Flux

could not.
    The door was locked this time; taking the key from his pocket, he slid it into the lock. The key turned much easier than he’d expected, unlocking the mechanism with a soft clunk. Iain pulled the door and again it let go a terrifyingly loud screech as the rusted and worn hinges grated against each other. Before stepping out of the door, Iain marked a small x on the paper; the very beginning of his map.
    The man in the first cell now appeared to be dead; the leg below the knee gnawed down to bone. Oddly, the foot remained intact, giving it a grotesque, oversized look. The toes were swelled and purple black in colour. His eyes slid open, faintly alive and brimming with anguish, jaw flapping, trying to form words but only emitting silence. Iain moved on rather than look at the figure for any longer than he had to.
    Before long, he reached the first junction of passages, and Iain marked it on the map, drawing a line to represent where he’d been. He also marked the cell where the rat eaten man lay and did the same for all the other occupied cells he passed. Wondering which path to take he stood quietly in the shadows, listening. This time he opted to follow where the faint cries of the baby came from, rather than the screams, sensing that if he were ever to escape, that’s where the answers were.
    On and on he walked, not passing another living being apart from groaning, shackled wretches; each surrounded by their own misery. The walls of the labyrinth seemed to go on for miles and at every turn, Iain put a mark on his little, crumpled piece of paper. Often, he’d walk along a passage only to find it a dead end. These he also marked until he had in front of him a page full of lines, squiggles and little crosses; he knew what they all meant.
    All the while he walked, the child’s cries got louder, spurring Iain on, knowing he was heading in the right direction until eventually he turned a corner, identical to hundreds already negotiated, and the dim, flickering torchlight became amplified by a still unseen but much brighter source casting out an ambient glow into the murk.
    There were fresh noises also, chatter coming from up ahead, still too dim and distant to pick out individual words, but it sounded like a gathering of many people. He made his way further forward, on his guard now more than ever, slowly creeping.
    Concentrating on the distant voices, Iain didn’t notice the scraping of feet on slabs and dirt until rounding a corner and seeing the figure moving slowly along the corridor towards him, a silhouette in the torchlight. He froze; surely the figure had seen him as he had it? There was something vaguely familiar about the person and it took a while to figure out what that was until hearing a dry, hoarse croak; “Help me.” It sounded feeble, pathetic.
    “Gary! I thought you were…” he almost cried, rushing towards the figure only to pull up short when he saw the features of his friend, looking exactly the same as he had when Iain last saw him, apart from the fact he was now reunited with his head; blackened and bloated, large swathes of flesh missing and much of the rest flaking off in putrid lumps.
    Like a B movie zombie, Gary lurched forwards, “help me,” he croaked again. In the moment of panic, Iain found himself incapable of rational thought; all he wanted to do was rest his hand against the cold wall and vomit. Instead he turned and ran.
    At the first junction of passageways Iain stood beneath a sconce in the wall and unfolded his crude map with trembling hands. Thankful he’d been accurate in his scribbles, he managed to find his way directly back to his cell without incident, pausing frequently along the way to peer at the paper under flickering torchlight. He locked the door securely behind himself, more to keep anything else out, rather than himself in.

    “Iain, help me. Why won’t you help me Iain? I thought you were my friend. Make the pain stop Iain. You did this to me.” Gary had been outside the door for hours now, constantly begging, constantly pleading. A powerful concoction of guilt and fear prevented Iain from answering. Instead he lay flat, pressing himself into damp straw with his hands covering his ears, trying to block out the helpless pleas, and whimpering softly.
    He’s not real.
    How do you know that?
    Because it’s impossible. Dead men can’t walk and talk.
    I don’t know what is possible and what isn’t anymore!

    Eventually, but Iain couldn’t