Every passage was the same. The same tall walls, the same severed bodies littered throughout them, and the same haunting whispers that feathered over my skin like an unwanted caress.
I slowed to a stop, my lungs screaming for me to catch my breath. I gasped for air, trying to take steady breaths, and tilted my head back to look at the sky. Dark clouds still swirled there. Was it perpetually cloudy here? Or would sunshine follow the rain?
Was there even a sun here?
“You’ll fall into the sky staring up like that,” someone said behind me, making me jump. I whirled around to search for the owner of the voice. There was no one there.
I was still alone, but I’d clearly heard someone.
“Hello?” My voice sliced through the whispers, and I kept my eyes peeled for movement.
“There’s no need to yell.” The voice came from my right, and my head whipped to the side. There, stuck amongst the dark brambles and twisted vines was a severed head. Sunken cheeks, patchy hair, and sallow skin, it looked to be asleep…until one of its eyes popped open and glared right at me.
It was milky white, but darted around as though it could still see.
“I’m sorry?” I said, taken aback. I wasn’t sure what else I was supposed to say to a severed head.
“You’re going the wrong way.” The head’s other eye popped open to reveal an empty socket. The maggots must have eaten the other eye.
I sucked in a sharp breath. “Do you know the way out of here?” I asked, hoping I’d finally gotten lucky.
“Of course.”
My heart leapt into my throat. “Really?Can you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” His brows knitted together in a scowl.
“How to get out of here.”
The head scoffed. “Who said I knew how to get out?”
“You did,” I snapped, irritation flaring through me.
“Did what?”
“Said you knew how to get out of the maze,” I ground out, my irritation morphing into quiet rage. If I wasn’t terrified to get closer to the shrub, I would have punched the head. “Do you know how to get out of here or not?”
The head cackled, grinning wide and revealing several missing teeth. “Nope.”
I stomped my foot on the ground, regretting it when a sharp twig stabbed into my little toe. The severed head laughed at my howl of pain. “Don’t lose your head, maiden!”
My jaw clenched, teeth grinding. What a waste of time. This guy—what was left of him—had lost his mind along with the rest of his body.
“Thanks for nothing,” I muttered, and turned to head down the path. I didn’t make it far before the head started yelling behind me.
“Not that way! You’re going the wrong way!” he yelled, but I ignored him. He obviously didn’t know what he was talking about, and listening to him would probably get me more lost. I trudged on, anger heating my cheeks. I’d show him, just like the Lord of Bones. I didn’t need either of their help to get out of here.
As I marched on toward the end of the path, the ground became even softer than before. For a moment I was relieved—there weren’t any sharp rocks or thorns here to eat at my feet—but as the ground began to squish between my toes, I stopped in my tracks. Only I didn’t stop moving.
I was sinking.
My feet slowly disappeared beneath the ground’s surface. I tried to pull my feet free, but they didn’t budge. The more I moved the deeper I sank. The ground was swallowing me, dragging me under, and the more I struggled the faster I sank.
I’d wandered into a patch of quicksand.
I screamed, the shrill noise tearing up my throat, and the whispers in the air turned to grumbles.
“Keep it down,” a voice snapped.
