Nowhere to run. My prison door didn't open from the inside.
As the music and light show continued, an invisible force pulled me toward the jukebox.
Like an airlock opened on a space station, it brought me closer, and closer, until my body stuck to its glowing glass, metal and plastic exterior.
I kicked, punched and clawed at the rainbow colored machine, but my attacks did not even slightly mar its exterior.
And then I felt the now familiar sensation of being squished into a stream of particles, though this time it seemed I had not been transmitted through a telephone wire, but rather some otherworldly network of energy.
I landed on a shelf of black rock.
Another otherworldly limbo where the laws of physics seemed to be bent. The floating bear (don't ask how it traveled with me) showed me I stood on a stone island in the middle of a void. All around me yawned stone archways, all seeming to lead into nothing.
For a world accessed through a jukebox, it seemed devoid of music. I only detected, perhaps, the sound of a distant train, and the usual indistinct faraway murmuring voices I'd heard elsewhere.
A curious lack of smell. Other than a faint gunpowder scent, I detected nothing, no earthy nature smells (as in a cave), nor office smells, nor dust...just...absence.
Unarmed. Not sure what good my mallet would have done in this place anyway.
No way to get back. Behind me I found only a tall pile of black rocks. Did Miss Faden know about this place? Had she intentionally marooned me in the middle of nowhere? Or did she just think I'd been imprisoned with a regular jukebox?
...Obviously she must have known something, or the jukebox wouldn't have been stuck inside an elaborate prison.
I must have waited for thirty minutes to an hour to get rescued from the place, but no help came.
Out of a lack of anything to do, I examined the nearest stone arch. No special decorations or anything indicating ceremony or culture, like someone had used mundane diamond saws and jackhammers to fashion them. One thing unusual, however...
The moment my claw touched an arch, more floating islands of rock arose from the void, in stepping stone formation. Touching other archways produced similar results, floating islands leading to who knows where.
Rather intimidating gaps in between. At first I hesitated to leave the safety of the island I currently occupied, but hunger and thirst won out. Another one of these situations where I felt compelled to find my own path to freedom.
Having no better options, I located the boulder floating closest to my location, got a good running start, and jumped.
Not too bad. I landed square in the middle. Of course, it had been a large rock, and within a reasonable distance.
The next one...not so much, and I didn't have enough space to make a decent run for it. I landed right on the very edge, doing windmills with my arms and teetering, about to drop off into the abyss.
Gasping, I lunged forward, collapsing on the rock.
To my left and right, nothing but a foggy, empty void. A glance back told me I would have no way of getting down from the main island I'd left. No hidden stairs or lower levels, just emptiness below.
My only way seemed to be forward. In that direction, in the far distance, I sighted another island of rock, like mine, but more solid, with ground connected to it. I thought it could be a way out.
I brushed myself off, sizing up my next jump.
Missed it completely. I made a desperate grab with my claws, scratched frantically until I gained purchase and made it up top.
I crossed several more rocks in this fashion, taking frequent breaks to calm my nerves. The rocks ranged from the size of small automobiles to narrow unsteady chunks that I could barely stand upon without pitching over the side. At last another large island came within sight.
It had been constructed differently than the last. This place resembled the ruins of some ancient temple, devoted to a strange god. Enigmatic statuary, a marble tiled plaza leading to a raised dais framed by twisting serpentine pillars, with an altar in the center.
I came under immediate assault, glowing orange men firing rifles at me, others flying through the air, suspended by some otherworldly power, flinging bits of rock at me using...telekinesis?
In pain from the bullets and rocks, I shrieked and jumped on the nearest flying man when he came close, digging my claws into his flesh.
Although tempted to kill him, I needed to get to safe ground, so I let him live, keeping focused on the area below us.
The man zoomed through the air, clawing and biting me, occasionally pelting my head with debris, but he didn't do the heavy stuff because he didn't want to kill himself (presumably). I endured the attacks...my exoskeleton helped, well, when I wasn't being shot at.
The man attempted to throw me, but I hung on, covered his eyes so he would stop flying away from the island...sort of.
Another flying man came zooming toward me, battering me with rocks. I leapt, swinging on his legs.
In between a back swing and his random flying, I managed to drop onto the island, but only my upper torso made it, my chest and chin painfully striking rock. Without meaning to, I dropped down to the point where I hung by only my claws.
This area only appeared to be more substantial than the one I left. Although ground did connect to it, it turned out to be nothing more than another island in the middle of a void, and, from what I could see below, (as with the island I'd left) I hung from an immense iceberg shaped boulder, suspended by nothing in a void.
A pair of glowing men rushed my way, stomping my claws.
If I hadn't an exoskeleton, I would have fallen. Instead, I pushed myself up and tore through a man's calf with my teeth.
Again, no substance. Could not derive any nourishment, the leg just exploded in a cloud of orange sparks.
I threw my shoulder into the man's body, driving my saw-like back plates through his loins and the rest of him. The man vaporized.
Up I hopped on my feet, amidst an angry mob of swinging fists, knives, and guns. I clawed, whipped my tail and hacked my way through them, until none remained...well, except the two airborne creatures hurling rocks.
I crossed the marble tiles, and suddenly...bats. A huge swarm of the fluttering, squeaking, fanged creatures, blasting out at me, as if shot from a cannon.
...And there, above the altar, in the center of this maelstrom of leathery flapping wings, a tiny glowing red object.
I rushed closer to investigate. I have no idea why, it should have repelled me in fear.
It fairly resembled a piece of broccoli, fashioned out of plastic: A mouse eared cartoon figurine of a child, head of curly orange hair. Its narrow green stalk-like body bore the word "KEVIN."
I felt oddly drawn to this object, like I must have it for my own. I moved closer and closer to the object, stretching out my claw.
The bats swirled around and around me like a tornado, somehow creating actual storm clouds and flashes of lightning. I felt myself drifting away from the ground, carried off to parts unknown.
When the bat swarm cleared, I stood...before a spooky Victorian mansion on a mountain property.
I could smell the algae from the disused sculptured fountain behind me. Withered brown ferns arched from large white planters beside a massive oak door.
"Hello?"
Cautiously, I climbed the steps, reaching for the gleaming silver wolf's head door knockers.
The moment I touched them, the doors groaned inwards on their own accord, revealing a foyer with a double stair.
Eerie music played from somewhere within the mansion, accompanied by a sinister laugh.
Unsettled, I glanced around for another place to go, but by then a small army of police officers, all glowing orange, came rushing up the drive, firing their weapons at me.