Info
Balls
Brian Smith sighed, wiping sweat from his brow while catching his breath. It had been a long day of moving and selling furniture at this store. His job wasn’t the most glamorous, nor the easiest, but it paid him the money to make ends meet; barely, at least.
However, none of that mattered to Brian at the moment, because it was now closing time. Another part of his job was overseeing the opening and closing of the store every day, by unlocking the building in the morning and locking it up at night. As such, he was always the first to enter and the last to leave. Brian expected today to be no different, and so he allowed himself to lower his guard, sighing with relief as he untensed his muscles.
Brian’s boss was headed on his way out — but just before he left, he stopped in the doorway and turned back, as if suddenly remembering something. “-Oh, hey Brian!” he called out.
“Yeah…?” Brian answered somewhat apprehensively, looking up towards his boss as he knelt on the floor while adjusting a table leg.
“Before you go tonight — would you mind moving some of the new furniture in the back room for me? I’ll pay you overtime for it.”
Brian sighed, weighing his options internally. He felt tired, but his boss was probably even more tired, especially being twice his age. And besides, the extra money wouldn’t hurt. “Uh, yeah, sure. What do you want me to move?”
“Oh, just some recliners and couches. You’ll know when you see them. Thanks!” With that, he abruptly left, seemingly in a rush.
Brian sighed again, now left alone. He pulled out his phone, calling his wife to inform her of the change in his schedule.
“Hello?” Jessica answered.
“Hey, honey…just wanted to let you know I’ll be home a bit later tonight. Boss wanted me to move around some furniture in the back for him. But hey, I’ll be getting overtime pay at least.”
Brian winced as he heard Jessica sigh on the other end of the phone. “Okay, babe…just don’t be home too late, alright? I miss you.”
Brian smiled softly. “I miss you too. Love you…” He kissed the phone as he ended the call, before turning his attention to the now-vacant store.
Admittedly, the store was rather eerie when it was empty, as if taking on a completely new life of its own in the absence of life within it. Even the lighting itself seemed to change, taking on a sickly yellow tinge. This area of Oshkosh, Wisconsin was relatively quiet at night, all things considered. But that silence was disquieting in its own way. It was like it was in its own little world, where nobody really knew what entered, what happened, or what left.
Brian was jolted from his thoughts as one of the fluorescent lights on the ceiling began flickering. Damn bulb needs to be replaced…another thing to tell my boss tomorrow, he thought to himself, before musing about how expensive T12 bulbs were to order.
After locking up the building, Brian proceeded to enter the back room where the shipment of furniture was held. Luckily, the pieces were already assembled, so that was one less thing to worry about. The sooner I take care of this, the sooner I can leave… He thought to himself. Brian grunted as he pushed against the couch, scraping it across the carpet towards the wall at the other end of the room. Halfway across the room, he paused to catch his breath, hunching over the arm of the couch for a moment. After gathering his strength, he began to resume moving the couch. Suddenly, however, he felt himself stumble and fall, but he never hit the floor.
The next thing he knew, Brian slowly opened his eyes to a blindingly bright, deafeningly buzzing light blaring down upon him from above. After his vision unblurred and came into focus as he blinked away his disorientation, all he could see around him was that sickly yellow chevron wallpaper pattern. A foul, musty stench in the air burned the hairs of his nose and the back of his throat. His entire body felt tender all over, like he had taken a great fall. He felt overcome with the confused feeling one has when awakening somewhere unfamiliar, yet it never left him. “Ugh…wh…what the fuck…?” He murmured to himself.
Brian craned his neck as he slowly sat up. The only logical conclusion he could come to was that he had somehow fallen through the floor, into the basement of the furniture store; after all, the environment appeared almost exactly like the store’s back room. However, he had never once heard of the store having a basement, and there was no hole in the ceiling above him.
He slowly rose to his feet, looking around. “Hello?” He called out into the mono-yellow void all around him, only to be answered with the indifferent, apathetic buzz of the oppressive, dehumanizing fluorescent lights. Regardless, Brian resolved to find his way back.
Brian began traversing the dimly-lit halls, damp carpet squelching beneath his feet with each step. Amidst the eerie shadows cast by the flickering fluorescent lights, his sense of direction soon crumbled alongside his confidence. As he continued walking, he noticed that this space seemed to be much larger than previously thought. No matter how far he traveled, all the same sights passed him by. Nothing but that same identical mono-yellow hallway, stretching endlessly into the abyss. Nothing but that same ugly fucking wallpaper pattern plastered everywhere. His surroundings had betrayed him, turned hostile. Everything had now taken on a surreal and uncanny tinge; a place once intimately familiar to him had now become uncomfortably unfamiliar.
Time began to blur. Had he wandered for minutes? Hours? Days, even? Brian caught fleeting glimpses of doors and stairs in his peripheral vision, yet they were naught but a mirage, evaporating as he blinked. Haunted by his isolation, he could not shake the feeling of being watched. He heard footsteps behind his own, but when he stopped, so did they. He heard ragged breathing and low growling, but when he stopped to listen, the noise was gone. He saw dark shapes in the corner of his eye, but when he turned to look, nothing was there. Brian tried to dismiss these occurrences, reassuring himself that the paranormal does not exist. These were mere hallucinations, fabricated by a mind that-
The growling rose to a bloodcurdling howl, the shape became larger, and the steps broke into a full-on sprint. Brian’s mind went blank as he entered fight-or-flight mode, running for his life through the maze of yellow halls. He had no direction, no destination, except for somewhere far away from the beast pursuing him. The scampering drew ever closer, and he felt the warmth of ragged breath just behind him. Running through a long corridor, Brian encountered a dead end, with nowhere to go but forward. He did not allow himself to stop however, and instead sprinted straight forth. He closed his eyes and braced for impact, or to be snatched by the beast. But neither came; at least, not immediately.
Rather than fall onto a moist carpet, his body instead slammed into cold, wet concrete with a thud. Brian opened his eyes to now find himself in a parking garage, clouded with low-hanging fog. Water dripped from the ceiling into puddles, with fluorescent lights flickering in an attempt to create a tune with the droplets. Standing up, Brian looked around in search of the yellow halls that he had just been in, trying to find where he had fallen from. But all that he could see was the parking garage.
Brian came to the only logical conclusion that he must have been high on something, but he didn’t really remember taking anything. Then again, my memory isn’t the best, so… fuck, I need to move on from my college days…
Regardless, it seemed like he was coming down from whatever bad trip he thought he experienced, now that the scenery appeared normal. And what was more, this parking garage meant that the exit must have been just nearby. He confidently continued moving, with his optimism high.
However, Brian’s optimism quickly dwindled when he realized that he couldn’t find the exit anywhere. He searched up and down the many flights of stairs, but could not reach the top nor bottom levels of the building. He walked through many doors and halls, but the sights did not change, and he did not seem to get any closer to escape. Brian finally realized that this garage was empty. There were no cars, no people in sight. He heard no sounds except for the dripping of water and the low hum of fluorescent lights. He was completely, utterly, alone.
Or, so he thought.
Suddenly, Brian heard new sounds: the approaching echoes of heavy footfalls and a faint metallic jingling. Accompanying these sounds were subtle notes of the scents of petrichor and liquor in the air. Ahead of him, a dark fog began to spill in from around the corner, like ink into water. Then, the lights above him flickered before failing, surrounding him in complete darkness for a brief moment. Just as quickly as it had left, the lights then returned, revealing a being before Brian. He was tall and silver-haired, wearing a black cloak and a ring of keys on his right hip. The dark fog moved with him as he approached quickly. Brian yelped in terror as he fell backwards, scrambling away. The dark figure stood still, slowly looking down upon him. “Are you lost?” he simply asked, seemingly unfazed by Brian’s reaction.
Brian looked up towards the being, at a loss for words. “I-… I am…” he stammered. By now, he didn’t detect any hostility towards him from this being, and so he asked his own question in turn. “W-what…are you?”
“I am The Keymaster; at least, that is what I am called…” he replied. “I can take you somewhere safe, if that is what you wish for. All you must do is ask.”
The Brian’s eyes seemed to glimmer with hope. “You mean…you can take me back home?”
This hope was swiftly snuffed out when The Keymaster shook his head. “That is not possible, I am afraid. Wherever you once were, you may never return. For all intents and purposes, you are now in an entirely different world.”
This revelation sent Brian reeling, and he stood in silence for a moment, attempting to process it. He didn’t want to believe The Keymaster’s words, and yet…it seemed to be the only logical conclusion. Finally, he looked back up at The Keymaster.
“Can you just…take me somewhere safe, please?”
The Keymaster nodded affirmatively. “Very well, then. I can take you to what wanderers call “Level 11”. It is well-populated and relatively safe…” His hand reached outward, plucking a shiny key out of thin air before the Brian’s very eyes.
While Brian looked on in awe, however, The Keymaster instead looked on with concern. “Strange…this was not the key that I had intended. Allow me to try again.”
The Keymaster manifested another key, only to appear even more concerned. “Again, the wrong one? This does not make sense…”
He continued to materialize keys, which clattered to the ground in a pile. But each one proved yet again to be the wrong one, and Brian saw visible panic in the eyes of The Keymaster. “What is the meaning of this?”
This was when Brian saw black droplets beginning to drip from The Keymaster’s body. They sizzled on the ground with a sickening hiss, eating away the concrete. The droplets began falling in greater numbers, at a faster rate and larger size. The Keymaster no longer seemed able to hide the sheer terror that he felt in this moment. The folds on his cloak began loosening and creasing, sending him to his knees as he retched in agony. “No, not like this…”
Black tar puddled around him, burning a crater into the ground. The collar of his cloak opened, and Brian finally saw his face – or rather, her face. What he previously assumed to be a man was in fact a woman. She was no-doubt human, for Brian saw the sheer terror in her eyes. “…Run” she desperately whispered, with black ooze boiling from her eyes, nose and ears. Suddenly, her jaw unhinged itself and her body seized up, as an entirely different voice erupted from her throat: “UNWORTHY.”
As if possessing a will of its own, the cloak tore itself from her body, revealing nothing but blackened, melting musculature underneath. Brian watched in horror as the woman disappeared entirely, melting into the sludge.
The cloak continued to move of its own accord, and for a brief moment, seemed to fixate on Brian. Before he even knew what was happening, the black mass jumped onto him, enveloping his entire body in its embrace.
Brian thrashed about and fought against the cloak, struggling to rip it off his body. But it only tightened, squeezing him in a vice-like grip. The air rushed from his lungs, and his bones cracked. He felt his insides shifting around, tearing apart, threatening to explode from within him. The pain was unbearably excruciating, too much for him to even scream. All he could do was lie upon the ground.
His mind was forcefully invaded with foreign thoughts and concepts. Access…Access…Access… it was all Brian could think of, even above the excruciating pain. He could see everything. Every door, every threshold, every lock, everything that could be Accessed. Fleeting images of dark cosmos, black tendrils, and an inverted pyramid flashed before his eyes. Darkness surrounded him, but he did not fight it, for he welcomed the escape from this pain…
He opened his eyes, finding himself lying on the ground. He rose to his feet and scanned his surroundings, collecting himself. He reminded himself of who he was, to remain grounded.
I am The Keymaster. I oversee The Crossroads.
He tried to remember what he had last been doing before losing consciousness. He was…helping a wanderer, yes. Looking around, however, the human was nowhere to be found. I wonder where he went…
Oh well, there was no use in dwelling on such matters. There was still much work to be done. And so, he moved along…