Jeff
Piles upon piles of scrap cluttered the worn down rooms of Jeff’s home, dozens if not hundreds of beer cans forming small hills behind and between the furniture. Jeff threw a cigarette butt into a slightly out of reach, half-empty liquor glass as it added itself to the swarm of similar looking objects which covered the dark fluid’s surface. He lit himself another cigarette.
The liquid in the half-empty glass darkened a little further.
A grey cloud of cigarette smoke hung on the upper half of the room, clinching to the wooden ceiling like attempting to hide what laid beyond. Jeff didn’t bother to open a window, since the cloud would just reappear anyways. He felt like Sisyphus, rolling his smoke-rock up an endless, steep sloped mountain.
Except his life was all slopes, and they somehow kept getting steeper.
Jeff zipped across different TV programs, nothing really catching his attention as he continued scrolling through an endless seeming stream of reboots and remakes of the same old shows. He sighed, drowned another cigarette in a glass nearby. Jeff made sure to keep track of which his current drinking glass was. He hadn’t paid attention to it once, would not make that mistake again.
The room was ill lit, heavy curtains guarding in front of the windows like the heroes they were. They acted as a border between him and the outside world. He lit another cigarette, pulled on it.
The bell rang.
Jeff hesitated for a moment while holding in the smoke, then exhaled in light confusion. He got up, walked along the small path he had left open between the cans and other rubbish. He opened the door, the smoke cloud partly escaping to the outside world as he did.
He looked down, seeing a rather young male around the age of maybe 15 or 16. He coughed while rummaging around in a bag way too big for his size.
“Good evening, mister Grimes.”
“Evening?” Jeff sighed, said, “Listen kid, I already said you more than enough times that I don’t want your fucking advert… oh.”
The ‘kid’ had pulled a letter out of his bag, held it in Jeff’s direction. Jeff recognized the printed-on logo right away. Black letters red the abbreviation ‘C.U.A’. He had almost forgotten about that application he had sent there a while ago.
Jeff hesitated, then frowned.
“Is this some kind of poor joke? Getting the hopes of the ex-officer up?” He snatched the letter out of the kid’s hand, examined it further.
The kid shook his head. “The address and everything is legit, that’s all I know.”
Jeff scratched his not so short anymore moustache – which had gotten a little more bristly over the last few months.
“Well… thanks.”
“No problem mis-”
Jeff slammed the door shut before he could hear the rest of the kid’s sentence. He rapidly crossed over to his kitchen, wiped some empty cans off the counter to open up some space. He grabbed a nearby knife, opened up the letter with hurried care.
He pulled out the piece of paper, unfolded it with briefly shaking hands. His eyes danced over the words, took in the message delivered by them.
He felt one corner of his mouth lift an millimeter.
“No fucking way.”
---
A few days later
Anna
Particles of blue light flashed around, sparkling and flowing into a never-ending stream of colour. Like caught in the currents of the ocean, she felt herself getting transported from one place to another, floating through the fabric of reality as time around her seemed to stand still.
There was something quite peaceful to it, like being inside the eye of a storm. She enjoyed the moment of peace, without worry and pain, just floating between space and matter alongside the particles rhythmically dancing across reality. It felt a little bit like back in the ball-pit, but there was something else.
If this really was the eye of the storm, then leaving it meant getting thrown back into the harsh winds and rain, the howling and pouring forces of nature. But somehow she didn’t care about it anymore. She had the feeling that her path had gotten more clear. It didn’t need to be perfect any longer, it just needed to be walked, which enveloped her in an unfamiliar feeling of relief and lightness.
The particles faded and reality begun materializing around her again. She had left the portal. Hendrick and Jim appeared next to her only a fraction of a second later. They had arrived in the order in which they had entered the portal.
A handful of particles danced around the three of them momentarily before fading into nothingness. There were no signs of the portal which remained after that.
Anna would have loved to stay inside of the portal for just a little longer. There had been such a calming feeling to it. The possibility of forgetting what she had seen… she would give a lot for it now.
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But it was time to move on now. Things had to change.
Her eyes got used to the less bright place, colours in shades of black and grey painting the surrounding area. She smelled the stench of iron in the air, the ground beneath her feet feeling familiar yet at the same time not familiar at all.
They had been teleported to something which at first glance resembled a dense jungle, thick layers of different plants melting themselves into the scenery. Tall trees towered high above their heads, big leaves high above making it impossible to even see the sky.
There was one catch to it: Everything seemed to be changed in colour.
Before she could get to any conclusion what exactly the surroundings were made out of, Hendrick moved past her. He walked up to one of the giant trees embedded into the reddish ground beneath, its thick roots ranging wide even on the surface, said, “I know you have a couple of questions, but this one needs to be answered first.”
He knocked on the tree with his bare hand. A damp metal sound was audible.
“Everything here has been made mechanical, or at least has a layer of metal around it.”
Jim moved over to Hendrick, rammed his scissors inside of the tree. He looked at the scratch he had created, sighed. “For real… Around 3 centimeters deep and there’s no sign of wood? How deep does that stuff go?”
“It depends on how long it has been coated already. Let’s get moving now, I’ll explain everything important on the way.”
“Can you two stop for just a second?” Anna said, still trying to take in the scenery around her while processing what had happened less than half an hour ago. “Jack just died and you two just plan to keep going?”
Hendrick hid his lips for a moment, walked up to Anna, said: “Anna, listen. It could as well have been all of us if things would have gone worse. And if we don’t move now, we might all die. The border won’t wait fo-”
“I don’t care. You lied to us about there being no pain. You also didn’t tell us any details about what we were doing and why while just dragging us along.” She sat down on the reddish ground. “I won’t move until you give some answers.”
Jim was visibly annoyed, let out his anger on the tree trying to get through the metal layer. His attempts were futile, yet he didn’t participate in the conversation.
Hendrick scratched himself on the back of his head, sighed. “Yea, well...” His gaze moved to Jim, whose expression spoke more than a thousand words. He returned it to Anna, said, “You are right, I fucked up. I should have told you the truth right ahead. I thought if I tell you the pain here is real, you get too afraid to act.”
“Then will you be transparent from now on?” Jim asked. He had given up on the tree, was walking back to the group.
“I can’t tell you everything about the game yet, but I will explain what we do and why we do it. No more lies from now on. And once we reach the end of the second stage, I can tell you everything, no exceptions.” Hendrick held out his hand towards Anna. “And if I say no exceptions, I mean it. It’s going to make sense then, I promise. No question will be left unanswered.”
Anna looked to the side, spotted Jim looking in her direction. He still looked unfazed, the usual spark in his eyes nowhere to be seen. After a moment, he shrugged as if asking for Anna to decide.
She grabbed the outstretched hand, got up. Hendrick smiled, hugged her. “We will be fine, alright? We’ll make sure you are safe from now on.” Anna wanted to pat the dust off her pants, realized she didn’t had to anymore.
“Jim…” Hendrick let go of the hug before Anna could respond to it, turned to Jim. “...Scissors.”
Jim threw the scissors over to Hendrick, who stepped to the left as it fell to the ground. Anna – who had expected him to catch it – tilted her head to the side in confusion. Jim had reacted to Hendrick’s request quite fast, almost as if he didn’t mind throwing a giant scissors at him right now.
“Alright, but what is your pla... wait a second... are you fucking stupid?” Jim had started talking, but had interrupted himself at the sight of Hendrick standing on top of the lower half of the scissors while pulling the other half upwards.
Jim started moving closer, but stopped as a loud ‘clank’ sounded through the air.
“What it your problem, dude? That was our only weapon…” Jim said.
Hendrick picked up the two halfs, held them like knives. He grinned, said: “And now we have two weapons.” He handed one over to Jim, who looked at it with slight suspicion. The suspicion lifted after a moment.
“Okay yea, that kinda makes sense,” Jim said and balanced the newly acquired weapon in his grip. “We also need a weapon for Anna, though.”
“I already have something in mind for that,” Hendrick said. “But first...”
Hendrick looked around, pulled the exam out of his pocket, unfolded it. He appeared to read some notes before looking up from it, back at it, then at the surroundings again. “Alright we need to walk into…” he checked one last time, “… this direction.” He put the map away, started walking.
Jim followed him without saying a single word. It was weird not hearing him crack jokes all the time, but Anna had to admit it was probably for the better right now. Her mind brought her back to the weird room in the cave. She really wondered what he had seen to make him scream like that back then.
She remembered the contents of the present she had opened. The human being... if you could even call it that. It had been stitched and sewn together with what had resembled a stuffed animal of some sort. The pieces of fur which had replaced its limbs, the forced open smile lacking teeth but beaming in screaming terror held by the Doll-Maker’s strings. She remembered the flat marbles which had replaced the person’s original eyes…
But the detail that had burned inside of her mind the most was the faint raising and sinking of the person’s chest. Too little to be really alive, but too much to be blessed by the sweet release of death.
And the face…
The face had looked so familiar.
It had been so hard to even see it at first glance,
but she was now certain.
The abomination inside of the present… It’s face had looked li-
“Anna? You coming?”
It took Anna a moment to realize that Jim had called her. She hesitated, then started to follow him.
She took a deep breath and wiped away the thoughts of what had happened. It was time to move on now, for change to unfold. She put her hands behind her head – like she had done a thousand times before – to readjust her ponytail. But this time she grabbed the hairband and pulled it downwards.
Her now open hair dangled over her shoulders and partly covered her face. She used two fingers to move a single hairline out of her view and behind her ear.
So this is what freedom feels like, huh? she thought.
And she started moving through the dense fauna of the mechanical jungle, sources of light emitting from all sorts of different places as they made their way deeper into the metallic wilderness.
And left behind,
covered by a little bit of copper dust,
a single hairband rested on the ground,
never to be worn again.
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