The Labyrinth

She stopped counting the days when she reached 3,498 days. Nine years, six months, and four weeks. She stopped counting not wanting to reach 3,653 days. Ten years. That's what she told herself, anyway. It seemed pointless to count anymore.

She had no recollection of how she got there or how long she had been there. It was scary at first. It's just a dream, she convinced herself. But then night came. And night went. And it continued to do so, on and on and on and on.

In the beginning she ran wildly without direction, believing she was taking the labyrinth for granted. That it didn't continue forever, that she'd reach the end. Desperately she had tried to scale the walls. But the marble was smooth and gave no purchase.

The hedges she avoided the most. Not only could she not climb them due to the thorns, but she believed the thing might plow right through it to reach her. She herself had thought about forcing herself through the hedges as perhaps that would be a way out. But she would be ripped to shreds.

Though most unsettling, the walls that bled intrigued her the most. The walls were soft to the touch with thin pale hairs. Some sections didn't have what she equated to be skin at all and the muscles wept when she applied pressure. She'd touch her own limbs and trace her face with her fingers, feeling the most human when she wandered between those walls.

The walls. Those damn looming walls. They appeared to change when she wasn't looking. One moment she would be heading in a direction, following the sun and, should she turn around, be met with a wall.

She remembered a time before. Of course she remembered a time before. Or at least she thought she did.

There was her mom. Her mom and her sister. They would talk for hours on end. They were close, the three of them. Inseparable after their father died. Or did he leave? No matter. They were close and would speak in glances and grunts.

No longer did she remember their names. Their names or their faces. Come to think of it, she didn't remember her own name either. She held onto it for a while, believing it to be the one thing that kept her human. All she wanted was to share a look. To hear her sister call her name once more. Whatever her name was.

For a couple years she would spell their names out in the dirt with a finger or stick. Draw crude pictures in blood from the weeping walls of what she remembered them looking like. But after a time, they looked distorted. Strangers to her.

Was her sister in the labyrinth, too? She'd never seen another person, so she tried not to think about her sister out there wandering alone. Just like she was.

Yet she wasn't alone. There were the creatures, of course. The worms with their blue tufts of hair that spoke. Spoke ad nauseam. When they spoke, she listened, understanding none of it. They babbled incessantly and tried to draw her into the walls. It would be safe there, they insisted. Or at least that's what she gleaned from the way they hid at night. They all hid at night. Even the fairies that bite when touched.

Nights were the worst. The celestial bodies in the sky glowed red casting an insidious hue over the labyrinth. They were always fully illuminated and grew imperceptibly closer in the night sky every day. What would happen when they eclipsed?

There were the small furry red bipedal creatures, too. They boasted round bellies atop thin legs and fangs that sprouted from long snouts. They spoke and looked at her quizzically when she tried to speak to them; when she tried to teach them her name. But they seemed interested only in their own company. Except when the tapping got close, of course. They would scurry away putting out what might pass as a fire and she would pursue them as long as she could. But they were devilishly quick and she would lose them in a hurry.

She'd never seen it. The thing that taps. She was curious, of course. But for the most part, she avoided it. Avoided it how anyone might avoid things in the labyrinth, mostly without trying and blind wandering.

She'd been, she felt, particularly close to it one crimson lit night. There was the sound of breathing, which she couldn't normally hear, and the familiar taps. They had been loud. Typically, they'd be heard in the distance. Always in spurts of three and then a pause.

Tap, tap, tap.

Pause.

Tap, tap, tap.

Pause.

Never more, never less. And only at night. Some nights she didn't hear them at all. That's when she felt the safest. When, for a time she would repeat the name of her sister, her mother, her own.

But that night she heard them and they were close. She strained to hear what sounded like whispers from the thing. A sentence, a word, a syllable, anything that might give her a clue. Her lungs burned not wanting to spare even a breath that may drown out the hope of a clear word that could come over the wall from the thing.

The thing. At least it had a name, she thought. And she thought about calling out to it that night. Would she startle it? Would it find her? She remained silent. With that silence, she felt her memory fade a little more.

For years she hated those taps. Then one day she wondered if the thing was searching. Whoever—whatever—it was. Searching, just like she was, for an impression in the ground, a piece of cloth, something, anything, that would let them know they were close. What they meant or what she was searching for if not for her sister—or was it a way out?—she no longer knew.

She would listen every night for the taps, then.

The days tallied on and she didn't know how long she'd been wandering the labyrinth. Whether it was ten years, fifty, a hundred. She couldn't tell. She didn't care anymore. She stopped talking long ago. No longer did she know what her own voice sounded like; if her vocal cords even worked.

In the night sky the moons were precariously close. Almost close enough to—and then she noticed it. They were colliding. She kept walking as she always did. Eyes darting to the rocks in the sky as they smashed in slow motion to each other.

And then she stopped. Could that be...? No. She wouldn't think it. She stared at what was in front of her, not believing her eyes. There was no real end to the labyrinth, of course. The expanse of land—not walls—in front of her was an illusion.

Then came those familiar taps, plain as the moons in the sky; they were right behind her. Her eyes deceived her, her ears deceived her, surely.

When she turned away from the opening to face what was behind her she saw something. Someone. Someone familiar. She knew this person. Could it be?

"Madeline," the figure whispered.

Her skin prickled and she felt her pulse quicken. Something in her told her to run to what was surely not the end of the labyrinth. To evade this impersonation of her sister.

But it said her name. Her name. Something she hadn't heard in years, decades.

It was her sister, of course. Her mouth didn't move when she whispered.

Her heart raced violently in her chest. Run, she thought. But she was entranced by this figure. Immobile. Memories came flooding back. "Sylvie," she uttered with aching vocal cords. "It's you."

A smile began gradually, gently even, not wavering for a moment. But it grew too large.

"I've been looking for you, Madeline," Sylvie said.

Her mom. Her sister. Her real sister.

The years collapsed inside her and she felt hot streaks run down her cheeks. She rushed forward only to stop inches from the thing.

It's neck began to bend. Too far. Farther than a neck should bend. Bones cracked. The jaw popped and skin ripped to accommodate the gaping mouth.

Sylvie. The room. This thing. How well she hid it.

For so long she'd wandered between these walls, terrorized by this unseen being. Hiding from the truth it carried. The way out was behind her, yet she didn't budge.

Some part of her wanted to escape it forever; another longed to finally let it find her.

"Madeline."

But a whisper, and how sweet a whisper it was, from the gaping black hole barbed with teeth. Widening. Beckoning for her to crawl in.

Madeline obeyed.