25 - STAR
Something is very wrong with my world.
Quaid and I are running down the hallways, turning this way and that, with him in the lead. But my mind isn’t here.
It’s with Aric. It’s with Declan. It’s with Quaid. It’s all over the place. And it’s almost like I can feel their emotions. Aric’s is filled with panic. Declan is afraid, but exuberant. And Quaid’s mind is nothing but strategies. Pathways that go here and there, which explains our this-and-that path that we’re taking.
Suddenly, Quaid puts his arm out, signaling me to stop. “What’s up?” I ask, breathing heavy from the sprint. “Why are we stopping?”
As soon as these words come out of my mouth, I hear yelling! I think it’s Declan, and it’s more of an excited howl than a terrifying scream, which is a relief.
“Look,” Quaid says, pulling my attention back to him. “That’s Pegasus!” He’s pointing to the wall where there’s a cluster of glowing symbols.
“What? I don’t understand. You can read the symbols?”
“No, look!” Quaid points out a pattern in the symbols. He’s not referencing the actual symbols themselves. “That’s Pegasus!Can’t you see it? They’re constellations! That’s what the symbols are! Now we just need to find the Seven Sisters and that’s where the portal is!”
Seven. There’s not seven, there’s eight. Technically more than eight. So why do those first seven get all the glory? Makes me mad.
“Star!” Quaid yells.
“I’m listening!”
“No, you’re not. Pay attention. Can you see it? These symbols, they’re not letters or words. They’re stars.” He spins in place, looking up and down the walls, while across the maze somewhere, there’s more shouting.
“They’re in trouble! We need to help them!” I say.
Quaid grabs my arm, pulling me closer to him. “No. They’re grown demigods for fuck’s sake, they can take care of themselves. If we go help them, we’ll all die. We need to find the Minotaur’s lair and open the portal. Then we’ll worry about Declan and Aric. Come on, I think I know what’s going on here but we need to find the lair so I can be sure.”
Then he grabs my hand and takes off running again.
The yelling and hollers of Aric and Declan are closer now, like we’re running towards them. Which makes sense because both pathways lead to the same place. He pushes me in front of him, yelling, “Hurry up!”
I run as fast as I can and Quaid slips behind me, like my protector, calling out which way to go as we come upon choices in the maze. “Left! Right! Straight!”
But with each step towards our goal, my mind becomes heavy, or something. Foggy. And then it starts to slip a little because the walls all around me turn into glowing green lines like I saw when we first got here, and slowly they become transparent.
I can see through the walls.
And what I see is Aric and Declan as they run the maze just a few hallways over. The Minotaur is not far behind them and even though Aric is panicking, he’s hauling ass. Skidding around corners, zig-zagging his way through the maze in an effort to lose the monster. Declan is right behind him and I get the feeling that he could overtake Aric easily with those wings on his ears, but he doesn’t. It’s almost like Declan is pulling up the rear to put himself between the Minotaur and Aric.
Suddenly, Aric takes a wrong turn. I don’t know how I know, I just do. It’s a dead end!
He knows it too. Only a couple steps in and he falters. “Fuck!”
His scream is so loud, Quaid remarks behind me. “Never mind him, Star! keep running!”
I do, I’m running. But my mind is with Aric.
I cannot leave him like that. I don’t care if he’s not gonna die, just wake up, forced to try again. I’m not leaving him.
I hum the melody in my head for our song. Not the simple da-da-dah tune that’s been earworming its way into my brain for almost a decade, but a softer version, like a lullaby.
Aric looks up and around, hearing my song.
“What are you doing?” Quaid asks. “Not yet! Don’t sing it yet! We need to find the right symbols or we make a wrong move!”
But I don’t listen, I continue to hum. Because this is the only way to save Aric and Declan. The Minotaur is just a few hallways behind the zig-zag path that Aric took, it’s seconds away from killing them both.
