The Enchanted Maze
The wind whips past you, once the atmosphere finally resolves itself again. The clouds flutter by at languorous (for them; for you it's more like terrifying) speeds, and below you a city resolves itself from a tiny black blotch to a complicated network of glowing points and dark asphalt. You brace yourself for the impact that must inevitably come...
... and find yourself standing, quite normally, down the yellow center divider in a busy street downtown. Someone honks at you and several more people yell. You courteously get out of the middle of the road.
You give a quick glance around you. Though you don't recognize the street exactly, it looks as close and familiar as every other English-speaking Western downtown street would. Busy shoppers fill up the empty space, jostling amongst one another and peering into the windows of shiny-fronted shops. Street merchants and food vendors wave jingly jewelry and dripping meat items around, hawking their wares in loud, commanding voices. Several bars and nightclubs stand inert, their curtains drawn, eerie and quiet in the middle of the day. Everywhere around you, from every angle and through every mode of sensory input, someone is advertising something at you.
You have no money and no idea where you are, but its far better than it could have been. Maybe you're no longer in the Maze at all - maybe the slight anxious tingle in the air is normal, considering your busy environs...
... and find yourself standing, quite normally, down the yellow center divider in a busy street downtown. Someone honks at you and several more people yell. You courteously get out of the middle of the road.
You give a quick glance around you. Though you don't recognize the street exactly, it looks as close and familiar as every other English-speaking Western downtown street would. Busy shoppers fill up the empty space, jostling amongst one another and peering into the windows of shiny-fronted shops. Street merchants and food vendors wave jingly jewelry and dripping meat items around, hawking their wares in loud, commanding voices. Several bars and nightclubs stand inert, their curtains drawn, eerie and quiet in the middle of the day. Everywhere around you, from every angle and through every mode of sensory input, someone is advertising something at you.
You have no money and no idea where you are, but its far better than it could have been. Maybe you're no longer in the Maze at all - maybe the slight anxious tingle in the air is normal, considering your busy environs...