Hallways

I am not who you think I am.
I am not who I was, and who I am now is an enigma.

You've seen me in my black cape, being followed by crowds of cheering fans, riding around in big, expensive cars.  Countless films have proclaimed my stardom.  I owned mansion after mansion and land as far as the eye could see.  My status was god-like, I was the most famous person in the world.

Sometimes, when I was being driven around, away from the throng and through secret alleyways and buildings, my chauffeur would take an unusual turn and we would come to a small building, a bookstore.

I worked there.

When I entered this building, I was just another employee, a little name tag pinned to my chest.  No one suspected anything, I simply stocked the shelves and aided customers with their purchases.

One day, while doing my usual duties, I saw an elevator in the middle of the store, glass windows on all sides, displaying a brightly lit interior.  I got up from what I was doing and entered the out-of-place structure.  Once inside, I saw that the windows were one-way mirrors, and I could only see myself as the sliding doors closed behind me.

The elevator shook a little, and I felt a downward, sinking motion.  This went on for a time, and further and further underground I went, until all came to an abrupt stop.  Hitting the bottom level, the surrounding glass shattered in a rain of glittering shards that fell to the floor.  Standing in shock for a moment, then stepping out from the now opened confines of the elevator, I found myself in the waiting room of a psychiatrist's office.

The room was mostly white, sterile.  About a dozen patients sat quietly in seats.  A young woman, who I could only see the back of, shot up from where she was sitting.  I could tell from her body language that she was angry, perhaps furious.  The woman stormed across the room and bolted through a door.

Something happened to me there, hit with a feeling a sympathy as well as an unusual sense of curiosity, and I decided to follow her.  Once I walked through the door, I was immediately greeted by an old woman in a white nightgown standing to my left side.  Her eyes appeared all white, rolled into the back of her head.  I was met with an odd feeling and didn't want to look directly into the face of the old woman.

“My daughter is dying,” she said in a crackling voice, “do you want to go see her?”

There was no reply from me, I was feeling aimless and was still encouraged with a kind of sympathy to move on.  

I wandered off.

There was no girl, no psychiatrist's office in sight.  My path was met with dim hallway after dim hallway of brown and mustard colored walls.  As I walked, strange occult vibrations filled the air around me and penetrated my being.  A faint fear struck me as I gazed towards the many doors lining the walls, for there were signs hanging on each door telling of the events taking place in the rooms behind the closed entrances; terrible, evil things I would rather not speak of.

I sensed that in other, farther off rooms were hidden seances and secret, tightly-knit groups of men preforming arcane ceremonies and rituals, activities involving death, demons, and other dark things.  Something was being emitted from those distant places, and those now negative vibrations mechanized my movements.  I was being pushed forward, slowly and manipulatively.

Eventually I came to a spacious, empty room save a large stone tablet set against the center wall.  I moved closer to the unusual protrusion until I was directly in front of it.  Still mechanical and unwilling in motion, my body took the form of a kneeling pose, as if in adoration of the image before me.

Upon the stone tablet was a skeleton woman in a ragged dress riding a skeleton horse.  She held a sword triumphantly upward and above her was a crooked, crescent moon.

I heard a booming, disembodied voice.  It was a voice similar to the old woman's.

“Behold The Goddess!”

The room darkened, and the images on the ancient slab were glowing with an eerie luminescence, yet gave off no real light.  I knew that what was before me had a real kind of energy, but was in itself an illusion, a false goddess.

I wanted out, I wanted to leave.  With some willpower, little intentional movements could be made.  I turned my head, just barely looking behind me, and there was no longer the hallway that fed into the room, but an enclosing wall with a door, just slightly open.  Through the opening was a shining light, a real light.  My heart was drawn to that place, for within was something good, a true Goddess.

In my deepest concentration, I turned myself around.  I struggled forward, still in a kneeling position.  A stinging fire struck my back, as if I was being whipped by some invisible phantom.  Still, I moved closer to the doorway on my bleeding knees.  It was a fight between the powers of control and the spirit of my will.

The flogging specter continued his attempt to hold me in place, but the door to the light opened wider and wider.  The divine presence, The Goddess, engulfed my body and soul with her golden light, drawing me closer in my pain and suffering.

2-18-14