This chapter rated T for brief censored language and very mild violence.
Author's notes: The movie Fight Club rang true with a place in my mind that I'm not so sure that many people could relate with. Maybe more people than you would think, I don't know. But I do know that if you let a creature as powerful as Tyler Durden live and grow in your mind like I did, it will take more than a simple mind game to make him go away, hence the continuation of the story here. It's not as simple as not wanting to have that part of your mind, because chances are that part of your mind doesn't want to have you, and it's not as simple as tricking him out, because if you let someone like that mature and become intelligent for too long, chances are they can trick you out even better. In the end, it becomes nothing more than a frantically delicate balance, a system of ropes and pulleys, bars, chains, and trapdoors that leave you in a deadly stalemate... with your own mind. I beg you never to become an enemy of yourself. The state of your own happiness and well-being rests only in the ability to make recompense with yourself, a phrase that can far too easily be translated into meaning "making deals with the devil."
Project Mayhem: Deadly Stalemate
0. I am Jack's prologue.
"Young lady. Excuse me. Miss?"
The girl with the crazy hair raised her weary-looking head, wincing at the bright light of the fluorescent panels in the waiting room. The way she was slumped forward in her seat, leaning on her knees, looking like she didn't care whether she looked like trash or not... I knew she'd seen some crazy stuff that day. I decided not to ask. She shielded her eyes. "What?" she croaked.
"You can't smoke that in here."
She glared at me like she'd heard the word "can't" one too many times. She stood, walked straight over to me, dropped her cigarette on the floor and stomped it out, then looked straight into the irritation of my soul. "Whatever. I was just leaving." She brushed past me to the exit, leaving me stunned, yet glad that I wasn't going to see her again. I peered at the crushed cigarette on the floor. I knew it wasn't my job to clean it up, I was a receptionist.
Didn't matter. I picked it up anyway and threw it away.
A life of the bull teachings of etiquette, cleanliness and responsibility that was supposed to make me a better person... had led me to a life of cleaning up other people's garbage. Impulsively, no less. What a grand destiny.
Oh, great. She was back, peeking into the room like someone who wasn't sure whether they had left something. She glared at me, then glanced at the spot on the floor where her cigarette had been with some confusion. She shook her head. "I'm going to regret this." Her voice was hung with irony.
She stepped into the room. "I want to see him."
"Who?"
She winced, as if I should have known so as to save her the trouble of uttering his name. The regular glare returned. "Tyler Durden. He came in a couple hours ago... you know..." she pointed to her head as if it were a gun and made a firing noise. "Big hole."
I shook my head, processing her request automatically through my mind's hospital files of regulations concerning visitors. "He's going into emergency reconstructive surgery in about ten minutes, and if he's still the way he was when he came through, which I'm assuming he is, he's in no condition to see anybody."
"Well, then, that settles that," she muttered brusquely. There was a sort of tired rage in her voice, as if she wanted to file a complaint but knew it would just be a waste of time. It caught in my mind. I grabbed her sleeve as she turned to go.
"Why... should I let you see him?" The question didn't make sense in any conventional terms.
She leaned in, the stink of her cigarettes underlining her intensity, invading my personal comfort zone. "Because this is the last time I'm ever going to see him again."
xxxxx
Welcome to Fight Club. New set of rules tonight, guys. There is only one. If you're new... you have to fight.
You, Jack. You're new to this arena... I don't care what you think you may have fought before, because this is a whole new level. Forget Fight Club in Lou's basement. This is the big time.
You knew you were going to die. You were comfortable with that. Good, because you're there. Your opponent tonight is Death. He rarely loses. Like I said, you're the new guy tonight, and just like the last arena, you are most likely going to lose.
Good luck, baby boy.
Fight!
xxxxx
"He's not going to make it. Is he."
It was more of a statement than a question. The doctor usually heard that phrase fraught with worry, genuine grief, sorrow. This girl Marla Singer presented the question with nothing more than an odd sort of morbid, monotone curiosity, maybe, and with definite resignation. He blustered as if he had never heard the question before.
"That- that answer will come in time."
"Well, doc, time isn't something I feel is a horribly good thing to spend on this one, so I don't suppose I'll ever find out." She turned her eyes back to the pitiful specimen on the table and spoke with a strange sort of ironic wistfulness. "But you're Tyler Durden. You can do anything, I guess." She stared at his face intensely, watching the eyelids twitch.
Suddenly he muttered. "Tyler... Tyler, you're..."
Marla jumped. "Oh g-d, he even talks to himself in his sleep."
He jerked, then opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling as if Marla weren't even there, his eyes nearly vibrating with terror. "Tyler... you're dead." Suddenly the fear vanished from his eyes. He turned his head slowly and looked into Marla's eyes, grinning madly. "I'm so glad you could make it, Marla." His head dropped back onto the table.
Marla backed away from the examination table into a wall. "I've seen enough. Goodbye, doctor. Good luck with the, uh..." The pointed at Tyler's head, then waved her arm dismissively. "Yeah, have fun." She walked out the door abruptly.
xxxxx
Never be... ...ver be perfect... ...most beautiful m- ...shut up, it's all in his head! what? ...at? The beauty... ...or... ...his little friend...? ...cked up friends... limber...
Blows were exchanged. That is, they were exchanged from Death's fist to Jack's head. Jack couldn't see, he could barely move. Everywhere he turned, there was only the blackness of shapelessness and the echoing of voices from his past, and the constant hammering of Death into the back of his head.
...Name is Robert Pa... ...a lie... ...isn't any na... ...ame in death. Death. Death. Congr... ulations... died serving Proj... ayhem. Big Success. ...no debt rec...
Jack dropped to the ground again, or was it just that the ground tilted and smacked him with great force? Even if he was still upright, he was stuck to the wall that was called the ground, no matter how it was oriented. He pushed himself away from it, into an twisted kneeling position, and looked to the side, trying to focus through the dark on the crowd chanting around him. Oddly, a familiar face came into his view. Marla. She seemed to be cheering him.
"...You're Tyler Durden. You can do anything..."
He rose to his feet, somewhat more determined. He turned to face Death- and stopped short. "I'm not Tyler," he thought angrily. The towering figure of Death stopped in his advance and spread his cloak wide, revealing a mirror.
Tyler stood in it.
Jack backed away from the mirror, then tripped and fell on his back. But oddly, his reflection didn't follow his motions. It simply smirked, stepped to the edge of the mirror, shattered the glass with a powerful punch, and stepped right on through. Jack tried to speak, shaking his head vehemently, but his tongue seemed to have become enormous. "Tyler... you're dead," he finally spat out.
Tyler raised his eyebrows nonchalantly, then glanced off to the side, grinning with recognition. "I'm so glad you could make it, Marla." He looked back down at the shaking Jack in amuesment. "Looks like I am Jack's greatest nightmare." He grabbed Jack by the collar, yanking him to his feet. "Let me let you in on a little secret. I'm only as dead as you are."
"I shot you in the head!" Jack spat. Tyler shook his head as if berating a schoolchild.
"No, you shot you in the head. That makes a few complications for everyone. I'll explain." He let go of Jack's collar, and everything in the room slowed and froze. "But we don't have much time, so listen good and close. I'm part of your mind, a now very significant part of your mind. Now, since you invented me, I'm subject to your mind games. Exhibit A, for example." He pointed to a suddenly spotlit corner of the room with a body on a surgery table. Jack caught a glimpse of the bullet wound in the back of his head and realized it was his own body before the spotlight blanked out. "If you had not given me as much control as you did, a.k.a., relied on me for so much of your strength, I would be completely subject to your every whim. However, you let me take over- get ready for this- a full half of your mind. Approximately 50 to 60 percent thereof, depending." Jack reeled for a moment. "Pay attention. This is the good part. Your mind trick worked for a couple minutes, because you still have your 50. But as much as I'm a part of you, as in you being the dominant lifeform and I being the servant, you are becoming a part of me. I have just as much residence in this mind as you do. To me, your mind trick was nothing more than a game. All I had to do was crack the code. In other words..." He leaned into Jack's face. "As much as you can kill me with your mind, I can cheat death with mine." He grinned like a kid who had just figured out how to beat a videogame.
"Oh g-d, so, what, now you're invincible or something?"
"Heck no. Soon as this body dies, I die, just like you. That could be very close. Now, I'm just as comfortable with dying as I tried to make all my recruits. But I think I don't have to be ready this time. You and I, once we get out of this, are going to instigate Project Mayhem, Stage II."
"You and I are not going to do anything! I want you out of my life!"
"Fine. You can kill me," Tyler replied, indicating the still frozen figure of Death standing before Jack. "But the only way you can kill me is to let Death win. If you want me dead, you're coming down too. Or I could fight Death with you, team up against him, and we could get out of this together."
"Or we could get out of this together, and you could die in a burning flame with your grand plans. If you think I'm going to help you, you're out of your-" He paused. "Don't even comment on the irony of that statement, you have no idea how angry that would make me now."
The familiar smirk. "Redundancy kills. Most flames burn."
"F--- you."
"Or I could let you fight Death by yourself, which, by the way, seems to be going spectacularly well..." Tyler wiped some of the blood off of Jack's chin and wiggled his fingers in Jack's face. Jack pushed his arm violently away in disgust.
"Just what makes you think you'd be any help in fighting this guy anyway?"
Tyler grinned. "Who's the new boy here? You. You're only experienced enough to know that in the first fight, you're dead. But thanks to you, a good friend of yours has just a little experience in cheating Death." He snapped his fingers, and the room came back to life. "You have about five seconds to decide before the checkmate of your soul, my friend." Death began advancing again.
Jack put his hands to his head. "Does it look like I have a choice?"
Tyler whooped and stepped to his side, facing Death's icy blast. "Now that's what I'm talking about! YEAAAH!"