Contemplating the pear, you decide that wherever it came from, it's still a pear and you've been wandering in the labyrinth for hours. It's probably dinner time by now, but you really don't have any idea how you can get out, yet. Granted, if worst comes to worst, you suppose you can just push your way through wall after wall of bracken and hedge, but -really- you'd much rather weave the way on your own.
You bite into the pear and try to figure out where you've gone so far.
No longer are there any distant sounds of children laughing or playing in the park, and -even more odd- no sounds of birds.
The juice from the pear runs down your chin as you eat the luscious, summertime fruit.
You soon finish it off and toss the core into the still waters surrounding both you and the base of the willow tree. Leaning back to contemplate your choices, you wipe your lips on your shirt.
Minutes pass and the shadows lengthen. You find your eyes getting heavy and your tongue feeling thick in your mouth. Your limbs feel heavy and leaden as a fog descends to cloud your mind. Slowly, and without meaning to, you drift off to sleep...
A moan escapes your lips and your back aches.
Your eyes flutter open into the dim light of late evening, and you feel your whole body aching dully as if you just ran a marathon.
You groan, a dusky shadow in the middle of your vision as if something big and obstructive were glued to your face. However, before you can even clear your sight of the odd shadow, you find that you've slipped off the bench and have been half-lying on the ground, your back resting uncomfortably against the iron bench you'd fallen asleep upon.
Groaning, you roll to one side, your head coming to the edge of the encircling moat.
While mostly leaf-filled, you can still see your reflection in the dark waters, but what you see is startling and -at first- impossible to accept is yourself...
Looking into the murky depths you see that you have changed.
You have become...