From Heaven's Door

Chapter 4

III

The buzz of the fluorescent light started up again. It was a dreary, omnipresent hum that never grew louder or quieter, instead simply continuing as the only thing we could hear outside our own footsteps. Still, it was something, and despite quickly tiring of it I found that I was thankful for its presence. Wandering around Paradise in stark silence would've eventually just driven us insane – if we weren't already. I'd befriended a cereal mascot, for Christ's sake.

What was behind the door didn't exactly look like it would be the sort of thing behind a hotel lobby. It was much plainer than the rest of Paradise, at least in comparison to the hotel hallways. The walls, ceiling, floor, everything was just a bland, featureless white, the floor faintly tiled and clean of any especially noticeable debris. The humming light tubes stretched forth down yet another bloody hall above us and the only new sight were a few black chairs rowed against the right side of the wall, sharply contrasting the white of everything else, a thin, opaque plexiglass window on the right-side wall that showed nothing except an unclear shine of light on the other side, and another door not far off from the window. The hallway wound down and split into two separate pathways up ahead, and I already starting considering my first decisions not a second after I stepped into the hall. Closing the door behind me, Mint gave me a glance.

"This doesn't really look like the rest of Paradise..." they said in a questioning tone. They paced up a few steps. "This is more like some weird dentist's office."

They gave the wall a little tap and looked to the ceiling as the echo reverberated hollowly through the hall. I followed close behind them and turned to look at the the door. The knob was a much more modern-looking lever knob and the door itself aesthetically didn't stand out much from the walls aside from the obvious distinction of the door frame. Mint already paced up to the wall and jingled the knob. Locked.

"Huh," they said, a little disappointed. "Doesn't seem like this one has a keyhole..."

I took out my key and, out of some half-formed spur-of-the-moment belief it would do something, tapped it against the knob and put it against the center of it. There wasn't a keyhole. There didn't even seem to be a card reader, scanner, or anything else that might've unlocked it a little more manually. Unless we wanted to shatter the window – not a good idea, given the presence of the Suits – we weren't going into this room without discovering something else first. Mint seemed to gaze at the key almost enviously. It wasn't much; just a plain, slightly dented, slightly rusted, and slightly archaic-looking dull gold key. It was convenient, though. Very convenient.

"How'd you even wake up with that?" they asked. "I didn't have anything like that. Just that toy staff-" they tapped the staff to signify its presence, "and some weird green ball."

At the last item, I tilted my head to signify confusion. Mint quickly picked up what I was talking about and reached into a pocket of their shorts. They plucked out the ball and showed it to me. "See?" they said. "Just this useless old thing. Doesn't bounce or nothing."

It was an ugly ball. The color was mucus-green, it was far from perfectly round, there was a small chip on its apparently plastic surface, and it was fat and drab-looking. Mint turned the ball around in their hand before stuffing it back in their pocket.

"Don't know why I'm hanging onto it. Maybe it'll be useful." They snickered sarcastically, suddenly. "Maybe it's the key to the door."

I smiled in response. Mint looked back at the door, sighed quietly, then looked back at me. "Don't know why these weird guys were keeping me locked up like that. Food they gave me was disgusting. They didn't, like, really talk coherently the three or four times they came into my room. They just kind of mumbled random words. The closest thing to a legible sentence I got from those freaks was 'Mint's gonna like it." I kinda, like, assumed they were talking about me, so..."

I just quietly nodded as they talked to indicate I was listening. It was painful not being able to speak words, because some proper communication outside of dull grunts would be a f*****g godsend to the only friendly face outside of Sam's in this place. Mint seemed nice. They talked in a lax tone not terribly concerned about everything around me – though that may have just been a front – they walked with a bounce in their step, and they smiled whenever they looked at me. I only knew as much about them as I did about myself; their age, real name, gender (they were pretty damn androgynous-looking outside of just the voice), background, anything that might've marked them as an individual was a complete mystery. Inwardly, I wondered how that made them feel. I was irritated. High-flying pissed, even.

Answers. I needed f*****g answers. It was the only major thing I desired and the only other relevant thing I thought about was the questions. Those were in healthy f*****g supply.

Mint's voice jolted me from my own daze. "Hi! Hi! Earth to Tango? You spaced out there!" they said, giggling. I shrugged with an amused smile on my face and Mint continued, still smiling. "You're thinking a lot too, aren't you? About what the heck this all is?"

I nodded again. Mint stalled for a few seconds, then put an affable hand on my shoulder. "If it's all the help we can give each other, I'll stick by your side even if it turns out we're actually crazy murderers or something. Someone outside of some masked psychopaths to accompany me here gives me relief and I'm thankful you came to free me when you did. I don't think what they were planning to do to me – us – would be good."

I nodded in agreement. Mint continued and we spiraled into small-talk for a bit. I tried to keep up the conversation as best I could with non-verbal signs, nodding, shaking my head, anything I could do to talk without talking. They asked me a few questions, I kind of brushed them off, we decided to name the Suits what we did, speculated about Paradise and ruminated about some unrelated topics, before Mint finally asked me a question that caused me to seriously think for a bit more.

"Do you, uh, remember anything? Like... anything, before this all happened?" They seemed genuinely inquisitive and obviously were as curious about me as I was about them. I tapped my foot and put a finger to my chin, collecting my thoughts again.

Who am I? Or... was I, I guess?

I thought about what I already had.

Shitty Have Fun hairbrush. Useless cloth. Key of Utmost Convenience. Toucan Sam is my best friend.

I pulled out Sam, my ever-smiling, ever-vigilant companion just a peek out of my pocket, and gave him a gracious wink of appreciation. I continued to think.

Woke up in the middle of Chateau de Trashhole. Cheery albino kid. I'm named after a dance now. Tweezer-happy Picasso-faced assholes who should probably go into mime school.

I thought deeper. This was just all the stuff that happened in the current. What about before? What about all those vague pieces I had before?

Who I was... Who I was... Phantom, yard, seven. Phantom. Yard. Seven. Phantomyardseven, seven yard phantom.

I ruminated over those words for a bit.

Fanny, yippy, shitweasel. What the f**k do those mean!?

Ooh ooh ooh, ooh, ooh ooh, ooh ooh ooh...

STOP IT

I'd find whoever sung that and murder them or die trying. That would be the plot to my life story. I pounded my head a little in frustration and tried to think harder.

Then she came back up again.

I'd forgotten about her, but there her mental visage was. Same bright smile, same blue eyes, same golden-blonde hair. Cow-milk skin, smooth as silk and as flawless as a fine china. Cow-milk lady was the only distinct someone from my memory I could call up. I didn't know who she was. I didn't know why I could remember her. But when I concentrated on that image, I felt a sort of faint déjà vu manifest within me, a nostalgia that was at the same time alien and a contentedness that was all too strange and unsettling to me.

A tap on my head registered me back to reality and I jumped. Mint was chuckling, and I blushed a little as I realize I'd, yet again, checked out of reality and left them stranded with some spacey-eyed zombie in my likeness.

"You get engrossed in your mind, don't you?" they laughed. "It's alright. You know anything?"

No way I was going to be able to describe cow-milk lady to them in mute terms, so I went over to the next best thing: phantom, yard, seven. I surveyed the room for a bit, before walking to the window, breathing on it, and then using my finger to write the words in the moisture.

Mint looked at the words. They seemed to concentrate and I got my hopes up. Maybe they knew something I didn't!

Mint turned to me and shrugged. "Sorry," they said. "Those words don't really ring any bells. Or anything."

I deadpanned. That was a waste of time.

I sigh and write something under it.

what's unique about you?

Mint thought for a second. "Welp, I guess I'm albino," they say casually, as if it's no big deal. "Um... Hm." They held up the pendant. "Apparently I'm religious. Well, if God watches over us, he sure ain't in this cesspool. Heaven's the last thing we'll find here..." I stifled a half-formed laugh as they pondered a little more.

"I don't really know much. Don't feel much. I like this staff." They pointed up the toy staff again, and continued. "Don't really know much else. We're both blanks, I guess. That's cool with me."

My face showed a little bit of concern. I wasn't exactly keen on living without an identity. I prepared to fuss over it a little, then quietly resigned and realized that the only chance we had was to escape Paradise and maybe find some answers.

Mint seemed to be thinking the same thing, their eyes now on the path up ahead. We looked each other in the eyes, realized exactly what we were going to do, and started forwards without another word. The sound of our footsteps echoed across the hall and we ended up at the split in no time at all. I looked to the right. The path split to another set of stairs and ended at another door identical to the one in the main hall. Mint's gasp caught my attention and I looked to the left. I got all but the most fleeting glance of a shadow dashing out of sight behind another door at the end of the left-most path, and before I could really understand what was happening, Mint was already running towards whoever that was.

"W-Wait!" they called out. I threw up my hand and dashed after them. We darted through the door and turn a corner, where I got a bit of a better look at the person who was trying to flee. Nevertheless, it was just a fleeting, rudimentary glance, and before I could discern any particular details they rounded another corner and went up another flight of stairs. Mint was hot on their tail, going as fast as their legs could carry them and closing the distance fast. Ignoring the new door up ahead at the end of this particular hall, I did my best to follow, my breath quickly running short and my right arm flopping about like jangling keys. I got to the stairs – which shot up to the left, between more clean white walls – then leaned on the silver arm-rail to catch my breath, which had drained surprisingly fast in one short burst of speed. Mint, in one freakish burst of energy, lunged forth and pounced on whomever was running away at the very top of the stairs. Panting, I edged up the stairs and peered over Mint's shoulder to get a look at the person they were on top of.

The first thing I noted about them was that they had ruffled, grape-purple hair, which seemed to have been dyed at a glance. Most of their face had been covered with a series of crude, tightly-applied white bandage, wrapped around and around their head, through their hair and obscuring all but a few portions of their face. The one eye I could see was bright-blue and trembling. The bandage had been applied to various areas of the rest of their bodies, too; they were covered in bruises, cuts, and ugly lacerations, some obscured by the bandage and other wounds left to fester. They wore nothing more than slim, cyan shorts, a baggy gray shirt, and a flimsy jacket – or at least the tattered remains of one – and some chewed-up sneakers. They seemed battered and lanky, and they'd clearly run into something that'd left them with a few marks to remember. I covered my mouth and gave a barely audible gasp as I looked over their body, and another one as I realized they'd been carrying a weapon. Albeit it, it was a shitty one; a wooden-handled butcher knife of sorts that had long been covered in a thick layer of rust.

We were all silent for a bit. Mint didn't say anything, the bandage-person didn't say anything, I f*****g wanted to say something, but the only thing we could hear was rapid breath and heart-beats. Then the figure spoke.

"You... You ain't one of 'em," they said in some sort of accent. "Who the hell are you blokes?"

Mint remained justifiably cautious. "W-Who are you? What are you doing running around with a knife!?" they shrieked.

The bandage-person looked over at the knife, apparently in dismay. "Right good question, that," they said. "Don't know if I should answer that."

Mint pressed down harder with a small grunt. Quite amusingly, the bandage-person, by all appearances, was only slightly taller than they were.

"We're not letting you go until you tell us who you are. Are you in league with the Suits?" they demanded in as fierce a voice they could muster. It was an admirable effort at trying to sound intense.

The bandage-person's eye narrowed in confusion. "The what-nows?"

"You know, those weird... masked... people? Things? With the tweezers and the ducks, and the..."

As Mint trailed off, the bandage-person took a sharp breath in and appeared to relax. "So you really ain't with those wankers after all..." They breathed out. "I got no reason not to trust you, then."

Mint screwed their face up. "Then tell us who you are," they squeaked.

"Don't recall. Don't figure I'd want to. No name, no number, no identity. Nothing of use to you chaps, and by the looks of you sorry sods it's more or less the same bloody situation, aye?" the bandage-person said in a calm voice.

Mint sighed and got off. "That's true."

Much to my relief, the bandage-person didn't go straight for the knife and instead reared up, dusted themselves off, and offered to shake my hand. "Call me Darby," they said. "Thought it up for myself a few good days ago. Liked the sound of it. Don't give a piss if you don't."

I quietly outstretched my left hand, a sort of problem as they were trying to shake with the right. Darby chuckled. "You a southpaw, lad?" they said with a grin. I flopped my right arm around, picked it up, and let it drop limply. They smirked. "Aye, that'd do the trick. What's your name, eh?"

Before I went through the process of clarifying my inability to talk, Mint spoke up for me. "Their name's Tango!" they said exuberantly. "Mine's Mint! We don't really remember our names, either, so, um, we just called ourselves whatever!"

Darby looked at Mint, who was giving a wide, cheeky grin, and slowly nodded to themselves. "Welp, certainly creative-ass names you got going for yourselves. You escapees too?" they asked.

Mint nodded. "Just recently, actually... Tango woke up with a key."

I took out the Key of Utmost Convenience to prove their point. Darby seemed to raise an eyebrow. "That you did. Seems awfully convenient to me," they said in a half-sarcastic voice.

No f*****g kidding.

Darby looked behind them. "Well, everything you need to know about me's on the cover of the bloody book. Broke out twelve floors up and I've been playing tiddly-toddly trying to avoid those shits for quite a good while now." They motioned to their bandages. "This is what happens when you let one of them shits – Suits or whatever in blazes you called them – get ahold of you. They play nice and f*****g rough."

Mint looked over Darby in pity. "That's horrid..."

Darby scoffed. "Nothing I wouldn't expect out of a bugger like that. They tried to drag me off the upper levels, but I managed to take that little slice of heaven right there-" They pointed to the knife with a cocky grin, before continuing, "-and I reckon I managed to actually kill one of them. Got it in the gut and ran like hell was on my ass."

Mint was looking up. "Upper levels, huh?..."

"That'd be right. There's still a good portion of this hellhole I've yet to explore."

Mint seemed concerned. "How high up does this place go? What... What is this place?"

Darby sighed. "You like your questions, don't you? You haven't seen much of this place, have you?" We both shook our heads. Darby quietly nodded. "Aye, then... You really are recent break-outs, then. It's a right good thing you found me when you did."

Mint tried to pry in a little deeper. "Why?"

"Because none of the others came back."