Day 1
It's 9:30-ish at night. I think. Just got back to my dorm room about a few hours ago…. or so I thought….
Testing went well. I'm still the all knowing nerd of the class...
But all day, since I left my room this morning, I'd been having this very odd sensation in the back of my mind…. kinda tickly, or itchy…. sometimes both. It was a little distracting in class, and at lunch seemed to get worse, but once the lab test started, it went ignored. As I walked back to my room, and pulled out my keys, the itch turned into a fierce burning sensation in the back of my head. My head started throbbing. And my hand burned. I looked down at my keys and nothing seemed unusual. That is until I dug for my room key at the bottom of the small pile of metal. It was glowing white-hot, as if it'd spent the day lying on a hot plate at full temp.
I pulled the key up on the ring, the others falling below it with a jingle, and immediately dropped the keys. Stupid me just found out the key was hot, and still proceeded to try to hold it. Pulling out a couple tissues, I wrapped them around the base of the key (thankfully not catching them on fire), and picked up my key ring again, carrying it gingerly until I got up the three flights of stairs to my room.
I was about to unlock my door when the burning pain in my head suddenly shifted, now not so much burning as dully throbbing, with a humming…. sound?... to it. I shook my head hard, thinking that I really needed to take some aspirin or something and lie down for a while…. The key slid into the lock as usual, taking the normal three turns to tumble the latch, and I gently pushed the door back…. And stood there, in the empty hallway, my jaw halfway down the stairs to the ground floor, looking into a huge room that wasn't the dorm room I'd left this morning.
Out of curiosity, I took a step forward and closed the door behind me, looking back at it to make sure it was the same door. It wasn't. Now it was two doors, similar to closet doors by the look of them, with 6 small windows set into each door near the top. This freaked me out a little. Now my own dorm door was gone. The final piece was missing. I opened and poked my head back out the new doors, and then screamed and panicked, slamming the door and holding it in place, eventually sliding down it, trying to get my breathing to slow down. Outside…. was the quiet darkness of open space.
My breathing didn't slow down much, since looking at the floor and slowly looking up from there restarted my panic…. The only seemingly good thing about this situation: My headache was suddenly gone. No itch, no burn, no throbbing, and no humming. Wait. Scratch that. There was humming, but it wasn't in my head anymore. It was in this room. This huge, amazingly impossible room.
All around me, like an enormous 3D stained glass window, sprawled this giant globe of a room. A shallow ramp dead ahead of me led up to a platform with a solid looking, clear garnet red crystal pillar in the middle; another ramp off this main (?) ramp and to the right, led down under the platform above, to where an arched enclosure stood, deep green fletched glass walls glistening like water drops on pine needles. Above me, above this whole room, the ceiling stretched in a perfect concave dome, shades of reds, oranges, yellows and whites all flowing downward like fanned flames from the top of the garnet pillar, can lights glowing behind glass panels at random intervals to create a dizzying live blaze effect. Cascading pendant lights hung down from the ceiling, blue chipped glass shades covering bulbs of pure white light, the shades themselves made to look like water drops, all random in their coalescence, as they appeared to fall to a floor made to mimic a mountain lake, shining blue glass panels etched with white silica sand. Surrounding the platform on two sides were glass banisters, all made of thick clear glass, surrounded by polished black steel struts.( Actually, the black steel showed up all over the room, anywhere a connection the glass couldn't take had to be made, like on doorways and arches, and holding the ornate glassworks together in and of themselves.) The whole room had been planned and perfected to such a degree that it was modern in every way, but felt perfectly natural, the only obvious corners being made up by the white-painted backs of the wooden entrance doors.
I stood up from where I was leaning on the door and walked up the main ramp, the glass glittering and sparkling, adding a variety of rainbows to my outside vision. The floor was gently vibrating under my feet as I stepped carefully across the threshold at the top, to stand in the circle of light radiating out from the central column. Now that I was actually up here, I could see a lot more to the room. Some of the doorways I'd see earlier were closed off with black steel mesh doors, the wires so fine (and finely woven) and polished, they reflected the lights and colors of the room like a mirror. The doors were locked, the mesh immobile for getting through, being able to shift and bend in when touched, but springing back to its original strong shape. The three archways led off into long tunnel hallways, round and smooth, made of the same blued glass on the floor, but with different ranges and hues of swirled purple glass panels bent into place around the arch of the hall (again, held in place with black steel). The lights imbedded in the walls and ceiling, if the curve overhead could be called a ceiling, were cast at different ranges, some being brighter than others, giving a glancing light-borne cave or gorge effect to the corridors. Every so often, for as far as I could see down the hall, the glass walls were broken by more meshed doors or black steel arches leading to different rooms.
Back out by the railing on the platform, I noticed a few black steel mesh seats, looking almost like fixed desk chairs, as if someone had gotten rid of the wheelbase. The mesh didn't look very comfortable, and looked pretty cold, too, but with as stunned as I was that this impossible room had come to rest inside my own dorm room, I sat down in the nearest one, leaning back and trying to relax. Admittedly, the mesh was actually pretty comfortable, forming directly to my body like a metal memory foam cushion. The wires warmed up fast from my own body heat, and the seat became even more relaxing.
I slowly spun in the seat, looking at the rest of the platform. A glass floor panel was missing, a mesh hatch lying in its place, with a small dipped swing latch to lift it up, like a storage box lid. An odd set of clear glass spiral stairs led up through a hole in the ceiling, to (I'm guessing) another room. But the "crowned jewel" of the platform was what was wrapped around the lit garnet column, free floating, yet supported by the column itself. A rounded console of different button, levels, dials, and gauges glistened appealingly, all of the components looking like they were as brand new and clean as the rest of the room. LEDs flashed from random points along the control bank, and a couple small rotors and gyros buzzed as they spun near the column itself, encased in their own little glass boxes to stave off damage. A tv-looking monitor, balanced on a swing arm over a set of computer keys, flashed with a screensaver (?) of a swirling black technicolor darkness, lightning of some sort occasionally tearing through it. Finely-printed text scrolled across in red on the bottom of the screen, made of twisted looking shorthand cursive that wasn't legible, some of the letters being oddly pronounced or set at odd angles, some of them being more like bent geometric shapes than even the "standard" letters. It looked like a cryptogram gone berserk.
After getting up to look at the donut of odd switches and flickering lights, and looking at the screensaver that seemingly kept itself in a constant loop, I got a little bored. I took another look down the halls, seeing all of them were identical, and took the "middle" of the three, slowly walking as my footsteps echoed as if I actually was in a cavern, even though the walls were only a few feet from me on either side. I came to several doors and archways before turning around, afraid to get lost in the forever-maze of purple and blue tubing. Most of the doors were locked, but a few opened into plain, sterile white bedrooms, the furnishings simple, with whitened chrome metal and light, smoothly varnished pine wood furniture. The white walls in each were only adorned with a small mirror on one wall, and a "window" opposite, reflecting how the light would be cast outside depending on how the clock on the nightstand was set. White sheets and blankets covered the overstuffed mattresses, sheer white curtains, backed by pine-slatted blinds, hung in the windows. Thick white shag carpet covered the floors. The ceiling had a white fan and lights, with pine blades on the fan itself. The bedrooms were boring, to say the least, with no color anywhere outside of the light amber grain of the wood furniture.
A couple of other doors opened into bathrooms, tiled in slate or tumbled limestone.
The bathroom of slate was set to look like a spa in a ski chalet in the Rockies, with knotted wooden trim and bark, a small open tumbled-stone fire pit embedded into the floor on the center of the room. A separate wash closet set itself off through an arch, with green, woven pine bough walls and ceiling, light flooding through the cracks where the boughs and needles weren't touching. Some of the needles were open, suffusing the air with a woodsy smell that was very relaxing. A soft canvas curtain with a buttoned seal was the method for closing the tiny room in for privacy. The rest of the open bathroom was a huge stone jetted bathtub that looked like it could hold 6 people (though why it would hold that number at once is beyond me). A shower pit was down a small flight of two shallow steps and enclosed in clear glass with wooden limb frames. A waterfall shower spout cascaded water out about a foot from the wall, while sprayers in the walls themselves jetted water in light massage pressure elsewhere in the stall. The slate was left rough and unsealed on the floor of the pit to allow for traction. Just outside the door hung a heated towel rack and heated robe hooks, all laden with fluffy terrycloth in light shades of mountain greens and blues. A few foot-tall "windows" high in the walls allowed a view of snow-capped mountain peaks, with light snow still falling, and the small digital clock embedded into the tumbled slate-and-wood vanity showed that this room's "windows" were actually set to US Mountain Standard time.
The other bathroom, tiled in tumbled limestone (with small hints of broken granite scattered around), was a little more coastal. Meant to look like a Florida cape beachfront, the woods used in this room were less fresh-cut logs and boughs and more sun-dried drift wood. Pale shades of blue paint and white wood wainscoting covered the walls. The overall floor plan of this bathroom was similar to that of the slate room, still with a separate wash closet and a sunken shower pit. But it had a more airy, beach-y feel, with long wooden boxes of pale green grasses, and little white t-light candles around the tub. The fire pit in the center of the room was made out of beaten copper, and wasn't sunken into the floor, but was actually a large fire bowl hanging from copper chains from the ceiling. The curtain supplying privacy to the toilet area was sheer, and sandy tan in color, but gave enough notice that you would know for sure if someone was in there, without showing every detail of whoever was using the porcelain throne. The limestone tiles were worn smooth with age, and grouted with loose sand, so they seemed more like a beach trail than a full bathroom floor.
Of the archway rooms, there were a lot, all of different purposes for a comfortable house or home. (Below.)
2 Workshops: Both of these rooms were nearly identical. Both were messy, covered floor to ceiling with odd boxes, racks, and other forms of containment for tools, loose bits and pieces of unknown devices, while more completed items laid out on workbenches and metal tables, waiting to be finished or fixed or modified. This is where the similarities stopped. One of the two rooms was more of a hobbyist's woodshop. Saws, drills, hammers, and carving knives off all sizes and styles hung on a pegboard, lay in boxes with sharpeners, or were settled onto shelves, waiting for use. Sawdust blanketed the floor, and made the room smell like the raw lumber department at a home improvement store. The other shop was a metal shop, looking slightly like a modern blacksmith's shop. A huge furnace was settled with white-hot coals, an automatic bellows keeping them at a stable temperature. Welding torches and soldering irons (along with coils of different kinds of solder metals and flux) lines the pegs on the walls, tanks of gas waiting to be ignited were lined up, label out, in a fire-resistant cage, as far from the furnace as possible. Metal shavings and slag chips were on the floor, making me glad I had hard leather work boots on. A broom stood in the corner with a dustpan, waiting for use in cleaning up the scraps. But neither showed any sign of use in this room. The bristles on the broom were actually stuck with sawdust….
Pool (?): The beach theme from the bathroom was carried over into this room, but in a very different way. Instead of feeling like part of an upscale beach cottage, the pool "room" was actually set up to look, by any and all appearances, to be a desert island beach, like off of a post card or the pre-programmed desktop themes from a computer. A lone, living palm tree stood in the white sand, as all around the sandbar island, crystal clear blue water flowed freely, shallow waves lapping at the sand further out. A loose breeze blew, smelling like salt air, and further out, a coral reef with tropical fish could be seen. The warm sand would've been fun to shove my feet into if I hadn't had my boots on, and the water begging to be jumped into.
Office: A quiet leather-based, CEO style lounge office. A couple bookshelves and file cabinets made of dark-stained wood were against the walls, which also had huge maps and star-charts framed and settle against them. A comfy, deep coffee brown leather couch and ottomans stood away from the wall, looking out on another "mountain" view, this time of a summer lake, in the huge office building windows. Backed up against the couch was a desk, sideways to the door, made of solid, dark-stained oak, the top polished to a high sheen before being overlaid by a clear glass plate. An overstuffed leather desk chair, in the same material as the couch, stood on a dark bamboo desk mat. A dusky grey berber carpet lined the floor, and a small mini-bar stood in a corner, the cabinet locked, and no glasses or mixing utensils showing. An open file lay on the desk, showing slips of paper with the same untranslatable lettering and a small picture portrait of a man in his early-mid thirties with red hair and green eyes, black frames, and a light blue collared shirt and red&black checked tie.
Kitchen/Dining/GardenYardThing: All of these spaces were made to complement each other, bringing in a rustic country cottage look. Light oak cabinetry with granite and butcher block countertops, a cooper butler-style sink, and copper-plated appliances filled out the kitchen. All of the cabinets and the pantry were overstocked to bursting with food of various and assorted kinds and styles, from about 30 different kinds of cereal to an entire Italian restaurant's worth of noodles to choose from. The refrigerator was triple the width and interior depth of most, with two doors for a freezer, two doors for produce and dairy products, and three pullout drawers for anything else. Oddly, the produce section had a lot of bananas. Spice racks and cook book shelves hung down from under the cabinets, and a huge pot rack hung from the ceiling, covered in cast iron and copper cookware. A pot-filler tap was in place next to the 8 burner range embedded in the butcher block island, and in the wall were two large, nearly industrial capacity convection ovens. Stools sat around the other three edges of the Island, under a raised granite overhang. The table in the "Dining Room" (which was only separated by a slice of wall on the side with cabinetry and on the other by a ½ wall) was the same light oak, made from one huge slab cut lengthwise from a 4 ft diameter tree. It could hold 8 people around it with elbow room to spare. The floor in the entire joined room was scorched black granite tiles. Under the table was a red area rug, and there were small red floor mats in front of the sink and under the stools around the island. …. Next to the pantry door was a false outer door and screen door, leading out onto a wooden deck overlooking a huge bright green lawn. Trees dotted the grounds, and flowering shrubs surrounded the deck and guided you down a beaten dirt trail to a pond and a fruit & vegetable garden.
Library/Home Theatre: A huge, three-tiered room. On one side, with warm wooden walkways and stairways for each floor, and reaching up at least 35 ft., the library portion contained thousands upon thousands of books, covering every size, binding style, and language imaginable. The rest of the huge room was set up like a standard familiar living area, with soft comfy couches and recliners, pillows tossed over their lengths, and blankets across the backs. A coffee table and some end tables filled in a little more of the floor space, but still did little to cover the length of the room. The back wall, which was nothing more than a huge, wood framed cathedral style clear glass "window" looked out, again, onto a snowing scene. (well, it kinda made some sense, it was winter back at home, and somewhat cool.) The difference was that this time, it wasn't mountains. I was a river valley, the long grasses buried beneath the snow and bare trees shaking in the cold looking "winds". The massive stacked stone fireplace was alight, the logs crackling and snapping with hot embers. A massive digital picture frame hung above the split-log mantle, showing scenes of the landscape "outside" at all other times/weather conditions of the year. Nearby, at an angle between the fire and the window view, was a huge triple-HD LED tv with a DVD player, a Blu-Ray, and a "SkyTrack" player (the next step in home entertainment?). Small speakers hung in two corners, and two more from the "second story" of the library balconies' banisters. A couple small tower speakers stood at angles in the other two corners, one near a standing lamp, the other half-hidden by a huge and slightly overgrown ficus tree. It was warm in there, and I almost fell asleep just standing in the doorway, looking at everything.
I was getting tired. Tired of exploring a place that seem to just get bigger and more massive with every step, tired of the long day…. What I'd come across so far had been amazing. Like my dream house, the one I knew I'd never have. I slowly followed the dark glass hall back out to the platform, looking longingly at the bedrooms, but not sure if I really belonged here, or if I should try to get back to my dorm room.
Upon entering the main room again, feeling the floor vibrate again, I saw the monitor had changed, was now black with bolded white lettering that I could actually read. "You are safe here. You may use anything or any room you want. Your father would want it."
WHAT?
Now I was a little scared again. Where am I? What is this place? Is there anyone else here who could've typed that out? How did this machine know my father (if it could even "know" anyone)?
As I watched the screen, the word "Sit" came scrolling across from top to bottom. Too scared by this computer with it's own life, I sat down in the mesh seat right across from the screen. And watched as it answered my every question. Well…. almost every question.
Where am I?: "You are inside of me. I am the TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space. My pilot named me such when he couldn't think of what else to call me."
So, what are… you?: "I am a space and time ship."
Your pilot?: "He went missing a while back, yet in the future. He was abducted. Normally, if and when I speak, it's only to him, and through his mind with a small telepathic link. I am writing this out for your benefit, as you are not yet capable of withholding such a link."
So you're sentient?: "Yes."
Do you have a…. gender?: "I do not function as having a sex. However, my pilot calls me "Old girl" and other such names occasionally when speaking to me or to someone else about me."
But who is your Pilot? What's his name?: "I am not at any liberty to tell you such information at this time."
How do you know my father?: "I am not at any liberty to tell you such information at this time. However, know that he does care about you."
Well, she(?) had explained all she was willing to, to me…. I still had questions, but I didn't want to ruin this ships' hospitality by bugging her for more answers. What she'd told me didn't help me relax any, but what scrolled across the monitor next did. Trying to be helpful, after (I guess) noticing how tired I was, she wrote "Try going upstairs. What you find might help you sleep."
The mesh beneath me was already warm and comfortable, and all I really wanted to do was kick off my boots and put my feet up and sleep (the seats also reclined, which was a bonus). But just then, the lights on the platform dimmed down, only the central column retaining its lively light. And the TARDIS' last words before "sleeping" for the night had caught my curiosity. I got up and walked over to the twisted spiral of glass and steel, and trying not to trip, went up to the floor above.
And was caught severely off guard. Thinking that what I'd find would be just another quiet white bedroom at the most, what I saw before me was stunning, and I almost fell backward out of the trap-hole. Rolling hills went off into the distance in every direction, clear, star-lit skies shining overhead, the stars themselves glittering like diamonds. A sliver of moon floated above, casting a calm white light on the waving grasses of a quiet wild pasture.
A lone tree, standing a short ways off, caught my attention. It was huge, standing like a silent sentinel in the moon-glow. The leaves, like the grassy sea around me, waved gently in the warm breeze. And hanging from the two thickest branches, a platformed swing bed, two lengths of rope looped and knotted to hold the bed on the tree's branches.
The sheets stirred gently, falling over the edge of the platform, draping almost to the ground two feet beneath the swing. A set of clean plaided flannel pajamas was laid out, folded neatly on the end of the deep memory foam mattress. I checked for tags, and there were none, but I didn't care. The all out sensory experience around me was making me more and more sleepy. I tore off my own chemical spattered clothing and changed into the flannel, all at once warmer, and dove onto the bed, sinking into the mattress.
Around me, unseen but still there, crickets chirp a lazy lullaby, and as I sit here on the swing-bed, barely able to stay awake to write this all down, I'm still wondering what this craven ship meant when she scrolled answers to my questions. A few things still didn't make sense. I guess it'll stay that way. Tomorrow is another day.