The Fells Ch. 02

"Oh don't sigh, Alice, it'll be fun. When do we ever get a chance to just have privacy for a whole week? It'll be like this when we finally move into a real house of our own, not just a vacation home."

We finished our meal and did the dishes. It had gotten dark unusually early, but it was still a long time before it'd be reasonable to sleep. Alice had the brilliant idea to spend our time cleaning the basement.

Hopefully it will be kinky with the two of us alone and naked in a place with atmosphere. Unless there are a bunch of cobwebs and cat shit or something.

The two of us tread down the steps, wincing at the cold concrete floor hitting our bare feet. I grope out in the dimness to find the light switch, only to realize I hadn't changed the bulb. Alice brought me a replacement and a chair to stand on, and I change the bulb.

"Hey, how many elephants does it take to change a light bulb?" Alice asks, flashing a grin.

"Oh come on, Alice. Only I get to make the corny jokes."

"Just guess, you wet towel."

"Uhmmmm-"

"Don't be stupid. Elephants can't change light bulbs."

"Very clever, Alice. I can see your career in come-" I flick the switch on, illuminating the dank cellar. Dozens of angry, horrible markings lined the wall in red and blank ink.

BEWARE THE FELLS

LOVE IS A LIE

ALL MEN ARE LIARS

A lot of them had parts of their message scrubbed out. I'm assuming my parents didn't have time to clean it all, and they left the rest for us.

"Oh my god, the shopkeeper was right. Mathilda really did go insane," Alice quivered. The room suddenly felt a lot colder.

Half of the stuff in the cellar was neatly organized by my parents from when they last visited, but the rest was carelessly loaded up in haphazard stacks near the back.

"I'm getting bad vibes," Alice moans.

I feel subtly afraid too, but it's just the ramblings of a madwoman. The real mess was having to deal with all this crap. I try to put a positive spin on things.

"Look, Alice. There's some old-timey hockey gear near the back, next to that big dresser."

I walk over, picking up some ancient-looking ice skates. "You think Santa's elves used these? These look a hundred years old!"

I notice that the bundle of hockey sticks is missing one member. The missing stick was being used to keep the dresser doors closed, inserted into the handles. I decide to replace it back with the others. If we really needed a lock for the dresser, we could easily find one. Alice is nearby, sorting the knee pads.

But just as I move the stick out, the dresser doors burst open and a terrible gust of air blows out of its empty space, tearing through the cellar with storm-like winds. All the boxes and small items get scattered into a mess, and the chain holding the light bulb is flung into the ceiling, smashing the bulb and engulfing the room in darkness.

The gale suddenly ceases, and the two of us struggle to shake off our bewilderment.

"What just happened?!"

"I don't know!!"

We stared into the dresser. It was pitch black, a complete abyss. It looked like it held an impossible amount of space.

Just as suddenly as the last wind came and left, a new tempest starts up in reverse, sucking everything from the cellar into the dresser. Small things like newspaper and cardboard boxes are the first to get swallowed up, but gradually, heavier items get pulled into the void too. It is not long before Alice and I find our feet sliding against the concrete, struggling to resist the dresser's pull. Just as our feet leave the ground, we manage to grab hold of each other as we hurtle through the air.

The last thing we see are the twin dresser doors shut closed behind us as we are thrown against our will, unable to escape whatever's pulling us into blackness and void. We move ferociously fast, but there is no wind now. In fact, there is no air. I try to yell Alice's name, but she cannot hear me, even though she is held tight against my chest. The only clue as to how fast we're moving is the speed at which the environment around us changes shape. Massive tesseracts warp in millions of different directions all at the same time they are hurtling past us. In front of us is an endless fractal, and we seem to be drawing moving towards its edge, only to find that as we get closer, the outer structures match, reflect, and reproduce the greater whole. Behind us, we appear to be departing (or entering?) an infinite and repeating pattern. From our perspective, it seems like we're either zooming out towards something approaching the scale of the universe, or zooming in to the scale of subatomic particles. Either way, microcosm and macrocosm mirror and repeat each other. It is all too disorienting and terrifying to contemplate, and simply having my eyes open forces so much information into my brain at once that I worry my sense of subjectivity might be shattered at any moment. The only thing I can feel is Alice's embrace, and my tight grip on her. We both shut our eyes closed, just barely shutting out the feeling of vertigo.

Finally, all manner of sensation stops, and a still blackness takes over.