"How many do you have, sir?"
Mellis scraped himself out of his own mind and looked at the teenager at the register in front of him. He was slightly confused as to where he was, but he put on a pleasant face anyway.
"One, just one."
"Alright sir," the teen smiled to him, "that'll be ten bucks even."
Mellis smiled and began to dug his hands through his pockets. He was wearing a large green jacket with brown cargo pants and brown boots to match, though he didn't remember putting them on this morning. After a bit of rummaging he found a sparkly clean ten dollar bill in his right pocket. He looked at the ten curiously, his mind still seemingly half asleep. The kid behind the register laughed.
"Uh, sir?" The kid held out his hand.
"Oh, sorry," Mellis handed him the ten dollars and waited while the kid put the money in the register. The kid stood inside of a grey counter with only a register and a clipboard to keep him company. To the left of the counter was a small entrance that Mellis couldn't quite see past.
Wherever he was, it was a decent place. The walls were decorated to look like bare stone, though it was obviously only surface level. White pillars and woodwork shaped the place. There was a short hallway to his left and a long entrance to his right, stretching at least ten feet before it ended at what he guessed to be the entrance. Funny, he didn't quite remember walking down to the register.
"Here's your receipt sir."
Mellis turned back to the kid, who sat holding out the receipt almost timidly. The kid wore a simple button-up collar and clean dress pants, and to top it all of, he was a ginger with freckles galore, much like Mellis himself.
He said his thanks and took the paper, immediately crumpling it in his hands and stuffing it into his cargo pants when the kid turned towards a clipboard and wrote something down.
Already, he had some respect for the kid. He wore a sincere smile with everything he did and spoke with an equally sincere and pleasant tone to his voice. Nice kid, Mellis thought, I hope the manager pays him well.
"Alright sir," the kid motioned towards the entrance, "chow down."
"Thank you." Mellis walked into the entrance.
There was one large section covered with tables, cushioned corner seats, and wall booths. Most of it was either a dark green or brown, and it well against the white layout. Paintings of pioneers and old western towns decorated the walls, giving the whole place a nice homey feel.
Mellis walked over the the nearest booth and took a seat. The table had nice leather seats that fitted him comfortably as he sat down, looking towards the window on the far end of the restaurant, though from here all he could see outside of the window was white. The white color was curious, as it had no texture to it, like someone had painted the entire world outside white. Probably the glare from the sun or something.
Mellis started to twiddle his thumbs just as the kid at the register walked up to his table and sat down across from him and smiled.
"Well slick, now's a better time than any to give you the wrap-up."
"Alright, what's the wrap-up?"
"You're not really here." The kid said this with half a smirk and half a grimace.
He was taken aback to be sure, but he was also interested as to where the kid was going with this.
"Well," Mellis tried to hide a smirk, "where am I?"
"You are..." The kid got a puzzled look on his face before reaching for his front pocket. He brought out a golden mini-notebook and flipped through a few pages before laughing and putting it back in his pocket. Mellis smiled.
"What's it say?"
"Well, believe it or not , you're in your own mind right now."
"My mind?" He tried to keep up a casual tone but he was becoming more and more concerned that this kid was genuinely crazy.
"Yessirree, your mind."
Mellis's smile faltered.
"Why would I be in my mind?”
The kid got another almost comical look of confusion on his face before he brought out his notebook again. He flipped through the pages, got a curious look on his face, and put the notebook back in his pocket before looking back to Mellis with a slightly more somber smile.
"I hate to tell you this slick, but you're being tortured."
He couldn't have hid the look of confusion on his face if he had tried. In the back of his mind he considered getting up and walking out. Nah, even he wasn't that rude. Still…
"I gotta admit, you've got me more than a bit confused." He leaned over and picked up the salt shaker from the far end of the table and began to absently slide it between his hands.
"Well, I'd probably be confused too if I had to hear it myself." The kid propped up one of his elbows on the tables and looked at the salt shaker.
"Tell ya what," Mellis stood up from the table and looked in his pockets for some tip change, "I'm a tad busy right now, so you'll have to fill me in later."
The somber look grew on the kid's face.
"Sure thing."
Mellis felt in all of his pockets and didn't find any change.
"I'll uh, catch ya later."
The kid only looked at him with that somber smile.
Melliss nodded and went back through the entrance he had come in and down the hallway he had seen before. As he walked along the stone floor towards the front door he brushed a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. His hair was crew-cut, but he hadn't known that. Why hadn't he known that?
As he approached the door he saw that it was decorated with square mirrors, but like the mirror in the restaurant, all he could see out of it was white. His steps and his mind alike quickened as he approached it, and his thoughts began blur inside of his head as he struggled to remember anything before coming into this restaurant.
The knob shimmered a bright painted gold as he grabbed and twisted. He hadn't thought to look through the door again, only to get out of wherever he was and try to make sense of whatever was going on to him.
He yanked open the door and looked into a warehouse store.
The door stood ajar in his hand for at least a few minutes before he moved again. For all that time he looked into the door with a completely slack jaw. He didn't see anyone in the store, but it was fully stocked with clothes, food, appliances, books, everything.
He tilted his head toward the door, looking for some kind of latch or... something. Something that could have made this illusion. There was nothing.
"What the..."
His left foot twitched as he picked it up and moved it towards the door. For a split second he thought he was going to kick a painting of a warehouse store, or wake up from a dream. Neither came true. Instead he leaned his body forward and his foot went clean through the door and settled on dark grey concrete.
Turning his head left he saw that there were racks of baby diapers that stretched to the ceiling. The diapers came in all sizes and shapes, from kid to adult, from soft and expensive to bitter and cheap. Just a tad more to the left of his vision was the door that he had just come through. He could see that the store extended behind him, and that the door was just... There. In the middle of the store. He stepped completely inside the store and turned to get a good look at the door.
The restaurant's hallway was still behind him. The lights had turned off, and the hallway was cast in darkness.
"Kid...?" He asked the darkness. Nothing responded.
He looked back out to the store. Ahead of him it stretched on and on, full of every kind of product he could think of. Everything was starkly grey and white, none of the shelves or products having any particular color. Ahead of him were racks and racks of products on shelves. Above him hung lifeless lights that lit up this grey and white abandoned store.
"It's like I said."
Mellis whipped around and was face-to-face with the kid from the restaurant. He was now wearing a green khakis and and a brown sweater. His red hair was combed over, and he still wore that killer smile of his, though like before it was somber.
"You're in your own mind."
Mellis's own mind was a torrent of confusion. Half of him was still trying to find a grasp on how any of this could be possible. The other half had begun to buy the kid's story. There was no rationalizing any of what had just happened to him, and at this point there was nothing else to hear, nothing else to believe.
He felt like puking his guts out. He needed to move, to sit somewhere before he either lost "it" or lost consciousness.
He looked over to the end of the aisle of baby diapers and began walking over to it, taking each step with tentative caution. When he reached the metal bars that made the end of the aisle, he pushed his back against it and looked at the ceiling. He could see skylights from here, but there was no blue sky or grey clouds, just white.
He slid his back down the metal bars and looked up at the kid. He was frowning now, a deep expression of sorrow painted on his freckled face. Mellis discovered that he was beginning to feel more and more sick to his stomach. The kid watched him as his face went green.
"I'm sorry, I really am." The kid walked over and sat on the ground a few feet across from him.
Mellis almost didn't hear him. He searched inside of himself as he sat slumped against a diaper aisle. He searched for memories to answer the questions spinning around his head. How did he have his haircut? Why was he wearing what he was hearing? Who was he?
After minutes of quiet searching he didn't come up with anything.
Going even deeper into himself, he tried to find any memories at all. Anything he remembered tasting, smelling, doing...
Nothing again. He looked back up to the kid.
"How?" He asked, sounding calmer than he felt. "If what you're saying is true, how am I here?"
The kid looked towards his pocket and brought out the golden notebook from earlier. He gave Mellis an apologetic look as he flipped through it. His eyes brightened as he found the answer.
"It's actually kinda interesting." He put the notebook away and looked back up with shining eyes.
"It says here you learned that during torturous events in someone's life, like rape or, well, torture," the kid rubbed his neck absently, "it's quite rare, but some victims have been found to crawl inside to their own minds when undergoing moments like these to help avoid the pain and whatnot. It stuck into your mind, and you unconsciously used it, for better or worse, though if you want my opinion I would gamble for the better."
"So I'm in my mind, within my own world I created... To avoid being tortured?" Mellis looked back up to the skylight above him. The kid gave him another somber smile.
"It looks that way."
"But who are you? Who am I?" He dropped his hands to the either side of him, feeling the smooth, cold cement underneath him.
The golden notebook flashed out of the kid's pocket, opened, and went back in. The kid looked almost sadly at him for a beat before answering his question..
"Well, on the more interesting side, I'm just a conjuring-up of some face that you must have seen on the street or something. My job here is even more interesting than that, believe it or not." The kid tucked his legs into him and put his hands onto the cement.
"I'm your tinker." The kid smiled at the look of confusion back onto Mellis's face.
"It's alright there man, don't go on exploding on me with your puzzlement." he said, the smile still covering his face. Mellis took a guess and say that he would have punched anyone else carrying that sort of smile, the kid was the only one in here with him, and he guessed he wouldn't do any damage.
"On the serious side, there is something I should tell you. About, uh, you."
Mellis took a deep breath and put a hand through his crew-cut hair.
"Hit me with your best shot, kid. I don't have anything else going on."
The kid smiled and looked at him. In that small moment, Mellis still wasn't sure of where he was or even who he was, but either way he was glad to have the kid here.
"I can't tell you who you are, where you're going, who's going to be there, or even how long you're going to be in here. All I can do for now is just stick with you and keep you company."
Mellis didn't question it. Instead he simply hung his head, looked toward the ceiling for a moment, and stood up. The kid looked genuinely surprised.
"Where are you going?"
Mellis began to walk down the aisles of the stores.
"I'm going to keep on walking."
The kid jumped to his feet and hurried over to his side. He couldn't help but chuckle at the way the kid's red hair jumped all over his confuse face as he jogged.
"Why would you walk?"
He looked at the kid and was struck by how earnest he looked. He found that he didn't care if the kid was something made up inside of his own mind. He didn't care where he was or what was ahead of him. He didn't even care about who he was anymore. It was at that moment that he figured out that he didn't really care anymore at all. It wasn't the bad kind of not caring, like ignorance or indifference. Mellis had simply found that he didn't care about anything outside of his own head. Instead he had decided he would rather spend some quality time with his own noggin before he was forced back into the real world. He smiled at his own little revelation.
"I strike myself as someone who would rather keep walking through my messes rather than sit back and watch them go by." He looked above him and saw another skylight. It still shone nothing but a bright yet dull white.
"Besides," he smiled and looked back ahead of him, "I think I'd rather check out the view."
The kid smiled.
"I can appreciate that."
And so the two walked down the abandoned warehouse store in silence. Mellis himself thought it was both freaky and interesting, the way everyone was gone. Rows and rows of huge aisles stocked with everything from coffee to socks, with dozens of selections from each. From the looks of it, Mellis would have thought that the store was nothing but metal, cardboard, and cement.
"Who exactly are you, again?" Mellis made a right down one of the aisles. To the left and right of him were layers upon layers of cardboard boxes marked with potato chip brands.
"Good question." The kid flipped open the golden notebook in his pocket and flipped through a few pages.
"Interesting," the kid said, putting the notebook back into his pocket. "Says here I'm just a random face you saw on the street. The mind can't produce new faces, so for me it just picked a face and put it on me. Me personally, I like it."
Mellis and the kid laughed. "Y'know what kid, that's interesting and all, but I gotta peg a name on you." Mellis looked the kid over. The combed red hair, freckles, khakis, sweater…”
Mellis took a beat to think as the dozens of cardboard products passed the two by.
"I got a good name," the two turned left as they reached the end of the aisle. "Whaddya think of Jordan?"
"You know what? I like it."
*******************************************************************
Soon enough they reached the end of the store, or the corner, more like. Normally there would have been a cement wall, and there was, but on it was a large black door. It was fancier than any door in a warehouse store had any right to be, with bold mahogany wood, detailed outline, glossy finish, and a large bronze doorknob. Mellis and Jordan stood side by side looking at it closely, each of their hands in their pockets, their brows knitted in concentration. Mellis absently put a hand through his blonde crew cut.
"Why do I get the feeling this ain't a regular door?" He said.
Jordan brought out his notebook, flipped through it, and put it back in his pocket.
"Because it ain't." Jordan had that somber frown again, and it was enough to make Mellis's hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up.
He looked back from the kid and towards the door and began to walk towards it. In retrospect he didn't know why he did it. Maybe it was him being sick of the store and wanting to go somewhere else. Maybe it was him wanting to walk away from the situation. Maybe he hoped that behind the door there would be an end to all this.
Maybe.
He put his handle on the knob just as Jordan spoke up from behind him.
"Mellis, wait."
He turned and looked at Jordan. He saw that he was frowning deeply.
"I can't promise that you'll make it out of here if you step through that door."
Mellis laughed and looked over to Jordan.
"Never stopped me before."
He opened the door.
*********************************************************
There was white. White, white, and more white. It was if there was a wall of white in front of him that stretched all the way to the mountains.
Mountains.
Mellis's eyes adjusted to the harshness of the light, focused onto the distance, and saw mountains. Ranges of them. Stationary, yet flowing across the horizon in waves. Grey clouds blanketed the sky in large drapes of flowing mist. Each of them looked like curtains shedding snow onto the mountains. Snow lightly floated onto the ground, blanketing the surface.
Looking behind him, he saw that all of the lights in the store had shut off. Jordan stood a few feet into the shadows. The snow reflected enough light into the store for him to see the grimace on his face.
"You expect me to go in their, Jordan? I'll freeze to death."
"This is your mind, you can't freeze to death." He said.
"What do you mean? I can feel the cold, Jordan." He put his hand towards the door to emphasise the point. "I can feel the chill Jordan. Now, I'm no brain expert, but even a dumb grunt like me knows that sitting in the freezing cold for too long isn't going to leave you functioning so well. And if this is my mind, why am I not putting myself on some hot summer back with a cool drink and a nice girl!? How come Jordan, ask your little notebook why I can't!"
Mellis's yells rung out across the store. Jordan stood stiff, looking at the floor.
As if out of some violent instinct that even he didn't understand, he flung the door shut and started to walk towards Jordan. His intention was to rip the golden notebook out of his pocket and see for himself what was inside. Intervention in the form of a chunk of the ceiling stopped him dead in his tracks.
Before he could take a step a grey blur went between them and exploded onto the ground. A few bits of rock and cement went sharply into each of their legs, though neither of them noticed. They were both busy looking at where the thing had come from.
The entire ceiling was cracked. The pipes and ventilation disjointed, broken, or dropping towards the floor, along with chunks of the roof itself. The ceiling looked like a dark, shattered mirror.
A large piece of grey brick landed to the right of them again, causing them both to jump. Mellis almost made a run for the front of the store before he looked at the piece of cement that had just fallen and noticed a large stain of white on the side that had broken from the ceiling. It was marble white, the exact same that he had seen on the outside of the skylights and the restaurant windows.
"If I were you slick," Jordan said as the two looked hastily at one another, "I would get through that door."
Mellis turned and grabbed the knob. He didn't twist.
"You're going to be on the other side of it, right?" Behind him he heard the sounds of the warehouse store crumbling. From across the store he could hear large chunks of the ceiling hitting the floor.
"I'll be there if you still want me, Mellis."
Mellis chuckled.
"I never did tell you my name."
He twisted the knob and swung the door open. Cold wind and snow slashed at his face.
Before he could will himself to think about it any more, he stepped through the door.
***********************
Mellis was walking. How long he had been walking for, he didn't know. To him only two things existed, his the color white, and cold. All around his tunnel vision, grey-stained fur trees passed him by. Further beyond them were large snow-covered mountains. Everything was stained grey except for the snow, and the snow was everywhere.
He had ran as soon as he had gotten through the door. The cold air and snow had gnawed at his face, but he hadn't cared. All he had wanted was to find another door, hopefully one that would get him out of this nightmare. He ran for miles through the forest. After what felt like an eternity of running, and then jogging, and then walking, he noticed that there was no uphill or downhill climb to this forest. From the moment he had entered through the door he hadn't come across any rises or falls, no hills, holes, or anything in the like. All he had seen was trees, with no sound other than the wind that carried the snow and the own machine-like sound of his breath.
Now he walked through the forest with nothing and no one to think about. For most of the time he had been walking, his mind had faded into radio static. He barely registered the trees or the cold anymore. To him, the only thing there was to see was snow. The only thing to feel was cold. The cold had bothered him a great deal, and still did, but he soon realized that his skin would never freeze. Why would it, in his own mind?
This had left him still walking through a freezing cold forest for hours. His pant legs were soaked and constantly bit into his skin with cold. His bare cheeks, ears, and neck had the feeling of knives biting into him constantly, though he had gotten used to it a while ago.
He stopped. Directly ahead of him was another tall, grey fir tree. It looked like all the dozens, maybe hundreds of the others he had already passed. He walked up to the tree and put his back to it and turned to looked at the footsteps he had made in the snow, sliding has back against the tree. The bark pinched into his back, but he was past caring about pain.
Sitting against the tree, he watched the footprints he had just made disappear. Instead of being covered by the falling snow, the holes in the ground had built themselves back up. The crushed snow had looked like it had inflated back up to the surface in milliseconds. If his own eyes hadn't been open to see it, he would have that he would have been going crazy. Though by now he was used to that too.
Mellis put his head in between his hands and started to cry. He guessed that it wasn't an emotional response as much as it was an emotional release. The restaurant, the store, this place, it was all starting to take it's toll.
The tears felt warm on his cheeks, and in a lot of ways it was the best feeling he had ever experienced. Even now, the large green jacket seemed a little warmer and his pant legs felt just a tad bit drier. All of this only made him cry harder.
"Well hey there," he heard above him, "whatcha lying down and crying for?"
Mellis was up and running before Jordan had even finished the sentence, and it didn't take him long to almost crash into Jordan. When he did, they almost fell over, though he managed to grab a hold of Jordan's shoulders and yank him close. He began to cry a torrent of tears on Jordan's shoulder.
Jordan laughed, "it's nice to see you too."
"S-s-shut up Jordan," Mellis said through a barrage of shivers. Jordan laughed and gave him a few pats on the back before the two broke apart. He looked Jordan over and was surprised to see that he still wore the brown sweater and green khakis from the warehouse store.
"Nice pair of clothes for a freezing mountain walk," he said.
"I would say the same," Jordan laughed, "you look like your ears are about to freeze off."
"Not quite yet." Mellis and Jordan both smiled at each other.
"Well," Jordan rubbed his shoulders, "how's about we start walking?"
"Let's."
The two looked at the tree that he had just been crying on. He nodded towards Jordan, Jordan nodded back, and then the two were walking through the endless forest together.
It was still hell to walk through the freezing cold forest, but to Mellis, the sting of the daggers on his skin stung a little less, and the cold was just a tad more bearable. The two walked in silence for a long time, neither of them saying anything, both wearing pleasant, subtle smiles on their faces. After a while, Mellis turned his head toward Jordan.
"Do you think I'm going to make it out of this, Jordan?"
Jordan pulled out his notebook, and for the longest time he didn't open it. Mellis was about to speak up when Jordan tossed it onto the ground. They continued to walk, and soon the golden notebook was far behind them.
"Mellis," Jordan said, "I think you're going to make it through this. I know it's probably not much coming from a made up person in your own mind, but..."
"It's alright," Mellis said, "I appreciate it. And you know what?"
Jordan stopped and looked over to him. Mellis did the same.
"I think so too. And honestly, I hope to God that I remember you when I get out."
Jordan laughed.
"Me too, slick. Me too."
Mellis turned straight, smiling, and put his left foot forward. As his foot landed on the snow, the snow began to melt away. When his foot began to press onto the dirt below the snow, a small circle of dirt and dead grass was visible around his foot. When he pressed into the snow with his right foot, the same ring appeared.
Lifting his left foot take another step forward, the grass in the circle he had created slowly became green and standing, and a dandelion began to sprout in the middle of the ring.