Hours passed. They must’ve, Selene thought - Helios’s carriage was halfway through its daily race. Its warmth boiled all it touched. This included Selene’s head. Her valiant attempts to stay within shadows got more and more difficult, which only increased the painful awareness of her even more painful migraine. Or was it a fever? In that time, Selene drained even more of her limited water supply. She had hoped to find shelter (and more importantly food and fresh water) but instead, she found a staircase.
It was a peculiar staircase, despite the fact that it looked mundane in all of the adjectives that would be used to describe it. It went down steeply, and mist crawled up its uneven edges. It was the kind of mist that has blended with darkness to create a perfect mix of neither. The stairs only went on and on, down and down, and then into nothing. There were no cicadas in the nothing.
Though as Selene circled the open area around the stairs, she saw something much more interesting than stairs. She saw a few somethings laying down, stretched over the stone rubble and enjoying the heat Selene so desperately wished to escape. It was three lizards. Three brown lizards which she knew to be edible. Sometimes, when her father took her on a business trip, they ate lizards around the fire and he spoke of Zeus and Poseidon and of all the other happenings that must have transpired in the past. He’d speak of the goddess whose name she bore as the goddess peered down at them from her place in the night sky. And the goddess listened to the tales, just like the little girl dozing off in her father’s embrace.
And so, Selene remembered and then she grabbed a rock.
⁓Ψ⁓
She caught two of the three lizards.
As shadows elongated, she finished cooking her spoils. This time, she made sure to cook the lizards for as long as was needed...Despite the growls emanating from her stomach. She was light-headed the whole day and even now, beads of cold sweat traveled down her shaking shoulders in irregular waves. It happened more than once that Selene caught something out of the corner of her eye. But again and again, it turned out to be the fever playing tricks on her.
Despite her concerns, the shadows danced how the fire played its crackling melodies.
So she watched the flame, mind too scattered and mushy to do anything else but watch its hypnotic cavorting.
It was only when one of the shadows began making a little too much noise that she sprung to life again. Growling? Not exactly. But that didn't matter now- where was the important question. Where was it?
It soon revealed its location along with its shape. The shadow had an equally shadow colored mane. And two long, twisty horns poking out of it. Horns that looked just about ready to impale her. The shadow stepped closer and Selene noticed he wielded a giant ax...Giant to her anyway. To the minotaur, as she reluctantly categorized the shadow now, the ax was simply big.
Alright Selene, don't panic. You're probably hallucinating a minotaur. No. Not a minotaur, The Minotaur of Crete.
She momentarily congratulated herself on her colorful imagination and chucked a nearby pebble at the hallucination.
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The pebble described a perfect arch and gracefully bounced off of its target's snout. This was very stupid and unrealistic, because hallucinations don't have physics. And even more stupid was the amount of time it took Selene to realize this.
''This can't be real.'' Selene whispered while speed-walking in the direction of 'as far from the increasingly more pissed looking hallucination as possible'.
But it was real and even Selene's less than okay consciousness had to admit it, as it recalled all the myths and legends surrounding the monster. How the king locked him in the labyrinth...how he'd given an ultimatum to the neighboring kingdoms. How Theseus, the hero, valiantly slayed the bloodthirsty monster. But it was all a lie. That much was obvious as she stared up at all 12 foot tall brick wall of intimidating presence.
Selene kept backing away, not daring to look away from the creature. Each three steps back for her was but one for him. And the minotaur was taking his goddamn time looking as intimidating as he monsterly could - ax scraping the ground and leaving a rusty, sharp trail where it touched the cracked soil. But he didn't look slow, he looked ready to pounce. A predator not wanting to reveal its true level of threat.
The minotaur flared his nostrils and Selene would swear she saw smoke come out. She only had a second to observe the situation, as the monster pounced to shred her into ribbons.
But that was not the reason why she only had a second.
Instead, the ground below her vanished. Absent, the lack of ground sent her tumbling backward and down. Down with each step. Down as she felt a pain sharper than a headache in her side. then in her head, then everywhere on her body. Down as the light around her disappeared, only for her to see a final flicker of light fade from her vision as she was plunged into the shadows at the bottom of the stairs. She fell. At this point, she could barely see the top of the stairs. The top of the stairs where a mad minotaur was waiting for her.
Maybe her vision was getting blurry, because soon, she couldn't even see that.
But lack of visible surroundings didn't stop her from dragging her aching body further away from where she fell. With a small soul she backed further and further into the darkness, heart beating loud against her rib cage - secretly expecting claws or an ax to scratch and rip into her.
An end which stubbornly refused to come.
Tired and still hungry, she curled up against something she hoped was a wall, though she had her doubts. It was damp and cold with the texture of a wet sponge. She lay there for a long time, so long that the thick darkness around her grew richer in its lack of hue.
She lay there and she couldn't sleep, keeping herself hostage by each thought that emerged. Each sound of her stomach, each beat of her heart and each bruise was hellbent on keeping her attention away from some form of peaceful slumber. Instead she was forced to focus on the cacophony of her body's own making. What the hell did she get herself into?
⁓Ψ⁓
She may have drifted off eventually. Or perhaps her pain dulled in waking. Whatever the case, her body was finally ready to continue moving.
She didn't want to, but she leaned on the sticky wall again. Then, step by step, she moved along, keeping her hands on it for support... Though step by step would be an overstatement. The pace was more akin to a person afraid of heights on the ledge of the highest tower of a palace. She painfully considered each step, tiptoeing in case of a bottomless ravine or some primordial minotaur trap.
After what could only be hours, Selene sat down again. Her condition didn't get much better overnight. Actually, safe to say, it got worse and Selene was glad she didn't have to look at herself, imagining herself to look quite terrible after her grand trip of tripping down the stairs.
''So the labyrinth truly goes underneath all of the island.'' She muttered, mostly to herself, hoping that the shadows wouldn't answer. Or perhaps they should. At least Selene wouldn't have to endure this alone. Alone...
She took in a deep breath. Then another. It smelled of salt and rot.
''Don't panic. You've been lost before.'' She reassured the darkness.
But not like this.
Her throat had that bitter something lodged inside it again.
Shifting back to her knees, Selene prayed. Silently. Not to anyone in particular. She usually didn't. Favorites were overrated. She was always a fan of the idea that whoever was currently able and free, helped her. The gods were probably busy after all...or drunk. So she never did call for a specific one.
The prayer was simple. It only used three words.
Keep me safe.
She repeated it in her head a few times, even saying it aloud and hoping for an answer that just...never came. Busy and drunk it was.
She'd try later. But now she had to continue.