Pathways in the Dark

The room, if you can call it that, for it was enormous, easily the largest single chamber I’d seen down here in the dark, was a nightmare landscape of chaos. I had to shake my head and blink my eyes several times to try to rid myself of the vertigo it induced just looking at it.

Ahead of me were three diverging pathways, each launching in separate directions, and that was where all logic and sense disappeared. Each pathway quickly twisted, turned, and contorted, weaving in and out of each other in a Gordian knot that was impossible to follow by observation alone. I had the sense that this was a place navigated more by gut and instinct than by reason and rationality.

Somewhere beyond I heard your laugh again. Whatever this place might be, it seemed clear to me that you found no fear in it. Perhaps you had been here before. Perhaps not. You never did seem to be bothered by the unknown or the unexpected, a talent I always envied in you.

I took a deep breath, chose a path at random, and set off after you.