The Sixth Door - Part Two I awake back in the white room. The small window has now become a huge two way mirror. It felt like an interrogation room you would find in an American cop show. And indeed there is a table and two chairs now situated in the middle of the room. And who was sat tied to one of these chairs, but the grey skinned boy. I stare at him for a moment, his eyes flashing at me. Silence engulfs the space between us. We are there minutes just looking at each other before one of us makes a move, and it is he who does that. Just a small, quiet chuckle, but it is enough to make me flip out. I run up to the table and slam my hands down. “What?” I scream. “What is it – why were you chasing me in the forest. What is it that is so funny?” “you.” he whispers through gritted teeth. “Me? – what about me.” “Just how sad and pathetic you are. You have no clue, no clue at all. It amazes me – it really does. Why he thinks so highly of you?” “Who thinks so highly of me – the boy of gold? Who?” at this the boy in the chair bursts out in a huge guffaw of laughter. “That Boy? Ha! That boy is nothing. He’ll be dead before long.” “Why, what are you going to do to him?” The boy wriggles in his seat, trying to break the chains that bind him to the chair. “you stupid fool! I’m tied to this chair! How the hell can I do anything to him. No, no, it’s you – you that’s going to kill him.” “Me? Why would I kill him? He’s the only person to help me in here. Wherever here is.” “Ah, but your killing him right now.” “How – how am I doing that?” I shout. The boy chuckles once more. “Thats for me to know, and you to find out!” I feel anger once more welling up inside of me, and before I have time to think my hand whips out and strikes the boy on the face. I must have hit him extremely hard, as yellow blood trickles from a cut that it’d inflicted in his right cheek. “And so it begins…” the boy whispers. “What do you mean?” “So many questions, and yet if you just turned around you’d get all the answers!!” “What the are you talking about?” “Go on, turn around.” he pauses for a few seconds, then looks me directly in the eye and says “I dare ya!” I stare at him for a few more seconds, but then I stand up straight, and swivel my body around so I am facing the two way mirror. I am taken aback so much that initially I cannot move, but I hear the boy guffawing behind me so I step forward. Surely this must be some kind of trick. I move forward ever so slightly again, and it suddenly dawns on me. For as expected there were two faces looking back at us from that mirror, mine and the boys. But what had taken me aback, and what my brain was trying to compute was that both faces had identical features, but not only that, in the exact same place the boy had a cut on his face – the cut I had inflicted. I had one too. I spin around. “What the Hell is going on?” I shout him, he just ups his laughter. “Hell?” he shouts “Hell? That’s what you think this is? Hell? Ma you’re so…” he pauses a moment, as if trying to think of something. “You know what, you’re so stupid, they never invented a word to describe you!!!” I walk slowly back to the table, and get as close to this – thing as possible. And Whisper “You tell me right now what is going on and who you, or otherwise….” “Otherwise you’ll kill me right?” the boy says “you still don’t get it do you? I’m you – at least part of you anyway. If you kill me, you’ll die too!” “What do you mean you’re part of me?” “You created me, I’m every negative thought you’ve had about yourself. When you’ve blamed yourself for something, felt guilty over something else. I’m every time you put yourself down, thought you weren’t good enough. When you didn’t measure up to comparisons to others. I’m all that and more.” “I don’t get it!” “And you never will.” “Who made you?” “You did? “What do you mean I did?” “You created all of this, everything you’ve experienced since you woke up in this room was created by you.” “Now I know your lying. Why would I create something like this? Why would I put myself through such things.” “I don’t know – because you’re an idiot?” I slumped to the floor, cradled my head in my hands and started rocking backwards and forwards. Then I start to think, what if this boy’s right, what is I am creating all of this? But, wait that doesn’t make any difference does it? I slowly look up at him once more. He is sat their laughing quietly to himself. I think about the cut I inflicted on him. I move a hand up to the same place on my head. I feel something warm and wet beneath my fingers. I dawns on me. I inflicted a cut on myself, by punching the boy. What if it works the other way around? At this moment the boys smile starts to fade – as if he knows what I am thinking. Which I think to my self is quite possible. What I need to do, is do something to myself to destroy this creature. But there is nothing in the room that can do such a thing. Then I come back to thinking – I created this – this universe. If that is the case, can I still create things now. But the question now is how do I do it? The only thing I can think of is thought. The boy said he was created out of all my negative thoughts. So I think about a cup of water and twenty-two little pills on the table. When I turn around, they are there. I rush to the table, and swoop the pills into my mouth. I look the boy straight in the eyes when I reach for the cup of water. As I tilt it towards my mouth, I see something new in his eyes. Fear. I swig from the cup, the boy starts to shake, but as he starts to do so I start to feel faint, and fall to the found. The boy starts shaking more and more. And just as I pass out, the boy explodes. I awake lying on the floor. To start with I think I’m back at the beginning. But the room is the same as before. The only difference is that the boy is now gone. I slowly get to my feet and dust myself down. I stretch. I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious on the floor, but my body aches all over. I stare at the room for a while. Im expecting something to be different, but it all seems the same. Out of the corner of my ear I hear a small hiss. At first I think I must be imagining it, but I then hear it again, and again, and then a third time. Then all of a sudden it becomes constant. I spin around in to face the direction of the hiss. I don’t see anything for a while, but then I realise the shadows are wriggling. Not only that they are starting to creep my way. The way the shadows are hissing reminds me of the way the boy laughed at me, hours before. My eyes start adjusting to the darkness of the shadows, and I realise that the shadows are not shadows, but millions upon millions of tiny creatures, all with their eyes firmly set upon myself. Each one is is about the size of a hamster, grey fur lining it’s entire body, hiding the legs, so giving the impression they are gliding across the floor. The only part of them that is not covered in fur is their faces. Each Identical, Each the same as the boys. Each the same as mine. All of a sudden they are on me, claws and fangs digging into my flesh, draining me of everything I have. I try and scream, but they have already consumed the air in my lungs. But then I realise I am clutching something in my right hand. I have no idea how it got there, or what it is, and I cannot look as two of the creatures are gorging at my eyes. I drag my arm up, and somehow manage to find the strength to swipe it across the air around him. I feel a warm sickly pain in my left arm, and then a cool breeze on that area. I must have knocked a couple of the creatures off, I think. I repeat this action some more times. I don’t get the warm pain again, but I start feeling more creatures falling off. Finally the ones on my eyes fall down, and I see millions of these creatures’ corpses lying around me, some cut in half, others just wounded by what turns out to be a knife in my hand. I look down briefly to the sickly pain in my left arm and discover I cut myself in the process of killing these creatures, blood seep from it’s wound. At least I’m still alive I think – that’s one thing. I star again knifing the creatures, and one by one they fall off dead. Soon I am able to breathe again, and it tastes like sweet wine to my body. Soon there is only one creature left. This one is bigger than the rest of them, more the size of a Guinea-pig. I rip it off my chest with my left hand, still clutching the knife in my right. I throw the thing across the room, it hits the two way mirror with a thud and slides to the floor. It lays there stunned for a few seconds, but then slowly shakes itself awake. It turns around and faces me dead on. As it does so all kinds of voiced start to speak to me. Some of them my own. All telling me how useless I am, telling me I’ll never be able to defeat this creature, never be able to leave this room. But then it dawns on me, these voices, my voice, they are all this creature. It is making me hear these thing, think these things. I scream at the top of my voice, drowning the voices, and leap at the creature, knife in hand and plunge the the knife straight into it’s heart. It yelps, squeals and screams, but then falls silent, dead. Blood squirting everywhere. Suddenly a door appears by the two way mirror. I get to my feet, dropping the knife, and walk to the door, at first I think it’s locked, but I then hear the lock inside click , and it swings open to reveal a corridor on the other side. I walk through. The Fifth Door The corridor has wood paneling lining each wall, with no windows, yet like the room I just left was immaculately lit. The carpet is slightly warn, about a hundred feet in front of me there is a desk with a computer, telephone and lamp on it. There is a person sat behind the desk, but before I could make out any features my vision started going blurry, and I found myself slipping to the floor and defending into unconsciousness, before I passed out I could just see a pair of womens legs running towards me. I awoke lying on a leather sofa, I had a wet towel on my head, I went to sit up, but a voice from a kittle way off said; “Easy there, your not strong enough yet, here let me help you.” I then felt a pair of arms embrace me, and help me sit up. I then looked into the eyes of the woman that had helped me up, she smiled at me, “hey, there. You look like you’ve been through the wars!!” “you could say that.” I joke. My eyes start to focus, and I realize I know this woman, but my memory fails me, as I cannot place her. She walks over to desk – the desk that I saw as I entered the corridor – picks up a bottle and some cotton-wool and returns. “you’ve certainly got some nasty wounds, I treated as many as I could while you were asleep. I see blood seeping through your top. Remove it for me.” I lift my top over my head, revealing a number of cuts and other marks all over my torso. The woman momentarily looks horrified at the site, but is soon back to normal. She reaches for the bottle, and pours some it’s contents onto a ball of cotton-wool. She then dabs it onto the wound. The sting such an action produces is so intense I believe I’m going to pass out again. However this does not occur, and I bear all the stings as she dabs them down. After she dabs them she covers them with padding, leaving me looking like a game of noughts and crosses, except without the noughts. All but one wound is covered up. she is about to dab that one down, but when she gets close to it, she recoils from it. A quite hiss emanating from her throat. She staggers back, looking at me with horror and disgust. I stand up, and walk over to where she now is. She is curled in a ball on the floor. “Get Away From Me!” she shouts as I get near, I crouch down, so I am the same level as het. “What’s wrong?!” “I said get away from me!!” she yelled again. I am about to reach out a hand to comfort her, when another voice behind me says; “I’d do what she says mate.” I turn my head to see the golden boy standing in the opposite corner, leaning against one of the walls, arms folded. “What are you doing here.” “Where were you when I needed you?” “I told you, in my note, I couldn’t help you anymore. He wanted – no, scrap that, needed you to do the rest along. He was disappointed in me for helping you anyway.” “Who the hell is he? That other – thing – talked about a him too.” “By ‘thing’ you mean your dark-self.” he said, walking over the the woman, he indicated for me to step away, which I duly did. “Hey now,” he whispered to her “it’s okay, he won’t hurt you – he’s just passing through.” he gave her a hand up, and she took it. He whispers something to her which I cannot hear, and she disappears through a door I hadn’t realized existed. When she was gone the boy turned to face me. “You don’t recognize her do you?” “Well – kind of, but I’m struggling placing her.” “Understandable, she’s aged faster than you, everyone progresses at a faster rate.” I tried picturing her younger, and as the realisation dawned on me I started to feel nauseous. It was the girl from the wood, the one who tried catching me as I fell, the one who I had last seen being pulled away by the others, turning grey as they did. “What happened to her.” “she’s ok now, that’s all that matters. He’ll explain more later.” “Why did she recoil like that?” “she didn’t recognize you at first you see, but as soon as she recognized you she was reminded of what had happened, to her events are slightly different. The same but different. Seeing that wound reminded her.” I looked at the wound in question in question. Only now did I realize which wound it was. It was the cut I had inflicted on myself when fighting off those creatures. I looked up and at first I thought the boy had gone, but then he spoke. “Oi!” he yelled from behind me, I spun around and saw him standing by the leather sofa I awoke on. He had my top in his hand, which he duly threw to me. “Get this on, He’s waiting for us.” “You haven’t told me who he is.” “Nor will I, to be honest, I’m surprised you don’t know yet. I put my top back on and he told me to follow him. We walked down the corridor. Towards the door I came through. When we reached it the boy placed his hand on the door knob. “Why we going back in there?” I asked. “Back where?” “Into – whatever that room is.” “Look again.” he said. I examined the door to see what he was meaning. I didn’t see at first, but soon I noticed a plaque head height on the door. On it wad inscribed “The Sixth Door!” “The Sixth Door – what does that mean?” “You’ll see!!” he said, turning the knob as he does “Oh, this is going to be great!!” The Sixth Door The boys silhouette blocks my view of the room to start with, but he soon moves out of the way and reveals a huge old fashioned study, a gigantic wooden desk is situated bang centre of the room, two broad lamps adorn either end of the desk. Behind the desk is sat a elderly gentlemen who looks like he’s right out of a Narnia novel. The walls were lined with rows upon rows of books. Much like the corridor and the first room, this room was lit, but had no obvious source of that light. As we closed in on the man I noticed he was reading a book. As we approached he took notice of our presence, shutting the book he got up, and removed his glasses “Ah, then, right on time.” he said, walking around the desk and shaking my hand. “it’s nice to meet you St last, we’ll meet you properly of course.” “How do you mean?” I asked. “Have we met before.” “I was with you in the art gallery, and again in the banquet hall.” It suddenly dawned on me that he wad that security guard that wad then with the boy at the table. I was about to say something then I realized he hadn’t finished talking. “of course I was there with you all the time, but those were the two times you felt my presence more strongly than others. When people feel me more strongly in this place, I appear to them more solidly than other times. Just the way it was designed.” “What is this place, and who exactly are you both?” I asked, remembering the boy wad still in the room with us, he had moved so he was situated behind the desk. Standing so facing me, the man was perched on the front of the desk. “Well I cannot really answer the second question, for you see I am different to everybody. That is not to say exactly that you have to search for me using different methods, I am easily found. However one person will perceive me differently to another. As for what this place is, let me explain it this way. It’s kind of like a training camp, getting you ready for the job I have for you.” “and what if I don’t want this job?” “My boy, you have little choice in the matter.” “How do you mean?” ” I created you, and I created you for a very specific purpose.” “I cannot say, – that is to say, I know what your purpose is, but you have to find it on your own, because without that journey of discovery – well, let’s say your heart won’t be in it, the most passionate people are those who have been through a journey to find that passion.” “OK then, ” I said getting more and more confused. ” so how can I be in training if I don’t know what I’m in training for. “Ah, there’s the thing, I said it was LIKE a training camp, not that it was actually one.- you see my boy, I created you, yes. But I cannot always control what happens out there in the real world, and somethings happen that make your road to your destiny that little bit harder. I can usually use those events to help my goal, but sooner or later most people have to come in here, do a little spring cleaning as it were.” “So everybody has gone through, or will go through what I’ve been through?” “not exactly, this placed is designed so that is tailored to the individual, some people experience the same things, only a different way, but that’s only when their lives outside here are linked.” “like the girl in the hall.” the boy pointed out. ” exactly.” the man says. “some rush through here quickly, others spend almost a #lifetime in here. You yourself have spent eight years in here.” “Eight years? Surely it’s been just s matter of days!” I exclaim, but the man shakes his head “Time,, my boy, is a matter of perspective. Some come and think they’ve been in here years, but have only been in here days, but others, such as yourself it seems, have been in here years, and think it’s days.” We all stood there in silence for sometime, “If it was a training camp, as you say, moulding me. Why was it so hard?” “you see lad, the deeper the damage the harder the recovery. What happened to you was horrific, and so your recovery was horrific. That was demonstrated by your creation back there.” “The Grey Boy?” I ask “The very one, he was created from your psyche, in fact, so is he.” he said indicating the golden boy behind him. ” you remember the pictures in the art gallery?” “yes.” I say “you then must remember that the pictures were pretty much identical. That’s because they were both pictures of your #life. Or at least the way you picture your #life, one, the one from which that creature escaped, is the picture of your past, where as the other one is your future. You, like many others, though desperate to escape it, and are more attracted to your future, struggle to escape the fascination with the past, but as you experienced, that can be a very dangerous scenario. Though he wasn’t supposed to, it wad lucky your future self came to the rescue.” “My future self?” I enquired “Hi” the golden boy said, waving to me. “hey, but you look nothing like me. Yes, the boy back in that room did, but not you.” “perceptions my boy, perceptions.” the man said. The golden boy walks around the table towards me “What he’s trying to say is this. Myself and that other boy don’t particularly look alike, but we are both part of you, indeed what you look like in here changes, and has no reflection of what you look like in other places.” he walks over to the desk, opens a draw and retrieves a handheld mirror from within, he then brings it back to me. “Take a look for yourself.” he says handing me the mirror. I move the mirror so it is in line with my face. I’m shocked to see that they are indeed right, it is not the person I saw in the two way mirror looking back at me, but a version of the boy that just handed the mirror. “What does this mean?” I ask the room. “it means.” the old man says “that you are nearly ready for your destiny.” “nearly ready?” I ask “Ah, but no ones ever completely ready, what would be the fun in that?” they both laugh to themselves. “Ok then, what do I have to do next then?” “next, you have to walk back through that door.” he indicates the door through which we had entered moments before. “I don’t get it, isn’t that just going back to where I’ve just been?” ” That’s it though, my boy, I’m not exactly going to ask you to go somewhere entirely different am I? I placed you where and when you were for a reason. You have work to do there.” I still couldn’t quite get my head around all of this, but I knew that these two were not going to reveal the answer to me, so I started making my way towards the door. I had my hand on the door knob when the man told me to stop. When I turned around, he smiled at me “What is it?” I asked him “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he replied with a question. I looked down at myself and then looked around, and couldn’t see anything that I had forgotten, but when I looked back at the man, the boy was standing in front of me. “He means me.” the boy said. “oh, are you coming with me too?” I enquired “Something like that, but not really.” “That doesn’t really make sense.” “Now, be honest.” the boy said, “has any of this made sense – yet?” “umm, no I guess not.” “What your future self was trying to say” the old man said. “is that he isn’t exactly coming with you, but coming in you.” “huh?” ” just stand where you are, you’ll see.” I stood there as instructed and the boy started walking towards me, real slowly. As he did so he started to turn around, so by the time he was inches away from me his back was turned. He started walking backwards, which was of course by this time, still walking towards me. I thought for a second that he was about to walk into me, and in someways that description was right, for as he got into my person space, those parts of him that should have just pressed down on me just disappeared through me, it was then that I realized what he wad doing. He was becoming part of me. As he got nearer and nearer doing this I felt the same warmth and electricity that I felt when I grabbed his arm in the art gallery. This grew stronger and stronger as he became moe of a part of me. Soon it consumed my body, I was ready and rearing to go, I had no idea what awaited me, but to be honest I didn’t much care, whatever it was it was going to be exciting, difficult, but exciting, and all I wanted to do was go do it. The old man walked a few steps towards me, with a huge smile on his face. ” now then, that looks much better. – so then, are you ready?” “As ready as I’ll ever be.” I said ” Good answer.” he chuckled, as I turned to face to door once more I felt a pat on the back. “Go get em kid” he said. I placed a hand on the door knob, I hesitated for a millisecond, pondering what I may find on the other side. But I shoved those thoughts out of my mind. I twisted the door knob and it swung open. I peered through, and what I found was the garden from the pictures in the art gallery, the very garden I had tried to reach in that alley way. My heart stopped along with my breath for a moment, tears welled up in my eyes. Children were running around playing, screeching when they got caught in a game of tag. One of the children stopped his game, looked at me and waved. “do you wanna play?” he called to me. “go on then.” the old man said from behind me. “what you waiting for?” I smiled at him, then turned to the kid who had invited me to play and called “coming!” I then sprinted out of the door, and towards my destiny.