Lab C: Chapter 1, Our Guy

A man in a red robe talks to himself and a fluffy white dog as he walks down a wet road, past residential houses, towards a forest. His red robe is recently singed, and he has claw marks all over his body. Tears in the robe seem wet, but it’s red, so who knows what it is.

He has a large bag on his back, herbs and pouches dangling off, a scroll sticking out .

The man in the red robe passes by a corner house with high fences and someone in its second story watches him cross the street and stop at the edge of the forest. The man in the red robe stands there and rocks back and forth slightly, gearing up to go inside.

He’s not afraid, but something’s holding him back. He smiles and looks down at the dog as if it just cracked a joke.

Flood lights blare on, the man in the red robe looks back and is calmly blinded by it. His pupils are huge.

The owner of the house walks out, “Hi there, you good?”

The man in the red robe looks back, “Oh yeah, just, need to get away for a bit. That’s a great light you have. That bright light must make you feel pretty safe.”

The owner of the house with the big light, “Uh, yeah. I guess... Right. Ok. Anyway. Be safe.”

The man in the red robe nods and waves “Yeah. You too!”. He reaches down and scratches the large fluffy white dogs floppy ears. The large fluffy white dog has bangs that cover its eyes, and long curly hairs that run down its maw. It looks sad in the way that it carries itself as if it were heavy, but if you could read dogs, you’d know it’s a happy happy dog. There is no place it would rather be than by this mans side.

The light turns off and sudden change makes the forest a threatening pit of obscurity. Bald branches stick out from the darkness like a threat. The man in the red robes controls his breathing, taking deep breaths. He watches unblinking into the darkness, until a small twinkle in the distance catches his eye. Almost like a fire fly, but a brilliant white for but a moment.

The man in the red robe walks into the woods calmly. He steps with high knees and soon disappears. The owner of the home checks, and shakes his head, then heads to bed.

It’s a smooth walk for the man in the red robe. He extends his arms out for balance and stares at the floor with a smile, like a kid trying to cross balance beam. He hears a crunch and he looks up, freezing in place.

A large gnarled tree is before him. A gaping maw of a crevice invites investigation to only the bravest of souls.

The man in the red robe gets on his tippy toes, looking deeper into the maw; however, his attention is pulled to a sudden warm glow behind the tree. The man in the red robe relaxes, his shoulders dropping, his lips curling into a relieved smile.

The glow moves to one side of the tree, and lo, a man with a bushy mustache wearing a warm, brown suit appears, carrying an oil lantern. He leans from behind the tree as if it were a barricade.

“Hey John. How’re you doing? Everything okay? Anything attached to you?”

John scrunches his face in a smile, “I’m still straight up tripping, but we’re good. Just me. I,” he takes a resigned breath, “need to go in for this one.”

Suddenly dozens of gun muzzle flash lights blip on all around him. A perfect circle of coverage.

“How about you tell me about it John.” The mustached man says, stepping from behind the tree, revealing his other hand to have a tape recorder.

John takes a deep breath, and unmasks his current state.

“It was fucking crazy in there. There were these shadow dudes and some inky guy in the middle, I think he’s the main guy, and it smelled like bbbaadd in there.” He lifts up his robe to reveal the array of horizontal cut marks across his ribs. “They did not want me to leave, I had to run through an infinite stair case.”

“Ah geez, John that sounds like a lot.”

“I think it’s poverty! Or demons! Or, hell, maybe it’s just a parasite?! Coulda been ghost. Not a ghost though. It was etched into the walls, but the walls didn’t contain it? The walls were I think a part of it. Whose to say. I think I need help.”

As John talks, the mustached man leads him over to a camping chair, a nice one with the leg extender. There’s a drink in one of its cubies and steaming fresh fries in the other.

”Ya’ll don’t even know! I want to tell Sabine about this. Take me to Sabine please!”

The mustached man twinges as he smiles, “Sure John. We’ll take you to her.”

“Ugh I swore I’d never go back! But I gotta know, I need to know about this inky dude, PLEASE! Take me to Lab C!” He says with a smile hiding regret.