Free Labyrinth by Alex Archer

fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. But what made the room so interesting were the three doors set into the wall opposite the one she’d come through.
Annja closed the door behind her and heard a click.
She ducked, expectantly, but nothing happened.
Three doors, she thought. Three ways to leave the room?
She approached the door directly in front of her and turned the doorknob and pulled, but nothing happened.
Locked?
She tried pulling again, but couldn’t get it to open.
All right, let’s try the other two, she thought. She went left first, pulled on the door and it opened easily.
The problem was that she now faced a brick wall. Annja closed the door.
Right?
But when she opened that door, she faced a similar brick wall.
Apparently, she mused, the middle door would be the one she’d need to get open in order to proceed. But it was locked.
So what was the puzzle here? How to get the center door open.
Annja stood in the middle of the room and faced the three doors. There had to be a formula, she figured. If one of the doors was open, perhaps that would unlock the center door?
She kept the left door open and then went back to the center door. But it didn’t budge.
Annja tried her luck with the door on the right, leaving it open while she tried the center door again. Still no luck.
This time, Annja left both doors standing wide open and again tried the center door.
But it still didn’t open.
Annja considered hacking her way through the door with the sword, but judging by how the maze had treated her so far, she might end up tripping something particularly nasty if she didn’t figure this out the right way.
Annja stood there with her hands on her hips and took a few deep breaths. She was rapidly losing any and all interest in the maze. Why couldn’t Fairclough have just gotten himself a floor safe?
But Fairclough had enjoyed this. Even if he liked Annja, he was no doubt relishing the thought of her facing the challenges in the maze he’d created. Somewhere in his vegetative state, he was excited about what she’d be discovering down here.
She wondered briefly if Kessel had already met his end. Maybe there’d been another giant fish tank with something even nastier than the bull shark waiting for him. Annja didn’t know. What she did know was she needed to figure out how to get through the door in front of her.
She glanced over her shoulder at the door she’d come through. Then she shrugged and walked back to it.
It wouldn’t open.
“For crying out loud.”
Annja looked around the rest of the room, but there wasn’t much to see. White alabaster walls surrounded her except for the four doors the room contained. The three in front of her and the one behind her.
Annja tried the right door this time. But the center door didn’t open. Then she opened the left door and tried again.
Nothing.
Annja closed the right door and kept the left one standing open. Then she went to the door she’d come through and tried it.
It didn’t budge.
She closed the left door and opened the right door. Then she tried the door she’d come through originally.
This time, it opened.
Annja breathed a sigh of relief. Well, at least I got that far, she thought. There had to be a system here, and somehow, she’d get through it.
She walked back to the center door and tried it, but it was still locked. So Annja went to the left door and opened that one. Then she went back to the center door and tried opening it again.
And this time, it opened.
“Finally,” said Annja. She checked the door frame and then stepped into another corridor. This one was pretty dark, so she pulled her sword out.
As the sword cast a glow down the hallway, Annja moved slowly, trying to figure out what Fairclough would spring on her next. So far, she reasoned, the puzzles hadn’t been that difficult. If anything, they were more like delaying tactics than anything else. Annja hadn’t found them to be too taxing mentally—more bothersome, really, than anything else.
But that