The Maze The Lost Labyrinth - By Jason Brannon Page 0,41

change a leopard’s spots---or a snake’s scales,” the serpent hissed.

Darrell Gene shook his head violently. To listen to them would be to accept that all hope for him was gone. Of course, deep down, that’s what he believed anyway.

Humanity wasn’t where he belonged. His place was with the monsters.

“We won’t try to change you,” the Reaper insisted. “Just be yourself.”

“How can I ever really be myself?” Darrell Gene asked.

This time it was the winged skull’s turn to speak. “Sometimes, you have to look beneath the surface, dig deep underneath all that humanity. That’s where you’ll find the real you.”

Darrell Gene nodded.

“We’re not talking symbolically,” the Reaper explained. “There’s a very real, very angry monster lurking just beneath your skin. Take off that disguise you’ve been wearing all these years and see for yourself. Stop trying to deny what you are.”

“Take out your knife,” the serpent hissed.

Darrell Gene chose his master in that moment and opened the blade of his pocket knife. It was the blade he’d used to carve the wingless angel. It was the same knife he was going to use to carve out his own life.

“There’s more beneath the surface than anybody knows,” he muttered to himself.

Before he could rethink his decision, Darrell Gene made an incision at the wrist and cut all the way around. Then pulling at his hand as if to take off a glove, he removed the skin. He wasn’t at all surprised to see a thick, slimy layer of black scales underneath. The tattoos were right.

He was a monster and this was all the proof he needed.

Now all he had to do was keep acting like one…

Darrell Gene suspected that the wingless angel would have been proud of him.

Chapter 20

Careful not to make any more sudden movements, I surveyed my situation. It wasn’t good. Lush, tropical plants with leaves the size of axe blades came up to my waist and bordered me on both sides while tulips, daisies, and roses with stiletto-sized thorns occupied the space next to my feet and lower legs. I couldn’t help noticing that the thorns were coated with a thick, viscous substance that I had to assume was poison. There were also hanging vines to contend with which formed a sort of living net that shrouded the hallway. It was roughly a hundred or so feet to the next door.

Running through this tangle of plants would be like running through strand after strand of barbed wire. Each leaf was a razor, each vine was a garrote, and each stalk was an unconcealed bear trap.

I didn’t know what to do. I was frozen into place. I couldn’t have been any more isolated if I had been trapped in amber or encased in ice.

“Think Jamie, think.” Everything in this maze was a metaphor of sorts. Everything had a double-meaning. Asterion talked in riddles like he was some sort of caveman version of Yoda, and it was up to me to figure out what he meant.

“Sometimes the most beautiful things are the things that will harm us the most.” Obviously Asterion was referring to Karen, but was there something else behind the statement, some other hidden truth? How could I get out of this hallway alive without spilling my guts onto the floor?

“Think!” I grew more and more frustrated.

I tried to remember the hours and days leading up to my incarceration in this place and the things I had done. The mistakes I had made then would be reflection enough of the kind of man I was. Maybe that was what Asterion wanted me to do.

…I remembered the way my heart raced when I first saw Karen in that restaurant.

…I remembered the way some of the old feelings had clawed their way up out of graveyard dirt like a bunch of zombies.

…I remembered asking the age old question ‘What if?’

..Sometimes the most beautiful things are the things that will harm us the most.

The foliage in this room was a direct representation of that fact.

“How do you escape an inescapable situation?” I asked myself. Prayer? A miracle from God?

I had prayed sporadically while down here in this labyrinth, trying to convince myself that I wanted to turn back to God. But was anything I had said or done sincere? Or was I just looking for a way out? People frequently turn to God in tough times. Look at how crowded the churches were right after 9/11. Did that mean that all of them had a true desire to dedicate themselves to the