Chapter 125: Chapter 125

I look to the thief questioningly, she just nods and points down the path again. I sigh and turn around, wondering how I’m going to walk down this mess. My body isn’t exactly designed for these kinds of angles, seeing as I don’t really have ankles and even if I did it wouldn’t be much of a help. Walking down the way, I realize that I’ve been having to do a lot of backtracking lately. Actually, only since I’ve started hanging around with her. But I suppose it’s not her fault. Well, maybe the horn thing was. But this isn’t. This is just the dungeon being the dungeon. Right?

 

  Something seems odd though, as I walk forward down the long tunnel which seems to spiral on forward down the way, the windows that were once high above me are now on the sides of the walls at an angle, as the stones that make up the floor wind their way around until they eventually reach the ceiling before coming back down again. But despite that, I never seem to reach them. As I walk forward along the spiral path, I never quite seem to leave the ground or to hit that angle. It is as if I am walking straight as always, as if the corkscrew hallway were being turned just a little tighter with each step, compressing it together and assuring that no matter what, I am always upright and with my feet on the ground. I can’t tell, am I walking upside down or is the whole floor shifting to accommodate me?

 

  All the while, she sits on my back and hums, using the opportunity to pet my neck and to occasionally rub the tender spot of my broken horn. I don’t know how much longer this uneventful walk goes on for, but it seems shorter than my initial trek down the corridor. I see the wide double door in-front of me now, the one that we left after first arriving on this floor. It is still open as before and I peer inside to see the mess. The cathedral is shifted further still, the forty-five degree angle now doubled as the entire room is simply wound inward and set on its side. The pews now to my right and the stained glass windows of what was once the left wall, now on the floor below.

 

  Something pats me and I turn to see her pointing back behind us again. I sigh, knowing what to do and go back down the same path for the third time now. Now it is spun even tighter, the spiral more compressed as if the towel were being compacted tighter and tighter still. It doesn’t take long now, only ten minutes by my gut feeling until we reach the door. Still I haven’t faded away to my surprise.

 

I look inside of the ‘other’ cathedral, it’s almost upside down now. She pats me and I turn without sparing a glance to her, to walk back again.

 

  Now the once long corridor is squished and pressed so tightly together that I can already see the vague blob that makes up the first door in the distance. Five minutes pass, I feel a little queasy, but we make it there. The room is upside down. Looking inside, straight ahead is a long staircase leading down on what was once the ceiling. But something feels off about it, I look to her and she shakes her head and I understand. These must be the real stairs. I turn around and go back again the other way. Now it takes two minutes.

 

Then again.

 

One minute.

 

Then again.

 

  This repeats over and over until the room has been flipped upside down entirely a second time. The hallway that was once long and stretched is now only a vague handful of meters long. It has been strung so tightly that I can practically stand in both of the double doors at once. The many windows that had lined the hallway have become pressed so tightly together that the stones in-between them seem to have just vanished. All the brickwork of the hallway is just gone, leaving a single corridor composed entirely of colored glass. I look around, but I feel unwell as I stare into the sight surrounding us on all sides. As I stare into the tube that we stand in now, this colorful glass cylinder.

 

  All of those vague depictions come together, all of those strange shapeless jumbles that made no sense upon first viewing are now given a context, now that they have been set together like this, like so many pieces of a puzzle. But I don’t like looking at them. I don’t like the way they look at me. Those faces. Those eyes. All of those strange, blob-like globs of color that had made no sense to me before have now come together and coalesced into… into…

 

Faces.

 

  Faces of people. Creatures. All of them carry different expressions and emotions, all of them carry different grievousness in their eyes that stare at me so hauntingly from all around. Above, below, left, right. Everywhere. Their eyes are everywhere and they all stare at me as if they knew something, as if they were specters of the past looming all around me. Just watching, judging. The worst ones are those that look happy. Women carrying a mother’s smile, proud fatherly faces. The challenging eyes of a younger sibling, the daunting expression of a friendly rival forcing you to do better, not out of malice, but out of goodwill. These stand out to me far more than the sad faces, the melancholic gazes and those eyes red with anger. I have gotten used to such things. I don’t like looking at them, but they look at me. They look at us. Never blinking, just watching, their gazes cast unto us by the glow of the effulgent blue-light breaking through from behind them, which bathes us in those strange multi-colored rays that feel so warm on my coat.

 

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  But the air itself is cold now. The warmth of the cathedral is gone now, it is icy. I can see my own breath. Each ‘change’ that the space had gone through shifted it a little more to the negative. Each squeeze pressing out a little more of the heart and soul of this… place. As if the towel being rung out wasn’t full of water, but of lifeblood. Of soul. I feel unwell. Why is everyone looking at me? Why is everyone watching me?

 

Something rubs my neck and I turn around. She nods.

 

Right.

 

Right.

 

I have places to go.

 

  I walk ahead, now in the cathedral again. Was this the first room? Or was this the second cathedral? I can’t remember. Everything is blurry. Everything is vague. There are too many eyes in my mind filling my sparse memory with their gazes. I can’t remember if this is the real one or not.

 

But does it matter? Isn’t one just as good as the other?

 

Stepping into the cathedral again, I stop for a moment as I turn around to look back one last time, even though I know I shouldn’t.

 

  The hallway that was just a few meters long is now restored. It was just like when I first found it. As I gaze down the seemingly endless path behind me, I wonder what this all was? Was this just some metaphor of the dungeon? What is this place? But the longer I look into those shadows behind me, into those shadows where so many eyes were perched not one minute ago, the more uneasy I feel about doing so. The longer I stare into that creeping darkness that seems to be inching forward towards me, towards this sanctified space, towards us, I can’t help but feel like I hear something coming.

 

  Like I hear something down the way. Some wet, slopping, lurching noise. As if a mass of wet, slimy meat was being dragged along the surface of the stones. Like something crawling towards us, towards me. Lurching. Encroaching. As if something were reaching for my ey-

 

  A loud thud echoes around the room and I snap out of my daze and look at the thief-girl who has sealed the door behind us again and is straining to lift the large, heavy bar back into place by herself. Looking at the small creature that she is, the small, breakable thing doing her best to do whatever it is that she is doing, I realize that I should be helping her. What am I doing, just standing here?

 

Walking towards her, I bend down and wedge my back beneath the bar that she sparsely lifts up off of the ground and push upwards to raise it up into the air.

 

 

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