Otherworlds 5: The Kennel Vincent knew there wasn't supposed to be that little unpainted doghouse in the corner of his yard. He didn't even even own a dog. This should have made him cautious, but something drew him toward the plain structure.
He got down on his hands and knees to look inside it and saw that it was deep. Not deep as in it was over a hole, deep as in the back of the doghouse from the inside was several times farther away than should have been possible from the outside. There seemed to be light coming from an opening at the other end. This also didn't make sense, because the back of the doghouse from the outside was just plain wood.
Vincent crawled inside the dog house and found himself in what was essentially a wooden tunnel. Based on the size of the doghouse, he shouldn't be able to move, shouldn't even have enough space to turn around, but there it was.
It seemed that the thing to do now that he was already in here, was to find out what was on the other side. The ceiling was too low to stand, so Vincent continued forward, crawling on his hands and knees.
It was slow going, and the tunnel seemed to go on forever. It wasn't as dark as it should be; light was somehow shining in through the slats above, but after several minutes of crawling, the end of the tunnel didn't seem that much closer. If only I could stand up.
Finally he was approaching the end of the tunnel, and he saw that it actually went upward. Vincent stood up and found himself touching the ceiling, which lifted when he pushed on it. Apparently actually a hatch of some kind. Relieved to be able to escape the dim confines of the claustrophobic tunnel.
Vincent climbed out of the hatch onto the grey floor, which had some give to it. As the hatch swung closed, he noticed that at some point his t shirt and jeans had been replaced with black leather vest and a pair of shorts. Around his neck there was a chain necklace with a metal tag shaped like a dog bone.
The room was a long corridor lined with colored doors. Bizarrely, Vincent couldn't see the end of the corridor in either direction. The doors were shorter than normal; a person would have to duck down to pass through them. Each door had a placard over it with various pictograms. Most of them seemed to depict a dog doing something.
As Vincent looked at the dog plaques, he began to notice the sounds of the place. Unlike the silence of the tunnel, where he could only hear the movement of his body against the wooden floor, here there were the subtle sounds of panting, howls, and the occasional bark. All of them sounded distant, as if they were coming from some faraway room. Were there dogs here? Maybe that's what the signs implied.
Vincent walked back to where the hatch door had been in the floor. When he had let go of the hatch it had swung soundlessly shut. Now he could not find any sign of the seam in the floor where the hatch should be. The floors were covered with gray padded mats, like the kind that people put down when practicing gymnastics.
Vincent stated to wonder why he had felt so compelled to keep crawling through that tunnel. It was curiosity of course, but he was suddenly realizing that a strange impossible tunnel would be something he would normally avoid, but once he had stuck his head in that doghouse, he'd just started crawling as if he had no self preservation instinct.
Vincent started to feel the sense of oncoming panic. He'd heard about Otherworlds, and he had obviously stumbled into one. He knew that as soon as he'd stuck his head in that dog house, he'd probably put himself on an inevitable path to being here. He also knew that there was usually a way out for those willing to look for it. He'd slipped out of his world, now he just had to navigate this one and get back. No sense getting worked up about it.
It didn't seem like he could go back the way he came, so he would have to go through the doors. He picked one at random. The placard on top of it seemed to show a dog collar with a metal tag on it. Seemed as good as anything.
Vincent touched the doorknob and briefly his mind's eye saw a dog collar. It must have been on his mind because he'd just looked at the placard above the door. He turned the knob and walked through and came out into what appeared to be an identical corridor.
The chain and dog tag around his neck jingled briefly, as if it had been caught on something. While he was distracted by this, the door had swung shut behind him. When he turned around to look at the door, it had the same placard over it, a dog collar. The corridor looked exactly the same as where he'd come from, as if it was a parallel and identical to the one behind the wall.
Trying to see if the chain had been tangled somehow he held it up. Holding up the bone-shaped dog tag around his neck, he noticed it was no longer blank. He had been sure it was blank earlier, but somehow passing through the door had engraved the metal. One side said ROXAS, the other side had 5 little squares in a line. One of the squares had an X inside it, like some option had been selected on a form.
Who or what was Roxas? It wasn't his name, which was...wait, why couldn't he remember his own name? He put his hands on the sides of his head, this was impossible, he knew he had a name, but he just couldn't think of it, the shape of it, what letters were in it. He was sure it hadn't been Roxas, but instead of spiraling off into more panic that somehow a door had erased his memory, he realized he had to calm himself and get the lay of the land.
Roxas decided he would go back through the door and get back to the original corridor. Maybe he would be able to notice some difference or just peek through to determine if there were two corridors or if he had walked in a door and somehow decided to walk back out again with no memory of what had transpired within.
Roxas gripped the door under the dog collar placard and tried to turn the knob. It seemed locked. Maybe a door could only open once. That might be a key to getting out of this place, which was getting more menacing by the second. The sounds of dog howls in the distance had begun to feel eerie.
He decided that the most sensible thing would be to try a door on the opposite side. Roxas walked across the corridor, his feet slightly sinking into the grey mat, and selected another door.
The placard above this door had a pictogram of a dog with lines coming out of its mouth. It looked like the dog was supposed to be barking. Roxas hesitantly placed his hand on the knob and briefly had an image of himself in his mind's eye. Remembering that something similar had happened at the last door, instead of turning the knob he kept his hand on it and closed his eyes.
After a moment, he imagined himself standing in a room. His mouth was opening and closing. Roxas concentrated harder and started to realize that he could hear sounds that his mouth were making in the vision. He was imagining himself barking like a dog, and occasionally whimpering. He saw his hands go up to his own throat as if trying to unsuccessfully coax some other sound out.
He jerked his hand back from the knob and the vision immediately faded. He was certain if he ducked down and passed through that door, something would happen to him and he would not be able to speak when he came back out.
Yet, he had been able to see that vague vision of what would happen to him, maybe if he could find a placard that said EXIT or something it would be the way back. He scanned the doors in his immediate surroundings. All pictograms.
He walked over to another door and looked at the placard above it. It showed a dog with a drawing of a hand over it's head. Maybe if he went through this door he would just have to pet one of these dogs he kept hearing. That wouldn't be so bad.
Remembering the last door, he closed his eyes and gently touched the door knob, careful not to accidentally turn it. After a few moments another vision came to him. In this one he was on his hands and knees and some other person was standing next to him. The other person was hazy above waist level, he could mostly see their legs.
In the vision, the other person's hand came down to pat Roxas's head, ruffling his hair. The hand kept petting his head, and Roxas saw the facial expression on this version of himself indicated that the man's touch was a euphoric experience. Through a blissful smile, the imagined version of himself looked up to the man with eyes filled with total adoration.
Roxas pulled back his hand and again, the vision faded. So if he went through this door, it would not be him who would pet a dog. He would be the dog if he went in there. It had looked like a very pleasant experience, but if this worked the same way the door with the collar had, he could walk out of there changed. Maybe he would crave people petting him? He wasn't quite sure exactly what would happen.
His thoughts went back to what had happened as he passed through the dog collar door. He held up the bone-shaped metal dog tag on the chain around his neck. On one side was his name, Roxas, but on the other were those five boxes in a line. One door passed through, one box crossed out.
Roxas understood. What he had to do to get out of here to fill up all five boxes. That meant four more doors. All things considered, this was going to be easy, he thought. Although on reflection, the act of walking through the doors seemed like it would be very easy, the decision of which doors to pass through would not be easy. If his understanding was correct and each door would inflict some permanent change upon him, he'd have to carefully choose which doors he wanted to try.
Roxas looked around at some of the placards above the other doors. A pictogram of a dog eating from a bowl, a dog on a leash, a bone, one of the placards simply had a pictogram of a dog with an empty thought bubble coming off of it's head. He could touch the doors to get some understanding of what the confusing pictograms meant, but he doubted there was any opportunity for going back on something he didn't like. He had some decisions to make, but he was going to fill those boxes and get out of here.
He wondered what he would be like when he returned, if he would be the same person at all or if there were any limits to the ways this place could change him.
There was only one way to find out.
