Click. Green light. A klaxon sounded.
The lid flew open. Sunlight. Dino and Spiro were cheering. Centipedes were brushed off by medics. Rico sat up, trembling, a single centipede clinging to his eyebrow. He plucked it off gently and set it on the rock.
“Cave centipedes,” Spiro said cheerfully. “Not deadly. But they bite. And they love warm, dark places. Your suit has thirty entry points. Sleeves. Collar. Ankles. You will lie in a sarcophagus while we pour them in. Then, you have five minutes to solve a three-digit combination lock using only your teeth. The clue to the lock is written on a tablet submerged in a tank of Greek yogurt and leeches. Fail, and the camp eats nothing but olives and regret. Succeed? Feast.”
Loz immediately stepped back, raising his manicured hands. “Darling, I did R2. The one with the eels? I’m traumatized. My therapist is on speed dial. Pick someone new.”
Spiro held up a glass jar. Inside, wriggling, were a dozen large, brown, many-legged creatures.
“Lesser brother of the beast.” In pop culture, the beast was 666. Its “lesser brother” in some myths was 616—a variant from an old manuscript. But “what mortals fear thrice”? Three fears: death, pain, loss. Three threes: 333. Or the number of a famous fear: 13 (triskaidekaphobia) repeated thrice? 13-13-13? No, it was a three-digit lock.
Rico nodded. “I used to think the scariest thing in the world was losing everything. Fame. Money. Love. But it’s not. It’s having it all, destroying it yourself, and then living with the silence.”
