Short Delves: Delving Stories (2024)

(enchant: ?passage's chars, via (transition-delay: (pos * 20ms)) + (transition:'instant')) ''Short Delves - Delving Stories'' (color:#5660ba) [short stories and narrative companion pieces to The Delving]  Last updated: 7-15-24 Srok Song [[Part 1: The Inspector->Part1Inspector]] [[Part 2: The Chronicle->Part2Chronicle]] [[Part 3: The Handlers->Part3Handlers]]

[Part 1] The Inspector The man woke up naked in a dark room. He sat in a chair, cold metal pressed against his bare skin. He gasped once and shivered, the pure blackness of the space invading his senses. After a moment passed, the dark veil over his eyes began to subside. The room was small and no larger than a holding cell. There was a metal desk pushed up against one side of the room, a shut door on the other. The walls of the room felt plain and barren. The man sat in the chair facing the desk, his palms laid out face down on its surface. He straightened up and took a single deep breath, willing the blood to rush back to his muscles faster. He made out a leather briefcase lying on the desk within arms’ reach, clasped shut. The man opened it with shaking hands and produced a folded set of coveralls that was exactly his fit. He dressed quickly, the coldness of the air impossibly so for a room of this size. The briefcase was empty now, save for a small, heavy key. The man took the key and closed the briefcase, leaving it on the desk. The door on the other side of the room was shut, the faint outline of soft light creeping in from the bottom of the frame. He took a deep breath before using the key to unlock the door, and then stepped into the next room. [[Next->Part1Inspector2]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

[Part 2] The Chronicle The young woman sat at the table staring at the plate of cold spaghetti in front of her. Beyond the undisturbed pasta and gigantic dining table was a paned window that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. She heard the heavy ocean waves crashing violently outside, and her eyes slowly rose to witness the shadows of a powerful ship pushing its way through the storm. The ocean felt overbearing, and the ship looked so large but seemed so far away from where she sat. All the young woman could make out through the window was dark water, wood, and canvas. The ship pushed and pushed through the water and the gusts outside. The winds were so intense that the metal fork and knife clattered against each other on the table’s surface. Her eyes returned to the plate on the table. She fixated on the red sauce, which had begun to slowly creep from the limp noodles to the side of the plate. [[Next->Part2Chronicle2]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

[Part 3] The Handlers The stern-faced lady sat on the bench next to the quiet gentleman. They sat in silence and had been doing so for the last forty-five minutes. The room they waited in was huge, the size of a hangar bay. The bench they sat upon was placed directly in the middle of the room, or so it felt, as both the walls and ceilings were a shade of pure white that it was hard to properly gauge depth and distance. The quiet gentleman casually played with the ring on his hand while the stern-faced lady glanced at the band on her wrist. They were facing the same direction, towards a pair of identical black doors next to each other against the far wall. From where they were sitting in the room, they could just make out each door’s indication lights, a flood light placed on either door’s upper and outermost corner. Both lights were out at the moment. The stern-faced lady kept her gaze trained forward towards the lights. The quiet gentleman checked the length of his sleeves, the cuffs of his white collared shirt resting just above wrists. He itched at his arm as the stern-faced woman let out a heavy sigh. [[Next->Part3Handlers2]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

The room the man entered was nearly identical to the one that he woke up in. There was another door on the opposite wall and another desk against the wall on the right, but no chair. On this desk was another leather briefcase. The soft light of the room came from a single tea light candle set to the right of the briefcase. The man closed the door behind him quietly and moved towards the desk. He opened this briefcase as well, the white glow from the tea light illuminating the contents within. Inside was a glove, long and black. He took it and placed it on his left hand, the flexible fabric sliding over his sleeve, nearly up to his elbow. His coveralls were also black, although not quite as ominous a shade as his glove, and made of much less exceptional material. The man flexed his fingers, the snug fit of his new coverings and physical movement beginning to slowly warm his being. He felt a familiar tightness in the back of his neck, and shrugged it out. The smooth metal floor was like ice beneath his bare feet. He looked down at his toes wiggling in protest. A pair of black boots was placed neatly against the base of one of the desk legs. The two buckles on each boot were unclasped and the man slid his feet into them, breathing a small sigh of relief as his toes latched onto the soft, warm inserts within. He clasped each buckle, the boots comfortably snug and exactly his fit. Dryness had crept into the man’s throat, and he swallowed in affirmation. He closed the briefcase, leaving it on the desk next to the tea light, and moved towards the other door. It was just like the others before it, except it had no knob. He pressed his gloved hand against the door and pushed. [[Next->Part1Inspector3]] [[Back->Part1Inspector]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

The door shuddered slightly and then swung open, the man now using his right hand to push it open slowly. He stepped through into another identical room with a table and chair on the opposite wall and a door on the right. This room was illuminated dimly by a single tea light candle sitting on the left side of the table. The man moved closer to the table and chair, the door behind him swinging shut softly. When he turned to look back, he saw a blank wall. In the center of the table was a glass of water half full. The man took the glass and drank the liquid down swiftly. The water was lukewarm but replenishing, his dry lips now aware and irritant. The tepid respite gave way to a gnawing in the pit of his stomach, and his body rumbled in response. When he went to put the glass back, he saw a small white plate had appeared in the center of the table. The tea light remained on the left. On the plate was a sealed bag, silver and metallic in color, but otherwise indistinguishable. The man found the small bag’s creases and popped it open, pouring its contents out onto the plate. Three tiny spheres, the size of blueberries, clinked onto the ceramic. The man could make out from the tea light that one sphere was a shade of red and another was a shade of blue. The third sphere was a shade of black, so dark was it that the man thought it seemed to suck the blackness from the darkness surrounding him. He stared at the small spheres on the plate for a moment, before scooping them up in his left hand and swallowing them whole in one gulp. They tasted bitter and like metal. The man closed his eyes, waiting for his stomach to settle, and when he opened them, the glass and the plate and the silver pouch were gone. He turned to his right towards the door and paused for a moment. This door was different from the ones he had walked through before. It appeared to be made of wood, weathered and scratched; a contrast from the cold hard metal surrounding it. The man pushed the shabby door open and stepped into the room. [[Next->Part1Inspector4]] [[Back->Part1Inspector2]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

The wooden floor lurched beneath his steel-toed boots. A silver mist swirled slowly in the air, shimmering in the soft yellow light cast in through a single window. It was stale dust, and the man held his gloved hand up to his mouth as he inspected his surroundings carefully. The room could have been mistaken for a tinkerer’s workshop, or an enthusiast’s office. He saw antiques, tattered books, framed schematics with faded lines. A simple desk and chair was placed in the center of the room. Stuffed shelves and bookcases were pushing out from the walls. They overflowed with folders and documents that spilled out onto the floor into thick piles of parchment. The man pulled the wooden door shut behind him and moved carefully around the room, closer towards the window. He stared into a small black sun that seemed to gaze imperatively through him. The man leaned closer, peering out of the murky window. It was a gigantic pigeon’s eye, bloodshot red, locked in a trance and unwavering, staring in straight through the window. All he could make out was the neck and the head of the avian gargantuan, the rest of its body lost within thick rolling clouds. The man didn’t think it could see him in the room through the window, so small and distant and insignificant were they to the large bird. Or, if it did see him, it didn’t seem to care. Yet the bird’s eye remained locked onto his, unblinkingly, until the man finally turned away. [[Back->Part1Inspector3]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

The young woman’s hands suddenly felt hot, and heavy, like her fingers were encased in spider’s webbing. The sauce was dripping from the palms of her hands, thick blots splattering down onto the cold kitchen floor below. Dark red met bright white, and she shuddered. She slowly rose from the chair, her palms turning up towards the ceiling. Puddles of red had formed around her bare feet. A presence suddenly made itself known to her, a baleful force pressuring her from all sides. It was invasive and powerful and occupied every inch of the room. It pushed down upon the young woman’s shoulders and she shuddered once more. She drove the balls of her feet into the floor and fought back against the force that bore down on her. Thunder boomed across the rolling ocean waves outside. She felt the dark red liquid had reached up to her ankles. The silverware and plate clattered loudly against the glass table. Still the force pushed against the young woman, and she shut her eyes tightly. [[Next->Part2Chronicle3]] [[Back->Part2Chronicle]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

A few moments passed, and the young woman opened her eyes. She sat at the table staring at the plate of cold spaghetti in front of her. The kitchen floor was clean and white. The red sauce lingered on the edge of the plate. The presence was sitting across the table, glowering at her. She saw the ocean waves crashing through the window behind it, the ship far away on the horizon. The young woman slowly rose from the chair, turning away from the presence and the window, away from the kitchen and the table. She moved into a dim hallway with blank walls and a lone door frame at the end of it. The young woman stepped softly through the hall and into a small, dark bedroom. [[Next->Part2Chronicle4]] [[Back->Part2Chronicle2]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

The figure was turned away from the young woman, facing the opposite wall. The young woman began to move slowly around the room. She stepped silently, moving past the figure towards a desk across from the bed. Books, school stationery, a small, bearded dog staring forward with glassy eyes. Split open at the seam on the desk was a canvased book with wide pages. The young woman made out an inky mess of words, angles, and shapes. [[Next->Part2Chronicle6]] [[Back->Part2Chronicle3]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

Broken word fragments. Is a person more than a person? Dark black etches. It demands to be felt. Marks of feelings scratched deep. Unthinkable without violence. Splattered across the sheets. What a treacherous thing to believe. She flipped slowly through the pages. Chance and chance alone. Examining each before moving on to the next. That’s the thing about pain. [[Next->Part2Chronicle7]] [[Back->Part2Chronicle5]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

The writings went on for pages and pages, so immense that the black tendrils began spilling out and spreading first onto the desk, and then to the walls and floor. The young woman stepped back and looked again at the figure in the center of the room. The black ink had seeped itself into the floor and walls and ceiling like vines, creeping slowly, breathing. It enclosed around the hunched figure, wrapping its oily limbs and clinging on. She stared for a moment at the black mass, watching it slowly pulsating. Then, the young woman gently reached out her hand. [[Back->Part2Chronicle6]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

After ten minutes or so a flash of bright, warm orange washed across the room. The right door swung open as its flood light turned on. The stern-faced woman got up immediately and began walking, the quiet gentleman just behind her. Two other figures emerged from the open door, and the left floodlight turned on. The figures were too far away from the lady and the gentleman to identify. The left door swung open and the two figures quickly went through, disappearing into darkness. The left floodlight was now also on, both door lights now casting a vibrant orange glow across the room. The door on the left swung shut and its light turned off as the stern-faced lady and quiet gentleman got closer. The quiet gentleman looked into the darkness beyond the open door on the right. The place beyond the door seemed so dark, blacker than the door itself. So dark that he thought it must have sucked all the darkness from the white room they had been waiting in. The stern-faced woman took a deep breath and passed through the door first without looking back. The quiet gentleman stepped through after her. The door swung shut behind them, and the orange flood light turned off. [[Back->Part3Handlers]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]

The hallway behind her seemed to fall away into the void, and when she turned to look, she saw the faces of two smiling, young girls. Arms around each other’s shoulders, they beamed toothily at her. They may have been sisters. The young woman looked around the bedroom. A musky scent of coconut lingered in the air, encompassed by a fruit-floral blend that suggested white flowers and apples. An empty twin sized bed was pushed into one of the corners of the room, sheets cold and tussled. A window next to the bed was cracked open, but there was no rolling thunder or crashing ocean waves. Instead it may have let in a cold breeze, if she could feel it. A gaunt figure sat motionless on the floor in the center of the room. They were hunched over, arms cradling their knees. [[Next->Part2Chronicle5]] [[Back->Part2Chronicle3]] [[Return to Title Page->TitleScreen]]