Chương 122: The Foras Funhouse, Part 1

This wasn't where I was from. This wasn't home. The sky was perpetually overcast. The horizon led to nothing in every direction except forward, where this multicolored decadent building calling itself a funhouse was in front of us. It was wider than it was tall, and it was tall enough I could not see the corner of the roof. I couldn't comprehend a building this large.

The concerned sounds of other voices drew my attention to who else was there, and reminded me to look around at the people instead of just the surrounding area. The rest of the team. Chris, May, Jairo. All standing. Our positions were relatively the same to when we were brought here. Just all standing, but distances and sides were the same. The same was true for Tancred and Lafeuillade, who seemed to be thrown off entirely by this as they were looking around themselves. This had to have been new territory for them.

And if that was the case for our magical expert, all I could do was recognize how far up the creek we made it without a paddle. There was a looping sort of chatter amongst ourselves as we asked the same obvious questions over and over about what was going on or where we were, maybe for about a minute or two. This was then interrupted by the front door of the building opening, beckoning to us with a vibrant, warm light. Immediately, we all looked to Agent Lafeuillade for insight.

Words were not needed for yet another obvious question. She took a long drag of her pipe, smoke billowing out past her lips, before speaking.

"In theory, not practice, we should go through the door. I do not believe we're in any physical realm."

"What clued you in to that?" Tancred asked.

"My pipe tastes like sage, lavender, and rosemary."

"…Hasn't it always? It did whenever I took a hit."

"I am ageusic, Tancred. I sacrificed my sense of taste at sixteen years old." The agent took pause, glancing around.

"Shit. Wait, what did you sacrifice it for?"

"Nothing relevant." With little room for debate on that, we ended up making our way through the door. The light was intense to the point we couldn't see until we'd already made it a decent ways into the building. When it finally cleared, what we were presented with was something else entirely. A circus. We were in the middle of a goddamn circus. With the dead grass beneath our feet and colorful flags and barriers around. The audience was far larger than any circus I'd seen on TV, however.

Practically an ocean of people, all chattering and cheering. Wait. No. Not people. Looking closely at them, they didn't look right. Features were missing. Faces too smooth, or too long or wide. Eyes that were too large or too simple. Proportions on bodies that made them too short or tall or fat or thin. The colors of their skin were almost consistent, but some were too pale or too dark. Their cheers didn't line up with the sounds they were making. Mouths wide open at quiet parts and shut at uproars.

The sounds themselves were just barely perceivable as incorrect as well. Laughs sounded backwards, vocal pitches skewed at almost random. These weren't people. They were trying to be people but they were failing at it. Maybe on purpose. Maybe to mock us. Maybe to offend and disturb. I had no way of knowing. I had no interest in knowing, either. In the center of the room was the news anchor. Foras. He sat on a tall, indigo pedestal like it was a stool. Compared to us he was monolithic.

If he walked out in the real world, he would've been seen as a kaiju with his size.

"Welcome to the Foras Funhouse, humans," he spoke. But it wasn't heard aloud. Despite his lips moving, no sound came from it. Instead, it simply echoed in our ears at a neutral, flat volume.

"Foras, this is not what we agreed to, and I did not consent to this," Lafeuillade shouted out.

"Oh, but you did. You told me'Fine, continue,'" he stated, his voice mimicking hers for those last two words.

"Those are words of consent to us, daughter of man. I thought you knew this well."

"To continue explaining your terms, not to drag us to wherever this is." He laughed, which caused the ground to shake.

"No, I am fairly certain I stated as you stared at me that I would be subjecting you all to my process of potential creation beforehand. Did you not hear it? I conveyed the appropriate electrical signals through that television's speakers. I know the sound waves passed through the air. Oh, I must have put them at a frequency too high for any of you to hear. Oh well. The sound waves still hit your ears, and that means you heard it." Chris' voice came up behind me, drawing my eyes towards him.

"Oh, Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed-" His mouth was gone. Completely smooth area.

"Sorry," Foras stated.

"But your Lord is not in this house and shall not be named or prayed to here." I wasn't going to just let this happen. He already crossed too many lines. Had to disrupt this. I built up tension in my legs, pushing with all my might to rocket off towards him. After about a second of very slow airtime, I fell two feet ahead of me, prompting raucous laughter from the crowd, and another chuckle from Foras.

"Ah, I suppose I should have opened with that. None of you have access to any powers here in this part of the Funhouse. We don't need any disruptions to ritual for building up potential."

"Why are you doing all of this for just a foot!?" May called out. Foras raised an eyebrow, before holding onto his chin and humming in thought, loudly. It vibrated behind my eyeballs.

"Because it's fun," he answered, plainly.

"Now, unless you all wish to end up like Christian with your speaking privileges removed, I am going to explain." This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. I pushed myself back onto my feet as he continued.

"Allow me to assure you that you are in no direct physical danger." Direct.

"Presently, you are in a hypnagogic state induced by me, that allows me to channel your minds to the Foras Funhouse. Specifically, I am latching on to one single synapse in each of you, happening in a single attosecond. We can spend as much time as we like here, and by the time you wake up all you'll have noticed in terms of time passing is the latter half of the snap I made. This means, presently, you are what can be called 'thoughtforms.' Not physically here. Does anyone need further elaboration?"

Silence from all of us. I was half expecting Jairo to ask further due to it getting a bit complex, but looking over at him, he seemed too scared to speak.

"Good. Now, I shall clarify that we shall be partaking in a game of 'Wasted Potential.' You will be going through events, scoured through your memories, that will put you through the tests of what wasted potential could look like. For fairness' sake, I will elaborate on some of the key rules in clear, written text." The giant man clapped his hands together, and from the ground arose a stone monolith. Text formed on itself as though it were being chiseled out by invisible tools. 1.

Your goal is to prevent the tragedy of the memory from occurring by any means necessary. 2. If the tragedy still occurs, even in a different fashion than normal, you fail. 3. You are permitted four failures. If you fail on the fifth attempt, you will have failed entirely. 4. You can die in these scenarios. Death counts as a failure. 5. The game does not end until everyone has gone through a certain number of tragedies. 6. The sixth entry was blank.

"Where's number six?" I asked. Foras laughed.

"That is a secret rule. If you discover the rule and state it out loud, you bypass the game instantly. That is my attempt at making things fair, for what I am about to do to you. Oh, and speaking of what I am about to do to you." He raised a finger, one the size of a bus.

"As stated in rule four, you can die. You will feel all pain and injury as though they were real. But rest assured, simply dying here will not kill you in the waking world. At least, for a certain amount. Your body can handle the mental strain of death in this realm three times. For illustration's sake…" That raised finger then pointed directly at me. In the corner of my eye. As he moved the digit, the shape of a heart etched itself in that corner. He repeated the process two more times.

Groping and grabbing at the air, I could see that it was directly imposed over that part of my vision.

"Every time you die, a heart will break. Once all three hearts are broken, any further deaths may have physical consequences for your body. The last time I subjected someone to The Foras Funhouse, they became permanently unable to use their legs due to brain damage." He explained this with a boisterous laugh.

"Now, are there any other questions?" Further silence. A tension so thick it could be cut with a knife.

"Nothing? Wow, such a smart group! Let us begin." He snapped his massive fingers, and it was all black again. Then, his face, floating in the void. He floated off to the side as he spoke.

"Now, let us see which scenario you will experience, Leo Holt." Bony, clawed hands lowered from out of the blind spots in my vision to bring out a metal wheel, labeled in strange and illegible angular script along every "spoke" of it. The hands grabbed one end of the wheel and swung down, causing it to spin and spin and spin. It felt like hours of spinning as Foras simply stared at me smugly. It left me wondering if there was a trick.

As I began to part my lips in order to ask for what was going on, the wheel began to slow to a crawl. As it finally ticked and tocked its way to the end, the spoke pointing upwards flashed with red light, its illegible script transformed into clear English. THE DEATH OF LILY LOFIELD I could feel my heart drop into my stomach, saturating it in the hate freshly boiling inside me for Foras.

"What a fascinating first foray! I hope you do well, many lives are on the line, Leo Holt." Lights. Fluorescent lights. Cream-colored walls and floors. Blue-black doors every ten feet. Halls and corners and turns that go on forever. Thick metal lockers that looked more like miniature jail cells. And screaming. An unending wave of screaming, from people rushing around and past me in thick schools of fish. Some had blood on their faces and hands.

They fit the same vulgar appearances as the crowd at the circus, otherwise. They were actors in a performance. Now they weren't content with just mocking the human form, they were mocking the terrible events that happened to another human. They had a sickly haze lingering about them, thick and wide, that compelled me to stumble out of their way whenever they approached. BANG BANG BANG Gunshots. Right. This was a school. That school. The school of Chris' sister. This was where she died.

We were told we were going to prevent tragedies. It didn't take any complex thoughts to figure out what was happening here. Lily died, killed by the shooter. I had to stop the shooter. That sounded simple enough. Just had to chase after the sound of gunfire. They were loud, but not in the disruptive call for attention of a real gun. It was all carefully curated to sound like one, without any of the real qualities to it. I noticed with every step there was far more weight than I was used to.

Attempts to lunge failed me. The bastard was keeping me mundane for this. BANG BANG BANG Crowds got thicker and more frantic as I grew closer to the shots ringing through the air. Blood splattered on walls and through cracked windows on doors. Bullet holes seasoned the lockers. I finally reached my destination when I saw a man in a dark hoodie, leveling a pistol at a young-looking girl, curled up in terror, resigned to her fate. The weapon glowed with its own sickly haze, as though radiating death itself.

Didn't matter if this wasn't real. I wasn't going to let that fate happen again. I was here, I was able to do something, even without my powers. I can do this. I had to do this. Rushing towards the hooded man, I reared a fist back. By the time he heard my footfalls, my punch crashed into the side of his head and sent him rolling onto the ground. His hand still clutched the firearm, so I knew I wasn't done yet. Lily was still at risk of being shot.

So I pounced, as best I could without being able to leap across an entire city block, landing halfway down his midsection. I could barely keep my position over him as I began slamming my fists into his face over and over. I couldn't see it through his hood, but I could feel meat against knuckle. Without my strength, it was hard. Every strike felt limp, I could feel the recoil shooting up my elbows and into my shoulders. But I thought with enough hits, he'd finally go unconscious and sit do- BANG Lights.

Fluorescent lights. Cream-colored walls and floors. Blue-black doors every ten feet. Halls and corners and turns that go on forever. Thick metal lockers that looked more like miniature jail cells. And screaming. One of the three hearts in the corner of my eye, split in two. Mother fucker.