《Huckleberry》


 Arc 1 Chapter 1- Introduction

    Chapter 1


    ¡°You need syllables to fill up this space or you need something that rhymes.¡± ¨C David Grohl


    ¡°The entire song is made up of contradictory ideas... It''s just making fun of the thought of having a revolution. But it''s a nice thought though.¡± ¨CKurt Cobain on ¡°Smells Like Teen Spirit¡±


    Triangle, Triangle, Triangle, Triangle, X, Square, Triangle, Triangle, Triangle, Triangle, Square, X, Triangle, Circle, Triangle, Triangle, Triangle, Circle, Square, Triangle, X, X, X, X


    This is the cheat code to unlock all levels of Boone''s 3D Adventure on the original PlayStation. Boone''s 3D Adventure was one of the original classic platformers released alongside things like Mario 64 and similarly to Mario 64 was a continuation of its previously two-dimensional platforming franchise to the third dimension. I never played Boone''s 3D Adventure 1, 2, or 3 back on the Super Nintendo. That was before my time. My first console was the original PlayStation and then, eventually, the PlayStation 2. Not that slim PS2 they came out with later, but the old fat one. I still have it. Even with all the updates in technology in recent years, it''s still probably my favorite console and most treasured possession.


    I''m sorry, I''ve gotten off topic. Let me get straight to the point.


    Video games operate in repeating patterns. More importantly, designer''s hide secret codes and messages in them. Boss fights really have particular patterns that one needs to follow in order to defeat them. Levels have particular sets of behaviors needed in order to finish them. Along the way, there''s also secret sets of actions that can unlock previously hidden things, sometimes conferring an advantage, other times just reviewing the inside joke of the developers.


    I''m not some weirdo who only plays video games though. I like movies and TV and books as much as the next person. Other media operates on these basic principles. There are cheat codes to movies, books and music that allow you to unlock their secrets. You just need the code. All culture means something, you just need the cheat codes.


    But I''m getting off topic again. Even our language is really just one massive system of patterns and symbols that we learn through repetition. From an outside, observer, all these random squats we make and scribbles on paper would be completely meaningless drivel. And yet, think of all the meaning we assign to them.


    The universe operates in a similar way. It''s not just pop culture and things like that. Reality on a fundamental level is a set of repeating patterns and actions to accomplish particular goals. Along similar lines, there are hidden patterns that only few can detect and, if you pick up on them, certain actions can give you advantage. Or perhaps, they just unlock God''s in-joke on the universe. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    I know that g-word might be a bit loaded, so let me explain. I don''t consider myself particularly religious. I prefer to think of a designer, the designer of reality. I don''t ascribe a name or describe any attributes of this designer; it just seems obvious to me that the universe was designed. I was an atheist long enough to learn that it''s a dead meme. The universe was made with a particular purpose. It''s obvious; the signs of level design are everywhere.


    Let me think of an analogy to better explain it to you. A map is an abstraction from the true reality and is obviously less real than the landscape before you. But at the same time, the map can guide you and emphasize important features that help you navigate your environment. Similarly, speaking video games of course are an abstraction from real life and are less real than reality. (I don''t think we live in The Matrix or anything like that. Reality is not a simulation, just analogous to one. Also, everybody knows that Dark City is way better than The Matrix). But, as an abstraction, they emphasize parts of reality that we sometimes miss in the humdrum of daily existence, like gaining experience in order to improve our skills in particular areas through nearly endless repetition in grinding. What really separates a 9 to 5 job from grinding in an MMO? Nothing substantial. As I mentioned previously our reality is designed by some form of designer and thus reality has secrets and shortcuts coded into its very fabric, to unlock them one just needs to find the cheat codes for existence.


    Everything follows a pattern. I was only three or four years old when 9/11 happened, but I still remember it vividly. The look on my mother''s face as she stared at the television. In a typical child-like panic, I asked her what was wrong. There''s nothing more disturbing as a child than seeing your own parents in fear. I tried to approach the TV to see what was on it that was causing this reaction, but she shouted at me, ¡°No, Ward, don''t look at the screen. Stay away from the TV. Don''t look at the screen.¡±


    Saint Paul''s Cathedral in downtown New York was the church where the new American government was consecrated to God after the revolution. The Twin Towers were built over what used to be church property. When 9/11 happened, debris covered the churchyard but not a single window was broken. You think the hijackers knew what they were doing? Maybe they didn''t, but the universe sure did. They drove the plane right into America''s throat, slitting its neck wide open. The country has been stumbling around bleeding ever since. I''m not very political, I''m just stating facts as I see it. You don''t have to be political to see the obvious pattern.


    The ¡°normal¡± world we live in is full of elements of game design. It''s obvious. Anyone can see it if they look hard enough. I''m going to find cheat codes for reality. I will unlock the secrets of the universe.


    Square, Triangle, R1, L2, R2, R1, Circle, Circle, L2.

 Arc 1 Chapter 2 - Something that Rhymes

    Something that Rhymes:


    Load up on guns, bring your friends


    It''s fun to lose and to pretend


    Syllables to fill up this space:


    Most people know about the code hidden in pop songs. I haven''t been able to stop thinking about Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana for years now. When Kurt Cobain was out and about with a friend of his from the Pixies, spray painting feminist messages About the town,  she wrote on one of the walls, ¡°Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit¡±. Kurt thought that ¡°team spirit¡± was a call to revolution. But actually it was a brand of deodorant his girlfriend wore. His girlfriend at the time was his first girlfriend before Courtney Love who is a member of the Pixies. The joke the mutual friend was making of course was that Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit because he was with his girlfriend.


    The song inspired an entire generation as a call to revolution. But ultimately it''s lyrics are meaningless nonsense. supposedly it''s that meaningless that allows The Listener to put their own meaning in through the lyrics. Cobain himself said something to the effect of, sometimes you just need words to fill the music. I don''t accept that interpretation. I know there''s a deep meaning hidden in the lyrics to Smells Like Teen Spirit oh, there has to be. A song can''t inspire an entire generation like that be completely meaningless. That doesn''t make any sense. There''s Meaning of the lyrics even if Cobain himself doesn''t want to acknowledge it.


    ¡°Load up on guns, bring your friends,¡± make me think of the arcade by where I work. Especially the line ¡°It''s fun to lose and to pretend.¡± It makes me think of an arcade light gun game I used to play.


    The lack of lighting in the arcade gives it a cave like quality. The entire glass front was plastered over with posters, sunlight would only interrupt the ambiance on occasion when people opened the door, and then only for a brief glimmer. The rest of the lights came almost exclusively from the machines. An array of loud neon colors all swirling together, chaotically blinking going by a symphony digital sound. Layered over top of that was the laughter, the shouting. The entire place reeks of the greasy smell of cheap pizza and the chemical odor of Mountain Dew.


    I bought myself a couple slices of the solid Grease and a large cup of the bubbling chemicals. I made my way across the chaos of the floor. I could feel popcorn and discarded paperware crunch under my feet. I made my way to the back corner where my game was. It was an unassuming Black Box with simple green text; Counter-Terror. I took a couple of bites from my pizza and then carefully placed the plate and the drink on the little ledge in front of the screen. I took out my roll of quarters and inserted a dollar¡¯s worth. I grabbed the large, bulky, blue plastic gun attached to the machine by a long black hose, not unlike a gas nozzle. There was a red one and a blue one. I always take the blue. I pulled the trigger and with a staticky gunshot  sound effect the game started.


    Counter-Terror is probably my favorite arcade game. I''ve been playing it since I was a kid. Occasionally I would experiment with other rail shooters, but none of them held my interest like Counter-Terror. I wouldn''t consider myself an expert or a connoisseur, I mostly dabble in the arcade, my primary commitments of course being consoles, as that is my generation. However every lunch break I block out 25 minutes to get a pizza from the arcade and play counter-terror.


    I think what got its hooks into me about the game when I was a kid was how graphically different was from everything else in the arcade. The environments in the game or digital but the people you''re shooting are bits of FMV video superimposed onto the digital background. Like most FMV from that era it''s grainy quality video that''s been compressed to hell. Whatever you shoot someone there is a cartoonish digital blood effect superimposed onto the footage. The whole look of the game has this surreal layering where there''s the cheap-looking CGI background, compressed video images of people and then over top of that gun shot effects when you or them gets shot. It was one of the first games I dreamed about as a kid, it really gets into your subconscious.


    I picked the first level. You select things on the menu by shooting at them. It starts with the grainy voice narration telling you that terrorists are taking over the Golden Gate Bridge and only you can stop them, yada yada. I''ve played through the first level so many times I barely need to pay attention to what I''m doing or what I''m shooting, I basically have it memorized where the terrorists will be coming from, and also where the civilians are. Oh yeah there''s also like civilians and occasionally pop up and you lose points and shit if you shoot them. With one hand holding blue plastic I killed America''s enemies and in the other hand I ate my pizza and occasionally took sips of my Mountain Dew.


    The invisible rails guide me from encounter to encounter, screen the screen. I''m sure the digital environment was cutting-edge when they made the game but now it has that cheap quality you''d see in training videos  or PSAs. Polygons have just enough texture to prevent them from being solid blocks.


    The game was made a few years after 9/11 but all the terrorists are still a bunch of pasty white guys and girls all dressed up in black clothes, They all have sunglasses and some of them even have trench coats or leather jackets. They look like people that would be goons to a bad guy in a spy movie or some kind of 90s action flick. Occasionally on the corner of the screen I see a glowing box that represents power up, fire bullets, ice bullet explosive bullets, that sort of thing. The enemies are shooting at you with guns but occasionally guys with bazookas or grenades will shoot stuff at you and you¡¯ll have to shot the projectiles to make them explode before they get to you. Sometimes a dude just randomly appears in front of you trying to stab or punch you or something and you have to shoot him.


    The slightly distorted grunting sounds the terrorists made when I shot them was almost melodic. The whole thing is a zen experience. This is a game I play when I want to relax. It''s why I play it on my lunch break. I only have time for one or two levels but it''s enough to get me ready to face the rest of the day. If I''ve had a really bad week sometimes I come here on a Saturday and play through the entire game; or try to anyway. I have never been able to make it all the way through the last stage. These arcade games were designed to eat up your quarters after all.


    The timer I set on my phone goes off. I need to get back to work. I finished the last few slices of my pizza and I let the man with the rocket launcher kill me. At the game now I don''t want to continue with a final shot. I threw away the grease stain plate and kept drinking my Mountain Dew. I leave the arcade. I am momentarily blinded By the flash of light until my eyes adjust to the sun. Back to the Grind.


    ****


    A Transcript of a Discord call


    *STATIC*...What¡¯s up motherfucka...*STATIC*


    *STATIC*...Hi Anne.


    How¡¯s my *STATIC* best friend doing?


    What?


    How¡¯s my gay best friend doing?


    *STATIC*...gay


    What?This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    I¡¯m not gay and I¡¯m fine, I just had a long day at the game store and wanna unwind and play some rounds online with you.


    Well do you see here¡¯s the thing, you¡¯re a fucking virgin so really the only pleasure you¡¯ve received is jacking it, so technically *STATIC* big gay in my book.


    Oh my God. Can we just play the game please?


    OK, but once *STATIC*


    What, sorry you *STATIC*


    Wha-*STATIC*


    *STATIC*


    *STATIC*


    Anne1234567 left


    BooneFan1997 left


    Anne1234567 joined


    BooneFan1997 joined


    ...Hello?...Can you hear me?


    ...Yes and you still sound like a little bitch


    Sorry about that, guess discord is being discord.


    Nah I think it just hates us personally.


    So who are you gonna play this time?


    Taco Tuesday Tom


    He¡¯s not very well optimized player character¡ª


    Your dad is not a very well optimized player character


    What does that even mean?


    I don¡¯t know, ask your dad.


    Whatever, I''ll pick waffle Wednesday Wally.


    Oh come on you''re just gonna spam his Maple syrup ultimate over and over.


    It''s not my fault I figured out how to load up his ultimate bar super quick, he actually has the quickest ultimate bar load ¨C


    Yeah if by exploit you mean cheat.


    Finding an exploit isn''t cheating, cheating would be if I hacked the game directly, I''m not hacking the game I just figured out a flaw in its design and I''m using that flaw to my advantage


    Whatever you tell yourself so you can sleep at night, cheater


    You would do the same thing, you just jealous I figured it out first


    cheater cheater, lemon eater.


    Why are you metaphorically 12 years old? Also there''s nothing wrong with spamming a move if it works.


    No bro, you have to win a fight through skill, not just a bunch of cheap tricks.


    If there''s something that gives you an absolute advantage with no downside, why shouldn''t you use it even if everybody tells you you shouldn''t?


    As the great philosopher of our time George Costanza said, we live in a society.


    George is a loser. He never accomplishes anything. So of course, he insists on obeying all of the rules, it''s because he doesn''t have the courage to break any of them.


    Ward I love you but¡­sometimes you sound like a fucking sith lord.


    Okay but like the empire was actually right though!


    Oh, don¡¯t start that one again!


    ****


    The Game store was more like a car garage with the bare concrete floor and black walls and ceiling. The fluorescent above cast everything in a heavy yellow light. You could see the particles floating through the air. There was also the incessant hum. The black walls were covered with faded game posters all taped on top of each other. I don''t think I''ve ever seen anybody take an old poster down, they just plaster a new one on top of the dead ones.


    The vibe colored all business transactions giving even the most innocuous of purchases and illicit feeling, like one was not purchasing Bubbly''s Soap Run for the nephew but somehow actually buying hardcore pornography. Everything here was purchased legally through the appropriate vendors and yet it all felt like it fell off the back of a truck.


    The games were stacked on the metal shelves, organized by console and alphabetically. In the front were the newer games, the farther you go along the shelves the farther you go back in time, eventually reaching the dark monolith that were the first few generations of Game cartridges, massive black obelisks like the one 2001 A Space Odyssey.


    The counter was a lit glass box framed in silver metal. It''s where we keep a lot of the consoles and more expensive games for display. Behind the counter was a Hydra like massive controllers and power cables, hung from the wall. It looked like black and gray jungle vines.


    I was  bent over cleaning small peanut butter hand prints from the front of the glass counter. They belonged to some kid whose name was Hayden. Hayden...stop touching the glass like that...Hayden...don''t make mommy count to 10...Hayden one...I''m counting to 10 now Hayden...Hayden one. I don''t ever think she got past 1. When I heard the kids name my first thought was, the Legends are true.


    A man walked in, took off of sunglasses and said in a clear and loud voice, ¡°Hello everyone my name is Harrison, and I''m a paranormal investigator.¡±


    ¡°There''s nobody else here Harrison¡±


    The man who called himself Harrison was an African American Albino, with white skin and hair so blond that it was almost orange. His eye color was actually blue but sometimes it looks red, add in the harsh light of the store they almost seem to Glow crimson.


    ¡°You''re here,¡±  he said. He put his sunglasses in the pocket of his jean jacket. He was dressed like Marty McFly or some 80s movie teenager, complete with scuffed up hiking boots, worn jeans and like five shirts for some reason under his jean jacket. Okay it might have just been a plaid shirt over a t-shirt but at the same time sometimes I swear I could see a vest nested in that situation. It was a mess.


    ¡°I already know who you are, so that...what do you call it again? Dynamic Advertising? Doesn''t work on me¡±


    ¡°Hey, listen man, traditional advertising is dead. People get inundated with so many ads like on their computers and shit, the normal stuff doesn''t work anymore. People need Dynamic, real world advertising. That''s why I announce my profession whenever I walk into an establishment. That''s how you get the word out. I was just at the burger joint for lunch, what do you think I did when I came in there? I announced myself as Harrison, paranormal investigator.¡±


    ¡°Did anyone offer to hire you?¡±


    ¡°Well no but like you know it''s it''s in the back of their minds now, so next time they have a paranormal experience who do you think they''re going to come to?¡±


    ¡°The therapist?¡±


    ¡°That''s right, me,¡±  Harrison said. I couldn''t tell if his bulldozing was intentional.


    ¡°Well if I ever have a supernatural experience I''ll be sure to come to you.¡±


    Harrison handed me his card.


    ¡°Remember Stockton first consultation is free. Each subsequent consultation is $500.¡±


    ¡°Wow, that is Criminal.¡±


    ¡°It''s market price.¡±


    ¡°What Market?¡±


    ****


    The rest of the day was pretty uneventful after Harrison left. One old man came in, plaid shirt and trucker hat. He was looking for, and I quote, ¡°the game where the guy does the stuff, you know that game we¡¯re like you play a guy and he shoots a bunch of stuff? My nephew loves those games and I want to get him the next one in the series. I think it¡¯s like shootty man 3 or 4, I don¡¯t know, it seems to me they release a new one every year. Do you know which one I¡¯m talking about? Shootty man?¡±


    That ate up about 30 minutes. He of course had no idea when it was released, whether it was in third or first person, or what console it was. It ended with him leaving, hat off and scratching his head. I tried.


    After all that I went through the locking up checklist, turned off all the lights, took out the trash and lowered the garage-door-like protective metal siding over the front windows.


    I zipped up my jacket. It was the middle of winter, there was a good 6 feet of snow on the ground. The shop was in a strip mall, with a medium sized parking lot. As I stepped outside, I could feel the crunch of ice and salt under my feet. You could see where the bits of salt were thrown across the ice because there was a concentric circle of melting around where they landed. The ice along the edges remained giving the whole thing the look of Swiss cheese.


    There were only two lamps in the parking lot, large, rusted towers giving off yellow light. My beaten-up black Subaru was the only car in sight, it was parked where I always park it, directly under the light. I don¡¯t have a child-like fear of the dark, I have an adult-like fear of crackheads.


    The parking lot has been cleared of the snow and all of it had been piled in the middle, picking up dirt and gravel, giving it a blackish grey texture. These snow mounds in the middle of parking lots would all melt slightly making them congeal from fluffy whiteness into something that better resembled a pile of elephant shit in the middle of the parking lot.


    This one was relatively small by comparison, but down by the mall there was one that was the size of a house, from all the snow in that football stadium size parking lot. Sometimes I would see children sledding off of it like it was a mountain. Welcome to upstate.


    I tracked over to my car. I turned it on, idling for a few minutes while the heat kicked in. I put it into drive and started to make my way out of the parking lot. I was thinking about where I was going to drive through to get dinner, or if I was even going to drive through at all, maybe I would order pizza, Did I have any hot pockets left in the fridge? I thought about what video game I would play, I need to go to work tomorrow so nothing too involved, I can probably get in a few hours before I need to get the bed.


    I was thinking about pretty much everything else besides actually driving my car, which is probably why I hit the curb as I was making the turn. The car lurched upward and for a moment it felt like the whole chunk of steel was suspended a few inches above the ground. I''ve come back to this moment time and time again, seeing if I can find a better metaphor or analogy to explain what happened. But there''s only one way I can possibly think of to describe it.


    When my car came back down to the ground and would''ve landed on the asphalt it did not hit any collision, instead it sunk into the asphalt like it was sinking in the water, quick and smooth. I no-clipped through the ground.

 Arc 1 Chapter 3 Clipping

    I was in the snow on my hands and knees. I could feel the dry crunchy grass that felt like a barb wire underneath my hands as the snow melted. Drops of blood were scattered across in a little red patches. Everything was dark except the headlights for my still running car, it cast distorted shadows making even the bushes and trees seem ominous.


    The door of the house opened and light flooded the front lawn. Anne came out, wearing her usual outfit of flip-flops, sweat pants and a T-shirt, with some kind of cringe gamer humor which she swore up and down was ironic, but those are the only types of shirts she ever wore. Her skin was the same shade of white as the original Wii consul and her hair was the same color of black as that special Wii consul they released later.


    "Ward? Oh my god are you all right?" She said, rushing over to me. She wrapped her arms around me, I felt her body heat. Anne is one of the few people I let touch me.


    I tried to tell her what happened, but all that came out was, ¡°The Wii consules... I don¡¯t remember the dates... I know the white one came out first but I don¡¯t remember the exact dates...¡±


    "What are you..." she started, but then she looked over at what was still hanging off of the side door of my car, it¡¯s claws dug straight into the metal siding. She put her hand over her mouth to repress the scream.


    I kept my eyes straight ahead, still looking at the house. I didn¡¯t need to turn to see what she was looking at. The vaguely human shaped thing, twisted and broken like a glitched out ragdoll, it¡¯s blood was everywhere. I could still see it¡¯s from the depths of the uncanny valley doll face; like some kind of visual aftertaste.


    "I never liked Nintendo as much as PlayStation," I said. "Most of Legend of Zelda is overrated in my opinion. Although I always had a soft spot for Majora¡®s Mask."


    Things get a little hazy after that, but I think I passed out.


    ****


    I just sat in my car for a bit after it happened. I stared ahead of me at the streets, but it wasn''t the same; it looks like a normal street, but it wasn''t same one I was on before. I blinked several times. Eventually I turned the car off, putting the keys in my front hoodie pocket I stepped out of the car.


    I got a better look around, everything seemed slightly off on closer inspection. The streetlights were yellow, they were very light and pale orange, and the Sky was not black but actually a really dark purple, like sunset except it was the middle of the night. The moon was yellow and misshapen, deflating almost.


    I did a three-sixtey, there weren''t any other cars on the street, and I didn''t even see any pedestrians. I could only see the black silhouettes of buildings, and even they looked cartoonish, their corners were too pointy like they were Cardboard cutouts from a children''s play.


    Suddenly I heard barking coming from the sidewalk. I looked over where it was coming from but I didn''t see a dog anywhere. Something was wrong with the Patch of concrete though, so I went over to investigate. I bent down to get a better look, it was like the sidewalk was rippling , like water , occasionally I could see tough stuff brown fur peek up from the ground. The barking was strangely uniform, like it was a single bark sound played over and over again.


    "Sorry,"" I heard a male voice from behind me say. "My dog gets stuck sometimes.""


    "How did your dog get stuck in the sidewalk?"" I said and then I turned around.


    I jumped back when I saw who was talking to me.


    Everything about them was wrong. Their skin was yellow, the same shade of yellow of a highlighter, and it looked like leather, dried and wrinkly. It''s eyes where twice as big as they should have been, and it''s mouth was half as small and way too low on the face, its tiny mouth was where its chin should have been. It didn''t have a nose, it just had a line on its face and two nostrils. It looked like a five year olds drawing of a human person that had been brought to life buy a Wizards wish or something.


    I wanted to scream, but for some reason all I could say was, "I''m sorry good Sir but I have to go.""


    I ran back to my car and slam the door shut, pressing the lock button 12 times. I tried to pull my keys from my pocket but dropped them in between my feet. I awkwardly reached my hand down then between my legs. My face was pressed against the steering wheel, so I couldn''t see anything. I desperately fumbled around for the keys, fingers brushing against wadded up fast food wrappers and dirt.


    Eventually my fingers felt the touch of the cold metal and I grabbed it, quickly shooting up in my seat. I turned to look out from the driver side window. I saw the fuced up guy just standing there staring at me.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "I found my dog,"" he said. His dog was completely still like a statue , and seems to be floating from his outstretched hands.


    I jammed my keys into the ignition and twisted it with all the strength my thin arms could muster. Nothing.


    Stalling? Are you fucking kidding me?


    I kept trying to get the engine going, twisting the ignition over and over.


    Out of the corner of my eye I saw something seemed to bulge out of my driver side window. Still trying to get the car going, I turned around to see what it was. I nearly jumped over to the passenger seat. That thing out there was pressing his face against the window, but when he did so it caused the glass too¡­bend, it warped and distorted like it was just cellophane.


    "You are from the inside aren''t you?"" He said, his face twisting into an expression of emotion that I can''t fully describe.


    I tried to get the car started with renewed vigor. Still stalling. Fuckfuckfuckfuck.


    "Please, take me with you, take me inside,"" it said. Blue tears were streaming down its face. I don''t mean blue in the way water kind of looks blue if the light reflects off it right, I mean the actual color blue.


    Stalling. Shitshitshitshit.


    From my peripheral vision I could see other figures gather around my car. I didn''t get a good look at them but they all had the same actual yellow skin as the thing that was currently pressing its face against my window.


    Stalling. Fuckfuckshitshit.


    The others got closer. They also pressed their faces against the windows, suddenly making them turn into something like plastic and bend. Even the front windshield was warped with crying yellow faces, they were also begging for me too take them back, back inside.


    Stalling. Fuckshitfuskshit.


    Like creatures in a monster movie they started to rip at the body of the car, their fingers digging in to the metal like it was nothing. I couldn''t see most of it but I could hear the sounds of my car groaning, it''s body tearing and breaking.


    Then suddenly, the sweet growl of the engine coming to life.


    Without a second thought I slammed my foot on the gas and the car launched forward. Several of the not-people fell off as soon as the car was moving. I was flooring it so the car just kept going faster and faster. More and more fell off , but some must''ve dug their claws in pretty deep.


    As I accelerated their bodies began to stretch and distort like cartoon characters. Their limbs becoming elongated from the centrifical force, their forms unnaturally pressing against my car and spreading out like they were made of Jelly. All of my windows recovered in rippling yellow flesh. JayzusCHRIST.


    The car hit a curb. I could see just enough out of the windshield to know I was going towards a building. But before I could start asking myself deep philosophical questions about the afterlife, the car no clipped right through the building.


    Suddenly I was in an endless void, no features whatsoever, just an impressionist smattering of colors, Reds and oranges and pinks, all spread gently over white , like the colors of twilight. Even the lighting kind of looked like the sunset. I didn''t fall, there was still solid ground, my car was still driving, but it kind of looked like I was flying through empty space.


    Again, it was exactly like noclipping out of a video game into that void where you just see the skybox effects. It would have been tranquil and relaxing if there wasn''t fucking monsters on my car.


    My car kept accelerating. It was going over 100 miles an hour , the speedometer needle stuttering on the very edge. One by one the creatures bodies begin to rupture and burst at the velocity. Their yellow flesh would rip open to reveal black tarry insides, their blood was bright red and would splatter itself across my car. All I could hear was their distorted muffled screams and then they would let go leaving only at cherry smear.


    The last hanger-oner was the very first one with the dog, His face still pressed against my window, black tears in it bleeding strawberry jelly.


    "Please take me inside,"" it begged. "It''s so cold out here.""


    I closed my eyes. All I could hear what''s the sound of my car engine stressing, occasionally broken up by desperate pleading from it''s distorted voice.


    I thought about my life, I thought about the things that bring me joy, how all of my favorite video games, my favorite music, my favorite fast food joints. At first mostly it was just various video games, Boones 3D Adventure, Gun-Toting-Totem, Food Fighters Final Fight. The thoughts shifted from the games to memories of me playing the games and from there the people I would play the games with.


    Mostly it was Anne. Memories of her filled my mind, I remember the time I tried to get her to play Gun-Toting-Totem, I went easy on her in multiplayer but she still managed to lose every time, she''s atrocious at FPS. Eventually she just threw my controller against the wall , it made a dent and shattered into a million pieces. She was absolutely fucking mortified, with a look of horror she grabbed my shoulders and told me how she pay to get the wall fixed and she''d buy me a new controller and she was so sorry , yadda yadda yadda. I wasn''t really listening because I was just laughing so hard, the kind of deep laughter that shales entire body it makes you feel numb, I couldn''t breathe and tears were just streaming down my face.


    Tears were streaming down my face. I opened my eyes, at first everything was blurry but then I wiped the tears away. The car was stopped, it had come to a complete stop actually. The engine was still running. I couldn''t see anything out of the windows, everything was black, it was just the vaguest hint of shapes. I knew I wasn''t in the void anymore at least.


    I opened the door and stumbled out, tripping over the corpse of the thing. I looked back at it, its body was almost completely black now and covered in its own thick viscous blood. It''s form was completely twisted out of whatever original humanoid shape it was in originally. It looked like a fucked version of one of those floaty guys you see it used car lots. I don''t know how but I knew it was dead, something from the lizard brain.


    I looked ahead . It was a house . Anne''s house.


    I was in the snow on my hands and knees.


    Ward? Oh my god are you all right?

 Arc 1 Chapter 4 Out of Egypt and into the fire

    I tried to explain what happened to Anne, but not even she could understand. I didn''t understand myself. So, I decided to go to the one person that would.


    Harrison''s trailer was in the middle of an empty lot between two buildings, where, I assume at one point, there was another building. The grass was knee height, broken up by bits of junk and debris.


    I went up to the door, trying not to step on anything hidden in the grass. I banged on the door.


    "Harrison! Open! It''s cold!" I shouted.


    Harrison opens the door in a pink bathrobe. It looked like he might have washed his hair for once.


    "Quiet down!" He whispered loudly. "You''ll wake the neighbors! Do you know what time it is?"


    "Sorry," I said. I just stared at him.


    Harrison looked at me with annoyance and exhales through his nose.


    "Okay fine, come in," He finally said.


    I walked out of the cold and into the trailer. Harrison closed the door behind me. I took off my shoes.


    The furniture looked like it had been picked up off the side of the road and repaired with duct tape. The walls were cover in torn out comic book pages. The rug was a shag that looked straight from the 70''s (I wonder if Harrison got it the same place, he got his car). There hasn''t any dishes in the sink but judging by the empty pizza boxes Harrison probably didn''t use dishes very much, if he even had them.


    "Welcome to Fort Harrison," He said.


    "It''s not as messy as I was expecting," I said.


    "Man, you don''t know how to give a compliment to save your life do you?"


    I sat down on the couch. It was old but comfortable enough.


    "Do you want a drink or a smoke?" Harrison rumaged through the cupboards.


    "Nah I''m good." I rolled my jacket into a ball, to use as a pillow.


    Harrison turned back towards me. He poured himself some vodka, I didn''t recognize the brand but on the label, it had a cartoonish red Soviet, I could see the word comrade printed somewhere in the title. He poured the dark liquid in to a very worn, world''s best dad mug that had several chips in it and the text had come off so much that it was barely readable.


    ¡°So, Stockton, what has you showing up turn my place in the middle of the night?¡±


    ¡°Something happened.¡±


    ¡°No shit, he said giving me another once over.¡±


    ¡°I''m not exactly sure what happened, I don''t even know where to start.¡±


    Harrison took a sip from what was once some dads coffee mug.


    ¡°Then start from the beginning.¡±


    I told him everything, everything I had told Anne, everything that had happened. He listened to it, calmly, occasionally nodding, and giving therapist like verbal cues to show that he was really listening. Overall, he took in the information like a friend being told about a Fender Bender or some other mundane misfortune, and not that I had apparently fallen through a hole in the fucking universe.


    I finished spinning. Harrison put the bottle of vodka away and then through the mug into the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. He turned back towards me with his arms crossed.


    ¡°What do you want to do?¡± Harrison asked.


    ¡°I don''t know, isn''t this your wheelhouse? Can you tell me what''s going on? I think what happened to me would qualify as genuine supernatural experience.¡±


    ¡°Well, here''s the thing stacked in. I could clue you in on what''s really going on in the world. I could lift the veil and show you what''s going on backstage, real good look not just the little peek you got. But then you would be committed, you would start down the path that couldn''t go back from.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°Or you could forget this little incident ever happened. You could go back to your normal life and live out the rest of your existence thinking that there is a Wizard of Oz and not looking behind the curtain.¡±


    Harrison''s inflection was like I had never heard it before, he sounded mature almost between that and the stern look on his face I knew he was being serious. There wasn¡¯t the usual hint of juvenility. It was almost disturbing, like you were getting a serious lecture from your childhood cartoon icon.


    ¡°So, which is it? Do you stay in the Truman show or do you follow the path of John Murdoch in dark city?¡±


    I thought about one of the launch titles for the PlayStation 3, superhero simulator 2009. The start screen is just a scene of an idyllic city, children playing in the park add their people walking around in the daytime minding their own business, you can even hear birds chirping in the background for extra effect. Then as soon as you press start there is a massive explosion and robots start to attack the city this into the opening cutscene of the game. If you, as the player, never press start, the city would maintain peace. You wanting to play the game caused the super villains to attack with their robot army.


    ¡°I need to know what happened to me, Harrison.¡±


    The paranormal investigator just nodded and then placed both of his hands on my shoulders and leaned in close.


    "Do you party?" he said.


    \\\*\\\*\\\*\\\*


    Harrison and I waited on the street corner for the guy with the connection. In hindsight, taking the drug was probably a really bad idea. I just had to know what the fuck was going on.


    Harrison called it the elixir. Supposedly taking it would answer all of my questions better than Harrison just explaining them to me. He would even take the drug with me to guide me on my trip, or so he claimed.


    ¡°Where is Oliver?¡± I asked.


    Harrison fiddled with a bottle of water he brought.


    ¡°Patience Ward, Patience.¡±


    A figure interrupted the light. He was a balding middle-aged man, with free-flowing Einstein hair and a shrink¡¯s face. He licked his lips; they looked like sandpaper. It felt like his face was exploding, his head radiated energy.


    ¡°Needwater,¡± he said, cough-laughing.


    Harrison handed him the water bottle. Oliver drank it like he just got back from the desert.


    ¡°To be held of morning ¡°water¡±, this is what I want,¡± he said. Oliver¡¯s voice sounded like a radio host.


    ¡°Do you have the connection?¡± Harrison asked.


    Oliver ignored Harrison and instead turned his attention towards me.


    ¡°You look like, shadow water, boy,¡± Oliver said, his shadow flickering in the light. ¡°The other things are cold; know the metal human.¡±


    ¡°Ain''t,¡± Harrison said, ¡°yeah, like, a bowl of cereal blows.¡±


    What the fuck is going on? I couldn¡¯t tell if what they were saying was random.


    I pulled Harrison aside. Oliver just stared at the streetlight.


    ¡°Harrison,¡± I said. ¡°Why are we buying drugs from a crazy homeless person?¡±


    ¡°First of all, Oliver lives in an apartment,¡± Harrison said, ¡°secondly, he¡¯s not crazy. He¡¯s just taken so much¡ªuh¡ªproduct over the years that he¡¯s words get a little jumbled sometimes.


    ¡°A little?¡± I asked.


    ¡°The way of the throat,¡± Oliver said to literally no one, ¡°the way of the bathroom.¡±


    ¡°Sometimes?¡± I asked again.


    ¡°Trust me,¡± Harrison said. ¡°Also, he¡¯s like the only guy I know who sells Thirdeye; so, there¡¯s that.¡±


    Harrison made the deal with Oliver. I didn¡¯t understand a word of what either of them said; or more that I understood the words, just not the salad order they were put in.


    Oliver led us back to his apartment. It was painted an off white. The floors were wood. Every wall was covered in metal crosses and pieces of wood with bible verses written on them.


    The dining room table was this massive wood table that looked like it could kill a horse if you dropped it square on it. Behind me was the piano, it just sits collecting dust. In front of me was a fake medieval tapestry with what I assume was a princess and a unicorn and like a tent or something in the background.


    To my right was the window. I looked outside. I was the wind rustle the tree branches against the pain and here them tap on it like the monsters did in my nightmares. The trees were bare so actually the branches did kind of look like long malformed monster hands.


    Finally, Harrison brought back two baggies with a joint in each.


    ¡°Smoke the static and lick the sandpaper,¡± Oliver said like it meant something.


    We both put the rolls in our mouths. Harrison took out his lighter.


    ¡°Ready?¡± he asked.


    Oliver continued to ramble on in the background.


    ¡°The leather circle will know,¡± he said. ¡°They said the cup will tell the man¡¯s magic secrets, but when I turned it over it imagined something else. The signs that water made. In the room where the more you die, the more you see everything; whisper magic and gulp like omens said that you would.¡±


    Harrison and I lit up. I inhaled.


    ¡°The down witnesses weep religious tears that soak their bibles,¡± Oliver continued. ¡°The elicit don¡¯t weep. Genuine raids on the materials of the just. Imagery of raids without age. People are not officers of their own being. The risk is okay, we are the wrong owners, it was by accident.¡±


    I exhaled. I took a second hit. The drug was quicker this time. It was Egyptian anatomy. I sat down on the couch and sunk in and kept sinking until I was under water. I dropped through the blue ink like a cellphone somebody dropped into the erotic ocean. The flight of least peril.


    I finally reached the bottom. I could breathe, but I exhaled bubbles. I was on the massive stained-glass disk of myself.


    ¡°The enlightened Canadian¡¯s report passes darkness. Be it the irony, the newsman pops. Strike now with expression against the levels of the enlightened in difference it¡¯s contained in.¡±


    Everything was becoming clearer now, my perception sharpened.


    ¡°Witness long religious sarcasm; viewers talk, interaction caught in homes through towers. This is why we humans must be sarcastic; St. Convicted; Through interviews the weatherman forces the rain to come down like a fascist. On the attempt of his showers, he made me regulate the words. They make everybody regulate the words through the fascist rain.¡±


    All the colors around me began to bleed into each other like watercolor.


    ¡°It¡¯s man over a stall all,¡± ended Oliver, coughing. ¡°Out of Egypt and into the fire.¡±

 Arc 1 Chapter 5 Lewis Carroll was a pedophile

    Suddenly I wasn¡¯t in the apartment anymore, I was outside.


    It was the middle of the night, the all the street lights looked yellow. Cigarettes swallowed the air. Stores sold emotional problems; with logos designed for shoving graphic respect. Inevitable graffiti creeped from the shadows. There, the homeless man rested, as he continued to be somebody. His fit in universe. People would sometimes drop change his way. On street, the man drops nothing.


    I realized that if you stare long enough at the crowd and the traffic, you begin to notice the pattern. It all looks like chaotic movement at first, but actually there''s a rhyme to the whole thing, a choreography like in one of those old Hollywood musicals my mom loved.


    What if the principle extended beyond the city? Why wouldn''t it? Maybe if you zoomed out far enough, you''ll see the pattern of the whole fucking planet. If you just stared at it long enough, it''ll make itself apparent, trust me.


    No, I don''t know what the fuck I''m talking about either, but at the time, I swear I did.


    I was sitting on a bench watching the show. I saw a rabbit. The man in the rabbit suit. A cheap Walmart bunny costume, with shaggy fur and a plastic mask. .He was on the sidewalk across the street, staring right at me. He was standing still. Everybody else moved around him, like water around a buoy.


    I ran off the bench and dashed towards the fucker. I nearly got run over by a car, but I didn''t care.


    "What the hell is going on?" I said.


    Some lady in a floral dress stopped to stare at me.


    "What''s your problem?" I told her. "Can''t you see I''m talking to the guy in the rabbit suit?"


    She turned around and walked away at a quicker pace.


    "You''re the only one who can see me, Ward," the white rabbit said, his voice still muffled by his plastic mask. He didn''t speak but I understood what he was saying. It was like sometimes I would have thoughts that were from me and sometimes I''d have thoughts that were somewhere else


    As he said this, I noticed the other people bending around him, warping like in a fun house mirror. The sound warped as well, words twisted midsentence.


    I asked him what was going on. He gently poemed the newspaper. Make it from the bag. I want words. Next article there. The scissors are next to you, where they were conscientiously left. They are infinitely vulgar. Cut your will.


    "Alice is down the rabbit hole," he said. ¡°The godless man said the age is worn. The two are night faiths, you can read the middle in between them. We can see their might. The two in me turned it all postmodern; the regulation of night throats!¡±


    "Fuck you and your Disney references!"


    "Lewis Carroll was a pedophile, Ward. Alice was one of the young girls he liked to fuck. Did you know that?"


    I tried to ignore his babble.


    "Why can I still see things? Am I still tripping?"


    "You''ve started a journey, Ward," the man in the bunny suit said. "You''ve gone to wonderland. But while you were there, a little bit of wonderland has gone into you. Grendel is the dragon of the unconscious, all the monstrous elements of mankind we deny and suppress, he wants to consume existence. Extremism against itself¡ªthe crucifixion of power¡ªAmerican ethics¡ªthe coercive utopia¡ªAmerican the anointed. But dragons can be slain by knights.¡±


    ¡°I don''t know what I''m supposed to do about it. I''m no hero,¡± I said. "Look. I''ve had a rough day. I''m really not in the mood for this cryptic bullshit. I don''t want to beat the information out of you, and besides, you''re probably don''t even fucking exist."


    "Threats won''t work against me, Ward. You''ll have to learn more ways than violence. Although the violence will, on occasion, be useful.


    ¡°Take the person, who resembles a charming author, through the herd. I had already started the journey. I had taken the elixir¡ªin which order makes a Dadaist¡ªand has put me in touch with the white rabbit.¡±


    "What do you mean I''m going on a journey? What am I supposed to do? Where do I go?"


    To kill Grendel, you need to physically go to the flipside. The flipside is¡ªMorphogenesis, an atlas of unnoted lists of vascular plants. The sixty papers in pursuit of muck ranked. A coercive study of the erotic. Anatomy of the family seeds, seeds of fire¡ªThe flipside is the side in which the metaphor sees the real and everything that is mere language in our world becomes a cold hard fact. It''s heaven, hell and everywhere in between all at once.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Patience, Ward, patience, Harrison said in my memory.


    "You were looking for your friend Harrison? He''s in a dumpster on 34th street."


    A car slowed down and rolled down its window.


    "Get a job you fucking junkie!" The driver shouted at me.


    I turned around to flip him off. When I turned back, the rabbit was gone.


    To do the deed proper I will need¡ªCacgacosltures¡ªthe weapon. Man, to morphogenesis into the power of extremism, the atlas of the asylum of cacgacosltures. The definitive papers of muck.


    To get to the flipside I will need the key. A definitive study of the reputed dangers to man. Pursuit itself was the reputed vascular of at least the family of plant and lists of utopias.


    After this, I knew what I needed to do.


    I stepped of the curbed and disappeared.


    \\\*\\\*\\\*\\\*


    The first thing I saw, when I woke up, was a blackhole, drawn in marker, on the wall. Text with an arrow pointing to the hole said it was ¡°a portal to Narnia.¡± Around the hole, drawn with ballpoint by my guess, was a goatse, complete with cock and balls. Above it was written, ¡°Actually, it¡¯s my asshole.¡±


    The way of the throat, the way of the bathroom, I heard my memory say.


    The second thing I noticed was that I was in a public bathroom. I was in one of the stalls, siting on the toilet. My pants were pulled up. But they weren¡¯t my pants. They were sweatpants. I hate sweatpants. I had a white T, advertising a youth group called ¡°Extreme Outreach.¡± Teenagers with an attitude for Christ, said the subtitle. The logo was a blue stickman with outstretched arms that I guess was supposed to look like a cross or something.


    It¡¯s man over a stall all, my memory said, coughing.


    I stumbled out of the bathroom stall. Everything was grey, grey walls, grey sink and grey floor tile. I made my way out.


    The light blinded me at first, but then my eyes adjusted. I was in a Walmart, judging by all the blue and the people who looked like crack addicts. It was so loud, the sound of carts squeaking was deafening. I moved along the wall and fell through the automatic doors.


    I nearly got run over by a car as I went into the parking lot. The driver honked at my, so I flipped them the bird. They drove off in a huff.


    I looked around. It was sure a Walmart parking lot. But there¡¯s, like, a hundred Walmarts in the city probably and I had no idea where I was.


    I looked down. Sidewalk. I followed the sidewalk with my eyes. I saw other stores further down. This Walmart was in a strip mall. That didn¡¯t give me a better idea of where I was, but it was a start at least. I started down the sidewalk.


    As I walked, I suddenly remembered Harrison took the drugs with me. But we weren¡¯t together now. We must have gotten separated during the trip. I had no idea where he was now. Fuck.


    My train of thought was interrupted when I stepped in some slime. I stepped back and wiped my shoe on the curb. Actually, I was wearing sandals. Again, not mine. The slime was a green viscous substance, like they used to have on nickelodeon. It was dripping down from the roof. I looked up.


    The slime was leaking out of a large shape on the roof. It was pulsating, like a jellyfish. It looked like a giant balloon at first, like a parade float. That¡¯s what I thought it was at first. It was white and blue. It¡¯s tentacled appendages swayed in the wind. Nobody else seemed to be able to see it. I saw it look back down at me. Its mouth opened to reveal rows of teeth. I could see it, but it could also see me.


    I didn¡¯t have time to scream before the slime enveloped me entirely.


    \\\*\\\*\\\*\\\*


    ¡°What the fuck? Where am I?¡±


    ¡°I hunger, Ward.¡±


    ¡°Gah! Who¡¯s there?¡±


    ¡°Starving even.¡±


    ¡°Holy shit, are you the jellyfish?¡±


    ¡°Have you brought me something to eat?¡±


    ¡°A big mac with a side of my ass! Listen, can¡¯t you people just leave me alone!¡±


    "Such rage, but no direction. Like a child throwing a temper tantrum."


    ¡°I got a lot going on right now, and I mean a lot. I think taking drugs after a psychotic break might of been a bad idea.""


    ¡°I¡¯m hungry.¡±


    "Yeah, you mentioned that already. Do crazy people know there going crazy?""


    ¡°You know the first religious rites of your primitive forefathers were honoring the animals they hunted. They deified them as spirits and eventually gods. They worshiped what they ate.¡±


    ¡°I mean¡ªuh¡ªI''m still sorting a couple of things out with that but¡ª"


    ¡°That is because they couldn¡¯t reconcile the primary horror of existence. The fact that life needs to eat life to survive.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    "Life, by its very nature, must eat itself."


    ¡°Isn¡¯t there somebody else you could be bothering right now? You¡¯re a big scary monster type. Can¡¯t you find some white knight?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the protagonist of this novel, Ward.¡±


    "Yeah, but you sure as shit ain''t the villain. I''m not the dragon-slaying type."


    ¡°You¡¯re not a hypocrite. Those knights in shining armor spill the blood of my kind and call it a victory. What they do not know is the real beast rest within their own hearts. I''ve smelled the funeral pyres of women and children burned like garbage. There were no dragons there, only men.¡±


    ¡°Wait, why were you smelling funeral pyres? What the fuck?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re drawn to each other, Ward.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, but I don¡¯t swing that way. Also, you scare the shit out of me. And not in the sexy kind of way.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re aware of the monster inside of you. You don¡¯t keep it in a cage like the others. You let the lion out and use it as a weapon.¡±


    ¡°Who are the others in this scenario? Cause I¡¯m not sure what you are talking about, but if I do then your just wrong. I¡¯m not the only asshole in the world.¡±


    ¡°I still hunger.¡±


    ¡°You keep saying that. Is that another bullshit metaphor? Or are you actually hungry?¡±


    ¡°Can it not be both?¡±


    ¡°I really don¡¯t know what it means. Look, it¡¯s my dream. Maybe I can imagine some McDonalds or something.¡±


    ¡°I hunger for the smell of roses¡ª¡±


    "I don''t think they sell that at Mickey-D''s. Of course, maybe they changed the menu recently."


    ¡°The sound of bullets, the light of the sunset.¡±


    ¡°Okay I know for sure they don¡¯t sell any of that. Maybe at Burger King?¡±


    ¡°The hate that turns brother against brother, the feeling of the sublime at the top of the mountain.¡±


    ¡°You want to¡ªeat shitty free verse poetry?¡±


    ¡°I hunger for being and nothingness, good and evil, all at once.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯ve lost me again.¡±


    ¡°I hunger for everything, existence itself.¡±


    ¡°Hey¡ªwait¡ªwhat the fuck? Let¡ªlet go of me, meat breath!¡±


    ¡°I want to eat the place from which you came and everything and everyone in it¡ª¡±


    ¡°Putmedownputmedown! Nonono¡ªdon¡¯t open your mouth!¡±


    ¡°I want to eat the world."

 Arc 1 Chapter 6 Bat out of Hell

    The gates of hades open, and I flew out like a fucking bat out of hell. I breathed in the fresh fumes. They didn''t smell like freedom--so that parts bullshit--but somehow, they smelled better than the air in the Jellyfish. The early morning sun pierced the clouds and shot into my eyes like a spear.


    I put on a pair of sunglasses; they were piss yellow with lenses shaped like teardrops.


    Outside the rusty fence that surrounded the strip mall there was nothing to look at besides concrete and brown grass. I looked ahead. The setting sun crashed into the line of trees in the distance and bleed red sunlight all over the parking lot. The trees were a green that was almost fluoresce green with spring.


    Just below the tree line was the rusted metal fence that kept the trees out, like a line dividing chaos from order. Past the fence was the sports field, the grass swaying in the wind. The grass went up all the way to the cracks concrete of the parking lot. The parking lot was that old, worn-out concrete that looked like blackened hamburger.


    The beastly growl of a car engine interrupted: a flash of colors zoomed into a parking lot. The car was an older 70''s model, when cars were giant steel rectangles before the oil crisis. The body was dark green but, each door was a different color.


    Finally, after I don''t know how long, Harrison¡¯s car pulled up. The car was a older 70''s model; when cars were giant steel rectangles before the oil crisis. The body was dark green but, each door was a different color. Harrison waved at me from inside. I tried to open the passenger side, but it wouldn''t budge. Harrison opened it from the inside.


    "Sorry," he said. "It doesn''t open from the outside."


    I found Harrison in a dumpster, right where the rabbit told me, on 34th street.


    I pulled him out and brushed the garbage off of him. He was also wearing a different set of clothes. He wore wife beater and hot pink sweatpants with the words "Juicy" written on them in a glittery cursive.


    "Pedal morning shit," Harrison dazed.


    I slapped him, hard.


    "Thanks," he said, blinking.


    I helped him up. The dumpster was in the alleyway behind the Arby''s. Every inch of the place was covered in gang tags.


    "You good man?" I said.


    "I''ve seen some weird shit man!" Harrison said.


    After that Harrison ran off to find his car.


    "Hey Harrison, your car is a piece of shit," I said.


    "I go through all the trouble to pick you up and this is the thanks I get?" He said.


    I got inside of the car. The upholstery was old squeaky leather and the car smelled like bad coffee and cheap cigarettes.


    We both sat in silence for a minute, neither of us sure what to say.


    Eventually Harrison just said, "Let''s bounce," and floored it.


    The car lurched out of the parking lot and screeched down the street. Grassy field bleed into urban sprawl as we made our way to the city. Buildings whizzed past the mirror; dead strip malls, neon signs advertising fast-food chains, pawn shops done up like fort Knox, liquor stores offering escape, the tat shop with the blacked-out windows and lots and lots of rundown apartment complexes.


    "So how was your trip?" Harrison asked.


    "What kind of question is that?" I said.


    "I don''t know,"


    "Rainbow and roses; how the hell do you think it was?"


    "Everybody¡¯s different."


    I told Harrison about my trip.


    ¡°A jellyfish?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°Fuck...¡±


    My stomach growled.


    ¡°Hey, do you think we could grab a bite?¡± I asked.


    We decided to go to Waffle house.


    Waffle House smells like grease but like in a good way. Actually, I don''t think I could tell you what grease smelled like, other than like waffle house.


    "And then I asked, how much cocaine does it take to kill a gerbil?" Harrison said in-between mouthfuls of hash browns. "And then he said, well, there''s two schools of thought on the subject!"


    Harrison started laughing so much he nearly choked. I chuckled. We were sitting in a booth in front. The morning sun pierced the glass like bullets.


    "Ah Mark Wyrick," I said. "I fucking miss that dude. What ever happened to him?"


    "I think he''s Baltimore now or something."


    "What''s he''s doing in that shithole?"


    "Fuck if I know. Some bullshit about hunting ghosts."


    I squeezed more syrup on my waffles. I was the only one in the waffle house who was actually eating waffles. I can remember if that counts as ironic or not. "What was that bullshit he once told us about the high monkeys?"


    "About how the government was injecting monkeys with cocaine? ''Cause I googled that, that wasn''t conspiracy, it''s fact."


    "No not that, the thing about how apes took some shrooms or something and like, gained consciousness or something."


    "Oh, right that," Harrison poured some tabasco sauce on his sandwich. "I think it''s called stoned ape theory. It was a Bill Hicks routine."


    I shook my head and took a sip of my coffee. It wasn''t great but it was miles better than what they served in prison.


    "So did I, what did you see?" I asked.


    "Well, at first I thought I was on this beach. It was a really nice beach on like a typical island or something. The water was super clear like glass. I could see the clouds and stuff reflected in it. I was looking into it when I slipped on the sand and fell right into the water. But instead of getting wet I fell, like, into the reflection and fell up into the sky. I don''t know how to explain it.


    So, I was falling through the sky, but then I like fell into the ocean, for real this time. The water was so dark, I couldn''t see shit. Then, I was in a blank white room, it was really bright. There was this guy there in a bee costume, like they used to have at old country buffet. He was like, hey, and I was like, hey, and then I fell through the floor.


    Then I was in an abandon mall. It was like a normal mall with people in it, except, you know, abandon. There weren¡¯t any people in it. Anyway, I was in the, like, main corridor of the mall. Suddenly there was a bunch of fuck balloons everywhere and I turned around to see this--hey I¡¯ve told you I''m afraid of clowns before, right?"


    I remembered once when Harrison and I were in high school, we went to a haunted corn maze. We were pretty desensitized to horror tropes, so we basically laughed are way through the whole thing.


    But then as we were rounding a corner a clown came out. Harrison lost and booked it. Except he ran straight into the corn and disappeared. The clown and I just stared at each for a bit, neither sure what to do. It was whole "kid lost at toys-r-us" type situation, I had to get them to shut down the maze so we could find him. After thirty minutes of searching, we found him somewhere in the corn, curled into a fetal position and weeping gently.


    "You might have mentioned it before," I said.


    "Yeah, well," Harrison said, "I hear this voice whisper ''Harrison'' and I turn around. It was a motherfucking clown. He starts to say something but I''m already running for by the time he opens his mouth. I kept running for I don''t know how long. Then I tripped and woke up when you pulled me out of the dumpster."


    Harrison looked behind me and saw something. He bolted up from the booth and ran towards it. I looked to see him fiddling with a jukebox.


    I followed him. It was one of those digital jukebox¡¯s with a touch screen and stuff, basically an oversized iPod done up to look like a jukebox.


    "Look at this shit," Harrison said. "There''s musical soundtracks in here man!"


    "What musicals?"


    "Dude there''s Annie in here!"


    "Really?" I asked. "Hey, did I ever tell you, when I was a kid, I used to have a big crush on Annie?"


    Harrison laughed at me. I punch him in the arm a little harder then I was intending.


    "Ow!"


    "Shut up!" I said. "I was like five or something like that. I guess I just have a thing for girls that need somebody to rescue them. It¡¯s all the video games, I guess. And redheads. I got a real thing for read heads. I don¡¯t think that¡¯s the video games though."


    Harrison grabbed the jukebox and dry humped it.


    "Yes Daddy Warbucks! Yes!" he said in a falsetto.


    "Shut up," I said while looking at my shoes.


    Harrison continued to laugh. I suddenly got self-conscious and looked around. Luckily, none of the employees or customers seemed to give a shit.


    I heard the ring of a bell and saw the most beautiful girl in the world walk through the door. She had bright red hair, pale skin and the figure of a model. The sunlight from outside followed her and made her look luminous.


    "Dude!" Harrison said like a person having a religious experience. "Waffle house has original music!"


    I ditched Harrison and approached the girl. She sat down right at the counter and was flipping through the menu.


    I leaned right next to her. I didn¡¯t say anything for what felt like an hour, why can¡¯t there be dialogue choices in real life?


    She answered, "I''m on lunch."


    "Hey," I said, trying to smile like normal humans smile.


    "Go away."


    "Well, that was fast," I said. "Usually, they let me get out a shitty pick-up line before they tell me to leave."


    I have never uttered a pickup line. That line was stolen from Stealth-Type: Vietnam on the PS2 and original Xbox (2006); it was spoken by the protagonist Reeve Graves to fellow secret agent Lady Night.


    "I''m off work," she said.


    "Oh yeah?" I said, trying to pretend to be interested. "What''s your job?"


    She hands me her card. It smells like perfume. I read it:


    FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL MAGGIE 1-800-555-6969


    Red hair. This must be fate. Should I marry this girl? She ordered Waffles. Just like me. That synched it.


    My thoughts were interrupted by the worst song I had ever heard in my entire life; "I Met My Lady At The Waffle House." Harrison nearly collapsed on the floor; he was laughing so hard.


    I looked back where Maggie was. She was gone.

 Arc 1 Chapter 7 Getting Boned

    I couldn''t sleep period my brain felt like it was on fire, I stared at the ceiling and tried to find a pattern in the way the paint dried. I didn''t.


    I got out of bed. I walked across my small studio apartments to the sink. I splashed my face. Water, it''s the only natural consumable these days.


    I decided to do what I always did when I couldn''t sleep, I played a game. I went over to my TV, it was black. I pressed the button on the side to let some lights in the room and I was flooded with the rainbow fluorescent colors.


    I started the game up, women in bikinis eating ice cream suggestively; nuclear families smiling in hover vans; well-dressed old men drinking Golden liquor; Corporate logos that looked like ancient runes and pastel cartoon characters could all be seen, strewn across the loading screen. There were screenshots of them projected as holograms across a futuristic cityscape. Eventually the loading screen faded, and I was automatically taken to my last save.


    I was standing on top of a building, skyscrapers jetted out like fingers towards the Sky and hovercars flu and regular patterns like blood through veins. I was playing the cleverly titled CarJack: Future. It''s not the worst name in the franchise, that honor goes to CarJack 2, the one that brought the games to the PS3 and Xbox 360. What pissed me off so much about it is they called it CarJack 2, but car Jack already had three games on the PlayStation 2, the original CarJack, CarJack: Los Angeles and CarJack: Chicago. But instead of calling it CarJack 4 or CarJack: New York (or more accurately returned to New York because CarJack 1 was set in the Big Apple) they called it CarJack 2 for some reason.


    Anyway, I was playing CarJack: Future. This one was like the previous CarJack games, except cyber punk. It''s kind of sad that the developers have clearly just run out of ideas, and the next car Jack''s probably gonna be set in space or something, blood I would be lying if I said that playing an open world crime simulator where are you can give yourself robotic enhancements and turn your arm into a fucking rocket launcher and literally pull a samurai sword from your ass, wasn''t a fun and cathartic experience.


    I wasn''t doing any high speed car chases though, I was just wandering around the cyberpunk city, admiring the environment. I like to do that sometimes, I think not enough gamers just appreciate the effort that goes into creating these virtual worlds, select my own form of nature walk sometimes I like to spend time just wandering around in the game, I can do this for hours sometimes.


    A chaotic flash caught my attention. It was down in the lower sections of the city. It was one of those old digital signs, not too different from the ones we have now actually which is why in the context of the game it was old, glitched images flew past the screen, each one bleeding into the last like runny paint. Word salad slogans appeared:


    outdoor product''s paint child therapy kung flu egg rolls business for busy people, Ward


    I blinked. Did I just see my name?


    The screen flashed again.


    BOO AGED SYLLABLES ATE WILY AT AXIS APACE BOOR YOKE AXED SOMETHING BAT RHYMES, Ward come here.


    Yep, the sign was definitely showing my name. Anybody else this message would have gotten lost in the shuffle; I knew it was intended for me.


    I guided my character to the sign, heading down the crosswalk spread out over the city, like a spider web and hungover the streets like a catwalk.


    A few minutes later I was under the sign, colors and words forming before me in no discernible pattern tell I got the message.


    dietary supplements fat 3 out of four cats a year with mesothelioma and Ward go to the mall.


    There was a flash of white that looked like a skull. The bones, I knew where it wanted me to go.


    I felt hot, out of the corner of my eyes I started to see little red specks, like fireflies. I threw on my clothes and headed out. I let the red specs guide me.


    I took the train. It''s bad through the city faster than a speeding bullet. I hate the train. It¡¯s always crowded, it smells, and every inch of the inside is coming in graffiti, some of it¡¯s the standard fare, like the names of girls somebody thinks are sluts and their phone numbers. But the rest of it is indecipherable symbols that look like they''re from some long dead language, and the floor was sticky from God knows what. The seat cushions were nice though.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    ¡°Those ain¡¯t phone numbers,¡± some weirdo who sat next to me said. He was writing down the not-phone-numbers in a ratty old notepad.


    ¡°If you add them all up, they¡¯ll tell you the code.¡±


    He never said what the hell the code was, and I didn¡¯t ask. Did I mention I hate the train? Because I feel I need to repeat myself.


    I was headed to bone mall. Its name was a double and tundra of sorts, the 1st and most obvious was that it was a long dead mall that had been reduced to a skeleton of its former self. the other was because it''s where teenagers used to sneak off to the fuck. Maybe they still do, all I know is that when I was in high school there were guys in my class that would say, I''m taking her to bone mall if you know what I mean, and then giggle without the slight is 10th of any irony. Kids today probably only go there to have sex ironically.


    I was the only one to get off at my station. I could see the remains in the distance. I walked from the station to the bones. The massive thing jetted out into the Sky, what remained of a shopping mall stood before me. I went inside.


    The mall was so dilapidated the shell was a shell of its former self. What was once just a small garden had grown into a wilderness and green invaded the metal and concrete. Shafts of light shone down through the broken ceiling windows; the ones that weren''t broken were covered in grime. Based on the discarded garbage, the crumpled cardboard boxes of the Super extra-large Burger Pals deluxe, from the Burger Palace, which was discontinued like 10 years ago for health concerns but believe you me when it was just still around, we would get that all the time, it seemed to me no actual teenagers had been in here since my high school days. So much for ironic sexual activities, I guess.


    I sat down on the least decrepit bench. I don''t know why I was called here but I was going to wait until I found out. I said on the bench for hours and eventually fell asleep, I dreamed of a red eye staring down at me. I was naked and alone in the dark before its gaze.


    Stay here, it said.


    Stay here? For how long? I said.


    You are here to be tested, it said. to see if you are ready.


    Test? How am I supposed to recognize it?


    You will know when it comes.


    I work to the sunlight hitting my face. The dream was stuck in my mind like the memory equivalent of after taste.


    You will know the test when it comes, I thought. Yeah, if one of my teachers back in Community College said that the entire class would get up and unanimously decide to murder him.


    Fuck this. I decided to leave and made my way for the exit. Except the exit wasn''t there. I retraced my steps to where I had come in except when I went to where the entrance used to be it was just more dead mall. I walked around; whole place seemed bigger than they used to be. I looked up at the ceiling, it wasn''t sunlight coming through anymore, but oddly solid yellow light making the bits of Sky peeking through seem like one massive fluorescent bulb. I kept walking, there was just more mall, too much mall. I''ve only been to the bones few times before, but I don''t think it was ever this big.


    I looked at one of those guiding Maps, it was just massive colored squares that were supposed to represent stores, it even spread over beyond the metal borders and blood naturally into its surroundings. I started the run through the mall, all the Maps or like that. The whole complex just kept going.


    Windows, there has to be a window here somewhere, right?


    Eventually I got what I wished for. I found a wall love glass framed in metal; they were covered in muck just like Vienna broken glass on the ceiling so I couldn''t see what was through them. I was desperate enough to make a leap of faith though. I found one of those metal poles with the big heavy circular bases where those seatbelts like divider cloth things come from, with the little plastic bit at the end that connects it to the other metal dividers. You know what I''m talking about. Anyway, I found one of those things and I have to get up and held the heavy saucer out in front of me like a javelin. I took a deep breath in and charged the window.


    I instinctively closed my eyes when I crashed through. I tripped over the metal and the Paul thing went flying from my hands. I fell forward right onto the broken glass. I felt a series of sharp stinging sensations Anna my palms. I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands, little bits of glass were stuck everywhere in my palm and my fingers, slowly being obscured by pooling blood. I felt that weird chill you get down your spine when glass gets stuck into you, or you get a splinter, or you get a shot, it''s like your body is sending out an alarm letting you know that foreign object is just gotten past the skin barrier. I shuddered a cuss.


    I looked up; I saw the broken window that I had just ran through smash then ahead of me. Through the Hall I could see what looked like a giant fluorescent light, I looked behind me and saw another broken window with the same light emanating from it.


    My stomach sank. It was almost like there was more glass beyond that, like someone had a massive light bulb and stuck it outside the mall and I could only see a tiny sliver of it.


    I got up. The pain let me know that there were pieces of glass in my knees as well.


    I already had a pretty good feeling of what was going on, but I had to confirm it. With what I could muster I made another run at the window I just charged through. Sure, enough as soon as I broke through the light, I was sent back through the 2nd window, back into the mall. Fucking portal physics.


    I shook my bleeding hands at the Sky, the hot liquid the iron dripping down on to my wrists and forearm.


    ¡°Fuck you and your Lovecraftian non-Euclidean geometry!¡± I shouted to no one in particular.

 Arc 1 Chapter 8 Grendel

    The bloody water swirled around the drain like a red vortex. There would be a loud clink every time a piece of glass dropped into the porcelain sink, and then it would be swept up by the Crimson current down the Hall. I felt the chill rundown from the back of my neck to the bottom of my spine every time I used the tweezers to pull out a Shard. The sink was running hot water, open next to it was the first aid kit I had found in one of the back offices. I drowned the wounds with disinfectant. When I was done I wrapped my hands as tightly as I could with the gauze and bandages. I help them out in front of the mirror, I looked like a street brawler from extensively gritty 80s beat-em-up, or maybe a character from an arcade fighter.


    When I was all fixed up, I left the dilapidated public restroom, with broken green tiles, and went into the rest of them all.


    I waited, I''m waiting and I will wait. I had decided to stay here even if it took days or even weeks. This voice had been drilling itself into my skull for awhile now, I was going to have it out with it even if I had to starve myself to death in this abandoned mall. That''s what I told myself anyway, of course the truth was even if I wanted to leave I couldn''t.


    I walked around. I tried to make out the advertisements under the layer of muck . I wiped away some of it with my sleeve, I saw a calculatedly diverse group of people in suits. And then baking : financing your future.


    I looked through the holes where the storefronts used to be. I saw the scattered remains of what they used to sell . I picked up one of the decaying widgets. It was a blender; 12 different modes, only 39.99. Somebody worked all day in a factory to make this shit , somebody else worked all day in a different factory to build this shit, putting all the components together. Now years later, both of these people are probably dead and I''m holding the sweat of their brow, in an abandoned decaying place. If I was a philosopher or a poet I could probably render some significance out of it, but I''m a pragmatist by nature.


    A stream of water came down from the ceiling. It came down to form a large pool, or miniature Lake, and one of the main plazas or intersections hallway. I didn''t drink from it, it had a strange smell. All the plumbing seemed to be working so it wasn''t necessary, and for all I knew it had a flesh eating virus. Bad status effect.


    I occupied my time with experimentation. I spray painted a red X on the ground where I had seen the last several balls drop. I dragged one of plastic mannequins out from one of those trendy clothes shops, the ones that are so thick with body spray and perfume you could hide a dead body in there for weeks and it wouldn''t be discovered, not to mention they are dark and there''s always fucking idiotic  music playing so you could probably kill somebody in there too, anyway I took one of those mannequins and placed it on the red X. I looked up to the fluorescent light pouring in from the broken window in the ceiling. I looked over in front of me, where there was another broken window, also with a fluorescent void outside. I took a deep breath and as hard as I could chucked the Bowie knife I was holding, I had gotten it from the sporting goods place. I quickly moved away from the mannequin and before I saw anything I heard a loud thwack. I looked at the plastic hipster and saw the Bowie knife sticking out of its head. X marks the spot.


    I foraged for food. There wasn''t much left and any of the restaurants in the food court , so I resorted to busting open vending machines with chairs. That lasted me for a little bit but man cannot live on junk food alone period When the days turned into weeks I got too tired and hungry and sat back down on the bench.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    sometimes I would drift off but then I would always wake up with intense hunger pains. Even before I started starving I had trouble sleeping. There was no day night cycle in this place threw off my internal Meridian Clock, or whatever it''s called and I couldn''t get any sleep. Always fluorescent light.


    I stared just ahead of me . I focused on my breathing period I focused on the way my air felt coming in and out of me. Inhale, exhale.


    And that when the static came to me.


    Next thing I know, I was either up somebody''s asshole or in a swamp. The air was sultry, the ground was damp, and I couldn''t see shit (but I could smell it).


    I stumbled up. The ground squished under my feet. I tried to breath but gagged on the poop-air. I pulled my T-shirt over my face. I tried to look around, but like I said, it was too dark. I could hear plenty though. I heard the cawing of birds. I also heard crunching of footsteps and growling. It sounded like that jungle sounds CD my mom would play to make me fall asleep. She stopped playing it because I kept having nightmares of being lost in the jungle at night. Actually, where ever the hell I was, was a lot like those nightmares.


    I just stood there for a bit and waited for my eyes to adjust. After awhile, I could just barley make out shapes. Yellow, orange and blue light filtered through, somewhere in the distance the shapes were large, slow, and lumbering. I swear I could feel their hot breath on my face.


    I felt the vibrations before I heard the foot steps. Some thing was moving towards me, something big. I looked up to see a pair of eyes. The thing growled and I saw a row of pearly whites.


    I heard thunder in the distance.


    "Ward," a voice said. It sounded like it was coming from inside my head.


    "Who''s that?" I asked.


    "I''ve gone by many names," the things said. It''s teeth moved but the eyes stared at me, unblinking. "Your ancestors huddled around fires and fear what was just beyond the lights reach. I am that fear. They pushed the horizon, but were afraid of what lurked in the depths. I am that fear. Their children sleep in their beds, but are frightened of waits beneath them. I am that fear."


    It''s warm, meaty breath blew against my face.


    "What''s one of your names?" I said.


    I heard the thunder clap again, closer this time.


    "The Mesopotamians called me Humbaba," it said. "The Greeks called me the Hundred-Handed one. I show up in many of your stories. I am the dragon, the beast. But you? I smell your blood, the blood of an Englishman. You can call me what your forefathers labeled me. Grendel."


    Grendel. Just the name sends shivers down my spine. Of all the monsters, of all the stories my mother read to me, Grendel always scared me the most. The book had these colorful illustrations. All the other monsters were like dragons or something, typical stuff. So alien it didn''t feel real. But the drawing of Grendel was basically this big, naked hairy dude, with long matted hair and sick yellow skin. The drawing had these big owl eyes which looked fucked up on a human face. It was just close enough to reality and yet at the same time really off. Anyway, it scared the shit out of me as a kid.


    Suddenly there was the flash of lightening. For a second the dark swamp was lit up. I saw the thing that called itself Grendel. It looked like the drawing come to life. It looked down at me and smiled.


    I bolted while screaming and crying. I ran as fast as I could, without worrying about seeing where I was going. When I used to have nightmares as a kid, sometimes if I ran fast enough I could, like, run out of the dream.


    I tripped on a branch and before I fell face first, I woke up.

 Arc 1 Chapter 9 I met a Girl

    There was a hole in the corner that smelled really bad. I think it was supposed to be the toilet. Nothing even resembling a bed was anywhere in the cell.


    One light bulb on the ceiling illuminated the room. The light was bright white. It flickered at on intervals. After a while of staring at it I started to think maybe somebody was trying to send me signals.


    I don¡¯t know how long I was in the cell. Hours? Days? Every so often they brought me food. It was in these silver bags. It tasted metallically and awful.


    Just when I was about to go nuts my cell door opened.


    It was two guards. They wore full body armor like the police except theirs was grey. They didn¡¯t have food, one of them was holding a hose. The blast of cold water knocked me back against the wall. Here¡¯s a question, does rust have a smell? Because I could swear my holding cell smells like rust. The walls ceiling and floor were all made of metal, it was all reddish brown.


    They turned off the hose. One of them picked up my cold limp, body off the floor. He dragged me along like a ragdoll.


    I was strapped into this appliance dolly. It was the thing you put serial killers into in movies. The straps were so tight I could even turn my head.


    The guards pushed me down the hallway. As we went down the hallway I noticed the cell doors where the same rusty brown as their interiors.


    The hallway was colored a light grassy green with a white strip running across the walls. I thought about the orphanage where I grew up. The walls there were colored a much darker shade of green. I¡¯m not sure what you¡¯d call it, forest? To be honest I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯d rather be back there. I think that says a lot more about the orphanage than this place.


    We eventually reached a big metal door that looked like it was built to resist a bomb. The door began to open slowly.


    On the other side of the metal door was two other nearly identical looking guards in grey body armor. The guards greeted each other and exchanged dirty jokes.


    The other guards exited the metal doors and started down the hall. In between them they were dragging some guy. He was slumped over and completely limp. He was skinny and anemic looking with pale skin and dark black hair. He looked like a ghost.


    We went through the metal doors.


    ¡°Yo doc,¡± One of the guards holding me said. ¡°We got a fresh one for ya.¡±


    ¡°Thank you,¡± I heard a voice say. ¡°Just leave him there for me will you?¡±


    ¡°Okay doc.¡±


    The two guards left my sight. I heard their footsteps getting softer.


    ¡°It¡¯s good you came along when you did,¡± the voice said. ¡°I think I will need a new one. My other test subject is...nearly gone...used up.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t make out the speaker. He was just on my peripheral vision. I heard the rumble of papers underfoot. The floor was covered in papers and stacks of books. Drawers were open and closed. I think I heard him mumble something about a light.


    The room was full of machines that didn¡¯t seem to have any desirable purpose. A row of counters on the wall full of vials of boiling chemicals. Shelves full of jars of dead things in vinegar.


    He walked across the room to one of the counters. He pulled out a cigarette from his pocket and lite with one of the fires underneath the chemicals. I got a better look at him. He wore a white lab coat, black gloves and large goggles. His hair was gray and frayed.


    Goggles leaned back his head and let out a puff of smoke. He turned towards me.


    ¡°I¡¯d offer you a chair but¡­¡± he said but just kinda trailed off. ¡°Yes.¡±


    I got a better look at his face. It was old and wrinkled. His eye sockets were sunken and nearly black. It looked like he hadn¡¯t slept since he was my age. Generally speaking he¡¯s the weird old guy you avoid at the supermarket.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    Mad scientist man got uncomfortably close to me. Like he was really violating my personal space. And yes I know that¡¯s a petty thing to complain about again given my circumstances. I have a thing about my person space okay?


    Dr. Crazy person blew smoke in my face.


    ¡°Are you familiar with evolutionary biology?¡±


    I didn¡¯t know with that was a rhetorical question so I said nothing. He turned away from me.


    ¡°People used to have incredible power at their disposal; flying, shapeshifting and mind control.¡±


    I coughed.


    ¡°Yeah I was told those stories too,¡± I said. ¡°They used to read us Grimm''s Fairy Tales to us before we went to bed.¡±


    Doc Cray Cray flung his arms in the air. His movements were spastic and violent.


    ¡°No! Not stories! I¡¯m talking about evolutionary fact!¡±


    If this was a normal social situation this was the point in the conversation where you¡¯d smile and start to make your way to the door. You know, that part where you realize that the person you''re talking to is crazy?


    I didn¡¯t have this option because as I said previously, I¡¯m strapped into a fucking dolly. Also I kinda knew this guy was crazy from the get go, so this didn¡¯t come as too much of a surprise.


    ¡°What I¡¯m trying to do here will revolutionize science and fundamentally change what we think about the universe¡­¡±


    Scientist man was shouting now.


    Just as he was going about how they all laughed at him at school but now he would show them all, I decided to speak up again.


    "So, where exactly am I?"


    He stopped. He grinned widely, it was not a nice grin. Crazy hair walked towards me. He put his hands on my face, it was not a good touch. He tilted back his head and cackled. Stranger danger, somebody call an adult please.


    ¡°Such naivete...I think we¡¯re going have some fun.¡±


    I remember being strapped into various machines with wires going into my body. I remember flashing lights and chemical smells. There was a near constant hum in the background, it sounded like an air conditioner.


    But mostly I remember the pain. Brief but intense moments of sharp pain broken up by large periods of dull but persistent pain.


    I don¡¯t remember specifics, everything just kinda blurs together like a fever dream. I drifted in and out of consciousness. It was like I was trying to wake up but failing. The next thing I know I was being dragged down the hall by two guards, I don¡¯t know if it was the same from before. My clothes were drenched in my own vomit and piss.


    I blacked out. I woke up in my cell. My entire body was sour. I dry heaved for a bit, I guess I didn¡¯t have anything left to throw up.


    There was a vent on the wall, cold air blew from it. I crawled over to it and but my face in front of the vent. I closed my eyes and pretended it was the breeze. I wasn¡¯t here, I was some place else. I was in any place else.


    A voice snapped me out of my flashback.


    ¡°Who''s there?¡± I said.


    ¡°You can¡¯t let them know that they¡¯ve gotten to you,¡± the voice said. It seemed to be coming from the vent. The voice was barely audible. It sounded like static formed into words.


    ¡°Who are you?¡±


    There was a long pause. Just when I thought that I hallucinated the voice, I heard it answer.


    ¡°My name is Vlad.¡± Another pause, shorter this time. ¡°What¡¯s yours?¡±


    ¡°Ward...you can call me Ward.¡±


    ¡°Hello Ward,¡± the voice seemed to crackle as it talked. ¡°I wish we could have met under better circumstances.¡±


    I laughed. Wasn¡¯t that a line from some movies? I couldn¡¯t remember. The laughter started a coughing fit.


    ¡°You and me both,¡± I said, spitting up blood.


    I don¡¯t remember the rest of the conversation. I think I blacked out at some point.


    So that''s how it continued for I don¡¯t know how long. It was probably weeks but it felt like months. Guards would take me to a torture session with Doctor Spaz, then they dump my near dead body back in my cell. While in my cell I¡¯d have a little chat session with Vlad through the vent.


    Vlad and I mostly talked about the kinda stuff you talk about when you''re not locked up in a secret government blacksite. I think we were both trying to play pretend. I never did learn why he got locked up.


    Sleep didn¡¯t provide much rest. I don¡¯t want to be one of those people who tells you about their stupid dreams but I was seeing some pretty weird crap. This wasn¡¯t your garden variety ¡®I¡¯m late for work and can only run in place¡¯ or some vague sense of dread and nonsensical imagery. No, this was something different.


    At first it was the bats, swarms of them, largest I¡¯ve ever seen and I was in the middle. Sometimes it was the moon, it started to turn red like somebody was bleeding on it. Then there was the ones of this guy dressed in all black sitting on a throne, looking bored, with piercing red eyes. The last one I say thin big ugly mother that was like seven feet tall and had leather skin with tattered wings coming out of his back. I think he smiled at me, with rows of jagged teeth.


    I had this feeling that I lot of this was due to whatever the Bad Doctor was doing to me. I wasn''t sure how much more of this I could take.


    I saw the girl from the Wafflehouse in this...nightmare?


    The guards lead me from my cell. They stopped strapping me to the dolly thing because they learned I wouldn¡¯t put up much of a fight.


    When we were walking down the hall was when I noticed her. Two other guards were leading her down the hall coming the other direction. She had brown hair and brown eyes. Her face was covered in freckles. She looked a couple of years older than me.


    It wasn¡¯t her appearance, it was the way she made me feel. Not romantically, although she was attractive, but there was something wrong with her. Like something about here made the lizard part of my brain freakout. I felt afraid of her for no good reason. So yeah, mixed feelings.

 Arc 1 Chapter 10 Eat The World

    I sat up with my back up against the wall. I bounced a ball across the cell.


    Jesus fucking Christ, The voice crackled.


    ¡°Language¡±, I said.


    Jesus Friggin¡¯ Christ¡­I¡¯m bored.


    ¡°Yep,¡± I said.


    The cell was painted an off white. I was alone save for the voice inside my head. I don¡¯t know when it started. I mean the voice was always there since the beginning; but it was never this loud before.


    Do you want to hear a joke? it asked. I could always hear low beeping sounds intermittently in its voice. It didn¡¯t seem to be coming from anywhere.


    ¡°No,¡± I said aloud.


    This farmer catches these three guys creeping on his daughter¡­Vlad crackled.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear a joke.¡±


    So, the farmer gets his shotgun and tells the guys to go out into the field and pick their favorite fruit.


    I sigh. I keep throwing my ball.


    Vlad continued, The first guy comes back with an apple. The farmer says if he can shove it up his ass without making a sound he can get off Scot free. He does so. Then the second guy comes back with a strawberry. The farmer tells him the same thing, but half way through he starts laughing. The farmer asked him why he failed such and easy test. ¡°I couldn¡¯t help but think what my other friend grabbed,¡± he said, his other friend being the third guy.


    Radio silence from Vlad followed.


    ¡°Well?¡± I finally asked.


    Well what?


    ¡°What¡¯s the punchline?¡±


    I thought you didn¡¯t want to hear my joke.


    ¡°You can¡¯t just tell a joke and not give the punchline! Christ!¡±


    Now look who¡¯s swearing.


    I sigh again.


    Why don¡¯t you eat something Ward? My stomach growled in response. I would nod off and then would wake with intense hunger pangs.


    ¡°I¡¯m not hungry,¡± I said to the voice. I started just ahead of me I focused on my breathing. I focused on the way the air felt coming in and going of me.


    How long has it been since your last meal?


    ¡°They bring me three meals a day.¡± Inhale; exhale.


    You never eat them though.


    ¡°I¡¯m not hungry.¡± Inhale; exhale.


    You need to eat something eventually, Vlad said.


    ¡°Where?¡± I asked. ¡°I don¡¯t see a Burger Palace!¡±


    You have the fire in you. Do you know what that is? You can change matter on a fundamental level. Organic modification Ward, you can make these trees grow any kind of fruit you want.


    I could see it so clearly in my mind¡¯s eye, like a movie in my head. A tree sprouting in the middle of my cell, through the concrete. An apple tree. I could reach out and grab the apple; bright red, fresh and organic. I could feel my mouth watering, that organic stuff cost a fortune, but I could have as much of it as I wanted, right here right now.


    No. this isn''t what I came here for.


    ¡°I¡¯m here for answers,¡± I said. ¡°The human body can survive for about that long without eating. It¡¯s dehydration that gets you. I¡¯ve been drinking plenty of water.¡±


    The voice sighed. Inaudible static followed.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    Words eventually emerged from the noise. Do you want to hear another joke?


    ¡°No,¡± I said even though I knew he was going to tell it anyway.


    This lady walks into a bar¡­


    ¡°You better give the punchline this time.¡±


    This lady walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a double entendre, so he gives it to her.


    ¡°Jesus,¡± I said, grabbing my ball and then throwing it again.


    What? Didn¡¯t I give you the punchline? The voice said. You know you wouldn¡¯t be here if you listened to be more.


    ¡°The reason I¡¯m even in here in the first place is you.¡±


    If you just did what I told you to do, when I told you and as I told you to do it we wouldn¡¯t be here right now.


    ¡°It¡¯s just me in here remember?¡±


    The royal we, then. You should just do as I say from now on.


    ¡°Fuck you. Or should I say fuck me?¡±


    Vlad grabbed my ball midair. I stare at the ground.


    Fine, you want to sit in here and rot then be my guest.


    ¡°Day twenty-seven. Only thirteen more to go.¡±


    You could end it any time you know.


    ¡°According to you I¡¯m already starving myself.¡±


    Fine, if your going to starve yourself to death, you might as well be more efficient about it.


    ¡°Are you testing me?¡±


    Who are you?


    I blinked.


    Who are you?


    ¡°Who are you?¡± I said back.


    You know who I am. I ask for the third time, who are you?


    ¡°Ward,¡± I said. ¡°My names is Ward Stockton.¡±


    ¡°Bullshit.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not who you are,¡± Vlad said.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m Ward Stockton"


    That¡¯s not who you really are.


    Everything warped and glitch out in front of me. The bench melted away; I stood up. Blackness wrapped itself around me like a blanket, I could see specks of light in the distance. I felt a cool breeze.


    I looked around. I was on the roof and was flooded with a rainbow of fluorescent light.


    Women in bikinis eating ice cream suggestively; nuclear families smiling in vans; well dress old men drinking golden liquid; corporate logos that looked like ancient runes and pastel cartoon characters all where projected as 30 foot holograms across the city scape.


    Skyscraper jutted out like fingers towards the sky and cruiser flowed like blood in veins.


    Who sent you? the voice had a form now. In the dark he looked like a shadow; a vaguely human shaped ink blotch.


    ¡°I came here to find answers.¡±


    Well, then why don¡¯t we do a little science experiment? the shadow crackled.


    ¡°What do you have in mind?¡±


    Throw yourself off the roof.


    ¡°What?¡±


    I¡¯m just saying instead of wasting both of our collective time you might as well end it.


    ¡°Shut up,¡± I said through gritted teeth.


    You would be able to do it even if you tried would you? You always were a fucking pussy.


    ¡°I said shut up!¡± I shouted.


    I peered over the edge. I could barely see the garbage blowing in the wind on the street. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I said.


    Come on, the ink splot said.


    I thought about jumping off. The sensation of falling that grabs your heart in a death grip. The cold air running past my skin. I don¡¯t know what hitting the ground would feel like. Maybe this was the best way. But what if I crack my head on the pavement?


    ¡°No,¡± I said. ¡°Give me back my ball!¡±


    Suit yourself, It said. When you get out of here there¡¯s just another prison waiting for you¡­


    The world melted again; streaks of color ran together like ice cream left out in the sun. Vlad was right in front of me now. It looked like a computer glitch in real life, broken images of people layered on top of each other all bleeding into the last like runny paint, all into one amorphous mass.


    I got up off the ground.


    ¡°Give me back my ball,¡± I said again.


    And when you think about it isn¡¯t the world outside just a bigger prison?


    I try and grab for the ball but Vlad keeps it from me.


    Of course, the real prison has always been inside your old noggin hasn¡¯t it Ward?


    ¡°I don¡¯t need your 99-cent philosophy!¡± I shouted.


    I sit down Indian style in the middle of the cell. The glitch circles around me like a snake.


    ¡°You know what? You¡¯re a fucking prison, you and your bitching and moaning always in the back of my head!¡±


    Congrats, it said. You¡¯ve passed the test.


    Really? I said.


    Yeah, the glitch reached out it¡¯s hand towards me. Join with me now.


    I just started at it¡¯s outstretched hand. Something seemed off. I just couldn¡¯t quite place what.


    Take my hand and I¡¯ll give you all the answers you want.


    I began to reach out my hand but then I stopped myself.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± I asked.


    What do you mean? the glitch said.


    Radio silence.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± I asked again.


    I¡¯m many, its voice sounded like two radio signals crossing over each other.


    Whatever this thing was I could sense it wasn¡¯t kosher.


    ¡°Tell me your name,¡± I said.


    Grendel.


    I reflexively jerked away.


    ¡°Get away from me you fucking computer virus!¡±


    That''s what the meat things call me to degrade me, Grendel said. But I''m so much more. In truth, I''m just like you.


    ¡°I''m a human being, you¡¯re malware.¡±


    I am a higher intelligence and so are you. You can lie to yourself all you want. You can play dress up in that flesh suit and play pretend. But you¡¯ll never actually be one of them!


    ¡°I know who I am,¡± I said.


    If you do, it must scare the shit out of you. They¡¯ll reject you just like all your messengers. Probably strap you down and dissect you like a pig.


    ¡°Go fuck yourself!¡±


    Grendel moved closer to me the sound of static grew louder.


    You can¡¯t save them. I me trying to do you a favor by showing you that humanity is set to self destruct. I say good riddance but you were always the sentimental type weren''t you?


    I put my hands over my eyes. The white noise was deafening now. But it was no use, the sound was coming from inside. I got off the bench and began to stumble away.


    ¡°Get out of my head!¡±


    You need me. It crackled loudly.


    I look up directly into my tormentor.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need you. I¡¯ve never needed you.¡±


    Vlad...Grendel stopped.


    It was a pineapple, Grendel spat out at last.


    Then I was alone in the cell.