Catch ThirtyThree

Chapter Six (Entrapment)

“Mutiny of self. Insurrection games convincingly performed

                  Incapacitated by physical thoughts acting out the will of tendon and bone

                  Have the bridges of insanity been crossed and forever retracted?

                  Am I standing among a thousand selves?

                  Is the multitude of laughters mine alone?”

 

Relief washed over me as I drank.

Relief entered my system and flooded it with relaxation and a steady focus. I chuckled lightly. It was good to share a laugh, and likewise was laugh-worthy to be good. I was at home again. I sat there for I know not how long, and slowly my mind began to open, and I found myself in a new building. Or was it? It looked like my own house, but it was so much cleaner. So much cleaner. The cracked and crumbling walls were firm, strong, white and upright. The destroyed tiling floor that had given way to dirt was now smooth wood, and on its own pedestal in the living room, adjacent to the kitchen, was my notebook, enclosed in a glass case. A plaque below it signaled the book’s success, and on the fresh leather couches sat my family. Oh, how it had been years since I had seen them last. I smiled, a true smile, and they smiled back. My beautiful wife, my beautiful children, my beautiful home, they were back. My success was recognized. Everything I lost had been returned.

“Will you get a blanket for the baby, dad?” asked my son. He had a daughter! Oh, God, I was a grandfather, how had I forgotten? I nodded vigorously and stood, walking down the narrow hallway, noting the drawings from my notebook painted all over the walls. As I walked, the hallway seemed to get longer, and I quickly realized it was taking far longer than it should have to reach the end door.
Laughing came from the living room, and I turned to see my family chuckling at me. The hallway was normal length. I frowned and turned back, continuing to walk, but the hallway only grew longer, and I frowned deeper, pausing for a moment. They were laughing again, but it came from the rooms on either side of me as well. I slammed open the doors, but only empty rooms were before me. I shut both portals and reached for the door directly in front of me, but it stretched backwards once more. I turned around and walked into the living room, frustrated.

“I can’t find the blankets, I’m sorry.”

“Dad, let me show you.”
My son, now in his late twenties, took me by the hand and led me back down the hallway, reaching out and opening the door without any problems. I was blown away.

“How did you..?” I was stopped mid-sentence by where my room had been. It was now pure blackness, enveloping and devouring, pouring out of the doorway and into the halls, and hands, oh God the hands, they were rotting and skeletal and all forms of life and color, they were reaching out of the blackness. I jerked away but my son grabbed me, turned around and faced me, and my stomach dropped; his eyes had become empty sockets, and his lips curled into a grin of filed teeth that stretched up to his temples.

“Let me show you, dad.”

And he pushed me into the hungry hands, into that abyss, and then all was black.