From Heaven's Door

Chapter 8

VII

I didn't take my hand off the scissors, but my mind was racing.

There they are! Who the f**k are you jackasses? Why do I remember you?

Their faces in my mind were clear now, and I associated two names with them, again out of nowhere: Mint and Darby. That vague, nostalgic feeling was stronger than ever. Some part of me thought so hard that I knew these people.

But that was impossible, wasn't it? I wasn't about to let my instinct take advantage of me now, or I'd end up in another situation like Jilton led me into. The anger and frustration at their deception still pained me, and it only magnified the moment Darby and Mint started talking.

Mint looked surprised for a second and put a hand to their mouth. Darby paused behind them and mumbled some sort of curse to themselves.

Mint called out, their voice shaking and apparently shocked. "T-Tango!? Oh, God, Tango, is that you!?"

Tango...

The feeling only got stronger. Was that my name? No way in hell I wanted to be called "Harpo" anymore.

Mint ran towards me, and Darby did the same after a second's hesitation. "Tango, we thought you'd-!"

I immediately whipped up the scissors – which were impractically a foot long and somehow able to fit inside the Suit's pocket – and pointed them at Mint, stopping them dead in their tracks. Eyes still slightly watery and face scrunched up in a terrified glare, I backed up and mouthed "don't get any closer" to them. I didn't want nor need to know whatever they wanted to do to me.

Mint stopped, appalled. "Tango... It's me. It's Mint."

I didn't drop the scissors. Did they know me? They obviously recognized me but I was struggling so hard to try and remember what the f**k it was my mind wanted me to remember. The memories had just exploded into that blank-feeling spot at the back of my head.

Darby stopped a little behind Mint, face concerned. "Oi, mate. You look a little uneasy, there. We thought you'd just up and lost it and killed yourself..."

Mint tried their best to put on a cheery looking smile. "B-But you're alive! Thank God! I was hoping we'd, like, find you, Tango!"

My mind was alive with the sound of "f**k everything about this."

Stop it. Stop it. Stop calling me that. Stop toying with my goddamned mind! Who the f**k are you?!

As much as I wanted to just rush them and stab them, Darby looked armed and I didn't want to try my chances. My useless arm was already bleeding from the cut I'd sustained in the fight; thank God all the nerves were dead in it anyways. I silently put the scissors down, decided it would be better to try and get some answers without any more excuses or deceptions, and took out the pen and notebook, placing it on the floor and starting to write. It was hell with only one hand.

Mint seemed to perk up and take a few steps closer. "Oh, you got a notebook? That's gre-"

I gave them a look that shut them up and made them stop. Darby just looked utterly confused. I finally held up the notebook.

who the f**k are you?

Mint gave a little gasp. "Tango... Do you remember anything?" they said, after a brief pause.

I silently cursed, angrily tapped at the words, then quickly wrote something under them as legibly as I could.

no more of this weird s**t! who are you and why do you keep calling me that?

Mint's frown only got larger. Darby walked up behind them and put a hand on their shoulder. "I think they've got another bout of amnesia..."

I twitched and threw the notebook at them. Darby quickly caught it as Mint slowly approached me, hunched down and hands out to reassure me, as if they were going to pet a stray cat without trying to startle it.

I was on the verge of tears again. I hated this. I hated not knowing. I hated not remembering.

Mint, regardless, tried to talk to me. "Tango... I-It's me, Mint. You woke up with a key in your pocket and you found me. Um... do you, like, remember that?"

My heart jumped. I reached through my pocket and pulled out the Key of Utmost Convenience. How did they know?

Mint smiled a little. "Yeah, that's it! We headed out to a floor above where we were being kept because of the Suits... Do you remember any of that?"

Suits. Suits. They knew what I did. They were still chasing others. They were "survivors" too.

It was Jilton's fault. It was Ash's fault. Whoever the f**k the Director was, it was their fault, too.

Darby tapped Mint's shoulder, causing them to tap. Darby had been reading through the notebook, through everything I had written to Jilton in conversation. Now at least they'd know part of my end.

"They met someone, Mint," Darby said. "They must've met some sod after they fell. Everything here is banter. Friendly looking, too." They looked at me, plainly saw my seething rage at the mention of Jilton being "friendly-looking," and motioned to me. "Tango... Who'd you meet after you plummeted?"

I requested the notebook, and they slid it to me. Anxiously, I wrote down, still uncomfortable about the whole experience.

their name was jilton. they betrayed me and i was stupid and

I grunted, stopped writing, and dismally showed them what I'd written. Darby seemed to show pity.

"Aye... You look roughed up. You don't remember anything, do you?"

I pounded the floor and furiously shook my head. I'd figure the answer to that would've been really goddamned obvious by now. Darby sighed.

"Welp, we're your mates, Tango. You met me not long after dodging the Suits. We ended up in a wrong room, you turned to a f*****g spaz, then you hurled yourself into a pit. We followed but the staircase didn't even connect to a goddamned ground. Just hung in the darkness, and we couldn't see you at the bottom. We thought you'd legitimately killed yourself, mate, but..."

Mint smiled brightly. "I knew you'd survived and just run off! I told you they did, Darby!"

"I feared the worst, mate. I really did." They looked at me closer, and I withdrew a little. "You must've hit your head something fierce if you've got another bout of amnesia on top of what you've already got..."

I sighed. Mint knew I had a key. They referred to me by a name that seemed completely normal to them. The circumstance they were describing didn't seem made up. I was wrestling between telling them to piss off and just picking up from where I'd apparently left off. This was significant. I slowly took the notebook and wrote another question.

do you know anything by the name of 'red clover?'

Mint and Darby exchanged a confused glance. "No...?" Mint said, confused. "Red Clover? What is that? Did you-"

I silenced them with a finger and wrote.

they're controlling the suits. jilton was part of them and there were others and a 'director'

Darby seemed confused. "Director... You mean someone's behind all this?"

I furiously nodded. Darby scratched their chin in consideration. "Damn. We're being played like f*****g puppets then. No way I want to be a part of this bleeding puppet show. Mint, what about-"

Mint had stopped talking. Their gaze was empty and on the elevator behind us.

Me and Darby looked where they were. Nothing there. The elevator was still closed and there was nothing of note. Mint started to mumble.

"Red Clover... Red Clover... Red... Red Clover!" they exclaimed, suddenly. "I'm... I'm getting a few memories back!"

I leaped up and mouthed "what?" in some sort of excitement.

Mint clutched their hand and shut their eyes, straining their mind. "They're fuzzy, they're fuzzy!... Red four-leaved clover, men in suits..." They stopped. "Courtyard."

What?

Darby leaned in. "The hell you talking about, Mint?"

Mint got anxious. "I-I'm getting an image of a courtyard... Red clovers everywhere. There's some sort of tree in the center and..." They groaned. "God, it's something really important! That's what I'm feeling!" They looked me. "Tango, you mentioned something about a yard once to me, right?"

Phantom, yard, seven. Yard. Courtyard.

I nodded.

Mint breathed in. "I think I know what that word means now. It's something really, really, really important to Paradise as a whole. I don't know the meaning of it but Red Clover wants to use it for something. That's all I can remember. It's in shambles and it feels like there's pieces missing and it's just... urgh!" They pounded their head in irritation. "It's so... distant!"

Relatable. Very relatable.

I wrote in the notebook again.

red clover's hunting down other runaways with the suits, one of them called me a 'survivor' and i think they want us for something

"It must relate to the Courtyard. I can feel it... It's all meant for something and it revolves around that place, wherever or whatever it is!"

I nod. Darby stepped up. "Hang on. What the hell is Red Clover again?"

I wrote.

the weird f***s keeping us trapped here!

Darby bit their lip. "Goody. Now we've got someone to fight against."

I nodded and wrote something as Mint continued to concentrate on their new breakthrough. Random memory spikes sure seemed to be convenient among us amnesiacs.

they're watching us die and collecting the survivors for some reason, that's all i know

Darby smirked. "And you met some of these wankers?"

I nodded.

"Then we know who were gonna be getting our answers from," Darby said. "f**k the Suits. I'm getting answers and I'm getting out of this shithole no matter what it takes."

No matter what it takes.

In Jilton's case, "no matter what it takes" was joining with the enemy and killing innocents. Regardless, I'd butcher Red Clover if it meant getting out. From everything I knew, they completely deserved it.

Mint looked at us. "We want to get to the top floor, right? That's probably where the Courtyard and maybe the Director are!"

Darby nodded. "That's still the plan. Nothing's changed. Let's hope the rooms don't change on us again – and I motherfucking hope we don't enter a Mad Room."

Foreshadowing?

I still had trust issues. I still had hang-ups. Not everything was clear and I was still suspicious of the fact it was these strangers who had apparently helped me break out the first time. Still, I reasoned there wasn't much point to conducting an elaborate lie.

What about Jilton's lie?

I forced myself to brush off the matter. If they led me into another Red Clover trap, I promised myself I'd kill them. I wasn't letting anything else get the better of me ever again.

I'd feel stupid over this whole debacle for a while to come, I could tell.

Darby's gaze went to me. "So, you all set to rejoin us, lad? Or do you need some time to temper your wounded noggin a bit? Cranial anal ain't the best way to bugger yourself, kiddo." Darby erupted into hysterical laughter at their own joke. It flew completely over my head and apparently over Mint's, too, and we shared a look on confusion. I quietly signaled to the elevator.

Darby gazed to the elevator. "Aye, that's mighty handy. We ain't got a moment to lose, chaps. Let's go."

Mint roger-rogered, and looked at me. Without warning, they suddenly tightly embraced me.

"I'm thankful you're still alive, Tango. I didn't want you to die. If it hadn't been for you, the Suits probably would've..." They stopped. "I don't want to think about it. Thank you, Tango."

I didn't know how to feel. Harsh reminders of Ash's molestation and a genuine feeling of warmth and comfort mixed in me and distilled into a smoothie of "help me." I didn't resist, though, and Mint eventually let me go. Sheltering my slight blush, I stood up, put away the Key and my notebook, and went off to the elevator. Darby, ahead of us both, tapped the button to open the door. It did so immediately and Darby jumped back a bit upon seeing the dead Suit sprawled in the elevator. Mint screamed a bit and I just silently giggled. The Suit's mask and head had been very thoroughly pancaked by the elevator doors. Fragments of the mask littered the inside of the elevator's door frame and a sticky gray substance which I presumed was the Suit's blood stuck to the doors like dried-out chewing gum.

"Christ!" Darby shouted. Their shout turned to an unsteady but genuine laugh. "You killed a Suit? Nice, mate! That explains the goddamned scissors!"

I tried not to think of the Suits furiously pounding on the elevator door. I thought of stabbing the Suit repeatedly with its own scissors, and that gave me a feeling of sweet, sweet catharsis.

Darby stepped in and I followed. Mint looked at the corpse, utterly revolted and mumbling "ew" over and over, and made special care not to step in the muck that once apparently comprised its head. Mint stepped to the corner farthest from the Suit's corpse, and the doors slid shut as soon as everyone entered, once again closing on the remains of the Suit's head with a small squelching noise. Darby scratched their neck as the overlooked the button. I looked at the button marking "19," tapped it, and then furiously shook my head at Darby to indicate going there was literal suicide. They caught the hint.

"19's off, then. Where else can we go that won't attract attention?" They pondered, then shrugged. "This'll do."

They tapped the button numbered 13. The elevator shook a little and gave a familiar ding!. Once more, "That's the Way I Like It" – the title of the song, as I'd only now finally pieced together from the lyrics – started.

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

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

I was tapping my foot to the beat and smiling while listening to it. This conspicuous change of behavior didn't go unnoticed by Mint, who briefly took their eyes off the dead Suit to stare at me, seemingly astounded.

"What're you doing, Tango?" they asked, laughing. "Last time you heard this saying, you had a freak out and tried to kill yourself shortly after!"

I shrugged, still smiling. I felt, and knew for a fact, that I'd hated the song. Listening to it for the eight-hundredth time (as it had a tendency to play through my mind all the bloody time) and I was actually starting to genuinely, openly enjoy it. I reached out into my pocket and plucked out Sam. He was as happy as ever, his beaked, colorful smile wide and seeming ever wider at having been taken from the darkness of my pocket. I moved him along to the beat, and pretty soon me, Mint, and Sam were all smiling widely and moving our heads to the beat.

When I get to be in your arms... When we're all, all alone

When you whisper sweet in my ear... When you turn, turn me on!

I imagined Sam singing the lyrics. That made me grin even wider.

Darby was staring at us incredulously. "You're a bunch of f*****g dorks," they said, masking a smile of their own.

The music fizzed out again as the elevator came to a gentle stop at the 13th floor. The doors parted open, and to my absolute relief, the sight that beheld us was finally something half-normal.

The weirdly-pleasant scent of grocery store meat and croissants filled my nostrils, and, lo and behold, what appeared to be a generic grocery store of no particular retailer was revealed. The air was cold, but in a strangely soothing way, as if being inside a mildly-chilled refrigerator or a cool pool of water. The atmosphere was ever-so-vaguely nostalgic. We stepped onto the sleek, tiled white floors and looked around. Nobody else was around and there didn't seem any evidence of anyone ever having been around. The vacancy wasn't unnerving, for once; we had each other, the place was well-lit, and there was nothing inherently hostile about the store's bland but inviting decoration. We walked in. The closest aisle to us had been rowed with various brand-name detergents. Why we'd need that was beyond me.

Darby looked around. "This I remember. Much better. Much, much better." They looked at me and Mint. "You guys wanna go get some grub? There ain't a single bloody cashier in this place and none of us got any cash, so it's free picking. Just imagine it's a zombie apocalypse and we're survivalists, if that'll motivate you. Capiche?"

Food. Refreshments. Free picking. Those words gave me joy – the most I'd had to eat was everything I'd had back at Jilton's. I didn't think I'd be able to eat a kiwi again without being reminded of them, but other fruits were fair game. I had a craving for sweet things.

I also had a craving to go to the f*****g bathroom. Maybe actually wash up a little. There likely wouldn't be another opportunity like this again and no way I was shitting in the halls.

Mint said something I couldn't hear to Darby through the distraction of my own inner thoughts, then without warning they came up to me whilst Darby walked off and vanished behind a food aisle not far up ahead. Mint seemed happy.

"So?" they said, apparently expecting something out of me. "What should we do first?" I shuffled in place and gave a half-formed shrug in response. "Well," Mint begun, "I'm hungry. I haven't had anything to eat since you broke me out and I want something a little more flavorful than the slop the Suits gave me." I motioned I was on board with that idea and Mint clapped, happy. "Alright!" they exclaimed.

They started off towards some random aisle and I found myself compelled to follow. "By the way," Mint said as they walked, suddenly and causing me to jump a little, "I know you, like... might have some trust issues after what happened with Jilton."

That was basically the most to-the-point way of expressing what I was thinking, yeah.

Mint turned their head to look back at me, a reassuring smile on their face. "I wanna reestablish our trust as soon as possible, Tango. If I'm doing something that's cheesing you off, don't hesitate to let me know!"

I looked into Mint's red, pigment-lacking eyes. I couldn't bring myself to not like Mint. They seemed so utterly undemanding, so stupidly, unceasingly cheerful. The only signals I could get from them were a desire for companionship and acceptance. Maybe it was a deception of an even greater tailor than Jilton's.

Maybe I was just overanalyzing things and this happy-go-lucky albino kid just wanted to be my friend again.

I gave Mint an appreciative smile in response. We turned into an aisle. The only thing rowing the shelves were sweets – soda, candies, bags of chips and chocolates. Cans and packages of soda in six-packs and twelve-packs and colorful, eye-catching wrapping all around. Apparently Mint had something of a sweet tooth. I gazed around as Mint flipped out and started piling things into their hands. One part of me wanted something a little more wholesome. But sugary things had a sort of subtle, innate power over your desires. They allured you with the garish packaging they came in, deceived you into trying them "just once," then promptly addicted you. Once you popped, you couldn't stop.

A few seconds of wandering around later, Mint called out to me and ran back. Their arms had become a nest to carry the laundry list of sugary garbage they'd taken. Chips, bottles of root beer, candies – a fuckton of Kit-Kats, to be specific – and chocolate already around their lips, which were curled into a large smile.

Dignified.

"Everything here's great!" they exclaimed with an excited, child-like innocence I could only dream of. With no restrictions on what sweets they couldn't shove into their mouth, this really was Paradise for them, wasn't it?

I simpered as Mint piled everything they'd taken and immediately opened one of the three bottles of root beer they'd snagged, guzzling it with immense relish. They downed half the bottle in about three seconds, then looked at me, the root beer foam still drizzling down their mouth.

"You gonna get anything, Tango?" they innocently asked. I thought over things for a moment.

Toucan Sam.

Oh yes oh yes oh yes

I knew exactly what I wanted now. I put up my hand and signaled for Mint to stay put. They nodded, the bottle back in their mouth. I immediately rushed out of the aisle, ran past product after product, and finally stopped at one in particular.

The cereal aisle. The colorful, quick breakfast of many an eager elementary child in the morning before school. Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies, Sugar Crisp, a battered porn magazine cleverly stashed underneath a box of Count Chocula-

What?

I took the magazine, the corner of one page wrinkled and stained with a substance I don't think I wanted to identify, and peered through one eye at the over-sized, ugly font accompanying one lewd picture.

hot horse on horse action

Yup. That was enough for me.

I tossed the magazine back in the shadowed crevice between the isles I'd picked it up from in revulsion. Still, it'd take a lot more than that to kill my appetite, and I hadn't been dissuaded for my quest for what I was looking for. I brushed my finger across the cereal boxes as I walked down the aisle and finally spotted what I was looking for.

Froot Loops. Dozens of boxes. Toucan Sam was everywhere. On some boxes, he was accompanied by his two nephews and his niece – I erroneously called them Huey, Dewey and Louie and left it at that – and he was smiling brightly in all of them, the multicolored bowl of Froot Loops pictured on each box. I took out Sam and showed him the boxes, almost as if I was showing him his long lost brothers. The smell of the cereal wafted out of the unopened boxes, and my hunger pang quickly took over.

I pocketed Sam, took the nearest box, and opened it. The trove of Froot Loops within was right at my grasp. Holding the box in my working hand, I bit open the plastic bag keeping them in, tipped the bag over my open mouth, and started wolfing down Froot Loops, not bothering with the milk or anything else. Froot Loops spilled everywhere, but I got as much as I could to satisfy me.

They were really f*****g good.

After a minute of shoveling Froot Loops down my mouth, I put the box to the side and looked down the aisle again. I wondered where Darby was; with any luck, Mint was still standing where they were with the sweets to keep them company. I walked out of the aisle, intent on returning, and looked around the grocery store. I quietly wished I could call out, and hoped that wish would just magically come true and I'd be gifted the ability to talk. Still, when I tried to yell out, the only sound that came out of my throat was a faint wheeze that tasted like Froot Loops. I shrugged and went back to the candy aisle. To my relief, Mint was still there, gluttonously slurping down their fourth f*****g bottle of root beer. They evidently had a much bigger stomach than their small frame would suggest.

I walked up and Mint waved to me. "Hiya, again! You get what you want?"

I nodded, took out the notebook and pen, and wrote, placing the notebook on the aisle's shelf.

where's darby?

Mint shrugged and finished off the fourth bottle, tossing it carelessly to the side and robotically working at the lid of the fifth. "Dunno. Probably getting something themselves." They shouted, their voice echoing across the empty grocery store. "Darby! You there?"

No response.

Mint looked at me and shrugged. "Probably didn't hear me."

I anxiously tugged their sweater, put away the notebook, and signaled them to come with me. Mint seemed to pout a bit.

"B-But what about the rest of the treats?" they said.

I curled my lip and beckoned them. Without any other complaints, Mint left everything else, taking a bag of chips with them and the last bottle of root beer with them, and we went off to look for Darby.

We combed the entire grocery store. They weren't in the other aisles, or if they were, we missed them. They weren't in the empty cashier lanes. They weren't at the front of the store, which logically should've contained a wide-open sliding door but was instead conspicuously walled up. There was only two other doors we hadn't checked, and the only other doors we'd found on this floor that wasn't the elevator.

The bathrooms, marked male and female.

We approached the doors. Nothing was threatening or otherwise foreboding about going into the bathrooms. The only thing remotely foreboding is that I literally did not know which bathroom I would've preferred – if either. Mint seemed similarly confused.

"Huh. You think they might be in one of these?" they asked. I shrugged, gaze shifting from the mens' bathroom to the ladies', and back again. Mint tapped a finger against their chin and wiped away the remaining chocolate from their face.

"Which do you think they'd have go into?..." Mint asked. I glanced at them with a weird look, causing them to stumble back on what they'd said with a laugh. "I-I mean, not that it's, um, any of my business, but, like, I don't really know what you or they are... or what I am..."

So it was the same ambiguous situation with them. I thought things over. Every single person I'd met in Paradise so far had been androgynous. They didn't talk like guys or girls, they didn't look either gender, and there'd been no explicit confirmation as to what any of them had identified as – if anything, as I still wasn't clear on my own gender – until now. Mint exchanged a troublesome glance with me.

"You think that... like, means anything, Tango?" they asked, worried. "That's only part of it... I don't know how old I am, who I was, and only rudimentary knowledge of what I like and don't like..." They seemed to be in deep thought. "We're all blanks here. I think before this all happened, before we lost our memory... someone tried to erase us as individuals."

Red Clover. The culprits were clear. The purpose wasn't. Why? What purpose would it achieve to destroy someone's individuality while still leaving them alive? Who were we before this had all happened? Once more, I felt a yearning for answers, and by the look on Mint's face, I knew they were feeling exactly what I was.

Unable to clearly express everything I was feeling in a tight amount of words in the notebook, I just kind of shrugged with the indication I was thinking about it as much as Mint was. They sighed.

"I just don't know. I want to know, though. I know you must as well." They looked to the female-marked bathroom. "Wanna take a leap of faith?"

No way I was splitting up. I nodded. Mint grinned and pushed open the door. We stepped inside, and our hearts sunk.

What we'd just obliviously entered was a Mad Room.

We went as cold as corpses. The lights were on and flashing, but they weren't casting light – they were casting shadow. The entire room was bathed in darkness that we could see through as transparently as light. It stung our eyes. It was physical pain. The ground was wet and mushy and started throbbing the moment we placed our feet on it, and a hellish blare of what sounded like radio static in the sound of some tortured, distorted voice screaming at us in a language we couldn't recognize ripped through our ears. Everything was shaking, violently.

The closest words I could use to describe the things we felt in this room would be to imagine yourself strapped down, your eyes forcefully peeled open, and a morbidly bright, blood-red light shining directly into your eyes at all time. All the while, the only things you can feel are your nails being ripped out, chainsaws revving up in your ears, hundreds of people screaming in hatred and abject rage, the feeling of some primeval, shapeless nightmare getting closer and closer, anticipating the moment it finally reaches you and does something horrible. Something you can't imagine because it is simply beyond the reach of human imagination. It was f*****g violation of the senses. It was fury, and pain, broken teeth, bags of rotted flesh beating against the wall, gunfire, splintering bones, drills in kneecaps and the slaughter of animals, burning fire and savage r**e, every unpleasant sensation and unknown fear man had ever known and yet to discover.

We felt that all in a goddamned second. Mint was already starting to scream. They'd turned back and opened the door, but just like in the Slaughterhouse, the grocery store had vanished. The only thing we saw within was more of the Mad Room. They were cubed rooms, or at least they were trying to be cubed, trying to form shapes you could walk into. There were things in the corners of the room, shuffling, collapsing and reforming, trying to attain solid matter but utterly failing. I wasn't sure it if was a trick on the eyes or if it was real. Something told me it was both; some half-formed thought somehow having been driven out of someone's mind and trying desperately to attain physical form but failing wretchedly. Mint immediately huddled to me, and the resultant desire to protect them was the only thing I felt that wasn't screaming at me and trying to drive me off the edge.

"Oh, G-God, what... w-w-where are we, T-Tango!?" they cried. "Is this... I-Is this a Mad Room?"

I nodded. Terror wasn't an apt description of the fear I felt right now. The distorted roar in our ears turned into some vile moan, coupled along the splaying of raw flesh and blood across the ground and something or someone furiously chewing on something. I closed the door in panic, and opened it again, fruitlessly hoping that'd absolve the situation.

It was a new part of the Mad Room, but like hell it was the grocery store. I repeatedly just opened and closed the door while Mint devolved to frantic sobs in my chest. I didn't want to move. I couldn't move. Is this what Darby had somehow managed to escape from? Where they even f*****g sane anymore!? I threw the door open, spat, and looked behind me, holding tightly onto Mint.

Something. Some thing had formed in the room behind us from the bleeding crevices of the Mad Room, something wriggling and shapeless, ever-forming, black as pitch, deep as a canyon, struggling to live and existing through pain alone. It didn't look like anything except the formless beads of darkness in the corner of a paranoiac's eye, just splotches of dark matter attempting to take some semblance of a physical form and twisting reality into multiple dimensions around it. There wasn't a word or sign or feeling ugly enough to describe it. It reared over to me just before my own mind broke from trying to understand how such a thing could exist anywhere, and touched me.

I opened my eyes and peered into my own mind.

In one instant, I can see the world through alien eyes. The collapse and fall of a civilization. Trillions and trillions of lives born and snuffed out in a second. The pits of the universe and everything that lied beyond.

There's something on the other side. In this instantaneous moment of clarity, I understand it and translate it into human terms. The Mad Room is a part of our reality sinking into the in-between of our reality and another world, the only thing keeping out that something on the other side. A thin, paper mesh between our world and a non-world that is slowly decaying.

The something wants inside.

Mint is still clutching onto me. I lose consciousness. I dream of nothing but psychotic laughter and car accidents for the next twelve hours.