The Heaven and Hell Complex

Part 4

  I remembered how many times I tried to adjust my eyes to this. I looked down to my feet, then back up again.

I couldn't understand how this was done.
Douglas Day's reflection just stared down at us, hanging upside down, standing on the ceiling as two of us were beneath it, my reflection totally absent.

I asked him if this was a trick of the light. But when he turned to explain to me, I noticed in my peripheral vision that his reflection had not moved.

Perhaps in hindsight I should have been more shocked, but in an odd way, I felt more relieved.
I don't even remember what exactly Douglas had told me at this point. I was just too busy coming up with my own conclusion.

The reflection was in fact a recording, and the mirrors were just screens.

I do remember, however, that Douglas said at one point "...I did this before you came her, just to see if it would work."

With this, I assumed he meant that he recorded himself earlier that day, and projected the image up onto the ceiling.

Afterwards I told him about my assumption of him using cameras and screens to accomplish this, but to my surprise instead of seeming lightheartedly and sarcastically disappointed that I caught onto his 'illusion', he seemed...offended in some way.

He soon smiled again in his usual enthusiastic manner, proclaiming that I hadn't looked over the side of the balcony yet.
I told him I had done, and I saw the oil-covered floor. He replied with.
"No...looked directly beneath you."

I did as he said.
And saw Douglas's reflection staring back up at me. But much like the ceiling, my reflection was not seen.

Again, I thought this was just another recording on a screen.
But as I began to think about it more, the floor wasn't completely solid. I could easily interpret the ceiling as just being a huge screen portraying some pre-recorded footage, but surely the oil-surface that covered the floor would at least show a faint reflection of myself.

No.

No reflection.

Not even a faint outline.

I was incredibly bemused, and I wanted to know how this was done.
Douglas Day seemed very adamant to tell me, as if he were a magician being asked to give away his grand secrets.

Instead, he instructed me to stay up on the balcony, as he would enter through the small door on the lower floor, that would lead down the staircase.
He told me to watch both him as he entered, then the rectangular opening from the other side of the pillar. But not the real one, he told me, the reflections of the opening, both on the ceiling, and in the ground.

And so I stood there as he proceeded downstairs and sure enough he opened the small door leading down the darkened staircase. Before he descended, he waved to me up at the balcony in a gleeful manner, and I cordially waved back, getting more enthralled by the minute of where this was all leading up to.

He had soon disappeared beneath the flooring. I looked over, beginning to wonder how deep or shallow the pool of oil really was. It was clear that something kept the liquid in as to not flood the staircase, but I couldn't see any clear barriers to separate the liquid from the staircase to prevent it from spilling. I started to wonder if the reflective oily surface was even liquid at all.
As I waited, I very quickly took of my shoe in hopes of finding a small rock or a chunk of gravel. Sure enough, a tiny rock I could throw over the edge. I didn't want to ruin Mr Day's artwork, but I was far too curious.

I dropped the rock.

I heard a small "plop" and the surface rippled.

Yes. Definitely a liquid surface.

But before my mind could question it further, the ground's reflection of the rectangular opening caught my eye, as I saw something emerge from it.

Or to put it more correctly, someone emerged from it.