The Maze The Lost Labyrinth

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 calling of God? No, it just meant they were scared. Like I was now.

Midnight barked as if trying to tell me something. I wasn’t listening.

He barked again, and this time I gave him my full attention. The dog stared at me quizzically. The look seemed to ask the question, 'Don’t you remember what you were doing when I showed up on the scene?’

And I did remember.

I was praying. Frantically. Asterion was on the other side of the door, ramming the walls with enough force to knock jars off the wall, and I asked God for help.

God answered my prayer, and He did it in the form of this dog.

“You’re a reply from God.” I felt a wave of understanding. You’re proof that He’s here with me in this place, aren’t you?”

Midnight barked again and panted.

“Do you know how to get past this?”

Midnight shook his head from side to side as if trying to dislodge a thought from his brain.

“Maybe I should pray again? It worked last time.”

The flowers cut me in so many places as I knelt down to pray. I welcomed the pain because it reminded me of what I’d done, of my intended sin. It reminded me of the lust in my heart that was there even now. It reminded me of the kind of dangers that lurked around every corner, sometimes disguised as something as innocuous as a flower.

As I closed my eyes and asked for help, I experienced a very different kind of hurt. This time the pain didn’t come in the form of a heartache or in a pill of guilt. I knew this pain would be much different than the other I had experienced. I needed to see cause and effect. I needed to see very real consequences for the things I had done.

I pulled the worn note out of my pocket, searching for instructions on how to get through this test. The message had changed again.

“The man who wants proof that he‘s still alive needs only to suffer.”

Even without thinking too deeply on this mystery, I knew what the clue meant. Thus far I hadn’t truly seen any consequences for the things I had done. I had hurt others but not been hurt in return. This place was created to remedy that. The flowers in this hallway were beautiful, stunning, and filled with color. They were pleasing to the eye, yet deadly. It was all a deception, just like my infatuation with Karen. The moment I laid eyes on her again, I was taken aback by how gorgeous she still was after all these years. Yet, I didn’t take the time to realize that enjoying her beauty would be dangerous to me in so many ways. I realized it now.

I wasn’t going to make it out of this place without suffering. The note all but told me that. This was a classroom where Karma was the teacher. I was about to get what was coming to me, and I wasn’t looking forward to it in the slightest.

I took a deep breath and steeled myself for what I was about to do. If I was wrong, it would cost me my life. Of course, Asterion had already told me that I was going to die in here anyway. At least this way, I might find absolution through death.

I summoned a thought of Amy and Peter, and I held onto it in much the same way that a drowning man clings to a life preserver. I thought about all of the good memories we had made, all of the love we had shared; and I realized that I had single-handedly wagered everything we had on a selfish carnal curiosity. I had rolled the dice and lost it all, and now other people were paying for my mistake.

I wondered what Peter must be thinking, if he missed me at all. The thought of what I might have done to my son was enough to make me want to hurt. I deserved it.

I screamed as I ran through the foliage. Razor-leaves sliced me in a thousand different places, cutting my face, my arms, my legs, my feet. There wasn’t an inch of me that wasn’t bleeding or crying out in agony.

The pain made me feel alive. I had been numb for a very long time.

Miraculously I made it to the end of the hallway and collapsed in a bloody heap. I waited for something to happen, for Asterion to tell me that I’d failed this test, but the world around me shimmered in and out of focus like the view in a distorted mirror.

My life leaked out of me in a hundred different places, puddling on the floor beneath me. The déjà vu was so strong. I flashed back to the way I’d felt after getting shot in the head at close range by that man with the Angel Face. I remembered seeing this maze reflected in the pool of blood, and now as I glanced into this new puddle of scarlet, I was able to see the world I’d left behind.

I caught a glimpse of Amy sitting on her mother’s couch, sobbing uncontrollably. Judith had her arms around her daughter, trying to comfort her. Peter stood there, watching them both, confused, not understanding why his mother was crying so much, wondering where I was.

“Da Da.”

His call for me prompted a fresh bout of tears from Amy. Frightened and realizing that something was very wrong, my son began to cry with his mother and grandmother. A tear slipped from my eye too, but I was too hurt to wipe it away. Given all I had done to cause this pain, I didn’t deserve any reprieve. I deserved to hurt like they were hurting.

The sight of their lives falling apart was the last thing I remembered before an unbelievably heavy weight pulled my eyelids closed, blacking out the world.