Despite there being leaders, and soldiers with different capabilities than the rest, all looked alike, they could only see the faces of each others when marking pauses to eat and rest, as they would be wearing headgear bestowed upon them all, which was a rather simple helm that only covered the top of their heads accompanied by what was most definitely just a white sack that they had to cover themselves in for some reason.
The armour they wore was very much white as well, a golden representation of the Lithithree covered the chestplate, and dark sun etched upon the back of their cloaks serving as the main source of other colourations that wasn't brown or grey.
Those who had butchered some of their fellows already bore sanguine stains, there had been eight groups of twenty soldiers who had ventured inside of the realm, each of them down one member.
'Unbelievable…' the taste of human flesh was technically rather similar to pork, but a foul remnant lingered upon his tongue, this wasn't normal, this shouldn't have been.
But it seemed like he was once again the only one to see any problem in the atrocities they had all partaken in, the pessimistic soldier had only devoured some flesh, avoiding the organs, which everyone else had seemed to find especially scrumptious as they roasted them over the fires.
Even with the small effects provided by the leader with some knowledge in feasting, he had not found any enjoyment and had felt like puking for a while afterward, however, it was important to not lose up on food and water, just like everyone, he cannibalised and drank blood without complaint.
They walked and walked through this giant maze for what felt like weeks, hard to tell the passing of time after being training in the lightless camps of the empire and then being thrown into pitch black structure, but time was most certainly passing, they stopped many times to sleep, many were starting to have their legs and feets ache, blisters forming upon them.
Another eight had to be harvested for sustenance, they kept marching, following the wall to their right, taking turns, slopes that went up and down, and still no signs of an exit or of anything out of the ordinary even, this was a labyrinth and nothing else, there were no enemies, no traps, no especially arduous terrain…
The only challenge for them to overcome was to find the exit, and it truly seemed like there was other way than to simply walk until it graced them with its appearance.
'We've already eaten sixteen… If we even get out of here, how many of us will there even be left? We are down to one-hundred and forty-four now… Another eight will be harvested soon' he thought, as they made a stop to rest once again, somehow, no one was losing morale, the training out in place by the instructors was effective and so were the theological lessons, the enthusiasm of the living soldiers was not going down, like they had been rendered incapable of giving up or feeling despair.
But he knew that this wasn't the case, he had seen the sudden instant of fear that gripped those who had been harvested as they truly realised that they were going to die, they were still living by the end of the day, the insidious control enacted of their minds and bodies would eventually fade away when faced with the end of what they were, all bits that weren't collected and prepared as food would break down into wisps, which should have been a sign that those who were picked to serve as food would not be granted undeath as there was nothing left of them.
'Soon, there will be only one-hundred and thirty-six of us left…' as he thought this, it felt like the wall he rested upon had suddenly turned damp.
Something wasn't right… And it wasn't actually the wall that was suddenly humid, it was his back who suddenly became plains for countless beads of sweat to travel upon, permeating his surcoat, sticking to his skin.
'One… Two… Twenty… Forty-two… Sixty-six… Eighty-one… One-hundred… One-hundred and twenty…'
'One-hundred and twenty? Did I miss some?' multiple times over, he recounted, moving from one spot to another to get different angles, looking everywhere, waiting for people to rest even, just in case it was because some were moving around.
But no matter what he tried, he fell short of twenty-four every single time, he knew it for certain, there had only been two harvests so far, each of eight soldiers, one from each group but their current numbers seemed to indicate that there had been five already.
This was obviously wrong, no one could have possibly forgotten about three whole harvests, especially him who was always horrified to have to witness fellow humans be put down and cut apart like cattle.
'What other explanation is there? How could none of the leaders have noticed missing members in their groups? How could absolutely no one have noticed such a large discrepancy until now?'
Feeling his heart starting to beat wildly, questioning everything else as well, over analysing every minute detail of their journey in this awful maze.
'Hold on…' he looked around confusedly as he tried to retrace their steps in his mind as they had followed the wall to their right, it might feel logical that their overall trajectory would in this shape be considered the labyrinth's layout, but right now, it seemed incredibly suspicious.
Because although it looked like they had travelled a long distance, that they had passed both flat ground and slight slopes and that they were undeniably no longer anywhere near the initial room…
It was also a clear-cut fact that they had been basically moving in a square this entire time, the wall to their right always taking them into the same similar path, one straight hallway followed by a sharp turn, followed by a straight hallway, followed by a sharp turn, followed by a straight hallway…
Now that he thought about it, the amount of time it took them to traverse any of those hallways had seemed to be roughly the same.
'People vanishing without trace and without being noticed… A constant trajectory that never changes…'
"Guys, I think we're caught in an ill-" something warm washed over his neck, it was his own blood, and no one seemed to react to it.
Fellow soldiers seemed to have heard him but upon constating that there was no one where the voice had come from, they seemed to simply forget about it and go back to whatever they had been up to.
He was isolated whilst surrounded by allies.