I woke up at 7PM in the evening, still so very tired, starving, thirsty. I threw off my covers in frustration and walked into my living area. The table was once again stocked with two bottles of champagne, and a charcuterie board, and once again a note had been left compliments of “The Management”. I scarfed down the contents of the board, downed a bottle of champagne, and began nursing the second as I made my way down the hall and into the dining area once more. Thankfully, this time without running into Fictus.
I decided that I needed some entertainment to take my mind off of my situation, and so I opted to watch Aethelwulf and Joe play chess. They had very curious strategies. For one thing, Aethelwulf would spread his pieces around the board, but leave his more important ones, such as the knight, rook, bishop, and queen completely exposed. Joe on the other hand would send out his pawns in waves, unconcerned with how many he lost. Strangely, Joe had a large box of chess pieces from which he would grab a handful of pawns, and place them on the board to replace whatever he’d lost. Aethelwulf didn’t seem to mind this extreme deviation from the standard rules of chess, and in fact had his own large box of pieces.
Occasionally, he would take brief breaks from the game, pull a handful of pieces from the box, and crush them beneath his foot. Eventually, Aethelwulf was put into checkmate, and he angrily swung his arm across the board, knocking his pieces to the floor. He stood up, stormed off while yelling something in German, and then came back, sat down and began resetting the board with Joe. “If they couldn’t win, then they didn’t deserve to survive the game” sneered Aethelwulf. Joe responded with “it’s not a matter of whether they deserved to win the game, but rather a matter of whether they were necessary for the game.” As they played, I noticed this time that Joe was also occasionally taking fistfuls of the pieces out of his box and crushing them underfoot. They both used the same strategies and rules as before. Eventually, after losing a rook, Aethelwulf pounded his fist on the table, knocking several of his and Joe’s pieces from the board, to the ground. I bent over to pick them up in one handful. As i made contact with the pieces, a vision surged through my brain.
I was standing in the middle of a complex of several buildings, surrounded by razor wire fences. Throughout this place were malnourished skeletal men, women, and children wearing blue and white striped uniforms. One of the buildings had several smokestacks sending pillars of thick black smoke into the air. The smell was awful, and the stench of burning flesh, hair, and bone permeated everything. Above the gate, in iron letters, hung the phrase *“Arbeit Macht Frei”*. Suddenly the vision faded, and I was transported to a new land. Men in green army uniforms broke down the doors of peasant homes, shot the adults to death, and took the children. In a mass orphanage, twenty children were kept in a room barely larger than a garden shed, when a guard walked in and began to undress.
I was standing back in the dining room again. I dropped the chess pieces and staggered backwards. Above the men, where John Martin’s ‘Pandemonium’ had once hung, a new painting took its place; Francisco Goya’s ‘Saturn Devouring His Son’. I suddenly knew exactly why I recognized these men, but that was impossible. I sprinted from the dining room, and back to room 113. This time, the table contained five buckets of champagne, with yet another card. It was obvious to me now, I was suffering a nervous breakdown.
Clearly the stressors brought on by my father dying, my deteriorating relationships, the pandemic, my imminent financial ruin, it had caused something to snap in my mind. I decided that if I was going to suffer a total collapse of my financial and mental state in a motel in the middle of nowhere New Mexico, dammit, I was going to enjoy myself. I was still starving, still so tired, and still had an unquenchable thirst, but I didn’t care. I drank all five bottles of champagne, went back to the dining room, and procured several bottles of various liquors from Stravoménos. Over the next several days, I spent my entire time in a drunken stupor. I danced, I partied.
I’m not sure how many days passed, but eventually I struck up another conversation with Fames. She asked if I’d given any further thought to her outlook on free will. “I have”, I told her, “and I think that you’re onto something. I just don’t care anymore, there’s something freeing about it.” She placed her hand over mine, I didn’t resist. “I’m really glad to hear that, Lance. It’s best just to let go.” She grinned at me, and from under the table, she placed another hand on my thigh. Eventually, we stood up and danced. Shortly after, she led me back to her room. When we reached her room, she began to undress, and so did I. Renee’s face flashed through my mind, and immediately shook me from my stupor.
I stopped, I waited, I considered, and I made a choice. I stopped undressing and backed away from Fames. “I’m sorry, I just can’t do this.” Fames sneered at me, and pulled me close to her. Suddenly, she changed. She was no longer a beautiful tall shapely blonde woman with green eyes, but a horrific skeletal corpse. Her eyes, once green, were now a sallow yellow, and she was covered in burnt flesh. “TAKE ME!” she screamed as she reached for me. I sprinted from her room, and ran down the hall back to mine, on my way to room 113, I noticed that another room had its door open. Peeking inside, I saw Stravoménos sitting cross-legged on the floor. He was grinning and watching a television, his choice of sitting position and boyish countenance made him look like a small child watching a show about a purple dinosaur and his friends. Only, what was displayed on the screen would never air on a children’s program.
On the screen, children of various ages sat blindfolded and bound. There was a man with various tools and other accoutrements; pliars, bolt cutters, a drill, a rotary saw, whips, a blowtorch, and other items. Stravoménos looked at me and started clapping. “Come in, come in!” He shouted, bouncing up and down. “You’re just in time for the best part!” I skidded backwards and stumbled directly into Fictus. I spluttered and stuttered, pointing at Stravoménos’s room, and making incoherent noises, before Fictus finally put a finger to his lips, and said “Shhhhhhh…Would you like to kill him?” I blinked and stammered out “wha–what?” Fictus chuckled. “I said, would you like to kill him? Stravoménos, I mean. You can if you want to. You can do whatever you want to, here. Bash his brains in, decapitate him, stomp on his face and throat to your hearts content. Stab him, shoot him, set him on fire–” I sprinted away from Fictus as he continued to list off methods of brutal murder, and ran into the dining room. Aethelwulf and Joe were sitting at their chess table, as usual. Only, now they were pulling fistfuls of chess pieces from their boxes, and *eating* them. It was disturbing enough to watch on its own, but then I noticed that each piece that they bit into was filled with blood. The gore ran down their faces with each fistful, and they were laughing. I screamed, finally Fictus, Stravoménos, and Fames met me in the dining room.
I was cowering in a corner when Fictus spoke “Do you understand where you are, what this place *really* is?” I squeaked, and stammered, but couldn’t speak. “The road to this place is a gradual one. A gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, and without signposts. We earned our names here, Lance. And we think you’re ready to earn one too. You think that you’re suffering a nervous breakdown, a failing of your psychological faculties, and while nothing could be further from the truth, it doesn’t really matter. Reality here, can be whatever you want it to be. Truth, lie, reality, fantasy, here its all the same. There are no absolutes, and there are no rules.” Fictus said. Stravoménos piped up “your entire life, you’ve been chained by the illusions of social norms, ethics, and burdened by antiquated concepts of morality. Here, it doesn’t matter, you can make your own!” Fames walked towards me and bent down.
“You can pursue whatever passions you desire, live life to the fullest without restrictions, feel everything, want for nothing, live in bliss without ever having to question it. You can do whatever you feel like doing! All you have to do, is let go.” I couldn’t respond, I could barely breathe. “The Management will be here tomorrow, and he’s already prepared a name for you. He will dub you Vacuus, The Void. This place, it was made for you Lance, and you’re almost ready for it.” I considered it, no more worries, no more struggling, no more decisions. I stood up, and I ran. I ran from the dining room, I ran past the front desk, I ran through the reception lounge, and I ran the hell away from the Blue Jay Inn. I found my Pontiac on the side of the road, jammed my key into it, and the 400 cubic inch motor responded with a roar, I stomped on the throttle, and I left Datil New Mexico in the dust.
I blew through Albuquerque, and didn’t stop driving until I reached Amarillo Texas and stayed the night in a well known hotel chain. The entire way to Amarillo, my phone was blowing up with pent up notifications from Renee, my family, my company, and the client in Las Vegas. Apparently, I had been missing for a week and three days. I immediately called Renee and explained the situation to her. To my surprise, she never accused me of lying. Instead, she told me that she loved me, and helped me craft a more believable story to tell my family, my job, and the authorities about getting lost in New Mexico, suffering a vehicular breakdown, and camping out until another motorist was able to get me back to civilization. After staying the night in Amarillo, I decided to look into the Blue Jay Inn, but couldn’t find any record of its existence. I even pulled up street view on my GPS app, spent hours tracing my route through Datil, but no such building existed. I made it home three days later, and was greeted by Renee and my family. It was hugs all around.
Three years have gone by since then, and I’ve managed to pull through. My company found a different project for me to work on closer to home shortly after I returned, and after the pandemic passed, it was back to normal business as usual. Renee and I have since moved in together, and we’re genuinely happy. I even bought her a ring last week, and I’m going to surprise her with a proposal soon. But I’ll never be able to forget what happened to me at the Blue Jay Inn. Once every few months, I’ll have a dream, and it’s always the same. It’s always Fictus calling out to me. “We’re waiting for you, and we’re always ready for you. Come back to us, Vacuus.”