The Man Caught in a Loop

Thud! That, along with some prior tugging of his feet, was the noise which woke a man, and in his mind-aching tiredness he heard a shortly following chinking sound. The man laid on his stomach; he had dazed vision gradually coming to clear sight, which allowed him to see what caused the second chink sound—a clear, glass bottle, with some papers rolled as one within the bottle. Letters and numbers alike could be spotted graffitied all over these papers, which hooked the man’s attention on to the bottle, he lifted himself to inspect further, noticing that what notes could be read formed a string of beauty, only to very fastly grow dull in his vision. While his interest in what was written on these papers lessened, he still decided to carry the bottle in non-dominant hand by the neck.

The mystery of the chink had been solved, but as for thud the man would need to investigate, which would take only a short while as by turning back to face whence he came from, there could be seen another man that lay on his stomach as the man did before, unmoving and unbreathing. Such a sight took the man back, aghast at what he interpreted a corpse, and so he fled running away from it in this strange stone hallway he found himself in. It went on and on, draining the man’s very life source from him with every step—but he never ceased his running, down this strange stone hallway, with an endless stream of cracks and moulds and foot prints in the soil flooring left by others before, much alike how his running would leave prints behind. His running ended as the hallway did, leaving before him the start of a staircase, one that seemingly spiralled down and leftward, with each step that could be seen in the darkness engulfing them seemingly wettened and littered small puddles.

Some thought had occured to throw the bottle which he still held by the neck in his non-dominant hand, as if picking it up as he had done earlier was an error of judgement, as if the body that had taken him by shock and the exhaustive run would not be bothersome troubles on the day; to throw the bottle and its paper inside, perhaps that would prevent any similar troubles from arising in what future lay ahead. And so he did lift the bottle aback, then thrusted with full force ahead of himself, momentarily letting go—momentarily letting go before he had almost instantaneously reversed his decision, lunging forward in to the darkness engulfing the wettened steps, and once again grabbing the bottle’s neck.

What followed was tumble after tumble as the man rolled down this seemingly endless spiral, curled up with bottle to his chest to protect it. And then there was blackness.

The man awoke on his back, within a cave of sorts, dimly lit by sunlight that shown through the gap left above a brick wall to his right, presumably covering the cave entrance. To his left there was only darkness, and on his chest the bottle, he still maintained a firm grip of its neck in his non-dominant hand. Above him, he could make out a whole above him that could not be looked in to as no light entered it; what he presumed to be the ending of the staircase he had tumbled down.

Leaving the cave was what he decided he must do, and so the brick that walled him in he inspected. No obvious weak spots could be spotted, though he did find a strange quill by his feet, strange as while it did retain the feather shape, it was no feather; it was a very strong metallic material, blackened silver in colour. Bottle in non-dominant hand, quill in domininant, he stabbed the point into the mortar between brick, finding it effective at breaking away what held the wall together. A stab, followed by another, and another, and another, and another, and yet another, the man spared no rest tearing away the mortar between each brick. So much mortar had been removed that with a push, using the full weight of his body, much of the brick wall collapsed, allowing one that wished to keave the cave to do so.

The man dropped his quil before leaving the cave, and upon leaving he saw a monk begin to rebuild the wall he had just destroyed. There was no anger toward the man displayed from this monk, nor any annoyance at having to rebuild the brick wall, he simply did his duty. It seemed strange to the man that this monk had simply stood waiting for this wall to be destroyed simply so he could rebuild it again.

Taking in his sorroundings, the man found that outside the cave was an island of soil and grass and flower that float in a void, with fog to partially fill that void, which was rather well lit in spite of the fog and the absence of any star. Though what did appear before the man was a concrete wall, with no other that could be walked around to see the other side of it, having a ladder built dead center into its frame, perhaps ten foot in width on the side with the ladder and its opposite, two foot on the remaining two facings. The ladder was very strange, with no pattern to when each peg and the steps two parrellel pegs would hold up changed design; the pegs alternated between the likeness of a quill, pen and pencil, and the steps between the likeness of a typewriter, a keyboard and a stack of paper. This ladder was made of the same material as the quill used before to pass through the brick wall.

He did not want to leave the bottle behind, and so would have to climb three-limbed up this strange ladder, hearing and feeling the typing with each step he took, noticing there was indeed a pattern to where his feet and hand were landing on each typewriter and keyboard, some keys pressed down more than others; and so some words, phrases and even sentences may have been typed out than others. Knowing these patterns existed caught the man’s interest enough to keep him going in spite of how tiring the climb was, just to see more of it as doing so gave an odd satisfaction, and in a passing of time that seemed much shorter than it truly was, the man was very far up the foggy void, far enough up that even if there were no fog he doubted he would be able to see the island below. What could be seen above however was the ending of the wall he had been climbing, but before the wall had ended so too did the ladder, just as a door began.

Faster the man climbed to reach the door, knowing his climb would soon be over came as a great relief as he push open the door and stumbled through.

A tugging against someone else’s legs the man made as he tripped over them, dropping the bottle he was holding, and seeing his sorroundings—he knew in these brief moments exactly where he was. His head made a loud thud as it hit the floor knocking hisself unconscious, and while he could not hear it due to his state, he knew before his thud noise what would shortly follow: the chink sounds of the bottle he had dropped, which would remain intact and unbroken as it has before and will again for an uncounted number of times.