I wanna start off by saying this is not my story. I had an argument with my wife and wanted to make it up to her by buying her a nice coffee table which she’d been suggesting for a while. While throwing a coffee out into the bin I saw a huge stack of paper binded by rope and got curious and took it out. I read through it a week later and felt like sharing it. I’m not sure if it’s a hoax, maybe some kid got creative and somebody threw a copy away. I wasn’t sure where to go with it so this is the first few pages of the ‘book’. It’s cover is a crude title “Julian’s katabasis” signed at the bottom right with a date under it reading January 4th 2016.
Y’know. When I watched all those movies about people going through portals that led to new worlds, It built up this idea that it would be really obvious when you traveled through one. A floating oval with a glowing outline, a door inside of a hallway that led to an impossible mountain-scape or cave, that’s not what happened to me.
A random Friday in the middle of September. Somehow, washed-up at the ripe age of nine-teen, admiring furniture I knew I couldn’t afford. I still remember I was at an aisle with beds. A comfortable black and mint themed bedroom just before a turn to the left, If I wished to continue down the indoor room designs, which I did. When I turned left I was focusing on the side that the rooms should’ve been on, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw about twenty foot tall racking, full of wooden pallets going straight up towards a seemingly infinite ceiling.
I turned around in a panic and saw the environment had shifted from the industrial hardware store I was used to into an industrial nightmare. I couldn’t see a ceiling just a bright grey fog, or maybe clouds? Whatever it was it indicated the ceiling was very fucking high! There were occasional giant pillars that tore into the ‘sky’. one being only a few metres away from me. As for the walls, well, there were none. Each direction seemed to go for thousands of metres until they ended; telling me that wherever I was, stretched really, really, REALLY far out. It wasn’t empty though. The same small display rooms were everywhere. Living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, even small cafeterias with food on the shelves. Even displays for furniture like sections of chairs or couches. And obviously the palettes beside me.
I did my best to calm down and came to the conclusion I was dreaming. How do you tell your dreaming? Pain? Yeah pain, you can’t imitate pain in your dreams. I put my hand to my mouth and bit down as hard as I could. I felt it. It wasn’t a dream. I walked over to one of the displays and sat down on a red sofa staring at the ‘ceiling’. I didn’t quite fall asleep but I wasn’t awake either. I stared at the abyss above me and spaced out.
‘What was I going to do? Where do I go? Where am I? How am I here?’
Those questions ran in loops around my head ferociously eating out of my thoughts until I felt a hand grab my shoulder. When I looked over I saw a disfigured creature with no face, despite the skin covering the mouth I saw sharp, needle like teeth beneath it like it was gonna rip through the mouth and pulverise me into its dinner. I jumped off of the sofa and landed on the floor, panicked and sweating hearing my heart screaming into my ears. When I turned to face the creature I saw it was no longer there. A short maybe 5’2’ or 5’4’, straight blonde, blue-eyed girl replaced the creature. Her white fluffy turtleneck stood out like a sore thumb comparing to the grim sight I saw and it instantly filled me with a comfortable, warm feeling. She looked down at me on the floor, surprised, and reached out a hand before speaking in a soft English accent.
“Woah there, you okay?”
I grabbed her hand to accept the gesture but I didn’t really pull myself up using her, with her size I would’ve pulled her onto the floor with me. So I used my free hand to push myself up and then replied.
“Fine, sorry about that.”
I thought for a second if I should say what I saw, she might think I’m crazy. She must’ve noticed me stalling to think and spoke to comfort me.
“Let me guess. Creepy, fucked-up IKEA employee with some sharp chompers?”
“Y-yeah that’s right”
She sighed and tried her best to reach for my shoulder but failed and settled on the side of my arm.
“Tall fucker, aren’t you? Anyways, it’s normal. We all see them time to time, you’ll get used to it.”
I didn’t know what to say. I sat back down onto the sofa and looked around at the industrial hellscape. She leaned onto the side of it making her giant backpack visible. A bag bigger then her body contents carrying what I assumed to be either survival supplies, food, or both. She put her hand onto my shoulder since I had sat down onto her level.
“You just got here, I take it?”
I nodded.
“Well hey, I’ve got a group not too far from here, why don’t you join us!”
She smiled at me, I’m not sure if it was the comfort of that smile or the possibility of a human anchor in the strange world I found myself in, but I agreed.
At first I really couldn’t tell if she was going towards a specific direction or turning at random but I started noticing little white strings tied around the bottom of pieces of furniture we walked by. When I asked her about it she said that it’s how they marked where they’ve been In a way that outsiders wouldn’t notice. After she said that I must’ve looked as confused as I felt because she asked me what was wrong and I asked.
“Why wouldn’t you want outsiders to know where your group is?”
She sighed, not turning to me when answering and having this dead overtone like she hated the answer.
“There’s bad people here, uhh-“
She trailed off and giggled to herself
“Shit, I just realised we don’t know eachothers names”
She stopped and turned to me with her hand out.
“I’m Charlie”
I grabbed her hand and shook it
“Julian.”
The walk itself took about two hours. The environment felt uncomfortably repetitive. The same furniture, different colours and patterns but always the same groups. Cabinets, beds, wardrobes, fridges, couches. There were occasional different areas but I noticed there were alot less of them then the furniture. For example, an extremely large flower pot looking cylinders with fire coming out of them, maybe an industrialised campfire? And a cafeteria grid with food on the tables. Charlie actually caught me staring at one of the two we came across and asked me if I was hungry, I wasn’t. Apart from the ground of the environment I noticed that alongside the general distance there was a white fog around the area. Not too strong but just enough to block out anything more then (I guessed) 60-80 feet away. Occasionally there were also ‘IKEA’ signs dangling off of the ceiling, if there was a ceiling. From the ground it looked less like it was hanging and more that it was floating into an infinite grey.
Eventually a structure came into view. A crude large shack made out of wooden palletes on-top of metal racking. There wasnt any glass but there were make shift holes cut out of the palletes to make windows. In two of them I saw people looking down at us. A girl with black hair and a black hoodie and a guy with long, straight brown hair, a beard, and a dark red t-shirt. Charlie waved at the two and the dark haired girl jumped down behind the window, she must’ve been standing on a stool. Not long after, she dropped a rope which Charlie brought me over to. After taking admittedly an embrassasing amount of time climbing a rope for the first time in my life I got to the top.
The next hour was all introductions to the five other members. Charlie, the girl who brought me in was the person who gave brief but fitting descriptions of everyone. The name of the dark haired girl was Erial, but she preferred ‘Eri’. She called her a chihuahua because where she lacked In height she apparently made for in temper. The guy with long hair was Atlas, he was taller then me. According to Charlie nobody knew where he gets it from but he’s always high, nobody’s ever seen a hint of weed on their travels but he always has joints on him and he always offers if he’s smoking. I giggled at the absurdity and Charlie laughed with me, patting me on the back. There were three more people, two of which were out on expeditions leaving one person who was sitting in the corner when I climbed up but ran over waiting for their turn to be introduced. The man, slightly shorter than me. Blonde, blue eyed, wearing a shirt with the writing “outlast” over it, stuck out his hand to me.
“Hi, Im Jude, it’s nice to not be the new guy anymore”
I snorted and took his hand to shake.
“I’m Julian”
I looked around to everyone and continued.
“It’s nice to meet you all, but, I don’t know what’s happening. Charlie kept pushing off any answer for where we were when I asked on the way here. So….”
As soon as I said that, the lights shut down. The bright white that covered the area I partially grew accustomed to was replaced with an eerie darkness. Atlas switched on a lamp that was in the middle of the ‘room’. The room had a coffee table in the middle of a few sofas surrounding it, he sat down on the blue sofa and offered me a spot beside it. I went over and sat down.
“We’re in a giant hardware store, one where there isn’t law enforcement. And things at night that don’t like us being here. The people here aren’t much better. Your lucky Charlie found you, some of us, weren’t that lucky.”
He lifted his shirt and had an old scar covering his entire lower belly and pointed at it. After a short silence Charlie beamed in.
“But! You’re with us!”
She pointed over to a wall I hadn’t noticed that seemed to be covered in multiple A3 pages pinned to the wall. All the sheets were in grids and the more I focused the more I saw highlighted areas with red circles. At the middle, a house drawn in red marker. I deduced it was a map and the place I was in was the middle, but what were the other markers for? I didn’t get the chance to ask as she continued.
“We have a plan to leave, or at least try to leave. It can’t go on forever and Atlas heard some rumours that this place has its own type of compass, two of our members are out now to the closest group we’re on good terms with, they should be back in two days.”
I chimed in
“So, with a compass you’re gonna follow one direction and if you find a wall you’ll circle it till-“
All four of us said at the same time
“We find an exit”
Eri added on
“Bingo”
We all laughed together until the mood was killed off by a gut wrenching shriek coming from outside the window. Not too far away maybe 30 feet. Charlie put her finger on her mouth indicating us to be quiet. She then whispered.
“We were too loud.”
I wanted to get up and check the noise but Atlas held my leg down.
“People are bad, but those… things are worse…. Don’t.”
I was tense, the environment change was instant and odd but I assumed it was a form of night. That I could at least make sense of but that noise. That shriek. It sounded intense, like something was hunting. Atlas laid down on the couch giving me space to do the same in the other direction. Charlie whispered at the others and ‘Eri’ walked over to the window. I later found out it was a discussion over who was taking the first watch shift for the night. Charlie came over to me and grabbed my shoulder.
“I know this is a lot. We’ll tell you more tomorrow, try sleeping through the night.”
It took me a while. Through Atlas snoring and through the occasional shrieks throughout the night but I eventually fell asleep.
After that there’s a sketch of a girl with light hair and a turtleneck, I assume it’s Julian’s sketch of Charlie. If anybody knows anything, I’d love to hear thoughts. I’ll post more stuff from the journal in my own time.