No Place

Image Credit Kayjensen via Deviant Art

No Place
I remember two loud sounds. BOOM, BOOM. Then searing light and brief, flaying pain.

Then I was here.

If a place could have no value, no structure, no features – does it exist?

We called it Noplace. And by we I mean the millions of others who were here with me, around me, through me, in me.

And by “called” I mean we agreed without speaking. A general consensus of the few minds who were not too busy screaming in dislocated horror.

Though I must admit I had a turn or two of screaming myself.

When he/she/it, (for redundancy sake let’s call it Sheit), when Sheit appeared it was a shock to the senses… such as they were. Sheit’s skin was green, and we could perceive it was green – it did not shift back and forth along the color spectrum like everything and no thing in this place seemed to do. This Noplace, I mean.

It’s eyes were blue and large, segmented into 50 or so rectangular irises. It’s mouth was upturned and protruding. It’s nostrils elongated and taking up a good portion of it’s face.

There was no body to speak of.

A few million more minds began to scream.

Sheit did not seemed too bothered. It’s many eyes rolled independently.

“Players,” it said.

I felt it look at me. Meaning, one moment I was looking at it, and the next I was looking at me looking at it.

“You are not broken”, it asked.

“Soon”, I responded shrilly.

“Sheit, that’s a play on one of your negative words. A curse?”

To that I realized it was beneficial to think nothing but the Thought that it was beneficial to think nothing.

Sheit chuckled. “Clever. You are still useful.”

*******************************

I woke in a ditch. It was filthy and filled with refuse. There was a layer dirt and slime encrusted on my hands and fingernails. I kissed the back of my hands.

“I have a body again.”

I paused.

“I can speak out loud!”

I laughed maniacally for a while, then passed out.

When I woke, it was dark and Sheit was hovering by the side of the ditch.

“Player 8778C. Welcome home!”

I climbed out shakily. I looked up at the moon, grateful to see it again. My mind decided to ignore all stimuli but this sky.

“Player 8778C, please respond.”

I realized it had been repeating this for some time. I looked at it. “What.”

Sheit smiled. “Excellent. Not all of the players made the transition to level C smoothly.”

“Right”, I said and tried to look at my moon again. It didn’t hold the same enrapturing pull.

I sighed.

“Do you want tell me what is happening” I asked, totally without conviction.

“Good!” It clapped it’s hands together.

When did it get hands, I thought idly, and I realized it’s body was a literal stick figure, such as a child would make out of dark chalk, and I felt my mind squeezing into a tight little defensive ball and I decided maybe passing out was the correct thing to do in this situation.

“That’s two”, Sheit said sternly when I woke. “You will not get a third time out.”

“Umph”. I said, sitting up. It was daylight, and the persistent scent of burning finally moved forward in my brain’s long list of Important Things to be Analyzed. There was decaying rubble everywhere, and the skyline was a menacing orange.

“Oh”, I said softly.

“Yes, your team lost this round horribly. However, the opposing mechanics had a small penalty in their last play, and the rules allowed me to recoup some of the original players.”

I avoided looking at him. “Right.”

“Also, your team is under new management. Your original adviser had to step away for a bit so I’m filling in. Just call me Coach Sheit!” He chuckled.

“So…” I faltered, not knowing where to start. I squinted around. As far as I could see, nothing was taller then two stones piled together.

“Everyone is dead?”

He grinned. “Mostly everyone is out of play, but through a series of loopholes I was able to revive ten thousand players for this continent. One hundred thousand worldwide. I can work with those numbers!”

I looked down, my hands were trembling wildly. “I don’t think I can handle this,” I said softly.

“Nonsense, you are one of our strongest players. Have you noticed you have already begun to think of me as an “He”, instead of “It”? Your flexible little mind is frantically reprocessing and rewiring to adapt to this new input.” He sighed wistfully. “That’s why humans make some of the best players.”

He touched my head with his stick finger. I felt wet coldness, thick as fluid, force itself down my throat. Like a reverse vomit.

He nodded, many eyes rolling.

My flexible little mind just gave up, entirely.

I stared up at him, mouth slightly agape, gasping for air like a fish. The fluid reached capacity, engulfing the inside of my skull and something… popped.

I blinked.

“Well”, he said, “I’ve got to get going. There are a couple of revisions to the original playbook I must oversee.”

I nodded. “Of course. Ha ha! Back to the drawing board! ”

“Great analogy, Player 8778C! I’m sure you will make your team proud!”

His stick figure body disappeared. His eyes gained about 30 new companions.

“Remember the rules: Play hard, and Survive!”

“Of course!” I said brightly, waving goodbye. Such a nice man with those beautiful blue eyes. I wondered if I should have offered him a sandwich, he was so terribly thin. Wow, did he blather on about a game of some sort. Boys and their games!

I looked around, grateful for surviving this horrible disaster and eager to start anew.

“We got to get this right this time”, I murmured.

My gut urged me to head north. And so I did.

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