Perpetually Tired™

Maybe you were naïve to assume the size of the labyrinth would ensure you wouldn’t cross paths with the monster who made his home here, and for several days, you didn’t. 

A gust of wind made you whimper and curl into the pocket of space between raised, gnarled roots of the tree you’d taken shelter in. Burying your face in your knees to wait out the gale, you berated yourself for the nth time for thinking the forest would be a better bet than the maze.

It was so, so much worse.

At least in the maze, there was only four directions, and it was easier to tell when things changed. In the forest, it was next to impossible.

Half the time, you suspected you were the one being altered, not the labyrinth. As though, by some divine power, the wind was sweeping you off to a different part of the prison to disorient you anew. But nothing was crueller than the moments the wind changed nothing.

You knew you should be grateful in those moments, but it had the opposite effect.

It plagued your mind with paranoia, leaving you doubtful of the route you planned to take, your vision tunnelled on trying to find every little difference with frantic eyes and a pounding heart.

Was that tree always there?

Had the next left turn always been that far away? Was it even left? Maybe it was right…

Does the ground feel more uphill than before?

It was hell, and a few days within its snare made you feel aged beyond your cosmic eternity.

But that wasn’t the worst of it… because like all prisons, there was always a gatekeeper.

Something was out there…

Instinct had sent you hiding as you scavenged for fallen walnuts and bramble berries to fill your empty stomach. Like one of Artemis’ deer, your head had snapped up when a sudden hush fell over the land. An unnatural disquiet that was imperceptible at first until you looked up at the organic awning of leaves and branches, none of which were making a sound as they rustled against each other.

A warning breeze disturbed the litter of leaves around you silently, causing goosebumps to erupt with molten adrenaline all over your body.

You hid in the first place you could find, slight enough to fit into such a cramped space entirely, the only perk to a disadvantageous physique that was continuously punished by the unrelenting environment.

Cold water drenched your spine now, locking your bones in place and refused to let you move even as your muscles complained from how small you made yourself huddled between the roots.

And then… whispering.

Humans?

“I’m tellin’ ya,” the voices were faint, far away but still too loud in the oppressive silence, “this dust is comin’ from somewhere.”

In the air, a heavy oppressive presence poisoned the air. Your eyes widened, trepidation coating your tongue in fluff.

Whatever was out there, whatever you sensed, was not them. Your stomach sank at the realization; they were doomed. Walking passengers of Charon… their sacrificial coins blinding them to the death they were walking into.

How did they not feel the atmosphere shift? The potency of malice thickening to a point it felt like even the blood in your veins was congealing, so tight you just knew the tension would have to burst eventually. But too skittish to give your position away lest you suffer another humiliating encounter as you had in the village, you were forced to wait them out and listen.

“We need food, not dust.” The other human grizzled. 

Dread draped over you as your eyes dropped to your muddied feet where your toes curled into the dirt. A faint glimmer of stardust surrounded where you sat and doubtlessly littered anywhere you spent any prolonged amount of time in.

“Are ya kiddin’?” The footsteps stopped, your heartbeat following. “Look at how this shit glows. It could help us navigate this hellhole.  Outside’a havin’ the strength and sword to kill the beast, tha’s the most valuable thing we could have in this place.”

Oh, merciful gods… you lamented, burying your face in your hands.

Your fear and anxiety were so heightened here that, unbeknownst to yourself, a fissure had formed that allowed your essence to escape. Your astral soul was instinctively reacting to the burden of stress placed on your physical body and expelling stardust tracks in a bid to guide you home.

But here, in this netherworld, even it didn’t know what direction to lead you and ended up falling in a flurry of cosmic snow that did the opposite of help. Indeed, it led everyone in the labyrinth to you.

If those people found you…

If he found you.

The thought surfaced just as you realize the voices had halted.

They finally noticed, the atmosphere a tightly drawn back bow and their hurried steps the trigger to finally release it. Suddenly, the vacuum of silence was dispelled, the rustle in the canopy a battle cry of nature and the thick foliage a shield of leaves that continued to separate you from the light of the stars.

The hairs on your arms stood on ends, a drag of fingers up the back of your neck that resulted in a violent shiver when you glanced behind you, paranoid. You inhaled shallowly; lungs suddenly starved of oxygen as though you’d been holding your breath since you first hid.

Maybe the land wasn’t the only thing affected by whatever caused that silence to fall.

And then, as if to prove its iniquitous presence, the silence was finally filled with a dreadful sound.

Crunch… crunch… crunch…

Your stomach dropped into a pool of freezing water, blood pounding in your ears as your heart hammered wildly. The weight behind those footsteps… it wasn’t human. It wasn’t divine. Not even Hephaestus with his mighty hammer and full belly carried the power of this new presence. Every footstep sank into the detritus littered forest floor, telling you in no uncertain terms that whatever was out there… was huge.

Monster…

A tumult of noises, animals fleeing as they were possessed by their instincts, resonated through the air.

Crunch… crunch… sniff… crunch… crunch… crunch… sniff.

Tears welled in your eyes.

You knew, on an instinctive level, what was up there. The very thing that gods and mortals alike spoke about in whispers, a warning tale to scare naughty children into obedience lest they find themselves where you were now.

The Minotaur.

Fear like you’d never known before – not when you’d first been thrown into the labyrinth or even when you were dragged before the Queen of Gods herself – overcame your senses as it consumed you. It eradicated your identity in an icy riptide of terror, dragging you under until only your fear floated and became your entire existence.

A horned silhouette stretched across the treetops in front of you, a shadow among shadows. Darker than the blackest hole and just as hungry to destroy anything that came close to it.

He was close…

You covered your mouth to silence the sob that sought to escape you, unable to blink as you witnessed the shadow of the bull-headed monster hunting you grow as he moved.

He turned his head, a wide muzzle exaggerated in his profile and distorted by the disorderly wall of trees that created a mismatched canvas for his shadow. You watched the silhouette lift his head towards the sky, intentional, measured… followed by another series of sniff sniff sniff.

You didn’t even realize the tears were falling before they pooled in the crevice where your hands were folded over your mouth, tracking down your cheeks in a constant stream as a bugle blared in your mind, resisting the existence of such a nightmarish creature even as you saw his shadow with your waking eyes.

Closer he walked, crunch crunch crunch, his shadow growing from the bovine head to the body of a man—strong, broad shoulders large enough to carry those horns and the defined curve of his muscles evident even through the flatness of his silhouette.

You were trapped.

Bark dug into your back as you pressed as far back into the roots as you could, silent and wishing you possessed the wood nymphs’ ability to sink into the trees themselves for protection. But your salvation was out of reach, far above the trees and cloud cover that the twinkling light of stars couldn’t pierce.

A bellow—bullish and remarkably, with tones of a human voice undercutting it, echoed throughout the forest. The wind carried it farther than it ought to have travelled, in service to him and reminding all who dwelled within this prison, just who the jailor was.

Did he know?

You tucked your knees and feet tighter against your body, eyeing the treacherous trail of stardust in front of you. He only needed to catch sight of the gleam and it would lead him directly to where you hid, cornered against the roots.

You could risk it and run. Either into the maze or up one of the trees, but you had little faith in your speed given your only experience with running was in pleasure. In coy chases through the trees that ended with you sprawled in some meadow with your hunter’s cock buried inside you, claiming the prize you presented.

That train of thought led you somewhere taboo in your mind, somewhere sinful… somewhere you shouldn’t linger as the image of a bovine beastman doing just that flashed across your mind.  

You shied away from it, confused by the sudden rush of adrenaline that banished the cold on your skin. There was a harsh exhale above you, he smelled something.

Get a grip, you scolded yourself harshly. This wasn’t some flirty chase of your own design… where your pursuer even seeing you, let alone catching you was at your will. This was different.

Here, with him… you would be running for your life. And if he ran you down…

What prize did a Minotaur want? Was it the spilling of blood like legend would tell? Was it something more carnal… like all those of flesh and bone desired?

No.

The only other option you had was to remain still and pray he moved on, so you never had to find out. Every step closer he took to the precipice of the roots you were under, however, diminished that hope and when you could practically smell the musk on his skin and fur, hear his exhales, and see the billowing clouds of condensation from his breath, you tried to make peace with the fact that you’d been caught.

But it was not to be your end.

Another bellow proved to be your salvation as the noise broke the courage of the other poor souls hiding close by, those who had followed your stardust and who you initially thought long gone.

Your heart seized at the sound of them scrambling out of hiding and running, their ragged breaths overshadowed by a ferocious snarl as the Minotaur’s shadow whirled around. Instinct overtook him, or luck was on your side, his heavy footfalls charging – too fast – after their fleeing forms and away from you.

There was no relief though, not when the sudden scream some distance away warned of you meeting the same fate if you didn’t move now. The screams were cut off as suddenly as the drop at the hangman’s gallows, that same cruel wind carrying the wet gurgle of flooded windpipes to you.

It chased you as you pulled yourself out of your hiding spot, fleeing the carnage and praying you could put enough distance between you and the carnage. At least until the wind picked up again and dropped you somewhere else in this maze of madness.   

For surely you were going mad… because no matter how fast and far you ran, there could be no other reason that anything other than fear or revulsion should fill you at the thought of that murderous brute.