Mazes

“I think I’m lost.” I muttered to myself as I turned right, for the third time. Someone, at some point, had said you had to follow the right-hand path of a maze to get to the middle. Or maybe it was the left. Shit.
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It wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying myself, but I had lost all of the people I had been walking with and had been stumbling around lost for at least 10 minutes without seeing anyone I recognised.

I took another right, and then, just to mix it up a little, a left. It was growing dark around me and I was on the verge of pulling out my phone to use as a torch.

I kept muttering to myself as I walked, a stupid nervous habit I had tried desperately to lose.

“Lost lost lost, you idiot.”

I don’t know why I’d taken a turn that no one else had gone down, not noticing until there was silence at my back. Who knows where they were now. Probably in the centre waiting for my stupid arse to catch up.

A cold wind was beginning to gust around me, causing me to shiver.  It was properly dark now and I felt like I hadn’t seen or heard anyone in a very long time. There were no voices, no muffled footsteps heard through the towering hedges. Complete silence.

The hedges weren’t even rustling in the breeze.

“What the fuck?”

I was sure I had backtracked a little, trying to find my bearings yet nothing looked familiar except for the looming hedges. There were three possible turns I could take yet I was stumped as to which one I should choose.

I shivered, sure I should be able to hear voices of other patrons yet hearing nothing.

I had to go on. I couldn’t stand in one spot hoping the answer would leap out at me. I turned left and then abruptly right coming face to face with a hedge. I turned back only to find the fork in the path only had two options now.

I was lost.
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I am still lost.