Blood pumped pounded and roared its way through his pulsating brain, rearing its own hideous head as understanding dawned upon him at last. This vicious assault on his senses and sanity was merely a prelude for what was to come.
He refused it, closing his eyes and covering his ears to retreat into black so as to shut out the voices and sight.
As if. The insufferable scene of shifting walls wails and screams could never be stifled by mere will. Still he sees. Still he hears. The faces lay forever in flux, stitched and screaming together throughout their eternal night. They forgo all shields in their flesh coffins and so shall he in his prison. Let his weeping be your proof. See where lies get you while his senses face them naked as the day he was born.
His own screams joined the fray though he could hardly hear and tell through their torment. He crumpled to his knees as the pistol fell from his hands. It was a paltry thing now, symbolic of all his prior problems and prayers.
His eyes snapped open, rekindled and alight with that most unpredictable but welcome burning inside. To hell with prayers. Why not? He was already in it.
To the wayside went all thoughts of the mission. A cold callous resolve pitched his comrades off the cliff, both those that may still draw breath and those surrounding his every side at that very moment. He clenched his fists and moved on even from his family back on Earth, his kids, his little grandkids, and tasked himself solely with survival. He would escape the maze and never look back.
He looked up, and stared once more at the faces sewn together, the terrors bereft of bodies and stripped of will. He flinched as a head burst and another rose to take its place.
With shaky hands, he wiped slaughter off his eyes, recovered the pistol, and rose to his feet against the backdrop of creaking joints. Then, he looked around at the twisting walls of meat, for meat is what they were. If he was to put one foot forward after the other, it could be no other way.
He stared, ignoring the fear and anguish, internalizing only the hate, and reveled in his rage. Friends faded, bled into each other and took on a form in his mind no different from the fused walls of flesh they had taken on in truth. Names vanished one by one, destined to be dwelled upon no more.
He looked down to where those same pale yellow tendrils swayed in the absence of wind, those mindless things he had delivered to their deaths over and over again upon his arrival. Now, standing in this devil’s labyrinth, he wondered how mindless they really were, and if he and his people had actually killed anything at all.
Repressing the thought, he worked his way through the puzzle, shutting out the screams and stench as he stepped over the spongy surface.
In time he turned a corner, coming to a dead end that chilled him to the core. Here, one face stood out from its surrounding skins, directly level with his own head. Its eyes were closed, its mouth sewn shut. There it lay, silent and unbothered as its peers sobbed on, dwelling in infinite despair.
He inched closer, for details were hard to come by in the dismal dark. Wrinkles and spots were the name of the view, and so a creeping familiarity came over him.
The face flashed open its fear-stricken eyes for the briefest moment, then retreated once more to its place of darkness. The creeping familiarity fled as horror clawed its way in.
At the end of the maze was only him.
Blood pumped pounded and roared its way through his pulsating brain, rearing its own hideous head as understanding dawned upon him at last. This vicious assault on his senses and sanity was merely a prelude for what was to come, one small step on a staircase spiraling down to the depths of a hand-crafted hell. Yes, a boundless death that betrayed its very law and definition.