Aaron sat on the bed in his hospital room for a long time, staring at the floor and barely thinking. He only disturbed himself to put his clothes in the drawers on his side of the room and use the restroom. Now that he was in the psychiatric hospital, he didn’t want anything but to leave. More than that, he wanted — yearned, even — for the dreams and hallucinations all to be real.
Within the confines of those thick concrete walls, he had his first chance to think without a cloud of fear gnawing at him. Who wouldn’t want to find out they had some kind of secret heritage that came with cool powers? Aaron had daydreamed about exactly that very thing his entire life, yet balked when it turned up.
Except this is some kind of mental disorder, not a superhero origin story, he told himself. You’re just crazy, Aaron, not a part of the MCU.
As anyone who follows politics could tell you, a realistic outlook is far less soothing than even the most outlandish comforting lies.
Before he knew it, an orderly was stopping by each room to announce that lunch was ready. Despite having a large breakfast on his way into the hospital, Aaron’s stomach told him that he could stand to eat. Back in the common area, people were gathered in a vague clump around one of the large, round tables. A tall rolling cart with trays set at various levels stood beside it and an orderly was keeping things, well… orderly.
Despite the organization being more of a loose scrum than a line, the orderly was getting people their lunch following some kind of method only they understood. Aaron, not wanting to do something wrong and look like an idiot, milled around outside the cluster of patients, intent on learning through observation.
His attention was drawn by the oddest pairing of people. There were more than a dozen patients standing around the lunch cart — more women than men — but two of them stood out. The tiny old lady with wispy white hair he’d seen when he arrived was talking with a massive bald black man. The guy had to be six and a half feet tall, maybe more, and quite heavy. His size was all the more noticeable standing there with the little old woman.
Their size, skin tone, and hair — or lack thereof — weren’t the only odd contrasts between the two. Where she wore pajamas, slippers, and a fluffy robe, the big man had on a sleek, red baseball jersey with white trim that said ‘Iam’ on the back. Aaron didn’t follow baseball so he didn’t know if that was a real player or the big man’s own name, but he was pretty sure the jersey was custom because the number on the back was a sideways eight, the symbol for infinity.
That’s a pretty cool jersey, Aaron thought. I’d probably go for hockey or football, but it’s still hella cool.
Aaron had been so distracted by the odd pairing, he’d failed to pay attention to the process for getting lunch. There was nobody left for him to watch, so he had to fly blind. He was pretty sure people had just been grabbing a tray with one of the plates covered by a maroon plastic lid. There were quite a few of those left on racks, so he pulled one out from near the middle at random. The orderly stopped him before he could walk away.
“Did you want to grab some chips or drinks?” she asked, gesturing to two cardboard boxes on the table he hadn’t noticed. “Take a couple, if you like.”
One box had little juice containers like Aaron used to get when he was a kid and the other little bags of chips in a variety of brands and flavors. He grabbed a couple of each, added them to his tray, and looked for a place where he could sit down and eat.
Aaron took his tray over to the reading corner, which was empty, and sat. He perused the books, impressed with the variety of genres present even if most of them were older, and grabbed a Stephen King novel he’d never even heard of. He opened it without bothering to read more than the title.
The lunch provided was a sandwich, as he’d guessed, but it was a surprisingly hefty chicken salad affair. It was clearly not some cheap, pre-packaged mix, either. Aaron wolfed the sandwich down; it was delicious. Quite possibly the best chicken salad he’d ever had, actually.
About ten minutes into his meal, when Aaron was working his way through the bags of chips, Joseph came into the common room with a man, a patient if the overnight bag was any indication. The orderly gave the new arrival the same quick tour he’d given Aaron a couple hours earlier. Aaron wasn’t sure, but he felt like the new guy kept shooting glances his way.
You’re imagining things, he told himself. Remember why you’re here.
After lunch, Aaron took the book back to his room. He sat on the bed and tried to get comfortable, head propped up on one hand as he laid out. The words on the page wouldn’t fully register, his mind dwelling on the new patient and what Aaron’s distorted recollection increasingly painted as their sinister interest in him. It was just a couple glances in passing, likely nothing more than Aaron had done himself as he tried to get his bearings in an unfamiliar setting.
Agitated as he was, Aaron dozed off after just a few minutes.
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Sssswih-thump.
It was closer now, the thing pursuing Aaron through the maze. It was closer every time he slept.
Aaron preferred to think of it as an ‘it’ rather than a ‘them,’ despite the humanoid shape of their silhouette. He was reasonably certain it wasn’t human, but he couldn’t bring himself to think of it as a person of any sort, nor even an animal. He couldn’t have said why.
It’s interesting how I’m remembering things more clearly with each dream, he thought. Is it the Conspicuous Pursuer getting closer? Or something else?
How much closer was hard to say; the passages were made of stone and sound carried. The stone halls were as high as ever and, like always, barely wide enough for him to walk through without his shoulders scraping against the walls. Not exactly ideal for moving quietly but Aaron pushed onwards, trying his best not to make any noise and give away his position.
Something was off.
It was a familiar dream, the stone labyrinth, one he’d been having for a while. How long, exactly? Months, at least, maybe years; maybe his entire life. Aaron never remembered it when he woke and it was only recently he carried even an impression of it between the dreams themselves, but it was all too familiar nonetheless.
And yet…
There were things that were different, that had changed. Aaron didn’t know when the changes had started or even what all of them might be. The Conspicuous Pursuer was new, he was pretty sure of that. There were other things — important things — that he couldn’t identify and it was frustrating for him.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
As he crept through the narrow passage Aaron paused for a moment, fixated on that idea of things changing. It had something to do with the stone, or the walls. He gently pressed his hand against the rock, feeling how it was smooth and yet still carried a hint of its native coarseness.
Sssswih-thump.
Was it the masonry? Or the size of the blocks? No, he felt that those had been consistent, even if he couldn’t remember every dream in this place. It had something to do with the walls, but it wasn’t the walls themselves.
Aaron moved his head to look at the walls all around him. He had to move slowly, gingerly even, because the hallways were so narrow he risked bumping his head, chin, or nose if he wasn’t cautious.
Except that…hadn’t always been true, had it?
Ssswih-thump.
Judging by the sound, Aaron’s Conspicuous Pursuer couldn’t have been more than a few hallways away. He ignored it for the moment, focusing on the idea that had just proposed itself then tried to flit away like a frightened bird.
Aaron turned sideways, angling himself so that his shoulders were pressing against each of the walls in the confined space of the stone passage. He placed his palms flat against the stone.
The hallways, he thought. It has something to do with the hallways.
He widened his stance and lowered his hips, pressing his back into the wall behind him. He started to push against the walls in both directions, steadily increasing the pressure and force he directed into the stone. It was an absurd exercise — the walls were hundreds of feet high, at least; the weight of that much stone meant it was impossible for him to budge them — but he continued to push anyway.
After a couple seconds, Aaron realized the physical strain wasn’t the limiting factor; the problem was concentration. Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say the problem was focus. His body was willing to push back against the walls with everything he had, yet he was having trouble deciding to actually do it. Frustration was quickly building towards… annoyance. Because Aaron didn’t get angry.
“Fucker,” he breathed, not entirely of his own volition. He was so sick of his own shit — his hesitation, his weakness, his lack of control or discipline.
Why is it the only time you have any willpower is arguing over stupid bullshit, he excoriated himself. Then, quietly but aloud, “You dumb. Mother. Fucker.”
Grunting with the last word, Aaron actually banged the tip of his nose into the wall. It didn’t hurt much, but anger bloomed, cold and trembling, in his guts. No, not anger. He didn’t get angry, so it had to be something else. Let’s call it pique.
As he failed to make any progress on whatever it was he was doing with the walls, pique rushed headlong into vexation. Soon, even that gave way to irritation. As he became more aggravated, Aaron sort of lost track of the purpose behind pushing against the walls and the goal became nothing more than to just push the stupid things until they either gave him what he wanted or broke. Either way, he’d feel better.
Ssswih-thump.
It sounded closer than ever, closer even than when its shadow had fallen across the end of the—
Recollection, like a fuse bursting in the dark, flashed in Aaron’s mind, illuminating a tableau just long enough for the eyes and mind to process it.
The halls…used to be wider, he realized.
It was more than a realization, it was knowledge. Not so long ago, these hallways had been much wider. Aaron drove the icy tremors of his pique through his body and into the walls and they receded. Or, it wasn’t that they receded because that implied motion; the walls were simply, suddenly, further apart. They were still narrow, but they were more than wide enough for him to walk through normally.
Finally, some lucid god damned dreaming, he thought. This was almost as bad as fighting that stupid ninja.
That thought brought Aaron up short. Fighting a ninja? He hadn’t had any dreams with ninjas in them since he was a kid. It might be interesting, but at the moment he wondered if he might be able to lead himself into a dream with that mystery woman in the robe. Preferably without the old dude around.
Ssswih-thump. Ssswih-thump.
That sound meant it was time to get a move on. Aaron began to move through the hallway once more but stopped at the next intersection. A small, sleek door made of metal or plastic with rounded corners was fixed into the stone wall at about shoulder height. It had no handle.
That’s the most inconvenient door I’ve ever seen, he observed.
When Aaron took a step towards it for a closer look, the door opened. It swung downward, hinged at the bottom. The interior of the door had carpeted steps with metal railings built right into it, leading up to the newly-revealed opening in the wall. The area past the door was too dark to see anything inside.
Sswih-thump. Sswih-thump. Sswih-thump.
That clinched it. Aaron scrambled up the stepped ramp and through the portal.
Aaron found himself in the passenger cabin of a luxurious private jet. The carpets were plush, the seats made of light leather that looked soft and expensive, and the walls covered in wood paneling. The cabin wasn’t unoccupied.
A man in a dark suit sat in one of the chairs, his back to Aaron and a cell phone held up to his ear. Light glinted off the man’s cufflinks and a heavy but understated pinky ring. The clothes and jewelry might be different, but even from what little he could see of the man, Aaron was pretty sure it was that Barrett guy.
Am I being racist right now? Aaron wondered. It’s not like I know a lot of old black dudes, even in my dreams.
Whatever conversation the man was having on the phone, Aaron couldn’t make out any of it. The words were indistinct and distorted, like they were being run through a very old speaker that was also underwater. When he tried to make out what the older man was saying, all he heard was a warbling buzz.
“Great. I’ve gone from being Superman to Charlie Brown,” Aaron muttered to himself. “Wah wah-wah wah waaaah.”
As Aaron looked around the cabin, debating on whether he should try something like shaking the old man, he saw that there was another person in the plane with them.
At the rear of the passenger area, a figure in a hooded robe knelt on the floor. A dark mat was spread out beneath them, decorated in strange symbols set in the borders of strange geometric shapes. Nine candles burned around the mat, giving off a strange, purplish light. The figure was gently rocking or swaying on their knees to a rhythm Aaron couldn’t identify.
Could this be the mystery woman from the back of Barrett’s car? Aaron wondered.
“Uh, hello?” he said.
The figure quickly lifted their arms to their sides, slightly above shoulder level, and the cabin was filled with a bright flash of light.
“Holy shit!” Aaron cried, covering his eyes.
Well, that can’t be a good sign, he thought ruefully.