A Shrouded World | Book 8 | Asgard Read online

  I think I was in a fugue state, or possibly delirium, when the wall dissipated and I fell to the floor in a puddle. On some level I was aware of just how much pain I was enduring as my body did its best to realign, but higher cognitive function had yet to catch up. An electric storm in the form of a tentacle across my side sent me scurrying backward and into my chamber of torture.

  The creator hovered in front of me, watching, the lit coals of his eyes never wavering. We’d yet to have exchanged any words, so when his strange pitched sound was translated into “Unsoiled,” my head jerked up. “Forward,” it commanded.

  My side was ablaze from the hit. I could feel my ribcage shifting back into its proper position as I attempted to do what Homo Erectus had solved some hundred thousand years previously and stand on two feet. I was hunched over and shuffling like a monkey with osteoporosis. Wasn’t entirely sure how it could pick and choose what I could understand, but I would imagine it was easy enough from its perspective. It walked into a room I hadn’t seen on my short tour the previous day—the way I felt it could have been a week ago.

  “Unsoiled, then consume,” it said, moving away from the entrance to the room, which looked like the collection area for where all the worst things that went down a sewer ended up.

  “Clean?” I choked out.

  “Yes, unsoiled, thing. Then consume.”

  I think it meant I clean up this shit hole and then I get to eat. The thought crossed my mind that I was expected to eat the mess in front of me, but I gagged so hard I had to dismiss it pronto. Then an almost worse scenario appeared: what if he meant to consume me when I was done unsoiling his excrement closet? We needed to hash that out right now. I wasn’t going to be the moron that dug their own grave for the mob hit. You want to bury me, you do the heavy lifting.

  “Clean then eat?”

  “Stupid.” It was tough to tell if it was asking if I was stupid or was flat out letting me know what it thought of me. It raised a tentacle above its head in a threatening manner. I stepped backward and into the room that needed unsoiling. A toddler with an unlimited supply of shitty diapers and access to a wood chipper could not have replicated what was happening here. Strings of brown goo hung from the ceiling, occasionally plopping down and adding its detritus to the pile. My right foot was swamped in a pile of what appeared to be Jello and blood. This looked to be the scene of a savage murder. Possibly the creator had a rival and had lured him here to finish him off after stuffing him with lasagne and then dosing him with ex-lax. The parts I saw did not appear to belong to any of the other aliens I had seen, so it was unlikely this was the being I was the replacement for. The smell, while not pleasant by any means, could have been much worse, given the visuals presented. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to accomplish the cleaning. I had zero in the way of supplies and nowhere to dispose of the materials, either.

  I was still standing there when the wall out dematerialized. I turned just in time to have a small type of handheld squeegee hit me in the chest. It had been thrown with enough force that I had been sent backward and fell into the goo. The creator watched as I fished the cleaning tool out before standing. Then he again left me to my own devices. I wanted to shove the handle into his eye sideways while I ripped his throat out. From the corner of the room came a wet suction sound like a half-submerged pool pump. The walls and floor were easy enough to clean; the surfaces were slicker than a non-stick pan. It was the ceiling and parts of the walls that were out of reach. What I cleaned was something you could eat off of. Not that I ever would, but someone with less discerning tastes could, provided they hadn’t seen it before I squeegeed.

  It felt like hours later when the creator showed again, his little ignited eyes went right to the areas I could not access. A tentacle whipped out so fast I didn’t have time to react. It wrapped around my midsection and lifted me into the air; where it made contact I could feel the heat radiating off of it. It pulled me in close so that we were staring what I assumed was face-to-face. The pain was becoming unbearable; the strength of that tentacle was immense. I could feel my ribs compressing as it squeezed. With my arms pinned to my side I couldn’t so much as give it the finger as I died by constriction. Possibly my face had turned too red as blood was forced in and kept there, or my eyes were bulging to the point the thing was afraid they would shoot out like paintballs, but it eased its grip and put me back on the ground.

  I hunched over, fighting to get air. The burning from the touch, instead of abating, was getting worse, like a sunburn will during that first night. Sort of like a cooked roast will as you let it rest on the counter. I could feel my rib bones sliding back into place and it was as uncomfortable as it sounds. I was still sucking in air when that tentacle again wrapped around my midsection though this time my arms weren’t stuck down to my sides. It lifted me into the air like a child will its favorite doll or, in this case, like a little brother will his sister’s favorite doll, so, with intent of malice. I kept rising up fast, it bounced my head off of the ceiling, hard enough that black spots formed in my field of vision. My teeth rattled and the skull cap vibrated.

  “Unsoil!” it yelled.

  My neck, which had already been in pain, screamed in protest at this new abuse. The creator pressed me further into the ceiling and began to move me back and forth in a scrubbing motion. Maybe thinking I was entirely too stupid to understand what he meant, or more than likely getting his alien rocks off on the abuse of power. I finally raised the squeegee up in the hopes that he would stop using the side of my face like a sponge. It worked to a degree. He kept me up close the entire time, making it extremely difficult to do the job efficiently. Again, that might have been so he could keep his tentacle wrapped around me. He’d dialed down the heat intensity, but as one who has had a few sunburns knows, even a tissue dragged across the burnt area can feel like heavy grit sandpaper. I was nearing completion and was attempting to readjust my grip, which was slipping due to the slop, when I lost control of the handle, I missed my swipe with my freewheeling left hand and succeeded in sending it straight into the side of the creator.

  From its reaction you would have thought I’d shot it or pulled a healthy tooth with a pair of rusty pliers. I was immediately flung away, colliding with the wall, hard enough that my lungs expelled everything within them like reverse air bags. The creator screamed loud enough that blood ran down the side of my face. It had either ruptured my ear drum or created an embolism—one or the other. The pulsing color where the handle struck was a throbbing deep purple with black lines that radiated away from the strike point. I could only hope whatever I’d done was enough to kill it.

  “Space!” it yelled once it seemed to gain some measure of composure, but, yeah, it was definitely in pain. So we had that in common. I hadn’t a friggen clue what space it was talking about until it pointed toward the iron maiden I’d been kept in. I could barely move, much less comply. It didn’t hesitate. It moved swiftly toward me and wrapped a tentacle around my leg and dragged me toward it. I noticed it made sure to keep as much distance between the two of us as it possibly could.

  “Please,” I begged, and I meant it. I was angry that I begged and angrier still that it did not care. “Please! Not in there.” My hands were up as it flung me like an old dish towel. I crashed again up against the wall. My body, like a tattered old book cover, easily folded in on itself. The wall did its reappearing thing. I panicked when I tried to move and I was stuck in a seated position with my head bent down at an unnatural angle. I struggled like a drowning person will, without thought. I felt like I was wedging myself in even further; I knew I needed to relax and think out each movement, to move slowly and deliberately. One of those things abundantly easier to think about than do.

  “Not drowning…can still breath.” I was hoping the sound of my voice would soothe my frayed nerves. I was the human version of an accordion, an ill-folded tent stuffed into a too small tent bag. If I was like this for another twenty hours, like the first time, I was convin
ced the damage would be irreversible. I could feel the ligature in my neck and spinal column stretching beyond its capacity. My legs quivered with fear and exertion as I tried to stand. I was dragging the back of my head against the wall. I managed a squatting position when I’d somehow cemented myself into place even more. Couldn’t stand, couldn’t sit. The muscles in my thighs were so taut I figured it only a matter of minutes before they pulled themselves free from their moorings.

  “Help me,” I said weakly, not that I expected the creator to ride in on a white horse and do any bit of saving. This was to a God that had appeared to have lost track of me somewhere in the celestial tapestry. Either I’d discovered a new level of limberness, or I had finally become stretched far enough to disconnect whatever keeps your bones from flopping around, or I had created enough sweat to be well lubricated, but I felt that I could move. I pushed again with my thighs. The movement was measured in hundredths of an inch, but any small change beat how I’d been. My legs were wobbling so badly the collisions of my knees was causing yet another unique pain—something I was getting all too familiar with. I couldn’t even begin to calculate how long it had taken until my head popped free from its prison. There was very little on my body that was not in pain. I needed food and water, something for my body to use to begin the repair process. This was one of the rarest of times where I was actually thankful for the taint my blood contained. It wasn’t so much gratitude that I was still alive because of it, but I was glad to be alive so that I could make the creator pay.

  The position I found myself in now, standing with no way to get comfortable, was leagues better than I had been, and I was relieved for that, but relief is an elusive feeling when faced by one win versus so many losses. I was slipping in and out of consciousness, from the exertion, the trauma, the lack of basic necessities, the stress, I suppose I could go on, but the point was made. It was one of the last times that I jerked awake when I had a thread of a revelation. A possible means to an escape. When I’d met the creator, it had roughly pulled me in close and squeezed like an overzealous toddler might its favorite stuffed animal, and it had not shown the slightest modicum of discomfort. Yet today, or what felt like a week ago, the mere brushing of the squeegee handle had caused what seemed a massive amount of pain. Could that somehow be tied to the mess in that room? This was that lightbulb moment; when a thought so clear and bright bloomed in my mind, burning through the fog like a lighthouse. The mess; it was a molting of sorts. A shedding of old skin for new. Something in the process made the new skin highly susceptible to pain and damage.

  I smiled, though, if anyone had chanced upon me to see it, they would not have recognized it for the emotion it was meant to convey. “Gotcha, bastard.” I fell asleep. I didn’t awake this time until my face bounced off the floor.

  “Consume,” the creator said flatly. I looked up weakly to see that the dark bruising on its side had all but vanished. It moved to a step, revealing a small hovering tray upon which was a handful of the golden fruit I’d come to detest and a container of water that wasn’t much bigger than a shot glass. Right now it looked like a gift from the heavens. I moved slowly, keeping an eye on my host. I wanted, needed, and craved what was on that tray, but I was unsure if I could take another unprovoked attack. I felt like a seven-year-old with an abusive father, wondering if he’d come home from work drunk and mean. Anything from an errant look to a slouching of shoulders enough to send him off into a tirade of inflicted pain for its own sake.

  The creator said nothing nor did anything as I quickly grabbed the meal. I wanted to take my time, to savor it, to enjoy my moment of monitored freedom. What my mind and body wanted were on far ends of the spectrum as I shoved the entire fruity morsel into my mouth and before I could finish chewing I washed it down with the mouthful of water. The moment was bittersweet. Done too quickly, and not nearly enough to sate the thirst or hunger.

  “Ambulate,” it said. My mind was not functioning anywhere near its capacity, and I’d never been one to overly pay attention in school. I heard the word and could only get an image of a wailing vehicle rushing to the aid of someone in an accident.

  “Ambulate!” This time said with more force. If I didn’t do something soon it was a guarantee I was going to pay dearly for my lack of understanding. I took a small step, fearful of doing something wrong and worrying my legs would not support my weight. The small step seemed to appease the beast and then a meaning occurred. Ambulate meant to move along; it wanted me to move. It knew that I needed to do this for health, which meant it absolutely knew that what it was doing was a form of maltreatment. It could almost be forgiven, if it had been ignorant to the needs of its slave. That perhaps this was how it rested and figured that all other beings did the same, that was not the case, and honestly, I’d never suspected that might be the case. This creature wanted me alive, to satisfy its dark desires and to clean up its molting. Now I had to hope that the molting schedule was something that happened with some regularity and not just an annual event.

  There was no way I’d make it for that long, no matter my ability to heal. The mental break would be too much, and there was also a high probability that he would beat me to death, possibly on purpose, but more likely the psychosis within him would not allow him to stop once he got past a certain point. For some, the more pain inflicted and the greater the suffering of the victim, the more driven the sadist’s need to pile it on. There would always be those who would thrive on it. I ambulated…or just plain walked for ten minutes, and even that short stint had me exhausted.

  “Space.” It pointed. I knew where it was pointing, and I’d ambulate for another ten hours straight across a minefield as opposed to heading in there. Again I hesitated, my right hand slowly drifting down to where the stapler was. The creator’s ember bright eyes were watching me. I either moved to take him out, or moved back to the cell. The indecision was going to get me good and dead, but as I stood once again in my upright coffin, I knew that, really, any of those choices was going to get me killed. It was just a matter of the timeframe. I don’t know how many times this cycle played out. The wall would dissipate, I would fall into a puddle of myself, I’d eat and drink far too little, I’d exercise for too short a time, and I’d spend the vast quantity of my life losing myself in my fracturing mind. No light, no noise, no way to rest. I consider myself to be a strong man, but I was losing fast.

  I’d seriously lost count of how long I’d been in the closet, when the wall once again faded away. I had no reason to believe it wouldn’t be just like all the times before, not that I even cared. I knew the routine. I’d slowly pull myself up toward the tray that I think he was making farther and farther away each time. Another way he got his sick jollies—watching me undergo the painful journey. I was finally on my feet, had got most of the swaying under control; I was looking toward the tray that wasn’t there. Still started walking for it.

  “Unsoil.” My steps were haltingly moving forward. I was running on so low of a threshold it took five more feet before I could process what it had said. I’d like to say my heart quickened and I readied myself for action. What really happened was I had to exert myself to turn in the direction I needed to go. The room was destroyed, somehow even worse than the last time; pretty sure it knew I was on my last legs and wanted to make sure I went out on a low note. I slogged in, barely able to pull my legs through the sludge. I could see the clear handle of the squeegee leaning against the far wall, which I’m sure was placed there on purpose. As if the squeegee itself were the switch, the suction hole in the corner came on. The day was a hazy blur of continually pushing the bloody gelatin toward the drain. On the walls, I hadn’t made it up much past the top of my head in height; I was having a difficult time raising and keeping my arms up.

  There was no doubt in my mind that he was going to kill me today when he realized I could no longer do the one job I was here for. He may have just come in or could have been there for the last hour; I really didn’t know. A tentacle whipped
out. Maybe it slipped on some of the slime coating my head, or who knows; the divine intervention I had been hoping for had finally homed in on my emergency beacon, but instead of striking my head and breaking my neck, it slipped up and adhered like super glue to the top of my skull cap. It was trying to pick me up in this method. There was ripping on my hair; my neck was stretching as it took the weight, but more importantly, I could feel the skull cap being pulled loose. Double sided tape could only be expected to hold up for so long. I was so tired I couldn’t even be bothered to grab on and pretend. I was on my tiptoes as the creator kept pulling up; I could feel and hear my hair being ripped from scalp. The creator must have been able to see the burgeoning gap, and it reeled me in like a landed fish so it could get a closer look. Another tentacle came up and began to probe the gap, and I felt something; not the burn of its radiant energy, but more of an electrical discharge, like it was dragging a balloon across my head while I scuffed my feet donning heavy wool socks against the carpet on a crisp fall day. Then the realization struck home: it was repairing the cap. So far this day, or the last few days, really, I hadn’t given squat about anything, but this ignited something within me. If and when I died, it was going to be while I was myself, not some frontal lobe lobotomized zombie! I could not allow myself to fall completely under the power of this molting, bullying brute. Creator my ass. The closet, the beatings, the lack of food and water—all horrible in their own right. But my thoughts, my actions, those I still had sway over, and I would not relinquish them. Not now, not ever.

  I used every bit of strength I had to swing my squeegee clad hand. I caught him flush in the side of the head with the tool. His reaction was immediate. I felt a large jolt of energy blast into my skull just before I was launched upward. My head struck the ceiling hard enough I was dazed and had an abundance of incoherent inference. The electrical storm happening in my skull was enough that I didn’t even register my subsequent collision with the floor. We were both on the canvas, like two punch drunk boxers that had given it everything we could and had nothing left to give. Tough to say it was like the second Rocky movie, because at least Balboa had previously dealt a fair amount of damage before the double knock down. I laid there, looking up, doing my best to remember what was going on. It was the flopping fish next to me that pulled me out of my stupor, slowly, almost grudgingly.