(OOC: *coughs*
Well, I suppose going 5 months between posts isn't all that good of a schedule, huh. I'm back. Yeah. So I'll hopefully be able to do this again. Since I've had this part lying around since I wrote it like in November. 670 words.)
BIC:
As soon as UZ walked through the giant gaping hole that posed as an entrance, he noticed that even though the Dome had looked already gigantic from the outside, it had to be almost twice as big inside. A vast hedge maze stretched far beyond the length he could see, and vines covered everything that wasn’t moving. What looked like sunlight gleamed in from the ceiling, although the lack of heat coming from the overly bright light gave away its non-sun status.
“Great,” UZ said to nobody in particular. “I’m caught in a giant indoor carnival attraction.” Obviously not able to do the classic “Keep your left hand on the wall until you hit the exit” strategy, UZ instead decided to, as he might say, “play it by ear.”
Wandering from corner to corner, UZ’s eyes began to notice that the farther he went into the labyrinth, the darker the area got. Looking up quickly, UZ quickly noted that the ceiling of the dome was shifting to turn to nighttime, oddly faster than it would in a normal day. And, also noticeable, was the amount of random noises coming from each tunnel of hedges. Sounds of animals UZ had heard of, and several he couldn’t even come close to identifying were ringing in his ears by the time he had rounded what, judging by the ceiling’s placement, was the maze's halfway point.
A small yelp behind UZ caused him to leap (as well as a treeworm can leap, of course) in fear, as he turned around and shouted “Blaze!” at the top of his lungs in a desperate, frightened voice. When he had finally regained his bearings, he looked down to see what appeared to be a small squirrel like creature, burnt to a crisp beneath him. “Whoops,” was all he could think to say at that point. Feeling beyond awkward by that point (and pondering how he had just over killed a squirrel) UZ continued on into the rather noisy darkness.
Several minutes later, it became apparent to UZ that day was refusing to come back, at least with the same speed the night had shown up. If anything, it seemed to be getting even darker. And with the dark came even more of those horrid noises, getting louder and more raucous by the minute. “It’s almost as if a group of giant dragons had set up base camp right in the middle of the maze and started singing campfire songs off key.” UZ chuckled to himself at his rather stupid joke and reminded himself that making fun of these noises was probably the last thing he should do at that point.
After dead end after dead end after endless dead end, UZ finally reached a fork in the road, and a small sign saying EXIT next to it. The sign was old, beaten, and covered with what appeared to be several thousand small leech-like creatures. While there might have been an arrow on the sign pointing the way at one point, the obvious wear and tear on the wood had left it nigh unreadable. Fortunately there were only two paths, but, as UZ thought to himself, one would most likely lead to some cliché certain death scenario, the other the exit. “God, it’s like someone scripted this out for a bad action novel or something,” UZ mumbled.
After careful deliberation with himself (followed by an awkward minute of him attempting to converse with him mandolin) UZ chose to go right. The level of unholy noises coming from the darkness were almost to the point of being unbearable by this time, and UZ was almost ready to snap before, just as suddenly as they showed up, they stopped entirely. Not used to the sudden silence, UZ started recoiling in terror at the smallest sounds, which he was now highly oversensitive to. Another large hole greeted him at what appeared to be the end of the maze, and UZ took a moment to rest before going in to the beckoning maw.