Persona: Shattered Dreams (Chapter III)
"Gimme, gimme, gimme, a man after midnight.
Won't somebody help me chase the shadows away."
-- ABBA
*****
"Reports have confirmed that local celebrity and advocate of Christian values, Kristy Kew, is indeed pregnant. The identity of the child's father remains a mystery.
Kristin Lillian Kew, a Johor-borne talent, made her name as an actress in such films as 'Heart Full Of Porridge', 'The Thirsty Ghost' and the award-winning World War II epic 'White Orchid'. Last year, she recorded the jazz-pop album 'To The Key of Kew' that earned acclaim amongst critics, despite modest sales both locally and abroad.
Her pregnancy casts a shadow of controversy over her image as an inspirational Christian figure. She has so far refused to comment on the situation, but she has said she will make an announcement when she is ready. Some speculate that the father is none other than music producer Martin Loh, and her supporters seem keen on the possibility that they managed to marry in secret."
With a blip, the host of the afternoon TV show 'Melody' gave way to a soccer match between Malaysia and Japan. Soulie sighed a bit, as she placed the television remote onto the bar counter. "Hey!" said a man sitting on a swivel-chair at the bar. He was a young male squirrel in a T-shirt and jeans, with rust-red fur and a bushy tail that weaved about in the air behind him on its own. "Just looking out for you, hon." said Soul, as she wiped some spoons and forks with a fluffy hand towel. "Shouldn't be filling your head with that garbage, y'know?"
"Well, it's my head, so." he said, as he stirred the ice in an otherwise-empty glass with a straw. As he lowered his head to draw some melted ice water into his mouth, he paused and grimaced. Soul noticed this, and said: "Something wrong?"
"Nothing, it's just... I moved too fast."
"Rajan, I know you have a headache."
"No, it's..." He made a strange face as if a brick just struck the back of his head. "Yeah."
"Come here. And sit still." Soul put her hands up just in front of the squirrel's face, as he leaned forward slightly. "Close your eyes." Rajan did as he was told. She took a long breath into her lungs, held it in for several seconds, and exhaled. She did this several times, before she said to him: "You can open those peepers now."
"Wow. It's... gone." said Rajan, as his smoky, hazel eyes blinked several times. She smiled. "That'll be fifty ringgit. Cash."
"Soulie!"
"Just kidding. I know you could use another drink though."
"Mango juice. With one of those squiggly straws this time, though."
"Coming up."
Soul walked a bit to the fridge and popped out a bottle and a sliced half of mango. When she returned to the bar, she sliced pieces of the mango into the blender, splashed a bit of the bottle's contents in, and topped it up with ice. The hard crushing sound of the blender's blades against the ice gradually became a sloshing buzz. She took out a tall glass, poured the concoction into it, and popped a purple squiggly straw into it. Rajan wasted little time drawing the drink into his mouth, and watched intently as the orange liquid travelled the straw's loops.
"Soulie, where's Danny? I haven't seen him in ages." he said, after smacking his lips. Soulie rinsed the blender in the small sink behind the bar, seemingly in thought, before she answered. "We're not seeing each other anymore." She looked up at the squirrel. "Or rather, I don't want to see him anymore."
"But... you guys are so cute together."
"Maybe. It seems that way." She made her way out of the tender's side of the bar, and sat next to Rajan on another swivel-chair. It was a weekday, in mid-afternoon, and the restaurant was empty. "Every time he looks at me, I know all he's thinking is what it would be like if he hadn't hooked up with me."
"You don't know that." said Rajan. She turned her head towards him. "Yes, I do. I just know."
*****
Near the main gateway into USTM was an artificial lake, where students would go for various activities such as kayaking or researching freshwater ecosystems. On the side of the lake closest to the University's administration center, Dobb snapped a picture of the opposite bank, where a young couple and their toddler child were feeding fish from a roofed jetty. He heard the deep rumble of an engine behind him, and turned to see someone dismounting from a motorbike at a roofed parking lot. He took a photo of the man and the machine.
"Nice bike."
"Thanks." the man said, as he removed his helmet.
"Hey, you're that guy Ezra talked to at the restaurant." said the doberman, as he offered a hand. "I'm Dobb."
"I'm Ryuu." said the cat, as he shook Dobb's hand.
Dobb continued to look over the lakeside and snapped a few more pictures, as Ryuumajin took off his jacket and locked up his ride. The cat noticed logo on on Dobb's bag, and asked him: "So you're from Singapore?"
"No, I'm Malaysian. I'm just studying there."
"Studying what?"
"Film."
"Are you going to make one?"
"Well, yes, I am."
Ryuumajin nodded. "What's your film about?"
"I can't tell you. I'd spoil it." said Dobb, to which the cat pouted and made big eyes at him. "Okay, okay. Please don't do that. You're a grown man."
Dobb went to one of the small wooden gazebos that dotted the side of the lake, and sat down. He laid the camera on his lap, and exchanged its battery with a spare one. "The original idea is mine, but a friend of mine, Shuraim, (bless his soul) helped me with the initial script."
He lined up the camera to the horizon, closed one eye, and looked through the viewfinder with the other. "The story is about a teenaged boy and a man who live in Singapore. They are both very close friends. One day, the boy dies, and is buried somewhere in Malaysia where he was born. The man got so sad, that the boy could feel it from outside the mortal plane. The boy then tries to get back to the world of the living."
"Meanwhile, the man ends up going on a journey to recover the boy's soul, meeting Chinese deities, Indian spirits, Malay monsters, and things like that. Many of them disguise themselves as people like you and me." Dobb inserted the camera into his bag, which also had a digital video camcorder and a few spiral-bound notebooks. "One of them is an angel that guards the Causeway between here and Singapore, who also knows the way to the land of the dead."
There was a long pause afterwards, as Dobb flipped through one of the notebooks. "And then?" asked Ryuumajin. "And then you buy a DVD of the film when it's finished." said the dog, with a smile. Ryuumajin stuck a tongue out, and laughed with his new acquaintance.
"Have you seen Ezra? I need to meet him about something." asked Dobb. Ryuumajin paused for a while, almost nervously, before he answered: "No, I haven't. I don't know where he is." The cat pulled out a cell phone from his back pocket. It was an ancient, black, plasticky thing, and creaked audibly when he pressed the buttons. "But my friend probably does."
*****
After a particularly frustrating time convincing the Science Faculty's Dean to extend the project deadline for his research paper, Yaali was tempted to call an end to his work day when he passed Ezra's office and noticed a female student waiting in front of it. She seemed like an easily-flustered kind of person, who fidgeted a lot and knocked on Ezra's office door repeatedly.
"Is something the matter, miss?" he asked her. Partly out of concern, partly because she was blocking the corridor.
"Oh! Uh, nothing. Really. Nothing." she said, before quickly adding: "It's Professor Ezra. He hasn't been to our classes since last Tuesday, and didn't turn up for our exam earlier today." Yaali looked thoughtful for moment, and told her to come again tomorrow, and that he will find out how her lecturer is doing.
The goat considered it very significant that a person like Ezra would miss classes, or even a exam. Despite the wolf's temperament, he was a man of his word, and as far as Yaali knew, he had never passed the opportunity to watch his students grumble and sweat over his exam questions.
As Yaali walked over the courtyard in front of the Faculty's main office, he took out his cellphone, a slim silver thing which was absolutely without stains, scratches or fingerprints. He tried calling Ezra's number on the phone. All three of them. He was diverted to the voicemail answering system for two of them, and got no reply on the other, after thirty rings.
As he wiped down his phone, he noticed the time. He was reminded of a package delivery waiting for him at his Faculty, and started walking a little faster. As he went, he passed by the first floor of block C10, and instantly recalled Ezra's complete class schedule, from the one he saw in the wolf's office two weeks ago. It seemed to Yaali that the wolf had been absent to at least 12 hours' worth of classes.
After a few steps, he was then on second floor of another block. He passed by the letters "C13" painted in large black letters on an external beige wall. Tall, white pillars that propped up the roof three floors above him were dotted evenly along the curved building. The Science Faculty's buildings were designed around the center of the University, where the grand mosque, the library and the main convention hall was located.
The sky was overcast that day, with purple-grey clouds billowing over the misty Mount Pulai, as Yaali observed when he walked across a bridge that connected the curved block with another one, a building under the Faculty of Management and Modern Languages. A number of pipes ran along the roof of the bridge, carrying coolants, hot air and data cables. Half-way across the bridge, he heard the rumble of a student commute bus passing underneath him.
The letters "D05" were painted on the outside wall of a stairwell of the opposite block. Upon reaching the end of the bridge, he made his way to another, smaller bridge and ended up being on the fourth floor of block D06. This sort of shifting with the floor numbers was common near the center of USTM, where the terrain curved sharply downwards away from the Sultan Ismail Mosque.
He went down the stairs to the ground floor, making a consistent and rhythmic clatter with his shoes as he did. He went down another set of stairs going down the side of a steep hill face to the Computer Center building, which was built as two connected parts with a river in between. He went in, past the computer labs and a bridge over what is now a murky creek rather than a river.
Just outside the repair labs, he saw a small pile of cathode-ray tube monitors and television sets. In some time in the past, most of them displayed faculty news and upcoming events. Now, they have been detached, brought down onto the floor, and only awaited proper disposal.
A melodic chime sounded from his pocket, and Yaali quickly flipped open his phone to answer. He was putting the device to his ear when the largest amongst the damaged displays, the one that used to be in the building's lobby, flickered into life. It showed a jagged, black- and white-striped spiral that spun slowly, and also started to emit a sound, like dead channel noise stretched out, squeezed tight and mixed together until it came out reminiscent of desperate whispers and moans.
Two technicians passed by him, a tall one and a fat one, and Yaali ventured to ask them what was wrong with that particular television. "With what?" He pointed towards the unsettling piece of electronic equipment. "That."
"It's... broken?" said the fat one. Yaali realised that the reply, in combination with their expressions, indicated that they could not see nor hear the things he did. He kindly thanked them, also realising that further inquiry would make them question his sanity. He was already starting to question it himself.
He also heard mumbling coming from his hand, but this was no hallucination. Yaali held up the phone to his ear, and finally answered the call. "Hello?"
"Yaali, it's Ryuu."
The goat glared at the swirling screen, as he spoke. "Yes? What do you want?"
"I got a guy here looking for Ezra. Y'know where he is?"
"I'm trying to find out as we speak."
"So you don't know."
"I'll call you when I get to him."
"Alright, thanks... uh, Yaali, what the heck is that awful noise?"
"Y... You can hear it?"
"Yeah. Sounds bad."
Yaali pondered for a moment, before he said: "Come over to the Computer Center, there's something I need you to see. It's urgent."
*****
"And it's been that way since...?"
"Since I got the call from Ryuu."
Three figures were gathered around the large screen that showed a jagged, striped spiral and emitted a macabre, modulated noise. It was late afternoon, so the public computer labs and repair center were closed. There was no one else to see a young doberman kneeling in front of the monitor and patiently scrutinising its surface, which rippled under his breath like water.
Dobb held out a pinky finger and began moving it towards the screen. He paused half an inch before reaching the surface, then scoffed before he touched the screen. His finger sank into the surface, and to him it felt like pushing into the surface of a pool of corn syrup. He extended more of his hand into the screen.
"It's not too hot or cold on the other side." he said, as he pulled his hand out again. It was in exactly the same condition as it came in. "And it's not melting the flesh off my hand or anything like that."
"You did it knowing that was a possible outcome?" said Yaali, with his arms folded across his chest.
"Note that I started with a fingertip."
"So it's safe to stick our heads in there?" said Ryuumajin, who kneeled next to Dobb.
Yaali, who had been standing the furthest away from the screen, tapped his shoes nervously. He held his palm over his mouth when he wasn't speaking. "What if it leads out into a bottomless hole?"
"We could try throwing a rock in there and listen for it to land." ventured Ryuumajin.
"Listen for it to land? No. Even my ears can't get past this awful noise." said Dobb.
"I think we should leave it alone." Yaali said, as he paced the floor in a tight circle. "It won't do anything to us if we just walk away and leave it alone."
"It isn't going to 'do' anything." Dobb said, as he stood up and Ryuumajin took his place in front of the screen. "It's just some sort of doorway."
"Doorways let things in... and out." argued Yaali.
"We've been here more than an hour and nothing's come out. I am curious about what's in there, though, so whether you like it or not, I'll just go stick my head in there."
"You can't be serious...!" said Yaali. As Dobb started turning towards the portal, the goat moved to grab the dog's shoulders and perhaps convince him against it in a better way. This gesture was interpreted by Dobb as a form of unwelcome assault on personal space, so he took a large step backwards to avoid it. As he did so, his foot knocked against back of a kneeling feline who was bent close towards the mesmerising patterns on the screen.
"Haaa...?" was the last thing Ryuumajin said as he bowled over forward and into the large screen. The only thing left of him was one of his shoes, which sat on the floor in front of the screen without a partner.
"Fuck." said the dog, who felt that was a remarkably appropriate expression. As a response towards this development, Dobb and Yaali stood there doing very little. Yaali had begun twisting and twirling his blue tie in his hands, while Dobb kept a severe expression on his face. This went on for a long while.
At least, until the head of a cat with grey-streaked hair popped out of the screen with a wide smile on his face. "You guys have to see this! Gila banget sih!"
*****
On the other side of the screen was a space very similar to the one they came in from. It was the exact same building, in fact, though the pile of broken monitors were on an opposite side. Other examples of reversed features, like the stairs and the location of the doors, implied that everything was a mirror image of the way it was on the other side of the screen commonly referred to as the real world.
"I'm expecting a bunny to show up sometime soon." said Dobb.
"What?" said Ryuumajin.
"It's a Lewis Carroll reference." said Yaali.
"Who?"
"Nevermind." said both the goat and the dog.
Unlike another piece of fiction, there was a thick, white mist around them which obscured their vision past a dozen meters. However, it did not feel damp at all, and Yaali considered the fact that it was not humid enough to give him a fit of wheezing fairly comforting. But not by that much.
"No poisonous fumes. Check." said Dobb.
"Maybe it's slow-acting." mumbled Yaali.
"You didn't have to follow us, y'know."
"My curiosity wrestled with my survival instincts."
"And?"
"Curiosity killed it."
"No regrets then, Yaali."
"I am very sure I will acquire some, eventually."
Ryuumajin ventured a few meters into the fog, and squinted his eyes. He saw a spot of light breaking through the fog, and started walking towards it. "Where are you going?" said Dobb. "There's a light." he answered. "It's coming from over there."
"Those are the academic offices." said Yaali, before he realised that Dobb was already following the cat. He was stunned by fear and indecision for a few seconds before braving himself to run after the other two while making strange gurgling noises.
Ryuumajin arrived to a door which was typical in every way except that it was glowing like a fluorescent tube and it emitted a low, persistent hum. He cautiously grasped the doorknob, found it to be no more different than a normal metal one, and twisted it. He pushed the door in, gently, and took a peek inside through the small open gap.
Not that he needed to, when Yaali ran into him from behind and pushed them both into the opposite side. Dobb calmly stepped in, without touching the glowing door, and shook his head when he saw the mound of cat and goat on the ground.
They found themselves in a long hallway made of polished black and white marble, with golden trimming. Above them was a ceiling made of glittering opal. Electric lights encased in glass and copper, attached to arches in the hallway, illuminated the space in both yellow and cool white light. As Ryuumajin and Yaali set themselves upright, Dobb walked a bit into the hallway.
Punctuating the corridors were carved reliefs and stone statues of muscular men, many of them completely nude and well-endowed. They were all done in various poses ranging from the Classical forms of the Greeks and the Renaissance, to the blatantly titillating, to the questionably complex. As Dobb took a closer look, he saw that the figures had nondescript faces and species, as if they were moulded from the idea of masculine beauty rather than any real person.
Dobb turned around to put something against the door, just in case it closed. He raised an eyebrow when he found that the doorway had changed into a wall with an Atlas-like figure holding up a globe full of scantily-clad bodybuilders and smiling back at him.
Yaali did not take to this new fact very well. "It's... ya Rabbi! It's a trap! I knew it! I knew it!" He began clawing at the inexplicable wall, being careful enough not to get his hands on any sculpted crotches.
Ryuumajin walked up to the goat, grabbed his shoulders, turned him around, and shook him. "Oi! Calm down!" he said, as he stared down the goat. "It's okay. It's alright. Let's just figure this out. You're great at figuring things out, remember?" A reasonably less twitchy Yaali nodded a reply.
Dobb, meanwhile, was staring down the hallway. He smiled slightly, remembering a feeling he had several years before, when he was faced with a similar predicament. He also remembered what he did in that situation, and decided that it might turn out just as well this time.
"Hey, Dobb! Where are you goi... wait up!" said Ryuumajin, as he dragged a disheveled Yaali by the arm.
As they moved through it, the hallway twisted and turned many times. There were several places where the paths branched into two or three ways, in which case Ryuumajin took out a permanent marker from his pants pocket and marked out the paths they chose through the grueling process of Rock, Paper, Scissors. For the first hour they spent in the maze, they never encountered a dead end nor any paths marked with black ink.
As they walked through yet another hallway full of lurid displays of male physique, Yaali paused and glanced behind him. "Guys... didn't we turn right into this path?"
"Yeah, we did." said Dobb, with his eyes locked forward, like a hound.
"So how come the junction behind us splits forward and to the right?"
All three of them stopped, and looked down the way they came. "We... w-w-we're lost, aren't we?" Yaali said, before he laid down, curled himself up, and started mumbling quietly.
"What is wrong with... what is he doing?" said Dobb, with a degree of exasperation.
Ryuumajin dropped to his knees, and carefully placed a hand on Yaali's shoulder. He started saying things to the goat in heavily-accented Indonesian. After some time, Yaali nodded to the cat, and rose up slowly. "Let's just keep going till we find a way out." It was uncertain who the cat was trying to reassure.
A few minutes passed before Yaali saw something at the end of the hall. With a slight feeling of hope, they quickly walked through the hallway and to what seemed to be a doorway. When they went through it, they found themselves in a wide, open space under a twilight sky of searing reds, warm yellows, and vibrant blues. "We're free! We're... free?" said Yaali, as he ran in circles on a large marble platform.
The platform was one of many, set high above what looked like a vortex of a dozen staircases that lead down to a circular hole. Beyond the perforation, they could see a clear night sky with bright, scattered stars and ghostly nebulae. "We're not going down there, are we?"
"It's the only way we got." said Dobb, as he started going down the steps.
Up until the time they were three-quarters of the way down, Yaali had been feeling like they were in a labyrinth, the kind where virgins were sent into, and something big and meat-eating was waiting for them in the center of it. He decided that this might be a primordial fear experienced by his ancestors. He couldn't quiter decide, however, if the fears were completely unfounded.
When they reached the bottom, Ryuu laid down flat on the floor and panted. The cat raised an arm and said: "Time out! Kitty needs break!" Yaali sat next to him, and hugged his knees.
Dobb smirked at the two, and made his way to the edge of the circular hole, which had actually been big enough to allow an olympic stadium to be dropped through it. He went down flat on his belly, scooted to the edge, and examined the area just beyond the hole. He held both hands onto the edge, and swung his upper body over it. On the other side was the same vortex of staircases, but upside-down. Peculiarly enough, his hair seemed to be falling in the wrong direction.
He pulled himself back from over the edge, and walked towards the Yaali and Ryuumajin. "Either of you have anything you don't want returned?" Yaali shook his head, while Ryuumajin gave some thought before he handed Dobb an HB pencil. The dog motioned for them to follow him, and laid down flat at the edge of the pit. He told the others to do the same.
Dobb took out the pencil and casually threw it, at an angle, into the hole. "Hey!"
"Shh! Look at it."
The pencil fell through the hole, as expected. Then it slowly curved upwards, and 'fell' onto the surface on the other side.
"Holy Muhammad on a tricycle. Weird."
Dobb stood up, took a few steps back, looked at the two still on the floor, and grinned. With no warning, he started running towards the edge, bent down, and did a somersault into the pit. "Dobb!" A look of terror went across Yaali and Ryuumajin's faces, before they looked into the pit.
Dobb had rolled onto the other side and stood up, which looked to the other two like he just decided, on that single day, to start walking on ceilings. "Whatever you do, don't jump in straight down!" he shouted, as he patted imaginary dust off his pants. The other two followed him in similar fashion. Yaali landed with a gymnast's dismount. Ryuumajin landed on his bottom.
With this bit of business done, and with nowhere else to go, they started going up one of the staircases, though this time under an incredible expanse of inky space and astronomical objects.
At the top, past a marble platform, they went through a doorway, and into another network of corridors. It seemed to be darker than the previous maze, only because the lights were fewer and farther in between. The statues and reliefs were also becoming a more common sight. Their poses were almost exclusively erotic and explicit, involving dozens of males in various tesselations with each other, some more intimate and vulgar than the rest. "Not that I'm being rude or anything." said Ryuumajin. "But this place is really... gay." The remark made Dobb burst out into laughter, despite everything. "And how!" He caught himself thinking that Shuraim would've loved to be here, screwed-up maze aspect aside.
Along the way, one of the depictions caught Ryuumajin's attention, only because the man in it was all by himself. He stopped to look at the figure, which was curled up into a strange position. "What is this one doing?"
Yaali took a step back and looked at the carving. Then, as if realising something, he tilted his head to one side and smiled like a kid who finally figured out why everyone giggled at the bathroom graffiti. Ryuumajin noticed this, and tilted his head as well before looking at the artwork. His eyes opened wider, his ears reddened, and his mouth was stuck agape.
Dobb, who did not need to tilt his head to see what was actually being depicted, nodded sagely. "Quite a limber guy for a meathead, isn't he?"
"Funny you should say 'meathead'." said Yaali, as he continued forward into the maze.
As they went down the corridors, marking down branches and questioning their masculinity, Ryuumajin said: "This is creeping me out."
"What exactly? The nonsensical architecture? The incredible amount of literally-chiseled, muscular, naked men? The fact that we might be hopelessly lost?" answered Dobb. "Okay, all that too. But don't you guys notice that there's nothing else that's alive in here except us?"
They've noticed the silence, a hollow sort of quietness with no trace of ambient noise. Their steps echoed down the hallways and disappeared forever. Ryuumajin could've sworn he heard the blood moving through his veins, but he wasn't about to mention it.
After a while, they encountered an wide, open space similar to the one they entered earlier. However, the staircases did not spiral down into a pit, and instead lead toward a large geodesic structure, the colour and look of ivory. As they went down the steps, they saw that the structure was covered in ornate carvings and etched reliefs of more scantily-clad men. There was a giant archway, lined with gold and purple velvet, on the structure that lead into a large, circular hall. The three walked along the purple carpet laid out before them, through the archway and into the building.
The inner sanctum evoked a cathedral, with light of undetermined source pouring in through stained-glass windows in varying shades of grey. On the walls were more statues of muscular males, though clad in briefs and standing at nearly eight feet tall with almost military discipline. At one section of the wall was a twenty-foot-tall marble statue of an incongruously heavy-set male, nude but for a stream of sculpted cloth over modestly-sized privates. Though the statue's head had broken off, it seemed to be the focus of the room, and if indeed it was a cathedral, this would be the thing being worshipped.
There was also an old, wooden-boxed television in the middle of the purple-carpeted room. Its screen flickered and jumped in between showing video noise snowstorms. In front of the television laid an unconscious black-furred wolf in a crimson-red shirt. "Ezra!" said Ryuumajin, as he shuffled across the floor and sat himself beside the wolf.
As soon as the cat touched the wolf's bloodied face, two of statues in the hall creaked, and shifted slowly. They eased themselves off the wall with a deep crumbling sound, emitting puffs of stone dust. Twin halves of red, wrought-iron masks came out from behind their heads, and clacked together over their faces. Colours were blooming over their polished marble surfaces into patterns of purple and gold. The figures shambled towards the party, looking like immense luchador wrestlers poised to crack some heads in their strong, sinewy arms. One of creatures wagged a long, salivating purple tongue at Yaali.
As the goat screamed, Dobb was struck with a terrible familiarity about the two creatures.
He quickly shouted at Yaali and Ryuu to stand back, then started walking towards the demonic wrestlers, keeping Ezra between him and the other two. This seemed to Ryuumajin to be both an insane and ballsy thing to do. Suddenly, Dobb began to hit the back of his neck at specific positions with his fingers. He did this several times, each attempt accompanied with a grimace of pain and the creatures getting one step closer to him.
As one of the giants reached out to wrap its stone fingers around Dobb's head, the pure sound of shattering crystal rang through the hall. As he was surrounded by a glowing blue cloud, Dobb's eyes rolled back and he shouted at the top of his lungs: "Persona!"
Immediately, a mirage of a man made from electrical cables and copper coils, with reversed feet and a crystal canine skull for a head, emerged from his body. It raised a hand towards the giants, and unleashed branching bolts of lightning from needle-clawed fingers. Then, as fast as it appeared, the figure faded away, while the roar of thunder reverberated in the hall. Dobb's ears started ringing, but he knew he did not have to do it again.
Taking a direct hit to their heads, the musclebound pair shattered like glass. The shards quickly melted into pools of black liquid, which then evaporated into the air.
"What in Jahannam was that?!" said Yaali, while grabbing at his horns. Ryuumajin went back to Ezra, and checked him for injuries. Dobb snapped his head left and right, and stretched out his arms and body. "How is he? Anything broken?"
"I don't think so, but he's bleeding. We have to get him out of here."
As Dobb passed close to the television set, the flickering of the screen stopped, and it started showing a familiar jagged swirl of black and white stripes. "I think... that's our exit." said Yaali, pointing towards the screen.
Dobb tested the portal with his finger, then his hand, followed by his head. "Alright, it's definitely an exit. You go out first, Ryuu, and take Ezra's feet. Yaali, help me carry him through." Ryuumajin climbed into the television screen, as Dobb and Yaali propped up the motionless wolf. They carefully brought Ezra through the screen, and then climbed through it themselves.
They all found themselves at the Computer Center, coming out of the same screen through which they entered the strange world. Dobb and Ryuumajin laid Ezra carefully on the floor. Yaali turned around and saw the portal disappear in a single, quiet blip. The screen now showed nothing but darkness, and a reflection of four people in the glass.
"Unh, Wh... aaaargh, damn, ah, shit."
"Ezra? Can you hear me?"
The wolf's forehead was bleeding, and he had deep cuts on his sides and hips. The blood had already started matting into his dark fur. "Damn. Get me... to Puteri Specialist." Yaali pulled out his phone and began calling for an ambulance. Ezra watched the goat dialling through half-lidded eyes, and snarled. "No! No General. Get me to a private hospit... nngh."
"Yaali, stop calling." said Dobb.
"What? But I must..."
"Ryuu, take him where he wants to go."
Ryuumajin looked at the wolf, who could do little but wince and snarl. He took a set of keys out of his pants pocket and nodded back to Dobb.
*****
After putting his dark-blue Proton into park, Yaali stepped out of his car and brought out a decent-sized tote bag from the back seat. Dobb emerged from the passenger seat, and looked about the parking lot. They walked towards a tall, grey building, which had a red-and-blue logo upon it set above the words: PUTERI SPECIALIST HOSPITAL.
The automatic doors slid apart as they both entered the private hospital's lobby. Yaali asked young female receptionist some question, while Dobb slung the tote bag over his shoulder. They took an elevator to the tenth floor, after which they followed a corridor while looking at the numbers on the doors.
When they found the room they were looking for, Yaali placed a forefinger to his mouth while facing Dobb. Then he opened the door, turned to one of the hospital beds, and said in an excited voice: "Get well soon, Ezra!" He found himself raising his arms joyfully at a leonine woman lying on the bed while reading a book, who stared back at him without saying a word.
"Over here... doofus." said a wolf at the other side of the room. Ryuumajin was sitting next to the wolf's bed, and happily waved at the two visitors. Ezra was lying on a slightly-raised bed, dressed in pale turquoise hospital clothes. "I asked to be changed to the window-side bed." He grabbed the bit of cloth at his chest, looking at it with disgust. "Since they couldn't do anything about the shirt."
The black wolf was bandaged around his head, and patches of white material were stuck onto his arms and legs. An intravenous tap was stuck into the crook of his arm, attached to a saline drip beside him.
"So, who put you up to this?"
"To... what?" said Yaali.
"Coming over. Bringing stuff like it's my fiftieth birthday."
"For someone whose life we saved, you're being rather awful to us." said Dobb.
"Who, me? I'm already being nice as it is, letting you come up and see me like this."
Ezra tried to get himself up, but only managed a few inches before he winced. He carefully laid himself back down onto the bed, and started panting slowly. "Fuck, that smarts." he said to himself.
"The nurse said not to move too much." said Ryuu, as he pulled a sheet back over Ezra's midsection. "I know what the freaking nurse said." Ezra said, and sighed. He turned his head towards Yaali. "So, what do you have there?"
Dobb parked himself near the window and leaned against the wall, while Yaali sat on one of the small wooden chairs and opened up the tote bag. He brought out a box, and lifted the cover to reveal a cake inside. In response, Ezra looked at him funny. "Don't worry, it just looks like chocolate." Ezra looked at him some more. "Oh, fine." said the goat, as he set the box on the table next to Ezra. "You can eat it later, when you're less grumpy." Ryuumajin craned his neck, trying to look at the baked treat. "Can I have some?" Ezra reached for the box, and handed it over to the cat. "Yes, actually, you can. I have to control my sugar intake, anyway." said Ezra.
For a few minutes, the room was devoid of conversation. Ezra did not seem to want to talk much, and the others seemed unsure about broaching a particular topic. The wolf reached for an empty glass and a pot of water, then poured himself a drink. As he did, his shirt bunched up, revealing the bandages wrapped around his side.
"How many stitches did you need, Ezra?" ventured Yaali.
"Seven."
"That's not so ba..."
"Seven places I needed stitches."
"Oh." The goat's mind scrambled to find a different thing to talk about.
"Severed a tendon, too. They sewed it up, but it's likely I'll have a slight limp in my right leg for while, if not for the rest of my life."
Dobb stood up and sat himself on the bed, near Ezra's feet. "Let's not pretend what happened two days ago didn't." he said. "I don't know what you mean. I got injured when I accidentally drove my Kancil into the River Chat in downtown J.B."
"You don't have a Kancil."
"Not any more! It's at the bottom of a river!"
There was another bout of silence, then. Ryuumajin fiddled with a slice of the cake, which turned out to be coffee-flavoured, using a plastic fork included inside the box.
"If you're done being a complete drama-mutt, could you shed some light on how you ended up... in that place?" said Dobb, with his eyes placed squarely on Ezra's. The wolf frowned at this, then conceded with an irritated huff.
"I was on the way to class at the North lecture halls, when it suddenly started raining really bad. Now I'd usually just grin and bear it, but there was a lot of wind to go with it, and I almost slipped off the ground. I was taking shelter at the Computer Science building when this weird thing happened to one of the monitors there and..." Ezra raised a hand and held the side of his head. "...I don't know. I think I passed out."
Dobb noticed something as Ezra spoke, but he was not sure what it was, not exactly. "Something's different about you."
"Yeah, he's injured."
"No, it's..." Dobb paused, and shook his head. "Nevermind."
"I'd rather not discuss this... place you found me, right now."
Yaali turned in his seat, and looked up towards Dobb. "How did you do... what you did back there? When you shouted something. Parsi, or Purses, or..."
"Persona." Dobb rubbed the back of his neck. "I wasn't certain if it would work, but it did." He placed his hands in his lap. "Three years ago, me, Shuraim, Andy and a few others spent very late nights fighting those things you saw, while everyone else was... asleep. With special tools, we were able to call upon... a being, a manifestation formed from a facet of our psyche, to destroy them." He clenched his hands into fists. "But we took care of it. Those things aren't supposed to exist anymore. It cost us so much..." Dobb seemed more ponderous then. He suddenly stood up, and walked towards the door. "I need to go see Andy about this."
"Wight wow?" said Ryuumajin, with a mouth full of cake.
"But Dobb, I drove you here." said Yaali.
Dobb cast his eyes downward. "I'll call a taxi." When Yaali reached for the bag, Dobb raised a hand towards the goat. "No. Don't. Please, just... keep him company."
Ezra scoffed at the suggestion that he needed any, though when the dog went out the door, he gave the dog a slight nod. Dobb took this as his way of saying thanks.
*****
It was the end of a rather interesting class, and Andy put away his notes and stationery into a backpack. Before he left the classroom, he stopped to say thank you to the middle-aged lecturer, who wished him the best for the coming exam, and told him to come see him again about Andy's project proposal. When he got out, he saw Dobb leaning against the wall near the door.
"Hey, Dobb."
"Hey, Andy. Have a seat, I've got a story to tell you." said the dog, as he motioned towards one of many benches and table set up along the corridor.
After Dobb finished reiterating the events up to the present, Andy blinked a few times, looked away at the distance, then back at Dobb. "Okay, let me get this right: You went inside a TV, navigated a very gay maze, and destroyed some Shadows." Dobb nodded, saying: "What do you think?"
Andy made a face. "When are you going to let go of this, Dobb?! It was all over. Lalita's sacrifice made sure of that."
"Don't make this be about me, okay?"
"But it IS about you, Dobb. We all moved on. You need to do that, too."
"Fine, but before you brush me off, you better call Ezra at the hospital and wish him a fast and full recovery."
"Ezra's in...?" Having made his point, Dobb stood up and walked away before Andy finished the sentence.
As Dobb waited for the public bus to Taman Universiti, he took out his phone, a slider with a proper flash and decent camera, and made a call.
"Hello?
Yeah, Tommy, it's me.
You know where the old gym is?
Uh-huh.
Well, I need you to do me a favour and get something from my locker.
Yeah.
And send it to me here in Johor, ASAP."
*****
As he sat next to the hospital bed, Ryuumajin smiled gleefully while typing a text message on his creaky handphone. Ezra was eating a modest lunch, while Yaali was reading a book with pages already aged pale yellow. In a moment, the goat closed his book and tilted his head towards Ezra. "I had been wondering about something since we got you out of that place, Ezra."
"Spill it." said the wolf, as he forked a slice of hospital-made steamed fish into his mouth.
"Are you gay?"
Ryuumajin immediately fumbled with the handphone he was holding and accidentally dropped it. It landed with a solid, plastic thud. Ezra stopped chewing, swallowed his food, and stared at the goat for a period longer than natural. "What do you think?"
"I don't mean to offend you, but it's a simple question." said Yaali. Ezra took a napkin from the side of the plate and wiped his mouth. "No." said the wolf, quite plainly. Ryuumajin pursed his lips for a moment, before he picked up his phone from the floor, and continued text-messaging.
"I see." said Yaali, as he touched his chin with a forefinger. "It's just... the place we rescued you from..."
"What about it?"
"It was really gay." said Ryuumajin , without looking up from the phone. Yaali shot a glance towards the cat, who just realised something and covered his mouth with a hand. "We... I mean, I just assumed all of it had something to do with you. That's all." continued Yaali.
"What would you have thought if I said yes?" said Ezra, with no hint of jest.
"I was going to say that I'm completely fine with that."
"Really?"
"I have a friend back in Jakarta. He has a lover, who is also a man. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it, as long as they were happy together."
The wolf responded with a slight nod, and picked up the plastic fork the rested against his plate of half-eaten fish and rice. He paused, looking as if he was considering a billion things at once and finding them all unsatisfactory. Ezra grabbed a piece of the bed with his left hand, as if to test that it was real. "Is it too late to change my answer?"
Yaali's ears perked as he heard the wolf's words. "Wait, you mean..." Ezra licked his lips, slowly sat himself up despite the pain, and started rubbing his face. It was as if he had been preparing for something like this for years.
"Yes. I'm a faggot, a queer, a pee-elle-you, a one-point-five, bou li, si faat gwai, sotong, pondan, kaki liwat, peraga buntut, bapuk berbulu. I bat for the other team and have a wrist limp as a wet sock." The way he spoke was like reading off a secret list gathered over the years, as if each term was a single ounce of weight off his chest. Finally, he got quiet, and suddenly very calm. "I'm gay." he said, before he exhaled a sigh of relief.
For the second time, Ryuumajin dropped his handphone onto the floor.
As if just realising it after the fact, Ezra looked at the leonine woman in the bed next to his, and found that she was fast asleep. He then turned his attenion toward Yaali, whose face was unusually calm. "I suppose I should have suspected it earlier. No straight man would wear such a very red shirt to work." said the goat. Ezra responded with a scornful stare. "I'm sorry." said Yaali, who looked downwards. Ryuumajin, who had just picked up his handphone off the floor, looked like his mind was still chewing on a large, rubbery slab of information.
"There is something else I've been curious about."
"Shoot."
"Where we found you, there was a huge statue."
"Gigantic." added Ryuumajin, unhelpfully.
"The head had broken off, but the person depicted seemed rather tall and... uhm..."
"Big. Chunky." said Ryuumajin, a little less unhelpfully.
"Husky. The adjective, not the noun."
"He was also naked."
"Everyone was naked in some measure there, Ryuu."
"Not us!"
The latter exchange was lost to Ezra, who was looking out window at the wind making tree branches with yellowing leaves bob and rustle. He turned his attention back to his two visitors. "He's... I think that was supposed to be my boyfriend."
"You have a boyfriend?!" shouted Ryuumajin, who seemed to have wrapped his head comfortably around the concept, yet just now realised he should have been more discreet. "You have a boyfriend?" he said, a little quieter.
"How come I've never seen him?" asked Yaali.
"I... don't like bringing my sex life to work."
"But he's your boyfriend." said Ryuumajin, as if it made perfect sense.
"Well, you could have just said he was a very good friend of yours."
Ezra leaned back onto the bed. "That's the problem. He isn't just a good friend." He picked up a plastic cup and poured himself some water. "Anyway... I'd hate to answer questions about him with lies."
"Does that mean you've done... it... before?" ventured Ryuumajin, with the tone of a curious yaoi fangirl. Ezra rolled his eyes, and scoffed. "Let me finish."
"I met him on-line, at an art community. I'd been posting some of my artwork there, little geometrical things and fractals. I met him face-to-face at a small meet-up. Since then we'd been together for two years." Ezra's eyes went lower then, and he spoke a little softer, as if he was struggling to put the words together. "It's been four months since he disappeared. One day, I'd waited for him at our... I mean, my house. I figured he wasn't back from college yet. The next few days, I called his numbers, sent him messages through the phone and on-line and got no response. After a week, I went to the police."
He was quiet for a while, before turning his head towards Ryuumajin. "I... want to apologize to you, Ryuu, for the way I snapped at you the other day. Someone forwarded me a snapshot of a car accident in Kuala Lumpur, and a victim had the same name as him. Turns out it wasn't the same person at all." He moved his eyes between Ryuumajin and Yaali. "I would've gone up North to find out for certain, too, if I hadn't been dragged into..." He suddenly grimaced, and his eyes stared into the air in front of him.
"I actually remember some of it." Ezra closed his eyes, and imagined himself somewhere else. "That... place was Hell. Everything in there pushed my buttons." His hands were clenched into fists. "I was alone, and all I saw were these images, these men, that remind me of all the lies I told everyone I cared about just so I could look normal."
"It's not the first time I've told someone I was gay, but it's the first time that I'm telling someone I wasn't sleeping with." He let out a breath, which was almost a sigh of nostalgia. "And it only took several flesh wounds for me to come out. Damn."
Ryuumajin cleared his throat, and seemed to be thinking carefully before he said: "There is a rumour going around about a ritual using the TV that grants wishes. I tried it out." He held his handphone a bit lower, and set his eyes on Ezra. "It didn't work out the way it was supposed to... but I saw you on the TV, getting hurt by someone. When I saw you in that place inside the TV, I thought you were already dead."
"You guys think the weird thing with the TV, and Ezra being hurt, could have something to do with the wish ritual?"
"But who would wish for you to be dead, Ezra?" asked Yaali.
Ezra shook his head, then stopped himself for a moment. He grabbed a small pouch-bag on the side-table and took out a phone a with large touch-screen. He clicked a stylus out of its side and started tapping and scribbling on the screen with it. After a while, he handed it over to Yaali. On the screen was a website loaded into the 3G web browser. A banner in it had the words MATA-MATA KAKI LIMA under a logo of two eyes, one opened and one closed. "This is a forum run by Andy. It's a community where people analyze rumours, discuss blog news and run independent investigation into undisclosed police cases. They also cover what the mainstream media doesn't. Sort of like a peer-to-peer detective network. I do evidence correlation analysis on any theories they put up."
Yaali raised an eyebrow, as he slid the stylus point over the screen to scroll down the list of forum threads. He wondered if the stylus he was holding was clean. "Okay, so why are you showing me..." Ezra jabbed a forefinger downwards in mid-air. "Check out the forum thread for last week, with the username Eee-Zee-Sol." The goat tapped on the aforementioned link. It was a multi-page argument for a hypothesis on a local celebrity. "I discussed the flaws of this guy's theory on Kristy Kew, the pregnant actress." He paused. "Well, more 'mercilessly disgorged' than 'discussed', really."
"Would anyone want to kill you for that?"
"It's the Internet, of course someone would."
*****
Death of a Blogsman: Jonny Sizzle-writer
Author: Chevron-HT
Date: 23/07/2010
Time: 11.50pm
Many of us have been told over evening news about the untimely death of Hock Boon Tat, better known as the notorious weblogger 'Jonny', last Friday. Police are reluctant to release further details about the incident to the media, so that's where we come in. Jonny lived close to where I am studying now, so I will see what I can dig up. The last entry on his main blog, 'Reach Out To The Truth', mentioned him taking some time off blogging to work on a new book, which would no doubt stir as much controversy as his report on the cover-up of arsenic-tainted Siamese noodle products last year and his expose' of underground sex clubs catering to local politicians in late 2007. The contents of the book might have something to do with his death as well.
Some forum members are already seeking more information about the case. Meanwhile, let's hear your thoughts, case helpers and street eyes.
>> This is a long chapter, folks. Bear with me. =)
>> Basically, Ezra's "dungeon" is M.C. Escher x Cho Aniki.
>> Dobb's Persona is (Death) Xolotl, which is an upgrade from Garm. It's powerful in the "game" to start with, but doesn't upgrade like the other characters' Personae and retains weakness to Light-type magic.
>> I think several places in (RL) UTM could pass off as RPG dungeons (you can also ask heroxtus) with its shifting floor numbers, dead ends and long, cramped corridors. If I ever do a Devil Summoner story (probably featuring my shamanic jungle cat Ridhuan Mizan) it would have a series of dungeons for each faculty, with associated boss battles.
>> I should probably mention that it's a PG-13 to R-rated story, but there's nothing truly explicit going on that can't already be seen on TV.
>> Mata-Mata Kaki Lima translates to Eyes/Spies On The Street. Andy is the admin of the Johorean chapter of a loosely-run national network, which has some associations with the Mizan Detective Agency (which will probably get its own Devil Summoner style spinoff, heheh).
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