Creature

An animalistic machine stands over the broken body of its creator. The creation turned on its master and beat him into a bloody pulp. The metallic monstrosity could not handle its own morbid shape and in a fit of murderous rage raised its heavy arms against its own maker. The machine beat and bashed its maker like only the vilest of sadists could. It tore the poor man’s skin and yanked his innards out; spraying the walls and the floor with the warm color of his red humor. The traitorous act of the machine resulted in a macabre painting made up of human organs all over the room’s surface.

The animalistic machine simply stood there; almost admiring its terrible handiwork to the sounds of its own internal workings.

*Beep Beep Beep*

Ethan walks inside a long and winding hall, seemingly endless; the passageway seems to go on forever. The floor and walls are colored black, everything is made up of black unevenly shaped bricks. Doors shaped in ways a man cannot properly put to words dot the walls on both sides and a menagerie of beautifully multi-colored lamps illuminate the hallway from above.

Ethan approaches a particularly bizarre door; he places his hand on the twisted handle and opens the door. The bright sun hits Ethan’s face irritating his scarred face causing him to grab it in presumed discomfort. He thinks he just flinched, but he’s not quite sure. As his skin gets used to the heat of the sun he notices, he is now standing in front of a hospital. As the people go in and out of the building, a particular man catches his attention; a man with graying hair wheeling some wheelchair-bound man. The wheeling man is smiling, speaking words in a hopeful tongue. Almost as if he’s trying to reassure the wheelchair-bound man that everything will be all right. Ethan knows that’s not possible however because the man in the chair looks to be in a terribly rough shape. He is all bandaged up; bloody bandages cover up half of his face. His legs seem to be gone, and he’s missing an arm. Ethan knows this is going to be a painful existence, but he muses to himself that his scars own aren’t as ugly as he thought they are after seeing the shape of this man. Once the two pass him by, Ethan walks out of the room and closes the door behind him.

He keeps on walking down the hall until he finds another peculiar door that sparks his interest.

He opens the oddly shaped door to find himself standing inside a shack, in it are a table, a chair, and a clock. Nothing more, nothing less. On the chair, a figure is seated, clothed head to toe in black garbs. Its face concealed by a theatrical mask with a neutral expression. The figure simply sits there, doing nothing, saying nothing. Unmoving, unchanging; unmovable, unchangeable. The clock turns incredibly fast; and accordingly, day turns to night in a matter of moments. This cycle repeats itself over and over as Ethan stands there watching the figure with a vested interest. A puff of vapor comes out of the masked figure as the day turns to night and vise-versa in the shack's window seemingly instantly. Ethan leaves the room and closes the door behind him.

He keeps on walking down the hallway until yet another strange door catches his attention; it appears to be moving; shifting, almost metamorphosing. There’s no handle Ethan can place his fingers on. He stands there for a moment, pondering what to do. Pushing the door open seems like a good idea. Thus, Ethan pushes the dancing mass out of which the door is comprised.

The door gives way under the pressure of his hand and Ethan finds himself in a beautiful park filled with trees and flowers. Families enjoy their time together and everyone seems overall happy.

Something’s wrong however; two figures are walking along the path that is crossing the whole park. One seems perfectly normal.

The other; something is wrong with it, something…

Is definitely wrong.

The metallic clunking out footwear is definitely out of place.

People are staring at the two figures.

Their faces twist into fear and disgust.

The figures just keep walking; engaged in a conversation Ethan doesn’t really comprehend. Their tongue. It’s not his. The figure with the heavy boots fleshes out its visage to Ethan who in turn runs out of the room in sheer terror slamming the shape-shifting door behind him.

Ethan is in such a rush to get out of the room that he doesn’t notice his own pushing his way into another room. Once he’s steadied his footing, he finds himself standing inside a darkened room. A figure is slumped across a table with empty booze bottles adorning the whole table and floor. The figure appears to be asleep, its face covered by an upside-down sad theatrical mask.

As Ethan looks around the room, he notices something; something truly unique.

Words forming all over one of the walls. The shrift is barely comprehensible; as if it’s being written hastily. It takes some effort but Ethan finally manages to decipher the terrible handwriting.

These are pained words.

Words filled with regret.

Words that are the internal screams of a broken soul.

These are the words of a fallen god.

Apologetic.

Begging.

Sorry.

Groveling.

Ethan finds the text to be amusing; he doesn’t even know why, but he finds himself laughing without restrained at each new passage that appears on the wall. Ethan finds himself rolling all over the floor, grabbing his sides as hysterical laughter becomes painful.

Having laughed a little too much, Ethan decides to leave the room before he suffocates, limping out of the room while his sides throb Ethan can’t help but chuckle a little more.

Once he closes the door, Ethan runs his hands across his smooth face, wiping away any joyful tears that have stained his cheeks.

He keeps on walking for a while without opening any doors. They all seem boring and uninspiring for a while. The lights above flicker in all sorts of color schemes making the hall seem like some funhouse.

Ethan simply keeps on walking.

Suddenly he spots a plain black door, for all its normalcy it is an oddity in such a strange place. Ethan grabs the black doorknob and twists it opening the door. A flash of light blinds him for a short moment.

When he comes to, he finds himself seated in a truck next to a figure he can make out the face of, nor the voice of. While he cannot understand the individual words the figure speaks, Ethan seems to understand the conversation as a whole. He engages in it, almost instinctively. He seems to enjoy the company of the unfamiliar-yet-familiar man beside him.

The road is clear.

They are going fifty miles per hour; intersection. Lights are green and there are no cars in sight.

Ethan and the driver keep on conversing as they make their way through the intersection.

A loud explosive noise cracks through the cabin; Ethan feels the truck shaking, then his body presses itself forward. Shards of glass fly everywhere as Ethan feels himself flying through the windshield. Ethan closes his eyes as the stabbing sensation travels across the periphery of his skin, before closing his eyes, Ethan notices a massive ball of crumpled metal slammed into the truck.

He opens his eyes to find out he is fine. He is laying on the floor outside of the room. He is completely fine, just a little shaken from the fall. The impact of the truck was so powerful it knocked him straight out of the room and back into the hallway. Lying on his stomach he looks back at the still open door, and he sees red balloons flying out of there. One balloon is labeled “heart” and the other “kidney”.

Ethan turns to his side and feels something poking at his rib cage, he looks down to find a door handle. He fell flat on top of a door in the floor, its shape once again almost inconceivable. The location of the door does not surprise him. The whole hall is abnormal. Ethan gets up his feet and pulls the door handle; only to discover that it is a sliding door.

Beneath the door is a downward spiraling staircase colored pure black while the space below is bright white.

Ethan descends the spiraling stairs until he finds himself in a room; it’s a pure white room. The whitest one can think of. In this room sit two figures on the floor, one is large, adult, and the other is small, a child. Both figures have white blank masks on, and they are wearing white clothes. The figures seem to be doing something rather normal.

They are playing with a doll of sorts; assembling it.

A robot.

Something about the whole situation irritates Ethan.

He watches the two of them assemble the robot toy. They seem happy, like a father and son. Ethan’s blood begins to turn hot. For no particular reason at all; just by watching the two play with their toy.

The more time passes; their masks change, the larger person’s mask gains a crudely drawn smiley face on it while the smaller person’s mask gets patches of red all while Ethan’s blood begins to boil.

The more time passes, the wider the smile on the larger person’s mask becomes and the redder the smaller person's mask becomes.

By the time the robot doll is fully assembled, Ethan is ready to blow up with anger and the larger person’s mask has a massive intricately detailed cartoonish smile on it while the smaller person’s mask is fully red.

Ethan sees the red paint flowing from underneath the smaller person’s mask, and he can no longer take it; he knows he must leave their company. He can feel himself shaking with rage. With no other option but going back up, Ethan angrily stomps his way up the staircase as the larger person is laughing in delight while the smaller person is playing with the fully assembled robot toy twisting its limbs imitating the sound of functioning gears.

*Tlk Tlk Tlk*

A mechanical animal is standing over the broken and battered carcass of its captor. No matter how many metal scraps are placed on an animal. No matter the number of prosthetics or modifications, an animal is still an animal. If the animal is denied its freedom, the animal will bite and claw its way back to freedom. The mechanical animal was condemned to a life it did not want, and for this, the mechanical animal tore its way through its captor’s squishy abdominal dermis and muscles. It yanked out his intestines only to randomly toss them all over the room in a fit of feverish hatred.

The violent disembowelment of its captor; to the mechanical animal is the ultimate expression of its freedom.