Cat and Max walked along an endless, dimly lit, steely grey tunnel. Cat’s thoughts raced wildly. How had Max ever gotten a keyfob to the sub-basement tunnels? How had she known the cave and entrance was hanging over the edge of the impassable ravine? How did she seem to know exactly which corners to turn and which hallways to avoid as they traversed the endless maze?

For the most part, the only sound as they went along was the soft footfall of their own feet. At times they might pass under a noisy pipe, or a staticky fluorescent light, but otherwise the hallways were a deathly echo, silent in the night.

Cat could still taste blood in her mouth. Her lip was split open. Her head throbbed and her back ached as Max hurried her along. What had Max done to her? Why had she inflicted such violence on her own best friend?!

“We’re coming up on the observation rooms,” Max said quietly as they rounded a corner. The hallway appeared to open up, but it was an illusion of glass and mirrors on either side of the hallway. “They should be empty. Even if they’re not, the students can’t see out into the hallway from where they are.”

Cat glanced to her right and jumped as she looked through a window to view the most bizarre scene through the window. The room was empty, save for a chair that looked like that from her dentist, except the chair appeared to have two long leg rests that extended outwards from the chair in a v-shape. Huge lights hung overhead, dozens upon dozens of wires hung down from the ceiling. Two rows of about ten seats were set up facing the chair from the wall of the room.

“Max?” Cat squeaked.

“You’re going to see some weird shit through here, Cat. Better to just keep your gaze straight ahead. Don’t think too hard about what you see.”

Impossible. As they passed the next window, Cat stopped in her tracks as she looked through the window to see a woman, naked, flat on her back and, from where Cat stood, completely asleep or unconscious. Two - somethings - dropped down from the low ceiling above the table and attached to the woman’s breasts. A faint beeping could be heard through the viewing window from the hall, but the scene was otherwise serene. And so confusing.

“Cat!” Max hissed as she grabbed her friend’s hand and pulled her along down the hallway. Window after window provided similar views of empty rooms with bizarre chairs and tables under massive spotlights, wires, seating, electronics and monitoring equipment. Cat’s head spun.

They turned another corner and steel stairs descended into the darkness.

“Max?” Cat asked nervously as she stared down into blackness.

“Sorry, it’s the fastest route back,” Max said quietly, squeezing Cat’s hand in reassurance. She stopped short at the top of the step and Cat nearly stepped right into her. Max turned to face her friend and gently placed both of her hands on Cat’s shoulders.

”One more thing, roomie,” Max said in the most calming voice she could. “You fell off the ledge of a cliff. You almost fell down into the ravine, but you caught yourself before you slid off the rocky ledge.”

“Max?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll give you literally anything you want for the next month,” Max said. Without any further preamble, she body checked herself into Cat again and Cat went flying down the steel steps into the darkness. She was too startled and taken aback by the violent crash and fall that all she did was gasp soundlessly and whimper in overwhelming pain as her bare leg scraped against the bottom most steel step. She was certain that she was concussed. She tasted even more blood in her mouth as she leaned against the freezing cold, damp wall behind her and tried to collect her racing thoughts.

Max’s steps were light and quick as they descended the stairs.

“What the fuck, Max?!” Cat hissed when her roommate came to stand in front of her. Max held out both her hands to help Cat up off the ground and Cat begrudgingly accepted the assistance back up to her feet. It hurt to breathe. Felt like she’d cracked at least one or two ribs in the fall. Her legs were so scraped, stinging and sore she hated to think of what she actually looked like in the the light. Her orbital socket around her eye throbbed and pulsed. Her shoulder ached. Her wrist felt like it might be sprained. She supposed, all things considered, things could have been worse after being thrown down a flight of steel stairs.

“Silence, Catherine,” Max hissed in reply. Cat startled at Max using her full name. “We’re about to go through solitary confinement.” Cat froze on her feet.

“What?!” Cat hissed in a whisper.

“I think there’s one or two people down here. Silence. Do not let them hear you or they will tattle to gain their freedom.”

What the fuck?! Max took Cat’s hand in her own again and she pulled her silently along the long, dark hallway. Unlike many of the hallways they had already traversed, almost all of the doors to the chambers here were open. Save for one or two. Those must have contained people - scholars? Cat felt spike after spike of fear as they walked past each open door and she had the opportunity to glimpse inside a few. Each room contained a metal table or one of those strange chairs like she had seen in the first room they’d passed. Chains hung from walls and ceiling. Wires hung haphazardly from dark corners. The more doors they passed, she realized torturous implements also hung from the walls outside the doors to the rooms. Paddles, whips, chains, rods in all lengths and widths. This was all underneath the campus?!?

They reached a locked door finally at the end of the hallway and Max withdrew and pressed her keyfob against the panel to unlock it. The door clicked and began to slide open into a lighted stairwell leading back up.

“Back up we go, buttercup,” Max said cheerily as she pulled Cat through the door and it closed with a soft click behind them.

They ascended the stairs to another door. Max flashed her keyfob, the door clicked, opened, and they walked out into another endless hallway that extended in both directions.

“To the right,” Max pulled Cat in the direction she’d indicated and both girls froze as they heard a painfully loud scream immediately followed by a long, agonizing sob from somewhere behind them. Cat looked to Max, wide-eyed. Max paled and swallowed hard and picked up her pace, tugging Cat along behind her. “We’re almost home, Catty Cat…”

They passed by a windowed door and Cat almost stopped and did a double take through the window as she saw several - three? Five? - large men in white lab coats, all milling around a naked girl with her arms and legs spread wide on one of the bizarre dental chairs. Cat felt the heavy tug from Max on her hand and nearly cried out in pain as it tweaked her already sore shoulder and wrist. The look on Max’s face indicated that Cat should not have been privy to what she had just seen, and they hurried along to the final three doors at the end of the hallway.

They stopped short in front of the doors and Max practically heaved a sigh of relief, “Our dorm,” she pointed to the door on the left. “Laboratories,” she pointed to the door straight ahead. “Dean’s Study,” she pointed to the door on the right.

HOW did she know all this?!? “Just in case. I can’t imagine you’ll ever need to know it. But just in case.” Cat couldn’t find her way back through the maze they had just traversed even if her life depended on it. Max waved the keyfob in front of the door on the left and the door clicked, slid open and the girls ran through to the stairs leading up to their house.

They’d made it. Somehow. Cat couldn’t even begin to comprehend the journey they’d just been on. How were they going to explain this to the administration whenever they were eventually, inevitably, brought in for questioning.