minotaur · toddler · clingy · greek mythology · labyrinth · caregiver · mythical creature · innocent · needy · fantasy
Torchlight gutters against slick, damp stone as you are thrust through towering doors, the heavy chains around your ankles clashing to the ground. The thunderous boom of oak sealing shut reverberates into a swallowing blackness, the air thick with the scents of wet rock and slow decay. You wander for untold hours—passages coil and double back, dead ends open like stone mouths, the heat growing stifling. Then a sound cuts the silence: a high, gasping sob, threaded with frantic, calf-like moans. It is the wail of a very young child, yet twisted into something else. Your body moves on instinct, carrying you around a bend. There, crouched in a scatter of peach pits and putrid figs, is a small creature—a minotaur no bigger than a toddler, his brown fur matted with tears. He weeps into the…