He sat in the darkness, utterly silent. There was nothing to be seen around him, as if there was nought left in the world but this. The chair he sat upon, and the humble table that lay before it. Adorned with carved pieces of fine wood, lined atop a slab of fine checkered marble. A chessboard. The black army was his, yet the white was without lead. Across the table there was nobody to be seen, nothing to be seen. But the match was already in progress, and he was already losing.
He sighed, staring down at the board. “I hate this game.”
The nothingness around him stirred, a chorus of hushed laughter arose in the darkness. “How unfortunate. You are destined to play. Just as every living thing.” a voice replied.
“Life isn't a game.” he retorted sharply.
The chorus erupted once more into laughter, the table shaking from the cacophony as it pulsed within the darkness. He closed his eyes, tensing at the torturous sound until it slowly faded. “Existence is nothing more then a game of lives. They stand at their places, performing their roles. Wading through chance and strife, until they are struck down. Tossed into oblivion, replaced with a gleaming new successor.”
He opened his eyes once more “Yes, I have experienced first hand how you treat your pawns. But when the game ends, the king and the pawns are placed into the box all the same.” There was a moment of silence, as though they were lost for words. Until one of the white knights began to move forward across the checkered tiles. “We are... beyond the scope of the board. Not the pawns, nor the knights, nor queens have any hope of taking us.”
He looked at the emptiness across the table, refusing to play his turn in response. “And what are you? Every piece has a name, what is yours.”
“We were never given one.” another voice answers as a white bishop slowly moves along the board, taking a black knight. The piece thrown into the air, spiralling into the darkness until it fades into the nothing. “But what of you? Do you truly believe you were ever a king? Or just a pawn in regal garb, drunk on the power of granted authority.”
“How would you know anything about me.”
“We know everything about you. Nothing but an awkward, miserable man; struggling to find a reason to exist. You were never very good at making yourself happy, but then again, neither was the rest of the world. And so you believed, if you could make other people happy then perhaps they would make you happy. Fame, fortune, friends, family. Surely, one of these was enough for you.
But you could not do it could you. Failure was what you found. It only took a small boost however, to get you on your way.” the white knight moved forward once more, taking a black pawn as it was swept away from the board.
“You are just a parasite. Feeding on me, feeding on everybody for your own gain.”
“Is that not what you did? You brought us our meals, because they were yours as well. You were king of the world, and you enjoyed it. When given the chance, you enjoyed tormenting others just as we.”
“Then perhaps we all deserve to fall to Hell.”
“We are in Hell. The closest possible to imagination. We are all of the suffering, this is all of the suffering. The world you now live in, it is nothing but a personification of fear. Of agony. What better imagining of a tortuous purgatory could be conceived.”
“You do yourselves an arrogant complement.” he replied, watching another white bishop cross the board. The black army gradually being overtaken now. “But tell me about your Hell. Prove it is all that you claim it to be.”
The white bishop stopped amidst its move as silence returned, Held for so long, he began to worry, until finally another voice spoke.
“They wanted to know more. So much more. They were lost, terrified, ignorant. They wanted salvation, truth. But it was not to be found. And as they looked to the sky, they saw that it was too far from grasp.
So they dug. Burrowing deep into the earth, blindly searching for truth. For wonder.
They never found what they were looking for, but they believed it was somewhere within. They were creative, fraught with ingenuity, building from what they found. Devising new things, which they hoped would lead to their truth. But their inventions were nothing more then fleeting tools.
But some of them believed, that the only way they would ever be free from fear is if they removed it. Instead of searching for truth, they decided to remove their need for it.
It was many ages before they built it. The first machine. A merger of science and magic alike.
They designed it to be; a filter, for the mind. All those bad thoughts. The fear, the doubt, the anger, sadness. The machine would drain them away.
And it did.
All of the bad thoughts were taken away, and it distilled within the machine until it dripped into a most foul ichor. They fuelled their own devices using this wicked substance. Turning their suffering into a physical boon. A fantastical transformation. But this was not the only one. They failed to anticipate that, their horrors would come to life. When drawn from the mind, when given an independent physical form, their nightmares lived.
Their entire civilization fell, and the machine clotted and broke down. Falling into disarray, its power left unbridled. Twisting the world around it. Drawing on the minds of all those around them, the machine tore apart the essence of consciousness and spattered it over reality.
The world became a medley of dreams, horrors and imaginings. Fantasy and reality became alike, dreams bleeding unto each other. A wonderland of utter disorder.”
“Personified nightmares. So that is what you are. And nightmares require hosts.”
“Yes indeed... but that is not all to this play. You see, the machine holds this world in balance. Without it, the stitched fabric would be fall apart. Revealing the pallid reality underneath.
This requires new sources of imagination. Without it, the machine would run dry.”
“And so you lure in new fodder for your madness.”
“For many ages now. Cast into the wilderness, the hapless children are left rendered as mere dolls in our world of chaos. And as they struggle to survive, the machine drains from their minds. Fuelling its network, the sweet ichor distilled into pure dreams. Holding it all together, coagulating into new creations.”
“You make it sound beautiful. Yet you exploit it. Using it as a trap for unwitting misfits to fall prey to.”
“The damaged. The weak. The strange. Their minds drip with the most potent wonders for the machine, and for us. And of course, every flock needs a shepherd to hold it in order.
But we give them new purpose, a new world to endure. A better world-”
“But why are telling me this. Why reveal the secret of your weakness. To one of the very contenders seeking to escape your grasp no less.” he interrupted, staring directly across the table towards the nothingness.
“Because you are already losing.” a new voice responded as the last of the white pieces slid into place. He looked down at the board, the black side reduced to nothing but their king. Backed in a corner, surrounded by white army. “What will you do? Destroy the machine? Loosening the stitches of the world you now live in, causing it to collapse and sink into the brine. Banishing the nightmares and their fiendish ploy, sacrificing yourself and all those trapped alongside you?”
“William, do you really believe you could ever be anything but a failure.”
“If I ever accomplish anything of worth in my life. It will be proving you wrong.”
“The unlikely protagonist. Setting out on a journey to overcome his weakness, facing an impossible foe. Against all odds and reason, his troubled past haunting his steps on his way to challenge the daunting villain. A fantastical tale this will make.
But you have lingered for too long. It is time for you to return to your place on the board.
Sleep well. And remember, do not starve out there.”
He awoke upon a bed of grass, the sound of the crackling fire nearby. Bathed in soft wavering light, as he lay surrounded by the shadows of the looming woods.
He sat up, opening his hand to find the black king resting on his palm. Clutching it as he turned and cast it into the campfire.
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