They say when you hear the cackle you're mad, and you can't escape it. You may run and you may hide, but sooner or later insanity will come calling, like the beast from within the depths of the labyrinth always searching for its prey. And when it comes, which it will, you are lost.
Max awoke, the throbbing in his head pulling him out of his nightmares. The world swam before him, a blur of indistinguishable colours, forming menacingly and taunting his semi conscious mind. He heaved himself up on the metal meshing which surrounded him but an excruciating wave of pain immediately soared through his body radiating through his knee caps, forcing him to the ground. What time it was, he didn't know, but the yellowish fog which was associated with noon had set in, its menacing advance cloaking all but a few meters away. It reminded him of night; how it was not the dark you feared but what lurked within it. Packs of the dungeon vultures lay concealed within that fog and although Max could not see them he knew they were watching him, scrutinising his fragility, perhaps ready to pounce.
He began to make his way through the warren of footpaths, the prison before him a metal jungle which spread for miles. A city composed from the carcasses of abandoned shelters and makeshift tin fortresses. An eerie silence filled the air, broken only by the shuffling of hidden forms hiding in the depths. There was no real light here either, only a greenish tinge given off by the tunnels which were the life support for these dungeons, the umbilical chord of this festering abyss. Once a day, one of the great mouths would open giving out morsels of food for its ravenous inhabitants, but over the months the portions had become less and less and its emaciated residents hungrier and hungrier. He continued on his path, cautious of where he stepped; faeces and other mistrustful substances littered the floor, leaving a stench which was forever potent in the toxic air. Once in a while he would stumble over a body strewn across a path, stripped of its earthly possessions. Max hated the dead, the way their cold minds intermingled with the turmoil of his own thoughts, and how their unflinching hollow eyes were forever following him. He felt guilt. He was not responsible for their deaths; this was a dog-eat-dog world and they had lost the fight.
With a heavy sigh he recognised his position. He was near the south wall of the prison, the air lighter, and the smell not so wretched. The damp coated the walls like a colossal green carpet, claw marks imprinted on it from ravenous residents searching for some form of nourishment. His camp lay concealed a few hundred metres away from this point; an easy journey from here, he was glad of that. The stench which surrounded him was driving his headache to a state of acute agony and he needed to rest.
His shelter was at one of the peaks of the prison, the architecture a scaffolding of perilous poles and disposed-of tins high above all the rest. From here the world below seemed more picturesque; a forgery of the city he had once lived in before this had all began. As a child he had followed his mother around the meandering streets of the vast city, living on doorstep to doorstep, free from all but the hunger of their own stomachs. But the hunger had its price and the great city had fallen to starvation, the gypsies and urchins the ones who had fallen hardest, persecuted, herded and sentenced to live in the depths. They were all trapped here like birds in a cage, living in the vast coffin they had built for themselves.
He reached his residence, hidden behind a camouflage of moss-covered netting. Once in he surveyed his injuries in the reflection of a metal plaque. His right eye was bulbous and congealed blood scabbed and crusted the corners, but he was grateful the eye itself was intact. Dark bruising had spread out like ink across the right side of his face. Its swollen form seemed at a contrast to the shallowness and emaciation of his left. A large gash split his forehead, probably from the boot of his attacker. The bleeding had stopped but the scar would remain, the lesson he had learnt for his naivety imprinted eternally on his skin.