All That Remains is Cake

Once upon a time, a wooden doll followed the whisper of a maze. The maze had no signature, no one to lay claim to its feat. There was a barren plot of land as the sun fell, and after the toys awoke from a night’s slumber, there was a maze with mossy walls and a well-trodden path.

It was not the maze itself that drew the doll close, but the promise of what lay within; the heart’s truest desire. An enticing offer to all ears the tale crossed, drawing visitor after visitor, until the story grew past the promise of a desire. It became a tangible myth that could warp into the most extraordinarily unimaginable entity. It became dangerous.

At the beginning, the line grown from those who dreamed of glory, sweets and wealth stretched beyond the compounds of city limits and country borders, stopping just before the line’s end met its start. Thousands tried to solve the maze as the years dragged on. Some had brought string to mark their path, others tools to dig through the walls. But when the next toy stepped forward with their own strategies of victory, their path was clear, clean, and most of all, empty. Now, its stone archways were laden with cobwebs, the entrance vacant as the villages which it surrounded.

Those who found themselves strolling into the shifting grounds of the endless maze, never came out the other side.

The doll would not be one of them. For her name was Legacy, and she was not alone.

At her side was an empty stuffed bear, a lonely train cart, and a rocking horse that could no longer sway. Together, hand in hand, they marched into the maze of shifting stone and growing passages, and never walked out.

They walked a straight path, and by the time they thought to look back to the entrance, their sole exit was nowhere in sight. There was nothing more than another corner to take, another trail to follow. A ceiling of shadows and webs hung over them, blocking out the sun. With no windows, doors, or glass of any kind, there should have been no light in that maze. Yet, a soft glow emitted from the walls, a finite enteral flame to light their lane, but not show the way.

No matter how their feet and wheels ached, their wood, cloth, and cotton throbbing like sore muscles, they did not stop. Each craved the maze’s reward, and even if they didn’t, the entrance was gone now; there was no way out but through. Maybe, by the end, their truest desires would merely become the want to leave.

Eventually, the walls began to shake, and a fork dividing the tiled floor emerged, offering another route. The turnoff was softer than unforgiving stone they walked over, the ground a fluffy carpet, the footsteps of stuffed bears had left imprints in its strands.

“We should continue straight,” Legacy’s voice echoed through the maze.

Best to say it first, she thought, before the others could think differently. Maybe if she’d said it faster, that would have been true.

“Clearly others have gone the other way,” said the lonely train cart, “I say we follow.”

“If that path was right, then someone would have returned from it,” countered the empty bear.

“Or maybe they all found their heart’s desire. It was never said there was just one prize. If anyone can enter, then maybe at the maze’s core there is a desire for everyone,” the broken horse’s voice ran loud, distorting as it split between both paths.

It was a thought that had crossed all their minds, one they had dared not speak aloud. To say it was to make it real, and create a temptation too alluring to resist.

But here they were nonetheless.

“I’m going straight. It's how we started; it’s the way the maze wants.”

Legacy stepped forward, marking her chosen route. The toys exchanged glances, and slowly, the bear moved to join the doll. The train rolled onto the carpet path, and the horse followed shortly after. They said nothing as they turned their backs on one another, continued along their corridors, and disappeared from each other’s sight.

Legacy straightened herself as the pair walked, letting her stiff fingers drag along the walls. Was it getting darker? There was no way to tell – maybe it was night? How long had they been walking for? Time seemed to flow differently here, a living creature that followed its own abstract stream, slowing to watch the beat of a butterfly’s wing, speeding ahead to skip the first words of a child.

The doll’s not-eyes drifted upwards, following along the ceiling. Her gaze snagged on an opening, a pathway leading further up.

“Bear,” Legacy called, “take a look at this.”

The empty bear stopped, “how are we supposed to get up there?”

Legacy flattened her wooden hand on the stone wall, and pushed against it. What was she expecting, to climb a smooth surface? This was reality; with sweets that grew on vines and toys disappearing into ever-changing mazes. Clambering onto a smooth wall would be ridiculous.

The empty bear didn’t seem to think this was so. For he stepped forward until his face lay flat against the wall. He continued to walk, and the wall did not stop him. He couldn’t climb the wall, because that, of course, was impossible. Instead, he walked on it.

Step after step he headed upward, pausing only when he was at the lip of the new pathway, his deflated body perpendicular to the doll.

“Aren’t you coming?” the bear asked, looking down at his friend.

Legacy frowned. She should, shouldn’t she? She came across the path on accident, surely few had found it themselves, let alone tried walking the walls to reach it. It was their best chance to find the heart no one else had.

Yet the road in the ceiling didn’t sit right with the doll. She had no reason, no faultless logic to turn to. It was just a feeling, and that feeling was that this was wrong.

“I don’t think we should,” Legacy said, her voice displaying a confidence she did not feel.

“I want to…I have to.”

The doll simply nodded, and then her friend disappeared into the corridor. No goodbyes exchanged, it never occurred she would need to. No one left the maze, but that didn’t equate to losing her friend while they both wandered it.

She should have said her goodbyes, she should have begged him to stay. But how could she have known that she would never see her friend again?

Onward Legacy marched, her steps sure and true, her mind less so. The floor changed from tile to stone as she walked the walls, the ceiling painted with tales of those who had come before – but all she saw was swaths of reds, blues, and browns as she trudged over it.

The ceiling above became the floor below, the walls morphing into walkways of their own as the ground grew doors too small to fit the toy’s frame. She turned around once, tried to find the pathway she’d lost her friend to, but all she saw was more hallways to lose herself in, more paintings depicting scenes she did not understand.

Her friend was gone, as though he never existed at all.

“Legacy?” a coarse voice called out from behind.

The wooden doll turned, and before her was an old toy horse that couldn’t rock, tattered and torn and discolored.

“Is that you? It’s been so long…”

“What happened to you?”

The horse heaved a sigh, not of frustration, but exhaustion. “I got lost, and I could not find the way.”

“I’m here now.”

Legacy grabbed hold of the rocking horse’s mane, and they continued on their way.

“Legacy?”

“Hm?”

“What is your heart’s greatest desire?”

Ah, the question she should have the answer to. The question she was too afraid to ask. Her life was mundanity, living one day to the next in an uninteresting blur of monotony. Her dreams were what she looked forward to most, they offered and escape that reality never could, until their memories slipped through the gaps in her mind and all she could do was wait once more for another dream to find her.

She’d been lost long before she found herself in the maze. The doll had not one clue what her deepest desire was, but she hoped it would give her direction, tell her what she was meant to do. Legacy didn’t want to lie, but her answer wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t what the broken rocking horse wanted to hear.

So, instead, she asked, “what’s yours?”

The toy’s face lit up; a hopeful gaze Legacy had never seen. “I want to paint. It’s hard, with hooves, to hold a brush, to paint fine lines.”

“You don’t want to be able to rock again?”

“No, of course not. That wouldn’t be who I am - I see the world in brush strokes. Its more than just the sun, more than dew on flowers in the morning light, it’s the life that a colour has. The peace of a forest, the calm of a sea, the rage of a fire, yet also its passion. Its bliss and beauty, and one day, I want to share that.”

Legacy wanted the maze’s prize to provide her with an answer, to tell her what life was, where her place was in it. The broken horse wanted it to achieve a dream they already had – one she couldn’t do without it.

“When we get to the center,” Legacy said, “you should take the reward. You deserve it.”

The not-rocking horse paused, a smile creeping on their face before they laid on the ground. “We both do, there’ll be enough for us both,” the horse paused, “I’m old, Legacy. I’ve been lost for years, and I need to rest.”

“But we’re so close – I know it. Just a little further.”

“You go on. If you find it, then come back for me.”

Legacy shook her head, “I went back for Bear, and he was gone. You could be gone too.”

“You’ll find me,” the rocking horse reassured, “I know it.”

The doll believed her.

She shouldn’t have.

Legacy took one step forward, then a second, a third. Before, there had been no end, no direction to go but forward. At the end of the third step, Legacy found herself in a dome with a cloth lid at its center. She spun around, but there was only the room, made of gold with no corners or doors, everything seamlessly smoothed over.

It was a cage, and she was trapped.

She knew where she was, what she’d found: the maze’s heart, and there was only one thing she could do now.

Legacy grabbed the handle and lifted the lid, and she beheld the prize she lost her friends for. There was a porcelain plate, and placed lovingly atop it was a single slice of chocolate cake.

The doll shook her head, and as she wept, she began to laugh. Exasperated, exhausted, maddened. The heart’s truest desire – she supposed they never said who’s heart.

But when she looked again, she saw something in that cake; the excitement of the first bite, the joy of its taste, the ecstasy of a sweet. She saw it in brushstrokes, and it truly was beautiful.

So, Legacy did the one thing she could. For her friends, for her loss, she picked up the plate, and she ate.

Once upon a time, a wooden doll followed the whisper of a maze. It held no markings, no sign of a creator, only mossy walls and an empty promise at its heart. On a day like all others, the doll wandered into its web of stone slabs, and after night fell on the toys of the world, she was gone.

And so was the maze.