The metal makes a horrible, high pitched scratching sound as we yank the door open. A puff of dust escapes the edges of the frame as it moves. We are buffeted aggressively by the wind, and sunshine assaults us with explosive force, throwing its weight against us that much harder when we step outside. It’s fucking hot out here. It was hot on the beach, but everything here is made of concrete clothed in peeling beige paint.
Tumbled down blocks of reinforced concrete strewn about like décor in that same post-post-apocalypse style. Mangled rebar juts out of their moss filled cracks and broken edges, yet by the pooling of the dry paint where the block meets the roof, I can tell that it’s all been painted in its current position and condition. As I wonder why someone would do that, I shake my head at the continual mixture of frustration, confusion, and disgust which clings to me like space junk to the gravity of a planetary mass. I keep waiting for it to become a moon and illuminate… something. Any understanding at all would be ideal.
One edge of the roof meets a slope at hopping height, which would be exciting if there weren’t four or five meters of two layered chainlink and razor-wire between us and the ground. A concrete wall extends from the building on another side, and there is a sharp drop on the other. Perfectly isolated, once again. Of course it is. This is becoming a tired refrain, universe.
Gesturing at the four curiously unique barriers, he says “This is fucking stupid. Something is obviously messing with us, right?”
“Seems the most likely, I’d say.” Of course I’m joking, but I’m also wondering. Just a little.
“What now?”
“Just look around. Take notes. It’s not a small area.”
“Are we splitting up?”
“As long as we’re in sight of each other I think we’ll be okay.” I am strangely confident as I speak, but I go with it. It’s a good feeling, and one that I miss.
“You’re right. I know we need to save time.”
“Yeah… we definitely do.”
He raises an eyebrow at me while issuing a stern side eye. “You want to fuck again, don’t you?”
“I can’t help it! It’s not as bad out here, but…”
“I know. Me too. We just–”
“We have to be fast, yeah. How about this? I’ll get myself off and you do you. We watch, and we each try to cum first.”
He agrees, and as he does his cock begins to swell. “Oh, that’s fun.”
We don’t say anything else. There’s no need, and we are both being seized once more by whatever grip this land has on us – a feeling which is mirrored by his hand taking perfect grip of his cock, showing me just how much he wishes he could be inside me. I sit on the edge of one of the nearby blocks. I want to be stable, but I want him to be able to see. He takes a step closer and stands in front of me. His cock is half a meter from me, right at throat level. This is the perfect view of what he’s doing. Of course I miss my girlfriends, but I am finding myself at least somewhat satisfied with this cock.
Just the sight of him – the thought of us – is making me wet. My hand slips quietly between my legs, and my middle finger quickly finds my clit. It is already aching, anticipating, and exposed. It’s as hard as his cock. Harder than I’ve ever known it to be, even.
Unable to tell three dimensions from four when feeling this pleasure, I try to keep any eye on the sun’s circle around the world as my finger circles my clit. My slightly longer than usual nails contribute a gentle but unexpected tickle to the sensation, harmonizing to create a rarely felt and unexpected sort of physical passion. I am lost in the moment, but I do want to finish before him. This isn’t the time to become lost, and I struggle to keep that out of the back of my mind, even though I can’t keep it in the front. All I can keep in the front is my pleasure, and his cock. It is swelling again. I have to hurry if I don’t want to lose this race.
His hand flies forth and retracts with incredible speed and perfect rhythm. I have no idea how people with cocks do that for so long. My arm cramps after a couple of minutes. I do love to watch them, though. “Mmmm…” I moan. The sound fades slowly to a humming halt.
“I’m getting close…” His words tease me, and suddenly I am wetter. “You’re so fucking hot.”
“So are you,” I tell him breathlessly, “I love this cock,” My eyes drift upward to his, and I smile a little sheepishly, “And I like you a lot.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” My embarrassment changes the flow of my blood, but it doesn’t interfere with the crescendo approaching from within me.
“I like you very much.”
I smile at him, and for a moment I see her looking back at me, but she hasn’t taken over. I see him too, and the blending is… unsettlingly beautiful. Fleeting though it is, the image pushes me much closer to the edge. Part of me is pleased that I see only him when the moment arrives, though. I really do like him, and we are here together; and honestly… I don’t want that to become confusing.
“Oh fuck,” he growls, “Can I cum on your face?”
“Only if you win.
“Win what?” he asks, gasping at his own hand.
“The race.” I smile, and allow for the perfect length of pause before I say “And only if you promise me a huge load.” I don’t actually care that much about cum, other than the satisfaction of creating great pleasure in others. It doesn’t bother me, but I don’t fetishize it the way some people… the way he seems to. He’s really fucking hot when he’s enjoying himself. “Don’t get any in my eyes, though. Or my nose.”
“Deal.”
We are both right there. Our eye contact forms a nearly psychic link that keeps us floating over the precipice – like two people with our feet on either edge of a narrow canyon, holding one another over the gap by using our hands to form an arch. The moment I break it to look back at his cock is the moment we plunge into the deepest point of our pleasure.
“Nnngnn… Fuck!” He groans intensely just before the eruption begins.
Everything within me tightens. Deep, heaving breaths expand my diaphragm and wring it free of all air at rapidly decreasing intervals. My body twists and clinches as I feel the rush of my orgasm build like a river of electricity inside me, and a fire engulfing my clit. A lovely, passionate, wet pleasure fills me. It starts deep inside me, but I can feel it finding its way to the surface.
Less than a moment before my orgasm truly ignites, the first hot splash of cum flies toward me from his cock. Until now I’ve strained to keep my eyes open but I instinctively close them. He makes an adjustment mid-ejaculation, so that the arc of hot, sticky liquid misses my eye and falls squarely on my cheek. Deal or not I don’t want to take any more chances, so I dive forward and take his cock in my mouth. Not just because I don’t like the pain, but because I absolutely have to be able to see clearly right now. Well, when we’re finished. I can’t really see because of the sparkles in my vision that come with the pins and needles of such a potent orgasm.
It’s here in full force now. My back is arched in ecstasy as I halfway stand with awkwardly locked knees, sucking the cum out of him as fast as he can make it. He cries out in his increasingly feminine voice as mine vibrates his pulsating cock. What an absurd picture we must make. Oh, damn. That makes me wish someone here had a camera present.
With a very visible contraction of his balls he fires again, surrounding the end of him in a pool of his own cum. As my piercing moan arounds him turns nearly to a scream, my eyes turn once again to his. As I help contain him I am roughly playing with my clit. I’m so wet that my fingers slip away from my clit easily, and rather than returning them to their task I find that I’m shuffling them back to queue.
The chills running through my spine right now are shivering. It’s still warm in the low, bright sun, but there is something icy about this. The winter of my body is brought early by a raging storm within the depths of its need – a cyclone created by the inevitable clash of shocking desire and wet satisfaction.
He’s still cumming, but I can tell he’s finishing up. It takes all my focus to do this without sacrificing my own enjoyment, but I manage. His eyes are turning backward a little, and his knees have begun buckling. Most of what he has for me is already in my mouth. At this point I’m just sucking the last drops for good measure. After all, we really can’t afford to get distracted again the next couple of hours. When he’s really finished I spit his cum out, and it splatters against his feet.
“Fuck!” My voice echoes from hills to rocks to sand and back. The force of it rings against the concrete walls. The apex of climax has befallen me. It’s like the spirit of me was sapped from my body and is now being forced back through it at speed. When he truly finishes he takes a step back and staggers two more. I am no longer looking at him, but I can feel his eyes on me… how desperate he is wants to see the intensity with which I’ll make myself cum.
Quite suddenly, the colorful sparks dancing round the edge of my vision turn dark, and that darkness collects and pours across the rest of what I see. Robbed of my sight, my thighs clamp together around my fingers which strain to keep working at their appointed task. I don’t know what’s up or down, right or wrong, important or not… And I don’t have to. Not right now. All that matters is the electric, acidic humming through every nerve in my body, pooling behind my eyes and in the depths of my soaking pussy.
In an attempt to form words and shout a series of joyful expletives I merely bellow some growling shrieks and a smattering of curiously accented syllables. Even I feel like I’m speaking in tongues, so I can only imagine what it sounds and looks like to him… Honestly it probably appears to him that my orgasm is something he can only dream of, and that idea just throws fuel on the fire. I’m on my side on the smooth latex paint of the block now, thrashing and bucking forward and back, granting freedom to whatever sounds within me want it.
One final, bright explosion occurs first in my mind, then pulses through my body like a warming glow, and for a moment, the chill is gone. The darkness starts to lift and return to a shimmering rainbow of sparkles to match the pins and needles so viciously pricking every surface of my body, and the burning of my clit.
Following the ultimate peak of the experience I am floating down gently and slowly. I do what I can to avoid thoughts of the grim reality into which I am once again falling. As I regain my senses I can feel the cool air once again, and something hot running down my thigh. A small pool of my cum has formed on the block behind me and all I can do is start giggling. Not because anything is funny. Just because… wow. Because that was so fucking good.
“Are you okay?” I ask him.
He raises an eyebrow and asks with comedic urgency “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say between a deep breath and laughing, “I’m good. Very good…”
“Me too.”
It takes us another few minutes to right ourselves and regain equilibrium. Takes me a few minutes really. He’s good after one or two. I am just pretty good at that, and I can never really restrict myself to a lesser orgasm, even where expediency or truly important matters are concerned, it seems. Finally, I stand and take several deep breaths, stopping just short of hyperventilation. He looks at me a little funny, and I smile wide so he can see I’m happy. At least, by the standards of what’s happening.
Casually, I wipe away what is on my face as best as I can. Making eye contact with him I give him a devilishly seductive grin and lick the cum from my fingers. Before his eyes finish widening in arousal I suck what little is still left off of two of them. That part’s just for him, but it made him twitch in excitement despite having just did what it did.
“Delicious.” I’m talking about the look on his face and this, the second jump of his not yet all that limp cock. He tastes better than most though, and definitely felt better sliding down my throat than average, so I allow him to think I mean the flavor of him.
Somewhat knowingly, he replies “So are you.”
“Back to work, then?”
“Yes, but after a moment of rest, please. I don’t want to step on anything sharp because I’m stumbling around.” He sits across from me. “That was unbelievable. Even masturbating with you is… You’re incredible to watch, by the way. And to listen to, and smell…”
“Mmm… So are you,” I tell him whole heartedly, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone cum quite like that. From that angle, I mean. It was hotter than I thought it’d be.”
“I’m glad. That I could provide you with a new experience, I mean.” Abruptly, and without warning, he kisses me intensely. Passionately. Or she does, maybe. It feels like her, but it’s like a first kiss, and this is definitely our first real kiss. Mine and his, I mean. Obviously, I suppose. His tongue glides over mine in a delicate way which is intimately familiar, but I can feel his influence on it as much as hers.
Was she getting off with him while he came just now? Fuck… His hand on my neck where it meets my occipital bone is absolutely her touch. He stays her movement of the other hand, knowing we don’t have time for that. She can’t resist. She wouldn’t have ever even gotten off the beach. I honestly can’t tell him from her in this moment, and I am bothered deeply by that. Still, “Wow. That was… That was really something.”
“Yeah.” He can’t say anything else. I think his mind has fogged over a bit while it plays host to a plurality of consciousness.
When I come down, I exhale a deep breath of relaxation, calm, and focus. “Ready to get to work?”
“I think so.”
“Good.”
We stand, and with no further words we resume our search for salvation. He heads toward the wall and I head for the edge. We investigate the area in verbal silence for a time, and the sounds of nature become beautifully apparent. Strange, enchanting bird calls from the jungle harmonize with the ocean and the timid howl of wind into a melodic, chaotic music. If I look the direction of the horizon, the sun almost is almost blinding. When I look into the wind, my eyelashes flutter like a thousand tiny whips obscuring my vision. Resulting from this, I can only really look at about half of this roof at a time… and the wind keeps shifting.
My frustration is mounting, but if I hold my hand up to the sun just right, it blocks enough that I can see how far the beach stretches to the south. At least, what I assume is south based on the present location of the sun relative to the horizon. At this point though, I’m not really counting on things like that necessarily being the same wherever here is as they are or were wherever there was. Just as a matter of not setting myself up for disappointment.
The sand reflects a lot of light, so I can only look at it for a few seconds at a time. It stretches for a long way, but I can see the end. It runs into a cliff that does not look especially scalable, and from what I can tell, the jungle is divided from the beach by rocky terrain or dense brush in most areas. I have to assume that there are barriers I can’t see through the canopy to fully isolate us, but that’s something worth checking on eventually.
“Hey!” he calls, “Over here!”
I cup my hands and yell through the wind, “What’s up?”
“Door!”
“Oh! Wait for me!”
I bound across the roof in my enthusiasm, skittering carefully through concrete pebbles, dry palm fronds, and sand. In the last quarter of my approach I begin my slide to a halt. But for its hinges and locking mechanism this door is completely transparent. The handles are frosted, angled cavities in the eight or nine centimeters of glass – or whatever synthetic material may be in play here. The two doors are beveled to fit together so they can seal perfectly. The lock is visible through the glass, and it is elaborate. It’s just showing off how sophisticated it is, really, which sort of makes me assume that the glass is bullet proof.
“Futile as it likely is, should we try breaking through this thing?” he asks.
“I don’t think it’s probably worth it, but sure, let’s give it a go.”
Moments later we have each acquired the heaviest, most sturdy pieces of concrete we can lift, and begin slamming them against the glass with as much force and form as we can muster. Like early protohumans we hit it the same way over and over in rage and frustration, doing no damage whatsoever and expending energy. After we take out some of our aggression, we take a small step up the evolutionary chain and begin trying each edge and point individually, we try driving the force through the twisted spikes. I even try a length of rebar half my height with a large block on the end. With a great swing I hope to at least crack it.
Quite the opposite occurs when the improvised tool of destruction completes its arc. The concrete itself shatters on impact, blowing apart and spraying across the roof at our feet. Rocks and sand graze us both, but we are uninjured. When the dust clears it looks for a moment as though it has in fact dented the right door. Upon closer inspection though, we find that it is just compacted dust from the destroyed block and that when that dust is brushed free, the door remains in pristine condition.
I am immeasurably, indescribably disappointed. Not surprised in the least, but very disappointed. Even though I didn’t expect it to work, the scale of this utter failure shakes me. It is in this moment that I first start to feel hopeless. I reach out toward my companion for a hug, and I don’t even care if it’s him or her who’s touching me back. I just need that comfort right now… That non-sexual, demure, physical comfort. The fire is still in me, but something’s different. It’s quieter right now, and it needs something softer to fuel it.
“What’s up?” he asks me. His voice is puzzled but I know he understands.
“I’m sad.”
“I see.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m tired, and confused. That was a physical challenge.”
“More of an emotional challenge for me,” I tell him, “This is more than demoralizing.”
“Do you want to take a break?”
“No. I think I want to take advantage of the clearheadedness afforded me by that frustration and by the lack of current distractions.”
He squeezes me tighter and kisses the side of my neck. “I’m not sure I understand completely, but okay. Come on, then.”
“Where?”
“Downstairs. Sun’s going down.”
“What?” I am deeply surprised. “How long were we whaling on that door?”
“A good while, I guess. It certainly didn’t seem that long to me either, but all evidence points to sunset.”
“Okay. Yeah,” I say, “That’s true. Let’s go.”
I’m a bit disoriented and he has to guide me by my upper arm for a few steps. Before he lets me go he asks, “Are you good now?”
“Yeah. Thank you.”
It takes the better part of a minute to walk back to the other door. When we arrive, we both place our hand on its handle once again. This time though, when we pull it does not budge in even the smallest degree. We can’t even see into it through the tint of the glass. Nothing more than the smallest flickers of light on the ground, at any rate.
“Well…” I begin.
He interrupts to finish my sentence as I would have, “This sucks.”
“Verily.”
He yells into the sky. “Fuck!”
I am startled by the volume of his voice and take a long, instinctive, and immediate step back. “Agreed.”
“I am quite uncertain as to what’s happening, and infinitely puzzled about the future. I am angry for the first time since I got here. Furious, even.”
“Me too. Do you think it’s because we are further from the beach than either of us have been yet?”
After a momentary ponder he nods and says, “What do you mean? Oh, like because we’re further from the epicenter we’re able to experience a more full range of emotion?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean, actually.”
“Could be, yeah.” He looks at the change in our relative position and says, “Sorry about yelling like that.”
“It’s alright. I was just surprised. But seriously, let’s start looking for a way to get back inside.”
“Yeah. I don’t really want to be out here long enough to find out if there really is a monster.” He pauses. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”
“Neither can I. Except that I can.”
“Yeah. Let’s pretend I said: what their ‘monster’ turns out to be.”
“My disbelief has been suspended so long it’s limbs are starting to go numb around the knots.”
“That’s a weird metaphor,” he says, “I’m a little turned on again, now. You know, despite the problems with that analogy.”
“I can tell,” I say as I look at the tension in his body, “Even in this situation?”
“Why not? It’s high emotion and high stress.”
I shrug. “Good point.”
“Don’t worry, though. I won’t let it distract me.”
“Thanks. We have important shit to do. You can fuck me when we’re done with this, though.”
He smiles. “One more good reason to stay alive.”
I laugh a little bit at the combined honesty and absurdity of his statement, “It is, actually. I want to feel that big cock fill up my pussy.” Of course, that reason doesn’t even rank in the top hundred.
He gets a bit harder. “Yeah?”
“Of course. Now, let’s get to work.”
We walk back to the unguarded edge and look down. The sun is not as bright, which allows us to see far more clearly than before, but since it heralds our demise the superior visibility feels like a mixed blessing at best. There is absolutely no way down. Even at the far corner by the fence it’s at least five meters down, and my hopes that we might safely make the jump onto those rocks is dashed by the simultaneous certainty that we would not.
The sky has turned to gold, and in minutes it begins fading to scarlet. I can almost hear the metaphorical clock ticking in my ears, as though it is lurking just outside my field of vision… As though it’s mocking us with its preemptive finality. What an unusual feeling. Even more unusual a thought. I guess it’s starting. I fear that soon I’ll find myself without any sanity left at all.
“It’ll be okay.”
“Will it?” I ask, wondering what he is reacting to.
“Yeah. We’ll figure something out.” He pauses, clearly considering what he might add to make the statement more legitimately comforting, then says “We’ll find a way out by learning and doing what we have to. And before you ask, we most certainly can figure out this puzzle.”
Just as he says so the sun finishes its slow descent behind the horizon. Before the next instant begins we can feel the change. I see it in his eyes. We’re in it now. I should really know by now that it’s not strictly wise to investigate if I’m afraid to interpret the data. “I like puzzles.”
Fuck, though. Something new is here. Probably something old actually, but it’s new to us. New, and terrifying. Every hair on my skin stands at attention. I can feel new ones breaking through just to alert me to the danger. The teasing, tickling, prickling sensation is not helpful. Stop it, body. This is not necessary, and serves only to interfere with our survival. Behave yourself.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Feels weird, though, right?”
“It does. It’s sickening. I’m sickened.”
“Sickened… weakened,” I say in an effort to extern my internalized horror, “Like giving too much blood.”
“And then dropping your cookie.”
Grimly, I say “Nice touch.”
“Thanks. Thoughts?”
Staring toward the fading sunset I say monotonously, “Drawing a blank. Thinking, though.”
The lack of words between us lasts longer than either of us are particularly comfortable with, but we are pondering frantically in desperate hope of saving our skins – a hope which I now desperately wish is not literal and that in itself is a distraction. Fuck. Focus. Now, please.
Moments pass. Nothing. “Fuck it. Let’s try the big door again.”
We run back toward it, and start examining it in more detail while the last moments of sunset fade to twilight. Just as it becomes dark enough to impair our efforts a bright, cool white light flickers to life in the alcove above the door, and we are able to keep on looking. I am happy, but I am instantly suspicious. This is a tease. A wind-up. A gag. It’s like slapstick, but for emotions and mental health. I know there’s another pie coming, even though I can’t see who’s throwing them.
Futility is our constant companion here. “Yeah, I don’t think this is going to work. We don’t have any tools, and it is not a simple lock.”
“Don’t I remember that you used to pick locks back in high school, though? And what about the wire on your notebook?”
“Yeah, as a hobby. It’s not like I was a proper thief,” he paused, and quietly added the addendum, “Most of the time,” he sighed and brought his voice back to a standard audible level, “And this wire doesn’t count as tools.”
“You don’t want to at least give it a try?” I ask urgently and a bit more angrily than I meant to. Given the urgency of the matter I don’t waste time with an apology, assuming simply that the drive to continue living will override any offense he might take, and therefore any loss of efficiency. He unfurls a small length of the coil which the paper has already torn away from, places the notebook on the ground, then takes the heaviest flat piece of concrete he can find nearby, and I step back as he flattens the wire with a heavy chunk of concrete. He looks at me and sighs, then rolls up the pages to use as a handle while he manipulates the flimsy bit of metal around the narrow passages he can fit it into.
I don’t really know what to say in a moment like this, but I say something. “Thank you.”
“Uh… Yeah. Of course. I consider both of our survival important.”
“Sure. Obviously, I suppose,” I am pretty embarrassed, but I need to keep talking so I say, “I just don’t know what to say but I need to talk right now because I don’t want to die in silence.”
“Oh,” he says “I can understand that. I’ve certainly got an elevated heart rate at the moment, but I think the adrenaline and the focus are holding the anxiety at bay.”
“That makes sense. I need to do something. I’m going to use this last bit of… pretty dim light to try and find any other fragment of metal you might use.”
“Ooh! Yeah. On the off-chance there’s anything made of copper that would be great. I’m really just trying to short it out and see what happens.”
“Will that work?”
“I have no fucking clue. If I’m to be honest with you,” he looks to me and I nod as though it is obvious, “I doubt it.”
“Okay, then. There’s always the hope that none of this is real and it’s all a dream or some other primitive narrative device. Probably turn out to be a fever dream while one of us,” I gesture at myself , “is dying of syphilis in the eighteenth century or some shit.”
“That’s… weirdly specific. Unnervingly so. I’m hoping that whatever’s out here just doesn’t find us. I’m gonna keep working on this.”
I sigh, and take several deep breaths. “Yeah. I’m gonna keep looking.”
For quite some time work and look is all we do. I know he’s not making any progress. If he was he’d be shouting gleefully. My luck is pretty similar. Every time I think I find something it turns out to be a twig, a leaf, or a thin fragment of concrete. Various fibers of the palm debris have looked pretty promising too, and one time the edge of my own shadow.
The air is cooler than I’d have imagined it to be at this time. Just getting chillier, too. Bright, warm light explodes suddenly from the beach. Seven large bonfires have ignited amid piles of driftwood. They are just close enough that their glaring illumination forms a wide bridge from one to the next. I wonder at first if that is how they keep the party going at night, but I don’t see anybody there. Not even anyone who could have lit them. “Creepy…” As per usual.
“Any luck?” he calls to me.
“Not as such, no.”
“What’s that weird glow?”
“I think you’re talking about some bonfires that just exploded into existence with no readily observable provocation. Or you know, bonfires which are somehow automatically ignited. Not really sure which is more plausible around here, given how my week has gone.”
“Me neither.” His voice is hurried. “Get over here, though! I’m ready to try something, and I thought you should be here for the big moment.”
“Yeah?”
I arrive, and he says “Really just because on the off-chance it works it may but definitely may not last all that long.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.
“What’s the deal?”
“I’m hoping that this is just an electromagnetic seal with a long-lasting power source, and that if we interrupt that power the seal will disengage long enough for us to get in.”
“Good eye,” I say with a sudden flash of insight. A flood of insight, really. In fact, a skewer of identity is penetrating the fog of ambiguity and ambient confusion. “That’s exactly what it is.”
He looks at me, clearly befuddled and a little frustrated. “How do you know?”
“I’m an aerospace engineer, but I did my undergrad in electrical engineering.”
“Wait, seriously? Why aren’t you doing this?”
“It’s really just coming back to me, and honestly, it’s a lot to adjust to. I think the fog is lifting a little, and the light burning it off is overwhelming. I almost feel like I found a bridge to those years when the mist cleared.” I can feel even more of my consciousness coming back to me. It’s rushing into every point of mental space at once, and very slowly, I can feel my mind begin reforming a little. It’s disorienting to say the least, but satisfying and reassuring – much like realizing the acid you is kicking in when you were worrying it wasn’t going to. In a moment I catch back up to the moment at hand. “Yeah. Better let me take over at this point.”
He stands and shrugs, “Where did you go to school?” He’s the only person I’ve ever known who can show that they are impressed with a shrug.
“Annapolis,” his eyes widen at the name in surprise, “Maryland.”
“How the hell did you graduate so soon? And with two degrees?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, truly confused.
“That not nearly enough time has gone by for you to graduate.”
“What do you mean? It’s been over seven years since we saw each other last.”
“Um… What?”
I start working on the lock, and with my recently reacquired knowledge I accept just how futile it is. In that spirit I try to accept the possibility that time has worked itself upon the two of us quite differently. “How long has it been for you?”
“Less than two years. I think. Maybe three? To be fair though, when I arrived I could scarcely remember more than the fact that I was in college, and a bit more has come back in the last three days. Not nearly as dramatically as what you just went through, though. You okay?”
“I will be. So, what do you think then, is the difference between us one of memory or time?”
“At this point I wouldn’t care to speculate. Both, probably. That’s what I’m assuming for the moment.”
Futility really is the dour tone of the moment. “Understandable, and agreed.”
I can feel the air tightening around me. It is as though the breath exhale infects the breath I draw in with the same anxiety. This is pure insanity. A strangely shrinking part of me still wonders if that is in fact all it is. Pure, absolute, unadulterated, unjustifiable insanity. A trap within a trap within a trap within infinity – nesting and reflecting forever, leaving me in this reconstituted quasireality… This amalgam of once tidy and discernible thoughts and perceptions now stretched, coiled, and knotted forever through the engine of dreams.
The subconscious effort of remembering has left me somewhat vulnerable to the fog, I worry. As I struggle to climb the walls of the epistemological rabbit’s hole which I find myself in, I feel a most curious sensation. Something about it is familiar, and something else is entirely new. A sharp tickle below my eyes, and behind my nose. I know that I am about to sneeze, but I am utterly fascinated by the newness of the experience. When the moment comes I take a great, deep breath and my head whips backward with no regard for my will. At the exact instant of the sneeze, something happens. Something other than a sneeze, I mean.
This is quite alarming, and more than a little upsetting, and I have no idea whatsoever of what’s happening to me. I can’t see. I’m not sure if I’m thinking, or if I’m using language when I do it. I can’t feel, or smell, or taste. The silence is an absence. No true sound exists in this spacetime hiccup, but I feel that hearing is of all my senses closest to being a reality in this moment. Regardless of how real they are though, each sense is now filling my mind – in turn and at once – with their own unique translation of the crash of falling unexpectedly into deep water.
It lasts only a moment, and I tumble back to reality in grave disorientation. I turn frantically from side to side, trying to regain my bearings. This experience has left me psychosomatically nauseated. It lasts for many seconds, until I consciously and intentionally realize that I do not actually have any cause to be motion sick. It just really seems like I should be. The very moment I reclaim my equilibrium, I begin to take in my surroundings and do my best to process the detail.
What? Wait. What? How the… fuck? I’m on the other side of the door now. I’m inside the building, behind the impenetrable barrier. He’s still outside. “What?”
“What the fuck?” he follows up quite unhelpfully. I can’t hear him through the glass, but he enunciates well enough that I can read his lips.
I enunciate back. “I don’t know. All I did was sneeze!”
“Do you see a way to open this from in there?”
“Hang on!”
It’s dark, and cluttered with debris and overturned lobby furniture. Looks like somebody was building a barricade that was struck aside with devilish ease. The search takes several stressful minutes. I desperately hope he does not get snatched by the big bad wolf while I’m looking for this. My right mind is taking root again. A sense of reality has at least made its home in me again, even if it is not perfectly aligned with my native reality. Hopefully it’s more appropriate to this one.
“Fuck!” I scream now, in fear and frustration. “It’s so dark in here!”
I don’t see what we’re looking for. Truthfully I can barely see anything. I am just stumbling around looking for things. The floor is littered with debris. Much of it quite sharp. That hurts. Fuck! So does that. I don’t want to die. I just… don’t. I have never wanted to keep living more than right now, in fact. Of course I know that’s a weird way to think of it, but it’s how I feel.
As luck has it, I slip on something and fall hard into the unexpectedly angled wall of the trapezoidal antechamber. That’s not the lucky part in itself, but as I fell I clipped my elbow on a large, circular, metal plate. In the middle of it is a single switch. I flip it.
From within the wall I can hear a loud shift as though the switch has fired activated something larger than the lights, but I can’t analyze it while I am so shocked by the brightness. My pupils have receded into themselves in their effort to retreat from the assault. Every surface and object in the room is glowing in the power of the ceiling lights. The glare is composed entirely of a searingly bright, frigid, white light. The luminous blotches of color in my confused eyes are highly disorientating, as though the ringing of ears could be transmogrified into a visual experience. There’s that nauseating loss of equilibrium. Fuck.
Here we go. I think I see it. The bad news is that it’s in the opposite corner of the room, next to the interior door. I launch myself off the wall and use my momentum to hobble toward the wall in a stuttered jump on my left leg for most of the distance. When I put both feet on the ground I reach for the wall and lean to support myself. I am so tired. Whatever happened a moment ago has left me utterly drained.
Thoughts in my head flicker as a dangling lightbulb with an electrical fault. The phenomenon is mirrored in all that I see of my surroundings as it causes my eyelids to flutter uncontrollably. In a strobing blur I manage to press the other button, but a horn or an alarm blares lowly, like a credit card being rejected by a foghorn. “ID…” I mutter, “Or an access key.”
I begin my search presently. With the light on I can sift through the rubble, in the desperate hope that I will find one more miracle hiding in it, like a needle in a thousand slightly different needles. As I swivel and kneel in the dust, I see him outside, waiting in panicked silence and stretching his hope thinner than either of us thought possible. That familiar tingle in my eyes begins again.
No. Unacceptable. I cannot go through that again right now. Have a task to complete. “Fuck!” I scream in frantic anxiety and deepening terror. Oh. I’m not about to sneeze. Those are tears. I’m fucking crying. Great. Of course I am, though. One more way to blind myself, but I suppose I shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that someone I like quite a bit might be about to suffer or even die if I don’t find a way to save them. Tears may be legitimate, but they are damned inconvenient at this moment in particular.
The combination of sobbing and gasping is a familiar song to my voice, but this time it is off key. I am truly terrified. I am gazing into the unknown in every substantive way I can imagine. Kicking junk off the floor as I dance through the fragments of brick and ripped hunks of ductwork that form enormous, ragged blades.
In one unfortunate moment, I slip on something, and fall to the ground. I catch myself adequately, and I don’t even feel the pain until I get up. My knees are a bit scuffed, and I’ve jammed my shoulder pretty hard. I’m bleeding in a few places, but no significant blood vessels have been opened. I know that in a few moments I’ll feel the pain, but I won’t care at all. I’ve found my miracle. I slipped on a plastic keycard. I can’t read the name on the badge, but the chip looks okay. I seize it from the skeletal hand which still grasps it, rolling right past the fact that the hand couldn’t possibly hold that position from the time that the rest of its body perished until now.
Victoriously, I hold it up to show him and dart back to its interface. I wave the card in front of it, and this time am answered by a chime which is far more pleasant than the riotous klaxon that assaulted us before. A small green light on the top edge of this device illuminates, and I am prompted to select “int” or “ext”. I press the button beneath the latter and several things happen at once.
First, there is quite suddenly a great deal more light outside the building. In addition, soft, inoffensive pop music plays over damaged speakers. I don’t recognize the song, and I can’t place the era. In seconds it has made its home in the background where I can’t really see or hear it. The final – and only – important thing of course is the opening of the door. The moment the seal disengages is quite obvious, for a potent, almost hypersonic buzzing I had not consciously noticed vanishes. Though I was not aware of the sound, its absence is conspicuous, and the altered tone of silence descends upon me as a new veil of eeriness.
The door starts opening, but it moves at an excruciating pace. After a few seconds it is sufficiently open to allow the passage of sound, and he says loudly but calmly, “Please hurry. Something is definitely out here with me. I can hear it moving…” He takes a moment and anxiously swallows, “And breathing.”
“I’m trying,” I tell him urgently, “But I don’t think I can make it go faster. Just keep your eyes on the darkness and watch for movement. You’re going to make it.”
Breathing quite hard he says “Yeah… I’m going to make it… On any list of near-death moments in my life this has got to rank toward the top, but I there’s a historic trend that indicates I’ll probably survive.” He tries to draw comfort from his own words, but I can tell that it is only a small fraction of the hope that he needs right now, and my heart is breaking.
The door is still working. It is not yet wide enough for him to slip through. As the gap approaches the necessary size though, something happens. There’s a flicker. Not a long one, but it’s there. I don’t know if it is in that momentary darkness, or the reflexive blink I react with, but he’s very suddenly gone. Given what happened a moment ago, I honestly don’t know if I’ve caused him to vanish by involuntarily and momentarily closing my eyes. Panic. Huge fucking panic. Utter terror seeps even deeper into the core of my being and I am weakened. My legs buckle and I am brought nearly to my knees. Thoughts and memories stir in the point of my mind, each a source of great pain as they try to force themselves into a linear, logical, line pointing to safety.
