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Chapter 4: Welcome to The Foyer of The Distortion

Henry roamed down the cobbled pathway, wandering past the boarded markets and through the desolate thoroughfare. The usually bustling sidewalks were uncannily silenced, as if its movement dissipated into the hissing fog that skulked in the alleys. An intangible haze estranged him from the soundless world like the mimes' prison, as if he were seeing with his eyes shut and feeling the thick air with his imagination. He was unsure whether his thoughts were his, thinking he could control himself while merely perceiving. A sensation shaped and marked his processing of the experience, like a panic attack permeated with an eerie calmness. It was a strange and awkward experience. His body drifted down the way, a spirit of the night, noiselessly ghosting a looming building of dun-white terracotta. Contraptions and cogs rose from the roof of the structure, inventions beyond words. There was a time in which Henry was able to place a name to each invention, but he hardly felt himself now. Just a marionette acting out the part, or the puppeteer going through the motions; yes, they were there, and the puppet still moved, but they were not mentally present anymore. His body continued moving, as he wondered if he was the marionette or the master. He felt like the marionette, an emotionless dummy guided by an ethereal force. He felt like the master, controlling a body that was not his, not feeling or being what was seen. He decided he was both.

Henry's body ascended the familiar staircase to the building, leaving the fog that licked at his ankles and urged him to stay. He knocked on the door. He knew he'd done this before. After a few seconds he heard a dull thudding from the other side of the grand doors, as someone knocked back. The evening darkness lifted, swirling, twisting rapidly yet languidly, evaporating as quickly as it arrived; seeping into the floor of the cupboard he now found himself in. His eyes brushed over the children's garments, hanging tightly like a forest of cloth. Some awareness deep within himself recalled this was his childhood wardrobe... and the place of his last memory. The edges of his mouth tugged down. This was wrong. The air and the items had a blue tint to them, he glanced down and started at the azure shine of his own skin.

"What's going on?" The words flowed from his mouth, but the sound was illusionary, not in the world nor in his mind, simply... there. They did not echo, and they were not crisp; soft, and wispy like fairy floss and as intangible as a stream of smoke. His memory and mind grasped at the sound, finding it dissipated under touch leaving him uncertain he ever really heard it at all. It was as if a thought he never voiced was suddenly said, trickling some sense of reality into his mushy brain. He was aware something had touched his arm, though he did not feel it. He spun around, seeing a version of his old friend, his skin had an otherworldly glow like a blue moon.

"Lanyon!?" Henry felt a layer of dissociation melt away from his brain and pool in his skull; uncomfortable, but useful. Lanyon touched a finger to his chin in that old-fashioned way people used to show sarcasm. It reminded him of the way the Elizabethans would bite on their thumbs to flip off people, or the way Europeans would do the reverse peace symbol to achieve the same point.

"Sorry," His voice was definitely there, a little more distinct but originating from deep within his head. "Not quite." His ghostly companion was articulate in a way that is seldom seen nowadays. His friend leaned in, and Henry's chest fluttered as their faces came dangerous close. He stared into Lanyon's dark eyes, ruggedly framed by his blue tinted but still chocolate complexion.

"Wake up Henry," Lanyon urged. Henry shook his head. This was not correct. The memory didn't go like this. It was playing out wrong! "Henry, this is a dream!" Self-awareness uncomfortably and awkwardly snapped into his head, focussing his surroundings into startling clarity. He recognised this place now, this being his childhood closet. It was worrying that he had such vivid memories of its inside.

"Fake Lanyon?" Henry asked carefully, making sure this was in fact Fake Lanyon and not part of his dream. The handsome spectral man harrumphed indignantly.

"I prefer 'Mind Lanyon,' 'Fake Lanyon,' having a spoken accusation of being an imposter." Mind Lanyon had the most curious expression that was a mix of smug and irritated. The smug evaporated as the figment remembered why he was here in the first place. "You've got to get out of here before He realises you're back." Mind Lanyon whispered this time, the ominous allusion sending knowing shivers down Henry's back. His instincts understood even if his mind did not.

"Who's 'He?' Where are we?" He replied in hushed tones, not wanting to alert whoever He was to their presence.

"We're in the mindscape. It's essentially the inside of your mind; it's filled with halls of memories and figments like me that represent things help influence your decisions." Henry glanced over Mind Lanyon's incredibly formal Victorian era outfit completed with a sword-cane and a top hat, and frowned.

"What are you meant to represent?" He sounded disdained, much to his amusement.

"I'm your ideal of the perfect gentleman, and that just so happens to look like your best friend, Lanyon. Not that I'm complaining, he's not a bad looking fellow, is he?" Henry questioningly raised an eyebrow at the figment.

"So, you're repression then?" It came out more exasperated than he intended. Then again, he's been having trouble hiding his emotions lately for some unknown reason. Now that he looked closely, Mind Lanyon didn't look all that great either, bags cast under his eyes like the moon's crescent shadow, hair shining limply with the beginnings of grease, and his chocolate skin was tinted to a sickly parody of the pallor. Despite this, Mind Lanyon grinned proudly and gestured at himself.

"Pure English repression!" His eyes enlarged in terror as he tackled Henry behind a staircase. A thousand panicked questions permeated Henry's paralysed body as he realised the closet had elongated and widened into a hall connected to a multitude of spiralling staircases. Mind Lanyon hastily shushed him the moment his dry lips parted. The figment forced them to retreat further behind the stairs.

A sickly squelch made the railing and floorboards violently tremble. Henry's eyes darted upwards in silent prayer. Lanyon's glove sternly sewed his lips together, stifling his cries of revulsion. The creature was indescribable; some Lovecraftian amalgamation formed of tentacles and pure blackness. The kind of black you can only experience deep down within the earth. Alone. It evoked an extreme agony of the soul, manipulating some primal fear in his mind to thrash. Its burning sockets gleamed like the full moon, and full of just as many tales of horror. Its body of thick oily tendrils writhed as it moved past the duo. No, move was hardly the right word; it distorted, fluidly crawling forwards, skin swelling like thousands upon thousands of swarming spiders.

"Shhh! You are disturbing the specimen!"

Henry's eyeballs pulsed, dry with fear. Tense fingers pulled at his hair. The predatory silver pools of the nightmare creature's searchlight eyes boiled and stung his brain; trying to tug his memories from their chains like they were fingers upon his hand. His nose and mouth were full of a sickly sweet, coppery sensation.

"I mean the Vermifer Mordens. I have been tracking him all day. I would appreciate you not to contaminate my research site."

Phrases and flashes of blue uncurled from deep within his wounded head.

Dog.

"Give it back! The exam is in two days!"

Fester.

"You can have your precious anatomy books back as soon as you get some sleep." 

Madness.

"No! I set the nightmares free! I'm the one who controls them!"

Mistake.

"You NEVER controlled them, you stupid child. You just gave them a gentle nudge out the door."

Him.

Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Sharp thunderthrottled the distortion's foyer with crash of chain