Forgotten memories

Right? Left?

We made it barely a hundred feet before we realized we were hopelessly, utterly lost.

The tunnel was round, like some sort of sewer, made of red brick with iron-barred portholes spaced every ten feet. Out of curiosity, I shined my flashlight through one of the portholes—but I couldn't see a thing. Beyond the bars, there was nothing but infinite darkness.

I thought I heard voices coming from the other side, but maybe it was just the cold wind whistling through the brick. Annabeth tried her best to guide us, insisting that we stick to the left wall.

"If we keep one hand on the left wall and follow it," she said, "we should be able to find our way out again by reversing course."

Unfortunately, the moment she said that, the left wall vanished. We found ourselves standing in the middle of a circular chamber with eight identical tunnels leading out in every direction—and no clue how we had gotten there.

"Um, which way did we come in?" Grover asked nervously.

"Just turn around," Annabeth said, calm as ever.

We each turned toward a different tunnel. It was ridiculous. None of us could agree on which way led back to camp.

"Left walls are mean," Tyson muttered. "Which way now?"

Annabeth swept her flashlight across the archways of the eight tunnels. They all looked exactly the same. "That way," she said finally.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Deductive reasoning," she replied.

"So...you're guessing," Percy said, unimpressed.

"Just come on," she said, impatiently.

The tunnel she had chosen narrowed quickly. The walls turned to gray cement, and the ceiling dropped low, forcing us to hunch over. Tyson eventually had to crawl on all fours.

Grover's hyperventilating was the loudest sound in the maze. "I can't stand it anymore," he whispered. "Are we there yet?"

"We've been down here maybe five minutes," Christine said patiently.

"It's been longer than that," Grover insisted. "And why would Pan be down here? This is the opposite of the wild!"

We shuffled forward, step by step. Just when I was sure the tunnel would crush us completely, it opened into a huge room. I shined my light over the walls and muttered, "Whoa."

The entire room was covered in mosaic tiles. The pictures were grimy and faded, but I could still make out splashes of red, blue, green, and gold. The frieze depicted the Olympian gods at a feast. There was my dad, Poseidon, holding out grapes for Dionysus to turn into wine. Zeus partied with satyrs, and Hermes flew through the air on his winged sandals. The artwork was beautiful—but not very accurate. I'd seen the gods firsthand; Dionysus was not that handsome, and Hermes's nose was definitely smaller.

In the center of the room was a three-tiered fountain. It hadn't held water in ages.

"What is this place?" Percy muttered. "It looks—"

"Roman," I said. "Those mosaics are about two thousand years old."

"But how can they be Roman?" Percy asked, confused. He wasn't great at ancient history, but even he knew the Roman Empire never reached Long Island.

"The Labyrinth is a patchwork," Christine explained. "It keeps expanding, adding new pieces. It's the only architecture that grows by itself."

"You make it sound alive," Percy said.