Chapter 9

  Hell. This is Hell. I am in Hell right now, making up for all the wrongs I’ve ever committed. Or maybe a dream. This is a dream. None of this is happening. I am going to wake up soon. No. No, no, no. This is happening. It’s right in front of me, happening right now. The door is gone. I can’t leave. Something is stirring within me. It is ancient, forgotten for a good reason. I push it down for now.

  Further examining the smoothness where the entrance once was, I confirmed what seemed impossible; there was no more doorway. Just more wall, flanking the fallen door. I made sure to check the windows, too. Pure nothingness. Not blackness, just nothing. I’m not even sure how to explain that. There is no way out. Actually, “out” no longer exists. For me, currently, only this house exists. I can only go deeper. Leopold wants me to go deeper? Fuck it, I will.

  It took almost all my remaining bravery to push forward, and it certainly took all my remaining strength to push through all the garbage strewn about, but eventually, I made it to the staircase. But I couldn’t use it. No, it was too tall. I couldn’t even see the end of it. Who knows what’s up there? Just looking towards the end of it gave me an immense feeling of vertigo. I had to go some other way. Unfortunately, the only other path I saw was one which led downwards, into the basement, or whatever dark depths may exist under such a title. But I had no choice. At a time like this, I’d say something like “I can’t just run away,” even if the circumstances physically allowed for it. So, I began my descent.

  I had avoided the upward stairs because of their sheer height, but it felt like there were just as many steps in the opposite direction. I was walking for what had to be at least 10 minutes. Maybe I could just let myself fall, tumble down the stairs and wait until I hit the bottom. I would definitely die, but maybe in a place such as this, that isn’t the worst outcome. I probably would’ve decided against it, but fate had other plans. I didn’t even see anything on the stairs, but somehow, I tripped and fell. Miraculously, I ended up in a strange hallway, entirely made of wood from top to bottom. There was no sight of the staircase in any direction. Whoever designed this house must have had no respect whatsoever for the work of Euclid. With no other option, I walked forward. The hallway was completely barren, with no furniture, doors, fixtures, or even lights to break up the endless barrage of wood. Still, I could somehow just make out the area in front of me. The one noticeable thing about the wood is that it looked burned in certain spots. I did not like that. The only sound I could hear was the constant creaking of wood, mostly from my own footsteps, but partially from other, unknown sources. It was almost driving me mad. Strangely, I could’ve sworn I heard a girl call out my name. Maybe I had finally begun going crazy. No, there it was again. There was definitely a girl calling out to me, repeatedly. I knew who she was, but I didn’t. I knew that I knew her, but I didn’t know who she was. Her calling became more frequent. And louder. Soon, it was even louder than the creaking of the wood. Everything felt weird for a moment. What?

  “Lewis, come on, wake up! It’s like 7:30, you’re gonna be late!”

  Lewis rose from his bed, definitely tired, but terrified at the prospect of losing time. He scrambled to climb down the ladder of his loft bed in a dramatic manner such that Sierra rolled her eyes, a gesture which he didn’t really understand yet. Thankfully, Mom had gone to the store and got some of those cinnamon Pop-Tarts; Lewis thought the strawberry ones tasted bad, but he didn’t want to tell her. He ate breakfast quickly so he could brush his teeth and go back to his room to put on the clothes Mom picked out the night before. He kept trying to button up the little shirt that she had chosen, but his long hair kept getting in the way. He had to keep pushing it aside, only for it to come swooping back down at his hands. Sierra saw this and walked over to him, making sure to crouch so they could face each other.

  “You’ve been struggling a lot with that hair of yours, haven’t you? It’s gotten so long,” Sierra said with a slight smirk on her face, looking almost proud of her little brother.

  “I like my hair. But it’s annoying. My hair gets in the way. I don’t like it.” Lewis pouted when he said this, and all the while he was still fruitlessly fiddling with the buttons.

  “I think I have something that can help with that,” replied Sierra before undoing the pink hair tie which held back her sprawling dirty blond hair. Lewis noticed that in this state they looked strikingly similar to each other. Sierra extended her hand to give it to Lewis, nodding jovially when he took it.

  “What is this? How do you use this?” asked Lewis. Sierra looked a bit embarrassed having not considered that a 4-year-old boy wouldn’t know how to tie his hair back. She paused for a moment before putting it on Lewis’ hair for him, not really bothering to show him how it's done. In general, this was how life seemed to Lewis. One was expected to know how to do things, but nobody wanted to actually demonstrate the methods through which said things were done. Honestly, I never really changed my mind about that.

  Finally able to coordinate himself, Lewis finished putting on his clothes and grabbed his backpack before following Sierra, already thoroughly prepared, out to the living room. Although his father had departed long before Lewis even awoke, they both cheerfully said goodbye to their mother before departing themselves for school. Is that my mother? I don’t really recognize her.

  The walk to school was nothing out of the ordinary. Lewis didn’t really like walking all the way to school. He thought that in a world already so advanced, in which he could see on the TV fantastical visions of superior technology, that somebody should just go ahead and make some sort of teleporter or really fast vehicle that everyone could use. Of course, Lewis was too young to fully distinguish reality from imagination, and this played a large role in these musings, but he really did think that the world ought to be much better than it was. He also had this strange habit of trying to only step once on each tile of the sidewalk, despite the fact that it was almost impossible given how short he was. At best, he could reduce the number of steps per tile to 2 or 3 steps, and maybe bring it down to 1 if he was willing to jump or move unnaturally. But in his mind, that kind of behavior made the habit not really matter. It had to be natural. Even Lewis didn’t really know why he had this habit. He just knew it was important to him. While caught up practically looking straight down to ensure a minimal ratio of steps to tiles, Lewis failed to notice the entangling weeds and shrubbery emerging from the ground just to the right of him, a lapse of attention he often fell victim to for the exact same reason every time. His arm ended up getting caught on a branch and before he had any time to react, he had been sent abruptly tumbling towards the ground. However, the ground was not where he stopped. Lewis kept going. That is not what is supposed to happen.

  The fall onto the cold, wooden floor was one of the most painful experiences of my life. I might have even gotten some splinters in my face. Add this to the fact that I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Where was I just now? A dream? I’m not tired, so why would I have been asleep? I know for certain that it wasn’t real. Or maybe it was? I’ve never remembered that before, but it was definitely a memory. It still just didn’t feel right. Whatever. Nothing here makes sense. Trying to figure shit out is pretty much useless. I decided to just keep moving forward until I found something else.

  Pretty much immediately, I noticed something new. A lot of somethings, I guess. While previously the walls of this ligneous hallway were entirely barren, following my plummet they were populated extensively by a variety of paintings. Photographs? Paintings of photographs, or, more accurately, snapshots of real life. Every single painting seemed to represent a memory that I had, including memories that I didn’t really recognize, but that I knew existed, somewhere deeper than my thoughts. I found it very frustrating that my mind would not allow me to access certain memories, but perhaps there was a valid reason for this, my mind being the cradle of my intelligence and my whatness, after all. I continued to walk. The hallway began to split into branching paths, in ways that didn’t really make sense. I just picked at random and continued pushing forward. No matter where I went, there were more and more paintings adorning the wall, reminding me of something that I once did or saw or felt, or, more and more often, reminding me that I really had no idea what was even inside of my own brain. The paintings also seemed to be getting larger as I progressed. I started recognizing them less and less.

  After what felt like hours of just walking, picking random paths, more walking, looking at the strange paintings of old houses, landscapes, playgrounds, schools, hospitals, roads, alleyways, people, clouds, I reached for the first time a dead end. In front of me was a painting which spanned almost the entire width and height of the wall. Actually, it feels generous to call it a painting, as it was an entirely white canvas. Though in a strange way, it seemed to be glowing. As if there was some sort of light behind it, or inside of it. For some reason, I extended my hand to touch the painting. I was more than a bit surprised to see my fingers go through the canvas and disappear into it. I kept going. My hand went through. Then my arm. My shoulder. I looked back at the dim hallway one last time before fully submerging myself into the milky void, replacing everything in all directions with a blinding whiteness.