But I was gone. Both mentally and physically as the helicopter lifted from the ground, the last of the soldiers still dangling from its sides, scrambling on.
We left it all behind. The rift, the equipment, the chunks of minotaur. Things we could have salvaged, things we could have studied. But I was already itching to return by the time my eyes opened again in a hospital room back in New York City.
No one was there to greet me. I wasn’t surprised. I just stood, ripping the IV from my arm, and snatched up my briefcase that had made it back to the city long before I had and was in much better shape. I changed back into my clothes in the bathroom before making my way out onto the street. I had opted to forgo the bloody fur coat as I trudged through the streets of NYC but the stains on my trousers couldn’t be helped.
So I ignored the horrified stares of everyday citizens as I made my way south.
“Is it true?” my uncle asked me the moment I stepped onto the Hadley University campus. “A real minotaur? Is it true?”
My gaze slid over him, as annoyed as I could ever be with my beloved uncle.
Xavier Belling was the head of the prestigious astrophysics program at Hadley University. He was to be blamed for my love of all things celestial and unexplained. And I could tell he was champing at the bit to gain some insight into this fascinating new discovery.
“I’m fine, thank you for asking,” I remarked sarcastically. “Perhaps you heard of the avalanche as well? The one I was unconscious for as they flew me out on an emergency chopper?”
He just stared at me expectantly.
“It’s true,” I admitted and he beamed, bouncing on his toes as he followed me through the courtyard like a kid given permission to choose a candy at the confectionery.
“Remarkable,” he breathed in awe. “You must tell me everything.”
“Does this count as our faculty meeting for the month, then?”
I raised a brow. He laughed.
Faculty meetings for the astrophysics department only ever comprised my uncle and myself, since we were the only professors who taught the discipline. Hadley University had become the breeding ground for success in the venture of cosmic exploration. Our alumni had been directors of NASA, corporate pioneers, tech masterminds. And because of our achievement in the subject, the university had determined that it would be very selective about the students it deemed qualified enough to excel in the course of study. Therefore, my schedule was inundated with Intro to Astrophysics classes in which the Dean expected me to flunk over half of my students. So I deserved to be among the first scientists to interact with a minotaur since the dawn of recorded history. I had earned it.
“What did it look like?” He asked, drawing me out of my reverie, and I smiled as he opened the door to our wing of the sciences building and I stepped inside.
“It was enormous. At least fifteen feet tall. It was just like all the old stories describe it to be. Part man, part bull. All muscle and fur and rage.”
“It attacked you?”
“It came with an axe.”
My uncle paused. I turned to face him in the empty hall. High wooden beams arched above us, engraved with the Latin translation of one of my favorite quotes. Non est ad astra mollis e terris via. There is no easy way from the earth to the stars. And the unspoken challenge in the air of these hallowed halls that I had felt all throughout my youth. Prove him wrong.
My uncle’s brows furrowed as he raised a hand to his head, scratching idly at the wild white hair that used to be honey blonde like my own.
“An axe,” he repeated, his voice low, thinking. “What sort of axe?”
“A battle axe from the looks of it. I’m not exactly well-versed in ancient weaponry.”
“It looked old then?”
“Extremely. It had writing around the blade, forged into the metal, something rune-ish.”
“Intriguing. Most intriguing. Do you believe you could replicate it for translation if I should give you a slip of paper?”
“No,” I replied, frowning. “I was a tad busy running for my life.”
“Yes, of course, of course.”
He waved me off and began walking back down the hall toward our offices as we had been before. I followed him, knowing better than to interrupt a brilliant man when he was so lost in thought. We passed through a polished hall adorned with portrait after portrait of various distinguished alumni and former professors, the Venetian tile clicking under our feet as we passed over it.
“They said you… blew it up,” my uncle said with a frown as we reached his classroom and pushed through the door. His tone was not chiding but I could hear the disappointment in it all the same.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I told him. “It was raging, wild. The guns weren’t having any effect on it and it was killing our men.”
