I was awakened in the dead of night by the sound of music. I couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from, but it sounded like an old gramophone. It was slowly churning out a sad, mournful song. Something about love lost and forgetting. The usual things, I suppose.
The drapes had been drawn back from the tall window on the wall facing me. Silhouetted in the moonlight was the figure of Maxie Zeus, his back to me, gazing out the window.
"… I wish today would pass away … and tomorrow, too," sang the song.
In the daylight, Maxie had seemed overblown, theatrical, and utterly ridiculous. But now, half-hidden in the shadows, his form as uncannily still as an ancient statue, I could almost believe he was a little … godlike. And then, quite suddenly, Zeus spoke in his deep and sultry voice.
"Imagine," he began, without turning around or giving any indication that he knew I was awake and listening, "that a great iron chain was let down from the heavens to the earth. And at the top I held it fast, while all you who are gods and all you who are mortals took hold of the other end … Truly, I say to you, not even so could you drag down Zeus from the sky to the ground, not Zeus the High Lord, though you try until you grow weary. But whenever I might be so minded, I could drag you up, and earth and sea and all with you. For so much stronger am I than the gods, and stronger by far than mortals."
And then he did turn around, his eyes stormy and his face hard. He fixed his gaze on me, and then, with a few long strides he crossed the distance to where I lay. I did my best to meet his eyes with gumption.
After a few long moments, he spoke.
"It was not without reason," he began, crossing his arms, "that I delivered you from the abyss."
"That so?" I said.
"Indeed," he continued, "I have appointed a task for you. A quest. A labor."
"I didn't know that sort of thing still happened," I said, a little cautiously.
"In the depths of Tartarus," Maxie Zeus continued, importantly, "there is a box. A plain, unadorned, wooden box. But its contents are of the utmost value. It would not due for any but a god to hold it. And that is what I wish you to retrieve for me."
A momentary pause settled between, as the gramophone continued its dirge.
"Tartarus, you say?" I asked.
He nodded.
"I think," I said carefully, "that might be a little far away … for me."
"Nonsense," Maxie Zeus said, "it's in the east wing of the fifth floor. Beside the theater."
"Oh," I said, momentarily stymied.
"But," he continued, "you will need this."
And he produced (from somewhere in his makeshift toga) a small, brass key, and placed it on my bedside table.
"Are you … supposed to have that?" I asked.
"There is nothing I cannot have," Maxie replied, his face deadly serious. "And so," he continued after a pause, "will you do what I ask of you?"
"Yes," I said, with absolutely no intention of seeing it through. At least at the time.
"Excellent," Maxie Zeus replied, smiling for the first time since I had met him, "a god does not forget those who serve him well."
Unfortunately, though, I actually did end up giving it a shot. Now, when I was discharged from the infirmary, I really did have no intention whatsoever of looking for Maxie's (possibly nonexistent) box. However, his last statement stuck with me for a while. And, later on that day, I happened to pass in front of the library, and I was reminded of my interview with crazy Dr. Crane. This in turn brought to mind Harvey's over reactionary assault on my finger and face. And it occurred to me that in a place like Arkham, it might not be the worst thing in the world to have a friend. Or the closest thing to a friend in this place. More like a temporarily non-aggressive associate who owed me a favor. Yes, it would probably be good to have one of those … even if the sanity of the associate in question had dropped irretrievably into the gutter.
And so, I made my way to the fifth floor. I didn't realize the asylum had a theater, but there it was when I stepped off the stairs. Right across the hallway was a pair of fancy double doors, and an engraved plaque that read SIONIS MEMORIAL AMPITHEATER. Interesting. I wondered if the patients and staff ever put on shows.
Anyway, upon directing my gaze around the hallway, I soon spotted another set of doors down the hallway from the theatre. Except that these had an iron chain locking them shut and a very plain sign above them that read CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT. Very interesting.
I walked over to the locked doors, my footsteps echoing throughout the empty hallway. When I reached it, I glanced about, just to make sure no construction worker (or whoever they sent to do these refurbishing things) came up behind me and told me off. Then I remembered I was in an asylum, and I could just pretend I was crazy.
And so, with the freeing sensation that I could no longer be held accountable for my actions rising within me, I placed the brass key in the padlock and turned it. With a sharp click it unlocked, the chain falling downward. With a smile, I pushed open one of the doors and walked inside.
Another hallway stretched before me, though this one was long, dark, and empty. Very dusty, too. Paint was peeling off the walls all over the place, and the floor was dirty and grimy as all hell. I guess that refurbishment thing never happened. Probably never would, either.
The Forgotten Wing of the Asylum. How utterly storybook.
I took a step forward, and immediately felt (and heard) a squelch beneath my shoe. I looked down. What I had taken to be dirt and grime covering the floor was, in actuality, what appeared to be mud.
That was odd. I didn't think a place like this got a lot of precipitation. Perhaps someone had left a window open … after strewing the floor in dirt.
Glancing about the hallway, I saw that all of the doors in this wing were open, except for one at the far end. I stared at it for a bit. There seemed to be more of the muddy substance spreading outward from that particular door. Almost as if it was all oozing from out of that room.
A little perturbed, I squelched my way over to the nearest room and peered inside. The interior looked fairly similar to my own personal cell: a bed, a table, a sink. No window. I took a quick look around, but I didn't see anything that looked like a box.
A review of the next cell yielded the same result, as well as the third. Upon exiting that last room, I once more appraised the closed door down the hall.
But who are we kidding here, mate? If Maxie's box existed, I knew it had to be in there. A wing full of doors, and only one of them is closed, with an ominous substance leaking out of it? Of course that would be the place to hide anything remotely valuable.
The only problem was that that door was pretty ominous, and I wanted nothing to do with it. But, I told myself, these are the kind of things one has to do in order to make temporarily non-violent associates. And so, with trepidation in my step, I walked down the surprisingly long hallway towards the closed door and stopped in front of it.
After taking a few fortifying breaths, I slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open. I felt a slight resistance (probably the mud), but it soon gave way to reveal a cell, like all the others. Except that this particular room was drenched in muck.
The floor was covered in several inches of gooey mud, the bed was caked in a dried casket of the stuff, and the substance seemed to be oozing out of the very walls themselves. It was so thick, that on the far wall, I saw that someone had drawn a smiley face in the stuff.
Other than that disgustingness, though, the room was devoid of things to be trepidatious about. I exhaled, mostly relieved, but also feeling a bit stupid about my nerves. But then I glanced more fully about the room, and my eyes alighted on the table in the corner. Sitting atop it was rectangular shape which, like everything else in the room, was obscured by mud.
Mentally bracing myself, I trudged through the sea of sludge towards the corner, and lifted the object up. I wiped it clean as best I could, revealing that it was, in fact, the box.
Well, I suppose it might not have been the box. But, seriously, how many boxes could there be in this particular wing?
Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was indeed wooden and unadorned, as Maxie had said. Despite its humdrum appearance, I was intrigued. I was just about to pry it open, when a sudden humming noise broke through the stillness. It lasted about three seconds, and then stopped abruptly.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up, and I felt my pulse quickening.
It sounded very much like it had come from behind me. I tensed and, gripping the box tightly, turned around. But there didn't seem to be anything different in the room.
Then the noise came again, like a kind of course, ragged breathing, and I realized that it was emanating from under the bed.
I swallowed hard, all my previous trepidation returning as the strange dull roar sounded a third time, while the mud at the edge of the bed slowly rippled outward.
And then a hand, so drenched in muck that know glimpse of clothing or skin was visible, emerged from the shadows beneath the bed, its fingers hungrily grasping at the air.