The Maze - Short Story

Right

Left 

Another Left 

The sound of running feet echoes through the narrow dark alley as I run though the thin stone road trying to memorize the route I took to reach here. But after the tenth corner I forgot the exact sequence of turns and now I’m running blind. 

I stumble on a loose stone and almost fall but regain my balance. 

If I fall I die. 

I spot a slim crack in the wall and turn to my left. I quietly walk further in, hoping they wouldn’t spot me. The walls closing in on me as I move inside.

Suddenly, I hear footsteps accompanied with animal like sounds from the entrance of the crack. I stop walking and stand still, trying to get my loud heartbeat under control, praying to god to save me from the people I once used to know. 

I look up to the sky for some guidance and spot a thin slice of the dark starry sky above. All around me there are huge walls. 

These walls aren’t really walls, they are heaps of waste, accumulated over generations. In the daylight, these walls look very different. The lower levels of the wall are made of the oldest waste and top, of the newest. 

We call this place - The Maze.

Legend says that hidden somewhere in this maze, is a cure. A cure for the sickness that is haunting us, threating the entire civilization. A sickness that is the result of high levels of contamination of food and water by chemicals. 

I’m here for the cure but it is said that whoever enters the Maze doesn’t survive the night to see the sun. 

The animalistic sounds move away and I resume my walk to the other side. The path becomes narrower and narrower and I push the sides of the wall to make room for me to pass. 

The creepy sounds echo through the maze at random intervals. It makes my blood freeze in my veins but I need to reach the center of the maze before dawn or else this night would have been for nothing.

Making sure that the alley at the end is clear I break into a run heading towards the interior of the maze where the walls are closely huddled together and the path keeps shrinking. 

Turning into an alley to my right, I bump into my brother or what used to be my brother. 

It has silver irises and red veins all over. A guttural sound escapes from its throat and I try to run but I’m somehow stuck to the ground. I can’t move as it sinks its teeth into my neck. 

I wake up with a bloodcurdling scream and a pounding heart. I frantically look around my room for any sign of zombies and breathe a sigh of relief when I find none. I mentally vow to myself to help save Mother Earth so that a day like that never becomes reality.