Vincent walked for almost 10 minutes in the darkness, his little candle fire barely lighting enough for him to see where he was walking on. For a while now, he had an uncomfortable feeling of something terrible in the direction he was going, but he couldn't accurately pinpoint what it was.
Another minute passed under the flickering light, 20 minutes had already passed in the maze, at least according to his metal wristwatch. The moment the clock hand struck the twentieth minute, the uncomfortable feeling Vincent had turned into danger and focused below him and his right leg.
However, without panicking, Vincent quickly examined the possibilities and surrounding walls. The maze appeared narrow enough that by pushing his back against the wall and his legs on the opposite wall, he could keep himself a little distance from the floor.
One breath later, the floor below him exploded in a shower of sand, and from it, a horrible worm-like creature emerged with its tunnel-like maw open, rows upon rows of jagged teeth appeared heading towards VIncent.
The worm's rock-like carapace covered body had a greyish yellow colour; Vincent observed as it flew towards his legs tense against the wall. Thankfully, when he was merely an inch away, he turned his blind head away and dived back in the sand.
Cold sweat emerged on Vincent's face, a small bead trailed from his forehead to his chin and then dived in the sand world. Looking down, Vincent looked in horror at the tiny drop that could f**k him up.
Sand quickly swallowed the sweat, and proving his ability as a hunter, the worm immediately jumped out again and pounced on the little drop of sweat from above.
Vincent looked at its bestial behaviour and figured that the blind monster used vibrations to find its prey, and was now patiently waiting for Vincent to step down and deliver himself on its plate.
He breathed once to calm down his pounding heart; the first attack had hi, fear that his leg would become that thing's snack. Now he needed a plan, "there is an armoured worm thing like creature under me, how can I get away? Throwing a shoe and running on the opposite direction could buy me a few seconds." he pondered for a moment.
"However, it would be over once he caught up," He rejected the earlier plan while watching the sand. "or I could drag myself away from here while sticking to the wall," he formulated while turning his head to the unknown distance.
"however just staying up is tiring, and the moment I get down, he would come running. Maybe going away is not the solution, I need him gone." steeling his resolve he gave up running, and a malicious smile appeared on his face. "play with me, I will play with you."
A plan quickly formed in his head, he moved his left hand until the flame hovered just an inch from the ground and spat right next to it. The monster didn't waste time and immediately shot out of hiding to devour the fool that walked in its territory. However, he didn't see that as he opened his dentist's nightmare of a mouth, a little flame entered together with the sand.
"Gotcha!" Vincent said with a cruel expression on his face, the world turning dark meant that the idiotic beast had eaten an 800 degrees ball of flames. Vincent could still feel his palm connected to the flame, and when the monster tried to get away, he pulled Vincent down with it.
Like an odd game of fishing, the worm scurried away emitting shrill cries. Vincent tried fighting back by grabbing a little protrusion in the wall. However, the little bastard was strong. Finally emerging from the sand, Vincent could see a 6 meters long body as thick as an arm trashing around until Vincent lost his grip.
The worm quickly ran away, dragging the weak novice mage with him, many walls and turns alternated until the struggling demon finally gave up and collapsed with a faint cry. Vincent slowly got up. The little ride had filled his mouth, hair and clothes with sand and bruises.
"I don't like sand." he said while spitting it out, "it's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere," he said while letting the sand out of his underwear. As the focus was still inside the beast's belly, he extinguished it and made a new one.
"Now, where to?" he asked the flame flickering in the same direction the thing had dragged him to. "Now that's a nice coincidence," he said while kicking the half-dead monster. "had you taken me the other way I would have to torture you to the point of tears. Instead, I will save you."
Nobody knew if the monster understood him and felt a slim hope; however, the next action Vincent took was to step on its head until it got flattened to a pancake. "Brother worm, I know you won't understand, but this is a form of mercy in itself, I hope you to be reborn in a butterfly or something less ugly next time around." After holding this small ceremony, he walked away.
Soon after darkness swallowed the poor worm like he wanted to swallow Vincent, nature was like this after all, either eat or be eaten.
As Vincent walked through the dark corridors of the maze he heard faint noises of metal against stone, the more he walked, the stronger those noises got until he turned a corner and saw a carpet of broken iron bolts. In front of them stood an iron wall littered with many bumps and cracks.
Examining it closely, he could see a pattern. The bolts had all hit the same five spots over and over. Suddenly his danger sense from before activated sensing a danger from his back aimed at his head, without looking back, he just leaned to the right.
Not even a moment later a *whap* followed by air getting cut entered his ears and then a bolt hit the same point he was examining before. He looked back and saw only thick darkness behind; he couldn't hear breathing, steps or voices in the silence of the maze.
Judging by how the projectiles kept hitting the same spots with such precision he deduced it should be some mechanism hiding on the other side of the corridor. Whoever made this trap probably wanted him to observe the arrows for a little, figure out the pattern and use it to avoid getting porcupined.
However, he had no time to waste. He took one of the broken arrows from the ground as it could always come in handy later and walked towards the origin of the arrows.
Two steps later, his danger sense activated for his right shoulder, however with a little sidestep, he avoided the arrow altogether. Step by step, he nimbly dodged all threats.
Truth to his brain, he had also figured the sequence of the arrows by now, and could easily pass the test without relying on his danger sense, however, his juvenile part loved the thrill of narrowly dodging deathly threats one after another like the character of a movie.
Soon he arrived at the end. However, disappointment hit, he hoped to find the launching system and maybe study it. Instead, he only saw holes in the wall from which the shot arrows passed through.
In a foul mood, he abandoned the archer range while the music of bowstrings releasing accompanied his walk.
Something told him that the exit was close, almost forty minutes had already passed and there should only be one last test left. Finally, the last test appeared in front of him, a crossroad.
His danger sense wasn't warning him either way, but he could feel an unsettling feeling coming from both of them. He examined both entrances and the way he came from, but he couldn't find any clue.
"Could it be that the last test is one of luck?" he pondered while focusing his ears on listening for anything, however only his heart resonated in the abandoned tunnels. Even the flame flickered between both of them.
"Then so be it, today has been pretty lucky." He remembered those crazy dice gamblers in casinos he had seen in movies and thought of a method to decide which way to go. He grabbed a handful of sand and shook it a few times. "C'mon, daddy needs an exit."
He threw the sand in the middle between the tunnels and noticed most sand fell in front of the left tunnel, so he went that way.
Not even two steps later, he suddenly stopped. A figure had appeared in front of him out of thin air. It looked like a girl; however, she possessed an ethereal beauty like thick mist on a moonlit lake. And like mist, she was seen through and floating a few centimetres above the ground.
Her lips moved soundlessly in some kind of plea. Vincent could see her arms waving around as if trying to warn him not to proceed further on that path. The thin translucent body wore a tattered robe with dark red bloodstains, the only colour on the white ghost.
After being startled by her apparition, Vincent found himself intoxicated by her beauty; Who would have thought that his first love would be a ghost in a dark maze.
"Are you telling me not to go that way?" He asked after a few moments of staring at her. He wanted to introduce himself, but he didn't know how, so he tried guessing what she wanted to say, from there on he could try breaking the ice.
She vehemently nodded, but Vincent just stared at her clean and gracious neck, her swaying light hair and her crystal clear eyes. Waking up after a second, he thanked her and tried to change the topic. "So, I'm Vincent, nice to meet you!" he said, extending his right hand.
The ghost looked startled by Vincent gesture and with a puzzled expression, tried shaking his hand. However, it went through. Vincent laughed a little about it taking it back.
As he was about to say something more, the spectre turned her head in horror and disappeared the next moment, leaving a dumbfounded Vincent staring at the spot she had just been occupying a moment before.
"Lady ghost?" he tried calling a few times, but without receiving an answer, he dropped his shoulder and turned around, heeding her warning, he proceeded on the right path. A few seconds later, he could hear a Beastly roar filled with disappointment and anger from behind him, so he immediately sped up towards the nearing exit.