Room 333

Room 333

[a thingy done for the UA campaign Faces in the Dark]

There is a reason the 3rd floor of the school was closed down. One beyond the mundane issues of cost and space and heating. This is that reason, a door to a place that should never have existed.

There is a city made of glass and butterfly wings. There are wonders in it, of the kind of terror and awe true wonder holds, the dream made real, words made solid, form and ideal bleeding together into an unreal geometry that hurts the eyes but tugs at the heart, making you wish you'd dreamt it, seen it, even once.
The walls are covered in graffiti in languages that were old before the world existed, languages not even known to the dead. They give the city shadows, though it has no sun. The sky is grey, and pale, with a deep purple rent that lets down the light, the kind of cut one would imagine if the sky bled.
The streets are raw, pale and cracked like flesh, hard and soft at the same time. There is no sound here, just silence, stillness, a waiting so deep that nothing has ever stirred. Dust glitters brightly in the air like unfallen rain, and then you hear it, buzzing, at the very edge of hearing, a rattling through the bones, more felt that heard, aching, as if they are growing, or breaking apart.
The voices. The voices, angelic, pure, harsh and wild. They are singing, and it sounds like heaven come down to earth, and you never, ever want to hear them again. They get louder, but somehow softer at the same time, like pillow talk by a leprous lover, gurgling fish-speak as pure as sunshine, as cold as ice, and you can't help but hear. And listen. And wonder.

"The children, the children,
The children are coming.
More than kith, less than kin,
They slouch ever downward slumming.
They're dying, they're living
They are here and becoming,
Listen to their song, their song, their song
Listen to them humming
To the bees buzzing to the light giving
To the harp of damned souls
The strings strumming
They're coming round the ways of the world,
They're reaching from the depths, plumbing
Listen to the beating of the drums
Listen to broken feet drumming
The floor, choking, dumb,
Dum, da dum, da dum.
Listen to them, giggling, laughing.
The children are coming
Listen to the singing
Becoming, unbecoming,
Cutting and culling
Listen to the sounds they make
Listen to the silence break
The children are coming
The children, the children,
The children are coming."

The song loops through you beyond madness, past reason or hope or fear. It ends with footsteps and laugher like fingers scraping chalkboards. Breathing like gum popping, the hiss of a sucking chest wound. And then a chorus, high and low, blended into a sexless monotone song than twiches, casting itself high and low along the music scale recklessly, searching seeking, pleading ... being .... heard. This, you hear:

"Here we are, all gathered together
Finding the sinners 'cuz we never
Did nothing wrong, we tell it true,
Nothing wrong, we beg of you,
O teacher, can you listen?
Look at our bright eyes glisten
We are crying for you to hear us
We are crying for you to love us
Teacher, we love you, we just can't
Understand you, the pain in your voice
No, we weren't making joking about your ranting,
O teacher we love you, we just need a choice.
We're singing you a song
We didn't mean to do wrong
O teacher don't hurt us
O teacher don't make us
Do homework
We beg you
We won't smirk, won't jerk
Won't hurt - just don't
Go beserk! We - love - you."

You can't see who - what - may be singing. Perhaps it's your own voice, your throat feels so raw, everything feels raw. Your eyes are burning, and everything blurs, becoming even clearer. Glass. And butterfly wings. Shadows and violet light. And the opressive, numbling, welcoming silence, the calm before a storm .... and, perhaps, distantly, the voices?
=> just what is in the City in the Otherspace. A class of children. The teacher is even scarier.