...this Machine

...this Machine

No one could say what the machine was doing. No one knew who built it. No one would dare venture too deeply into the room where the behemoth slowly performed its enigmatic work. All anyone knew was where to find the machine, and that once a year, a loud screeching would echo from what was perhaps the bottom, somewhere deep in the Earth. But of course, Taylor just had to know.

Dallas snapped awake. He quickly scurried over to the nearest corner and scanned the surroundings. The platform was cold and flat, but he was alone. His comrades were nowhere to be seen. The machine was in perfect view. Its moaning from the depths wandered the platform. Dallas's breath was labored due to the rusty stench and the humidity coming from the enormous machine. He gagged and coughed. The last thing he wanted was for that thing to return.

One day the curiosity was too much for her. Taylor gathered us all together and told us that we can't keep ignoring the machine and it's once-a-year-screech. She said in order for our humble farming village to prosper, we'd have to set out and discover the true purpose of the machine and scavenge it for materials. She also reminded us that our warriors, while few in number, were the best in the land and could provide protection from any possible danger in the machine. Her words were inspiring. But not to me. She once told me why she wanted to know. Why she felt drawn to that dark and miserable place that we all only knew through the grapevine.

Finally, Dallas was able to get his breathing under control. The thing was still nowhere in sight. Dallas didn’t know where the beast had gone since he'd been knocked out, but he knew he couldn't just stay put. The open platform didn't offer much protection and the machine towering in the center of the room only seemed to stare him down and mock him for being petrified. Where could he go, Dallas wondered. Could he wander back up? No, he thought bitterly. Jack locked that cursed door. Dallas could only travel deeper into the machine.

Taylor once told me she had a recurring dream about the machine, back when we were kids before we were told in depth about the machine. She described it as a hulking mass of metal and gears that slowly ground together to a hypnotic beat. The smell of blood and sweat was thick and the steam that bellowed out of the machine only made the deep color of scarlet more prominent. The large cylinder room encircled the machine as it descended deeper and deeper into the Earth and the bottom could not be seen from the entrance at the top. She also told me that while the dream scares her while she's awake, in the dream she feels right at home. I was the only one she told.

Dallas turned his attention to the staircase at the end of the platform where the edge of the large machine moaned away. He had second thoughts about venturing deeper in, but the echo of the thing sounded from the staircase behind him where his “friend” had locked the door. Nope, Dallas said. He would rather keep going into the unknown where the machine's pipes and tubes slithered around, then take his chances with a beast that butchered his eleven friends into dozens of pieces and kidnapped Taylor. He searched for a weapon, but all of them had been destroyed in the attack. He was completely defenseless.

When Taylor and I graduated from the school, our parents took us aside and told us about the machine. They described the machine to us and it was exactly as Taylor had seen in her dreams. They said that only one person had seen the machine and returned alive. Unfortunately, he died from his injuries before he had a chance to say why we should never travel inside of it. All of this horrified me. How had Taylor dreamed of this place without ever having been there, or being told of it? But what horrified me even more was how it only seemed to intrigue Taylor. Her curiosity was now overpowering her fear. She may have been an adopted sister, but she was still my sister. I was worried.

Carefully, Dallas descended down the spiral staircase. More than once he slipped on the metal beams due to a strange slime covering them. Because of the heat and humidity, the blood that had soaked his clothing had not dried up and made movement even more treacherous. He climbed deeper and deeper. Every now and then he would stop and not have the will to keep going. But once he remembered what he was running from, he trudged onward, never looking back.

It was the eve of her 20th birthday when we decided to begin traveling to the entrance of the machine. There were thirteen of us in total, but she and I were the youngest. Since Taylor and myself were accompanied by our village's finest warriors I should have been fine, but I wasn't. I was just a farmer, I knew nothing of the mechanics of such a gargantuan device. Still, Taylor wouldn't let me go back. She wanted me to stay with her and discover the mystery together.

Dallas swore. He had been running from this monster for hours now with no seeming end and the machine's size and atrocity continued to become more unbearable. He was horrified that the monster was gaining on him, but he had no way of knowing exactly where it was or where he was for that matter. All he knew for certain at this moment was that he was alone and that he was trapped in this machine because of that coward at the door. He swore under his breath as he struck the railing.

We arrived at the entrance. Taylor was in disturbingly high spirits. She led the group while I stayed close behind her. We passed a huge door and one of the soldiers stayed behind to guard it. As soon as we descended the first stair case we were all hit with a huge wall of sheer steaming heat. The room was expansive and we were only able to see it from a small metal platform with the staircase we came down from, a back wall, and another staircase that lowered to additional levels. Taylor ran to the edge of the platform and looked down at the machine and stopped. She seemed to be entranced.

As Dallas continued his descent, the stairs were increasingly narrow. Dallas was ducking and squeezing himself through gaps in the machine pipes that had begun to weave themselves into the very stairs under his feet. It was almost as if the machine was intentionally trying to impede his progress. He wondered how and why such a machine as this was built. He also wondered how a creature the size as the one before could manage to traverse through such a maze. It had no reason to be here. Dallas found a small gap to peak over the side of the staircase and used it to look down. To his surprise he could see the bottom. It couldn't have been any farther down than 40 feet from him.

The men all cautiously inquired what was wrong, but I started to back away to the stairs behind us. Taylor wasn't responding to them. They would prod her, yell at her even, but no matter what they did she remained unfazed. I put my first foot on the first stair. I didn't want to leave them there, to leave Taylor there, but I was ready to if things got bad. And at the end of the day, Taylor was only my adopted sister anyway.

Just then there was a loud horn, a large metal pendulum swung from the machine towards Dallas. He pulled himself back just in time before the pendulum locked itself into the gap he had just been leaning from. He caught his breath and regained his composure quickly. Unfortunately for him however, the pendulum also blocked the passage down. Dallas swore again, but his anger was cut short when he heard the thing. He looked up above him and saw it crashing down the spiral stairs, bursting through the pipes that got in its way.

Without warning, something appeared. The best I can do to describe it is an unnaturally large bull. Its fur coat, red perhaps, was matted and feral. I couldn't see where it came from or even how. It made no sense to me. A fight began but I dared not watch. I turned around and ran up the stairs as quickly as I could. I passed the soldier who was guarding the door who saw the chaos from the top and was on his way down. I reached the door and turned around only to witness the bull-thing somehow tear a helmet off of one of the soldiers with one of its front legs, or maybe arms, I didn't know. It took that helmet and threw it at the soldier that was still making his way down the stairs. The impact caused him to lose his footing and he tumbled the rest of the way down to the bottom. He looked at me from the ground, consciousness clearly fading from his eyes. I wanted to go down to help him, but the monster was still there. So I did what I had to. I closed the door as he closed his eyes. The lock clicked into place and I was free.

The monster was closing in and Dallas had no weapon to defend himself. It continued to claw its way closer and closer. Dallas thought, this is it, this is where I die. But the pendulum clicked and swung out from the gap with another loud horn call. Immediately, Dallas dashed down the stairs and the pendulum swung back and re-locked itself into place just as the creature got within reach. Dallas tried to slow himself down but his foot slipped on the stairs and he rolled to the bottom. Bruised and battered, he got to his feet. The creature screamed in frustration from above, but Dallas didn't pay it any mind. Standing ahead of him facing away was Taylor. He called her but just like before, she was unresponsive. Dallas looked onward to where she was looking. At the base of the machine were hundreds of glass capsules. Inside them were human babies, all of them hooked up to the machine via their umbilical cords.

I tried running back to the village. But it was no use. All the paths I took brought me back to the entrance of the machine. It didn't make any sense. There was only one path before, where did the others come from? Perhaps there was one path that led out, but I'm stuck at the entrance of the machine. The thing is out there too. I can almost smell it. I'm sure it's coming to kill me. If Taylor is still alive, then I curse her. I curse her for taking me to...

Dallas's shock was short lived. Taylor slowly turned around. Her head became lowered and her long blonde hair covered her face. She slowly lumbered towards Dallas. Dallas didn't know what to expect. He just waited as she crept closer to him, inch by inch. When she stopped in front of him, hair still obscuring her face, he tried once more to address her. All at once, the machine began screeching. The sound was deafening. Dallas tried to clasp his hands against his ears to protect from the sound, but Taylor grabbed his arms, stopping them. Dallas was finally able to look into her eyes, but all he saw was a reflection of...