Black Labyrinth

Ether

Lane told me once about how he lived his life before he built up our community. He wasn't that old when all of this first started. He told me about his first job, working the phones for a company that specialized in customer service contracts for other major companies. Whatever that means.

He sat in a cubicle somewhere on one of the middle floors of this huge high-rise. All of the cubicles were facing the large glass screen that overlooked midtown.

I remember exactly how he told it.

"I read the article. My friends, my family, they all read the article. I could have written a checklist and by the end of it, all the names would have been crossed off. Everyone I had ever known. Teachers, classmates, the morning security guard that watched the entrance of my old high school.

Every day I woke up and it was programmed into my brain, this routine. I washed my face before I brushed my teeth. I had my work clothes hanging from the chair in my bedroom, waiting for me every morning. I'd shower with scalding hot water. It was gradual, from warm to hot to scalding.

For six months I went to work and I sat there waiting to do my job. It was a test of patience, or fear. It could have easily been the fact that I was incapable of doing anything else. Even so, I went and watched as the numbers slowly dwindled. I was always the first one in, and the last one out.

At first there were a few calls. I remember this call I took once. Guy on the other side of the line was screaming. He was in a panic, yelling about how it was his toaster's fault. He told me this elaborate theory about how the toaster gave him a sign. Carved in to the burnt face of his toast was Jesus.

Pretty soon I was the only one going in, and by that point there weren't any calls. The lights were barely running and it wasn't like I picked a better spot or I goofed off. No, I went in every day and like a compulsion I sat at my seat. I hoped, prayed even that the phone would ring so I could pick up. Maybe I could help someone, because I needed to. Or maybe it's because it's the only thing that made sense."

Before Lane found us we were squatting in abandoned apartments. Never in the same apartment for more than a night, and never in the same building twice.

We lived in a desolate sandbox, filled with dark alleyways and corners. The stagnant aura followed us from street to street, building to building.

The setting sun was our sign to start looking. We carefully mapped our routes around the city blocks, avoiding open streets and shady corners. A knowledge we had acquired early on was the existence of predators.

Our current reality had fostered an environment. A disease had spread. A sickness that took the good that once existed and corrupted it beyond belief, twisting it into something evil.

The night belonged to the creatures that lurked in the shadows. Hiding in alleyways and corners, watching their prey from a distance. The disease was an acceptance of behaviors once frowned upon.

Yet in a world without meaning, the creatures of the night ruled. The surface belonged to the demons. We lived in the devil's playground.

This wasn't a lesson we learned easily.

"Help me!" he yelled as he pulled on the collar of the shirt. Connected to a corpse of a man he tried to drag out of the apartment doorway. The wound on the side of the corpse's head had dried, but left an ugly stain in the middle of the living room carpet.

"Why do you always do this?" I asked as I ran around and grabbed his legs as best I could.

We counted down from three. Two. One, and with as much as two kids could muster he pulled and I pushed. Michael pulled the collar from the side and let go at the end of the thrust, letting the stiff body slide down the stairs.

"I don't want to share an apartment with a body, do you?" he asked, as he leaned over trying to breathe.

"I don't mind actually. He's dead, what's the worst he could do?"

I think there was a fear we had of wandering too far into any of the apartments. We picked a spot, usually the living room. A wide open space we could watch the doorway from, and we tried our best to sleep. It felt like a dream, or a curse the way that crying had replaced what I imagined crickets sounded like in the countryside. Instead of a soothing rhythm, it was a horrifying nightmare.

This time it felt like the weeping was haunting us. Getting closer and closer. Hovering over our sleeping bodies, followed by the sound of plates crashing. Things fumbling around in the dark. I tightened the seal my eyelids had made hoping that if I kept resisting, the creature might vanish.

All I could hear next was the shriek.

"What did you do to him?!" It screamed beside me.

Covered in a stained white gown, it pushed down on Michael's throat with its malnourished body. Its hair, long, frizzed and unkempt. It screamed louder now as it pushed down on Michael's throat, "What the fuck did you do to my husband!" Slamming his head on to the floor.

It was hard to see its face in the dark candle-lit room, but I could see its eyes. A bright pale color that shined through the black. A witch. It screeched louder now, pulling back as it prepared for another slam.

I ran to the kitchen which faced the living room, pulling the only available weapon I could find. A knife I grabbed from the rack. I leapt on to the witch's back, grabbing its hair to maintain balance, its head raised in the process. It's arms reached back trying to pull me off, scratching me deep on my side. It let out another disorienting screech. As it winded up for another, I stuck the blade through its throat, like a sheath.

Michael rolled over as the witch's corpse prepared to drop, landing in the spot where he previously laid. The corpse made another stain, both equal in size and adjacent to that of her husband's. As it spread out, the edge of her stain touched that of her partner's, uniting as two misshapen circles made of blood.

I couldn't look away from the body. My effect on it was clear. Maybe that's why I couldn't resist the pain that came with it. Mortified by the deep gash in my side I began to weep loudly as I held my wound.

A part of me was convinced that once the bleeding was over, the cut would become infected. A black spot covering the side of my body, slowly spreading throughout the rest of it. Until all that was left were pale colored eyes and the loud screeching sounds my malnourished self would make, as I hovered over the graves of my loved ones.

The grief and pain of my actions overcame me. I dropped beside the growing puddle in the carpet and buried my face into my hands. I hadn't realized the words I was repeatedly whispering to myself, over and over again.

"I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster"

Behind me I felt a pair of small arms wrap around my waist, carefully avoiding my wound. Michael rested his head on my back and thanked me. He said, "You're not a monster, I promise."

I interrupted Lane as he told his story, I wanted him to cut to the chase. To get to the point.

"What changed? What made you stop going to work?" I asked enthusiastically.

"I got lucky. I found someone who needed me," he responded. I can remember the smile he gave me.

"Amber?" I asked.

"Yeah, I almost ran her over as I drove over to work. Like a deer in headlights, she stopped as she saw my car approaching. We both froze, making eye contact with one another. She made the first move, running over to the driver side window. She yelled out in confusion as I was sitting in this car, in a suit and tie. Going to work as if nothing had happened.

'Where are you going?' she asked.

It wasn't an unreasonable thing to ask me. The more I thought about the question the more it became clear. We were two people wandering around aimlessly, both of us kind of like a deer in headlights.

It was immediate I think, the way I snapped out of it. She got in through the passenger side and the strangest thing happened. We laughed.

Ever since then, I've been whoever it is she's needed me to be."