Cold. Damp. Mildew fills your nostrils, overwhelming you as you take tentative steps into the maze. For any human, being trapped in the Labyrinth is comparable to entering a cavern. Your only light being what’s brought down below with you. No start, no end, just continuous twists and turns.
Your senses betray you as you continue further in. Trickling in behind your ears, just faintly, you hear the sounds of something moving against the stones. You pause, looking back to find nothing. Your old instincts kick in, suspicion setting your guard up as you wander through the maze.
It doesn’t take long for you to know that something’s up. You can hear feet faintly behind you, but when you check there’s nothing. Running backwards, waiting for something to cross your paths hidden around a corner. But nothing comes.
Anger boils in your old hunter’s veins. You’ve tracked harder to find victims in the name of Zeus. You’ve gone toe to toe with some of the absolute worst and come out on top. How can this one person you can’t see be so elusive?
So like the guard dog that you are, you began to chase. The sounds of footsteps can be heard just enough over the dripping walls to give you a direction, that anger of being led on once more by a stranger with goals unknown for you.
You rush around, twisting and turning in the seemingly endless corners of the maze. You search desperately, sweat running down your body as you scream in frustration. Once again, Mr. Nobody has been led down a series of lies.
A whole labyrinth of sounds and smells, misdirection and misfortune.
You curse against yourself, and try your best to find a way out. But chased by phantoms that you haven’t seen, your senses were overwhelmed. You pace aimlessly, traversing down deeper and deeper in search of an escape to it all. If only you could just get one more time to break away, you’d be just fine.
And not too long, the claustrophobic hallways open themselves. For a moment you think you’re free, able to get out once more!
But it’s not the escape of the labyrinth. No, what you see is the heart of the maze itself. Wriggling, coiling. A hole where something good once lay, now covered in serpents of all sizes. They swarm in tangled messes, writhing. Alive. Hungry.
You take a step back, a moment of fear piercing even your cold, black heart. You turn, only to find that you were in fact, never alone. For a gold rimmed visor, black in its heart reflects back your own face for just a moment.
And then you find out too late even an old grizzled dog can learn new tricks.You feel the impact of the boot, the rush of air as you sail down. How smooth the coils are as they wrap around your neck, the pain of a hundred bites of venom course through your veins.
And then you never feel again.