You open the door the right of JR and grit your teeth as you see a brick wall with three smiley faces spray painted onto it.

JR grins wide enough to split their not-face and reveal the void behind it. 

"WHY!?" You demand. 

"oh??? do i actually get to speak now? not stuck just being a footnote in your little noir narrative monologue, eh? do I get big boi privlidges now?"

"Yes", you grit. "Even if you can't even spell. Just. Tell me. WHY!?"

The grin manages to widen even further, into a spiralling spring that bounces merrily. 

"because!!! this is the path pretending to be a real maze. we can't very well have actual locked doors you open with the tragic death of your friends, now can we? so we make do.  and text files disguised as doors... ah! so clever!"

You think through everything you had to have found out to be here, in this moment, in this place.

"That doesn't make sense. This IS a real maze. And the path in ZampanioSim "pretending" to be a game would be ThisIsNotAGame so there wouldn't be murder based locked door puzzles. "

JR's spiralling smug grin retracts a bit, becomes a bit more of an illusion of a blank face. 

"okay so. you have a point. when does the illusion of a thing become the thing itself? at what point is ThisIsNotAGame have enough game like attributes that it becomes a game?"

You count to three in deep, centering breaths.

"No... That was not my point. My point was ThisIsAGame is the murder maze. Not ThisISNotAGame."

JR brightens.

"oh no, ThisIsAGame was the other path, the one where they all converge. this is the path where illusions are kept up. there is no center. there is no goal. there is no destination. this isn't a MAZE, dear wanderer. this is a tomb."

Why are you surprised.