Chapter 2: The Pocket Dimension

  For a moment in time, his mind stood dormant, a dream that never ended, an eternal sleep. His consciousness drifted one by one, molecule by molecule until he thought no more. He felt nothing, emptiness, peace, a vast abyss of horror. He was stuck in an endless dream, an endless desolate thought as time passed by. While he lay unknown to the world, time still played its ghoulish hand. It ravaged the people of a thousand worlds, bent steel, killed the old, the strong and the weak, vanquished morals and crumbled towers. Cities rose, magnificent spires touching the clouds, yet the higher they rose, the more they crumbled, their beauty cascading into madness and deceit. Blood was spilt and tears shed as heroes perished, forgotten to those who they saved. Empires of death and light clashed in proportions that merited stories driven into books of old.

  Stars faded, bursting in an inferno of light as they consumed all in their omnipotent path.

  Planets exploded, causing the death of billions.

  New life was sought out and created.

  Civilization carried on, ever changing, ever developing, all to finally fall to their knees at the throne of time, awaiting the hand of death which was foretold to them and their ancestors as children.

  He remained and for a long time, he had peace.

  Peace, tranquillity, perfect serenity, ignorance that fills the heart with joy. This all ended on a day like no other…

  The day his eyes opened.

  The floor was cold and smooth—too smooth. It was a lustrous black, and was featureless, like a slab of granite that had been chiselled too far, a stone perched at the edge of a raging river. His sight could make out the dimensions of the room, however there was nothing there. He looked down at his body. His clothes were the same. He heaved himself upwards with ease. His limbs were not stiff, and his age or breath did not falter. In fact, he was unsure if he needed to breathe at all.

  “Hello there, my friend.” A lone figure stood above John. Around him was impenetrable darkness—no light, no colour, nothing. It was just John and a small, old man. His knobby cane and grey suit were the only features of colour. His eyes were a cloudy grey and watchful, every glance causing the hairs on John’s neck to rise in fright. “Come here,” he beckoned with a bony hand.

  The other man threw back his head, extreme pain making him barely able to scrape three words together. John wheezed, his ribs searing in pain as his chest twisted and churned. Slowly, he fumbled, his dry tongue squeezing out words.

  “Who am I…”

  “Does it really matter who you are? Where you came from? Nothing matters here. Just you and I having a little chat.”

  John clutched his hair, strands seeming to flake into the hollow dark. His brain stung; knowledge intact but his past destroyed. His mind was a burned book, every line charred and incessant. Smudges of ash clouded his thought; his mind was a library of pages all screeching to be heard, yet not a single one was a memory. Not a single word mattered.

  “Who are you?” he questioned.

  “I saw what you did in our laboratory. You killed my friend,” the other person ignored him.

  “Killed? You mean that creature??”

  “Yes, that creature. He was my friend… A colleague you may say."

  “A colleague... Who am I?” he breathed more fiercely. This time almost a harried cough sounded from John’s lips.

  “Why not look at your ID? Have you not checked what you have?” the other person resounded in a pleased tone.

  John tore open his coat and reached for his jacket pocket. Placing a determined grip on a leather wallet he pulled it out and read, “John Tamer, 1923.” “1923, hmm? All these calendars are hard to keep track of. What year was that?” The person seemed to pause for a moment. Almost tasting, feeling the air as his feet seeped a little further into the endless black.

  “What…what do you mean?” John questioned.

  “Ah, here, I've got it. You are currently 60 years older!” he replied laughing.

  The statement ran a shock through John’s spine. His hand tremored, his feet curving inwards in anticipation. Slowly, he ran his hand through his black hair. It was the same—his posture and stamina were no different, his pale face had no wrinkles, no ragged hair caking in petrified hands.

  The other being began to walk, almost as if to take in the surroundings, scowling at figures in an abyss that John couldn’t see. He was about to talk, or at least slink forwards but the stranger continued to talk, almost disregarding his presence in order to bask in his own hollow words.

  “I don’t know what we took from you, but I do know what we’ve given. You have a purpose…a reason to live. Have you ever wondered what your life was like—Tamer, was it? It was a boring, uneventful desire to eat, sleep, move, kill, die. But for what? Life, death—no, for nothing. What righteous cause had you pledged, what worth had you meaninglessly attributed towards your final moments? Until we found you, you were about to kill a man for no reason at all, were you not?”

  “What? I don’t understand…” John muttered.

  “My time is not for you. In fact, even as a recorded AI, it is wasted on you. You, Tamer, are now the property of the Collective. We have set out across the stars, gathering all species, resources, and existence to create a masterwork library, a catalogue of life from which one, where we study, has a purpose, lives for ideals. You have joined that collective, Tamer, but now you are not a highly educated pupil or a researcher, you are a subject, a test subject and your greatest achievement in life will be to aid us.

  “Have you ever wondered the reasons for existence, looked up into the starry night sky, seen the dark clouds cascaded against a crescent moon, the ray of light slowly drifting by your frostbitten cheek?” he continued. “Well, I have a tale to tell you: a horrific story, a nightmare, a story of the life of a people—one who had decided to seek revenge, who have a plan to plunge a blade into the depths of our pitiful existence and draw out a blood-soaked metal shrieking out in the glory of a new dawn, a new era, a new colossus. The game of life is one you cannot win. It is one of lies, deceit, stupidity, fraud!

  “No matter how hard you try,” he went on. “No matter how long you plead, cheat, slander. No matter how much you kill, burn, or cry. No matter how many tears sliver down your cheek or smiles dance upon your lips. No matter much blood spills from your wounds, it is a game of luck, a game with no point, no reason, a tragedy, a joke made by a cruel god who does nothing but taunt you with his own omnipotence and atrocity. It is a horror where your entire life, your entire destiny lies in the bowels of hate, in the cold cruel clutches of another.

  “I will tell you the story of a people who were angry, a people who had played the hand dealt to them by a laughing God and wanted to wipe the putrid smirk off the Almighty’s face with a punch to the monster’s scowling face. The game of life is one that cannot be beaten. Trillions have tried, all have failed, found the warm clutches of death to comfort their arms. But what would happen if one of them didn’t only fail? What if one of them did not only spasm out into a chronicle of uncontrollable rage? What if they flipped the board.

  “Why do you live to die? Why is your species stuck in this…trap? Reality is a strange thing, Mr. Tamer. You are dead. Every creature is dead from the moment they are brought into this world, dead before they were born, dead after they are born, dead while they walk. We are all ghosts—people who are endlessly fading, slipping away from an unknown existence for unknown reasons. Every person is simply a speck on the radar in a meaningless puzzle that traps us every day. It binds us to pain, horror, atrocity. So much pain, so much injustice. For what? Why? Why? There is no good in this world, only evil, only horror, only those who deserve death and those who try not to die. When we gaze into the stars, and look into the swirling heavens above, what do we see?

  “Ghosts,” he claimed. “Faded stars which have long since burned out. How is that no different than when we look among ourselves? When we gaze into the mirror? For centuries we have sought one thing: Immortality. You seek survival, to rid yourself of fear, the plaguing insatiable fear of the unknown which lurks past every door, hiding in every shadow, every streak of dark. When did our colossus start? When did it all begin? Many, many years ago, countless and beyond compare. Located in a universe millennium away, filled with just as much beauty as hate, just as much death as life. During that time my people were desperate to survive. Pitiful beings. They killed, lived, and destroyed, for what purpose? All to exist in withering pain until a death date prolonged by luck, ignorance, and simple brutality.

  “One day, after a catastrophic war of legends that brought out the horrific atrocities in all of us, we realized our mistakes. We clutched the cold corpses of our loved ones, shed tears among the countless graves, and saw the pitiful lives we lived for nothing. We wept at the feet of our ignorance, envisioning the countless lives we took for no reason at all. Our plight for greed, our love for hate, our love for ourselves, for illusions, for deceit, for the lies that let us sleep, forget our atrocities, our troubles.

  The stranger went on, keeping John rapt in his message. “As creatures of logic, we decided the most plausible action would be to band together the last remnants of our once great society of conquest and ensure our species' immortality. We would try to find a way to prevent death, and create a lucid dream where all is equal, where the nations of the galaxy can uphold the law, order, civility, and peace, where good people triumph over evil, and those in power do all they can to ensure the prosperity of their people. Where love dominates hate, and intelligence trumps over stupidity. Where people are valued for their minds, and all are born equal. Where the luck of life is eradicated, and where life has meaning.

  “Your species is interesting Mr. Tamer. You fight, you die, for what? No matter what you do, no matter how smart, how honourable, how good, how evil… It all boils down to one fact: no matter how much you succeed in life, there is no point. Your hopes, and your morals—your species, your lives, the lives of your children will always fail. They will falter at the feet of time—an injustice! All for the needless cruelty and pain that is our lives. No matter what you do, how much needless anguish you endure, how resilient, intelligent, strong…your line will one day be broken, and the last grain of hope will slip through your blistered fingers.”

  For a moment, it seemed the stranger has reached the pinnacle of his speech, but a powerful presence in the empty air that remained let John know that there was yet more to be revealed.

  “We saw the only way to ensure our survival was to unearth the secrets of the universe.” He hummed to himself. “‘Unearth.’ Funny, that word means much more than it seems, as it is not to simply dig up dirt with a spade to see what secrets hide within. It means to remove the basic necessities our planets have thrown upon us and to see—truly see—everything in a manner not bound by law. To see past the wool that was placed over our eyes, the veil which has been cast upon the eyes of our parents, grandparents, and ancestors, dating back to the beginning of time. To see past the deceit, the blatant lies thrust upon us, the needless mystery. For twenty years we tried to find a way to improve ourselves, and not soon after our atrocities commenced, a creature came—one which we had not seen before—one of the first other beings we had ever encountered.

  “It laughed at our puny attempts at mastery, howled at our genetically modified superiors, and our so-called machines that did not age. It cackled at our intellectual giants that walked on stilts and screeched at our utopian civilization. It showed us how mortal we really were. It killed and crippled all of our greatest minds with a single blow. So naturally, we grew angry, and we killed, resorting back to the monsters which dwelled inside. We were set on burning it in a public execution. Let it wither. Let it die for its sins. We would relish in its blood, and show it we could succeed, we would triumph. Its spiteful words would ruin our movement and stain our golden morals with the blood of defeat. It had, after all, committed murder—the worst sin of all.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “It came back the next day after we had spread its ashes in the open sea. In one of our own species' bodies. It preached that in order to create immortality, one must strengthen the mind, not the shell which holds it. Armour is no use without one to wield it.

  “It made no difference. We killed it again, and again it rose, this time screaming the same hollow words, corrupting the minds of our youth with its filthy rhetoric. Then it came back again, and again, and again. It was electrified, tortured, shot, stabbed, hung, lynched. Pulverized by atomic fusion. It was sliced to pieces, its ashes frozen into superstates. Its bodies were dissected, catalogued and studied. At last, one day, as we hunted its latest interaction and tortured its latest form for even the slightest hint of knowledge, it vanished without a trace. The creature didn’t leave us without a single clue however. It’s patterns, thoughts, and biological structure changed a single portion of the frontal lobe. Can you believe it? Across all the species it possessed, all the different structures, organs, functions, there was still similarity. This signature calling card led us to where you are now.

  “You are the test, Mr. Tamer. If you succeed where others have fallen, we can learn what you did and achieve purpose. We can shed death, our weak fragile shell, and preserve all life, peace, prosperity, hope, love. Our people will have a chance of salvation, a chance to control their own destiny. If you fail, fall victim to your own cruelty, then the mind itself will kill to protect its own secret.”

  He stopped again, but it felt as though it was for emphasis. He turned to regard John more intently.

  “I will answer one of your questions. Welcome to your mind—yes, your mind. This is what the creature led us to: the part we do not use, limited to simple thought and emotion. I did not build this place, Mr. Tamer. You did. Your mind. You were born in this place, die in this place and dream in this place. This is where you are, and for your entire life are in: a dark room with an exit you cannot open, walls you cannot see, and rules which will bind you for all of your life. They are hidden rules, yet all rules can be bent and broken. You are the master of your mind, a master which has forgotten his way, caught in a trap of his own devices. The monster which dwells hidden in his subconsciousness always watches, always waits for a day which never comes. But this time it thirsts for you no more. This time you are here.

  “Normally, this room would be full of memories and form a cherished chamber from your past. But you have none now. You are limited to the foundations—a locked room in which you dwell but have never known to exist. I only did one thing for you Mr. Tamer: I removed your senses, all of them. Feeling, sight, hearing, movement. It is now just you and your mind a creature of your own creation.

  “Then again, your entire mind is built around this place, yet it has no purpose. So much of your energy goes into the maze. It is an incredible feat—such an anatomical sacrifice to build a monolithic area of which the benefit is scarcely seen or even noticed. Such a waste makes you wonder what really is at the end of the maze. Salvation? Death? The truth? Or, like I believe, evolution. Many have tried and feasted with gluttony upon the second option. I hope you may be the first to find another.”

  “I don’t understand,” John said. “What do you mean? Maze? Are you telling me this is some kind of gamble? Can you be at least a little less vague?”

  “You are home,” the stranger said. “And a binding contract with Earth means you are now the property of the Collective. According to the interspecies charter, you are hereby revoked of your rights and declared private property for all eternity. If you win, and master your mind, you will become our god, our saviour, and then you will be free."

  The stranger staggered back, flickering for a moment as it watched John squirm.

  “My head hurts. Why does it hurt so much?” John clutched his side. It wasn’t the most relevant question, but it still could be answered.

  “Part of the experiment. Normally, we submit creatures into the maze with just their base knowledge. However, in this particular batch, we uploaded information in the hopes to build more advanced neural networks. It’s a part of the C-52 program. It’s been tried before, but you never know. New species, new possibilities. You know nothing, yet you know everything. How to build a starship, where to cut to sever an artery, centuries of antiquity and modern knowledge, fine motor skills training, reaction speed training, anything that could give your brain an edge. However, you do not know the past, therefore you will not be distracted. You have no thoughts tying you to the other reality. Your brain has been stitched, scratched, and resewn thousands of times.”

  John paused. The other being really was just laying it all into him.

  “When you are ready to, walk through this door,” he pointed in the distance.

  “Will you be there with me?” John asked slowly.

  “No. I can’t. You don’t understand. The creature—the one that we killed—showed us a door that existed in all sentient life, across every reach of this galaxy. I’m just an implant; this is all yours.”

  He then got up and limped towards the pitch-black wall. Stepping forwards, he tweaked a small metal device, and phased outside, vanishing in a sizzle of light.

  John cast a glance towards a wooden door in front, one which resembled that of an ordinary gateway. It appeared to be made of a rough kind of oak, with a steel door handle.

  He moved forwards and grasped the handle.

  It didn't budge. John tried again, and again, and again. He ran at the door, kicked it, punched it, and shot at it several times, yet nothing happened. Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes to hours, yet time held no precedence. John finally sat in the middle of the room, tired, exhausted, and beaten. He lay down, his mind bulging with anger as he searched his vacant thoughts, praying for an answer in his newfound memory. Nothing seemed new, yet nothing seemed old. He scanned through and recalled the old man's words.

  He stared at the door, his stagnant adversary. The barrier between himself and freedom. Opening a door with physical strength would make no sense. He needed to open the door in his mind to proceed. He concentrated hard on the door, his mind focusing with all its strength.

  The door was open. It was never closed, he told himself. He was not in a dimension, he was not in a place where physics ruled. He was in a trap, a maze hidden deep within his own thoughts.

  He walked forwards, his eyes closed—yet were they his eyes? Or simply a figment of his imagination, thoughts being projected into a mirror of emptiness. He reached for the oaken handle, sweat dripping from his palm, and pulled, stepping forwards into more endless darkness.

  John cracked one eye open scared, of what might lie before him. The next room was a maze, one built of smooth grey cobble and thick vine. The grass was damp, yet every strand was sharp, nipping at his feet. The dark sky was an endless overcast. He breathed one gigantic gulp of the cool crisp air before turning to the entrance. Blinking a few times as if to wake himself from a dream he noticed it had three pathways. One labelled with a chipped wooden sign for death, a human skull with a serpent protruding through its eye. Casting a glance down the misty corridor he gulped before shaking his head. Stepping forwards, he came upon the second sign, that one showing plant life, a swirling tree with gnarled roots and murky grey leaves. The last sign showed nothing, just an empty piece of wood, crumbling with rot as a thin layer of dust lay beneath its surface. Backing up slowly, he paused to take in his surroundings. Besides the eerie silence, only the wind howled as he shook the vines. Turning his head, he noticed one last path. A steel ladder led up to the top of the maze, a place where one could walk along the crumbling walls.

  He approached the ladder and climbed its first steel rung. The metal was cool and smooth. Gulping, he began to climb, each step sending shivers down his spine. Wind glazed his back, causing his coat to furl upwards.

  Once on top, the maze stretched out as far as he could see. The landscape rippled in an endless sea of bricks leading into the beyond. On the horizon, he could make out something. A light perhaps? But it was too faint, a mere speck in the distance. He stepped forwards, gliding along the top of the wall and flailing his arms to maintain a strong balance. He walked for some time, sometimes looking down to see the eerie floor shift and churn below. Suddenly a sharp cry was heard wailing in the distance. He looked up into the abyss to see a flock circling around him.

  The birds were angels of death, their teeth as sharp as razors, and their eyes glinted scarlet. They twisted and turned among the heavens, reflecting no light as they split through the sky.

  The flock closed in and swooped downwards, clawing at John’s arms and legs, slowly ripping him to shreds. Fabric on his coat tore, only to be resewn in an instant, as the cuts simmered. John panicked, jumping down into the security of the maze, and the whole world transformed. The flurry of the tunnel’s floor was muddy and damp, the entire place reeking with slime as sporadic glints of sunlight penetrated the cloud-ridden ceiling. The birds now circling above, John sprinted forwards, and for what seemed like an endless journey, he wandered, his feet clinging to blood and dirt as the path twisted among the spiralling walls. It wasn’t long before he began to tire, and he slowly pulled out his wallet, running a finger over the frayed ID photo of a man he would never know.

  Then, a gut-wrenching feeling struck John’s heart. He had made his first mistake. The ground began to twist and turn, and his only memory came into view.

  The London fog rolled overhead, cobblestone and narrow houses lining down the darkened corridor. Pitch-black windows complemented the torchlight streetlamps, a few flickering as the shadows danced behind. The street seemed to smile in the dark, laugh when he turned his head. John coughed, and for a moment the night sky flashed, looking more like twilight. Its cloud-like structure shifted into something more frightening, almost animalistic. He felt his spine tingle, as he reached for his coat. It was a creature thirsty for blood that wished to surround John, ensnare him in a prison of smoke, one which could hold his thoughts in a gentle swirl. He did the only thing he could think of; he ran.

  Scrambling for cover, John sprinted as fast as possible towards the nearest house. He could feel it getting closer, almost breathing down his shoulder. He banged on the first door, paint chipping as he tried to shake the doorknob. He ran to the next one, and the next, slamming, pleading for one to open. At last, a door heaved through.

  Clambering inside, he quickly locked and bolted the red stained boards. In seconds, he hastily spun around to see the surroundings change, flickering for an instant. The first step was the hardest, every muscle seizing, screaming, beckoning them to flee. John’s heart pounded in rhythmic whispers.

  Inside it felt abandoned, frozen in time, while wisps of smoke caught splintered edges. A coarse stench swept forwards to choke the open air. He coughed, only to have blood spew towards the floor below.

  He moved his hand, fingers flexing to catch the stagnant breeze. Shadows danced in the putrid dark as the hunter blinked to find no difference when he closed his eyes. He reached for his belt, thin fingers prying off a torch to pierce through the dark. The metal felt cool in his palm as he flicked it on.

  The thin beam shimmered in the night for a tinge of hope to sprout through the hunter's heart. Light bent around the objects as they shifted in the wake of the shadows. He could sense the table move, and felt it watch him in the dark.

  A clock ticked in the farthest corner, every stroke pulsating with the tenacity of a beating heart. Upon closer inspection, he found it had no hands. Its composure was that of a simple circle, an inordinate slab of polished rock. He swung his torch, parting the beam to see that the sink had no faucet, the cupboards no handles, and the chairs were bolted to the floor. It was all imitation, a world that seemed cheaply moulded—a painting of a child’s dream. For a moment he held his breath as the lights flickered overhead. It wanted him inside.

  The floorboards creaked above.

  The room was made of decaying wood, and in the corner, it moved forwards. John dropped the torch. In an instant he pulled out his pistol and fired. Inertia and fear took hold of his senses. However, instead of a sharp pop penetrating the air, there was no sound. He pulled out the magazine and found nothing within. The gun corroded in his hand, leaving a pile of rust and grains of sand to slither cowardly through John’s closed palm. The creature in front moved forwards, creating his worst nightmares. Every step sent a shiver down his spine. Its wooden body was scratched and lacerated, and one of its hideous limbs had been replaced by a long, grey blade.

  Scurrying forwards, John easily outran the creature, yet his sanity still felt the effects.

  Thinking of his odds with the mist, he ran upstairs, nearly falling to his death as the rotten planks snapped beneath his feet. At last, he reached the top level, and he ran to a nearby room, slamming the door shut in one great heave. The creature continued to walk forwards, making a blood-curdling screech as it converged, until it finally stopped speaking gibberish and started to rant in a voice that was neither human nor animal—one of comfort, reassurance, and deathly persuasion.

  The voice of someone from John’s past—a memory so distant and undisturbed it lay deep, buried yet present, a ghost hovering over a loved one who he had forgotten.

  “John? John come here. I won't hurt you. Just come to me. I know your past. I can help you. Don’t you remember me? Don't you remember me?” It reached the door handle and shook it, screaming. “Open up. Open up and leave this place! Survive life to tell the tale. You don’t belong here! You know that I won’t hurt you. No one will. Open the door. Open the door!”

  He knew his only chance was to escape—escape or grab the deathstroke hand of the creature who beckoned to him so fiercely.

  John didn't want to play anymore. He wanted freedom—or death whichever came first. Then, in one swift movement of defiance, he reached for the back of his head and grasped air, twisting and pulling. He pulled and pulled, his fingers latching onto nothing as the creature outside ripped through the wood and was slicing its way inside, sending splinters of material sailing through the air. Then John closed his eyes and pulled with all his might, pain searing through his veins as the world stood still.

  The house had vanished in an instant, flickering darkness replaced with an industrial glow.

  A low ridged hallway with painted signs glowed in front. The water around him was close to gelatine, and his body was stripped down to a single jumpsuit. Wires sprung from the tube’s club-like ends, twisting through a series of vents and scattered grates. Thousands of rows of tubes sat etched into the metal wall, and there he floated for some time, the cold liquid slicking the glass with fog. John winced as he saw it unfurl, the tube attached to his brain now floating away as the connection pads faded in the acidic liquid. Eyes stinging, he looked around the container with a single hatch lying above.

  Red lights and alarms blared as the water jutted out for a split second. The floor opened and his container was tossed into nothing, only space—a peaceful view of emptiness for a few seconds. The stars gazed at his body, tranquillity flowing through their beauty. He lay motionless, floating in the air, below a green and brown planet, above millions of stars and the unexplored.

  Then the thrusters kicked in. The craft he travelled in was tossed at an enormous speed into the stratosphere of the planet. The heat of re-entry flaked away at the almost impenetrable glass. He screamed underwater as he plummeted, falling deep through the clouds above before embedding himself into the ground.