that door. The door to my heart. The door to this maze.
I heard the call, and I answered it. With guilt roiling in my gut and grief streaming down both cheeks, I walked over to the kettle where Asterion was crouched down, trembling in fear. I picked up the sledgehammer he had cast aside and lifted it high above my head.
“It frightens you that I’ll open the door, doesn’t it? There can’t be two masters in this place, and you know your time is short.”
Asterion didn’t answer me, but he didn’t have to. The look in his eyes was reply enough.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me!” I brought the twenty-pound weight down on the minotaur’s head.
The minotaur collapsed and turned to dust the moment he hit the bottom of the kettle. A gust of wind swept through the hallway and carried his remains away forever. There was only one thing left to do, and I knew that every trial and tribulation I had endured thus far had merely been cobblestones paving the way toward this life-altering moment. Every ounce of guilt I’d felt, every iota of remorse, every pang of the heart and every shameful regret had been little more than a trail of bread crumbs in the depths of this labyrinth leading me to my destiny and my salvation.
Boom!
The knocking persisted, stronger and louder than before.
Boom!
I knew it was time.
I fell to my knees, and I relived every mistake I had ever made. This time I didn’t need an amber pill to make me feel guilt. The memories were reminder enough, and my mind called them forth like ghosts from my past. My life was a mess, and I wanted nothing more than to run from all my transgressions.
“I’m so sorry!” I wept hot, salty tears. “Forgive me! Make my heart pure again!”
I shivered as I felt something inside me that I’d never felt before. It was like a broom sweeping all of the debris out of my soul, clearing the cobwebs, chasing away the dust bunnies. Although I could scarcely get the words out because of my trembling lips, I begged for relief from the pain inside. I begged for absolution, for a second chance. I rocked back and forth on my knees, hugging myself for warmth, needing to feel some assurance. When I looked up, a portal appeared at the other end of the maze, and I saw the real world through the open doorway.
I couldn’t stand for what seemed like several minutes. I was wrung out, drained of my guilt, emptied of all the iniquity that had ensnared me. I was free.
This maze was less than what I had thought it was and so much more. I had been stumbling lost through the corridors of my heart, and now I finally found the way out of that darkness. I was shocked by all the sin I’d found in the unlit chambers of my heart, but I was also thankful for the revelations.
The maze was no longer gloomy, dark and filled with shadows. Instead of a frightening place, it was now well lit and filled with a warmth that reminded me of the way my mother used to cradle me in her arms when I was scared. I wasn’t scared anymore. There were no monsters roaming the hallways of my heart now.
I felt something scratch at me through the fabric of my shirt as I stood up to leave. I fingered the same tattered scrap of parchment that I had pulled from that glass bottle at the beginning of the labyrinth and wasn‘t at all surprised to see that the message had changed yet again. This time it only contained one word.
“Hallelujah!”
I couldn’t have put it any better myself.
I took a deep breath as I approached the exit. A few steps would take me from this place of redemption back into a world that would do everything it could to chew me up and spit me out. Was I ready for that again? Did I want to face that kind of darkness after only recently finding the light?
My family was depending on me, and I knew they didn’t have much time. Regardless of what happened from this point on, I knew I had nothing to fear. Confident, I walked through the door with tear-stained eyes, grateful that I had escaped the trap.
Chapter 32
I opened my eyes and expected to either find myself hooked to a dozen different monitors in a hospital bed or