think so. It was an odd place for sure, yet I wasn’t miserable. I knew that Hell was a place of agony and torment. This wasn’t that sort of place. It certainly wasn’t Heaven either because I was far from happy. Which left what? Purgatory? Like aliens, I didn’t believe in Purgatory. So where was I? And how had I gone from a gunshot wound in the head to this dark labyrinth?
I ran my fingers along the smooth surface of the wall to prove to myself that it was real. I was surprised: the temperature had dropped about twenty degrees since the last time I touched it. The wall felt like it was covered in solid ice. I shivered and hugged myself for warmth.
Everything about this place felt strange and foreign, but there were familiarities which made it all the more confusing. I studied the characters that were embedded in the walls, and watched the way they pulsed with light. I saw one shaped like a star and gently pressed it with my index finger.
Gears began to grind behind the walls, chains creaked under pressure, and the room began to revolve. The movements of the room weren’t pronounced enough that I had trouble keeping my balance or feared for my own safety. It was more like riding an escalator or an elevator, only in a circular motion rather than up and down.
Gradually the room completed half a revolution, and the gears locked into place with a cold, iron clank. Convinced that whatever I had set into motion was complete, I decided to try another symbol. This time I chose a trapezoid.
The end result of my experimentation wasn’t as noticeable as before. Somewhere in the darkness, I heard doors opening and closing. I also heard what I thought were walls shifting and sliding into place, but I couldn’t be sure of much because it was hard to see anything.
This certainly wasn’t Karen‘s apartment.
But if I wasn’t at Karen’s apartment, dreaming, dead, or on some extraterrestrial spacecraft, then where was I? In my college days, I had done a little experimenting with the usual drugs, and nothing I had ever experienced compared to this.
I took a step forward and was confused to see several layers of sand beneath my feet. Glass bottles with messages in them were scattered around me like a series of chain letters written by castaways. Looking down, I saw that I had unknowingly kicked one of the bottles over.
“This is too weird.” I thought that I had somehow gotten myself stuck inside the artwork of Salvador Dali. Looking for answers, I knelt down to pick up the bottle and read the note inside.
“Hello Jamie. Welcome to the maze. Sorry to interrupt your ‘visit’ with Karen, but it was necessary to arrange this little gauntlet as you‘ll soon see. We sincerely hope you enjoy your stay here, but doubt you will. You will face all sorts of problems here. That is the purpose of your visit. It’s up to you to figure out what to do about them.”
I frowned and read the message again, wondering if this was someone’s idea of a joke. No one, not even Karen herself, had known that I was going to show up at her doorstep. I thought for a moment about the photographer wearing the angel mask. He obviously knew my destination. But how? I was confused about all that, but didn’t really think he had anything to do with this maze. However, I couldn’t be sure of anything. Maybe Angel Face kidnapped me after shooting me in the head. I had no idea why he might have wanted to do such a thing. Then again, I wasn’t sure why he was so intent on destroying my marriage either. Was he also responsible for the message in the bottle? Maybe the photographer was working with someone else. I wondered if the person who had written this note was responsible for the message that was delivered to Amy.
It made me furious to think that I was a pawn in someone’s twisted little game. Someone was toying with me, and I didn’t like that one little bit. I was the type of guy who liked to face trouble head on. My adversary, whoever that might be, seemed to be made of a different sort of cloth.
I grabbed another bottle and read what was written on the scrap of paper inside.
“Hansel and Gretel used breadcrumbs to mark their path. What will you use?”
“Hansel and Gretel?”
It had