someone had thrown the camera as it was a blurry mess, and when it landed some feet away on its side, you could see another opening in the floor. The opening that just took Sam. That was Eric. When it was picked up again, I only saw the bottom half of Sarah’s face. Mascara mixed with tears and the realization that she was the only one of her friends left. That was me.

Sarah’s heart fell to the pit of her stomach, her legs quivered beneath her, and her chest tightened painfully as she struggled to breath through the tightening coil caging itself around her throat. Sam was gone now too. She hurried to grab the camera, tripping on the ground. The girl closed her eyes, taking a large deep breath. With whatever motivation and bravery Sarah could muster out of herself, she opened her eyes again, squinting as the bright lights danced across her face, clouding her vision; but the frightened teen was determined. She didn’t know how much of the hour was left, but it didn’t matter anymore. She walked carefully through the maze, willing her memory to develop a pattern of the direction she came from, had the girl need to travel back. Left, right, left, left. Even though her breathing was still coming out shaky and the pressure on her chest felt unbearable, Sarah walked for what seemed like hours, and even though she repeated the directions she had come from like a mantra, a broken record on a never ending loop, her journey through the large, thick steel walls became too much to memorize. Sarah could feel the frustration, desperation, and fear boiling under her skin. The inevitable lump forming in her throat as the girls vision blurred. She let out a shaky breath, hastily wiping under her eyes. Sarah stared at her reflection in the walls. She wasn’t going to cry--her only focus should be to escape. As she made to start walking again, a loud chime sounded and reverberated from every inch of the maze. Sarah jumped, gasping in terror. The walls shook from the force. It took her a second to process, but she realized it was a clock. The chime sounded once again and Sarah reached for the camera while covering her ears in pain. The floor shook again, but this time, the walls starting moving, and they were moving in on her. Tears streamed down her face and she held the camera to her face.

She screamed as parts of the ceiling started falling down. “Everyone else is gone! It’s just me and I don’t-I don’t” She stuttered, screaming over top of the destruction around her, and falling down to cover her body. “We all got an invitation to come here! Something about us being chosen for something special, but it was all a trap or...something...I can’t-oh my gosh I’m going to die,” She cried as the walls came closer to her body. “Maybe, maybe the camera will survive this and if it does, whoever is watching this needs to know: Our hour just expired,” She gasped out.

The shot was shaky and blurred as Sarah struggled to keep it on herself. The last shot was the crumbling of the ceiling and Sarah’s sheer panic before it all went black. I knew what her fate would be, but I still took in a deep breath and closed my eyes nonetheless. I only tuned back in when I heard the Deputy call my name.

“Agent Morgan, the place in that video was here--this warehouse. But this place is perfectly intact, and after that call and the fact that we may have the homicide of four teenagers on our hands….Please, we have no idea what is going on here,” He pleaded, exhaustion evident in his face and his voice.

I rubbed the scar on my wrist, feeling the symbol embellished into my skin, a painful memory of being a Chosen myself, having that hour to prove that I had what it took. If there's any hope of Sarah being alive, we need to find her now. It was a fear I had spent sleepless nights mulling over, hoping that when I closed my eyes I wouldn’t see the walls crushing my body. It had been so long that maybe I had finally convinced myself that what I experienced with my friends all those years ago was merely a nightmare, and they were still only a call away. Looking up and seeing the absolute terror in Sarah’s face, I only saw myself.

“All those other kids, I can almost guarantee they’re dead,” I paused letting that information sink into all the officers, making them understand this was a reality. “But that girl, Sarah, I think she may still be alive and if I’m right….we don’t have long to find her,” I finished, watching everyone furrow their eyebrows in confusion. The one sitting behind the projector opened their mouth,

“If I may, Agent, but how? We watched the building crumble around her,” He questioned in confusion. I looked away from him and towards my partner standing behind me. He nodded to me in confirmation and I knew for sure then. I turned back to everyone else.

“We’ll take the case.” They’re back.