From Heaven's Door

Chapter 5

IV

My heart skipped a beat. I think Mint's did, too, because they went so pale I swore I could see through them.

"T-The others? What others!?" they asked, their tone increasingly frantic.

Darby tapped them on the shoulder to calm them down. "Hush, hush. You survived. If you dodged those f***s – I guess I'll call them the bleeding Suits – you're lucky and I owe you an explanation."

Mint just tottered back and sat down, apparently too shocked to stand. I exchanged a glance with Darby, and they motioned for me to sit down as well.

"I can't give you many answers, but I can lay what I think are the basics down on you. This place is actually an acronym: P.A.R.A.D.I.S.E. Now, what that stands for I have no f*****g clue, but it goes on at least thirty stories up and down and has absolutely no constant to the layout, whatsoever. It's an architect's nightmare; from what I've seen, every section of Paradise is different from the other. Some parts are fashioned after everyday, local locations. s**t like the hospital, the laundromat, generic eateries, theaters – anything you can think of. There's a butcher's shop next to the clinic a few floors up, for Christ's sake. Now, that's weird and all and I haven't the slightest of why it's designed that way, but there are some other rooms I've been keeping well and clear away from, and you'll want to as well. I call them the Mad Rooms."

Mint leaned in a little closer, as if Darby was telling a campfire story. "Why the ominous name?"

"Because the s**t that goes on in there is f*****g mad. I've only been in one of them, but it was bar none my worst experience here and that's where the Suits managed to get me. It's a hodgepodge of randomly-shifting rooms, doors that go nowhere, floors made of flesh, things trying from empty space... It's like an LSD-induced nightmare. That's just the outer rim. What lies in the deeper parts of the Mad Rooms I don't and never want to f*****g find out. That's why I've been keeping mainly to the areas I know."

Mint immediately barked out another question. "W-What about those other people you mentioned?"

Darby looked at Mint sternly. "Yes, yes, calm your t**s, I was getting there. When I first awoke, I was being kept in a goddamned cage in some rancid-ass cellar alongside twelve other unlucky bastards. Those chaps were my only company down there. The Suits came in every once in a while to feed us formless vittles. Nauseating s**t. They kept on mumbling about how they were prepping up something real fun-like for us, and every once in a while, they'd just come, take someone from their cage, leave, and they'd never come back. They were gone. Poof. I was stuck in that rat nest for days and days until eventually, I was the only one left – the unlucky thirteenth. I wasn't about to f*****g let myself go down, so I formulated a quick plan, slipped out of the Suits' grasp when they tried to take me, and made a mad dash. Luck did the rest and I've been figuring out the maze of this place ever since. I don't know what the hell's going on or why the Suits are taking people, but all I know is that I've seen evidence that my little group was far from the first."

As Mint was left speechless and I, once again, fought for something I wished I could say, Darby's voice cracked for the first time since they began speaking. "Broken cages. Footprints. Blood splotches. You're the first survivors I've seen since my escape – and now we're the lucky bastards trapped in this pit." They kicked at the ground. "The purpose of this place eludes me, but hell's anus I'm gonna bloody die in this shithole. I'm escaping this place, no matter what – and if you cute little fuckheads want any chance of getting your life back, you'll follow me."

Mint was immediate to stand back up, and took me by my hand and jolted me back up as well with a sudden rush of energy. "We'll do anything, Darby. I'm glad we found you."

Darby grinned. "I'm glad you found me, too." They then looked at me and scratched their chin. "You haven't said a peep since we met. You socially challenged or something?"

Mint chuckled awkwardly as I tapped my throat. "They can't talk. Try as they will and try as they might, no words come out of poor Tango's throat."

We all shared a good laugh as Darby patted my head. "Well, I'll be damned. One-armed mute and some fluffy-headed albino. If you gave me a million years, I'd never have figured out you'd be my eventual partners. Don't die on me; I sorta like you."

Mint gave a toothy grin. "So what are we gonna need to do to escape?" they asked.

"Simple on paper," Darby said. "I've pieced a few things together and my wager is that the escape's at the very top of this place. Suits are crawling all over the place, but if we're stealthy enough, we can avoid them with little trouble. The problem lies in that my map of this place still isn't complete, so once we pass where I was being kept, it's a blind run from thereon. I've been trying to get to a lower level to see if I can find out something more. I've had no luck, but there's always a chance we can stumble across something we hadn't before."

Mint nodded. "We haven't had much luck ourselves. We just got a few mostly irrelevant items. I think the most we got is Tango's key, there."

I stared at the the Key. The Key of Utmost Convenience was our ticket to victory. It would cut down the Suits. It would pierce through Paradise. It would lead us to Heaven itself, and all would hail the greatness of the Key of Utmost Convenience!

I blinked. Darby and Mint were staring at me in amusement and I realized I'd spaced out again.

Wonderful little habits of mine, I suppose they were. Also, f**k that.

"Aye there," Darby said. "There've been a few locked doors I've come across. Some you can just kick down. Others are a little more... airtight. This could be handy. God knows it'll save me some bloody legwork!" They chortled loudly, Mint sharing their laughter. "Aye, but seriously. Hang onto that," they told me, as if I needed second prompting to hold onto what had so far been the most useful f*****g thing I'd ever held.

Mint looked over Darby. "What about you? Do you have anything?"

Darby took their knife in hand and put a hand in the torn-up right breast pocket of their jacket, and pulled out a packet of sausages. It hadn't been opened yet and they, thankfully, looked fresh.

"Nothing but what I need to keep going on my own two feet!" they said. "Don't worry about food, lads. Kitchens and all that entails are right plentiful in these establishments. Don't expect much better than canned or plastic-wrapped food, though, unless you know how to cook. It's either that or eating the raw ingredients!"

Mint nodded. "Right. I'll go easy."

Darby laughed. "Nonsense, mate. You look as skinny as a wee lil' twig. Eat nice and eat lots to keep your strength up, because no way in hell I'm carrying you lugs."

The thought of actual, legitimate food was making my mouth water. It was something I suppose I was innately familiar with; though I knew all sorts of food, one sad part of my amnesia was that I'd forgotten how they tasted. This came with a flip side, though; it'd mean I'd be able to taste all the wonderful flavors for the first time again. If anything particularly motivated me to break out of Paradise, it was that.

I smiled to let Darby I was completely on board with anything they want me to do. They were my biggest chance at breakout, so as they said to me, I had no reason not to trust them. Plus, they'd give Mint someone to talk to, which gave me some pleasure.

Darby flashed a grin back. "You cocksuckers ready, then? There's an elevator not far from here."

Mint and I simultaneously nodded. "I'm ready to go!" Mint said with enthusiasm.

Darby solidly nodded. "Keep that vigor up, chap. You'll need it. Don't be particularly loud. Suits are everywhere and they'll f**k you in the ass when you least expect it. Follow me."

With no more hesitation, Darby turned and walked down the hallway. Forgetting about the stairs and all the other locked doors we'd already seen, we quietly and carefully followed them. I thought about the layout of this place. Would it be convenient to give these places names, or would they all come automatically? Was there a goddamned Starbucks in Paradise? A Costco? A McDonald's? The thought of Suits in the dorky little uniforms serving up fries and Big Macs took away some of the edge of their fright for me and prompted a small giggle, which caused Mint to look back at me with a strange expression on their face.

I realized that if I could talk, I'd never shut up. I thought to myself.

Miserable me. Where's a goddamned translator when you need one? Or, hell, maybe even a goddamned piece of paper and a pen? Or a f*****g mirror?

The last thought bugged me for a bit. I still didn't know or even remember what my own face looked like. It obviously wasn't anything too hideous, or Mint and Darby would probably have been freaking out. Was I cute? Tough? A gaunt wimp? Androgynous, like my two companions? Gender or s*x didn't really seem like much of a big deal here; Mint was completely indeterminable from a glance and Darby was too wrapped up with bandage to really discern from a glance, and neither really had much in the way of physical attributes to suggest anything. Either they were both woefully underdeveloped or they were twelve-year-olds.

Oh well. If I could live not even knowing what I was, I'm sure they could too, and perhaps the topic would come up later. Regardless, answers seemed on the inevitable horizon; what else was coming I didn't know. With the Suits prowling around and the enigmatic nature of this whole place, I both craved information and dreaded it.

The low rasp of filtered air blowing in from some unseen series of conditioners compounded the lonely atmosphere. Our footsteps echoed and our voices, when we spoke, were whispers. Paradise gave the feel of being impossibly vast and unpredictable. Behind each door was a surprise. Behind each corner was a twist. We were effectively ambling around in the dark with rudimentary knowledge of what we were doing. This place had to have been governed by something or someone. I reasoned with myself that even the most bizarre of facilities must have had a purpose, and surely the Suits were taking orders from some unseen presence. Alongside the implication of Paradise's massive scope, there was one other feeling that struck a dark chord in my heart and shivered my spine.

Something was watching. Something was always watching.

It was cliché and I knew it. But the vague, eternal presence always put me at unease even with Mint and Darby at my sides. It'd been there since I first woke up and it hadn't left since. It was just there. In the air. In the walls. On my back. Something.

Something.

I wondered if either Mint or Darby also felt it. It was a terrifying prospect that something unseen could be monitoring our every move. Maybe we'd find it. Maybe we wouldn't.

Maybe I was just a jumpy, paranoid little asshole. Thank God I couldn't talk or I'd be rambling about the matter and putting poor Mint on edge; they didn't deserve that after sticking by my side.

Darby led us through a few paths through the chalk-white complex of rooms. Left, right, right, left; each hall stretched on for a while and each was identical to each other. There was the occasional door or separately-breaching path we ignored in favor of Darby's route, but I had a lingering feeling we'd probably be coming back in some future context.

We stopped at the dead end of one hallway. A two-way, dusty metal door stood in front of us with a black panel with faded red numbers on it above it. This was the elevator.

Mint looked over the doors in curiosity. "Where does it lead?"

"Up and down," Darby replied simply. It goes as far up as ten floors and as far down as six. We don't want to go right up to the tenth floor, or even something like the sixth, through this."

Mint appeared concerned. "Why not?"

"Suits. Everywhere. They'll catch the noise. They'll notice the elevator and they'll rip us to shreds once we step out. Five floors and six floors up from here are crawling with Suits. Four floors up from here is as far as we can go without attracting attention; from there on, we'll have to hike the rest of the way up. Quietly."

Darby put a lot of emphasis on that last word. I looked over their wounds in dismay. They weren't kidding when they said the Suits had roughed them up. I could still see a subtle bloodstain on their sweater – nothing major, but still noticeable. I slowly nodded and assured myself that a grisly fate at the hands of those tux-wearing assholes would be the last thing to happen to me.

Maybe it would be the very last thing what would happen to me.

Darby slapped a button by the side of the elevator. The panel lit up, its lights flickering and half-dead, and the sound of some archaic metal behemoth apparently serving as our transport could be heard lowering down with a sad metal groan before the doors parted open with a faint ding!.

Darby stepped inside and beckoned us in. The elevator had a prominent spot of rust in the bottom left corner and one of the buttons on the floor panel had been ripped out, but it was otherwise more-or-less functional. It was alive enough to get us up, anyways.

"Sorry for the sordid state of this s**t-cruise, but it's the best we got," Darby said. They tapped a button with a faded number 4 on it, let the doors slide close with an uncomfortable grinding squeak, and stayed steady as the elevator suddenly jostled. A screeching, vague track started to play from some crappy in-built radio. It sounded as if it had been eaten by space for a second, but through a thick, static distortion, we could make out the tune of our song for the ride.

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

no

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

NO

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

I punched the door, slammed my head against the wall, and let out some half-formed, wheezing garble-scream before flipping off the elevator's ceiling with a fraught, boiling-mad facial expression. Darby and Mint had leaped back, and Darby looked at me in a mixture of confusion and naked amusement.

"You okay there, cadet?" they asked, coughing out a laugh, both from the ill-fitting funky music and my disproportionately violent response. "You seem a little... on edge."

I bared my teeth at them, belted out a series of mute, silent curses, collapsed at the side of the elevator, and started crying from my inability to properly express my rage. The song taunted me.

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!

The day I turn you on is the day I turn a knife into my neck and die. f**k you. f**k you. f**k you.

I still liked the song. As much as I wanted to absolutely deny it, my toes still tapped to the melody and I still repeated the words in my head even through my angry sobs. It would never leave. It would eat my sanity and spit it out like half-chewed taffy before doing a giggling little waltz on my carcass to the tune of that wretched disco funk.

Hate. Hate. Hate.

Say okay, that's the way, that's the way...

The elevator had already stopped and the music awkwardly buzzed out with the noise of what sounded like the radio giving gas. Shitting all over my hopes to escape this place with my sanity. Darby was still stifling laughs even as the doors peeled open and Mint was sort of just looking at me with an abject pity. I got up, twitched a little, wiped away my tears – which only made Darby laugh a little harder – then took a step out to whatever the next section of Paradise's ass was.

A rancid, rotting smell pierced my nose and I immediately pulled my shirt over my noise in revolt. Mint did much the same.

"E-Ew!" they exclaimed. "What is that!?"

Darby strode into the room, what could be seen of their face utterly lit with the expression of terror. "This... This ain't the f*****g room I came through," they stuttered in disbelief.

My gaze drifted to a sign hanging by rotted metallic chains from the ceiling above, the sign itself half-eaten by age and rust but the words still decipherable. What I read next killed my soul a little.

WELCOME TO THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE

My gut turned a little. Slaughterhouse? Why the f**k would this place need a slaughterhouse? What twisted shithead owned this place?

Even by the standards of the first filthy room I woke up in, this was absolutely horrible. The room was wide and the pens where I suppose animals would've been kept layered the sides of the room. The floor, formerly some shade of gray, was now a pale, swamp-green stained with literal s**t and piss and God-knows what other substances, tiles broken and cracked. Black mold festered in the closest corner of the walls, the lights above had broken, and the pens were broken apart and decayed. It's like we had wandered onto the set of a f*****g horror game. My nose was burning with the smell of blood. My eyes were watering from the sting of the sharp air. My tongue was dry and hot from the acerbic dirt particles in the air, my ears were ringing with the sounds of some primeval ambiance, and the only thing I could feel was just simple pain. A single, rotted-over path beside the pens extended straight forth into another room, to our left a bar looped with dangling hooks and tubs where blood would be collected. Everything was pungent with the smell of rust and decay. Everything was wrong. This wasn't Paradise. This wasn't Purgatory. This was f*****g Hell.

Darby took a few steps forwards, gazing around the Slaughterhouse. "This... This isn't the f*****g room I came from. I-It changed. It was just a f*****g ordinary butchery when I came through here!..."

Mint's eyes were already starting to tear up. "W-What is this place!? D-Darby!"

I couldn't believe my goddamned eyes. For animals or not, the Slaughterhouse had clearly been long abandoned – if it was ever used in the first place. We'd wandered somewhere we weren't meant to go.

"Darby!" Mint continued.

Darby finally turned to Mint and snapped. "I don't f*****g know what this place is! It changed on me! The rooms changed! They've never done this before!" they roared in an abrupt, iron voice. Mint slunk back from the suddenness of Darby's response and their eyes grew even wetter with tears, and Darby immediately seemed to express some form of remorse.

I ambled about aimlessly. It stunk of death and rotted meat. It r***d my senses. As I wandered a little too close to the pens, Darby took me by the shoulder and furiously shook their head.

"We're not going through this hellhole," they said in a dead-serious. "We're going down, piecing together what the hell went wrong, and going by foot. This wasn't meant to happen."

I just quietly nodded. I was too confused and too taken off-guard to think properly right now.

Darby wandered to the elevator and hit the mold-covered button. It was a miracle the elevator had even been able to stop here; the black panel numbering the current floor had literally been smashed in. Darby waited impatiently.

The elevator didn't come.

They tapped the button again. Again. Again. No sound. No signal the elevator was coming. The Slaughterhouse wasn't letting us leave. In fury, Darby just kicked and pried at the metal doors and tried to force them open. After some angry bursts of energy, they wrenched the double-door apart.

The only thing there was a miserable, empty shaft. The elevator had never been there to begin with.

Darby backed away from the elevator shaft. Mint was hyperventilating. My entire mind was on fire. I was perplexed, I was terrified, and I didn't know how to react to this. I went back into my mind again.

Phantom yard seven phantom yard seven phantom yard phantom seven yard yard seven YARD SEVEN SEVEN SEVEN SEVEN SEVEN

I looked to the room ahead.

The doorway above it, covered in a fog of shadow, was marked with a large, decayed orange "7."

Instinct took over. I don't really know if I was thinking anymore, but I just darted and ran to the room. Relevance. Something that connected. Mint and Darby shrieked behind me, something to the effect of "wait" and "no," but they no longer mattered to me in this instant. I passed through room 7 and found myself in a stairwell, the rickety metal stairs spiraling into a maw of impenetrable, incomprehensible shadow below and the arm-rails rusted over into frail metal twigs.

I could hear Mint and Darby's footsteps plodding after me, but my mind had simply decided to focus on the one thing that captivated me right now. Everything else was a muted blur.

I'm sane. I'm insane. I know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. I want to be free.

I want to stay here forever.

I vaulted over the stairs and plunged into the abyss.