by Charlie Sherman

The Myth of the Labyrinth

This is the story of the hero Theseus and how he defeated the Minotaur in the pitch black. Our story begins with a king-the king of Crete. Now he was a wise king. He had three sons, he was beloved by his people and everyone was disappointed many years later when he died. Now here's where the drama begins, because he had three sons and each one thought they should be king. 

One of these sons, Minus, thought that he should be king because he thought that he had a connection with the gods. He claimed that he could make bull rise out of the sea. So he prayed to the god of the seas Poseidon promising to make a huge offering after. So a magnificent white bull rose out of the sea and showed itself to Minus. Both of his brothers thought this was pretty impressive and in return he banished his brothers. Then he forgot to make an offering for more than a month, then another eventually hole year passed and Minus still hadn't made an offering! 

Unfortunately for Minus this turned out to be a pretty bad idea. You see, Poseidon was pretty upset about the hole no offering thing, so he decided to get some revenge. And his idea of revenge was to curse Minus' wife so that their son would be a monster: a minotaur, a giant with the head of a boll. King Minus' wife tried her best to raise the creature, but the thing was untamable. When it was older it even started attacking people. The citizens of Crete begged Minus to imprison the creature. So he hired a skilled architect named Daedalus and he built a labyrinth for the creature to live in and it kind of became a trademark thing for the country.

Now here's where our story really begins! It starts with Minus on the verge of war with Athens. Now the king of Athens wasn't too thrilled about the whole war thing so he surrendered to Crete. As part of the terms of the surrender king Minus ordered Athens to send one girl and one boy to Crete where they would be fed to the creature. The king reluctantly agreed but the king had a son and his name was Thesis and he was the prince of athans and he was determined to kill the minotaur. Thesis trained for years so that he could kill the minotaur. 

The next year when Minus's ship arrived on the beach he was greeted by two girls and strangely three boys! “What is this!” said Minus angrily. “It's my son Thesis,” said the father, “and he is determined to kill the minotaur.” Minus actually laughed at this, “No such thing is possible. But if he wants to, I will not interfere with his destiny.” And with that Minus boarded his ship still laughing. Before his son could go his father made a deal with him. He told his son that if he was killed they would keep the sails black, and if his son succeeded he would change the sales to white. And with that, his son boarded the ship leaving his father back on the shore.  

When Thesis got to Crete the next day he was immediately thrown into a dark prison cell. He spent the whole night there and when the sun finally rose two guards were standing waiting to take him to the minotaur. The guards brought him to the base of a huge mountain were king Minus and his daughter were. Minus's daughter saw Thesis and fell immediately in love with him. When she figured out the he was to be fed to the minotaur she was determined to help him. Thesis was shoved into a pitch black but he could hear a voice “pst pst” he knelt by the door. He did hear a voice “hello can you hear me?” It was the kings daughter! “I’m here to help you," she said “I’m slipping a sword and a roll of yarn to use to retrace your steps under the gate.” So Thesis took the sword and the roll of yarn and set off. 

In took a long time but eventually, Thesis heard a low growl in the darkness. He grabbed his sword and kept moving. He saw the silhouette of a monster in the darkness. It lunged at Thesis, he rolled away just in time but it knocked the sword out of his hand. Then Thesis lounged at the minotaur. He climbed up the minotaurs back in tell he reach his head. With great strength he pulled one of the minotaurs horns off and stabbed the minotaur with it. The creature threw Thesis off him and he landed with a thud. The minotaur staggered around a bit before it fell dead. Thesis cut the head of the beast off for proof. Then he followed the the string of yarn back to the front gate and banged on the inside. 

“I've killed the minotaur! Open up and let me show you!” So the gates were opened and King Minus and his daughter were standing there. Thesis throws the head it landed right in front of the king. After he stared at it for an unusually long time, king minus realized that Thesis had done the impossible. Suddenly, Minus was not just surprised he was also kind of afraid. If Thesis managed to kill the minotaur he could easily kill him too. So he started to beg for forgiveness. “I seek only one thing,”  said Thesis. “I wish to take your daughter back to my kingdom.” 

Now, king Minus was hesitant to do this for obvious reasons. “I can see you disagree” said Thesis “but I will have to kill you if you do not allow me to take your daughter.” Now here's where Minus got worried and he immediately agreed. Before the day was over in fact they had boarded a ship back to Athens. But because they left so quickly they forgot to pack supplies, so they stopped on an island to restock. In the rush, they forgot the kings daughter on the random island. Ya that is sad. Well anyway when they got back to Athens they also forgot to change the sail from black to white so when Thesis's father saw the ship he thought that his son had died. As a result of that, he threw himself off a cliff. When Thesis returned they told him that his father had unfortunately died. So Thesis ascended the throne and became king, and he never saw the king's daughter again! 

The End.