The Day I Met Merridew

Chapter Nine: Losing Touch

Although a sense of dystopia was imagined in reality, this world seemed even stranger. She found herself in the same corridor, except something was different. There was a ringing. An ever growing, deafening screech. Like the world was still adjusting and preparing itself. In process. Under construction. An undiscovered, perceptible, unplanned world where everything seemed unfinished. But every opportunity lay right in front of her on the ground like a book, like a scrapbook of liberties. Summer creased her brow in anxiety. She turned her head and took the world in with one glance, suddenly realizing that she recognized it. Clambering up onto her feet, Summer took a slow stroll around the area. The echoed halls threw her footsteps back at her, but she wasn't lost. The ever-growing familiarity of this strange world still sat in an confused spot in her mind. The world was so cold, so charming, so strange. 

Coming from a small room at the end of the long corridor, a muffled cluster of voices could be heard. She edged nearer, looking through a pane of fear and spying the mysterious voices that called to her. Cranking the door handle, Summer applied force to the door. But to her alarm, the voices ceased and backed away in shock. A shallow glint of light emerged from the darkness, revealing pairs of fixated eyes staring. Summer rose her hand to her mouth, slowly biting corners of fingernails until her anxiety was nothing but a short stub of emptiness. The eyes climbed into her mind, toying with her emotions and finding ways to consume her life and enthusiasm further. A tall, dark figure emerged into the scene. Presenting a slanted smile, letters and numbers printed repeatedly onto face. The eyes of those inside this room were soulless. Holding no memories but recited combinations of numbers, letters and symbols. Overworked and overdrawn, these eyes were nothing but a pair of broken glasses with no use but to see through to a world that was nothing.

Backing off, the voices began muttering again. Summer closed the door behind her and ran through the corridor. Passing the numbers of the rooms, and posters featuring facts that were anything but an importance. Summer splashed back through her former state of mind and stumbled down the stairs that had once been. Suddenly coming to a clearing that breathed through her ears and whispered. Spying an isolated worn bench, she fought the dense, chilled air and saved herself from unsurity. Sitting down, everything stabilized. She breathed out and it was visible to the eye that this world was drawing her saneness out of her. Her eyes fell closed and the rhythm of the wind calmed her senses. 

"He knew you'd be here." Summer turned round in a quick, sudden motion. A huddled-up, dirty boy sat in the shadows. His eyes drooped a long shadow beneath them, and his hair was knotted and tangled to the extent of disrepair. Summer looked at the boy in confused sympathy.

"Who? Who knew I'd be here?" She questioned, "Where is here?" 

"This, is actuality. A place on earth where most people are for the majority of their lives. Its unsettling, desolated and has a dense atmosphere of melancholy in the air. Most people stay here with hopes it can make their future lives more exuberant and happy. But these are the people that end up living with no faith or pleasure." The boy looked up at Summer, stretching a forced smile upon his disgrace. A shiver bewildered through the hairs on Summers arm, causing a shudder.  She looked sternly at the boy and widened her eyes.

"Why am I here?" 

"Actuality calls for us, you were chosen. Come, take my hand." The boy stood up onto his short, dwarfish legs and lead Summer further into the strange wilderness. Entering a different building, the boy followed the pathway through. Uncovering a blue-coloured hallway with 2 corridors following off of it. 

"This," The boy began, pointing to the left corridor, "Is the corridor of contentment. And this is the corridor of delectation. Choose wisely which pathway you follow in life. Its your decision."

Summer looked left, and then right at the two contrasting corridors. 

"But don't they mean the same thing?" Summer asked, turning to the boy whom was no longer there. Switching her focus between her eyes, she noticed something about the corridor on the right. On the wall, at the far edge of her vision she saw a notice. It read: 'those who take the winding path will seek contentment but never find success in their achievements. But those who prefer the sweeter taste wont ever find their efforts a waste.'

The trickery placed within the words untangled in Summers mind. She realized why she had fell into this world after all. Taking sure steps down the right corridor, she heard a familiar muffle of voices. Peering round the door sourcing the voices, there was no lack of light. The room infact was delicately iced with few people scattered around it. There was a glow about the room that made Summer tingle inside her tummy. The brightness shone through its windows fragmented and reflected from her eyes. And there was a boy that looked at her. She smiled and he tried to look away but his focus remained on Summer. Lightening the room with her newly gained optimism to continue on. With a quick blink, the rooms brightness saturated to an unperceivable level. She saw a light in life that she had never seen before. And she clung onto it tighter than ever before.