looking at the stars.

               “Really? Well, we should do something about that— the festival looks pretty much the same every year, right?” She chuckled lightly and gestured around with a set of outstretched hands. 

“Or maybe this just isn’t really your scene, which is cool too— we can’t all be as excited about festivals as I am,” She added, laughter full of mirth lingering on the last couple of words.

Umber eyes took in his own and she shook her head convincingly. “No, no reason to say no— not unless you really are scared of heights and plan on ruining it for me by screaming the whole ride?” She joked.

“Come on—”

“Is it?” A laugh escaped him and Rhys shrugged his shoulders in response to her words, glancing back and forth for a moment. “I don’t think I really pay anywhere near enough attention to know. But that’s just me.”

Then, as she continued on, a nod and a small smile crossed his features. “There’s that, too,” he answered. “I think a lot of it’s down to the fact I’m usually working and don’t really have time for it. It’s always been a kind of afterthought for me, not going to lie.” Maybe it wasn’t very community minded of him, to skip out on the festival when so many people loved it, but it had just kind of... happened.

“Not scared of heights. We’re good.” Once he’d confirmed that for her, he took her instruction as read, and then led the way onto the Ferris wheel.

“Thought you would be at work. I mean, you don’t have the 9-5 job do you?” Sam said with a smile. “ good to see you.” He said and scooted over to let the other sit. “So how’s things?” He asked as he looked out to the lake. “ Nice round here, glad I moved here.”

“Honestly? I never know if I’m coming or going, but luckily I have a couple of hours off,” said Rhys with a laugh and a shrug of his shoulders. “Figured I’d come here. Who needs sleep?” This was crap, of course, because he was completely exhausted. But crap statements were pretty usual for him these days. Taking a seat beside Sam, he shook his head, looking back out across the lake. “Pretty good. Escaping from the kid for a while,” he chuckled. “How about you?”

It wasn’t that he didn’t like festivals. It was just the ones he had been to in the past were raucous and full of underage teens who had one to many wine coolers and were pretending to act sober. He walked over to the lake and found a bench to sit on. He watched the world go by and smiled at someone who he recognised. “ Hey, how’s things?  I didn’t know you were going to be here.” He said moving along in case they wanted to sit down. 

Rhys had to admit, now that the festival had moved to his own neighbourhood, he was getting a lot more joy out of it. Being able to relax by the lake, exploring whatever was on offer there when he wasn’t stuck at the hospital. He’d been there ten minutes or so today when he heard a familiar voice, glancing up to come face to face with Sam. “Oh hey...” he responded, small smile crossing his features. “I live around here, of course I am. What else would I be doing?”

Erin rolled her eyes, though she couldn’t help but laugh. “The difference is that my head is clear. And yours, my dude, is not. There’s not way you could solve a maze right now.” She paused, turning to look around her. “Although, now that I think about it, I’m not great at directions even when sober. Still, I am at least aware of the fact that we’re lost. And I’m not walking into any walls,” Erin added pointedly.

“Hey hey now, I know we’re lost, I clearly already know we’re lost...” was Rhys’ response, a laugh escaping him —- drunk or not, he could tell that much at least. “But fine, you know what you’re doing, so you can lead us out of here... preferably sometime before midnight, yeah?” He flashed her a playful grin then. 

                                    “No, they’re not,” she disagreed with a guffaw— head shaking at him as she leaned over to shoot him a semi-pointed look, though it probably came across a lot softer than she intended at first. “You’re a good guy, no one is ‘just putting up with you’,” she assured him, chuckling lightly under her breath before she silenced herself with the straw to her iced coffee, the ice now completely gone. At his ongoing playful manner, her cheeks probably reddened further but she ignored it now and nudged him in the side with her elbow as she laughed. “Stop it,” was her weak response, but it was coated in amusement nevertheless. A moment later she looked over at him with a tiny grin on her lips, her head shaking slightly. “—isn’t it weird how that’s how we met? And now we sit here, years later, coincidentally living in the same town… the world is weird. And small.”

Rhys observed her for a moment, tilted his head as a small frown forming on his features —- it was only thoughtful, nothing bad at all. “Yeah, okay, I’ll take your word for it...” he responded. “You do seem pretty trustworthy and all.” As he moved to lean back on his elbows, his gaze shifting toward the sky, his frown was quick to turn upside down. “You know I’m never going to stop it. Seriously. It’s never going to happen.” Then, as she continued, he looked back over to her and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know if it’s weird that’s how we met. I mean, come on, I wouldn’t ever say no to that happening again.” A gentle chuckle. “But I get what you mean.”

Even though James stopped himself from saying it out loud, he had to agree — thank God that his daughter wasn’t a five-year-old. The younger, the more to watch. Or at least he liked to believe that they gained more sense with a slightly higher age. “How old is she now? I keep forgetting.” Truth was that he just never had made sure to memorize it, as awful as that sounded. The only thing that had really stuck with him was her name; Elena. Entering the kitchen, James went to lean against the counter, still facing Rhys. “Glad you to hear things are going good. I’m still getting used to you with a kid, to be honest.”

Rhys laughed very gently at the question. To be honest, he didn’t expect anyone to remember, up until this year she hadn’t been around all that much. “She’s thirteen now,” he responded, “Which is insane, honestly.” He shook his head, it felt as though she should only be five or something, with how much time he’d been able to spend with her as she grew up. Pulling a couple of beers from the fridge, he uncapped them, and then handed one over. “Yeah? Me too... I mean, it’s only been seven years or whatever.” He chuckled. “I know what you mean, though.” He hadn’t really seen much of James over the last seven years, so it wasn’t a surprise.

Emil chuckled softly. “Shall we just pick a direction?” he asked, squinting. “I think I have already been to the left, so we have straight ahead and right as our options.”

“Just because you’ve already been that way, doesn’t mean it’s not the way out...” said Rhys with a light laugh, shaking his head. “But okay, let’s go right then.” He had no idea how to get out of here, but that was his own fault for stepping inside when he was intoxicated. 

           “You’ll see! They’ll all see when they find us here in the morning after I got us even more lost in here,” she joked and laughed lightly, still very much convinced that that could be a real possibility. “Hey as long as you share credit with me, I won’t complain. We can discuss it further when we’re out into the open again, completely free and far away from our own reflections,” she said with considerable amounts of laughter in her pitch. She followed him willingly and figured there wasn’t really any wrong places to go seeing as they had no idea how to get out. “If everything else fails, we can always try to snatch the next person in here and ask them to get us out. Here’s to hoping they’re not as lost as we are.”

“Yeah, let’s focus on getting out first —- we actually need to be able to do that,” said Rhys with a gentle chuckle as he started down yet another one of the mirrored corridors. Of course, he knew they’d get out of there eventually, but he was definitely regretting even stepping foot into this maze. Why had anyone thought this would actually be a good idea? “We could definitely do that, but who’s to say they’ll know either... we could be lost in here for an eternity, taken by the maze.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, more glad for the company if nothing else. He very much doubted Lucy and Henry would follow him in here, but they’d also never been known for making things easy for Callum. “Yeah, sounds good. And if worse comes to worse, someone will have to come get us eventually, right? I mean, once they hear two grown, drunk men stumbling around in here…” 

”Who knows... You never know, they might leave us in here all night,” was Rhys’ response, a laugh escaping him. “Or, you know, not.” He doubted that would actually happen, but then again, did someone actually bother to go through the whole maze and check before locking up at night.

At this point, Marion wasn’t sure if drinking before walking into the mirror maze had been much of a good idea. It was supposed to make her feel more at ease with herself, relieve the tension she usually carried on her shoulders, but the more she looked around, the dizzier she got. “I don’t see the fun in these places, but hey… we could always be stuck in the thing out there– you know, the really tall one that puts you upside down? Now that would be my worst nightmare,” she scoffed, her hands on her hips. “Should we keep going then? Maybe two brains will be better than one.”

“Well, apparently they don’t like it if you try and go back out through the exit... apparently,” said Rhys with a shake of his head, laughing. As he spoke, he continued on through the maze, casting a glance back over to his shoulders towards her. “Come on then, can’t stand here all day, can we?” he questioned then, grinning.

                                          “Oh yeah, definitely just putting up with you,” she joked, her voice carrying no real authenticity—- even if she’d tried harder to sound like she meant what she said, it probably wouldn’t be possible. “Nah, I think you’re pretty great company honestly; you won’t get any complaints from me, at least.” She turned and glanced over at him with a light smile tugging at her lips, her eyes momentarily stuck on his before she averted them back to the calm water again. It didn’t take long for her cheeks to take on a light rosy color, her free palm coming up to cover whatever parts of her face it could as she laughed. “Oh yeah?” She laughed again, the sound bubbly and light. “I guess I can’t disagree on that.”

“Most people are...” Rhys was only kidding around, really, because he’d never exactly had any complaints from anyone. He got along with people easily, had a good sense of humour (as far as he was concerned), and very rarely looked down on anyone —- that was part of his training, though, he’d become very accepting as he grew. “Well, that’s good to know,” he answered with a smile, taking another drink of his iced coffee. At her response, he simply nodded his head, but a laugh soon followed . “Didn’t think you would,” was his immediate response, and then he added, “Sorry, couldn’t help myself.”

          “Yes, oh yes I definitely am,” she replied with enough confidence that it could’ve been useful in any other situation— and if the reply had been a more positive one. Saying that you’re more lost than someone who appears quite lost doesn’t seem like a great thing after all, but Nora was at least being entirely honest about it, although with a chuckle and certain humour in her voice. “Oh, I’m gonna blame you so hard, but since this is like… the most difficult maze that ever existed, I don’t think anyone’s gonna get on your case about it. They’ll just be grateful that we made it out alive,” she said and laughed, not shy about the amount of focus she would need to find her way out of this mirrored hell. “But how about this; we stick together, and if we do get out of this alive, we share the credit, and when they made an E! True Hollywood Story about us, we’ll credit each other?”

“Still don’t believe you, but I haven’t got a shit what’s going on, honestly,” Rhys responded with a laugh, his darting back and forth the walls surrounding them. If they made it out before the place shut down for the night, it would actually be a miracle. “You don’t think so, huh? Even though you pretty much confirmed you would be,” he told her with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “But sure, I totally promise to credit you too when we finally get out of here...” He chuckled gently, then started down one of the paths. “Let’s try this way.”

                   With a chuckle, Sofia quipped back in good nature, “I do when people look a little bit lost.” She wasn’t sure she knew who the man was, what name he carried, but she had definitely seen him around town before. Wasn’t he… her sibling’s doctor? Doctor… Trevor or Taylor? Ryan Taylor?

“Is that a yes though? You will join me for a ferris wheel ride?” She asked further, her smile soaked in sunshine and her features not unlike it, all mirth and honest excitement.

Rhys’ brows lifted very slightly and he needed his head. “I’m always lost when I’m around this place,” he confirmed, having never been the biggest fan of the festival, but that was probably because he wasn’t used to it. He realised after a moment she was familiar, although a lot of people around town were now.

“Yeah, it’s a yes, don’t see why not, ” he responded with an easy smile. “No reason to say no, is there?” Unless he was afraid of heights, of course, which he wasn’t.

Walking into the maze had been a bad idea, and Carmen was too stubborn to admit it. She was almost sure the clues she had been following led her in a circle somehow. She was dizzy, irritated, and seconds away from trying to climb over the damn thing when she practically slammed into a broad chest. Sucking in a breath, she looked up at him and quirked a brow. Then she nodded vigorously. “Oh, I’m fuckin’ lost… But if you’re lost too I dunno why you think goin’ left is gonna help us… Are you gettin’ like half of these riddles? ‘Cause if we don’t get outta here, this is gonna turn into some straight up horror movie shit.”

“There’s riddles?” The question threw Rhys for a moment and he shook his head, looking around at the walls. “Because I missed those, which probably explains why I am so freaking lost right now...” Another pause, and then he followed the statement up with a drawn out, “Shit.” Then, running his hand along the mirrored walls, he frowned very slightly. “Pretty sure it’s already on its way to horror movie territory. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were locked in.”