From the Mazes of Crete

I woke up in the dark. On its own, that wasn’t all too strange. I was more of a blinds-closed guy when it came to sleeping. The part that made me instantly alert was the soreness in my neck and the cold hard surface I was laid down on. It felt like stone or rocks. Had I collapsed on my kitchen’s ceramic tiles?

Suddenly alert, I began splaying my arms around, trying to push up from the ground and feel for walls/cupboards/light-switches. God, this was going to lead to an expensive doctor’s visit. I didn’t want to take an MRI scan, but my brain was drawing a blank for how I could have gotten here and this was the serious kind of thing that you really needed to talk to a doctor about.

But, as I shifted on the floor, it became immediately clear that something was wrong. Something was wrong. It’s hard to explain, but my sense of touch was coming from places it shouldn’t have been. My arms felt further apart than they should have been and much heavier, as if they were weighed down by sand bags. My chest was too broad, the skin chafing against the cold surface below. Over my shoulders, I felt a brushing sensation as I moved my head. I always kept my hair short, how was it suddenly shoulder-length?

Worst of all was the tingling scraping sensation I felt above my head. There was an undefined ticklishness up there, that I could feel up there. Kind of like the sole of a foot getting rubbed with a feather, I could feel something there against the stone. It was the source of this crick in my neck, propping my head at an uncomfortable angle above the stone below.

I was panicking now. This wasn’t my home. Rough, cumbersome fingers felt at grooves in the stone below me. I was laid out on stone bricks, not in my kitchen. Everything about me was wrong. Sure, I was used to a bit of chest-hair, but there was a thin layer of fur all over my skin. I could feel it, pressing my index finger and thumb against the fuzzy growth over my chest. And I still hadn’t managed to stand up. What was wrong with my feet?

Despite my attempts, I couldn’t feel toes against the stone floor. My feet in general had a certain numbness to them. Giving the appendages a shake, I kicked my right foot against the bricks below to see if I could dislodge whatever was holding my feet back. To my surprise, the kick was rewarded with a piercing ‘crack,’ as if I had struck at the ground with steel toed boots. That would have been well and good if I had had my legs bound in some steel contraption, but I could feel otherwise. It had felt like I had kicked the ground, not some boot. And, as my legs brushed against one another, those same fuzzy bristles pressed into either leg, rather than some boots.

Hyperventilating, my breaths were coming in haggard gulps as I pulled my right knee up against my chest and fumbled around where I thought my foot was. In this oppressive darkness, it was harder than one might imagine to know where to instinctively grasp at with a body that didn’t seem to be in the right place. Finally latching on to a foot, I could feel a pit form in my stomach as I felt at the appendage. Where the tufts of fur cut out, a hard mass began. It wasn’t metal. No, it felt keratinous like fingernails. Rubbing rough exterior with my hand, I felt a cloven groove running across the middle, separating two halves. Suddenly, it hit me. I was holding a hoof.

Dropping the hoof, I scrambled backwards over the cold floor, trying to distance myself from the alien appendages. Sliding back, I struck against a yet unseen wall with a ‘thump.’ I couldn’t see them, but I knew the hooves were still there.

“Oh god, what am I?” I choked into the darkness. Only, it wasn’t me who spoke. I knew what my voice sounded like, even if I didn’t like the sound of it much. The thing that just talked wasn’t me. It was deep and bass, like that of a giant. I squirmed against the wall, trying to distance myself further from the foreign body parts. It wasn’t me.

I don’t know how long I was spent pressed up against that wall in the pitch darkness. A few minutes, ten maybe? Long enough for pangs of thirst to pass through my dry throat at least. It all felt surreal, just so impossible. I had wondered if it might end if I waited it out, like a dream or something. It didn’t. The stale, musty air of the dark chamber didn’t change. The cloying cornmeal scent of fungus growing in the dark still tickled my nose. Dead silence still encapsulated me, sound only touching the room as I shifted about on the floor, pulling my legs up tightly into a foetal position.

Head tucked into my legs, I was trying to ignore how fuzzy and overly muscular they were when I noticed something had changed in my surroundings. I don’t know if my eyes had adjusted to the darkness or what, but I could make out the outline of my area. It wasn’t illuminated, as you’d usually think. No. In the fuzziest of greyscales, I could just about make out walls and the floor; I could see bricks too, if I squinted.

Crawling forwards on all fours, I traced a hand over the brick floor immediately in front of me, as if to confirm what my eyes were telling me. It was real, I could feel the texture and ridges of the bricks where my eyes showed them to be. And, ever so subtly, I could see my arm in my own view. It was hard though, as if my skin was dark. God, my hands were big. I wanted to believe it was a trick of the light, but I could feel the fingers pressing up against one another and had a rough idea of their shape.

Pressing a hand up against a brick wall for support, I shakily made my way to my feet. To my hooves, I supposed. The lack of toes took some getting used to but, once I was standing, I found it surprisingly easy to stay upright. I had never stood on hooves before, but it came naturally enough. There’s that saying, ‘it’s like riding a bike,’ for things you’ve already done and can do again easily. I supposed it was like that, but I had never stood on hooves before. It was instinctive.

Looking around, I paused at the sight of a smooth lump over the wall in front of me. About the size of my fist, it would have stood out solely for not being another rectangular stone brick. But, what drew my attention to it was that the grey-brown lump was a slightly lighter shade than the rest of the formless void around me. Its edges were ever so marginally more defined. Cautiously, I poked at it with a finger. Sinking in, I realised I was touching a spongy fungus. Eyes widening, I tried cupping a bulky hand over the fungal growth. The room, already a night-imperceptible haze, got that much darker. This was my light! These fungi were just barely bioluminescent.

Taking my hand away from the fungus, almost reverently towards the bringer of light, I stepped back and surveyed my surroundings. Doing a turn, I could make out that I was in a brick room, walls locking me in on all sides. On my left, the room had a singular exit. I don’t think I could say I had a particular direction in mind. However, sitting in a pitch-black stone room wasn’t going to bring me any closer to understanding what had happened to me and how I could fix it. Besides, I was growing quite thirsty and the dry air down here wasn’t doing anything to help that. With a snort-like exhalation from my nose, I set out.

***

This place was insane. Moreover, I was making that statement fully cognisant of the fact that I had woken up in a pitch black room as some kind of non-human creature that I hadn’t been yesterday. Wherever I went, long, twisting halls of bricks wound and spiralled. But they weren’t filled with anything. There was no signage, no sense of direction. It was the ultimate non-utilisation of space. Meticulously crafted stone bricks surrounded me on all sides, showing every indication of being hand laid through the little chips on their sides or them being slightly misaligned. These weren’t some little crawlspaces either. Each hall was tall enough and wide enough to comfortably accommodate someone my size on a roam.

With each fork I reached, I tried to follow whichever route looked brighter. The barren corridors were making me desperate for an escape. With each light I pursued, a mushroom left me disappointed. After what felt like an hour of searching, but was probably half that in reality, I stumbled blindly across something different. Stood dumbly in a wide entrance, it took me a second to try and peer at what I was seeing. Having spent so much time numbly ignoring plain halls, being forced to actually examine my surroundings in this non-light was difficult.

I was in a boxy room, squarish in shape, but a little lower than the surrounding halls. I had to hang my head a little or risk my horns, I winced at the thought of them, scraping the ceiling. On the other side of the room, the entrance to another hallway began. But, between here and there, rows and rows of what appeared to be ornate stone boxes were half-slid into deep cubbies in the wall. Nearing one, I rubbed a hand lightly over it, as if to confirm what my eyes had hinted at. I let out a surprised exhalation upon touching the cool stone. It was masterfully embossed, the raised ridges hinting at an elaborate ornate pattern over the surface of the lid. It was a shame I didn’t have the light to properly appreciate what was around me.

I lifted my hand away from the stone. The elaborate boxes, the winding decorative corridors, this all screamed of a crypt. Was I in Giza? Had I been placed in a pyramid somehow? As insane as the idea was, I was desperate for some kind of rationalisation for my circumstances. Rubbing a hand against my back in stress, I was reminded again of the body I found myself in. As unlikely as it was that I could be drugged and left in the Great Pyramids, that didn’t even begin to explain what this was. I snorted, waving a hand and turning away from the stone casket. Stomping to the other side of the room, a piercing ‘clang’ shot through the room, making me flinch in surprise.

I looked down, the sound had come from the floor. Fumbling around, I saw the outline of a stick or something on the ground. Crouching down and bringing my muscled body to the floor, I saw a shaft of metal. Grabbing it from a rounded hilt, I realised that it was a sword and sheath. There was little for the metallic gleam to reflect, but I could tell it was metal by its weight and feel. Giving the flat of the blade a flick with a powerful finger, I felt the gentle reverberations. Some might have called it a shortsword. In my giant hands, it felt more accurate to call it a toothpick. I kept it close, eager to have something.

Looking over to the spot where I had kicked the sword from. I saw the outlines of a skeleton, long since decomposed. I felt bad for defiling the corpse. However, they had fallen in the middle of the room and it was dark enough that I couldn’t see their outline without looking for it. Making my way to the pile of bones, I felt a pressure stirring in my chest. They didn’t look human. I saw hands, femurs, and a broad chest. But, when it came to their head, a markedly bovine snout jutted out from the face. It was elongated far past anything that could be called human, even if I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at skulls. And, from the top of the head, a stubby pair of horns crested from the skull. Absentmindedly, I found myself rubbing the long protrusions that wrapped around my skull in a crown. This thing was bull and man, a minotaur. Breath hitching, I shot to my feet, putting some distance between the skeleton and myself as I paced unevenly back to the exit.

In the corner of my eye, I saw movement. Freezing, I snapped my head to the sight, hand clenching tightly around the sword in my hand. What the fuck was in here with me? My breaths came quickly, though I tried to conceal the sounds. Watching for the slightest movement, I saw none. Brandishing the sword between myself and the darkness, I saw movement again. It was just in front of me now. I took a step forwards.

“Hello?” I ventured, calling out to the figure. Silence was the response.

Taking another step, I could see it more clearly now, it was standing just in front of the far wall. It was dim but, in it’s hands, I could see- I could see a sword. Oh god, it was a reflection. The ‘threat’ vanquished, I sheathed the blade I had picked up. Ever so faintly, I could see around the wall where the reflection ended and the outline of a mirror began. It was glossy and dull, but a fungus behind me illuminated my form true.

My face fell the longer I stared, transfixed by the person in front of me. It was… that couldn’t be right. Idly, I brushed a hand around my jawline, feeling at the large nostrils, the elongated snout. In the mirror's reflection, I could barely even make myself out. But what I saw terrified me. Bulging muscles, hooves for feet, a rugged furry appearance, and the head of a bull. Licking my dry lips, I glanced at the skeleton behind me. I was one of them. I was a minotaur.

Credit: atenebris

I felt a heaviness, walking out of that room. A return to barren corridors couldn’t sooth my mind. Turning the corner, I winced as I was near blinded by a sudden flash of light. Hissing slightly, I shielded my eyes with a fuzzy arm as the dull greyscale I had been seeing with since I woke up seemed to disappear as my eyes adjusted to light that didn’t come from wall-fungi.

About a dozen metres in front of me, one of the walls had collapsed inwards, spilling a mound of bricks and a helping of dirt over the hallway floor. The rest of the hall seemed to be keeping together, though it all drooped a little. But that all came secondary to the sagging roof, where a minute sliver of light shone through. It was just a crack, shining right over the piled up mound of collapsed stone and dirt. But, having spent every moment since I had woken up in this hellhole surrounded by cloying darkness, that thin filament of light might as well have been sent from heaven. Bounding over to it, I tried looking through the crack. No luck, it was too narrow to even have a clear view out of, let alone fit me through. I would have to make it bigger.

Raising my hand up to the crack, I measured my bulky fingers against the narrow crevice. I could try to rip bricks away one by one, I supposed. But even wrapping my hands around them would be difficult enough, let alone the potential for cuts or the ceiling falling in on me. Glancing to the sheathed sword at my waist, I pulled the thick blade out, letting its shining steel reflect the sunlight for the first time in what must have been a century. Yeah, that might just work.

Had it been a thinner blade, I think the sword would have given up by now. But, as it was, the sword was taking to its role as a makeshift prybar well. Honestly, I was just kind of jamming it up there and trying to dislodge stuff under the makeshift staircase of dirt that the tunnel-collapse had built for me. It seemed to be working too. I could feel sections dislodging in the crack. It wasn’t too hard, the sealant over the bricks was brittle and weak, allowing sections of the already abused roof to link together into chunks. There were already a few such above me, just waiting for the right-

Without so much as a courtesy-rumble, sections of the roof started giving way. Pulling back the sword with wide eyes, I moved to dodge the biggest of the rock sections. The first to fall was an absolute boulder in its own right. That matted web of stone bricks and mortar crushed everything in the pile it landed on to a fine dust. I avoided getting turned into a fine paste but felt a piercing pain in my head as a lone brick fell a few feet onto one of my horns before spinning and slashing across my snout for good measure on its way down.

“Augh!” I cried out in a deep bellow, taking an extra step back and shielding my head with an arm. Damn it. That wasn’t an OSHA approved demolition and I was paying the price for it.

Though I was nursing my muzzle, I couldn’t help but be satisfied with the result. I was confused, tired, beaten, and desperately in need of a drink, but there was a blindingly bright portal to the outside above me. Abovehead, I could see a fiery sun blazing its light into the once concealed halls of the crypt. If the thin crack of light was hard to adjust to, midday sun was a different beast entirely. But, desperate to escape this hellhole, I started grabbing at the dirt and stone, pulling myself up the mound and to the hole in the ceiling. Hooves kicking against stones, trying to find purchase on the rocks, it was an uncoordinated scramble to pull myself out of the hole.

I don’t know if it was dehydration, head trauma, the blinding sunlight searing my retinas, or some combination of all three. But, just as I crested the rim of the makeshift exit in the ceiling, I found my arms surrendering and my chest collapsing against the dirt. I just- I just needed a second.

Strained eyes peered around my surroundings, moving while the rest of me was too tired to make the effort. The sky was a crystal clear blue. More thematically consistent stone railings and stairs could be seen on the outside of this place, cut from a similarly grey stone as the inside corridors. I blinked, trying to stay conscious. Ears twitching, I heard something jingling. And, was that the clip-clopping of hooves?

The steps got closer and started ascending, as if someone was climbing a staircase. Then, just a few paces in front of the hole where I was still collapsed, I saw a figure come into view. With wide eyes, I regarded a tiny girl carrying a massive pack of items on her back. Logs, weapons, tools, canteens, it must have all weighed three times her mass. But her baggage was nothing compared to the sheer astonishment I felt looking at the girl herself. Stubby horns poked out of brilliant pink hair, the kind you only saw in the most dedicated dye-jobs. And, at the sides of her head, a pair of fluffy brass-coloured ears did a little flap as the girl sighted me. All of her was that same brass-colour, actually, since she was covered from head to cloven toe in fur. There was no other way of putting it. The girl was a minotaur. And, as odd as it was to be able to tell for something nonhuman, she was definitely a girl. Though the fur on her body gave the minotaur pretty universal coverage, a few straps of leather and cloth were serving as the girl’s bra, loincloth, and backpack, respectively. My mind was spinning and my breaths were ragged as the minotaur girl stared at me with apprehension.

Credit: Lyc

“Yeh alright down ther’?”

My head hit the ground and I was out.