Stumbling back, Elise raised her head as a steadying hand found her shoulder. Startled by its familiarity, she stopped and gaped at the figure before her.
"Quinn?"
Quinn looked down at her, his grey-blue eyes widening slightly as his brows rose with recognition.
"Elise?"
Suspicions confirmed, Elise stared at him, her mind dancing between relief and uncertainty. Despite being siblings, she and Quinn had never been all that close, since their parents divorced and they'd parted ways. They had moved to entirely different continents, and given that neither wanted to fight much about it and were still amicable, their father had taken Elise, who was old enough to live without their mother, who had taken Quinn, being only a couple of months old at the time. They had seen each other once in a while over the years during vacations and holidays, but there wasn't much to bring them together in any other areas of their lives.
Still, he was a familiar face, and at this point, she'd take any face that wasn't trying to kill her. Sighing, she peered around him.
"Is anyone following you?"
Quinn glanced behind himself, shaking his head. "Not anymore, no. I got rid of it."
At this, Elise brightened some, her interest piqued. "Did you get the pop up?"
Brows rising slightly, Quinn nodded. "I got the, uh…pop up after the thing died. I looked over it briefly, but I didn't explore many of the functions."
"Functions? It had functions? Wait," Elise said, frowning, "how come you got functions and I didn't?"
Quinn blinked, processing the questions. "Status screen," he called, conjuring the window in front of himself. "Look," he said, glancing over at her. "You can see that, right?"
Elise nodded. "Is this one of the functions you were talking about? Calling the thing back up?"
"Yeah, try it. I'll show you the other things, too. It doesn't look like we'll be getting out of here any time soon, after all.
"Anyway, the system is designed to work a lot like a computer or a tablet. I'm assuming you found the exit button by the fact that you don't seem to have the window open right now. The other functions I played with are accessed by the circle button underneath the exit one."
Calling out the screen, Elise winced, feeling a bit stupid as she said the words. Her only consolation was that they worked, and the window popped up, turning her embarrassment into curiosity.
Finding the button, Elise opened up a new window and reached out, finding she could scroll through the many items on the screen.
"Wow," she murmured, looking through them. "It's like the introduction and instruction manual for that online class I took a couple years back," she grumbled, her tone darkening. "It just keeps going."
Scrolling quickly back to the top, she selected the first option:
[Introduction to the System]
Scrolling slowly through the paragraphs and images, Elise browsed the information, though the words quickly lost her interest. Bored, she moved to stand next to Quinn, inspecting his screen. It looked almost identical to her own, save for some differences in the stats and—
"Why does yours not have a name yet?"
Quinn's eyes flickered across the screen, quickly finding the "inset name" she was referring to. He shrugged. "I didn't add one. It didn't make me and I didn't feel like it."
Elise hummed, only half caring any more, and began to more closely inspect their surroundings. The floors here were a bit more empty, and the walls less damaged, but they were still made of the same stone and lit with torches bracketed against them. "Why don't we walk around a bit," she asked.
Quinn rolled his shoulders slightly, as if stretching, before raising them into another shrug. "I don't see why not. I don't hear anything, and we aren't getting anywhere staying here."
Pushing off the wall, he looked both ways down the corridor. "Which way?"
"Uhh," Elise squinted, finding both ways practically identical. "Let's go right. And then…" she glanced at the right end of the corridor, seeing it end in another crossroads. "Left?"
Quinn nodded, and they started off.
Elise glanced around the space, unsure if she should talk. Quinn had always been quieter, and tended to just listen when she talked unless she prompted him to participate in the conversation, which usually took work. Plus, a labyrinth with no visible exits that they came to after presumably being kidnapped or something really didn't feel like the kind of place to catch up.
Settling for silence, the two of them turned up the left hallways, and continued wandering, choosing directions at random and finding absolutely nothing.
As they turned up another hallway, voice stopped them, echoing through the twisting space.
"Hey!"
They turned, finding a boy jogging towards them. He had blonde hair that was long enough to brush his ears, which he must have found annoying as he swiped it behind them as soon as he reached them.
Leaning on his knees, he breathed for a second, his heavy gasps being the only sound before he looked up, smiling brightly.
"Nice to see another human around here!" Straightening, he looked around before facing them fully. "I'm Connor!"
Looking at him, he was a mess, with dust and dirt covering his clothes and sticking in his hair. Suddenly self conscious, or perhaps just suddenly aware of her own condition, Elise tugged at her ponytail, feeling the drying clumps of blood and the overwhelming need to take a shower. She glared momentarily at Quinn, envying his own state, which, aside from being a bit rumpled, was fairly clean before she introduced herself to the new arrival.
"I'm Elise," she said, trying to sound friendly. She didn't tend to have a problem with first impressions, but she didn't want to risk scaring away the one other person she'd seen in this place.
Quinn followed suit, and Connor grinned. "Do you mind if I join you?"
Quinn considered it for a second, glancing at Elise, who shrugged. Sweeping a hand towards the nearest wall, he nodded. "Why don't we sit down? I'm sure we could all use a rest."