A Secret Housed Within a Structure

The world was an immense plain of nothing, miles upon miles of landscape meant to be avoided, colorless and void save for he and myself. For seemingly all of my existence, I had been searching for this place.

I could see it in the distance, across the gray valley, sitting on the crest of a hill that overlooked its surroundings. The structure, a cube half buried in the hill's protective soil, had proven difficult to find as years upon years had passed in my relentless pursuit.

Regardless, I had found it. I had felt it in my bones long ago that he could not hide this from me. Even if it took years, which it has, to find its location. The structure housed a secret, one that he had been keeping from me for ages.

The dull, pallid sides of the cube glowed ominously in the dark, barely but sufficiently standing out from the terrain. Within minutes I had glided through the gray valley and arrived at the western wall of the structure. It was not a large building, at least what was shown above the surface of the black soil, barely surpassing my own height.

I walked around the structure, perplexed at its simplistic complexity. Without windows and doors, how was I to gain entrance and retrieve the long-kept secret within? I returned to the western wall and stood before it. Disbelief began to overcome me. Had I come all this way only to be stymied by a structure with no way in?

With eyes closed, I lifted an open palm and placed it on the cold concrete wall. My elbow was nearly fully extended before I realized I was not touching anything. I opened my eyes and saw the concrete wall had engulfed my hand up to mid-forearm. I gasped in astonishment. Perhaps there were rules older than his securities, rules that granted my touch significant.

I stepped through the borders of the structure. What I had thought to be a cube half-buried was much larger as it seem I had walked into the top story of a skyscraper, lost and buried with time and dirt.

With the ceiling directly above my head, I looked downward, scanning endless stories of catwalks and stairs that reached far below the surface of the ground. Deep in the structure sat an enclosed, cube-like room, surrounded by a maze of metal walkways and pipes. The secret withheld by him was there, in that room that sat deep enough where one would need to commit to the menacing, dim-lit labyrinth in order to reach it.

Again, as if destiny itself was lending its direct guidance, I had found my way to the room as only minutes passed. I entered through the door, bringing my feet to rest before a stainless steel table. I had made it. I felt sure that whatever was in this room, whatever secret that I had long been pursuing, would soon present itself to me, at long last providing fulfillment from this endless game.

My eyes transfixed on the table, whose coldness upon my hands quickly enlightened me to an alarming observation: there was nothing on the table and nothing else in the room. As it was empty and starkly void of any relevance, I understood the room had cleverly been prepared for my discovery.

He knew.

My heart quickly passed the fleeting adrenaline of victory near at hand, sending echoes of grave error and an immediate need for flight throughout my body. I stood with mouth agape at the incredulous fault that I had not foreseen.

He knew that I would stop at nothing to find this place. He knew that I would find my way to the room, so far recessed in his labyrinth in blind pursuit of a secret I thought to be vindictive, that I would risk all and everything on obtaining it. Everything I thought to be of my own strength and advantage was used against me.

As the entire structure proceeded in its lockdown and the door to the room sealed itself, I only stand and watch, stunned as my own naive resilience passively resigns to his beautifully crafted abyss. Even attempting escape at this point would have been foolhardy.

Here I was, trapped within the earth by a maze crafted of my own confusion and stupidity and whatever cogent notions that drove me to this place now serve as the catalyst for my entombment. The only secret that this structure housed was that before I had even begun looking, he knew how best to trap me.

THE FERAL BEAR [REVISED]

I stepped into a downtown corner diner that was modestly busy. It’s L-shape provided a counter that ran along both lengths of the inside, while an array of booths sat against the large windows. There were several people I knew who were on the far side already engaged in their meals. I seated myself at the counter perusing the help wanted section of the newspaper.

I walked down the near end of the counter to ask the cashier if they had any positions available. At a booth straight across from the counter sat an associate conversing with a friend. Seeing him out of the corner of my eye alerted my anxiety as I felt sure he was watching me; he was, as always, looking and waiting for my next great embarrassment.

The cashier politely informed me that there was nothing available. I walked away knowing my associate had seen this interaction and was now sneering with his friend at how foolish I had looked receiving the rejection. I made my way to a booth near the corner of the diner, sitting down beneath a cloud of angst.

As I sat down I caught a brief glimpse of a bearded man sitting in the booth behind mine. He wore a dense red and black flannel jacket and over his mangy brown hair he had pulled a hat down low, covering his eyes. We sat back to back in our respective booths, though soon he had turned, bringing his head to my shoulder to whisper in my ear.

From his rough, growling voice came a stream of hushed taunts and jeers, so violent in nature that I was too shamed to react . I could feel his facial hair scratching against my neck as his raspy breath, foul and hot against my ear, moved me to severe discomfort. Still I did not stir, frozen in this moment of discordant affirmation.

By some miracle, I shook myself free of the unwanted attention, escaping from the booth stiff-necked and into the bathroom; though part of me knew that he would follow me there.

I stood alone in sick anticipation, facing the door and awaiting his arrival. What little bravado that attempted to stir within me was soon quelled by an unnatural and extraordinary event. Soon, the bathroom door was thrust open violently, as the man had transformed into his true nature, an oversized feral bear whose own body was bulging at the seams with exaggerated viciousness.

In seconds, his bleeding eyes advanced on me with savage purpose, overcoming me with a mass of ragged fur whose stench alone could have bent my will. He knocked me back against the wall, throwing my weightless body around to assert his control. When I attempted escape, he secured my elbow in his seething jaws. Amidst his heavy panting he growled:

“Don’t you know what’s happening here? I’m going to kill you.”

A realization of pure, innate fear overwhelmed me as a terror-fueled adrenaline rush allowed me to somehow escape from his grip, tearing out of the bathroom and through the length of the diner to burst out of the doors.

A flock of individuals were waiting for me outside. I screamed at them to run, to flee as fast as they could. They joined me in my flight as we spilled into the sunless suburban terrain. As we split off from each other, I took my course through backyards and was soon joined by two peers, male and female, running abreast of me.

We found ourselves in a yard that transformed itself into a box-shaped room, isolating us with the soon-approaching beast. In this room, my companions possessed the power to manifest anything with their minds. They went about in a calm frenzy, preparing the room with ideas and tools for a defense and hopeful defeat of our enemy.

Seconds passed as we awaited his arrival. His plangent gallop from afar echoed forcibly in the room, growing louder and louder as he neared. The blackness of his caustic quest overwhelmed me. He would stop at nothing to rip my heart out and claim it.

When his pounding steps reached an unbearable apex, he had arrived. The Bear threw himself against the barrier of the cube, crashing into the room with reckless hatred. A battle ensued where I found myself keeping out of harm’s way, watching as my two companions took themselves against the enemy.

My companions proved to be equally matched, wearing down the enemy with cunning traps and methods. The Bear slowly diminished in size, weakened and no longer the menacing threat he was in the diner. He was to become the man he used to be. I searched through the wreckage and aftermath of the battle as my companions sat down with the Bear. I could not allow his transformation without personal vindication.

Sitting on his haunches in defeat, the Bear expressed remorse for all that had transpired. My companions listened, replying in sympathy as they desired to offer him their aid. I listened from a distance as I found what I was looking for among the mounds of discarded ideas and tools.

I held in my hands a shovel. I calmly loaded the shovel with a deck of cards and with candle in hand lit a blaze of revenge.

The Bear was earnestly listening to the words of my companions as I approached him with purposed feet. I hated him and wanted him to see the vengeful wrath that boiled in my eyes for what he had done: I was but a piece of soulless flesh that could be used and destroyed without a care.

I stood in front of the Feral Bear with my companions flanking me in silent protest. With vacant expression, I threw the burning embers directly into his remorseful eyes.

I watched him writhing in his pain, screaming as the fiery cards seared upon his face, burning him beyond recognition. I felt he so justly deserved what I had given, yet I found myself void of the fulfillment that I was so sure would be mine with this deed. Vindication had apparently eluded me in my quest for redemption.

Why could I not find fruition in destroying the face of a monster?