Disclaimer- These charactors are not mine in any way, shape or form...
This is just a brain fart…kind of a 'what if'…
Neo's Hellish Encounter
Centered on the floor of a completely barren room, Neo sits crosslegged staring intently at the spoon in his hands... ,turning the spoon over this way and that, Neo could see every imperfection on its silvery surface aided only by the moonlight that bled into the surrounding darkness from the room's single window...
Silently questioning his own will to carry on, Neo was desperately seeking for the strength he needed to pull himself out of the black depression that now enveloped his mind and soul...in the near flawless surface of the spoon...
He found the spoon's glossy appearance slightly comforting...how he used to shine back in the day when Morpheus was there to guide him...he almost smiled at the thought..almost... but his mental burden was to great to allow it...he meerly twitched one corner of his frown instead..
Another tear glistening in the moonlight, soon the join the vast majority on the front of his black shirt, Neo caressed the smooth surface of the spoon, contemplating...how he used to be so strong and unyielding...so unbendable in mind and body and soul...
'Now look at me', he thought with not a little self loathing...'I'm nothing...' He worked his fingers steadily faster over the surface of the spoon, his breath quickening as his mental instability reached it's boiling point...
'Like this damn spoon...I don't exist...' In his state he barely noticed when the smooth surface of the spoon suddenly creased with thin, glowing lines...he could not yet hear the low earthquake-like rumble that began erupting all around him over the sound of his own grief-heavy heart...
Rocking back and forth, brows furrowed, his fingers dancing fervently over the spoon's slowly altering surface, Neo felt like begging for death to finally claim him...to take him away from himself..
The spoon suddenly shocked him, causing him to drop it to the floor where it began to glow brightly and transform...jolted out of his thoughts, Neo stared at the spoon in disbelief, fear bade his heart to race as the room began to vibrate with the growing intensity of the rumble he failed to hear earlier...he jumped to his feet, the spoon alive with movement on the floor...then, in an electrical flurry it seemed to complete it's transformation....into a small intricately designed puzzle box!
The room shaking beneath his feet, his ears feeling they would soon burst with the deafening noise all around him...the walls bulging first... then cracking to reveal jagged fissures exuding a brilliant light that threatened to blind him...Neo found himself staring down at the puzzle box, runnels of electricity still emanating from its indentions and crevices...then, in the middle of all the chaos, he heard a deep powerful voice...
"Ahhhh, the sweet Suffering..." The voice said...startled, Neo twisted in circles, stumbling over himself more than once to find where the voice was coming from...it seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once...he wondered hysterically if he was imagining the whole thing just as one of the quaking walls exploded outward, showering him with shards of wood and bit of plaster....the room filling with an eerie light...
Standing just inside the opening, the dust from the explosion swirling all around him like a mist, was a nightmarish figure...it looked like it had once been a man...he was bald and had skin that was a deathly pale shade of white...his entire head was sliced with vertical and horizontal lesions resembling...a grid!
And within the grid, he had long pins jutting out of every perpendicular intersection in perfect symmetry...
He wore a tattered suit with large gaping holes that revealed tortured skin...razors and chains cruelly embedded here and there...
He wore dark menacing glasses....
Neo stared in disbelief... "Whoa.." he muttered, backing clumsily away, shaking his head in denial, almost tripping on the box that had once been a spoon in the process...catching himself, his eyes never leaving the demon entering the room he struck the far wall and clawed at it briefly before he realized that he was trapped... "What are you!!" he screamed in fear...
" I am the gatekeeper, Mr.Anderson....,"the terrible presence answered, slowly closing the distance between them...Neo then saw the two figures that followed behind the first...they were just as frightening as this one...an unnerving chattering emanated from the one on the right...
"I alone hold the key,"the Cenoagent threw his arms wide to show Neo the multiple bleeding wounds that covered his body.. "...that will open all doors to the realms of pain...where your suffering will be legendary...
The end
I realize that I wrote Neo a bit out of character for this little story…it seemed the only way to integrate the two plots…. To be honest, I just like the spoon/puzzle box idea. ;-)
-WhiterabbiT 00'