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In this World of infinite night, thick hedges formed a path through the dark woods splitting into more and more pathways the longer the girl darted through their trails — loose branches with countless flowers of all colors bloomed out of them, seeming to grab onto her clothing as if they didn’t want her to advance — warning her of what lay beyond the exit of this endless labyrinth.
She, however, didn’t stop making her way toward what she could only hope was salvation. The ocean-blue haired girl had been trapped here for the past months.
Maybe even more.
After all, she had given up counting a long time ago.
When she first fell into this place she was terrified. Sharp, black thorns had cut into her skin, releasing toxins that erased all she knew about how she got there and simultaneously made her painfully aware of her surroundings. The only thing she knew from her life before she got here was her name, Alice, and her age, eighteen.
At least this resulted in her hearing and sight improving drastically, allowing her to finally notice what she hadn’t before — monsters.
No… not monsters.
These entities were far worse. Some of them were translucent, only to be detected by inhuman hearing and only to be seen with the help of a rarely occurring flash of light, emitted by either the Moon or lightning. If she was careless, she would accidentally run into one, which would surely mean her end.
Another one of those creatures was large. Larger than anything she had seen before. Its claws, at least as long as two fully grown humans and as acute as a freshly sharpened blade. If she ever crossed its path, it would already be too late to escape, for its speed exceeded any other living being’s.
Alice shot through the labyrinth as if her life depended on it — which it did. After all, the third and worst creature was chasing her at that exact moment.
It was a mutant between the other two entities.
Something so disturbing it would send someone who wasn’t used to them straight into a coma and if by any chance they were even more unlucky, they would die of a heart attack due to shock.
The girl had already experienced every form of death that appeared in this maze.
At first she was confused as to why she woke up after the excruciating pain she had just died to. She thought that it had only been a very vivid nightmare.
But if it really had been a nightmare, she wouldn’t have awoken in the exact place the labyrinth started.
Maybe it was just a hallucination, she told herself. But after dying and restarting countless times she accepted that the only possible way to escape this hell would be to find the exit — no matter what.
Looking ahead she quickly ducked under one of the branches that she was about to run into letting out a sharp breath of relief. If it had hit her she would have died. The Creature would have caught up to her and that would’ve been it for this turn. No going back and no second chance to start again from the point she was standing on a minute ago.
The sound of heavy footsteps shot through the ground making the little puddles made of deep blue water, or whatever it was, tremble. The picture of the moon that they reflected blurring into a white mass. Alice’s dark-blue hair flew behind her as she rushed over broken branches, soggy brown leaves and rocks as fast as she could in an attempt to not get caught by the creature following her at an incredible speed.
Why can’t it just stop already?!
And where even am I!?
Thoughts over thoughts filled her head, keeping her from fully concentrating on the way she was running. Hadn’t she already been here? Maybe. Though, due to the fact that everything looked similar, if not the same, she had no way of telling.
The thing’s black yet translucent scales made clacking sounds, the wind rushing around them in a wild manner. Its claws momentarily sliced through the air trying to reach Alice but thanks to her heightened senses she sensed the slightly different feeling of the wind against her head and managed to duck just in time to evade the attack. The monster’s claws retreated just as fast as they came and right back to its sides.
If I want to get out of here and not start over I have to find an escape route — FAST!
Her mind screamed those words into every vein in her body and raised the amount of adrenaline flowing through them. This was her best round yet. She had come far closer to the finish line than ever. It had been 1728 turns. 1728 times to memorize the layout of the seemingly endless labyrinth at the beginning and guessing where it would change itself. 1728 deaths. 1728 pieces of hope, torn out of her body, leaving her with only the thought of finally escaping and the distant fragments of the few good memories she had made to not lose her sanity completely. The terror and despair of never being able to leave resonated throughout her. But what if I never manage to leave.
This will all be futile — for nothing. Why am I even going through all of this pain? It makes no sense whatsoever!
She started slowing down in her steps, freezing in place, struck by the realization. Even if she reached the goal she would probably start over again.
The abomination, only 100 meters away from achieving its goal, charging at her at full speed.
Her legs gave out in fear as Alice accepted her fate, the puddle of mud below her dirtying her legs and ripped clothes. She reached out to the moon watching over her and closed her eyes. 60 meters left. Droplets of salty water trickled down her cheeks falling gracefully down her chin like flower petals and staining her dress. She tried to ignore the trembling of the ground as it became stronger and stronger with each step the monster took. 30 meters.
She was about to open her eyes for one last time when suddenly the ground stopped shaking as the monster came to a halt. She lowered her arms.
Why did it stop?, she wondered, not wanting to look back in fear of what she would face if she did. The pitch black world behind her eyelids was tainted red and then orange right to white as an unknown light source appeared.
What the hell is that? There is literally no light here!
Light was rare in this world. In all of the lives she had lived through it had only appeared in about three. And even if it did, it left just as abruptly as it came.
It usually took four to six seconds before it disappeared. This one, however, was still there after more than half a minute.
And it didn’t seem like it would leave anytime soon. After waiting a few more seconds for something she didn’t understand herself, she finally decided that she couldn’t stay like this forever: eyes closed, crouched into a ball hugging her legs, sitting in the mud and dried tears smudging her cheeks. Slowly, she flickered her eyes open trying not to directly look at the source of this unknown radiance. After all, she didn’t want to go blind now of all times since her sight had improved as well. She fully expected to see the rays of the sun or something fluorescent that lit her gaze.
Though, what she encountered floating above her was something far different — A girl that looked around her age. But no… this wasn’t just a girl.
She was about two meters tall. Skin as black as carbon with a dark purple tint adorning it and three eyes white as snow. Her eyelashes looked like the rays of sun themselves as they blended into the surrounding sky. Her white-silver-ish hair fell in locks from her head like waves at night. A dress seemingly made out of white silk and eventual golden flecks flowed down her body and almost grazed the ground like a feather falling from the skies. Its color looked beautiful in her shine, creating a divine contrast to her skin. Two black star-shaped earrings were located under her earlobes like planets in the vast universe. This was… a goddess.
Alice was so mesmerized by the incomparable beauty currently blessing her eyes with the most gorgeous thing she had seen in forever that she completely forgot about the creature that had been previously hunting her until the other appeared. She continued staring with her mouth agape when she saw its head in the taller one’s hand. It now wasn’t fully translucent anymore and she could see the black scales everywhere on its body. A foul smell of rotten meat and iron being emitted from the corpse and forcefully entering her nostrils. Instantly a wave of nausea hit her, making the girl slap one of her mud covered hands over her mouth, the other clutching her stomach in an attempt to stop the urge to vomit. The most shocking thing was that there was no blood pouring out of the wound where it had been inflicted, probably, ripped off. Instead, a black, slimy liquid ruptured from its neck. It had strange objects sticking out of it and she had to squint her eyes to properly manage to identify it. When she finally managed to realize what they were, a new, now greater wave of nausea hit her but this one she couldn’t hold back, releasing whatever little amount of food had been inside her onto the ground. No way, the horrors she was part of and now realizing were insane. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes begging to be freed and her mind in chaos at the disturbing image of her own torn off limbs from her previous lives still inside the monster. Forming it — creating it.
Thinking back this truly was the biggest one of the monsters of this kind she had come across, now realizing why that was. All the monsters in this labyrinth were created out of the corpses of her seemingly countless turns. This would also explain why she hadn’t seen any monsters in the first turn.
She had died because of hunger the first time she attempted to get to the exit so it made sense that her still-intact body would be used to create the first monster. Then more and more. Over and over.
1728 times. Like a video game in which the monsters became stronger and stronger the more levels were beaten. The entities ate her bodies and gained strength to grow and become worse every time she regressed. The rest of the creature’s large figure had been tossed aside and was now hanging over one of the hedges of the labyrinth. Each limb had been severed, the black liquid pouring out of the openings like a waterfall knowing no end. One of the legs and two of its ripped off claws tipped over the edge of the hedge and fell to the ground in a loud thud, ripping her attention back to the goddess in front of her and tearing her gaze off of the imagery she had been so fixed on. On closer inspection of the cranium she noticed the four hollow eye sockets… its eyes were missing and pierced on one of its own claws. Realistically, it couldn’t have been the creature itself who punctured and tore off its eyes. So it must have been….
Alice’s stomach turned and a feeling of dread overcame her senses. Even if the goddess had killed the monster and saved her, how could she be sure that she wouldn’t kill her too?
Her thoughts piled up in her mind like papers on an office desk on a busy Monday morning.
She looked up to investigate the deity’s sharp eyes. No emotions could be read out of them.
People say that eyes are the portal to the soul — yet all she could see in the divine one’s orbs was herself
— but different.
A woman she didn’t yet know was in the center but something deep within her knew that that woman was none other than her future self. She looked different and her surroundings even more. She was wearing some kind of outfit an office worker would usually wear to work, a mug of piping hot black coffee warming her hands as she cupped it in a careful manner so as to not accidentally drop it.
She was sitting in a chair next to a big wooden oak desk. Papers lay on them chaotically — some scattered on the ground. A computer had been placed on top of a small pile of assignments. The gray walls around her looked like a cage. Nothing was pinned on them except for a calendar and an appointment planner, one of its squares circled in red. Her tired expression was obvious due to the large dark circles under her eyes proving that she hadn’t slept in an unknown amount of time.
After profusely staring into the goddess’s eyes she looked back at the whole. A small smile was now plastered across her face.
Why is she smiling now?
A few seconds later the girl dropped the torn off head and instead held out a hand to Alice.
“Do you wish to leave this place?” Her voice sounded even more glorious and beautiful than she had imagined. Like a soft caress on her back, inviting her into a warm and fond hug. Her choice of words was almost ancient and very formal. But when she talked her lips didn’t move. Did I just imagine that? Am I mad? But even if she did, she wanted — needed to respond. She would risk everything to get out of this place. After all, she had already done it 1728 other times.
“Yes-“
Her exhausted expression changed into one of gladness and hope. Tears of euphoria fell down her face. Then, she gently placed her hand over the already extended one and before she could do anything else the gravitational pull that had held her tied to the ground for the past eternity disappeared and she started floating into the air, leaving the earth under her feet. She even started seeing the top of the hedges. A beautiful sight, indeed. All the pathways were appearing one after the other. Leading her gaze toward the right way to the exit. Finally, she was going to find out what way she needed to follow to be free but right now that was unnecessary as the goddess was lifting her through the air opening up a different and more valuable way to an even closer solution and to an end to the absolute madness she had been part of. Cold air hit her face as she was brought up higher and higher. Above the clouds that covered the sky like a gray blanket.
Upon finally seeing the clouds from above they descended onto a small cloud-looking platform which kept them from falling down into the labyrinth once more. Alice’s feet slightly sunk into the white platform as she stopped floating. She tried to keep herself from looking down because of her slight fear of heights. Now that she was more focused on what was happening she noticed that she had never received the name of the other.
“Hey um..” —she cleared her throat in an attempt to make herself feel more confident in the words she was going to say to the goddess-like creature—
“My name is Alice Cubensis… What's your name?” - she asked, with a sheepish grin.
“I am called Incane by many. It’s been given to me by a variety of clans. Unfortunately, since I do not hold any memories of my birth, I can't recall what my true parents named me, if I had some in the first place.”
With this the short conversation they traded ended and Alice focused back on the cloud they were on. Incane stood behind her as the smaller one looked around trying to find the purpose for standing on the cloud and then redirecting her gaze towards a light that grabbed her attention.
It was brighter than the stars she had been seeing from the ground all the time but not as bright as the rare sparks that shone down on the labyrinth and opened up new pathways. It was like the light of street lamps lighting up narrow alleys and leading people toward their destination.
A few moments later the cloud began to move toward said light. While getting closer, their surroundings began changing form until they became something very different than they originally were.
The clouds became whales, water falling from their mouths like waterfalls and dispersing in the air like mist. The sky turned a bright shade of blue mixed with pink and orange with the oh so missed sun peaking out behind a large forest.
The labyrinth was nowhere to be seen as Alice finally gathered enough courage to glance down only to find that they were just about two meters away from the ground. It was covered in moss, pink and red and yellow flowers, leaves, as red as fire and diverse kinds of strangely glowing mushrooms.
“Wow…” a short sound of awe escaped her lips as she stared, mouth agape, at the landscape. Instead of birds flying around in the sky she saw giant dragonflies hovering over the trees and a wide river below them. Its water was so clear that she could see the bottom. Little fish…no… the tiniest black, white, pink, violet and blue cats with little fish tails were swimming in the water and creating waves that splashed the heather that sprouted at the edges of the water and a variety of jasmine plants that were growing and floating on the river’s surface. The biggest rainbow she ever got to look at formed a bow over the mountainside that severed the ground from the sky in the back of the scenery, its colors vibrant and bright. It looked almost solid. Upon further examination she noticed that she was actually and surprisingly right! Little rain droplets lay on the rays as they slowly slithered down, gaining the colors they lay on, toward the beginning of the river she saw earlier creating sparkles as they hit the water.
Before she could stare at the rest of the view the platform abruptly stopped. She lost her balance and let out a surprised shriek while trying to grab something to steady herself — this being Incane’s dress next to her. She opened her eyes in shock. This action resulted in both of them falling off the cloud and faceplanting into the ground. The goddess immediately got up and brushed the leaves and mud out of her clothes while laughing and simultaneously lifting Alice up to help her do the same.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to grab you!”
Alice bowed in front of Incane, her eyes reflecting embarrassment and nervousness, but also fear, as she trembled.
“Please don’t bring me back to that labyrinth!” Was she going to kill her? And if she did… would she start over and wake up at the beginning of that maze once again? She quietly fell into a spiral of thoughts of what she would do in such a situation. The deity looked quite surprised at the gestures and the words Alice had shouted. She swayed her arms around, signaling her to stop bowing.
“Oh my! Please! You shall not concern yourself with such a trivial matter for I know it was an accident.” She held out a hand to help Alice stand back up.
“Though, are you alright? We fell quite a distance. I once read in a book that human beings get injured quite easily. Perhaps you injured yourself.”
Incane eyed Alice from top to bottom and nodded lightly to herself when she didn’t find any blood or signs of pain. Alice was at a loss for words. She had expected her to be furious! To shout at her and be mad! Yet none of that happened. Of course she wasn’t complaining though! But she knew that she would have to take any chance she got to repay the favors she had been granted.
“Thank you for everything you have done for me. I won’t hesitate to repay your kindness. I just,.. I‘ve been meaning to ask… Are you a goddess?“
Alice lifted her head and squinted her eyes while looking at Incane, as if a wooden sign was going to appear that told her the answer to her question in bold grand letters.
“Oh, dear… you see. Though it might be difficult to understand. Your pleas created me. Every time in your previous lives when you looked up at the moon and shed a tear. Whether it be of sadness, tiredness or fear. It strengthened my soul and created me. Yes. You could say that makes me a goddess — a goddess made out of sparks from the moon.”
“Um,… I don’t exactly know what to say. I’m glad I could help, even if I didn’t know that I was at that time!”
The goddess looked down at her with a fond expression on her face but almost instantly turned into one of sadness and regret.
“It took a rather long time to be able to come down and save you since my soul had been shattered and trapped as a simple moon in the night sky a very long time ago. If I recall correctly I think it was about three thousand years ago... However!
I don’t exactly remember how it happened but you helped me regain my soul and therefore I was able to escape. For that, I thank you from the depths of my soul.”
She bowed slightly and gracefully, leaving Alice with her mouth hanging open and a slight blush tainting her face. There was no way a goddess just bowed to her.
“Don’t bow — please! I didn’t do anything but cry and pray to something I didn’t even know existed. I didn’t know of your presence until minutes ago!”
After she calmed down she looked around once more taking in the sights, deciding on impulse that she was going to explore this world for a bit, after all she didn’t know how much time she had left here.
The next hours were just amazing.
Alice and the Incane played around in the fields, swam in the river, laughed together, slid down the rainbow-slide, ate some fruits that were hanging down from the trees and made colorful flower crowns for each other. One of tulips, roses, lilies and edelweiss for the deity and one of clematis, poppies and forget-me-not for Alice. They truly turned out beautiful and fit perfectly on both of their heads. Alice hadn’t felt this happy and alive in more time than she was aware of, still, there was a dreadful feeling lingering in her stomach. How long was this happiness going to last?
Her previous grin faltered into a small frown as her mind wandered off.
“So… what now? This is super beautiful and I don’t want to seem ungrateful and all and I’m having SO much fun but what is going to happen now?” She turned back to the goddess with a slightly worried look and full of questions.
“Well, if you want I can bring you back to your original home —you know,… to your own universe?” The deity tried to keep an optimistic smile but the look in her three eyes signaled it to be a lie to cover up the sadness behind her words. “For real?!” Alice looked delighted. Her eyes, like a child's after getting a new puppy.
“Yes. “For real”. However, you should know that if you leave, you will on one hand not remember anything about the pain and the terrible things you had to experience here but on the other hand that means forgetting about me since I can’t come with you as I am bound to this world but please know that even if you decide against staying,… my soul is always with you.”
Her expression was saddened but looked as if she would accept any response Alice would give. Of course she was going to be sad and let her go but she knew for a fact that she was never going to forget her and their shared moments together — even if they had only known each other for a day. This wasn’t the whole truth though. In reality she had been watching over Alice as the moon non stop since she first arrived at that horrible place. She even emitted a few rays of light to her best potential, even if it meant that it would drain her powers and it would take a little while longer to reach out and fully save Alice.
“Oh…” Alice’s smile faltered in an instant turning into one of sadness.
“…Earlier, when I first saw you and looked into your eyes — I saw myself. It looked like an older version of me. Do you know what and why that was?”
Of course the deity knew. She knew that it was the cruel future Alice would face if she went back. But telling her wasn’t an option, since if she told her she wouldn’t want to go back home. She didn’t want to scare her and keep her from the potential happiness and her family waiting for her on the other side. After a moment of consideration she finally decided to tell her a part of the truth.
“What you saw is what would have happened if you had stayed in your world and hadn’t been teleported here.” The lie felt heavy on Incane’s shoulders. Like an enormous boulder she had to carry around everywhere from now on.
“Oh wow…” She formed a slight expression of relief and simultaneously tensed up.
“Guess it wasn’t that bad falling here after all? Do you maybe also know what will happen if I return?”, she asked, curious about the moon’s power and her own future.
“I don’t.” Again, a lie heavy as the sky. She began forming shapes with her hands to explain it better.
“I am aware of different universes at once but cannot see into the future. It is up to you to decide whether you want to go back or stay here — with me. I can’t stop you.” She was embarrassed to admit that she might have fallen for the blue haired girl throughout the time she watched her and they had spent together.
All the emotions of joy she saw her make made the goddess unbearably happy while the sad and terrified emotions Alice showed her made her angry and sad at the same time. She would have done anything to help her in those situations.
But she couldn’t help but feel felicity whenever Alice cried, since she felt her soul return to her, signaling the space between them shrinking bit by bit.
Still, it was impossible for them to be together due to many reasons. One of them was that she was bound to this universe and that she couldn’t accompany Alice into her world.
If she could, she wouldn't hesitate to go with her. The second reason was that Alice probably didn’t hold the same feelings for her as she did for the girl and there was no way she would develop them until she left.
But this is where she was wrong.
The second Alice had seen her for the first time her heart skipped a beat — or two.
She was almost hypnotized. How could anyone be so majestic and have such a powerful aura?
Of course she had been scared but that went away quickly enough. Alice looked at the ground, weighing her options.
She couldn’t just leave her after all the things they went through. But she couldn’t just abandon her family like that,… right? Thinking back, they had never really cared about her anyway, leaving her to take care of herself and never asking about how she was doing when she cried or every single one of their conversations ending in an argument. But even through those times they always brought her presents and loved her so how couldn’t she love them back? They were still her parents. Her dear parents that had given birth to her and fed her every day. That gave her happy moments and very few worries to hold on to. She gripped her hair with her hands and ripped out a few strands while letting out a groan of frustration.
“What the hell!?”
This was so confusing! Incane on the other hand had always treated her amazingly. She saved her from that monster, brought her here and spent time with her, made her laugh and gave her more happy memories in just one day than her parents and friends had in her whole life.
Not to mention, she would lose all of them if she decided to go back.
This world was beautiful, filled with flowers, beautiful things, amazing animals, wonder and love —
Her own was filled with hate and despair.
Danger looming around every corner. Just like the labyrinth yet somehow worse. She couldn’t respawn there. Sweat droplets started slithering down her face. She probably won’t be able to return.
Right before she could start overthinking it:
“Have you decided yet?” The taller one asked.
“Not yet… I can't decide. This is horrible! If I leave I will never see you again, isn’t that right? But if I stay here I will never see my home again! The rest — my family and friends — has never been too amazing anyway, even if they tried, it doesn’t seem like they did. I,… I just don’t know!” Frustration was written all over her face as she threw herself into the grass.
“I’d rather stay here with you if it means not having to go back into that war-filled world. I mean, what person in their right mind would choose war over this? You’d have to be mad to pass on an opportunity such as this. And since I am clearly not — I hope — I’ll gladly choose the better option. Wait,… but like, would that be ok in the first place?
I have a few questions too. Where would I live exactly? Like, in a house, on the ground or…? Also, would you stay with me or not? If you don’t then I have no reason to stay.” Alice’s previously sad look brightened instantly just like the goddess’ one. Never had Incane been so happy.
“I’ll stay without a doubt! I don’t hold any responsibilities anywhere and I would much rather be with you. To respond to your other question: we would live in whatever place you desire.
This universe allows the beings in here to imagine whatever they want and then builds it. Matter of fact, all you see here was built by your and my imagination. I rather like these vast fields of flowers. I truly hope you do too. Preferably I’d like the sky to look like this forever so in case you don’t have a problem with it I’d love to keep it that way. We can maybe add some stars to be seen during the day as well as the night. For your information, the fact that I am here as an incarnation of the moon doesn’t mean that it will disappear completely. On the contrary, actually, there are three moons watching over the night sky as we speak. I see that your thoughts are very beautiful and full of life. I really love them,… but I love you more.”
She whispered the last part. A bright red blush spread across Alice’s face. The venom that had been injected into her veins when she first arrived at the labyrinth hadn’t been fully removed from her body allowing her to hear every syllable clearly.
Never would she have ever expected Incane to have the same feelings as her. This was like a dream she didn’t want to wake up from. It was simply too good to be true.
Without warning she threw herself at Incane, hugging her tightly as if she wasn’t going to let go. But Alice, of course, wasn’t tall enough to do it properly, as her hands only reached to the middle of the other’s back, so Incane crouched down to her level and lifted her up into the air doing the same and spinning both of them around in the air, then sitting down on the ground.
Laughter and pure happiness overcame them as both of their hearts were filled with love for each other as they realized that they wouldn’t have to part ways. Alice wouldn’t have to go back to that horrid world of hers and Incane would never be alone again as they would always be side by side, through thick and thin and through endless joy and love.
The pair took in the gorgeously moonlit night sky.
“The moon is beautiful tonight, isn’t it?” Alice gazed at Incane with stars in her eyes.