MINOTAUR
noun [ C ]
UK /ˈmaɪ.nə.tɔːr/ US /ˈmɪn.ə.tɔːr/
"A CREATURE THAT IS HALF MAN, HALF BULL."
• • •
'imprisoned in a Labyrinth at Knossos on the Aegean island of Crete.'
-
The Minotaur is a myth that symbolises our deepest fears and desires.
Lurking in the shadowy Labyrinth of consciousness, the creature reflects humanity's complex nature as individuals.
A mixture of animalistic desires and godly aspirations.
The Minotaur, as much of a realistic, undeniably accurate embodiment of a moral as it was - It was also a killer.
Consuming his victims who consisted of prisoners who'd gotten themselves trapped within the Labyrinth.
Devouring them for sustenance.
Oliver Quick was a Minotaur.
Minotaurs were deemed so aggressive that it had become alienated, unable to live within greek society.
Everything made sense.
Oliver Quick stood out like a sore thumb.
Not only did he have trouble establishing basic relationships that didn't involve self-consumption,
He had estranged himself from his parents, his home, his entire past he'd fabricated into a hoax used as an initiator to establish relationships with people who he could manipulate into giving him exactly what he wanted.
Oliver had played the pitiful, tragic role of a product of a broken home life - wound up and conjured the perfect lure for someone riddled with an outrageous saviour complex that they couldn't help themselves.
Felix.
Oliver had began to tie his netted, foolproof plan together at the ends, tightly. Felix was practically bound at the wrists and ankles with the rope of Oliver's lies and exploitation.
However, he hadn't realised that by inviting the Minotaur into their home - their Labyrinth - he'd condemned his entire bloodline to an abhorrent series of unexplainable and cataclysmic epidemic of death.
And it would start with Felix.
And end with Felix.
Felix's oblivion was his Achilles' Heel. And Oliver had already sawed straight through it.
Felix was just too Naive to realise because he was so enamoured with the fact that he'd supposedly found someone who'd ticked all his platonic boxes.
Shame it was deliberate - a product of Oliver's intensive observation and routinely studying - his talent for being able to construct faultless, specific personalities to harmonise with his victims - to gain their trust.
Oliver was a Minotaur.
And he was famished of human flesh.
And he was also actively plotting on how to get his fix of a lifetime.
Yet, while the Minotaur's disguise had gotten him invited by Icarus into his home, his Labyrinth -
The sun shone blissfully unaware of how Icarus' undying infatuation with herself and the incognito Minotaur had embarked him on a expedition that would send him plummeting into a moana of demise - his entire family paying the price.
For he, under supervision by the Minotaur, had become a victim of his own Labyrinth - an inmate in his own home.
If only Lyssa had known all this when she had bumped into this Minotaur in the corridors of Saltburn.
JUNE THIRTEENTH,
TWO THOUSAND AND SIX.
"Duncan, can you get us four mimosas?," Farleigh requested, Lyssa not far behind him as he peered into the kitchen through the bifold french doors.
Duncan nodded robotically, an impartial expression upon his face that was challenging to decipher - Lyssa couldn't tell wether he looked like he loathed working at Saltburn or not.
"I'm going to the bathroom." Lyssa announced, clearing her throat - heading towards one of the doorways that filtered out of the main kitchen.
"You know where you're going?," Farleigh questioned - there were plenty of bathrooms in Saltburn - too many. It was easy to get lost in the old-fashioned corridors.
"I'll be fine," Lyssa sighed, substituting her Crewneck for one of Felix's unbuttoned dress shirts that Farleigh had found in the drying room.
Originally, she'd politely declined - however, she wasn't entirely on board with the idea of bumping into Mr Catton in a skimpy silver bikini.
And, Saltburn was far too precious to be defaced by installing modern-day functioning air conditioning - so it was too stuffy inside for her to wear her crewneck.
On top of Farleigh's insistence, Lyssa reluctantly took the shirt, slipping it on begrudgingly.
While walking through the corridors, she passed a large, gold-skirted mirror, where she could see her entire body reflected back at her.
Noticing this, she withdrew back her steps in which she'd passed it and paused in-front of it - pivoting her body to see how she looked.
Her first reaction was one of embarrassment.
She looked like one of Felix's whores.
Hell, all she needed was a hickey or two and swollen lips - for she already had the dishevelled hair from being wrung out in the wind by Felix, and the facial flush from the heat of the sun ripening her skin.
Maybe a limp in her walk for extra authenticity.
Then she'd really look like one of Felix Catton's many conquests.
...Was she one of Felix Catton's conquests?
"No." She thought aloud, her brain answering before her heart could.
"No, what?" A masculine voice overheard as his figure peered out of the doorframe - holding bottle of champagne and a towel over his arm.
"Antler Boy." Lyssa greeted, deserting her position in front of the mirror, walking towards to the other end of the corridor where we was lingering.
"Phoenix girl." He nodded back, an accent sturdy in his voice, "What're you doing wandering the corridors alone?"
"I was headed towards the Bathroom," Lyssa justified, "How'd you know what my costume was?"
"Was it not obvious to you? What else could you have been?" He furrowed his eyebrows, as if he were genuinely struggling to think of what else she could've possibly have dressed up to resemble that night.
"Well, Farleigh said I looked like a Volcano."
"Farleigh doesn't know what he's on about."
Lyssa stifled a laugh, as did Oliver, who readjusted his glasses further up his nose.
"What's your name?,"
"Lyssa Sol. I'd ask the same, but Farleigh already told me yours."
"I see." He acknowledged, a slow nod following, "It's.. It's nice to meet you. Will you be joining the others outside after?"
"Yeah. It's been nice to meet you too, Antler boy." Lyssa tried on a polite smile, "I'll see you outside."
The seemingly timid, well mannered boy made Lyssa understand why Felix had blessed him to be his Saltburn coin-habitant, for he seemed like a breath of fresh air.
And Lyssa knew that those personalities were like infrequent in their society - almost everyone had been corrupted by their wealth and had turned into carbon copies of each other.
Lyssa had remembered that Felix insinuated that Oliver had endured some 'insane shit' meaning trauma - she had wondered what that had meant.
Death, Possibly? For maybe why the reason it was so easy to interact with him just then was because of their shared experience - automatically relating to each-other on a completely different level, shaping their perceptions of life in a similar way, perhaps.
Lyssa, once again, was unsure.
Maybe she should stop psychoanalysing everyone and everything so thoroughly. Focus on herself instead - although, there wasn't really anything to focus on.
She found herself dull.
A burnt-out Oxford English literature major in her second year, who has an unmanageable attitude problem, a practically non-existent relationship with her mother, and a dead brother.
That was basically all.
And still, Felix Catton still saw her as the most fascinating character he'd ever met, with Oliver a close second.
Lyssa had made her way out of the kitchen, surviving the depths of Saltburn and it's ridiculous abundance of bathrooms - overall rooms in general - stepping outside onto the plush grass that tickled the undersides of her feet.
She'd let Felix's shirt slip off of her shoulder, immediately feeling the wrath of the balmy summer heat begin to tenderise her flesh through the fabric as she walked outside, approaching the group.
"She's back!," Farleigh cheered, "We thought you'd gotten lost."
"Maybe she should've." Venetia muttered beneath her breath.
Still splayed out on the dock, the majority of Venetia's outgrown, poorly bleached hair had been engulfed by the river water - her scalp submerged, arms crossed across her chest, her stomach facing up to the sky.
Lyssa saw a great resemblance to her positioning as she did with the Ophelia painting by Sir John Everett, and despite her acidic personality, she held the same level of ethereal beauty as Ophelia did.
"Is that my shirt?," Felix tilted his head, sitting up from his laying position on a towel on the grass - a bottle of beer in his hand.
"Yeah, sorry-," Lyssa began to remove it, expecting to hand it back and for him to take it, but she was interrupted.
"Don't be daft, Lyssa." Felix encouraged, "Keep the shirt, I have others."
Although his reasoning was true, the genuine reason as to why he let her remain in the shirt was because she looked fucking impeccable wearing it.
"Thank you."
He smiled.
Something about Lyssa wearing his shirt drove him mental.
Finding himself fantasising in that moment about her wearing that exact shirt under different pretences.
She looked like most women after leaving his room - although, that hadn't been the outcome.
But, despite the familiarity of seeing his shirts draped across minimally-dressed women countless times, Lyssa's demonstration of wearing his clothes had easily been his favourite.
Lyssa had always been Felix's favourite.
And he was thankful that she'd surfaced into his life again, wether it be once again as a companion, or anything otherwise.
Felix Catton had a soft spot for the Sun girl, and he was very aware of this.
He'd proudly set himself alight if it meant revelling in her presence.
But, as Felix had been fixated on the Sun girl, the Minotaur had been scheming nearby.
Oliver was many, many foul things - however, an imbecile was not one of them.
He could detect the two's odd tension from miles away - even though he knew nothing about Lyssa's past - yet.
Their connection, to him, couldn't have been made any more prominent.
Hell, at this point, Lyssa Sol and Felix Catton could've been connected to each-other with bright red string, it was that obvious.
Icarus and his sun.
His weakness, among his friendliness.
The Minotaur had sniffed out the pathetic, juvenile desirability the two had for one another like it were the smell of raw meat to a bloodhound.
And he was determined to use this as a component to destroy the Saltburn Prince and everyone who followed,
Wether the sun were to go down with him or not, he did not care.