~Steele~ Welcome to the Jungle

Apologies for my last post. I was in a bad spot…I’m particularly sensitive to changes in the Loops, they throw me totally out of whack. I decided to ride it out in my old room, until I felt able to talk again. Without any memories to hold me in place.

And boy, I missed a lot. When I emerged from the room, it was like stepping out of a plane wreckage into unfamiliar territory, ancient vines crisscrossing haphazardly, twirling into delicate leaves which obscured the fluorescent light from above, leaving only a passage through the brambles, fading into darkness. Only just visible behind the wall of vines was a fleck of worn blue paint, rusted and hanging demurely from branches far more powerful than it; that was the old Ford we kept for emergencies, looking as if it had rusted away over centuries of wind and rain, not a couple of nights.

This place feels wrong. Not evil, just numb. It feels as if the force it exerts upon those within it is just too much for us to comprehend. I’m not terrified; which is the state I generally do find myself in, all too often. It’s as if I’m beyond terror, as if Terror itself has imploded in on itself, a supernova of fear boiling down to a tiny speck of ash that contains everything it once was…It’s just dead, heavy matter, weighing down yet weightless; crushing oblivion turned into desolate loneliness, as if our lives, everything we were, everything we are, everything we could be has been reduced into one long, piercing silence.

I faced the abyssal forest of hanging leaves in that which I once called Home, and only darkness looked back. Darkness upon darkness beyond the squirming undergrowth…The only path I could take.

Even now as I type this post, when I close my eyes, that’s all I see, all I hear, all I know. Maybe it’s all I’ve ever known. A singular path through the madness, a pitch black hole through which all that I will ever be lies. There’s no sidepaths, there’s no maze. A maze gives you choice, freedom to backtrack. Life is no labyrinth of surprises, it’s a hole to fall through, until you reach the bottom. Any sense of hope, any sense that you might be taking the one path that leads to where you want to be, is just a trick of the mind, filling in the formless walls with nightmares. But there are no nightmares hiding in the twirling passageways of life, no pleasures on the way to distract you. All there is is a corridor, and at the end of the corridor, there He is, waiting with outstretched tendrils, welcoming you. Waiting patiently for you to trot obediently to the end.

So off I trotted, one foot in front of the other, as the vines writhed and salivated, dripping dead and dying leaves from the canopy as if the sky were bleeding. And then it was, drips of metallic red washing down my face, clotting in my hair, caking my face, cleansing my clothes of all the dirt and sweat until it was just red, red, red, red…A door. I opened it. One foot, two feet, three feet four, one in front of the other as the air choked my mind of every thought. Every thought but one, one single driving force as I found myself in the House’s main antechamber which heaved and slurped like a sleeping Cerberus, black fangs protruding from the paintings which tastefully lined the curled staircase up to the second level, the staircase which wept like a baby, waterfalling swirling oil which pooled at my feet. Vibrating in its reflection of the harsh mercurial sun which burned through the windows at the front door which I had entered through, the glass turning to charcoal and crumbling leisurely to the ground. One thought in my mind that was not swallowed by the Terror as I turned to the basement door, beyond the river of metallic blackness. There were two people in this House who did not belong. And as I sit here now, basement door open, the faint light from up here barely penetrating into Doc's little domain...it's eerie quiet down there...and her latest post...I'm trying to gather up the bravery to go find them.

I still have a delivery to make.