"What if you were hiking in the woods- Have you ever been hiking? Not like you stayed at a cabin in the mountains for the weekend, like you were staying out in the country, and you wandered out past your backyard. What if you were hiking, and you came across a labyrinth. You know, like a big maze. It's just you in the woods and this huge stone structure covered in vines and grass, and there's the entrance.
You gotta peek inside right? You gotta. You gotta look. Its huge. The walls are tall, and open to the sky, and there's plenty of light so you're not gonna get stuck in a cave-in. But you're not stupid, you were hiking so you brought some rope. So you tie one end to a tree outside the entrance and you go inside to see what you can find.
Its beautiful inside. Nothing crazy happens, there's no special energy in the air or monster or whatever, its just a beautiful place. Its warm and the birds are chirping and maybe some flowers are blooming. There's just this sense of wonder, you know, this powerful sense of wonder. But eventually you run out of rope, and you realize that this thing goes on way further than you thought it did.
So you head home, right? You head home and maybe you look up the name of your town and labyrinth on the internet. And there's nothing. There's nothing! There's like, sci-fi or fantasy stories, or weird pages about aliens or ghosts or whatever. But right before you're about to give up, you find like, an old message board or a deleted reddit comment about finding a weird labyrinth in the woods behind their house. So you read a bit more, and you realize that this dude is actually German, or Indian, or Kenyan or something. He's not talking about your labyrinth, but he might as well be.
So you message him, right? You're like 'hey! I found a maze thing just like yours, whats up with this?' and after a bit he responds like 'Dude, I don't know what's up with this fuckin' labyrinth. I don't know why people aren't talking about the labyrinths. But there's some old books about them, and there's like, a community of people who have found these things.
So you become a labyrinth guy. You start talking to other labyrinth guys. You learn about how they navigated theirs, how they discovered their labyrinths, and you exchange tips about how to navigate the labyrinths and speculate on why the damn things are even there to begin with. You learn that some of the other labyrinth guys are weirdos. Like, real freaks. Like nazis and stuff. But you're not an idiot, you know not to talk to those guys, but you also know to keep an eye on them.
You find a handful of dudes who you get along with. They've read a lot of the old books, and you all kinda vibe with each others theories on the labyrinths. And you get good at navigating the labyrinth. Like, really good at navigating the labyrinth. You're starting to map yours, getting a sense for how its designed. But there's people who are way better at it than you, like WAY better. There's people who have whole theories on what the design of their labyrinth suggests about the designers, and they have all these theories on the authors of the old books and their opinions on the labyrinths.
And then you like, you catch something. Its subtle, like, the sort of thing you wouldn't notice unless you spend all this time being a labyrinth guy. A few people have been talking about there being like, more layers. People say there's like, steps. Like, stairs that lead down or up or somewhere else. At first you were like 'this just sounds like more alien shit from the weirdo Nazis but there's a few people who have solid theories on there being entrances to something else that only happens in specific places in every maze. And it checks out, it really does check out, but in a way that you'd only notice if you were already a labyrinth guy.
And at this point, you know your labyrinth, you know it like the back of your hand. Like, you dream about your labyrinth and you know exactly where you are inside it. So you go. Like, you go to check it out. You do the math and check your maps and you spend a day walking around in the labyrinth. You find the place it should be, and you clear away some leaves and dirt and. Yeah. Sonofabitch is there.
But its not steps. Its not a spiral staircase or some kinda magic lift. Its a well. An old stone well. And its dark. It's really dark. You can tell it goes somewhere, but you can't tell where. But its there. It's there. That's what it's like."
"I don't know. I haven't gone down the well yet."
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