A/N This Chapter is like a puzzle and designed to be confusing like the disjointed thoughts of someone losing their sanity. If you don’t want to solve it, skip to the end where he’s back to the ’real’ world and move on to the for the solution.
But if you want to give it a go, then good luck :) You can comment your interpretation for every paragraph.
Hermes walk. Walk sideways, upward, downward, up, download them in. Stairs down. Bend side of pyramid. Knees ache. Climb, descend. Circles. Circumference. Shapes fold, paper fold, sketches. Notebook of madness. Maze. Not real.
Escher on the stairs. Both ways, way at once, a joke. Stone alive. Painting alive. Escher dead.
Palm reading. Read marble. Marble cold. No, not marble. Glass. Crying wall. Palm sweaty. Palm tears. Hahaha... hahaha... haha.. Said the girl who called Father.
"Always running, away from why. Isn’t that what?" Singing.
Hermes ignore. Ignore walk, test. Turning, driving body, traces. Mutter. What? Below his breath. But back again. Stairs chew and spit him. No reason. Only maze.
Then first door. Wood, knock on wood. Come in.
Two lovers. Sitting on the lap. Mwah! Mouth to mouth resuscitation. Cafeteria. Golden Apple. Tender, clumsy. Familiar. Silly Some summer.
Potato. Spoiled, spuds mold. Lip spuds. Summer eat spud. First kiss. Flirt kid, drunk. No plan is the best plan.
But mold. Mold grow, body tumors. Grown on cheeks. Lips. Eyes. Kiss mold and spuds. No Hermes. No Some. Only fungi. Love shape.
Staggered. "Not real...."
Girl voice: "Memories rot. Eat them. Yes, you."
Next door. Two. No littering. Birds of a feather, pillow feather.
Feather like snow. Center, mannequin. Man of kin, ice man. Hand raised, pillow. Micheal. Angel. Sword, devil. Devil curled, cover head. Fire devil.
Sun flares like memory. A myrrh. Magnificent. A myrrh hospital. Ice man Y myrrh. Fire man Magnificent. Pillow sword, hit. Grudge. But soft. Soft grudge.
"Why now showing?" Whisper he.
She no answer, only feathers.
Third room. Pollenation. Earth smell. Kneeling man. Praying man. Three-leaf clover.
Standing man. Blossom. Parfum de flore. Paper walls. Words of poetry. Circles. Over and over and over.
Appropriate Dieting. Apro diet thoughts. Colorful. Poetic. Philosophy. Shameless.
Flower. Clover. Spread leggs, worshipping flesh. Walls is diary. Afro dye diary.
Shivering, he. "Morbid."
Girl: "Father why morbid? Your memories."
No more. Her mess shout. "Why??? Twisted pieces, fragments. What’s the point of view?"
Quiet. Then girl soft voice:
"Why Chaos need Reason? Oshiete, otou-sama. You ask purpose only now. Why not before? Or do you accept entropy, fate? Designs of nonsense from below, only sense for architects above?"
Whispering: "Architect..."
Walls humming hummingbird. Lobby rint heard you called.
Haha. "You are the Father. Father of all. All of the Void. Void’s son. Son of the Spirit."
Jaw clench. "Respondeme. Not child of Air wind, right?"
Hahahaha, light, condescension. "No. Not his child."
Lead to the maze. Down stairs. Sideways. Walk on walls. Walk on water. New door. Knock knock. Who’s there? Come in.
Woman sits. Sketches. Sketcher. Impossible. Mobius. Penrose. Belvedere. Necker cube. Borromean.
Holding globe. Not Earth globe. Not snow globe. Star globe, galaxy globe. Cosmopolitan.
Animals. Lion. Constelations on his back. Knock, knock. Sketcher woman, please.
Serpent around egg, egg of star. Knock knock. Sketcher woman, please.
Do a deer. A male deer. Antlers with comets. Knock knock. Sketcher woman, please.
Whispering demands. Demand and supply. Sketcher woman nod, sketch what they want. Everything they want. Domains. Laws. Realms. Everything.
Day and night. Time folding, paper folding. Palm reading. Grand design, spiderweb. Chaos and order. Twins. Conjoined twins.
Growling. Sketcher woman!!! Snapping teeth. Stomp sketches. Drag her. Ripped robes. Kill the architect!
Threw into dark pit. Pit no light, no life. Burn sketches.
Animals: "The Demiurge must not change Order. Bury her."
Walls shudder, scared. Echo of the fallen angel.
Gasped Hermes: "Demiurge..."
Yes. Yes, word. Yes, architect of Void, betrayed. Traitor. Servant.
Herr Maze throat tight. Goddess is intern of gods. Work stolen. Mocked. Discarded. Throw out the trash.
Remember. He too, intern. He too, type memos. Carry coffee. No name. Understand. Chest wounded.
"Why me?" He asked. "Why me here?"
Hahahaha. "You understand. Chaos birth chaos, you are chaos."
"What you want. Tell me."
Hahahaha. "Must? Believe me? No, my want is not your want. My joy, you search. Riddle is the gift."
"Why now?" Demanded he. "Why stop me search Airwind? Why away from friends?"
Soft voice: "Fun? Curious? Test. Kind. All of the above. But you see me. That is enough. Back to the sender."
Closed fist, he. "What do I do with all?"
Words linger. Carving. Woodcarver. Maze carver woman.
"You are Chaos. They want Order. Will you destroy Chaos for Order? Or will you be Chaos forever?"
Shivering maze. Fold like paper. String on blanket pulled. String theory. Hermes falling. World bubble pop. Back to the world.
Wakey wakey. Knock knock.
They were surrounded by corpses, the stench stinging his nose. Yet it worked almost like smelling salts, pulling him back toward clarity.
Yes. Drunk. That’s what it felt like. Like he had been drunk, staggering inside his own skull.
His mind still sloshed like soup, words jumbling before they could form. He tried anyway.
"Ow. Please stop, head hurts..." he muttered, clutching his temples.
"Oh, you’re awake now, Brother Modi! Sorry!" Magni boomed, laughing. "You were mumbling in your slumber. We thought it might be a fatal nightmare! You know, the kind that can stop a man’s heart."
"Maybe it was..." Hermes grumbled, massaging his forehead. "Lucky for me, the nightmare let me go."
Ymir frowned. "Where’s your ’daughter’? We searched but found nothing."
Hermes closed his eyes. The memories of the maze swam back, broken, jagged. He pieced them together like shards of glass.
"She’s not my daughter."
"What!?" Magni and Ymir barked at once.
"Then who is she? Did she hurt you?" Ymir demanded, hands on Hermes’ shoulders as if checking for wounds.
"I’m fine..." Hermes muttered. His voice lowered. "She’s..."
And then he began to tell them what he had seen in the maze.