Faceless and Boss walked silently towards the blinking neon lights in the distance. While the absence of conversation felt slightly oppressive, no one felt inclined to break the ice as they were cautious of whatever was lurking in the fog. Strange gasps, discordant howls, and odd fading yelps could be heard all around them.
Faceless always sensed that something was moving about in the periphery of his eyes. Once, something large seemed to cross their path, leaving faint ripples of fog in its passage. There were also weird lights in the distance, some resembling the twinkling lights from the eyes of unknown creatures, others resembling the ghostly lights of will-o'-the-wisps. He could swore that on one occasion a massive ball of furry, pulsating red flesh floated past their heads. However, these creatures always vanished when he tried looking directly at them.
Faceless ignored whatever he saw, focusing instead on getting closer to the structure ahead. Thankfully, the illuminated outline of the building soon came into view, and he was greeted by the sight of a sleek, shimmering cube-like building with a ridiculously pink neon light in the shape of a cocktail glass outside.
Both Faceless and Boss visibly relaxed the closer they got to the building. Faceless noticed that the weird sounds from the fog diminished once they were within an arm's length of its walls; the strange voices instead replaced with the gentle tinkle of a piano from within the bar. Faint cloudy tendrils of fog seemed to pushing against the structure, but those were blocked by some circular transparent barrier.
"I never really enjoyed coming here," Boss said once he was inside the barrier. "You can't really tell what is inside the damn fog."
"Pardon me, Boss, but aren't you born here?" Faceless asked in surprise.
"I am, but that does not make me a native," Boss patted around for his cigarette and lighter. "The only 'native' things here are the weird creatures you can, or can't really see, that are always running around. Them, and this blasted fog which never goes away." Boss puffed and inhaled gratefully at the cigarette.
"One thing you should know when navigating this place, which I soon expect you to do more often, is that nothing here is really real," Boss continued. "The main exception are conscious, intelligent entities. Even then, being able to survive here for prolonged periods means that whatever is underneath their skin is heavily distorted and warped. Do you see that thing floating up there?" Boss gestured vaguely above their heads.
"What thing?" Faceless looked up but could only see an inky black fog.
"Can't you see that green elephant with mouths on its knees?" Boss asked.
Faceless squinted his non-visible eyes. A few seconds later, he saw a fluorescent green elephant wade out from the fog. Asides from its eerie glow, its knees also had grinning mouths filled with crooked, yellow teeth. To his surprise, the elephant-like creature seemed to notice the two of them staring and charged angrily towards them, but it dissipated back into a foggy, inky substance once it hit the barrier.
Boss chuckled when Faceless flinched. "Why did you imagine it attacking us?" Boss chortled.
"I didn't... imagine? Does the fog manifests our fears?" Faceless seemed to understand something.
"To be exact, this place is able to give form to our imagination," Boss replied as he puffed out some smoke. "Sometimes, whatever is conjured persists and turns into a perpetual, stable existence, just like this bar. Skilled and experienced individuals can also manipulate the fog to serve their whims, like what I did with the taxi you took earlier. On very, very rare occasions, these forms become stable and strong enough to escape from this dimension and exist in reality."
"The main reason I am telling you these things is because the building we will be entering shortly is not a safe haven. Whomever, and whatever are inside are dangerous enough to snuff out your life before you know it. Don't trust anything you see, anything you hear, or anyone you meet unless the Lady explicitly tells you to." Faceless nodded.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"May I ask something?" Boss indicated for Faceless to go ahead. "How do I know that you are well, real?"
"Excellent question, it shows that you were listening." Boss grinned. "I will now show you my true form, just so that you are more familiar in recognising presences and auras. However, it will be very, very brief as your mind will literally explode if you aren't careful. Ready?"
Before Faceless could reply, Boss pressed a thumb against Faceless' forehead.
* * *
Faceless felt his mind go blank, but gasped in pain as a sudden surge of fog flooded into his mouth and nostrils. Faint black lines outlined his facial features, whilst also forming a slow-moving swirl on his forehead.
Faceless slowly released his clenched fists and lifted his head towards Boss. As he did so, the newly etched black lines on his face started glowing.
The smiley, chubby bald middle-aged man he was familiar with was gone. Instead, what he saw was an inky mass in a vague, humanoid form. In place of its head, there was now a single unblinking eyeball with a milky white iris. Mouths of various shapes and sizes were opening and closing all over its body. The majority of mouths seemed human, but there were also beaks, canine jaws, and mouths of various creatures appearing and disappearing.
Faceless stared and was rooted in horror. Just as he felt that his mind was about to break, he heard an audible finger snap. The inky horror in front of him was replaced with the familiar human figure of his Boss.
As Faceless dry-heaved against the barrier, he tried recalling what exactly he saw, but all he could recall was something black and vaguely non-human.
While he couldn't remember what Boss looked like previously, he did feel some sort of indelible mental imprint in his brain that was reminiscent of Boss' presence. Faceless felt that he could instinctively tell who, or what, his Boss is regardless of whatever form Boss takes.
"You can recall how I look clearly once your brain is tough enough," Boss crushed the cigarette under his shoes before kicking it out of the barrier. "What you saw is what most entities born in this fog actually look like. Some can be quite beautiful, but they tend to isolate themselves in their own pockets of existence."
"Anyway, we have chatted outside long enough. Let's go in," Boss swung open the door and Faceless followed closely behind.
* * *
Faceless was surprised that the inside of the building was surprisingly normal at first glance. However, he felt a strong sense of wrongness as he looked carefully around.
There were various bottles behind the bar counter, while most were filled with normal drinks, some were stuffed with still-living or dead creatures wriggling within. None of the chairs were of the same height, some in fact were precariously stacked on one another and wobbling about. The curtains were moving despite there being no wind.
Weirder still were the beings within the bar. There were pixies, trolls, sprites, dwarfs and gnomes. A slime and a skeleton were clinking their mugs of beer. Faceless spied an angel and a well-dressed imp conversing closely in one of the side booths. In another corner sat an expressionless withered oak tree surrounded by swaying saplings. Ironically, the table next to it was occupied by four axes. The first was a normal iron axe with a wooden handle, the second one looked identical except that it was made of silver, the third was made of gold, while the fourth axe was an ornate iron axe with carved copper motifs of phoenixes and dragons. The four axes took turns hacking peanuts on the table.
"Hi Boss, hi Faceless," the beautiful silver-haired bartender greeted them as they entered. On her back was two pairs of wings, the one at the top were a pair of angelic, while the one at the bottom were a smaller pair of bat-like wings. She held her hand out and smiled coquettishly as Boss approached the counter.
"Please don't call me Boss, my Lady," Boss said as he gently kissed her hand. "Faceless, allow me to introduce you to the Lady. Owner of Carl's Bar-and-Prison of the In-Between, founder of the Organisation, goddess of Wild Magic and Trickery, as well as being crowned the best mixologist in thirteen dimensions for nearly four centuries."
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Author's Notes
I really did let my imagination go wild in this chapter.
The first three axes actually comes from an Aesop fable called 'The Honest Woodcutter'. One day, a woodcutter was chopping a tree when his axe fell into a river. A goddess appeared and presented him with three axes, one golden, one silver, and his original axe. The woodcutter chose his own axe and was rewarded with both golden and silver axes afor his honesty.
The fourth axe is inspired by the creation myth of Pangu from Chinese Mythology. According to Chinese mythology, the world creator Pangu was a giant born from a cosmic egg. His most prominent weapon was his axe, which he used to separate the opposing forces of yin from yang in the universe.