From Heaven's Door

Chapter 2

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Thine own sin have blighted thine heart

Damnedest flame to you I impart

Thou pleads an' begs, but the Lord's head turns

Writhin' and writhin', the Lord still spurns

From Heaven's Door

I

What was my name? What was my name?

Phantom... yard... seven... Does that sound right? No. None of that sounds right.

What is this place? What is this place?

My mind was a ceaseless flurry of alien thoughts and recollections before those died. I managed to clasp onto a precious few, however, before they too slipped into the void of unconsciousness. An aching feeling held what I hoped my body in a vice, and an acerbic stench penetrated what I could only assume was my nose. My eyes groggily blinked open what felt like a year of slumber away and strained to look at the blurred surroundings around me.

My heart skipped a beat, at that point. My mind was essentially empty. I had a detached feeling of déjà vu and I know something had happened to me before, but my mind was pitifully vacant. Where thoughts of happiness may have danced was now dominated by a void of non-remembrance. I was feeling a dozen things at this moment, but I couldn't properly react to them all likely because I couldn't remember how.

Something was still there, though. A few fraying thoughts drifting aimlessly and alone in the broken mirror that was my mind. Let's see if I could scan those over.

Uh, words, words, lemme see here... Phantom, yard, seven. The hell does that mean?

Family? People I can remember?

I focused. There was one memory I called up, of a face, although it was incomplete, no doubt. I couldn't identify the face for a while and I had to work my mind to get even a semi-lucid image. Even when I did, it was still conspicuously lacking a name and a person. The face was a she – I hoped – and she had bright blue eyes, a smile that warmed me up a little, and Caucasian skin I could describe as smooth, like cow milk. Or, I'm sure it was, anyways.

I focused again.

Okay, okay... Academic training? Nope? I think?

Uh, let's see...

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

What?

That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh...

My mind was ruptured by an exuberant-sounding funk song that completely disrupted the relative peace of my decayed mind. The song repeated itself maddeningly in my head and refused to leave it. Even as I tried my hardest to concentrate on other thoughts, the song continued to loop.

That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh...

What the f**k was this infernal melody?! It was catchy. Really, really catchy, infesting my head, cooping itself up in there, and not leaving as its notes blared in my brain. Even with the enigma of everything else, I could still remember this clearly. I liked it, yes, and found myself subconsciously bobbing my head to the memory of the beat, but it was enough of a distraction to completely lose focus on what I should've been focusing on.

After about seven minutes tapping my toes and going over the words of the song, I finally snapped out of the weird disco trance and stared off into space for a little bit. I was lying on my back, directly above me the ceiling. It was derelict, a muted beige, and it was in sorry condition. What was probably the rafters had been eaten away to dusty splinters. Whatever had done that to the rafters had also eaten a head-sized hole in the ceiling itself, and I could see dark scampering shapes and the rotted inner workings of the ceiling within the pocket of darkness it held. I was still sore and my head felt empty (appropriately so, I'll say), but my vision had cleared up a little. I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes.

Well, with my left hand, anyhow. Before I could register the rest of my surroundings, my head lolled to the side in alarm as I realized my right arm down from the shoulder was non-functional. It was splayed across a tiled floor, just kind of limply lying there and not responding to anything I tried to make it do. It was bent at an angle that, when I compared it to my left arm, was very much not the shape should have been it, twisted down the elbow until it made the shape of a crooked V. It was basically a piece of useless meat growing from my shoulder I could not control, feel, or move.

Well. Great. Awesome. Just brilliant. This was what was happening. I was stuck wherever with a useless right arm, with virtually no idea about who I was, where I was, what anything was, and disco music blaring in my head.

Perfect f*****g introduction for a generic-ass story, wouldn't you say?

That's the way, uh-huh, uh-

Piss off.

I analyzed the rest of the room, a muted pain omnipresent through my body. It was a shabby-ass place. The walls were the same color as the ceiling, paint faded and parts of the bare wall visible, and there was random stuff – garbage, I'd think – just strewn about everywhere. It wasn't really anything particularly specific, just old magazines with ripped-up covers, wrappers, old cereal boxes (at least three of them were Froot Loops; Toucan Sam was about the only friendly-looking face in these parts) and what looked like the occasional torn piece of paper. The only light was a slightly-cracked fluorescent tube light above me, a constant, low hum buzzing from it. The light irritated my eyes and I sheltered them with my working arm. Looking myself over, I didn't seem to exactly be the spitting image of fashion myself. I was wearing a raggedy blue t-shirt, baggy brown pants, some cheap-looking loafers. I was laying down on my back on some shitty, chewed-up mattress that I could feel the floor under. My skin was palish-looking and my left index finger was feeling numb. I didn't know what my face looked like, as there was no good reflective surface in the room. As I thought things over, it quickly became sadly apparent that my identity had been sucked into the drain which took away all my memories.

I seriously thought things over pretty damn hard. Who was I? No clue. Gender? Didn't feel like male, female, or anything in between. f*****g name? Can't remember. I knew what things were, I guess: English, motor skills, mathematic knowledge, reasoning skills, basic stuff I knew by instinct was all accounted for. Nothing really worth questioning.

I got up, pushing myself up with one arm against the uncomfortable mattress. I tested out my voice, but the only thing that came out was a sputtering, hoarse cough, and even that was quiet. Any attempt at vocalization came off as mute grunts. That was nice. Couldn't even speak. Couldn't even call out. My throat felt dry and a small pang of hunger, which would inevitably grow, ate away at my stomach. Not a nice feeling, that. I looked around, and upon turning one-eighty from where I was facing, I saw a door in the center of the opposite wall from me a few feet away from the mattress (which was right up against the wall) I hadn't noticed before. It was just a generic plywood door with a slightly-rusted knob. I looked around, almost as if expecting someone.

Even in my amnesiac stupor, I knew by instinct nobody was coming. A gnawing curiosity prompted me to look behind the door, but I still wanted some company, even if it was something trivial. I looked around and my eyes finally settled on one of the Froot Loops boxes. I paced over, took the box, and stared Toucan Sam in the face. He seemed happy. The box was long, long empty and there was a prominent layer of dust on the front, but the inviting red color of the cardboard and Sam's happy, beaked grin as he looked over the picture of Froot Loops ingrained on the front of the box gave me some ease. I tore away at the cardboard, and eventually ripped out the image of Sam's head. I held up the section of the box with Sam's face on it. His drawn-over smile didn't falter, and I gave a stupid, wide smile back to him.

Toucan f*****g Sam. How was that for a best friend?

I gazed back at the door. It was too enigmatic not to fall for its allure. I silently beat myself up over whatever chaos this would inevitably lead to, comforted myself with the fact that the only other choice would be to sit here and eat the garbage, and twisted the knob. As I gave the door a little push, a resounding creak went through the room and a new silence swallowed my ears.

The door simply led into a hallway. No lights in this one, although the walls were much better kept after, with a layering of navy blue paint and an actual carpet on the floor. The buzz of the fluorescent light was quickly overtaken by the sound of an air conditioner gently blowing in fresh air in the room. The hallway only extended ten or so feet forth before ending at an identical door. I shrugged, closed the door behind me out of some desire for common courtesy, and walked the length of the hallway before trying at the knob.

Locked. Typical. I rested my hands by my hips and silently cursed to myself. I considered just kicking it down for a moment – it wouldn't take much effort considering its simple build – but as my hands rested by my hips, something jingled in the pockets of my trousers I hadn't noticed prior. Jackpot! I immediately rooted through my pockets and found a few things within.

First thing was a key, and upon sticking it in the door, found it was a perfect fit for the keyhole. How the f**k was that for convenient? Next thing I found was a pale white cloth with a slight brownish-looking stain on one side. That might be handy. The last thing, sitting all by itself in my left pocket, was a hairbrush. Engraved in the back of it were two words.

Have Fun.

Neat.

I tucked them away alongside Toucan Sam, and pushed open the door. The next room took me off guard a little. Instead of some crappy side room like the one I'd been stuffed in, this was another open hallway. This, however, was much, much longer. It was essentially a hotel hallway; lights, some dimmed, rowed the sides of the red painted walls, a velvet-carpeted floor with a series of fancy-looking patterned stretching out far to the right and left. The end walls each simply stopped at dead end walls, but at the end of the right wall, a staircase extended upwards, which gave me some hope. The other thing that pleased me was the fact my room wasn't even close to the only one. Once more, just like a hotel, there were symmetrical rows of doors across each of the walls. Sixteen rooms in all, I counted, with about eight on each wall. All the doors were identical, and none of them were marked, but the fact there were other rooms and, potentially, other people, gave me relief. Maybe I could find someone who could help. Maybe I wasn't just stuck in some pit in nowhere. Maybe this was all just some bizarre circumstance and all I needed was, say, a little mental help.

Probably wasn't the case, but I liked entertaining the idea. I plucked out Toucan Sam, showed him all the doors, then stuffed him back into my pocket before stepping out of the hallway and closing the door. I looked up and saw the last thing of note in the hallway, inscribed above the door adjacent to mine.

Welcome to Paradise!

Paradise. This sure as f*****g s**t didn't look like no bloody Paradise. But I guess Paradise is what it wanted to call itself – narcissistic fuckhole.

I considered my options for a bit and decided it'd probably be a better bet to try and find some help in one of the other rooms instead of just blindly wandering up the staircase. If there was any chance of learning more about this "Paradise" now would be the time; I could end up stumbling onto some labyrinthine horror show with no clue of where I was when the answer could've been in one of those rooms the whole time. Key in hand, I walked right up to the door in front of me and tried the knob.

The door parted right open to another hallway and another door, almost mirroring mine. It wasn't even locked. Walking in, I went to the door – this time leaving the one behind me open a peek in case I needed to make a hasty retreat – and quietly put my hand on the knob of the next door. Finding it was locked, I quickly unlocked the door, took a deep breath in, and considered things.

Did I really want to open the door?

My heart beat once in the second of considerate silence that followed.

Hell yeah.

I opened the door.