Only the Worthy

For this story, I used the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur as a jumping off point. If you’d like, you can get a good feel of the original myth here or read a truncated version of the myth here.

He stared at the ruins of his life’s work. The chips and the cracks, the water stains, the wild, unkempt vines crawling up the sides; this was what his dreams, his goals, his purpose amounted to in this life.

Dix stepped closer to the wall and pressed his hand against it. Sturdy. They may not be the best groundskeepers, he thought, but those people knew how to build, he would give them that. He pulled at the vines, revealing fading graffiti beneath. Someone or something called “Kra-Z” had clearly been here. Chris and Monica would be “2-gether 4-ever.” Someone felt the need to simply write, “FUCK” – it was unclear to him if that was a statement or a demand. He looked down the length of the wall to his right. It curved and disappeared into the horizon, practically every inch of it covered in a mixture of vines, moss, and fading paint. He lightly shrugged. It was about what he expected.

He turned to his left and followed the wall with his eyes as it extended seemingly forever, disappearing in the moonlight. He touched his hand to the wall as he slowly walked by its side, running his hand along its cold stone surface, until he came upon an opening.

This was it: the doorway into his life’s work. The floor was littered with empty bottles and crushed cans, like sacrifices left in a drunken stupor. Skulls and crossbones were crudely drawn on either side of the doorway. A scribbled note above read, “Only the worthy shall escape.” He chuckled. Whatever keeps people interested, he thought.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He could feel a migraine coming on, but he had to do this. He’d waited 21 years since this was finally finished and opened to the public. For 21 years he had stayed away. And it would have been even longer were it not for that note he received in the mail a week ago.

Dix had returned home from walking his dog when he noticed something sticking out under his doormat. He opened his front door and unleashed his dog, leaving her to run inside freely, barking loudly as she ran from room to room. He pulled the white envelope out from beneath the welcome mat, confused. It was a plain white envelope with his name and address handwritten in black ink. No return address. Not even a stamp. Whoever wrote it had delivered it by hand, and fairly recently at that. He had only been gone for 15 minutes. On the back of the envelope was a small symbol that looked like a crescent moon, like God’s fingernail as he pointed down at the earth in accusation. He remembered seeing that symbol once before in a very specific place and quickly tore open the envelope right there on his doorstep. And the world began to spin.

Dix pulled the now well-worn note out of his coat pocket and re-examined it in the moonlight, his hand slightly shaking. Filling the entire page was the exact layout of the labyrinth he had designed and created, the labyrinth he now stood before. He knew that layout better than he knew his friends, his lovers, even himself. Every inch, every corner, every turn was his life. And here it was, a labyrinth designed to take days, perhaps months, possibly even years to navigate with no aid, hand-drawn on a single sheet of paper precisely to scale. And right in the center was a single word: “Come.”

A dull pain began to throb behind his eyes. He quickly folded the note and stuffed it into his pocket, pulling out two white pills in its place. He threw them in his mouth and swallowed them dry, grimacing at the bitterness. It would help with the nausea, at least.

He sighed and looked around. There was no one around for miles. No buildings, no lights, not even any paved roads. The only way to get to the labyrinth was by following a series of dirt trails for two hours. It was truly isolated. Only the bored and determined made it all the way out here. A chill ran down his spine as he turned back to the doorway.

The dark opening stared at him. He stared back, his heart beginning to race. Something about this seemed off. It shouldn’t. He knew the labyrinth better than anyone. He could probably walk straight to the center and back with his eyes closed if he wanted to prove that point. But still, he hesitated. His head dully throbbed as he stood in front of the gaping maw of his own creation and he massaged his temples. He shifted his gaze to the ground and studied the bottles at the base of the doorway. Vodka, tequila, whiskey; all of them were empty and all of them were cheap. And then he noticed, buried amongst the glass carcasses, a metal rod standing straight up amongst them.

He ran to his car and returned with a sewing kit in hand. He lightly kicked the bottles out of the way, careful not to break any glass, and grabbed the rod. It was buried deep in the earth, but he yanked it as hard as he could. It didn’t budge. Satisfied, he pulled out a spool of thread and tied one end to the rod. It was comforting. It wouldn’t be long enough to reach the center of the labyrinth, he knew, but he had extras. Tie them end-to-end and he would have more than enough. Besides, he knew the shortest route.

As he started to his feet, a smudge at the base of the door caught his eye. At least, it looked like a smudge. His brain tried to tell him that it was probably just graffiti or some sort of disgusting stain left by human excrement; it had to be. But it was too hidden to be a mistake. He rubbed his hand on the floor, clearing it of dust and debris. It wasn’t a smudge. It wasn’t a stain. It wasn’t even graffiti. It was the same crescent moon symbol from his letter.

Well, at least he knew they were here. Whatever that meant.

He got to his feet and took a deep a breath. Thread in hand, he took a step and broke the threshold.

The halls and corridors were covered with the long forgotten remains of late night raves and parties. Plastic cups, glow sticks, beads, and broken sunglasses adorned the floors; chunks of dried food and vomit painted the walls; he thought he even noticed a ratty banana costume scrunched up in a corner. But he didn’t care about any of it. As bittersweet as he knew this should be, he was simply amazed; this existed. It was built. Every turn, every corner, every angle, not a single detail was overlooked. This was his labyrinth. The one thing that concerned him was the height. He had always imagined the walls to be ten feet high at most: tall enough to conceal, but not enough to be intimidating. These walls, however, were 15, maybe 20 feet high. They were menacing, no doubt towering over the average person. These walls were not just built to create a sense of claustrophobia, these were meant to hide something.

He kept the thread firmly in hand as he slipped through the corridors. There were painted signs around every turn goading people in the wrong direction or trying to frighten them into leaving. Notes like “Lost yet?” and “Don’t look behind you” were crudely painted in peeling crimson. He ignored them. He absentmindedly took the path he knew was correct: always forward, never left or right (unless you reach a fork in the path. In which case, always right). It was a detail he had taken from the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In fact, this whole thing was an idea because of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Dix had always enjoyed puzzles when he was a child. Word games, memory games, number games; if it involved a little bit of brainpower, he would do it. But if he ever had a choice, he would always choose a maze. He liked the solitude and the isolation mazes implied. He loved the feeling of triumph and pride he got from solving a particularly difficult maze. But most importantly, there was order in the twists and turns. Where life was a mess of random events that would jettison people in a smattering of different directions, mazes made sense. They not only had a fixed endpoint, but there was only ever a single, unbreakable path to get there. They were comforting. As he got older, he would look for patterns in the designs, rules that governed even the most complex layout. For days, he would draw his own mazes and hand them out to his classmates, suitably satisfied with how long it would take them to make it through.

By the time he was introduced to Greek mythology and Theseus and the Minotaur, the walls of his room were already plastered with mazes of his own design. But when he read of Daedalus the architect’s creation, of a labyrinth so sprawling that one could literally die trying to find their way out, his path became clear. He was going to design and create a labyrinth so complex that it would take days, maybe even weeks, months, years, even, to navigate. This was his purpose.

Immediately he set to work, drafting and scribbling and erasing. Everything had to be exact and perfect and to very detailed specifications. He couldn’t overlook a single corner. He closed himself off. He stopped talking to people. His grades faltered. His family and friends grew worried and tried to help, but he simply grew angry and violent. And word quickly spread around town: Dix was losing his mind. He didn’t care what they thought. What he was doing was something great, something beautiful. This wasn’t just a maze he was creating, it was a landmark, a monument, a human creation so significant that it would be mentioned in textbooks and TV shows alongside other great feats like the Leaning Tower, the Coliseum, and Stonehenge. He was making history.

Finally, years later, he was done. He was living in a crummy apartment the size of his parents’ broom closet, his family and friends had abandoned him, and he had almost no money to his name, but it was complete. The labyrinth finally existed. Now the only obstacle left was to get it built.

He shopped the design around to every company he could imagine. Artists, corporations, freelancers, no one was off limits. But none of them quite understood. He got some bites, even a couple companies that were willing to offer lots of money if he would design rides and attractions for them, but nobody wanted to build his labyrinth exactly the way it was. Family friendly versions, sure, but no one was thinking as big as he was.

Defeated, exhausted, and dirt poor, he had to give up. Maybe the world just wasn’t ready. Maybe it never would be. And then he got a call.

“Hello?”

“Yes, my name is Delilah, I work with the Minos Corporation. I’m calling to potentially set up an appointment to discuss your work.”

His eyes lit up. “You mean my labyrinth?”

“Yes, exactly. When are you free?”

“I mean, my schedule is completely open. Whenever is best for you, I guess.” He scratched his head. “Who did you say you work for?”

“Well, you see, our CEO is actually right around the corner of your home and would like to meet as soon as possible.”

“You mean right now?!” His eyes darted from his overflowing trashcan, to his pile of dirty dishes, to a mound of unwashed laundry. “Can’t it –“

“Mr. Minos does not like to wait. I would encourage you to agree.”

Dix dashed around his apartment, throwing dishes into cupboards and laundry into drawers. “I mean, I guess that’s fine? I’m not exactly –“

“Great. He’ll be there momentarily.”

Delilah hung up and Dix tossed his phone across the room. He threw the rest of his dirty dishes into the dishwasher and slammed it shut. He ran around frantically, throwing on a decent, if wrinkled, shirt and rearranging pillows, when there was a knock at the door.

“Just a minute!”

He ran through the kitchen and noticed the garbage can. He started to pull the bag out as fast as he could when there was another, more rapid knock.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “Coming!”

He let the bag fall back into the can, pushed everything down as hard as he could, and forced the lid back on. It threatened to burst open, but it would have to do.

Dix flattened his hair and shirt as he approached the door, his other hand reaching out for the knob, when it turned and opened from the outside. Suddenly he found another man’s hand in his palm instead of the metal knob he was expecting.

“Dix, how great to finally meet you!”

Dix scrambled for words. “Uh… yeah. Likewise. Did you pick my lock?”

The man shook Dix’s hand furiously and waltzed into his apartment. “Not a bad place you have here. It’s intimate. Home-y.”

Dix looked at the man in his perfectly pressed suit and slicked back hair standing in front of his small wooden table and lone chair in front of a tiny tube television. “Uhh… yeah.”

Dix studied the man in silence for a minute as he meandered around Dix’s apartment. He sounded proper and legitimate and he certainly looked the part. But he seemed slightly uncomfortable in his clothing, like it was completely new to him. The man kept pulling at the sleeves of his blazer and rubbing his shoulders. He clearly wasn’t used to wearing a suit, that much was certain.

He watched as the man walked over to Dix’s small bookshelf and studied his miniscule collection. “So did Delilah fill you in?”

“Sort of? Not really. I mean, I don’t even know who you guys are.”

“We’re the Minos Corporation. I’m sure she told you that.” The man turned back to Dix and flashed the biggest, fakest smile he had ever seen.

“Yeah, but…” Dix rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve never even heard of you guys. What do you even do? More importantly, how the hell did you even find –?”

“Well, that’s not what’s really important now is it? What is important is that we love your work. And we want to make your labyrinth a physical reality.”

Dix chuckled. “Thank you, Mr. Minos, but –”

“Please.” He flashed that smile again. “Call me Andy.”

Dix paused. “Andy. Thank you, but this isn’t exactly the first time I’ve heard someone say that. There are always catches and loopholes and… nobody has been interested in really making my entire design. They just want a fraction. Or else a bastardized version of it.”

“Dix. Buddy.” He moved into the kitchen and grabbed Dix by the shoulders. “We love your design. All of it. It’s a masterpiece. And we want to buy it from you.”

“You mean…” Dix pulled out of Andy’s grasp. “You mean you want me to sell it. The whole thing. To you.”

“Exactly.”

“But it’s my design. My name –“

“Oh, your name will stay on it, don’t worry.”

“That’s fine, but how do I know you would stick to the design as it is? I don’t want my name on something I’m not proud of.”

“Already taken care of.” Andy pulled out a stack of papers from his blazer and handed it to Dix. “This contract guarantees that we will not stray from your design. If it’s clearly notated and indicated in your plans, it will be built to those exact specifications. We wouldn’t want to stray from them, anyways.”

Dix skimmed over the first page and began to absently flip through the rest of the tome-sized contract. “I don’t know. It’s an awful lot. I would need some time.”

“Time is exactly what we don’t have, Dix. We want to get this project moving as quickly as possible. This is now or never.”

Dix leaned against the countertop and rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, it’s just –“

“Fifteen million. That’s your cut.”

Dix’s mouth slowly fell open. He dropped the contract in his stupor, the impact causing the trashcan to spew out its rotting contents.

“Shit!” Dix scrambled to pick up the mess, but Andy grabbed him by the shoulder.

“No, no, no. We have people for that.” He whistled and a servant rushed in through the front door. Andy snapped, pointed to the garbage on the floor, and the young man quickly began cleaning the mess. “You will have this, too, if you agree.”

Dix watched as the young man not only picked up his garbage, but began scrubbing the floor around the garbage can. Was this for real? Who were these people? Why did they want the labyrinth?

Andy cleared his throat and Dix snapped out of his stupor. His eyes darted up to find Andy holding the contract and a copper-plated pen out to him, but the only thing Dix could look at was a small tattoo on the man’s wrist of what looked like a crescent moon.

“So what do you say?” Andy asked, and flashed his big, toothy grin.

It was perhaps the one regret Dix had in his life. But how could he have refused? Not only was it fifteen million dollars, but he was also guaranteed that his masterpiece would be built to his exact specifications. Guaranteed. Contract and everything.

He signed it, there and then, and just like that, Mr. Minos took the contract, his servant, Dix’s designs, and was gone from Dix’s life forever. A week later Dix received a blank envelope in the mail. When he opened it, there was a check for $250,000 with a brief note that read, “Your first payment.” Dix shook his head. He had been duped. Some random had broken into his house, stolen his life’s work, and dashed. But the check looked oddly real. For kicks, he decided to take it to a bank, anyways, just to be sure. And sure enough, they took it, it went through, and he could suddenly afford to live like a normal human being.

Every month for five years he received a check for the same amount, and every time it went through with no issues. His life had turned around in an instant. He could afford good clothes, a nice house, great food. And all of a sudden, his family and friends returned. They claimed they had never actually left him, that they were just giving him his space. He knew what they were doing and as much as it pissed him off, he couldn’t blame them. He had been a terrible human being the last few years of his life. Had he been in their position, he would have left, too. He gave each of them money and made sure to take care of all of them. It was the least he could do. He was in a good place financially.

Psychologically, however, he was being torn apart. After the note that accompanied his first paycheck, Dix hadn’t heard a single word from the Minos Corporation. He knew nothing of where they were, whom they consisted of, or what they were doing with his designs. He tried tracing the phone call through phone logs, but nothing showed up. He hired private investigators to look into the name Andy Minos and the Minos Corporation, but there were no results. For all intents and purposes, these people did not exist. And his designs had disappeared along with them.

Heartbroken, Dix secluded himself in his home. He pushed his family and friends away, stopped going out, and did the only thing he could do: he started working on recreating his labyrinth. But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much time and effort and lead and ink he put into it, it was never good enough. He had lost it. And the Minos Corporation had found it.

Dix got rid of everything. His sketches, his notes, his clothes, his home, anything that reminded him of his labyrinth or the invisible corporation who stole it from him had to go. He wanted nothing to do with any of it, anymore. Years of his life were gone in an instant and he had nothing to show for it. He had driven his family and friends and loved ones away, had destroyed everything that was good in his life. He wouldn’t do it again.

So he moved on. He had to. He bought a small house, decent clothes, a moderate car. None of it was fancy, but a simple, humble life was what he needed. He went to therapy, once more eased his friends and family back into his life, and even met a woman he came to deeply love and cherish. As time went by, he slowly let the idea of the labyrinth go. He could never forget it, but he could leave it be, a memory of true perfection.

It wasn’t until years later that he learned of the labyrinth’s existence. He had been sulking in a bar over a tiff he had with his longtime girlfriend, drowning his sorrows in the amber liquid of the gods, when he overheard some young twenty-somethings.

“Yeah, man, it’s like this giant maze out in the middle of nowhere. And I’m talking GIANT. Like, I have a friend who said that her best friend wandered in drunk and wasn’t found for three days. She had completely lost her mind by the time they found her, apparently.”

His girlfriend chimed in. “I heard that murderers wander around the corridors, waiting for idiots like you,” she jabbed her boyfriend in the chest, “to strut in trying to impress people.”

He laughed. “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

She punched him in the arm. “That’s not the point! People have gone in there and never come out! It’s fucking freaky.”

Dix didn’t need to hear anymore. He rushed straight home and jumped onto his laptop. After a solid three hours of digging through forums, blog posts, and Facebook photos of drunken idiots, he found what he was looking for. It had been nearly 21 years since his labyrinth was erected and opened to the public. No one knew who built it or where it came from. It simply appeared. He stared at the directions to his own personal Stonehenge and sighed. It was so close. He could stand in its presence. He could touch it. He could walk through it. His life could finally have closure. He ran his hands through his hair.

But he also knew what would happen. The moment he stepped foot into that labyrinth, his mind would be gone yet again. He would become entranced, overtaken, and wouldn’t be his own person, anymore. He would belong to the labyrinth.

He shut his laptop and walked away. He couldn’t do that. His relationship with his girlfriend was already on the rocks as it was. To go there would be to destroy it completely. She was too important to him. He was taking a stand, putting his foot down. He would push the labyrinth out of his mind.

Three weeks later he received the envelope.

As Dix walked under a large arch, he knew he was nearly at the center. He had been walking for almost two and a half hours and was down to his last spool of thread. It would be enough to get him there, he knew, he just wished he could be done with all of this.

The further into the labyrinth he got, the less cluttered and vandalized it became. The walls were almost entirely bare and there was hardly indication that anyone had passed through these halls in the last two years. Dix smiled in satisfaction. But he still had an uneasy feeling, like someone was following him. He was losing it, he knew. He was tired, his head hurt, and being in his life’s creation put him in a haze. Even if someone else was wandering around the corridors, the odds of running into him (or her, or even it) were miniscule. Just a few more turns and he would–

He heard a whisper. His brain tried to convince him that it was the wind, that there was nothing to be afraid of, but it was undeniably a whisper. Dix gripped the thread and looked around. His heart and his head both pounded.

“Minos! Is that you?”

Nothing.

“Andy? Come on, you son of a bitch. What do you want from me?”

He was met only by silence. He shook his head.

“Fuck this.”

He turned to follow the thread the way he had come when he heard the whispers again. Still indistinguishable, but they were louder. Closer. He stopped.

“This is not cool. Just… come on.”

He waited in the silence and rubbed the back of his neck. After several minutes, he sighed.

“Fine. You win. Let’s get this over with.”

Dix ran around the last few corners and found himself at the center of the labyrinth. It was a large, circular room with a single stone bench on either side. This was the only part of the labyrinth that had a roof, but there was a large opening in the middle, allowing moonlight to stream in, illuminating everything. All there was to keep him company was a lone bottle of vodka and a few discarded condom wrappers. He was alone.

“Well? Come on! What is this?”

He pulled the note out and threw it to the floor.

“Is this your idea of some kind of sick joke? I have a life now and a girlfriend I would do anything for. You already got what you wanted from me, what else is there? Just leave me be!”

His voice echoed off the walls, demanding he leave them be. He stood in the moonlight, waiting for an answer.

“I never should have come. I’m leaving. Have it your way.”

As he made for the door from which he had come, he noticed that same crescent moon symbol above it. He laughed as he stopped and pointed at it.

“And what the fuck even is that? It means nothing. It’s just–“

He stared at the symbol. It looked fresh, like it was just smeared above the door, and he finally realized what it was. It wasn’t a crescent moon. It was a set of horns. And it was painted in fresh crimson.

Dix felt the taut string in his hand go slack. He looked down as it slithered out of the door. His head started to pound as the whispering grew around him, louder and louder.

“What is this? What are you people doing?”

He frantically looked around the room, looking for the source of the voices, but he was still alone. They grew louder and louder still, chanting in some sort of Latin.

“Get the fuck out of my head!” He clawed at his temples and let out a blood-curdling scream.

The chants stopped. His head stopped pounding. Everything was still. He stared at the dark doorway and tried to even out his breathing. He had no idea what just happened, but it was done. He had never been happier for small miracles.

And then the sound of a heavy hoof striking the floor echoed through the chamber. Dix froze. He was alone. He was sure of it. There was only one doorway into this chamber and there was absolutely no one he could have missed when he walked in.

Another hoof strike echoed. Dix couldn’t move. His body was frozen in place. He couldn’t even let out a whimper as the sound of heavy hooves pounded closer and closer until they stopped just behind him.

He felt warm breath on his shoulder and listened as the scrape of a large metal blade lifted off of the stone floor, breaking the silence.

The enormous bellow of something that could only be described as half-man and half-bull filled the chamber. Dix’s brain cried out. This could not be real. There was no way this could exist. But he didn’t want to wait to find out. Dix did the only thing he knew he could do. He ran. And it followed.

Dix knew this place better than he knew his own mind and he sprinted down corridors and around corners, the beast’s heavy footfalls never far behind. He pushed himself harder than he ever had before, willing his body to put everything into getting as far away from those hooves as possible. He focused on his breathing, on staying the course he knew would get him out of the labyrinth as quickly as possible. The heavy beating of hooves was fading. His lungs were burning and his legs were growing weak, but he pushed them out of his mind and pressed on. He could do this.

He kept straight, rounded a corner, turned left, and found himself met by a wall. He shook his head. This wasn’t possible. A wall shouldn’t be here. He could hear the hooves fading slowly closer. He didn’t have time to sit and wonder. Maybe he just took a wrong turn. He doubled back the way he had come and turned right where he had turned left. This was better. He ran down the corridors confidently, keeping as straight as possible. He rounded a corner, anticipating the next few turns in his mind.

A dead-end.

He stared at the wall. This wasn’t right. His mind raced, trying to recall his design, trying to figure out where he made a wrong turn, when he noticed the walls. They were not as new as they had looked when he was making his way to the center of the labyrinth. The stone looked old and worn, as if it had been standing for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. His mind reeled and he rubbed the back of his neck. This wasn’t his labyrinth. Not anymore.

He turned to head back the way he had come when he heard heavy hooves right around the corner. There was nowhere to go. This was it. Tears welled up in Dix’s eyes as he shrunk into the corner, trying to make himself as small as possible. He stared at the opening in front of him and listened as metal scraped its way ever closer and the beast’s bellow echoed through the corridor.

Skin Deep

Heath could hardly hear her over the roaring din of the crowded street. “You… work… world.” He struggled to keep up with her, elbowing his way through throngs of the drunk and happy, a crowd that she seemed to slip through unnoticed. He kept his eyes on her dark red ponytail as it swung back and forth, and forced his way to her side.

“What?”

She didn’t acknowledge him.

“Abbie. Come on, what did you say?”

She kept looking ahead as she replied, “Have you even been listening to me?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard when you’re trying to talk to me while bulldozing through a crowd of drunk people on a Saturday night.”

She shook her head. “It’s just… complicated, okay?”

“Come on. It can’t be that — Holy shit!“ An empty bottle of beer soared through the air straight for them. Heath dove to the side instinctively, knocking someone and their beer over in the process. He gasped as the bottle dove straight for Abbie’s face. He gritted his teeth in anticipation of the crack of glass on bone and the flying spurt of crimson. But neither came. There was no crack, no blood. Abbie didn’t even flinch. As the bottle fell within inches of her eye, she simply tilted her head to the left, the bottle soaring past her head and thumping into a guy’s chest.

Heath kept at her heels, looking back as the bottle’s unfortunate victim keeled over in pain. Abbie continued to wind her way down the crowded street, unfazed. “How the hell did you–?”

“Why do you care so much, anyways?” she asked.

Heath shook his head and turned his attention back to Abbie. “Well… because I do. What kind of question is that?” The crowd began to thin as they got further down the road, away from the bars and the nightlife, and Heath leaned in front of her, trying to look into her eyes. “I mean, what do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. I just…” She rubbed her eyes and slowed to a walk. “What is this? What do you want from me?”

Heath stared at her, his mouth agape. “Why are you asking me this? You know how I feel about you. You know I care about you. This has nothing to do with me wanting anything.”

The street was nearly empty, but he looked from side to side, trying to find a quiet, private place for them to talk. He spotted a dimly lit alleyway and pulled her towards it. She didn’t hesitate or fight his grasp, allowing herself to be led into the dull orange corridor. She kept her head down as he pulled her in front of him.

“Look. There’s something there between us. Call it chemistry, call it a spark, call it a feeling, I don’t care. Hey. Look at me.” Abbie tried to turn away, but he gently lifted her chin until they were looking eye to eye. “We could work. You know we could.”

She sighed. “But you don’t even know me.”

Heath stared at her in silence, her strong gaze never leaving his. His eye slightly twitched.

—

Heath and his older brother had this argument when they were younger. They would constantly watch movies and TV shows together and Heath adored it. It was how they bonded, he and his brother, how the two of them connected; not through sports or girls, but through sharing stories. Heath was always careful never to annoy his brother; he feared that if he did, his brother would simply refuse to watch anything with him anymore. But whenever they watched a story where one character would tell the other, “You don’t even know me,” Heath couldn’t help himself. He would howl in frustration.

His brother would scramble to hide the remote as Heath screamed, “What does that even mean?!” To Heath’s delight, his brother never reacted poorly. In fact, he seemed to get a kick out of it. At every one of Heath’s outbursts, his brother would simply laugh, shake his head, and punch him in the arm, feeling that that was sufficient enough communication to make Heath shut up and watch the movie. Adamant to make his point, though, Heath would wrestle his brother for the remote, pause the movie (the one act that truly annoyed his brother greatly) and stand right in front of the TV. Heath’s brother would roll his eyes, his whole head rotating along with them. Heath was never sure if his brother was being dramatic or just couldn’t move his eyes separate from his skull.

“It’s bullshit! It doesn’t mean anything!”

“Yes. It does,” his brother would reply. “You’re just too dumb to understand because you haven’t dealt with that kind of situation before.”

His brother would snatch the remote from Heath’s hands, throw him the meanest glare he could muster, and rewind the movie or show. Defeated, and perhaps too scared to continue his tantrum any further, Heath would plop back down next to his brother on the couch as the guy or girl reiterated that the other character just didn’t know them while the other stared back in disbelief, unsure of how to respond. Heath would scoff and mutter under his breath, “Just once I wish it meant that they were an alien or something.”

This would happen at least once a week since Heath started junior high, and every time, it was the exact same. One character wouldn’t know the other, Heath would interrupt, his brother would give him a bruise, and both characters would inevitably wind up declaring their undying love for one another. It was what they did.

As Heath got older, that line always lingered in the back of his mind. As he navigated his way through friendships and relationships, he always waited for that phrase to arise, for those words to suddenly make sense. They came up here and there, as they inevitably do when dealing with people who have some sort of past they want to hide from plain sight or with people who have a flair for the dramatic, but they never felt real to Heath, like they actually meant anything. “You don’t even know me” began to feel like a canned response, a thinly veiled attempt to deflect emotion or run away from a potentially vulnerable or uncomfortable situation. Heath always hated looking back on how he reacted to that line in movies when he was with his brother, but he began to feel like maybe he was always right, like maybe his kid brain somehow tapped into a secret of the universe that no one else was aware of. “You don’t even know me” wasn’t a grand declaration or an admission of dark secrets; they were just empty words.

And then he met Abbie.

He hadn’t known her very long. A month and a half, maybe two months had passed since they met, but already he could tell just how special she was. She didn’t conform to most standards, the way a lot of women typically do. She had a fashion sense that was hip without being monotonous, different without being weird. She had a passion for art and music with a taste that was eclectic and diverse, but she never belittled anyone for liking what they liked. And she had a beautiful sense of humor that was as specific and deliberate as it was broad and silly. She was his dream girl.

But Abbie also frightened him. They had met at a mutual friend’s party. Heath had spotted her across the room, standing against the wall and people watching. He didn’t think anything of her, at first. After going through so many breakups and uncomfortable situations, he had simply become jaded and manifestly uninterested in pursuing a relationship with anyone. She was another pretty face, nothing more. But something drew him to Abbie, something off. She seemed above everything, like she was studying a lower life form, trying to understand why the creatures live by the patterns they create and the mistakes they repeat. But she did it with a distant smile on her face, like she cared for and loved these creatures, low as they may be. It scared Heath, but it was also alluring, like a child’s desire to touch the pretty rainbow shimmers on a burning hot iron. He forced himself to talk to her, willfully ignoring the otherworldly look on her face, and once he got through his usual stammering, they hit it off immediately, much to his surprise. She was more normal than he expected, albeit in an extraordinary way.

The more they got to know each other, Heath came to see Abbie for her flaws and issues, as well. She was stubborn and could sometimes have a bit of a temper, but none of it was anything Heath couldn’t handle. It was only in times where Abbie was alone or thought no one was watching her that she became the observer again, quietly studying those around her, and it was in those moments when Heath would pull away. What was she doing? Was this even real? Was he going crazy? He hesitantly tried asking her about it once, but it ended in a bitter argument where names were called, insults were thrown, and both parties stormed out of a crowded restaurant. Heath never brought it up again, but it ate at him.

But it never changed how he felt about her. The more time they spent together, the more he simply wanted to be with her. And any chance he got to spend time with her, whether that meant going to a coffee shop or simply sitting at one of their apartments watching a movie, he leapt at the opportunity. There may have been secrets that she wasn’t telling him, but he didn’t care. He loved her. And he knew that she loved him, even if she wasn’t willing to admit it. He knew she probably had her reasons, but he couldn’t go on pretending that there was nothing there. She probably wouldn’t take to the idea well, but he had to do it. Besides, he would plan the whole thing out. He would take her downtown on Saturday night for dinner and drinks at her favorite little bar and grill. And after a couple drinks, when both of them were loose enough to be straight with one another, he would open up and she would admit her mutual feelings and it would be perfect and amazing and they would be together forever.

What could possibly go wrong?

—

Abbie stared at Heath as she waited for a response. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, his eyes never leaving hers.

“No. I don’t know you. Not fully. I know there are things you haven’t told me, things you maybe are ashamed of or don’t want to relive. I get that. But there’s also a whole lot of you I do know. Like how kind and loving you are to everyone around you. How sweet and funny you accidentally end up being. How stubborn and heated you can get.” Abbie chuckled, her eyes starting to well up. “I know there’s a lot of you I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know.”

Abbie sniffled and wiped her nose. “Really?”

“Of course. I want to know everything about you. Just give me the chance.”

Abbie looked deeply into Heath’s eyes for what seemed like hours and Heath stared back, unsure of what was about to happen. He waited for her hand to slap his face, or a wad of spit to fling from her mouth into his eyes, or, hell, even a gunshot to break the silence, a bullet entering and exiting his abdomen, but nothing happened until she finally broke eye contact and looked up and down the dim alleyway. Satisfied, she nodded, rolled her neck, and said, “Okay.”

She took a deep breath and in the dim light seemed to pinch something on her forehead at the base of her hairline. Heath thought maybe she was picking at a pimple, but his eyes grew wide as her pinched fingers continued in a straight line through her hair and down the back of her skull. She grabbed both sides of her scalp and pulled, her hair the color of cabernet gradually coming apart down the center. Heath’s breath quickened as her fair skin was discarded, revealing an opalescent skin beneath. His heart pounded as all of the human features in her face were lost, replaced by shapes and textures that made no sense. The light may have been dim, but he didn’t need light to know that what he was looking at was not human.

His mind raced and suddenly everything made sense. Her actions. Her personality. The way she studied people. It was all coming together the longer he stared at her face, or what he assumed was her face, if this thing was even a “her” at all. And the longer he stared, the more he could feel his mind start to crack. There was no context for what he was looking at. It was simply shapes and forms impossible to comprehend. He had made a mistake. He wished with all his might that he could take it back, that he hadn’t taken her down this alleyway, that he hadn’t told her how he felt, that he had never even spoken to her at that party. His mind was slipping and he knew what it meant to go insane.

And then she spoke.

“Well?”

He couldn’t tell where the voice came from, but he recognized it. It was undeniably Abbie, the same voice he fell in love with, the same voice he spent night after night thinking about. It rang through his ears as he stared at her new face (her old face?) and his heart slowed, his breathing normalized, and his fear subsided. He stared at what only seconds ago frightened him nearly to insanity and suddenly he could only see beauty. Suddenly he could only see her.

“Well?” she repeated.

Heath took a deep breath, grabbed her by the arms, and quietly spoke a single word, his eyes never leaving her face.

“Okay.”