She waded her way through the dense mass of people, nudging her way this way and that, digging herself ever deeper. It was a regular Madhouse without a house. A colomagration of people with no clear focus. There were so many people it was impossible to get a sense of self. If it weren’t for her sense of self-preservation, she would’ve lost herself long ago.
She averted the gaze of people who were continuously locked by running through them, breaking their concentration. She unintentionally broke up two lovers who only had eyes for each other, and brought two hatred rivalries together. Just her mere presence disrupted the social order, which wasn’t that orderly to begin with. Once she was far enough in, she figured it was safe enough to look back. That was when she saw to her horror that the Tattooed Man hadn’t been deterred by the mass of people at all, and was making his way closer like some kind of swimmer in an ocean of people.
She got up again, and started pushing people this way and that, trying to throw them in his path. But since there were so many people, it amounted to little more than shoving around. She tried yelling for help, but in this environment, it was impossible to distinguish one voice from another.
To slow him down, she reached for people’s arms, pulling them together saying, “Hey! Long time no see! Let me introduce you to a close friend of mine. Shake hands!” then moving on to the next. “Hey! Long time no see...”, creating minor barriers to get in his way. She left very confused interlocked agreed parties in her wake, making the most direct path towards her as difficult as possible.
She kept this strategy up for as long as possible, until it became apparent it was no longer feasible. Soon, she reached the point where there were no more people to throw at him, because she’d run out of crowd. She was now in another section of Memory Bane.
She hoped the Tattooed Man would’ve been blocked by the crowd, but it didn’t even slow him down. She got up and started running again towards the closest visible foundation in sight to hide behind. As she got closer, She saw a solitary figure that was running in front of her. No matter how much she tried to move out of the way, the other guy kept copying her every move. It was only when she was right in front of the interloper that she realized she’d found the mirror they’d been looking for.
But she didn’t get to celebrate this discovery for too long before the Tattooed Man tackled her legs from behind, and held her down, breathing heavily over her.
“Funny thing about crowds - normally you can’t tell the people in them apart. But if you’re particularly interested in a certain person, you can pinpoint them with no trouble.”
“Alright, you’ve got me. What are you going to do now??”
The Tattooed Man’s face softened in confusion. “I... don’t know.”
She stared incredulously. “You don’t remember why you were so mad at me, but you remember THAT?!”
“I must’ve heard about it before I was dumped here... wherever “here” is. Normally, I can remember three things at a time. Crowds can focus on two things at once, but when you’re overly emotional, you can only recall ONE thing at a time. That singular thought can overwhelm you until it’s taken care of. The point is, don’t get too emotionally invested. It just leads to trouble.”
“Or get you out of it...” she thought, getting up and dusting herself off. She looked at the notes in her hands which had remarkably remained intact. One hand said to look at the message in a Mirror. The other had the message that made the Tattooed Man so upset. And as soon as she saw it, and that the Tattooed Man saw it, she realized she’d made a mistake.
“What’s that you’ve got there? It looks real familiar...”
“I... think we need a mirror. There’s one over here...”
For a brief moment, the Girl thought she saw a figure flicker over the reflective surface, but it happened so quickly she thought it was a trick of the light.
“I knew I couldn’t trust you!” the Tattooed Man accused, clutching her guilty hand. Then he calmly snatched the paper she’d been unsuccessfully trying to pass on to him. “But at least now I can look and compare notes.”
The Tattooed Man stared at the piece of paper.
“It doesn’t even make sense. Why would I...” He looked up to stare at his reflection. Then his expression took on a look of pure hatred and the piece of paper he’d been holding crumpled in his hand as he formed a fist.
With pure undiluted force, he started pummelling the mirror they’d been looking after for so long, not caring about the damage already done to his hands.
The Girl was alarmed by the spectacle in front of her, and ran away from the scene, not wanting to get caught in the ensuing carnage, scattering the carefully gathered notes to the winds.
The Tattooed Man kept smashing the face in the mirror underneath the tattoo that once said,
ƎꟻIW ЯUOY ᗡƎ⅃⅃Iʞ I
No comments:
Post a Comment