HELL OF HADES

Behind in the distance the three-headed dog’s mad barking and baying subsided as he rose high enough, out of the catacombs and necropolis. He climbed the many flights with vigor in the luster of half dark and the ruddy, oily shade cast from the torches. Glinting below each, the encasements of the sconces were bronze and smelted in the shape of a bullhead. His grainy silhouette played off the perforated whitewashed walls, unnerving in the silence. In a swallowing spiral all of the staircases spun off another concentrically. Beyond, at the top where the last dim remnant of torchlight faltered ahead, he stepped forth and out to enter the maze of the beast.

The place was made of stone, unlike the warmth of illumined limestone beneath that fell away it was cold, its labyrinthian confines immense and the ceiling vastly high, dredged in shadow, without a glimmer of outside light to avail. All along the pathways were cobblestone setts chiseled into the likeness of wailing skulls, both walls and floor occasionally painted red with blood, and green, black or yellow with the refuse of what-else.

First steps taken within, massive grey granite walls consuming every way around, the lit stair leading up from the dungeonlike netherworld retreating into a half-formed memory. He couldn’t go back now, only forward, if he wished to escape. The only chance for victory would be to allow himself become enveloped in the labyrinth, trust the gods.

He forged onward, in the cold, dark forest of stone. The rectangular walls were sometimes simple to navigate, winding like streams, and at other times twisting and nearly impossible to figure out. Every so often there was a dead-end filled with chambers, alcoves. Having been there before, he knew of secret passages that could be located and used to his benefit.

As he settled into the grim setting eventually found footing in his surroundings. Soon enough started scaling behind corner walls, slipping between hidden crevices. Finding and maneuvering in, up and through unseen honeycomb openings and cavernlike slots buried under sod.

He turned a corner, and there he was, the minotaur standing across down a long aisle. Faced towards, horns downturned, legs spread apart, planted firm. The wretched beast, foaming and frothing at the mouth, didn't even look up to see him. In a beat he brandished his head, and with a bellow began bolting down the corridor, bowling for him at the end of the passage.

He turned and fled. Sprinted away with the sound of hooves pounding rock at his back. Retraced his steps through concealed cracks in near walls. Came out in wider-proportioned space, going the opposite way he'd come. Nothing sounding any longer, the beast now not closing in from behind. Continued until dead-end, feeling along floor, then clambering through a tunnel. Crawled, crept quietly through, accidentally witnessing two lovers - sweating, bounding and not shy per their loud, resounding volume - fornicating buck-naked in one of the mausoleic tomb-shaped alcoves.

He'd come across couples kissing, seen them making-out rather passionately, though never doing the full deed inside the labyrinth. He sped on through the eerie hallways of maze, recognizing now where he went. Not after long he booked it down a corridor where were all those who had been caught, and tied with rope to a thick bull septum piercing.

He untied the lot of them bound to the stone-lodged, gold ring, noticing that most girls wore flowing dresses with embroidery and headbands styled after the garb of goddesses, and guys togas fastened with medallion brooches. They thanked him shyly and together took off down a corridor. Last thing, there was the melodic brass bull, sentried atop simulated coals.

They all fled past and into the pit, a steep bit of earth they had to clamber up to get into the light. Underneath, there were chthonic skeletons of The Underworld that would sabotage and pull you through partial gaps. He was the first arrived, knowing that he was liable to win a solid prize given he'd crushed the time-limit. He dashed ahead, unconcerned about anyone else.

Out and through, they peeled into the lobby of the grand Greek Mythology-based escape/adventure/theme park. For his proficiency he won free tickets to a new multiplayer VR exhibit, where the ferryman would take you across the river, and you ventured into the gorgon's den to face Medusa, hoping to cut off her head before she disabled and turned you into stone.

What a marvel the modern world was turning out to be.