Chapter Six: A little bit further and to the right
Why not, Dean thought, I haven't done anything right so far.
He took a deep breath and marched towards the right corridor. The laughter was echoing all around him. Maybe, he considered, it was in his head. Mad men so often thought they were sane, that Dean wondered if he had been fooling himself all this time. No one else in their right mind would have jumped into this maze. But then, no one had his job.
He tried his best to ignore the moss on the wall. If he stared too at the green slimy stuff too long it would move. I'm just tired, he told himself. Just seeing things is all. Still, he could hear the hissing of slow movements. It was nearly inaudible. Dean's jaw began to ache, and he realized he had clamped his teeth together a while back. He let some of the tension out of his body, if only to release some on the pain from tense muscles.
Without warning, the laughter stopped. The absence of the overwhelming noise allowed him to hear other details he had missed. There were footsteps coming around the corner. Dean raised his gun.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Sam had grown accustomed to playing with the spool in his hand. Just holding it felt like he wasn't alone. He wondered how many people had passed through these hallways. He walked slowly. Instead of trying to outrun thing he was now taking every precaution he could. Sam hoped Dean would enter the maze soon. The thunk he had heard had caught him off guard, but not so much that he lost his wits.
It was when the laughter started up again that his pulse jumped. When the Minotaur laughed, nothing was safe. Sam picked up his pace, eager to put a distance between himself and that awful noise. He didn't think he'd ever get used to it.
When it finally ended, Sam could focus again on the things around him. There were footsteps he hadn't heard before. They were getting close. He could hear the soft padding nearing him. How did Minotaurs walk? Whatever it was, it was getting close. Too close for comfort.
Sam flattened his back against the wall and waited.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Dean turned the corner warily. A flash of movement caught him off guard, and then he was being hit. The first blow landed right on his eye, blinding him. The second on his torso. Without thinking, he squeezed the trigger. The loud noise threw him back a little. He couldn't believe one shot had taken down the Minotaur. Then Dean looked down.
Sam had jumped at whatever had moved around the corner, hitting violently. First in the eye, just as Dean had shown him in sparring practice. Then in the chest ("To knock the breath out of them." Dean had explained.) He hesitated though- no Minotaur was this human. He made the realization just as the bullet hit him. The copper shell tore through his lung stayed there. Sam fell back coughing blood. He looked up at Dean and tried to find words.
Dean swore violently then as he made the same realization. He dropped down to Sam's side and took off his coat to wrap some in it. There was nothing Dean could do except get Sam out of there. The ground started to shake as heard heavy footsteps coming his way.
The spool in Sam's hand had fallen from his fingertips.
"It's gonna be okay," Dean said holding Sam to him.
"Make it out of here…" Sam gargled the words. His breathing was too labored to continue.
The golden thread was moving on the ground, in fear and worry it twisted. It stilled itself to write out:
If only, if only, you had asked the right questions.
The end.
Wow… I have made some bad choices in my life… But you….Wow. You owe Dean a hug. Oh, and here's a pamphlet on gun safety.