The more I was there, the less I wanted to be awake. Wind rushed through the stone tunnel, escaping from some deep, lightless hell, and clawed at my skin, ripping any feelings of security to shreds. I consumed dull and dry air with every breath, tinged with the taste of hopelessness. The relentless clanking of marching bones besieged my mind and sent warning through every fiber of my body like city bells to the citizens. The undead horde would find me soon.

  I curled into a ball, though the stone floor made any attempt for comfort useless. The marching grew closer. I bit my lower lip. It bled easily, cracked and dried beyond measure. Escape was futile, but slivers of hope flashed by whenever I thought of it. I hated escape, who gave me reason to hope, just to eventually rip it away. I hated the escape who lied to me over and over, promising freedom and blue skies—not permanent solitude.

  Fighting was the truth, but it was too truthful, too unfiltered, too primal. I became a darker beast with each fight, forsaking morality for instincts, and with each fight, I ended up with rotting wounds and scars that couldn’t be seen.

  I wrapped my arms around my legs as death grew closer. Flashes of armor glinted in the darkness of the hall. Bones cackled at the sight of their victim. I gripped the rusty sword that I had laid against the wall after the fight hours earlier and stood, keeping one hand on the wall for support. I didn’t fight to win anymore. My bones groaned and swayed. I didn’t fight to stay alive anymore. The undead came into view, screeching and clawing over one another for a chance to taste life. I fought for nothing and no reason at all.

  The first undead to reach me swung a massive black hammer in my direction, a weapon far larger than its small frame could handle. I stepped to the side and the strike whisked past. Most of the undead’s skin had rotten off long ago, revealing a grey layer of decayed fibers and muscles ridden with worm-ish pink parasites—the true devil of the labyrinth. The company with which I’d first entered had fallen prey to them. The company… I tried to shake the thought off, but I too would end up like them. It would only take time, which favored the undead more than me. I wondered if at least some of the company was alright. My fighting would not be meaningless if they were out there in the world, breathing fresh air and laughing with the old swordsmith down the block, but they were too weak. I already knew they were dead in my heart. I tightened my grip on my sword.

  The undead should’ve fallen, if only the undead obeyed physical laws. Instead, it reversed the hammer’s trajectory, and the hammer’s black head set on course for my chin—a move too slow, however. My rusty sword, powered not by sharpness but the strength of my body, cut through the undead’s arm, and the hammer clattered onto the stone floor. I grasped the undead’s core, hidden deep within its ribs and skeletal cage, and crushed it into red-hot dust in the palm of my hand. The pulverized core promptly left me like sand in the wind, returning to the darkness from which it came. By the time the rest of the undead caught up to where I had been, I was a mile away, and in an hour, they would find me again. This was my punishment. This was the price for the rest of the company to live, I recited, and I’d pay it a thousand times. I closed my eyes, holding a fragile wish in my right hand and my sword in the other.

  I ran and then sliced and then ran and sliced, over and over again. They chased me to no end because they had no end. They were undead and given life. I was alive and given death. I gnashed my teeth. The company lived, which clawed at me. Lydia and Rykard went home to their kids. Clemence got to drink at the bar with Victory and Defeat at his side. I clenched my jaw. I could feel the grey walls of the labyrinth sucking me up. I would fall into the pits of darkness while others tasted the light of freedom. It was not fair. My hands were battered and bruised and blistered. Their hands were clean and crisp and clear. They ate their mother’s home cooking. I ate the moss and mushrooms that grew on the labyrinth floor. I cursed my comrades in the same breath that I crushed an undead. Spite fueled my limbs when food could not. I hated both the dead and the living.

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  I scrambled down a long hallway, the undead only a step behind. I lost my judgement and got too close. I made a mistake, and if I faltered, I died. If my legs caught, I died. If my muscles gave, I died. What must I do to live? I felt the small point of a spear as it pierced my back, but I could not give it thought. The memories of my friends plagued my mind already. Why did they leave me here? I wanted to join them, have sunrays at our heels, and skip across open fields, but the rough edges of rusted swords blocked my way. Had I been avoiding them? I did not know which direction led to my friends, to stop in my tracks and let the reaper guide or keep running like an already dead man.

  I hesitated, the chains of thought halting my movement—another mistake. It felt like I was flailing in mud as waves of the undead overtook me. A dagger shot into my gut, and the world began to fade as snarls took the guise of angelic song.

  “Rejoice!” The undead seemed to shout. “You may now rest! The troubles of life are over, and the joys of death are here!”

  I screamed, but no one alive was there to listen.

  “We are your only friend!” They harmonized. “You have been left behind, but we will always be here!”

  “Not true!” I tried to shout as they tore apart my body and the core within it.

  “Use us. Become us. Released by us,” the undead chanted in the breaths they weren’t gnawing. “Powerful. True. Comforted by the radiant mother of darkness and made anew.”

  The pain of the horde’s attacks barreled into my heart. I sank under its weight. There was too much water on my ship and not enough helping hands. My home became the ocean’s empty depths, alone and—

  “Forgotten,” the undead finished. “Your new life calls for you. Your heart will stop, but you will love again. You will forever have a family. Join us.”

  I grasped an undead’s core and held it up to my lips, answering the labyrinth’s summon. My wounds were fresh, my body was tired, but my eyes were alit, flashing with desperate and despairing vigor. By consuming the core, I would finally live. My friends would be at my side. Victory and Defeat would reward me, and night would become my day. Pain would become pleasant. I would be free. I only had to accept it, but the core remained hovering in front of my mouth, each moment an eternity.

  “I am still alive,” I shouted at last, my voice breaking out of the undead pile and the ocean’s depths. I received no answer; I called too late. I wished someone was there to listen. The way forward was blocked again, blind to my eyes. No longer attempting to persuade, the undead forced their hands against mine and inched the core closer as I failed to find the strength I needed.

  “I am still here,” I muttered like the statement would save me, passing in and out of consciousness as flesh barely stuck onto my limbs. “I am still here.”

  The core grazed my lips, and I cursed the sweet electricity that coursed through my body, attempting to seduce me with its enrapturing touch, but I wouldn’t entertain darkness again. The labyrinth was dark enough. As long as I breathed, I would not allow my ship to sink. Not ever. Even if I was the only one on it. Even if water weighed it down. My ship was my ship, and I would not bail.

  “Anyone, help me!” I yelled as I struggled to fight the undead back. “Please! I need help! Anyone!”

  There was no answer.

  “I’m hurt! I’ve been hurt! Can anyone help me?”

  There was no answer.

  “Just a helping hand! Just for a second! I want to live!”

  Small footsteps echoed in a corridor or two away, but deep down, I knew I was either imagining it on the last throes of my life or it couldn’t be human. Death was here. The core called my name. The decision was made for me. I could rest now. I didn’t have to run and slice any longer. I closed my eyes as the core entered my mouth, but a shining white light suddenly pierced through. I saw, if only for a short moment, the grotesque creatures eating at my corpse, and a party behind them—figures with lively faces and brightened expressions. After the flash of light ended, the labyrinth returned to complete darkness, but the snarls were gone, and the marching, clanking, and nearby fiends.

  A cool liquid doused me, restoring life to a dead man. My savior’s voice wasn’t angelic; it was gruff, but it was real. Familiar like a blanket. A fellow human who was there at the right time. The labyrinth’s walls were further away than I thought, and the horde an easier enemy. As we travelled, the labyrinth appeared as dark as it always had been, but the light of new memories lit the way. I could finally see through.