Chapter 11: Thoughts That Don't Belong In Your Head

The bottom of the stairs seemed innocent enough once I reached them. The ground was covered in a soft carpet that felt nice to walk on. I looked both directions down the hallway that I found myself already standing in. Both directions had seemingly no end to them and went off so far into the distance it looked as if a fog had enveloped the hall.

The fog had a red hue to it, which was unnerving. The sides of the hallways had glass tubes running along them that were faceted to the walls with bronze rings. It looked like cloudy capsules were traveling through the tubes at high speeds. I could see in the distance, what appeared to be almost receptacles for the capsules to leave the tube and be collected.

I picked a random direction and started walking. The hallway felt oddly quiet as I walked, I was nervous right up until I walked to the receptacle attached to the wall. I could see a cloudy capsule sitting at the bottom of it, waiting to be collected.

I shook off the feeling of weirdness as I walked right past it, paying it no mind. Something that looked like that was suspicious in every conceivable way, so I was just going to let it be. I kept walking down the hall while being cautious of everything around me.

This was the floor that made the guy back from floor five run away and lose his mind. He had killed himself to warn others of the fate that awaited them here, but it didn't seem like there was anything objectively wrong with the floor. The capsules going through the tubes was a rather odd sight, but it didn't pose a threat to me as long as I made sure to keep my distance from the receptacles.

I kept walking and turned around. This floor was too weird for me to keep going. I would have to go back and reassess the situation. It was only natural to be cautious of a floor so deep in this place. Anything could happen, and without a good plan, I was only going to get hurt.

I walked past the capsule on my way back to the entrance and held out my hand to grab it. I pulled back last second, realizing something was horribly wrong. A thought in my head that was twisted. I would never turn around right at the start of a floor without even seeing anything to warrant such a decision.

What caught me off guard was how naturally it had used my own reasoning to mess with me. I would be overcautious normally, and would want to assess the situation, but I had already done that, so there was no reason to turn back.

This floor could already twist my thoughts in a way to affect my actions. It was the start of the floor, and it already had immense power over me. Every floor I had been to so far had gotten more difficult the closer I was to the exit.

I was getting nervous, but I had to get through this and figure out a way to overcome it. I needed to be more aware of what I was thinking while still paying attention to what I was looking at. I still had to look out for the worms the guy mentioned, if they caught me off guard, I was going to be in a world of trouble.

The floor had just massively increased in difficulty and I hadn't even walked through the entire first hall. So I set off in the correct direction, back to the entrance. Leaving was the only reasonable choice after all. I couldn't put myself in unreasonable amounts of danger.

I walked back into the concrete staircase and cursed inwardly. I was forced outside the entire floor before I regained control of my own thoughts. I was slightly aware there was something wrong, but there wasn't a single thing I could do to control it the way I wanted to.

'Prepare to ignore your own thoughts.' The line I had read from the book written by the guy. I wouldn't be able to easily control my own thoughts without some extreme practice, so I had to ignore them somehow. I had to keep doing what I wanted while I was forced to think something entirely different.

A truly unique thing I would have never encountered in the real world. I was nervous, but a part of me was excited for something truly unique. Something I had never seen or had to do, something that would give me experience in an almost completely useless skill outside of these floors.

I walked the same direction. I kept walking, keeping it in mind that I was walking to the exit. The exit was my destination and I had to get there no matter what. I wasn't mentally strong enough to resist the flowery words my own mind would use to convince me to go back.

I had made it to the end of the first hall when I decided to turn around, walking back to the entrance once more. Walking back to the entrance was something I should be doing, but I was walking somewhere else and smiling creepily.

I randomized the first hall and the compulsion to leave the floor had entirely faded from my mind. My first victory on this floor, but I no longer had an easy safety net so it was time to find another way back to the previous floor.

I walked back down the hall that I had foolishly randomized, removing my exit was a horrible idea that filled me with dread and anxiety. The thoughts of failure and death flooded my mind. I was going to starve to death or run out of water long before I finished the floor.

My teeth were grit as I forced myself back to where the entrance was, only to find another split in the hallway. My safety was gone and it was time to panic, panic until I died, this was a hopeless endeavor.

My hands came up and I slapped my own face, forcing myself to regain my own thoughts. I was getting tired of listening to myself. Of course the entrance was gone, I randomized it so I wouldn't be forced to go back up. There was not a single reason to panic.

I was still as safe as I could get, I needed to reassure myself that I was safe, but I had the resources I needed to survive this floor. I could easily overcome this, but hitting myself every time I needed to refocus was only a short term solution until I found out what made this floor tick.

There was a certain way to overcome this without falling back into the same illusion of it being my own thoughts, I just had to travel deeper. Moving forwards always triggered the thought takeover, but it was something I had no choice but to try and ignore.

My thoughts are my own. My thoughts are my own. My thoughts are my own. I repeated this as many times as I could in my head. My thoughts are my own. My thoughts are my own. While this was true, I needed a plan to escape.

Walking through these halls was dangerous without me fully understanding how they worked, what made them tick. So I needed to find a way back up to the previous floor so I could take my time. Planning was going to help me keep my own thoughts clear of influence.

I could always randomize the floor until I could see the entrance again, but the worms could find me while I was randomizing, and the worms were nothing good for me. How would I even know the worms are bad, I haven't encountered them.

I was rebutting myself in my own mind. A strange situation where whatever was causing my thoughts to change had direct awareness of my active thoughts, not just my hidden ones. It was changing what I said to myself to try and directly counter my own thinking.

I was able to walk for quite some distance without the thoughts coming back and changing what I had been doing. I was looking at the corner of a hallway when I realized something was different, the carpet of the hallway to the right and left had been covered in a red slime.

It looked almost like congealed blood, what on earth was a trail of congealed blood doing down here on the carpet of all places. As I neared it smelled of rot and iron. I carefully walked up to the corner, and was turning around before I could check around them. I had to-

Run away.

Run away.

I grabbed the corner forcefully with my hand, ripping myself quickly from the intrusive thoughts. The direction I was running wasn't going to be backwards, but instead down the hall with the congealed blood trail.

"Run" I could actually hear a voice from behind me. Turning around, there was nothing there to look at, and unfortunately, turning around had removed the intersection behind me, leaving me standing in a mass of congealed blood.

The only way forwards was down this tunnel of blood slime. The smell of rot was enough to drag me from the delusion and gag. I wasn't sure of its goals, but it had removed my escape route this time. I wonder if it had some degree of control over the floor itself, beyond just controlling my thoughts.

If so, it was a dangerous combination. This trail of slime was awful, but something had created it, and I was going to find out what it was. If it was the worms, I had to run away. They are violent creatures. The guy had warned me of such, and it would be smart to listen.

I have no idea what the worms will look like, how fast they move or if they attack on sight. If they leave this kind of trail behind without attacking anything, imagine what they can do to me. A vision of me turning into a pile of coagulated blood plays in my mind.

I felt conflicted, I needed to go back up a floor and regroup. This floor was a danger to me and I needed to get back to safety. I walked around for a while, ignoring my thirst, as I needed to escape as fast as I could and stopping to drink some water could mean death. Distractions were going to get me killed.

I thankfully found a way back up. It took a decent amount of time backtracking to make it here, but I was already feeling safer as I walked back up the stairs to the tenth floor. I knew that leaving was the best choice for me, as I could stay on the previous floor.

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I stopped partway up the steps once the control had left my mind. I was angry, at the floor, and at myself. It sent me all the way back to the start and tried to dehydrate me. I made sure to drink some water and eat some light food, my body had needs that the floor simply didn't let me indulge in.

I was being forced to leave repeatedly by the control effect, I would have to rethink my strategy completely if I wanted to get through this floor. Nothing I was trying was working, every time I thought I had a good way to deal with the control, it would just force me to do what it wanted anyways.

I had absolutely no idea on what to do here. I think I might be stuck, but I have to try. The effect got a lot stronger once I found that worm trail, so I could try finding another worm. 'The worms are violent, but not without reason.'

There was something that made the worms angry, and it was probably something that would help me if the control was so desperate to keep me away from the worm. I had no choice but to keep trying until something worked, going back up wasn't an option. There was nothing on the higher floors for me.

I would rest a little at the bottom of the stairs without going into the floor completely and try again. Hopefully some rest would let me see a new way to go about this, as my current strategies were so flawed, they were dangerous. Throwing myself against the problem was good and all, but what if the control shifts from leaving the floor to something more dangerous. I'll think about it more after I rest.

…

Sleep was unable to give me any new leads on what I should be trying to do. I was at a complete loss and was contemplating returning to the previous floor to formulate a strategy, or even practice moving without thinking, purely going where I needed to on instinct.

I rejected that idea in my mind. I probably had the time to waste doing things like that, but I refused to go back up a floor because I couldn't get past a simple control effect. The control was simple, and it should be simple to overcome it if I have some sort of way to trick it into doing what I wanted.

I wasn't sure what I had to do to make that happen though. Would I just think the opposite of what I wanted, and then it would just lead me right to the exit, or would it just agree with me and send me back. Odds are I would just make it back here, forcefully being pushed back.

How hard was it to ignore my own thoughts? With enough practice, I should be able to walk in a straight line at least without thinking about it. With nothing to lose, I gave it a shot. I gathered all my stuff and set out into the floor again.

I knew things would get rough once I made it to the first intersection. Once I had eventually made it, I felt almost a small tug on my mind, but I closed my eyes and walked. I opened them a moment later and the feeling was gone, replaced by a distant anger that I could feel wasn't my own.

"Run." I heard the voice behind me, seeing nothing once I had turned around. There was nothing really to randomize, so it wasn't an issue, but I couldn't pinpoint the source of the voice, and it wasn't the control effect. The control effect was functionally different.

"You don't belong here." The voice spoke once again. I knew it was different this time. I could see the cloudy capsules once more and the voices were coming from them. "You don't belong anywhere."

"Useless." The voices were growing louder and were "Waste of space." interrupting my thoughts, not caring that I was in the middle of thoughts. I was managing to hold off the control effect by staying constantly aware of it, and not setting a particular goal.

Strong emotions seemed to make it harder to resist the control. If I just stayed calm and relaxed, there wouldn't be any iss- "Your fault." es. "You made them suffer." I had no idea what the voices were talking about. I didn't want to stick around and find out though.

"Ophelia." The voices spoke a name I refused to recognize. "I know what you did." I didn't do anything, I don't even know who that was anymore, it had been too long since anything had happened.

"Logan." The voice tries to speak in her voice, I just needed to leave. Get out of here and relax a little. If I kept getting agitated I would fall under the effects of the control and be forced back to the beginning.

Instead, I'll grit my teeth and walk back on my own, these voices are getting to me. Ophelia was someone I used to know, and this cursed place bringing her up was not helping me stay calm. It was a name that I refused to acknowledge because I knew I was in the wrong.

Someone who tried to help, but I kept running. Someone I forced to be against me through my own selfish actions. My actions, that will be my own! Some stupid control won't force me to thing about things long past and buried. Also forgiven.

"She forgave you, but you never forgave yourself." The voices came back as soon as the control wore out. They didn't work together, but they helped each other. The voices were probably meant to trigger strong reactions from memories.

Unfortunately for this place, I have come to terms with everything I've done in my life. Every action I've taken, I already have come to live with their consequences. If I can just keep calm, I won't react to the provocations of the voices.

Years and years of running away from my problems and coming to terms with strong emotions was something I was good at. Enough moping though, I had to keep my legs moving and figure out where I was going.

"A coward like you will never amount to anything." A line I had heard and agreed with many times. Now was not an exception, but I wouldn't let this low level tactic get to "A coward like you should have killed yourself in that forest." me. I twitched as the line registered.

That was all I gave it though, I calmed my mind as I kept moving forwards to an intersection of hallways. I started to spin, just to randomize. I was looking for something, nothing in particular, but I was looking. Looking "You ruined their lives forever." around, I kept an eye out while ignoring the voices.

"Your choices drove them to madness." I had no idea what the voices meant, but I kept looking, finding it was important. "You have tormented your tormentors, for what?" What if I did, who cares anymore? They made their choices and I made mine, it is done and gone, nothing can change what they did, and it won't change what I did.

"Time heals nothing. You know that the best." What do you want from me? Do you want me to admit I was wrong for what I did? I will, and I've testified to the police on my own terms and they sent me away with a note to see a therapist. I was justified in what I did, even if it was taken too far on my account.

"Admitting does nothing to satisfy your own guilt." So what if it doesn't. I can't change the past, and I've already found what I was looking for. Directly in front of me was a trail of coagulated blood. I could feel the control effect in the back of my mind, but I was able to stay calm enough to hold it down.

This voice found something to latch on to, and I was getting frustrated that it kept pestering me. Events left in the past intentionally needed to stay there, a buried hatchet should stay inside, no matter what happens to the tree. Water under the bridge shouldn't be flooding up the banks.

Distracting my mind, I found myself already walking down the hall with the blood trail. I wondered what lay at the end of such a trail. A complete mystery to me, I couldn't draw a parallel with anything.

"Logan. You will repent." A chill went down my spine, a voice that felt like it was everywhere. Instead of speaking from inside my mind, it was targeted at my mind from outside. "Repent. You shall pay with your fear."

The chill had disappeared as fast as it had come and threatened to topple my calmed emotions, but I held on with focused breathing. I kept walking down the coagulated trail, my boots sinking into the unpleasant slime.

"You are capable of nothing. Even through practice you fail repeatedly." But I learn each time. I hope my last ditch effort here works, if not, I was going to actually leave and formulate a good plan to counter this.

"Effort is meaningless when the results are the same." So very true, but also very wrong oh mystical voice. I was going to miss your wonderful advice come time when I left this place, I was beginning to think that "Leave this place now." it was just useless advice. It mostly was though.

I rounded a final corner, another hallway, but the entire thing was covered in congealed and dripping blood. A creature that took up the whole hallway slid noisily through it leaving blood behind. The creature looked like a writhing mass of brain tissues. This was the worm?

A literal brain worm, ironic. Let's see just how helpful this creature was going to be to me. The control effect was practically begging to be let in my mind, but I wasn't going to let it, not after all this time and I was right at my true destination, the worm.

"Death awaits the foolish." Of course it did, getting near this thing was dangerous, but probably worth it in the end. "You are the foo-"

The words disappeared from my mind as the worm ahead of me stopped moving. The creature started to writhe and twist. It was a gruesome sight as brain matter fell away from the creature, slightly decreasing in size. I saw a single large, green eye emerge from the center of the worm's mass.

It was looking at me, but I stayed calm. I felt the control trying to take over, and force me to run, but I stared the creature down, a calmness in my heart told me this was the correct choice. I had a staring contest with the unblinking creature as the eye continuously rotated and adjusted itself within the brain matter.

Calm?

A thought forced into my head, but not maliciously. After a second of contemplation, I nodded in reply to the creature. I was nervous, but I didn't let it control me. I was pushing every emotion down, staring with only pure sincerity at the creature.

My heart was beating calmly, despite the absurd situation. I was able to keep the adrenaline down and kept my cool. A feat I thought would be impossible just at the start of the floor. Under immense pressure of death, I forced myself to take control of everything.

Follow. I help.

A primitive thought, something beyond language that I was barely able to comprehend. The eye disappeared within the creature, it no longer stared at me and started to move forwards again. A faster pace than before. A pace that exactly matched my walking speed.

Why did the book say this was a violent creature. Was he unable to stay calm? Does this creature somehow attack if you are under the effects of the control? Or was the guy from floor five completely unable to remove the control from here even after running so far and writing the book, and it was a ploy by the control to make these creatures seem like a bad choice.

A theory I wouldn't be able to confirm, but it sounded extremely plausible the more I thought about it. If I was any weaker mentally, it would have done the same thing to me, as I made it halfway back up the stairs to floor ten before I escaped its control one time.

I followed the brain worm. It led me through the halls and would occasionally check on me with its eye while it moved. Pieces of the creature would fall to the ground every now and then. It kept moving though, and I did notice that it was getting smaller and smaller as we moved through the halls.

Arrived.

We had indeed arrived as the creature shared with me. The creature was barely a tenth of the size of when I had met it, it was an odd sight, but I didn't let the thought linger. I nodded my head in appreciation, and the creature stayed, watching me as I looked at the exit to the floor.

The door was roughly half the size of a normal door. I had to take off my bag and crawl through the small door. The concrete stairs were the exact same as always, but why on earth was the door so small?

I heard the creature slide away as the door closed behind me. My mind felt unnaturally calm, it reminded me of the pills I had taken long ago that almost removed all my thoughts. I wasn't on that medication right now, and had a control over my mind that felt unnatural, but I had to keep moving.

It was time for the next floor.