Chapter One
You don't look like you belong here
Did you pinch yourself to see
If you'd wake up from a nightmare
Or could you still be asleep?
- 'Hungry For Another One', by JT Music
Six awoke from a nightmare and found herself in another one. This new nightmare, however, wasn't really new at all. Six remembered dreaming it before.
She was lying in a suitcase as if it were a bed, wearing nothing but an old yellow raincoat to keep out the chill. The room she lay in was cold and damp, like a metal cell, and the ceiling arched so high above her head that she could hardly see it. As Six stood up in her suitcase, she could feel the floor pitch ever so slightly to one side, and then roll over to the other.
I wonder if I'm on a boat, she thought.
Six looked up, trying to see where the scant bit of light was shining from, but whatever crack ushered it in was too high up to make out clearly. Whatever its source, the light was welcoming, an 'out-of-doors' sort of light, pale and thin, doing its best to survive in the midst of this harsh, dark environment.
Just like me, Six thought.
Six had dreamt this nightmare before, and just like in other times she hopped off the suitcase, her bare feet landing with a slap into a puddle on the floor. The cold startled Six. I am dreaming I can feel the wet, she thought. What a strange dream this is.
Before she could dwell any further upon the strangeness of the dream, or its familiarity, the little girl became aware of a gnawing pinch inside. She examined herself to try and discover what it was.
Not hunger, she thought, but something like it.
If Six had been older, she might have coined the term wanderlust or homesickness, even though those words hardly described the feeling. A yearn, a burning urge was growing inside her the longer she thought about it – a desire to go into the darkness and see what was beyond. Was it curiosity? Perhaps, but not exactly. Six didn't want to leave just for the sake of seeing what would out there, and it wasn't hunger which drove her to leave. But something deeper, something more poignant and lustful stirred her to move, delving into the darkness, drawing her deeper into the nightmare.
Before she had gone very far, Six realized that the darkness was too thick to see through, even for such acute eyes as hers. I wish I had a light, she thought, and then she found, in her grasp, a lighter, perfectly sized for her small hand. With a flick of her thumb a flame sparked and the darkness, for a moment, was defeated.
I wonder if that's how this dream works, Six thought. By wishing.
Six tried this theory immediately, wishing hard for wings so she could fly. But, alas, wishes inside the nightmare seemed only to grant small things like lighters to those who wished.
Perhaps if I were bigger, my thoughts would have bigger power, she thought, and brushed it aside for now.
As she walked along the darkened metal passage, Six could sense creatures skittering in the darkness just out of sight. She tried extending her lighter, but the creatures seemed determined not to let the light touch them, staying stubbornly outside the range of her glow.
There was a lamp near the end of the corridor, nearly as tall as the girl herself, and Six touched the lighter to its wick. The lamp caught fire and began to glow brightly with the yellow flame. In its light, Six could make out a metal hatch set into the wall. Even though it was tightly set, Six thought she remembered it opening before. She wondered if it would open again.
Grasping the long handle with both hands, Six pulled as hard as she could. To her glee, the hatch began to open, the hinges at the top assisting her and pulling the hatch the rest of the way open after it reached the halfway point. After catching her breath, Six crawled through.
The shaft inside was narrow, even for Six, and she needed to crouch to fit. The darkness seemed to have no trouble fitting, though, and Six flashed with her lighter to dissuade it from coming too close. Every so often a branching shaft would open up, sometimes dripping water on the hood of her raincoat, but Six stayed on the branch she started on, somehow convinced that her way was the right way.
The shaft ended abruptly and Six jumped down into an enormous, empty room. There was a wall on her left, but the right side reached into the depths of infinity. As she went forward, the left wall dropped away and that side also stretched into nothingness. Six's eyes scanned everything, examining the gray depths to either side and the misty shapes of enormous chains in the darkness, pipes with nothing coming in or out of them, and a dense fog overshadowing everything else.
And again, there was familiarity.
Even though everything around was gargantuan, before Six was a staircase exactly her size. I wonder if I built it when I dreamed this before, Six thought, although she could not remember doing such a thing. Putting her hand on the handrail, she began to climb, breathing deep breaths of the musty, damp air, and pulling her raincoat closer about her chest.
The staircase ended and the walls closed in again. Six pulled out her lighter as the darkness fell back into place. The glimmer of her light shone off the walls and off the water, but it did not shine in one place. Curious, Six delved into the nook and found an interesting sight.
A china doll with a white face and painted clothing stared back at her. Though the room became no more chill, Six's heart seemed to freeze in her chest. The doll, although beautiful and delicately painted, stirred a fear inside her that she had never felt before. The doll reminded her of another dream, a more terrible dream, with a woman who ruled the darkness. That painted face, like the mask the woman wore. The clothes like her dresses. The hollow eyes, both the same.
In that moment, Six's fear turned to hate and she picked up the doll, throwing it as far as she could away from herself. It shattered, and a darkness spilled out, like black grains of sand thrown into the wind. They spiraled away and Six could have sworn she had heard a chime and few scant notes of a song floating in the darkness, but they were gone before she could tell for sure. The doll lay shattered on the ground, the shards of pottery small and dull.
Her heart thumping, Six ran from the doll's shattered remains, her anger reverting to fear. She averted her eyes as if by looking back she would cause the thing to reassemble and follow her. Anything might be possible in a nightmare.
The way she ran down ended in a boarded up doorway and Six's heart nearly stopped, thinking that she had somehow trapped herself. But no, one of the boards had already been pulled loose and Six crouched through, almost sliding in her haste to get away from the cursed object.
It was only a doll, Six tried to console herself, breathing heavily and crouching behind the doorframe. Only a silly little china doll. Nothing to worry about. No way it could touch her. Harmless and in shattered pieces. She had destroyed it.
Hadn't she?
Six looked back through the gap she had climbed through, concealing an inward shudder. What if the doll was back? What if it was angry and following her? What if—
But no. Only china splinters met her eyes, glimmering darkly in the pale light. Six allowed her fear to seep away and rose to her feet, putting the steel corridor behind her and turning to the new room she had fled to so readily.
Wood board floors. A bed. Leaking ceiling. Pots collecting water on the floor. A large door with a peephole. In any other place, this description might have fit that of an old cottage that a friendly but poor giant used to live in, but Six knew better than to believe in fairytales. This room was a cell, like many of the other rooms she had visited in the dream. The light streaming in through the door's peephole was blocked for a moment and Six froze, her mind going back to the giant idea and wondering if he was coming home to eat her up. But a moment later the light was back and all Six had to remember the shadow by was the pounding of her heart.
There was a chair hanging from the ceiling and Six examined it for a moment, trying to see what was keeping it up there. Was it held with rope or simply levitating? After attempting in vain to see its restraints, Six plunged deeper into the room.
I should stop being surprised by what I find here, she chided silently. It's all a dream, after all. Nothing is really what it seems to be.
Climbing up on the bed and dropping through the little window brought her to another room of the same make, except more barren. The mattress had no bed to seat it, only the cold floor, and no blankets covered its nakedness. Twin slippers, almost as large as Six herself, slumped beside the bed as if unsure whether to go to sleep or stay awake. A single chair sat in the center of the room, and above it, toes reaching down as if to touch its surface, were the feet of a tall, thin man, every feature above his knees concealed in shadow.
Six was surprised that she was not astonished at this sight. She should probably have been frightened, she speculated, but this sight did not startle her. Perhaps, like everything else so far, she had dreamed it before. Or maybe everything else in this dream was so bizarre and staggering that something as natural as death was reassuring.
"Hello?" she whispered up into the darkness where she was sure the man's face must be. After some time, she stopped waiting for an answer and ducked her head, shuffling towards the far end of the room.
The door handle was too far away, even when she jumped, so Six unwillingly made her way back to the hanging man, clasping her hands together.
"Sir," she called, her voice still barely rising above a whisper, "I need to take your chair. I need it to get to the door. I hope you don't mind."
Still no answer came and Six took that as a good sign. As she placed her hands on the rough wooden surface of the chair, she caught sight of a letter lying unopened on the ground like a white flower crushed into the earth.
I would read it if I could, Six determined, but I don't think I can read. I think I'm too young.
Six dragged the chair over and leaped for the door handle. It dipped and the door swung open, carrying Six into the next room.
It was more of a corridor, she found, and the boarded floor had been torn up in some places. A dark puddle of what looked like ink was pooled in one spot and Six made sure to skirt it carefully as she advanced.
…
What a strange place to put a refrigerator, Six thought, looking up at the refrigerator. But then again, in a dream no place is strange to put a refrigerator. She followed the inky handprints on the sides and tugged at the door. As it swung open, an alien movement met her eye. Before she could blink, a strange gray shadow fled from the confines of the refrigerator and squeezed into a crack on the wall. Six, without a second's hesitation, followed it.
The crack led to a shaft, much like the one she had crawled through at the beginning of her journey, but this one was not so long. Six could see a room at the end of it. Soon she was there, blinking at the strange creature she discovered inside.
At first glance, the creature looked rather like a mushroom, its pointed cap making up what seemed to be its head. Its warped, stunted body was smaller even than Six's diminutive figure, but it had long, trembling fingers that seemed to be covered in black paint.
The creature was queer, it was true, but as it trembled in front of the unlit lamp, Six felt a sudden and inexplicable pity for the thing, rather the way a child would have for a baby doll left out in a storm. She crept nearer with her lighter and let the licking flame catch the wick. The creature stopped trembling and held out its hands to the blaze as if warming itself.
Six felt another prick at her heart, this one more acute, and circled around the little fire toward the creature. It seemed to look at her warily as she approached. In a moment, Six was close enough to touch the hairs on its cone-like head and brush them down. The creature shivered, but then appeared to relax. Six bent down and took the thing up in her arms, wrapping them around it as if it had been a stuffed bear, letting her cheek rest on its musty-smelling fur. The thing dangled in her arms for a moment, and for that time both were utterly oblivious to the room about them, both only conscious of the fact that for now, at least, neither was alone. The loneliness both had unknowingly felt was assuaged and when Six drew back she knew that the awkward one-sided hug had made her feel a little bit better.
"What's your name?" she asked the creature. It placed its little hands on its dirty white chest. "Yes, you. What's your name?"
The creature's head wagged back and forth as if scanning the floor for some unknown object. It walked in a shambling sort of scuffle toward the back of the room, dipped its fingers in a dark puddle, and began to draw with its sticky black hands on the wall. Assisted by the glow of her lighter, Six was able to read the word:
No me
So I can read after all, she thought. At least a little.
"Nome?" she asked. "You're a Nome? Just like I'm a Six?"
The Nome pointed at the girl, and then at itself.
"Nome." Six patted its head, petting its long head hairs. "I wish I could stay with you all night long." Her stroking became thoughtful. "But I can't. I have to go find something. I don't know what."
The Nome pulled away and trotted back to the wall. Giving its hands another black coat, it began to scribble again. Six stood up and watched as the Nome scrawled out, in thick black lines, the figure of a man, strangely proportioned, with small legs but long, gangling arms and horrible long fingers. The Nome finished and pointed at the grotesque figure.
"Yes, I see," said Six, shivering a bit as if the air had turned suddenly chill. "Is he up ahead?"
The Nome dipped its head a little, but turned back to the drawing. With a meaningful look at Six, the Nome streaked his hand across the man's face, blacking out where the eyes should be. It pointed at the figure again.
"The long-handed man can't see?" asked Six.
The Nome simply sat down and stared up at its picture, obviously admiring its work of art.
"You have been very helpful to me," said Six. "I wish I could take you with me, but you're probably safer here."
The Nome continued to ignore her, wrapping its thin arms around its scrawny knees.
"Well…" Six hesitated, trying to think of a proper farewell while backing away toward the exit. "Goodbye, then. I hope the long-armed man doesn't find you here."
The Nome was still sitting in front of the picture when she ducked back out again.
What a strange creature, Six thought as she began to climb the racks inside the open refrigerator, using it as a ladder to get to the broken upper level above. It seemed afraid of me, at first, but it liked me as soon as I helped it and hugged it. Perhaps it's like a baby in that way. Or a baby animal, imprinting on what it sees. It was rather like a child in the way it acted. Strange, but wise enough for this place. I'm glad it decided to help me.
…What was that sound?
Six looked up and immediately wished that she had not. She had forgotten – for a moment – that the dream she was in was a nightmare, but with the glance at the ceiling she remembered. For up above, hanging from the black pipes above her head were long, thin black things, like oily bananas ready for harvest. As Six shrank back a few of the things began to drop down beside her and she could see them clearly. Leeches. Thick, ugly, black leeches. Without a further thought, Six began to flee.
There were several gaps in the floorboards on this level and Six found it necessary to leap over dark, plunging holes or dodge around shady-looking planks with cracks running through their middles. The slurp and squish of the black leeches followed her, spurring Six to greater speeds.
The next room she entered had a closed door on the other end and Six hastily jumped for the lever on the wall, praying that the leeches would not follow so far. She hardly waited for the door to be open before jumping down and skidding through, not daring to turn around lest the oozing worms should catch her.
But no, in the next room here they were again, dangling from the pipes above. Six lurched forward and began to pull on the planks boarding up the next room, trying not to think of the leeches' sleek, oily skin and how soft it would be as it wrapped around her legs, taking her down to the ground. Would it hurt if they caught her? Or would they simply wrap around her neck until she couldn't breathe anymore?
The boards snapped loose, throwing Six to the ground, and she hastened to duck beneath the remaining ones, fleeing to the adjoining chamber.
It was dark inside. That was the first thing she noticed. But the second thing was that there seemed to be no leeches. Squinting, she could make out a dim figure standing before her in the dark, a mere silhouette in the scant light.
"It's you," she cried, recognizing the Nome. "Or perhaps there are many of you. Please, could you—"
But with a single step forward, the boards beneath her feet broke. The Nome skittered away in alarm and Six was left to plunge down into the depths of darkness.
In a second or two, she landed in a foul-smelling black puddle. Feeling an overwhelming fear begin to creep in around her, Six fumbled with her lighter, ushering out a bright yellow light that shook in her trembling hand.
But then she froze.
Surrounding her were twenty or more of the black leeches. Who knew if those things had eyes, or ears, or any sort of sensory input at their disposal, but however it was, they could sense her. They reared up and turned toward her like dozens of oily black snakes examining their conjuror. As one, they dropped and began to squish their way toward her, inching through the shadows to reach her.
Six's heart jumped into her throat and she slogged her way out of the puddle, trying to run, but the black liquid tugged at her feet, begging her to go more slowly. She fought against it and soon was free, running to where the gleam of a door was suggested.
The leeches leaped at her, falling over themselves, twining and oozing all over each other as they stretched for her legs. The door was shut, but Six pushed it hard and the whole thing was knocked over, the wooden slats becoming a ramp into the next room.
The rooms began to blend together as she fled, putting as much distance as possible between her and the slimy monsters. Finally, as her heartbeat started to resume its normal pace, Six realized that she was no longer being pursued. She sighed and sank against a nearby crate, her knees pulled up to her chest, burying her face inside her yellow hood. When she felt brave enough, she lifted her head and looked at the place surrounding her.
It was not another closed room like before, but rather a concourse going upwards into seeming infinity. Up above, when Six craned her neck, she could see several bridges leading to upper levels, their silhouettes growing mistier and mistier the farther away they went.
Suddenly, Six became aware that she had been listening to a grinding, scraping sound for some time now and had only just noticed it. Stepping a little farther away and leaning back against a guardrail, Six looked upward at the nearest bridge, and her heart nearly stopped with terror.
All she could see of the figure was an arm, grotesquely long and thin, dragging what looked like a cage behind him. It's him, she thought. The long-armed man.
Even though she knew he could not possibly see her from such a distance, if he could see at all, Six felt like cowering against the guardrail. Just the sight of the man had caused her blood to chill and she dreaded the thought of coming into closer proximity with him.
I hope he stays far away from me.
Six's hand brushed iron. The wall, which for some reason Six remembered with very vivid clarity, rose before her in gray dominance. The only break in its smooth, sleek surface was a window, high above. Six remembered in a sort of déjà vu staring up at that same window and longing with the same pinching sort of feel that she felt when she was first starting her journey that a ladder would descend, or that the window would magically begin to slide downward so she could continue forward. Had she been here before? Probably, but she had been forced to stop, halted by the massive, unmoving mountain of steel. But this time, something was a little different.
A rope, made of bedclothes or something of like material, swung down the wall, tied hard to the bars at the top. Six touched it as if making sure it was real, and then tugged, testing its firmness.
This wasn't here before, she wondered. But then again, was I here before either? How do I remember this place?
Placing her hands and feet deep in the fabric, Six began to ascend.