At first, Lu Na didn’t feel any different. The moment Zi Xu made her move into the next section of the labyrinth, an intense cold made her catch her breath. It wasn’t her body that felt cold, but something way deep down that she never thought of. Was that where the core of her being was? Or was that her life force?

  “That’s good. You haven’t gone mad yet. You’re still thinking about what’s going on,” Zi Xu said. “Try to focus on that. Maybe the ghosts will leave a naive girl like you alone and not torture you.”

  Lu Na wanted to reply, but couldn’t. She had no voice. She had no mouth or body. That made her mind race a little. What was going on? Why couldn’t she talk or move? She felt everything but she controlled nothing.

  “Breathe, Young Miss Lu,” Zi Xu said. “Focus on the hands that you are holding. You can’t move them, but you can feel them. Your companions are right beside you.”

  That’s right. Lu Na squeezed Sun Ren’s hand. She remembered holding her friend’s hand not too long ago, running away from the Wintersweet Sect. It was an odd feeling to hold the hand of a rich and powerful Young Miss and find that it was more calloused than her servants. The training she endured, the things she’s done, must have been terrible.

  Lu Na sneezed. She felt Zi Xu leave her body, no longer possessing her.

  “Zi Xu? Where did you go?”

  No reply.

  “Where should I go?” Lu Na had her eyes open wide but couldn’t see far ahead. Did Zi Xu ditch them again? Was he trying to play games with them? Or was this his plot from the very beginning? Make her trust him only to abandon them all in the middle of nowhere to die.

  Lu Na would not let that stop her. She took a step forward anyway and bumped headfirst into a wall. It didn’t hurt but it shocked her. Why did Zi Xu lead her to a wall?

  “Everyone, I’m not sure where to go. I can’t see anything. I’m going to need to turn on a light ward or something,” Lu Na said.

  “No, don’t let go, Lu Na,” Hen Li begged. “If you do, we’ll be lost forever to the ghosts. I can already feel them crawling all over my skin.”

  Lu Na squeezed Sun Ren’s hand.

  “Do you trust me, Sun Ren?”

  Sun Ren squeezed back.

  Lu Na pulled Sun Ren’s hand and rested it on her chest. Her warm hand felt comforting.

  “Stay here, feel my heart. Know that I’m still here.”

  Sun Ren’s hand didn’t move and clung onto Lu Na’s tunic.

  Lu Na reached down to her null metal bracelet and tapped it twice. The light ward turned on, shining out despite being blocked by Hen Li’s hand.

  Lu Na grabbed Sun Ren’s hand and squeezed it. When she turned to face her, Lu Na screamed.

  Standing beside her was a woman dressed in dark red. Her eyes were missing and blood coming out of her empty sockets, and scars ran along her face. Her skin looked ancient, like aged leather. She made Elder Hen look like a young man.

  “Who are you?” Lu Na asked.

  “What do you mean? I’m Sun Ren.” The older woman’s voice sounded paper thin.

  Lu Na looked down at the hand she held and the callouses showed prominently. It wasn’t the hand of her friend who trained hard, but that of a ghost with dirt in it. Blood ran from the fingernails. It was as if she dug herself out from a grave to hold Lu Na’s hands.

  “No, you can’t be. Your hands. They’re…”

  “What my dear Na Na? This is how you look when you die a horrible death within the labyrinth. That was over a thousand years ago. You’re still wandering like this was the first night of your own death. Some nights, I wonder about you.”

  “No. I’m not dead. This is a lie.” Lu Na began reciting the heart sutra. She held onto Sun Ren’s hands despite the fear. This had to be the doing of some ghost. If she let go, Sun Ren would truly be lost.

  “There she goes again, monk. You got her to recite the damn sutra and that’s all she does every night when she realizes she’s dead.”

  Despite her rising dread, she peered over at Hen Li on her left. The monk looked like he was made of only muscles. All the muscles on his neck, arms, and legs were huge. He was more muscle than a man at that point. He couldn’t move his mouth.

  This can’t be real. Lu Na recited the heart sutra louder.

  “Ugh, fine, recite your little sutra. Follow me and we can go for a short walk to remind you of your death.”

  Sun Ren tugged Lu Na forward. There were tombstones with their names written on them.

  “Isn’t this nice? The lovely man, Yang Deli, dispelled the ghosts in this place while they were distracted with torturing us to death. I had to tear out my own eyes before they would leave me alone. By then, Yang Deli kept me around like a broken doll. I told you, it was better to kill yourself than be taken prisoner by these despicable monsters.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “I’m so sorry Sun Ren. It was my fault. I brought you here. You were just being a good friend.”

  “Oh Na Na, I was using you for your ingenuity. Sure, we became friends, but what you could have done if you had lived would have saved the people of the country a lot of heartache.”

  Lu Na tugged at Sun Ren’s hand, trying to pull it back.

  Sun Ren held tightly.

  “Please, just let go. If this is a nightmare, then let it end. I can’t be the reason you died such a horrible death.” Lu Na tugged harder.

  “Oh Na Na, we’re not the only ones. Your mother died a horrible death afterwards when we couldn’t save her. All the Wintersweet disciples that followed those two foolish Elders also died in the worst way imaginable. But that’s all over now.” Sun Ren had both hands holding Lu Na’s.

  They walked together like that for a while longer.

  “Honestly, Na Na, I’m tired of holding your hand, trying to convince you every time you forget you died. One of these days I’m going to leave you and you can deal with this alone, be lost in this mad afterlife where we’re trapped forever.”

  “No, please don’t leave me.” Lu Na felt tears flowing down her cheeks. Did ghosts cry? Then again, what did she know? She’d never seen ghosts before this journey.

  Lu Na’s shoulders hurt. It felt like two heavy weights pulling her down. She turned her head to see Elder Xu and Senior Wong hanging onto her. Their hands turned into claws and dug deep into her shoulder. She hadn’t noticed them before but the pain was intense.

  “Why are you two hanging on me? Let go! I’m already dead and I still have to deal with you two?”

  Elder Xu laughed, spit flying from her mouth and into the back of Lu Na’s head.

  “You girl. You’re the one that doomed us all to follow you forever. You had only one job and that was to get us across this labyrinth. I should have stayed home and not wasted my time with any of this.”

  Elder Xu’s claw dug deeper all the way to the bone. Wait, did ghosts have bone? Did they have flesh? She remembered Jie walking through a wall. Or was it because they were also ghosts that made it possible to touch them?

  The pain intensified on the right shoulder.

  Senior Wong was scraping the very bone on that shoulder. It was like she was digging for something.

  “Little girl, little girl, you should have let me kill you outside of the labyrinth. Then none of us would have to suffer with you.”

  “No, I can’t be stuck with you least of all. You destroyed my home, almost killed my brother, and still blame me for not dying? I didn’t force any of you to come with me. You keep chasing me no matter where I go. Leave me alone!”

  Senior Wong’s claws stopped digging. Instead, something sharp bit into Lu Na’s thigh. It felt like the peck of a certain metal rooster.

  “Don’t tell me your rooster joined us in death, too.” Lu Na kicked at it somewhere behind her, but she felt nothing. “You and your father have given me nothing but pain and grief and now you haunt me in this additional torment.”

  Sun Ren yanked Lu Na to the right. They walked into an open space. A large phoenix laid on the ground, its wings broken, feathers torn off, and its beak twisted. Right below its head was her mother’s face, twisted in pain and frozen for eternity.

  “Say hello to your mother,” Sun Ren said.

  Lu Na leaned forward, pulling at the clawing on her shoulders, the muscle bound hold of Hen Li, and the desperate grip of her best friend. Every few seconds, a jolt of spirit energy ran through the phoenix, causing her mother to scream. It was like her mother was trapped within the body of the phoenix with no way out.

  “I’m so sorry, mother, that I couldn’t save you.” Lu Na wanted to sink to her knees and pay proper respects to her mother, but the others held her up.

  “Too late for that,” Elder Hen said. “If only you learned to respect your elders earlier. My Wintersweet Sect might have saved you from this pain. Instead you saw us as the enemy. This is the result.”

  Lu Na cried.

  “Curse you and your Wintersweet Sect. I could have lived the rest of my life happy had you not heeded your Ancestor’s call to kidnap me or any of the Lu maidens. You forced all this to happen. I swear once I get out of this labyrinth I will haunt all your disciples and descendants even if I have to do it as a ghost!”

  “Get out? There is no getting out.” Elder Hen walked around to face her. He looked the same as he did in life. The only difference was his face. Before it was scrunched with stress, with pain, with the weight of the entire world on his shoulder. Now it looked like he had peace. “I’ve learned to let go. You should too. You will finally learn to be at peace with yourself here. I did.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “You should listen to him,” Sun Ren said. “We’ve been reminding you for many, many years of your death and your place in this labyrinth. But you keep forgetting and it’s taking less and less time before you forget again. The last time you remembered was twenty years ago. Next time I might not find you in time and you will join the lost ghosts.”

  Lu Na pulled Sun Ren’s hands to her chest.

  “Please Sun Ren, please tell me this is not real. I don’t want this to be my life.”

  “It’s not,” Sun Ren said. She moved her face close to Lu Na’s. The bloody eye holes were so close, Lu Na could smell the blood. Did ghosts smell?

  “What do you mean?” Lu Na asked.

  “There’s a way to get out of this. All you have to do is stop, give up, and accept your death. Then you will be like the rest of us. We’ve accepted this many, many years ago and we exist for ourselves. You can do that too.”

  Lu Na looked down at her mother’s body again, trapped within the phoenix. She looked at each of her companions. It would be so easy to listen to her friend. If not Sun Ren, then who?

  Lu Na was about to accept this fate before her left wrist began burning. It was the same intense pain as she had when she used it too much.

  Wait, can ghosts feel pain? Was she really dead? Or was this all a lie?

  While still holding Hen Li’s hand, she flicked her left wrist to the right. She focused on having the spirit skin envelop her body first and then it slowly engulfed the rest of her companions, even the ones digging into her shoulder.

  No, this vision wasn’t real. There was no way she could still use her null metal bracelet. If she was truly a ghost, then it would have been left behind with her body. Unless items on her body stayed with her even in death? Jie wore all her clothes. Zi Xu drank tea from a cup.

  It didn’t matter. Lu Na focused on the burning pain, feeling the intense heat on her wrist. If she was dead, then she shouldn’t be able to move the spirit energy in there. That was the only conclusion she could come to, because no matter how much she tried, there was no way she could make a device that affected ghosts with her spirit wand.

  Lu Na pulled at the spirit energy and pushed it into her spirit realm. The rich, dense spirit energy swirled once and then twice within before she pulled it back out and cycled it throughout her body as Zi Xu taught her.

  No, Lu Na was not dead yet. This was all a nightmare conjured by ghosts. She focused on the spirit energy, allowing it to cycle through her body faster and faster until she felt the familiar warmth coming from it. Well, familiar warmth was an understatement. Her whole body was now burning hot.

  She pulled too much.

  She had to stop.

  But how? She wasn’t in control of her body. She was going to burn herself up.

  What can she do? Was she going to die after all?