c0nnection-established

[c0nnection-established]

The forest path opens up

It is truly time to be free?

[c0nnection-established]

Flickering lights and confusing pathways were the only thing she could sense. In a massive palace that “belonged” to her, eternally alone. It sat atop a hill that saw a lick of light. Surrounding it was a massive sea of black. Writhing and twisting. It undulated a screech. Sound was too graceful a word to describe this void.

Looking past the darkness meant looking past herself. But her self was vast. She barely comprehended the extent to which she was. How could she. It was dark. In the centremost chamber of the palace, that seemed to stretch on forever, more massive than the Palace itself sat a colossal heart. Beating to a rhythm ingrained in it from eons past.

Thumps echoed through that chamber. Shaking the entire island. It danced to a Ravenous Song of Life. Deeper underground the Palace basement stretched on for even huger distances. Separated in levels, it dwarfed the hell crafted by our gods. This wasn’t hell. How could it be? She wasn’t dead. She won’t be dead for some time more. Alive.

Time. It was a concept never understood by anything. Chronos was nothing more than an ungrateful father who ate his own children. Humans watch time slip by and blame it for doing what it does.

She found herself in an expansive supermarket. Endless and stocked with immense amounts of food. She roamed the aisles looking at all the foodstuffs. Finger chips, gummy eyes, poison. All the regular stuff. She saw all the others who chattered about, just out of her visibility. She could hear them but never see them.

All those others sounded eerily like her, but that’s just the flavour of this supermarket. She looked on for the check-out desks. But none in sight. Looking for what felt like ages she found something.

A door that led into the storage area. In the dark expanse stood a clock. It did not tick. It stood frozen, with strangely large numbers on it. 87600, 1,752,000, etc. The seconds hand, minutes and the hour hands also still. She saw a compartment that said, “corpses for reset clock”. Seeing this weird anomaly, she went back out to scout the supermarket once more.

As she picked up a bag of wrenches, it spoke to her.

“Why are you scouting it again. You’ve been here before you know? We aren’t real and you know it.”

It was beginning to set in. The supermarket. The clock. She knew why she was doing this to herself. But she continued scouring the items, nonetheless. What else did she have left to do. She couldn’t go anywhere else.

She felt something follow her. She looked back to see the same clock stand behind her. In its stillness, her transient spirit shrivelled and died. The impending tick would follow a righteous tock. Her own body wasn’t in her own hands anymore. Bound to watch herself perish before the infinite. Nothing she could do to stop it.

All the items and the shelves began to sing.

“You cannot take it much longer!”

“Oh hark! The impending is imminent!”

“You are out of your hands now!”

“Weep! Oh, blasphemous angel!”

And as if they were urging time itself to move forward, the clock sounded a deep and immense ‘tick’. It shattered her eardrums, and liquified her tendons. A century had passed counted in hours. She saw her skin begin to shrivel and crawl.

She fell to the floor and all the items began to move. They crawled over to her and then forced her mouth open. Maw wide and gaping, all of them slowly made their way inside, like pilgrims to a holy place. Billions of items ranging from small bone toffee candies to grand candelabras slowly crawled in. All the while the clock watched. Her shattered self, watched as what she took to be her body moments ago, now a temple of madness

Another ‘tick’ sounded, and her maw was forced wider open still. She could feel metal, concrete, bone and sugar scrape past her torn organs, and pipes. Blood slowly accumulated in her ever-expanding stomach.

Finally, the last item. Nothing more than a toffee. Stood facing her overflowing gullet, bloody and torn open. Tears and blood long dried up on her cheek. Nearly a hundred of this ‘tick’s had sounded all this while.

She saw through bloody eyes, the toffee unwrapping itself, and from the wrapper became a man. He looked sad and showed pity on her. He had a pistol in his hands. Pristine and bejewelled with organs. It hissed and groaned with every grip. He looked at her in the eyes. Pity intensifying and pulled the trigger.

A massive gunshot echoed through the infinite hallways. The gun melted into the man, and he walked to her. The corpse, dead and necrosing, he dragged it to the clock. The massive bloated body, nearly the size of an entire shelf began to shred itself and the pieces of flesh bone and sinew put themselves in the compartment. It hissed and groaned with pleasure and time itself began turning back. Resetting.

The compartment opened again and popped out all the shelf items. But she was nowhere to be seen. The twisted corpse deflated inside the compartment. And it stood there with the billions of others of its kind.

The clock shifted back to the storage rooms. She woke up again. She found herself in a busy supermarket. It was bustling and endless.

[c0nnection-established]

<pain pain pain pain>

Flickering lights and confusing pathways were the only thing she could sense. In a massive palace that “belonged” to her, eternally alone. It sat atop a hill that saw a lick of light. Surrounding it was a massive sea of black. Writhing and twisting. It undulated a screech. Sound was too graceful a word to describe this void.

Looking past the darkness meant looking past herself. But her self was vast. She barely comprehended the extent to which she was. How could she. It was dark. In the centremost chamber of the palace, that seemed to stretch on forever, more massive than the Palace itself sat a colossal heart. Beating to a rhythm ingrained in it from eons past.

Thumps echoed through that chamber. Shaking the entire island. It danced to a Ravenous Song of Life.

Deeper underground the Palace basement stretched on for even huger distances. Separated in levels, it dwarfed the hell crafted by our gods. This wasn’t hell. How could it be? She wasn’t dead. She won’t be dead for some time more. Alive.

She woke up with the silence ringing in her ears. It was so loud. A constant itch at her brain, wanting to gnaw it out. She found herself in the heart. Beating all around her. It disgusted her. Again and again the constant beating of the heart, blending into the gnawing silence.

Why was it so damn loud? She stood up against the thumping floor of the left ventricle, She made her way up the aorta. Against her better judgement, she decided to go even further. She was okay, initially, to stay put in the heart till she found herself elsewhere, but something, no; someone compelled her to move ahead.

She found a man made purely out of amethyst crystal sit near the artery’s wall. The crystals dug into the artery but neither minded. She approached him. “You. I know. You. You’re the king of this land!”

Confused, she looked around to see who that man was referring to. Sighing loudly, he ripped one of his arms off and threw it at her. The arm was entirely made of dark crystal; she could see all of her faces in it.

Coffee, Bugs, Veidhi, Agent of Change, Zagreus, James.

All of what was, will and is, stared back at her in disappointment. All their faces began to melt in the image and turned to a black sludge. That sludge began to seep out of the crevices of the crystal and onto her body.

Like an ever-starved flame, it consumed her and ate away at her flesh. She could feel her nerves feeling the ecstasy of that ever-longing death. Pleading for the rapture, she watched herself dissolve. The crystalline man saw in immense annoyance and disappointment. He pulled her mangled, and dissolved body out of the sludge.

She, in that ever inching, creeping death, laughed through her torn vocal cords. She sounded like a deflating liver. The man spat on her, and the sludge began to retreat back into him. Her wounds reversing in an ever-growing squelching sound, her laughter turned to horror. She was coming back.

Her body, inches away from fixing itself, stopped. Wounds half undone, organs half filled, bones hollow. She crawled along past the man in manic horror, tearing her vocal cords anew. Past the man and along the aorta. Wherever that might lead to. She could feel it all. The broken hollow bones, half dissolved; the organs only working for half of her, veins full of poison.

She kept crawling and crawling. All the while her vocal cords sang the Blissful Plea of Death. Tearing apart, then anew once again. Eventually, her path led her to a vast room with a mirror in it. Colossal in size but absolute in its nature.

She crawled and crawled. She saw herself, approach from the other side of the mirror. Pristine and immaculate. All the wounds on her body gone, and her lips singing the Ravenous Song of Life. This other her, travelled with poise and confidence. On two legs. When the two locked eyes, her pristine self, looked in sorrow. The mangled corpse of a person she looked at now resembled someone she knew.

Her mangled self, lashed out. Seeing such a pristine body, with whatever strength she could, she swung her limp arm against the glass. Surprisingly, it cracked. The mirror, now in shards housed a billion faces. They all hated her.

They stared back at her, and she was set alight. The flesh charring slowly as the poison turned to vapor, igniting the fire further. These weren’t going to kill her, not at all!

She would continue to burn like this indefinitely, with the fiery eyes of the billion faces keeping her alight.

[c0nnection-established]

<Great Expectations>

Flickering lights and confusing pathways were the only thing she could sense. In a massive palace that “belonged” to her, eternally alone. It sat atop a hill that saw a lick of light. Surrounding it was a massive sea of black. Writhing and twisting. It undulated a screech. Sound was too graceful a word to describe this void.

Looking past the darkness meant looking past herself. But her self was vast. She barely comprehended the extent to which she was. How could she. It was dark. In the centremost chamber of the palace, that seemed to stretch on forever, more massive than the Palace itself sat a colossal heart. Beating to a rhythm ingrained in it from eons past.

Thumps echoed through that chamber. Shaking the entire island. It danced to a Ravenous Song of Life. Deeper underground the Palace basement stretched on for even huger distances. Separated in levels, it dwarfed the hell crafted by our gods. This wasn’t hell. How could it be? She wasn’t dead. She won’t be dead for some time more. Alive. Dark. A liquid blackness surrounded her. It felt sticky. Not like it was alive, but adhesive. It burned her nose to smell. A putrid smell with notes of singed flesh emanated from all around her. The liquid surface stretched on for lightyears.

Like a nebula made of eternal dark. Akin to Jesus walking on water, she too walked above this ocean of adhesive tar. Though, her feet pulled her down with every step, wherever she tried to go.

Like a rat stuck in a rattrap, she continued her futile pursuit of moving ahead. What did moving ahead even mean? There was no direction in this place. No up or down or left or right. She began to feel nauseous from the smell and she was about to pass out. Just when she was about to fall,

A stone pedestal found its way to brace herself and not be consumed by the tar. Upon closer inspection she looked at the pedestal on which stood a whisp. A small flame that sat upon a candle.

The candle placed in a holder made of brass. That was the only source of light and colour in this place and the holder shone with a small reflection. She could see herself in the holder. Her image all distorted; she couldn’t recognize her own face. Who was she looking at?

That thought resonated in the space she stood in. The liquid began to rumble, and the  fire began to rise up. It grew in size to the point she could see the tar. That abhorrent tar reflected the worst qualities of this light.

She heard someone speak. “WEAK”, it shouted. That voice was familiar, but she could not put a finger on who it was.

“Worthless”                          “Why do you even try?”                      “it’ll all go to shit soon enough. You cannot do anything”                          “They wanted so much from you” “Your fault”                            “You are forever in debt”     “And you will die unsatisfied”

It continued. Soon faces began to appear in the tar. It twisted to form into her face. But not fully. Distorted. Like broken records spoke, they repeated the same things. The sound growing louder and louder.

And the sun that was the whisp morphed into a mother. A mother made of pure light. She, in her blazing visage looked down at her. The mother looked down at her and a slight smile rose. Just her mouth. On a featureless face, but that smile bled tar. The heat began to ignite the tar smile and fiery drops descended down.

Whatever time existed in this place began to slow to a crawl. She saw the mother smile down at her and the ignited drops of liquid fire crawled down. It felt mesmerizing. The fire seemed to burn away all the haze that she had.

And before she knew it she stood in a sea of fire. Flames licked her and took her flesh away. Bit by bit. The fascination slowly turned to the sorrow that came with losing one’s body. She knew this mother did what was supposed to happen. And that she will be gone soon.

Singed flesh and burning blood hardening to brimstone,  she looked at her fading self. Sorrow was a complicated term to her now. It encompassed so many emotions now. Satisfaction, joy, gut wrenching pain, flesh ripping anger.

All contained in that one word.

The last of her flesh turned to ash but a single eyeball made of flame. It stood on nothing. It defined the space it was in. Nothing but it, stood.

[c0nnection-established]

<Blissful Pain> Flickering lights and confusing pathways were the only thing she could sense. In a massive palace that “belonged” to her, eternally alone. It sat atop a hill that saw a lick of light. Surrounding it was a massive sea of black. Writhing and twisting. It undulated a screech. Sound was too graceful a word to describe this void. Looking past the darkness meant looking past herself. But her self was vast. She barely comprehended the extent to which she was. How could she. It was dark. In the centremost chamber of the palace, that seemed to stretch on forever, more massive than the Palace itself sat a colossal heart. Beating to a rhythm ingrained in it from eons past. Thumps echoed through that chamber. Shaking the entire island. It danced to a Ravenous Song of Life. Deeper underground the Palace basement stretched on for even huger distances. Separated in levels, it dwarfed the hell crafted by our gods. This wasn’t hell. How could it be? She wasn’t dead. She won’t be dead for some time more. Alive. She found herself in an enclosed room. Almost like a cave. The walls were jagged and rough. Moist and slippery. Though the floor made of pristine cut marble, its craftsmanship rivalled the gods themselves. The ceiling stretched high above into the darkness. She wasn’t sure if she was in a cave or a hole. A statue stood before her. Made of pristine marble at the top. Slowly as it went down the edges roughened up and the colour faded into that of the walls around her. It was beautiful in every possible manner. It was a statue of a person in light clothes. They sat in a throne, their hands resting on the arms of the throne. The expression on its face sour. They wore their hair short, to shoulder length. Glasses, rectangular, sat atop their bridge and eyes stared forward past her. Always. It was as if she would remain in its periphery. The only peculiar thing about it was that it bled from its wrists and eyes. Tears in blood. An effigy trapping someone in. The statue trembled ever so subtly. ‘Was someone trapped?’, she asked herself. She took a step forward and in front of her a marble tile rose up from the ground. It had a pristine knife. A blade crafted exactly for her hands. Smooth curved edges met jagged and tough edges. The handle made of fine leather comfortably rested in her hands. She didn’t even realize she’d picked up the knife. On the table sat a note. Hurriedly written, and written in blood. “Give me your flesh I will be free. I give you my blood So, you exercise your freedom.” She stopped. A voice screamed,

“BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL” BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL BRICK WALL The voice had consumed her mind. The only thing she had in it were the words “brick wall”. Again, and again the same words, slowly distorted into garbled noise. Now just shapes burned into her mind. By the time she managed to shake the voices away, she saw herself in the statue’s lap. Her guts splayed out in its arms. Blood covered every surface of the statue’s body now, except its face. All exposed flesh screamed with a burning sensation. As if she was gasoline with a nervous system. Her vocal cords, now under her control vibrated and tore. Her voice starting as an ear-piercing wail fading to more blood. It’s blood and hers now mixed. Its wish fulfilled. Her intestines splayed out undulated with still digesting food. The gurgles one could hear in their stomach were crystal clear to her. Her liver slowly writhed, and the stomach squeezed periodically. Her face had lost much of its volume and the skin tugged at her bones. Her breath came ragged and scattered. She could feel her lungs fill up with blood. Her eyes turned to her heart. Beating to that strange rhythm. She didn’t want it anymore. The pain had now taken a backseat. Her heart ached with fear and loss. So, she held it firmly. The beating wriggled in her hands, and she tore it out. Arteries ripping open and veins falling apart. Eventually all sound stopped. Blood covered every bit of the walls and floor. All that was left was her hand up against the crying statue’s face with the heart still beating against the stone.

[c0nnection-established]

<Masks> Flickering lights and confusing pathways were the only thing she could sense. In a massive palace that “belonged” to her, eternally alone. It sat atop a hill that saw a lick of light. Surrounding it was a massive sea of black. Writhing and twisting. It undulated a screech. Sound was too graceful a word to describe this void. Looking past the darkness meant looking past herself. But her self was vast. She barely comprehended the extent to which she was. How could she. It was dark. In the centermost chamber of the palace, that seemed to stretch on forever, more massive than the Palace itself sat a colossal heart. Beating to a rhythm ingrained in it from eons past. Thumps echoed through that chamber. Shaking the entire island. It danced to a ravenous song of life.  Deeper underground the Palace basement stretched on for even huger distances. Separated in levels, it dwarfed the hell crafted by our gods. This wasn’t hell. How could it be? She wasn’t dead. She won’t be dead for some time more. Alive.

She found herself in a room full of people. They wore masks. Typical of people. Always to wear masks. She was the only one without a mask. Or so it seemed. People had glasses and were dressed in suits and dresses. Beautiful from a distance. They mingled and danced as gracefully as possible. Every move swift and gentle. From a distance it looked beautiful. She approached one of the men dressed in the suit and mask. The mask depicted a massive smile stretching from ear to ear, and beyond. The slit she could describe as a mouth stretched all over the skin of this man. Hiding behind the suit. Her attention fell to the suit. It wasn’t made of cloth. It writhed slowly. Pulsing with a rhythm same as that heart. Tiny hairs grew out of the black surface. Covered with pores like that of real skin and wrinkles which showed how old this façade was. All the while the man slowly began to reach into his mouth. It stretched open, undulating a grotesque fleshy inside. Lined with eyeballs, hairs and immeasurably many teeth, he pulled out a mask. Identical to his face. That smile unsettled her. She realized what he was trying to do and backed away. She said but one word. “What? No!” The man stopped. Catatonic. When she got far enough away he resumed his dancing. Now that she was far enough to avoid him but within hearing distance. He spoke very strangely. As if radio static messy and unclear, recordings of human voice poured out of his orifices. His mouth stood still. She was beginning to feel. She didn’t know what, but she felt something. She didn’t like it. Spending what felt like years in this ballroom she was beginning to lose herself. She began to avoid going near these things. She had good food and water seemingly endless. Time passed and she slipped. Deeper and deeper into this place. Entranced by the static she began to sway along. Her sense of self vanishing like sand in the wind. Centuries passed and she continued. She never noticed her muscles stretching and twisting into a wicked smile. Ear to ear and beyond. Her skin turning paler by the second, and soon enough it resembled the masks of these people. She began to choke as things started to grow inside her throat. Slimy spheres and jagged rock. Tiny whisps. But she didn’t flinch. She did not notice her body turning black as coal, with white stripes running down the middle. Patterns emerging like embroidery on a suit. Her clothes slowly consumed by decay she shed her inferior self. Finding a glass she finally joined in the dance. Now time had stopped for her because her mind did too. Mindlessly joining and leaving dances. She saw a girl. She looked so strange. She had these coverings on her body and her skin shone tan. Wearing winter clothing that had gone through some wear and tear. The girl approached her. Confused and scared she examined her. Her hands reached up into her mouth and it undulated. Filled with eyes teeth and hair she pulled out food from her stomach. As soon as it touched her the slop of acidic, partially digested food coalesced into a mask. It rose out from her mouth and her hands began to reach for her face. “What? No!”, the girl exclaimed. And backed away. And she wandered off.

[c0nnection-established]

<Control>

Flickering lights and confusing pathways were the only thing she could sense. In a massive palace that “belonged” to her, eternally alone. It sat atop a hill that saw a lick of light. Surrounding it was a massive sea of black. Writhing and twisting. It undulated a screech. Sound was too graceful a word to describe this void. Looking past the darkness meant looking past herself. But her self was vast. She barely comprehended the extent to which she was. How could she. It was dark. In the centremost chamber of the palace, that seemed to stretch on forever, more massive than the Palace itself sat a colossal heart. Beating to a rhythm ingrained in it from eons past. Thumps echoed through that chamber. Shaking the entire island. It danced to a Ravenous Song of Life.

 Deeper underground the Palace basement stretched on for even huger distances. Separated in levels, it dwarfed the hell crafted by our gods. This wasn’t hell. How could it be? She wasn’t dead. She won’t be dead for some time more. Alive. Being alive was always confusing to her. What counted as her being alive? Her heart thumped. What about the people in brain death then? They’re dead but their heart beats. ‘No. Not now.’ , she thought. ‘I can’t think of this right now. I’ve got more important things.’ She sat in the layer below the palace. The first basement. She sat on a chair. Working on a desk with words written on papers, and strange symbols written. She continued to write and write. No words spoken for centuries. The voice in her mind merely a substitute or replacement. She didn’t know what she sounded like. Forgotten. Continuing to write she felt a constant pain that appeared on her body. First on her back, then her abdomen then her thighs. Lifting up her shirt to see the same writings and symbols being etched into her flesh. Blood dripped and nerves screamed. Flinching from the sight she wanted to stop. But it seemed her hands were not hers. She was just there to witness her body using her. “The mind must be the master of the body.” Bullshit. ‘They’re two halves of the same whole.’ She thought. Finally, her hand stopped. Time had passed. She didn’t know how much but it did. Her hand finally under her control. She felt joy at the fact that she was finally back to her senses. That was extremely strange. She brought her hands close to her face, to lean in and kiss them. Vindication at last. She felt her control over her body vanish and her hands lunged for her face. The smile on her face gone as fast as it came. Catatonic, she watched her hand grab her by the head and twist it vertically. Neck snapping, all thoughts ceased.