There was a tall, slender boy standing at the end of my arm. He had long, wavy blonde hair that swept across his forehead from his right to his left. It all congregated in one thick, full curl that dipped forward and away from his face which curled back up at the tip like a fish hook.
Understandably, the boy didn’t take kindly to nearly being turned into radioactive waste.
“Damn, that’s sure one hell of a greetin’.” His baritone voice had a slight twang to it, carrying a surprisingly relaxed tone considering the circumstances. “Thought I was doing you a favor by comin’ all this way to get you outta here, and I’m repaid with a staredown. How pleasant.”
I put my arm down and backed away from him. “Sorry, I thought you were…” I stopped myself. Should I mention the shadows? Petrov? My power? The absolute batshit insane circumstances that took me here in the first place? “...I thought you were someone else.”
He adjusted the collar on his white buttoned-up shirt. “Oh, so that’s just how you greet everybody. At least it wasn’t anything personal.” The boy shoved his hands into his pockets and swiveled his head to look all around the corridor. “But who in the hell were you expecting to meet in here?” His expression became even more puzzled than before. “I mean… You don’t just wander into a place like this without a reason.” He snapped his gaze back at me and stepped up to me close enough to make a professional interrogator nervous. “Lemme guess. Drugs? Black market deal? Test answers? Oooh, buddy, wait til the police get a load of this…”
I took a huge step back just to get him out of my face. “Woah, I’m not doing any of those things! I don’t even know how I got here!” I wiped the sweat off my forehead, not entirely sure if it was due to the fighting or anxiousness. “If you’re gonna assume something’s wrong with me, keep it to yourself.”
The boy’s expression grew a bit more somber, like he regretted what he had just said. “Hey… I didn’t really mean it that way. I was just jokin’ with ya, promise.” He took his hand out of his pocket to scratch the back of his neck. “Listen, you told me you don’t know how you ended up in this place, right? Why don’t you tell me everything you remember? We’ll figure this out together. I’m really here to help, man.” His smile didn’t lie; he really meant what he said that time.
I let out a sigh of relief. “Ok, I guess I’ll trust you. But only because I don’t know how to get out of here. I’ll decide whether or not that applies once we’ve escaped.” I held out my hand, hoping it wasn’t still exuding any flames from earlier. “I’m Genjo Sazama.”
He chuckled. “Fair enough. Name’s Ryu Kase.” He shook my hand heartily. Almost too heartily, like he would’ve snapped it right off my wrist if he gripped any harder. “No pressure on that whole ‘giving me your trust’ thing.” I committed his name to memory. Worst case scenario, if he actually ends up framing me for black market trafficking, I can turn him into the authorities. But I doubt he’d do that. We might’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, but he doesn’t really seem like the betraying type.
I tried to explain my situation as best I could, leaving out some of the more… embarrassing details. All Ryu knew in regards to that incident was that I left the dining hall, went on a walk, and ended up here. I told him, “I guess I simply wasn’t looking where I was going,” which wasn’t a lie, per say.
Ryu scratched the few hairs that grew upon his chin while letting out the occasional ‘hmm’ for several seconds. “So everything between leaving the park and ending up here is a blur, correct?” After all that thinking, that was all he could come up with? “You didn’t walk through any doors, windows, or wide open fence gates, did you?” Oh thank god, another thought had managed to generate in that brain of his.
“Nope. Don’t recall a thing.” I felt stupid not knowing how this happened. “By the way… how did you get in here? I don’t think we ever established that.”
Ryu smiled, as if this was his trump card that he had been dying to reveal. “Well, the funny thing about that is… I followed you in here.”
“Followed? Then… you’ve known the whole time? Why even bother interrogating me in the first place like you had something to gain from it?”
Ryu shrugged. “Eh, I didn’t wanna just tell you straight up. I wanted it to be like a little mystery of sorts, ya know? Make you figure it out yourself.”
I nearly slapped him. “So you’re just acting like this is normal, then? How we both just got teleported here without knowing?”
His brow furrowed. “...wh- Teleported? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how if I appeared here suddenly without warning and you followed me here, then the only explanation is that both of us were brought here against our will. And in order to escape, we have to find the reason we were brought here in the first place!” Suddenly it all made so much more sense… and almost no sense at the same time.
When I looked back at Ryu, he was very visibly holding back laughter.
“Hm? What’s so funny? Can’t handle that I just cracked the code right in front of you?”, I said with a wide smirk on my face.
He covered his mouth and held out a finger, signaling that he needed a moment to compose himself. Once he had stopped laughing, he finally spoke. “Nah, man. I just think it’s funny that you don’t remember walkin’ through the front door.” It didn’t take long for him to start laughing again.
I’d never felt more dense in my entire life.
With my eureka moment completely shattered, I asked Ryu what exactly he meant by that. “If there was a front door, that means we’re somewhere at the school, right?” I waited patiently for an answer while Ryu kept on cackling about my record-breaking levels of obliviousness.
Ryu’s laughing pain in his sides eventually wore off and he was finally able to give me a proper explanation. “Well, no point in just standing and wasting any more time, right? Follow me. We can just go back the way I came. I’ll explain as we walk.” Ryu spun around 180 degrees and marched forward. I followed suit as Ryu’s story began. “It’s exactly as it sounds. You walked right through a construction gate on campus, seemingly without a care in the world. I watched from afar, thinking ‘there’s no way this guy is really gonna waltz on through’, but if there’s anything you should know about me, it’s that I usually regret my assumptions.” Ryu looked back at me over his shoulder. “By the way, you weren’t exactly doing a great job of sneaking in. You might wanna work on that.”
I was already paying plenty of attention to him, but that last part tugged at it even tighter. “Huh? I wasn’t trying to sneak in at all. What gave you that idea?”
Ryu loosened his tie ever so slightly. It made me realize how hot it was in this corridor. I wish someone had opened the damn windows before abandoning this place. “Oh, I didn’t think that was your intention for a second. Never met a burglar or a dealer that sang on the job.”
There was plenty of time to unpack all of that, but some of those details sounded like they needed to stay in the box. “Wait, you’re not telling me-”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. You got one hell of a voice. Not bad moves, either. Are you here to be a musician or something of the sort?” Ryu sounded pretty genuine, which was bizarre. Everything I’ve ever heard about my voice has been a lot less encouraging.
My face turned red with embarrassment. “No. Even if I was, I don’t think it’d go anywhere.” God, I can’t believe he had to hear all that.
Ryu turned his head forward again. “A damn shame. It’s better than you think. Sorry for getting off topic, though.” He took a ballpoint pen out of his shirt pocket and spun it between the gaps in his fingers. “Whatever you were going in here for, I figured there was a reason, so I just stayed put. I figured that you’d be in and out in a few minutes, I wouldn’t snitch, we’d take this to our graves, and then we’d all live hunky dory. But about 20 minutes had gone by and you still hadn’t come out.” Ryu’s pen slipped out of his fingertips and miraculously fell into his other hand where it kept on spinning. “Now, I’m not a huge fan of being potentially liable for any incidents due to negligence, so against my better judgment, I followed you inside. Other than nearly cutting my foot on some broken glass, not much of note happened after that. You know what happens from there, I hope.” His story made a good amount of sense, but I still can’t believe I ended up in this mess because my body essentially went on autopilot.
“Thanks, Ryu. You’ve been a great help.” I looked around the corridor. Now that he mentioned it, I realized we hadn’t passed by the table with the broken glasses and plates. “I have one more question about all this, though.”
Ryu leaned his head back slightly like it gave him better hearing. “Shoot.”
My eyes drifted down to the floor. “How long did it take you to find me after you decided to follow me?”
He stopped dead in his tracks.
It was so sudden that I nearly bumped into him. “Uh, Ryu? Everything ok?”
Ryu was completely still. “Genjo. We need to get out of here.”
“Huh? Yeah, we agreed on that from the start.” I moved in front of him to get a look at his face. The gaze that rested on it was mortified.
“Something’s wrong. We need to go. Now.” Ryu started running, pushing me out of the way as he flew by.
I did my best to chase after him, but he was clearly much more athletic than I was. “Ryu!! Wait up!! What’s going on??” I could barely yell out after him with the few breaths that my lungs could still hold. Nevertheless, I gritted my teeth and kept on running. I gathered the last of the air in my body and belted out a call to him. “Ryu?????” It echoed through the corridor. There was no end in sight or in sound.
I slowly but surely caught up to Ryu, who I found leaning forward with his hands on his knees, desperately grasping for breath. The scenery hadn’t changed an inch on my way to him. I finally understood exactly what Ryu had figured out moments earlier; we weren’t getting out of here. He looked up at the infinite darkness that lay before us. “This doesn’t make any sense. The door was here…” Ryu was barely able to speak in between gasps. “Genjo…” His eyes turned to me. “...what the hell do we do?”
“Let’s… try and calm down for now. The more panicked we get, the harder it’ll be to find our way out. So we just need to take some deep breaths and get the gears in our brains turning.” Truth be told, I’ve never been all that good at encouraging other people. I just take advice that Fumio and Taisuke would give me and hope it works for everyone else. “I’m sure there’s something we’ve been overlooking. I’ll get us out of here. You can at least trust me on that, right?”
After a few seconds, Ryu stood straight up. “How are you staying so optimistic about all this? Is this a regular thing?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I’m usually the one where you just were. It’s ok to feel scared right now. But the possibility that there is a way out - that’s what keeps me going.”
Ryu’s body turned to face me. “Well I’ll be damned. Thought you were the one needing to be saved.” He brushed his legs off with his hand like they were covered in dirt. “Ok, Mr. Possibilities. Where do you suggest we start looking?”
“Not sure, I didn’t really think we’d get to that part.”
His head dropped out of disappointment. “So you were just saying that to hype me up?” Ryu’s voice sounded defeated. Shit, maybe I should’ve thought a bit more.
“Well… it’s not like I don’t have any ideas!” I brainstormed as quickly as I could. “Have you ever heard of the scientific method?”
Ryu’s head perked back up. “Duh, of course I have. That’s something we learn in grade school, isn’t it? What does that have to do with getting out of here?”
“Don’t worry, I promise I’m going somewhere with this.” I started tapping my cheek with my pointer finger in hopes it would make my brain work faster. “Do you remember what the first two steps are called?”
He leaned up against the wall, propping up one foot and putting all his weight on the other. “Yeah, ask a question and make a hypothesis. I still don’t quite get where this is -”
“Precisely.” I pointed at him with my thinking finger like an overly enthusiastic teacher. “We just need to identify our problem and consider why it’s happening in the first place.” My thinking finger went back to tapping my cheek as I paced circles around the room. “Ryu, can you tell me what our problem is here?”
Ryu put his arms up, resting his hands behind his head. “Well for starters, we’re trapped. But I have a weird feeling you need me to be more specific than that.” After a few seconds of chin scratching, I saw a light bulb switch on in his head. “This isn’t a normal trap; we’re stuck in an endless corridor with no exit where the entrance used to be located.”
I clapped my hands in excitement. “Bingo! The corridor is only a trap because the exit is entirely gone. I believe the exit disappeared because someone, or something, removed our ability to reach it, as ridiculous as that sounds.”
Ryu’s train of thought quickly caught up with mine. “Which means that all we need to do…”
“...is find out why the exit’s gone!” we both said in unison.
Our eyes both gleamed with a spark of relief. The two of us could see it in each other; our energy to keep on searching for our escape was rejuvenated. All we needed to do was to never let it die out again.
I could see the look in Ryu’s eyes quickly change into fear as they drifted to look behind me, and I had a feeling that I knew what he saw. With my body and mind steady, I snapped my fingers, pivoted around my foot and swung my right arm out at whatever stood in my way. I only saw the shadow for a split second as Petrov wasted no time materializing - and making sure the shadow could never do so itself ever again.
When I turned back around to Ryu, he was, in a word, flabbergasted. Now that I think about it, I definitely should’ve explained this earlier. When he spoke, his face didn’t change, and his words only came out stammering. “What. The hell. Just happened?”
I looked at Ryu - then back at Petrov - then at the dust that remained of the shadow - and then back to Ryu, trying to think of the easiest way to break the news to him. “If I’m being honest, I’m not entirely sure myself. But I’ll do my best to explain.” I told him about the shadows that surrounded me, the strange voice that came from the light, and how I was granted the power to control a giant floating spirit that shot out controlled blasts of nuclear energy that only appears when I snap my fingers that were bathed in the heat of magical purple flames. And that was the normal way to describe it.
He simply stared back at me in confusion. “So… what you’re saying is… you’re a superhero now?”
That was the conclusion he came to after hearing all that? “Uh, no. Not quite.”
Ryu put his hand on my shoulder. “Genjo, Genjo, Genjo… I think you’re the one who’s mistaken. This is a textbook superhero origin story. And let me just say that if you’re looking for a sidekick, please please please please pick me.” Glad to see his demeanor finally changed back to normal.
I bashfully itched the back of my neck. “Aw, shut up, dude. I’m no superhero, I just happened to get this weird ability that’s only come in hand exactly twice now. It can’t do much aside from fighting those creatures.”
Ryu took his hand off my shoulder and lightly slugged me in the arm with it. “No, you shut up, man. You saved my life just now. That’s the most superhero thing anyone could’ve ever done.” He started walking further down the corridor.
“Ryu? Where are you going?” I yelled out after him.
He kept on walking. His head looked straight ahead, not turning back to speak to me, but instead looking to the future. “Well, now that I know you have that, I feel a lot better about our odds of finding a way out of here. Whatever’s holding us captive in this place doesn’t stand a chance against you.” Ryu stopped for a couple seconds so he could finish talking before getting too far away. “And we’re gonna need to stick together in case you need to save my life again, you hear?”
I nodded, knowing full well he couldn’t see it, and let the sound of my footsteps trailing behind him do the talking.
As we pressed further down the corridor, our surroundings started to change for the first time since our arrival. There were no twists or turns to take, but the occasional toppled chair or broken table provided momentary breaks from the insanity of walking in a straight line for minutes on end. Sometimes, a shadow would appear, but they weren’t hostile like the others. They refused to attack or even interact with us, instead opting to simply exist with zero regard to our presence. Each time that one would show up, Ryu would inch closer to me like a scared puppy. I did my best to not laugh at how scared he was.
I don’t think it was the presence of the shadows alone that made Ryu so shaken up, though. I’m pretty sure it was the whispers that came from them. As the shadows erratically moved about, zipping and glitching through the air, we could hear strange voices echo around the corridor.
“Man, I can’t believe this shit.”
“Don’t tell me this is about her again.”
“Yeah, that bitch stood me up for the third time.”
“Hey, at least you get to eat this slop with people you actually like.”
“Won’t make it taste any better, though.”
“Not in a million years, it won’t. You still comin’ to the party?”
“If they don’t shut it down like last week, sure. I’m in.”
Now that I looked closer at the shadows, they weren’t moving randomly. They were sitting down on thin air, holding out their arms like they were carrying things, and walking across the room like they’d done it a million times before. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the chairs had all fallen over. They repeated these actions in an endless loop, all desynced from one another. It made their conversations hard to follow and even harder to not get creeped out from listening.
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After a while, the whispers had become unsettling enough for me to put my headphones back on to try and block them out. Unfortunately, they were still audible no matter which song I played, so I had to improvise. If you can’t beat em, join em.
“Hey brah, how we doin’, man?”
“Alright.”
“It’s been a while man, life’s so rad!”
“Maybe for you.”
“This band’s my favorite man, don’t ya love em?”
“Who cares about all that? I’m just trying to pass this class, dude.”
“Hey, did you know about the party after the show?”
“Fuck my professors, I swear they pick the same test days on purpose.”
“Did you hear about the party?”
“I’ve heard she’s gonna be there. Do you think I should go too?”
“Um, I think I’m gonna go but, um, my friends don’t really wanna go. Could I get a ride?”
“Just give it up, bro. She’s not into you.”
Eventually, the chatter from the song had become indistinguishable from the whispers.
I turned to look back at Ryu and saw that he was still visibly rattled by the shadows. I slid my headphones down to my neck and turned up the volume to max so he could hear it too. If it helped me calm down, maybe it’ll work for him as well. Judging by his quiet hums of “hold this thread as I walk away…”, I’d wager it got his mind off of things.
At last, the corridor had led us to a simple door labeled ‘Faculty and Staff Only'. I looked at Ryu. “Hey, what did the sign on the construction gate outside say?”
Ryu shrugged. “Don’t remember. Probably something like ‘Unauthorized Personnel Forbidden Beyond This Point’, I think.”
“Cool.” I kicked the door in. “We’re serial trespassers now.”
I stepped through the doorway. Ryu sighed and reluctantly followed.
The inside of the room was just as empty as the corridor. Only a few pieces of furniture were strung about the floor, but they were scattered and torn apart like something had intentionally misplaced them. It was a simple yet hideous sight - one that I didn’t want to look at for much longer.
Ryu definitely felt the same way. “Hey, this doesn’t look like the right way. I… I think we should go.” He turned and ran out the door from which we came, but the sound of his footsteps stopped much sooner than I thought they would. When I turned to look back, the corridor had become two separate branching paths.
I walked over to Ryu, who stood paralyzed with fear at the newfound fork in the road. I rested my hand on his shoulder from behind. “Hey, I think this is the world’s way of saying we shouldn’t ignore that room. Let’s just give it a quick search, alright?”
He gently removed my hand from his shoulder and started walking back through the door. “Alright. But don’t say I didn’t warn you if this ends up killing us.” I felt bad for the guy. He’s only in this mess because of me. Oh, what I’d give to get him out of it.
We examined every nook of the room to no avail, only finding scraps of old paper that had long since faded away instead of any secret escape hatches. Ryu snatched one of the paper scraps off of the ground, propped up one of the torn up chairs and sat down in it. “Genjo, I think it’s time we take another look at what’s really going on here.” He clicked his pen and began scribbling a rough sketch of every room we had passed through on our way here. “Now, I don’t know about you, but this layout doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.” Ryu showed me his sketch; he intentionally overlapped rooms that used to be there and the ones that replaced them on top of each other. “How do we know that there even is a way out? What if this is just one sick mind game where we’re meant to endlessly search and panic until we lose our sanity??” I could hear the increasing hysteria in his voice.
“Ryu, it’s gonna be ok. We just need to keep -”
Ryu stood up. “No! It’s NOT gonna be ok. Didn’t you see what just happened outside? This place doesn’t have an end. There’s no way out. This is where we die.” His escalating voice had changed from timid to enraged. Every time he took a step closer to me, I took an equal step back. “We’re not in some solvable puzzle where the solution is hidden in plain sight. This is a fucking death trap. We either let the shadows take us out, starve ourselves, or take out each other. And I’m not even going to entertain that last one. So what the hell are we gonna do, Genjo???”
As if on cue, there was a rumble from the hallway. Ryu and I both looked through the doorway, hoping to spot the source of the noise. We slowly stepped out of the room towards the split hallway when we heard another rumbling sound. Somehow, it came from both paths.
“Genjo? Which way should we go?” Ryu asked quietly.
“This is exactly what it wants us to do, Ryu,” I whispered.
His head turned to face me. “Huh?”
I pointed to the split in the path. “You’re right. This is a trap. Whatever is keeping us here wants us to split up. It’s afraid of us sticking together.” I walked back into the room. “So I say we don’t give it that luxury.” I sat down in the chair that Ryu had set back up.
Ryu stayed outside near the diverging paths. “Genjo, I hope you realize that we’re not going to get out of here by sitting on our asses.”
“I know.” I pulled my drumsticks out of my backpack and started tapping them against the chair arm. “But would you rather find out what the hell made that noise just now?”
“How are you sure it wasn’t a structural collapse? Might be our ticket outta here.”
I looked back at Ryu. “I’m not going to rule out the possibility of a large, deadly monster in a place that has already been proven to house many smaller deadly monsters.”
“You can stay put. I’ll actually look for a way out.” Ryu ran down the hallway on the right without hesitation.
I yelled out after him. “Ryu??? Don’t be stupid! I’m not gonna let you get yourself killed!” I got up out of my chair to chase him, but was stopped by a voice I had never heard before. Say what you will about my social skills, but I’ve been meeting a lot of people on my first day here.
“Heh. What a chump.” The voice was raspy and scratchy, like the speaker had a sore throat. “Doesn’t see what’s right in front of him.”
A figure walked out of the darkness of the hallway on the left and into the room. Their body almost seemed like it was decaying right before my very eyes; Its hair was long, filthy and unkempt. All of the clothes on its body were stained and deteriorating. The figure wasn’t wearing any shoes, opting to walk around in its bare feet, which not only bore calluses all over, but also cuts and scars. I felt like I was looking at the human manifestation of a condemned warehouse that no one had cleaned or even entered in decades.
“...Who are you exactly?” I asked the figure.
The figure chuckled. “Oh, I’m Paramélisi. Not that it matters, really.” Paramélisi picked up another chair off the ground and sat across from me. “You’re Genjo, right? That’s what I heard that guy - Ryu, was it? - call you just now. What brings you two here?”
His name clearly wasn’t Japanese, and I’d wager it wasn’t English either. I wonder what else he knew about us. A sinking feeling told me he didn’t learn our names from simply overhearing us.
“We didn’t mean to come here. It was sort of an accident.” I hoped he would buy that excuse.
Paramélisi leaned back into his chair. “I get it. No one ever means to. Places like this get left behind for a reason.”
He was really starting to weird me out. “And what reason might that be?”
“It outlived its purpose, that’s all. Other, better places come around. And when those replacements arrive, the old gets neglected. In a way, it’s kinda like people, I suppose.”
I leaned in closer without getting out of my chair. “How so?”
“Well, how many times have you been neglected by others? They found someone they thought was more attractive, or they just decided you weren’t cool enough for them. Sound familiar?” What the hell did this guy know about me, and how the hell did he find it out?
“I don’t think that’s any of your concern.”
Paramélisi’s smile widened. “Hm. Fine. Your secrets are yours to keep. Secrets are a beautiful thing. You can either reveal them and break the trust that somebody granted you, or you can hide it away for all eternity, letting it rot away in the subconscious until it goes forgotten forever. Isn’t that just the worst kind of negligence? Pure accidents just sting harder.” He crossed his leg over the other. “The emotional weight behind decisions… I envy people in that regard.”
Of course. I knew there was a reason not to trust him. I needed to choose my words carefully. Could I stall until Ryu gets back? Is he even going to come back? “Paramélisi, what are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying that, unlike you and your buddy, I don’t feel any remorse.”
His statements were getting stranger and more uncomfortable as he went on. “Are you saying that there’s something that you should be feeling remorseful for?” As I spoke, I tried to replicate the way Ryu spun his pen in between his fingers with my drumstick. He’s gonna have to show me how he does it later, because I failed miserably and dropped it after a couple of seconds. The stick made a loud clatter as it hit the tile floor.
“You’re a smart kid. You already deduced it earlier, as a matter of fact.” I had a feeling that I knew what he was referring to, and I wanted so desperately for it to not be right. “I’m not gonna let you leave.”
I stood up from my chair, readying my hand in case of an emergency where he was necessary. “Well I’m not gonna let you do that.”
Paramélisi smiled. “How bold.” He got up as well. As he stood, his chair fell back, giving me my first chance to notice that he had been sitting in a chair without any back legs to hold it up naturally. “People always try to be. They always want to leave. But I can’t let that happen. As long as your kind gets to come and go as they please, they’ll never learn. We will cease to exist. You and your friend will serve as the perfect example of why we need to be left alone - as well as a reminder of what will happen when we aren’t.”
A dark aura started to converge around Paramélisi as he spoke. Through the swirls of energy, I caught a glimpse of Ryu standing in the doorframe. I knew he’d figure out my signal. “Genjo?? Are you in there?”
I ran out the door towards him, picking my drumstick off the floor as I left. “Good news: I’m fine. Bad news: I think this guy wants to murder us.”
“Yeah, no shit. I got back in time for the end of the monologue.” Ryu looked down the corridor. “Those are just like the old hallway; they don’t lead anywhere. We’re gonna have to find another way out.”
“Remember what we agreed upon earlier? About finding the thing that’s hiding the exit?”
Ryu shook his head. “No. Don’t you fucking dare.”
I snapped my fingers, sending brief purple sparks flying. “Too late.” Petrov’s glow filled the area. As he appeared, Paramélisi vanished. I felt a breeze blow by moments before getting slashed at by an invisible force that sent me and Ryu into the room. The door sealed shut as we were blown in from the outside.
Paramélisi’s disembodied voice laughed maniacally as we were sprawled out on the ground. “I’m not quite sure you understand. You aren’t leaving this place. And here I was, thinking that our entire conversation would’ve gotten it through that thick skull of yours! But your friend… now he could use some good supplemental instruction!”
The entire room suddenly turned a harsh white. Everything except Ryu and I seemed to vanish, including the door. Ryu clutched his head as he let out a cry of agony. “Ryu??” I cried out as I reached out to help him, but I was stopped by an unseen force, seemingly the same one that locked us in here.
The walls started to change, not in shape, but in what displayed on them. Several different scenes played out on the walls like a projector screen, all of which played out like a movie.
One scene was of a boy sitting in front of the TV while drawing a picture of a happy family, consisting of him and two adults, standing outside of a house on the beach. In the background, I could hear an argument unfolding, interlaced with the sounds of glass shattering and holes being punched in the wall.
Ryu shrieked in pain. “Stop… I’m begging you… please stop…!”
Another scene showed the same boy walking home from school with his friends, taking every single opportunity he could to take a detour with them. His friends kept asking him where he lived because he never took the same path home every day. Eventually, when all of his friends made it home themselves, he finally walked to his own house. No one greeted him when he entered the door.
Elsewhere on the wall, I could see the boy running through the pouring rain away from his home. Through the raindrops that fell from the sky, I was barely able to notice the tears streaking down his face, as well as the red stain on his sleeve that was slowly washing away in the rain. Unlike before, he wasn’t wandering with the goal of avoiding his destination; he ran straight to the beach.
“Why… are you showing him this?” Ryu screamed as his pain seemed to worsen. I could see tears streaming down his face. “Haven’t I suffered enough??”
There were two separate displays of the boy at a funeral. I watched one of them. He could barely look anyone in the eye, much less walk anywhere near the casket. I nearly skipped over the second one, thinking it was a repeat, but none of the other scenes repeated themselves. In this one, he didn’t look quite as sad - which was strange, considering he seemed younger.
Various other moments played out on the walls, but I stopped watching them after that point. I had figured out what they were, and I didn’t want to infringe on that privacy any further.
“Do you finally understand it? The pain of neglect?” Paramélisi’s voice shouted. “Ryu, let it consume your soul… give in to your sorrows… accept your fate, my tortured child!!”
Ryu had fallen to his knees, still clutching his head in pain. “I’ve known how it feels for my whole damn life; How it eats away at your self worth, poisoning you from the inside. It’s the only thing that I’ve ever fucking known.” He slowly stood up. “So I don’t need a disgusting, pathetic husk of a man to tell me how it feels.” As his voice raised louder in volume, I could feel Ryu’s resolve burning brighter than before. “And I refuse to let that same husk tell me what the fuck to do about it!” The displays spanning the walls simultaneously turned into static. “I don’t care what the hell you are. You could be a fucking god, and I still couldn’t give less of a shit.” Ryu’s shout rattled throughout the room. “YOU’RE LETTING MY FRIEND AND I OUT OF HERE, EVEN IF I HAVE TO TEAR YOU APART, LIMB BY LIMB!!!!”
~
A deep, disembodied voice spoke to Ryu.
“Ryu Kase… How fairly has life treated you?”
He let out a deep breath. “Gonna be honest; not very.”
“Do you desire to take revenge on life? Or to live in spite of it?”
Ryu cracked his knuckles. “Well if today has taught me anything, it’s that there’s no such thing as taking the easy path.” He further loosened the tie that rested snugly around his collar. “So I guess that leaves me with no other choice.”
“...I’ll play with the hand I’ve been dealt.”
A blue light suddenly flashed in front of Ryu. Something about all this didn’t seem quite as scary as Genjo described it. Or maybe he was just more prepared for it than Genjo was. Ryu reached out and grabbed the light, sending out blue sparks and alighting Ryu’s right fist with a painless blue flame.
Ryu remembered watching Genjo snap his fingers and figured that this was his only chance to decide how he would summon his own power, so he had better not mess it up by picking something stupid. But he couldn’t just rip Genjo’s style and copy the same move. So Ryu closed his eyes, held his right arm out straight, laid his palm flat, and performed a military salute, striking his hand against his right temple.
~
Bolts of lightning shot out from Ryu’s hand, singing all the hairs on the right side of his head. I had to duck to keep the bolts from scorching my face in the process. Ryu’s entire body spasmed as an electric field sparked out from nearly every square inch. I could see small bits of electricity crackling from his eyes along with a devious stare of intent to kill.
Ryu now had a Petrov-esque spirit of his own floating beside him, but it didn’t look similar to Petrov at all. This one donned a shimmering yellow and black cloak and a crown of pure gold, which I could tell was pure because it hadn’t rusted, unlike the steel knife on its belt. Its eyes were closed and its arms laid across its chest, gripping its own body as if it were an attempt to shield oneself from the potential danger of the outside world, or damage that could result from one’s own actions.
“Hm. Guess you’re not so special now, Genjo,” Ryu said with a smirk. “Remember when I asked to be your sidekick earlier?”
I moved to stand by his side. “Yep. You’re definitely sidekick worthy now.”
“Hah! I was gonna say that now it’s a competition to see which one of us is stuck being the sidekick!” Electric discharge emitted from Ryu’s hand. “You and Petrov don’t stand a chance against me and Midas!”
“Oh, he’s got a name too.” My own hands started to pulse with radioactive energy. “Well let’s see what Midas is made of, shall we?”
“With pleasure.” Ryu and I simultaneously shot at the wall where the door used to be. Our shots reacted violently, blasting it wide open. When we ran out through the hole we had just made in the wall, Paramélisi was nowhere to be found. We exchanged a glance of confusion, and then immediately tested a thought that we both had, taking another shot at the wall, hoping it would lead us outside. Unfortunately, our attempt to circumvent the situation entirely was fruitless, as the wall stayed intact. I guess the first blast only worked because it was where the door used to be? Eh, can’t blame us for trying.
Ryu yelled out “Hey, long fingernails?? Where’d you run off to?” but received no answer. It seemed that Paramélisi was keeping his distance from us. Was there any way to force him to confront us? I thought long and hard about it, but couldn’t come up with anything.
And then I remembered how I met Paramélisi in the first place.
He didn’t show up until Ryu ran down the hall and left me alone in the room. I concocted the perfect plan to lure him out.
“Ryu…” I put my hands on his shoulders. “This is going to sound absolutely ridiculous, but it’s the only way to defeat Paramélisi.”
He nodded. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m gonna need you to stay in here while I go look for him.”
Ryu stepped back in shock. “You need me to do what???”
“Ryu, I promise. It’s the only way. All I need you to do is stay here and stay on guard in case he shows up in this room.”
He was growing more and more anxious with each passing second. “Genjo, I can’t do that. Remember, we gotta stick together. I left you behind just a few minutes ago, and look at what we’ve gotten ourselves into because of that. I can’t leave you alone again. I won’t allow it.”
I stepped away from him towards the corridor. “Ryu. I know that’s what we promised. I’m not breaking that. But this is something that you’re just gonna have to trust me on. I can’t pretend to know what you’re feeling right now. But you’re not leaving me behind. This is my choice. And I need you to trust that it’s the right one.”
Ryu waited for a moment and took a deep breath. “Alright. I’ll trust you.”
I darted down the hallway on the right and waited patiently just beyond the darkness, hoping that my steps would lure Paramélisi out from wherever he escaped. Whether he would attack me or Ryu first was a coin toss; Considering Ryu’s apprehensions, I secretly hoped for the former.
After a moment, I heard a sound coming from the other hallway. I leaned up against the corner where the hallways split, hoping to get the jump on whatever was making it. The sound grew louder as the steps grew nearer. It didn’t sound like a person, but more like a gargantuan beast running on all fours. I feared what I would see rounding the corner, knowing that I had less time to see it coming than Ryu did.
When the look on Ryu’s face turned from anxiousness to genuine terror, I prepared Petrov for a strike on the creature. It passed by the corner, revealing itself to be an Eldritch horror like I had never even imagined possible. The creature barely resembled the thing who called itself Paramélisi. It looked even more grotesque and unkempt, with tentacles dangling from around every orifice, rotting segments of flesh falling off its back, and a mangled face that barely even looked human anymore. Even if this thing wasn’t holding us captive, I’d kill it just for the sake of putting it out of its misery.
“Now!!” I yelled as the creature ran through the hole in the wall, expecting Ryu to follow my command as I prepared to shoot a nuclear blast at the creature. I anticipated that our two blasts would collide, crippling the beast and letting us escape. Instead, I saw a streak of light as Ryu swiftly darted around it with a trail of lightning following his sneakers. The creature was caught completely off guard. While it was in a state of confusion, Midas plunged a spear of lightning straight through its back. The penetration sent sparks flying throughout the room as the beast let out ear-piercing shrieks of agony.
I ran into the room after watching it all unfold and channeled all of my power and concentration into controlling Petrov to destroy the beast forever. Its molecules began to destabilize, causing it to convulse as its entire body melted, burned, lesioned, and fused in completely random patterns. Eventually, all of the matter collapsed in on itself.
And thus, the husk formerly known as Paramélisi ceased to exist.
I tumbled to the ground shortly afterward. Turns out that manipulating matter to create a miniature controlled black hole kinda takes all of the energy out of you. Ryu slowly walked up to me while looking down at my motionless ragdoll of a body. “I think it’d be rude of me to delegate you to sidekick after that.” He reached down to lift me up, propped me up against his shoulder and helped me walk out.
My voice was quiet and coarse, almost entirely from exhaustion alone. “Thanks, Ryu. I also think it’d be rude of me to not trust you after all that.”
He gave me a light rub on the head through my hair, which gave way for his fist but quickly returned to its wavy, combed up state that I had joyously adopted. “Yeah, you got that right. I can’t believe we pulled that off, man. That’s one hell of a story we just lived through.”
“Of course, but I’m not exactly sure how many people we can tell this to. I doubt they’d even believe it.”
Ryu kept on walking towards where the exit would hopefully turn up. “Well there’s always the two of us, just in case we feel like reliving it.”
There was a bright, square light off in the distance. We both knew exactly what it was. Ryu ran after it, and I held on for dear life hoping he wouldn’t drop me.