What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream?

Right Where it Belongs – Nine Inch Nails

~ ~ ~

I had been walking the maze for what felt like hours now, and there was no exit in sight. My only guide was the light, out there in the distance, but the longer I walked, the more I questioned whether I was really getting closer or just imagining it. So now I sat in the darkness, on the cold metal beams submerged in the shallow water, and pondered what to do.

So isn't that the essence of death? A familiar voice whispered in my mind. A task without aim, a problem without a solution. And time seems to pass, but nothing changes.

"Nothing changes," I agreed with a weary sigh. "So what's the point of going on?"

His voice seemed closer now, almost as if he was whispering right next to my ear. I felt the frustrating urge to turn around and grab hold of him, but I knew it was just an illusion. A memory. Fleeting like a ghost, its presence was haunting and comforting at the same time. The memories had kept me company throughout my loneliness for a while now, and in moments like this, his presence felt almost as real as on the day we had sat on his bed and discussed life and death, and the things in between, until I had drifted off to sleep while listening to the ethereal sound of his voice.

You look so serene when you're asleep. I envy that.

"Why?" I asked into the darkness of the maze, just like I had asked back then, alteady half-asleep.

I don't quite like to fall asleep. That moment when your consciousness slips away, and you are left at the whim of the twins, without knowing who of the two it is who will come to take you away – that's quite terrifying, don't you think? I find comfort in the thought that Thanatos already took me long ago, because Hypnos is easier to defy.

I felt a painful tugging at my heart at the memory of these words. I wanted to tell him that he was not dead, that he was alive and vibrant, because I could see it in his eyes. There was pain, an unspoken, unfathomable agony whenever he looked me, but like Pandora's box, underneath the horror there was hidden away a glimmer of hope, and a thousand sounds and colors waiting to illuminate the world. If only he could break free of this place, this horrible prison in this world that knew no color and no change.

And then it dawned on me. The question was not why we were here, or how we had gotten here. I didn't need to know about any of that to know what I had to do.

"That's the point. We need to break free. We have to get out," I realised.

Another voice answered me. The one that sounded like my own.

"Ah, finally! Took you long enough."

"So this is what you wanted to tell me all along, isn't it?" I asked into the darkness of the maze.

"Well, it's close enough," the girl replied. "Now that you see that much at least, do you know what you have to do?"

"Not yet," I admitted as I rose to my feet. "But I know that even in this place, some things can change."

I thought I could feel her smile at me, from somewhere in the darkness. And the ghost from my memory seemed to smile too, as he whispered into my ear again. He seemed more real now, as if there was more substance to his memory. I imagined his face – a pair of eyes regarding me with boundless curiosity, and a mysterious smile tugging at his lips, and suddenly his breath felt so real as it fanned across my skin that I shuddered.

After all, it's not like nothing here ever changes, he said. For example, now there's you.

_____
A.N.
This is a short one, but the next part will be a bit longer again. It just seemed more natural to split it this way. How are those theories coming along? :)
I tried to clarify a bit the difference between dreams and memories this time. I'm trying to trail the fine line between 'confusing but mysterious' and 'utterly incomprehensible garbage' so if all of this is *too* ambiguous and crazy so that it becomes annoying, please let me know.