In the Land of Lost Toys - Part I

In the Land of Lost Toys

Part I

It will be very dark, and very cold, and for a long time, you will have no idea where you are. Stuck in the purgatory of the unconscious, you will float in nothing for far too long, and as you do, you will feel like something is being taken from you. It won’t be until later that you will realize just what it is that is missing.

But slowly, gradually, a gradient of gray will creep over your vision, and sensation will make itself known. Something is hard beneath you, and it will be this solidity that grounds you enough to remember that you exist.

Whoever “you” are, because with a sickening sinking of your heart, you will realize that this knowledge has been lost to you. You will open your eyes, disturbed by this development. Perhaps a glimpse at your surroundings will give you a clue?

But as you blearily gaze around, you will see that they do not. The cold, stone-walled cell is entirely unfamiliar. It is half-dilapidated, the places where the ancient stone has collapsed reinforced with what appears to be iron bars. The entire, small cell is being encroached upon by moss, vines, and other greenery, but while a certain dampness pervades the air, the hard-packed dirt remains remarkably dry.

You will discover via the rather open-air nature of the cell that you are somewhere above ground, but the pervasive flora will prevent you from learning more.

Frustratingly, the entire rough cube will feel entirely unfamiliar. In fact, even the very air itself will seem strange and alien. You do not know what the air is supposed to feel like, but this is certainly not it.

It is only now that you will notice the dull, throbbing ache of your head, and the sandpaper consistency of your tongue. Just how long have you been here? Like every question that has come to your mind, the answer will be that “you do not know.”

Perhaps someone will appear and explain it to you, but though you have lost yourself, you will understand that you are not a very passive person. You simply do not feel like waiting to see. Your first step will instead be to find a way out of this place.

This will not go well. Though the cell looks like it could crumble at any moment, the stone holds firm, and the bars even more so. You will pull at them, and twist them. You will even consider biting them. But in place they will remain.

Kicking at the stone will have little effect as well. The walls are far thicker than they appear.

Ultimately, it seems a lost cause, and it will appear the only solution is to call for help, or at least someone to tell you what it going on. For a moment, you will hesitate. You have no idea what you will sound like. What if even that seems wrong? But you will berate yourself lightly. A pointless worry when you are rotting in a jail cell.

After taking in a long, slow breath, filling your lungs with calming—if foreign—oxygen, you will shout, and call for someone, ask if anyone is there. For a moment, you will bask in the euphoria of finally hearing something that sounds familiar and right, that it will take you longer than it should to realize that no one has responded.

You will call out several more times, your voice sounding thin and small against the densely overgrown walls. Perhaps that is why no one has heard you. It seems you are alone here. The thought will terrify you. It is horrifying to imagine dying alone slowly, without any memory even of who you are and how you came to be here. Maybe you have already been here so long that you’ve simply lost your memory as a defense mechanism.

The panic will start to overtake you. It will rise in your throat like burning bile. But you will bite it down, sit on a patch of moss, and try to think. It is too early to give up.

A small movement from above will catch your attention then, and looking up, it will appear that your cries have not been in vain after all. Through a small section of rusting bars on the ceiling, a face will stare down at you. Yet upon closer inspection, you will hesitate to speak. The eyes on that visage are a deep violet. You don’t know how, but you will understand that color is not one that humans tend to possess.

The two of you will stare at each other for a second too long. Something in those violet eyes will also seem to hesitate.

“So you are alive in there,” he will say finally. His voice is low and quiet. There is something calming about it. Though you will not understand his intentions, you’ll become positive that he does not intend to hurt you.

“Where is here?” you will ask, your voice hoarse. Another dozen or so questions will flood into your mouth, but you will bite them back, afraid of scaring the stranger away.

He will continue to stare at you, as if trying to decide what to say. “How much do you remember?” he will ask.

“Nothing. I can’t even remember my own name.”

“Where we are is a question that may take...a long time to answer.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

An odd expression will cross his face then, and his eyes will dart behind him. “You might be, if you’re not already gone in the next few minutes.”

This will irritate you. You will wish that he would speak plainly. “Any advice?”

Somewhere to your side, you’ll hear a sudden metallic clang. Looking down, a small key will land in the dirt. For some reason, it will make you pause, but you will pick it up and stick it through the rusty lock on the door to your cell. It will be difficult from this angle, but eventually, you will succeed in opening it.

You will look back up at those eyes staring down at you. You do not know who they belong to, and you’re not sure you ever will. “Thank you,” you will whisper.

“Be careful,” he will intone. “He’ll be waiting for you.”

But before you can ask him who he means, he will be gone.

If you were in better circumstances, you would wonder just who your savior was, but your head will be so full of questions that it will have no room to consider it. The now open door awaits you.

Outside, it is absolutely silent. The air drips heavy with the dense vegetation. A thin walkway is lined with cells identical to your own. Yet you will notice that each one is empty. You are the only soul held within these walls.

The gaps in the walls and ceiling become fewer as you continue, and though the air felt heavy before, it will somehow become denser still, and you will gradually experience the heavy sensation of being underground, though you have not gone downwards at all.

Ahead of you, the termination of the prison will emerge from the growing gloom. A spiral staircase curls up and up into the darkness above. This is the bottom floor. It only goes in one direction, and this is the only way out. You will feel a small, yet persistent sense of foreboding.

You will climb up the dark shaft for a long time, going around and around until you’ve lost all conception of direction. Yet, despite your sojourn in the cell, you will find yourself fit and able. Your body will work just as you want it to.

You will find some comfort in that. Even if your mind remains a mystery to you, your body is under your command.

And your mind you will find endlessly frustrating. You will find yourself going in circles within as well as without, searching fruitlessly for something within the deep fog inside, anything, even a name. It will not feel as if it is concealed, simply hidden from you; it has been forcefully ripped out, leaving a torn hole behind it.

But as you continue to climb, you will wonder if maybe answers await you at the top of these endless stairs. Circling around again, you will notice a lightening up ahead, growing brighter with each step now. A little further, and the end will be in sight, with a large room beyond.

It is a grand hall of sorts, with sloped walls leading to an open air roof. And those walls almost seem to be made up of branches, dark, twisted lengths of wood all tangled up together to create a closed atrium. You will even see a few, purplish leaves peaking through the top.

Inexplicably, the floor beneath your feet with be spotless marble, and it will echo sharply off the wooden walls as you take your first few tentative steps outside of the stairwell.

The room is otherwise empty. This is not a space for living in, but for having. However, you will soon notice that your assertion was incorrect. The hall is not empty, not entirely.

Someone will be standing in the center, staring off into the distance. He will not notice you at first. Or rather, he will be trying not to. But you will approach, and he will turn his head to look at you.

The sight will make you dizzy. You know this man, know that morose expression on his almost delicate features. But still the where and who and how are missing, snipped clean from your mind.

He will know you too, it seems, for he will meet your gaze with that look of profound despair. His irises are so dark that they look black, leaving his eyes as two empty pits. You will struggle to look him in the eye, for fear of falling into them.

“You’re awake,” he will say, and a deep silence will fall across the room.

You will struggle, but still, you will not be able to place him. “I’m sorry, I…”

“I know,” he will say. “You don’t know who I am.” Up until this moment he has stood stock still, but now one of his arms will suddenly jerk. Instinctively, you will back up a step. “I’m sorry,” he will frown. “We don’t have much time.”

“Who are you?” Later, you will regret your choice of question. But it is the only thought that you can formulate into words.

He will smile at that, just a twitch at the corners of his lips. “Even with no memories, you’re still more worried about me than yourself. We… knew each other a long time ago.”

Something in the air has changed, like a cloud has fallen across the sun. Except that it has already been cloudy this entire time. It feels darker in this hall, the shadows deepen. The man will seem to notice as well. He will glance around with those dark eyes, as if seeing something you are not.

“Do you know?” you will ask, feeling the sudden urgency. “Do you know what happened to me?”

His extremities will start twitching, just the tips of his fingers mostly. “Your memory has been crystallized, scattered.”

“How?” you will ask. “Who did this? Was it you?” You will begin hearing a high-pitched ringing sound. And the shadows will start to lengthen. The room is very dark now.

“If you don’t run,” his voice will sound strained, “you’ll meet him soon.”

“Run?” you will ask incredulously. “I don’t even know where we are. Where’s there to run? And what about you?”

His eyes will close, and you will wonder if he is in pain. “I… I can’t…”

“I don’t know how, but I think you’re important to me,” you will insist. “Take my hand.”

When he does not, you will lunge forward to grab it anyway. But as soon as you do, fireworks will flash behind your eyes and you will be unsure if what you’re seeing is real. It is pitch black, the air is heavy. His eyes weren’t always that color, as they stare at you, unsure.

Yet you will be pulled back as he jerks his hand away. You will have no idea if the action was voluntary.

Because something is wrong. The faint shadow at his feet—too long, too deep—will begin to squirm and bubble and ooze, and his head will lull.

“Please,” he will whisper, and you will gasp as you suddenly see that attached to his arms are pieces of long, thick string that seem to lead directly back to that shadow. “Please, for once, just run.”

You will hesitate. Not because you’re not afraid. Because you are. You will feel like you are going to lose him again, though you can’t remember the first time at all.

“You don’t listen very well, do you?”

That voice did not come from the man, who will increasingly resemble a puppet on strings. Rather, you will swear that it emerged from that bubbling, morphing shadow behind him. It will freeze you in place, that voice. You do not know anything, but you know that voice.

That shadow will begin to creep up the man’s legs, up to his torso. You will realize that it is too late for him. It probably already was.

You can’t save him now, not as confused and weak as you are. There’s only one thing you can do.

“I’m sorry,” you will whisper, and as you vow to yourself that you won’t leave him to this horrific fate, that you will find a way back to him, you will turn around and run.

The shadows will follow you, creeping along the walls and floors, tendrils grabbing at your ankles. One will manage a grip, and it will leave a burn behind as you shake it off.

Ahead of you, you will see the light of the sky, getting closer and closer. But as you clear the threshold of the open arch, your heart will sink. All you can see for a moment is sky, stretching out and around you. You are somewhere very high up. Far, far below you, so far that it appears murky and indistinct, is the ground.

And yet, the shadows will approach, unimpeded by the cloudy day. Your ankle will burn. If they reach you, you will die. Certain death at the hands of the unspeakable, or maybe the slimmest chance that something might catch your fall. And if you’re doomed to die anyway, you’d prefer it to be painless and instant.

You will not give yourself time to think about it. You will dash to the end of the platform and heave yourself over the railing.

The gray sky will fly past, and it is now that you will second-guess your actions. For now you will see the ground getting closer and closer, and you are falling all alone. Before you close you eyes, accepting you fate and failure, you will notice a small shape above you, also getting closer and closer.

And then someone’s arms will be around you. You are still falling, but you will hear him grunt with effort as that fall is slowed. Is it the man from above, using his puppet strings to pull you back? Finally, the wind pressure will lessen to the extent that you force your eyes back open.

A pair of dark, violet eyes meet your own. Above you, a singular, gray-feathered wing flaps against the air, slowing your descent. It matches his ash-colored hair that the wind is pushing back off of his face.

His body will tense as he attempts to expend your momentum. Below you, a lake will rapidly approach.

“Brace yourself,” he will mutter through gritted teeth.

You will hold your breath as the surface of the rough water rushes up to meet you. Despite his best efforts, the speed with which you hit the water will shock you.

Before you briefly lose consciousness, one thought will circle through your mind. This is the second time he’s saved you today.