The Desolate Guardians

by Matt Dymerski

  Chapter Six

  I scanned quickly through my messages. I had more than I could handle. Apparently, a great many people out there were facing dangers beyond mundane comprehension? and a great many people simply had active imaginations. It was my task to pick out the ones I thought were true and serious, and try to help.

  First up for the evening was a guy near the outer shell.

  Hey man, I read your stories, and I had a question for you. I found a pen knife out in the woods, stuck in the side of a cliff. I pulled it out, and I think it can cut through anything. Have you ever heard of anything like this? I'm really scared to tell anyone I have it, cause it's so weird. I heard something out in the woods, too? I think somebody might be looking for it.

  I considered his question, but a search brought up nothing. He didn't seem to be in immediate danger, and I had no way of knowing the strange object was real, so I moved on after noting the location and reality from which the message originated.

  nice story, man. You must be on some pretty good stuff. Remember that one story about red pills that turned you into a vampire or something? That was my favorite

  Alright? I did remember that story. Was this a hint at something? Or just a random message? I decided to move on again.

  I really don't like what I've read here, the message said. I have a feeling I'm about to get sucked back in no matter how hard I resist.

  I immediately knew this person was something special. I wrote back: "Into what?"

  I've been running into these things my whole life.

  I checked - whoever it was, they were on one of the rare intact worlds on the outer shell itself.

  I don't know if I make things happen, or just sense them, but I can literally seek them out and find them. The fear runs like threads through my awareness.

  That sounded like a very useful ability. Researching more, his world seemed more or less functional socially. Somehow or another, he'd avoided the fate that had befallen so many of the other outer shell worlds. Did his experiences have something to do with that? I asked: "Can you tell me more?"

  He simply linked me to stories he'd already written about his experiences.

  I scanned through them, intrigued. I'd seen them before, but it was strange to read them with a new understanding that they'd actually happened. "So you're really a horror writer?"

  You've already read my stories? he responded. But, yes. It was only natural, given the background I have to work with. I try to stay aware of what's going on, and something is very wrong with the world.

  "Yes, more than you know," I told him, sending him a map of the situation and all the information at my disposal. I was sure it would be some time before he digested it all and responded.

  As I began to move to the next message, an alert popped up, notifying me that the proximity systems had detected someone entering the building.

  Suddenly torn from my coordination efforts, I raced through all the files and feeds at my disposal. Who was in the building? How had they gotten here? I found a security camera, and saw a dozen humanoid forms moving through darkness.

  As they moved under a red EXIT sign, I saw them more clearly.

  They were the children I'd seen, briefly, on my friend's headset camera.

  They were the ones she'd had to leave behind.

  What were they doing here? Were they here to exact revenge for my role in her disappearance? They were armed?

  No, that didn't seem right. They were a bunch of kids, and a few teenagers. The oldest boy led at the front, a baseball bat in hand. It occurred to me that they wouldn't know anything about her disappearance. To them, she'd just never come back.

  But how had they found me? I thought it over? the dead sentient flame, speaking through the book, had said that one of those people was nearby, and then my friend had said the people we'd found trapped on the plant-God planet were beings of light disguised as humans. They'd sensed my activities on the computer. If she had one of them as an ally, had that ally followed my interactions with her to? here?

  That must have been it. Whoever it was, my signals to her had been a beacon, and they were coming to look for their protector.

  The eldest boy began hitting something that had been lying in the hall, and I stared at the security camera stream.

  My head hurt briefly, and my vision flickered. How long had I been working? I felt floaty and exhausted.

  If they were here, that meant they'd come through a portal. Was it still open? Of course it was! They wouldn't be coming in unless they had a way out? excited at the prospect of rescue, I activated the building's speakers. "Hello?"

  As one, the group of kids jumped.

  "Is that you?" the eldest asked, looking up and around 'til he noticed the security camera. "Where is she?"

  "She's gone," I replied sadly. "She didn't have much choice. There was a reality-fracturing bomb being sent out through a portal machine, and she had to stop it."

  He sighed. "That sounds like her."

  A few of the children lowered their heads, and one began crying.

  "Oh, oh no!" I said hurriedly. "She's not dead. She just went through another portal."

  "What? Where is she?!"

  "She said where she was going was? home," I told them. "That's all I know."

  The oldest boy looked around at his armed companions. "I don't like this. Go get the book."

  "What about the portal?" one asked.

  "It'll survive one or two transitions. This is important."

  Two kids ran back, and the oldest boy looked up at the camera again. "What happened here?"

  "I don't know," I told him. "I've been trapped here for weeks now. I'm in the server room right now. That's usually where I hole up."

  "Tell us how to get there."

  I gave them directions, and they moved through the halls, occasionally bashing dark objects strewn about the floor. I zoomed in on a few of the piles, trying to comprehend their shapes, but the feed was too fuzzy and the building too dark. Their flashlights arced around, making contrast higher and vision difficult.

  "Is there still any danger?" one kid asked, looking up at another camera.

  "Only outside," I replied. "Don't break the windows. There are slimy weird things out there. Don't get too close, and don't let them see you."

  The kids looked around warily, but there were no windows near them. They proceeded down dark, cramped hallways, leaving marks on the walls to record their way, and heading toward my location.

  "That's it!" I practically shouted, seeing them come up to the heavy server room door. They studied the same odd metal frame that I had studied some weeks before.

  "You sure this is safe?"

  "Yeah, I go in and out all the time."

  The eldest pushed it open with his foot? and then proceeded into rainbow-lit gloom and heat. I saw him enter through my security camera feed, but he must have been moving quietly out of caution. Where was he in the room?

  "I'm inside," I heard him shout, through the camera feed. "I don't see you."

  "I'm right here," I replied, looking around. "Where are you?"

  "Dude. There's nobody in here. What are you doing?"

  "I'm right here!" I said again, moving to the server room door. "I -"

  Nobody stood outside. The hallway was the same, but the kids weren't there.

  I couldn't see the security camera feed from here, but I guessed what it might show.

  Dejected, I returned to the computer. "It must be the wrong reality? I was worried that would be the case. I'm trapped somewhere that's a copy of there."

  "That sucks. Hold on." I watched as he re-entered the hallway to meet two returning kids. In their hands was an extremely convoluted device that had an enormous number of metallic moving blades, gears, and pipes.

  I zoomed in, curious.

  The eldest boy took it from them, holding it by two pipes, his fingers narrowly avoiding the gears and blades. He manipulated pieces of it, his eyes blank. "Tell me
about the man in the server room." After a minute or two, he lifted his head, his breathing ragged with fear. "We have to leave right now."

  "Wait, what?" I asked.

  The kids ignored me and bolted back through the halls, following their marks and jumping over the dark misshapen piles on the floor. Terrified that I'd lose my only hope of rescue, I closed an automatic security door in their path. "Come on! What's going on?"

  Instead of answering, most just started screaming. They began to run, too, but they were stopped by a thrust-out arm.

  The eldest glared up at me. "Let us go."

  "Tell me what's happening! I'm stuck here, please. What did that weird metal thing tell you?"

  "Weird metal thing?" He looked down at the device in his hands. "The book?"

  Confused, I echoed him. "What book?"

  He looked back up at me. "You see this thing the way it really is?"

  "What does that mean?"

  "I saw this thing the way it really was, and? apparently, I started bleeding out the eyes. I don't remember, because I went into seizures. So how can you look at it and see it for real?"

  I opened the door, not really intent on scaring or holding the kids. "I don't know?"

  They ran further down the hallway, and then turned into a side room where my cameras could not see.

  The eldest remained for a moment longer. "Man, you gotta wake up. Somethin's wrong with you. I appreciate what you did with all the help, but I think you gotta help yourself now."

  Confused and terrified, I watched him go.

  I sat for a time, processing. It was true what he'd said: a great many things about my situation didn't make sense. I'd always felt a certain logic to my imprisonment, hovering somewhere outside the grasp of my facts at hand, but I'd always had an aversion to thinking too deeply about it. What if I found out something horrible? What if I lost all hope?

  While I considered these questions, I looked at the next message I had.

  It was from a man who had a problem with something dark lurking in his neighborhood? something the people there had been wary of for a very long time. Just like everyone else, his problems had been growing worse over the last year, and now he needed to get inside the dark heart of the place. The strange thing was, the threat had already been there for quite some time He, too, was on an outer shell world? most of my most concerning messages were from out there.

  He was also on the same world as the person who had sent the pen knife message? odd.

  "So you can't get inside?" I wrote. "I happen to have gotten a message from a guy about three hours' drive from you. He stumbled across a pen knife that seems to be able to cut through things it shouldn't."

  A pen knife? he asked.

  "I can't verify it myself. You'll have to go in person. Here's the address."

  He took it with cautious thanks.

  I went through a few more, and then stopped, feeling a sense of despair overtake my need to help out.

  It was surprising how hard it was to do any work when only one thought dominated my mind: where was I?

  I had eyes and ears everywhere, but I couldn't get anywhere at all.

  If I was in a very special pocket reality, one that was important for the running of the vast network, then I was in serious trouble.

  For a time, I wandered around my building, studying the details. People still screamed when I picked up the phone, and the electricity still worked, and there was still food in the fridge to last a while? I stood at the window and gazed out, risking notice to try to study the slimy creatures out in the fog. As I watched, I saw one go by with a bear carcass in its grip.

  I froze.

  One bear carcass had been noteworthy? but two?

  Seized by a sudden suspicion, I ran to a nearby cubicle, grabbed a metal chair, and smashed it hard against the window over and over again. A crack formed, and then spread, urged along by my violent bashings.

  Finally, the entire glass pane went opaque. The next hit shattered it.

  I stared beyond - at a rock wall.

  I was? underground.

  It was all fake.

  I was just like that lonely soul whose first message I'd found. I was underground, and there was no way out.

  Running around the office building, which I now knew to be deep under the earth, I smashed random things into pieces. My efforts were cathartic, in a way. I'd tried to keep everything normal and untouched, in some subconscious effort to continue a feeling of normalcy, but now I knew that nobody was ever coming back here.

  I'd been abandoned.

  I'd been left behind, just like the men and women on the walls.

  I was alone, just like all those poor people messaging me about the terrors working their way deeper into the realms of man.

  Anger faded into frantic terror, and I began searching for the way I'd gotten in here in the first place. An elevator? Perhaps the odd server room door was part of a non-obvious lift mechanism. I found nothing, but the idea remained. Was there an elevator somewhere in this place?

  What did I remember about showing up for work, before I got trapped here?

  I slept during the day, so my trip into work was always a groggy blur? and I hadn't seen the sun in longer than I could remember? except for that one shining day of training.

  How had I entered the building on that day?

  Nope. The front doors were fake, too. I broke them, then climbed out and slumped against the cool rock wall, wracking my brain.

  I'd seen the purple glow of a portal opening outside the windows when I'd activated that massive facility's portal machine. What had that been? My goddamn imagination? There had to be some link with the surface office building duplicate that the kids had just been in.

  I returned to the spot where I'd witnessed the foggy purple glow. The windows there remained intact. Lifting a chair, and fearing what I would find, I broke the glass.

  Beyond I saw? a tunnel!

  Stepping out over the glass, I rushed down it? and found a wide circular scorched section of cave wall, where the portal had appeared. At least, that's what I imagined it to be? which meant that I'd stayed inside the glass out of pointless fear. I'd missed my one shot at escape.

  Above all else, that discovery broke me.

  I returned to the server room in a daze.

  "I'm going to die down here," I said aloud, to nobody in particular.

  And I knew it to be true? unless?

  I began to respond to my messages with a new energy. I wasn't done, not at all! Someone out there had to have an ability, a device, or knowledge that might get me out. After all, if I'd almost escaped once before, I could do it again - and, this time, I knew a little bit more about my situation.

  And there were people in need, too. All over the place, creatures were roaming the woods, entities were stalking people, loved ones were exhibiting odd behavior, neighbors were disappearing, and bad luck was rampant. It overwhelmed me, at first, seeing the sheer range and volume of problems, but it hit me: I had the information, I had the communication, and that meant none of us were alone.

  I started responding to every single message, giving people what info I could find, and putting them in contact with those around them who had also clued in.

  Then, the author I'd been talking to responded once more. He finally sent back: This is a very grim situation. What do we do?

  "First, I'd like to get out of here," I wrote him. "I'm trapped." I explained my situation as thoroughly as I could.

  Those are some very odd happenings, he wrote back. I'm not sure you have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, as they don't quite fit together in a way that makes sense. Although, I know for sure how you can get out of there.

  "What? How?!"

  No matter how bad things are, you can always make them worse. What you need is a sudden serious problem. Then, while thinking quickly and trying to survive, you'll have a chance to turn that problem into an opportunity. In your case, an opportunity to escape.

  "That
doesn't seem logical. How would making my situation worse help me get out of here?"

  We live in strange times. Existence follows certain trends. In a sense, there's a grim fairness about it. If you do nothing, you die. If you risk it all, you've at least got a shot. That's a rule.

  "And if the shot doesn't work out?"

  Then you die anyway. But isn't a slim chance better than none at all?

  He was right.

  And, in fact, I had dozens of Internets at my disposal. I could find the right threat, tailored to my situation, and try to use that threat to escape. Were there any creatures that used portals to move around? Were there any dark entities I could make a deal with? I began my search of the stories online. It quickly became apparent that those with specific intents usually sought out a certain type of ritual.

  What I needed was a Game? and someone with the power to make it real.

  "Do you know of any Games that might help me?" I asked my author contact.

  Hmm? I've never really gotten into Game stories, but here's how I imagine an actual real one might work?

  I memorized everything he told me, and I began searching the office building for the proper supplies. It was a shot in the dark, and incredibly risky? but, as he'd said, it was better than doing nothing and dying here alone.

  If a soul was a thing; or, at least, if a mind was a thing, then there had to be more to existence than the physical spatial dimensions we saw. What was a mind? Why were humans self-aware, and animals not? I'd read stories of a creature that could cut away and eat a person's self-awareness, turning them into walking biological machines that talked, ate, laughed, and watched movies? but with nobody inside, not for real. If that existed, then a mind must be a real thing.

  And if minds were real things, there was a dimension or plane where they existed. They were something, somewhere.

  And if they were something, somewhere? then there might be other things there, too.

  I sat in a dark, quiet corner of the building, a single candle lit in front of me, and a pad of paper and a pen on hand. These were not necessary for the Game, but they might help me focus, and then remember. I'd been instructed not to bother with mirrors, or pentagrams, or blood, or any other human physical or mental fear. Human concerns didn't matter for something like this?

  Sitting in place, senses dark, I thought a single word: aware.

  I thought it again, repeatedly: aware, aware, aware, aware?

  I made the thought louder. AWARE, AWARE, AWARE?

  I began shouting it in my mind. AWARE. AWARE. AWARE.

  I kept screaming the same word in my mind, from my mind, over and over. Fear of actually attracting attention held me back, but fear of dying here pushed me past an intrinsic barrier.

  For each repetition, I envisioned the words as louder than the chant before them, the volume ever-increasing, until I was sure I was shouting throughout an entire mental universe.

  I kept this up even as a feeling of impending doom swept over me. Again, I might have stopped? but survival instinct kept me going.

  Then, eight minutes and seven seconds after I'd begun, it happened.

  I opened my eyes and looked out.

  A shadowed face flickered beyond the candle's flame, shifting shade dancing across darker darkness. It wasn't really here, and I wasn't really looking. I understood that? but I still felt a chill seize me.

  It smiled hungrily, its teeth a row of jagged voids barring infinite blackness. Congratulations, you've attracted attention.

  I had nothing to offer it, and nothing to keep me safe. As the author had told me, human rituals were probably useless in the face of entities that existed beyond the physical realms. I knew there were other realities that I could travel to, if I had the means, but this thing was from somewhere else entirely. But, as my contact had also informed me, all things followed logic in at least some sense. My only hope was that some part of its value system overlapped with ours.

  "Wait," I thought aloud. "It's important that I talk to you."

  It always is, it whispered back, its empty eyes icy. None of you ever want to be consumed. How short-sighted of you.

  I didn't ask what it meant by that, and I didn't want to know. "Are you aware of what's happening? Are you aware of the Crushing Fist?"

  It hissed softly, but did not kill me or consume me or anything else. It waited. I assumed that meant it was at least open to my proposal, and that the Crushing Fist meant something to it.

  "I? want to work with you, or make some sort of deal with you. I need to get out of here. I need to be able to help others of my kind more directly, or we're all in trouble."

  Something behind it moved, and I realized? the vague humanoid shape before my awareness was a front. The real entity behind it lay shrouded in darkness, both massive and elegant at the same time. I dared not look directly for fear of offending it.

  You have no idea what you're up against, it finally replied. But I envy your ignorance. You scramble ever forward, like bugs in mud, like fivhen in squuar. You don't even stop when you're already doomed, dead, or vwaal. That obstinance is, likely, the only organic trait worthy of mention.

  "So you'll help me?" I asked, confused.

  It grinned again, its mock shadowed face stretching horribly. Didn't you hear me? You're already vwaal. You cannot be helped. You should do yourself a favor and allow me to consume you. I am experiencing pity for your pathetic situation, so I will allow you the choice, rather than force it upon you.

  "Um? no thank you."

  So be it.

  A non-light flared behind its massive shadow-form, and I prepared to scream as I caught a glimpse of what it really looked like. The shape, the size, the complexity - it was absolutely -

  I fell backwards as if struck, suddenly ejected from the realms of the mind, and I hurried to write down what had been said before it faded like shreds of a dream on waking fog.

  Then, I tried to draw it.

  What had I? I'd seen it, but? the image? was gone?

  Sitting on the floor, I let myself wallow in despair for a while. Even shadow entities from the realms of the mind couldn't help me? unless I'd fallen asleep, and dreamed the whole thing.

  Despondent, I returned to my computer, and began half-heartedly responding to calls for help again.

  I'm intent on helping as many as I can before I starve to death down here? but who is going to help me?