Three: oh fours gone too
Thirteen: Not surprising, haha. It’s Four. It’s not like Six actually would go head out. She’ll be back by tonight.
Three: and if shes not?
Thirteen: Then she finds one of us! Hahahaha! No, she’s gonna get lost out there. And that makes us, hmm? There’s what, six of us still active, if you wanna count Five and Seven. The irony!
Three: they havent been on for a while
Thirteen: Then assuming the worst, that’s four of us. One is still kicking around, yeah? Not that they like talking to us. Sure like watching though, I know you’re online. Hi One!
Leaning back away from the monitor, Thirteen smiled. Re-reading the yellow text, he didn’t expect a reply from One. Didn’t matter. Typing up a final reply, he decided to leave things there.
Thirteen: I’m off to do something productive now. Like finding, I don’t know. An exit. You can go fanboy over the Mirage. Toodles!
The employee terminal dinged at him shortly after. He stared at it for a few seconds, before turning away. It’d go idle in about half a minute. The benefits of exploring the terminal and changing settings. Recollecting his thoughts, he navigated the darkness of his room to go turn on the lights. With a light switch’s click, the darkness left him.
Home sweet home. A term the others might use. He preferred base of operations. His HQ was some sort of security monitor room, but none of the camera feeds worked. Just rows upon rows of black screens, and then the employee terminal at the bottom. Opposite it was his bed: a haphazard collection of life vests, an inflatable pool ring acting as the centerpiece, and a multicolored spaghetti of pool noodles to pad it all out.
It made do.
Back to the security desk! There were pamphlets with pen-drawn maps scrawled over images of waterslides and unreadable text. Circles and crossed-out places dotted the pamphlets, leads either found or discarded. Most were crossed out. The biggest circle was a furious scribble, right on top of a place he didn’t want to go.
Staring at it, he picked up a nearby pen. Click, click, click. Using the button end, he traced a few routes. He clicked the pen against the desk and let it drop. Okay. Time to stop delaying, Thirteen. No, not Thirteen. That wasn’t a name, that was a designation. Speaking of.
He shuffled pamphlets around, looking for a particular list. He squinted at it.
Marko, Gilby, Dodana, Sink, Quip-
He stopped reading after those entries. He’s tried all of them as they came to him. None felt right. Reaching for the pen, his hand hit the desk a few times before he looked and realized it was on the floor. Something bubbled in his chest.
“Hahaha!”
Thirteen clamped his jaw shut right after the grating sound. He left the pen where it was. It’d be there when he came back.
…
He picked it up and put it back on the desk. There should be no coming back. Always act accordingly.
The employee terminal had gone idle by now- the dinging stopped. There was now only the sound of water rushing through the pipes overhead. With everything in order, he exited his base. The space outside was a wide room with ceramic tiles, metal grate drains, and benches that lined the walls.
His feet splashed through some of the perpetual puddles as he made his way across. The walls were painted with murals of trees and islands. The ceiling was a weave of pipes thin and thick, lights hanging from the in-between spaces.
There were a few other doors, but he ignored them in favor of a hallway with an arched open entrance. Where the lights went from cold white to underwater blue and the tiles changed to match. His footsteps echoed here, mixing in with the ambiance of running water.
It only got louder as he walked, the sound trickling in from ahead. The hallway had a slight curve to it, a transitioning space that momentarily isolated you. But as he counted down the steps, it wasn’t long before it opened up to a room so large and so cluttered with stuff that it was hard to see the opposing wall.
The ceramic gave way to cobblestone that rimmed a shallow pool that took up most of the space. Within the pool were ramps, slides, hidey-holes, and little islands. The ceiling pipes were now coated with the primary colors instead of industrial grey. Wading through the water, his splashing was the only sign of life. His path was as straight of a line as he could manage.
As he waded, he eyed an approaching sleeping gator that marked the halfway point. A tunnel in its side was carved to walk right through. He patted the green scales before using it with a duck.
“See you later, alligator.”
Like before, it was unbidden and unwanted. The gator didn’t respond. Shame.
Making his way through, he reached the other edge of the pool and clambered out with a big step. He drew a wet trail across the cobblestone, heading toward a staircase leading up. Dusklight filtered its way down, stopping just shy at the least few steps. On either side of the staircase were water slides of yellow and red. They’d lead you to the other end of the pool. Don’t ask how.
Going up the stairs, he finally entered the above ground part of the waterpark. Even more pools, slides, rafting zones, and empty lifeguard towers. Life rings decorated the sides of them like watchful red eyes.
Now he was sounding like Four. He shook his head. Heading toward one of the rafting rides, he cut through the non-existent line and took a pool tube. Getting as comfortable as he could, he drifted forward across the water, water jets keeping everything moving.
Looking up, he tried to make out distinct shapes of the park above. In small- by Everland’s scale- there were pockets of what looked like waterparks like his own. From down here, the clearest parts were often the massive spiraling slides. There was such a slide here. His was yellow. It took fifteen minutes to climb.
He let his gaze wander, but it inevitably tracked toward the Mirage. A few seconds was just enough to have the sounds of park activity kick in. There was a secret to it. As long as you didn’t try to dig into the before, you could look as long as you wanted.
As Thirteen drifted, the sounds of splashing and voices and the occasional shrill whistle blow accompanied him. The back of his eyes felt a little cool, but it was manageable. It all ended back to silence when his foot bumped a wall. He craned his head up. Ah. Ride was over.
With a groan, he worked himself out as gracefully as he could. Stepping onto solid ground, he took a moment to catch his bearings. Up to his left were the blue arches that marked the boundary point between the waterpark and the rest of Everland. He dripped water the entire way there.
By the time he reached the arches, he was almost perfectly dry, a timing phenomenon he stopped questioning long ago. Phenomenon. Now that was a fun word. Tapping his fingers against his leg, he listened as the sounds of running water grew quiet as he passed the arches and entered Everland proper.
Here it smelled of cotton candy and caramel apples. The ground was green-painted pavement with daisies. Water-themed attractions were center-stage. Ships on pendulums and pirate cave cart rides. Eyepatch wearing octopi held spyglasses with their tentacles. Most were conspicuously facing toward him.
Maybe Four was right about some things.
Ignoring the octopi, he could see in his peripheral that they didn’t turn once he moved on. Not that he double checked with a glance behind him. Banjo music played from hidden speakers, playing the same old melody he’s heard every time here.
His destination was a small yellow train up ahead with two passenger cars designed for small humans. He felt that was the wrong term. A good stare at the Mirage reminded him. Children. Shaking off the cold, he listened to his gut and looked- yup. At least three octopus pirates were facing him now.
Sitting down in the train cab car, he began to operate the levers and pulled the whistle. A chipper toot toot rang out, and off he went. As he traveled the tracks, he was keeping an eye out for the landmark to stop at. A ferris wheel that would also rotate on a horizontal axis. The engineering to make that work was convoluted and probably hazardous.
Even with the train going full speed ahead, it’d take him a bit, at least thirty minutes before he’d get there from memory. Thinking back to his maps, other places were even further out. So, he settled in for the ride, tooting the whistle every so often to stay alert. Some rides would flare to life for a brief moment when he did, which did more to keep him awake than anything.
After a half hour, the ferris wheel was in view. Of course, it was alive and moving. The cars had all their lights cycling through the colors of the rainbow, and over the rhythmic chugging of the train, he could hear the sounds of a music box.
Pulling the train to a slowing stop as he got close, he got out. Beyond the ferris wheel, there were bumper carts, coasters big and small, gyro towers, teacups, and railing-mounted turrets to fire balls at targets. A mechanical fortune teller sat in their booth, a blindfolded tiger in purple robes with their hands crossed over their chest.
But the attraction of interest was a blocky building. An orange exterior and a balloon mural clashed. The entrance doors were glass. Getting closer, Thirteen felt dread begin to build. This was one of the exceedingly few attractions with legible text. Near the doors, you could read: “Can you find the exit?” on a white sign with polka dots.
Standing in front of the doors, he was reminded exactly why he delayed so long. Opening them, they took him to a small chamber with a second pair of doors, this time solid red. The ground became black carpet sprinkled with colorful spirals and squiggles. The air smelled like popcorn. All sound was muted here.
Pausing his hand on the second set of doors, he turned the handle and pulled it open.
…
The train in reverse was slower than going forward, making the trip back take almost twice as long. The forever dusklight made the passage of time tricking. The Mirage didn’t exactly move. But the park changed its ambiance for the supposed time. Crickets were beginning to pour out of speakers.
All the octopi were facing away when he was back at the blue arches. That somehow felt worse. He stared at his hands, then walked through the arches into the waterpark. Then made a slight detour.
He was standing at the top of the yellow slide. From up here, he could see how Everland stretched out in every direction. He even caught glimpse of his only sister waterpark, which had a submersible ride if he recalled.
He stayed up there for a while. Across the park, he watched as distant rides would kick into action then stop abruptly without rhyme or reason. About once or twice a ‘day’, the entirety of Everland came to life for a few minutes. He witnessed one such moment.
He didn’t remember when he took the slide down. He only processed the moment of being underwater before emerging back up. Swimming towards the raft ride that looped back to its beginning, he spent most of it staring at the Mirage. Let his head become cold and world alive.
Going down the stairs into the underground section with his base, he gave the gator a silent greeting as he waded through its tunnel. Its painted-on eyes were open. Water fell like a curtain from both ends of the tunnel.
Cobblestone became blue tile with blue light, the white tile with murals of trees and puddles that splashed underfoot. His room was as he left it. He checked the terminal. No new messages. He changed the idle time to 0, disabling it.
Then he went to his makeshift bed, and promptly crashed.