Damian Franklin

 

Day 1

 

Sleep ended, but Damian didn't open his eyes yet. That wasn't how the morning began. The ritual had to be done correctly otherwise the day would never feel right. First, he focused on what he could remember from his dreams. This wasn’t something he cared much for these days, but he had begun it this way when he was young. How could he change it now? He couldn’t. 

Damian had tried to leave this part out, but the day wouldn’t feel right until he did it. Also, that voice that tried to help him understand others suggested dreams were something everybody did and it would help him connect. He wasn’t sure how right that was, but he continued to do it even if most of his dreams were only old conversations or math problems. Nothing truly as exciting as he had heard others describe. It was the ritual’s order and needed to be to start this way to feel right.

Strange, thought Damian, I can not remember any dreams… only a blankness after going to bed. Very odd… With a mental frown, he checked off dream reflection and moved his focus to feel through his body. He started at his toes and slowly changed his focus along his body until he was at the top of his shaved head. Again he frowned, there was a lot that was off. In general, there was a change in his body’s shape. My cookie gut is gone, he reflected.

Good news first, he thought while considering his next steps. Nothing hurts, not even soreness from sleeping wrong. That is quite nice honestly. Maybe I need a new mattress? Speaking of which… no mattress. I am laying on something cold...hard… stone is likely… which suggests I have not been here very long... it wouldn’t still be cold if I was asleep here all night. Also, who moved me in my sleep? He shook his mental self, then quickly noted he didn’t need to use the restroom (also a surprise) and wasn’t hungry, but a little thirsty. 

Guess I need to open my eyes and see what is going on, he considered as another part of him was freaking out and the little voice was telling him that most people would be freaking out right now. It made Damian hesitate. He reminded himself that life and fiction had taught him that staying calm was more useful than panic.

Without moving, he simply let his eyes open to stare straight upwards. Above him was a bright blue sky, cracked and faded with age. The painting was a work of art, done in a style that reminded Damian of a Roman mosaic mixed with leanings of the Greats of the Surrealist period. The distortion of the domed ceiling had been taken into account to add some realism to the view.  Even through time’s kiss, the painting lived and breathed almost like a dream. It feels like the artist was trying to remember what the sky looked like, but only had pleasant dreams and memories from which to reconstruct it, Damian decided.

Shifting his eyes, Damian expanded his knowledge of the room past the false sky. The room was large enough to be called a hall in the archaic meaning. Scanning downwards from the ceiling he saw more paintings, though most did not invoke the same intensity. The outer edge of the ceiling and the walls were also decorated with images. The styles and skills were different enough to make it clear that the various images were made by several different people. A quick scan saw that there was a unifying theme. They were mostly fighting scenes of monsters versus humans. 

Along one of the walls were strange devices and merchant-like stalls. There was an eldritch glow from many of these strange shapes that were revealed as sci-fi machinery to Damian’s curious, hungry eyes. Looking over them, their mixed natures summoned memories of the forgotten machines of The Dark Tower and arcane devices of the Elves in modern fantasy. Damian’s body jittered with the desire to charge over to such curiosities, but his resolve was to finish his scan first. Everything in its proper order. Even with the dangling lures of the glowing objects that appeared to be touch screens. In a moment… soon, he thought to placate himself.

That left his immediate surroundings. At what appeared to be the center of the domed hall (by his calculations he was about ten feet east and five feet south of the exact center), there were others laid on the ground like him. Damian sat up and noticed he seemed to be the first one to awaken. Though, he guessed by the shifting that the others were doing, that this wouldn't be true for long. Most of the time, the idea of others was something anxiety-inducing, since it could be hard to figure out how to act with so many factors to consider. One person was often a lot as it was. This time around it was reassuring, as whatever waking up in this place meant, he wasn't alone. 

Sitting up, Damian noted there appeared to be four ways to leave the hall. Behind him were two entrances with flickering lights that led to hallways with doorways at regular intervals. At least, from what he could see before the hall curved away. Across the hall from the stalls was a single hallway that was dim, but clear enough that it led to another open area. 

The last held his attention even more than the tempting touch screens. In the wall before him was a doorway that was respectable even by Jurassic Park standards. The doors themselves looked like metal infused with shadows. Damian questioned whether the surface shined with reflected or absorbed light. It was very dark but somehow there was a shimmer. If it wasn't for the frame of silvery metal, one could mistake it for just a shadowed area of the hall. A carving, mismatched in its crudeness, was placed at the top of the door and along the curve of the frame. Aggressively scraped into the rock wall, it said:

 

 WELCOME TO THE PIT OF THE WORLD

 

Someone had added at the end in smaller letters:

 

This way to a good time and death

 

Unpleasant, Damian thought. And added further, bad implications.

To the right of the door was more writing, but this was professionally done. Rather than looking carved, these commanding words looked more like imprints in wax. It was a list of threats, hints, and commands. Around him, more people awoke in waves as the noise level rose quickly. A woman cursed loud enough to almost break his focus from the words. His eyes flickered to a woman with black hair before swinging back. The words were more important than the panic around him. Panic would pass, but the meaning of the words wouldn’t be changing. It seemed the rules of his life had changed. Damian hadn’t been the best at the old rules, so he wanted to be clear on the new ones.

 

LISTEN OR DESPAIR

 

THRICE DEATH WILL BE BARRED BY OUR GRACE

BE WISE TO LEARN TO BAR IT YOURSELF

 

LIMITS WILL BE BROKEN

REFORGE THEM OR NEVER RISE

 

ALL THAT IS NEEDED TO RISE IS ATTAINABLE

CHOOSE THE PATH TO ASCENSION

 

STAND TOGETHER, RISE TOGETHER

ONLY RUIN AWAITS THE LONE AND SCATTERED

 

YOUR NATURE SHALL REVEAL YOUR STRENGTH

SEEK A  STEADFAST WILL TO SEE IT GROW

 

ONE HUNDRED FLOORS TO CONQUER

 

YOU ARE HERE FOR A PURPOSE

Damian narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to get different angles. The world fell away as he focused on solving the weirdness he had noted. It was the words that were off to him. Silently he crossed the hall towards the commandments through the waking sixty. Once he got closer, Damian understood what was happening. It wasn’t an optical illusion or a distortion physically affecting the writing on the wall. The effect was purely mental, or perhaps … magical, considered Damian while glancing across to the glowing crystals connected to the machines. 

The simple truth of the weirdness was that it wasn’t written in English. He looked at the carved words and saw English letters. By concentrating, he could see their true shapes, but Damian still perfectly understood the meaning as easily as reading anything in English. The true shape was completely alien to him. The script was closer to Tolkien Elvish than anything else he had come across before. The lettering was a flowing, looping script with Asian-Esque accents and slashes crossing the loops. Made him think of a script a game developer would create to emulate Tolkien, but didn’t mean anything like a real language did.

This one Damian was sure was real, as he looked at the script he found he could parse out what part was a word and the meaning of most. There is a history and life to this language, Damian decided. Subtle meanings and connections presented themselves to him the longer he focused on the flowing words in the quiet of his mind. 

The stirring of the others behind him pulled Damian from his musings on the hidden language. Damian knew he could and would continue to learn from the strange phenomena later. There was no need to rush since he could already read the new language for some reason. Returning his attention to the hybrid machines, he considered the wonders and mysteries that were waiting for him over there. The commandments were forgotten, he locked onto one of the eldritch screens. Damian’s lip twitched towards a smile when thinking of what knowledge there was waiting in a magic computer.

Julia Sarcos

 

“What the fuck?” screamed Julia to the echoing chamber. Around her others jumped at the sudden break in the silence, while others were startled awake. She didn’t pay them any mind as she frantically looked around to find some sort of normalcy to anchor her world upon. 

The scenery was alien to her and the few strokes of familiarity she found among them only made the whole more bizarre. Even the clothes that she had on upon awakening couldn’t offer that to her. That didn’t mean they were uncomfortable by any means. Silky to touch, but tough enough to be unfazed by her frantic tugging at them. The cut was odd, with it being somewhere between a tunic and two-piece workout clothes. Even the shoes were an odd style. These were between moccasins and sneakers.

One would have thought her body would have been an obvious anchor of normalcy, but that was distorted too. Arguably, in a positive way, but still obviously different from when she had gone to sleep. How can your body change so much in a single night! She screamed inside her mind.

This time Julia had decided to keep her hysteria inside since her outburst had woken and disturbed others. How embarrassing!  a small voice echoed in the back of her head. As for her body, somehow it had reverted to her early 20’s and was in better shape than she had ever been then. She was sure of those details as it had been a struggle all her life to maintain just a decent shape. Her family’s metabolism had always been a force she had to work against. At least her hair and skin hadn’t radically changed. The hair was still black and the half curly mess it normally was. Julia sighed a little calmly to see her skin to be its normal caramel. No paler than normal meant she likely hadn’t been in this dark place for long.

Everything came back to a single, simple truth; this was not where she should have woken up. Julia had gone to sleep at her normal time, in her comfy bed, engulfed with all her stuffed animals. Whether there was more bed or stitched friends in that corner of her room was a hard debate. Now, here she was, in this gloom and laying on the stone floor!

The architecture around her reminded the small rational part of her of Persian ruins enhanced by Rome’s sense of grandeur. Most of Julia felt like someone had just dumped her body in a forgotten mausoleum without checking to see if she was alive or not.

 Her arms continued to twitch as she looked around at the people nearby. Focusing on a woman to her right with red hair, Julia narrowed her eyes as she asked, “Who are you?” Her tone was just short of accusatory.

The other woman blinked at her and replied cautiously, “Clarissa Evans and your name …”

“Do you know where we are?” questioned Julia feverishly. “O’ um I’m Julia.”

Clarissa blinked several times more, grinned then said, “Uh, no I don’t know where we are… It’s very strange here,  a little nostalgic even.”

“Nostalgic? How!” exclaimed Julia. “Do you know how we got here? I don’t! The last I remember, I was in my bed! I miss my bed…”

Giving her a somewhat wary look, but more amused, Clarissa replied, “Well, yeah that’s freaky and I am right there with ya… But this is just like… well... what I dreamed about as a kid or the games I played… the books I read. This could be that adventure… the one I had hoped for once. That escape.”

“I…” stuttered Julia in response. She looked around as if trying to see/feel what the other was seeing. “I think it's more likely we're all going to die or this is some sick trick. Look at this place… feels like even the people who built it forgot about it.”

“Maybe they all died themselves and no one else knew about it,” suggested Clarissa pleasantly. “Of course, then who brought us here?”

“Well it wasn’t the dead,” stated Julia dryly. “The dead don’t kidnap the living.”

Wiggling her fingers like she was telling a spooky story, Clarissa said, “Then maybe it was the undead!”

Julia grimaced and then rolled her eyes as she responded, “Don’t be ridiculous! This isn’t one of those games or stories you were talking about. I read Isekai too. Narnia… I wanted the adventure too…. But this? What even is this? I feel trapped.”

“Mmm, we are trapped,” agreed Clarissa. “But there is always a way out. Like that big door over there. Looks very challenging doesn’t it?” 

Stiffly, as if the neck was resisting the motion, Julia looked to where Clarissa had vaguely gestured. Panic wriggled to life as she finally let herself take a look at the massive door. The aura of the door was inviting as a promise, but as threatening as a dare. In her mind, she saw the door embodied by a laughing, villainous figure as it waved an invitation.

She wondered briefly if Clarissa was of sound mind. How could the other woman look at it and not feel that primal fear? Never in her life had Julia felt so perplexed by a situation or a person. Ordered, that was the way to deal with the ebb and flow of the world. Always have a plan ready with options that were considered beforehand. 

Yet, how could I even begin to prepare for this? thought Julia. “I don’t know what to do…”

“Neither do I,” revealed Clarissa with a small smile for her. “All I can do right now is try not to panic. Never helps, does it? To freak out I mean… so here I sit and think of the positive side of things.”

“Positive… what could you… what have you decided is positive about this?” tried Julia.

The redhead woman looked at her seriously for a moment. Seeing the strain on the face of the other person, Clarissa thought quietly for a moment. 

“There’s some easy ones,” she started. “One is that we're alive, so we can still make choices to see us home. Two, we all appear healthy and fit and I would say more so than before…” She looked at Julia for confirmation.

“Yeah, I worked hard to just be in decent shape,” offered Julia. “Now… I feel powerful. That’s as scary as waking up in the underworld. Maybe even more so…”

“Right, but we’re talking about positives right now!” chirped Clarissa. “None of the spooky stuff right now. Anyways… three, adventure! Look at this place! What secrets does it hold? Four, maybe magic is real after all! Some of the machines over there don’t look like they just run on boring old electricity!”

“I think you might be trying to sell it a little too hard,” said Julia amused, having been won over a little despite herself. “Adventure means being in danger that you laugh about later, if you have a later.”

“That's a pretty pessimistic way to look at a potentially good time,” grinned Clarissa.  

Frowning at the bizarre woman she found herself at a loss at words. How does this woman have such faith things will turn out ok? grumbled Julia in her head. She said that it was only to look on the bright side of things, but in the face of this… it has to be more than twisting your outlook. To Clarissa, she said, “I don’t understand where this well of cheer comes from… Have you really taken in what has happened to us?”
“I’m not a fool, Julia,” replied Clarissa, her tone suddenly serious and looked put out. “The first step is always to not panic, then you consider what you have so you can predict your outlook. Staying positive is just my way to survive.” The redhead’s grin sharpened, not threateningly nor gleefully, but confidently. “Surviving is one thing I am very good at. So, Julia, you can sit there moping about the situation. The one we have all woken up too… or you can come with me. I’m going to meet the others, and see where that takes me. See how that reflects on our future, y’know. Are you with me?”

Julia steeled herself and compressed the tentacles of fear wriggling within her. When it was a small point and dense, she grabbed the offered hand of Clarissa. Contained, it’s heavy, but I can manage, decided Julia.

“Let’s see who else got dragged into this mess,” stated Julia gruffly and with a forced smile.

“That’s the spirit,” agreed Clarissa, truly smiling. “First step, don’t panic. The second step... I wonder if anyone here knows how to play music? I could go for something charged, hard, and fast! Something you can really dance with abandon to.”

The redhead continued to chatter as they headed toward one of the larger gatherings of the sixty. Listening to the innate words brought the normalcy she had been looking for. Her smile bloomed into a real one. A bearded man with auburn hair in the group ahead was caught in the beam of that smile and blushed with wide eyes. Suddenly Julia found herself laughing as well and wondered, How can I laugh when I’ve been kidnapped in my sleep? 

In response, the words of Clarissa echoed in her head. Julia decided as they joined the others that if she was going to survive this, then laughing would be a positive for that endeavor.