The Maze
By Ellie
Sarah wasn't afraid of the rambling shrubbery; she didn't fear the dead-ends or the endless turns and the abrupt direction changes. It was daylight and she wasn't traversing it alone... She could hear her friends thumping and cursing behind green leaves as they all fought their way towards the center.
When Cara had told her house-warming guests that her grandmother's ancient maze held a prize for the first to reach it's center, everyone had become excited... Everyone but Sarah, who had reached the center of a maze once before, not to claim a prize, but a young child that she had foolishly wished away.
After a couple glasses of wine, her friends' enthusiasm caught up with her, until she was racing into the maze alongside everyone else.
Jason had been playfully chasing after her for a while, before a sudden turn in direction seemed to split them apart. Now Sarah was alone and determinedly seeking the path to the prize while listening to the giggles and taunting of her friends.
She smiled as she heard Tina cry out playfully for some "hedge clippers", turned sharply to the left, and found herself standing in the middle of a very neglected garden.
Roses crawled up rickety arbors, and plants and flowers grew alongside weeds that threatened to choke out their beauty. Sarah searched left and right for the "prize" before her eyes settled on an old stone bench, riddled with cracks and humbly beautiful regardless of them.
She walked towards it and stopped dead. Silence... There was nothing here but absolute silence. No laughing, or noises; nothing but the eerie whistling of a sudden wind that stirred the leaves and whipped her hair into her eyes.
Sitting on the bench was a perfect crystal. Sarah backed away in horror. What was this?! How could it be happening?!
A rich laugh sounded, and shivers crawled up Sarah's spine. Him.
She grasped the crystal and hurled it downwards, where it shattered into thousands of glass shards. The wind beat angrily on her back before whipping the crystal dust into a swirling cyclone of glitter and carrying it away.
She had been a fool to forget...
Mazes were his territory.
A/N) My challenge to Addie: Sarah is in a garden maze when strange things start to happen.... What's going on?!