The Labyrinth of Destiny
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I'm almost a bit embarassed to be offering this up as my first story.
I've been writing stories on and off for almost as long as I've been
reading them, and I have a huge backlog of half-finished stories that
are a lot longer and a lot more meaningful. But since TGfiction is
little more than a passing hobby of mine, my progress on them has been
slow. I'm sure I'll get them all finished and submitted eventually.
Until then, enjoy this bit of fluff, a story so short that I could
actually complete it. Enjoy.
This story is solely my property. It can be posted on any free archive
site, should the archivist so desire.
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The Labyrinth of Destiny
Archmage
"I can't believe I let you drag me into this," Leslie was moaning.
"This has to be the stupidest carnival in the world."
"I dragged you into this?" Reggie asked, annoyed. "You practically
begged me to take you all week long."
"Well, I wouldn't have if I knew it was going to be this lame. There's
like five rides, and you didn't win me any prizes at the games."
"Those games are rigged, sweetie, you know that. How am I supposed to
throw the hoop over the peg when the peg is bigger than the hoop?"
"Hmph," was Leslie's only reply, and she stalked away. Reggie sighed
and chased after her. They had been dating for about three months now,
and back at the beginning, everyone thought that the two of them were a
match made in heaven. Leslie was, by far, the hottest girl in school,
and Reggie was a very good-looking guy himself. Reggie has always had
the hots for Leslie, and when he found out that she felt the exact same
way about him, it hadn't been long before they were in the sack. But
while the sex was great and Reggie just loved seeing Leslie naked, they
had nothing at all in common. Just trying to have a conversation was
strained and awkward. Both of them had kind of hoped that they would
get to know and like each other better the longer they dated, but they
just got on each other's nerves. When they were naked, everything was
great. But during the day, the relationship was torture. Leslie thought
Reggie was stubborn and pushy, never letting her have her own way.
Reggie thought that Leslie was just annoying. She was always used to
getting things her way, and when she didn't get exactly what she
wanted, the bitch could WHINE.
"Hey, you want something to do? Let's head over to the Scrambler. You
said that was your favorite ride here. We could go again," Reggie
suggested. Leslie just rolled her eyes.
"I hate the Scrambler. The fact that it's the best thing here just
means that everything else sucks that much more."
"Well, I don't want to leave yet," Reggie said. "This place is kind of
lame, but admission was fifteen dollars each. I'm not leaving after
just a half an hour."
"Don't you want to go home with me? I bet we can have a lot more fun
there," Leslie purred, her demeanor changing rapidly. It was always
like that with her. One second she'd be borderline insufferable, but
the next she'd get some sexy idea into her head and she'd be a
completely different person - and one that was MUCH more pleasant to be
around. Reggie was a bit annoyed, but he was also a bit turned on.
Their relationship was just based on sex, after all, so why not take
advantage of that? He was tempted. But then again...
"Sounds like fun, kitten. But I really don't want to feel like I wasted
this money. I'm going on one more ride."
"Really?" The sexiness was starting to leave her voice, and the whining
was returning.
"Just one more, then we can go home. We'll make tonight special."
"Oooh, sounds good," Leslie licker her lips, the sex kitten back again.
Reggie rolled his eyes and headed off to find his one final ride to go
on, with Leslie holding onto his hand. It's impossible to love someone
if you don't even respect them, Reggie reflected to himself. But then
again, this had never been about love. The relationship was going to be
over soon, Reggie could tell. But until then, he wanted to have some
fun with it.
"Step right up! Step right up, ladies and gents! Come one, come all,
for an experience the likes of which you've never seen before and will
never see again! Your lives will be forever changed, when you enter...
THE LABYRINTH OF DESTINY!"
"That guy needs to work on his sales pitch," Leslie whined, hearing the
call of the barker. "Labyrinth of destiny? Sounds retarded."
"You know what?" Reggie told her. "That's the ride we're going on. Come
on, let's go." He grinned a bit at Leslie's shocked reaction. That
would teach her to shoot her mouth off like that.
"I don't want to go on that ride. I mean, what is it, anyway? Just
looks like some big old tent. And not any place big enough to have an
actual labyrinth inside. Labyrinth means maze, right?"
"Yeah. And if it's so small, then it won't take long at all. Unless you
want to stay here while I go in?"
"No way, buster," Leslie pouted. "You're not ditching me. We are
sticking together, ok?"
"Then let's go." Reggie headed over to the tent, showed his wristband
to the barker, and stepped through the curtain set up at the door to
the tent. Leslie followed.
Reggie and Leslie found themselves in a small room, lit dimly by an
old, faded lightbulb against one wall. The walls of the room were made
of cheap plywood, painted in gaudy colors. The roof of the tent sloped
upwards sharply, sharper than either of them had remembered it looking
from outside, and the top of the tent was quickly lost in blackness
above. There were two closed doors in the room. The one on the right
said "women," and the one on the left said "men." Without much
hesitation, Leslie walked to the door that said "women" and opened it
up to step inside. Reggie followed suit, walking over toward the "men"
door.
"Where do you think you're going?" Leslie called out. Reggie turned,
confused.
"Men," he said, gesturing to the sign on the door.
"I told you you're not ditching me. Come this way," Leslie insisted.
"I don't... it says women, babe. I might get in trouble for going that
way."
"Who's going to know, and who's going to stop you? This was your idea
anyway, now let's go. The sooner we get through this place, the sooner
we go home, right?"
"Fine." Leslie actually had a point. If Reggie insisted on going
through the "men" door, he would just get in a fight with Leslie, which
he didn't want. If he just followed along and ran through this place
with Leslie as fast as they could, he'd go home quickly and have sex
with Leslie, which he did want. That settled it. Leslie stepped through
the "women" door, and Reggie followed. When they had both stepped
through the door, it swung shut behind them.
The two lovers found themselves in another room, larger than the last.
There were a dozen or so doors around the outside of this room, too,
each one labeled with an ethnicity. "Black," said one door, "White,"
said another, and "Native American," "Indian," "Pacific Islands,"
"Arabic," and many more. Between the doors were big charicatures of
women, drawn up in the same gaudy colors as the paint in the first room
had been, with each woman matching the ethnicity of the door they were
painted next to. "Now where?" Leslie asked.
"I guess we pick another door," Reggie mused. He looked around to the
door they had come through, and saw that it said "Asian" now. "Let's
try this one."
"Asian? No, that's wrong. That's the way back out, anyway. We're both
white, let's take the white door."
"If it's the way back out, then we get out of here that much quicker,
right? Besides, you chose last time. Let's go." Reggie opened the Asian
door and stepped inside.
"What the hell?" Reggie gasped, looking around. He could have sworn
that the Asian door was the one they had come through first, but he
wasn't back in the room where they had started.
"What is it?" Leslie asked as she followed him through the door. It
swung shut behind her. She gave a little jump when that happened, and
turned to glare at the door. "Why do they do that?"
"A spring or something," Reggie suggested. "But now where are we? We
should be back at the entrance to the tent, right?"
"Of course, dummy. So let's get - oh." Leslie saw what Reggie did. They
were not in the room with two small doors marked "men" and "women,"
they were in another larger room, yet it was smaller than the one they
had just left. There was no sign of the exit to the tent, either. All
the walls were made of the same plywood, there was no cloth curtain
marking the edge of the tent. Reggie looked up and all he saw was
blackness stretching up, as the small lightbulb that lit this room
couldn't penatrate the gloom of the high ceiling.
"We must have taken the wrong door back," Reggie said. "Although I
could have sworn..."
"You got us lost already? Come on, Reggie!"
"Hey, chill, it's easy. We just go back the way we came and try another
door. I know for certain that we came in through that one." He pointed
to the door right behind Leslie, that said "Japan" on it. The other
doors were labeled "China," "Korea," and "Vietnam/Indochina." "Back out
that door, then we try the ones to either side of it. We'll find the
entrance soon enough."
"Alright then," Leslie agreed. She opened the door and walked back
through it. "No way!" she cried.
"What?" Reggie followed her through, and again the door slammed shut.
The room they were in now was completely different from all the other
rooms they'd been in before. This one was round. Instead of doors,
there were a series of buttons placed all around the room at different
heights, making kind of a wavy line around the room. The buttons
immediately off to the left were low to the floor, but they quickly
shot up to around shoulder-height, where they remained for almost the
entire circumfrance of the room, before finally dropping about a foot
or so in height as they approached the door again from the right. There
was a number on each button, going in sequential order, with "1" being
immediately on their left and low to the ground, and "80" on their
right.
"You idiot, this isn't the right way," growled Leslie. "You led us
through the wrong door again."
"I did not!" Reggie complained. "I kept my eye on it. And you were
standing right in front of that door, and you hadn't moved since you
walked into the room. That was the right door."
"Then why aren't we back where we came from, smart ass?" Leslie asked.
"I don't know."
"Well, this time you can't fuck it up, there's only one door. Let's
just go back through this one, and find our way back from there."
"Sounds like a plan," Reggie agreed. He tried the door handle. It
wouldn't budge. He pulled as hard as he could. The cheap plywood that
the door was in rocked and creaked unsteadily, but held. "What the
hell...?" Reggie bent down to look at the door handle and lock closely,
and gasped in shock. The door wasn't a door. It was just a section of
wall very cleverly painted to look like a door, with a door knob
sticking out in just the right place. But that was impossible. It had
to be a door, they'd just come through it!
"What's the matter?" Leslie demanded.
"Look." Reggied gestured to the door, still not really believing his
own eyes. Leslie came forward to look, and gave a little gasp of
surprise. "It's... how? That can't... there's gotta be some seam." She
and Reggie ran their hands over the side of where the door should be,
but there was nothing, just smooth paint and wood.
"Reggie..." Leslie began.
"What?" Reggie shouted, his temper flaring. "You can't say this is my
fault. Are you saying that I made the door disappear? How could I do
that? Hell, how could anyone do that? Don't try and peg this on me!"
"No, Reggie, I wasn't going to..." Tears started to form in Leslie's
eyes, but she brushed them away fiercly. "I'm scared, Reggie."
Suddenly, Reggie felt really bad about the way he'd been acting. Sure,
Leslie had been being a bitch, but that was no reason to flip out at
her like that. And seeing the way that Leslie was trying to fight back
tears... Reggie could tell that she was really scared, and most girls
he knew would be completely losing it if they were in the same
situation. But Leslie was trying so hard to be brave. He took a quick
step toward Leslie, and wrapped her in a fierce yet gentle hug. She
hugged back just as hard, and for a second all else was forgotten.
Leslie took comfort in Reggie's strength, and, although Reggie would
never admit it, he took comfort in Leslie's strength as well. He was
getting a bit scared himself.
"Do you know what's going on here?" Leslie asked after a minute.
"No, I don't. But if there's no way back and we can't just stay here, I
guess we have to go forward."
"The buttons?"
"I guess," Reggie confirmed. He and Leslie looked around the room to
inspect the room. The buttons, were small, white, and nondescript. But
behind the buttons, the walls were painted in a big mural. Asian girls
covered the walls, some talking to each other, some dancing, some
walking or running. One of them was playing a strange-looking three-
stringed guitar. The syle of painting wasn't as loud and gaudy as it
had been in the previous rooms. This time the artist seemed to be going
for some sort of verisimilitude. But there was something about the
pictures...
"It's age," Leslie said after having walked around the room once. "They
get older as they go around the room. It looks like the numbers match
their ages. Like look, a bunch of little girls here," she pointed to
the pictures to the left of the door, "and old ladies here," she
gestured to the right of the door.
"You're right," Reggie said. They both drifted over to the late teens,
where the girls painted on the wall all looked to be about the same age
as Reggie and Leslie. Even though the mural didn't match up exactly
with the buttons, and so there was no easy correspondance between which
button matched which girl, Leslie's hypothesis about the buttons
indicating age seemed to be more or less correct.
"Which one do we push?" Leslie asked.
"I don't know. I don't even know why we're doing all of this," Reggied
told her, exasperated. "Just pick something."
"Alright," Leslie said, and, after looking around for another second,
took a step to the side and pushed 21. Reggie gave her a puzzled look.
"21 is a good age. You can drink." The button that Leslie pressed
glowed red, but nothing else happened. Leslie and Reggie waited, but
nothing changed. No doors opened.
"Maybe you need to press a button, too," Leslie suggested.
"Ok," Reggie said, and pressed the button right in front of him, 19.
That button glowed red, too, then all the buttons in the room flashed a
bright blue and two doors opened, one where the 21 button had been, and
one where the 19 button had been. The two buttons were so close to each
other that the doors opened onto the same hallway. Reggie stepped
through his door and Leslie through hers. Again, the doors slammed
shut. They were now in a long hall, that opened out to a very large
room at the end. They walked on.
As Reggie walked, he looked back at the doors behind him. He saw that
the door he had come through was right alongside the left side of the
passage, while the door Leslie had come through was right on the right
side. That struck him as somewhat odd. They could have pressed any of
those buttons, so why did the hallway that they ended up in match up
with their choices exactly? Reggie got the strange suspicion that if
they had picked any other two buttons, maybe they would have ended up
in a hallway that perfectly lined up with those two doors, as though
the passage formed in response to their choices. It seemed like kind of
a crazy thought, but it was possible with a bit of engineering. There
had to be some advanced technology used in this place, anyway. How else
could you explain the mysteriously disappearing door?
Reggie wanted to turn to share his thoughts with Leslie, but he
couldn't. That was odd... he couldn't seem to turn his head to talk to
her. Not that there was some sort of force holding him back or
anything, but he just couldn't will himself to talk to her. It was the
strangest thing Reggie had ever felt. It was as though the barrier was
psychological, rather than physical. Somehow a distance had grown
between them, just in the last few seconds. Maybe it was because they
had pushed different buttons in the last room. But would they even have
been allowed to push the same button? They probably could, come to
think of it. Reggie just hadn't considered the possibility at the time.
Reggie tried to talk to Leslie again, but he found that he just didn't
want to talk to her. Again, Reggie felt a bit strange, but shrugged it
off. He was just uncomfortable being in this funhouse that had turned
out to be anything but fun so far. He just wanted to get through this
mess so he could leave, go home, and have Leslie all to himself. With
that thought in mind, he pressed forward.
The next room was larger than the one they had been in before. There
were again paintings of Asian girls all around the side of the room,
but each one looked a lot more similar than they had before, because
they all appeared to be about the same age. No wait, that wasn't
entirely true. The ones on the left side of the room, Reggie's side,
looked a bit younger than those on Leslie's side. Without consulting
with Leslie, Reggie turned to examine the wall on his side of the room.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Leslie doing the same thing on
her side, but he couldn't pay much attention to her.
The wall was covered, all the way across, with knobs, levers, and
slides. Each one had a label next to it. The first one said "height,"
with a little lever that could be pulled up or down. Reggie examined it
for a second, then pulled it all the way down. To his surprise, the
picture on the wall that was closest to the lever shrunk. "Woah,"
Reggie breathed, reaching out to touch the picture. It didn't feel like
wood, but then again, it didn't really feel like anything else Reggie
had ever touched before.
"Some kind of flat-panel screen," Reggie figured. "I was right, there
is some really advanced technology in here. Who would have thought it
from that small, raggedy tent?" Come to think of it, this room was
actually about the same size as the whole tent had looked from the
outside. Reggie looked again and shook his head. He must not have
gotten a very good look before they came in. Weirder and weirder.
Leaving the lever all the way down, Reggie moved on to the next little
lever, a horizontal one labeled "weight." It was currently in the
middle. Reggie slid it all the way to the right, and the girl in the
closest picture became grotesquely fat. "Ew," Reggie exclaimed, and
pushed the lever all the way back the other way. The girl shed three
hundred pounds in the space of a second, and now was as thin as a rail,
her yellow dress hanging off her skeletal frame. That caused Reggie to
shudder as well, and he tapped the lever a bit more over to the right,
until the girl didn't look like she was at death's door. Reggie kept
moving. There were knobs and dials and levers that controlled all the
different characteristics of the girls in the paintings, and the
clothes the girls wore in each painting were picked carefully to
emphasize the part of the body that was being altered. A series of
three knobs controlled hand size and shape, a few sliders worked the
length and shape of the legs, there were a set of levers for the width
of hips and waist and bust. Grinning wickedly, Reggie pushed the hips
and bust as wide as they would go, while pulling the waist as tight as
it would go, giving the girl in the closest picture a comically
exaggerated form.
There were other smaller knobs that Reggie at first thought didn't do
much, but soon realized they controlled some of the more subtle aspects
of the shape of the body, like the ratio of fat to muscle in the
stomach, which was apparently a completely different measure than the
size of the stomach. Reggie spun those dials idly and moved on,
adjusting shoulders, arms, hands, and neck. The controls for the face
were almost absurdly intricate, and it seemed that half of the wall was
dedicated to shifting around the tiniest details of facial bone
structure. Reggie played around with the different sliders absently,
moving past them quickly. The last set of sliders were for hair, and
Reggie set the hair length as long as it would go, and watched the
picture change as long, thick, silky hair stretched down past the ass
of the girl in the picture. A few more changes adjusted the hue (all
variations on black and the darkest browns) and some seemed to affect
styling some, before Reggie got bored with those controls as well, and
finished his circuit of the wall.
Standing in front of Reggie was another door, this one covered with the
picture of a girl. She looked terrible, like some sort of
Frankenstein's monster, with mismatched body parts thrown together.
Some individual aspects of her figure looked sexy and feminine - the
legs weren't bad, and her tits were HUGE - but the overall effect was
kind of grotesque. Basketball-sized breasts on a girl that's only 4
foot ten just look WEIRD. Shuddering, Reggie stepped forward to head
through the door and get on to the next room, but his hand fell away
from the knob. The second he touched the knob, he had felt a strange
sense of kinship with the girl painted on the door (or was that
displayed on the screen embedded in the door?). He felt a certain
empathy for the girl, and knew he couldn't leave her looking like that.
The girl was obviously the product of his haphazard fiddling. He had
made her a freak, and he felt like he had to fix her.
Reggie went back to the beginning, and tried again. He felt bad about
creating such a horrible figure, and wanted to compensate by going in
the other direction, creating the loveliest girl he could. He raised
the height up some, but not a lot, since he had always preferred
shorter women. Especially for Asian girls, he liked them shorter than
most. He pushed the mass slider a bit more to the fat side, filling out
the girl'd figure until she looked a lot healthier. She was far from
fat, but neither was she the skeleton she had been, or the waif he had
changed her to shortly thereafter. The weight was distributed oddly and
unevenly between fat and muscle, and Reggie realized he'd have to be
more careful with the detail-knobs further along the wall.
Reggie continued along the wall, much more intent on what he was doing
this time. He played with the dials and levers carefully, trying to
find the most appealing combinations he could. The figure he was
building was small and dainty, not to an extreme level, but with an
obvious amount of delicacy that he found to be very appealing. At the
sliders for hips, waist, and bust, he moved everything a lot closer to
the center, creating more realistic curves, but then went a bit
farther, pulling out the waist so that there was actually a bit of
muscle mass to it, pulling in the hips so that her ass curved nicely
but didn't really protrude. Reggie took a lot more time on the slide
for her breasts, moving it back and forth, watching the her tits baloon
out and then shrink back. It was strangely arousing, but Reggie did his
best to push those thoughts aside. He left the slider alone for a
while, and went to the other few knobs that controlled the shape of the
breasts.
After a little fiddling, he thought for a second, then went over to the
door at the end of the room to see what he had put together so far. He
was surprised at how good it had all come out so far. The biggest
surprise was the breasts. He had just left the slider for size in a
random position, and when he saw what that position was, he realized
that he had left them rather small: barely more than an A-cup, if he
was any good at guessing these things. But they rode high and proud on
her chest, perky and shapely. And even though they were small, Reggie
could tell that they would be enough to grab onto. He had always been a
big-boob man before, but what he saw on the girl on the door was
somehow more attractive than the biggest knockers he'd ever seen
online. They were small, but perfect, breasts. Reggie wouldn't change
them for the world. Once he was able to drag his eyes away from the
breasts, Reggie looked at the rest of what he'd accomplished and gave a
grunt of satisfaction. There were a few minor details to change - the
legs didn't meet smoothly enough with the hips, for one - so Reggie
hurried back over, adjusted the appropriate sliders, then hurried back
to the door. Perfect.
Reggie returned to where he had left off and kept fine-tuning the
sliders to his liking. He pushed up the muscle in the belly, then left
just enough fat over it to give it a smooth shape. He moved on,
continuing in the same manner that he had started, crafting a graceful
and delicate upper body.
The face was the hard part. Reggie slaved for what felt like hours
pulling one way and another with the girl's face, until eventually he
found something that worked. There were so many little things to
consider, and everything had to work together in just the right way. It
took a long time, but in the end Reggie sat back smiling, impressed
with the beauty he had created. Then on to the hair. He shortened it so
that it only fell down a few inches past the shoulders and styled it a
bit, then stepped in front of the door again. This time, the final
product was far from grotesque. A picture of immense, gental beauty was
projected on the door in front of him. Smiling with a deep
satisfaction, Reggie opened the door and stepped through.
Reggie was in another hallway. The walls were painted in murals once
more, and this time every girl on the walls was the girl that he had
crafted in the previous room. She looked out at him from dozens of
different attitudes, a different emotion on her face every time.
Sometimes she scowled, sometimes smiled, sometimes cried. The faces on
the walls were so expressive that Reggie felt himself begin to fill
with emotion a bit, but he pressed on. At the end of the hall, another
door stood with a few dozen different sliders on it. Looking over them,
he realized what he was adjusting. "Personality," he breathed. The
sliders worked on scales like "extrovert to introvert," "friendly to
cold," "lusty to prudish," "hedonistic to ascetic."
Reggie went to work again, designing what he thought would be the
perfect personality. He had long ago stopped questioning why he was
doing what he was doing. The work of creating a person and a
personality had consumed him. He twitched the sliders one way and
another, not noticing as the murals behind his back shifted with every
motion, the expressions changing and exaggerating. As he pushed the
slider towards "optimistic," smiles deepened while frowns smoothed
away. As he moved toward "energetic," the poses the girl was in became
more lively, and more wanton as he nudged another slider toward
"carefree." Eyeshadow darkened sexy smirks as he moved the slider
toward "lusty," but after a bit of consideration, pushed it back a
little bit towards the prudish side. This girl would have a good time
in bed, but she wouldn't be a slut. "Rebellious." "Intelligent."
"Creative." "Hedonistic." When he had finished adjusting the last
slider, he reached for the doorknob and, with an immense feeling of
satisfaction, opened the door.
Where had Leslie gone?
The room Reggie found himself in was small, with a manequin standing in
the middle. The manequin was extremely lifelike, and looked exactly
like the girl he had designed in the last room. She had a big smile on
her face and seemed to be dancing wildly. She was also completely
naked. There were two doors in the room, one behind the manequin and
one off to the side. There was no door leading back. The door to the
side slid open, and Reggie walked over to peer inside. It was a huge
walk-in closet, with every kind item of clothing imaginable inside.
Reggie walked in and looked around, stunned for a moment by the sheer
selection of clothing. But he regained his focus once again, and went
digging through the closet. He knew exactly what his Miho would wear.
At that moment, he knew that was the girl's name.
Reggie went to the lingerie section first and pulled out a matching
black set of bra and panties. They were not lacy or frilly at all, just
straight black and purely functional, but they were cut in a somewhat
revealing way that hinted at fun. Reggie threw the bra and panties out
into the main room and went digging for more. He found a pair of plain
dark blue ankle socks, and some classic converse sneakers, and threw
those out the door as well. He finished off with a pair of black jeans
in a relaxed cut, and a dark red tank top that would leave a large
section of belly exposed. Those were thrown out towards the manequin
along with the rest. Reggie took one last look around, then headed out
of the walking closet. When he left, the door swung shut behind, and he
wasn't surprised to see the Miho manequin fully dressed in the clothes
he had thrown out for her. Still dancing wildly, it looked like she was
in the middle of a night out at a club and having the time of her life.
But there was no life in those eyes. And something else was missing.
Looking around the room, Reggie saw a table full of jewelry and other
kinds of accessories. Bracelets and necklaces of all shapes and sizes
glittered in front of him, but he moved past all of those, looking for
something a little less gaudy. He found two plain silver studs and
brought them over to the manequin, placing them at her ears. They stuck
in place. He found a navel ring with a large bit of dark pink quartz in
it, and set that in place as well. Lastly, he found half a dozen rings
of various styles - one a twist of intricately patterned silver, one a
small, colorful, ceramic band, one a circle of gold so thin he was
afraid he would break it. He brought them over and slid them onto her
fingers.
Examining his work, Reggie gave a final nod of approval. He was happy
with what he had made, and he felt like his work was done. He had done
everything he had to do, everything he was supposed to do. With one
final look back at the mannequin, Reggie strode over to the door in the
back of the room and flung it open wide. Blinding white light assaulted
him from the other side. Reggie threw up his arms to cover his eyes.
The light was only on for a second, but that second seemed to stretch
on to an eternity, as Reggie's world was obliterated by an ocean of
whiteness that swept over everything.
As quickly as the light had come on, it was gone. Miho lowered her
hands from in front of her face and looked around. It looked like she
had stepped through that last door when the light was on. When she
heard the last door slam behind her, she snapped her head around
quickly, her long black hair whirling around her face. She breated a
sigh of relief, although she couldn't say why. She felt like she had
just been though a harrowing ordeal, although she didn't feel harrowed
at all. If anything, she felt more refreshed and energized than she had
when she had first entered the tent. Turning away from the door, she
saw, for the first time since she entered, the cloth wall of a tent up
ahead. There was a big opening in the fabric, and the blinking neon
lights of the carnival came flashing through. She had made it through
the maze! Miho gave a little whoop of delight and ran towards the
light.
"There you are, I've been waiting for almost a half an hour for you. I
thought you'd gotten lost!" Kasumi scolded. Kasumi was Miho's older
sister, only two years older but she thought she knew everything. She
was bossy and uptight and had always been their parents' favorite.
"Dutiful," they called her. "No fun" was more like it. Even though
Kasumi had turned 21 a little over two months ago, Miho was sure she
hadn't been out drinking once. Miho, on the other hand, went out almost
every night. Just because she was 19 didn't mean she couldn't have any
fun. Besides, for a hot young girl with a good fake ID, age didn't
matter anyway.
"I got so worried when we were separated," Kasumi was saying.
"Whatever. It's not like I wandered off somewhere. I was just taking my
time," Miho shot back.
"What would our parents say?" Kasumi gasped, appaled at her younger
sister's nonchalant attitude.
"I don't really care. I've been at college for a year. They're used to
letting me do what I want, or at least they should be. Just because I'm
home for the weekend doesn't mean they own me again."
Kasumi frowned. "Still, I'd appreciate it if we-"
Miho snorted. "Forget what you appreciate. We've got plenty of time
around here, let's have some fun! You want to go on the Scrambler
again?"
"Oh yes!" Kasumi exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. "That one's my
favorite." Miho just gestured for her to follow, and the two sisters
ran off throug the carnival, yelling and laughing. They would bicker at
times, but they still loved each other. They were good friends; they
were sisters.
As their shouting and laughter faded into the calliope music of the
carnival, the barker's voice could still be heard ringing out. "Step
right up! Step right up, ladies and gents! Come one, come all, for an
experience the likes of which you've never seen before and will never
see again! Your lives will be forever changed, when you enter... THE
LABYRINTH OF DESTINY!"