Pure white.
There was not a distinction between the floor, the walls and the ceiling in this absolutely unreal room.
Was this an altered state of consciousness? My mind was calm— which rarely happened in such cases. I moved onto breathing and…
I couldn’t feel my lungs move.
My mind was not calm.
I grabbed my chest and felt my shirt crumple in my hands— but I felt no heartbeat. The rough, cringe-inducing texture of my shirt was so realistic, I had to take a pause. Okay, maybe this was a dream.
I pinched myself. But still felt pain.
“What the fuck is this…”
I looked around me— searching for any clues as to where I was. But there was nothing, not even a speck of dirt no matter where I looked.
While I walked, I checked my pulse and confirmed what I already knew. I had no pulse.
No pulse. No breathing.
Was I dead? Was this the afterlife? Or was this the strangest dream my mind had produced so far. No. Even in my dreams I could breathe. This was something else.
As I walked— one step after another on the stone-like floor I couldn’t see, I saw something.
I squinted my eyes at something in the distance— a black speck. Needless to say, I walked towards it. Whether this be a dream or the afterlife, I had nothing to lose by going there.
The speck grew bigger.
And bigger.
Until it was no more a speck of black.
It was a person with his back towards me— hunched in front of a desk and sitting in front of a large iron door with esoteric symbols carved onto it. There was a tree on the door with circles for branches— of which there were 11 in total.
Inexplicably I felt drawn to the door and the man I couldn’t see— as if I was a magnet enchanted by their pull. It felt as if everything in my life had led up to this moment and as I got closer, one silent footstep after another in this soundless landscape, I could make out sounds of a pen scratching paper.
And then it stopped.
The man silently set his pen down and slightly turned his head towards me— such that I couldn’t see his face.
“You’re not supposed to be here yet.” He said in an exceedingly familiar voice— and if I read it correctly, there was even a hint of surprise in there.
Before I could ask him anything he snapped his fingers.
And I felt the white world around me elongate— the door and the man once again becoming a speck— and like an extremely fast rollercoaster, I felt my whole body launch through the white space.
----------------------------------------
As I slowly came to, a myriad of voices hovered over me. Gods… What the hell was that? My eyes were so damn dry I could swear there was sand in them and it felt as if I’d only gotten an hour of sleep in three days.
Groggily, I used my arm to prop myself up and strained to look around.
There were two faces looking down at me— none of whom I recognized.
A nerdy-looking boy with glasses and a baby face.
A scholarly gentleman with a grizzly brown beard.
A third face walked into view and I immediately gasped.
“It’s you…” I croaked out— as if my voice hadn’t been used in ages.
The old man from the train tipped his hat.
I sat up and immediately felt many more stares on me. We were in a classroom of sorts. And of the 10 or so people present who were sitting in their seats, I was the only one spreadeagled on the floor.
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Quickly I got up and dusted myself in embarrassment. God damn it. First that white place and now this classroom. How the hell did I even get to these places? Wasn’t I in that damned bar?
“Mr. Amaris, please. Have a seat.” The old man said as he walked to a podium in the front of the room.
I looked around and there was an empty seat right beside me— which I awkwardly took. There were still a few people throwing glances at me, and a simple glance back was all it took for them to never look again.
There was a clap from the podium.
“So that concludes an overview of the test. Any questions?” The old man said.
Seems like I’d missed an important explanation, so I raised my hand.
“Mr. Amaris. Yes.”
I lowered my hand, “Is this a dream?.”
Laughter chorused through the room and I looked around at the many laughing faces. The old man himself didn’t laugh— but simply smiled gently.
“Unfortunately Mr. Amaris, this is not a dream.”
He glanced at his watch and looked back at me, “You had lost consciousness for the most part of the overview, and I do not have time to explain it again. So meet me after class. There is still 15 minutes until the test starts.”
Hearing that, I could see that most of the ‘students’ paled at the mention of the time remaining.
I chuckled internally. You guys should’ve studied harder. What can I say?
Then again, I didn’t know what this test was, so I had no right to laugh.
“Class dismissed.”
The moment the old man had waved his hand, an astonishing sight took place. Every single person in the room made a break for the exit— fighting tooth and nail to be the first to leave as if there was a bomb in the room.
In stunned silence, I watched the last of them sprint through the door. And then it was just me and the old man left— one of us calm, and the other thoroughly confused.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Yes.” He nodded.
“I don’t understand.”
The man chuckled, “No pulse. No sign of breathing. We thought you were dead.”
My heart skipped a beat. In that world of white too, I had no pulse and didn’t breathe. What did the man in front of the door tell me then? He told me I wasn’t supposed to be there.
Chills ran down my spine and I quickly diverted my attention to another topic.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Where we are does not matter. It is where we are going that is of the essence.”
Gods just get to the point old man.
“Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer my question, preferring instead to look at his watch.
“Just so you are aware, the timer has started.”
“Let it be. But please, I have so many questions. Who are you? Where are we? What is this test? What is this token?”
The old man burst out laughing as he stroked his beard,
“I’m afraid there isn’t time enough to answer all your questions. Limit yourself to just two.”
Damn it. The choice wasn’t that hard. Most of my questions were just burning curiosities, but there was one that was absolutely essential. Remembering the panic and fear in the eyes of those who left, I absolutely had to know what this test was.
“Alright. Two questions. What is this test? Where are we?”
“Astutely posed. 5 minutes and 39 seconds from now, there will appear a monster in this very room— and the ‘test’ is to survive it.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“And what happens if we fail?” I asked.
The old man chuckled, “Death. To put it plainly.”
“And if we succeed?”
“And that is the answer to your second question: Rotting Heaven.”
Rotting heaven? For some strange reason the phrase made me feel disgusted and I found myself frowning.
“What does that mean?” I asked, but he simply paid my voice no heed.
Instead, he deftly picked a coin from his pockets, and rolled the coin around his knuckles— making sure I could see it as plain as day. And then he flicked it behind me with the slightest movement of his thumb. I turned around to follow its trajectory and saw it clink on the ground, roll in a circle, and fall flat.
What were the theatrics for? That was another question to ask him. But first I had to know something else.
“Hey, you never answered my question. What is rotting heaven?”
But when I turned around, he was gone. The questions within me grew, and I simply stared at the space behind the podium silently, ruminating over his answers.
Rotting Heaven.
I remembered the tone of his voice when he uttered those words— weighty and powerful. The very phrase rang in my ears like the choir of a church or a mantra echoing in a temple chamber.
Why did I feel so much disgust?
My eyes then darted to the coin on the floor and I walked towards it. Was there a deeper meaning to this coin and the theatrics? I found myself in a deeply contemplative mood despite the looming threat of a ‘monster’.
But then again, I had no idea what this monster was or what it could do and all I had was the word, ‘monster’. How could anyone be scared of a word?
The coin was solid like a piece of gold.
It had smooth edges and in the center was the side profile of a sharp-featured man. And below him, were the engraved letters:
‘H E A V E N’