Chapter II: Walking Around the Torture Labyrinth

----------------------------------------

I decided to keep walking in the direction I was walking earlier, and it was a while before I came upon another door.

It looked strangely familiar, and I peered at the sign above it.

I saw the words, “Chamber,” “of,” and “Flagellation," and thought to myself,

"Oh, criminy."

I peered closer.

"Chamber of Unending Flagellation," the sign read.

“Hm,” I thought to myself, “strange.

“Strange, isn’t it?” I heard a voice behind me say.

I whipped around.

I was astonished.

There was no one there.

“Down here.”

I looked down.

To my continued astonishment, there was still no one there.

“Sorry, I meant up.”

I looked up.

There was a small bug clinging to the ceiling.

I felt nothing.

Astonished at my lack of astonishment, I had to take a moment to think about what my priorities were, and what I should be properly astonished by moving forward.

I looked back up.

It was still there.

“Hey, dude,” it said casually, “what’s up?”

“Oh, not much. Just walking around, I guess.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Trying to get your flagellation on, am I right?”

“Oh, no, I just did, actually. Get flagellated, I mean..."

“Oh, yeah?"

"...didn’t much care for it, really, it hurts, you see, and it didn’t seem to be ending any time soon…”

"...cool, man, cool...”

It looked around disinterestedly.

“So, uh, I hear someone’s looking for a way out of this place..."

It eyed me suspiciously.

"...you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“No- uh, no- I don’t know anything about that. I’m just walking around.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

It sized me up.

Then it seemed to realize that no matter what size I was, I was a lot bigger than it was.

“Good, good. Just checking. It is a Torture Labyrinth, after all…”

“Yeah, so I’ve heard.”

“...and that means no one can ever leave, and everyone is getting tortured, like, all the time…”

It trailed off and eyed me again.

“...speaking of-”

“What’s strange?”

It stopped.

“What?”

“Earlier, you said, ‘Strange, isn’t it?’ I was just wondering what you meant by that.”

“Oh, I just like to say that when I’m waiting for someone to notice me.”

“Oh. I thought you were talking about the sign.”

It looked at the sign.

Chamber of Unending Flagellation

“Why is that strange? It’s a torture chamber…”

“Oh, I-”

“...in a Torture Labyrinth.”

“I just meant it's strange that there’s a Chamber of Unending Flagellation…”

“Uh huh..."

“...and a Chamber of Neverending Flagellation. I just thought they’d have more ideas for chambers, that’s all.”

“Oh, well, look at the torture expert over here!” it said haughtily.

“Now, hang on…”

“Too good for eternal flagellation, is he?”

“...I didn’t say that…”

“And I bet you’re looking for a way out, too! It’s always the same, isn’t it? People like you, coming in and expecting a pleasant little torture, a little flagellation and they’ll be home by supper! And then they lose their willies, and spend the rest of their lives trying to escape without ever appreciating the hard work…””

I began to back away slowly.

It didn’t seem to notice, and kept gesticulating wildly.

“…or this one guy a couple of years ago, always complaining about this and that! ‘Oh, I want to see my family! I don’t want to be flagellated for eternity!’ I mean, really…”

I walked away, its voice slowly fading into the background of agonized screaming.

----------------------------------------

I must have spent days walking around the labyrinth, turning this corner and that one.

Eventually, the weariness overtook me.

I slumped against a wall, stared at the stone in front of me, and thought to myself,

“Schist.”

This totally sucked.

I couldn’t figure out how to escape, and it seemed I couldn’t even think about it!

Naturally, it was all I thought about.

It was a while before I heard something over the agonized screaming.

I cocked my ear and listened.

There were footsteps.

Coming towards me.

I panicked, and ducked behind a corner.

“Hey, I saw that!" I heard a voice yell, "I saw you duck behind that corner!”

Right next to me was the the first dead end I'd ever seen in the Torture Labyrinth.

“Dang it," I thought.

“Come on, I know there’s a dead end back there! You got nowhere to go!”

I reluctantly stepped out.

It was another small, green humanoid figure, with big ears and a scrunched up face.

“Grungleby?” I asked.

It stared at me.

“Do you have any idea how insulting that is?”

“Sorry, I thought you were–”

“Yeah, I know what you thought. I’m not. I’m a goblin."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Well, nice to meet you, I suppose."

I tried to walk past it.

"Wait!"

I waited.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Just around, I guess."

He considered this.

"You're not trying to escape, are you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, you."

"No, I don't think so. Just walking around."

He sized me up.

Then he looked over my shoulder, and behind his own.

“You, uh, you want it?” he whispered to me.

"Want what?"

He jerked his head to the hallways around us.

I nodded.

He pulled out an old, worn, piece of paper.

It was covered in layers of drawings and writings that melged over each other to create an enmelgement of ink that was all but indecipherable.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s a palimpsest.”

“A what?”

“A palimpsest.”

“What’s a palimpsest?”

“This.”

“Oh.”

“Listen, just take this, and follow this line right here.”

He pointed to a small, scrawled line that wound its way around the paper.

“We’re here right now.”

He pointed to a part of the line near the edge.

“You want to be here.”

He pointed to the end of a line, near one of the corners.

“Good luck, kid. You’ll need it.”

He handed me the paper and sauntered away, whistling a jovial tune.

I considered trying to find Grungleby, but decided against it. I was too excited.

I began racewalking.

I followed the turns on the paper, passing by doors with various signs and noises.

One said, “All-Purpose Torture Chamber,” another said, “Chamber of Eternal Torture,” and even another said, “Chamber of Eternal Torture (Flagellations in Back).”

The noises were just screams.

At last I came to where the line on the paper ended.

I looked up, and in the stone wall in front of me was a door.

There were no screams coming from behind it.

I only saw a faint light coming from below, and smelled a hint of tobacco.

There was a sign above it.

I peered closer.

Chamber of Ending-Far-in-the-Future Flagellations

“Shit,” I said.

I kept walking.