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How Many Times
How many times have I stopped before this grand mansion of purpose unknown to me?The sun shone the same way and the trees swayed with the same grace, with the same people on the same days,and why it was so was beyond me. I opened the giant mahogany doors, the same flash of golden-white light blinding my eyes for a split second; before I walked onto the velvet carpet of the entrance hallway. The fragrance-candle wax and lavender-remained, propagating my sense of smell beyond recognition, and my eyes teared at the aroma. I looked to the left and then to the right; big, ivory windows and crowds of people, very mundane people, murmuring and meandering towards the main hall. The lighting was almost non existant. In all the times I've come here, not once did I look up, which is probably why I dont remember a chandelier. And yet my stubborness prevails, for without gazing towards the ceiling, I move forward yet again. But why? Why go ahead at all?
"Just turn back,and run, as fast as you can," my conscience is screaming at me.
Somehow, I can't listen to it. Its all beyond me. I get to my destination, I open the exit door, and... it happens. I can't stop it. I can't intervene. I can't change my decisions.
This will happen again and again, and I don't know why. I inch closer to the main hallway, past the staircases and corridors shrouded in ominous shadow and the passing crowds. Then, suddenly, my world starts to make sense again. The exit door; shining on my right with a sign above it, calling out to me. I feel my eyes widen with hope as I run towards the door and grip the knob when a thought creeps into my head that makes me pause. This door was never here before. Neither was the "EXIT" sign above it. It wasn't right. By the time i had finished pondering about this I realised only a second had passed as I look up at the clock, and protocol takes over. My intervention is stopped; my hope for freedom, destroyed.
The door swings open with a force that could have broken my nose had I failed to move away as soon as I did, and standing in front of me, staring blankly at me, are my parents. Behind them, two more emerge from the shadows; their parents before them. I hadn't seen them in the longest time. Not since I started this sick game. Not since I traversed the corridors of this mansion every moment of my life.
It felt like I almost... forgot them. It took me a moment to recognise them, but it all came back to me. I couldn't decipher what they were saying, but I was hoping they were part of the deviation;that they would help me escape the loop. I was wrong.
They beckoned me to the main hall, coercing me to proceed no matter how much I begged them to let me go into the exit. The one deviation in a million years, and that too steers me back to the loop. I can hear the sounds of metal and marching outside, I'm closer to the main hall. I look back at the people who raised me, and wave. I must have been crying; the loss of hope for escape was crushing me slowly, but it was too late.
Amongst the crowd I grabbed the door handles to the main hall and left the light, and the crowds behind. I fall into the main hall, a dark courtyard made of metal, it's exit simply the absence of a fourth wall, almost like a house was cut in half and exposed. I see the land ahead, outside the mansion, the steel floor that stretched out for a thousand miles, and the deep sinking feeling of my heart as the footsteps grow louder, and the flashes of past trials come back to me.
It's all happening like its supposed to. Now they will come,and they will take me. I sit, powerless, on the ground. The end is nigh for me,and I am doomed to repeat the process of grief, without escape, for another millennia, as far as I know. A surge of emotion suddenly electrocutes my senses and I rise to my feet, facing the white light of the sun outside and the infinite stretch of nothing.
The footsteps grow louder and my pulse grows with it. I look to the black door upstairs- that's where they come from, where they take me. Every. Single. Time.
But not today. Now that I'm standing strong, I realise I no longer need to wait for a deviation to save me; for an anomaly. I am the anomaly. I fight back the winds of a never ending earth before me and take one heavy step towards the exit.
The footsteps are here.
I clench my fists and grit my teeth; I will not be taken this time. I push against the force of a million punches and step closer. And closer. The door comes banging down.
They are here.
I scream in pain as I feel my skin tear off slowly, and I take my final step, out into the steel courtyard. The force stops. I am free.
The men come bolting behind me, and I run faster; the white sky shining off the jet black steel surface of the ground beneath me,and I reach the destination, uncaptured, no longer afraid.
The men stop dead in their tracks,their emotionless faces gazing into mine. I turn around; their superior stands behind me, looking down from his great height. He doesn't say a word, but the points to the ground before me- there's machinery there now. I motion for it slowly, and I observe him growing in aggression. Something takes over me at that point.
It's not the protocol, not whats supposed to happen. This feels...right.
But the man shakes his head. His soldiers standing behind him, ready to pounce on me should I disobey. I gaze at the panel before me, and gaze around at the stretch of infinity all around me, the wind howling in my face.
This is truly the end.
A sense of urgency takes over and I launch my hand at the panel, destroying the course of events that held me back in the loop, imprisoning me to cruel pre-destination that has held me captive for so long.
The blinding white light fills my eyes as the steel beneath me slides away into oblivion and I rise, tears floating away from my eyelids. The sound of infinite bell rings fills my ears and it gets harder to breathe. I slowly lose sight, and like a breath of relief, I close my eyes.
I am free.
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Work of Rayhaan Mubarak, Interest Concentrated.
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