Tales from L.

I don't know how long I showered before I felt clean again, I scrubbed at myself, as if the soaps and the water could remove the memory or whatever it was that I had seen and not seen.

I found the bed and fell into it, once the towels had removed any water from my skin and hair afterwards.

I slept. I think it was sleep. My eyes closed and I left my aches and the redness of my eyes and the clothing behind.

I floated in a darkness that was the color of graphite, a metallic grey.

I felt sounds all around me.

I felt as if I was adrift.

Strangely, I felt surrounded by water in the dimness, until blue showed overhead.

A splash of orange drew my attention to the horizon and it looked like a dawn over an ocean.

The orange rose, only...

What rose was not merely a familiar yellow-orange globe, it was blocked or marked by some strange fractal pattern that made it look like some impossible alien eye that in a moment seemed to swallow all the sky...

And I woke, my breath coming fast. The vision of that mad repeating pattern swallowing the sky left me shivering a little and I rose, unclothed and mindful of the sweat in the bed and on my skin.

I showered again, going more gently - some of my skin had been rubbed quite raw the last time in here.

My sides and lower back itched and did not like the touch of anything against them aside from the cool water.

I looked in the mirror, still wet.

Red finger-welts, and more than a little abrasion and a rash.

What had gotten into me?

It wouldn't do to hurt myself over things I saw, even if they were madness made manifest.

I shook my head, sighed and gently dried off and eased into my clothes.

They were very smooth against my skin - I had chosen my undergarments wisely.

I was easing myself into the armor that was the outermost layer when a revelation struck like lightning.

Vandenburg.

That word was printed on the envelope, I was sure of it.

I felt suddenly very sure of my footing, strangely lucid and I turned towards the plastic door and tapped on it, or would have, if it had not slid down at my approach.

I got a few feet from the table again, swithing on the light, and I felt the push again.

I decided to close my eyes and reach out.

Oh yes, it was tangible.

A slightly resisting barrier pushed against my hands.

Rubber?

No, it didn't yield enough.

Leather?

No,, much too smooth and regular.

Plastic then.

It felt like a plastic bubble, full of water. It yielded only a little, but it pushed back with strength. I tried pushing with my legs.

It was a wall.

A thought occurred to me, since I could see absolutely nothing.

I went and took a small towel from the bathroom.

I tossed it into the air over the envelope - and it fluttered through the space, landing beyond, not far from the wall.

More interesting.

It was not repulsing space or matter - it was pushing against me.

I relaxed again and stood there, fighting that buzz in hands and eyes.

I turned my head away and left the room, my eyes feeling very irritated.

I looked back at the room once dark and watched the door slide closed again.

That was a significant piece of my personal mystery - and I felt like bees had been trapped under my eyelids just trying to look at it.

I soundly thumped a fist against a nearby wall.

I stood there for time long after the fog had faded, tasting that word on my tongue.

Mariner.

I looked at the pale face in the mirror, right into her eyes, the light catching enough of them for me to see their color, an icy blue.

That's your name, mirror-woman, I told her silently.

I straightened up and watched her breathe, slowly.

Well, as well as I could see her in this color, in this light.

I decided that it was time to confront something I had been avoiding.

Thinking about the envelope in the sterile room made my stomach twist, and something in my head felt like it was being tightened in my skull.

I set my jaw.

I rubbed my cheek. Why the hell did any human being do that with their face? Doing it for nine-tenths of a second made my cheek feel like it was in a vise.

I took slow, steady steps on the carpet, paying attention to the soft clomping sound my feet clad in boots made on it.

I marveled at my toes - I could feel them, and they were warm again. They were also surprisingly comfortable.

I reached the doorway and looked into the too-bright room and shielded my eyes.

There it was, that large envelope, sitting on a table, not far from a microscope.

I reached out to touch it.

My head hurt a little, a sharp sort of pain and the surface of the enveloped erupted in strange red glowing figures that seemed to rise from it and hover in the air.

Moving closer a little, the pain worsened and something in the air seemed to fold and erupt and strange green-black fingers or limbs seemed to reach out to me from nowhere.

I clamped my eyes shut and felt again the debate between stomach and brain. My stomach seemed determined this time to squeeze everything from my feet to my chest up through my mouth, and I tasted something sharp and acidic.

Darkness.

I don't know how long I was inside that void.

The smell was what first awoke me, acidic and sickly somehow.

The taste in my mouth was terrible, a war zone of acids and things I could not identify.

I rose slowly to my feet, my brain swimming in an ill-balanced pail of lukewarm bath water.

The pain lanced outwards from my eyes and I closed them again, covering my face with my elbow and I spat, unmindful and uncaring of the Universe outside of the filth against my tongue and teeth.

As vision became again sharp and clear again, the room seeming to glow frmo the light above, I reached a hand out, felt the paper against my fingers, clasped it, and staggered from that polished white hell.

An inner reflex made my hand tap the switch on exiting and the burning suns above were dark at last.

I dropped the envelop on a surface, my stomach once again twisting itself.

I resolved to move my body forwards, still feeling foggy.

And the next and hopefully final terrible feeling was sated into the polished metal throne, my eyes screwed shut, and my body shivering as if all muscles tensed.

I discovered a cold place on the floor under it to store my head until it stopped feeling as it did, and the whoosh above told me that the toilet was obviously self-regulating.

Darkness found me again there, sprawled before the toilet in the dim light.

A small thrill of fear followed me down.

"What could be causing this...."

Releasing the idea that something was missing, I removed all of the soft and comfortable undergarments and laid them aside on a countertop.

I looked at myself in the mirror. Really examined the lines of muscle showing through the unearthly-pale skin.

I flexed the muscles, and was surprised at how much definition showed in them.

I looked at my back over my shoulder, saw firm muscles showing.

I was fit. Very fit.

I looked over my middle and saw the same firmness there. I could see the muscles when flexed fully, though I didn't flex my stomach too much, it felt as if something had hit me there very hard, and was still tender.

I felt the skin over myself - it was very soft, and remained so even with muscles flexed.

I looked at my legs as best I could, and found that I was surprisingly limber.

With a hand on a wall, I let one of them rise, to see how far I could lift it.

With it as vertical as my joints would allow it, my heels nearly facing completely opposite directions, I found myself laughing again.

My balance seemed very good too. I stood there, feeling a bit silly, holding one foot upright. My other foot shifted a little to maintain the maneuver, but I felt as if I could stand there in that strange and awkward position for the rest of the day if I needed to.

I again regarded the face in the mirror, with her almond eyes and snow-white skin and hair that looked very pale gold.

You have an excellent physique, mirror-woman, I said to her, not without a smile.

And my train of thought stopped abruptly as I looked over myself again.

Those strange things I saw in the wardrobe. They must be some kind of armor!

Yes, The curved pieces over the shoulders. linked to plates that covered specific points on the anatomy.

I recovered my undergarments and put them back on, before peering into the wardrobe again.

Yes. There were several articles that looked like cloth but had weight and mass.

I sought out a pair of pants that slid easily over my legs, though they looked and felt baggy on my frame, and were of this weighty cloth material and were a deep green or brown.

They had several roomy pockets.

I took up a simple shirt, unmarked even at the neck and eased into it, following with a form-fitting top of a strangely heavy material that had pronounced seams.

I took one of the strange sets of plates and found that I could easy it over this effortlessly, that there were straps at the sides that let me adjust it to my body, so it fit snugly over my body and did not restrain my movements at all.

I realized that my feet were still quite bare and almost slapped my forehead.

It took a few moments to locate a pair of long socks that came nearly to my knees when I eased into them.

I noticed that the pants themselves had loose strings at the cuffs, and after a moment, I reasoned why.

I took a pair of boots that seemed heavy for their size and cold on my feet, but fit comfortably enough and leaned down to lace them, realizing that the pants could be secured at the tops of them.

I stood afterwards, feeling the weight and warmth of this new clothing.

I no longer felt the cold anywhere but my face.

There were also a selection of some kind of hood. Some covered none of the face at all, others left only the eyes visible. I decided to take one with me, stuffing it into a pocket.

Looking again into the mirror, I found myself a little difficult to see in the gloom.

I felt that twisting sensation in my stomach again and a fresh burst of pain.

I had doubled over with the spasm and looked up again and caught something reflected in the mirror - a pair of points, like horizontal slits to my left.

I turned with a choking sound, but saw and heard nothing but myself.

I resolved that I had not seen what I had seen and washed my face in cold water before anything further could happen.

I let out a long breath, fogging the mirror.

I saw... part of a word written there, on the glass.

Another breath and I saw all of it, right at the place where I had seen the eyes.

I looked at myself and saw the word and my own face, and I understood what I saw, frightened by it.

I mouthed the words.

"My name... is Mariner."

I was certain that I had felt along all of the seams of that slightly rough surface, from the top and the corners of the doorway.

On closer examination, I decided that the walls were far older than the door.

The tile's was very neat, but a close examination registered small irregularities in their placement.

A hasty construction?

No. The lines were much too straight. The material below the tiles has been applied with too much care. The tiles themselves were largely undamaged.

My nose told me that they had been cleaned thoroughly, with a distinctive agent.

I was examining the tiles nearest the switch when a soft hissing thud came from the door.

It was open.

Ah, that was why it showed no hinges or mounts. It has slid smoothly straight down.

For some reason, that made me smile.

A very simple design, one that was easy to reinforce, difficult to tamper with.

Beyond was another room, that felt like another world.

I felt as if I had been born in this sickeningly bright - Mustn't look at the overheads again, felt earnest desire to vomit - sterile room.

I looked again into the new unknown room.

More fluorescent lights. These were softer, not nearly as bright.

I took my first step into the new room.

Cold. Floor is metal in here, smooth. Looking, I can see riveted seams.

There's a different smell in here.

For a moment, my mind projects a churning, terrible something around the corner away from the door.

I creep and peek around the corner near waist level.

I chuckle softly.

The only churning likely on that side of the room would have been induced by much more mundane demons.

I turned away from the single exposed throne of steel and found myself facing a sink and a large mirror.

There is a pale, terrifyingly pale something staring at me from that surface.

My stomach churns again and I see the pale something's body beginning to churn.

My eyes widened as I see the form appear to be pressed somehow, pulsing, the chain raising, as if something is trying to push its way up the neck.

I take a step back, unable to turn away as the figure's head splits open sideways, not a head at all but separating like a skin being shed and this tenebrous something erupts from the mouth and throat of the form, ophidian scales glistening and teeth showing like needle points.

The head turns towards me, and I stand, unable to move, fixed in my place as if a wall had trapped me there for all eternity.

I blink my eyes.

I see just a pale figure there now, in a faded shirt.

THe figure is female, skin as pale as the hand I remember seeing.

The hair is a strange pale golden color, the eyes are in shadow from the fluorescent overhead.

I clench my jaw, certain that the nightmare vision was going to once and for all lose whatever my stomach was keeping secret from the world.

Instead, I stagger a little closer, examining the narrowed eyes and smooth skin of the face, ringed by very straight hair. I reach down to the sink and try the taps - one for hot one for cold, my skin tells me immediately.

I decide to rinse my face and nightmares from my face with water that could have been snow an hour ago.

I look up at the now-closer face.

I see fear there as she pants, short of breath.

I ask the face, who asks me in perfect synchronicity,

"Who are you?"

I sat there for many moments wondering if I was blind or not. The space I was in was cold, and it did nothing to dispel the deep aching I felt in my body.

It did not feel like hunger or thirst.

It felt like I had been pressed or thrown, or pressed and thrown.

I could not sit for all eternity there in the space I was sitting on.

Below me was something soft and yielding.

My hands became my eyes.

What was below me was smooth to the touch.

A mattress?

With something clutching my heart like an ichorous claw, I reached out into the unknown.

My arms touched nothing but the still, cold air.

I decided to proceed as blind as I was. I felt the perimeter of the mattress.

No frame or bars or anything else at its edge. A cot? No, it's not that narrow or that stiff.

My hands inched further, and found something below it, smooth, cold.

Tiles? Yes, square tiled floor, I could clearly feel the edges.

My mind filled once more with the images of bones and twisted, writhing flesh cast in a sepia light.

I moved to press my feet against the tiles - they felt almost like ice under my bare feet.

I stood up, very slowly - and even then something in my stomach felt ready to launch itself from my mouth into that pervasive darkness.

I took my first unsteady steps into that cold air, to find that it made contact with my face, hands and feet, but my body was clothed in something that was light, but kept me warm.

I found a wall, tilework still and felt my way along it, sliding my hands slowly over the space of it, seeing, feeling nothing but the ceramic.

Something in the pattern of the squares felt wrong. Warmer? Less even.

It felt like a small wedge, and I pressed it.

It felt like the world above me exploded with light. I curled at the floor, all but trying to wrap my body around my head for the pain in my eyes.

When nothing more violent than the stark glaring light came forth from the ceiling, I dared yield my eyes to the light, blinking them quickly, tears flowing as focus slowly returned to them.

Some voice echoed in my head. Was it my own?

"I hate fluorescent lights."