Death Maze Race - Part 3

There is an obvious reason why I excelled at the Death Maze Race; I am the one making the whole thing up.

It is all a dream, and all a dream is, is your imagination running amuck. Every passageway, every trap, every hidden clue, I had to make them up on the spot during the dream, and the way my mind processed this was that I was not inventing/imaging these things, I was discovering them. When I think about the Death Maze Race, what was really happening was I was fighting my own imagination, literally. My imagination was thinking up death traps to kill me and I would think of ways to survive every time.

The third, and thus far, final dream I dreamt of the Death Maze Race was chaos. I was thrown into the race without explanation or warning, and this time it was personal. The creators of the Death Maze Race were angered that I had survived twice and been the victor twice. Why was this important? What did me winning or surviving matter? I have no idea, but I had made an enemy and this enemy was striking back.

After evading a few forgettable traps, I knew what was happening; I was in the Death Maze Race for a third time, but why? The second Death Maze Race was a huge success, for me anyway, all my friends had survived along with many others, all because I had led them to the finish line. The returning champion, me, had been abducted in his sleep and thrown into yet another Death Maze Race. As I spoke to other contestants, and unveiled hidden messages the rules had been changed again. This time the winner would be the first person to cross the finish line, and like the first Death Maze Race, the winner would be the only survivor. I kept this information to myself, I did not recognize any of the faces this time around, I had no friends this time, and I could not bring myself to make new ones. It is not selfish for me to covet my own survival before others, and whatever the reason were that the masters of the Death Maze Race wanted me dead I would find out, and more than that, I would defy them.

There was no modesty in this dream, I knew I was the king of these mazes now, and I made no effort to hide what I could do. I charged forward in a rush, leaving others behind me. My feet were fleet as I flew down passageways, my mind was sharp when I conquered puzzles, and my reflexes were nimble to dodge the traps that sprung around me.

One of the first thing I remember noticing was just how young everyone was in this race. I was their elder, not just in Death Maze Race experience, but also in years of age. They were so young and naive, and not too surprisingly, nothing in their lives had prepared them for this.

I watched people die everywhere.

The dream became more vivid when I walked into a dining room, with many other people, and the doors locked behind us. The dining room was very large, and even though we were indoors, this room, within a room, had windows looking out; at least they have if they were not so heavily fogged over.

There were many water based traps in this dream and in this room water began to fill the room and flood us in. I knew what to do immediately; I grabbed a chair from the dining table and began to smash all the windows. Then I stood atop the dining table and waited to see how far the flood would go. I would have left through the windows immediately, but I had the suspicion there would be a clue somewhere in the room. Looking about myself I notice the chandelier in the center of the ceiling, and waited for the water level to raise high enough for me to grab hold of the chandelier and get a closer look. Sure enough an envelope awaited me.

I tried to read the clue, but you cannot read in dreams. So my thoughts projected what I thought the message might say and words slowly formed something to the effect of needing to find key in the roof to escape the room.

I left through the windows and look about myself, ridiculous Super Mario style platforms were scattered about three pillars reaching up about three stories. The water only a few inches deep, did not help my drugging around looking for were to start.

In what can best be described as an angry moment of brilliant defiance, I discarded the idea of trying my luck jumping up this thing and decided I needed to think of some more clever way of getting around this. I realized if I could get to the roof of the dining room I could make a long leap onto a rope and climb my up to one of the platforms, and from there I could use the ceiling’s scaffold to get myself wherever I needed to go, thus completely bypassing the entire obstacle. With the help of one of the other contestants I was hoisted onto the roof, made my leap to the rope and began my climb to the ceiling. Once there I was able to eye where I needed to go and carefully descended down upon the envelope containing a key out.

Back in the dining room I charged past the crowd, opened the door back out into the maze and ran like the wind knowing I must have lost a lot of ground with this diversion even I did defy the challenge of it the way I did.

After running through a twisting wall maze in what must have been record time and leaving behind me many other contestants, I came to the final challenge. A collection of downward leading stair ways that for the most part were little more than water slides. People were falling off the sides and plummeting to their deaths. I knew the finish line must have been somewhere at the bottom of this chasm, so I began running and jumping down the stairs. I came to the realization that this maze could also be cheated, since the one thing all the stairways had in common, even the dead ends, were they headed downward. So I picked a random stairway and once it came to an end I found a comfortable spot to jump off onto another stairway. It only took a few leaps before I realized which stairway would be the right one, for I could see down far enough to know which one I needed to get too.

There were many people who had made it this far and I was far behind some of them so I took a gambit and made a nearly suicidal dive over the edge aiming for the final stairway. I kept thinking I might break a leg from this distance, but as long as I can move I can survive this. The fall did in fact hurt but throwing myself down stairs, flooded stairs at that proved painless. And so I continued to use gravity to my advantage to overtake the last of the young contestants. As I came far enough down the final stairway I noticed that it emptied into a pool, so when I came close enough for the fall not to kill me I threw myself in. I remember the bodies of those who had fallen earlier floating about in the distance. I swam to the shore, and limped my way down a tunnel. There were signs pointing me to the final destination. I limped on my aching legs as fast I could and then deep within the tunnel I found a ladder leading me out, and once upon the surface I ran across the finish line. I had survived yet again.

I held this smug smile on my face as I looked about the crowd around me. There was nothing that could kill me, and this is very indicative of my personality. Remember the whole Death Maze Race is actually me battling my own imagination, and insofar as that battle went I could not think of anything that could kill me. I cannot envision my own death, I truly believe I am indestructible and after a warring dream testing my own imagination on death, I had survived.

Death Maze Race - Part 2

I was at a train station among many other contestants, and I immediately knew that I was taking part in the second ever “Death Maze Race,” and as it was I was the winner and sole survivor of the last race (sorry Ben). The first lap of the race was over and people were amazed at just how incredibly good I was at this whole “Death Maze Race” thing. Among the contestants were my dear old friends David Bentz, Tyler Stephenson, and Duncan McLean. They were very happy having me with them as it had made the race thus far, very easy.

I instinctively knew the rules had changed this time around, the last race was a winner takes all, hence why I was the only person who survived the ordeal, this time around as long as you could complete the race you would survive, but whoever got there first got something special... I have no idea what it was suppose to be; knowing this, my friends and I banding together to survive the second ever “Death Maze Race,” made sense right? We also had a bunch of tag along vagabonds whom I seemed to know but couldn’t place a name to the faces, regardless everyone was very grateful that I lead them through this ordeal and we were all going to survive together. Someone even suggested they let me win when we got to the end since I was the man when it came to avoiding traps and finding clues.

All this praise and responsibility was getting to me so I excused myself inside a convenience store/bar, as settings are often blurred together in dreams, when I see behind the counter my favourite girl in the whole world. I am very happy to see, as I always am in real life as well, and I approach her, much the same I do in real life, with a smile and general sense of confidence and unease. I say some usual things about how pretty she is and how it’s nice to see her, but eventually the conversation turns around into the dream itself, the Death Maze Race. I try to act cool to my obvious superiority in the contest not wanting to come off arrogant, but its hard being the only person to survive the first race and dominating the second thus far, but I reassure her that surviving this time around will be easy... for me.

I’m not sure when, but I do know why, I began to work my way around the bar counter and I stand back to the wall at the entrance. I had wanted to wrap my arms around my favourite girl in the whole world but I refrained not wanting to distract her from working. I loomed there for a while before she found the time to come over to me and she asked me why I was looking so worried.

I told her, “I don’t like my friends thinking I’m so much better at this than them, I’m worried they are going to trust me too much and I’m going to let them down. People die in the race, and while... I’m very confident I can keep myself alive, keeping others alive is a completely different matter.”

She assures me everything will be alright, but I continue.

“It unnerves me hearing my friends praise me, I’m not smarter than them, I’m not sure I’m better at the race than any of them, they are a very talented bunch.”

She puts her hands on my chest, like she’s holding me up against the wall, keeping me from falling, and she says to me, “Colin, you are so lucky to have friends who think so highly of you and believe in you so much.”

I look her in the eyes, smile, and I say, “I’m not lucky enough.”

Unlike real life I don’t need to explain to her what I mean, and we stare at each other in sad silence for a very long time, the entire time I never break my smile, I’m just happy having her this close to me. Noticing the moment has lasted too long and she is becoming uncomfortable I tell her she’s right and I thank her for being a friend and set off on my journey.

I don’t remember much of the race after that, my band of friends and I journeyed out into the open city streets and there is a great long bridge, which looks a lot like the San Francisco Bridge, though I’ve never been. We cross about halfway and out of nowhere I know we have to climb the bridge’s tall cables and reach the summit. The climb is great and most of our companions fall behind. The four of us, David, Tyler, Duncan and me reach the peak of the bridge’s cables and find an elevator which ironically takes us down past the bridge’s road and deep into the river below. We ended up fighting/avoiding alligators in underground tunnels, and that’s about where I woke up.

Death Maze Race - Part 1

I had a strange dream some time ago.

A group of strangers and I were participating in some sort of scavenger hunt, with the only familiar face among the crowd being Ben Arkel, a friend from work. I can’t recall where we met or how many places we went too, but I couldn’t help but notice that many of the locations were familiar to me; Ceili’s, my apartment building, Calgary city streets, Locations in High River, and many other places. There were also many places that were very, very unfamiliar, strange abandoned buildings, lost misty alleys, and other such things.

All the while, as we searched through these locations which were mysteriously linked together by doorways and hallways, we continued to find hints about where to go next. I, for whatever reason, had a natural intuition for finding this hints left in envelopes, which were scattered in the most hidden corners of this strange world. Some of the hints I remember were “One of the doors isn’t locked,” “There is fire here,” “Look up,” “Don’t go right,” and “Avoid the windows.” Every time one of these hints came to my possession I would follow them and someone in the crowd would not and meet a dire consequence as a result.

The other obvious immediate detail that took my notice was the fact that everywhere we went we were in some form of danger. Acid dripped from the ceiling, floors eroded away into pitfalls, open fires, and other traps were common place. Much like the hints, I also had a natural intuition to avoid the above mentioned dangers, as if I had done all this before somehow, yet had no recollection as such.

Other than me only Ben and a few others were fairing very well for themselves, and many began to catch on that I, for whatever reason, had a great talent at getting through this maze.

As I looked at one of the notes it finally dawned on me where I had seen this hand writing before, it was my mother’s. Upon making this realization I realized the voice ringing in my head was also my mother’s, and all this time it had been her guiding me. At the time I couldn’t explain to myself why, but I suddenly felt a great urgency to hurry forward, as if I was being timed on this insane scavenger hunt and it was a matter of life and death if I did not reach the final destination in time.

There became a fear growing over the other contestants, if we could be called that, and suddenly they began to cling to me in great numbers. But feeling that this was a race I tried to keep something of a distance between myself and them.

The most vivid part of the dream came when I entered my childhood home in High River. Naturally no one had any idea where we were but me. I began to think of the most natural places my mother would leave a hint for me, and immediately thought of my bed room in the basement. Naturally I was followed by some of the others, but being rather frightened by this point they kept several steps behind.

I searched my bed room looking for the hint and found it next to my alarm clock. The envelope had written on it, “Wake up.” I looked inside the letter and read the message within telling me to check my desk. As I remember my desk as a child it was a cluttered mess, but my eyes caught a box of aluminum foil in amongst my books, all of which I recognized. This item being out of place I opened it up and found my next hint. “Kitchen ovens and sinks,” was all it said.

I rushed to my old kitchen and checked the oven, and it was on and far too hot to consider investigating, so I looked in the cupboard under the sink. I moved several empty bottles out of the way to reveal a locked door big enough to crawl through. My house keys opened the door, and while I struggled for a while crawling into this ongoing tunnel I eventually came through into an underground cave.

Ben, who was the only person who had kept up with me this far, and out of all those who remained including myself he seemed the best composed. Ben did not have the same urgent feeling to rush to the end as I did.

The best way I can think to describe the cavern would be one word, “Castlevania.” There was a pit that my eyes could not see the bottom of and the only way across was a collection of bridges and platforms. Much like the old Castlevania games Ben and I had to jump from platform to platform, some of which would decay under our feet and hurry us to our next jump. Also bats would fly at us from the ceiling of this strange cave.

Once we crossed the pit we came to a door and entered through. There was a long and wide hallway with pillars blocking any straight path to the back. I immediately knew that this was a trap, and exactly what kind of trap and I warned Ben, “There is a wall of spikes coming at us from behind.” I never even looked back but I knew it was there and began to move forward running around all the pillars, and Ben fell a short distance behind me.

Ben and I both manage to survive the approaching wall of spikes which unexplainably became intangible in regards to all those pillars blocking our way. Once the wall reached the end of the room and we stood in safety behind the doorway of our escape, the wall slowly returned back to the beginning of the room and all of the pillars stood erect exactly as they were. In hind sight that made no sense, but I’m not sure what part of this dream does exactly.

The next room was strange, not because it was fantastic or anything, but because it was so ordinary, after everything else I had seen. It was just a men’s washroom.

There were at least three other survivors other then Ben and myself though I had no idea how they had made it so far, since I had unlocked the door to the crawl space that led to this underground cave. There was one door that led to the restroom and another that exited it in the back. There was a narrow tunnel of stone walls covered in moss that lead us through three left turns and ultimately back to the restroom. Obviously three left turns returns you right back to where you were, and while Ben and I realized this, we could not explain this to the three others. The three other people in the restroom were in a panic now, the same fear that had taken me to hurry to the end had taken them now too. They began to break the mirrors in the restroom hoping to find another hint behind the mirrors. Plus there was a door about three feet off the ground which had no door handle or knob, but did have a key hole. The three people were screaming about having missed a key earlier.

I knew, for whatever reason, there had to be a way out of here, as in all puzzles there is an intended solution, I just needed to think outside the box, or outside the rest room. The real danger, and therefore real challenge was the room with the wall of spikes, we all had rushed out of that room as quickly as possible so it was very likely we missed something in that room. I explained this to Ben and he agreed that we should check the previous room again.

The wall of spikes had reached the far end of the room and was now slowly heading back towards us. I took a few brave steps back into the room and looked about myself and surely enough to my right in the corner behind a pillar was a spiralling staircase leading down.

Ben and I rushed to the stairs. Ben tried to stop me, telling me that we should tell the other three, but I was firm in heading forward, still feeling that it was absolutely necessary that I arrive at the final destination of this maze first, but I told Ben that; “Those three will be safer there then moving ahead with us,” which certainly seemed true.

The stairway went down for many flights and opened into a room lit by glowing mushrooms all standing about waist high. At this point Ben stopped me and suggested we share any hints the other might have missed. I’m not amused with this suggest as I have a majority of all the hints in my pocket, also I am in a very big hurry. So I unload my pockets and all the hints I had collected there within and placed them on top of one of the mushrooms. I tell Ben he can read over them if he wants but I’m not slowly down, and with that I move on, and I’m finally alone... sort of.

The mushroom cavern is full of purple snakes, for the most part they are quite docile so I avoid them and entered another narrow tunnel leading down and enter yet another strange cavern.

The only thing I can see at first is the burning glow of lava, there are pools and rivers of it ahead, but before I can move on I am stopped in my tracks upon the deepest revelation in the dream. In blue glow there is the intangible image of my mother. She is a ghost and I realize all this time she has literally been guiding me, it was not me who has done this before but her, and evidently there is even more danger ahead. It was my mother’s ghost that had left me the messages that helped me along my way. I don’t know what to say, and all she says is, “wake up.”

Despite being unnerved by this spectre’s visit my resolve to move forward is only strengthened. The walk down the long path leading to the pools of lava, there is a great waterfall of lava behind me as I approach the lower levels of this fire pit. As I approach I make out red skinned impish figures that are literally dancing with fire. There is an army of them, thousands maybe.

I try to keep in the shadows and walk my way around them, and this works for a while, until I need to cross a bridge and there are at least five of them hanging around that short black bridge.

I took a deep breath and tried to run past them. They reach out for me but fail to grab a hold of me. My mind is in a rush trying to find the fastest way out of this place, in the distance I see a ladder leading up, way up. The ladder climbs a plateau that must be over a hundred feet from the ground level I am currently standing on.

I needed to cross as least one more river of lava to reach the ladder, so even though there are over a hundred of these demons standing in my way I charge in. Being much bigger then these creatures I push through them and topple over them. Even when they cling to me their bodies are light and I drag them along with me. I get to the short black bridge I need to cross and make a violent charge and then leap to cross it. I knock many of the demons on their back and throw one that has clung to me all this while into the river, it lets out a horrid screech and presumably dies.

My next rush takes me to the ladder and I climb as quickly as I can. I reach the top and know the demons are chasing me still so I kick at the ladder until the hinges of the ladder come loose and the ladder splinters and breaks sending many of the red skinned imps plummeting to their deaths.

The last room I remember was a theatre. The lights are off and I can’t see anything, but apparently I have either found a flash light or had it with me all along, I don’t know. I turn the flash light on and see a horde of ghost screaming at me when the light hits them. They thrash at me tormented by the light. So I turn the flash light off and proceed into the theatre in darkness with caution.

I hear my mother’s voice again, “wake up.”

There was a light on the stage and a haggard looking old man was bent over. His posture looked ruined and his face had a long snout instead of a mouth. I also notice he is made of stone.

My eyes begin to adjust to the dim light of the stage and I see all the seats in the theatre are scattered with weapons. I grab a sword, a shield, and a helm, I pass on any armour, after the last room I know I need to be quick.

I approach the stage and stand in the light for a while, not sure what I’m expected to do next.

My mother never made it this far, and all those other ghosts outside, they must have perished in either the lave room or this one.

I poke the statue of the deformed old man with the sword and he response with sudden violent approaches. The once statue is slow and I have time to wind up and cleave the head off the shoulders of the mutant, despite this terrible blow I land on his deform body, he is still made of stone and is approaching me. The only attack I can think of that could rival a beheading is an attack to the heart, so I drive my sword into the chest of the stone man and he crumbles to dust.

Upon the fail of the strange stone figure, I hear a great applause coming from the seats in the theatre and all the weapons are gone and in their place is an entire audience of ghosts cheering me on.

That’s when I woke up.