To Survive the Labyrinth

By Delenn Jadzia

The Labyrinth was created to punish, taking all that those sent into it had to offer, including their lives. Its victims were not expected to return, nor were they wished to. Criminals had to be condemned for their actions. They were no longer welcome in the society which cast them out.
But then a boy and his sisters were sentenced, and everything changed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delenn Jadzia
• Release date: Jan 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311826732

Delenn Jadzia

Student, author, and professional geek.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Daisy, Lily! Dad’ll be home in like five minutes. You should probably come out here, or I might just throw the water balloons at you instead!

Daisy and Lily walked out with groans that made it sound like Toby had woken them up. Maybe he had. They tended to be more than a bit unpredictable eight year olds, so who knew.

Did you guys seriously just wake up? Toby asked, sighing and shaking his head.

What? Did you actually want us to be out here? Lily was apparently still mad that he hadn’t chosen to stop texting his boyfriend James to play with them. But after a second she gave up the sass and asked, So, we should probably get to our stations?

Toby nodded, and the three all headed to their positions. Letting the twins choose their own places to wait wouldn’t end very well, so he had chosen for them. Everything was ready, and they were set to start their plan once Dad opened the door.

Daisy reached over to grab Toby’s phone from where he had hidden it in the couch. The whole hidden thing hadn’t worked well in keeping it from the twins. She tossed it across the doorway to Lily, who turned, caught it, and then checked the time. Then the cell phone went back to Daisy and finally into its original hiding place.

The twins were way too used to working with one another. It was positively unnatural that they knew what one another was going to do, even when their backs were turned. Toby had come to the conclusion that they planned these sorts of things beforehand just to freak him out.

Less than a minute until his usual arrival, Lily mimicked in an adult voice. She then coughed after forcing her voice way lower than her usual soprano.

Only his sister could hurt herself by talking.

Toby pressed one eye against the peephole, studying the driveway. He wanted to know when his dad pulled in so he could double check that he wasn’t holding on to important papers or anything. Toby didn’t want to end up costing his dad more than a bit of dignity.

A black hybrid pulled into the driveway. No files or laptops to ruin on accident. Toby motioned to the twins that everything was ready. Then, with a sideways glance and a smile to Lily, he nicked ammo from his sisters’ collections and crouched at his mark.

Toby listened closely for his dad’s key sliding into the door’s lock. He gave a thumbs up to the twins, one of them sitting on either side of him. They reared their arms back, ready to throw their balloons. As soon as the front door swung open, three water bombs smashed into their dad.

It was exactly as planned.

Toby’s dad laughed, covering his head. Daisy and Lily both let out cheers of success as their dad took a step backwards. Everything was going perfectly.

But then it wasn’t.

Water balloons are great at getting something from point A to point B, but they aren’t so great at precision. Toby had decided that the balloons would be more fun than water pistols, though, so that’s what they used. But maybe that wasn’t such a great idea. Toby’s dad took one more step back on the wet concrete behind him as Daisy and Lily ducked out from inside to each throw one more balloon.

It was too slick for their dad to keep his balance and stay standing. He slipped, falling down the short staircase leading out from the porch. While his head and neck landed toward the bottom of the stairs, the rest of his body sprawled out across the ground. Their dad didn’t move after that.

Toby froze and grabbed the couch next to him in a death-grip. If he let go he wouldn’t be able to keep from freaking out entirely. He just stared at his dad, completely still on the steps outside of the door.

This wasn’t in the plan. His dad was supposed to be soaked and annoyed but still standing. Still conscious to scold the kids and send them back to their rooms. They would come back out later without him giving them the okay, but he wouldn’t say anything about it. Not this. This was not part of the plan.

Daisy and Lily were still giggling, backs to the doorframe and looking in the opposite direction of their dad. They ran over to Toby and tried to pull him up before anything else. The twins succeeded in yanking their brother to his feet, but Toby ignored them and scrambled out the door and over to his dad. Only after he was crouching over his dad’s head did Toby look back to see what Daisy and Lily were doing inside.

Toby caught Lily’s gaze as she stared at her brother and her dad, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Daisy was still facing the opposite way, so Lily reached over and hugged her tight. In doing this, she stopped her twin from being able to turn around. Lily made it her top priority to keep Daisy from seeing what was going on behind her.

There wasn’t very much blood. Toby was pretty sure that was a good thing, but maybe not. Medical books didn’t seem to be very helpful at the moment. He couldn’t even remember what you were supposed to do first in an emergency. Pulse? That was the only thing that he could think of, so Toby decided to go with it and press two fingers to the carotid artery on his dad’s neck. But his shaking hands prevented that from being effective.

Deep breaths. Toby tried to think logically, but none of the information that he should have known was coming back to him. Some medical student he would be! Step one hadn’t been right. There was definitely something that he was supposed to do before checking for a pulse or anything else…

Lily, call 911 now!

Toby hoped that she had heard him. His heavy breaths made it difficult to tell how loud he had actually shouted, though it had seemed pretty loud to him. Everything seemed pretty loud to him.

He scrambled up the stairs so he could look inside and check on the twins. He didn’t know what else to do to help his dad, so he resorted to checking that Lily was calling an ambulance.

Toby let out a small sigh of relief as Lily immediately let go of her twin to grab his cell phone from its hiding place. She punched in the number before hurrying back to Daisy and grabbing her hand.

Lily continued to hold onto Daisy as she talked to the 911 operator. Even though Daisy had not seen what was going on behind her, she heard everything that Lily was saying. Lily threw the phone back onto the couch. Then the twins were back to hugging each other with their eyes shut tight.

He still needed to help, no matter how tempting it was to just stay with the twins. Toby dragged himself back to where his dad was. He was fairly sure that now he was supposed to find a pulse. A few times there seemed to be a weak beating somewhere, but then it was gone. Toby tensed up when he felt something bony move under his fingers as he tried once again for a pulse. There was something else wrong. Something more than the slight gash across his dad’s forehead that was bleeding so little it was barely noticeable.

Toby stopped trying to take his dad’s pulse when he felt the odd angles of the bones. This was bad and he didn’t know any way to make it better. All he could do for his dad was wait for someone who actually knew what they were doing to come and fix him. Daisy and Lily were the ones who he could focus on helping.

Toby joined his sisters’ hug, acting as a human shield between them and everything that was happening outside. He rubbed their backs and comforted them, even though his own breathing was not even and he couldn’t keep himself from crying.

He took a moment to run a hand through his blond hair, something he knew he did whenever he was stressed out. Toby tried to stop crying and stay strong for his sisters, but it didn’t work. There was too much uncertainty and he couldn’t deal with it all at once without breaking down.

No sign of the paramedics yet.

Daisy and Lily continued to bawl into their hands, their freckled faces becoming blotchy and pink. Toby watched for an ambulance, wiping at his eyes every couple of seconds so he could see clearly. He couldn’t blame the twins for clinging to him and just trying to shut everything out, but he needed to stay alert.

The twins embraced each other again when he had to pry them from his arms to go meet the ambulance. Sitting on the floor with his little sisters wouldn’t do anything to help anyone. He could help, maybe. Either way, nothing good would happen by cowering in the corner. Something had to happen.

Three men rushed out of the vehicle as Toby stood waiting to one side. He didn’t receive even a glance from any of them as they swarmed around his dad. One of them looked carefully at the bones of Toby’s dad’s neck and then wrapped a brace around it. Then, together, they lifted the motionless body onto the stretcher that the other two had fetched.

Are you his kid? One of the paramedics turned to face Toby as the others loaded his dad into the ambulance.

…Yes. Toby couldn’t get out more than a one-word answer.

Daisy and Lily inched slowly out to Toby, who let them each cling to one of his arms. Daisy buried her face into his shirt, while Lily maintained a stare at the paramedic talking to her brother.

Then maybe you three should be coming with us, the man told them.

Lily still regarded the man standing by them warily, but followed with Toby as he walked where the man gestured. Neither twin loosened her grip on whichever of Toby’s arms they were grabbing, and for that he was rather thankful. On most days having two little girls attached to him as though surgically was a hassle, but on days like this… he was glad for the sense of solidarity.

None of them looked directly at the body, the twins studying the floor rather intently and Toby trying to identify all of the medical supplies on the walls of the car. One of the medics hooked up different tubes and wires to Mr. Tanner while the others got in front and sped off, presumably towards the hospital. Daisy and Lily slunk down to sit on the ground, their arms now wrapped around Toby’s legs.

Toby laid one hand across Daisy’s head and reached down to squeeze Lily’s hand with the other. The twins were still sniffling quietly, but could breathe well enough to whisper back and forth with one another.

They would be able to keep each other from breaking down too much again, as always. Toby, however, had to close his eyes and focus on his own breaths in order to keep from crying for a while. The only words he said were near-silent consolations aimed at his little sisters.

The van shuddered to a stop a little while later. People rushed in wearing blue clothes and latex gloves to take away the stretcher as Toby and the twins tried not to get in their way. The three men from the ambulance also raced after the children’s dad as he was pushed through the emergency room doors. Everyone was so frantic that Toby couldn’t help but think the worst. This made him start tearing up again, despite his best efforts, which in turn set Daisy and Lily crying too.

They stood alone a few yards from the entrance of the emergency room. The other hospital staff had forgotten about them, it seemed, in their rush to get inside and try to save lives. More specifically, save Toby’s dad’s life.

Toby noticed a woman walking slowly from inside of the building to where the ambulance was parked. She studied him and the twins thoroughly before veering from her original path and heading towards them. Apparently the dark-skinned and even darker-haired woman had more interest in coming to help the siblings than moving the ambulance… or whatever it was she had planned to do.

Toby saw the woman walk over, but wasn’t really thinking deeply about anything outside of his own head. Goodness knows, there was enough happening in there.

When he looked up, Toby noted that Daisy and Lily were calling the woman Elizabeth, so that must have been what she introduced herself as. She was a small person, and going down on one knee left her at about the same height as the twins. Her actions and demeanor, plus her hospital uniform, reassured Toby that she was only trying to help them.

And what’s your name? Elizabeth looked over at Toby, and he shook himself from his thoughts for a moment to reply.

I’m Toby, he stated quietly.

But then he zoned back out a moment later, before Elizabeth could say anything else to him. Toby knew that worrying wouldn’t help either him or his dad, but he still bit at his nails and kept glancing at the emergency room doors. He couldn’t decide what was worse: not knowing what was happening or knowing for certain that something tragic had occurred.

Toby trailed after Elizabeth as she led Daisy and Lily toward a bench to one side of them. She smiled at the girls, and they smiled back, even if they did so a bit hesitantly. Toby just continued staring ahead, not focusing on what was going on beneath the surface. He wasn’t sure what was going on.

Well, that’s not quite right. He knew how his dad looked when he was carried into the hospital, and saw the worried looks on the emergency technicians’ faces, and he had read about how unlikely it was to survive spinal injury. But all of those facts didn’t mean anything. His dad could be perfectly fine and wake up soon, inside of the hospital. But he probably wouldn’t. Toby closed his eyes.

And it’s all my fault.

Something inside of Toby broke, and it felt like his stomach fell all the way to his feet. It was the truth and he knew that. His hopes said that his dad might be perfectly fine, but everything else told him that he wouldn’t be. Couldn’t be. This realization brought Toby down from standing and onto the bench beside Daisy and Lily.

Elizabeth hurried over from where she had been sitting with an arm around Daisy’s back. She knelt down on one knee and smiled slightly as she spoke to Toby.

Hey, Toby, I need you to do something for me. Okay? she asked him.

Toby breathed out a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, but didn’t answer. Instead he grabbed onto Lily’s hand from where she sat beside him. Both girls were done crying and looked almost back to normal, but Toby supposed that they still had hope their dad would come walking out of the hospital.

Toby? Can you answer me something real quick?

What? Toby asked, glaring at Elizabeth.

He didn’t mean to sound that harsh, and Elizabeth didn’t react much to the tone of his word. Daisy and Lily did, however, and drew in worried gasps at his shout. Now he felt even worse than before, if that was possible.

I’m sorry... I just…

It’s okay, Elizabeth told him softly as he tried to comfort Daisy and Lily. I was just going to ask you what your grade in English is.

Toby blinked in surprise. He had no clue why she would care about that, but tried to remember anyway. While he was trying to recall his grade, the girls chose to call out their own English scores. And then math. Then science, and on. They kept going until Toby had a moment between them to answer.

A-, I think, he said, shrugging.

That’s good. You’re interested in being a writer? Elizabeth didn’t ignore the twins entirely, throwing each of them a thumbs up.

Not really, I actually want to be a doctor.

Toby had wanted to study medicine since forever. It was just so cool to know how people work. The only reason he kept a high grade in English was so that he could stay at a 4.0 GPA, and even that didn’t always work. He made sure that Daisy and Lily kept good grades, though. He knew that no one else would really have time to keep track of their school work otherwise.

His mind was about to zip back to square one and with it, their father, when Elizabeth asked, So, you want to be a surgeon, or what?

No, I actually want to be a GP. Surgery is way too much pressure. I just want to be able to help people.

Toby grinned. Every time that James or one of the girls ended up with so much as a scrape, he was the one to patch them up. It was fun to practice any medicine, on anyone, but it was a thousand times better on one of them. They were the three he was closest to, after all, and helping them felt like he was fixing something special. To do that for a career would be… magic.

He noticed Elizabeth’s intent stare on something that wasn’t nearby and turned to look at what she was watching. A man came out of the hospital entrance holding on to a sheet of paper, glancing around the area every few seconds as he walked. Toby watched him as he finally seemed to notice himself and the twins sitting there and make a beeline over to where they sat.

Daisy, Lily, and Toby Tanner?

Toby already knew what he was going to say, long before he actually said it. It was the way he stood and the looks that he gave the girls, arms crossed and expression so piteous. Toby pulled Daisy close to him before nodding to the man, who was dressed in blue scrubs like almost everyone around the hospital.

I’m really sorry, but your dad was very badly hurt… The doctor abandoned his professional demeanor and crouched down to finish his sentence. …and we couldn’t do anything to help him. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for your loss.

A surge of unexpected anger hit Toby in a wave. Why had his dad left? He needed him to be there. To fix things like he had never really done before. Toby had been playing mom for the twins for years, but he needed his dad too. He couldn’t do everything. He dropped his chin into his hands and focused on his breathing. That was an anger control technique one of the school counselors had taught him. It didn’t work very well right now, though. He wanted to punch something.

Then, in a single moment, Toby didn’t want to strike out any more. There was no reason to be mad, after all. All of this was a mistake. There was no way that Dad was gone. No way. He was sure now that something had been confused or at least something could be remedied.

Are you sure it wasn’t someone else? Or if it was actually my dad, could you just try again? To fix him. Just try once more and maybe you can do it. Toby started speaking and his voice only became even softer as he finished his pointless request.

The twins seemed to be trying to figure out what the doctor had said. Lily had a busy expression on her face, one of intense sadness, misery, but not much confusion. She was staring at Daisy, who was sitting practically in her lap. After a couple seconds, Lily leaned over as her tears began to fall and whispered a few words into Daisy’s ear.

Lily’s face crumbled when Daisy violently burst into tears, throwing her face onto Lily’s shoulder and sobbing. The more mature girl rested her head on top of her sister’s and cried soundlessly, trying to calm her little sister’s sobs. Toby had stopped murmuring to himself and instead wrapped one arm behind Lily and Daisy to pull them closer to himself.

Then what do we do now? he asked, looking over to where Elizabeth and the other doctor were standing.

Toby didn’t concentrate on one individual thing as they were driven back to their house. He let his mind zone out, forcing any sad thoughts out along with all the happy ones and everything in between. This attempt to stay calm and neutral, however, didn’t stop him from crying as much as his little sisters during the drive home.

This was never part of the plan.

Chapter 2

Toby was left with the impression that nothing happening was real. Everything was far too cold for it to be more than a dream. No, nightmare. The only reminder that everything he remembered had really happened was the older woman who stayed at their house when they were dropped off.

She said she was there to help, but Toby caught whispers between the grey-haired woman and the man who drove them all to the house. The whispers weren’t about a foster home or anything of the sort. They seemed to actually be blaming the children for what had happened. Toby decided that just shaking it off was the best option. He should spend his time comforting Daisy and Lily.

If he felt like he needed someone to comfort him, then Toby could only imagine how his little sisters must feel. It was harder to talk to the little girls, though, when the woman was continually asking them questions. Toby responded to all of the questions with either silence or glares at the woman. To his annoyance, she would have none of it.

Listen, child, Ms. Lawe told him, sneering. She spat the word child like the worst insult that she could possibly say to another human being. "I am here only to make sure that you, your