Chapter 2: Her Voice

Chapter 2: Her Voice

The next night, the arcade felt different. It was a subtle shift, like a change in barometric pressure before a storm. The air was thick, heavy with the same listening silence from the night before, but now Ash felt like he was the one being listened to. He’d spent the day replaying the image of the tall shadow in the loft, trying to paint over it with layers of logic. A forgotten promotional cutout. A stack of boxes casting a weird shadow. But the memory of the door shoving back against him, raw and unnaturally strong, refused to be explained away. He was running on three hours of sleep and a gallon of cheap coffee, and the familiar neon glow of The Pit now seemed less cheerful and more predatory.

His desire to believe it was a fluke, a waking nightmare brought on by exhaustion, was a desperate, flickering flame. The arrival of a new trainee was a welcome gust of oxygen for that flame.

Her name was Maya Chen. She had bright, curious eyes that seemed to take in everything at once and a calm, centered presence that felt jarringly out of place amidst the arcade's managed chaos. While their perpetually grumpy day manager, Mr. Henderson, gave her the five-minute tour, Ash watched from the prize counter, trying to ignore the magnetic pull his gaze kept taking toward the locked laser tag door at the back of the building.

“Ash, this is Maya,” Henderson grunted, already looking at his watch. “She’s closing with you and Zach tonight. Show her the ticket eaters and the prize counter. Don’t break her.” He walked off without waiting for a reply.

“Nice to meet you,” Maya said, offering a small, friendly smile. She was wearing the standard-issue employee vest over a t-shirt for a band Ash had never heard of. “He’s… efficient.”

“That’s one word for it,” Ash replied, the corner of his mouth twitching. He found himself straightening up, pushing back the tired slump in his shoulders. “Welcome to The Pit. First rule is the ticket eaters are always hungry and almost always jammed.”

He spent the next hour walking her through the closing duties, a routine so ingrained in him he could do it in his sleep. He demonstrated how to unjam the ticket machine with a straightened coat hanger, the proper way to stack the giant plush snakes so they didn't fall over, and the secret to making the Icee machine spit out the right ratio of syrup to ice. Maya was a quick study, asking smart questions and absorbing everything without a hint of the usual new-hire apathy.

There was an ease about her that Ash found himself wanting to protect. She was new to this place, untainted by the creeping dread that had soaked into its foundations. For a while, as they talked about her college classes—folklore and mythology, of all things—he could almost forget the towering shadow and the violent shove of the door. He could almost feel normal.

Around 11 PM, with the last of the customers straggling out, the familiar lull set in. Zach, their other coworker, was in the back office counting the registers. The main floor was quiet, save for the hum of the machines.

“We’re almost out of 100-point ticket spools,” Ash noted, glancing at the empty slot in the ticket-eater. “I’m gonna grab some from the back closet. Just keep an eye on the front.”

“Got it,” Maya said, wiping down the Skee-Ball lanes with a practiced efficiency that made him think she’d worked a job like this before.

The storage closet was at the very back of the arcade, a small, windowless room right next to the laser tag arena. The air grew colder as he approached. He could feel the proximity of that heavy metal door like a block of ice pressed against his skin. He ignored it, focusing on the jangle of his keys, the squeak of his worn sneakers on the tile. He unlocked the closet, the smell of cardboard and dust washing over him, and flicked on the single, bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

He was reaching for a box of tickets on the top shelf when he heard it.

“Ash?”

It was Maya’s voice. But it was wrong. It was thin, strained, and laced with a tremor of pure panic. It wasn't coming from the front of the arcade. It was coming from behind him. From the laser tag arena.

He froze, his hand hovering over the box. “Maya?” he called back, his voice tight.

“Ash! Help me! The door—it’s stuck! I can’t get out!”

Every muscle in his body went rigid. The voice was a perfect replica of hers, down to the last inflection, but it was filled with a terror that clawed at his insides. He dropped the keys, their clang echoing in the sudden silence. His protective instincts roared to life, completely overriding the cold fear that had been his constant companion. He didn't think. He just acted.

He ripped the closet door open and sprinted the few feet to the laser tag entrance. He didn’t bother with the lock. He slammed his shoulder into the push bar, the door flying open with a hiss.

“Maya!” he yelled into the blackness, his voice swallowed by the maze. He fumbled for his Maglite, his hand shaking so badly it took him two tries to switch it on. The beam sliced through the darkness, illuminating the same eerie, black-lit landscape from the night before.

“I’m in here! Please, hurry!” Her voice was closer now, choked with sobs, coming from deeper within the maze.

“I’m coming! Just keep talking!” he shouted, plunging into the labyrinth. He moved fast, his light cutting across the glowing barricades and angled walls. The stale, ozonic air was frigid, and the silence between her cries was absolute. He rounded a corner, his light sweeping an empty corridor.

“Where are you?” he yelled.

“Up here!” The voice came from the second-story loft. From the exact spot where he had seen the shadow figure.

A wave of nausea and terror washed over him, but the sound of her panicked breathing pushed him forward. He took the ramp two steps at a time, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He reached the upper level, his flashlight beam frantically scanning the small platform.

It was empty.

Dust motes danced in the white light. A discarded laser phaser lay on the floor. There was no one there. The sniper’s nest was deserted.

“Maya?” he whispered, the sound pathetic in the crushing silence.

No answer. The sobs, the panicked cries for help—all gone. It was as if they had never happened. The arena was dead quiet, a tomb of plastic and neon paint. A chilling, horrifying realization began to dawn on him. This was a trap. The voice had been the lure.

He scrambled back down the ramp, his feet slipping on the slick surface, and burst back out onto the main arcade floor, his chest heaving. He expected to find the place in chaos, to find Zach running toward him, alerted by the shouting.

Instead, he saw Maya.

She was standing exactly where he had left her, by the Skee-Ball machines, methodically wiping down the last of the ball returns. She looked up as he stumbled out, a slightly puzzled expression on her face.

“Find the tickets okay?” she asked, her voice perfectly calm, perfectly normal.

Ash stared at her, his mind struggling to reconcile the two realities. The terrified, sobbing girl in the maze and the composed, curious woman standing before him. They couldn't both be real.

“You… you were just at the counter?” he managed to ask, his own voice hoarse.

She gave him a strange look, tilting her head. “Yeah. The whole time. Why? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The casual phrase hit him like a physical blow. He looked from her face, clear and real in the arcade light, to the dark, gaping maw of the laser tag arena. The mimicry had been flawless. It had used her voice, her name. It had faked her terror to draw him into the one place he never wanted to set foot in again.

He finally understood. He hadn't been dealing with a simple shadow that lurked in corners. This place didn't just have one monster. The thing in The Pit was intelligent. It was a predator. And it was just starting to play with its food.