Dark

Titanium

I ran down the abandoned halls as fast as I could, my eyes sweeping left and right for any signs of life. I saw none, other than the occasional crumbling of a wall. It scared me when the wall did crumble, though, because he dust and drywall from it floated off like gravity didn’t affect it then dissolved into nothing in two blinks. I shook off the feeling and ran faster, and then I stopped at a door to a classroom at the end of the hall. It was the only door there, and it was perfectly centered in the wall. I stopped running a few feet away from it and slowly walked to it. Something was off about this whole thing, but I couldn’t place it. It was scaring me, though, and I didn’t like it.

I put my hand on the doorknob and felt the cool metal, and then it didn’t feel so cool. I removed my hand and looked down at it, then jumped away. It was still metal, but it was dripping and melting very slowly. It was metallic silver goo that was dripping onto the floor and steam was coming off of it. I slowly reached out and felt the steam; and it was freezing cold. I yelped and pulled my hand away, not knowing how anything like that could be possible, but then it seemed like time skipped. Like a record skipping, I was suddenly in the classroom and the door was open behind me. There was silver metallic goo all over my left hand, as that was the hand I would have used to open the door.

“Get the fly out of the batch!” Someone cried from inside the room. I blinked, finding that sentence rather strange, but it made sense somehow. Anyway, as they said it I looked up into the room and my eyes widened in fear.

It was a regular school classroom, and all the desks were full. But they were child-sized desks, and the people in them were adults. They were all dressed in identical black formal suits, and they sat with their backs rigid, but their heads. Their heads were oversized, and they were generic yellow smiley faces, like the stickers you used to get at Wal-Mart.

Suddenly they all turned to me at the exact same time. The movement was jerky but they didn’t move more than they needed to; just enough for them to be looking directly at me.

“Get the fly out of the ba-a-a-a-a-tch-batch-baaaaaaaaaaaaaa…” The voice began repeating what it first said, but it began breaking off and sounding like a glitch. It continued to repeat, glitching repeatedly but randomly as the things in the desks slowly stood, still looking straight at me. For some reason I just stood there, letting them crowd around me as the phrase repeated, sounding like a sick soundtrack to whatever was happening. What was happening I had no idea, but I didn’t like it; it was scaring me.

They continued to surround me as the phrase got higher in pitch and faster and faster. Even the glitching noises sped up with the phrase. Then the things began reaching out to me, each of them with one arm only. All of them using their right hand for some reason, but as they did, the phrase began changing.

“Get-t-t-t the fly-ay-ay out of the b-b-b-b-bat-batch… Get-t-tita-the fly out-t-ti of the ba-a-a-at-t-titanium!” It screamed, the volume beyond loud but it not seeming to bother anyone, including me.

“Get the fly out of the titanium?” I muttered to myself. As I spoke the smileys made this strange hissing noise and put the hand that was reaching out to me over the area where their nose would be. I had no idea what that meant, but the voice changed and said what I had said, much to my surprise. Before anything else could develop, everything skipped again. I was standing on the teacher’s desk, but it wasn’t in the same room. I was in a different room and this one had horses in the walls. I don’t mean on, either. I mean there were horses in the walls. Like, I could only see the front of some, backs of others, and sides of others. It was all rather random, and I thought it couldn’t get any more so but then one opened its mouth and a bright purple fish poked its head out. I peered at it curiously and then it slid out of the horse’s mouth and floated a couple inches above the ground towards me… or the desk I was standing on anyway.

“You need to associate yourself with the unfamiliarity of this situation before you attempt to-” It began in a very dignified English accent, giving me a very dignified look. But before it could finish everything skipped again.

Now I was standing motionless on a purple cloud. The sky was pure white, and there was nothing but the deep purple fluff below me, and then me myself. I walked forward in a trance-like state, and then I suddenly fell through onto a giant, bright neon yellow rubber duck. I landed on its back and it exclaimed something in a really thick Scottish accent that I couldn't really understand. I apologized but it just started rambling on in the accent. I tried to understand but I couldn’t really. I think it said something about Nostradamus, though. I looked over the edge of the duck, and then I skipped once again.

I was now sitting down on the floor in the middle of a small apartment and popping my back by bending backwards nearly all the way, but then I snapped in half where I was bending and popcorn started coming out of the open wound like crazy and it quickly covered the floor around me in a large radius. I slowly reached out and took a piece and ate it, but instead of tasting like popcorn, it tasted like brown. Then I skipped again and I was in nothing but black. I didn’t skip again, and nothing else happened… ever.

END