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Chroma

The next day you head out of your home intent on finding the strange shop again. As you get halfway to the place where the wind last took you away you notice a point in space in front of you. Like a representation of the 0th dimension there is a dot hanging in the air. While you look at it space and light seem to fracture in front of you. The seven shards of reality you see all reflect one of the colours of the rainbow. They quickly rearrange themselves into a weird edged smile. The smiling mouth starts dripping black and that black surrounds you. The liquid feels like nothing at all and absorbs you completely, you try to scream but you hear only echoes. Suddenly it washes away and you find yourself in an unnaturally white corridor which stretches on indefinitely. You turn around only to find a single white plaque behind you. You can only read the text because it pops out of the background. It tells you that this place is called the Museum of Simulation Technology. When you turn around again the corridor seems to have shortened. Now it leads into a room full of tea accessories, cups and teapots are scattered about with little order or logic the room itself is for some unknowable reason shaped like the state of Utah. The next room lies straight ahead and consists of a chessboard without black pieces. As you head in you notice that there is a door on the left of the room which leads forwards. What lies beyond is obscured by pure white. When you touch the white it whirls away and leaves only dust on the ground and a way forward in front of you. The room beyond seems to be a focus to this strange dimension. It is octagonal and in its centre floats a black monolith. Shaped like a rectangle with pyramids on its square sides it absorbs all light. When you get close you feel an irresistible need to touch it. When you do the room shifts around you. All turns red and the walls themselves pulse with veins and arteries, the floor turns to countless tongues and red teeth, the ceiling oozes blood onto your face and you feel your lips and tongue melding together with tendrils of flesh in between. You are inside of something and that something is alive. In a panic you turn to the monolith only to find a giant black heart. As it beats so do the walls and the floor pulse. When you touch it the room turns back to the white and featureless museum of before. Your mouth fills with the same white dust you found in the entryway. On one of the walls a red door made of flesh appears, its frame is fortunately wooden so the thing doesn’t slosh around too much. When you see it you wonder if it is a travel relay to a world of flesh, or maybe a trial to finish in order to appease the monolith. Undeterred by the hell of flesh you just left you touch the pillar again. When you do the walls change once again, they turn mostly green and covered in plant life, from moss to blades of grass. Oddly, there is also some brown present in the more wooden stalks of vines and the mud on the ground, the ceiling is formed out of leaves and branches but all around you see a growing infestation of mould and some species of fungus grow where the mud is wetter. You think you are inside a giant tree, so big that smaller trees easily grow within it. The spores quickly fill your lungs and you try to find the monolith again. Here it takes the form of a tall black tree, free of any fungal parasites. When you touch it and return to the white walls of the museum you cough out some dust and find another door, this one green, in one of the walls of the room. It is made from plants and its frame is actual brown wood instead of the red painted frame of the red door. You know it’s a bad idea but you cannot stop yourself from touching it again. This time you find yourself surrounded by water. You can still breathe but you feel it filling your lungs and stomach with every breath. When you look to the surface it’s blue, when you look into the depths they’re blue, the walls are blue and the fish swimming around you are blue, so is the predator in the distance they are fleeing from. The blue comes in many shades but it encompasses everything. Speaking of the blue shark like creature it is looking your way. Deciding to escape you turn around and again find the monolith, now it looks like a stream of pure black, oil maybe, flowing from down below to up above as far as you can see. You swim into it and find yourself exactly where you expected to be. You bend down and vomit out a white liquid that dries up instantly in contact with the floor. You already know what comes next, not even noticing a blue door made of flowing water you once again touch the smooth rectangular surface of the monolith. Everything turns to flames, from the walls to the floor all is fire. There seem to be objects in the distance; they too are made out of fire. As you observe the fiery landscape and notice that it is a lot harder to recognise shapes when they dance and weave the fire consumes your clothes. They feel warmer but not hot to the touch and they glow with a soft orange hue like the rest of the pyres that are littered around you. When you turn around you find a pyre glowing black. When you touch it you are back in the white room which has gained another door. This one is orange and, unsurprisingly, made of fire. Still not having enough you touch the black surface again. As expected you find yourself in another colour themed room. The desert sand shifts under your feet. It feels strangely cold beneath a sky of yellow clouds. Between the dunes you can see some signs of life. Yellow lizards poke out of small holes and scuttle about in a panic. The clouds start descending and where they touch the sand you see it blacken and smoke, best not stay too long. As you turn a small black spike sticks out of the ground behind you, it seems to be the top of a pyramid submerged in the sands. When you touch it you return to the octagonal room which almost has a door for each side, the end of your journey approaches, or maybe it is just the end of the beginning. Two more touches and you’re done, what being done means you do not know but you recognise the pattern of the coloured doors and their worlds. You steel your resolve and touch the black stone again. Suddenly, nothing exists, not even you. Then, you take a step and all is purple from your foot and around the room you see purple waves spreading, like sound and yet unlike. The waves spread across all surfaces and you see around the room, you see a small table with a key upon it, an unmade bed and on the far side of the room an iron door and bars. Then the purple flash ends and when you turn around you see white sigils on the black wall Challenge of purple, Prison Break

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You touch the wall and appear in the white room once again. The pillar awaits.

The room has a coloured door for seven of its eight sides. Your journey is coming to an end. You touch the black surface for what may be the last time and find yourself falling from a great height, below you lies a lake of unusually bright water full of fish. As you fall closer you notice that below the water there is no ground and where it should be space loops back to the sky. You fall through the water several times until a black boat sails below you and you fall into it. Strangely, you feel no pain and simply sense the impact as a low pressure on your skin. When you sit up you notice a figure near the steering lever. They are dressed in full black and perfectly camouflaged from above with a stovepipe hat and a black longcoat. Their face is sunken and pale but their eyes glow with an otherworldly green. Their arms and what you can see of their legs and feet are skeletal and clack with the gentle rocking of the boat. They speak without moving their lips in a soft androgynous voice “Hello child, you are certainly a strange one. Your method of entry was unusual; I usually pick up people at the shore. Maybe it means that you are not here for a ride, will you succeed me?” You shake your head; you have no intention of becoming what looks like a ferryman of souls. While death seems more beautiful than ever you have things to do and a shop to find. “Very well, though I have a feeling that I will see more of you yet. Let me take you then, to the place where death ends and life begins.” You spend several hours on the boat, as you reach your destination the water around you turns red and viscous; within it you can see faces of small children. The many colourful fish are nowhere to be seen. You start approaching a giant cave; the red water seems to be flowing from it along with gusts of pleasantly warm air. Atop it several flowering trees grow and drop their petals down and around your boat. This is the end and the beginning. Before you go into the cave you touch its wall and find yourself back where you started, at the halfway point to the strange wind gust of yesterday. You give up and go home feeling that you will find the shop again, when you are meant to.

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