The air resistance is ripping at my body, my hair, my clothes. My mind is reeling I can’t even see straight. I can barely even hear the air racing past me, it is completely drowned out by the sound of my heartbeat thundering in my ears. The sound is so loud it feels like my head is going to explode at any second. My chest hurts and I can’t even breath anymore. I think I’m going to die of heart attack or something any moment now, like falling to my death isn’t even going to matter.
The platforms above me have already disappeared in the distance. This can’t be happening. I don’t want to die.
I manage to turn myself around somehow to face whatever is going to kill me. I can’t say it’s a good idea to be facing what may well be the fast approaching ground that will splatter me to pieces. For now however there is nothing to see, just the continual void as the air continues to rip past my face. In the end, can’t say it was a good or a bad idea, the endless void below not being any different from the endless void above me and by no means any less unsettling.
A few more moments pass and while I am still ready to brown my pants at a moment's notice, I feel like I am at least not going to drop dead from a heart attack at any moment. The void all around me seems to be having some kind of calming effect on me. It’s like I’m floating freely through the air, albeit really fucking quickly. In fact I would not know which direction is up or down at this point were it not for the direction of my hair blowing and direction of the air resistance.
Is it strange that I’m continuing to calm down despite currently falling to my death? It’s probably not the ‘calming effect of the void’, I have no illusions about being a really screwed up person after all.
I can’t but help wonder at this point how long I’m going to keep falling. A sudden thought flashes across my mind that I might end up starving to death before reaching the ‘bottom’. I quickly brush the thought from my mind however, as that is even more unpleasant than the thought of ‘splattering’. Actually, now that I think about it, it may very well be entirely possible, especially if there is no ‘bottom’. Seeing how this place is so far, I certainly can’t rule out the possibility. It definitely is strange after all. Considering, that now I feel more depressed than I do scared.
I can’t but help inwardly sigh as I continue my uneventful ‘descent’ while debating by what horrible method my life is going to end. I do not have to wait all that long for my answer though.
In the distance I can see another ‘platform’. It quickly ascends past me, or I past it, as it is about a hundred meters away from my current falling trajectory. The platform passes by my field of view in an instant, the speed at which it flew by me, despite being in the distance sends shivers down my spine. That would have been one very serious ‘splat’.
The knowledge that the human body has a certain maximum free fall speed in the presence of air and that I have likely long since reached ‘terminal velocity’ helps ease my mind a little. Emphasis on ‘little’. Counter to that however is now the certain knowledge of how I will meet my end. If there is even a single platform in the distance on this ‘below’ side of the world, then there is little reason to believe that there are not plenty more platforms in this place and eventually I’m going to crash into one of them.
Sure enough not even a moment passes since that morbid thought and I can see a platform directly below me, approaching at an alarming speed. I brace myself for certain death. It would probably be smart to shut my eyes, but I just can’t seem to bring myself to do it.
It is fortunate however that I did not, or I may have been tensely waiting for death with my eyes closed like an idiot, for quite some time. Since I ‘conveniently’ fell through a gap or a long slit in the platform and ended up passing right by it. The platform itself was fortuitously ‘cracked’ in half or something like that, with many smaller pieces of platform scattered about (smaller being quite relative) and I somehow managed to fall right between the pieces of platform and through the giant ‘slit’.
Then again fortuitous does not seem to adequately describe this situation. Aren’t we just delaying the inevitable here? I am all of a sudden overcome with a desire to just ‘end it’ already. The stress of waiting to die is becoming really annoying. As fate is however an ironic grade A bitch, I do not see any more platforms for quite some time. When I do once again see another platform, it is one that is once again in the distance. I swear I can feel that platform mocking me.
Moments later a platform comes into view directly below me once more. Finally. Who would of thought I’d ever be relieved to die! My thoughts however, momentarily turn to frustration when I realise that there is once again a gap running along the platform directly below me, once again filled with pieces of broken platform. I was about scream out in annoyance when I notice that this time, I am heading straight for one of those ‘pieces’.
The piece that will finally bring an end to me is little more than three by three meters in size, but that doesn’t matter much, it will surely kill me all the same. I grit my teeth, as my heart races, mentally preparing myself for the impact with the fast approaching object. As I’m about to collide with it however, it suddenly disappears and I pass right through it.
Huh?
My brain takes a moment to start working again, seemingly needing some time to boot up again after its shut down from the prospect of facing certain death. When the gears do start turning again however, I turn my head up angrily and scream all manner of curses at the fucking disappearing platform! I swear, I am fucking cursed!
I glare the disappearing platform into submission as he and his mother fucking disappearing friends vanish into the distance. It is at this point however that something clicks. I maniacal laughter erupts from my chest. You have got to be fucking kidding me! If there is a god, then he certainly has a sense of humor and is a total fucking sadist to boot!
Just like the East and the West, the top and the bottom are also circular. I’ve been falling past the very same platform that I originally fell off in the first place! The new found knowledge is filled with both humour and despair. To be so close to ‘home’, to ‘safety’ and literally have to watch it pass you by over and over again, could there be a joke more cruel?
I wonder how many more times I am going to pass by, before finally colliding with something. I am left now only with despair of waiting to die in such an ironic way, that is by crashing into the very ground I was standing on originally! I would of course curse out at the sadistic god from my earlier thoughts, if I believed in God in the first place, which unfortunately I do not. Cursing not even having an almighty being to curse at, I instead wait in quiet contemplation for the platform to arrive again.
Safety is so close, yet so far. Life itself is right there, readily available if it were not for the fact that I am traveling so fast, if I could just stop falling, slow down.
SLOW DOWN!
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
An absurd idea is crawling across my brain. An idea that has little chance of success and is far more likely to cause a more painful and slower death, but for the chance of life. For the chance to spit in the face of the deity that I do not believe exists!
I wait until the platform in the distance once more becomes visible, a sign that my target will soon arrive. I immediately straighten out my body and stop flailing around pointlessly. I angle and position my body just how I imagine a skydiver would do it in order to propel himself in a forwards-like direction. The goal this time is to not to fall through the ‘cracks’ but rather, crash right into the solid platform that leads home.
At the same time, while trying to ‘move’ myself, I unclip the hair gun and begin charging it. After several seconds the far platform has passed me by and the ‘home platform’ is coming into view. By this point the pitch of the noise the hair gun is making has seemed to peak out, indicating what I assume to be a full charge. It matters little however, as I am out of time.
My ‘move’ worked and I am now barreling straight towards the ground. With a deep breath I wait as long as I dare, lest I miss my one and only literal shot at this. At the last possible moment, as the ground threatens to swallow me whole, I fire.
And then the world turns black.
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I open my eyes to a world of darkness. Either I failed to open my eyes or I’m dead. The notion of my surmised death is quickly dissuaded by the tremendous amount of pain wracking my body. Either I am very much alive, or this is hell.
Every inch of my body seems to be ‘bound’. Movement of any kind is filled with pain and resistance. Remembering what happened and the assumed outcome, I look up. But all I can I see is more darkness. I try clawing my way up as though I were swimming in a heavy liquid, but to no effect. I do however notice the occasional glimmer of light in the distance, but it is so feint as to be a reflection of a reflection of a mirage.
Since ‘up’ is clearly not happening, I instead refocus my efforts on some more lateral movement. Every movement is meet with many obstacles and great resistance. The endeavour to move forward is immensely tiring and straining on my body that is continuously assaulted by a permeating pain wracking it. There is literally nothing that doesn’t currently hurt like hell.
The general all round claustrophobia of this stuffy space that is making it very difficult to breath is inducing mild panic in me and driving my forward, pushing me through the pain, the dark and the obstacles in my way. It takes me a full ten minutes to finally fight my way to the edge and escape into the light.
I clamber forward and collapse to the ground on my back, every ounce of energy has left my aching body, leaving my a lifeless corpse on the ground, basking in the light of freedom and life. Staring straight up and to either side of me, all I can see is hair. The mass of hair that I created with the hair gun to break my fall. I am filled with sheer wonder at the absurd size of it. It must be at least fifty meters tall!
From the outside you can see little more than fluff, a stark contrast to those easily one meter wide ‘hairs’ (if you can even call it that anymore) on which I had to use all of my strength to shift aside while I was deep in there and making my way out.
After resting on the comfortable ground, just regaining my strength, letting the pain subside and rejoicing at being alive in general, I finally scrounged up the strength and will power to stand up again. Limping around the newfound hairy landmark and over to the edge before the timed platforms, I stared across the chasm.
On the other side I can’t make out any kind of movement. Whatever that thing was that nearly caused my death, it doesn’t seem to be there anymore. One thing is certain however, if there can be one monster in this place, there can be many. I am going to have to seriously reconsider my ‘gear’ for this place. I will now need to include weapons and ‘armour’ I guess.
Of course any sane person would have run for the hills, but I was in too deep, this place offers too much potential for some crumby eye monster or even a hundred of them for that matter, to be standing in my way.
“Let the dungeoneering begin!”, I cackled to myself like a mad man, as I limped my way back towards the Arch.
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Ben was currently looking at me with great concern. He was no doubt considering whether or not he needed to put me in a room with nice soft white padded walls.
“A portal?”, he repeated not without a hint of annoyance in his voice. Probably under the assumption that I am trying to play some kind of incredibly lame prank on him.
I had Invited my best (and probably only) friend over under the guise of holding a ‘lan’ with just the two of us. Ben had already began setting up his PC when I interrupted him to broach the subject of my true agenda.
After my encounter with my first ever monster, I was all gung ho and ready to arm myself to the teeth and go killing monsters RPG style. It did not however take long for me to realise that this was not the best idea. What If I get surrounded by too many monsters or I ran into something stronger than an ‘eyeling’. Heck I don’t even know if an eyeling is actually weak to begin with.
Point is, I decided to do what any self respecting person would do and roped my best friend into the danger in the hopes of improving my own chances of survival. Or at least that was the intention. I had yet to get anywhere near that point, having to first deal with a very wary and skeptical friend that even now was looking at me like I grew a second head. Even the gem embedded in my hand was assumed to be fake and part of the ‘joke’.
At that moment however, fate saw fit to through me a lifeline, in the form an oversized ball of hair, stealthily strutting across the room before stopping right in front of me, no doubt waiting for its next meal. I glanced over to Ben, giving him a sly look as I introduced him too… Oh wait this fucking freeloader doesn’t even have a name yet.
“I would like you to meet a creature from beyond the portal.” I said to him in as grandiose a fashion as I could manage. Ben’s eyes went wide as he regarded the mobile ball of hair with suspicion.
It was a lie of course, it was just a cat after all. But somehow the idea of a creature from beyond the ‘portal’ seemed far more believable than a hair gun, that I no longer have, as I dropped it somewhere in the hair monument.
I took a moment to reach over and scratch the former cats head, for added effect. I however immediately pulled my hand back after realising that I had accidentally poked it in the ass instead. The ‘cat’ turned around to give me a typical ‘catty’ dirty look. Although that might just be my imagination running wild, since it’s not like I could see it’s head or anything.
“You’re obviously still not convinced.” I spoke up, breaking Ben out of his fascination with the ball of hair making it’s way over to the kitchen. “Come on I’ll show you, it’s in my room.”
Without waiting for Ben's answer, I got up and led him over to my bedroom. It was actually a lot of fun watching him scrutinize the arch like he was trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe.
“Watch.” I called out to him as I activated the Arch.
Ben’s mouth hung open after witnessing the portal appear in front of him. “There’s a fucking stargate in your room!”
I couldn’t help but smile at that outburst.
After a while the shock clearly wore off and upon regaining his faculties, Ben proceeded to organize his thoughts. “So what’s on the other side?”
“A twilight zone like place that makes alice in wonderland boring by comparison.”
“Is it safe?”
“Yes and no. There are some places that appear to be a bit dangerous, like timed platforms and other game like shit. But there is also valuable loot to be found.”
“Loot?”
“Like say a golden statuette worth a ton of money that I pawned just the other day.” I could see the gears in his head turning and a smile slowly creeping across his face. “Also, I may have encountered a ‘monster’ on the other side. Nothing major, it was a palm sized spider thing. I’m sure I could fend it off myself quite easily, assuming it is even hostile in the first place, but honestly, I’d rather have someone watching my back, if you know what I mean.”
Ben stood there a while just taking it all in, before smiling at me and asking one final question, “I assume that I get half of whatever we find?”
“Of course.” I returned his smile.