Chapter 38
“What is happening, Iris?” I hear, as the warmth of a familiar embrace wraps around me.
I ball up, holding my abdomen, shattered by a pain so lacerating I cannot reply.
“Iris,” I hear again.
The pain relents, without fully subsiding.
“Are you ok?” Arthur asks me.
“Not really,” I mumble.
“What is happening?” he asks again.
“Ludwig is finally out of me,” I say.
Arthur’s lack of understanding translates into a moment of silence.
“My mother took him out of me, finally,” I continue.
“Are you in pain?” Arthur asks, caressing my forehead.
“Freedom isn’t painless, you know?” I reply, laughing bitterly.
Then, turning serious, I say, slowly, “I will kill him”.
“How?” Arthur asks.
“My mother told me that the door is the way to his death,” I tell him enigmatically.
Arthur waits for me to continue.
“My mother told me that I cannot find a way to rid myself and my family of Ludwig unless I find the door. I don’t know why, and I don’t even know which door I have to find, let alone where to find it. Or maybe I do…deep down I think I know, but I still have to retrieve the answers within me. I don’t have them now,” I say, speaking rapidly, talking to myself more than to Arthur.
I’ve just finished speaking when I hear a loud thump, and only now I realize that we are still in the same elevator in which I lost conscience. We’re still in Mine 503, ascending from the room in which Arthur walked out of a movie in which he, my brother, and I were starring. I remember we were digging out remnants of a space ship that used to be mine.
Dream or reality?
I am no longer sure that we are truly in an old, jerky, elevator in Mine 503, which just stopped with a loud thump.
“Arthur, where are we?” I ask, needing confirmations.
“We are still in the mine, I suppose,” he says, without much assurance in his voice.
“At least we agree on our supposition,” I smile, shrugging.
Suddenly the elevator door opens. Arthur offers me his hand, pulls me up and we step into a room with no windows and no doors.
We look around, inspecting the bare walls, the barren space.
There’s nothing for us here.
“We need to go back,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
Arthur shakes his head no. I turn towards the spot where the elevator was and I find it’s gone.
“Oh, I see the problem,” I sigh.
We stand in the middle of the room, with no doors to escape from.
“I must find the door to kill Ludwig,” I state abruptly.
As soon I make the statement, four doors materialize on the four walls of the room. They seem painted on the walls.
I observe them, skeptical, suddenly defiant.
The doors open, and the sketch of a man looking like a joker appears at the bench of each of them. They laugh a fake laugher.
Which door, door, door, door?, the room echoes.
I look around, and my head starts to spin.
Which door, door, door, door?, the room echoes once more.
“This is not true,” I state, looking at Arthur, but he’s just as lost as I am.
“Which door should we try?” I ask him, even if I know I won’t get an answer.
Arthur rolls his gaze around, as the laugher bounces in the room, the trails of noise knitting a spider web around us.
The doors multiply and the disorienting sounds spins around us till my head pounds so hard I cannot think.
Which door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door, door?, a hundred jokers ask me, sneering at my impotence.
I close my eyes, and the space ceases to spin.
The sounds are still out there, but in the darkness of my closed eyelids I find a slit of quiet. I bend, and feeling my way around I start to explore the room.
I used my eyes and ears, and they failed me. I have five senses though.
With my eyes closed, I realize the room has the wet smell of a dungeon after a prolonged thunderstorm. I touch the floor, sense its texture with my fingers. It’s smooth, exceptionally smooth.
I rub my finger against the floor, and lick it. The taste is bitter, medicinal. It’s the taste of a potion. The term darts through me, potion.
I am suddenly aware that, once upon a time, I knew how to make potions. Yes, I used to prepare the potions in a dungeon.
Crawling, I reach a corner. Eyes closed, I follow its edge, slowly, wondering if I got here for a reason.
The room turns quiet.
Leaning my hand on the floor, I discover the presence of a sharp object. It cuts through my flesh, and when I bring my hand to my mouth I taste the blood.
Instead of opening my eyes to inspect the wound I grab the object, and start working on the corner. I want to cut it open.
I start gently, working my way inside the wall with caution. When I sense the wall is starting to crack I hasten the pace of my work. I hammer the wall with the sharp object, as the blood dribbles down my wrists. I pound and pound, till my arms can no longer stand the beat.
Exhaustion is about to knock me down when I feel two hands wrap mine around the handle of the tool I have been holding.
They raise it for me, and knock it against the wall, once more. I feel the wall break.
Eyes closed, I touch the crack propagating noiselessly into the silent room.
I open my eyes, and I see Arthur’s hands on mine, a scalpel raised onto a propagating crack beyond which is a world unexplored and yet oddly familiar.
We look at each other and nod, smiling.
“Well done, partner,” I say.