The Maze The Lost Labyrinth - By Jason Brannon Page 0,10

using that knowledge to navigate my way out of here.

Somehow, I knew the task sounded much easier than it really was.

“A word of caution: beware the minotaur. He feasts on transgression.”

Obviously the minotaur was some sort of code word or a symbol that stood for something else. I had no idea what it could represent.

Before settling on a business major in college, I had contemplated a major in English. I knew the story of the Minotaur from Greek mythology and how it had haunted the labyrinth on the island of Crete, feasting on the bones of men. Thinking of such a creature as mythological made it seem less and less plausible. Thinking logically, however, did very little to chase away the chill that raced up my spine, causing the hairs on my neck and forearms to stand at attention.

I was scared, and I knew I had every reason to be. I was trapped in a strange place with no clue how I had gotten here and no clue how to get out. Even without the notion of a minotaur, there was enough to make me edgy. The mention of a minotaur was probably little more than a scare tactic, designed to keep me jumping at shadows.

It worked beautifully.

Still, I kept trying to convince myself that there was no such thing. The world was host to a variety of strange creatures, but there wasn’t a single one among them that had the head of a bull attached to the body of a man.

I had to rethink that assessment when I heard something bellow nearby. It didn’t sound human. My grandfather had owned a dairy farm, and the ruckus I heard now was like an amped up version of the noises his cows made when in distress. There was even a certain earthen smell to the air that made me think of wet grassland and moldy hay. I figured something was about to happen; I quickly pocketed the note and listened more intently. The noises pervaded; this time they were louder and filled with even more misery than before.

If there was an actual minotaur and he feasted on transgression, I knew that my life would probably look like a veritable buffet to him. I couldn’t help being a little on edge.

I thought about praying and asking for deliverance, but in the end I decided against it. If I was here, trapped in this maze because of sin, it seemed unlikely that my prayers would be heard if I wasn’t sincerely sorry for what I had done.

I hadn’t reached that point yet, but there was still plenty of time.

Part II: A Maze of Disgrace

Chapter 9

Whatever was bellowing showed no signs of ceasing. It sounded like something was in a tremendous amount of pain and was broadcasting its misery for everyone to hear. If there was a minotaur loose in this maze, then there was no question where the lamentations were coming from.

I stood there, bathed in blue light, wondering what to do and how to react, but everything felt foreign. I didn’t know which way to go, which way to run. All I knew was that I was in trouble. The bellowing grew louder by the second; the minotaur or whatever was getting close.

The walls will show you the way.

I studied the faintly glowing hallway, looking for some pattern, some familiar sequence of numbers and symbols that made sense. I ran my fingers over the smooth surfaces, hoping for revelation, praying for deliverance. The wall in front of me was covered in various shapes, Roman numerals, words written in languages I didn’t understand, drawings that ranged from the crudely rendered to the expertly crafted, symbols that could have been musical notations or mathematical representations, and a hundred other forms of written expression that could have meant anything or nothing at all. It was almost as if the maze had been populated with idiot savants who had written down every iota of their narrowed down expertise, and I was expected to sort through it all in a matter of seconds and find meaning where none seemed to exist.

“Think, Jamie. Think.”

No amount of thinking could make sense out of the nonsensical. No obvious patterns were present in the mishmash of symbols and numbers; it was like looking at one long computer print-out of garbled programming.

There was still some part of me at this point that didn’t truly believe in the reality of my surroundings. I kept expecting to wake up at any moment and realize