I grab my dagger and dart right into the labyrinth.
It’s huge. The hedges are double my height easily. I run around aimlessly for probably five minutes, and I can feel myself getting somehow closer and closer to the edge of it but farther and farther from the way out.
I hear him getting closer and closer. He thumps his chest, deep and hollow, and grunts, panting.
My body starts to tremble even though I don’t feel that afraid in my mind, which is weird, don’t you think? Trauma is weird.
I back up into the hedge, and he rounds the corner towards me, but as he does, suddenly the hedge grows around me, shielding me.
The minotaur’s looking all over for me—he’s confused. I think he knows I’m here, or at least that I was just a moment ago.
It’s getting closer, head looking left and right. I grip my dagger…wait till he’s right in front of me, standing in front of the part of the hedge that just grew around me, and then he turns his head a bit, and I have a clear shot, so I reach through and stab him in the eye.
I’ve never stabbed anything in the eye before. Actually, I’ve never stabbed anything anywhere before.
There are layers of sounds—all of them grotesque—when I do it. The most obvious one being the sound that he makes, less a groan, more a cry.
As well the sound of a blade piercing an eye and grinding bone as I drive the dagger through. These are sounds I’ve never wanted to know.
The sound of someone crying （I think it’s me） as he tears through the hedges to get to me, and then the hedges wilt back, revealing me to him.
And right when I think I’m definitely, absolutely about to die, even though he only has one eye, the layers of hedges behind me pull back like curtains at the same time as the minotaur falls on his knees in pain.
He stares up at me, my dagger still in his eye.
Then he does something strange.
He pulls it from his own eye, wipes it on his chest, then offers it to me.
I stare at it. It feels like a trick.
When I don’t take it from him, he lays it at my feet.
I stare at it, confused. He kneels there, unmoving, head bowed towards the ground, and it still feels like a trick? Maybe he’s just giving me a head start. Maybe it’s not fun to kill someone when they’re easy to kill. Whatever it is, I take the chance presented to me. I grab the dagger and run through the path the hedges made for me. They close behind me like gates slamming shut, and I fall to the ground when I’m finally out of it.
My breath is jagged. I’m crying, I think? I yell for Peter, but he doesn’t come. I yell for Jamison and Rune, but I’m too far away, I think. I don’t think they’d hear me if I was even on Neverland proper, and I’m somewhere much farther than that.
I make my way back to the beach where Peter gave me the berries. I know it’s the same spot because the berries I didn’t eat still rest on the sand.
I can just barely spot Neverland Island from here. It’s not close. A couple hours’ swim at least. I look back at the island I’ve just escaped from and then back at the ocean. I fancy my chances with the sea.
I wade in, hold the dagger under the water, and the red washes away. I put it back in my boot—boots are not great to swim in, by the way—and then I start swimming.
Swimming and swimming for maybe an hour—two possibly, even—and my arms are getting tired, but I’m so far out, and I’ve nowhere to go.
I stop for a minute and tread water.
I don’t know how to summon fairies or even if you can, but being able to right now would be fantastic. Maybe there’s such a thing as water fairies.
I suppose there are mermaids.
That makes me feel uneasy, now that I’m thinking of it. I’m quite sure, given the chance, Marin would let me drown, if not swim on over and drown me herself.
I look beneath me at the clear and crazy blue waters below.
You know how the water can wreak havoc in your mind with benign shadows?
Immediately I am positive that I’m going to die. Again.
I’m sure of it, that something’s there, circling me. It’s not dark, it’s light, but it’s something, and I’m spinning around, splashing as I look everywhere for it—seems dangerous. Splashing attracts sharks, doesn’t it? I go still instead, stare down at whatever’s beneath me.
And then a tiny wave knocks my chin up.
I stare back down at the water.
It does it again.
Then from behind me, a wave scoops me up like I’m in an armchair and propels me forwards. Forward and forwards and through fields and kilometres of water.