Ryan Phillips

stevastival

The oblivion puzzles

3

"Yore"

Lights flash on. A white beam of iridescence shines into the bleary pupils of the girl — a girl whose face is turned upwards to a ceiling like a patient in a dentist's recliner.

She squints out the moisture gathered in her eyelids, the brightness form the light shone in her eyes making whole head groan, her senses scream in agony, as she fights to wake up and move. Still, she sees only white flashes.

'White.'

Why did that word stick in her mind just then?

It was the earliest primitive thought that entered her distorted psyche since she regained consciousness. However, the heavenly beams above her pierced the primary segment of her thoughts and disputes, and she instinctively attempted to raise the arm by her side which she could not see, nor feel. Her limbs wouldn't budge; they were held down by something — something . . . strange — and wouldn't move regardless how hard she tried.

Maybe it wasn't something tying her down by her arms, for the girl on the bed had only physically and perhaps mentally awakened a few seconds ago, already alerted by several things: blinding light, her laid-down position, the cramp in every limb, despite the numbness in her arms and legs. She still couldn't conserve the energy to move or speak — only stare transfixed into closed eyelids.

She blinked again, keeping her eyelids firmly narrow.

White . . . White. . . Wait! Where am I? What's happening? What is this?

She imagined words popping up in her brain like air balloons, each one filled with a clue to her sudden questions, exploding both pain, shock, anger, fear. . .

Who? What? When? Where . . . There was one last word she failed to remember, but wherever she was and whoever she was were the most important, lodged in her mind like a recollection taser. She had to get away from those burning beams!

The Girl in the bed felt a gentle breeze — it was like a gown shrouded around her, a plastic sheet covering her body — like soft sheets brushing her skin.

A patient's gown… she thought, I'm in a hospital bed!

She still wasn't fully awake yet. It was a weird half-vigilant, half-comatose feeling that made her struggle to calculate her surroundings and process the command lifting up her arm to cover her burning eyes. She wanted to scream, cry, throw up, wanted to roll off the bed, uncaring of what lay below — a dark, dank abyss; a pit leading straight to Hell, with the light she was retrained from above being the gateway to Heaven.

Instead, all she could think to do was shift her head from side to side, trying to find a direction to face other than straight in front; moaning in agitation and turning her head away, pressing her cheek it down on the surface of the cool bed — all the time wincing, striving to have the feeling in her arms and legs return, and escape the deathbed in the place she believed was the void located between Heaven and Hell itself.

Come on, move, move! She desperately thought – then, a thin shadow crossed her vision, shading her eyes from the light and hovering there like a blessing.

It was her arm.

She could feel the circulation retaining its composure, feeling the strength come back. At least now she knew she had control over her body, for now.

She shifted her waist on the squashy surface to roll over on her side. The numbness stayed, but her right arm was under her command; she held it over her face alongside sleepy relief at the ease on her vision.

What do I look like, even? She suddenly wondered; and she peered at her arm.

It took a while for her eyes to focus. The outline of her forearm and fingers took shape and, like the lens of a camera, it was her cynosure.

Her arm, as the Girl saw it, was a white texture — pale and spot-less. She brought her hand closer until it was a few inches from her nose to get a better view. Her hands was white. But it was quite smaller than she first anticipated. Stubby fingers. A shaky palm, turned pink and transparent. Clipped nails. A pale-yellow hospital wristband fastened on her forearm.

It was, indeed, her right arm — a numbly ridged tool of whitened sorrow laid to rest for god-knows how long she'd been sleeping here.

The Girl seemed to study her own hand for ages; rotating around again and again whilst keeping it still over her line of vision. It was after noticing something like faded black lines on her wrist and elbow that she peered at the plastic band closer.

There were tiny, punctured letters written on the front – the letters were of a registry nametag, like the ones seen on drug-testing animals; only they weren't letters. They were numbers. Three of them.

001

She flopped her arm back down by her side in a restless pout, like a stroppy teenager woken from an early morning, and moaned, cringing at the glare and the cold surface she lay on. By looking at just one body part, there were now about a thousand new unsolved questions about her past that had appeared.

But that was how it looked like to the Girl; all blurry and beaming, swimming white lines. Object just out of focus, like are eyes were her arms, just out of reach of a ledge.

Am I . . . in a room made of light? She wondered. She fought the feeling of her head spinning round, like it was filling with some fluid and still filling, and again, used her free arm to reach round and touch whatever flat exterior she lay on.

Feebly, she shuffled her numb hips further and further round slightly at a time, giving her arm less length to feel her way around. Then she felt her fingertips press against something cold and metallic within arms' reach. Her eyes momentarily widened in shock, surprise and rapture at having discovered something like fire, only to have a sharp sting right in her vision in distinction to the light.

She let out a muffled yelp buried her face in a white and plump bed pillow, but could still feel the coldness of the metal bedside on her hand. The Girl lifted her teary eyes up from the pillow and peered around for a moment; then she tightened her gasp on the corner and bottom of the bunk until she had a hefty grip on the side. . . Then, slowly, and carefully, she began to push with her one hand. Not on the bedstead, but to push herself away from it. Her other arm was still out of feeling and folded under her torso at an afflictive angle, and her legs seemed to be held down by something tight.

More and more she heaved herself up in a dozy sitting position, twisting her aching body round at an angle with her arm held to the bed's side. She groaned at the exaggerated effort, not knowing where she was still, or how; what her name was how she'd ended up on this death bed.

Only knowing she had to get the shit out of here.

Images etched themselves into her mind, a red scar ripped from the past: A big, clean room with one chair sitting in the middle of it. Huge shadows of people standing over her in a corridor. A pen and paper, with a hand holding the pen and scrawling a signature. Sharp tools and blades on a dissector's counter. A women with silver hair and glasses looming over her on an operating stool, and holding out something like a purple flower.

With a last strain of energy, she turned her arm like a gear at a 180O angle and pushed out. She was thrown upwards with a force of regulation, her spine arched, her arms out straight.

Huumph—!

The Girl was now looking at the bottom end of the cot. Her eyes swirled and something like warm liquid tried to push itself out from the inside of her head. Everything in her line of physical vision was blurred to the point of a hazy, colour-less blotch.

"You're unfamiliar here, aren't you?"

A voice? Some weird person speaking inside her mind?

"Subject 001 . . . You'll have been the first to engage in the procedure. We are so glad you made the correct decision – and came to us at the right time."

The voice — a female voice was swimming around like a muffled music box. It was barley a whisper, though, and she proceeded to straighten herself up more, and shook her head; the feeling of hair swishing from side to side comforting. That female-sounding voice was too weird to comprehend, and for several seconds the Girl forgot that she was sat up, an itching urge to lay back down and drift off grew with every rush of blood in her ears.

She put both her hands up to her head and groaned; a sound she could not hear, only feel as a sombre vibration in her skull — comforting, almost.

"He's ready for you now."

That voice again! The one of a women's — soft and calming, but emotionless; bare of any apathy.

"Everything will change for next – let's say . . . Sixteen months?"

"Sixteen months. . ." she spoke again inside her mind, "Sixteen months – sixteen months – sixteen months – sixteen months – sixtee—"

The Girl's own outstretched left hand came in contact with her left temple, whacking the side of her head. A scream of confused rage mixed with a numbed pain.

The flash of white and black smudges like light from an SMG – the sign of a concussion. The soft material of the pillow as she falls backwards and onto her head. Another numbness. More flashes. The Girl continues to sit bolt upright as if possessed; she opens one eye, and looks down at her legs for the first time.

They are both tightly bound by thick latches of metal, shiny and bolted like the twisted blade of a machete; both wrapped about her ankles. The Girl holds her head with both arms this time, and, keeping both eyes squinted.

Then, ignoring the spotlights around her and the sounds in her head – she reaches out a weary arm, grips the latch on her right ankle, pulls at the bond keeping her bound and held down from the outside world; pulls so hard it feels as though her bumbled limbs would tear themselves clean from their sockets.

She begins to see red.

Her back arches more and more in conjunction with her craving for freedom.

She grips tighter with both hands and heaves back to brake the metal bond — and with all her strength, gradually separates the hinges in the lock further apart.

With a piercing clang and a clinical rip, both of the bonds unlock, showing salmon-shaded marks on the skin of her ankles like the burn marks from a lasso. The Girl is simply too weak to give a delusional fuck about them. Nor for the unnoticed black marks like a flaming tattoo

Quicker than she expected, her legs automatically hoisted of the side of the bed, and down she went, knee-first, then onto her hands – spread wide like eagle claws – smacking down on the cold, wet surface of a messy tile floor.

I'm not dead . . . I'm not dead.

That thought was firmly stitched in her cognizance – she wasn't dead.

This wasn't a gateway to Heaven or Hell, nor another dimension. It was all, horribly real.

After a few seconds, the Girl realised that she'd been scrambling several meters along the floor, half blind, feeling her way along with outstretched arms and feeble hands. In the panic of the fall she'd temporarily lost her bearings — losing all sense of proprioception and chronoception — squirming her arms around in air in confusion.

The ache in her knees like a battering ram didn't bother her as much as the hope that her eyes would soon adjust to the brightness. She obviously hadn't seen natural light for a very long time. It was only after her fingertips pressed along a flat wall directly in front of her did she stop with a silent gasp, slow down, until she sat calmly against the wall, and rest her head down – hyperventilating with exhaustion.

Her eyes were shut tight. Bubbles of thoughts swam in her head, zipping by through the nerves in her brain like vibrations on a razor wire. It conveyed the impression that she was lost in a dark void of dancing spotlights, zipping by at preposterous speeds. She was inside her own mind – her psyche. The dashes of lights like the headlights of trains being a memory, the piano wires being the countless nerve endings, and the empty space in between being all that was left of what little she could remember.

She tried to reach out and catch one of the lights, but stumbled, and it flashed away before she could catch it. She attempted to preserve the ability to move faster, to catch a memory bubble before it swam away, only she couldn't. She was running through liquid oil, everything was in slow motion, extending both arms out to bear hug the memory orb, but it zoomed off the second before she reached in, and she found herself lying face-down on the floor — broken.

She was forever lost in the black abyss of her mind – feeble, distorted, defeated, and feeling utterly betrayed by whomever did this to her.

The Girl knew deep down — This is some kind of . . . Scheme. A test. A stupid plot conceived by a cult of witch-burning bastards.

Deep down, she knows that she has to get up, and keep move on.

Deep down further, however, she knows this may be end, and may find herself forever running — from hideous things — from a terrible nightmare beyond her physical beliefs.

Deeper still, she knows that the only way she can find out who she is and why she was put here, is . . . to . . . get . . . up.

But she just can't!

'GOD DAMMIT!'

. . . These two words were her own. They tore out of her throat like leather, each word screamed ripping her throat to shreds.

The inside of her windpipe hurts now, all the rage and angered demoralization having been forced out of her. Each of everything she could feel and think having been drained from her, until she was just a simply shell; resting on the wall of a brilliantly lit hospital ward.

Slowly — ever so slowly, she wriggles her legs so they're bent up to her chest, and closes her arms around them, hugging them close to her like they're the most important things in the world; which is what she believed they were. Not even a heavy crowbar could separate her knees from her hands — nothing could — and nothing would. Everything around her ceased to exist.

. . . . . . .

And with that final thought, the Girl slumps her head down between her knees, hugging her legs tighter than before – and began weeping silently — not being able to open her shut-tight eyes, or stop the tears of helplessness welling there.

For now, all seemed lost.

It would've been believed by now, if you were in a similar situation, that darkness was at the top of the food chain. . .

For example:

'Within the murkiness that surrounded everything — consumed and ate away at any object which produced no light source — upturned shelves and scattered ward tables, the dark and ominous corner of a room, papers and sheets and ripped pieces of info cards flung everywhere, sealing away most of the floor in their overgrown piles. Wooden and plastic chairs splintered against the walls in leg-less ruins on desks in their hundreds, like some gigantic beast had careened into the room in a devastating path of destruction and inhumanity, smashing its way through desks, mugs, paper, and table upon table in its wake. Even a circular slab of grey bricks from a nearby wall has caved in — smashed to ruins; leaving only dusty air, a lingering odour of cement, and a gorge leading to another destroyed area, papers fluttering in through the hole by a breeze with no source in particular. For it is an old place — an old, forgotten place — never thought to still exist without the accompaniment of the internet forums?

Confirming that this abandoned and ruined place . . .'

Ok, so you're a perfectly normal, if a little emotionally blistered individual. You've just awoken from what feels like a really, really long hangover. No kidding.

You have — let's say — a great big beam like a lazer from an alien UFO massacring your retinas. Thoughts of what to do, how to do it, and when — the most likely option being right now, race through your mind like electrical tendrils on a pylon. You struggle and strain, but, guess what? You're held down by traps — big, metal traps — and the only way to get them of your case is to shift up, and get your ass moving, only you've only just woken up from a coma, so it may be a little disorienting at first; a little frightening, even. The best thing to do is to squirm and wriggle in your deathbed, trying not to look into the sun five feet from your face, until the feeling in your arm(s) returns, and you can gleefully shield your flaming eyes.

Logic aside, you break yourself free, still not knowing what's going on, or why everything looks like the inside of a lava lamp. Your legs slide off the bed, you fall forward and flop down ragdoll-like on the nadir, which isn't looking to great, since someone just got murdered there in a noticeably messy fashion, but you don't know this 'cause your eyes are shut tight for fear of being scarred for life.

Flaying your arms around madly on the ground like a Seal in a liquidiser is a surprisingly efficient strategy for feeling your way around the room, not caring if accidently slap a broken cable cord, or punch a jagged shard of glass. That is until your palm smacks across a wall in front of you. . . "Freedom at last!" you foolishly think. Then you realise with a feeling like your heart being raped, that you've lost the power to stand. You're immobile . . . and blind — what do you do?

You cry, of course. Like a little bitch.

Besides, your memories have been wiped by the spray cleaner of manipulation, and the table rag of amnesia.

Yep, that's right, you have a slight case of amnesia . . . Hooray!

What little memories you still have about the world around you, and how it works, taunt you to catch them in a black void filled with empty air, and a feeling of hopelessness flooding in like oil, or something. Each one darts away if you attempt to catch it. The best way to do it is to:

Stand still and wait. But this is only mentally you do this; pick the wrong chance to catch a memory orb with your consciousness, and you'll probably find yourself in a dishevelled heap on the ground with your cheek pressed against the cold floor.

Try to remember — anything — anything at all. Buses, dinner, phones, books, posters, hikes on mountains, sitting in the front row of a school bus, paper aeroplanes, a doctor, a nurse, a sharp, metal tool. Anything. That way your conscious mind may trigger a way to help you learn to walk again . . . Hopefully.

Number 2 again — only this time, give up after a few seconds and curl up into a ball against the nearest surface. Presumably, the wall. Still, don't look. There's blood everywhere. And a in blood, scrawled haphazardly on the wall are the words "help me" and "it's comi" — that last bit presumably being the words "it's coming" only it's cut short with what looks like an accident with some red paint tins on a stepladder.

DON'T LOOK.

If you happen to fail each of these steps like the moronic psycho you are, then do what's best logical. That being said, it is only "logical" for the purposes of objectives centred in your mind, each one neatly arranged with different reactions and instincts to overcome said objective.

And so it's only "logical" to do what comes natural.

At this point you may want to cry, shout, and scream — to tell your emotions let it rip! Only to hear that your regular cry of fear has been replaced by something between Bloody Murder and the roar of a werewolf getting its nutsack slowly crushed . . . Nasty.

You must be pretty confused and even aggravated as of now, having been plucked out of a life you can't even remember living, and put through some kind of test like a Hamster. You must be having the symptoms of a concussion, a stupor and a will to escape all at the same time — jumbled together and stuffed in a confusing mix of dizzying memories and thoughts that swirl in that little head of yours like — let's say — a Seal in a liquidizer!

Then you know, with luck still clinging to your knees, you need get out of this prison — this chamber. And get out of this revolting hospital in one piece. And get out of the ugly hospital gown which shows your Peter.

Face the facts listed on these pages, and you may complete the Trails.

And so may your friends, if they've wished to take part as well.

That is all.

And good luck.

'Cause you'll need it . . .

4

"Ushinawareta"

She'd begun her first steps thinking that very thought, and facing that very fact — that situations, like the one she was in right now, would only grow shoddier if she cradled herself in that forgotten corner and wept her sorrows away. She needed to look to the future. And whatever poor sap who'd been torn to pieces against the walls trying to escape was of no concern to her; her own future was. Her future was behind that ajar door.

She glanced at the patient's bed, thirty or so feet from where she stood; or leaned, in this case. She was

She had one ridged hand leaning on the wall for support, which was completely white, and appeared to fade into the distance like mist; though the Girl wasn't entirely sure if this was a symptom from the drugs she was under.

It has to be a drug she assumed.

It was she could think, without drifting off into some other fantasy.

Was it . . . Anastasia?

As she staggered to the bed; knees bent slightly under her weight, left hand clutched to the spot on her right shoulder where it ached; her vision cleared almost immediately. The white haze evaporated like it was being sucked away, until she could make out the contents of the room; though the great blank spot in her memory like a bullet wound stayed. Her first discovery as of regaining her visualisation was her own body. The shroud around her like a cling film robe was indeed a hospital gown — light turquoise, and cut short with undone elastic straps. At least she'd guessed one thing correctly about herself.

The next thing that struck her was both and room and her skin; or more like what was on it. Something perplexing and horrific.

On the chalk-coloured walls that matched her skin, there was a red liquid sloshed on them. It was like the inside of juice carton decorating the floor and wall — some on the tables, some even on the ceiling — over the rusty pipes; though it could have been just the iron from the rust sieving through. The Girl surveyed the room, taking in all of what she saw, same to how a baby first opened its brand new eyes to see the inside of its cot for the first time. There were a collection of file shelves in one corner, standing by an iron door with a barred window. Next to that was an upturned table, dripping water into a puddle on the floor from where it'd fallen into and smashed a faucet. Smashed plants pots littered the floor, outnumbering the unsmashed ones that stood on small tables, or in corners; paper diagrams of biological gibberish slouched in crumpled heaps by the walls. The place itself as a whole was a mess — comparatively in ruins, scattered paper diagrams of biological gibberish slouched in crumpled heaps by the walls. On top of that, since the Girl's once blurry vision had recovered from the sleepy drug, it was dank and poorly lit. Perfect for the odd OCD to wake up in, having forgot ever being OCD in the first place, and might have a sudden heart attack at any moment.

If a firing squad has laid waste to this room, they've no evidence of them being here. . .

Except the blood.

The red blood on the whiteness of the walls.

And the crimson handprints.

And the drip-drop of water . . . is it water?

. . . And the . . . paint brush-stroke of cerise . . . Leading to the door and continuing through the crack underneath.

And the . . . the . . . severed hand . . . Clinging by itself . . . To the doorknob.

And . . . HELP ME scrawled in blood on the door.

It was almost — almost too much for her to bare. She stumbled along, and saw black spots dancing in her eyes. A feeling like bile trying to force its way out of her insides. The first feeling of retching on her hands and knees, knowing she'd forgot nothing she saw. Nothing.

In the middle of the room — right in the centre, as if planned, was the rickety operated table the Girl had crawled from after freeing herself. She'd recovered from her trauma and now stood over the end of the bed, then glanced up at the spotlight that manically leaned over it. Only it wasn't a spotlight — in fact, it barley had the brightness of a 2-watt bulb, and now it seemed ridiculous that it'd taken so long to get used to its light.

30

"Panikku"

Ever had a spider fall on your head from its ill-chosen ceiling spot? That sucks for a normal person, and gets ten times worse if watching one of those little dudes crawl makes your skin . . . crawl.

Now imagine that particular spider is about 10,000 times bigger and uglier and is ripping the roof off a bus.

Stevastival

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