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The music started not long after I went through the doorway. The lights appeared in due succession. First pink. Then yellow. Then blue. Then purple. A menagerie of flashing colours burning into my retinas from the assumed end of the hallway, taunting me to get closer, and I am getting closer. I should be. No matter how many steps I take, they run away from me. I can’t get to the lights. I’m chasing rainbows. Stuck at the circus, chasing rainbows. A performance alone seen by no one. A long, dark, wet, cold, colourful tunnel. And they watch me. And I can feel them. And I hate it. But I must get to the lights! To the pretty lights. To Freedom.
The corridor is straight. Of course it is. My feet direct me forwards and I can see forwards, my view of the lights unobstructed and yet…I move left. I am turning left. The corridor goes to the left. And yet it’s straight. I’m walking forwards. My feet are going forwards. And left. And forwards. The tunnel spirals and twists and overlaps and every single one of my eyes looks upon it and does not believe in their own sanity striding through this architectural marvel. That turns pink. And turns yellow. And turns blue. And I keep walking. And walking. And walking. Just walking. Constantly. Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk. Still walking. Still chasing the rainbows, not bothering to look back and see my brain unravelling behind me.
See, the mind does not simply shatter when going mad. Of course not. A quick snap is ‘too kind’ for those who find a door. You just leave it on the bus. Poof. Gone. Because of course your quest for truth is too distracting to remember to bring it with you. You just forgot. It’s fine. You’re not crazy.
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Why won’t the music stop? Why won’t it stop? No matter how loudly I plead, mouth shut, how often I beg, still walking, it won’t stop. It won’t stop. The damn music won’t stop and my ears hurt, my head hurts, my legs hurt, my eyes hurt, and the lights won’t stop and the soft
Drip
Drip
Of water from the ceiling cuts through the warped calliope vibrating through the walls and into my head where it nestles and burrows and paints neat little watercolours of the circus coming to town before the worm is ripped to shreds when the lights flash and my head spins.
And I swear the walls are moving. Coated in dirt the pattern of stereotypical 80s wallpaper where the lines tie each other into knots before the shapes cut them down. They shift before my eyes and beneath my fingers but naturally that’s simply because I’m moving. I’m still walking. Still walking. The lights haven't come any closer but did I expect them to? Have I ever once thought in this tunnel that those lights would move. Probably not. They’ve stayed still for as long as I can remember even though all that I can remember is so remarkably similar that I begin to question whether I’ve had any other memories and whether I’m really real. Maybe I’m just an eternal loop. Walking. Walking. Walking.
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And the lights move. And they move and I speed up even more.
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Drip. Drip.
Drop.
And the lights are getting nearer but music is getting louder. But I am almost there. The tunnel turning ever straight appeared to be getting narrower but why would I care? I'll be safe no matter what since I can still see those rainbows, I'll reach them and be wrapped up all cozy and warm in their soft ribbons of light. I won't hear any more calliope, I won't feel its vibrations through the living walls as it shakes the water down quicker so that the puddles are so deep I could get lost.
There's always a chance that the lights are bad. I've never met them before and strangers can be dangerous. But they're rainbows! Rainbows are soft and gentle and ethereal and infinitely better than this hallway. I move forward and left, then back a bit when my eyes burn in some kind of solo twisted waltz down this corridor. The walls are even more pink than before. Even more yellow. And the wallpapers slice each other to pieces faster than before, water dripping down like blood. And there was blood. My blood. My hands stained from holding my ears, my nose and my mouth as they continue to
Drip.
Drip.
In tandem with the water. I can't see through the blinding lights. I can't hear past the calliope and that damned
Drip.
Drip.
I can't feel because whenever I try to touch the mud-coated walls they slip and slide on that accursed mix of blood and water and sweat. And I can't breathe.
I could die. I could lie down and drown. I could take a few steps back and be buried. I could pay too much attention to the
Drip.
Drip.
And I could suffocate myself.
But I'm almost there.
I swear I could reach out and wind my hands in it if only light was material.
And there was a new addition to the corridor. A mirror. And it spirals, and it spirals, and it spirals. I look into it and it spirals. All it does is spin, weaving the pink, the yellow, the blue into an intricate spiral winding its way through the reflected corridor. But I don't care. I don't stop. To stop would be to give up and isn't life meant to be lived? So I walk. And I walk. And I walk. And I feel them. They are watching. Awaiting the final act of my one man circus.
I am in the rainbow.
And I see her.
And she is watching.
And I could save her.
But I’m so tired.
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I want to save her.
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I trudge on, my feet wading through the blood like it’s water as I desperately try not to slip on the grime just beneath the surface. Drowning in my own blood is the last thing I’d want to do now that I’m so close. I know they’re watching, I can practically hear them blinking from how loud their presence is but I don’t care. I don’t care. I just have to get to her.
The corridor is a lot lower than before and I can feel the dislodged dirt drop onto me amidst the warm
Drip.
Drip.
Of blood. She is getting ever closer, her clothes coated in fresh soil with mud smeared across her hands. The calliope still plays, flooding my senses so that the only thing I can think about is Walk. And Her. And Them. For they are watching me and I am watching them now. I can see all of their eyes upon me in the mirrors, boring into me and trying to steal every last string of sanity that I have left. And I will let them. Because I don’t care. And because she can see me now. And she looks afraid. And I think about what I have become. And I don’t care.
I am so close.
The lights beat down from above. First pink. Then yellow. Then blue. I have to shield my eyes to make her out but I can still see her, she’s hardly two metres away now. The lights dance across her face and make her look unnatural, her face too shiney, her eyes encased in shadow. Her limbs took too long, either disappearing into the blood at my feet or slowly trailing at the surface of the puddle. And they watch me as I reach out.
And it burns.
My fingers haven’t even made contact before the searing heat rips through my fingertips and down every nerve in my body, snapping whatever strings were left. Excruciating pain floods my weary brain and I can’t. My head is so full of light, of sound, of pain that I can’t take it and maybe I would rather suffocate. I can still feel them watching as my skin melts off like wax, revealing sharp, jagged bones underneath but I am still me. I have to still be me. Though I burn and I burn and I burn until my eye sockets are hollow and my nose sags, I am still me. I cannot be their little toy.
And yet they watch, and they watch, and they watch.
And they laugh.
And I can feel the blood seeping out from between my knife bones and wax flesh until there is no blood left and all I am is clay. Though there is nothing left to feel, it still burns. Their puppet bled dry, the finale act completed.
And I burn.
And I was so close.