House of the Broken God

"It is said; knock and the door will be opened; therefore I tell you; do not knock for we may know not, they that will answer."

-Unknown

"Just knock on the right door."

-sarah

House of the Broken God

Introduction & part I

Introduction

Dec 8 1997

Jamey and Laura stood before the pulsating wall of neon, and Laura felt her skin tingling. Jamey knew what she was feeling but his breath was sucked away and into the portal before he could reassure her. She seemed frightened to Jamey but she was more than that. It was the fear of the unknown. The oldest, richest strain of terror. She was utterly petrified. Tommy walked up between them and clapped their shoulders. He was a good deal taller than his little cousins and had more self-proclaimed balls than anyone in the family.
"Scared brats?"

His voice was caught up and twisted into a deeper darker tone by the swirling air, it said I'm not scared cause I've done it. The air spun and hummed, not quite wind as mush as some kind of horrendous pressure. Much later Laura would find that the pressure surrounding the portals was a constant fluctuation between 0.857 and 1.23 atmospheres. It was terrible and wonderful. The kind of feeling that leaves goose pimples on your neck, even in recollection; some awful euphoria; some amphetamine high, unattainable in any other manner.

And so dark were the faces of the twins, Jamey and Laura as tommy gently yet firmly pushed them towards the wall of rippling light. Laura's pulse quickened as she saw the light leap from its rolling surface and lap at their appendages. The light of the room bent in like starlight through squinted eyes and a water dappled window. Tommy's firm hand prodded her on and she felt her heels skid for a moment on the floor. Suddenly his hand was gone and she realized that she was being pulled into the ocean of lights in front of her. She wanted to pull away. She wanted to grab Jamey's hand, shove tommy into the floor and bolt from the strangeness around her. But she didn't. She walked, of her own accord, into the portal.

Part 1

Laura knocks

The undulations of the wall spit tiny splashes of colored light, that dissipated into the air, similar to flames lapping up from a bed of coals. Laura stood overlooking a vista of pure fantastic terror. Her breath left her in a numb gasp. She could name nothing she saw, nor could she for as long as she lived. Light and dark were one, colors so brilliant and awesome her tiny mind could but strain desperately to process their depth. Some sort of forest possibly, teeming with life of one sort or another, universes wide, sprawled before the young girl, her mouth agape. Or perhaps it was not so large as she was small. Perhaps it was a bed of some exquisite flora, stretching into the heavens. The inexplicable is somewhat horrible to behold. A man walks on water and it cannot be explained but we process it as "an act of God" upper or lowercase as you please. But this was something Laura could not reconcile in anyway approaching sanity. Oh my God. Her voice was mute. Maybe there was no medium to carry the sound. She could not tell.
A wonderful, brilliant, terrible feeling spread through her body in ripples of ecstasy. And in that moment, as she stood amidst the complete and utter unknown it is possible the poor girl went quite mad. MADNESS.

Is it a facet of madness itself that the onset of said condition is the inability of the mind to recognize it? And if so could we not all have lost our minds to some degree or another? I am sure that this is a common thought among young people, however it cannot be dismissed as the idle pondering of the youthful mind. The gravity of such a question can not be taken lightly, regardless of its origin. If a child sees a wound and voices concern, do we chastise him? "You don't know what you are talking about! I am the adult so I make the observations!" No. The youthful inquisition of the human mind wondrous; innocent observation, free from the biases that pack the adult mind.

Quite suddenly, Laura was torn from her stupor and back into whatever reality she was now existing in. Jamey had her by the meat in the back of her arm and was clenching painfully, terror dancing in his hazel eyes. Don't look jay! It will ruin your brain! Again she was unable to articulate verbally, so she turned and held him, burying her face in his neck. He stumbled back and fell to his knees, bringing her with him, where they both sat for some undetermined length of time. It seemed that there was no real passage of time. They had not just come through the portal, nor had they come through a hundred or even a thousand years in the past. They simply were there. We are so inoculated to time's gruesome presence that the lack thereof is wholly unfathomable.

In the case of Laura and Jamey, this (what can only be described as) feeling manifested as a rush of dopamine on par with death itself. It was ecstasy unlike any they had experienced or ever would. Though she knew not then, this excess release of the "love chemical" is what caused her initial madness. She held Jamey, and he her. They felt each other's hearts and minds as if they were one. Tommy was there, smiling wildly, facing into the colors, lights and utter void that surrounded the trio. Laura was screaming now, in a fantastic mixture of dread and joy. Jamey was unable to tear his gaze from the scenery. And all at once there was a new feeling; a change; an awful, horrible, evil realization. The feeling was in Laura. It was in Jamey. And it was in tommy. And they writhed in agonizing understanding beneath its oppression. Like ants under a magnifying glass. Like some great pane of glass was suddenly pressing down on them, somehow form all directions at once. This world. This place. Is ALIVE.

And it doesn't want us here.

WrOnG DoOr.

Kl'hentl funrh thn'gluhi pl vungll

Laura was back in the room. Jamey and tommy sat with her, all in a circle. Laura's jaw dropped.
"What...was...it was so...much."
Tommy twitched and his eyes focused on her as he too sank back into reality. He smiled. Not a happy smile. More cruel, like how a shark must look to a much...much smaller fish. Almost as if Laura was not worth his time.
"I've been in three times now."
He sounded almost boastful, but there was an edge of fear in his words. Respect. Laura shuttered. Jamey's deep calm breaths quickened and his eyes widened. He threw out his hands wildly as if to catch himself and gulped huge mouthfuls of air into his panicked lungs. Laura held his arm as he steadied himself, returning to this world. Tommy snickered. Casting a baleful glare at him, Laura felt her self bristling with anger.
"How did we even get back?"
Tommy shrugged dismissively.
"I dunno how it works. We just...DECIDED to come back..."
He paused and the fear returned to his voice.
"...and it let us."
Jamey spoke up shakily.
"That was definitely the wrong door."
Laura turned to him and as she did she felt her head throb. Jamey looked like he felt the same. Tommy stood and leaned against the wall, now suddenly solid again.
"felt good didn't it?"
He smirked at the siblings, Laura in particular.
Laura could no longer contain herself, and swung her head around to the older boy, eyes blazing.
"Fuck you Tommy."
Jamey, fingers pressed to his temples, let his eyes focus and settle on tommy.
"Dick."
.
.
.
.
Felt good?
Yeah.
Felt damn good.

End part I