I knew I came to a stop in the Path, because the Path stopped.
That's a rarity. Usually the well-worn dirt path just wanders on forever, and while it may grow a bit more wild, it never just ends.
This time it did, ending very definitively among a small copse of trees. I just stood there for a few moments, letting the light wind and black leaves just swirl about, as I ruminated.
Was this what Twenty-Six did? Did she leave a trail for me to find? How the hell does anyone do that, anyway?
I've spent lifetimes on this damn plane and couldn't answer any of those questions. The more and more I look about me and listen, the more I realize that I don't know shit about anything.
Everything has rules now, everything goes deeper than it ever did before. The thin knife may draw blood, but when it puncture the flesh, you see so much beneath it. And so it goes for a weary soul such as I, whose entire life had only drawn blood until now.
I don't know how anyone else does it, but for myself, I simply put forth the thought that I wanted to be off the Path, and normally, here becomes there in a few moments. It was always an effort of will as they say, to just make the clear and conscious decision that I wanted to leave.
That was not the case this time. The biggest thing that happened, in response to my absolute and crushing intent to get out, was nothing at all.
My heart skipped a beat, and a pain rose in my chest. I could be trapped here again, it would all start again, being forever abandoned and lost. I was stupid to come here, stupid to trust.
It was about this time that I smelled something akin to vinegar in the air. Harsh and unnatural, the scent was but a whiff, as I kept thinking about how much I wanted out of here. And as always, the ground just shifted beneath me as I moved, and everything rolled away.
The landscape was completely unfamiliar. Purple skies with darker clouds, orange soil of a bright intensity, a flat, barren wasteland.
It looked flat.
Let me emphasize that, like 'no curvature of the Earth' flat. My gaze panned to the right, where distantly I could see a small craggy hill, or possibly mountain, with some features atop it. Before it lay a sickly green haze. To my left, I saw another copse of trees, a little closer, and yet I could smell the natural scents of the wilderness, such as rotting logs, and the freshness of grass and leaves. I could smell it as if it were right next to me. It was as if distance itself was flexible here.
Safe to assume, I concluded, that either I was not in the States anymore.
Perhaps it was some other plane of existence, or some sub-plane. Maybe it was just 'right next door' to Earth. Of all the strange and myriad thoughts, I kept hoping one thing specifically: That it wasn't another planet.
I just shook my head as I took in the angular metal tower straight ahead. Of all the strange things I've been a part of in my life, this was the strangest. The wind picked up as I surveyed the tower, and reddish lightning clashed in the sky. There was a hint of rain already coming down, and the strange scent I had first smelled was from it. Ammonia, or something like it. It offended the eyes and nose even at this light volume, and soon the skies were bound to open up further.
Seeking shelter, I ran forward. I doubted the treeline being able to do much to mask the scent, and the way to the right seemed far too far, that green mist that hovered over it all, reminded me far too much of chlorine.
So forward I went, attempting to beat the storm to what I could hope was safety. The land before me grew hazy as fumes rippled unseen, bending the light about it. I ran with an arm over my nose and mouth, just hauling ass.
I reached the tower to find a very old-fashioned door set into it. A plain wooden door, set for something about four times my size, adorned with a bronze or brass circular handle. I rapped on the door urgently, sending a low ringing tone throughout the area.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noted movement upon the flat, featureless plane. The ground rose and swelled in the distance, a bulge in the earth about the size of an elephant. It rolled and moved at a fast pace, a semi-erratic pace. As it turned, I noticed how the ground receeded behind it.
Something was burrowing shallow to the surface, something large, fast, and most likely dangerous.
The clouds had started to open up, entirely muted lightning became visible in the sky, with no thunder accompanying it. I banged on the door again, and in a sense of urgency, fled inside anyway. The door opened without much issue, the problem was the sheer mass of the door being put into motion. I shut it behind me then put my back against it.
From the outside, the tower was metal plates on metal plates, a haphazard series of them all slapped together to form the rudimentary shape of the tower, but inside, inside it was worked stone. A simple grey stone, smooth to the touch, was set in blocks as the flooring and walls, off to the east side, it formed the staircase upward, with a metal railing that seemed to have been bolted on.
Unsurprisingly, it also seemed to be a lot larger inside than it seemed. I'm going to stop you right here though, if you start screaming about Time Lords or screwdrivers, I'm going to pack up my psychotic nightmare, and go home.
The tower was unfurnished, its only central furniture being the staircase itself, I made use of it. I couldn't imagine who was living here, or the scale at which they were living. I was taking a lot of chances, and hadn't much choice in the matter, but at least I could try to be practical about my actions. I removed my shoes and padded up the large stairs. The cool stone was rough against my feet as I held my shoes in my arm.
The first landing was simple, a wooden circular table with slatted boards on it, and three legs, a long series of pillows with backs on them, probably to substitute as a type of couch or bed...and three large cables that crackled with what couldn't be electricity. Electricity wasn't green.
Or perhaps here it was, it certainly sparked and flashed like it, though there was no sound, much like how there was no thunder outside to accompany the lightning. The cables ran upwards into the flooring above, I returned to the stairs.
Above that story, the walls changed to the same sort of iron panels I had seen outside. The workmanship was shoddy, and slapdash. I could smell the hint of whatever gases outside were raining on the area. The stairs shifted as well to metal plates, some of them at poor angles, causing me to constantly adjust how I walked, to avoid being put against the handrail or cut against the wall.
A large thumping sound moved above me, and as I circled upward, I noted mechanical...well, I don't know what they were, but the mechanisms were in motion. They weren't gears, nothing outright clockwork, they were large grooves that levers rolled up and down in, like perhaps, a manual transmission for a car, how the gearshifter maneuvers into different slots.
I noted doors on the side of the staircase. Naturally by this point I didn't really care that there were no side rooms denoted outside the tower, I had accepted the fact that I wasn't dealing with sweet Newtonian reality at this point. So long as everything had some reason to it, I figured I'd be fine, I just needed to keep flexible and adapt.
Its been a rather....full set of days of late, I've got a lot of catching up to document, I'll continue from here next time.
