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Wordlessly, I followed Abaddon down the hall, away from the cells, and toward the Labyrinth—the last instrument of torture Heaven inflicted upon those it no longer wanted. It was a place devoid of Light, devoid of all feeling, sound, or warmth; an utterly cold maze designed to confuse the damned so they would never be able to find their way back into Heaven should they somehow escape the Pit.
To this day, no one had.
It took everything I had to stop myself from trembling as we entered the maze. I looked at Abaddon, quietly impressed that he was half dressed and seemingly unaffected by the cold. It wasn’t until he grabbed and held my hand that I noticed he was also shivering, just better at hiding it.
He could tell that I was shaking now too, and he turned his head to sideways glance at me. “We’re almost there. The Labyrinth is not a challenge to those who know the path.”
“I feel like you weren’t half naked the last time you were here though.” I said, through my chattering teeth.
He laughed, a short burst that echoed through the halls around us. “That is true.” The maze fell silent once more, and somehow it felt like the silence pressed in around us even more than before, the pressure of it threatening to burst my eardrums, as if we were being punished for laughing.
“What’s waiting for us in here?” I asked, desperate to make conversation and push the silence back.
His jaw tightened. “Pain,” he said, nodding slightly. “Pain, and guilt.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“It will be the same pain and guilt Medrion has had to endure. If we are lucky, it has overcome him, and we will find him begging for release.”
I shook my head. “Medrion? Not likely. I don’t think anything will stop him, least of all guilt.”
“No… nor do I.”
It was a very final point Abaddon had put on the matter. I tried not to dwell on it, choosing instead to stay focused and look ahead. Only, there was nothing to see. There were no lights in here. All we could do was walk and feel our way through the endless dark, taking turn after memorized turn in the hopes that we would find our way to the Pit.
While I could feel its pull, I couldn’t tell where exactly it was. This place was disorienting, and confusing. I ran my fingers along the frigid walls as we walked, feeling the wide gap every time the path we were on diverged—there were so many. So many wrong paths to… to what? Pain and guilt, according to Abaddon.
We couldn’t summon our Light in here, not even if we wanted to. That meant we were stuck in the freezing darkness, fumbling around, hoping to trip over Medrion’s huddled form—defeated by the Labyrinth. It would have made things so much easier.
“Stop,” Abaddon suddenly said.
I stopped where I stood, my body frozen. “What is it?” I asked.
“Quiet…listen.”
I shut up, clasping a hand around my mouth, and I listened.Footsteps.They were light—not like someone wearing big, heavy boots, but like someone walking barefoot. Shuffling, almost. It took a moment for me to realize the sound was getting louder. Closer.
“What do you hear?” asked Abaddon, his voice barely a whisper against my cheek.
“Footsteps,” I said. “Someone’s coming.”
“What kind of footsteps?”
“I think… someone not wearing shoes.”
Abaddon breathed in deep. “It is what I feared.”
“Feared?”
“We are not hearing the same thing. Be careful—from this point on, we cannot trust our senses.”
“Wait… what?”
“Do not let go of my hand. Not once, no matter what you see. Do you understand?”
My heart was starting to pound against the walls of my chest. “Abaddon, you’re scaring me.”
“Don’t. Let. Go.”
