A girl goes missing while on a camping trip to one of The United States National Parks with a group of others. A search and rescue team is deployed in an attempt to locate the missing girl, but what was found instead was something of far greater con...
The man had not at any point in his life considered what sound his blood might produce while flowing through his veins, yet, as he stood somewhere far inside the black passageway, this knowledge had been gifted to him. The ambiance of the forest had long faded from his reach, and the rustling maples and singing robins had been traded for a frozen silence so true, his every move seemed to produce cannon fire.
His first examination of the black door had led him to believe that, while odd to be constructed in a forest, was nothing to be concerned about. He had known from the description the SAR officer had given what the doorway would reveal. Walking full circle around the door confirmed there wasn't any structure to which the doorway should lead. Still, opening the door revealed the black passageway, which seemed to overlap with reality. Nothing prepared the man for the oblivion within.
The discovery that the hallway was much less a hallway and more a labyrinth had come long before the last of the food had gone. The path which extended from the other side of the door had quickly began to fork. Branching either to the right or left, the paths continued unrelenting. The man's wristwatch had proven to be an unreliable tool, since it neither told the appropriate time nor told any time at all, but instead, remained constant at the exact time of his departure from the forest. However, the man was told his food supplies were planned to last three days. He estimated it had been at least three more since the last strip of dried jerky had gone down. He had given up his attempt to map out the labyrinth, deciding such a feat was impossible. He was instructed to use the spool of neon string in his pack to highlight his path back to the doorway. It wasn't until two days into his journey that he realized his spool seemed to contain no less string than when he started, and that attempting to trace the string backwards would lead him on a short detour back to the very position he had just vacated.
The labyrinth seemed, to the man, a borderless infinity full of contradictions. Paths intersected each other, leading in every direction. He learned that following one path meant completely abandoning the unchosen paths behind him. Any attempt to travel in the direction from which he came would simply take him to a new location. At one point he came across a staircase cut into the floor of his path, which led downwards at what he guessed was a forty-five-degree angle. Wondering what lie below, his curiosity told him to take the steps. It wasn't until he reached the end of the staircase that he realized he had at some point transitioned to walking upwards. Turning around to see a staircase leading back downwards confirmed this. Dazed, he moved on.
Despite being trapped in complete darkness with nothing but a flashlight and no reasonable way to comprehend his environment, the man felt no sense of fatigue. In fact, he was not tired at all, nor was he hungry. The man felt no need to stop for any reason, not even to change a depleted battery in his video camera, which had been recording for six days without ever exceeding its storage capacity. Nothing impeded his travel. He felt a sense of invitation from the blackness which surrounded him. He accepted this invitation, wrapping himself in the comfort of darkness. Now, this was his existence. This was his new identity. The man. The abyss walker.
With every reality bending phenomenon he discovered, the man grew more comfortable. Here, in this labyrinth, nothing was as it should be. Yet, he saw an order in the chaos. An order that, in consistently subverting his expectations, always met his expectation. The man no longer cared for where he had just been, nor where he will be. He recognized the labyrinth's constant change as a constant itself, therefore feeling a sense of complete stillness. The labyrinth had never given the man even the slightest indication of relenting its infinite blackness. That is, until the man discovered a video camera lying on the floor of his path, which shook him more vigorously than any discovery he had yet made.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
