2 Chapter 2:-A man, his promise and a desire to die

I woke up in a bed in a decrypted room with blood all around me. I felt a stabbing pain all over my body and multiple small cuts and bruises all through my skin. The room was filled with broken lamps, shards of glass, and clumps of hair all around the bed. Seeing the broken glass pieces covering the floor of the bedroom, I sat on the edge of the bed and realized that I would have to walk through those shards to exit the room. Where was my ship? Where was I exactly? I had no clue. In the end, I remember that I was standing outside in the rain when something struck my head, resulting in a dull ache along my entire body.

In preparation for walking across the shards of glass, I closed my eyes. After taking a deep breath and placing my feet on the floor covered with glass shards, I stood up. My body was flooded with intense pain as my weight fell onto my feet and my feet started bleeding. I took a step, and then another, as the shards dug deeper into my skin. As I exited the room, I was faced with a dimly lit humongous hall. I surveyed my surroundings with a dizzy head and bleeding feet.

Multiple paintings were hung in this room, illuminated by pin spotlights, featuring close-ups of various animals' faces.

One of the paintings was an image of a rabbit with blood on its face and a human-like smile and teeth. Each painting hung in the hall showed a close-up of the face of an animal with blood smeared on it and a human smile accompanying it.

I was able to see the outline of at least three couches in the middle of the room and a chandelier in the top.

"There must be switches here. I need light." I thought as I traced the wall looking for switches. At that instant, I felt tremors running through my cerebellum as I collapsed to the ground, groaning in pain.

"Oh look, we have a guest here. What brought you here to this hell hole? Was it guilt? Bloodlust? Could it be love?" From the direction of the couches, an extremely heavy voice rang out, "Aah..so you are a murderer. I can smell it on you."

"Can you interview him later Drake? He has just returned from Mars. Can he take some time off?" I heard a sweet voice asking,

"Alsana, if he doesn't recognize his situation soon enough, he will suffer grotesque consequences. Time is a luxury he cannot afford." that heavy voice replied.

That voice continued, "You are messed up Drev, do not delay, you must go back to Mars while you still have a chance or you will meet a fate worse than death."

"Let him rot," said a third voice squeaking "Drake, why do you care what happens to him? It's is not as if he is a saint"

With a confused look, I asked them, "Do I know you guys?"

There were echoes of laughter coming from these couches as pin spotlights sprang up high on the ceiling, dimly lighting them up.

In the dimly lit couches, three figures sat. Their clothing was dim and their heads were obscured in darkness. As the one in the middle changed his body posture, his head was also dimly lit by the pin spotlights for a brief moment. And I was taken aback by shock. I saw an outline of the snout of a horse emerge out of the darkness with a beaming smile on its face. Though his snout was horse-like, his face sported a human smile.

As the man with the horse snout spoke in an extremely heavy voice, he said, "Yes, you do, as a matter of fact, know us, or rather, you should know who we are, but your cowardly mind obscures your memory." He took a deep breath so forcefully that I could hear the air rushing into his nose, "When I asked you that question, I was just playing with you, I know very well why you are down in this hell hole."

By this point, my eyes had become accustomed to the strange lighting in the room, and I could peer into the darkness (but not well enough). Despite that, I was only able to barely see the outline of a horse's head. At first, I thought it was a mask but then I saw his mouth move, and at that moment shivers went down my spine.

"Do you really believe you're here to save Aqsa?" The man laughed shrilly and continued, "Our minds work wonders, don't they? When you came to this hell hole, you were hoping that this was where you would find your salvation. But you may have found something incomprehensible, such as death or maybe something beyond death."

"What the f&#k are you on about? My main goal is to find Aqsa"

He ignored my question and continued, "Go back to Mars if you want to avoid what is worse than death. Maybe there's still hope and you can escape your fate." Drake smiled and snapped his fingers and all of a sudden, the lights in the hall came to life. As bright light assaulted my eyes, I found myself completely blinded by it and I was thrown into disarray. Once my eyes adjusted to the sudden bright light, I stared in horror at the heads of a horse, a rabbit, and a giraffe that were placed where Drake, Alsana, and the third guy should have been respectively.

The heads turned slowly as I approached them and my movement induced their pupils to twist slowly as I passed through them.

I could now observe the entire room as it was brightly lit. The walls of this room were made of Maplewood on which paintings of animals were displayed. Upon looking to my right, I saw a Maplewood wall that was completely empty. It had graffiti that read,--- "I saw a hole here yesterday, but today it wasn't there" ----

I was perplexed by the graffiti in front of me.

What does it mean? There was a hole here yesterday? This Maplewood wall looked as if it had never been touched. Just what the hell was going on in this place? Why was I here in the first place?

The dizziness began to fade away and I realized I didn't have my gears with me. My hands were bare, my gun was missing and my blade was gone. As my adrenaline started to rise, my vision blurred. I was in an unknown area with no way to protect myself. I assumed that my gears were somewhere in this house. So, I hurriedly opened the door which led to a hallway that turned left after a few meters. Even though it appeared normal from the outside, my senses were tingling with terror. I had no idea what lay beyond the turn a few meters ahead of me in that hallway - I could feel my intuition screaming at me not to go there. But I was empty-handed and I needed to find my gear as soon as possible. So, I ignored all of my intuition and entered it. At first, there was nothing special about this place. After taking a deep breath, I started walking down the hallway. Medieval paintings cover the walls of this place of people with horse heads engaged in various activities. Along the wall of this hallway, there were Victorian-era drawers.

My heartbeat was getting faster and faster as I walked towards that corner at a slow pace. My feet became heavier with every step and I felt my breathing becoming faster and faster. I felt like something horrifying lay beyond this corner. The fluorescent lights in the hallway had dimmed as I approached the corner. I was terrified beyond imagination. I stopped dead in my tracks, took a deep breath, and turned to the corner.

Nothing.

Nothing quite off-putting could be found beyond that corner. Just another hallway with several windows adorning the left wall and Victorian drawers lining up to the right. And a door straight up ahead. Upon opening the door, I happened to be back in the same hallway I had just left. Same Victorian-Era furniture lined the wall, same corner with exactly the same windows adorning the wall beyond that corner.

"What the f@#k?" I thought as something pushed me with extreme force as I realized what had happened, and the door shut behind me. I twisted the doorknob, but it wouldn't turn as if it was hot-glued to its position.

I walked step by step again and again with each door opened the hallway kept repeating again and again.

While walking the same hallway over and over again, I noticed that the fluorescent lamps were becoming dimmer and dimmer.

Upon turning the corner, I felt something peering through the window into the hallway. I looked outside through the window and saw it. Although I could not discern what I saw there, its smile smeared across my mind.

A perfectly white smile made up of deformed elongated lips that went from ear to ear, creating flapped skin that covered its cheeks. It gave off a cry emulating both sexual moaning and high pitch shrills both at the same time and then disappeared into the abyss.

In my veins, Terran ran amok. And my feet began to tremble

"I have to find my gears as fast as possible," I thought as sweat began to accumulate on my brow

I did not know how that thing was going to get into this hallway but I knew it was going to try to hunt me so I started running, running in the only direction in which this hallway allowed me to go. It filled my lungs with hopelessness as I realized that no matter how many times I opened that door I would always end up at the beginning of the hallway. No matter how many creaks that door made, the same drawings, the same drawers, the same corner would always greet me. Officially I was doomed and I knew nothing was going to save me.

However, to spite the will of the gods or the certainty of fate. Again, and again and again, I was running down the same hallway.

As I ran through the same hallway again and again and again and again, my legs started giving out, and as I trembled to the door, ready to give up, I opened the door.

Dark.

Everything was dark and as I stood there, terrified out of my mind, the same force forced me away from the door.

A curtain of darkness engulfed me; my eyes faced a world of darkness as I examined the abyss around me.

I struggled to feel my way out of this dark chasm as I scurried to the wall.

Despite knowing that I was stuck here, despite knowing that this hall would loop endlessly, I did not give up. Even though I knew only more of the same hallway awaited me beyond this dark alley, I still did not give up.

I walked. All I could do was walk. As I went through the same hallway with a curtain of darkness over my eyes, all that was left to do was walk.

I lost some of my sanity after I was sucked into this darkness. As the shrieking of babies echoed all around me, a yellow glow began to spread across the hallway. My heart was beating so loudly that I did not think it could go on. The shrieking assaulted my ears to the extent that I wanted to tear them out and the smell of ammonia filled my nose to the extent that I wanted to stop breathing. I slowly moved towards the corner of the hallway. The stench became stronger, the shrieking became louder, and my courage asunder.

While slowly turning around the corner, I saw two children standing and facing me and although they had radio dials in their eye sockets, I could still feel their gaze on my face.

A horrifying yell rose from their voice boxes as they revealed toothless mouths with decaying gums. Their voices violated my ears with their delirious cries. I heard a slow gurgle, followed by a blast of blood. As the blood-filled the hallway, I was swept away and slammed into a door that cracked under the pressure of the blood. And I was thrown back into the huge hall I had left behind.

As I coughed the blood out of my lungs and looked around me, I realized that I was back among the dead animal heads and their paintings.

I crumbled into a heap of crying mess as I thanked the gods for pulling me out of that mess. I did not know what was going on there. I did not know how I was stuck in an infinitely looping hallway and I certainly had no idea how I got out of that place. As I was busy trying to comprehend the situation, I was in I heard a loud thud in front of me, I turned and saw to my horror a hand splattered in the hallway near the broken door. A loud crackling sound came from the hand and then it started moving the moment I heard another thud and then a flurry of soft thuds. I kept staring in horror as I saw that the doorway was filled up to the brim with hands all twitching and trying to come in my direction.

As I ran in the opposite direction of the moving hands, I twisted the doorknob and stepped outside. I found myself in a garden of holographic fauna. Except for the rain that touched my body, nothing was real here.

I looked behind me and saw a wave of hands trying to burst out of the house. I heard loud sounds of bone-cracking as if those disembodied hands were breaking themselves away just so that they could reach my sorry ass.

I ran along the walls until I found myself facing a humongous gate. I looked behind me and saw a wave of hands coming for me. I hurriedly climbed the gate and jumped across to the other side and kept running. Until those hands stopped following me.

Despite nothing chasing me, I kept running. While I ran to God knows where I started crying like an infant. I was in this land where I witnessed an infinitely looping hallway, I was chased by a sea of hands, and without my gears, I was as weak as an infant compared to these abominations.

Despite it not being the case, I felt that the clouds were crying for me as I ran, letting my cowardice wash out of me. The road was drenched in rain, and so were all the houses around me. I ran as the water droplets drowned my pride. How was I supposed to soldier on now? I had nothing left to fight with, so how could I save Aqsa? I was so weak that I could barely save myself. In the end, what saved my life was not the virtue of a warrior but the vice of cowardice. I screamed as if I wanted to be smothered. My screams echoed with a tone that begged for death. There I was, a useless troglodyte, who tried to save his love from the storm itself. I was the idiot who went into the raging waters with just a raft and a tad bit of optimism. I was the idiot who believed that I could save her, I was the idiot who was going to die here, alone without her hands in mine, without the kiss I wanted.

As I kept screaming begging to be killed as I saw this gross amalgam of legs dragging itself in my direction at a slow menacing pace, I saw it to be a big blob of flesh with legs around its entire body with one huge eye in the middle. That eye focused on me and all of a sudden that blob of flesh started moving at a menacing pace. Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I ran in the opposite direction

"WHY THE F@#K ARE YOU RUNNING DREV?" I screamed at the top of my lungs

Did I not want to die? After all, it was impossible to save her. Did I not want to die here? At the very least I would be able to be with her in the afterlife.

This was a betrayal to her, was it not? Was it OK? To maroon the idea of being together in the afterlife? As I kept running to save the pathetic life that I did not deserve, I had absolutely no idea of what was going on.

Several clean villas were surrounding me all without any holographic ropes illuminating those houses. I ran along this drenched road past those 21st-century fluorescent street lamps.

As I was running away not knowing where to go, I noticed that blob of flesh behind me in pursuit. I ran and darted to the road to my left.

As I ran in that direction, holographic ropes started populating the walls beside me, decayed walls soon emerged on either side of me, and the more decayed a wall was, the more ropes covered it. My skin and the road were gently touched by the neon blue light while I kept running to save myself.

I saw the stairs to my left and ran down them.

And I found myself in a circus of neon lights, I looked behind me and saw that the blob was not following me anymore, as the adrenaline stopped flowing in my veins, I started wondering in horror,

I wanted to die, I was begging to be killed, but just as I was about to have my wish granted, I ran away. Even though every fiber of my being begged to be killed, why did I run away? Could that be the nature of humans? No matter how badly you want to die, there would always be a thing, a knack, which would prevent you from giving up. I hated my knack from the bottom of my heart after what happened here.

As I sat despondently beside a shop, reddish glow of Quartz halogen light graced my body. The shop behind me had a simulation of a woman dancing on a pole naked. Her entire face, her chest, and her bottom were covered with holographic panels, and "Price 300USD" was written on them. A man touched all three of those panels covering her face, chest, and bottom, and he experienced fleeting pleasure as these panels disappeared.

This complex was full of exotic shops. Drenched in a hue of holographic ropes and the dim lights of Quartz bulbs. There were people everywhere. Some carried shopping bags with prosthetic arms, others had prosthetic legs. Once I was off the Atlas, I could see these people up close. I could see their faces filled with hopelessness. I saw no smiles among the people in this complex, every face lacked something, they had an expression that spoke as if they hated life, nothing mattered to them, and if they were hunted down, they would not raise one finger in protest. Instead, they would just ponder over how mundane life was until the day they died, and detest every moment of it.

But then again, I thought this was not exclusive to people on earth, every human on Mars showed this same characteristic. At some point in our lives, we often wager our happiness and excitement for life with something unknown and lose it every goddamn time, lose it, and become hollow inside, kind of going with the flow, but at the end when we are on our deathbed, we regret every moment we wasted.

A shop window in front of me displayed shoes made up of suede, shell cordovan, and nubuck. The outside of the window was lined with Shagreen, with thin, neon holographic strands of red color lining those exteriors.

Despite the rain, the aroma of grilled fish lingered over the complex, which triggered a primal sense of hunger within me. However, I did not have money with me, so I could not satiate my hunger.

"Have you eaten lately?" a voice echoed from my left,

I looked in that direction and saw a man in a tuxedo-wearing a mask.

"I can see it in your eyes, the hunger, it's beautiful. One of our most primal desires besides sex, feeling loved and a will to survive" he said

Dejectedly I look into his eyes, "Who are you?"

He bows down eloquently and said, "My name is Gabriel O'Dracius but most know me by the alias of the trader of broken things." He waved his hand and said, "But don't mind me or my alias, you want food? Come I will get you something to eat, we can discuss the deal while you are eating"

"Wait what? what kind of deal are we talking about?" I asked with a confused expression

"The kind which you can't refuse, Drev," he responded

The moment he took my name, I was in shock, "How do you know my name?"

"Because you are broken," He replied calmly," And broken things are my specialty."

"Are you coming now, or do you want to starve to death here?" As he put his hands in his pants pockets, he said. Even Though I knew that it was stupid of me to go with this guy, But I wanted answers and anyways it was not as if I had anything left to live for. It was useless to go against those grotesque abominations without my gears anyways. And I had no idea where my Spaceship was situated and no way to ask anyone about it. As I had fear of losing nothing, I followed him.

"Why are you helping me?"

"Because I want to," He said in a happy tone.

"Why is that?"

"Well well, let's change the topic, shall we? Let's talk about Aqsa, can we?"

I was again shocked by the things he already knew about me. We never met. I was pretty sure about that and still, here he was talking about my life as if he was some long-forgotten acquaintance of mine.

"How do you know her?" I asked in a state of shock.

"I know her because that's written in fate" he replied.

"Well, that answered nothing," I thought.

As we continued to walk, we soon came to a multi-cuisine restaurant, where he entered.

As I sat down, he ordered food for me. The brown laminated table top was dull with tiny chips in it, a porcelain jar had been placed near the antique leather seats, which had balloon backs and low arms for comfort

He crossed his legs and said, "So shall we talk business?"

"You know who Aqsa is, and you know my name. My question is, how much do you know about me?" I shrugged and said again," it's only fair to ask that"

"I know your darkest secrets as well as your highest pleasures; I know about the skeletons in your closet." he came near my ears and whispered.

"Before we discuss the deal let me tell you something about your toy."

"My toy?" I asked in utter confusion.

"Yes, I am talking about that time controlling gauntlet you created." he shrugged and continued. Judging by your empty hands, I presume you lost that tiny toy of yours."

He kept his right hand on the table top and said, "You should throw that thing away if you want to survive. But then again its powers are tempting are they not?"

He shrugged again as he continued to speak, "This will be your first and final warning, don't attempt to control the power of the god, you will lose your sanity"

"Drev whether you get the deal or not depends on the series of questions I ask"

"Do you love Aqsa?" he asked.

"Yes, I do" I replied.

"What are you willing to do to save her life?" He asked

"I will do anything and everything to save her."

As he leaned closer to my face, I was able to smell a sweet scent of lilac from his body.

"Even if I want to have her?" he quietly whispered into my ears.

All I wanted to do was punch him. How could he propose such a preposterous offer? She was my f@#king wife! Why would I let someone else have her? I loved her, I traveled millions of kilometers not to just hand over my wife to some random stranger.

"What if I offer you a f@#king punch instead?" I asked him as I felt anger fill my eyeballs

"Then you will never be able to save her, look at your pathetic situation. You lost your weapons. You have no money, you don't know where you are you just faced abominations beyond your comprehension, let's be honest without your weapons, you are extremely useless here. You had a chance and it was taken away right from your hands." He stood up from his place at a slow pace and he said, "I can offer you a second chance, a second chance to save her life. Without my help, she is as good as dead, Drev."

It sounded unbelievable, could it be true? Even if he did something to give me a second chance at saving her, I couldn't just hand her over to him, I have lived my life alone on a planet that felt barren to me even though it was inhabited.

"How are you gonna offer me a second chance?"

"That's none of your concern. If you agree to the deal, you will find your second chance." he looked straight into my eyes and said, "Deal?"

Just a few minutes ago I was hoping to die, as I lost all of my hope, I was thinking about how big of a loser I was, and yet here I did not know how he was going to provide me my second chance. If in case he was lying I would have actually lost nothing because I was doomed from that very moment, I lost my gears.

Even If what he was saying was true, we had a promise to keep, we had a home to go back to, we had a couch to snuggle in. I couldn't just hand Aqsa over to him. At that moment a plan began to form in my head.

"I'm going to trick the trader of broken things," I told myself as I decided to take his offer and somehow make it work. I had no idea how I was going to do it but I knew I had to try. I knew that I could not give up Aqsa.

I took a deep breath and said, "Deal."

He laughed and said, "Perfect! Now for your second chance." He raised his hands and clapped three times.

Then everything went black

And the game of trickery began