Beyond the walls of sani.., p.15
Beyond the Walls of Sanity, page 15
Go to F-6.
Take the lefthand passage. It’s the only way to deal with this meta-cognitive bullshit. Head on. Be aggressive. If Theseus could manage it, so can you. He wasn’t the brightest of the bunch . . .
Go to F-7.
That leaves the righthand path, but that seems almost too easy, too inviting. Don’t fall for that trap. Find that shortcut.
Go to F-8.
F-4
You weave between the stacks of books, trying not to knock any of them over. Not because you’re worried about making a mess—this place hasn’t been cleaned in, well, forever. No, you’re more concerned about making noise. Even though this is a construct fabricated by your own damaged psyche, that doesn’t mean there aren’t strange beasties roaming around.
Also: think positive thoughts. Just in case.
Anyway, you dodge from side to side, finding a rhythm. You feel like a true bookworm, easing back and forth. Eventually you reach a small open space, almost like a rest stop. There is a chair here (though a stack of books are piled on its seat), and opposite it, there is a gap between bookcases. You look through the gap and see another aisle.
A little rest sounds nice. You can move those books off the seat of the chair.
Go to F-13.
You eye the chair suspiciously. While it might be comforting to sit down for a few minutes, you hesitate. How hard is it going to be get up again? Not physically, but emotionally? You can’t overlook the mental strain you are under.
Go to F-14.
F-5
You stick to the less-cluttered path. What’s the line from that great Americana poem? “I took the path less traveled,” or something like that. Take the path less cluttered. This is your mind, after all. Clutter is what got you in trouble. Too much thinking. That’s how the space jellies got you.
Well, they haven’t gotten you yet. That’s the point. If they had, you wouldn’t be wandering around your own head. Your personality matrix would be shredded. There’d be little left of “you,” and lots of “it.”
Stop thinking. Keep moving. Don’t let your memories overwhelm you.
Go to F-4.
It’s okay. Take a deep breath. A little introspection now and again won’t hurt anything. But not too much.
Go to F-15.
Hey, three left turns. Careful there. Isn’t this upcoming left turn going to loop you back to where you’ve already been?
Go to F-7.
F-6
You dig around in the stacks for awhile, and while you find a number of childhood classics you had forgotten about in the last several decades, you don’t find a map. It was a long shot anyway, wasn’t it? Having a map of the Dark Labyrinth sort of defeats the whole purpose of a confusing conundrum intended to sap your will.
You’re about to give up on this nonsense when you uncover a copy of Bergele’s Incandescent Mythology. You haven’t seen one of these in a long time. You could never afford a copy of your own, but the Rare Book Room at the university had one, and you recall wrangling a note from one of your instructors to get access to the room. Ostensibly, you were supposed to be reading Chaucer, but you convinced the TA who worked the RBR desk that you were doing a thesis on Medieval Oratory Incantations, didn’t you? You were attempting to draw parallels between Chaucer’s accentual-syllabic verse and cosmological invocation chants used by pagan cults of the same era (as noted in Bergele’s book).
It was all nonsense, of course, but as you suspected, the TA had no idea what Bergele’s book was actually about.
As you open the copy of Incandescent Mythology that has found its way to your Dark Labyrinth, a slip of paper falls out. At the top of the page is the university’s logo. There’s a number scrawled on the page, and it takes you a moment to recall how the on-campus phone directory worked.
PS3523. Oh, right. The TA slipped you their number.
Funny how you’ve forgotten that relationship. Well, it didn’t last long, in any event.
Anyway, it doesn’t look like there is a map. Just this sad reminder of one of your failed attempts at human contact.
PS3523. You doubt the number works anymore. Even if it did, that person won’t live there. Let it go.
Well, that was a waste of time.
Go to F-17.
This is going to take some persistent effort and maybe even some sustained focus. Good thing you’re a Closer. You got this.
Go to F-9.
F-7
It’s likely that every choice here is the wrong choice, but let’s not get wrapped up in that, shall we?
Anyway, the floor isn’t very dusty, almost as if someone has been here recently. Either you’re already circling back on your own tracks, or you’re not alone. The latter makes the back of your neck prickle. This is your mental construct; there shouldn’t be anyone else in here. Unless, of course, you have been infiltrated by a space jelly, in which case this is all some kind of sadistic game because you’re never going to find your way out. Your body isn’t yours anymore.
This is what Dr. Nebs was talking about. The Dark Labyrinth is where the human mind goes when the body has been co-opted by a shoggoth. Well, gold star for you. Nice to validate that Night Office psychological theory.
This job sucks, doesn’t it?
You reject this sort of thinking. It’s the downward side of a slippery slope. You have to think positive thoughts. Like: oh, look, this path isn’t nearly as dusty and the stacks aren’t nearly as high. There. See? Things are looking up already.
Go to F-5.
Of course the job sucks. How many times were you warned? More than enough. And yet, you persevered. Why? Because you like pain? No, because you think the world is worth saving.
You’re such a fool.
Go to F-16.
F-8
You wander back and forth in the lobby here, trying to figure out if there is a way through this labyrinth that isn’t blindly following the paths. You test the shelves on a few bookcases, and realize they aren’t strong enough to support your weight. Even if they were, your weight is likely to topple the bookcase over, and then you’ll be trapped. Pinned like an overeager bibliophile who tried to get a book slightly out of reach.
No, it’s got to be the paths. You can’t skip off—
Hang on, is that a gap between bookcases? It is, isn’t it? Maybe if you shove this one to the left a bit. Yes, and then this one to the right. Yes, yes. You can squeeze through. That’s it. Don’t worry about that nail sticking out—
Oh, well, maybe it isn’t that rusty . . . The bleeding will stop in a bit, won’t it? It should.
You’re behind the bookcases now. It’s very dusty, and here and there you find a crumpled mass that might have been a book once, but dust and time have turned it into something neither alive nor dead. You hurry on, just in case these things release spores or a noxious gas.
The way is narrow and getting narrower. Your sleeve is sticky with blood. The bleeding hasn’t stopped, has it? The dust is clinging to your sleeve, soaking up the blood. Like it is thirsty.
Keep moving. Keep stepping over the lumps.
They aren’t books. You want to think they are, but you know otherwise. They were other things—maybe people, maybe monsters—and this dust is changing them. Slowly devouring them. Condensing. Coalescing. Forming.
You turn a corner and oh no! A dead end.
There’s a body here. It’s only been dead for a few hundred years. The lower half of the body is a fuzzy mass of dust and powder. In another thousand years or so, it will be like the other piles you’ve seen, well on its way to its final state . . .
That’s what happens to everyone who gives up in the Dark Labyrinth, isn’t it? Over a few millennia they are reduced and transformed into an old book.
You are going to head back. This shortcut wasn’t short, and your cut is . . . well, your arm is heavy. The dust is thick on your sleeve. You are losing sensation on that side of your body. Your body feels wooden.
How many steps? You don’t remember. There’s no reason to count them, but you do, nonetheless. Something to keep your mind active. Something to make you feel alive.
After awhile, you think forty-eight, and that is the last number you remember . . .
SHORTCUTS RARELY WORK OUT. THAT WAS BEEN COVERED IN ORIENTATION & INOCULATION.
MAPS SCORE: 22
F-9
Right. Closers close. They put things back in the boxes. They shut doors on unspeakable things that shouldn’t be calling. They interrupt dread rituals. They stop the gates from vomiting all sorts of unseemly monstrosities on an unaware public.
This is your fucking job. It’s the only job you’ve ever loved.
Well, most of the time, you think.
Go to F-17.
Damn right you love this. If you didn’t—if you weren’t so very good at it—you’d be dead.
Go to F-18.
F-10
So get to it. Shove this bookcase hard. Put those muscles to work. Now is not the time to lament how much you haven’t been to the gym lately (or at all). Put your back into it!
The bookcase in front of you doesn’t want to move. It likes applying pressure against your forehead. It likes the idea of slowing squishing you. But, eventually—grudgingly—it moves.
Your arms are shaking from the effort, but you’re going to hold one for a few more seconds. Push!
You duck your head and dart to your left. The bookcase groans, and somewhere ahead of you, stacks topple over. Your foot kicks something. You nearly stumble, but you’ve got momentum now. You can see the light on the other side.
The bookcase clips your shoulder, and you flail and fall, but you’ve got room for all that nonsense. Luxuriate in the open space.
Behind you, wood groans, snaps, and splinters. The bookcases have closed the gap. You’re not going back that way.
Dusting off your pants, you survey the aisle ahead. The shelves bow under the weight of the books. There are stacks all the aisle. The route is narrow, but manageable.
The shifting bookcases have opened up a another gap. It’s a narrow squeeze, but it might be a shortcut.
Go to F-19.
Well, it’s probably not a good time to start thinking about all the dust in the air. Not to mention the possibilities of what kind of mold is eating some of these books. Better to keep moving.
Go to F-18.
F-11
You straighten your legs and push up with your shoulders. The bookcase behind you is pressing against the back of your head and your neck. You put your arms against the bookcase in front of you. You push hard, trying not to think of that scene in that movie where everyone was caught in a tiny room where the walls were moving in.
Things turned out all right for them, didn’t it? But they had friends who figured out which lever to pull. Which button to push. How to reverse the trap.
The closest thing that you have to “friends” are the members of your team, but they’re not here right now, are they? You’re trapped in your own psyche.
Probably just as well, anyway. After what you did, they might not be terribly friendly. Though, to be fair, you were the only one who saw the danger. You had to do what you did. Otherwise . . .
All that aside, you really need to do something about these bookcases. They’re heavy and getting heavier. You’re not sure how much longer you can hold them.
This isn’t one of those times when you want to be brave and strong. It’s time to shove hard and make a break for it, isn’t it?
Go to F-10.
You’ll hold these goddamned shelves as long as you need to. You’re the strong one. You’re the one who didn’t crack. Everyone else lost their mind. You didn’t. And you’re not going to now.
Go to F-12.
F-12
Except, you sort of did lose your mind, didn’t you? You are the one who took the knife and made that unkind cut, aren’t you? Their blood is on your hands. It was so warm, wasn’t it? And you were so cold.
Your teeth are chattering, aren’t they? Your muscles are starting to quiver. You glance to your left. The edges of the bookcases are less than a meter away. Every time you falter, the gap will close a little more. It won’t be long before you can’t hold the line anymore . . .
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH HOW A PRESS OPERATES? YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GET OUT.
YOU’RE GOING TO BE . . . PULPED.
MAPS SCORE: 27.
F-13
You grab the stack of books on the chair and move them to the floor. You can’t help but notice the top book is a weather-stained copy of Killeman’s Spirtual Englightenment Among the Hedge Mazes of the North. Your aunt had a copy of that book on her shelf. In fact, when you lift the cover of the Killeman, you see her mark on the upper corner of the fly leaf.
Now that’s a curious thing, isn’t it?
You grab the book as you sit down on the chair. The cushion is as old as the book and a bit lumpy, but it’s nice to sit down, isn’t it?
I’m just going to read for a few minutes, you think.
Go to F-20.
You tell yourself that you’ll get up after you’ve turned thirty-six pages. That’s all you’re going to allow yourself. You have to keep moving.
Go to F-21.
F-14
You approach the gap between bookcases. It’s wider than the previous gap, and eying the bookcases on either side, you judge that neither is going to suddenly fall over when you squeeze through the gap.
You look back at the chair. You’re tired, aren’t you? It’s been an exhausting few weeks. You’re not sure you have the stamina to keep on like this. You need a break.
It won’t be a long break, you tell yourself.
Go to F-13.
You can’t get out of this mental conundrum if you sit down and read. Reading is what got you into all of this trouble in the first place.
Go to F-23.
F-15
Why did you become a Closer? Not for the glamor, surely. If you are successful, you save the world. If you aren’t, well, you’re probably dead so it doesn’t matter. There’s no real middle ground with Closing. You can’t half-close a door. You can’t half-close a container of ice cream. It’s very simple, in that regard.
And even if you post a string of successes, who can you tell? It’s not like the Night Office gives out commendations. Got your tenth space jelly? Here’s a certificate. Push an Elder Minion back to the non-geometrical space it tried to crawl from? Well done. Here are some steak knives. No, the Night Office doesn’t do any of that. In fact, if you succeed, they insist on a psychological workup, because they know you’ve looked into the Abyss, and surely, the Abyss looked into you.
No one retires from Closing. The best you can hope for is being committed to one of the nice facilities upstate where someone wipes your chin and your ass with fine microfiber cloths. You don’t have to worry about putting on pants or appointments or whether it’s Toast Day or if you left the stove on. You can fade away on your own time.
The Night Office are cold, but they aren’t cruel.
All that aside, why are you here? Because you’re the exception to the rule? Because you can make a difference? Because the puking, squabbling, fornicating mass of humanity is worth saving?
What makes you so special?
It’s not the best pep talk, but it’s not anything you haven’t heard before. The Night Office is just like everyone else in your life. They think they know you. But they’re wrong, aren’t they?
Go to F-23.
It’s kind of funny that your own imaginary black iron prison is talking shit, isn’t it? Could it be afraid of your determination? Though, to be fair, why your subsconscious mind is worried about your conscious mind is a bit of a brain twister . . .
Go to F-24.
F-16
Thoughts like this are going to creep in, aren’t they? That’s the whole nature of this place. It is built by Doubt, powered by Uncertainty, and the ambience is provided by Imposter Syndrome. Everything about the Dark Labyrinth is intended to make you think you fucked up. That you’ve done something wrong. That you need to submit to a higher authority who will judge you (and find you lacking, of course). Its sole purpose is to break you.
Are you going to let it do that?
Heck, no.
Go to F-15.
Well, maybe—no, that’s not the right answer.
This is hard, isn’t it?
Go to F-17.
F-17
During the sixth week of Orientation & Inoculation, you learned about the Subjective-Objective Disentanglement. When a space jelly gets in your brain, it tries to subvert your Ontological Phenomenological Index, which is to say that it tries to convince your brain that it doesn’t understand reality. Of course, your brain is hardwired to a lot a sensory intake systems, which do a pretty bang-up job of recording objective data that validates the existence of reality. However, if an agency can get deep enough, it can shift the OPI. That’s what disassociates you from reality. That’s the Subjective-Objective Disentanglement.
You don’t want this to happen to you.
And so the Night Office teaches you how to be aware of changes to your Ontological Phenomenological Index. They show you how to reset your Subjectivity. They teach you about the Pure Objectivity Persistence—using models provided by Plato’s Communion and Descartes’ Axiomic Affirmation, for example).
Yes, but can you trust this sort of psychobabble? Isn’t this the sort of nonsense a space jelly would fill your head with?
Go to F-24.
