Labyrinth

The paper was quickly shoved into my hand, and I pushed it into my pocket. Nobody around me could see it, or the police would seize me. My home was just around the corner, and the moment I walked through the door, I opened the paper. 

Another flower, this time purple with a blue swirled center. I held it to a light bulb, and the encrypted message appeared. At ten o’ clock tonight, another group will be running away. I am unsure if I have enough courage to go this time, because the last time I tried I almost got caught. And the rest of my group was caught, given a fake trial, and arrested for trying to escape. The judge would have said they were guilty no matter what, and nobody thought to stand up to unfair law system. I decided to go, because for all I know I may find my house raided, and myself no longer alive.

I tried to act normal, aware the sensors surgically attached to my arm tracked my every movement. I watched the television, waiting for the moment to make my escape. I use the complicated screwdriver, and carefully remove my arm. I have kept my prosthetic limb a secret, through a carefully constructed web of lies. I program it to move the way it normally would, and replace it with a new arm I recently created. I continue to wait. The clock counts off the hours with its loud gonging. Eight o’clock. Nine o’clock. And finally, when the face of the clock shows the time is nine thirty, I leave. 

The wall enclosing the city is right by my house, and I sneak through a giant hole, hidden skillfully behind a large poster. I position the poster, and start the second section of the labyrinth. I quickly run through the carefully memorized maze, knowing full well government officials are probably following me with their high-tech maps. I dart left, right, left, left. Hopefully throwing them off my trail, I continue. For once, I’m glad I was able to explore the labyrinth before, and able to learn all its secrets. 

A light switch by me has the telltale pattern, a blue flower, and I walk toward it and press the button. The third section of the labyrinth is always hardest, and I think back to the times I helped the others escape. I have a photographic memory, which at times is useful. But this labyrinth regularly changes. It rotates through three different mazes, a new combination each day. 

The end is near, and the maze changes. New updates had been made, and I should have realized they would change the labyrinth so anyone without their body in the database would be enclosed. I silently kick myself for my stupidity, when I realizes these government officials are more stupid than I am. They don’t realize their walls are only five or so feet high. I quickly scale a wall, and sprint for the exit. Seconds after I leave, I hear an invisible barrier snapping into place behind me. Thankful I wasn’t caught, I continue sprinting towards the exit.

I make it through, barely before the gaping jaws of the labyrinth snap shut behind me. The lush green rainforest surrounds me, and I walk to the roots of a large tree. The wind has worn down the dirt beneath the tree, leaving a sort of cave formed by the tree roots. I rest, and attempt to catch my breath. I check the note again, carefully tucked into my shirt pocket. A twig lies on the ground beside me, and I carefully gather a clump of bioluminescent tree sap, oozing from the black bark. I put a blob of it on the note, and the next part of the message appears, telling me to go to the nearest bush with large purple flowers with a blue center. 

It takes me a while, but I eventually find the plant. With nothing better to do, I wait until the remainder of the group finds me. I doze off, and wake to about ten elite military officials surrounding me.

One of them has a smug look on his face, and he says, “You have been wanted by the government for years, and you were stupid enough to fall for our trap. Again. Did you really think it would be that easy to escape imprisonment?”

I glare at the uppity official and say, “Yes I did. You don’t exactly strike me as the smart type. I’ll have you know, I outsmarted you plenty more times then this, so is this really much glory on your part? Why did you let me escape in the first place?”

A young man who looks like a new recruit says, “We hoped you would lead us to more of you, but that didn’t work so we just captured you.”

“Shut up, rookie. Lesson one: never give the prisoner even a smidgen of information.” One vicious snarl later, and I find a cloth pushed into my face, reeking with chloroform. I awake in a dark cell, cold and hungry. I’m chained to a small metal bed. This is why I never wanted to attempt escape. Because now, I will die. A key rattles in the lock, jolting me out of my dark thoughts.

“I’m hear to question you. Shut your mouth unless I talk to you.”

The girl glares at me, then whispers in my ear.

“I’m helping you escape tonight. That’s all you need to know. Glare at me and hiss when I’m done whispering to you to make it seem as though I have said something cruel.”

She follows this up with a quick shove, and I do as she said. The questions she asks seem pointless, because they already knew everything about me. Except my name and where I live, they know everything. Someone else enters the room, and pushes a nasty looking bowl of… something toward me. I can’t quite tell what it is, and I think it may be what they expect me to eat. I force myself to eat, and await my escape from this dreadful torture. I’m stuck in another labyrinth, this time a prison cell. I don’t understand the governments obsession with labyrinths. Seriously, it’s unhealthy. I have no idea when I’ll be smuggled out of here, so I guess I’ll just wait and see. For all I know, she may be lying. I may be stuck here, in this rat infested place, for the rest of my life.