my soft soles patter over the cold slates that make up the maze of halls im scurrying through.

i am on an adventure, a treacherous journey,

to retrieve a single key for a locked door ive been trying to batter down my entire life.

there are others, winding their ways through the spiralling turrets.

sometimes we even fall in unison, 

our shoes hitting the same beats, on the same beaten paths, and our fingers murmuring past one anothers. 

it's not as if i am clueless to this keys whereabouts, 

I'm not. 

it's at the end of a long atrium, then to the left, down a staircase, and through a crawl space. 

I have a crudely sprawled map in my right pocket that I refuse to read. 

i must feel my way through these corridors or I fear my wandering may be in vain. 

the cold, emotionless atrium is filled with a cool gas and a snowy sunlight. 

its crisp, allowing each pore and vunerability open for insepection. 

the glassy ceiling and silken marble walls emulate a deep dread within the soul. 

I'm thirteen steps away from the door at the other side of this cruel castle. 

one, 

two, 

three,

four, 

five, 

six, 

seven,

eight,

nine,

ten,

eleven,

twelve,

thirteen.