Welcome to Somewhere Else

The Bowl

I kept moving forward to that faint light for what seemed way longer than it should have been. How long could this passageway be, and frankly, where in the luck was I? How did I even get here? Regardless, I had this innate feeling I needed to get out of here as soon as possible, and since no one had shown up yet, I figured I might as well keep it that way. I continued walking down the pathway; I heard some noises I can only hope were animals or water leaks or something of the like, but just kept moving forward. At one point I noticed what looked to be a door of some sort, with one of those wheels that you could turn to open it or seal it, and it looked clearly sealed. But I tried to open it anyway, after all, what did I have to lose? The door wouldn't budge, and despite throwing my shoulder in and pushing and trying to move the wheel in whatever way I could, it was clear it wouldn't take. Then suddenly I heard a noise, a banging noise from somewhere on the other side of that door. I decided to slip away into the shadows on the other side and waited to see if something would happen involving the door, but unfortunately or fortunately (who knows what that other side held?) nothing did.

I proceeded down the way for several minutes, now in absolute silence besides the occasional sound of water dripping around me, and as I got further and began to wake up more I realized I was now walking in some water (at least, I hope that's what that was) and probably had been for some time. Not much I could do about it, so I just continued walking, and walking, and walking. After about 40 more minutes of walking I began to wonder if I was in a dream: it seemed like this tunnel had no end and I could come up with no other logical explanation for it. About 5 minutes later though, I hit a dead end with turn-abouts two ways - on my left I could see what looked like flames, however they weren't spreading, simply remaining there in one spot as if intentionally put there. On my right, a short path that ended in yet another dead end.

You read that right. Here I was at literally the end of these halls, where-ever I was, and the two choices I were presented with were "get burned up" or "go nowhere". So I took the third choice and in reality what felt like the only choice and decided to start walking back.

Fifty-ish minutes later and I could see the door back in sight again, except now it was clearly opened slightly. Which left me to wonder if my life was now in imminent danger, or whether I was simply going to meet whoever was in charge of this dominion, or whether they had passed by me somehow on my journey back here, after all, they only had two directions to go in so there was a 50/50 chance they could have come for me. Instead, I found no-one, but on the other side of that door was a narrow entry-room that led into a larger room that looked to be a kitchen. Right next to the kitchen was a small open space in the room with doors in the ceiling and a door heading below.

This isn't my proudest moment, but at that moment I realized: I was HUNGRY. Inside this kitchen was a cool, open storage area that I understood to essentially be a fridge, and inside of it were what looked to be like plants. With no-one in sight but the possibility someone could come in at any moment and potentially rend me an unavoidable doom... I let the hunger take control. Somehow I understood that there was a material there that could be struck against the surface there and it would easily catch flame. This material looked like a mix between a dark green-gray rock and wool; it was slightly soft and I ripped it in half and struck that half against the surface with my bare hand and then quickly let it go, the surface more or less absorbing the entire material and becoming an open cooktop. The flame quickly went from blue to red to purple and came to rest on a violet on top of the top. I saw a pot, threw it on top and the flames receded to fit under it. There was a sink that I found turned on with a horizontal pull of a lever and a bucket, I poured some water into the bucket and poured it into the pot then threw the plant material in there too. There were some spice racks full of a mix of spices, most looking different from any spices I'd ever seen so I figured "why the heck not" and threw some of the random spices on the vegetables for good measure.

As I began to smell the food I began to realize two things: first, gosh did it smell good, unlike any food I'd smelled before but probably what "umami" was always supposed to mean. Two: my sanity began to return and I realized what a freaking idiot I was cooking who-knows-what in who-knows-who's kitchen in who-knows-where and just ten minutes prior I had wondered if I was going to get the ax. I took the pot off the stove, most the water had evaporated at this point, and poured it into a fiber bowl that I found in a cabinet there. I gently poured some water from the bucket onto that surface and just like it absorbed the flammable material, it appeared to absorb the water and the flames disappeared.

Then I decided it was time to get the heck out, and I'd have to eat this with my hands. It looked like a colorful and harder version of Bok Choy, so this wasn't a big issue for me. I pulled open the door in the ceiling and strangely there were no stairs built-in or mechanism for scaling other than by hopping up through the door itself. I jumped up and set my bowl on the ledge behind it as far as I could then jumped up and hoisted myself onto the level too, picking the bowl back up. It was once again dark, but the path led straight forward so I simply began walking and eating. After yet another 30-minute stretch, I came to some stairs and began going up them, and as I did I began seeing a faint light in the distance. Sure enough, there were lights in the walls around this point and I continued walking upward and could see that as I got higher the materials used to build the area I was walking in started to feel cheerier as well. Now that I could see things better in the lighting, colors began to emerge, with white walls with intricate designs in them and some purple and blue ornate work appearing intermittently in the mix too. As I continued scaling up the stairs they suddenly stopped and there was a major drop: on the other side of the drop it looked like the path continued, but now above me was another door, this one much smaller than the one from the kitchen. I decided to head on up through that door, which was thankfully unlocked when I pulled down on it. It was extremely hard to open but as the seal between it and wherever I was started to loosen I began hearing the noise outside, which got louder the more I pushed it open.

Finally I had opened it all the way and I threw my bowl (well, it was mine now) out onto the ground around it and excitedly peeked my head over and looked around, seeing some people and hearing voices on a spectrum of happiness and sheer laughs to monotonous, complaining voices. I noticed plants, and light, and most of all, energy that simply didn't exist in that area where I had just been trapped. Filled with relief, I got ready to prop myself up and step out into this grand improvement over where I was when it hit me: I couldn't breathe. In taking it all in I had stopped thinking about something as simple as breathing and so it didn't even occur to me that up until now I'd been holding my breath. I gasped, calmed and tried again. Nothing. I couldn't take in the air. After trying again about 3 times I stooped below and pulled the trapdoor shut, and in its heaviness it fortunately did some of the work for me. My brain started to clear again and in a few moments I began breathing normally again.

Looks like I wouldn't be getting out of here as soon as I thought. And great, I forgot my bowl.