Lacrima: Chapter Seventeen
Scattered Thoughts
Bae walked for too long. She couldn’t rationalize the lengths she trekked, but her body felt the miles. Her legs shook, unprepared for this odyssey.
Fans whirred around her, blowing hot gusts of exhaust onto her. Sweat soaked her clothes. She long before - hours perhaps - took off her hoodie and sweatpants. Bundled in her hands, the outer garments weighed heavily. But even in a tank top and shorts she feared a heat stroke.
Bae pulled herself to a brighter source of the blue light. She looked down at her shin. Where the servant and her connected, the thin hairs were burnt off. The flesh took on a pinkish color. It still stung. Her ankles pulsed, but couldn’t be more than minor sprains. At least, that’s what she told herself to feel less bad about walking on them so much.
After her phone ran out of battery, only the faint blue outline of the labyrinth allowed her to see the contours of what contained her. Her eyes had adjusted to the low light. Towers and obelisks blocked her path. She screwed up her eyes and ran her fingers along them to see and feel what made them up. Plastic. Metal. Separated into modules linked together as blocks. Some just barely scaled past her head in heights. Most rose up to the ceiling, looking more like a sky than any large basement could be.
Bae squinted harder and made out steel girders. Those rose up directly to the artificial vault above her. She held her eyes closed and settled into a squat. A migraine set in from trying to make out her environment. Her hands tried to hold in the throbbing in her skull, but it kept its horrid beat. Her squat collapsed.
Bae laid down against the floor made of the same plastic-ceramic tiles as in the mansion.
As above. So below.
Am I still in the mansion? She wondered. What even is this place?
Bae thought back to when she slid into the breach. Did Esau find a way to create portals and she’s now transported into this liminal space between eternity and the mansion? Was she anywhere at all, but instead dreaming this whole reality?
No. This is the mansion, she settled on. This has been below us the whole time.
That alone started another surge of her headache. It felt like the thoughts were being pulled from her ears, her nose, her eyes, her mouth. Even the corners of her skull.
Another recollection came to her. As a kid raised in South Korea, she wasn’t overly familiar with the stories of Greek Mythology. Daniel, however, off-handedly mentioned something about a minotaur. He had to explain the descent of Theseus into the Cretan maze where the bull-headed royal bastard was imprisoned. That memory came to her now. If she ever were to truly experience such a myth, it would be now.
And if she were in such a labyrinth, where’s the monster?
Bae concentrated on her breathing. In and out. In and out. She dabbed away the sweat with a relatively dry portion of her hoodie. Sitting up, she slowly collected herself.
When I find Catherine, she began to think. Will she even be alive? This is rough for me and I’ve climbed mountains before. Not to diminish her, but Catherine doesn’t seem the durable type.
At work, sure.
Working out? No.
At best, she’ll be passed out.
“At best.” Bae shook her head, then paused. She pressed her lips. That was her voice, but not from her mouth. Looking around, she wondered if she hallucinated that.
I need water.
“I need water.” A trembling echoed, choked, yet audible arose from her. Sure as hell, she heard it. As clear as rain.
Bae pressed her hands to her ears.
“What’s going on?” she said, actually using her mouth. Bae used her true voice. It sounded more grounded than her… thought-words?
Was that what they were?
The thought-transmission rang out and through her: “Was that what they were?”
Startled, she jumped to her feet. Her sneakers made a firm rubbery pound against the flooring. A juxtaposed chill made her skin become pricked with goosebumps. The hairs along her arms shot up as needles. She gritted her teeth. Against her better judgment, she yelled.
“CATHERINE!”
Her raw carried through the corridors of the irregular towers. She heard it catch into the hot air above and reverberate out. The monotone hum of fans continued their unceasing work. Then, a crackle struck just behind her. Bae turned to see another set of plastic and metal walls. The subtle glow had no disturbances in the light’s shape. The distinct impression of something still being there lingered.
Bae threw down her sweat-heavy garments and ran down a corridor. As she wove between the towers, she saw bolts and flicks of blue light. This is where the servants dwelled. They came from the floorboards. Now that Bae was here, she ceased to be a guest and became an intruder. Her shin was testament to what happened when they grabbed you.
But I didn’t see one.
“I didn’t see one,” her thought echoed out.
“I’m going insane,” she said aloud.
Her shoulder knocked against an unforgiving tower. Bae spun back to face forward as she ran. She wanted to cry. Curl up and let them take her. Her footfalls slowed. She stared off. The crackling static grew steadily louder.
Let them take me.
“Let them take me.”
I’ll be better off with them.
“I’ll be better off with them.”
I’m done
“I’m done.”
The presence drew closer, tightening the air. An appendage hovered over her shoulder. She felt the electricity bristle against her skin. Her eyelids closed and tears flowed down, making channels of her cheeks.
“I’m closer now,” a voice said. “Warmer now.”
I didn’t think that.
“... think that.”
The hand from the unseen servant hovered and traveled just above her forearm. Bae stepped away.
She recognized the voice.
That was Catherine!
“Catherine!” Bae’s feet claimed their momentum again. She cut through the maze. Her mouth and thoughts rang together as a single clarion. “Catherine! It’s me! Bae! Keep thinking! Or speaking or whatever you’re doing! Keep voicing!”
“I’m getting closer,” Catherine said in the distance.
“So am I!” Bae called back, following the source.
“Bae Yuri?” Catherine sounded closer than before.
“Stay there! I found you!”
As if speaking reality into being, Bae turned another corner to find Catherine staring at an archway - a gate made up of the same plastic and metal modules as the towers. A dark expanse loomed below. Save the contours of the first step into the darkness, Bae couldn’t see what laid in the downward plunge. It glowed brighter than the rest of the labyrinth. She turned to face Bae. Lit by the cyan glow, Catherine looked disheveled. Her hair curled off at odd angles, suspended. Some strands were loose and hung to her neck. That face remained stony and focused. Catherine regarded Bae with parted lips, but then lowered her head.
“You came after me?” Her mouth did not move. What would be the point? Thought-speak was more efficient.
“Yes, I did.” Bae’s voice bounded and echoed. Both her mouth and thoughts came out from her. She couldn’t contain them. “Let’s get back. The rest are worried sick.”
“Tell them not to be,” Catherine projected. Her smooth dictation remained in this new, alien form of communication. “Sorry, I can’t go with you.”
“No!” Bae demanded, twicefold. “Come on! This place is swarming with those ghosts. We can find a way out.”
“Ghosts,” Catherine’s thoughts intoned. She paused. “Why would I go with you?”
“Do you not see the danger around you?! Those things can electrocute you.”
“I can assume. The servants seem to be localized impressions of electricity. Don’t ask me how they work. I don’t know.” Her thought-speech paused again. “But don’t you see what’s around you? We are in the guts of the whale, here. No. I have a better analogy. We are in the throneroom of heaven.”
“We are in a maze of exhaust fans, computer towers, and electric demons!” Bae pleaded. “We need to get out of here.”
“You can leave, but the whole reason I came to Lacrima was to see its inner workings.” Catherine gestured to the gate. “I’ve gotten far more than I bargained for. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I left.”
“I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself without you.”
Bae, tired of this, sprinted to Catherine and reached out for her. Her hand snapped at air as Catherine ducked into the gate. The woman ran fast into the blind blackness. Bae crossed below the gateway, but just as her foot came to the third step, the immense dark swallowed her. It would be suicide to delve with Catherine.
“I’ve already dived in for her before,” her thought said for her.
But this descent… it was a point of no return. On an animal level, Bae knew Catherine had been digested by the mansion. This wasn’t like the floorboard. This was a layer into a supernatural reality. If this liminal labyrinth felt wrong, Bae could only imagine what unnatural horrors lurked in the fathoms below.
Here there be dragons.
She stepped out from the staircase and froze. Bae dipped into the sunken place, awaiting that specter to take her. But only for a split second. She then remembered Konrad’s promise.
“He’ll come after me!” She knew it. “This is no place for him. I won’t just be saving myself. I’ll be saving him too.”
All the peripheral pains faded to absolute nothingness. She ignored her ankles, her shin, and all the exhausted muscles in her body. Clarity hit her. Bae turned her attention to the architecture around her. A tower, sputtering out hot plumes, climbed to the far up ceiling.
Her fingers found seams where the boxes linked together. She jammed her sneakers into the gaps as footholds.
Bae Yuri began to climb.