Chapter 25 - Star
Something is very wrong with my world.
Quaid and I are running down the hallways, turning this way and that, with him in the lead. But my mind isn’t here.
It’s with Aric. It’s with Declan. It’s with Quaid.
It’s all over the place. And it’s almost like I can feel their emotions.
Aric’s is filled with panic. Declan is afraid, but exuberant.
And Quaid’s mind is nothing but strategies.
Pathways that go here and there, which explains our this-and-that path that we’re taking.
Suddenly, Quaid puts his arm out, signaling me to stop. “What’s up?” I ask, breathing heavy from the sprint. “Why are we stopping?”
As soon as these words come out of my mouth, I hear yelling! I think it’s Declan, and it’s more of an excited howl than a terrifying scream, which is a relief.
“Look,” Quaid says, pulling my attention back to him. “That’s Pegasus!” He’s pointing to the wall where there’s a cluster of glowing symbols.
“What? I don’t understand. You can read the symbols?”
“No, look!” Quaid points out a pattern in the symbols. He’s not referencing the actual symbols themselves. “That’s Pegasus! Can’t you see it? They’re constellations! That’s what the symbols are! Now we just need to find the Seven Sisters and that’s where the portal is!”
Seven. There’s not seven, there’s eight. Technically more than eight. So why do those first seven get all the glory? Makes me mad.
“Star!” Quaid yells.
“I’m listening!”
“No, you’re not. Pay attention. Can you see it? These symbols, they’re not letters or words. They’re stars.” He spins in place, looking up and down the walls, while across the maze somewhere, there’s more shouting.
“They’re in trouble! We need to help them!” I say.
Quaid grabs my arm, pulling me closer to him.
“No. They’re grown demigods for fuck’s sake, they can take care of themselves.
If we go help them, we’ll all die. We need to find the Minotaur’s lair and open the portal.
Then we’ll worry about Declan and Aric. Come on, I think I know what’s going on here but we need to find the lair so I can be sure. ”
Then he grabs my hand and takes off running again.
The yelling and hollers of Aric and Declan are closer now, like we’re running towards them. Which makes sense because both pathways lead to the same place. He pushes me in front of him, yelling, “Hurry up!”
I run as fast as I can and Quaid slips behind me, like my protector, calling out which way to go as we come upon choices in the maze. “Left! Right! Straight!”
But with each step towards our goal, my mind becomes heavy, or something. Foggy. And then it starts to slip a little because the walls all around me turn into glowing green lines like I saw when we first got here, and slowly they become transparent.
I can see through the walls.
And what I see is Aric and Declan as they run the maze just a few hallways over.
The Minotaur is not far behind them and even though Aric is panicking, he’s hauling ass.
Skidding around corners, zig-zagging his way through the maze in an effort to lose the monster.
Declan is right behind him and I get the feeling that he could overtake Aric easily with those wings on his ears, but he doesn’t.
It’s almost like Declan is pulling up the rear to put himself between the Minotaur and Aric.
Suddenly, Aric takes a wrong turn. I don’t know how I know, I just do. It’s a dead end!
He knows it too. Only a couple steps in and he falters. “Fuck!”
His scream is so loud, Quaid remarks behind me. “Never mind him, Star! keep running!”
I do, I’m running. But my mind is with Aric.
I cannot leave him like that. I don’t care if he’s not gonna die, just wake up, forced to try again. I’m not leaving him.
I hum the melody in my head for our song. Not the simple da-da-dah tune that’s been earworming its way into my brain for almost a decade, but a softer version, like a lullaby.
Aric looks up and around, hearing my song.
“What are you doing?” Quaid asks. “Not yet! Don’t sing it yet! We need to find the right symbols or we make a wrong move!”
But I don’t listen, I continue to hum. Because this is the only way to save Aric and Declan. The Minotaur is just a few hallways behind the zig-zag path that Aric took, it’s seconds away from killing them both.
My song rises in volume, filling the maze with music. And through the walls—just one hallway away from where Quaid and I are running—I see the monster. It slows at first, but then, it stops.
“No!” Quaid yells, reaching behind him to take my hand and pull me forward so I’m in front of him now. “Don’t sing it yet! You’re calling the Minotaur to us!”
He’s right. I am. I look over my shoulder, past Quaid, and find that the monster turning on its hooves, sniffing the air, and then fixes its gaze right on me—like it can see through walls as well. And then, a moment later, it springs forward.
Not down a hallway, but through the walls between us!
I scream, stopping the song, and then get a little burst of satisfaction when the Minotaur slams into the stone wall. Because it’s back in place now.
I did that. I took the walls down, drew the Minotaur away from Aric and Declan with the song, and then put them back up when I stopped humming—leaving the Minotaur in a completely different part of the maze!
I did it!
I saved them!
I really did it!
Quaid pushes me, urging me on. “Faster! Go faster!”
When I look behind me and find his face, for the first time ever I see his fear, and force my feet to move.
“Keep going,” Quaid yells. “We’re almost there. That’s Cassiopeia!” He points to the wall as we rush past.
I’m running as fast as I can, but I’m out of breath. I’m not like, unfit or anything, but I’ve been through a lot. If I had known I’d be running a maze to save my life, I’d have upped my cardio routine. But as it stands, I’m just not prepared for this level of physical exertion.
And my feet are going slower, and slower, and slower as the moments pass.
“We’re almost there!” Quaid yells. He knows I can’t run much longer. “Sing it! Sing your song!” And when I look up ahead of us, he’s pointing at something. Bright lights glowing on the dark stone walls. “It’s Perseus!” he yells as we run past. “Sing it now! Pleiades is coming up quick!”
Aric’s words start spilling out of my mouth in loud, shrieky—and very embarrassingly off tune—notes. And when I get to the last line, Quaid’s glasses flash a bright light and everything becomes… invisible.
Everything but us.
And that’s when I realize, we’re in the Minotaur’s lair. Which is the same room as the portal we’ve been seeing in our sex dreams. It’s circular with a perimeter of arches and on the other side of each arch is a hazy, blurry depiction of what might be our Paradise.
Above our heads is an open-air dome that afford us a complete three-hundred-and-sixty view of the night sky all lit up with stars.
I look across the darkness and find Aric and Declan staring back at me.
Only about twenty feet away, but a moment ago, there were walls between us.
Further away is the Minotaur in hot pursuit.
It’s running in a pattern that clearly indicates that the walls have not disappeared from its point of view.
Declan laughs. “We did it! We fucking did it!”
“Quick!” Quaid yells. “Get in here!”
Declan and Aric haul ass right towards us just as the Minotaur roars around a corner, mere steps behind them, and growls its rage, once it realizes they’re gone.
Declan does a little dance as he steps into the lair, but Aric starts hurriedly looking around the room as the shadows flicker across his face, making him look meaner and angrier than I’ve seen him before.
“What are you doing?” Quaid asks him. But Aric doesn’t answer. “Aric, what the hell are you looking for?”
The three of us are watching him. He’s frantic, not paying any attention to Quaid’s questions. There are piles of things scattered around the lair. Bones, and furs, and clothes, and trinkets. Like the monster has been collecting bits and pieces from all its victims over the years.
“There it is!” Aric yells, his hand deep inside a pile of bones.
He turns to us, holding up a knife made of gold.
Then he rushes over and pushes us behind him.
“Stand back! This bastard is mine.” Then he crouches down into a fighting stance and whispers, “Come on, motherfucker. I’m ready this time. ”
And that’s when the Minotaur comes roaring into the room.