Trial and Error

    The shrubs, towering and robust, are amethyst in color. They seem to move along side the boy as he runs full speed, occasionally catching his toe on the sandy dirt and tripping. His knees are gored-- ripped and tattered and tainted brown. But he gets back up, lingering slightly on one knee, and continues on with his race. As he makes his first turn, a siren blares hollowly. He is startled, but continues.

    The sky is grey like warm snow; a warning to those who wander to stay inside until the patron of the day has ceased seeking refuge. The boy hadn’t noticed the sky. His only thoughts were simple and precise: ‘Run’.

    He didn’t know why he was running, or where he was going, but he knew to run. Such a primal instinct; one that is inherent at birth and in some cases acted upon before death. Run, run, run. Like an animal let loose from confinement, he ran towards what he hoped was an island far, far away from this labyrinth of pensive mistrust.

    Hope is another primal instinct. One thinks that savagery would crack the top ten, but this is a simply erroneous concept. Hope and love are what we are born with. Some, hold on to this all their lives-- keeping it hidden in a box under their bed. They sleep soundly at night with their beliefs of harmony and compassion. But, lo, there are some who lose this. Immediately or not, it is lost to them, and they try to fill that box with whatever they can get their hands on, and although hope is inherent, it is closely guarded. The only things available, contempt and true, pure evil, are readily available and ready to fall into the unsuspecting hands of a half-whole child.

    The shrubs start to change color now. They shift slowly into a thick, blood red until there are just blocks and blocks of shrubs pigmented the color of the clotted mess that are only witnessed in lab experiments gone awry.

    The boy continued to run. The shrubs, hauntingly vivid, seem to glean off his poreless alabaster skin. He is afraid. His breathing is heavy and his heart beats quick and hard, like it’s a heinous beast trying so hard to break free of its reins. His body tingles all over like he was struck by lightening. His mouth is dry; his face, contorted into a look of distress and foreboding. He feels like he is on fire; but the only way to put out the fire is to run.

    He approaches the end of the maze now. He can feel the ground harden, as if no one had ever graced it with their trepid feet. He’s correct in his assumption.

    The shrubs have closed in and the path is narrow like his throat. A siren blares again, louder and closer. He’s almost there. There’s an electricity about him; he knows he’s almost finished his journey.

    He turns the last corner and is greeted by a grey, slate wall. The wall emanates frigid, somberness and is opposing in a sense that one cannot comprehend it’s purpose nor intent.

The boy can sense this and half-heartedly falls to his knees. He knows this is the end. He knows he has finished. He knows he is finished.

    But as the siren blares one more time, (louder, closer, more menacingly), he rises. He looks up towards the sky-- still grey but with a hint of blazing white sun-- and stands firm.

    Slowly, he begins to move his back muscles, until he can hear the quiet rustling of feathers.

    Uncertainly, a pair of feathered wings begin to unravel until they are free and all but dragging on the dirt. They are ashen and dove-like, but seem to have a shine all their own. He raises them, and looks towards the sky again. Slowly, he begins sweeping air under them and rustling them softly. It is slight, but momentous, as he begins to rise slowly, so slowly, until he is level with the head of the shrub.

    He pushes on until he is above the shrub and can now easily look about. Yet again, his face contorts into a mixture of distress and this time something more heavy handed: terror. He cannot fathom the world outside the maze, and his body begins to contort violently until he is all but upside down. And with this slip, he begins to plummet back towards the hard, sandy earth.  

    “Experiment 27 has, undoubtedly, failed.” retorts a white coated man who is scribbling furiously onto a notepad.

    A similarly draped man stands looking over the body of the boy. He adjusts his glasses and frowns slightly. “Yes, but he made it further than those before him.”

    The boy did not look like a boy anymore. His skin lazily slunk off his body revealing bright metallic appendages held together by simple nuts and bolts. A robotic looking eye with wires still attached to it lay adjacent to the boy. The feathers had been stripped from the wings and large patches of wire were now visible.

    The first man finishes scribbling on his notepad and slowly looks towards the other man. “Maybe someday we’ll get it right. Maybe someday we’ll find a way to get out of this city.”

    The second man removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think there’s enough time left. This dystopian nightmare may never end. In fact, I think our existence in it might end before it does.”

    The first man only sighs and pats the second on the back before walking out of the maze.