Behind me, the monster approaches. His footsteps are wrong and heavy. He's not running. He doesn't need to run. He knows exactly where I am.
I look up at the carved archway, at the symbols I don't understand, and I realize I don't know where I am. I get to my feet, spinning around, desperate to understand
"Little Lyra." His voice echoes through the trees, through my skull, through my bones. "Did you think I'd let you go?"
Blinking, I snap out of the scene. A scene that's so familiar, even four years after writing it, I know all the words. Every detail, every turn of the maze, every plant, every monster waiting inside.
It was… my first sick fantasy.
The first sign of my disgusting perversion.
Letting out a breath, I look over my shoulder.
The jungle path behind me is empty. No footsteps. No monster.
It's not sick.
Not like this.
It's just… fun. That's all. It's fun. Safe, consensual, dirty—I smile a little. Because it isdefinitelydirty.
But it's a fantasy I had.
Have.
Still have.
And I want to live it.
I don't care what that says about me, I want to live it.
I know the rules of the maze. I wrote them.
Three monsters hunt the labyrinth. If one catches you, they claim you.
And by claim, I mean grope, finger, fuck. Whatever they want.
Lyra gets caught by each of them. Is violated each time, and comes each time. Her arousal a betrayal of her body. But she enjoys it. I know this because I wrote her.
Am… her.
The unmasked man already let it slip that the monsters are the attendants. I'm sure they'll be scary—wearing costumes. But they've already proved they can easily arouse me.
I'm going to enjoy that to the fullest. I can't wait to be caught.
It's probably just as wrong to enjoy this attendant gang-bang as it was to write a whole story about a girl who wants to be raped by monsters, but… whatever.
Helix is in the maze too, and I assume that part is being played by the unmasked man. The center holds a portal that promises escape. The portal is a lie.
In my story, Lyra learned this the hard way.
I step toward the pedestal and lift the basket with trembling fingers. Inside are two wireless earbuds and a strip of silk the color of dried blood.
A blindfold.
In the story, Lyra wasn't blindfolded. She wasblinded—a plant squirted purple powder into her face the moment she entered. Temporary. Terrifying. She stumbled through the first quarter of the maze with her eyes burning and useless, guided only by the monster's voice in her skull as he 'helped' her try to outrun the monsters.
Of course, this was also a lie.
