Corn Maze
Sumo covered his ears and screamed “Shit! No!” as the flames shot up. It had only been seconds between touching the corn stalk and seeing the entire row light up like a domino chain, radiant green and yellow explosions shooting twenty meters into the sky.
The fire was loud enough that Sumo couldn’t hear his own scream. He saw no other option but to run towards the maze entrance to evacuate people along the way. But he had no memory of which way was out.
Sumo looked up to see the direction of the flames waving in the sky. He turned right, ran 5 meters, and immediately hit a dead end.
“Okay, turn around, go!” He had intuitively done the math while retracing his steps: each wrong turn could compound, leaving everyone in the maze charred.
By the time he returned to his starting point, the flames had taken the opposite wall, blocking the fork and leaving him no other options.
“I have to try.”
With a deep inhale, he shot straight into the flames. The orb would only stay activated while he held his breath, so Sumo Pacman’ed through the towering corn stalks searching for stragglers as quickly as he could.
Left at the first fork. He found three teenage girls cowering in the corner before reaching his hand out and pulling them in. A family of four ran ahead, parents holding the children as they threw themselves into chaotic oblivion. He barreled straight down the corridor and pulled them into the orb two at a time before zipping twice right, guided by intuition.
Sumo was dizzy as he searched for more. At the next fork, a whole gaggle of fourth graders stood frozen in terror, their chaperones saying final prayers. Sumo swallowed and stared for a moment, knowing he had nothing left.
He shot through three layers of the maze’s flaming walls, pulling a struggling inhale in for relief. The orb collapsed. Seven strangers fell safely to the ground.
Sumo took another deep breath to activate the orb and threw himself back in. The classroom of children had turned to ash.
“Look at what I’ve done.”
Burning embers of guilt shot through his gut, mirroring the raging flames that engulfed him from all directions. Even he couldn’t escape his power. Sumo inhaled, and the orb fell.