Throneroom

A humanoid creature, clothed in black, sat upon the throne of a castle. With a tv screen as its head, it looked no more sillier than the jester of a king. It lay on the seat, unmoving and lifeless. Or at least, that's what it appeared to be.

The creature stirred into life, with a whirring noise filling the throne room. A sound similar to an old machine booting up resounded. And then the creature stood.

[Ack..] The creature gripped its head [My head hurts...]

A quick dose of pain assaulted its head after he stood, rendering him immobile for a few seconds.

After a few brief moments, the pain disappeared. With the pain gone, he mulled over his situation.

[Strange...] it mumbled [It truly is strange...]

Its thoughts were still hazy, having woken up from its slumber. Coupled with the addled sense of self, it could only grasp at straws where he was.

Two vertical lines formed on the tv screen, the creature's eyes. With the lines bearing the color of emerald green, it surveyed the room, studying everything of note.

Kingly pillars of lattice gold stood as the room's foundation. Decorated in exquisite cloth, draped curtains hung over the windows, with the aperture heavy with tint. Resplendent furniture lay scattered about, silverware topped over them. There also lay a door at the room's end, opposite of him. A large, imposing door that seemed to draw him near.

[Guess that's that...] He muttered, finishing his observations

The only objects that interested him were the throne itself, and the rather elaborate door that lay at the far end of the room. Seeing nothing else, it focused on itself.

[Let's see...] With its curiosity piqued, it formed a logical view of everything around it. [It would seem that I've found myself inside the throne room of a castle, where I've remained seated for quite some time, judging by the deep marks on the throne's pillow]

It tried to move its limbs around, checking for any incongruities. At the very least, all of them were in working order.

[Now...] It asked a question to itself. [Who... am I?]

This was an obvious question. The first problem that had to be solved was regarding its identity.

[I wake up, sitting on the throne of some godforsaken castle remembering nothing about myself] Its tone was rather sarcastic. [If I didn't know any better, this would make for a good story]

Through deliberation, the creature realized something. Something that would've made sense if it thought things through.

SMACK!

A loud slap resounded in the hall. The creature's right hand remained planted on its supposed face.

[I am an incorrigible ass] The creature noted, [Why didn't I realize this?]

The creature in question had a simple revelation regarding itself. Information which would shed some light on the strange situation. He could study himself first.

[Judging from capability to form sentences, I should be capable of rational thought, so I'm fine in that department.] it concluded. [If I recall, this language I'm using calls itself 'English'. I can remember basic concepts, so that's good news]

[Moving on to my individuality, who the hell am I?] it continued to ask questions about itself [I remember absolutely nothing about myself, which sounds like amnesia, and then there's this weird box on my head, that awfully feels like a CRT TV.]

[Setting that aside, I seem to wear a black leather hooded coat, with the hood incapable of covering my head, because of the weird box in question. I also have a pair of gloves and boots, both black. My getup seems to be all in black, oh how edgy.] The last statement was a satirical remark, meant to be a jab at itself.

'Was I edgy before this' He thought as a joke, feeling the ridiculousness of his appearance

[My body shouldn't be older than 8 years old, or 9. My voice proves that it sounds like a child.] it further reflected. [Couple that with the fact that I'm far too self-aware of even be one, which is absurd, despite my physique, which is that of a kid.]

It contemplated on what gender it should assume. Maybe it could just ignore the notion, as it was a hassle or make things simpler by assuming one.

[I don't exactly want to prod my groin, and my voice sounds a bit more like a boy's. I'll just become a guy then] he had decided.

Having found a sense of self, he tried to understand how he ended up in such a place. He could remember nothing about himself at all. He did not know why he found himself in such an absurd situation.

[Still, how can I call this situation absurd if I have no reference point for what determines a situation as something which borders on the fringes of insanity?] It mused out loud [And let's not talk about how I'm conversing with myself, making me seem crazy, if my common sense is to be believed.]

He studied the room once more, recalling the objects of interest. The first object would be the throne, decorated with the golden filigrees and velvet cloth.

'This must have been where I sat before, it looks rather ugly,' The boy thought to himself

The throne itself was nothing valuable. The circumstances of it were, however. As soon as he focused down on the throne, a strange sight greeted him. Lines, millions of them, blotted out the walls, floor, and ceiling. All of them converging down onto a single point.

'Huh, the lines all lead down to this stupid chair,' he thought

Each line had a differing thickness and length. Some wide, some thin, and anywhere in between. The lines would shift their position every time he moved, slithering about. When he stopped, the lines would also come to a standstill. It was as if they were copying him.

What seemed strange is that at certain points around the room, some lines would cluster amidst the gaps and form vague symbols.

[The gaps, there're hundreds of them.] He concluded, [Are these symbols?]

The boy tried to look at the gaps from differing angles. They would form recognizable shapes in certain positions around the room. Gradually, they formed letters.

[Even if they form letters, it's all jumbled nonsense] He tried to find an answer from all the letters he found.

[The lines all center on the throne. Is that a hint?]

He sat down on the throne again, trying to make sense of the lines. Using the throne as a vantage point, he saw coherent words.

{YOU ARE A LAPDOG OF REALITY} were the words that sprawled out in the room's structure.

[Huh, this pisses me off more than I expect myself to be] He exclaimed, annoyed at the revelation.

[Who even made this sorry excuse of a conundrum?] He was still unsure of whom the castle's owner was. [That was too easy, even a 3rd grader should be capable of solving that]

He realized what he just said [A 3rd grader huh, at least I remember how schools work]

Seeing that he sat on the throne before, he couldn't help but question his identity. With no more information present, he gave up on the lines.

[Now, what's next on the list?] He checked the other objects.

The second notable thing would be the ornate door which lay on the far end of the throne room. It was just as garish as the throne.

This door, in particular, had etched markings on the frame in what seemed to be ordered fashion. Said symbols being on the boundary that separated the door from the wall. The symbols bore a resemblance to cuneiform, using simple lines and shapes as a way of conveying their message, if they were even intelligible.

What's more interesting was door's centerpiece. Said centerpiece looked similar to an astrolabe, decorated by geometrical shapes that mimicked the position of the stars. A large dial was in place, pointing at symbols almost invisible because of their lack of color.

The combined traits all made for an ancient-looking door. It appeared a compelling piece of furniture, if not for its sheer complexity that reminded him of stereotypical puzzles in ruins.

[Oh no!] He exclaimed, a bit of derisiveness in words [Another Puzzle!]

The dial had faded symbols arranged in a spiral, starting with the centerpiece. The symbols themselves were unintelligible, bearing similarities to the ones on the door frame.

He touched the faded symbols, sensing familiarity with them.

'Something about them feels really familiar...' He thought

[Huh] He reached for the dial and felt the symbols with his fingers [Even with the faded appearance, they have a distinct bump]

The washed-out symbols felt similar to the ones on the door's boundary. If not for their fading form, he could categorize them with the door frame's symbols as reference.

[Categorize them... Hmm...] The characters on both the boundary and the dial were like each other, albeit with the latter being hard to identify at all

[That's it!] He remarked, having distinguished which symbols on the dial represent the ones on the boundary [I could just read them like braille!]

After a few minutes of examining the symbols, he finally documented all the symbols on the dial and what they depicted.

[How do I even translate these symbols? They're all a bunch of nonsense] The boy blurted out, annoyed at the lack of information.

And then he realized. [The symbols, there's 26 of them!] He mouthed, [It's the same as the fricking alphabet, you imbecilic ignoramus who can't even think straight!]

[To think that I missed such an obvious clue...] He muttered under his breath [That solves nothing though, I don't have a way to apprehend what letter they're supposed to represent]

[Unless...] Yet another epiphany [I brute force it!]

He thought of a way. The boy thought he could just substitute every letter of the alphabet for all the symbols. Theoretically, that should be a viable way. Still...

[That'd take too much time, it's like waiting for the black holes to evaporate before I can even get it correct, so no] He dismissed the idea [Or maybe I could try it later, as a last resort] which somehow stuck through with him in the end

The boy tried to search around the room for anything that could give him an inkling of what to do. And so a few hours passed alongside his lowering patience.

[In the end, I couldn't find anything at all...] His voice seemed dispirited [There's only this bloody throne and this stupid door here, even the windows are useless since they're tinted, argh!]

He could only kick the throne in anger, which led to him hopping around the room while holding his sore foot. After calming down, he focused on thinking of other methods.

[No dice...] He sounded upset [Everything I think of just leads to brute forcing, dammit]

Having spent a few hours on studying the door for clues, he gave up. Trying towards something was better than doing nothing.

[Guess there's no other choice then, brute force it is...] He decided

He approached the door once more, trying to see if there was anything he missed. Alas, there was nothing else he could glean from the thing that had stumped him.

[Alright then, substitution first] He began the arduous task of deciphering the cipher.

[... Huh?] He seemed perplexed [How?]

As for the reason for his bewilderment, he had already solved the puzzle. He had unraveled the puzzle, which was supposed to take him hours, days, or weeks even to solve, in mere seconds.

His mind had just processed numbers at an impossible rate. Tens, thousands, millions, he still continued to calculate for the cipher's meaning. Something unachievable even for human prodigies.

'This is impossible!' Scrambled thoughts raced through his head from the load of information that bore into him.

[What the hell...] He shuddered, hugging himself in anxiety. [Who the f--- am I?]

The boundary's cipher, which required him to solve a permutation of 26, ending at a whopping 27-digit list of possibilities, had taken him a few seconds of his time to answer when he conceived to take an inordinate amount of time. A feat that he had attempted as a joke, something which was impossible for a normal person to perform, finished. It terrified him.

[I'll just solve this...] The realization seemed to have a taken a toll on himself. [It'll be alright...]

The symbols on the dial structured themselves into what came across as a few sentences. With the symbols translated, he worked on the ones on the dial.

After a couple of seconds, the dial's cipher found itself translated. He understood what the words meant to convey. It was a poem.

|||

Alas, while weeping angels dance.

And forlorn ravens sing.

Continuing this soulless prance,

thus sleeps our fallen king.

|||

He recited the poem in a monotonous tone, his words being what appeared synthesized. From start to finish, he maintained the lifeless manner of speech, uttering the words with the amount of effort required. And then he finished.

After a second or two of waiting, the door's intricacies moved, stirred by the poem he narrated. Gears, springs, and other mechanisms actuated themselves. Pistons and pillars constructed out of gold continued to shift themselves, disappearing from view.

Until, the door opened.

A large hall lay before him, foreboding in appearance. The boy stood there, still perturbed by the previous events.

[The door stood guard to keep someone in...] From the way they constructed the entire throne room, he'd found out that it functioned as a prison of sorts. [... It never was to lock people out]

He hesitated a bit, unaware of what could transpire outside the bleakness of the throne room. Perhaps staying there was the best choice.

[I'll be alright... Everything will be okay...] The boy tried to comfort himself, sounding unconvinced by his own words.

He passed through the open passage, with the air surrounding him declining to coldness. His movements seemed robotic as he appeared deep in thought.

[...you are a lapdog of reality...] He muttered while shuffling down the hallway.

[Who... am I?] As he went deeper still, the words came out.