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Table Of Contents

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Chapter 3

Amiss

A timeless aura draped the hospital’s halls, corridors once teeming with life now eerie, deserted arteries. The facility, an odd amalgam of a medical laboratory and small town, sprawled out unnaturally. Hospital rooms designed to mimic homes, corridors as streets linking spaces, foliage camouflaging the harsh reality of confinement.

People, once a constant, were a rarity these days. Hellibor never guided me to the man by the river or the commissary lady as promised. I’d linger in the spectral park, perched on the rim of a once lively fountain, surrendering hours to the loneliness. Nobody else seemed to mind the disquiet, except me. Staring at the vaulted artificial sky had become my refuge. One day, during my prolonged vigil, I noticed a flicker, a dull wave washing over a window panel. The entire ceiling seemed to undulate, static bursts disrupting the illusion of a cerulean firmament.

“If the sky isn’t real here, what else isn’t?” The thought murmured through my mind. The walls moaned, creaking with a weathered whimper, the structural veins of the building seemingly rotting from within. The “sunlight” cast specks of dust into a slow dance, mimicking grains of sand in the wind.

As weeks morphed into a desolate timeline, the hospital aged, descending into rusted ruins. Azamoth never returned, and Cody disappeared shortly after. Ghosts of lost companions haunted my memory palace, their spectral footprints stirring the dust of familiarity.

After my solitary morning treatments, I’d wander through the silent halls. The desolate park no longer appealed to me, and with nobody to converse with, the sprawling hospital had morphed into a grand mausoleum of boredom. Even the elusive Vanity seemed to have vanished, although I suspected Hellibor had a hand in it. Upon re-entering my room, I’d find myself greeted by walls peppered with hundreds of crude illustrations. My sanctuary, transformed into a gallery of fantastical beings, immortalizing memories and childhood terrors. As I sat at my desk, a blank sheet of paper taunting me, I’d take out my pen and sketch Azamoth. He deserved a place among the many.

Hours ebbed away in this lonely ritual. I couldn’t help but smile at my creation, trying to convince myself of its likeness to Azamoth. With a strip of tape, I found a perfect spot for him on the wall, nestled between a sketch of the fountain and Hellibor’s office.

Surveying the wall of faces, memories surged like a bitter tide. My smile, once forced, now turned into a scowl. A wildfire of anger ignited in my chest as I clenched my fists. “Why won’t anyone tell me anything!” I bellowed at my imprisoning walls. My hands met my face, and a yelp echoed in my solitude. Trapped in an eternity of silence, I watched as everyone and everything gradually crumbled around me.

Wiping away my tears, my gaze veered upwards. No, there had to be more to this. I resolved to confront Vanity. Perhaps if I pleaded, she would tell me the truth. So there I sat, on the edge of my bed, staring at the door, fear paralyzing my demand for answers. But I couldn’t ignore the disquiet any longer. Rising to my feet, I embarked on my quest for truth.

Exiting my room, I treaded across the vast foyer, stepping over polished black onyx floors towards the grand staircase leading to Vanity’s office. Water coursed along its base, feeding the thriving flora that lined the path. Ivy spiraled around the iron handrails, trailing alongside my ascent.

At the foot of the stairs, different colored lines pointed towards varied directions. Blue for residential homes, green for food courts and restaurants, yellow for finance, and red, which I followed, led to the medical wards. Familiarity guided my steps along the now worn-out path. The tiles reflected fragments of the glassy sky above, mimicking puddles. But the illusion had been shattered. I saw the fault lines in the sky, like a faulty screen.

My path twisted through long halls flanked by miniature gardens, tiny replicas of nature. Vanity’s office awaited me at the end of the line.

As the sterile white doors parted, a room defined by minimalism was revealed. Save for a few objects, everything was a glossy white. Vanity, engrossed in a file, was a silhouette of concentration. She remained oblivious to my presence, or perhaps, chose to ignore it. After a few minutes, I broke the silence. “Vanity.”

At the sound of my voice, she turned, a grin tugging at her lips. “I didn’t even hear you come in. Just stopping by?”

Shaking my head, I sighed. “No, actually. What is this place?” Vanity’s expression froze, her laughter echoing uneasily.

“What do you mean? You are in my office. Are you feeling alright, honey?”

“I think so,” I replied without missing a beat. Then, doubting myself, I added, “Well, I think I am.” A sigh escaped my lips. “I know the sky isn’t real,” I confessed, Vanity’s static smile remaining unnerving. “The central park screen broke. I sort of put two and two together.”

Vanity’s gaze seemed to drift, her internal conflict wrestling with her composure. “They are for the patients. The purpose is simply to make people feel more comfortable. It affects their mental health if they feel they have been indoors for months on end. We are trying to create the illusion of being outdoors. It is a service, honest. It was a lie, but a noble one.” Her response, delivered with an eerie precision, made her seem less human, more a mechanical doll. “You understand, right Prina?” My head nodded in reluctant agreement, a lie mirroring her own.

“Is that all that is bothering you?” she asked.

I shook my head, mustering the courage to voice my deepest fears. “The people are missing. Where is everyone? Where is Cody?”

“Cody is in his office, hard at work. Why do you ask?”

“Are you even listening to me?” I whimpered, fearing that she too was nothing more than an artificial sky.

Vanity sighed. “I have work to do, honey. Later, I can take you to see Cody.”

“I want to see him now,” I demanded.

“He is busy right now, Prina. Now, stop all this nonsense talk.”

“Nonsense?” Incredulity stung me. I leapt from the bed and confronted Vanity. “Why are you being like this?”

“I am not being like anything,” she coldly replied. The depths of her charcoal eyes rendered me speechless. Without a word, I spun on my heels and stormed out, the door slamming shut with a metallic clang.

Subsequent to my attempt at venting frustration, the normally innocuous, background hum of the food court corridor abruptly morphed into a thunderous crackle. As I turned toward the commotion, my gaze was ensnared by the sight of a wall seemingly in the throes of a bizarre metamorphosis. The material of the wall distended, groaned and spat out a roughly humanoid form, crudely molded, like a child’s attempt at sculpting a man out of clay.

Two protuberant forms – arms, I realized with growing dread – clawed their way out of the formless mass. The creature was a plastic marionette, white threads splaying from its torso and reaching towards the floor like puppet strings. With a sound akin to a bone snapping in two, it rose to its full height, causing a wave of frozen terror to sweep over me.

The apparition’s appearance shifted once more. Its once plastic sheen took on the uncanny semblance of human flesh, rendering the grotesque sculpture disturbingly lifelike. It flexed its knobby arms, fingers tearing free from their encasement as if sprouting from solid rock, and it regarded itself with an uncanny sense of self-awareness. When the remnants of its cocoon fell away, what emerged bore an unsettling resemblance to a human being.

The alarm system wailed a discordant “Eh eh eh eh eh!” that was drowned in the crimson dance of the warning lights. Yet, I was barely cognizant of this. My mind was held captive by the shock and horror of what I had witnessed. I could only watch in mute disbelief as the being’s bare flesh bulged and morphed into familiar attire – a t-shirt and jeans. Clothes that once felt familiar, now seemed alien and archaic.

“Hello,” it greeted in a rich, masculine timbre. I shrank away from the surreal tableau, fear widening my eyes. “Are you afraid of me?” It queried, taking a step forward, its footfalls squelching on the floor.

“What are you?” I demanded, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Human,” it answered, though the lie hung heavily in the air. “You want to get out of here, don’t you?”

My heart pounded in my chest like a trapped bird. How did it know that? Despite my fear, curiosity compelled me to engage with it. “Do you know how!?”

“I certainly do,” the creature assured me, its voice dipping into a lower octave. Its ominous cackle rang out and, in that moment, the door behind us flung open, revealing Hellibor. “We have company,” it said, its voice draping the air with a sense of impending doom.

As the echo of approaching boots filled the corridor, Hellibor yelled, “Get away from that thing!” He moved protectively in front of me. “Stay behind me, girl.” It was the closest I’d felt to Hellibor, who was often distant and aloof, but now was shielding me from harm.

Meanwhile, the creature crowed with delight, its body morphing once again into a weapon, into something like a blade; as it charged towards Hellibor. A potent force pushed me against the wall, the breath knocked out of me as Hellibor deftly slipped past the attacker. He engaged with a blue laser-light ring on his hand, inputting data rapidly. “You’re fast, or maybe I’m playing with you,” the creature sneered, its face beginning to warp and droop.

“Doubt it,” Hellibor retorted. The blue hologram beams disappeared and the creature collapsed into a pile of dust. Hellibor turned to me, his attention divided between me and the dissipating phantom. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I managed. His casual demeanor contrasted sharply with my own internal chaos. I felt like something inside of me had shattered, my worldview splintered into countless sharp fragments. “What was that thing?”

“That was a rogue AI, an artificial intelligence,” Hellibor explained, concern creeping into his voice. “In most cases, intrusion countermeasures electronics, or ICE, keeps them out. This is a disturbing development. We don’t have enough staff to maintain the systems. The wards are already breaking.”

As we descended into silence, Hellibor turned his gaze on me, a grave warning evident in his eyes. “Don’t trust anyone anymore. Not even me. If they ask you to do something odd, they might be an impostor. An AI may want to hurt you. They can hack into the nanomachine network and materialize as anyone, even me. Be careful.”

As I processed his revelation, I finally found the courage to ask, “Doctor Winters, what happened to the world?”

He smirked, a shadow of his usual confidence. “If I have my way, you will never find out, but it looks like you will observe it for yourself.” With that, he sealed himself off once again, leaving me to confront the reality of our new world.

As I wound my way through the labyrinthine garden, I delved further into the depths, navigating the serpentine corridors framed by artificial hills. Though the path continually spiraled downward, its verticality remained masked by the undulating terrain. What lay in plain sight, yet remained hidden. There could be no mistaking the downward journey, as if I traversed a whimsical piece of architecture. Streams of water hugged the walls, charting eccentric courses around me, crossed at intervals by quaint wooden bridges. A sense of intrigue hung in the air, a peculiar allure in this subterranean realm. Despite having lived in this hospital for years, I’d never ventured so deep. The corkscrew-like structure was a puzzle I couldn’t solve. I estimated at least ten floors lay beneath the ground; I wondered how far down the rabbit hole truly went. Rounding another bend, I was met with an imposing sight: a white staircase leading to a large black mirror door.

The monolithic portal inspired visions of the underworld’s gates. “Is this where the veils are lifted?” I pondered aloud. The immaculate marble steps beckoned, leading me towards the door. As I mounted the sacred ascent, the stairs seemed to stretch indefinitely. Glancing back, I saw the ground lay significantly further than the initial flight of steps had suggested. From the staircase’s peak, I found my reflection mirrored back at me from the door. A child’s face peered out, despite the decades weighing on my shoulders. Pushing against the icy stone, the door stood fast. I switched hands, leaned my body into it, let out a grunt of exertion, yet the door remained unmoved. My muscles tensed, straining as I put all my strength into the push, letting out a scream.

“That door won’t yield to you,” Vanity’s voice floated up from the base of the steps.

“And how does it open?” I shot back, panting slightly.

Her smirk gleamed in the dim light as she lifted a hand, splaying her fingers out. “One simply requires the right touch.”

The possibility of escape blossomed within me. My lips spread into a hopeful smile. “Then come and open it.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that for you, Prina,” she said, the brief flicker of hope extinguished. A grim realization settled in – Vanity was my captor, not my ally. This hospital was a farce, a carefully orchestrated theatrical production masking a prison. The curtains were falling on this grand deception. “You’re not meant to be here.”

“How did you know where to find me? No one comes down here.”

A slow, stretching yawn escaped Vanity, feline in nature. “Well, I was out for a stroll when I saw you skulking about. I knew mischief was afoot. Come, let’s discuss this.” She gestured vaguely, and with a heavy sigh, I descended the stairs.

Convincing Vanity to assist me was a lost cause. “What does this door lead to anyway?” I questioned, curiosity piqued.

Without missing a beat, she answered, “It leads to the Amara, a network of tunnels that spans the entire world. There’s a laboratory inside as well. A dreadful place,” she informed me. Her voice carried a weighty sense of foreboding. With a last glance at the door, I alighted from the staircase.

With a sinking heart, I faced Vanity. A wicked thought danced across my mind – if I had a blade, I could have stolen her hand, turned the tables. “What kind of dreadful place?”

As she turned to leave, Vanity began to walk away. “We call it the body room. Trust me, you don’t want to go there.”

“I want to pass through that door, Vanity,” I insisted, a desperate edge to my voice. “Show me.” Wordlessly, she continued her walk, leaving me in her wake, a trail of unanswered questions and unnerving revelations.

Settling back into the chair for what felt like the millionth time, I watched the tubes protruding from my arm with a mixture of fascination and horror. They pulsed rhythmically, drawing blood like mechanical vampires hungry for a meal. My eyes followed the dark red liquid as it flowed through the translucent channels, its journey shadowed by an inexplicable dread. Helibore, a usually stoic figure, was pacing restlessly today, consumed by some inner turmoil. He was silent, his eyes lost in thought, leaving me alone with the incessant beep of the machine and the cold sterility of the room.

Summoning my voice from the depths of resignation, I voiced a complaint that felt trivial even as it escaped my lips. “How many more times do I have to do this?”

I hadn’t expected a response; Helibore had been as unresponsive as a statue. But his voice cut through the quiet room, sharp and clear. “Three.” I jerked upright in my chair, taken aback. “After this one makes two.” His eyes remained fixed on some distant point, his mind far from the clinical surroundings. “Happy?”

Happy? I grappled with the word, tasting its unfamiliarity. “Yes sir,” I replied, a hesitant smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. But the word was a double-edged sword, carrying with it a burden of terror.

I was happy, truly, to be nearing the end of these invasive procedures, to be done with the cold, unfeeling machinery that had become a part of my daily existence. Yet beneath that happiness lay a lurking fear, twisting and gnawing at the pit of my stomach.

When they stop drawing my blood, what then? What did the end of my treatments mean? Was it a return to normalcy, or the beginning of something new, something unknown? The very uncertainty of it sent chills down my spine, filling the room with a sense of foreboding. The machines beeped on, indifferent to my inner turmoil, and Helibore’s pacing continued, the rhythmic sound of his footsteps merging with my heartbeat.

In that sterile room, filled with the hum of technology and the shadow of unspoken fears, I was caught between two worlds: the promise of freedom and the terror of the unknown. The tubes and the mechanical dance of Helibore’s pacing seemed to mock my fragile hope, reminding me that in the battle with our inner demons, there are no easy victories.

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