A foot takes a step, another foot falls in place. A foot becomes a leg becomes a body, and once again, there is a boy. But he is not really a boy, is he? Surely he is Something.
There will be time for that, he interrupted, as soon as the walls stop laughing.
Something skidded to a stop. Les, leading the escape, had frozen like a deer. Wordlessly, they angled a finger towards the end of the inky hallway, where EXIT blinked metronomically above the dirty iron door. Every instinct commanded Something to fucking run already, burst through the door and clamber for higher ground, but with a boney shiver, he saw what Les was pointing at.
As if to fill the silence with something other than that horrible, screeching laughter, Les pronounced the obvious.
“Don’t take your eye off of those doors.”
The gas station had been Something’s idea. A convenience store was something familiar, universal, uneasily altered without them noticing. Plenty of cover behind the aisles of snacks and sodas, too. It was Les’ turn to watch the entrance that night, and with their milky blue scythe resting on their lap, they counted and recounted and rerecounted the number of cieling tiles, the panes in the window, the bags of chips tucked like sleeping soldiers on the shelf. Plastic, of course: no real food at all. Just an illusion. A comical idea. But no matter how fake it all was, Les knew it wouldn’t change. Unless, of course, a certain force imposed itself upon it.
Which it did.
Because it always did.
Eventually.
But this time, they were ready.
It would have gone unnoticed, but as impenetrable as the beast’s camouflage was, it had no knowledge of what was normal and what was strange, and most importantly, why a gumball machine wouldn’t be seven feet tall.
Les and Something had retreated to the back office when the grinding laughter had begun – the sound of metamorphosis, of change. Of a gumball machine becoming a paper airplane becoming a light fixture and finally a door. Or three. All lined up at the end of the hall, with identical EXIT signs blaring above them, facing three cardinal directions, leaving only South which, to Something’s dismay, had been swallowed up in the violent darkness.
“The doorframe must have been fake, fuck fuck fuck fuck I should have counted the hallways.” Les’ eyes searched hungrily for any sign of the entrance to the pocket dimension they had become trapped in. It was gone, of course, but animal instincts demanded a double-take.
They must really be losing it. Something had never seen Les this viscerally anxious. Seeing that facade broken made Something nauseous with dread.
The screeching crescendoed as the walls began to close in. Summoning every drop of remaining Tatter energy, Les thrust their scythe upward like a deadlifter, forming a parallel support beam before the guillotine could snap shut.
“Get to the fucking door,” Les panted, lean arms quivering to keep the tiny sliver of hallway from crushing them both to death. Something ducked under the makeshift bar and rushed towards the three doors at the end of the hall.
One of them has to be real. The anchor. The Fool as the building block for this entire mirage, Something remembered. He can’t make a pocket without the opening. The focal point. The thing that can’t be changed.
It was hard to tell with how fast he was running, but Something was suddenly certain that the back wall’s door was running up to meet him too.
He’s just gonna crush us the other way instead!
Les didn’t have another scythe. If the hallway closed longways as well, they’d both perish instantly. But now Something had something to work with.
He wouldn’t throw me towards the real door. That would make it too easy
One door down, two to pick from. The ones on either side, about to be swallowed by the wall rapidly advancing towards him. It would have to be a leap of faith. As Something and the wall raced to reach the doors, Something yanked on his Tatter Form, sapping it for any strength it could inject into his legs, anything to make him faster. But he still didn’t know which door. There was surely a way to tell, but he’d only just started the stupid fucking job, and his knowledge of this otherworldly house-of-mirrors shit was torterously inadequate.
Les would know.
The walls closed in.
Les always has to save me.
The walls closed in.
I don’t deserve this power. This life. This responsibility.
The walls closed in.
But there’s something I need to find.
And my death is my choice alone.
Something surged through the door on the right, swinging wildly behind him with the bat as he fell over the threshold. Steel connected with frame, splintering the wood and spewing a cloud of angry dust over Something’s face as a tortured screech rang out from within the building. Something collapsed to the ground outside the convenience store, back in the regular dream world once again, agony clawing its way through his muscles as his adrenaline seeped away.
A few seconds later, Les came running out through the collapsed door frame and dragged Something to his feet, spitting in his ear that the cathedral portal was only a few minutes away. Something numbly obeyed. Even after leaping from the jaws of death, life had the weight of an obligation rather than a desire.
You’ll be back home soon, Something comforted himself. Where you can decide between the mirror or the rope.