Through the Guts of the Maze

I thought I had been buried alive, but it was worse than that. Lying on my back, in pitch darkness, I hit my hand on metal before I could extend my arm all the way up. Same thing on both sides.

Gasping, I sucked the stale air into my tightened chest and forced myself to calm down. My thrashing heart let me know I was still living, and that I should get going if I wanted to keep on doing so.

I had to crawl. Whatever I was stuck in stretched for a little longer. A relief at first. Then it kept stretching. When my head hit a wall, I turned into another pipe. Then another one. And another one. A curve here, a fork there. Leading to more cylindrical pipes, made of an unknown material—cold, hard, and rough—something between metal and concrete, extending endlessly into the dark.

A maze. I was trapped in a maze.

I was a child again, tied up and abandoned in an inky closet by my brother, picturing monsters ready to sink their claws into my flesh. An incident that had me dreading elevators, tunnels, crawl spaces.

My hand passed through a hole, and my front fell into a pipe below, landing on my nose. I stayed motionless, snuffling blood, processing the fact that this place had multiple layers. I pulled my legs down the gap and went on.

I had learned to avoid asteroids reaching thirty kilometers per second. To drop from twenty thousand feet, at a three-hundred-Knot speed, and land right on the spot. I had filled my brain with mechanics, physics, astrophysics, mathematics, and so on. None of that mattered in there.

My screams remained unanswered. My efforts unrewarded. My vital needs grew as my forces vanished. When my knees and hands couldn’t support my body any longer, I lay on the cold surface beneath me. Sometimes, I slept, badly, only to wake and find the nightmare still going.

How long had I been in this infinite coffin, blind and lost? How many days had passed? After a while, the notion of time crumbles. There’s no past, no future. My past was what I’d just left behind and my future was what extended right in front of me.

It had to be some kind of waste disposal system. For them to put away those they deemed a threat or an unwanted visitor. In which they let their trash wander until they died. They had plenty of opportunities to kill me, yet did not. Maybe my suffering amused them.

The only sounds were the wailing of my stomach, the dragging of my limbs, and the echoing of my breathlessness. The foul air flayed my dry throat. Still no glimpse of light. I could have been crawling through the same pipes over and over without knowing. That thought was worse than anything.

My hand landed on something, and I withdrew it with a jerk. A skeleton. I palpated every inch of it, trying to picture the whole. The bones were too large to be human. No meat left. I licked them one by one, but I doubted I’d get any nutrition out of it. I tried to bite off fragments I could swallow, broke a molar instead.

It had crossed my mind that I was not alone in there, but it took a long time before the maze confirmed it. I first flinched, but upon realizing the source of the noise couldn’t have been bigger than a mouse, I calmed myself. Food, at last.

Quick, little tapping that stopped and resumed, stopped and resumed. Like nails on metal. I rushed forward, got woozy. Sparing every bit of residual energy I had was crucial. I’d let it come to me.

I sat back on my calves and spread my legs to cover as much width as I could, keeping my hands in front of my knees. The top was so low I had to bend my neck.

Don't worry about what's at stake. Just catch the damned thing, whatever it is. Like a game. Catching the ball.

The tiny steps came toward me, stopped, then swerved left and right. I struggled to pinpoint its position. Saliva accumulated under my tongue. Didn’t know I still had some. The adrenaline made my head spin. My body tried its best to stay alert, squeezing every cell for a bit of vigor. I implored my arms for coordination and speed. My hands shook as if holding an electrified wire. They had to cooperate.

When I estimated the thing at grabbing distance, I swooped my hands down and banged my knuckles on the pipe. It brushed against my left thigh, and I fell back to block its path, but missed. Too slow. In an ultimate attempt, I extended my arm as far back as I could, and my hand dropped right on it, on that nutritious, repulsive little creature with naked, humid skin. I closed my fingers around the meat. Two tails slapped my wrist as it wriggled. It squealed. I squeezed. My shoulder burned, my hand cramped, but I kept squeezing, trying to muster enough force to choke it. My grip opened, gave in. My meal slipped through my fingers, and was gone.

“You weak piece of shit,” I muttered to myself.

I hit the wall until a bone cracked. I let out a yell that turned into coughs.

Lying on my back, on the verge of passing out, I regretted my outburst. No energy could be wasted. My failed attempt had drained most of what I had left.

I should have waited for it to get closer, limit my movements.

Should have taken a bigger meal last time I had one.

Should have stayed above the clouds. At a safe distance.

Were some of my crewmates stuck in the maze too? Did anyone else survive? Could I have avoided this?

The events scrolled in my mind.

The planet was wrapped in clouds. We were supposed to fly over and observe, but we couldn’t see through the haze. As we approached, the indigo aura brightened. Glimpses of the globe appeared through clearer spots. Immense, rugged mountains with peaks of dark rock tore through the clouds. A stunning sight with a mesmerizing, surreal attraction to it. And a literal attraction too. Its gravity must have been twice, maybe thrice that of Earth. We descended, then just a little more, a little closer. For a moment, I spaced out. In a trance, absorbed, as if everything in my life had led to this, and it was all that mattered, all there ever was and ever will be. The alarms brought me back—we were too low. I straightened the spacecraft and roused the engines to escape the gravitational field, but it only slowed the fall. Then came the pieces tearing off, the fire, the feeling that your insides could burst out of the pores on your skin. We crashed into the water, tail first. Next thing I knew, I was floating, freezing. The lights appeared. Huge beams through the fog. I couldn’t move. My limbs didn’t respond. My head sank. The water wasn’t salty, but it had a mineral taste similar to bad tap water. As I surfaced, something that looked like the front of a boat glided above the water, surmounted by the giant glaring eyes. I passed out. Woke up in the maze.

Since I had become aware that other living beings were crawling around in this place, I started scratching imagination-induced itches, jumping at the contact of my own limbs, and hearing things that might have been in my head. The sound of my feet trailing behind had me turn and shiver. My estranged mind was disconnected from my body, or merely delayed.

I moved slowly, but continuously. I weighed a thousand pounds, so it seemed. Was crushed by an invisible load. Strain, pain, and exhaustion were salient agents of physical torture. My back, hands, neck, and knees, my knees of fire and blood, screamed for relief. But the psychological assaults were worse. Heavy thoughts tormented my mind like rabid bees. There was always something behind me or in front of me. I would die here, or I would reach the end only to fall in a gigantic grinder. The persistent and alluring temptation to stop and rest would come back, again and again, and it was only a matter of time before I gave in. The risk of being unable to get back up could be fatal. Never break the momentum.

I followed the pipes whichever way they went. When one forked into two or three paths, I had to make a choice. One that could mean life or death. I went by instinct. My good sense told me to go up whenever I could, but the thought of having to pull myself into an upper pipe daunted me. A waste of energy, and deep down, I dreaded my strength would fail me. Any confirmation of my weakening meant further mental decline. Going down was less demanding. And maybe it was the way to go. Maybe. If the maze was inside a mountain, then one should seek to reach the bottom. But if the maze was underground, going deeper would mean away from the light.

When I couldn’t move anymore, I did stop. Faint and worn out. I tilted my head to bring blood to my brain.

Where am I? What is this place? When will it end? How do I get out? Who’s in here with me?

Throughout my life, I had learned to ask how rather than why. More proactive. Knowing why they put me in there, why the place was shaped this way, why they bothered to leave me alive, more or less—none of that would have helped me escape. But one why bugged me. Why did I insist on going on? Obvious, because I wanted to live. But why? The lure of giving up taunted me at every corner, every time I turned into another tube stretching into abyssal infinity. Each time a long screech of pain shoved its way through my bones, that question came back. Why was my life so valuable?

No one waited for me back on Earth. They had mentioned it in the interview. Those ties really pull on you when you’re light-years away, they said. I told them I would have nothing to miss in space.

The only dream I ever had—being a pilot—I had achieved it. Even before it turned into a nightmare, it had become just a job. A dull routine. An endless loop of procedures, technicalities, and training. The adventure I had envisioned in a spacecraft as a child had morphed into long hours of sitting at the control board, staring into the nothing before me, trapped in a confined metal box that quickly felt crowded, too small for the number of crew members.

I had no idea how valuable that space, that air, that company were. I fully embodied that loss now. It was drilled into my brain every time I scraped my elbow on one of those walls.

Was it merely survival instinct that kept me going? Respect for life itself, and an acknowledgment that it was worth fighting for down to the last breath? Was it rebellion—the desire to deprive my captors of the satisfaction of my death?

Even if I got out, then what? I’d still be stuck on this planet. Maybe the base had sent people to search for the crashed spaceship. Maybe they would risk it. Or not.

Scenarios came to mind.

I find the exit, and it leads to a huge banquet room with balloons and food and a fountain with fresh water and a shower. My entire crew, alive, greets me with champagne glasses and a cake with “Congratulations for your five years of service” written in the icing, and they explain how it was all a big joke.

Nonsense.

I find the exit, and the inhabitants of the planet greet me with exotic fruits and colorful drinks with strong alcohol unknown to mankind that will numb my brain until I forget about my life so far and everyone who died. Because it turns out the maze was a test to see if I truly was the God fallen from the sky they had been expecting for centuries.

Nonsense.

I find the exit, and get shot as soon as I get out because my captors are constantly tracking their prisoners’ movements, and they’ve been waiting for me outside. Or worse, they put me back in.

It’s always the shitty scenarios that are probable.

Unable to continue, I lay on my quivering stomach and focused on the cold metal on my forehead. My eyes closed.

In dream, I walked down a spiral sinking into the ground, as if digging my grave with every step until I was completely buried. Things would be simpler if the mind came up with solutions rather than a mere report of a predicament through symbolic imagery.

Water woke me up. Aware of the wetness on my face, entering my nostrils and mouth, I sprang up and hit my head on the top of the pipe. Once I had identified the liquid, it filled me with ecstasy. My hands were useless to hold it. There was less than half an inch. I lay flat on my chest to prevent, as much as I could, the water from flowing away. A dam of flesh and bones. I dove my face into the thin stream, tilted my head to find the most efficient drinking position. I licked and slurped until my tongue got numb, enjoying the runny caress on my skin. It tasted metallic and soiled with whatever filth it had dragged along on its path. I worshiped every drop. I grieved every molecule that flowed behind me.

Thinking ruined the moment. Where did that water come from? A leak? Maybe this whole thing was underwater and there was a crack somewhere. A flood might follow. My drowning. But the pipes were so thick. I hadn’t felt an earthquake or something that could have broken one.

The truth came to me as a shadow over my fleeting delight. This was a prison, an ingeniously designed maze to ensure the prisoners never got out, but thought they could. They were keeping me alive.

A noise yanked me out of my head. Like distant gusts of wind. I pointed my ear at the darkness ahead. It was coming my way.

Breaths.

Tired, heavy pounding in the water.

Judging from the sounds, it was about my size.

It crawled slowly, burdened by weariness, but with determination and aggressiveness.

Could it be a human? From my crew? I wanted to shout, but couldn’t bring myself to.

As it got closer, its hoarse panting grew louder.

I was wrong. It was bigger.

We would soon be face to face. The path was too narrow for both to pass. One had to back up. Neither of us would.

I stared into the darkness, braced myself for the contact. It picked up speed, or maybe I was imagining that. It was surely as hungry as I was, if not more.

I had to know. I shouted, “Hey!”

My voice sounded foreign to me. It trembled. No response. Only grunts. Grunts that annihilated any doubt.

It wasn’t human.

A wave of fetid smell reached my nostrils.

When the cold, soft scales touched my arm, a scream of terror and surprise burst out of me.

Repulsed and riled, I sunk my teeth into what seemed to be its neck. Only one of us would survive. My mouth filled with leathery skin and chewy veins. My jaw hurt. A bitter, thick liquid filled my mouth. The creature let out a shriek of pain and rage, which froze me for a moment.

I took another bite. It wasn’t self-defense anymore; I was feeding.

Whatever life remained in my opponent left its body.

“Sorry,” I panted.

I bit off and chewed chunks of grimy flesh and gristle, struggled to hold it in. Hands on my mouth, I swallowed back the vomit. The bitterness of the meat and the acidity of the bile inflamed my throat.

I waited next to the carcass for a long time, refused to abandon the only food I had found in days. I was torn in half between the desire to keep moving and the need to stay with the nutrients.

As a pilot, I made important decisions all the time. But the choice was often obvious, given the info I had. There was no info here. I swam in the unknown.

I dove into my past for situational references, for things I could tap into and bring with me into the maze. Everything before the crash seemed to belong to a different life. I craved the blissful ignorance I’d had as a teenager when I got lost in the woods, but, having never faced a serious threat, I had the certitude I would find my way eventually. I wanted the determination and focus I had maintained all night long when studying for the theory test to become a pilot, underfed and optimistic about my future. Needed the strength and endurance I had shown when I was sick in bed, for days, with fever. I tried to revive those feelings that had made me push through difficult times, and add them up as the ultimate boost for my ultimate challenge.

Why bother?

I plodded on.

At some point, the bottom stopped being wet, as if water had never passed there.

It pained me to leave meat behind. At least I’d never have that taste on my tongue again. I could always go back. No, of course not. That would be counterproductive.

Another scenario came to mind: the maze had no exit. Just a loop. Or a dead end at the end of every possible path. I ignored that. Tried to.

In a dreadful way, it was likely. Why would they put an exit in a prison? If that’s what it was. That would make little sense. Did anything make sense?

Get out get out get out. Positive thinking. Visualization. I visualized myself getting out.

I asked out loud:

“Can I get out?”

Nothing.

I added:

“Please.”

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. I laughed. Then I teared up. I let it happen. Tears are a natural painkiller.

As I was crawling again, I whistled weakly, poorly, little melodies to keep my spirits up. To make the darkness feel lighter.

Then I remembered I wasn’t alone. I shut it. Better to hear than to be heard. A shiver ran through me.

I gave myself goals. Counting in my head, I’d trudge for a hundred seconds, followed by a quick break. Only five seconds. Or ten. Or twenty. When I stopped for too long, every inch of my body felt like it had an iron anvil attached to it. My numb muscles wouldn’t respond.

You will die here.

With intense concentration of will, I managed to go on like that for about fifty slices of hundred seconds before I dropped. I dozed off.

When I could continue, I pushed myself up. I’d focus on a point, a guide I pictured in my head, inviting me toward it.

I followed my imaginary North Star, and every time I could go up, I did, and every time I could turn right, I did. Choosing paths at random would lead nowhere.

Going up was the hardest—it could take a dozen attempts before I succeeded in pulling myself into an upper pipe—but it seemed like the right thing to do.

You’re heading the wrong way, wandering away from the exit.

Up and right, always. When I could. Sometimes, my only option was down, or left.

On and on and on. Pushing thoughts away as they came. Making one with the surrounding void. On automatic pilot. Like a monk immersed in a single, simple task. One step at the time. Each one bringing me closer to survival. Right?

A rancid smell froze me into place, dreading to advance. It couldn’t be.

Dry blood stuck to my fingers and palms.

My worst fear was confirmed when my hand landed on the corpse. I franticly patted the dead flesh, meeting holes in the meat where my bite marks were. It was the same one. Rot had started its process.

I had been turning in circle, just on a larger scale.

Tears filled my eyes, and I let myself drop next to the carcass.

Give up. Just give up.

As images crossed my mind, I figured it out. The why. There were plenty of things to miss. All I had taken for granted, that I now realized was worth fighting for. A bed. The taste of salmon and rice. Water. Light. The touch of leaves, the heat of the sun, the freshness of the wind. Not being in pain. The freedom I had had all along that I would give anything to possess again. Possibilities. Even if I ignored what I’d do if I escaped, the mere opportunity of having the choice was much too precious to dismiss.

And again, always, I pushed myself up and resumed my crawl away from death, toward life.

I couldn’t keep a clear sense of orientation, forgot the turns I had taken. Forgot by how many layers I had gone up or down. Couldn’t tell if I ended up facing the direction I had come from. Taking a wrong turn could lead to death. Every second counted, every breath, every joule of energy.

I had to organize. Find a method to remember the turns and ups and downs. Couldn’t allow myself to make a mistake again. My mind bathed in a thick fog. Holding a thought was like trying to grab a soap bar in muddy water.

I hit and kicked the walls.

“Hey fuck you!” I yelled to whoever, whatever, was responsible.

That’s it, waste your energy, you idiot. Calm down. Focus.

Those thoughts seemed absurd, pointless. Like a motivational poster in a room on fire.

A map, that’s what I needed.

I knocked my face on a wall, felt around in my mouth for a piece of broken tooth. Found one.

From then on, I carved my path on my forearm, determined to make the best out of the time I had left. I mourned every drop of blood that fell from my cuts.

I did that for a while. Felt the paths, the turns, the intersections with my finger. Even if I ignored the extent of the maze, I only had to go the opposite way from where I had come, make sure I wasn’t turning around. Get as far away from the middle as I could. The exits would be, should be, at the extremities.

I reached a junction that went up. Shit. I had forgotten about that dimension. What now? Carve deeper for the lower levels and just a thin scratch for the upper ones? I intended to go up anyway, so I’d save on the blood loss.

Hopefully, I found a better idea—I’d just carve a little further up my left arm after going up a layer so I’d know I’d be on a different level. Like those architect plans with the floors drawn separately rather than superimposed. And if I needed to go down, I’d go back on the forearm. And I’d add numbers to indicate which level was which. Going up: 1…2…3… Going down: -1…-2…-3… My starting point being zero.

I crawled, like the languorous slug I had become, on my uncooperative limbs, and sometimes they’d give in and I’d drop, heavy as a rock, weak as a dead leaf, and smash my chin or nose or forehead before my hands could prevent it, and a wave of pain echoed through my nerve endings.

Stop. Rest a little. Just a little.

I felt it all—the burning of every muscle, overwhelming pain, shredded flesh, nausea, fatigue that pulled like an additional gravity, despair, hunger, the dryness of my mouth and that of my eyes because I forced myself to keep them open to fight off the drowsiness. I inhaled deeply. Not too long, so I wouldn’t choke on the stale air.

Just a little further. Just a little further.

It didn’t feel like I was moving, but I knew I was by focussing on the cyclic sequence of movements and sensations—the cold and burn on my raw palm as I put a hand down, the weight on my shaky arm as I brought the other one forward, the suction it made when my bloody palm unstuck from the metal, my sore knees dragging behind, leaving bits of skin and drops of blood along my path, bread crumbs on my way out of hell. One cycle at the time.

It’s right around the corner. Right around the corner.

It wasn’t. More darkness through which echoed my grunts and painful breaths.

Forward, always.

When urine had accumulated enough to let me know, I let it out. No more than the bottom of my cupped, shaky hand. I slurped what I could.

Forward.

I paused only when I reached a fork, to pass my finger along the marks on my flesh, and figure out where I had been and which way should I go to realign with my initial direction.

Did it get brighter? Was I hallucinating that?

Distant, feeble light. I followed it.

It grew brighter, little by little. Impossible to speed up even if I wanted to. Didn’t want to pass out so close to the exit. I could see the grey of the metallic guts that had swallowed me.

I would get a simple, pleasant job. Never let my feet leave the Earth. Maybe meet people. Get friends, lovers. A dog. Most definitely a dog.

My eyes closed as the brightness intensified. Through my eyelids, a red spotlight was aimed at me.

The pipe ended in the middle of a gigantic cliff. I lay on my back, let the cold air caress my face. For a moment, I forgot about the pain and hunger.

I looked around. No way to climb up or down. In front of me was another massive and dark rock wall. In between and below was water that would be as hard as concrete if I tried to jump.

Was that it? The reward at the end of the road, the big escape, was the chance to plunge to my death?

I stayed still. The sky was pale, but with that indigo aura. My head turned from dizziness, my eyes closed now and then. For a while, I listened to the wind blowing white noise on my eardrums.

What was that?

The distant buzzing of a small motor came my way.

I looked up. A grey dot was approaching. I squinted, tried to focus despite my blurry vision. It was the size of a bird.

As it got closer, it tilted down, toward me. It was much larger than a bird. Like one of those drones we used to map out a new territory.

I jubilated. A happy imbecile. I was saved. They were coming to get me.

A question twisted my relief into dread.

Who?