Chapter4

I tried to keep quiet as the sound of our footsteps echoed in the long hall of the labyrinth. GG and I walked along a cobblestone path painted like an endless mural. At first I thought it was just constellations, white lines connecting points against a dark blue backdrop, but as we walked the patterns shifted. I watched the stars in the mural cascade and fall through the expanse of deep blue until they converged in the shape of a dancing girl, eyes closed and smiling, caught somewhere in a dream.

“Someone’s having fun…” I muttered quietly.

GG didn’t say much as he walked next to me. Actually, I wondered if he could talk, but even if not that was fine. Having company by itself was nice.

“Gonna be tricky to map out the Locale if this place runs on dream logic…” I sighed.

“Is that one of your outlander measurements?”

“What the f-...? GG?” I said, turning in the direction of the sudden voice.

The pale boy shook his head, but the voice persisted. In fact, it sounded like it was coming from his hat.

“Gargantua isn’t equipped with such functions, but I am able to share my voice via our connection.” Wallace said as GG’s mouth remained completely still. “You were saying something about Locale?”

“Oh, yeah…” I said, head titled upwards to see the sky beyond the walls since there was no ceiling in the labyrinth. “My colleagues try to measure the distance a space is from our world, how easy it is to capture images of the space, and how hospitable it is to outsiders.”

“I would assume the first two are things you measure with particular equipment, but what of the latter? How do you ascertain the hospitality of a space?” Wallace asked.

“By checking for shit like this…”

Our path forked, ending in two separate roads. On our left was a wooden bridge over what sounded like running water. To our right was the mouth of a cave. Sighing, I reached into the bag on GG’s back and pulled out an oil lantern.

“Hold this for me, will you?” I asked as GG reached out with one of his several free hands, nodding compliantly. “Best to stay away from water. Don’t wanna chance running into my Namesake in a place like this…”

We walked quietly into the cave, another wind passing by us with the sound of a hushing whisper. As the sky vanished behind the ceiling of the cave, the lantern’s light was reflected off of violet crystals growing in flower patterns along the cave walls. Small lizards scuttled around as we approached, but nothing lingered long enough to look back as I found myself trying to drink in my surroundings.

“Why’d you ask about measurements? Did you get tired of walking in silence?” I asked.

“I prefer peace and quiet, but per my connection with Gargantua, I can gather sensory information that he relays back to me.” Wallace explained. “It appeared he sensed some anxiety from you.”

I looked down to see the pale doll boy looking up at me curiously from beneath the brim of his little brown hat. Two of his hands were dutifully holding onto the straps of my backpack, while a third hand held onto the lantern. His final free hand was quietly extended to me, and with a sigh of defeat, I took it.

“I thought DD running off was my fault at first…I thought a lot of things in our partnership were my fault.” I started eventually. “The more time I had to sit and think about it, the more I began to wonder if any of it ever actually had anything to do with me. There’s a chance we just happened to get lost in the same direction.”

Part of me wished Wallace would say something or that GG would magically gain a voice, but a dam had cracked, and things had begun spilling out to fill the empty air.

“I actually waited a little bit before telling anyone I’d found where he went. Thought maybe it was just a stunt and he’d turn up somewhere.” I gripped my walking stick hard in my other hand, not wanting to squeeze GG when he was just trying to help. “Cause what if…what if he figured something out? What if I’m the only one that’s still lost…?”

I pictured myself wandering these halls alone in search of nothing but a place to be. In my head, the only sound accompanying my lonely footsteps are their echoes bouncing back from the walls. There is no destination, no end, not even a monster to make a fable out of me. In the end, all that’s left of me is-

“Stop.”

I blinked back to reality, a stinging moisture threatening the corners of my eyes. Stop that.

“Sorry…” I said, dabbing at my face with my sleeve. “Got a little heavy there.”

“Not that. Look around you, outlander. What do you see?”

I hadn’t known Wallace for very long, but there was an unmistakable tinge of alarm in his voice. That, coupled with the fact that GG had gone very still all of a sudden yanked me out of whatever head fog had gripped me just then, and into a very concerning scene.

We stood in a room filled with the sound of flowing waters. I hadn’t even realized we’d exited the cave, and now the cave floor had been replaced with smooth, even marble tiles. All around us were towering identical statues, each one depicting a girl curled up with her head in her knees. Each statue had water running down their faces, presumably from the eyes, pooling at the edges of a room that felt both massive and claustrophobic at the same time.

“Where the hell…?!” I started looking frantically, gripping both my walking stick and GG’s hand far tighter than I had before.

“What do you see, KK?!” Wallace demanded.

“Uh, statues! A bunch of big crying girl statues! Are they the dreamer?!” I said, my voice rising in sudden panic.

“It’s not impossible. This is a place that exists between dreams, reflects dreams, and is guided by dreams.” he said.

“Meaning…?”

“You’ve been guided. By what, I cannot name, but it is first and foremost a dream. Rather, a feeling both within you and without.” Wallace said, as a horrible sound began to fill my ears.

Stone ground against stone, the coarse scraping echoing in the room as one by one, the statues began moving. Slowly, they rose from their anguished crouched positions and began crawling towards us on their hands and knees. Their clamorous pace cracked the tiles beneath their stone palms, and as they drew closer I could see they lacked any defined facial features save for two hollow eye sockets pouring water onto the ground.

I pulled GG and tried to make a run for it, but we were surrounded from the moment we walked in the room. The fact that the statues got up to move only meant that the walls were now literally closing in on us. My foot tapped against water seeping into cracked tiles as shadows looming over brought a fear into my heart like a single massive hand could reach over the wall and darken the entire sky above us.

“Rise and protect, Gargantua!”

GG let go of my hand and quickly stood in front of me. I watched as the pale boy quickly removed my backpack from his shoulders as all four of his arms began to swell in size. His body changed rapidly, surging and growing until he dwarfed even the statues. The brown little hat had fallen off his face leaving his face cast in shadow from the hair that grew wild in his new transformation.

Grinding stone resounded as the weeping statues raised their heads, but it was too late. GG swatted them aside one by one with his four arms, leaving only sprays of water and shattered stone in his wake. This should have made me feel pretty safe, if not a little shocked, but there was one small problem.

“GG, wait…!”

The floor was still cracking.

As GG battered aside our new assailants, the floor tiles continued to crack and buckle beneath us, water from the floor seeping down into somewhere beneath us. I watched GG pause at my words for only a second, when I heard it. One long hush, infinitely louder and longer than the others before it, swept across the room with a massive tide of water. I could see GG reaching out, his body shrinking while his limbs remained longer to reach me, but it was too late.

The tips of my fingers only barely brushed against his before I was swept below.