Love creates life. This is true in the most euphemistic sense, of course, but it extends past that. To love something in the period of its creation is to imbue it with a soul of sorts, a patchwork, needy thing that is used to being adored.
One such thing was created by a human inventor at the behest of an inhumane king, in order to contain a half-human prince. In carving its endless corridors and rooms, the inventor couldn't help but find joy in his work. And so the labyrinth was born with a soul that craved touch and adoration.
That wasn't so much of a problem in the beginning. The labyrinth's permanent habitant was nothing if not adoring. It grazed at the moss and sparse grasses growing in the labyrinth's corridors and napped in the light that fell from far above. Other residents appeared periodically to show a different kind of love. Young men and women would enter and sing in loud voices and dance wildly through before eventually lying down to sleep against the labyrinth's warm walls, their flesh tightening in repose.
The empty times came with one such young man. Quieter than the others, he carried a sharpness and a sinuous thing that caught in the hallways. As the labyrinth retched and twisted and danced to rid itself of the persistent thread, the quiet man found the permanent resident and put it to sleep before leaving the labyrinth in the silence he had brought with him.
No more young men and women came. No more love came. The labyrinth did its best to wake up its current residents, of course. It crashed and slammed together, but the noise did not wake them. It shook them until they came apart, but what was left of their eyes stayed closed.
After a time, even its permanent resident was dust and bleached bone. The labyrinth's attention was drawn to the black-shelled creatures that had torn flesh from its habitants. The creatures dug labyrinths of their own and gave them the love so craved. That was the key, then, the labyrinth decided. Instead of wrenching love from those within it, it would copy the little creatures and become a place that could be loved. Then the people would come back down to sing once more.
It started with structures it saw within the little sand labyrinths; egg chambers, food storage, and even a vast hall for the largest member of its future colony. But none came. Over the millennia, it collected whatever scraps fell from above into its recesses and stored them in the rooms meant to hold life and love. Most of it was useless even to the labyrinth, yes, but every once and a while a leaf of text or images would float down.
The pictures ushered in a new plan. Great metallic structures. Gleaming windows. Furniture intricately carved out of unknown materials. Sweeping fabrics. This was the key! Of course the people weren't coming to it, the labyrinth realized, when they had such marvels above!
And so it set to work. It twisted itself to new heights and new depths until it stretched for miles, its movements mimicking the twisted dances that once had filled its corridors. It ripped ores from its own walls and crushed them into fine metals and bright shapes. It built theaters without actors and highways without cars, each one a cloying plea for what it was missing.
There's no real end to this story, I'm afraid, except perhaps in a request. If you ever find yourself on the island of Crete and happen upon a chasm that echoes with an odd, inhuman longing, go ahead and toss down a magazine or something. Maybe you'll provide the vast, empty city below with the hint it needs to finally draw down its populace and feel them dance within it once more.