Prologue
Kasper
Hundreds of years ago
The chill of the October night seeped into my bones, a creeping cold that gnawed at my bones like a ravenous beast. I stumbled through the twisting paths of the maze, the towering hedges looming like sentinels watching my every move. A cruel wind howled, sending a shiver down my spine and mingled with the bitter scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. Despite the chill and the wind, the evening air was thick with an unsettling stillness, broken only by the distant laughter of those celebrating All Hallows’ Eve.
I’d been drawn to the maze by the thrill of it, by the maze and the old forgotten gardener’s house on the grounds that housed Bartholomew University. It started off as a dare among friends that turned into a solitary nightmare. The whispers of the night taunted me, urging me deeper into the labyrinth's heart. Every time I tried to go back, I would find myself walking deeper and deeper, each turn feeling more disorienting than the last. The paths appeared to be shifting and twisting as if the maze itself had a will of its own.
“Just a game,” I muttered to myself and the chill of the night.
I shouldn’t have come out here, the first signs of illness had struck days ago. A cough that rattled in my chest, the fatigue that wrapped around me like a suffocating shroud. But I brushed it off, too caught up in the season, and the thrill of the dare, of the chase and far too proud to admit weakness.
Now as I stumbled through the shadows and did my best to not trip on the vines that slithered silently, a chill far more profound than the night's air was wrapping around my lungs and squeezing. A cough tore from my throat, wet and raw, echoing off the stillness as if it were mocking me. I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling how hot my skin felt despite the cold that encased my insides. Such a stark contrast to the icy tendrils of death that danced at the edges of my consciousness.
“Just a little further,” I gasped out loud to no one, maybe just to the maze. I could feel the desperation start to claw at me. The maze continued to mock the situation, its paths stretching endlessly, and each turn leading me further away from the sounds of celebration. Away from the lit bonfires and warmth of other human souls.
Each breath became a labor, each step an agonizing reminder of my mortality. I felt the weight of the night as it pressed down on me, the darkness that seemed to promise no escape. I rounded yet another corner which I had been hoping was an exit to these decaying stalks. A wave of dizziness washed over me and I stumbled, my knees buckling as I fell to the damp ground, the world around me blurred, the inky shadows that had been kept at bay now crept in and clouded my reality. A violent cough once again wracked my body and I could taste the metallic tang of blood on my tongue. Panic surged from deep inside, a primal instinct that urged me to fight, to try to rise and run, but my body was unable, it betrayed me. Heavy and unyielding.
The darkness gathered close, it wrapped around me like a lover's embrace, and try as I might, I welcomed it. Surrendering to the damnation that pried at my consciousness. I laid there in the maze, aware, yet unaware, the last tendrils of life slipping away. The chill of what the doctors had calledpneumoniaclaimed what life I had left.
The laughter of the partygoers had faded into nothing, replaced by the haunting echo of my own heartbeat, a slow and dying drum.
Then, silence.
Chapter One
Kasper
Time and centuries flowed like the leaves that fell around the maze, each one a reminder of time’s passage. The world outside had changed, but within these hedges, I remained a prisoner of my own making, a fragment of the boy who had succumbed to the chill of an October night long forgotten, to a disease that wasn’t yet studied or had a cure.
I hovered in the dimness of twilight, my senses sharpened by the weight of time. The maze, once a labyrinth that had ensnared me in life, was my companion in death. An extension of my very soul. It pulsed with my history, my downfall, my…becoming.
The past wove itself in its stalks and the magic from the university that was still pulsing with life created what the maze and I are now. While I was no longer among the living, I was the specter of a forgotten Hallows’ Eve, a haunting in the night, a whispered telling in the halls that the students still attended. Dead? Yes. Gone? Not quite.
The years passed and the world beyond the maze had evolved. The old Bartholomew University that was once a cluster of stone and shadow had transformed into a sprawling campus, its ground hosting students who knew of its dark history and relished in it. It had birthed some of the most wicked contenders in past years and their antics never ceased to entertain me, orthe maze. They knew some of the school's dark history, but did they know that my blood enriched this soil? That my blood was why the maze remained, a relic of the past but untouched by time's relentless pursuit, carved in this school's bloodthirst. It demanded payment, and since I was the first, I was now the maze’s collector.
I hovered in this place, dead but among the living to seek its price.
A life for a life.
Tonight, as the moon hung low and full, a shiver of excitement swept through the grounds I was responsible for. I felt the familiar sensation of the maze stirring beneath me, the deadened leaves that hung rustled and stirred even though it was still, they played a sinister melody, a prelude of what was to come- the annual reaping.
The melody sang to the pathways and they began to shift and curl, twisting into new forms, hunting for what it sought. Anticipation swirled in its movements and I felt the earth pulse beneath me in anticipation. The maze was eager, the earth was waiting, and they had found our next victim.
“Gwendolyn…” I murmured, the name a ghostly whisper that rang from somewhere deep inside my subconscious. The oddest feeling overtook me. My heart, if I still had one, seemed to race with a thrill that surged through me. Interesting. The thrill of the chase that came around each year usually intrigued me as it was different from the monotonous tone of every other day, but this was different. This was something else entirely.
The maze continued to reshape itself, creating paths that twisted and turned into a vortex, and I felt a surge of power. Theovergrown and unkept edges danced with mechanical glee, eager to ensnare their price, just like they had me. Suddenly, I was no longer just a spectator, I was a participant in the dark game, the one I never asked to be a part of but was in essence. The one that would collect the payment owed.
“Come to me, Gwendolyn,” I whispered into the abyss, my words carried in the chilling breeze of the night. “The maze awaits you. Your fate is sealed, just like mine.”
The hunt was beginning, the exhilaration of drawing in another soul to join the ranks of those lost within this place.
A life for a life.
Chapter Two
Gwendolyn
