So, this is something I wrote some months ago. As is typical for me I haven't touched it since, and I find it hard to read without cringing.
It's fairly short... and only a small part of a full story, but I'm pretty sure it's also the longest thing I've ever written. Which is kinda depressing.
I want to revisit it, but it's sorely in need of a rewrite, so I wanted to get some constructive criticism about what I need to improve before I start changing everything up.
So, without further blabbering, here's a small part of the tale of one person's journey through a surreal and harsh series of realities.
Exodus
The island was not the first world I visited. I have fragments of memories of something before. Ever since sleep returned to me I find myself dreaming of it, the memories are fitful, and vague. But they are there, and even then, on the island, I remembered some of what came before that.
I remember something the world, as it was. I know it was my home once, and I know it was destroyed. I have lingering sensation that I'm to blame for that, though I have no memories that can confirm that, just a suspicion that at times sticks to the back of my throat, and gives me a lingering sensation of remorse. I remember that world had beauty, though I don't remember in what way, and I remember that I experienced a great deal of joy when I was there.
I remember the aftermath of that world's destruction. I don't remember how it was destroyed. Neither can any of the others I've spoken to. I remember fragments of things I wished to forget, red sands beneath a red sun, twisted creatures that walked the sands aimlessly, each more horrific than the last. Those faces still haunt my dreams. Almost human faces, with lidless eyes that stared blankly at the sands around them. I remember fearing I would become one of them, and I remember eventually, somehow, I know not how, I escaped that world.
I must have washed up on the shores of the island at some point. I don't know how long I was there. I think it's the water, it eats memory, without the dreams that came later I don't think I would remember any of what came before at all.
The island is made of white rock, and white sands. There is no vegetation except for the tall trees that bear a variety of sweet tasting fruits. The sky is eternally grey, it has neither a day, nor a night. It ends on all sides with a sharp drop at water level, it's sides slope almost vertically into the depths of the sea.
The sea is utterly calm, and while the water itself is crystal clear, the sea is pure black. When someone stood and looked out at the horizon, it was easy to forget that there was anything at all in that black abyss.
It was easy to spot people coming to the island, each and every person followed the same pattern when first arriving.
First they would drift in from the horizon. If you counted to one hundred, then took a small step, you would still be moving faster than the pace at which the current carried them. One so gentle you could barely notice it.
Eventually they would touch the island, perhaps a head, or an arm, or a toe would make contact, and the instant that happened they would suddenly awake with a start. Then someone would come along and ease them out of their confusion. Oddly they wouldn't awake before they touched the island, you could swim out to one of them, nudge them, move them, shake them, and they wouldn't wake. But the moment they touched the rock of the island they awoke, each one suddenly gasping for a breath.
It's fair to say that island was paradise. We didn't feel pain, we didn't grow hungry, although there was fruit to eat. It was a tricky climb to reach the tops of those trees, but if you fell off you simply laughed and got back up. The fall would never hurt you. For a brief moment you might feel a slight stinging sensation, but that quickly passed and was forgotten.
We did grow thirsty, but the water was always there to slake your thirst. A few people starved themselves of water, I tried it myself once, eventually the discomfort grew unbearable, and nothing seemed to be accomplished by it. So for the most part we relaxed, lay back, and forgot the worries of the world that came before.
Eventually boredom got to you. Everybody grew restless eventually, and one by one we sought to leave.
It was impossible to swim very far down into the water, eventually the lack of air would push you into unconsciousness, then you would find yourself drifting face up on the surface again, moving ever so slowly towards the island. That left only one option, to swim out into the sea.
We all knew what was out there. It didn't matter which direction you swam in, eventually you would see the tower. Many people swam out to see it, then returned. But nobody that ever actually set in the tower returned. It's a smooth white tower, that extents as far as the eye can see into the sky. The tower is perhaps a couple of hundred paces in diameter, it has a small, smooth platform of rock extending out from around it's base, and on one side there is a portal, not much bigger than a man. It glitters with purples and pinks, I've personally watched three people enter that portal, and none of them came back. Eventually I entered it myself,.
Sometimes I think it's all been worth it. Other times I think it was the biggest mistake I've ever made. Maybe it's a little of both.
Inside, it was a palace filled with wonders. I never met anybody while I was in there. As far as I can tell everybody seems to vanish into their own world when they're in the tower.
Everything is made of the same strange crystalline substance. It shifts oddly with the light, in fact it is the light. It's mostly pink and purple, with hues of brown, and the odd flicker of white and blue.
The walls, the halls, the tables, the chairs, the odd sculptures, the domed rooms. They're all made from the same substances. Unsurprisingly, as soon as I turned my back on the exit, it was gone. I didn't mind though. The endless sprawl of rooms and hallways were enchanting, each one different from the last, filled with strange arrangements of furniture. Strangely, there were no stairs, and no ends to the tower. I walked in one direction, then I walked in another. But I never reached an edge. Sometimes I thought I did, any path you took throughout the complex would take you on a zigzagging course through various rooms and hallways. The tower seemed to dislike symmetry, though all the rooms were either rectangular boxes, or circular domes, they always varied in size, and were filled with haphazard arrangements of furniture. The most predominant of which was the sculptures. They were strange collections of spheres, twisting cylinders, and boxes connecting with each other in irregular spiral patterns. No two were alike.
It was impossible to measure time there. On the island, there had been a gentle dimming and brightening of the sky. You had days, although it was hard to remember how many had passed. In the tower you didn't eve have that. The longer I stayed there, the more the question of “how long have I been here” nagged at my mind. Eventually the rooms, the sculptures, the furniture, all began to feel monotonous. The same boredom from before began to take hold. Yet there seemed to be no end to the tower. However I was confident that it couldn't be infinite. That at some point I would find a edge, then a portal, that hopefully would lead back to the island. Or perhaps to some other, more interesting world. I had been through two before, I wouldn't have been surprised to enter another.
After some more time, my eyes began to ache. The bright colours of the tower gradually begin to feel harsh, and the constantly shifting nature of it made it hard to keep focus of where things are. It was a constant strain.
It was then that I started to notice the reflections. They would appear on walls, or ceilings, or floors when you looked at them from a specific angle. It took some time to realize that what I was looking at was myself. After that I realized that was the entire nature of the place. Pink from my skin, brown from my hair. Small, rare, amounts of white and blue from my eyes. It was reflected, divided, merged, refracted a thousand times and shown back to me on every surface, every object. The tower was one bizarre, gigantic mirror, that reflected myself, back onto myself in the strangest ways. My image was so fragmented that when seen on the crystal it simply seemed to be the natural colour of the substance.
Eventually my wonderment at this realization started to fade, and once again I found myself bored, and the harshness of the place was still wearing on me. I tried shutting my eyes, but somehow the colours simply appeared on the insides of my eyelids instead. Even shielding my eyes with my hand did nothing to stop it. It was impossible to escape those infinite reflections. The more I realized this, the more I wanted to get away. It was maddening, the reflections hounded me. Sometimes I caught an odd glimpses of myself, sometimes from above, sometimes from below, or the side, or the front. Sometimes I seemed titanic, other times I was a minuscule figure walking along. It started to feel like the tower was taunting me with these reflections. A thought started repeating itself in my mind.
“Look at yourself.”
Every time I saw one of those images of that same pained man wandering endless hallways the same thought visited me again.
“Look at yourself.”
They would come back again and again. I tried standing still, not moving at all, but the reflections still stirred, and the images still returned. Even when my eyes were closed I could still see the occasional brief image of myself, each time from a different angle. Each time a torturous reminder.
“Look at yourself.”
They kept coming back, sometimes I would go long periods without seeing one, but eventually they returned, the pause was just to give me a break, just to give me a little time to relax before the next assault. It all made sense to me now. All of this was just to torment me.
“Look at yourself.”
They started to appear more and more frequently. The question of how long I had been there started to nag at me. How many thousands of rooms had I passed through? Tens? Hundreds? Had I reached the millions? They stretched ever onward.
“Look at yourself.”
I wondered how long this would keep going on for, how much further until there was an exit from all of this, there had to be a way out, right?
“You're never leaving. Look at yourself.”
Doubt was starting to creep into me more and more.
“There's no way out. Look at yourself. You're never leaving.”
I began to hate those images, I began to hate myself.
“Aren't you hideous? You're never leaving. Look at yourself.”
I realized I always had, I'd just never really admitted it to myself before now.
“Look at yourself. How can you stand yourself? Aren't you hideous? This is eternal.”
I tried, I honestly tried to claw my own eyes out. But my body couldn't be harmed.
“This is eternal. Look at yourself.”
I screamed through the hallways.
“You're never leaving. Aren't you hideous? Look at yourself. You're pathetic.”
I cried, I wept, I ran.
“There's no way out. You're never leaving. Aren't you Hideous? This is eternal.”
I kept my eyes closed, it seemed to help, I tripped and stumbled, I felt my way along walls, desperate for some way out.
“You're never leaving. This is eternal. It's an eternal truth. Look at yourself. There's no way out.”
The endless series of images flicked by in my eyelids. Reflection after reflection, not just of the man collapsed against a wall, hands desperately covering his eyes. But of the man screaming through the hallways, of the man eagerly examining sculptures, of the man eagerly exploring the tower, of the man puzzled as he sees his first reflection, wondering who that is.
“Look at yourself. Aren't you hideous? You're pathetic. There's no way out.”
I felt myself along the boundaries of a room, it was a dead end.
“There's no way out. This is eternal. Look at yourself.”
The entrance was sealed up.
“Look at yourself. You're pathetic. This is eternal”
I shouted, I screamed, but it was all useless.
“Look at yourself. Look at yourself. Look at yourself. Look at yourself. Look at yourself.”
I opened my eyes, and there I stood, reflected on the wall, It was me, but I was calmly looking myself in the eyes... But I had never seen myself head on before. I had never seen a reflection so straight on that I could meet my own eyes.
“Aren't you hideous?”
The reflection spoke the words in time with my mind. Something broke inside me, I lost all grip on reality. I wondered who I was. Who's thoughts, who's words these were. Was this the tower, was this the reflection, was this the man? Who was I? Where did I fit into this? Who am I? The reflection answered my question.
“Look at yourself.”
I looked at the reflection, this was me?
“You're pathetic.”
Why did I hate myself? Why was I torturing myself?
“Aren't you hideous?”
It's true, I'm painful to look at. The same is true for everything when you look at it for long enough.
“How can you stand yourself?”
I didn't know, I still don't. Briefly my mind stood empty. Then the reflection spoke again.
“This is eternal.”
The constant exposure was what was destroying myself, I felt detached at the thought,
“You're never leaving.”
Why should I care about the fate of this creature?
“There's no way out.”
He could remain exactly where he is. It didn't bother me.
“There's no way out.”
It didn't matter anyway. The question was out of my hands. I had no control over this person's fate.
“There's no way in, there's no way out.”
I hadn't said that, had I?
“There's no way in.”
The reflection turned, and walked. I realized everything had gone dark, there was only me, and the reflection walking away from me. Somehow without moving I was keeping pace..I reached out and touched the wall. I was still trapped in that room.
Eventually I saw a light in the distance, I watched in silence as the light grew, and I realized that it was a slab of the crystalline material. It still carried the same shifting colours, but with no images surfacing on it. It was embedded in a wide white arch. The reflection walked up to the arch. He the slab, then turned to look me in the eye.
“There's no way out.”
He looked sad, there were tears in his eyes, and I realized there tears in mine too.
“I can never leave. This is eternal.”
So this was his fate for all eternity? I found myself overcome with grief for this person.
“You can never enter.”
Something felt odd. I looked around, I was outside the tower, I placed my hand against the wall again, except this time I was placing my hand against the slab. The slab was the doorway leading to the tower, and the reflection was trapped inside. Panic overtook me, I slammed my fist against it, hoping to break through, but it wouldn't move.
The reflection turned, and simply walked away. Tears were flowing down my face. I'd hoped to be able to keep him company. But he was going to spend all eternity alone.
I slumped onto the floor and closed my eyes. The pinkish colours and images were gone. Instead I only saw the white light of a grey sky.
Gradually reality reasserted itself. I was puzzled by what had happened. I think I really did leave some part of me behind in there. A part of me that could suffer the torture. But I vowed to go on, get away from there, and see what other worlds, experience joy once again, on behalf of the person I left behind in that tower.
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It was then I realized how thirsty I was.
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Topic: A bit of writing (Read 912 times)