Vapid | ONC 2023

Prologue - Chapter 1 of 2

Stagnation is nonexistent. Everything moves. Accompanied by the constant rhythm of time, even the smallest things gradually shift. With every passing second, the everlasting motions of change do their parts to keep our world alive, perpetual, travelling. Nothing is forgotten in this great waltz, no plant deserted, no object static, no person motionless.Yet, constant as it passes, we can only observe it temporarily, unaware of its movement once we turn around. We are trained to remember its passage, to know things change even if we can't confirm their motion.

But even then, it is so easy to forget. It is easy to be perplexed by how swiftly time seems to move without a spectator. Easy to address not a single thought to how, with no eyes to behold our empty hallways, they so quickly return to the eternally persistent arms of nature, spilling back into its verdant embrace and casting off the corruption of concrete, glass and varnish. And so very easy to pay no mind to time at all, forgetting the hallways and vines altogether.

Only when one observes them again, contrasted by the brightness of swarming streets and the noise of chatting, time suddenly becomes unmistakably evident. Suddenly, one is keenly aware of its passage and the losses it carries with it. Witnessing the carcasses of structures we once created memories in, left to be a poor detached echo of our recollections, reminds us of the many memories lost to time in the way we lost ours.

Those that find grief in the loss of moments refer to this phenomenon as "lost to time." The trespasser who languidly illuminated the abandoned reaches of the hallway with her flashlight would think very differently about this term, however. She had become closely acquainted with time's passage. To her, the saying was an ignorant one. "Lost to time" would require something to be "lost", after all, and nothing was missing, drifting or squandered. Everything would continue to exist. She had pondered many days about the correct analogy, but all had fallen flat. Not even "Forgotten to time" would do (and in her eyes, that would also be a very unsophisticated likeness). After all, time had not forgotten anything. Only humankind had. They had forgotten to keep looking for the places they so quickly deemed 'uninhabitable' or 'unnecessary'.

Meanwhile, the ever-moving constant of time did not stop its steady consumption of the rotting carpet on the hallway floor. It had pried it loose from the structure's carcass below and torn it open, so the tiny green sprigs and blades of grass could grow freely from under its smothering shell. Memory had also not forgotten it, the many stories and misguided conspiracies having been the ones that had brought her here. 'Lost' wasn't the correct term, nor was 'forgotten', for it hadn't done either of those things. Instead, it had simply returned. It had returned to its origin, that of the natural world itself.

Gone were the lavishly painted strokes of wallpaper that had once covered each side of the thin corridor and returned, they had, to the damp and mossy decay that would have grown on the old trees of the location's original terrain. Gone were the electrical fixtures that would have made bright the colourful woodwork doors that led into rooms on either side of the hallway, and returned, had the spiders, the roaches, and the flies which made their homes in crevices and elaborately woven palaces of dusty web. Gone too, were the wooden decorations, the doorknobs, and parts of the ceiling, and return they had to the collapsed structures of caves, trees, and weeds.

Most would murmur words of unkindness to a structure such as this. "Tragedy," and "Ruin," and "Scary". But the visitor said none of these things. To her, the natural structures and cycles that livened up the hotel hallway in their sprawling, shameless display of change brought comfort. It was a testament to eternity, a place where nothing was truly ever lost but just began anew. There where there were no long, slow deaths or losses, simply a return to origin. No grief. Just new beginnings.

This comfort, softly nurtured and grown from a fear of finality had brought the woman here. Disguising itself as goodwill and unity, it had lured her to empty staircases and silent rooms, long since left to rot by their original owners. Afterwards, with promises of salvation and happiness, it had led her through the first floors and up the many stairways.