Purgatory of sorts
I don’t remember anything when I first awake and later, I wonder if I ever even knew anything at all.
Everything is white. The walls and floors are a perfect white, so untouched and blank. Empty. Nothing is in this room. Except me. I think it less a room and more a cube that I’ve been trapped in. I don’t know why or even how I think that—a cube, because I don’t know what that is.
I struggle to sit up, but my body doesn’t want to obey the commands I give it and I have no choice but to continue flat on my back, paralyzed. My eyes can move at least, and every so often, my fingers twitch.
A noise sounds in my blind spot, followed by footfalls nearing my location. A figure stands overhead, smiling down at me.
The being lowers close to me and I can only stare at their elongated neck as they work on me. Something is plugged into the space behind my ear and my body reacts immediately. It’s like a burst of energy coursing through me, filling my hollowness with… somethingness.
The other person removes their presence from me and I attempt once more to move. This time, it works and I pull myself into a sitting position, hands stretching high above my head. I don’t know why I do this. It just seems like the right thing to do.
There’s a shuffling of feet and my eyes zoom back in on the other being. Now I can see her better. It’s a girl. Everything about her matches the room around us. Flawless white skin, snowy white locks that cascade down her back and white attire consisting of a short dress, a leather jacket with fur rim and boots that rise past her knees. In her hands is a clipboard that she holds close to her chest.
She looks perfect. It makes me wonder what I look like.
“Hi, I’m Miriam!” She bursts out in a friendly manner. “And I will be your guide from here on out.” Her eyelashes are white too, but her eyes are black. They stare me down and after a long moment, blink quickly. “Your name is Seventy-seven. You are a twenty year-old male, at the height of 5’11”, weighing at 200lbs.” She lists out my descriptions, but none of it clicks for me. “You are our new champion.”
I don’t know what that is, but it must be important, because of the way this girl watches me. Nothing clicks still. I’m important? I don’t feel it.
“We must get going. You need your supplies. For your start approaches soon.” Her voice is too smooth. It doesn’t sound right. “Come, come.”
With no trouble again from earlier, I stand and follow her out the room. There was a door, but I hadn’t seen it. I see it now as it slides shut behind me. The halls carry the same characteristics as the space we had just left. White and empty. It would’ve been deathly quiet, but the heels from Miriam’s boots are loud and clack down the corridor noisily.
The girl makes small comments to me during our walk and helps me practice talking. I respond to simple questions with a scratchy ‘yes’ or husky ‘no’. When I voice my worry about the sound, Miriam merely tells me I’ve only just awoken. A whole new set of questions arise, but I never get the chance to ask them.
She stops us at a new door and taps in a code on the panel near the frame. The door, much like the other, slides open with a swoosh and we enter the new room. It is different than the last. There are actually objects in here, filling the space. Something in the back of my mind whispers what these things are. Weapons. They cover every inch of the wall on one side but on the other, hangs armor.
Miriam looks at me expectantly. I understand. I am to choose.
I settle the thick metal plating over the white cloth pants and shirt I woke up in, tightening each clasp with ease. My hands seem to know what they’re doing on their own. I am surprised to find how easily I can move in the armor. It’s manageable and almost like I hadn’t put anything on at all. I glance in Miriam’s direction questioningly, but her only response is to smile.
Weapons are next. I stay here the longest. There are so many different kinds, all of various shapes and sizes. I choose a long bladed sword with a ruby handle. Miriam makes a noise behind me and scribbles furiously on her clipboard. I would have questioned that reaction more, but I am too taken by the object in my hands to bother.
Once she finishes, she snaps me out of my daydreaming and directs me to another door, this one larger and black. I see it and I immediately know what I must do. But I don’t know why. Miriam offers a few words, but they fall on deaf ears and I am ushered through.
--
I am not scared when I see it.
The large creature, at least twice my size, moves around the room in a frenzied pace, spiked tail swishing to and fro. Once it lands its eyes on me, it hisses out a warning and shows me its teeth.
But I am not worried.
My body moves to it, the sword in my hand becoming another part of my being. It’s all muscle memory, it seems, as I dodge and roll. Slash and hack. I have only been awake (alive?) for minutes and I am already battling like a trained soldier.
What am I?
The battle ends quickly after it begins and I am not even out of breath. The creature’s corpse is before me, blood rapidly forming a puddle around it. There’s a speck of red on my armor and I wipe at it, distracted. Miriam, who has stayed near the exit during the entirety of the combat, joins me by my side.
That smile is present and she brightly says, “One down. Ninety-nine more floors to go!”
--
I don’t know how much time passes, but I continue to fight. A monster for each floor. A hundred total. As I advance higher and higher, the harder they get. Instead of the quick five-minute battles, I enter into ones of hours in length-- ones that challenge my wit, not just my strength.
But with every passing battle, the wearier I grow. I know more and I understand more. And more than anything, I want rest. But Miriam won’t allow it, pushing me to each new monster. There is no time for rest, she tells me when I ask. No time for you is all I hear.
I also notice little things about her that make me uneasy. Occasionally, her speech jumbles up and she’ll repeat herself three or four times in a row. Sometimes, her body will twitch erratically and emit a low crooning noise from those white lips. And I remember, once after a fight in which the creature’s tail connected to her midsection and sent her flying across the room, her eyes bled black when she collided with the floor. I barely got to see it before she managed to compose herself, but I knew what I saw.
She wasn’t human, rather something else. Artificial Intelligence would ring in my mind. I didn’t know what that was, but it seemed self-explanatory. That made me begin to wonder what I was. I never got injured in any of the battles I faced, so was I too made of gears and oil?
I kept these thoughts to myself as I did all other ideas that popped up in my head. One time before, I asked Miriam why I had to fight and she gave me a cold smile before promptly pressing down on that spot behind my ear. I forgot what happened in that period afterwards. But I managed to plow through seven levels before my conscious seemed to return.
It was then I realized that I had no choice to keep on moving, to clear all hundred floors.
--
The last monster, the hundredth one, was difficult and it took me many hours of climbing the colossal beast after countless times of being thrown off to finally defeating it. Its scales had been no match for my sword, still sharp as it had been from the first time I held it in my hands.
But as I watched the life leave its eyes, I felt no satisfaction. No reward at my efforts. Why did I have to do this? Why did I have to slaughter one hundred creatures, one after the other?
Miriam waited for me by the door. My heart jumped at the slight. Perhaps now, I would get some answers. Now I could rest.
I moved towards the girl of white, my body slow with fatigue. My armor no longer held the shine it did before, dulled and bloodied from the many fights from before. I didn’t worry about that, however, because I completed all of the floors. I had no use for armor anymore.
I huffed and puffed as I neared, hand moving to wipe the sweat from my forehead. My hair had grown; the dark locks long enough to cover my eyes, something that proved to be very obstructive in my fighting.
Miriam looked the same as ever. Not a single thing was different about her. As I looked at her now, the only other being I’ve interacted with that I didn’t have to kill, I realized how much I hated her. Hated that smile. Hated the way she moved that pen in her hand. Hated her.
Her voice interrupted my dark thoughts. “You completed the first tower! Congratulations!” That was it. She didn’t even clap for me. But then she continued. “You only have three more towers to complete before you can enter the final tower.” Her head bobbed. “We must hurry. Come, come.”
I stared in shock, my hand tightening on the handle of my weapon, knuckles white with anger. What I did next was something I had wanted to do for a long time.
I shoved my blade through her chest.
A gurgling noise choked in her throat as black liquid leaked from her wound and onto my blade, rivulets of oil streaming down to ground. She fell to the floor with a curt thump and I watched as the black began to stain her pure white being.
“You… -- should not… you…. – don’t…. have… thought....” A cough. “You shouldn’t….”
Black seeped out of every part of her now, transforming her into a dark creature. A monster like those I’ve fought.
I stood a long time, watching as this inhuman girl died before my eyes. I don’t even know if I can call that death, but it look every bit like how the other creatures went. When I went to pull the sword from her chest, I nicked myself.
Ironic how the only time I get injured, it’s by my own hands. Red trickles out and I feel relief slam into every fiber of my being. I am not like Miriam.
And with that thought, I settle down on the ground, every intention of getting that sleep I’ve been craving. My eyelids lower and I am asleep.
--
When I awake, I remember. I remember all that I did.
But I am not alone.
A familiar face smiles from above.
“Hi, I’m Miriam!”
