Not the prompt

…

Ruby glanced around nervously. She did not like this.

She was a Girl Guide. First Lindsay Guides, to be precise. It was late September and Ruby was having a sleepover with her friends (all in Guides) Gemma, Bethany, Hailey, Piper and Jamie when her mom got an email from their guide leader Bluebird about a corn maze challenge. There was a new corn maze in town and Bluebird was challenging the Guides to go, in groups, into the maze and try to make it out. Ruby and her friends jumped at the chance. They had arrived at the parking lot to discover a few other guides (Joanne, Kit, Aly, and Natalie, for example) with their leader, who then declared that whoever got out first without sending an adult in would get first apple cider and apple cider donuts. That got them eagerly into the maze.

Before, Ruby had had no fear about going into the maze. Now, with cornstalks leering at her from the darkness and Fred the Friendly Farmer drawn on cardboard leaping out at her at five out of seven turns in a row, she was having some reservations. She really wished she had stayed home.

“Let’s go this way,” decided Bethany, choosing an absolutely random direction at a three-way fork (left). They made the turn and traversed a few hundred more meters. Then they heard a sound that made them stop dead. It was a scream, and it sounded close by.

“What was that?” Gemma asked nervously, glancing around. Her short shoulder-length brown hair swung around her head in neat braids as she looked left and right.

“Dunno, but it sounded close,” muttered Bethany suspiciously as she spun her black hair on her finger, her wiry but short figure shivering in a thin jacket, wide-bottom jeans and funky sneakers that were penetrated by the harsh, unrelenting fall wind.

Suddenly, out of the darkness three figures stumbled into the beam of Ruby’s light. It was short Joanne, who had bushy brown hair and always wore jeans like Bethany’s and thick, warm, hoodies, her close friend Kit, who had long curly black hair, wore close-fitting sweatshirts and leggings, and Aly, a new kid who was usually hanging out with the other two.

Something seemed to be missing… but Ruby couldn’t set her finger on what.

Bethany rushed up to the girls as they sat panting in a heap on the ground. “What happened?”she asked anxiously.

Joanne looked at the other girls, took a nervous breath, and began.

“We were walking through the maze when we heard a kind of snuffling in the dark behind us. We turned, but there was nothing there except corn husks rustling in the breeze. We kept going, but then we heard it louder than before. We turned around. The flashlight was swinging crazily, so we couldn’t see anything specific, but we suddenly saw some… hooves, like a satyrs, on the ground a few feet away, with hairy legs leading up into the darkness. That was all we needed, and we ran. Thalia dropped the light, and we were running in the darkness, until—”

Kit suddenly cut her off. “Wait. Where’s Thalia??” She snatched the light and shone it into the darkness they had come through.

Ruby looked at her friends nervously. Thalia! She was Kit, Joanne and Aly’s friend. She had short blond hair and lopsided glasses. And she was missing. They had to find her.

…

With some help from Joanne and Kit and Aly, they managed to find the place where they had run from. Sure enough, there was Thalia.

She didn’t look good. She was splayed across the ground, eyes closed. Her glasses were even more lopsided than usual. A few feet away the flashlight lay, dim and flickering.

Her friends rushed over to her. So did Ruby and her friends. Jamie, who was the only one of them who had earned the medical badge, checked her pulse. She exhaled in relief. “She’s alive.”

Bethany examined the glasses gingerly. “Yeowch….” One of the arms was missing.

“That was always there,” said Kit mournfully. She pointed to the shattered left frame. “THAT wasn’t.”

“Ok, guys, let’s get out of here, the leaders will know what to do,” decides Ruby, taking charge.

“How are we supposed to carry her?” Aly gestures to Thalia.

“We could make a sling to carry her, out of our coats,” suggests Hailey. She pulls off her sweater to reveal a t-shirt.

“Good idea,” said Gemma, pulling off her jacket. The others followed suit.

Ruby, who was pretty good at tying knots, tied them together and they got Thalia onto the sling. They then began the harder job of finding their way out.

“Look, guys,” said Aly. She pointed to a door leading into the corn. It said EMERGENCY EXIT. “This qualifies as an emergency, right?”

They all agreed. They’d been wandering for literally hours. They headed in the door. Inside, it was really dark. The walls around them were cement. They shined the flashlight ahead nervously.

Ruby checked her watch. The dim letters read ten twelve. “We have to be out soon,” she said. “The leaders are leaving at eleven, and if we’re not there by ten thirty, they’ll call parents.”

They wandered on. Ruby checked her watch again. “How?…that’s not possible.”

“What’s not possible?” Asked Gemma. She leaned over.

“It says it’s seven am, but that’s not possible!” Ruby was wondering over this when the screen flickered and went dark. So did the flashlight.

“Aw, nuts!” Came from up the path— clearly Bethany, who had been holding the flashlight. In the dark, Ruby heard her shaking the flashlight— clearly trying to restart it.

“Guys, chillax! I have a light here,” said Gemma, pulling another flashlight out of her pocket. She flicked it on.

“Thank goodness!” Said Piper.

“Guys! Thalia’s awake,” called Kit, who was helping carry the sling.

They ran over to where the sling had been put down. “You okay?” Asked Joanne.

The girl’s face contorted into a grimace. “I feel like I’ve been hit with a boulder in the head, but I’ll be fine,” she managed. “What’s going on? I don’t see any corn… and what are you guys doing here? Where are your sweaters?” She gestured to Ruby, Piper, Gemma, Hailey, Bethany and Jamie.

“I believe you are lying on them,” said Ruby dryly.

“I am?… ok, someone explain what’s going on.” Thalia rubbed her head.

“Well, it’s like this…” Aly glanced the others and brought her friend up to date.

“And now, it’s pretty clear that this is not an emergency exit,” said Bethany. “We should turn around and try to stumble through the maze instead.”

“Can you walk?” Kit helped Thalia to her feet.

“Yeah, I think so,” she answered, and they headed off.

A while later, they saw light up ahead, through the steel door.

“That’s it,” cried Piper, pointing.

They pushed open the door to find a very different scene then before.

…

Hope you guys enjoyed! If so, please let me know if you want a part two!