There are people in this world who can manipulate art. Three of these people are brought together to complete a task. Chapter 1: Ander The room was garish. It was that ugly shade of red that hurt your eyes and made you want to run away. All of its four walls had a painting on them as well as a door. In the exact center was a circular set of stairs. Ander approached these and began walking up them. After a few minutes he began to realize he wasn’t going anywhere. The stairs were made so that you always went up or down. You would never reach the top. Ander stepped off and made his way to the east most wall. The painting above the door was beautiful but strange. It showed a pathway that had no slope to it. At the start of the pathway was a gazebo type building. Further along was corner then at the end another gazebo that was suspended above the first. After examining the painting for a while, Ander went through the door.
The room before him was a slightly more muted color than the main chamber. Looking down he noticed that his once vibrant blue shirt had also been toned down. His already faded jeans had become almost completely grey. He looked back up and began investigating the room. There wasn’t much to see, except for a pedestal in on the back wall. The pedestal was the same color as the rest of the room. It held a large triangular object roughly the size of a soccer ball. Ander picked it up and turned it about in his hands. It was almost weightless. It was brilliant white and glowed slightly. The bottom edge was turned up slightly. It was connected to the inside edge. It was the same no matter which side was facing down. As Ander tried to make sense of the thing, the door behind him burst open. He turned around expecting to find someone there, but there wasn’t. He put the impossible triangle back on the pedestal and went back into the central room.
The next door’s painting depicted some workers building a stone railing. The workers at the bottom of the painting were sending stone pillars up to the workers on top. In this painting, if you were to start waling forward, you would end up walking upside down. Ander didn’t look at this picture too long. It confused him. He went through the door.
This room was more muted than the last. His shirt was now blue grey and his jeans had lost all color. The room it’s self was slightly more pink than red. There was another pedestal, this time in the center of the room. Seated on it was a small ring. The maker must have twisted the metal before connecting the ends, Ander thought. He picked it up and saw that he was wrong. Much like the triangle, the inside edge of the ring connected to the outside edge. Ander decided to keep it for future study. The ring fit perfectly on his finger. As soon as he slipped it on, the door behind him burst open with the same force as before. He ventured back out into the main room and moved on to the next door.
The painting was that of a room with stairs going in all directions. People paced the stairs even when it would be impossible. At the end of every staircase was a door or a courtyard. All of the courtyards would be impossible to stand in due to their angle. Nevertheless, people were still in them, drinking tea and socializing. ?
This last room was all grey. Ander’s shirt had lost its color. The pedestal was off in the back left corner. Its item was covered in a white cloth. Ander lifted the fabric to find the frame of a box the size of a softball. The corner furthest form him clipped through the edge. Ander turned the box to examine it to find that the corner was normal and that the corner he had been looking at now clipped through. After several frustrating minutes of flipping back and forth, Ander finally gave up and set the box back down. The door slammed open and he walked back out into the main room. It’s once vibrant color had been reduced to a light medium grey. The stairs had disappeared and were replaced with a pedestal with an orange on it. Ander picked it up and began to peel it. As he ripped the skin from the flesh of the juicy fruit, he had the sudden realization that there was no way out of the building he was in and that he was trapped. He went back into the first room and grabbed the triangle from the pedestal. He began to bash the wall with the point of it while eating the orange. Soon he had made a hole big enough for him to fit through and had finished the navel. Without considering what might be on the other side, he walked through.
Ander’s heart dropped as his foot found nothing to step on. The rest of his body followed him down the endless pit beneath him. After a while, the pit turned into a hallway and Ander was no longer falling. The hallway had black and white striped wallpaper and a door at the end. Ander ran towards it. He got within five feet of the door when the hallway lengthened and the door was no longer within reach. Again, Ander ran for the door. Again the hallway extended, pulling the door away from him. He turned around expecting to see an endless hallway. Instead he found the door he had been running after. Looking back over his shoulder, Ander saw the hallway he had come from. He went through the door and found himself in the room with the impossible box. Inside the box this time was a key. There was an extra door in the room now, but no keyhole. Ander opened the door to find another door, then another, then another. After ten doors Ander finally came to a locked one. He tried the key. It worked and he pushed through into an elevator. He pressed the down arrow figuring that since there was no door outside, he must be higher up. The elevator buzzed at him and the up arrow flashed. Ander hit it and the car shot upwards before coming to a stop.
The only thing in the room was a door. The lock on it was just a circle. It looked just the right size for the ring Ander had found. He slipped it in and the door swung open revealing a nice grassy field with gently rolling hills. Some wild flowers dotted the landscape giving it splashes of purple and red. Ander ran out and turned around to look at the building he had been imprisoned in. There wasn’t one. The door he had just come through had vanished along with the rest of the structure. And good riddance. Ander thought. Off in the distance was a rather large looking city. Happy to see civilization, Ander ran toward the sparkling buildings. Chapter 2: The Club Ander arived near a night club. He felt in his pocket and found a hundred dolar bill. "It'll have to be good enough." He said to himself and shrugged. He looked up at the bouncer at the door. He was a twenty some year old African American man with lots of tatoos on his bulking arms. He was arugeing with a young couple about the admitance cost. Ander approched him and he nodded him in.
"Hey how come he gets to go in?" one of the two yelled.
"He's on the list." Ander caught as the door closed. How did he know who i was? he thought as he opened the double doors to the main room of the club. The music hit him like a train and the lights blinded him as he moved to the dance floor. He looked toward the stage where a girl with spiked hair dyed a briliant white was danceing in a tight fitting shirt and even tighter shorts. The dj seemed to be creating the music around her movements, changing the tempo acording to her rythem. Ander couldnt help but want to dance as well. He suppressed the urge and moved to an empty corner table. From his spot he could see a coat rack with a nice fedora hung near the top. A suit floated over and picked it up off the top rack. It then moved over to Ander's table and "sat" next to him.
"Hello Ander." the suit said to him. It put the fedora on and looked at him. He stared at where the eyes would be if they were there and managed a weak smile. "It's normal to be scared. But I'm a friend."
"Who are you?" Ander asked. The suit shook it's head. "What do you want?"
"I want you to go dance with her." it nodded to the woman on stage. "She wont bite."
"But I can't-" He was suddenly on stage danceing with the woman. The suit was on the dance floor stareing at him. He shrugged and closed his eyes, letting the music take him. Him and the woman were in perfect harmony, bending and changing the flow of the song to their dance. The woman suddenly kissed him, and he opened his eyes. The club had changed into a red room. The woman smiled and backed away, turning off a stereo on a shelf next to the door. The suit moved next to her and tilted it's head.
"What can't you?" the suit chuckled. "I guess we all have hidden talents." The woman leaned against the wall and winked at him.
"Will you tell me who you are now?" Ander rubbed his temples. He suddenly had a massive headache. The room started to spin lightly and he sat down heavily. The suit moved over and crouched down in front of him.
"My name is Adonis. I need your help Ander." The suit stood up and offered a gloved hand. Ander took it and pulled himself up. The suit turned left just as a man appeared. He looked around confused then checked his pocket watch.
"This isn't right." He turned in a circle then dissapeared. He appeared in the same spot and looked even more confused. "Why am I here? You!" He pointed at Ander. "Did you bring me here?" His eyes were orange and had clock patterns in them. The hands moved counter clockwise.
"I dont quite know how I got here myself. I was in a club, then those two brought me here." Ander explained. The woman got up and stormed over to them.
"I'm not with him. She gestured at the suit, who was sitting in a large armchair listening. "I was just danceing, then I noticed Ander and there was this voice in my head that told me to just be calm and act normal, so i kissed him and we got put here." She crossed her arms and leaned against the nearest wall. "Whatever this thing wants we'd better give him though."
"What do you want anyway?" Ander asked.
"All in good time." the suit said.