Twisted Thoughts And Thoughtful Truths On Thursday #022

Twisted Thoughts And Thoughtful Truths On Thursday #022 – The Atrium – Chapter 06 – A Curious Dose Of Consciousness

As promised, I’m releasing some of my upcoming book bi-weekly as part of the Twisted Thoughts And Thoughtful Truths On Thursday series here at SBS.  I don’t expect it to make sense…at least, not at the moment…but that’s okay.  Putting it out here publicly is intended to be motivation to keep me writing it, and that’s all the purpose any of it needs to serve.  Hopefully, if I get lucky, you’ll enjoy it in the process…that’s the best case scenario.  At the moment, I’d predict that things will likely change with the order I put these things out in…and what reads as “chapters” now, might end up becoming pure prologue, if it even ends up making the final cut for the whole story at all.  Regardless, if you find yourself being one of the few that wanna follow along and see where this goes, I can at least promise you that reading what is posted up here at the homepage will provide you with extra insight, details, and ideas that probably won’t even end up being in the book…so perhaps, by reading these postings at the start of each month, you might very well know more about what I’m writing than the publisher will by the time things are all finished. 

I truly hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading.

– Jer @ SBS

The Atrium – Chapter 06 – A Curious Dose Of Consciousness

November 9^th, 1998.

His bones felt sore as hell.  From the bottom of his feet, straight through to his knees, back, arms, fingers – everything felt raw.  Even his chin and jaw didn’t feel aligned like they used to be somehow.  Is that a thing?  He wondered why everything seemed out of place and didn’t dare move an inch while he laid in bed, hoping to preserve what little peace he had and not rustle up any additional new pains he didn’t even know he could have yet.  It was a scary feeling.  It was as if he’d been taken apart and reassembled on a factory line.  While the pains in his body were so consistent from head to toe, the extraordinary balance between it all made everything feel numb at the very same time.  It was like there was a small mechanical hum to his torturous discomfort, as if the aches had created their own soundtrack, or there was enough pain to constantly vibrate his entire body just a fraction, so as to ensure that he could never be comfortable again.  Both the lack of certainty, and the feeling of permanence felt horrifying to him.  If every day from here forward were to feel as awful as this one did, then how would he function at all?

Had he ever felt like this before?  Even blinking felt like an extreme chore that he didn’t have the energy for.  Did he have somewhere to be?  Was he supposed to be working right now?  How did he even get here in the first place?  His eyes scanned around the room in vain, looking for some kind of clue that would help him piece the puzzle together as his confusion only continued to get worse.  He was in a bed with all white sheets and all white blankets, in a room that was all white as well.  It was like he was stuck in a blank canvas, just waiting for some color to come along to provide some detail, and perhaps if he was lucky, a little direction.  Staring out at the wall beside him as he laid on his side, he cycled through his thoughts, trying to recall what he had done the night before with every muscle in his memory.  He not only came up short for answers, but the situation continued to digress as a panic began to build inside him as he realized he couldn’t recall a single damn thing.  He couldn’t think of what his job was.  He couldn’t think of any family members.  With a tear forming at the corner of his eye, born out of fear and not from sadness, he couldn’t even remember his own name.  Was he in an institution?  It would definitely explain the all-white walls and bed spread.  Was he dead?  Isn’t everything always white in heaven?  Was he riddled with dementia?  Do people with dementia recognize what dementia would be like to experience, or do they just move forward like zombies from an old movie and simply keep breathing?  What was the last movie he had seen?  Had he ever seen a movie at all?  How did he even know what a movie was?  With every new question he formed, his level of anxiety and fear increased.

He sat bolt upright in bed, determined to come to an understanding with his currently mysterious circumstances.  How long had he been in this room for?  If he was to leave this room, what would he find on the other side of the door?  If he called out for help, would anyone come running?  His eyes darted around the room for a hint of anything that could provide some sort of answers, and found nothing but a closet door.  Forgetting the immense pains he was feeling only moments before, he got up from the bed, crossed the floor of the room, and opened up the closet to see what was on the inside.  Finally, a little splash of color came into his vision and it was almost hard to contain his excitement to see it.  For a brief moment, he was questioning whether or not color even existed, or if it was merely another concept he thought he remembered something about in the back of his mind – but here was the proof.  There wasn’t much in the closet besides a full set of clothes and a jacket that looked a little familiar to him, but it was enough to feel like he could confirm he hadn’t gone totally crazy after all.

He’d be standing there stark naked in the room if he didn’t try to put the clothes on, so he did.  It all fit perfectly.  He felt a lot more secure now.  Hardly complete, but secure.  Clothes felt like a good first step to have made; without it, it would be fairly safe to say that none others could exist afterwards.  Clothing made it possible to face whatever was on the other side of the door on the opposite side of the room.  He eyeballed it suspiciously and cautiously as he made his way towards it.  How strange this place felt to him; it was both like he’d never been here before, and yet also familiar like he’d never truly left it either.  As he reached the door, he grabbed the handle and paused before he twisted it.  Putting his ear to the door, he listened as intently as he could for any sounds, signs of life and/or potential threats on its other side.  The low hum of the pain still nagging at him was fading, but still there.  He could hear his own heartbeat through the pressure in his ears.  Beyond that, there was nothing at all but the purest silence.

Deciding it was safe enough to proceed, he twisted the handle counter-clockwise, and opened the door.  After waking up in a room with no windows and all-white walls, maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised to find a massively long corridor in front of him with no windows or natural light to be seen.  It looked as uncaring, sterile and plain as the room he’d just been in, only stretched out for what seemed like could span full city blocks, narrow as the closet to Narnia, and raised in slight increments to make it a fairly substantial climb if he were to walk all the way to the end from start to finish.  What made the journey even more daunting was just how little could really be seen at all.  Though there were bright lights strung up all throughout the enormous hallway, it was practically blinding against the all-white walls.  As hard as he struggled to see what was even a quarter, or halfway up the hallway’s ascent, it was as if there were no additional doors or anything of any kind of texture to the walls whatsoever.  It was so oddly plain that it somehow seemed like the long corridor looked like it was slowly closing in on itself, and the further he stared into its distance, the less he felt like he could actually see.  It was not just a tight fit that had the mere space for a single body to travel through it, it was cripplingly claustrophobic.

He stood in the doorframe and considered whether or not to go any further.  If he didn’t proceed, then how would he eat?  How would he function staying isolated?  How would he do literally anything at all?  On the other hand, the hallway looked so long and daunting that he couldn’t fathom making the trip without having some kind of panic attack.  What if someone was to come down the corridor from the other side?  They’d have to climb over each other to pass, and that’s assuming the person would be friendly – but what if they weren’t?  What if there was simply nothing down there at the other end at all?  No door.  No windows.  No way out.  Was that even a realistic possibility?  Who would build such a bizarre building, and how did they get out if there was never any door, emergency hatch, or window somewhere?  He calmed down a little in thinking that through.  He was sweating slightly from the stress of the choice ahead of him.  He couldn’t fight through the obviousness of the solution, and the fear of what he might find in pursuing it.  The narrowness and slick smoothness of that hallway in front of him had him rattled with a spine full of chills, and each time he thought he could finally close the door behind him and soldier on down through the passageway, the icy grip of fear would take hold of him once again.  Back and forth, back and forth, through moments of fierce confidence and soul crushing cowardice, he struggled to get a stranglehold on his emotions and overcome the sheer terror he felt.  As he stepped back into the security of the all-white room, he closed the door behind him and whispered to himself, maybe tomorrow.  Maybe tomorrow he’d feel better about making the trek.  With the click of the door being fashioned shut, he frowned when he discovered there was no lock to be found.  A door without a lock in a strange place is only the illusion of safety and nothing more.  He turned around to observe the cavity of the space and assess whether he could really stay here, or if that was indeed the best decision he could make.  There was a bed, a light, and a closet – nothing more.  Presumably, by this strange minimalist design, if he had to go to the bathroom, he’d either have to make the journey down the hallway, or choose a corner and make a serious mess.  There was no fridge of any kind, or cupboards to keep food inside of either – so maybe having to go to the bathroom was the least of his concerns right now.  His personal safety & security felt like all that mattered to him in this moment.  He thought to grab the bedframe and block the door with it, but it was bolted to the floor and wouldn’t budge.  He took a long last look around for anything else he could use to keep himself safe, like it would have been possible to miss in a room so devoid of everything.  With nothing to be found, he sat up against the front of the headboard in the bed, staring at the door as if someone could walk through it at any moment.  For what seemed like hours to him, but only minutes to anyone else, he barely blinked as he stared at the door, until his eyelids soon became heavy and closed on him, betraying the mission that he was on.

Up to this point, when he would awake the next morning, safe in his bed, he would have no recollection of anything he experienced the day before.  He wouldn’t remember the endless hallway, he wouldn’t remember the dread and the fear – nothing at all.  As blank of a canvas as the room itself, it was like he was erased only to start over from scratch once again, naked as a jailbird and trying to figure out his own name.  It had been like this for a good measure of months by this point, rinsing and repeating every day.

November 10^th, 1998.

With a new cycle of sunshine that he hadn’t seen for quite some time beginning to reveal itself to an outside world he would have only had the faintest concept of like a memory fading in and out of focus, something felt incredibly different when he popped open his eyes again.  In so many ways, it was exactly the same – brutally, the same – the all-white walls of sheer nothingness staring back at him, the absence of anything meaningful within the room & the stunning silence that surrounded him.  It was everything he remembered – but that was just the thing – he remembered.  It was such a finite amount of anything at all really; it wasn’t like he could recall anything that happened twenty years ago, but the events of yesterday were still somehow fresh in his mind and he absolutely relished every memory he could think of with an appreciation that would make everyone understand precisely how much they take their own memories for granted in assuming they’ll still be waiting for them the very next day.  He sat back up in the bed, remembering that he was naked when he got up yesterday morning exactly as he was now, but this time he knew that there was a tiny closet to the left that held his clothing crumpled in a ball on the inside of it.  Everything moved quicker in the room this morning, like a particle in a petri dish that had been stimulated for activities it had never taken part in before.  Where there was usually a feeling of fear and despair that would immediately take hold of him as he tried to answer all the questions that instantly crossed his mind, he realized he did not feel the same mix of dread and hopelessness this morning.  In its place, he noticed something that felt totally different to him…an optimism of some kind.  It was as if he awoke to a destiny that was predetermined, and all he had to do was allow his instincts to guide him towards a future he did not know, but was eagerly awaiting to discover.  Whatever was next had to be better than where he was now, didn’t it?  He looked around the room and winced at the sight of what it all represented.  He felt the sting and chill of its isolation and loneliness.  He felt the fear try to tug at the fabric of his DNA, but today he refused to give in to it.  Even if he didn’t know why he felt the way that he did, he was certain that today was not at all the same as yesterday – and perhaps more importantly, he felt determined to find out why.  As his glance fell upon the door handle that would once again lead him to the seemingly endless hallway, he felt a confidence he hadn’t yet discovered in himself surge through his blood, demanding to become his dominant personality trait and lead the way.

Fully dressed and legitimately excited for whatever might come next, he grabbed the doorknob with an energetic gusto, and twisted it to open the door.  Pulling it forward, the overwhelming brightness of the shimmering lights overhead illuminated the hallway walls to such a degree that even having sunglasses wouldn’t have been enough to block a reasonable amount of the glare threatening to scorch the lens of his retinas.  The fear that was usually there to greet him first thing in the morning was tingling at the base of his spine, desperately trying to be acknowledged.  He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed a couple times in & out, and promised him out loud that today was going to be different than yesterday was.  Empowering himself mentally to make the changes he needed to, he reopened his eyes and took a small step into the hallway.  Even though he wasn’t aware of it, it was technically further than he’d ever made it before.  He didn’t melt.  There were no electric shocks or loud alarms.  By all appearances, it seemed as safe as it could be, so he allowed himself to take another cautious step forward.  With both feet officially on the other side of the door’s frame, he put both arms out as far as he could, touching both walls without having either arm nearly extended past his torso much at all.  Readjusting, he found that if he tucked his elbows in at his side, he could put his hands up like he was framing himself inside within what little space it had to offer him.  It was just enough to travel through, but that nasty sinking feeling of justifiable claustrophobia was doing its best to take him over.  For the moment, the hope that he felt was going to be enough to get him started on his journey forward, but he knew he might have to reckon with a massive dose of uncertainty creep in as he traveled the hollow distance of the corridor.  What if he was to get way far into walking the hall, only to discover there was no exit, or encounter some kind of unforeseen threat he couldn’t possibly predict?  Would he be able to turn and run fast enough to get back to the safety of the room?  He reached for the outside doorknob and twisted it to confirm that it wasn’t going to lock behind him.  It rotated with ease, which seemed to provide him with a small boost of confidence at the time he needed it most.  Pulling the door closed as he now stood fully inside the hallway, determined to go wherever it might lead him, he felt a brief moment of panic when the latch clicked into place, but forcefully pushed it down to a place where the fear couldn’t reach him anymore.  Turning back around to face the massive scope of the full brightness ahead, he put his hands up to touch the walls, and began to move forward.  One foot after the other, each step felt like a small victory of its own, and he couldn’t help but feel like he was excited by that.  He moved slowly at first, but by about a hundred yards in, his legs felt even more steady, secure, and willing to take him wherever the corridor would go.  As he continued up the extremely long, gradual incline, he grew to be accustomed to the flawlessly smooth texture of the walls, and it felt like his eyes were finally becoming more accepting of the extreme amount of light surrounding him.  As they continued to adjust to the light and his pupils tried to retreat into a pinpoint, it was like he could see a trail of an outline that ran down each side of the walls on each side of him.  As he spread out his fingers, he realized there were five separate lines, like someone else had come through this all-white passageway in the past and let their digits create a visible pathway back to safety if it was needed, or possibly a blueprint to follow forward in order to get out.  The hypnotic quality of the closed-in walls and endless stretch of bright white glaring back at him was enough to make him feel like he was high well beyond his desire.  With such a noticeable lack of color in any direction, it was like he was walking in an abstract concept devoid of any shape whatsoever.  Like an icon skimming the surface of a screen searching for an input of information, he moved forward like he was floating two inches off the ground, or on some kind of strange escalator with no end in sight.  Propelled by a force that didn’t often feel like his own, he continued to go forward, even though there didn’t seem to be any more answers in front of him than there were behind him as he made progress.  It seemed like he was never going to find an end to this hallway, no matter how many steps he had taken.

With no clocks or sunshine anywhere within his view, of course it was impossible to tell how long he had been walking the narrow corridor for.  Had it been merely minutes or hours, he did not know.  With all the light that was continually beaming into eyeballs as they endlessly searched for a sign of something, or anything at all that could confirm he was moving in the right direction, all he really knew was that he was starting to feel a faint draining of energy that was increasing in its weight with every step.  It was as if he could lay down in the hallway & have himself a nap at any moment, and maybe he did in fact need one.  With it possibly having been hours of walking up the slow and steady incline, and no concept of how long he might have even slept the night before, maybe the simple explanation for his decreased speed was the most logical one.  He was beyond tired, and the spark of enthusiasm that had once carried him speedily forward was morphing into a slowness that almost felt like he was now moving backwards.  Sinking to his knees for a moment to allow himself a reset, he was now so low to the ground that it felt like it was calling out for him to stretch out along its surface and embrace a short recharging.  All the excitement of the day must have put him into sensory overload.  He took a quick look in front of him, and then one behind him as well, even though he knew there was nothing else that could have come out from the room he left behind.  He couldn’t even see the door frame that once offered him safety anymore, but felt like it still had to be right where he left it, even if the pure ether of the absence of color would have anyone questioning what was and wasn’t real.  Deciding it was safe enough to allow himself to rest for just a minute or two, he spread himself out along the floor, closed his eyes, and slept.

As his eyelids flickered back and forth as he began to dream in the deepest of sleeps, he would have really appreciated this new milestone if he had been awake to witness it.  Without much else to draw on other than the blank canvas he’d been enveloped by all day long, his unconscious mind basically picked up the slack where his consciousness failed him only a short while before, and put him right back into the passageway, slowly walking forward into the all-white nothingness.  Separating him from his own previous experience and this new one in his sleep, was a thin fog that seemed to swirl throughout the length of the hallway ahead of him, dulling the lights in a way that created an illusion he could somehow see more than he was able to before.  Continuing forward and sliding his hands against the gentle caress of the walls so close they only offered inches of space on either side of him, he kept climbing up the endless incline at a steady clip, and was already feeling like he’d made a great deal of distance on his journey once again.  Squinting into the giant void of distance in front of him, he thought he saw the swirl of fog move in an inexplicable way.  Perhaps more accurately, it wasn’t inexplicable at all – but the only explanation would be that there was something else in the hallway up ahead of him somewhere.  How could that be?  Where would they have come from?  Where would it have come from?  Was it still safe in here?  He felt the panic rise up as a chill of dread washed over him, freezing him in place to consider his options.  He could run back to the room and hope he was faster than whatever was in there with him, or he could keep moving forward & maybe be lucky enough to find some help or someone friendly.

He looked back down the hall and saw nothing.  He looked forward and could still see the fog dancing in the distance up ahead.  He didn’t come here looking for nothing – nothing was what he already came with.  He was looking for something in the nothing, and so he was determined to find out whatever it was that was making the fog move up ahead.  That didn’t mean he was ready to go charging in.  Out of an abundance of caution, he slowed his pace and squeezed his way through the narrow passageway at a pace that felt as comfortable and safe as could be.  After another short distance that felt much longer than it was, he could finally see something up ahead of him.  It wasn’t big at all, but its darkness created a major contrast with the all-white walls on either side of what sat square in the middle of the pathway in front of him.  He inched curiously closer, careful not to frighten it…or himself in the process.  As he got to within about ten or twelve feet away from it, its long ears shot up in recognition of his presence, and he hopped up off the ground about as high as his mid-section.  Then it just sat there, staring right at him, completely still with the exception of a constant twitching of his nose and the slight outline of his breath rising and falling.  Getting closer still, through the fog, he recognized this as a rabbit and instantly started to relax.  Not only was that a friendly animal, but the sheer fact that it was there in the hallway with him meant that there had to be a way he got in there too.  He took it as a good omen nonetheless, and proceeded to make his way forward.  The rabbit sat completely still, observing him from head to toe as he continued to walk down the hall, until he came to a full stop in front of him about two feet away.

The rabbit looked up to meet his gaze, and they shared a moment together where each really saw the other.  He bent down to get a better look at his new furry friend, and put out a palm to gesture he was kind.  The rabbit shifted his head to get a more substantial sniff before returning his focus back to the large mammal standing in front of him.  As wonderfully strange as this scenario was, and as much as he might have liked to hang out with the rabbit for the rest of the day, he still had a very long way to go to wherever somewhere was.  He took a step forward, and the rabbit moved in front of his right foot.  He took a step with his left, and the rabbit moved again, planting himself in front of his other foot.  Back & forth, this continued for a good ten steps.  He stopped moving forward for a second to think about what he was supposed to do here.  Taking a couple steps backward, the rabbit stayed where it was and didn’t pursue him.  Taking a couple steps forward again, and then trying to take one past the rabbit, he again moved directly in front of his foot and sat down.  Was this an attempt at friendship, or was it trying to prevent him from going any further?  He looked down at the rabbit, puzzled.  The rabbit looked back up at him, offering no clues.  He squinted to see if he could see anything at all through the fog of the hall ahead of him, but saw nothing moving and no danger.  “I’m afraid I’ve gotta go, little buddy” he said to the rabbit and took a step forward.  The rabbit withdrew and scurried around behind him.  Observing him as closely as possible, he felt like the rabbit looked sad all of a sudden, like the prospect of leaving him behind immediately broke his entire world.  Maybe the rabbit hadn’t seen another living thing for as long as it felt like he hadn’t seen another living thing for – maybe it was just as lonely as he felt himself.  Every five or six steps he’d take, he’d look back to see if the rabbit was still staring at him.  It never stopped looking directly towards him, like he was somehow sad that they had ever crossed paths at all.  It was a heartbreaking feeling to see the rabbit fade away into the distance, and he did everything he could to convince himself that he could see the swirls of him hopping with happiness inside the wisps of the fog.  He was sure he didn’t see that happening at all, but that didn’t stop him from trying to convince himself all the same.  It was crucial that he kept moving forward and he knew that was the main priority.

November 11^th, 1998.

He opened his eyes, saw the same all-white wall as the day before in front of him once again, and yelled “FUCK!” as loud as he could as he discovered the sheer futility of his Groundhog Day-esque situation in real-time.  He was back in the room once more.  Did he ever actually leave the room to begin with?  Was everything a dream, or just part of it?  Was there a hallway?  A rabbit?  Fog?  How far did he get if he did in fact leave the room?  How did he get back if he did?  If he was still in the room now, wasn’t it more plausible that he never really left?  He sprang out of bed to get the answers to his questions as quickly as he could.  Throwing his clothes on with lightning speed, he darted across the room to the door, opened it up, shut it behind him, and began to run down the narrow corridor, as if he could catch up to where he left off yesterday.  He knew there was a yesterday, again, at least, which felt like something positive he could genuinely build on.  He ran and he ran and he ran for as far as he could, then walked for a while to catch his breath a little bit before booking it down the hallway like he stood some kind of reasonable chance of recognizing something in a sea of all-white-everything.  Of course that seemed ridiculous to even think about, until it wasn’t.  Reaching the edge of the fog in what felt like a relatively decent amount of time was extremely encouraging.  It also induced an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu, which only deepened when he saw the rabbit bouncing up and down up ahead of him in the corridor again.  This time, he skipped right past the pleasantries and continued his exploration into the fog once more.

He began to slow down, and felt a terrifying wave of fear come over him as he tried to think his situation through.  He had fallen asleep before dreaming about the rabbit and the fog yesterday – so how was it possible that he woke up today and was now experiencing the same thing?  Was he actually awake right now, or was he dreaming?  Was he ever awake at all?  It was excruciating and somewhat torturous for him to try and make sense of what was real and what was not.  Making it all the more worse, he had to wonder if there was ever going to be a way to confirm which was which?  How do you separate dreams from reality if you can’t distinguish the difference?  The fog surrounding him started to feel colder, and for the first time he could recall, the lights slightly flickered above his head.  The corridor itself seemed to take on a strange atmosphere, like it was even more dangerous or menacing with every step he took.  As the lights continued to flicker and mess with his vision, it looked like he could see the fog starting to swirl up ahead of him once again, and he was soothed with relief.  A little rabbit would go a long way right now in terms of his comfort level.  With a little more pep in his step, feeling the need to see an old furry friend, he made his way forward through the fog towards the wisps that seem to sway and dance in the distance.  He couldn’t quite explain accurately it even if he tried, but something didn’t seem right.  Maybe the lights were spooking him.  If they went out, everything that was white would immediately turn to black, and there would be no way to see anything at all.  It was the first time it really occurred to him that he could actually die in this corridor.  As he got closer and closer to the movements in the fog, it seemed like there were two different trails or streams that would quickly form, then dissipate, then form again, then dissipate, on each side of the walls, back and forth with the flickering of the lights, making his surroundings appear to be alive and breathing.  Then he saw a glimpse of what could be causing the movements in the fog, crawling horizontally up ahead of him.  It looked like a huge hairy hand of some kind, until he clued in on what it actually was.  On each side of the hallway, a massive spider would zoom quickly towards him, then retreat backwards, then forwards again, and backwards, over and over as he continued to inch near.  Estimating them to be about a foot long in their diameter as he’d catch snapshots of them in between their constant running back and forth along the walls and the flickering of the lights, they struck straight terror into his heart as he inched closer to where they were the most active.  It seemed like their intensity and size grew exponentially with each step he took, which in turn increased his level of fear to agonizing new heights.  As he got close enough to nearly be at the same point where they’d decide to turn around, he decided his only option was to sprint past them, and keep on running until he couldn’t run any longer, just to be safe.  He waited for them to scurry forward, watching intently through the fog for it to begin to stir as they made their way quickly down the wall.  Their pattern had been clockwork up to this point, but perhaps he was just as scary to them as they were to him, and maybe they backed off to hide further down the corridor.  He had to wonder if the idea of that was any more comforting than the level of stress he was currently going through already.  Why wasn’t there anything moving now?  Where could they have gone?  Are they going to come back?

His question was unfortunately answered only seconds later as he fixed his gaze into the heart of the fog.  He saw the wisps of it start to curl at the corners of each side as the spiders began to speed toward him, and it wouldn’t take long at all before they would practically be side by side with each other, at which point he was ready to run like hell right past them once and for all.  With about fifteen feet to go, the lights over his head went out for exactly four seconds, which felt like the longest four seconds he had ever experienced, or would ever experience, ever.  The lights flicked back on to reveal the savagely malicious faces of two spiders on each side of his head, salivating at the opportunity to potentially feast upon him.  He stayed perfectly still as he assessed just how much danger he was really in, and observed them squiggling a tiny bit, like they were preparing to jump from the wall right onto him.  That was all he needed to induce a panic sprint that would have made any Olympian blush, and the biggest trails in the fog were now the ones he was creating.  He took a look behind him at one point in order to confirm that the spiders were still chasing after him, and they were way closer than he would have ever wanted them to be, given how fast he was running.  That was the first and the last time he decided to look until he ran completely and totally out of gas.  If they were still right behind him by that point, he’d have no choice but to let them eat him, because he didn’t plan on stopping running until his legs couldn’t move any longer.  He had no real evidence that these spiders would harm him, but they were absolutely ugly as fuck, and that was enough to keep him running and running and running until he was entirely out of breath.  It felt like he logged complete miles of the corridor as he continued upwards on the incline as fast as he could go.  With the fog still surrounding him, he eventually came to a stop, feeling unable to run a second more.  Turning around carefully, making sure to stay in the center of the corridor, he was more than pleased to discover he was alone.  No signs of any spiders, at least not yet, he took a second to catch his breath as he stared back down the hallway from whence he came, half expecting to see the two gigantic arachnids racing down the wall towards him at any moment.  The flickering of the lights began to subside, and the space behind him graciously remained empty.  He continued forward by walking backwards for a while, just to be safe.  When it felt like he could officially lower the threat level, he turned and kept walking along the passageway for as long as his legs would carry him.  He was fairly astonished at their resilience considering the fear had nearly turned them fully into Jello only moments earlier.  Each step felt stronger somehow, like his own steadiness increased along with every stride.  That was the good news.  Physically, he actually felt great, but mentally, he was perilously exhausted.

When there was no further activity and he figured he’d gotten far enough away from the eight-legged source of everyone’s worst nightmares, he sat back down on the floor of the hallway and closed his eyes.  Shit, he thought to himself.  It’s going to happen again, and I had made it so far this time around.

November 12^th, 1998.

Fuck.  Shit.  Fuck.  Fuck.  Shit.  Fuck!  A person couldn’t even imagine how pissed off he was to open his eyes and see the wall he’d come to know so well staring right back at him again.  No time for bullshit, he went right to work with all his newfound experience and retained knowledge.  Clothes on.  Jacket on.  Shoes on.  He left the door of the room open this time as he jogged through its frame back into the hallway and got his mind set to go the distance today, whatever it would take, wherever it would lead.  He went through the pure white blankness of the start, he reached the edge of the fog and continued to tear through it, he jumped right over the rabbit as he made his way towards the spiders he was certain would be waiting for him once again, and when they were, increased his run to a full sprint as he kept moving forward.  Mindful to stay vigilant and not tire himself out with no real knowledge of how far he still had to go, he carried on through a relatively calm section of the corridor that now seemed eerily uneventful compared to all that he had been through so far.  The peaceful parts never seemed to last long enough, and mere moments later, the lights began to flicker menacingly above his head once more.

This time, he felt wise to its warnings of danger ahead, and almost comforted by the idea that perhaps someone or something was looking out for him.  That’s if he was actually even awake, which he was still never entirely sure of.  He slowed his pace down as he managed to come out of the fog at long last.  He turned around inside the narrow corridor like he was doing a full pirouette, and just stared back at the swirling mist of madness he’d run through.  It looked oddly bordered off, like there was a definitive line that had been established between what has real and what was nightmarish, and he felt relieved to be through what had to have been the hardest part, no matter what might still be in front of him.  As he turned around to start back into his stride forward, he could have sworn he just saw the shiny heel of someone’s boot travel through the left side of the wall way up ahead, but decided that he’d been so overstimulated for the past several days that his mind had to be playing tricks on him, and kept walking.

After what had to be about another mile of traveling, he saw a similar flicker way up ahead once again, only this time it moved from the left to the right side before it disappeared.  The next instance was even scarier, because when he saw the boot again, it was attached to a lot more leg, confirming there was somebody else inside this crazy place with him.  That had to be a leg and a foot, didn’t it?  Was he drifting off again?  Why didn’t he ever see the full body before it was already moving through the wall?  How was it moving through the wall to begin with?  He began to push on the hallway’s structure, trying to see how flexible it might be, or if there was some kind of panelling involved.  Everything he touched was as smooth as silk as he ran his hands along the wall; it didn’t even seem like it had any seams.  It would have been impossible to be one massive piece of drywall he guessed, but it was theoretically possible that a giant run of concrete smoothed out & painted over could be what led to its consistency.  There it was again!  Closer this time, and once again more of a shape revealed as it moved to the left side.  He should be getting fairly close to the spots where he saw the first boot travel through the wall, but he couldn’t see anything that didn’t look a hundred percent solid no matter how hard he tried or squinted his eyes.  Another movement caught out of the corner of his eye, this time shifting to the right, and further down than before.  It was so hard to search for clues to the side and still be able to stare down the middle to watch for further instances of the mysterious figure ahead.  He tried to keep feeling along the wall without looking too much, hoping to come across some kind of seam or a crack that would provide some kind of logical explanation behind what he was seeing, but never found any.  Then he saw the clearest glimpse of what was obviously a fairly large person moving from the right to the left again, way off in the distance up ahead.  Just before it had fully crossed through, in a somewhat kneejerk reaction to seeing another possible human being finally after all this time, he called out a loud “Hello!” as the figure moved up ahead – and it froze directly in place.  Moving slowly back a step until it was centered directly in the hall, it turned its head slowly to look for where it heard the voice come from.  He immediately felt his stomach sink to the floor when its hulking frame turned to face him, and he took that first step forward.  Then he legitimately peed a little when the lights went out for a couple seconds and all he could hear was the stomping of its boots.  As the lights flicked back on, he was closer, and then the lights went completely out again for what appeared to be a longer stretch.  Stomp, stomp, STOMP.  The footsteps got louder as it got closer.  The lights came back on confirmed it was definitely still moving towards him.  Then out again for their longest stretch so far, which launched him straight into a fit of terror as he heard the STOMP, STOMP, STOMP of footsteps getting more aggressive, and way too close for comfort now.  The lights came on just long enough for him to see a ghastly face that was covered with a series of scars and open wounds, sitting at the top of a body that seemed built to smash right through the walls on either side.  Huffing and breathing hard with an intensity that was downright unheard of, this beastly figure locked eyes directly with him before the lights went out again and the entire white corridor went completely dark.  He did not want to leave this moment to chance and simply hope he’d been wrong all along about being awake.  No, this time he scrambled backwards, running at a speed he would have thought was entirely impossible if he wasn’t aware of exactly how fast he was going at the time.  STOMP, STOMP, STOMP, STOMP, STOMP.  The footsteps were falling big and heavy, and he could still hear this massive thing breathing like it was only a couple lengths behind him.  STOMP, STOMP, STOMP.  There was no doubt whatsoever that it intended to catch him, but what would happen after that, he had no idea.  Well, he had some ideas, but none of them seemed pleasant at all.  He ran and he ran and he ran, back into the fog, through the spiders, back over the rabbit, and out the other side like he had memorized all the details of an obstacle course and was now ripping through it at full speed.  STOMP, STOMP, STOMP…STOMP…STOMP…stomp…stomp.  The heavy boots were slowing down, but he had no intention of doing the same.  He ran and he ran and he ran until he was all the way back to where he began, right through the door, slamming it closed and sitting completely still against it.

Listening intently for any sound whatsoever, he strained his ears to their maximum potential, but heard nothing.  With eyes open wide, he stared into the void of his room, knowing there was no lock for the door, and if this devilish ghoul was to continue down the hallway, it would eventually have to lead him here.  It was not safe.  He could not make it any safer.  And he would either get lucky, or he would not.  The odds did not seem that great at all, and so he sat with his back against the door and listened for as long as he could, trying to figure out what he’d even do if he encountered this being in the future ahead.  With no further stomping to be heard and no heavy breathing detected on the other side of the door, he eventually surrendered his position and made his way back to the bed to get a chance at a better sleep.

November 13^th, 1998.

Unsure of how it was possible, he only knew it was true – he woke up more pissed off than he could ever remember feeling at any point before this moment.  Since being able to form memories and build on everything that occurred in this strange place day after day, his grip on his surroundings, thoughts, and feelings continued to grow stronger at every opportunity.  In tandem with his determination being at an all-time high, he confidently closed the door behind him as he stepped back into the confines of the corridor once again, making a symbolic gesture to himself that he would never return here again.  Then he sprinted through the straight distance maze, ready to take on what he assumed had to be the gigantic end level boss he encountered yesterday.  He had nothing to arm himself with.  He had no escape strategy.  All he felt like he had going for him was true grit.  He felt like he could run right through anyone or anything that might stand in his way.  So up the relentless incline he went once more, only this time he stopped to say hi to the rabbit.  Rather than have his heart racing in fear as he made his way through the spiders crawling back and forth along the wall, he merely jogged through the fog beside them, knowing they’d never been able to make the leap to get him before.  As for the big giant boots of the monster waiting for him next, or how he was going to get around him to continue forward down the corridor, he still had relatively no idea…but he felt like he could figure it out when it mattered most, so he kept moving forward, towards the danger very soon to become imminent.  When he saw the boots going back and forth from side to side in the hallway, he slowed down his pace but he dared not stop.  Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen today.  Back and forth, back and forth from side to side, the beastly figure stomped his boots as he continued to search for something unknown.  Maybe he was looking for him, maybe he wasn’t, and to be truthful, he didn’t really care which of those it was.  The strategy was one of complete avoidance if at all possible, which meant that there was no chance of him calling out a “Hello” this time around.  Instead, he moved as quietly and as slowly as he could, operating on a theory that maybe the brightness was just as blinding to the big fella and that if he timed things just right, the behemoth might not even notice him at all.  The giant seemed so powerfully focused in whichever direction he was heading, so as long as he didn’t make any major noise and it never turned its head towards him, with a little luck, he could make it all the way down the corridor and leave the beast behind for good.  Staying as still as a stone every time he heard a STOMP get close, he watched as his enormous adversary would disappear from view traveling in a horizontal motion when the only clear path that he could see himself, ran vertically.  It was extremely perplexing, but that mystery was going to have to wait for another time.  Right now, the only goal he had was to make it to the end of this straight line maze and find his way outside of it, if that even existed.  If he was still fast asleep and had been dreaming all along, there were clearly no guarantees that could be made.  He continued to slide he feet slowly forward down the passageway, until he heard a STOMP, STOMP, STOMP, right behind him that made his blood run completely cold and damn near coaxed a wild yelp right out of his chest.  He stood entirely still in the center of the hallway as the beast moved from one side to the other behind him, only mere inches away from where he was battling with an immense amount of fear trying to swallow him whole.  He could hear the heavy breathing once again, only this time he wasn’t fully convinced that what he was hearing wasn’t the sound of his own need for oxygen attempting to betray him.  STOMP, STOMP, STOMP.  STOMP, STOMP, STOMP.  STOMP, STOMP, STOMP.  More breathing, more stomping.  He dared not turn around or move an inch as the pounding heart in his chest shifted into overdrive.  Without so much as a single flinch, he stood more still than he’d ever thought possible, and managed to wait it all out until the STOMP behind him faded into a stomp, stomp, stomp that was getting further and further away.  While there was no way to be completely sure, all indications pointed to him being able to move again, and with a few extremely cautious steps forward, he continued up the incline until he could no longer hear those thunderously terrifying boots anymore.

The all-white brightness resumed to its highest ocular offence and tried its best to blur his vision all over again, but he felt as strong as he’d ever had over the course of the past five days, or maybe ever.  He walked at a decent pace, though he chose to conserve his energy as best he could.  The incline itself seemed to be taking a sharper turn upwards, adding more stress to the physical part of the journey, though not nearly enough to deter him.  He had to be so much closer to the way to get out by now, and he had no plans to stop moving forward until he finally knew if there was actually any way out at all.  As he looked up at the distance ahead, it looked like there was a darkening of sorts coming up, but it was difficult to see what was causing that.  The contrast between whatever it was and the vicious pounding of bright white walls and light was fully obvious, but it was still tough to make out what it could be, even when looking at it straight on.  Was it just the endless isolation & claustrophobic feeling getting to him, or were the walls narrowing even further?  Even the ceiling looked like it was thinning out, as he headed towards the one dark spot at the top of the incline.  As he continued forward, he was able to confirm that it wasn’t his imagination at all, and with each step he was taking, the walls kept closing in around him.  He could now see the dark spot was actually a small doorway.  So small, that there was no way old stomper had come through there, but it also seemed like he didn’t really need doors in the traditional way that the rest of the world did.  He felt a dizziness begin to arise in him as he was now starting to squeeze himself down the rest of the path towards the door.  He felt threatened by the possibility of the sandman coming for him at the worst possible time, and vowed there would be no rest until he made his way out of here come hell or high water.  By the time he could see the handle that might lead him to freedom on the other side, he was on all fours, wiggling and squirming like a chicken that was hatching itself from the jail of its egg, until he popped out on the other side, safely, at last.  He stood at the front of the door, ready to twist its knob and discover whatever was waiting for him next, but took a long last look at the small hole he’d come through in order to gain a chance for his freedom.  He thought about all the things he’d been through.  A mental and physical gauntlet beyond compare – and he survived it.

He placed a hand on the doorknob, quietly praying that it would turn and take him to a better place.  Twisting it slowly, it gave way under the pressure, opened, and led him to the outside world, finally.

After all the nothingness and bright white lights, what he saw next was a total shock to his system.  He closed the door shut behind him, and stepped into a field filled with radiant greenery and flowers of all colors.  The bright sun above his head and the blue sky that went with it looked so stunning & beautiful that it was practically beyond comprehension.  The smell of fresh air, leaves and trees…the faint sound of rushing water not too far off in the distance…everything seemed amazing & somehow unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.  He took ten steps forward into the field, and turned back to look at this tiny door he’d come through, which was the only visible structure for what had to be miles and miles.  It made no sense, but he supposed it didn’t need to right now.  For the moment, he was ingesting his new freedom and savoring every second of it, taking in dramatic gulps of air like he’d come from the depths of the sea after thinking he might drown, or gasping for that next breath as greedily as an astronaut that is about to run out of oxygen.  His eyes bulged in their sockets as he took in all the blues, greens, purples, reds, oranges, and any other color that he could shoot into his sightline.  He was in full sensory overload, and before he knew it, he was seizing uncontrollably, foaming at the mouth and twitching on the ground with a ridiculous smile on his face.  Maybe he’d live, maybe he wouldn’t.  Maybe it mattered, maybe it didn’t.  Maybe it was all a dream from the very start.  Maybe that’s all the illusion of life ever is.  As he shook violently back and forth, writhing in the dirt, he couldn’t help but think of how beautiful it all was, from the hardships and horror of the journey to get here, to everything now surrounding him.  He didn’t want to close his eyes ever again, but also knew that he had no choice but to risk it all.  Maybe he’d wake up back in the all-white room.  Maybe he’d wake up here in the field a free man.  Maybe he’d end up somewhere else entirely.  There was no way for him to know, and even less he could do about it.  He closed his eyes, continued to shake in the dirt, and somehow never felt more alive than he did in this moment.  There was no power on earth that could take the smile off of his face, and even when he passed out and the violent twitches came to an abrupt halt, his smile was still as wide as a hammock.

From a nearby distance, Jake sat in the back of an old GMC truck.  He was supposed to be watching the door at all times, but he’d been there for what felt like days on end, and nothing ever came through it.  He put his binoculars up to his eyes just in time to watch a man close the door, turn around to see the field, and seemingly collapse to the ground after taking it all in.  It took a moment to register what was actually going on, and another just to make sense of it.  Then Jake sprung straight into action.  Grabbing his cell phone, he pushed send on the only contact it contained, and waited impatiently for someone to answer on the other side.  “C’mon, c’mon,” he said out loud, pacing back and forth in the truck’s bed.  Someone finally picked up, and Jake didn’t even wait for a hello.  “Somebody has to get a hold of Bill right now and tell him it worked.  It actually worked.  Can you hear me,” he gushed, “IT.  WORKED.”

For a brief moment, there was no sound on the other side of the line.  Then it came on, crackling into the receiver of Jake’s cellphone.  “We’ll let him know right away.  Thank you for calling.  Goodbye.”

Jake hung up his side of the short conversation, and jumped back into the cab of his truck, turning the keys over immediately.  Driving in a straight line directly to the man in the field, mowing right over whatever was in his way or growing in the midst of the gorgeous scenery of Ireland, he muttered to himself quietly out loud as he drove.  “Don’t worry Tim, I’ve got you my friend.  Just hang on, I’ll be right there.”  Jake pushed the gas pedal down damn near hard enough to send it through the floor below.