AS I STEPPED INTO the hallway, the pitch-black paint nearly left me in the dark, but I was used to it and soon enough my eyes adjusted to the lighting. Curved into the walls were vines decorated with spikes. The carvings are as pitch black as the wall itself, so anyone who got too close to the wall would be sliced open by the spikes. I wasn't looking at the spikes, but at the things hanging from them. Thousands of little objects hung from the spikes: necklaces, bracelets, watches, etc. I took every piece from a corpse the Nightmare Master forced me to massacre.

My eyes searched the wall, trying to find one of the spikes that had nothing on it, but of course, there were none. It’s been a while since I started doing this, so these walls contain thousands, even millions, of these objects. I turned to start my usual walk through this building when the sound of another thump stopped me. When I glanced back, Crimson was yanking his knife out of another nightmare eye.

“You know destroying them will just make him want to send more.”

“I'm going with you.” Completely ignoring my words.

I let out an annoyed sigh. “I guess I can't stop you, just know I am not searching for the exit; I've long stopped looking for it.”

I turned back and started my walk down the hallway while Crimson fell into step quietly behind me, probably realizing there was no use arguing with me. My eyes skimmed the wall as I walked, only stopping when I saw a free spike to hang something on. I can tell my actions confused Crimson, but I wasn't doing this for him; I was doing it for them. For the people who are now just corpses that the Nightmare Master will discard as if they weren’t even people. I guess to him they actually weren't.

I was barely halfway done when Crimson reached for one of the objects.

Instantly, I spun towards him, “Do not touch them.”

He opened his mouth as if to protest; however, when he saw the look in my eyes, he stepped back instead. “I, um, I thought it might be… his.”

His hand clutched the necklace around his neck like it was some kind of lifeline, and from the way he acted when hearing his name, it probably was. After a moment's hesitation, I stepped to the side. My silent way of telling him he could touch it. He hesitated for a second, probably because of the way I had reacted before, which was valid because I went completely tense as his fingers brushed the necklace he had been reaching for. Still, I forced myself not to react as he pulled it closer, examining it with a gaze torn between two different kinds of hope.

One was the hope that it was actually his, so he would know what happened to whoever this Alex was, and the other was that it wasn't. There was probably still a part of him that wished Alex was alive, so that one day he could find him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was the only one to have ever made it out of my massacre alive. He released it, his face crumbling, and I didn't bother to comfort him, knowing I was probably the last person he needed comfort from. I glanced back at the wall, continuing my process while he followed me.

Not that I was sure why he was following me, I had told him I wasn't going to the exit. Does he expect me to have lied about not knowing where the exit is? It's actually at the top of the building, past all the different obstacles created by the Nightmare Master. I've actually made it to the last obstacle once; however, before I could even try to do it, I passed out from blood loss.

That's not why I don't want to go back up there, though I am just sick and tired of doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Thankfully, we reached the end of the objects in my hand before the hallway ended, but when I tried to turn back, he stopped me.

“Wait, are you really just going to turn back?”

“Of course, as I have-.”

“I know what you told me, but do you really expect me to believe that you do not know where the exit is?” he snapped, confirming my thoughts from earlier.

“If you want to go ahead, then you can. I'm going back to my stage.”

His jaw ticked as he clenched it. “If you give me one good reason, I will let you go back.”

I stepped closer, narrowing my eyes. “Maybe for the only month out of the year that I have control of my body, I just want to do what I want instead of running some nightmare course…”

I trailed off, noticing a nightmare eye close enough to listen to our conversation.

“Have the nightmare eyes been following us the whole time?” I asked, realizing I had focused too much on my task and him.

He nodded. “Yeah, it appeared soon after I destroyed the last one. Why?”

I ignored his question and tried to walk back down the hallway. Crimson didn't stop me, probably thinking I was going back, but while he might not have stopped me before I could even take five steps, the nightmare eye was in front of me. I tried to step around it, but got the same result.

“It seems that it will not let me go back,” I told Crimson as I turned to him.

He narrowed his eyes at the eye. “Should I destroy it?”

He had his knife out, ready to take these nightmare eyes out as he had done with all the rest, but before he could move, something shot out of the eye and buried itself right in his arm. The small knife is an inch thick and three inches long. He reached for the knife, about to yank it out of his arm, when another one shot out at him. He had thirty seconds to dodge this one since he was expecting it.

“What the fuck, why is this shooting at me?”

“The Nightmare Master must have activated their defense response since you kept destroying them. I told you something like this was going to happen.”