Labyrinth

Chapter IV

It had been slow-going and it felt like she had taken forever, but she knew now that she was in a room about the size of a cathedral- it was even cross-shaped with the occasional buttressed column. The thought of a cathedral had been solidified by her discovery of what felt like small stone pillars all around the edges that were about her chest height with firmly placed busts and stone carvings atop of them.

She would have paid good money to see right now. If she hadn't been in such an alarming situation, she would have loved to study all the carvings she knew she was surrounded by.

As her fingers had learned the carvings like a blind person learning a face, she had realised that they all seemed to be of people.

"I suppose that's normal," she said to herself, trying to calm the nervous tremor and dispel some of the silence. "If it was like a cathedral, all the icons would be of saints and holy people."

Not knowing what else to do, she studied the carvings, hoping that there would be some kind of clue involved.

All of the faces looked towards the large room but one. It was at the 'top' of the cross, as it were, where an altar would be if it were a church on Earth perhaps. It was a small carving, so she turned it around so that she could feel it.

Instantly, large vaulted windows appeared on the walls out of nowhere, each with extraordinarily beautiful mosiac-like patterns all over them, the bright fuchsia-pink sunlight from outside making them sparkle and shine like jewels.

The shock of sudden light made Hoshi fall into a crouch, her instincts making her into as small a form as she could be in case of enemies, but when none came, she stood up, the sheer beauty of the place making her stand still in speechlessness, gaping at all around her. The floor was stone and covered in dust as were the walls, but each were painted with some kind of luminescent paint to make it almost iridescent in the light coming through the windows. The same with all of the carvings that she had painstakingly examined.

The place was stunning, but now she had light, Hoshi could finally figure out a way of escaping this place and finding out where she was. The windows were too high to look out of so she looked around what she now thought of for sure as a cathedral, what with it's great archways and vaulted ceiling.

Her eyes fell again to the floor. The trapdoor that was in the floor was the only doorway.

She ran over to it. It was a different colour from everything else- it was a yellowy stone with a small ring.

She pulled at it, and it came away surprisingly well- it was deceivingly light.

Once it was open, she peered down the steps to the green light emanating from below. She was sure she could hear water moving like a fountain maybe, but nothing else.

She started down the steps.