To extract the answer from inside the baby's belly, we would have to kill it.
Kill it, and we could walk out of here, gain our freedom, and obtain everything we'd been longing for.
The four of us stood there in silence. Nobody spoke, nobody moved, as the countdown numbers ticked away on the screen.
"We can't save this child," Selene broke the silence. "Even if we keep it here, when the countdown ends, it'll be killed by the laser beams anyway."
I said, "We can take it with us when we leave. Even if we pick the wrong doors, as long as we eventually find our way out of the maze—"
"It won't work." Selene shook her head. She pointed at a black collar around the baby's neck. "See that? It's a sensor. Most likely, the moment we leave this room, it'll detonate."
"Animals!" Old Jasper cursed bitterly.
"Amitabha." Brother Asher chanted a long Buddhist invocation.
"So here's the situation—" Selene looked at each of us. "Either we sacrifice this child and save ourselves, or we stay here and die alongside it."
I reflected that the designer of this room must have studied ethics' most classic thought experiment: the Trolley Problem.
A madman ties five innocent people to a trolley track. An out-of-control trolley is hurtling toward them and will crush them in moments. You can pull a lever to redirect the trolley to another track—except the madman has also tied one person to that track.
So—given these circumstances, should you pull the lever? Sacrifice one life to save five?
This dilemma had haunted ethicists for years. No one had ever provided a perfect answer.
Because whether one life or five, they were all equally valuable. Imagine if you were the person tied to the other track.
Would you want the lever pulled?
I didn't know. I didn't want to think about it anymore.
Time was draining away. The numbers on the countdown screen were shrinking by the second, like the footsteps of death drawing ever closer.
"Fine. None of you want to be the villain, so I will." Selene walked toward the crib.
I started in alarm, reaching out to stop her, but Brother Asher stepped in front of her first. "Amitabha. If you wish to harm this infant, you will have to step over my corpse."
"Are you trying to protect this child?"
"Indeed. A living being is here before me. How can I simply stand by and watch it die?"
"But what about the four living beings standing right here—are you going to save them?"
"I..." Brother Asher was tongue-tied.
"Is watching all five living beings die together your idea of compassion?"
Faced with Selene's questioning, Brother Asher flushed and stammered, unable to respond.
"And you?" Selene turned to Jasper Locke. "Are you going to stop me too? Or are you going to offer some psychological rationale to talk me out of it?"
"I..." Old Jasper mumbled, equally unable to form a complete sentence.
Selene's gaze swept past me before finally meeting my eyes—but I turned away, avoiding her look.
I couldn't face them. I couldn't face the baby. I was hiding from everyone's eyes, but I didn't know where to go.
Selene walked slowly to the crib and reached out, lifting the infant. Her right hand came to rest on the child's tiny neck.
The baby, not knowing what was about to happen, smiled at Selene and reached up with a small hand to touch her face.
Selene's entire body was trembling.
The hand on the baby's neck shook like a leaf in the wind.
There was almost no time left. The countdown was approaching zero.
I closed my eyes, unable to watch what came next.
But Selene suddenly burst into tears. She clutched the infant to her chest, holding it like a mother holding her own child, sobbing uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face.
She couldn't bring herself to do it.
No matter how rational she was, no matter how optimal her calculations and judgments—when it came to the moment of action, she couldn't cross her own psychological line.
In those few seconds, heaven only knew what agony she'd gone through.
Then none of us should suffer anymore! I randomly picked a door and slammed my hand on the button.
It clicked open—but the button turned red.
And yet, I think we all breathed a sigh of relief.
"No time—move," I said, glancing at the countdown.
Selene still held the baby, reluctant to let go. But once the child left the room, the collar around its neck would detonate—she'd told me that herself.
"Selene!" I shouted. "If we don't go now, we really won't make it!"
She finally, reluctantly, set the baby back in the crib and ran out, weeping. "Those bastards—I'll tear them to pieces!"
The wrong door led not to another room, but into a pitch-black passageway stretching into the unknown.
We entered the tunnel. The door behind us hadn't yet closed, but no one dared to look back.
Suddenly, a chime sounded behind us—the countdown had ended. I froze in place, my heart clenching.
"Ryan!" In the darkness, Selene grabbed my collar, gritting her teeth. "Promise me—if I die, you'll get out of here and slaughter every last one of them for me!"
Now we were lost in the maze.
We stumbled through the dark passageway for who knows how long, when suddenly the floor gave way beneath us. We plummeted through the tunnel and dropped into a vast, towering, brightly-lit space.
No—not a room. This was larger and grander than any room.
A colossal oval arena stretched hundreds of meters long, its sandy floor scattered with shields, helmets, horsewhips, and other relics of ancient gladiatorial combat. Surrounding the arena were tiers of seats rising in five levels, each level packed with vaulted alcoves. Though we were underground, a sunlit sky canopy overhead bathed everything in daylight.
I stood there, stunned. They'd reconstructed a Roman Colosseum!
I'd only ever seen something like this on TV!
Just then, a mechanical grinding sound echoed through the arena. From the four corners, four cages slowly rose—and inside them were two tigers and two lions.
These predators hadn't eaten in days. Ravenous, they fixed their eyes on us, panting heavily, long strings of drool hanging from their jaws.
My heart sank.
Then came something even more terrifying—the cages snapped open automatically!
Every hair on my body stood on end.
The four predators needed no encouragement. They charged at us from all four directions.
We barely had time to register the shock before the beasts were upon us at 80 kilometers per hour. A tiger was still several meters away when it leaped, diving at me from above.
I had no time to think—pure instinct sent me scooping up a shield from the ground. Then the massive beast slammed into me, pinning me flat.
Its claws scraped against the shield with a grinding screech. Its enormous head strained forward, a scarlet tongue nearly licking my face. A blast of rancid breath hit me—I could see the backward-facing barbs on its tongue, each one standing rigid like a hedgehog's quills.
This thing had to weigh at least 300 kilograms. It pinned me like a mountain of meat—I couldn't get up. I held off its claws with one hand while blindly groping with the other until my fingers closed around a helmet. I put everything into swinging it at the tiger's skull.
A dull thud rang out, numbing my hand. Tiger skulls were no joke. But it hurt enough that the beast leaped away, circling at a distance, eyes locked on me.
Just then, Brother Asher shouted, "The cages! The cages!"
His words snapped me out of it! The predators had come out of the cages—but we could get back in!
I swung my shield wildly, driving the tiger back a few paces, then ran to grab Jasper. He'd been caught by a lion that was dragging him by the leg. I hurled myself at the beast and entered a brutal tug-of-war.
"Help—somebody help!" I strained to hold onto Old Jasper's shoulders, but the lion refused to let go, growling as it pulled at his leg. The strength of this big cat was far beyond mine.
Selene and Brother Asher were each locked in their own desperate struggles with the predators—fending off the frenzied, lightning-fast attacks was all they could manage, let alone come to our aid.
Old Jasper howled in agony, but there was nothing I could do. As the lion was about to drag him away, the tiger I'd driven off seemed to think the lion had stolen its prey—it suddenly pounced on the lion, and the two predators started rolling across the ground in a vicious tooth-and-claw brawl, kicking up clouds of dust.
I seized the opening, hauled Jasper to his feet, and ran for the nearest cage. Selene and Brother Asher fought their way toward the cages too, using whatever tools they had to fend off the beasts.