Work Text:
As the silence devours what’s left of the place, a young woman walks with a flashlight in her hand. It’s been hours since she woke up here, and she still hasn’t seen just a little sign of life. Her clothes are wet, she’s tired, scared, but determined to find the exit. A couple of hours ago, she saw a drawing on a wall, indicating an elevator. Since then, she has been spiraling down into the deepest part of the Poolrooms, where the darkness and the cold are only one.
She heard so many noises in the past hour. When she was in the upper part of this place, it was completely silent. But now, it feels... different. Is it her imagination? Or those shadows crawling in every corner, are these hallucinations? She often looks behind her to make sure no one is following her, and every time it feels scarier than before. She sometimes hears steps, taps in the distance, or even someone breathing. Every time she tries to check, no one’s there.
It doesn’t stop her, though. She keeps walking, keeping an eye open on every non-existent movement. She eventually stops. She stares at the enormous room in front of her. It’s completely dark, and on every side, it seems endless. There are probably hundreds of pillars, creating illusions of infinite halls. She puts her feet in the water and slowly walks. She doesn’t know where she's going, but it’s too late to turn back.
As she’s getting deeper into the dark, she feels something moving in the water, close to her. She stops walking and turns off her flashlight. She can hear something moving as well. It’s official, she is not alone. What can she do? The creature is still moving, in silence. It growls. She is scared to turn on her light. After a couple of minutes, she doesn’t feel anything nearby anymore. She still waits a bit to make sure, and two minutes later, she turns her light back on.
Her light reflects the water, and her eyes fix upon something underwater. It’s a foot. Not far away, she can see the second one. Those are palmed paws with 3 long and sharp claws. She slowly looks up and faces a large creature. Its face is completely ripped apart, showing its skull. It has 2 long horns and is visibly very underweight. It’s standing, in silence, in front of her. She doesn’t know what to do. Her whole body is completely frozen. She keeps her eyes on it. They’re staring at each other.
The woman doesn't know if she should talk to it, if she can move, or if she must stay immobile until it leaves. Maybe it’s blind, or only attack people who are too loud, or maybe it doesn’t understand the human language. She is terrified, and her legs are weakening. After minutes of just staring, she slowly steps back, trying her best to not make too many waves or noises. The creature doesn’t move.
She keeps her light on it, and just as she thinks she is safe, it starts walking too. Not too fast, just slowly. She panics.
“Who are you? What do you want?” she asks, in tears.
It doesn’t respond, but it stops walking. It stares at her and slowly opens its jaws. It suddenly claps its jaws repeatedly to make a loud noise, the one the woman could hear sometimes. It sounds like two pieces of wood thumping at each other. She’s still terrified, and she feels like every move she makes could be her last. The creature slowly tilts its head, still making that horrifying sound. Its long tail moves in the water, making waves in every direction.
“I do not want to hurt you; I just want to find the elevator. Do you know where it is?” questions the human.
The entity nods, and with its head, incites the woman to follow it. It turns around and walks in the dark. She hesitates but follows it. They both stay in silence and reach the end of the room. They walk in a hallway, take some stairs, and reach another room. It looks like the hundreds of rooms the woman visited before. They walk like this for at least fifteen minutes. Eventually, she asks:
“So... what are you exactly?”
It suddenly stops walking. It turns around and looks at her. Its eyes are glowing in the dark, and its stature is cold. It doesn’t say anything, it just stares at her. It slowly steps back and calmly submerges itself underwater.
“Wait! Don’t leave me here! Come back!” she exclaims.
It disappears in the deep. She sighs. She continues walking, making sure not to fall into the hole the creature just dived in. The nightmare continues, but now she knows that she isn’t alone. Are there any other creatures that want to kill her? She continues to go deeper. Her senses are on the alert, ready to run if anything tries to attack her. But it doesn’t happen.
For another hour, she wanders, with the most depressing thoughts of her life. She doesn’t know how she came here. She was walking in the street, stepped on a manhole cover, and fell. Everything went black, and she woke up here. It doesn’t make any sense! But as she is lost in her mind, she sees something in the distance. It reflects the light of her flashlight. When she gets closer, she realizes that it’s a large yellow ball with a smile. Next to it, there’s a corpse.
She screams in horror, and as she tries to run away, she slips and falls into the water. Fortunately, she isn’t hurt, but she is terrified. She is frozen, and suddenly, she feels a wave. Something is moving behind her. She looks behind and sees two horns out of the water. It calmly gets its head out. It’s the creature from an hour ago!
“No worries.” it whispers. “This human didn’t stand a chance.”
The woman stares at it, terrified.
“Why did you leave me?!”
“I did not. In here, wherever you are, I am close.”
She stands back up. She’s now wet from head to toes.
“Great. Now, what do I do?”
The creature gets closer.
“You follow me, and don’t say a word. Your mind is not the only thing that wants to kill you.”
She nods and silently follows it. Minutes pass, and she realizes that she feels safe when this creature is nearby. If it really wants to help her, it’s going to protect her if anything happens, right? As long as she watches her step, it should be fine. They visit rooms of all sizes and shapes, but that still look the same. Eventually, the woman asks this creature another question.
“What is this place?”
It takes a couple of seconds before responding.
“Our collective minds.”
“What?”
“An amalgamation of dreams, thoughts, imagination. When memories clashes with imagination, a place like this appears. Everything here is both real and fake, both manmade and magical. Sometime, there’s monsters like me, sometimes not. It depends on the individual. Some people are unlucky, like this person you found earlier, sometimes they get to find me.”
She remains in silence, completely confused.
“What does it mean?”
The creature stops walking.
“This place is Death. For some people, it’s painful, terrifying, and it ends in horrendous conditions. For others, they enjoy the walk, they enjoy discovering this place, and when their time comes, they just accept it.”
“Is Death inevitable?”
“Officially, yes. But you can still get out, if you wish. There are places beyond, where the grass is green, where the sky is blue, and where there’s a soft melody to heal the soul. A world with multiple places to rest, to ascend into a better state of mind.”
It starts to walk again. That is a lot of information but very few help. Is she condemned? Is there really no hope for her? What will happen to her family? Are they just never going to find her body? Will they mourn her without knowing what happened? So many questions she is afraid to ask. They eventually face stairs that seem endless. They start walking them up, in complete silence. After a minute, they can see the end of the stairs.
They reach the upper floor, and for the first time in hours, there’s light. The room is floodlit, with a huge pool in the middle. There are colourful water slides, and rubber rings in the water.
“I can’t go any further.” whispers the entity. “You must continue on without me.”
“Why?”
“I am meant to stay in the dark. I live in the shadow so I can act like one. But no worries, wanderer. What you are looking for is right ahead. Do not look behind you, and when you find the next level, do not let your mind twist what is real and what is not.”
Before she can respond, the creature walks down the stairs. She stays standing still for a moment. She eventually starts walking again, alone. Soon enough, her fears grow back. She is not alone yet feels so lonely. Behind every corner, she imagines monsters attacking her, or every shadow in the corner of her eyes being a creature stalking her. She now understands what the entity was trying to tell her.
This place is empty; there are no monsters stalking her. All these walls, and these halls, every single pool and water slides, every tile; everything is just her mind trying to scare her. She doesn’t know what is real and what is not; the entity was right. Is the elevator even real? Maybe it was just a trick of her mind to bring her hope. What if the entity never existed in the first place?
She’s not tired anymore. Not hungry either. In fact, knowing that all of this is just in her head calms her. She walks peacefully, with no more fear. She thinks about the place the entity mentioned earlier. She plays in her head the melody her mom used to hummed before bed. Her whole body is warm, and despite knowing that she will never escape this place, she decides to take it easy.
She sees in the distance a water slide. She feels excited at the idea; it’s been years since the last time she went to a water park. She sits in it and joyfully slides. She does it repeatedly for ten minutes, and for a moment, she doesn’t even think about Death anymore.
Suddenly, she hears beeping in the distance. Is this the elevator? Why could she not hear it before? She goes out of the pool and grabs her flashlight she left on the floor. She slowly continues walking and the beeping is getting louder. She walks on a footbridge over an enormous room consumed by the darkness. She looks down, and she notices two white glowing eyes in the dark. Those are the entity’s eyes.
As she gets closer to the elevator in front of her, she starts hearing whispers in her head. But she is not afraid. She enters the elevator, and suddenly, all the whispers stop. The doors close and she is mysteriously getting tired. Her eyelids are getting heavy, so she sits on the floor. A couple of seconds later, she falls asleep.
She opens her eyes. She is lying on a bed in a house she has never seen before. The room is empty, except for the bed and the nightstand. She decides to go out of bed after a couple of minutes. She looks out the window, and she feels her whole body freezing in fear. Outside, there are multiple identical houses, on a large plain. The sky is blue, and white fences are separating the houses. The grass is green, and she can hear soft music playing in the distance.
This entity was right. She feels calm and peaceful. She doesn’t know where she is, she doesn’t know how much time she has left, but she doesn’t care anymore.
“Somewhere, beyond our fears, beyond what makes our life painful, there’s a state of mind purifying our blood.” says a voice from the loudspeakers. “Where there’s a soft wind to appease the soul, and a warmth to fulfill the heart. In the bane of our existence, reminiscing what makes us complete is a way to find the way out of this torment. When everything feels like falling apart, never forget that there’s always a way to glue back the pieces together, as long as you don’t let the world convince you that they burned a long time ago."
My art, inspired by this fic.