Dark Dream

14. Welcome to Hell

Charlie awoke to the near silence. His music no longer played and the lights were dimmed. The Themes could just be seen through the pelting rain that he'd earlier predicted. His mouth felt dry so he reached for a bottle out of the cooler next to him. He was grateful that he'd not gone through his usual bout of paranoia and had slept into dreamless sleep. His only real need was to empty his bladder but he felt rested.

The monitors were in standby so he moved the mouse to nudge them awake.

Charlie could barely stand these words, as he looked at the etchings once more. They looked the same but, being the other way round, looked different. It made more sense this way.

"He?" Charlie heard himself say.

REPEATED SECTION __WHO IS THAT

"We?" Charlie quizzed; feeling humbled and mesmerized by the intricate pattern that weaved its way to the centre. It was strange how a small but complex pattern could infuse such rapture in him. It held an ancient quality that seemed ripe with meaning, with themes and ideas he strove to deny—but could not. He somehow knew this pattern; had always known it.

As Charlie tried to ignore the spoken words, the pattern on its face began to glow from within. Like tiny embers, fired by an unseen breeze, Charlie felt their heat against his exposed eyeballs. His vision magnified and the pattern filled his senses further. He tried to close his eyes but his retinas felt branded. It was like watching the beginning of the world, with hot bubbling lava weeping freely from the Earth's crust. As his vision changed, the embers became miniature faces, wrapped in their own torments. Their features seemed dissolved and unmemorable—only their fear would Charlie remember. No sound came from them but each one look shocked, lose ridden and corrupted by fear. Charlie somehow knew them as lost souls, pushing at the boundaries of their freedom but unable to fight the gravity that held them.

Then the picture reseeded from him. Soon it replaced by the same scene but without the burning faces. He realized that he was no longer where he'd been, in the strange half-world of the café toilets. All was dark, with no hint of the fiery faces he'd just seen, and he strained to make out the black pathways that made up the maze. This was the maze, in its entirety, he thought, as he somehow hovered over its vastness. The pathways looked like perfect gray slate with sharp edges and corners which jarred the senses. Charlie could see the pathways were raised above a sharp drop to each side. As he approached he could see that it looked like a normal hedged maze, in many respects. But the raised pathways had replaced the hedges and where the footpaths would normally have been, there appeared to be black and shiny liquid, much like oil. All of these details and the maze itself were picked out by a light that came from somewhere above. He couldn't see its source but he could feel it drilling down on him and the great maze, lending everything enough light to exist, but no more.

"Remember the bridges, Charlie." The voice came through strongly but Charlie wasn't afraid. He knew it came from the figure that had granted him access to this strange and wonderful place.

The bridges, Charlie saw, were sometimes short and sometimes long. Sometimes they went from one pathway, straight across to an adjacent pathway, and sometimes they spanned over two, three and sometimes four separate pathways, including the oily chasms either side. This made for long arching bridges, wider where it touched the pathways and thinner at its highest point. From here they looked quite steep but Charlie guessed that they would be less daunting from a closer perspective. Nevertheless, they still looked exposed and unprotected. Charlie lived in a world where safety rails and fences were the norm and it was strange to see no such things here. Just a path, with freedom ahead and death either side. Although he felt no fear, he marveled at the scale and splendor of this architecture that had no obvious use, but existed anyway.