Glorious! Fascinating! Sickening! Foul!
The labyrinth beckons! It sings in four colors? Or five? Or six? No, I think it was five. But there is a sixth color, so very small, and a fifth color, also so very small, and - well, it's /mostly/ four.
I live in the walls, and yet I have only ten. How can anyone escape with only ten? There are two more, but where do they hide? I burrow. I burrow. I seek. I find. My map screams its own colors, I think, but it is wrong. It cannot be wrong. This place - it is not a place, but let us pretend, for sake of argument, that it is a place - just as your eyes do not see things, but light reflected from things, the false surrounding. Were there to be something that produced fake light, it could make you believe in fake things, just as you see this text, unreal, it is not a place, or a thing. You are a thing, though. Or are you? If you can read this, you are a person, not a thing. Is a person a thing? Is a thing a thing? Is a thing a person? Can we see a person as a thing? What about a thing as a person? What
about
a relic? Is that a thing? Is that a person? Perhaps it is a person thing.
Your lymph nodes are showing?
There are maggots here and there is much life, just as there is much death. Life and death are sort of different things, you see, but here they're juxtaposed, just as they are in my world. It is nice to be surrounded by life, even if that life feeds on death. It is sad to die, but sad to live too. Then again, we are all free to wander this earth, but we are not free, are we, for there is only one time, hmm? Nevertheless, I feel no sorry, for if I must breed maggots, I am glad someone else too will enjoy that which was once mine, and make use of it, and live a little while. In a place, perhaps.
There is a red shrine that lives in the dark, where the camera rotates to see. You might think there one gray, but there are really two - seven colors? Hmm. Triangles, you see, and guides nonetheless.
A video game is an assemblage of slides - not a person, or a place, or a thing, or a record of real events, but a collection of images and text and music depicted and glued into your brain. My, my, my, am I lost in a maze again? This isn't a maze. It's a collection of screens. You just connected them, didn't you, with a staple, and super glue, and what knows else? These corpses, you looked so carefully after them, defining each pixel, assigning each worm its due its duty. Is that not beautiful? Is that not gorgeous? Were my corpse to be rendered in such a way, I would be eternally grateful. But alas, we continue.
I see it, I see it, ye Secrert Zone. Congartulation to me, but this is no relic, just a corner, a lymph storage emptiness pit of janitorial sadness. The stone face grimaces, and all I can do is stare back at the neon floor. I return to the abandoned tobira and beg the machine for answers, my pitiful form silent and unyielding even in its admission of defeat. For my sake, the machine says nothing crude, unjudging, it dispenses a rendition, a location, a coordinate. I notice it names a color, a color, are there real colors here? Perhaps I shall receive a color, a true number of colors. Six, five, four, three, how many have names? If they have names, they must be real, even if this place is not, hmm? West of the mask, of course, of course, how could I not see this this false rabbit, this fake eared thing? How dare you look at me like that after all the trouble I went to find you. I will not have this. Stop it. Was this always here? I swear these Xs, they were false. Did you trick me? Have I no eyes? Hidden. I see.
The last one, it tells me, hides in the land of the egg. So that is an egg? I knew not. What could have hatched from it. The glass is not broken, and yet the egg is free. How could this happen? Explain in 20 words or less. I find it. I don't find it. How could I find it when I was told? But it is another floor pattern. Of course. How could I be so blind. Blinded by purple. The fifth color? The sixth color? Nevertheless, I have it. You thought you could hide away? Such a pretty, meaningless room. Truly the stupidest, organ man. I do not open myself. You hid from me, and it would have worked, just like that rabbit. I have failed to find you. But it matters not. Because the machine took pity upon me. It screams open, doesn't it?
Why did we make this place? What a waste of all things. To become a silly relic. No one even here to find me. Perhaps you can pick me up? I can still speak, at least. Do they speak to each other, I wonder, in my pocket, behind my back? They knew each other, some, or perhaps we all knew each other, once? You are inactive, machine, but why? Who made you, why do you help me? I have so many questions. I need your help. I'm scared, machne. I can feel it on the other side. I can feel it. Shall I go back?
No. I must proceed.
The world breaks. I cannot escape. I restart. I must try again. I can do it this time.
This cyan place grinds like a wretched stove. It is so pitiful and dead, I think. But it has a certain majesty to it, in that it is a defined location, where objects exist to rot and be reborn. The other places are nothing but receptacles, shapeless and filled, yet here we see a wonderful wondrous empty disgusting place of steel and color and things breaking free. Is it glorious to be flooded? Yes, for it means there was once something to protect. Now it is broken, but still, we will remember it. Yet why the door? What is the door? Am I afraid? No. We will see.
This green realm is a dumping ground, so full of life, and yet, so cluttered and empty. I like it, but then, I do not. Skree skree yourself, good child of the water! I have freed us from the puddle! Just kidding, we're walking back in. Sorry. At least the maggots and flies ate well, in the empty, endless world of life and things. A shame it had nothing fun to watch on TV. Just eyes and eyes and time and things. It did not collect relics. I wonder why? Did it ever see one? They are just here.... Or maybe it was longer, before they rolled free.
I will not speak of the wonderful idea of the sideways realm. Dolor knows what it did. It is too gorgeous for here. I will not stand it. I will not see. I light the candelabra anyway.
It is definitely your fault, lymph node lady. Freedom, if it is real, we shall see. I ignore your annoying books, your foolish studies. Four colors? EVERYONE KNOWS THERE AREN'T FOUR COLORS. HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT? Stop crying, Maggot-head. It takes more than a Secrert to matter to me.
Why did the heart shape stop? It lies, sleeping, and I feel bad for it. Is it dead, or not? Can it die? No wonder Esche lays here, near her old friend's tomb. She will no longer speak with me. Such pretty vines. Are they steel, or silver? Are they alive? Or silly? Nothing is fine, Anguish.
The worm maze. Okay, DE SADE, let us free you from this Bastille. I know how to escape here. You go left. You go left through the wall and enter the circle. It just takes a little while. I'll get there eventually. I remember, you see. Did you change the walls when I left? I don't think you did... but... Yes, I remember this time. I've made it before. You could not trap me, warden. Down, right, up, and to the left, and there we are again. Freedom, I see.
Eleven. Whoever did I forget? Ah, Zwei, my ever faithful piece - You laugh for now, but I think soon, none of us will be.
DirectPlay Will not fail me this time. The gate opens. Let's see it. Let's see. Look not at me, gazing wall. Judge me not, maw in the dark. Empty triangle. Triangle again. The blessed walls of steel. I pass by the vat of empty prepared life, unneeded, unfree. Perhaps it will be destroyed, or it will live on, ahead of me? The machine has nothing to say, this time. I cheated. I broke free.
Oh dear.
Well, uh, you guys wanna go get some Taco Bell?