I woke up in the most pain I’d ever been in.
As I came to my senses, I remembered the time I spent in the flagellation chambers, and began to feel relatively better.
Of course, it certainly helped that I had made it to the bottom of the stairway, and finally saw what was waiting for me.
Quite unsurprisingly, it was a door.
Almost as unsurprisingly, it was quite unlike any other door I’d ever seen, in the labyrinth or outside.
The most surprising thing about the door, frankly, was the warm light seeping out from underneath, and the sound of raucous carousing coming from inside.
I knocked.
The carousing stopped and turned into tittering and pittering.
After some anticipatory pattering, the door creaked open.
----------------------------------------
The light blinded me.
Standing in the doorway, blotting out a vaguely gremlish shape, was a creature.
“I told you it was them!” the creature called back to the room.
The cheers deafened me.
“Come on, come in!” the creature pulled me inside.
The room and its occupants were lit by the candles on the tables and in the chandeliers, giving the atmosphere a quality of melted butter.
The room appeared to be some kind of tavern, with a low, arching ceiling supported by ancient wooden pillars, and archways on each wall opening into separate rooms and tunnels. The walls were a beige kind of plaster, and the wood was deeply stained.
The occupants, for that matter, made up the largest congregation of gremlin-like creatures I had ever seen. They were comfortably spread out among the various tables, bars, nooks and crannies, all chatting amiably with each other.
“Everyone!” the creature that pulled me in announced to the room.
Everyone stopped and listened.
“This is…”
The creature looked at me.
It was the Keith-creature from before.
“What’s your name?” it whispered to me.
I told it my name.
It announced it to the room.
There was a loud cheer and general clunking of mugs.
I saw what looked like money being exchanged by some of the other creatures.
“Come on, drinks’re on me,” the creature pulled me to one of the bars.
“What is this place?” I wondered aloud.
“It’s a bar,” it said as it sat me on a stool.
“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked the creature.
The bartender was small, green, and humanoid, but strangely, it had hair; it was balding, and had prominent sideburns connected to a thick mustache. It was wearing a vest and suspenders, which, also strangely, didn’t seem to be attached to anything.
“What do you want?” the creature I was with turned to me.
“Oh- uh…”
I thought about it.
“Do you have Gremlin Juice?” I asked the bartender.
“He wants Gremlin Juice!” the creature laughed to the bartender.
“Is that bad?” I asked the two of them.
“Is it bad, he asks!” the bartender laughed to the creature.
“Do you have it?” I asked.
“Do we have it!” the two of them cried in unison, looking at each other.
“Buddy,” the bartender said to me with tears in his eyes, “it’s the only thing we got!”
“Oh,” I said, “I’ll have one, please.”
“Make it two, Ernie,” the creature said.
Ernie nodded, took two mugs and filled them from a wooden cask, then set them in front of us.
The drink didn’t look anything like the sewage drink that Grungleby and Greebles had. It was gold, and had a strange aroma.
“Hey,” the creature said to me, raising its mug, “to Escaping the Torture Labyrinth!”
“Oh- yes!”
I clunked and drank.
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The drink was pure ambrosia.
It trickled down my throat, warming my insides and cooling my mind, providing me with a sense of clarity and rejuvenation that I had never experienced before. I felt at peace.
I turned around and looked at the room in front of me.
The crowd had already returned to their previous conversations, laughing, hooting, and hollering. There were a few creatures that were clearing the empty mugs, and another few that were clearing some less-than-empty mugs under the nose of their owner.
Most of the tables held a good number of creatures, all talking amongst themselves, but a few had smaller groups, and in some of the nooks and crannies a couple creatures appeared to be canoodling. The room held a similar energy to Torture Fest, but much warmer and more relaxed.
“What is this place?” I asked again.
The creature I was with looked around.
“You know, I’m not too sure…” it began.
“Here you are, Gary,” another creature interrupted, handing the creature I was with some money.
It was one of the creatures I had seen collecting money earlier, and it was wearing a gold chain around its neck.
“Oh, right- thanks!” Gary took the money and counted it.
The other creature nodded to me and walked away.
“And thank you,” Gary turned to me, “I knew I could count on you.”
“Oh- of course,” I said.
I had no idea what it was talking about.
“Next one’s on me, Ernie,” Gary said, laying the money on the bar.
“Hey, next one’s on Gary!” Ernie shouted to the room.
There was another loud cheer and clunking of mugs.
“...I’ve always just thought of it as home,” Gary finished, turning back towards the room.
I looked around. I could see why.
“Your name’s Gary?” I asked.
“Yep,” Gary said happily.
“What are you?”
Gary looked at me in surprise, which turned into a look of disgust.
“Oh…” it said, looking at me with a new sense of distance.
“Oh- sorry- I didn’t mean it like that…” I stammered out.
“Yeah, you gotta get that checked out, dude,” Gary said, turning back to the room, “that’s not normal.”
“...sorry,” I said sheepishly.
Gary looked at me with a strange sense of pity.
“That’s alright,” it relaxed, “it is a complicated system, after all.”
“It is?”
“Well you’ve got your goblins and your gremlins…”
“Uh-huh…”
“...and you can’t forget about Gormald…”
“...no, you really can’t…”
“...now, most folks upstairs would call us gremloids…”
“Gremloids?” I asked.
“Yeah, you know, gremlish, but not entirely gremlins,” it explained.
“Oh, I see…”
“...but me, personally?”
It paused.
“I’m just a little guy!” it laughed.
Ernie laughed as well.
I thought about it.
“Well, what makes a gremlin a gremlin?”
“That’s the question, ain’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Listen, guy…”
I listened.
“...I’m gonna let you in on a little secret.”
I leaned closer.
“It’s all bullshit.”
“What is?”
“Goblins, gremlins, gremloids. The Torture Labyrinth.”
“What about Gormald?”
“Oh, no, he’s as real as they get.”
“Oh.”
“What I’m saying is, there’s nothing that makes a gremlin fundamentally different from a goblin. Or a gremlin from a gremloid, for that matter.”
“Really? Why do they look different, then?”
“Do they?”
“Vaguely, I suppose…”
“Well, nobody’s identical.”
“...I suppose that’s true…”
“Well, there you go.”
“...but why do they act differently? I thought gremlins and goblins had distinct personalities?”
“Oh, they do, for sure, but it’s got nothing to do with any fundamental differences. That’s just who they are as people. It’s a… a… oh, what do you call it, Ernie?”
“A social construct,” Ernie offered.
“There you go, a social construct. Nothing fundamentally real.”
“Well, it certainly feels real.”
“Oh, it certainly does, it’s got tremendous implications for how society constructs itself. But there’s no real difference between any of ‘em.”
I thought about it.
“I mean,” it scoffed, “we’re all small green humanoids, for cryin’ out loud!”
“Yes,” I mused, “I suppose you are.”
It looked at me strangely.
“And there’s a great deal of switching back and forth, you see…”
“There is?”
“Sure, I mean, look at yourself! Switching between gremlin and human like there’s no tomorrow!”
“Well, I’m a human, aren’t I?”
“Are you?”
I looked at my hands.
They had returned to the sinewy green claws of a gremlin.
“Hm,” I said.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“How does that work, anyhow?”
"How does what work?"
"Me turning into a gremlin. Is it the Gremlin Juice that does it?"
"The Gremlin Juice?"
Gary looked in its mug.
"No, I don't think so..."
"Hm," I said.
"...I always thought of it as turning into a human, to tell you the truth..."
It took another sip.
"...at least, that's what it felt like to me..."
I stared at it.
"You were a human?"
"Well, briefly."
"When?"
"Back when I was getting tortured."
It took another sip.
I stared at it.
"You were tortured?"
"Sure I was! We all were!"
It gestured to the lively room.
"How do you think we got here?"
"The stairs, I thought," I mumbled to myself.
"And, well, you know what they say..."
"I do?"
"...nobody endures suffering quite like a human does."
"Yes," I mused, "I suppose I do..."
"...of course, nobody inflicts suffering quite like humans do, either..."
It looked out at the room.
“Anyway, it’s all bullshit. Gremlin, goblin, gremloid. People just live different lives.”
“Well, what about the Torture Labyrinth?”
“What about it?”
“How is that bullshit?”
“Well, you see,” it shifted and leaned closer, “it’s not real .”
“What isn’t?”
“The whole thing. The story about there being no escape, everyone being tortured all the time. It’s all made up.”
“It is?”
“Look around! Do we look like we’re being tortured?”
I looked around.
“No,” I said.
“Well, there you go.”
"But what about upstairs?"
"What about it?"
"People are getting tortured up there."
"Well," it shifted again, "it's only torture if you don't want to be tortured."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, think about it! If you didn't care you were getting tortured, it wouldn't be so bad, would it?"
I thought about it.
Slowly, realization dawned on me.
"You've lost me," I said.
"That's alright, don't worry about it. You've found the Exit to the Torture Labyrinth!"
I relaxed.
I took a sip of the Gremlin Juice.
“So, where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The Exit to the Torture Labyrinth,” I pronounced grandly.
“Oh,” it chuckled, “that’s just a metaphor.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed, “I see…”
“Sorry, kid.”
It took a swig from its mug.
“...I just thought there’d be a door, or something…”
It choked and spluttered.
“Oh, you mean that exit!” it laughed, “yeah, it’s just down that hall over there.”
It pointed through one of the archways.
I saw a hallway stretching into the distance, but I couldn’t see any door.
“That’s the Exit to the Torture Labyrinth?” I asked.
“Well, that's the hallway, but its down there.”
“I can Escape the Torture Labyrinth just down that hallway over there?”
"Yeah," it took another swig.
“Well,” I drained the rest of my mug, “thanks for having me, I suppose.”
I got up to leave.
“Wait!”
I waited.
“Won’t you stay a while?” it asked kindly, “hang out?”
I thought about it.
“Okay,” I said.
----------------------------------------
End Part II