The Villa Pisani Labyrinth

Lost within the new Villa Pisani labyrinth, the world's most challenging hedge maze, Anthony felt his heart racing as panic began to set in. Anthony knew there was something amiss about that drink offered to him by his hostess. He smartly tried to excuse himself to vomit the foreign substance out of his system but was ushered out in a mental haze. He was the only guest to be led to the labyrinth. Anthony couldn’t remember if he was the sole guest in this Italian mansion; the faces that prefaced this encounter became blurred and misshapen. Fight or flight had not set in yet—as if the bodily response had been deactivated. Anthony stood in front of the iron gate into the maze. The time of day, for Anthony, shifted from sunset to a completely lightless sky. The iron gate opened. On either side stood identical marble statues of a young boy wrestling an animal of some sort. Anthony couldn’t focus on the statues, his eyes briefly caught a flashlight strobing the center spiral tower with a marble statue resting on top. The tower shifted, disappeared, sank, grew to enormous heights, and then it instantaneously became a frightening dark. A voice whispered into Anthony’s left ear, instructing him to hurry through the maze, find the center, and claim the prize.

Anthony’s vision was impeded by the darkness cast within the maze. He paused for a moment and concentrated on a point five feet away from him. Slow at first, but his eyes finally adjusted to the dark, Anthony reached out his right hand to hedge and followed. With every turn, he made a mental image; he had no materials to leave breadcrumbs for his return, so he relied on instinct and luck. His confidence deflated as he turned a sharp corner to be met with a single individual at the end of this dead-end, holding a hatchet. His figure hunched, ready to sprint, his eyes a blank void under no bright light source; the figure screamed an unnatural pitch and began to sprint towards Anthony. In a quick response, Anthony raced away, desperately trying to remember his path.

Everything within this labyrinth began to shapeshift rapidly as Anthony raced toward another sharp corner; keeping the hatchet attacker within his peripheral vision, he now stood twenty feet from a slender female figure wielding a blunt object wrapped in spikes.

Anthony stood in front of his peers in a conference room, each nibbling from a plate of charcuterie items.

“So it’s The Hunt.” One of the producers stated before she delicately placed a small block of Muenster cheese into her mouth.

“Kind of—but with more intensity,” Anthony responded as he prepared to continue his pitch.

“I thought you wanted to do a comedy,” Kris said while folding his piece of prosciutto into a bite-able size.

“It doesn’t mean we can’t Tucker and Dale it,” Anthony passed the whiteboard maker to the next on the list. “Can we coin, Tucker and Dale it?"