Get up. Get up. Get up. It was the first command Suru gave to his body. But it was strange, it felt like he had become conscious very suddenly, like somebody had flipped the light switch. One moment he was unconscious, then he was suddenly awake and managed to perceive the world around him. His body, however, it felt so unnaturally heavy and it took him some time to be able to even lift a finger. He had this weird sensation like he had lost control of his own body and was now attempting to regain it. After a moment of trying to get in contact with his figure, he eventually lifted himself from the floor and was able to stand up.

But the strange things didn't stop there. Inevitably, Suru noticed that his body didn't belong to him. Even through his clothes – ordinary looking shirt and pants and something that resembled a white doctor's coat, but with odd black stains like burns – he could tell that he was way skinnier than he should have been, but most notably, he had breasts. He had a woman's body.

“What in the…?” His voice wasn't his, either. He sounded like a woman, too, it wasn't just the body. This discovery was a rather harrowing experience; it immediately gave the impression that something wasn't right. How could he be in a woman's body? What happened here? And where was here, exactly? He glanced around him nervously, but the more he looked, the more anxious he became.

He was in a corridor of some kind, surrounded by black metal walls, cold and uncaring, almost like a prison. Many eerie red lights were scattered around on the walls and ceiling, and Suru unfortunately noticed that they weren't just lights: they were eyes, wiggling around and staring right at him. It made him feel very uncomfortable, but there was no way he would get away from their gaze. It was like they could see something within him, something he himself wasn't aware of. That was a distressing thought. Something very abnormal was going on here, whatever place this was.

And Suru tried so hard to remember who he was and where he had been before losing consciousness, but it was like his mind was full of static. He couldn't get access to most of his own memories, but how could that be? He was a human being, not a computer. But he did recall that he was a doctor and had a wife, Neva, who was a psychologist. They had worked together on something… But what was it? And where they had been doing it? Was this the place? None of this seemed to make any sense, Suru was getting an awful headache trying to strain his brain and remember.

A horrendous scream traveled to his ears, chilling his soul and filling him with fear. It had almost sounded like a human being, but there was something very wrong with it and it had appeared distorted in a horrifying way. Suru froze to his place, staring with wide eyes into the darkness ahead of him where the scream had come from. He didn't want to go there; he had to get moving in the opposite direction. Whatever that thing had been, he didn't want to encounter it. Suru turned around and started to walk with uncertain steps, trying to walk as quietly as possible since he didn't want that… thing to hear him. There was just pitch-black darkness ahead of him, but he didn't really have other options regarding where to go.

More and more of those haunting glowing eyes lit up as Suru kept going forward. At least he didn't have to worry about treading in darkness. The path before him seemed endless, making him even more nervous, but it's not like he had choice in the matter.

Especially when he heard the scream again – and this time, it came much closer to him. Suru quickly turned around and saw a horrific creature; it was so big that it blocked the whole corridor and was barely able to move forward. It was a black mass with multiple pale hands sticking out from it. The most terrifying feature, however, was the pale face that belonged to a woman who seemed to be in great agony. This thing had probably been a human once. And even seeing her in this tormented state, Suru got a feeling that he knew this person.

But he didn't have time to ponder anything else as the creature let out yet another screech and started to hurry towards Suru. He ran as fast as he could, begging for an escape; a door, a hole, something he could access but the screaming monster wouldn't.

“SURU!” The scream was very distorted, but it revealed that the creature knew him, so it was possible that he knew her too. It was strange, however, since he didn't look like himself, and yet, the monster recognized him. But he didn't really want to get to know them right now, he felt like the entity would just tear him to shreds if it managed to catch him.

Suru couldn't believe his eyes when he saw a metal door at the end of the corridor. He hastened his pace, making one last spurt, fortunately getting to the door while there was some distance between him and the monster. The door was heavy to open, but Suru used all his might, soon hearing the sweet noise of metal creaking open. He slinked inside as fast as he could and then slammed his body against the door to quickly close it behind him. Horrendous screams could be heard behind the door and the creature was pounding against the thick metal that now separated it from its prey. Suru's back leaned against the door, his heart racing inside his chest. He was afraid to move and prayed that the monster couldn't get him.

He felt a tremendous relief when the screams and the pounding noise stopped. He had survived. But who knows what kind of horrors there were awaiting him ahead. He stepped away from the door that had saved his life and finally looked around the space where he had ended up.

It was a humongous room, surrounded by black metal just like the previous corridor. On both left and right, there were test tubes containing green liquid placed next to the walls. The top and bottom parts of these tubes also had lights, being the major source of illumination in the room. Nothing living was inside them, instead, the test subjects were in the room. Suru was facing fear once more as he saw how something big and fleshy crawled on the cold floor. It was like a worm fused together with a horse. And much to Suru's horror, there were a lot of similar things wriggling around. But none of them looked exactly the same; they were all grotesque and basically just conjoined bodies of two or maybe even three different species. They were all emitting puss and blood which their disgusting bodies couldn't keep inside and their pained wheezing filled the air as their lungs were getting crushed by their mangled insides.

Who would do something like this? Even though their looks were awful, they seemed to be pretty docile. Even though a few had acknowledged Suru's presence, they hadn't shown any interest in him, they just continued to crawl around, just living with their tormented existence. However, at some point a creature that was a fusion of a man and a dog came to his sight from behind a table and it looked at him. He was a bald blob of flesh with mostly dog parts making the body, but he had one hand and a man's head sticking out of the mass. The man's head stared at him intently, it seemed like he was trying to recall who he was.

“Neva?” the man's head asked with a horribly raspy voice. “Is… that you?”

“No, no, I'm Suru”, Suru answered immediately, his own voice surprising him again. “Neva is my wife. Do you know her?” He glanced around briefly and spread his arms. “Or anything about what's going on?”

“You look… like Neva”, the man replied. “But I… I know you too, Suru. I knew you… both. So does he… Maybe… maybe that is why… you look like that.”

“I'm not quite sure I follow…” Suru said, shaking his head a little bit.

“Ah, did he… erase… your memories?” the man asked, more from himself than expecting an answer from Suru. “Or did he just forget… to put them in? I… I still have… most of them… I think… Or maybe… he forgot to give me mine as well… Making me believe… that I still have them.”

“So… If you remember what happened here, could you please tell me?” Suru asked. He got a feeling that this poor abomination wasn't the most reliable source of information, but so far, this guy hadn't shown aggressive behavior. Suru didn't really want to go back to ask questions from the entity that had chased him through the corridor.

“A failed… experiment… An accidentally created hell… Poor Haave… He probably didn't mean… for this to happen… He's just… scared…”

“Who's Haave?” Suru inquired. The name did sound familiar to him, though.

“You know him. A sweet young man… You and Neva… You examined him and… gave your evaluations… To make sure he's fit… for the experiment.”

Suru's mind was still like static. There were these crumbs of information, but even after being reminded of things, he still couldn't recall what had happened. It was frustrating. He had no other option but to keep talking to this person, even though he had started to feel bad since talking didn't seem to be an easy task for him to perform.

“What was this experiment?” Suru asked.

“A virtual… reality. Haave's brain was supposed to… be the host. But something… went wrong… So, so wrong…”

“Was this some malevolent experiment?” Suru felt the need to ask, his conscience starting to sneak into his heart.

“Oh, no, no…” The man shook his head, but this motion made disgusting splatting noises. “The intentions… they were good… and curious… Haave was a volunteer… But I don't know… what went wrong here… I don't know… He's probably… just in panic… We're all just… fragments of… his memories…”

All of this was so hard to digest and keep track of, especially since the man's speech was so incoherent. But Suru had to know more, so he made yet another question: “What do you mean that we're fragments? Is that why I look like a woman?”

“Yes.” The man turned his head as he gazed all around his grotesque body. “His mind… it seems shattered… somehow… And all you see… is his consciousness… putting pieces together… Like me… He remembered… that I like dogs… and have one… So in his broken mind… I look like this… This is not… my body… But now it is…”

“Why do I look like my wife, though…” Suru muttered, mostly to himself.

“I think… Haave just sees you… As one entity… Unable to separate you…” The man mumbled. “Perhaps… the memory of Neva… It's just clearer in… his memories…”

“Ah, that makes sense… Sort of”, Suru said and something indeed clicked in his head. He felt like he understood a fraction of this nightmare a little bit better. “You probably don't know how we can make things go back to normal? Or wake up? Or whatever is the remedy for the situation we are in?”

The man seemed to think for a moment. “Not sure… But if you try… to make connection… with Haave's consciousness… It may end this…”

“How do I do that?” Suru asked.

“I don't know…” The man went completely silent for a moment and the disappointed look on Suru's face probably got to him. He eventually spoke: “Call his name… Try to make him… notice you…”

This answer seemed to perk Suru up. “Alright… I'll try that.” He clapped his hands together. “Oh, right! I didn't ask for your name.”

“It's Ruska…” the man replied and for a second it looked like there was something resembling a smile on his tormented face.

This name didn't sound familiar to Suru. But he wasn't surprised by this, since he didn't really remember anything. But it was odd to meet a man like this; they had probably spent some time together, had a conversation or two, and yet, Suru had no idea who this man was.

“Okay, Ruska, I'll try to contact Haave”, Suru said. “Thank you for your advice.”

“You're welcome…” Ruska uttered. “I'm sorry… I'm not quite… useful… in a state like… this… I'd just slow… you down…”

“It's alright”, Suru tried to reassure him. “I'll go now. Hopefully I can help you.”

“Good luck…”

With the knowledge Suru now possessed, he started to cross the spacious room to reach the back end of it where yet another door was guarding the way. All the disgusting and horrible creatures still just minded their own business, barely even giving a glance at Suru. They had looked like wretches by the second when Suru had entered the room, but now that he knew they were just messed up projections of somebody's broken consciousness, he felt even more sad for them. He also was guilty of feeling a bit of a relief, for his state could be worse. Much worse.

The door easily opened and gave Suru access to the area beyond it. He was in some kind of dark corridor again – only to face new horrors on his path. A pained wheezing and the crackling noise coming from sparks of damaged wires filled the space. The path ahead of Suru was clear, but in the ceiling, there was a tangled mess of wires and other mechanical parts and fused together to this clutter were a few human beings. They had retained their human bodies, unlike Ruska, but were painfully fused with machine-driven parts. Fractured skulls with metal bursting through the brain, guts spilled and replaced by wires, limbs pierced with sharp shards of metal, preventing them from moving, and skin burning by the sparks of electricity. Suru was absolutely shocked to witness these poor people in this state, he couldn't even comprehend what part of Haave's mind this could probably be. Their suffering couldn't possibly be intentional, it was too sadistic. Their eyes reflected pure agony and through them Suru could see their biggest desire: they wanted the pain to stop. For a reason or another they weren't able to communicate verbally, but they didn't have to. It was very clear what they wanted Suru to do. He was also reminded that he had got really lucky here, having just his wife's body.

His heart trembling from shock after seeing the horrors of this corridor, Suru continued to move forward.

“Haave?” he quietly called out, his voice shaking from uncertainty and he glanced all around him. Nothing seemed to happen. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth again, this time louder: “Haave? Please, give me a sign if you can hear me.”

However, everything remained the same. Suru was still wandering along the dark corridor and the noises that told about the torturous existence of the trapped people haunted his lone steps. Doubt found its way into Suru's heart and he pondered whether he could even catch Haave's attention. What if it was impossible to do? He didn't know the rules of this reality. After a few more uncertain steps and thinking about his options, Suru did come to the conclusion that there wasn't really much else he could do but to wander aimlessly or trying to get in contact with Haave.

“Haave?” he spoke with an even louder voice. “Haave, can you hear me?”

Now Suru could really hear it from the voice that came out of his mouth; he really did sound like Neva. But maybe that was a good thing in this situation: if Ruska's guess that a memory of Neva was more clear in his mind was true, Haave could recognize her voice. It gave Suru a little bit more hope and he continued to call for Haave's name.

A tremendous quake shook the corridor, almost causing Suru to fall on his knees, he had to take support from the wall. A swarm of bright white eyeballs suddenly surrounded him, wriggling madly and were unable to look into one direction for long. Before Suru could even guess what their function was, they disappeared, exploding like fireworks. After the last one had blasted into nothingness, the floor beneath Suru's feet just vanished completely and he started to fall down, straight into the void.

At first, there was nothing, he was simply falling through pitch-black darkness. He felt horrified; what if he would just keep falling for all eternity, unable to do anything at all? But when he started to hear whispers, and albeit their eerie nature, Suru was happy because it was proof that there was at least something in this pit. He couldn't really understand what the whispers were talking about, he could distinguish a word here and there, but other than that, he had no clue of what they were trying to say. Maybe they were some more fragments of Haave's memories. Or maybe they were his victims, incapable of using their voices anymore. Suru couldn't possibly tell. But as he kept falling deeper and deeper into nothingness, the whispers weren't the only thing filling the empty space anymore. Little spheres of white light were floating in the pit, like bubbles. Little by little, they were multiplying and conquering the dark space. They filled the black void with white emptiness and Suru wasn't falling through darkness anymore. He fell towards a bottomless whiteness, until he came to a sudden stop.

Air escaped from his lungs as he hit the ground suddenly and hard. Where was he now? He could only wonder. Recovering from the abrupt stop took him a minute, but eventually he managed to crank up his body from the floor and could investigate his surroundings. He wasn't sure what he had expected, but as usual, what he was seeing followed the pattern that this strange reality had. He was in a spacious chamber now, but wherever he looked, there was just relentless torment. Every wall was replaced by a mass of bodies, all of them very much alive and there was nothing but anguish written on their faces. They were moaning because of their pain and despair, some of them desperately trying to break away from the conjoined mass, but were stuck since their flesh was fused together with others. Obviously the sight was horrifying, but what made it even more awful was the feeling that Suru got from seeing some of these distressed faces; he couldn't remember, but he felt like he knew some of them.

The mass of poor souls wasn't the only shocking thing in the chamber. In the middle of everything was a strange chair of some kind with leather straps that were used to restrain whoever had to sit on it. At the moment, they weren't in use, even though there was a person sitting on the chair. He appeared to be a young man, but he was in a pretty rough state. Some parts of his body had been replaced with mechanical parts, such as his left foot and right arm, and there was metal and wires on his face as well. But the most notable thing about his appearance was that his brain was completely exposed, nails stuck in it, and there were numerous wires coming from above that were attached to his brain. Was this person Haave? He had to be. He looked like somebody who was hosting this nightmare reality.

But to confirm his suspicions, Suru asked: “Haave? Is that you?”

The young man had been having his eyes open all this time, but only now he seemed to register Suru's presence. He tilted his head slightly and pierced Suru with his gaze.

“Haa… ve?” the young man said quietly and somewhat arduously, like he hadn't used his voice for a long time – or maybe he had used it too much and was now exhausted. “Am I Haave? Yes… I… I think so.”

This was a small victory for Suru. But now what? How to escape this reality? Haave was the key, if Ruska was correct, but Suru didn't really have an idea how to proceed from here. But he had to try something.

“I'm Suru. Do you remember me?” Suru asked.

Haave looked at him like he could see inside his head. It almost felt like that, too. “You're not Suru. You're Neva.”

“No… I just look and sound like her. I assume you and her were close?” Suru said.

“What makes you think of that?” Haave inquired. There was a slight tremble in the air, it was almost unnoticeable, but Suru still sensed it well enough to make a note of it.

“Your memory of her… It seems to be so clear, unlike anything else in this place”, Suru answered. “Obviously, it makes one ponder.”

Something in his response agitated Haave. He sprung up from his seat and started to pace around in a frantic manner. Now the air trembled even more fiercely, like it was a manifestation to Haave's emotions.

“Failure! Failure, failure, failure!” Haave was roaring to himself. “I tried and ruined everything!” He spun around and looked ferociously at Suru, even accusatively. “Do you know how hard it is keeping this world from collapsing and killing everybody inside? Because I tell you, it's a fucking insane task.”

Suru remained silent as Haave started to walk back and forth again. He felt bad for the young man. Suru hadn't even realized how much pressure had been put on Haave's shoulders and he probably didn't know the majority of it. Suru wasn't exactly sure what he had said wrong to rile up Haave like this, but he regretted it anyway. Their surroundings were shaking violently like during an earthquake and Suru barely was able to stay on his feet. But the worst thing was hearing the mass of people cry from intense pain, wishing to be freed but there was no salvation for them.

“Haave!” Suru yelled over the cries and the tremor, trying to somehow calm down the young man. “Haave, it's alright! You're not a failure!”

Haave stopped once more and glared at him. “Look around. Everything is fucked up. I haven't done a single good thing.”

“It's not your fault”, Suru said and he truly meant it. Haave didn't seem to be a malicious person, he was just trapped just like everybody else.

“Oh, but it is.” Haave clenched his hand into a fist. The shaking stopped, but the following stillness felt eerie; it was merely the calm before the storm. Haave just stayed in this position for a while and Suru could see how a current of electricity sparked red around his exposed brain. He was about to do something and Suru had a feeling that it was going to be something terrible.

“Haave… Do you think you can find us a way out of here?” Suru asked, keeping his voice quiet and calm. “I can help any way I can, but I'm not sure I understand this place at all…”

“There is no way out.”

How blunt Haave's response was, it surprised Suru. He couldn't quite digest his words.

“Surely there is something we can do…” Suru said, not wanting to give up on hope.

“If there was a way out of this hell, why would I still be in here? Why we all would?” Haave muttered. “I'm not the one in control here, not the way you assume. I can't just snap my fingers and wake up.” He shook his head violently, getting agitated again. “I don't want to do this anymore!”

With his yell, a burst of energy boomed in the chamber, hitting Suru like a strong gust of wind. The energy felt hot, almost too hot to tolerate, and it felt really uncomfortable on Suru's skin, giving a sensation that his skin was melting. And as the shockwave smacked his body, he felt something even more terrible to happen to him. A second face grew on the side of his head, screaming with the voice of a man: his actual voice. His own face had appeared in the head of Neva. Haave's memory of them was splitting, becoming two different entities. The energy was trying to separate them both from Neva's body, growing a part of Suru's torso and an arm and a leg, but that was when the process halted. Haave let out a screech of pain and madness and the reality around them vibrated harshly. Suru and Neva were stuck in their abhorrent conjoined state, condemned to an existence of agony.

Everything faded into utter darkness, except for Haave's chair. It remained there, in the middle of the room, illuminated by a convenient spotlight. Once the screams had left Haave's body, he slowly stepped toward the chair and sat down. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He had to calm down, not to panic, for panicking would make it worse, for everyone. When he opened his eyes again, he wasn't in a complete blackness anymore. He was in a room that resembled an infirmary. It was much less spacious than his previous room and even here he wasn't alone, although Suru and Neva weren't there. A few bodies were forced to lie on beds, being tied down by straps that went through their flesh. Their mouths were sown shut so they couldn't scream or cry for help or anything. They had deep rotting wounds on their bodies and maggots were eating their flesh.

Haave couldn't understand what part of his mind did this. But for now, he wanted to be alone. He hadn't managed to shape a place only for himself, but these poor souls probably wouldn't bother him too much. He closed his eyes again and focused on breathing. His little outburst had shaken the very foundations of this world and all the rooms had shifted and got reshaped. He just had to stay calm for a moment and fortify everything again.

A delicate little world, so easily shattered. And only Haave could keep it from collapsing.