There was once a boy who was awoken every night by a terrifying nightmare. Endless hallways that led to nowhere and everywhere, chased relentlessly by a faceless monster that caught him in the fleeting moments before he’d jolt awake in a scream of absolute terror.
The demon that terrified his slumber seemed so alien yet so familiar and even years after the nightmares faded, he would swear he’d hear the footsteps behind him, hear the echoes of a sinister voice in the still of the twilight hours. A painful memory that pushed him forward into protecting the innocents of this world, to usher them free of the same monster that had taken part of his innocence away.
Yet this hero found himself lost within the seedy and broken labyrinths, trapped within the endless mazes of soulless creatures who knew them instinctively as he was forced to watch his failures, trapped behind convictions and restrictions that they did not have. All the while that same sinister voice echoed an uncomfortable truth he refused to acknowledge.
There was once a man who believed Arcadia held no secrets from him, that no matter how deep the halls or how winding the path he could traverse it with ease until his feet placed themselves on holy soil for his seeming final moments in this world. When he awoke, confused and lost for the first in his existence, the explorer finally felt that twinge of fear from the monster inside the maze even he couldn’t recognize.
A labyrinth of immortality, granted without permission or desire as a monstrous foe was the wall trying to undo his bindings. The explorer torn between the man he was and the so called destiny he needed to embrace, all the while a monster he could not escape breathed down his neck with each and every brutal demise.
See you and I are a lot alike Drewitt. Well a little, you’re still the craven coward I called you long ago and no shiny upgrade or fancy rejuvenation nectar changes that. No, the reason we’re similar is the monster that chases us in our self imposed maze. Most are the demons that haunt us, the things that ruined our lives, the evil that men do but you and I, we’ve been running from ourselves. The monster is simply the darkness in our souls we refused to acknowledge but the difference is, in our darkest moments, I embraced mine.
Deep in that pool, I finally understood the truth he was always speaking, how trapped I had made myself and allowed myself to be free. But you Drewitt? You can embrace your destiny, can call yourself War but you are still a man conflicted. Still a poor, pathetic explorer who longs for the peaceful past with his faithful pet. Still trapped inside the maze that constricts more and more each day.
Because unless you can follow my footsteps and let go of your past Drewitt, you’ll always be trapped inside a maze that even you could not escape from.