You still hate the meme squad for making the morning alarm so loud and shrill. You hate them for other things, too. Kidnapping you, chasing you around, making you live on Twinkies. But this morning you just hate them for the alarm.

"Welcome back to the waking world, [Y/N]." It's Error this time. She sounds just as tired as you feel. You hear a quiet slurp, like she's drinking something. "Hope you had some good rest on the floor." You flip off the ceiling. You're so tired. You can't be bothered to care. "The other two are already on their way."

"Of course they are," you grumble, getting up. The spikes are gone. You need to get going.

"...yeah, that's about it. See you in the maze." Before the PA system shuts off, you can hear her yawn, and mutter something about hoping the coffee kicks in soon.

You hope the coffee does nothing, purely out of spite. Though as you wake up a bit more, you decide that a tired murderer is probably a slightly less dangerous murderer, and hope again that the coffee doesn't do shit for her.

Once again you're treated to a gourmet breakfast of Twinkies. Why do they insist of using Twinkies? Why not cosmic brownies? Or zebra cakes? Or doughnuts? Or...so many other shelf-stable baked goods.

...oh. Cross had said 'non-perishable.' Twinkies supposedly have an infinite shelf life. God. They really were fucked in the head.

You try to leave a false trail of Twinkie wrappers. Every time you come to a dork I the road, if you have a wrapper, you throw it down the other hall. You don't want them in your pockets crinkling and drawing attention, and you don't want them to be able to track you down with the wrappers you leave behind. Also just in general you think that littering in their maze was okay. You're inside. There's no wild flora or fauna in here that'll die from the plastic. And they kidnapped you, so they're going to have to clean it up.

Man, you've become kind of spiteful, haven't you?

You tried to do the same thing with your food trash yesterday, especially since you'd found a lot more Twinkies. You're pretty sure it helped, but you're not really sure how much. Still, anything is better than nothing. You needed every advantage you could get.

The first few hours were uneventful. Just wandering and occasionally throwing a Twinkie wrapper, until you run out. Occasionally you find another god damn Twinkie. Every time you debate leaving it, but you always decide that if you can't find any other food for a while, it would be better than nothing. Even if you're getting really sick of them.

The mirrors have stopped scaring you, for the most part. They startle you once in a while when you've forgotten about them, but not nearly as much as before. Every time you pass one you check behind you and around the corner. Just in case.

You find another mirror, confirm that the cost is clear, and continue.

Then a familiar face with purple eyes comes into view of the mirror.

You stumble back as Nightmare grins. "Oh there you are." He holds out his hand, and his weapon forms in his hand, with a serrated spearhead blade. "Sweet. I was starting to get bored."

You run. You hear him laugh, and run after you.

Well. This would be fun. Running from the most tenacious and practiced murderer in the group, who can sense your emotions and will absolutely use that to track you down, as your first encounter today.

How did he even get in front of you so fast? Did they start from a different part of the maze? Was there even another entrance besides where you started and the exit?

Wait. That...that must mean you were getting close. Or at least, closer to the exit than to where you'd started. Close enough that it would've taken too long for them to come from where you started.

You have to get past Nightmare. You have to find some way to get around him.

Only one small issue with that plan, though.

You...aren't really sure how. He's not easy to trick. He's been doing his thing for longer than you've been alive. He's seen a lot. And you can't really make an elaborate plan of escape while you've running for your life and trying to make sure you don't get too lost or run into a wall.

You round a corner and hear a thunk just behind you. You instinctively turn to look, and see Nightmare yanking his spear out of the wall. Your momentary hope is replaced by cold dread. You run faster. He wasn't throwing his god damn spear last time, holy shit.

"You're getting faster," he calls. He laughs. "Good! It's more fun this way!"

He keeps trying to skewer you when you turn corners. You stumble once and barely manage to avoid falling, and nearly get gutted, but you manage to escape with just a painful scratch.

You come to a fork in the road. Your options are straight, and left, and you try to turn left and see if you can throw Nightmare off.

Your broken arm is grabbed by bright blue strings and tugged. You yelp and stumble. You manage to stop yourself before you're close enough for Error to stab you, but Nightmare's still running. You can't pull away from Error while she's got a hold of your bad arm.

You only have a few moments before one of them gets you.