The Maze The Lost Labyrinth - By Jason Brannon Page 0,18

the verge of winning a race and focused on the opening ahead. The minotaur snorted behind me, increasing his efforts as well.

I screamed and forced my legs to run when all they really wanted to do was lock up and cramp. I saw the opening just in front of me, and heard the monster not far behind. I didn’t think I was going to make it, but somehow I did.

The moment I ran through the doorway, a panel slid shut behind me, effectively sealing me off from the rest of the maze. The minotaur’s cries were suddenly silenced. I heard the creature ram the door with its shoulder, and I was afraid that the barrier wouldn’t hold. But I was too tired to do anything about it.

I placed my hands on my knees and tried to regain my breath. After nearly a minute of panting and wheezing, I looked up to see what kind of place I had entered. Even after careful study, I still wasn’t entirely sure. It was like a cross between a mad scientist’s laboratory and a cabinet of curiosities. Strangely enough, I wasn’t all that curious. All I wanted was to find the exit and return to my humdrum life.

If only it would have been that simple.

I pulled the scrap out paper out of my pocket I had found in the glass bottle at the beginning of the maze. The message written on it was different this time.

“When is a door not a door?”

It was a joke I had heard a thousand times before, and I knew the answer.

“When it’s ajar.”

It was painfully obvious why the brain teaser was applicable to this situation. Glass jars lined shelves that ran the perimeter of the room. They were filled with what looked like organs, floating in formaldehyde. I did a quick mental count and figured that there must have been hundreds of them there, on display for some reason or another.

Placards had been mounted to the shelves to describe the contents of each jar. I stepped up to one and read: “Hardened heart, William James, 1999.” Inside the glass jar was what looked like a heart that had been petrified. Was it possible that a rock had eroded into a heart-like shape? Or was this something some industrious sculptor had fashioned? It wasn’t immediately obvious what was in the jar, but I knew it couldn’t have been human. Hearts, after all, couldn’t turn to stone, could they?

Another jar was labeled “Deceitful tongue, Michael Curtis, 2003,” and featured a gray flap of muscle that looked like it had been torn straight from someone’s mouth. “Lustful eye, Mitchell Black, 2005,” a third read. The eyeball spun lazily in solution, studying the world yet seeing nothing.

“What is this place?”

I browsed through the body parts like a selective shopper. There were jars containing thieving hands, ears attuned to gossip, feet that frequented dens of iniquity, lips that feasted on forbidden fruit, brains that dwelled on carnal knowledge, and a dozen other various appendages that could be used in the pursuit of evil. All of the glass jars were labeled and attributed to specific owners.

Then there were the empty jars.

I couldn’t help wondering if the architect of this labyrinth was responsible for the collection of these organs or if the owners themselves had been expected to make the sacrifice. This seemed like a place of penance, and I didn’t like the implications of that. I wasn’t sure how I would respond if expected to cut some part of myself out.

I read the names on each of the empty jars and stopped at one with my name. I was surprised to look at the next empty jar and see that my name was on that one too. And the next one. And the next one….

“No,” I whispered. But there was no mistaking the engravings laid in front of each empty jar. “James Michael Burroughs.”

The labels read like accusations.

“Malicious tongue.”

“Lustful heart.”

“Judgmental eyes.”

“Hands that work for selfish gain.”

I looked around suspiciously, wondering if someone was waiting in the shadows with a sharp knife or a Stryker saw, prepared to fill those jars. Fortunately, he room was empty except for me

I knew that if I were to give up all the things that the jars demanded, there would be very little left of me. It didn’t speak highly of the person I was. I had been reduced to my flaws, and there were quite a few of them it seemed. I had never realized some of these