Once upon a time, a darkness engulfed our... oh. Wait. This is chapter 8. I should have already said all this stuff.
Neil was now through the gate of Dracula's castle, and he had his task cut out for him. He'd have to wander the countryside within the castle grounds until he could find the castle itself. Even though it was that big huge thing up in the distance, the one at the end of an imaginary straight line starting at his feet, Neil wasn't sure he was up to this. There would probably be shiny things, or tasty things, off in various directions that weren't forward, and when he went in those directions for those things, it would be the beginning of the end.
Anyway, he wandered until he reached a hedge maze. "Whoo! Mazes! I'm really bad at these!" he cheered, running straight into the opening of the maze with his arms raised above his head.
About ten seconds later, he came running back out, letting out another "Whoo!" followed by "I did the maze!"
Neil kept going, although he was really just going back the way he came. Before long, he reached something which sent a ripple of fear through his frozen body. "My god... it's..."
The stairs, with the platform, and the two candles, only he was coming from the opposite way this time.
"It's a BACKWARDS DEATH TRAP!" he yowled, clutching the sides of his head. "Oh no, oh no, what do I do... this time I can't even take the stairs unless I go through first... unless..."
Brilliantly, Neil walked up to the platform and jumped at it. He couldn't get high enough to get on, of course, and any attempt to grab onto the edge lasted so shortly and accomplished so little that it did not even warrant a graphical representation.
"Bollocks!" Neil spouted, pacing back and forth in dismay. "Dracula's a smart guy, after all. I can't just try the same thing I did last time and go around. Surely he'll have some insidious, bearlike weapon that will steal my packed lunch and talk like that goofy guy from The Honeymooners. The second I go around, BAM. Hanna Barbara will be a household name."
Distressed, Neil knew he would need help. Maybe a better plan, maybe more equipment, maybe some sort of White Crystal he could buy in town, or maybe a friend who could figure this out for him, even though he was pretty sure he was smarter than most of his friends, and he was also kind of sure he didn't have any friends, which, if true, would strongly strengthen the first theory.
"That's it! I'll go back! After all, it's only the untimely ushering-in of unearthly horrors and doom! What's a few days or weeks or however bloody long it takes me to go however far back it takes to find some meager solution to this insurmountable blockade of wile and cunnery."
Neil's subconscious, realizing the dangerously proper wording coming out of his mouth, pulled a quick save and threw in cunnery instead of cunning. His subconscious then laughed, because cunnery sounds kind of like Connery, and it loves those Celebrity Jeopardy things on Saturday Night Live, but that was before the show sucked, had no more talent left, and had lousy scripts and hideous gag delivery. Neil's subconscious made a note at that moment... kill Jimmy Fallon. Kill him dead.
"I feel like killing Jilly Fammon... I mean... I have to go," Neil told himself, turning from the platform of doom and trekking back to town. He'd have to get through the hedgemaze backwards, but considering how easy and coincidentally forgotten his first trip through it was, this time was guaranteed to be easier, if not harder. Or something.
Reaching the alleged exit of the hedgemaze, Neil walked in and took a left. He took a right after that, figuring, what the hell, why not take a right. He found out why to not take a right, because now he was at a dead end. "Curses!" he complained. "Now I can't take a left OR a right!"
The idiot hero backtracked out of that path and soon found himself further into the maze, hearing the sounds of distant monsters he was probably supposed to fight later on if he ever got far enough. But now he was stuck yet again, for what seemed like the second, or maybe the eleventy millionth time.
"How will I ever find the exit? Wait! I know! Greek mythology, the thread that leads to the exit of the labyrinth! All I have to do is wait for history to repeat itself in a different spot, so that the Greek nations rebuild themselves and their folkloric events will reenact at this very place, the labyrinth quite coincidentally overlapping the hedgemaze, and the thread being strung along so that I too may escape! ...That could take awhile, though. Plus I would have to deal with the Minotaur."
A brief song:
On my way now,
Going through the maze!
Don't really know how,
Everything's a haze,
but I'm running really hard
doing my best
I got hope in my fingers
and hair on my chest!
I'm gonna make it!
make it!
make it through the maze!
-Make It Through the Maze, (C) 2005 Neil M. Belmont, Recorded in Kreskin Studios
Neil was indeed making it through the maze, or at least, he got a few steps farther than he was when he wrote that song and then performed it it live in concert at Madison Square Hedgemaze with his band The Rickshaws. It was the launch of what would be a successful but short and tragic career, when one of the members of The Rickshaws, Terrence the Small Patch of Dirt Slightly Discolored from the Dirt Immediately Around It, killed itself one hot summer night outside of its apartment in Central Hedgemaze.
"I don't know why Terrence would do it, even to this day," Neil remarked on the E! True Hollywood Story: The Rickshaws documentary, all while staring at the ground where Terrence, the inanimate cluster of dirt that he was, was still there, no more dead or alive than he'd been before this entire bizarre narration had started. "It's like... people would go out on the street and say, 'Terrence the Small Patch of Dirt Slightly Discolored from the Dirt Immediately Around It just bit... himself! You know? I mean, he was a sex symbol, he was a renegade, a hero, and he was what was holding us together, and yet he was pushed so far and he resorted to this solution."
Just then, something bursted through the hedges, a loud buzzing, rattling sound piercing his ears. It was some sort of big stalker masked murderer sort with a chainsaw. He approached Neil menacingly, the deadly impliment held over his head. He slowed as he noticed Neil completely ignoring him. Finally he reached the side of Neil, the noise buzzing right into the Belmont's ears.
"Terrence was... and this is how I would see it, anyway. Terrence was sort of like a Christ figure. Not so much similar to Christ, by any means, but in the aspect of them both being figures, I would say he had the figure element of a Christ figure, perhaps as much as Christ himself, who is THE Christ figure. You know?"
How Neil couldn't notice the inaudibility of his own voice against the defeaning chainsaw throttle was a question for the ages. But, in a mix of frustration and curiosity, the chainsaw maniac lowered his grinding, spinning blade and let it ease into Neil's shoulder.
"OW HELL!" Neil yelled, falling to the ground, blood flying, a wound in his shoulder.
Looking down at what he had done, the maniac was perplexed, losing interest and simply walking away from the downed man.
"OW HELL!" Neil yelled again, still on the floor. "Terrence... ungh... help meee..."
He blacked out for awhile, his blood staining the earth around him as well as his clothes. He woke up in the middle of the day, his eyes prying open as the hot sun shined through his lids. "Mm... Huh? Where am I... The Maze!"
He sat up, dusting himself off. He found he couldn't move his left art, which was really hurting a lot, mostly in his shoulder. He also noticed the festering wound, and an overall dizziness from blood loss.
"I need to get back through this maze and fast!" he said, hopping to his feet and continuing his quest. He left a trail of blood in his wake, and after a few hours, the whole maze was pretty much hit by the blood except for a few paths.
"Hey! It's like the red string only much more painful and trial-and-error themed! I just have to follow the trail of my blood and I'll find the way out!"
And so, with that, he followed it, taking him exactly where he'd been, which led him to the spot where he'd woken up injured. "Yes! I'm back to where I started! Now, why did I need to get here again? Oh! That's right! To get back out of the castle so I can figure out the stair puzzle!"
With that realization he somehow immediately walked through the maze and came out on the other side. Despite his belief, he was now closer to Dracula's lair, not farther, though it really didn't matter at all.
"...Hey, where'd the first stair puzzle go? ...It's GONE! It must never have really been a stair puzzle... it was the GHOST of a stair puzzle!"
A sound came from behind, and Neil turned to see the maniac again, ready for more it would seem. The man came closer, with his saw ready to tear apart more pieces of meat.
"Damn! Isn't there anything to do against this guy? Isn't there some kind of tool I could use to do to him the same kind of... not feeling as good, as he does to me with his own tool?"
He patted his sword as he thought. "Ah, damn. I'm screwed."