The Spoon

She’d been walking through that maze for days now – a maze of bark and leaves and grass and mud, sap and stone, and earth and water. Sunlight could barely penetrate the thick canopy above her, if it was still made of treetops for that matter. Everything looked blurred after a certain distance ahead, above, or in any other direction. The only thing she was sure of was the ground she stepped on. Or was she?
A quick stop was in order, her knees were killing her! A multitude of minute fauna had been stinging her shins for a juicy meal, so that didn’t help much either. She rubbed dirt off a tree stump and squeezed the thick moss covering it, making sure it was comfortable to sit on. She opened her backpack, taking out a canteen and a leather book and proceeded to pour half the container down her throat and the rest over her head. It wasn’t really that warm, but there was something besides humidity that made her want to be sure of the substance in contact with her face.
After pulling her hair back, she opened the leather book, took a pencil out of one of her pockets and began to write.

Day 28,
Claudia is dead. The infection from the massive wound caused a week ago by the mantrap had already spread up her leg and above her waist, finally reaching her vital organs. The lack of proper medicine made it inevitable. I would (kill) (scold) blame Dr. Hughes for losing the first-aid pack along with all of his belongings to a bunch of strangling vines, had he not been asphyxiated by them as well.
She told me (she’d like to see her friends ag) to keep going no matter what (and that she loved m), although I’m starting to feel that my current situation is rather hopeless. I buried her next to some white lilacs, her favourite flower.
There is no one left but me. Claudia, Dr. Hughes, Susan, Charles and Hernando are all dead. I still don’t know where Dr. Claymore might be after we stumbled into that strange giant spider nest, but I am starting to doubt his survival.
To think all of this began because of a spoon. A (fucking) spoon spun like a “truth or dare” bottle to decide what would be the next place to explore. Damn all these adventurous ideas to hell. Damn Claymore’s “lucky spoon” and his obsession with the unknown! I wish I was still that stupid, naïve, cowardl…

She was interrupted. It was that noise again, that weird rattling noise that sounded like two hollow blocks of wood being shaken and hitting each other. She couldn’t remember when she had first heard it, but it had haunted her ever since. At first, she’d thought it was the result of some kind of lesion in the internal ear, probably caused by the fall she’d suffered some weeks ago that had plunged her into unconsciousness for several hours. But had she heard that sound before? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
There it was again. And again. Was she going crazy?
She quickly put the canteen and the journal back into her pack and sprang to her feet; her hand on the gun she carried on her belt. It hadn’t been easy to pry it from Hernando’s cold hands, but she’d seen enough of that place to be convinced of its danger. What was it, anyway? Where was she? In a maze? A shrine? Some kind of temple? Ruins? Whatever it was, it was big and filled with labyrinthine passages; some hidden by foliage, watercourses, walls, doors, or devilish contraptions that locked earlier corridors shut to open new ones ahead.
‘Some sadistic architect you must’ve been,’ she mumbled while carefully walking along a stream.
Upon glancing at the stream a bit more carefully, she was quick to walk away from it.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she said, her voice trembling while trying to find some other path to follow.
A pair of eyes closed and disappeared beneath the waters.
‘You already know what I’m capable of, don’t you?’ she shouted while backing away, ‘You bastards!’
Something sharp touched her back. She jumped, quickly turned round while taking her gun from her belt and shot blindly while cursing her lungs out until there were no bullets left.
‘A tree,’ she whispered, ‘a tree!’ She let out a short laugh at the sight of a perforated tree.
She reached for more bullets in her backpack. Her hands were shaking.
‘Calm down,’ she told herself, ‘You’re not going crazy...’
Just then, the noise was heard once more. She jumped at the sound of it and dropped all the bullets.
‘Damn it!’ she kneeled to pick them up.
Upon getting up, something caught her attention. Sitting on a ruined wall was what appeared to be a little boy, shabbily dressed with large nutshells and leaves, tilting his head at the sight of her. He wore a large hat made from leaves that kept his face in the shadow, but she could guess he was no human since his eyes shone orange from beneath the hat. He held a spoon in his hand. She clumsily loaded the gun in a hurry and pointed it at the boy, quickly changing her mind and hiding the gun behind her back, hesitantly. He just stared.
‘Do you speak?’ she asked.
He just tilted his head.
‘Do you know a way out of here?’ she asked again, insisting, ‘Do you even understand what I’m saying?’
The boy would do nothing; he just sat there looking at her with his shiny, expressionless orange eyes and playing with the spoon between his fingers. She decided to take a step forward. No reaction. So she decided to take another one. Still no reaction. She carefully made her way up to the boy until he suddenly faded into thin air.
‘Wait!’ She stood there confused.
The same rattling noise then echoed through the trees. As she looked back, trying to track its source, she was confronted with the same boy sitting atop a tree.
‘You stay right there.’ She tried to come nearer to him.
He let out a devilish giggle and disappeared again just as she was getting there. Her eyes darted in every direction. She knew the boy had something to do with that noise. It was driving her insane! It was also starting to be heard more frequently. Each time the boy would appear somewhere and disappear as soon as she got close. His mischievous giggle was becoming more and more irritating.
He reappeared farther and farther ahead amongst the trees and ruined pillars covered with vines until she noticed she couldn’t remember where she had come from. He was now standing atop a large tree with a trunk split in two.
‘I’m gonna get you, and you’re gonna tell me where you got that spoon!’ she said, her eyes shining.
She put her backpack on the ground and rubbed her hands together, proceeding to put one foot on the split in the trunk and starting to climb from there. The boy just stared at her, playing with the spoon. The trunk was getting steeper, but she only noticed this when the other half was closing in on her.
‘Shit!’ she cursed as she realised what was happening, attempting a jump before the halves could crush her.
Had she jumped a second earlier, her foot wouldn’t have got caught between the trunk’s two halves and she wouldn’t have smashed her face into the ground with a thud.
Everything was dark for a while, until a familiar noise followed by a familiar giggle brought her back. She lifted her face from the ground. Her nose was bleeding and her hands and knees were grazed. She winced in pain and confirmed the situation by glancing back at her stuck and crushed foot. Consumed by anger, she reached for her gun. But it wasn’t on her belt.
The boy was standing in front of her with both the spoon and the gun in his hands. Instinctively, she stretched her arm out for the gun, only to see her hand stopping mere inches from the boy. She tried to pull away as best as she could from the tree, but the pain was unbearable.
The boy’s expressionless eyes stared at her as he offered her the spoon.
‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘I need the gun, please...’
The boy nodded and tossed the spoon at her; it fell near her head. He then started fiddling with the gun just as he had done with the spoon.
‘Don’t-’
A loud noise echoed below the canopy.

Jolly Roger