Chapter 32: A Feeling You Can’t Describe

AI rode the elevator back to The Hub I made a mental checklist of the things I wanted to do and talk about before I went down to actually try the floor I can’t directly mention. I think the first thing I wanted to do was talk to Kacey about a few things.

First of all, I want to talk about The Author. They are a mostly mysterious figure to me, but I figure someone who claims to have been around for a while might know something about The Author that I wouldn’t find on my own.

However, The Author claims to have made it to the final floor, while Kacey says they’ve only went down to floor twenty and then turned back. The only way Kacey would know more is if The Author themselves talked to Kacey in some way or another.

While it wasn’t impossible that The Author would come back to The Hub, I didn’t see it happening all that often, if at all. I still wanted to show Kacey the book I collected from floor twenty-seven. It had information in it that everyone aiming to go down needed to know.

I’d figure out everything else to talk about after discussing the final guidebook. After that, I need to restock, I’d probably stock up enough to last me three weeks at normal consumption. That way I’d have plenty of time to mess around and get lost.

Though, I think it might be a good idea to spend a few days here in The Hub so I can recuperate after the strenuous exercise from floor thirty-one. Thirty-one… I really have travelled down really far. When I ended up on floor one, I was worried I wouldn’t survive the floor I was on, and now I had something to aim for.

I was a bit worried about the upcoming boss floor at thirty-four. The demon that I had started some kind of feud with. Looking back on it, it probably wasn’t the smartest decision to antagonize something that can literally end worlds. I was just angry and wanted some kind of control back.

Disrupting my thoughts, the elevator door opens, and I’m greeted by the familiar layout of The Hub. I pull out my map and start trying to find my current position. I was pretty close to the entrance of The Hub, surprisingly. I was expecting to get further and further away as I went lower, but that didn’t appear to be the case. It must just be random.

I checked the time, and it was around the time of day I should be able to catch Kacey, so I walked over to the table with all the greetings on it and placed a bottle of acetaminophen on it. It disappeared almost instantly, with a note appearing a moment later.

‘You must be back, Logan. I don’t know anyone else mentally unstable enough to place something so valuable on this table.’ I was greeted by a nice note and familiar handwriting.

‘Of course I’m back, I have some more thing to talk about. Same place as before?’

‘Yes. Do you need a marked map?’

‘No, I remember the way.’ I wrote and then started walking towards the table we used the last time we had a serious discussion. It had been a while, but it still felt recent enough that it was easy to remember its exact location. Once I arrived, the bottle of pills was on the table waiting for me.

‘Kacey, keep them. Consider it a gift of sorts.’ The bottle disappears again, and a note quickly follows.

‘I don’t know if you’re kind or just stupid. Either way, I’m grateful.’

’Now, I have a lot to talk about this time. I made a lot of progress in a short amount of time. Last time we talked, I was about to start floor twenty-two, but this time, I’m about to head down to floor thirty-two.’

‘That’s a long way to go down in just a period of less than two months.’

‘If only that was the end of it. I know there is an end to these floors, a bottom.’

‘There obviously is an end to these floors, considering the nature of them, there can only be a relatively finite amount of them. From the sounds of it though, you know roughly how many floors there are.’

‘My best guess is somewhere around forty or fifty. Check this out.’ I placed the final guidebook on the table. I was a bit worried as it took well over twenty minutes to hear anything back from Kacey. Sure enough, they did eventually reply.

‘Your estimate is probably correct. The Author actually has made it to the end then. You came to talk to me specifically about it. I’ve told you almost everything I know, there isn’t anything else I can give you other than advice on how to survive, but you are probably better than me at that already.’

‘I figured you wouldn’t have any more information for me, I just wanted to share what I have, for people that want to continue their journey deeper.’

‘You’re a good person, Logan.’

‘Also, I angered the demon on floor eighteen, and she now wants to kill me. She told me she is the boss of floor thirty-four. So, I would rather you call me an idiot than a good person.’

‘You never cease to amaze me. If anyone else said that to me, I’d have never believed them even in a million years, but I can only ever trust what you have to say.’

‘Thanks for having faith in me. However, the information I have on the floors after our last meeting isn’t anything to celebrate over. Starting from the desert, we have a floor where the mimics from floor twenty are fully formed and will completely believe they are real. To get through, you have to kill them.’

‘Even floor twenty-three is frightful. Just keep going, I’ll wait here until you’re done.’

‘Alright. Next there was a whole bunch of puzzles, and you kill a demon at the end for some reason. You can fail by summoning the demon, so brush up on morse code for that one. Then a boss floor that completely mimics the real world with a control effect. You will barely notice anything wrong, but it is actually a landscape of pus and rot. Escape as fast as possible.

Twenty-six is really bad if you aren’t aware how to use a weapon. At the start, there are mimics that will disguise as office materials, then they will get more aggressive as you go deeper. I encountered a table mimic of sorts that helped me get better at using my weapon.

Then the floor that book is from, only thing I need to add is the ocean is filled with piles of rotting flesh that will hide the piers you walk on as you get closer to the exit. Then a layered illusion where the first is a bathroom with mirrors, then the next is the same, but no longer are you forced to look in the mirrors that twist your visage. However, the reality of the floor is that it is only a single room with a full height mirror and nothing else really.

After all that, the next floor is full of eyes and only eyes, have fun popping them. No real danger. Floor thirty is another boss floor that has a hive mind. It will actively try to control you. It isn’t the end if it takes over. It will try and work you to death. If you can resist it for long enough, it just kills itself trying to control you.

Then the last floor I made it all the way through, is a hospital skyscraper that degrades in quality as you go down. Just make noise as you travel, and nothing will show itself. That’s pretty much it as I haven’t even gone down the stairs of the next floor.’

‘What do you want to do with this information?’

‘Give it to anyone who asks, and people who are willing to delve deeper into these floors. I know not everyone who’s lost their world has lost hope. There will always be idiots like me who just want to see what is at the bottom of these floors.’

‘Got it. I’ll see to it then. Some people will be angry that this information is being freely given around.’

‘I don’t care. I don’t even have to see them. Let them be angry at us for telling people the truth when they try to profit off of lies, for example, the bestiary that was wildly inaccurate after this floor. I don’t know exactly what is at the end of this place, but if its freedom of some kind, I’ll take it.’

‘Most of us have nothing to go back to. Logan, do you know how we ended up here?’

‘I don’t. All I know is that your worlds died and then you were here.’

‘We’ve talked about this once before. Even if we escape, there’s nothing to return to, yet worse than that; the only way for us to get here is when we die. This is our afterlife, punishment for the sake of punishment.’

‘You died, then woke up here?’

‘That’s correct. Some of us even wake up on floors deeper than the first. Lowest I’ve heard of someone waking up was floor five.’

‘What if you make it to the bottom and there is a chance at a new and better life?’

‘Logan, not many people can motivate themselves for a ‘what if’ when they’re already trapped in what they believe to be the afterlife. Some might, but you’ll find more often than not that the people who’ve been here for a few years have already given up.’

‘Yeah, I kind of figured it would be like that. What about you though, Kacey, what do you want to do.’

‘Logan, I’m well over sixty years old. I’m not able to go down anymore, I’ll die as soon as anything tries to attack me, or even if I exercise too hard.’

‘So, it was like that all along then. I guess I only have one last thing to ask. What do you think of demons?’

‘Demons? I think they are unjust, and cruel beings that only act on whatever feeling they have. If you are asking me to try ang gauge the danger you’ll face on your next boss floor, you’re asking the wrong guy. You’ll have to find The Author.’

‘Has The Author even come to The Hub at all recently?’

‘No, they haven’t been seen in over two years. However, I just noticed something. The book you gave me, I can’t read the words on the spine. Can you?’

This threw me for a loop. I wasn’t expecting this. Kacey can’t read the spine of the book, but it is something written in plain English for me. I was wondering how someone from a different world spoke the same language. I thought it would be impossible, and it is, something about this floor translates most text, but not that.

‘Before I tell you what it says, Kacey, what language are you writing in?’

‘Oh, I used to question that myself, but no one ever told me the language they wrote in and called me crazy. The letters on the side must be your native language then.’

‘Yes, it says: There is freedom in death. Is that not written on the spines of the books from The Author normally? It has been on most of the books that I’ve found on my way here from floor one.’

‘No, they never have once said that in all the years I’ve seen those books pass through here. What an odd thing to write on the spine of them, and why only in your native language? Why is it not transcribed in the same way as the normal text that anyone can read it? If language is a problem in the first place, why are these even readable. I’d have assumed a place like this would enjoy dangling this information above us.’

‘We both have the same questions then. I can think of a few answers, but without some way to confirm the truth, I can only speculate. I do think though, that the entity controlling this place has something to do with it. Either they are trying to tell me something, or they are trying to demotivate me.’

‘Speculation is all well and good, but that leaves me with more questions. Why you?’

‘Why me indeed. Kacey, my world isn’t dead, and I didn’t die to end up here.’

‘Then how are you here?’

‘I don’t know. All I know is that I need to get to the end.’

‘This explains a lot. Not everything, but a lot. Logan, what do you hope is at the end?’

‘I just want to go home.’

‘Don’t we all.’

There was a long moment where neither of us wrote anything more. The mood had gotten gloomy, there was nothing more I could learn here. I was going to have to find The Author. They were my only hope of learning more.

‘Logan, before you leave for your final push, can I ask you one last thing?’

‘Of course.’

‘If you can escape, don’t come back to me. I don’t want to know that I’ve wasted my life here when a chance at a new life was available to me the whole time. I don’t think I could recover.’

‘This will be our final goodbye then. From me to you, I’ll give you a little bit of a gift.’ I dug through my bag and placed a bottle of high strength morphine on the table.

‘Floor thirty-one must have been kind if you’re giving me a sealed bottle of these. I wish you the best of luck, wherever you end up after this. As rude as it is, I look forward to not hearing from you, as that will be the best end for both of us.’

‘Goodbye, Kacey. I wish you a healthy life, however long you deem that to be.’

Then, there was nothing more. Kacey had left, and I didn’t stick around that long either. I had to go and restock my supplies. Then, I had to actually ride the elevator back down. I think taking a few days off would be good for me.

A little bit of relaxing in relative safety was a good idea. I’d probably also sell of my things that I didn’t need over the next few days, just see what I can get my hands on. I think basic things like water and various types of calorie dense foods were the type of things I was going to want.

I went around from trader to trader on my way back to my base. I would trade in bulk, getting almost everything I needed in a single purchase. One trader gave me enough water to last seven weeks for just a bottle of ibuprofen. Worth it to me considering I had three more bottles of the stuff.

I returned to my base with everything I needed to continue my journey. There was one last thing I wanted to grab before I went down again. I wanted to grab my phone, something I barely even recognized. It had been so long since I used it, unlike before I came here, where I would use it near constantly.

It was still turned off, and it was going to stay that way to save as much battery as possible. I was hoping to be able to use it to make some calls as soon as I escaped. As the sooner I acted once I was out, the easier things would be. Actually… my phone plan is probably cancelled. I can always call the local emergency number and report myself as a found missing persons.

That would probably work. Emergency numbers work whether the phone has a working sim card or not. Who knows if they’ll get upset with it, I don’t really care, I would be happy to be back in the real world instead of here, who cares if I get a fine or something.

I did need to head to floor thirty-two soon, and I should probably think up a strategy for it considering the door I wasn’t allowed to think about in detail. Thinking everything in negative was going to be an easy solution, but I felt like I was going to get confused quickly and somehow end up hurting myself.

I guess I would just think everything in the negative then, if that doesn’t work, I’ll just find another way. It is what I’ve done until now. Think of something, and if it doesn’t work, do something else. Simple, really.

I guess all that was left was to rest for around a week or so to destress.

…

I made it three days before I felt like I was going to go insane from sitting around and doing nothing. My body was feeling rested enough, so I called it good. I had trained my body to almost always be active, just resting for so long just made me anxious.

Another habit I’ll have to break once I go back to the real world. I had so many habits that would either get me arrested, or just plain scorned by society. Carrying a weapon around and pointing it at any unknown sound or movement was definitely going to be a hard one to break.

I stepped into a nearby elevator and pressed the button for floor thirty-one. Hopefully it would take me right to where I left off, but I was prepared for it putting me right back at the beginning. I decided to take a bit of a heavier load than I normally would and stocked up for roughly one month of resources at normal consumption, two with rationing, and I would even start with rationing.

I wanted to do this final bit in a single segment. I didn’t want to return to The Hub if at all possible. I had my phone tightly packed away in my bag. It was inside a sealed plastic bag, and then also stuffed into a hard plastic container surrounded by extra cotton for cushioning and moisture protection.

No matter what happened, I was going to bring that phone with me all the way through, almost as an act of defiance. Whatever controlled these floors had tried to kill and stop me so many times, but somehow, my phone did return to me.

Every now and then, there were odd acts of kindness. Things that I wouldn’t expect from a place seemingly designed to torture and kill everyone that went through it. It made me even more curious as to who exactly controlled these floors. It was probably a demon, but why be kind to me?

I’ll probably never find out, but that was fine.

I waited on the elevator impatiently as it went down at high speed. The ability to travel easily between floors like this is a god send. I would have probably spent a lot more time down here if it wasn’t like that. In fact, I probably would have died from starvation or thirst because of just running out of things.

The elevator door eventually opens and I’m back out at the bottom of floor thirty-one, the exit not-door awaiting my arrival. Its not-rectangular shape inviting me through. This next floor was going to suck. The pain I got a few days ago from thinking about the not-door was pretty bad, so I was going to have to be really careful once I made it to the floor itself.

It didn’t take to long to walk not down the stairs. I was already being not cautious with my words. Not expecting any pain from anything down here, I was not prepared. Talking in negatives was fun and all, but I don’t think every single thought had to be negative. I was proven wrong as I thought about reaching the bottom of the stairs.

A pain entered my head which caused me to slip down the last few steps and nearly tumble. I managed to catch myself in time before I hit the not stairs too hard. It seemed that anything related to my thoughts or myself were fine, but as soon as I involved the floor, it had to be negative.

That was fine, after all, explaining things negatively used to be a specialty of mine. The not a room before me wasn’t very busy, with nothing moving around the room at all. There wasn’t a single shadow-like being floating through everything trying to look at me.

They didn’t observe me as I began to walk through the empty room. The creatures that weren’t here seemed to be curious towards my existence. They didn’t crowd me as I confidently strode past them, refusing to acknowledge anything was even in the not a room.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but the nothing that was following me around seemed to be fine with me walking by as long as I continued doing what I was doing. The plan of thinking everything in negatives was probably going to work, I just had to make sure to stay consistent with it now that there was no danger at all.

While not walking forwards through the floor, I was being reckless as I walked through not rooms one after another. The route through the not floor wasn’t a straight line, allowing me to just keep walking. I wasn’t even close to tripping as one of the non-existent creatures snuck through my legs.

I did my best to ignore anything that wasn’t there. My face collided with the not that hard ground. I felt something in my nose shift, and I could feel blood starting to drip from it almost immediately. This was going to be a bit tricky, now that I knew these non-existent creatures could interact with me.

The things that didn’t look similar to the Shade Paradox Corrector didn’t watch me as I walked past them. There weren’t many of them down here, certainly not almost filling the not a room from wall to wall. They didn’t stare at me as if I was something that didn’t belong.

I walked quickly. Not acknowledging the nothing that surrounded me. The fact they only appeared to not look like the creature from floor nine, and the things that weren’t there didn’t have the flesh melting effect was good.

I suffered through the not a floor. Constantly thinking in negatives was putting awkward strain on my brain in ways that were hard to describe. I started to think less and less until I just started to walk forwards on pure instinct. There wasn’t a single though guiding me as I made it to the exit of the floor.

To me it was almost as if no time at all had passed. I was standing in the stairwell, ready to head to the next floor, when moments ago I was walking through the ro-

I fell over from a heavy crushing pain that attacked my brain from every direction. It appears that the effect from the not a floor doesn’t leave even after I’ve cleared it. Good to know. I will never mention that weird not a floor again, the pain wasn’t worth it.

I even forgot to mention the effect to Kacey, not that it really mattered. I’m not sure what they were going to do with the information I gave them, but at this point, I didn’t care. I was done. Only a few more floors to go until I am able to escape this place.

I descended the stairs, almost forgetting that the large wooden door with ornate golden handles might be a good clue on what to expect for the next floor.