“That reading sounded like a bunch of hocus pocus,” she whispered as if she was on the same train of thought as me. Her voice sounded on edge as if the thought had been plaguing her more than it did me.

“I told you,” I giggled.

The quiet rustling was interrupted by the sounds of stomping somewhere in the maze.  I clapped a hand over my mouth and exchanged a worried look with Kelly. Those footsteps didn't sound like they belonged to someone enjoying a fun night out in a corn maze game.

Time to find the lantern and quickly. She grabbed my hand and clicked off her flashlight bringing us back to the glow stick only approach. It wasn’t my first choice, but keeping low visibility meant we had less chance of being seen.

I brought my voice as low as it could go. “I think I see light shining through over there. We could cut through.”

As quietly as possible, we pushed our way through the corn, taking a shortcut to reach the lantern. When it came into view, we knelt to use its light to read the guide.

"It says 'avoid the...' as step three," Kelly murmured, squinting at the paper under the lantern’s glow.

“Avoid the what?” I leaned in to get a better look at the guide. It didn’t tell us what to avoid at all. Well, that’s super helpful. “What’s after that?”

“‘Enter the ring of stone.’”

Great. We were officially lost forever.

“Whatever let’s take the most logical path forward. There are three paths here. One of them takes us back and the other takes us forward.”

We stood with only our glow sticks as our only weapons and only hope. The stomping had stopped, but whoever it was had to still be out there, lurking. Maybe they were just pissed they got lost? That thought brought little comfort to my nerves.

“Baby girl...” A man’s voice called out, low and taunting.

My stomach dropped. Alexander.

"Pick one and run," I hissed to Kelly.

She chose the center path after I grabbed her hand and we sprinted in, feet crunching the fallen leaves in rapid succession. My breath came fast and shallow, my heartbeat pounding so loud it drowned out everything else. Alexander was in the maze, and he was looking for me.

We came to another decision—left or right. Kelly didn’t hesitate as she led us to the right, keeping her steps as light as possible while we made a run for it. I scrambled to keep up without stomping the hell out of the ground behind her.

“Baby girl,” he called out at a distance, “I know you’re in here. Come out, come out wherever you are.”

We hit a dead end. “Fuck,” I whispered.

Kelly didn’t miss a beat. “Let’s go through it.”