You find yourself in a hallway.
By any means you can think of, you find that this hallway is a particularly nice hallway. It has a deep green floor tile path in the center of the floor, branching off in lines to go into doors. From where you are standing, which might be at the end of the hallway yet it also might be the beginning of the hallway, there are five doors leading off of the hallway, including one directly in front of you on the opposite side of the hallway.
Strangely enough, you don't actually remember when you got here or how you got here. Or //where// this hallway is. In fact, you feel that the last few hours of your life is a slight mystery. You can't quite clearly remember what time you had lunch or what time it is yet you think you might have had lunch at some point. Probably with Alex in development. Shouldn't you be at work?
You look down. You have your feet and your hands. Thank goodness. Although, you wonder, why would you be grateful to have those? Was there any risk of you no longer having them?
Well, what now?
[[You walk forward.->Further into the Hallway]]
[[You turn around.->The Other View of the Hallway]]
[[You might as well try a door.->The First Door On The Left]]
You take a few steps further down the hallway.
It is the same hallway you have been in for the past five minutes, you decide to roughly assume. You could have been here for longer, you could have been here for less. It feels more like you had blinked and once you reopened your eyes, you were here. That can't be right though. Maybe you simply had a spell of amnesia like your grandmother used to have in the last few years of her life, where she lived in your family attic, sitting in a rocking chair and staring out of the window, silently wrapped in a sky blue shawl. It almost felt that she never died, instead, simply becoming part of the attic. You always had this feeling that she was up there anytime you needed anything from the attic. Watching. Listening.
[[There is a door to your left.->The First Door On The Left]]
[[There is a door to your right.->The First Door On The Right]]
[[Take another few steps down the hallway.->Further Down The Hallway]]
[[You turn around.->The Other View of the Hallway]]
You turn around.
There is a door.
You cannot say you are totally surprised that there is a door behind you. After all, how would you have gotten into this hallway otherwise? You can't have just woken up here out of nowhere. That'd be magic or some kind of science fiction. That doesn't exist.
Well, you've found the way out. Congratulations. You feel somewhat happy that you avoided having to go down that hallway and stumble around, looking for an exit and an explanation. Both would have been nice. Now you have one of the two and, usually, once you have the one, the second never seems to be too far behind. After all, who knows what could have been behind those doors? You could end up wasting your whole day here.
[[Speaking of, you open the door.->The Door Behind You]]
[[Well, you don't have anything else really going on otherwise, it can't here to go down the hallway for a few minutes.->Further into the Hallway]]
You open the first door on the left.
It is a wide room. Taller than the door you are coming through. Is the hallway you were in as tall as this room? Inside are display cases, high enough that you can stroll on by and look without having to lean down to see them. A museum of sorts. Somewhere deeper inside, you can hear a noise, a kind of 'thwang' repeating every few seconds. It echoes throughout the room.
[[Take a walk into the room.->The Wide Room]]
[[Close the door, maybe you'll come back to this later.->Further into the Hallway]]
You grab the door knob, turn it, and open the door.
It is pitch black. An unnatural pitch black. You can't even tell what is in there. Is it a room? Another hallway? You reach a hand in. Like a river, the darkness surrounds it. It is not a fluid, it is not a gas. Simply darkness that you cannot see through. Strangely enough, the light from the hallway does not even seem to project into the room. Nothing can encroach upon this odd shade.
You've never been afraid of the dark yet this kind of darkness seems to create an unshaken instability within yourself.
[[Well, it's want you wanted. You talk a step inside.->The Way Into The Darkness]]
[[Maybe you should just close the door, turn around, and take a few steps down the hall to find another way out.->Further into the Hallway]]
You open the first door on the right.
It is a jungle.
It takes you a moment to realize what exactly you are seeing is what you are actually seeing. A jungle. Trees enwrapped in vines, mist slowly sailing among the trunks, leaves and fallen branches litter the ground. You take a step and feel the wet ground shift beneath your foot. You pull away to find a footprint of your shoe remains in the dirt.
You remember pictures from elementary school textbooks about the Amazon and jungles in Africa. This is surely a jungle, there is no question about it although you've never seen a jungle before. So it's possible that this is just what you think is a jungle and it is in fact not a jungle. That debate can wait till later.
Distantly, you can almost make out the sound of a bird. Gently cawing somewhere deeper into the jungle. Even further away, you can make out fading lights. Blinking softly. On. Off. You wonder why they are blinking and where they are coming from. Yet otherwise, the jungle is dark and there is no direct path through.
[[Perhaps it is better if you close this door for now...->Further into the Hallway]]
You take a few more steps down the hallway.
You are closer to the opposite side of the hallway. Whether it is the beginning or the end, it is where you are going to end up eventually.
The door at the opposite side of the hallway looms. A grandfather clock with a pendulum to unnerve. You remember one that sat in your living room. It was beautiful yet you didn't understand that when you were a child. Illustrations of the sun and the moon and all the stars in the heavens adorned the face. Some said it came from Italy. Some thought it came from Africa. They would smoke and laugh and you would watch the grandfather clock, guarding the space next to the window. When the hour came, the clock chimed to life and bellowed through the house. It woke you up sometimes. When you finally left home and moved into an apartment in a city where the coffee is crap and the food is okay and the subways are crowded and the smells are only worse, the first thing you found yourself missing is the grandfather clock.
To the left and to the right are doors respectively. Should you open these doors?
[[You take a few steps back, did you miss something?->Further into the Hallway]]
[[There is another door to your right.->The Second Door On The Right]]
[[There is another door to your left.->The Second Door On The Left]]
[[You take a few more steps forward.->The End of the Hallway]]
You take a step.
It is dark. You don't think it could get any darker. You cannot see the way back. You cannot see anything.
[[You take a step to the right.->A Step To The Right In The Dark]]
[[You take a step to the left.->A Step To The Left In The Dark]]
You take a step.
It is dark. You don't think it could get any darker. You cannot see the way back. You cannot see anything.
[[You take another step to the right.->Another Step To The Right In The Dark]]
[[You take a step to the left.->A Step To The Left In The Dark]]
You take a step.
It is dark. You don't think it could get any darker. You cannot see the way back. You cannot see anything.
[[You take another step to the left->Another Step To The Left In The Dark]]
[[You take a step to the right->A Step To The Right In The Dark]]
You take a step.
It is dark. You don't think it could get any darker. You cannot see the way back. You cannot see anything.
[[You take another step to the right.->A Third Step To The Right In The Dark]]
[[You take a step to the left.->A Step To The Left In The Dark]]
You open the second door on your right.
A strange scent drifts into your nostrils as the door swings open. It is almost sulfur. You are not sure how you recognize that it is not quite sulfur yet once you take a look around, you realize that sulfur is probably not bad an assumpation as any.
It is a laboratory. Beakers filled with brightly colored liquids and bubbling concoctions over Bunsen burners. Twisted tubes and rubber veins transporting fluids. You are not quite sure what is happening here yet the smell is more than unpleasant. Various electronics equipment sit along a table against the wall. Some are turned on, with needles bobbing up and down, some sensors buzzing loudly as data is scanning, big beeps, and bright lights.
You can see a door in the opposite corner. It looks like it might open to somewhere yet you're not sure if someone could be in there. Which is likely a possibility. You aren't sure if you want to meet anyone while you're here. Could be a tough subject to come to terms with.
[[Go check out the door.->The Lab Door]]
[[I'm gonna pull back out of this one.->Further Down The Hallway]]
You are at the end of the hallway.
It was only a matter of time, after all.
The only direction to go was straight ahead realistically, unless of course, you turned around and went the other way. Yet, of course, you would have eventually would up at the end of the hallway. Sooner or later.
There is only the door here. It the same door as the rest except that it isn't the same door as the rest. Yet all doors need to be opened. One way or another.
You slowly reach for the doorknob. It is cold. You feel risen bumps and shapes on the face of the knob. It had been carved upon. You allow your fingers to consume the knob wholly and there you stand with it in hand.
Do you open the door?
[[No, there's something I missed...->Further Down The Hallway]]
[[Yes.->Open the Door]]
The room appears to stretch back a while. The floor is a gray-white stone color. It is cold in here. You take a few steps among the display cases, in and out of the rows they have been organized into. Most of them contain skulls. You can almost swear that you recognize one of the skulls as a crocodiles. Another seems to have a cow skull.
A few of the other cases contain displays of organs. For instance, one of the cases you walk by has a little white label at the bottom of it, with neat handwriting that states that it is a 'Pig Bladder.' Another nearby says it is 'Raccoon Liver.'
The glass of the cases are thinly layered in dust. It has been a while since someone has dusted here.
You can still hear that 'thwang' echoing.
[[Go discover the source of that noise.->The Source of the Noise]]
[[You've been here long enough, you go back to the hallway.->Further into the Hallway]]
You take a step.
It is dark. You don't think it could get any darker. You cannot see the way back. You cannot see anything.
[[You take another step to the right->Another Couple of Steps To The Right In The Dark]]
[[You take a step to the left->A Step To The Left In The Dark]]
You take a step.
It is dark. You don't think it could get any darker. You cannot see the way back. You cannot see anything.
[[What a second, what was that?->The Doorknob]]
[[You take a step to the left.->A Step To The Left In The Dark]]
Your hand gently grazes something in the dark. It felt cold. Like a metallic chill. You swing your hand around trying to find it. Thankfully, it skims the metal thing again and you are able to grab it. It is round. There feels like almost metal teeth engraved upon whatever it is.
It doesn't seem to shake. It doesn't seem to slide. It doesn't seem to be a button. You jiggle it. It jiggles. You feel like you can turn it. [[You do.->The Hallway]]
You take a step.
It is dark. You don't think it could get any darker. You cannot see the way back. You cannot see anything.
[[You take another step to the left.->A Third Step To The Left In The Dark]]
[[You take a step to the right.->A Step To The Right In The Dark]]
You take a step.
It is dark. You don't think it could get any darker. You cannot see the way back. You cannot see anything.
[[You take another step to the left.->Another Couple of Steps to the Left In The Dark]]
[[You take a step to the right.->A Step To The Right In The Dark]]
You take a step.
It is dark. You don't think it could get any darker. You cannot see the way back. You cannot see anything.
[[What a second, what was that?->The Doorknob]]
[[You take a step to the right.->A Step To The Right In The Dark]]
It is in the back of the wide room that you discover the source of the 'thwang'ing.
Behind a panel of glass, two hands reach for each other. Slowly, they move closer and closer till they almost can touch each other. Suddenly- 'thwang'- the hands are thrown back to the walls and bounce gently as if a bouncing ball coming into a landing. Again, they reach for each other in their mechanical fashion. Inching closer and closer, till again- 'thwang'- they are separated.
You watch this in odd fascination for a few minutes. There aren't bodies connected to these hands. They don't even look like human hands. Yet they continue to barely come within skimming finger length before they are ripped away again before they can touch. Contact forbidden by their creators. So close, yet so far.
Perhaps there is some poetry in all of this. Something beautiful about these hands never really being able to touch each other yet always reaching towards the other.
The thought, however, makes you sad instead.
[[You've had enough of this.->Further into the Hallway]]
You open the second door on the left.
It is a bright room with strong overhead lights. The ceiling is tall. Like one might find in a super store. The floor is a fine white marble. The same marble that makes up statues that this room houses. All of the statues tower over you. Some appear to be of people, some look like animals. If you go in, you can probably see them better. They look as if they have little plaques in front of them that tell you a bit of information about each statue.
Should you go into the statue room?
[[Why not?->The Statue Room]]
[[You could always come back to this door later.->Further Down The Hallway]]
You walk through the statues.
One is a statue of a great warrior. You remember reading about great warriors in history books, like Alexander the Great. By the age of thirty, he had created an unparalleled empire that stretched from Greece to Northeastern India. You often wonder what you will accomplish in your thirties. Perhaps you'll finally finish writing that book you always want to write.
The next is a well dressed man in a suit He is reading from a book of poems, or so it looks to you. Form takes a shape, no? You want your poetry to be recognized someday too. A language that spread without speaking.
Another you recognize is a young woman with a long white flowing gown. She looks as if she is truly in love with life. Maybe she isn't happy at all. Her expression is a foreign one. The truth? It's something nobody will ever know. They don't need to. You have had beautiful people come and go in your life. Inside and outside. They were the best people you ever knew. Where did they all go?
You come to the end of the pathway. It branches off into more paths of statues, one way to the left, the other to the right.
[[You go left.->The Left of the Statue Room]]
[[You go right.->The Right of the Statue Room]]
You go left and walk for a while among statues.
Eventually, you find yourself in front of a statue with the label: "Father" written in the same beautiful script as the rest of them.
You take a moment to study the statue.
This one seems almost inhumanly real. It is a man, dressed in a garb of a wizard. A pointed hat, with a robe of stars and moons. The wizard is portrayed proudly. Smiling. As if preparing to make a speech. You don't recognize the face. It surely isn't your own father.
You think you hear a noise from behind [[it.->The Room Behind The Statue]]
[[You decide to go back the way you came.->The Statue Room]]
[[That's enough statues for today.->Further Down The Hallway]]
You walk for a while, seeing a few more statues. There are more people statues than animal statues.
You come to the end of the row and find yourself facing the final statue.
The plaque says: "Paganini."
You've heard the name before. Paganini. Who was that? Perhaps it was this past summer where you were virtually surrounded by classical music. It sounds like a classical music composer. Additionally, the statue holds a violin that looks as if it is as tall as you are.
It is a beautiful work of art. You've never seen anything quite like it. You doubt you ever will again.
[[Go back.->The Statue Room]]
[[Enough of the statues.->Further Down The Hallway]]
You follow the noise you think you may have heard behind the 'Father' statue.
It is a workshop of sorts. Crafting tools litter an island table while more hang on the wall on hooks, some held up my nails. The table is covered with wood shavings and a half completed block of wood sits in the center.
You approach the table and pick up the block of wood to examine it further.
There hasn't been much work done on it. Besides what you can almost define as a face, it is still largely an unaltered block of wood. You take a moment to really look at the face. At a first glance, you can see the menacing smile. Sharp teeth jetting out of the mouth. The eyes, however, they do not match the evil intentions of the smile. They look innocent. Almost terrified at the sight of something. It is almost inhuman to match such a smile of terror with eyes filled with what may be the last thing they would ever see. You are almost reminded of a painting you've seen. In doctor's offices, maybe, while you mindlessly wait for the nurses, who have found some form of happiness and content with their life, process your paperwork. You only want to know how you can find some kind of happiness for yourself. Some kind of content that doesn't make every situation you find yourself in a display of madness. Pure, unfiltered, unadulterated madness. The clean, straight cut kind of American madness that infiltrates everything you do. Every breath you take.
The nurses have finished with your paperwork. They call your name. You follow them into the office.
At the same time, you put the block of wood down and [[leave.->The Left of the Statue Room]]
You open the [[door.->Inside of the Door]]
It washes everything away.
You go to the door in the laboratory. You open it.
It is a storeroom with supplies. Shelves of liquids and solids, minerals and chemicals, samples and doses, beakers and tubes, there are some goggles and white lab coats in a nice little pile at the bottom of the shelf.
There is nobody in here.
You take a big breath. You were really banking on finding someone in here.
You are relieved yet it doesn't feel like a room you'd like to spend anymore time in.
[[Yeah, let's go.->Further Down The Hallway]]