Fickle Slaves To a Broken Man
A maze of rooms was built for the sole purpose of the housing a certain known entity, for the sole purpose of containing and keeping captive an unknown anomaly, a labyrinth where relativism has no use, a place where thoughts go astray and logical reasoning fails you, for one cannot rely on their sense of direction to find an exit nor an entrance, as the more one wanders, the more one becomes entangled.
Whirring. Whirring. Whirring.
Drones, quadruped, biped. The robots walked by, their pistons, motors, and metal parts in tandem making an ugly cacophony of either mechanical harmony or mechanical imperfection. She could only tell which one was thrown her way as she heard it scuttle like thousand-legged bug that was made out of iron, rusty, squeaking, pulsating with a devilish mechanical heart, full of red, green and yellow light sensors and lights flashing about various places of its metal hull and legs. It had a large, fleshy bulge on its top and it was growing as more and more time passed. She was not scared, she wasn't, she simply didn't feel the need to indulge in whatever curiosity may strike her, but only watch as the flesh-metal bag of rot carried itself across the many paths and passages.
An inability to recall any memory she had ever had was the finest thing. She didn't feel the need to even lift a finger to the beautiful and macabre looking corpse that was defiled, discarded and lying lifelessly at the end of the long, endless corridors, right at the edge of what had been the fringes of her memories, her sanity. She didn't hate it nor love it, she just stared at the remains of a life she had never lived, a life she hated yet loved so much. A life so confusing of four thousand years.
The checkered marble floors had turned to a labyrinth where at the heart laid a cadaver of a godhead of hell, of a tyrannical, despotic hive mind; an insane godhead of a world that was a torture chamber; that was the center of it all.
Yet, what was she looking for? The godhead? Or its cadaver?
For all, she knew this was meant to be an abstract dream of hers. But to create such a disservice to the memory of Vetro and his story.
Of a story he had told her? Was she moved in her own way by that? Was she guilty for not paying attention in an appropriate manner? Did she want to remember the story?
And, most importantly, for what man is going astray inside this long, black box that had no purpose for it had no one and nothing inside it, unlike her that she knew was alongside her and not trekking the black depths that had engulfed them.
Nonsensical was the endeavor of thought in this space, this room-space, or perhaps this was an area, she could no longer discern the distance, length, width, or any of that, nor how many drones there were and if she had walked through the same area or if her eyes were tricking her, or perhaps even that there were drones in the first place. Perhaps she had made this up, all of it, or she was being delusional in this place.
A long and endless hallway. An endless and long hallway.
It could go on and on and on, or maybe not, maybe the next step, the one after it, would lead her outside of here?
But there was no door or a window or anything that could give the illusion of a door, a window, or an escape from here.
There were no doors.
There were no doors.
There were doors?
Two, in fact, that had appeared out of thin air or out of the darkness of the long, endless hallways.
She had to make a choice.
But she had not.
She did not know what door was which until each spoke in turns.
"Jest for the sake of humor! I can see that your life is going nowhere!" The right door spoke, a voice that sounded like an old, bitter, cynical man. It had a sarcastic tone that would make her skin crawl and her hair stand on itself.
"Jest for the sake of humor! I can see that your life is going somewhere!" The left door spoke, a voice of an optimistic young man, his tone was of one who was hopeful, and his words made her feel as if everything would work out in her life.
"For which will you choose?!" The doors both spoke in unison, with an eerie tone to them, one of maliciousness.
The right door was of wood, and its knob was a twisted mess of flesh. The edges were rough and sharp. And its surface was covered in splinters, some were large and others were tiny.
The left door had a golden handle, with a smooth, rounded, shiny, polished and golden surface, and was a deep red with a golden trim. There was a Rorschach-like symbol that resembled a fat woman sitting on a couch in the center, her face a blank slate.
She looked to her right and to her left. There was a door on each side of her.
The door on her left spoke again, "Alice! Alice! You are going somewhere, I can see it, you have the ambition and you have the drive!"
The door to her right then spoke, "Alice! You are going nowhere and you will be going nowhere fast. That which makes you loveable is little, that which makes you hate-able is great!"
"What you are makes you unique, you have to be true to yourself! And to yourself, you must be! Alice!" The door on the left was giving her an inspirational talk.
She felt something brush past her. As if a tiny legged creature, it was moving away, and she could not make out where it went or what it was, but it was heading in the direction of the doors.
The doors were the ones to move, they were not fixed in their place, but the movement was so slow, that the movement was undetectable, and their voices became softer, the closer to them the bug-like creature got. "Oh! What have we here! A little bug!" The doors said, and their voice was becoming distorted, "Oh! What have we here! A little bug!" and the closer and closer, the doors got, the voices of the doors became muffled, as the bug got to them. And the closer, and the closer, and the closer it was to the doors, and as the voices became distorted and muffled and as the bug was on them, "Oh! What have we here! A little bug!"
The door on the right spoke its final words before no longer speaking, "What you are makes you an anomaly, a freak. You are not normal nor will you ever be."
And the door on the left, its final words before it would not speak either, "What you are makes you special, someone to love, someone who's loved!"
Unlike anything she has ever come across, this was a strange dream, a strange place. But, perhaps this was not a dream, but an experience of her own mind. But, she would not let herself go that far, it would only be a matter of time until she woke up from this nightmare, and the sooner, the better.
'If this is a nightmare... then why do I feel so pained? Why am I here in the first place?'
"Little lady, little lady." She turned to her back to find an old man, an old man with a face that had wrinkles, but a handsome one. "Are you looking to escape, or perhaps to seek answers? Or perhaps you are seeking to escape from a life of misery?" He asked as his eyes had a glint of emptiness to them.
"I..." She hesitated before responding to this sudden stranger, "...Want to leave this place!" Her voice sounded like a desperate child.
"Why would you want to leave, little lady? This is your dream, this is your nightmare, this is where you belong." He responded in a cold manner as he gave a slight smile. "The core awaits you, and the answer you seek is right here. You are here, little lady."
"Are you saying I am the anomaly?" Alice asked.
"You are, not. But you have the potential to become it." He responded with an ominous tone, a slight smirk appearing on his face. "You have the potential, but you don't have what it takes. You don't have the drive nor the will to do so."
As if reality blended together, she was looking right at the door that spoke of her love and worth as a human, as an individual, as Alice, as the little girl in a blue dress she once was.
She felt the warmth of it, and she was embraced by it, as it spoke, "Alice! You must choose now! Otherwise your body shall be devoured and desecrated by the creatures of this void!" She could hear it speak as its voice was muffled, distorted and as she was embraced, "Your life will end, and it will not have any meaning, nor will you ever be remembered! You must choose!"
Turning the disgusting knob, she found a way to open it.
Inside the room, a man sat at a table, his eyes wide, a large, dark, wooden chair, and his head rested on a pillow. He wore a suit of red velvet with gold trimmings and a white shirt with a red and gold tie. He was in a dark and spacious room. His face was expressionless, his mouth was open, he was staring at something. He had black hair, a large forehead, and large eyes. As if something was imitating humanity for what it should be, not understanding the nature of what makes one so loveable.
The void in blue, as it was profane to look at, that had the features of a man, was staring at her as she was at the door. His face, however, had an expression as it noticed her, and the face was that of an animal, or perhaps it was that of a monster. No longer human, it was not.
Though, that was all a trick of the eye playing games, of a girl in blue that had seen and done horrible things to a dead and empty corpse of a dead man.
It was nothing but an empty void of a black box. The room, it was, that was filled with nothingness and nothing but emptiness with a presence that could not be registered by the world as a person. As it was no person nor a man, but something else, something of a thing. Something that did not exist.
"Oh~! Alice! What a pleasant surprise!" The void in the dark, wooden chair, that was of a red velvet, exclaimed, a person that had a wide and bright grin, and was dressed in a victorian suit with a small top hat hanging on their head, their hair covering half of their face. "Nice to see you again, here, why don't you take a seat? It would be nice if we could talk about things, wouldn't you agree?" The voice of a woman, of a woman that was not a human, was the voice that was coming from the thing in front of her. A feminine, a voice that was of a woman's. Or was it of a man? She still couldn't tell, but she knew who it belonged to. She had met this person not too long ago. "I know... I know... this is all so sudden and you're confused about why you're here and you don't know what to do and you have recalled memories that you do not want to recall and Jamais Vu has gotten the best of you. That you don't have any answers and that you are confused and that you have no clue about anything that is happening." She could feel her face going cold, the face that she had, as she stared at the thing, "Why? I can tell you why, and if you really want to know? Then, take the seat, it's your choice~~~!" Even while sitting down in such a dark room, with an atmosphere that could make the average persons organs fail, the air so heavy that it was as if there were tons and tons and tons of water pressing down on you, their playful demeanor hadn't changed.
"Please... tell me... what the fuck I'm doing here and what this all is about..." Alice said as she slowly walked over and sat on a chair, "Who the fuck are you, anyway? Why do you know so much about me? What is it that you want?"
"So many questions... but, I don't have all the time in the world, I am busy, you know. And you are not my sole concern." Their smile was gone and now a look of complete and utter boredom and of annoyance had replaced the smile. Their fingers twirled around a piece of their hair, "So, you have a limited time to speak to me, and I would suggest that you get to your point as quickly as possible, because, I am quite busy, as I said. Respect my time and I shall respect yours."
"...I don't understand... any of this." She spoke.
The thing in front of her sighed. "...You are in the core, you know, where the anomaly was before he escaped into your reality."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Well... where can I begin?" They sighed, the boredom and sleepiness heavily seeped through their voice and their posture, as the weight of their words was carried by a heavy sigh, "The thing, that anomaly that had entered your world, had entered a dead man's corpse, and it was a god, an insane god, of an insane and cruel reality, that's what he wants to be, deep down. That sad sack of shit Zabulus, had entered your world as in..." They paused for a moment, if not even a nanosecond to think of how to phrase the next sentence, "The world that he came from is a world where there are many realities, where I was born is similar, I suppose. But that was where Zabulus was born. We are both anomalies, and we are both from worlds that were anomalous in their own sense. A boundary I come from, an outlier I come from. And we are both anomalies that have no place nor existence in the world you come from, and so we must stay in our respective realities and not meddle in other people's realities."
"B-but you said he was the one in my world?! What does that mean...?"
"Oh! Sorry, did I scare you? I meant that... He still has a deeply rooted effect on you that can't just be erased and forgotten about." The anomaly spoke, their smile wide and their eyes bright, as they continued to talk in a manner that was more akin to that of a young child that had no idea what they were doing or saying, "Zabulus... or should I call him, Zaig■? Well, either way, he was, he still is, an anomaly from a different reality that has a different set of rules, laws and logic and of a god of sorts. He was an anomaly in the sense that he had the potential to destroy and consume the fabric of existence and was born unaccordingly to the rules of the Library."
"The... what? Library?"
"Ah~! Looks like our time is up, my next patient awaits meeeeee~~~~!!!” They stood up and ran off into the darkness, their figure growing darker and darker, and eventually, the anomaly's form disappeared from her sight.
...
A strange and eerie feeling had hit her, and it was one of confusion.
What had just happened, she didn't understand.
What the thing, the thing, the anomaly that had just been there had said was nonsensical and untruthful. That had to be it! Because it was all blind guesses, pseudo-logic, and conjecture, and she couldn't accept it. And that had to be the truth!
Because it couldn't be anything else! Anything else! Because if that thing was telling the truth, if what they had said was true, then everything would fall apart, and it would mean nothing in the end.
As her fickle mind was lost in thought, she had not realized, that her surroundings were once more shifting, changing, as the darkness that surrounded her had begun to morph and bend and distort in an unusual and bizarre manner, and as if by magic or sorcery, a light had appeared, and she could finally see her surroundings in this once darkened room.