It was dark there wasn’t even the tiniest bit of light. Tab was just waking up. She couldn’t understand why her mind felt so foggy and she couldn’t see. She waited a few minutes for her eyes to adjust so she could see but they never did. Everything remained pitch black.
“What’s happening?! Have I gone blind?!” Tab thought frantically to herself.
She continued to look around and realized that she could faintly see the outline of her hand if she held it close to her face.
“Not blind then,” She concluded, “Just dark. Really dark….”
She tried to sit up now. It was harder than it should have been. Her head pounded and he felt like she was going to pass out. She couldn’t tell how long she sat with her back against the wall. She had no sense of time, she only knew that the wall and floor felt damp and moldy. Finally the wooziness passed and Tabitha could think clearly. She reached up to touch her head and her hand came away slick and wet. She couldn’t see what covered her hand but it had the unmistakable, rusty scent of blood. Tab didn’t have anything to bandage her head, and even if she did it was too dark to do anything. So she just laid her head against the wall and drifted in and out of consciousness. A noise awoke her. It seemed to have come from across the room and somehow up seemingly from the middle of the wall. A door slightly opened and light streamed in. it felt like needles were piercing Tab’s head, and she had to squint to see. The door seemed to take an eternity to open and the light got so bright Tab had to close her eyes completely. When she thought that the door was all the way open she squinted her eyes at the light. There standing in the door at the top of the steps was Alex.
“Alex! Finally I’m saved!” Tab thought.
Slowly Alex closed the door behind him shutting out the light before a light bulb was flicked on. Immediately she knew that something was wrong. Alex was walking towards her, slowly with his palms out like he was walking towards a scared, wounded animal.
He came over and held her in his arms whispering in her ear, “It’s alright. I’m here now, you’re safe.”
She pulled away, everything was all wrong. His voice sounded emotionless, unlike him. He was looking at Tab now, or was he? He seemed to be looking through her.
“That’s it! His eyes!” Tab thought.
Alex’s eyes weren’t his usual dark brown, they were bright green.
“Come on we need to go.” Alex whispered as he grabbed Tab’s arm and started to drag her, the wrong way? The opposite way of the way he came. He went to the opposite wall where he slid a portion of the wall to the side revealing steps going down?
“Wait, no! We should be getting out not going deeper in!” Tab exclaimed as she pulled away to another wall.
“No, no. You have to trust me. I have to take you to her.”
Alex came towards her. She was cornered, there was no where to run. Alex grabbed her arms but Tabitha pushed him away. Hard. He flew backwards and hit the other wall. The shelf above him fell and came down on his head. Tab crept closer wondering if she had killed him. No, he was still breathing and his eyes were still open. His eyes. The green was seeping away and Alex’s normal, dark brown eyes returned.
“Ugh. Where am I?” He muttered.
“Come on we have to get out of here!”
Tab pulled him up and towards the door leading out. He followed her but didn’t seem to realize what he was doing. She opened the door and they were in a hallway. The light was unbearable. Tab was on her knees almost instantly.
“Come on. We have to keep moving,” Alex begged her.
They ran. It was a long hallway and took a while to cross. They turned the corner and there she was.
“Jessica?!” Tab thought. “No, not her. She just looks disturbing like her.”
“Jessica?!?!” Alex exclaimed.
“You have failed me Alex.”
“What are you talking about?!”
The woman just smiled and that’s when she saw it. A small hatchet. She tried to warn him but it was too late. She felt the warmth splatter her face and Alex went limp into her arms. Red stained the white walls.
Alex turned to her and chocked out, “Run!!” before the light left his eyes.
Tab listened. She didn’t hesitate before she turned and ran.
She ran and ran. She didn’t know where she was going or how long she had been running. When Alex had told her to run she did and didn’t look back. She had heard the crunching of bones and splattering of blood. She didn’t want to see that, to remember Alex as a mangled bloody body. She wanted to remember him as that confident, strong friend who shielded her from harm. Even now she could still hear the woman’s chopping ringing in her ears.
Tab turned a corner and came to the first door she had seen. Without hesitating she flung the door open and went through, but froze in horror at the sight she saw.
“DJ?!” She whispered.
The moaning man that was chained to the wall looked up at her. It was DJ, only it wasn’t at the same time. The fun-filled, sarcastic DJ Tabitha knew was gone. He had been replaced with this broken, depressed man.
“I’ll save him,” Tab thought, “I couldn’t help Alex but I can save DJ.”
She tried breaking the chains but they were unbreakable. DJ was muttering something but Tab couldn’t understand, until DJ’s eyes widened. Tab turned and there was Jessica.
“How did she catch up to me so fast?!”
Suddenly Tab flew away and into the wall, shoved by DJ just as Jessica had charged forwards. She looked back and saw that Jessica’s head and arms were hopelessly entangled with DJ’s arms and chains. She moved forward to help him but she was once again shoved back, this time through the door and out into the hallway.
“Run! There’s no time left for me! Save yourself!” DJ shouted at Tab as he struggled to restrain Jessica.
Tab saw the flash of sliver blur through the air but just out of the corner of her eye because she was already running again. Running again only this time she looked back. She immediately wish she hadn’t. in that one glimpse back Tab had seen an object trailing blood behind it. An object that stopped rolling when it hit the wall to stare at her with wide unseeing eyes. Staples covered his face.
Tab ran on, bumping into walls, turning corners and running blindly. Drowning in her own tears.
She ran and ran, seemingly endlessly until she ran face first into a wall. She fell hard backwards, her nose was bleeding, probably broken.
“A dead end?!?! How can there be a dead end?!?!” She thought frantically as she searched for something, anything that would help her get out of here, wherever here was. She found absolutely nothing on the white walls behind her.
“I knew you’d end up here eventually.”
Tab spun around to see Jessica standing there, axe in hand. It was dripping wet with blood.
“They all do. It’s how the Labyrinth was designed. All paths lead here.”
“Please, What do you want with me,” Tab sobbed.
“Revenge,” Jessica snarled. “They locked me up in here, said I was a monster. Every month they send in a boy and a girl. I followed them at first but they all ended up here. There’s no way out. So I destroyed every, single, one, of them. That boy you tried to save. He was my favorite. I kept him for company, he understood me. Now, you will pay for making me have to kill him.”
Jessica rose the axe and slowly started to walk towards her. Her face changed onto a snarl that Tab always imagined is how the devil might look like. Jessica was red with furry.
“No, wait. She’s really turning red,” Tab thought, confused.
Jessica was turning red. Horns grew out of her head. She grew muscular and hooves? The axe had turned into a spiked club. Jessica had grown into the minotaur.
The creature was upon her now. Tab was crouched in the corner with her hands up the shield her face, but she knew it was hopeless. She was going to die. She had silently started to cry again. Jessica/the Minotaur raised her club for the killing blow. Tab closed her eyes tight and then….
Tabitha woke up screaming.
