His older brother had long ago abandoned him, but that didn’t matter. He preferred to solve the maze himself. He laughed as he ran forward and followed a left turn. The sun was warm on his skin. He turned right and then left only to face a dead end. He punched the solid wall in front of him playfully as he turned around and turned right then left. He followed the walls around turn after turn. He had to backtrack several times but he was going to solve the maze.
It was getting dark and he still hadn’t made it out of the maze. He was starting to get cold and hungry. He knew that he had been in this spot before because there was a Nike sneaker foot print on the wall. He knew that he had tried every possible way, but the maze stayed closed to him. He knew that his family would come looking for him eventually but that should have been hours ago. Had they forgotten about him? Had they left him? His mother wasn’t too happy about letting him go in the maze in the first place.
“OK mama, Lo siento, tengo hombre, Mama! Por favor, tengo hombre.” There was no answer to his pleas. “Lo siento, Mama.”
He looked up at the quickly darkening sky. The sunlight was giving way to night, and with it he found himself getting very cold. He hugged himself. His shorts and short sleeves offered no protection from the sudden drop in temperature. He cried out again for his parents, for anyone. But only silence answered him.
His eyes began filling with tears. No, he was not a little kid anymore. He was twelve and he was big. He shut his eyes against the tears and ran forward, following the maze around, turning left and right, randomly and wildly. He almost ran head first into a dead end. He gritted his teeth and punched the wall hard. Pain exploded in his knuckles as the wall felt like solid brick. He bit back tears of pain ad he held his hurt hand.
“MAMA!!!!” He screamed into the heavens. He knew that God would never leave him alone like this. He had been good and had said all his prayers. God would help him. He turned around and ran back the way he had come, turning left into another dead end. He turned around right into another dead end.
This stopped him as he turned around only to find another dead end. He was sitting in a solid square of white walls around him. He beat frantically against the walls with his hurt fists and feet, kicking and punching wildly. He screamed at the top of his lungs, cursing his parents, and cursing God for leaving him here all alone.
He stopped hitting the impenetrable walls and sunk down to his butt, burying his face in his arms as he tucked his knees against his chest. He cried openly. He wanted his family. He wanted to go home. He didn’t want to be here anymore.
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His cries became ice in his throat as he heard a loud growl coming from behind him. He shut his eyes tight against the fear that robbed him of his breathing. He was frozen in place. The growls grew louder and more menacing. He couldn’t turn to look, he was too scared to move.
He felt a hot, wet puff of air against the back of his neck. The puff of air came again and again, in perfect rhythm. Something was breathing on him, something very big and very scary. He didn’t want to look, he couldn’t; he was too scared. Then a sharp pain exploded in his back. Javier screamed in pain as he hopped to his feet and ran, slamming into the solid wall in front of him.
He was laying down on the cold ground looking up into an icy star filled sky. A large brown furry face came into his field of vision. His brown eyes looked into the creatures’ cold black eyes. There was no soul there. Javier had never seen anything so big, or lifeless. He was too weak to move. His brain wouldn’t think. All he could do was look into the thing’s beady black eyes. Suddenly the thing roared into his face. He was blasted with hot breath that smelled like raw meat. He screamed into the things dark mouth.
Javier jerked awake yelling loudly as he sat bolt upright next to Huan Li. The old man’s eyes were slow to open, and even slower to recognize what had happened.
“Did you dream?” Huan asked him.
Javier didn’t trust himself to speak, so he nodded once.
Huan didn’t press the younger man. He simply said, “Remember your dream. When we Shape shifters dream it may hold portents to the future or maybe insights into the past. But it is done now.” He rolled onto his back, his stomach rumbled loudly. The old man looked almost ashamed.
Javier found the sudden impromptu interruption to be amazingly appropriate and laughed out loud. Huan groaned, but soon he was laughing too. It had been so long since Javier had laughed. It felt good. The two men laughed themselves to tears. They laughed so hard that soon both were clutching their stomachs as they started to cramp. They laughed so hard that they didn’t even notice the visitor that had joined them.
“Was it a good joke?” The broad-shouldered blonde woman from before asked them.
Javier and Huan Li immediately sobered and both looked over at their host. “Not so much a joke as a funny thing that happened,” Huan Li responded evenly.
“Ah like falling down stairs, this is funny, yes?” The woman asked with wide blue eyes.
Javier shot a sideways glance at Huan who responded, “Something similar you could say, yes.”
The woman smiled. “Yes, I watch many American films, Chevy Chase is very, very funny.”
Javier nodded. He wasn’t too familiar with what she was talking about, but he knew the man’s name at least.
“I have prepared supper for you both. You must be very hungry.” She didn’t wait for a reply before turning around and grabbing a very heavily laden tray and placed it in front of the two men.