Untitled

[Ol’ Qwerty Bastard]

I woke up in a fury. Unsure of my surroundings and with only three quarters left in my jacket pocket, I began searching the dimly lit concrete floor for my phone. I couldn’t remember how I got here, but I knew I had to have had my phone on me as I never leave home without it. As I crawled across the seemingly never ending confines of the room, I finally came to a door. I had still yet to find my phone, but I wasn’t too worried, I could always buy a new one later, right now my priority was simply figuring out where I was.

As I opened the door, I felt a push from behind and before I knew it the door behind me slammed shut with a loud thud.

“Hello?” I spoke aloud, despite knowing deep down inside that I was still alone.

Suddenly, the lights above me lit up. I had to squint in order to keep the tears from rolling down my face as the bright fluorescent lights beamed down on me.

“Guess I should have brought my sunglasses” I mumbled to myself. Humour always was my escape from uncomfortable situations, and it appears that’s what this was destined to be.

As I peered ahead, I noticed a wooden table set up in the middle of the room. On top, sat only a pair of headphones. I walked the surrounding walls, feeling for a knob or a window, anything that would allow me to leave, but my search came up empty. I decided to approach the table, surely it was there for a reason, right? I pulled the chair out and plopped myself down on top of it before convincing myself to slide the headphones over my head. The room went dark, and before I knew it, music started to play.



"Oh my god, what the fuck is this?" I shouted, prying the headphones off of my ears. Yet when I tried to remove them, a shock was sent through my body. I quickly tried again, but with the same painful result. I sat back down, the raw, guttural vocals echoing in my ear as the drums boomed in the background and the guitars played some of the most hellacious music I had ever heard. Then, finally, the moment I had been waiting for came along as the song came to it's conclusion. I stayed seated for a few moments, waiting for another song, or for someone to greet me. Instead, I was met with silence and darkness. I tried again to remove the headphones from my head, and this time, it worked. As I sat them back on the table, the light began to shine overhead, and I noticed an open door straight head.

I jumped up, and half-sprinted towards it, eagerly anticipating making my exit and returning to civilization. That's far from what I walked into though. I had arrived in a smokey, cabaret club with one table placed in the middle yet again. There was no door within my view, and so I took the initiative to once again take a seat. At the very least, this chair was a little bit more comfortable than the previous one.

I heard footsteps on the floor behind me, and as I turned I was shocked to see a small man, maybe 4 feet tall standing to my left.

"Where am I!?" I shouted in his direction.

He didn't answer, and refused to even acknowledge that I had just screamed in his face. He did however, hold a tray up high in his arms, and after removing the cover, presented me with a pair of headphones.

"Is this some sort of joke? Who are you?" I barked, jumping from my chair towards his direction.

Immediately, the room drained of oxygen, and I fell back down into the seat with a shortness of breath. I felt the little man place the headphones over my head, and within seconds I was sitting upright, gasping in breath after breath of fresh air. I spun around, but just as he arrived out of nowhere, he had disappeared in a similar fashion.

Just like the previous time, music began to play. This time however, I could see the shadow of a man on the stage that sat in front of me. He took a drink from his shot-glass (or so it appeared, it was hard to tell from the smoke filled air and only being able to see his shadow) and then propped his guitar up onto his knee.



What a weird song, I thought to myself, but it's certainly more pleasent than the last, that's for sure. The mannerisms of the shadow on stage matched perfectly with the song I was hearing, as he tapped his foot along with the beat and seemed to be mouthing the exact same words that the darkly voiced singer-songwriter was spouting through my headphones.

"Screw this, I'm getting out of here." I decided, as I abruptly stood up and tried to remove the hearing device. Just like the last time however, I was hit with a big electrical shock and dropped back down to my chair.

"God damnit!" I shouted.

I sat back down, and within a few seconds the song wrapped up. Once again, I was free to remove the headphones, and up on stage the curtains were now pried open, showing a door for me to exit through, which I swiftly did.

This time, the room I entered had an orange tint to it. There was no chair or table in the middle, but I could see a pair of headphones pushed into the far corner. I walked over and promptly grabbed them, knowing I had no choice but to put them on. I sat down and crossed my legs, resting my back against the cold, hard wall.



The audio began, and this time it sounded like a band rehearsing in their garage. I chuckled to myself, as it reminded me quite a bit of a few years prior when I had formed my first rock band with a couple of my friends. I didn't have much time to think however, as seconds later a group of five people dressed head to toe in cheaply made t shirts and skeleton face paint came into my view. They began jumping around to the music, moshing back and forth, thrusting their body in the strangest of ways. I stood up and tried to approach them, but I ran face first into some sort of clear plastic wall.

I began banging my fist against it, doing anything and everything I could to get their attention.

"Let me out of here! Please? Come on guys, this isn't funny!"

They approached me, and just as soon as I though they were going to let me leave, they began bumping up against the plastic. They licked it, they kicked it, they rubbed their backs against, these were arguebly the strangest individuals I had ever encountered. They continued to taunt me as the song moved on, the frantic pacing clearly working as their motive as they started to smash their heads against the wall. I put my hands against my forehead, and stressfully began pacing back and forth in my small little box until the song came to end.

The freak show was over, and the room now sat empty. I dropped the headphones onto the floor, and the box had seemingly disappeared, as I was now free to walk around. There was a door to my right this time, and I already knew what was waiting for me as I made my way towards it.

"Let's just get this thing over with" I whispered under my breath before entering. Despite how willing I had become to endure whatever it was that was being thrown at me, I was not prepared for what awaited me in this next room. It was dingy, dark, and stunk of sweat, and the music, oh god, the music...

To be continued

[Ol’ Qwerty Bastard]

As I slid through the sweaty, half naked human bodies that filled this room, I felt a certain unease in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't simply the nausea caused by a combination of the smell and flashing lights, it was also the fact that this was the first time I was left in the open with actual people who would interact with me. The small man from earlier refused to acknowledge my presence outside of giving me the headphones, and I had a plastic box separating me from that last collection of weirdos. Something else that was different this time, was the music, which boomed from overhead thanks to some sort of PA speaker situated on the ceiling.



God, was this stuff abrasive or what? I could partially ignore it at this point, because my senses had all been overcome by my overwhelming hunger and urge to find a soft, comfortable bed to fall asleep in. As I continued to make my way through the gyrating teenage crowd, I began screaming my questions as loudly as possible.

"I just need to know how to get out of here!" I yelled.

They all heard me, that I could tell for sure, just by looking at the way they returned my glances. They were so occupied with their aggressive body movements however, that they neglected to answer what it was I was asking them.

I did anything and everything I could to try for help. I grabbed shoulders, tapped on backs, pulled on arms, whatever it took to get the attention of those around me, and yet regardless of the steps I followed, they all just watched me suffer. That is, until I finally found a younger girl sitting down near one of the walls.

"Can you help me?" I shouted as loudly as I could, still being drowned out by the music.

She came closer.

"Pardon?" she asked.

I was so happy to have someone acknowledge me that I almost forgot to repeat myself. I stood silently for a minute, no longer hearing the music, no longer sensing the hundreds of drugged out partiers that were surrounding me, until I finally managed to muster a response.

"I said, can you help me?" I spat out.

"Sure, what can I do for ya?" the girl replied, rather nonchalantly.

I paused for a moment, I needed to evaluate my situation. She could be in on this, couldn't she? Why would there be a random girl just sitting in this room? Then again, I've endured some incredibly odd situations in here, wherever here is, so it's a risk I might just be willing to take. You know what, screw it, I'm going all out, I decided.

"Get me out of here please."

"Sir, if you want to leave, all you need to do is go."

I stood, dumbfounded by what I had just heard. All I need to do is go? What was this kid talking about. I've been trying to leave for what must have been a few hours now, and every single time I enter a new room, it's just more of the same, yet somehow worse. It's like a maze that never ends, and is here for the sole purpose of slapping me in the face with abnormal music at every corner.

"What do you mean? I've been trying to leave for the past couple of hours now, and it hasn't worked very well for me yet."

She gave me an almost puzzled look, as if she didn't believe that I had been frantically looking for an exit for that long. What was a girl her age doing in here anyway?

"If that's the case, than you aren't trying hard enough to leave. You need to want it, otherwise you'll be here forever."

What was she on about? Should I just start looking for a door again and hope that I'm almost done with this stuff. Clearly she's in on this thing, either that or she just has no clue what she's talking about. This must be some science experiment that I signed up for, maybe I just forgot about it or something...

She continued speaking to me.

"I'm serious, concentrate. Close your eyes, and imagine yourself elsewhere, convince your brain that you aren't here, it really does work."

So I did it. I'm not quite sure what possessed me to follow these bizarre instructions, but I did it. Just like that, the music disappeared, as did the collage of nasty smells, and as I reopened my eyes, there I was, sitting on the floor of my apartment in nothing but a pair of my underwear, wondering exactly what had just transpired and how it was I had gotten here.