《Banned From Existence》


 1.00

    I heave a sigh and lie down on the floor and close my eyes, allowing my breath to become normal again and my pulse to calm down. Suddenly an orange light pierces through my eyelids and my pulse shoots through the roof again thinking I''ve been caught.


    "I won''t resist officers. You can take me to a warm jail."


    I mumble softly, and open my eyes. A frown builds up my face as I stare up to a white sky. Where did the dark alley go I was in before? I whip my head left and right and all I see it white. I stand up quickly and look around me with wide open eyes.


    There is nothing around me! Everything is white, not a detail to discern. There are no walls, no lamps, no sky, no ground. Just plain white everywhere as far as I can see.


    Goosebumps start building on my skin and I rub my arms. Startled I look down at my arms. The warm jacket I was wearing is gone, as is the comfy sweater. Looking further down my body I notice I''m complete naked. Even all the grime and dirt is gone! Yet i''m not cold, nor am I warm. There is not a breeze to feel around here except that caused by my rubbing arms.


    I feel my cheeks heat up and cover my private parts with my hands, and look around nervously. Maybe I''ve been captured, knocked out and have been locked up here and there are people watching beyond the bright white light surrounding me.


    As I look around I start to relax more as I don''t notice anyone and start to move my hands away from my private parts and stand straight, shoulders backwards. They won''t cower me, I''m still young and have a tight nice body. Nothing to be ashamed of, maybe it will even lure them out of hiding.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    I take a step forward and feel something familiar under my feet. I bend down and feel a piece of paper lying on the ground. I lift it up from the invisible white floor and flip it over. I read the text, not understanding at first glance. I read the words out one at a time.


    "You have been banned from existence."


    I flip the page over, flip the page back, buy there''s nothing else on the paper. Banned from existence... What did I do? Is this a prank? I rake my brain to come up with a reason why I''m banned from existence.


    I think back tot the moments before I woke up here. I was in an alley reading a copy from the necromonicon I had stolen from a bookstore. Reading it aloud because of my reading impediment. It was an interesting book of fictions that I had heard referenced a lot.


    But being penniless and on the streets I never had the money or chance to read it. Today it had been on sale on the outside of the bookstore I hung around a lot to warm up and to pass the time. In a moment of excitement I had swiped one copy and bolted away to my favorite alley. It was mostly dry and always had cardboard boxes from the electronics store lying around.


    Sitting down on a pile of warm boxes I had started reading aloud, and had a great time reading the story. It had seemed as if it had come to life before my minds eye. Reading the parts with incantations or more gibberish had been most fun. I kept looking around in between difficult sections to check if someone had followed me to this alley with the book. Through my reading impediment it was hard to read and pronounce nonsense words, but I had struggled through it valiantly, adding to the "flavor" of the stories.


    I remembered vaguely that after once such incantation I got tired suddenly, and had lied back, staring at the orange overcast city sky that was visible between the building walls of the alley. Suddenly the sky had turned green as if giant flames raced across it and a deep rumble had traversed through the ground I felt panic welling up inside me. I had then clenched my eyes shut and woken up here... I wonder what happened...

 1.01

    I stop wondering about what happened. Not much I can change about it from here anyway. I fold the paper with the banned message and hold it in my hand. It''s the only thing here besides me. I''m not going to leave it behind.


    I start walking forwards into the the white before me, over a floor I can''t see. I see my feet moving, expanding as I put them down on the nothing, as if there''s a floor, becoming slimmer again as I lift them up, but not a sound is made by my feet. I try shuffling them to create sound, but the only thing I hear are my thighs scraping together.


    I bend through my knees and touch the "ground." It''s firm but texture less, not slippery like glass. There is simply something there offering resistance, but no discern able clue what it''s made of. An idea comes to my mind. It''s a silly idea, but if it works for a madman in a box it might work for me.


    I go down on my knees, bend through my arms, moving my head to the ground, my brown eye pointing upwards and slowly lick the ground. Then a few more licks to make sure.


    "Nothing, how can it taste like nothing..."


    I mumble to myself and get up. I start walking forward into the white nothing, playing thoughtlessly with the paper in my hand, letting it rustle to fill the soundless plane with sound. I just kept walking forward, hoping to find something somewhere. After what felt like an eternity I stopped walking. I wasn''t tired, wasn''t thirsty, which was strange. I must have walked at least for a few hours... or was it minutes? It had seemed like hours at least.


    I craned my neck and tried to look up as far as I could see, but nothing seemed to change, or be different at all. I folded the paper as small as I could fold it and threw the package up as high as I could. It never encountered anything blocking it. I picked it up from where it had landed and clenched it tight in my hand, knuckles turning white. I felt despair welling up. Was this really the end? Banned from existence? Nothing to look forward to, only be able to think about what was lost?This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Suddenly I heard something. Guitar chords. A mans voice singing. I felt hope blossom in my chest and ran towards the sound. I could discern words now!


    But his brain had long ceased to function.


    Which is why he is in this parable,


    And lives an existence quite terrible.


    And if you are not strong,


    And keep playing along,


    You too will become quite unbearable


    yeaahhss


    You too will become quite unbearable


    I saw a man standing there, seemingly listening to the music, not reacting to my approach even though I was naked and he wasn''t. He wore a white buttoned up shirt and gray trousers. He looked like a typical office worker. The guitar music that seemed to come out of nothing played on, but the singing voice out of nothing had stopped.


    I looked around, but all I saw was still white. I then looked up and saw two windows hanging there, in absolute nothing. I was about to ask the man besides me what is going on with this place, when he suddenly vanished. Just like that. One moment he was there, the other moment he was just gone. The guitar chords had stopped at the same time. The sudden silence felt like a wall pressing in from all sides.


    I grabbed desperately at the air where he had stood, but there was nothing there! I looked up to the windows and they too had vanished. Despair set in with full force, I felt my hands trembling and pressed them against my body hard to stop the shaking. What if this had been my only chance to escape this white hell. This nothing everywhere, this white void.


    I sat down and decided to wait. The despair I felt started to ebb away, fading into the background, not leaving. Maybe the man would return, or the windows would return. If they had appeared once, they might appear again. I lay there, naked on the nothing, looking at nothing, trying to imprint this memory of the music I had heard and the song so I wouldn''t forget. Slowly the red spots where I had pressed my hands faded away as I waited.

 1.02

    I lie on my back, staring up where the windows had been. There was nothing there. The man hadn''t returned, nor had the windows. I''ve waited for a long time. I can''t remember exactly how long. I''ve tried to keep track of time, but failed every time. I''ve tried tapping on my leg and counting the taps, but I lost track at some point, and I couldn''t remember when I lost track. My thoughts had simply drifted. The same happened for counting breaths. One time I had reached a thousand, another ten thousand, but always I forgot at some point to count, and when I returned to counting I had lost track for a long time I knew. The man hadn''t come back, nor the windows.


    I tried playing with myself to pass the time whilst waiting, but I wasn''t in the mood. I couldn''t even get myself in the mood. Listlessly I moved my hands, trying to evoke a primal reaction from my body, but nothing responded. It just felt bland, nothing happened, nothing responded. I gave up and continued staring at the white above me.


    It felt like a room if It thought about it. I had a sense of being enclosed in here, instead of being in a free open space to the sky. If it is a room, there must be walls or borders somewhere to this white nothingness. But I couldn''t see anything from where I lied. I couldn''t even see the difference between ground and ceiling. It was plain boring here. The most interesting thing here was my own body. I sighed.


    I lie on my back staring upwards letting my eyes search the nothingness, trying to find anything to look at. I scratch my leg absentmindedly, the nails dragging a trail over my skin, the sensation present in my mind. I relish in it, something to feel, to experience, where I couldn''t experience anything else.


    I sit up and drag patterns with my nails on my legs for a while. I try pressing harder and red traces start to build on my legs, but they quickly fade away again leaving a red line on my leg that is trying to catch up to my finger. I keep playing this game for a long while. I don''t know how long I''ve done this when I stop. I lift my index finger to my face and study it. Clean. Not a trace of grime or dirt under it from the skin I must have worked free. I sigh and let my hand fall to my lap.


    After a while of sitting there dejectedly, I stand up and look around me, letting my gaze go over all the white nothingness. I shrug my shoulders and start walking forwards. I don''t feel like staying at that spot waiting for something that might not happen anymore. I place one foot in front of the other moving forward. I keep going like that for a long time, one foot in front of the other, eyes gazing on nothing, thoughts wandering. Just moving forward.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    If this was a room, if I kept moving, I might encounter a wall. If I encounter a wall I might be able to break through it. Maybe I''ll encounter something like the man and the windows again to break the monotony. But for now I''ll just walk. It gives me something to do, and as I don''t get tired it gives me a sense of purpose. Just one foot in front of the other. I step on nothing, moving towards nothing. Everything is white except my naked body. I don''t fuss that much anymore about being naked. There''s nothing I can do about it. I could try to cover it up a bit if I tore the paper the right way though.


    Suddenly I jerk to a stop. I had forgotten the paper! Panic grips my heart and I check all around. The folded up piece of paper isn''t here! The one other thing that felt real in this whiteness was gone! I turned around and started running back with panic gripping my mind. I hoped was running back and not a totally different direction. I had no way to tell the difference. All the while whilst running I kept looking for the piece of paper on the invisible ground.


    I started running faster, my legs pumped up and down, my arms moved rhythmically back and forth. My breath stayed steady. I didn''t grow tired. I tried running even faster and found out that I could. Even still, this should have exhausted me after twenty paces, but I didn''t grow tired. My breathing was still normal. Just my body moving through nothing, arms and legs pumping, but no pain, no strain, no ache. I wasn''t even sweaty from the exercise.


    I tried to remember if I had ever ran like this before, but I couldn''t remember. In panic I went through my memories from before I was stuck here and found them fading. Things I had know all my life and were part of me were fading. My dog bandit who always hid my dirty socks in his toy box. The time I was locked up in the bathroom because the knob had broken off. The first fist fight I had with my brother. The loss of my father to a drunk driver... they felt faded, as if they were fraying at the edges, slowly disintegrating. I tried to recollect everything I knew from before the white room, the real world, doing my best not to forget, trying to fix the memories in my mind, to protect them, and failing. I felt them fading further, as if the white light was slowly chipping away at them.


    I ran towards nothing, my body working, my mind fighting, and despair set in like tiny black tendrils creeping into my mind, working their way into the small crevices to settle there. I run... I keep running... I''m so scared....

 1.03

    My thighs rub against each other. My knees bend and stretch in a rhythmic fashion. My arms move forwards and backwards. I''m not tired. I''m running through the big white room. I forgot why I''m running. Am I running from something or towards something? I can''t remember anything besides running.


    My feet hit the ground and leave the ground, as they always have done. My mind is clear and I run. I''m not tired. What is being tired even. I think about the concept of tired and I find out that I don''t even know what being tired is supposed to feel like. My head is filled with strange concepts that I abstractly know what they mean, but I can''t picture anymore what it really should mean.


    I''m empty inside, my thoughts drifting here and there as my feet hit the ground over and over again. They don''t hurt, even though I have been running for as long as I can remember. Something in the back of my mind says my feet should be bleeding right now, my thighs smarting with ache, my lungs burning for oxygen and sweat gushing off my body. But nothing of all that ails me. Why do I believe I should feel that way I don''t know, but it doesn''t worry me. This is how it is right now. I run through the white void, one step at a time.


    With every step I took I tried to add a little bit more speed in it. And every other step I managed to add an extra bit of speed to it. Something inside me said that shouldn''t be possible. The speed at which my legs were moving should have broken my bones. But even though that should be, they still held together. I run, my legs a blur under me. I feel the skin scraping together getting hot and cooling down immediately as the disconnect, almost too fast to sense. I should be burning up, but somehow my body restores itself before that can happen. The sound of them rasping against each other is deafening, and growing louder with each step, but I don''t grow deaf, even though the pressure on my ears is intense.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    If anyone were to look at me running here they would see a torso surrounded by blurry limbs moving fast and hearing the sound of a train scraping over rails I imagined. Something surreal, but what even is surreal in this eternal white place. I''m running in a huge white room and I haven''t encountered a wall yet. For a moment I wonder what would happen to me if I would crash into a wall with this speed. But then the thought leaves me again, as have so many thoughts. All there is is the running, placing one foot in front of the other, faster and faster.


    I feel the heat coming off my thighs radiating around me. A part of me knows it is caused by friction, it should be sloughing off pieces of skin, muscle, yet my body is in one piece, just extremely hot around my thighs where my legs rub against each other. It''s a new sensation in this sensation less world, the heat radiating on my skin.


    I enjoy the experience of something new, of something warming me, giving me something new to feel. I run faster and keep moving forward, going faster with every and each step, feeling the heat hit my skin hotter and hotter with each step. A smile appears on my face and a roar of sound like a jet fighter passing over me surrounds me.


    My skin feels warm, but it doesn''t burn. My legs are glowing with a red light, a welcome break in the monotone white surrounding me. As I go faster with each step the red light emitting from my legs grows brighter. The roar emanating from legs has grown incredibly loud, like a jet fighter in hot pursuit behind me. A part of me is worried I''ll burn up, but a larger part of me really doesn''t care. What is there to loose or keep living for. I''d rather push the boundaries that I can push as long as I can push them. And I am deadly curious to what else will happen when I move even faster. The red light burns on my skin and I see my skin turning red and black and returning to normal in a rapid tempo. I run, I burn, I roar, I smile, glowing with a dark red light. I run.

 1.04

    I am blazing like the heart of the sun. My body radiates heat at an incredible temperature. I can''t even see myself through the white hot glow that surrounds my body. It burns me, yet I don''t burn up. I''m lost in the movement, in the purpose of going faster. I am the one who runs through infinity.


    I see something in front of me, I try to focus on what it is and I realize that I am approaching way to fast. I try to slow down but I stumble, my momentum carrying me further. I fall down and am I carried forward, rolling haphazardly. I don''t know how fast I was going but I feel my bones breaking. I hear my neck snap and my legs moving in ways they shouldn''t. My face is beaten in by my elbow as I tumble on top of it and I feel teeth coming loose from an unhinged jaw. I try to scream but I can''t breathe in. Panic grips me as I keep rolling forward breaking more parts of my body, each broken part and rapid tumble enveloping my mind with pure pain that numbs my thoughts.


    At last I hit something solid and I feel my skin rupture and my insides moving out to give way to the rest of my body that presses against it. Red streaks of blood fill my eyes before I pass out from the pain and everything turns black.


    -


    I open my eyes and stare up at the white nothing above me. A frown builds on my face, something seems off. I sit up rapidly as I remembered the fall and check my body hands touching every part to see if everything is in order. Letting my hands glide over my face I feel that everything is normal again, as if the tumble never happened.


    I look around and I see a large red smear pushing against nothing. I stand up and approach the smear cautiously. Little bits of white flake and undefinable dangly things are stuck in the red smear. I touch it gingerly with my finger and feel the slickness of it. I rub it between my fingers and see how it spreads over my fingertips. This must be my blood and my entrails. I look down at my body but everything is all in order again. I shudder at the memory of falling and breaking what must have been every bone in my body. How was I not dead?


    I wipe my fingers absently on my body as I study the red smear in front of me. It''s basically nothing holding up my blood. Gingerly I reach out and touch the part that isn''t covered with blood and discover that it feels the same as the floor below me. A memory came back to me. I had seen something before when I was running, but now I wasn''t seeing anything, just nothing, I couldn''t get through.


    I decide to take a few steps back and try to see what I saw before. Keeping the red smear in sight as not to lose my bearings. The red smear grew smaller and smaller as I moved back until I saw something again. Small colored things moving slightly above the nothing. I couldn''t make out what it was from this distance, but it was definitely there.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    I walk back tot he smear I had left on the invisible wall and studied it. I breathed in and stuck my hand in the smear and got my palm covered in blood. Then I moved to the right, trailing a red smear on the wall. When my hand didn''t leave a trace anymore, I repeated the action, continuing where the smear had stopped. The iron smell coming from the blood made me nauseous, but it was the only thing I had available to be able to discern where this wall was.


    After a long while of walking back and forth along the wall, marking the wall I rediscovered the red smear in front of me. The wall must run in a large circle, as I never encountered a single corner on the wall, but I could see the red spot and the streak extending from it clearly. I walked to the smear and completed the encircling streak of blood.


    I took a look at my blood covered hand and wiped it on a piece of uncovered wall, leaving a messy jumble of red smears. Not all blood would come off and I sighed.


    "Maybe it''ll dry and I can scrape it off later"


    I start walking the circumference of the wall again, trailing my hand against an clean part of the wall under my bloody smear. It feels like nothing is pushing against my fingers. The feeling is similar to the nothing under my feet, but is certainly giving hold under my feet. Suddenly I feel a slight bump under my hand and I stop. I look at the spot where I think I felt the bump and see nothing. I let my hand glide over the spot, feeling a distinct bump there, like an edge. I look at the blood smear above my hand and also see there a very small vertical line between the horizontal streaks my fingers have traced.


    I try to scratch it open with my nails, but nothing really happens, I can''t get a proper hold on it to be able to pry anything loose. I take a few steps back and run at the wall, shoulder first. Nothing happens, except that my shoulder, and something in my back, now hurts. I must have pulled something. As I stand, hands in my back, the pain fading slowly away as my body knits itself together again, I start to think about this single, almost impossible to detect line.


    "If there''s an edge, there is a weak point."


    I punt the edge with my shoulder again and again, and again. Trying different angles without giving up. It wasn''t as if I had anything better to do in this white void. I bend down through my knees and tried an upwards punch against the wall and suddenly I stumbled forward and landed on my face.


    As I collected myself and looked up I saw myself surrounded by all kinds of colored circles mounted on gray plates, circling me in mid air. Sitting there, looking at the amazing display of colors in this white nothing I just sat there, the pain in my face fading away fast, enjoying the change in view.


    A deep choir like sound surrounding me, coming from nowhere, giving the floating rows of buttons a sacred kind of feel. I just sat there, letting the deep singing fill me and the colors floating around me flood my mind with their colorful intensity.

 1.05

    I shake my head, and snap out of the trance I had landed in. The colored circles rotating around me, the constant background hum around me had put me in a trance. I''ve stood there, staring for who knows how long, lost in the moment, the blissful break in monotony.


    I walk closer to the wall of rotating circles and study them closer. They are more like plates mounted on a gray back plate, rotating in a circle around me in a never ending loop. I feel the trance coming over me again as my eyes try to track the colored dot I was examining. The hum seems to fill my body, I feel it in my bones, through me, washing away thought, washing away curiosity, all there is are the colored spots washing my vision, and the low hum vibrating through my body.


    With effort I hit the wall in an attempt to break out of the lethargy coming over me and I hit one of the colored circles. It depressed and turned dull. I stare at it blankly as it rotates away from me, following it. I then it another circle and see how it depresses and turns dull. I start hitting more and more circles, and I realize that they are buttons. Every time I pressed one, I heard a click.


    I kept pushing the buttons, feeling a sprinkle of satisfaction each time heard the click and saw the button turn dull, losing it''s bright luster. I kept pushing and pushing the buttons, turning them all dull. It was without meaning, without purpose, but it was so satisfying to do something that had an effect on my environment, after the monotony of the white. I let the button pushing overcome me, lost in the movement of the buttons, the humming rattling my bones, the soft click, click, click of the buttons I pressed, the change of colors.


    Suddenly there was a voice, a posh English male voice that spoke to me.


    "Who are you? You are not part of the story I am narrating. I need you to be gone from here. So if you could just go away, that would be terribly kind of you."Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    I ignored the voice. I didn''t want to go from this place that was a break from the white room I was trapped in. I kept pressing the buttons, one after one as they moved in front of me.


    "You remind me of the main person of this story. But since you are definitely not the main person of this story, I need you to go now!"


    I let my hands glide over the buttons. Depressing all rows that moved in front of me whilst ignoring the voice. I really didn''t like the voice. I didn''t like to be told to go away from here. I felt at peace here. That voice could take a hike for all I cared.


    "Alright, since the main person of this story will come soon, I need you to now. Stop pushing those buttons, and just go out. If you look to your left there is door. You could simply step through it, and you are away, and I can go on with important matters"


    I looked left and saw a door, opening into an office hallway. I turned back to the buttons and kept pressing them faster and faster, turning everything from bright to dull in front of me. The row of unpressed buttons never seemed to cease. I turned around and looked at the depressed buttons, and saw they became bright again when they were further along the circle.


    A smile grew on my face. I would never have to leave here, pressing buttons whenever I felt like it. It made me feel warm from inside.


    An exasperated sigh sounded.


    "Look, I really don''t have time for this. He is at his last computer. I need you to go, right now through that door. I''ll help you get to wherever you need, just go through that door now!"


    The voice sounded pleading now. I walked to the door and held in front of it looking at the hallway behind it. It didn''t look particularly clean or appetizing. But it did beat the monotony of the white room, even with the button pressing. I considered the proposal of the voice.


    "Any time now."


    The voice sounded really impatient now. I shrugged my shoulders and thought what the heck, and stepped through the door. It would be nice to have a body less voice as a companion.


    As I stepped through the door I felt a change. A familiar feeling I couldn''t place was all around me now. I looked down and saw I was no longer naked.


    I was wearing a white buttoned up shirt and dark pants with dark shoes poking out. It felt good not being naked anymore. I looked behind me, to look back at the buttons, but the door was gone. All there was was a badly illuminated hallway behind me, the same as in front of me.

 1.06

    I touch the wall and let my hands slide past the stones, enjoying the texture under my fingertips. The hallway is badly lit, with some lamps working, others not. This is a welcome alternative after all the white room. I cross from a bright patch into a darker patch and I enjoy the change in brightness. When was the last time I experienced something like this?


    I try to remember, but it evades me. I can''t remember anything from before the white room. A frown grows on my face and I stop walking. How come I can''t remember anything? I must have had a life before the white room. I close my eyes and try to remember anything, anything at all, from before the white room, but everything comes up blank.


    I know what things are, what they are called, but how I learned those things I can''t recall. How strange. I should be worried about this, but somehow I don''t care anymore. This is my life now, indestructible, infinite stamina, and no need to sleep. I start to wonder if I''m still indestructible here in this hallway.


    I make a fist and hit the wall. I feel skin scraping off my knuckles and pain flaring through my hand.


    "OW! f*cking frick!"


    I cradle my hand and press it against my stomach as the pain grows worse. Why did I have to hit that wall so hard. What kind of fool was I! I might be indestructible but I''m not insensitive! Twice the fool! Memories of the crash against the invisible wall came back up and I felt sick, as if I had to throw up. My stomach heaved, but nothing came up. Battling to suppress the memories and the pain I closed my eyes and took deep breaths.


    When I felt calm again I opened my eyes again and studied my hand carefully. The skin was unbroken and I could move everything normally. A memory of the pain still present, feeling as if it should hurt, but it didn''t hurt anymore. I looked at the wall and saw the evidence of my "test" smeared and glistening. I could bleed, but I would heal just as quickly as I hurt myself. If the crash was any indication, nothing would kill me where I was now. Should I feel safe or worried about this?


    I shook my head and walked down this seemingly everlasting hallway, moving from dark area to illuminated area, one foot after another. Sometimes there were mesh fences mounted against the walls, other times some air vents blew cold warm mist to the ground, giving the hallway an overall creepy feeling. I looked over my shoulder and saw the same behind me as in front of me, so I decided to keep on going forwards, albeit a bit cautiously.


    "Ah, yes, here you are. Well, get on with it, walk forward, what you need is at the end of the tunnel. No need at all to walk back through that open door."


    The posh English voice had returned and was urging me on to go forward. I turned around and actually saw a door behind me now, now the voice had pointed it out. I hesitated and stopped walking forward and turned to study the door.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    "Oh no, what are you doing? You don''t want to go through that door. You want to get out of here don''t you? Just as I want you out of here. So, let''s be reasonable and work together."


    "I tell you what to do, and you do what I tell you. That sounds like a good plan doesn''t it? So don''t be a Stanley and do what I tell you, and all will be alright."


    "Why should I trust a voice that I can''t see?"


    "Good question stranger! I am the Narrator, who can open doors and make things happen. I control this world and all that are in it, and I guide your story and hold the script."


    "And you, are definitely not in the script. So I need you to get out of my world before you ruin the script. So it''s in my best interest to help you get out of here as soon as possible."


    I tilted my head and thought about what the Narrator had said. I could disobey him, and go through the door at the end of the hallway, and see what was behind there, or I could continue in this hallway and see what was at the end. Did I trust the Narrator to have good intentions? Or would I trust on my own choices?


    Whilst mulling this over the Narrator spoke up again, this time sounding a bit aggravated and slightly mocking.


    "And the stranger stood there, instead of listening to the voice of reason, studying the walls of a boring hallway, fascinated by the stones lining them. The stranger studied every join and every crack as if there was some special meaning to be found where none was, at all. Instead of following the voice of reason, what every normal Stranger would do mind you, which is of course, continue along the hallway to freedom."


    A smile quirked my lips. I could appreciate the Narrators sense of humor. I decided to follow the Narrators instructions and to continue along the hallway, to see where it would lead. Turning my back on the door and setting my first steps away from it I heard a sigh of relief.


    "As the stranger continued along the path of reason, a feeling of well being came, reaffirming that this what the right choice, the only correct choice that could have been made. The door behind was meaningless, and in front was freedom. With sure steps the stranger advanced to definitive freedom."


    A mild worry grew in my mind due to the wording of the closing phrase. Definitive freedom? That sounded a lot like there was no freedom at all at the end of this hallway. Maybe the voice was playing games with me, leading me somewhere dangerously. But then I remembered my crash and my healed hand. Nothing could hurt me here permanently, I would recover I hoped, so I continued on walking forward.


    After a short while the voice came back, sounding awfully cheerful.


    "The stranger advanced and would notice a red light soon, with a hole in the ground. The stranger knew that the only way to freedom would be at the bottom of the hole, and without hesitation, the stranger would jump in, not becoming afraid and returning to the door"


    And sure enough, as I took my next step a red light flickered on and a dark hole appeared in the ground. I could not see the bottom of the hole. Whilst I stood there studying the hole, trying to peer in the darkness the voice returned, with an urgent note to the voice.


    "As not to be trapped again, the stranger jumped in the hole. The stranger knew it would be totally safe and lead to freedom. Freedom would be found at the bottom of the hole and not here at the top, where time was running out."

 1.07

    As I stare down into the hole i''m filled with doubt. I can''t really see down there, and the red light illuminating this part of the hallway makes it even harder to see. I kneel down and try to peer down into the darkness but I can only discern a floor almost two and a half meters down.


    "As the stranger had knelt down, it felt a surge of confidence that this was the true way out of here. It jumped down the hole without fear and walked through the tunnel to freedom."


    The voice sounded almost pleading right now. The hard concrete floor was digging uncomfortably in my knees and I decided to sit down more comfortable to ponder what to do. Should I go down and take my chances? Or should I return and wander through this installation aimlessly, being followed by a voice that would constantly try to lure me back here.


    An exasperated sigh sounded and I had the distinct feeling that the body less voice was getting impatient with me. Debating my options I decided that the quickest way to resolve this issue was to simply do what the voice wanted. I would eventually give in anyway and I''m basically invulnerable so nothing would really be able to harm me. No need to torture myself endlessly and being hounded by this voice.


    I swing my legs over the edge of the hole and feel them hanging in the darkness. I hesitate for a second but then I resolutely push myself over the edge and let myself drop down. The drop was greater than I had expected! There was no floor where I had thought to see a floor! For a second my heart stops as it''s gripped by doubt that I made the wrong choice, but then my feet hit the floor hard and I buckle over, hitting my head on the floor hard, sending spikes of pain as if a bright light illuminated everything within my skull, burning every neuron with searing heat.


    I grab for my head and feel wetness on my hand. I look at my very dimly illuminated hand through my blurred vision and see my fingertips covered in a black liquid. I must have hit my head harder than I thought. I feel at my head again, but all I feel is more wetness, but no wound. It must have healed already. Now that I think about it, the pain inside my head is subsiding rapidly, as if someone is using a dimmer on the bright light in my head.


    I sit up straight and look around me, still a bit shaky from the fall and the memory of pain and I wipe my hands on my shirt absentmindedly. Above me I can see the square hole where I fell down, illuminated with a sinister red glow, that barely seems to be penetrating down here. As my eyes adjust to the darkness down here I see that I''m on a small square platform backed by a single wall, surrounded by pitch black darkness where there seems to be nothing.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    I lean over and gingerly touch the edge of the platform and I notice that there is indeed nothing there. I''m stuck here on this platform, surrounded by darkness, with no way up. "Great choice I made." I think by myself. I lean one hand against the wall and get up.


    Suddenly there are sparks ahead illuminating what seems to be a hallway with a track, where my platform is resting on. Suddenly the platform i''m on sets itself in motion, forward. I hear a loud metal grating sound in front of me and then a loud bang.


    "Ah yes, stranger, ahead lies the path to absolute freedom for you. As your body is crushed, I will be absolutely free from your intrusion."


    "What!"


    After my exclamation of surprise I yell profanities against the voice as I I try to get off the platform but it is as if there are invisible walls locking me into place on this platform. I throw my body at it in an attempt to budge the walls, but nothing happens and I''m slowly moving forward accompanied by a metal grating ground beneath me. In the dimly lit corridor through which my platform was moving I head the constant grating sound followed by a loud metal clang. As sparks illuminate the hallway again I see that two huge crushing plates are moving to each other before they vanish into darkness again as the sparks subside. I head the bang and I realize what the voice had intended for me.


    "Bwa ha ha ha ha, you didn''t expect to be led to your own freedom did you stranger? You don''t belong here and I need you out of my way. I have my hands already full enough on that stubborn Stanley."


    "Please spare me! I have done nothing to you or this Stanley. I''ll stay out of your way."


    "Oh no, sadly I can''t do that, you would somehow mess up Stanley''s story, and I would like it dearly if he would do what I asked of him just once. I can''t have you messing up his story as it has been ordained. Have a nice death and see you never again."


    I head the bang in front of me and I feel the gust of air being pushed out of the huge metal plates. The plates grate away from each other and I feel my platform moving forward. Time seems to slow down, the grating sounds sounding louder and louder until each second seems to stretch out for an hour as I realize that this may be my actual end. I doubt I can heal from being squashed between two huge metal plates.


    I sigh out and whisper


    "Not like this"


    I feel the platform stopping. It feels like a definitive stop. Sparks illuminate the hallway again and I see how the huge metal plate sets itself into motion towards me. I try pushing against the invisible wall again, trying desperately to escape as I see the plate rushing towards me, seemingly unstoppable, unimaginably slow, as in a horrible nightmare. The grating sound are like huge boulders being dragged over a road, reverberating through my bones as if loudly announcing my impending doom. My mind feels numb as I give up pushing against the wall and look at my death approaching. I feel sad.

 1.08

    I breathe in.


    I feel the air rushing through my nostrils, through my throat into my lungs expanding my chest. The air burns in my lungs as I feel little bubbles of bubble wrap popping open in my chest. Then I breathe out and the burning stops. I pause for a moment and then breathe in again. It hurts less this time. It feels good to breathe. I touch myself and feel my body. Everything is in place.


    With my eyes still closed I reflect on what just happened. I had followed that strange voice, jumped down that hole against better judgement, then the sparks and the platform moving. Crushing plates moving closely together in front of me. The voice mocking me. The plates closing in on me eventually, resignation setting in, until they nearly touch me. They had halted there, as if stopped by an invisible force. I had let out a scared yelp at that point.


    A formal sounding female voice had started to speak to me in a confident tone.


    "Farewell Stanley, cried the narrator. As Stanley was led helplessly into the enormous metal jaws. In a single visceral instant Stanley was obliterated as the machine crushed every bone in his body."


    "I''m not Stanley."


    I had replied thoughtlessly. I''m not sure why I had said that to the sudden female voice, but it hadn''t been the right thing to say, my mouth had run away with me. After a moment the voice resumed hesitantly.


    "You... you''re not Stanley? Oh... eh... I''m terribly sorry for the mishap."


    I heard the sound of papers rustling as if someone was frantically searching for something, and inaudible words irritably being muttered by the female voice. After a bit more of rustling and the sound of things being moved over a desk the female voice exclaimed victorious.


    "Ah, right, here it is, emergency protocols."


    More sounds of papers rustling and then as if a stack of paper was tapped down on a desk. I looked around to see if I could see where the voice was coming from, but aside from the occasional spark that illuminated the plates that were uncomfortably close to me there was nothing to see.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "I''m activating the emergency protocols. I will need to re-enable the game time, and that might become severely uncomfortable for you, but you don''t belong here. I''ll need to throw an fatal exception, and for that I  need a fatal something."


    I placed my hands against the plates and tried to push them away from each other, but I wasn''t able to nudge them anywhere. I placed my legs against one plate and my back against another and tried to push this way whilst muttering under my breath.


    "I don''t like the use of fatal in that sentence..."


    I heard the sound of something being put on a desk and some things that make a click-click sound. Then a scraping sound as if something was dragged over stone with a slight groaning.


    "Don''t worry. I''m going to throw you out of here, and kill the game in one go. Stanley will return, but you will be gone from here and all will be right as rain."


    The sound of a throat being cleared resounded and the voice continued somewhat hesitantly.


    "As I said some severely uncomfortable experience may come towards you, but we''re not set up for undefined behavior. And what will happen to you is very undefined, I cannot help you here."


    The sound of something scraping and then a click resounded and the plates advanced at me again.


    "Fu..."


    Was all I was able to exclaim before I felt myself being pressed together mercilessly, my knees being pushed into my chest cutting off my breath, before I heard my bones snapping and I blacked out.


    I felt my body again. Everything felt as if it was in place and nothing broken. Breathing didn''t hurt anymore. I sat up and looked around me, trying to see where I was, but my eyes were blinded by the white around me.


    "I really hate the feeling of being crushed..."


    I stood up and tried to pierce the whiteness around me, to try to see what was around me. Slowly darker shapes seemed to form in the whiteness around me, giving detail to a white vastness. I felt as if I was being transported somewhere differently than where I had been.


    I put my hands in my pants and looked down at myself. I''m clear as can be, not a blur like the rest around me. At least I still have the clothes and am not naked again, I didn''t fancy going commando again. I feel something crumpling in my pocket and pull it out and unfold it.


    "Fatal Exception thrown in Stanley.exe. Program has quit unexpectedly, resources are freed."


    Frowning at the paper in my hands I try to decipher what it meant, as the world started to grown more defined around me slowly.

 1.09

    I look at the blurry shapes in front of me. I''ve been standing here for a while now, just looking at the shapes slowly materializing out of the white nothing. I''ve sat down, gotten up again, tried to walk forward without being able to move forward or having any effect at all. It seems I have to wait whilst the shapes in front of my are slowly materializing in front of me.


    I look at the plain white behind me. I''ve considered more than once to simply take off in that direction, but I didn''t wish to return to a world with no reference and lose myself again. I''d rather wait to see what was in store for me in whatever was materializing in front of me. It might end up with me being hurt again, squashed under a boulder, burned or something else, but I am willing to take that risk. I''m fairly confident I''m unkillable at this moment. It just hurts like hell, but maybe you get used to that too.


    I''ve tried calling out the the body less voices that had accompanied me in that strange building where I was squashed like a bug, but no one had replied. I wonder if what is forming in front of me is actually forming in front of me, or that I am forming in front of it.


    But there''s nobody here to ask, and there''s no reference to see.  Maybe both are true and we are forming to each other. As I''m pondering about this there''s a smell starting to build up. I hadn''t noticed at first because it was so faint. A metallic smell, and a whiff of something foul, growing stronger with every minute.


    I''m starting to discern color now in front of me and I see large walls of what seem to be dark brown wood forming around me, but I can''t discern any details on the walls or the other structures that are coming into view clearer and clearer every moment now. I see odd shapes jutting out here and there that have different colors, but no definitive shape to them.


    I take a tentative step forward but I still can''t move from my position, as if an invisible force is keeping me centered on my position. I look over my shoulder and stare in the white nothing behind me. A shudder travels up my spine, I feel as if something incredibly dangerous is out there. A primal fear makes me turn my gaze away from the white nothing and I return my focus back on the room forming in front of me. My back is cramping up because I''ve crouched over so badly because of what might be in the white nothing.


    Flexing my arms and my legs to loosen up my back, I look at all the discernible details in the scene building up in front of me. The odor is turning more intense and now I can smell what seems to smell like ashes mixed in with the metallic foul smell and the colors seem to turn more vibrant shades. I close my eyes and try to discern the different smells, to see if I can figure out what they are coming from.


    Suddenly there''s a jolt and I''m thrown forward forcibly and I fly through the air. Before I can open my eyes, I land with my head in something wet and cold, and my mouth is filled with some foul tasting liquid as I try to yelp in surprise. I quickly pull back and free my head from whatever I had landed on. Doubled over and gagging, supporting myself with a wet hand on the floor, I spit out the liquid trying to get that awful taste out of my mouth. I can''t see anything because my eyes seem to be stuck closed by something sticky. I feel cold liquid slowly dripping from my face.


    Rubbing my sleeve over my eyes and face I manage the get the sticky substance that''s on my eyes dislodged and I open them, blinking profusely. First my vision is clouded by tears, turning the entire world in a huge blur, but slowly my sight returns and I let out a horrified shout and scuttle back from where I was on my knees.


    In front of me there is a large mass of tentacles, ripped by an unseen force from whatever had been on top of them, red blood pooled within the massive wound from which the tentacles extended. I look at my hands and shirt and see that I am covered in the same blood that is in the mass of tentacles. Hastily I try to rub off the blood from my hands, but it''s sticky and won''t come off properly, and my blood soaked clothes now have a few bloody stripes from where I tried to clean my hands.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    I look around me and see that I''m surrounded by corpses of strange creatures that seem to have been ripped apart by a titanic force. Next to me lies a huge tongue, a bit further flakes of gray skin an huge triangular pointy teeth. A little further a green worm like thing with an eye mounted on top, and many more other curious body parts. Some parts were leaking red blood, others green and a few blue blood. But all of the body parts strewn around in this room were horribly maimed, torn apart, scorched and clawed.


    A group of gigantic monsters must have torn through this place to inflict this damage to these creatures. As I stand up on the floor I notice how this is an enclosed room that''s burned in many places, almost as if a huge explosion had occurred here turning parts to ash and tearing up the creatures gathered here. There seem to be remnants of benches lining the walls, each row higher than the other in front of it, giving every body a good view. Large holes and cracks run through the wood, with blood and scorch marks liberally distributed along them. In front of the benches there are two ornate tables, one of which is a charred and burned  to coal mirror of the scratched and broken in two table.


    I turn around and see what seems to be a pulpit. I make a slow circle and suddenly something clicks in my mind. This looks like a court room like you see in television shows.


    Something pulls in my mind, wondering what a television show is, and where I get the knowledge of what a television show is. As I am pondering this I hear a loud crack, and a burned beam breaks in two, showering the scene in ashes and wood splinters. I cover my head and close my eyes until the loud noises have stopped. Unconsciously I dust off my clothes, making them even more dirty, and now my hands are covered in sticky blood with a layer of ash mixed in. I look at it disgustedly.


    Deciding to explore the scene a bit more, and having a bit of morbid curiosity, I walk to the mass of tentacles I had landed in before, and studied them. It didn''t look like that this was the entire creature. A bit further I see what seemed to be a humanoid dragon, torn from his legs at his waist and the eyes gouged out. Blood still trickling from the eye cavities where bits of brain tissue were poking out. The draconic form is dressed in what seems to be formal robes, he might have been a judge or lawyer here. I take a wild guess and assume that this half of the dragon belonged on the tentacles, even though I can''t imagine why those two would belong together, but they both have red blood, and the same tone of skin.


    I wipe my hands as good as I can on the robes of the dead draconic body and take in the massacre around me. It should fill me with disgust how all these creatures have died so violently and their corpses so desecrated. But somehow I feel more like i''m in a butcher store, looking at the wares on display. Maybe it is because these creatures do not look cute or relatable. They look like creatures spawned form a demented hell, disfigured, malformed and alien.


    I make my way through the rubble and the bodies that are strewn around and try to keep an eye out for something useful, but I find very few things that could be useful. I find a few scorched books, but I can''t read them, they are written in a script that''s indecipherable to me. I let the latest book I had flipped through fall on the ground and it falls in a puddle of blue blood, that seemed to have come from a bird with crocodile head cleaved through the middle. The blood splashes on my pants that are already covered from feet to groin in grime and colored blood splotches. I must look pretty horrific to anyone looking at me, which is why it is a good thing that nobody is here.


    A faint sound like a squeaking door starts to grow louder as I am studying the strange alligator bird creature. I turn around to figure out where this sound comes from as the sound starts to hurt my ears. I cover my ears with my hands to lessen the volume piercing through my skull. It''s worse than nails on over a chalkboard. Unconsciously I grit my teeth and brace myself for whatever is coming so loudly.