Chapter Text
You’re dreaming, because there’s no way what you’re seeing is real.
You close your eyes, focusing on your body, the only thing that made sense in this place. You feel the cold tile pressing into your bare feet. The humidity threatening to suffocate your lungs. And the incessant buzzing above you. When you open them again, the same sight greets you.
You pinch your cheek, stretching it as far as possible.
“Ow.” Okay, not a dream.
Was now a good time to start panicking?
No, no, wait. Panicking was the last thing you wanted to do right now. What was the last thing you remembered?
…
Not much more than falling asleep in the rain, but you couldn’t fathom why. Next thing you knew, you were waking up here, in this weird not-dream.
First things first though. You check yourself, noting how the humidity was already gluing your bare feet to the tile beneath you.
Where were your shoes?!
Sighing, you checked the rest of yourself out.
No phone, no wallet, nothing but a thin white dress enveloped you, which of course, you don’t even remember putting on that morning.
There was nothing left to do but take in your surroundings.
Blue and pink lights seem to reflect off of every surface, but you couldn’t find the source. Tiles faced you in every direction, even the ceiling.
Looking around you notice a corridor, or rather, a tiled tunnel leading into darkness. The longer you stared at the darkness, the tighter your chest felt.
Whispers floated out from the tunnel, licking your ears, the darkness creeping towards you ever so slowly. You can’t make out any words, but it feels too disjointed to be anything meaningful.
You shook you head, that had to have been your imagination. This kind of place looked completely sterile, unmoving. There’s no way there was anyone who would just lurk in the dark, hoping to scare any unfortunate soul who happened to get lost like you.
…
Moving away from the totally-not-inhabited tunnel you follow a long strip of water past a bend and into a larger space that opened into a shallow pool with ledges wrapping around in a circle.
Before you was a slightly domed ceiling, and a red slide climbing up into a small balcony, and what even looked like a window with light shinning through it. That looked promising.
The water sloshes around your ankles in protest as you walk in, the sound echoing for a few seconds, almost unnaturally coming back to your ears. The red slide looked much bigger up close, you peered into the tube, listening. Unless you wanted to try that dark tunnel, this was your best shot.
You braced yourself, before climbing into the slide, minding the stream of water flowing in the middle. Soon enough you found light at the end out the tunnel and climbed back out.
There was no railing stopping you from falling into ankle-deep water. On your left was a small, half circle of light, but it wasn’t a window like you had originally assumed.
You place your hand on the giant, weirdly shaped fluorescent light. The surface is slick and faintly greasy, leaving a thin residue on your palm. The buzz fills your ears, drilling into your skull with its low, grating whine. The light itself pulses faintly, as though it were breathing, making your eyes throb with each flicker.
Irritation buzzes through you. Were all the lights in this place artificial?
In front of the slide was no door or any other entrance to the balcony. This place was beginning to make less and less sense the more you explored.
You realize with more than a little dread that the only other place to go was that stupid tunnel.
Going back you’re faced with a pool leading into the darkness. You step in, only to flail around as the water unexpectedly swallows you up to your waist. If you weren’t soaked before, you sure were now.
Inside the tunnel the water climbed up to your chest. Man, you really hoped you weren’t going for an impromptu cave diving session inside of the weirdest natatorium you’ve ever bared witness to. As the darkness takes over your vision a deep rumbling sound rises in the tunnel. It surrounds you leaving no room to breathe. You panic and surge forward. Barely catching a whiff of light at the end of the tunnel before plunging down to swim faster.
In the midst of your panic you flail in the water, rushing forward. You don’t stop when you accidentally inhale the water, and you don’t stop when you reach the light and all that’s in front of you is a staircase leading down into the watery abyss, and up into the ceiling. You don’t even stop when, as you scramble and slip of the tiled steps, and the lights transition to maritime scones on the walls to keep the staircase lit. You only stop when you reach the top of the steps, gasping, hacking, and shaking.
“Oh my God… oh my God…” you wheeze, voice cracking. You let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “What the—? This has got to be some haunted house type shit.”
Getting the hell away from that tunnel, you note how the light here seems more natural, without the pink and blue lights, you can even make out the greenish eggshell blue coloring the tiles. It’s completely quiet now.
In the new room you see a spiral staircase, why is everything made out of the same tile? It looks easy to slip on, but aside from the dark tunnel, it’s the only way forward. It feels suffocating, here there is even less of an illusion of natural light, and it’s closed in. the staircase goes up past the ceiling, and down into the watery abyss.
There was nothing else to do but to go up. The lights get smaller and weaker. Eventually though, you find something worthy of tears. Here you can see what you believe to be the sky. Your relief is short lived, however. As you notice that something isn’t right.
Behind you is a lattice network of pillars and arches, on one side there’s more darkness, on the other is artificial light. In front of you, aside from what may or may not be the sky, is what looks like a lazy river, splitting off into way to many paths.
However your gaze is fixated on the “sky”. The clouds aren’t moving, and the over saturated blue hurts your eyes the longer you look. As you move forward you realize what’s so off about it, the image moves with you, like a giant wallpaper being held up for you to see. The illusion is broken, all you can see is the flat image above, this is not the sky, no matter how much you wish it was.
You want to deny it, forsake the idea. But how can you explain the weird fake sky? The worst part is when you realize that regardless of the amount of time you stand in the so called sunlight, you don’t feel any warmer. The tiles continue to leech warmth from your body and give nothing in turn. You cannot name this place, but you fear this isn’t even reality. (are you dead? Are you alive? Does it even matter?)
You crumple into a little ball, perched on a ledge above the water. You don’t know how long you stay there, it only feels like a moment, but the soreness in the balls of your feet beg to differ.
Suddenly the sky starts moving rapidly, and while it doesn’t look any less flat than before, it’s suddenly a vibrant hue of reds purples yellows. The kind you’d only see on social media. It’s a cold comfort at this point. Actually, everything is cold here. You’re starting to shiver from how much colder it suddenly is. There’s nothing around that you can use for warmth, you don’t know what to do if it suddenly decides to get any colder.
You get up, maybe you’ll find something different if you just keep looking?
The darkness in the pillared room is too much now, after that tunnel, you wanted nothing to do with darkness. So you went into the other direction, with the lazy rivers. Maybe it was dumb, going into the water when you were already cold, but you wanted to keep seeing that fake sky. (maybe move realization to here where she’s moving and can see the flat 2D effect much better.
You were exhausted, you wanted to rest, you needed to. But your body wasn’t tired, even though you had run so much earlier. You felt exactly the same as when you first woke up here. It made it hard to tell the how much time has passed.
Eventually you give up trying to actually sleep and settle for closing your eyes and pretending. The lazy river you’ve deposited yourself in is freezing now, but who cares?
You open your eyes and look up at the “sky”. It’s night time now, at least the moon is still lighting up the place, however little that was. You sob a little, it was so flat, just a stupid png. of the moon.
You’re shocked when you can see the puff of breath. Was it really that cold now? That meant the water was no longer safe. Your body seems to agree when you start to shiver violently. There’s a small ledge that you can climb up onto like a small walkway following the lazy river.
But before you can keep on walking the sky shifts again to a soft array of pink, yellow, and blue. “It’s barely been five minutes” you mutter. Lady luck has abandoned you, it’s still just as cold as before if not more so.
You quicken your pace back to an enclosed space that the river goes into. The new room is giant. In the corner is a massive cube of water … just floating in the air. The pool was framed by three pillars of tile, but there wasn’t even any glass holding together. It just … was. Your bafflement increases as you notice the lazy river trailing to the middle, before it stops and flows upward into the cube.
You get closer, feet pattering on wet tile. It was mesmerizing to look up at. Your neck strains to take in the sight. The water on the surface ripples gently where the river and the cube merge. The surface shimmers and shows a blurry figure. The tiles surrounding you look like blurry little stars. It was novel, being able to see yourself reflected in the surface of the water as though it were a camera. After everything you’ve been put through this night, well you weren’t entirely certain but you believed a night had passed by now, being able to see something so admittedly beautiful was a Godsend. You step closer towards the river, wondering how the light would glimmer in the moving water when you suddenly lose your balance.
You’re thrown violently into the water above you, your sense of gravity inexplicably twisting. Your body stiffens in shock, and it takes everything in you not to gasp from the sudden change in temperature. This is bad, you felt completely disoriented, you needed to swim up!
Your muscles strain with every desperate stroke, pushing yourself through the icy waters. It’s too dark inside the cube for you to make anything out, even with your eyes open.
You abruptly crash into a wall of tile, A sharp jolt of pain striking through your neck into your spine from the force. You can feel the air trapped in your aching lungs bubbling in your mouth. You idiot! You swam up all right, but the only escape from this fate was anything but. You swore you could feel yourself twitching with every thunderous beat of your heart.
Fear begins to burn in your belly.
You can’t breathe.
It hurts.
You convulse, lungs uselessly drawing in water.
Eyes bulging.
Throat closing up, but it wasn’t enough. Gagging from the icy flood.
Muscles seize with a primal need to breathe. You couldn't.
The water numbs your tongue.
You can’t move.
Can’t think.
But you can faintly feel yourself floating, down and down.
Weighed down, falling and hitting the floor.
But that was probably just your imagination, why else would you hear the sound of breaking glass all around you? Echoing over and over again, twisting into burbling fractals.
…
A body drifts in the space. Teasing the edges of the water by floating ever so closer before moving away again. Hair fans out, weaving a web of strands around the head, swaying alone to it’s own rhythm. Eyes stare, unseeing and dead. Straining for something to hold onto.
Limbs stiffen and flesh turns grey. Blood thick and gummy, still trapped inside. Eventually skin loosens it’s grip on the body and falls away like sheets of paper in the water.
Gasses bloom in the body’s stomach, dragging the form down towards the surface. Now grotesquely buoyant, the body pushes through the tension. The surface clings to the body in a desperate attempt to keep it’s victim. Finally the body breaches and falls to the floor with a thud.
The swollen abdomen bursts on impact, the gases held inside escape in a wheeze. Skull cracking with the force, leaving behind a rotten smear. Arms flop awkwardly at unnatural angles. A thick, syrupy fluid oozed from the open wounds, a putrid mix of blood, bile, and water.
…
It wont stop, it keeps going on and on, twisting and forming more nonsensical sharp melodies. It shifts, grinding to dust, shifting again and again, but also never changing, repeating the same broken noise. Glass moving, breaking, melting reforming, and shattering all over again. It gets louder and louder, tearing into you until there is nothing left.
The moment you regain awareness of your body you jerk forward. The pulsing pattern of water splattering against the floor as you vomit is the only thing you can focus on. You think you start screaming. The air shakes in your lungs, but it feels heavy.
“huff, huff…”
You’re perfectly fine, there’s nothing wrong with you. You look up, and the cube is still there, looming over you.
You scramble away on your hands and knees, kicking yourself up to the corner of the room.
Your legs shake and you have to press yourself into the walls to keep from falling over. You can’t stop shaking.
You’re not drowning.
You’re not dead.
You’re not afraid.
But your hair is wet and you dress clings defiantly to your body.
And you cannot ignore the dark brown stain marking where you woke up.
You hunch over to heave again, but there’s nothing left.
By some miracle, you passed out after inhaling some water and fell out. You didn’t drown.
You didn’t.
Maybe you shat your self? You look down at your ruined dress.
“hahaha…”
You hold your head in your hands and burst into tears.