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A picture in an empty corridor
In the elevator, the cube went dark; all sub-bass and nausea. Chris kept his eyes closed, focused on his breathing, keeping as calm as possible. Flashes of Angela leaning on his office window, smearing blood as she deflated to the floor; images that screamed at him like a power-saw slicing across smooth glass.
Eventually the elevator pinged its welcome and the doors opened on the seventh floor.
Chris stepped out into a small vestibule, feeling the cube cycle back, his stomach settling a little. The walls here were a soft green, no pattern, just plain slabs of color. But the green was a welcome change after the monochrome nullity of The Dominion's exterior and entrance lobby.
He turned and walked to the main corridor, where wall-mounted numbers directed him; low numbered apartments to the left. The numbers ran backwards from forty. Looking down the corridor, there was at least one turn before he would reach number six. Lit by more of those sconces that seemed loathe to share their light, constraining it to a small halo, the corridor appeared dappled before him; almost like camouflage.
What are you hiding? Chris thought to himself.
He started to walk.
Forty.
Thirty Nine.
Counting down as he passed each apartment, moving through eddying light and shades of green.
It was only when he got to thirty four that he realized there was no ambient sound. He stopped walking. The absence of his shoes crunching the carpet underfoot hit him like a sledgehammer. No noise from the apartments - no television, no cleaning, no conversation. Nothing. All was silence, save for his breathing. He could be alone in The Dominion for all the silence around him.
The threatening cycle of the cube's energy - lower than it had been in the elevator but underpinning everything just the same.
Walking again, feet crunching into carpet-pile, he turned the corner, seeing another up ahead. But there, about halfway down the corridor, was a picture on the wall. A light above it illuminated a small pool on the wall around the canvas.
Chris walked down the corridor, now consciously sensing for any change in the cube's energy. There was none. As he drew level with the picture, he could finally make out what it was.
A meadow. In the distance a girl, sitting alone with a picnic blanket laid before her. Fine clouds scudded the upper sky, but this was a summer's day. The girl's horse, untethered, had wandered a few yards away, where it now munched on meadow grass and wild-flowers. A slight breeze breathed across the land, setting grass stems to lean. The girl was singing a song to herself, half humming, half giving voice to the words.
The painting was so clear that Chris felt he could almost hear her singing; smell the grass. A simple picture, but very realistic. It provided some calm amidst the shifting green shadows of the corridor. Chris turned to continue on to Angela's apartment. As the picture reached the outer limit of his peripheral vision, the horse moved.
He snapped his head back and looked at the picture. It was unchanged.
"Huh?" he breathed.
And turned his head again - this time watching from the corner of his eye. Nothing happened. He turned back to the picture. Still the same. The heels of his hands came up to rub his eyes and his vision went white from the pressure. Gradually, the picture faded back in. And was unchanged.
Chris stared at the oil-paint figure, the girl readying to eat her picnic, stepping closer so that she began to fill his field of vision. As he did so, he heard the horse whicker its joy at being free on this beautiful day. Chris switched his eyes quickly to the horse, and found no change; it hadn't moved.
But now, the girl waved at him.
He switched back to her - and found she was sitting just as she had since he had first walked up.
He turned his back on the painting. Wished that he could close his ears to the sound of a summer's day in the meadow. Wished that he could shut down the pulsing, dark energy of the cube in his jacket pocket. Wished he could go back to before this morning. Before last week. Before Angela had...
Ignoring the picture, Chris turned and walked deeper into The Dominion, heading for number six: Angela's apartment.
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This Pod rates: 4.8 |
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