1 The room you never leave (1/2)
Once upon a time in a tiny little room, a man awoke from his slumber. His memories were pretty hazy, and opening his eyes was of little help, the room he came to looked nothing like his own.
The room was about 5 meters by 5 meters in length, and no door or window was visible. It seemed that this place had no entrance nor an exit.
His body was lying on some sort of stone slab, similar to some ancient altar. He stood up and examined himself. His own clothing had been replaced by a long white garb, but more importantly, he realized that his body had become transparent. A pained expression appeared on his face.
”Looks like I'm no longer among the living...” he thought.
”What is this place...?”
Thinking about his situation, he recalled an old riddle. ”What is the room you never leave?”
”Is this really my tomb? I expected to be cremated. Then again I appear to be a ghost and my body is nowhere to be seen.”
He considered his ghostly situation and tried to traverse the wall with little success.
”Looks like every ghost story I ever heard was a lie, I want a refund.”
Apart from the big slab in the center, there was nothing in the room. He wondered how he could see without any light but attributed it to being a ghost, after all, he currently didn't have a physical body.
After looking around for a bit he sat down on the slab, thinking about how to leave this place.
He tried calling for help but he didn't seem to have a voice anymore.
He tried looking for a loose part of the slab but it was pretty solid.
He tried digging through the ground, but it was made of stone like the rest of the walls.
He swooped through the entire room but the only thing he found was a little pebble.
Ultimately he lied down on the slab again and fell asleep. There wasn't much he could do for the moment anyway.
He dreamed about his past life. He saw his parents, his siblings and other people dear to him. However, it wasn't a typical dream and he was lucid the whole time. He understood that those weren't his own dreams but somehow he was visiting his family. Grateful for whoever was responsible for this event he told them all his goodbyes one by one. He kept his mother for last. When he told her this would be the last time he will see her she realized that she was dreaming, burst into tears and hugged her son. They remained like this for a while but ultimately his mother's dream was ending and he had to leave. His mother gave him some parting words, the kind of wisdom you only receive from your mother, it sounds really stupid but it's full of affection.
He woke up for the second time in this bizarre room. Nothing had changed. The good part was, he no longer needed to eat or drink. The only death he had to fear was dying of boredom it seemed.
”Am I doomed to stay here for all eternity? I'd rather disappear into nothingness.”
It is at this moment that something FINALLY happened.
A voice resonated in his head. ”Calm down, your waiting time is almost over.”
”Huh? Who is there?”
What happened might have scared him to death, but it was a little late for that.
The drawing of the giant eyeball he drew a few minutes earlier seemed to come to life. The various tentacles spread out over the wall and went after the few animals that were drawn. One by one, the animals were swallowed by a mouth that appeared below the eyeball.
This sight alone caused our young friend to almost faint but it didn't stop there.
The drawings of the various windows suddenly shattered and various tentacles entered the room. The door opened and the eyeball emerged from it, in physical form.
His teeth clacking against each other he was hugging the other side of the wall, desperately trying to get away.
The eyeball looked at him and spoke.
”I am not your enemy, you have nothing to fear.”
”...What are you?”
”You're quite rude, you're the one who drew me like this.”