The Maze The Lost Labyrinth - By Jason Brannon Page 0,19
things about myself before, and it took a dramatic display like this to open my eyes. My sins were engraved and displayed for the world to see, and I couldn’t really argue that any of them weren’t true.
My heart suddenly felt heavy, and my soul felt cold. Was this the kind of man I truly was?
Although I knew it would hurt more than anything else I had ever done before, I fished one of the amber guilt pills out of my pocket and swallowed it. The effect was instantaneous, and the scenes laid out before me like snippets of film brought tears to my eyes.
“You make my life miserable!” I said this to Amy in a memory taken from a recent argument.
Another scene showed me surreptitiously ogling one of the secretaries at the office when I thought no one was looking. She wore a short skirt, and I wore a leering lustful mask.
In a third memory, I watched with disdain and disgust as a homeless man begged for change. I held up my hand to him impatiently and waved him away, wanting nothing to do with him.
The empty jars on the shelf deserved to be filled, but was I willing to make that kind of sacrifice? Was I willing to give up those parts of who I was? I wasn’t given the chance to decide.
Without warning, something large and powerful slammed into the door, knocking some of the jars off of the shelves. Clouds of long-settled dust filled the air, making it hard to see. I didn’t need to open my eyes to recognize the stench that pervaded the room. The minotaur was nearby. I suddenly thought I had a good idea how all those organs found their way into formaldehyde.
Frantic, I searched the room for any alternative method of escape. Of course, none were immediately obvious. There were no weapons either. I had no options, no ways of defending myself, no way of getting out of this room.
Had I simply been condemned to wander the halls of this maze until the minotaur sniffed out my sins and killed me? Was this the only reason I was here? The maze seemed much too elaborate a setup for something as mundane as murder. However, I wasn’t sure if anyone had bothered to tell that to the minotaur.
My options were limited, and my time was short. I consulted the scrap of paper from my pocket again, hoping for revelation. Once again, the message had changed.
“The fastest way to get your life together is by falling apart.”
I wadded the paper up angrily and shoved it into my pocket. I didn’t need any more fortune cookie-styled clues. I needed tangible instructions on what to do and how to get out of this place. I needed to know how to keep the minotaur from killing me in this dreadful maze, and if I didn’t figure that out very, very soon, I was going to die.
The walls trembled as the beast rammed the door again, and motes of dust displaced by the impact swirled around my face. I searched the room frantically, knowing there was something I was missing, some clue that would lead me to safety. So far every problem in this labyrinth had a solution if only you knew where to look. The problem was knowing where to focus.
Cracks appeared in the smooth surface of the door as the minotaur hit it again. It howled at me from the other side in rage and frustration. Quite a few of the glass jars had fallen from their shelves and shattered on the floor. Various body parts lay strewn about in puddles of formaldehyde. I knew if the minotaur gained access to this room, I would become just another pile of human flaws added to the collection.
The cracks in the door spider-webbed with each new blow, spreading outward from the point of impact. It wouldn’t be long before the beast got to me. I picked up a broken jar and planned to use it as a weapon. It wasn’t much but it was all I had. It was the equivalent of staring down a Sherman tank with a BB gun. This wasn’t going to end well.
With my back to the wall that faced the door, I sat there on the cold, hard floor and watched as my hopeless situation grew more and more hopeless. The door was flaking away in bits and pieces. It wasn’t wood or metal, and it didn’t seem to be rock exactly.