Submachine: The Illumination

--> The whole idea of Submachine Belongs to Mateusz Skutnik at Rewolucje.com

The Illumination. It Binds. It destroys. A volatile force. In a place plauged with volatility.

Get me out. Of here. Of this. Run.
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"What went wrong?"
"That's how it works."
"Are you sure? I can't find his blip."
"That's normal. Possibly..."
"What do we do?"
"Nothing."
I saw it. I know I saw it. Where did it go? It's hot down here. I've been taken underground, and my team can't find me. I am as far underground as you can go. As I cling to this smooth edge that leads into this empty abyss, I begin to wonder. What a dumb Idea it was to get interested. I am going to die. I will be non-existant. I am slipping. Hwere will I go? I let go. And I fall.
How long have I been falling? I see the blue sides, but it's very dark in here. I see portals and doors. Millions of doors. Millions. They're not the doors that you and I wlak through every day. They are made of stone, and they have a bar across them. They're a blur, because I've been falling for so long. Occasionally a see a green blur rush before me, out one portal and into the other. I think I'm inside the network.
I hit the ground. It doesn't hurt, to my suprise. I stagger around, disorientated. I don't know where I am. A lone piece of paper with some hardly legible scribblings lies in the bottom of this place. I trudge over, and pick it up.
"If you are reading this, there's a good chance that you're crawling around the floor, dying slowly. If you're not, than I have an extremely important thing to tell you. You will not get out of here. you will die, no matter what. You cannot change it. When I was down here, I couldn't find anything, but do your best. Search. Try everything, Find some way to communicate with your exploration team. I can tell you where you are, but it's on another piece of paper. Everything floats upwards besides living bodies here. They float towards the Illumination. Nobdy knows what it is. But it shines, forever. Until this place is eradicated. Try to find the other note." I suddenly felt alone. I was in a dark blue circular room, not knowing where the wall ends. I punched the wall. It started to dent. I punched it a final time, and it revealed a glowing pipe, where many colors rushed and blurred between each other. I reached out to touch it, and in an instant, I was inside the pipe. I felt myself rush around many other pipes, and suddenly, I was in a red brick room.
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A lone message stained the walls in a strange viscous fluid, running down the bricks. It read
"Run to the illumination. Run, and die." What was this "Illumination?" I need to leave. There is no mean of surviving here. I walked. I found a flight of stairs. As I climbed, I picked up keys. I counted 26 in all. The stairs seemed to go on forever. Spinning. When I reached the top, It seemed like a living quarters. beds. I searched under every matress. Except one. I flipped the matress over, and pullled out another note.
"Nobody else besides me has made it this far. You aren't any closer. You get farther, and farther away as you proceed towards where you need to go." I folded up the note, and put it into my back pocket. This person was toying with me. As I proceeded between rooms, I picked up some film. Apparently, it would go to an old film projector. As I searched, I came to a locked door. On it, was a dripping still wet black paint. On it, was the letter A. I used the first key I found. It worked. I opened up the door. A single seat. And a projector. Another note was lying on the floor. I was severely hesitant to pick it up.
"Your team believes you are dead. There are no more possible ways to get out. Remember how I said you'd know where you were when you found the second letter? Turn it over. Place it on the wall, where the magnetic x's are. You will soon, be a part of this projection." I pulled out my other letter. As I put it on the wall, I noticed several markings, what seemed to be random. Nothing could be random here. Nothing. As I put in the film, I wondered how I would live down here. The projector turned on.
"You are west of it. You need to become the middle of it." A picture was moving, like a movie. It showed me walking around inside the bottom of the door area. Then, a bright light. " I suddenly got up, as if it was an involuntary action. suddenly, I was inside the picture. Then, I was in a white room.
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"To realize who you are is to repeat what you are." It was written on a wall, in red ink. I saw a desk. It sat peacefully in the middle of the room. A pen, and an unfinished letter lay there. I began to read it.
"We are only people. We cannot do things perfectly. Not even I. I leave this note for you because-." It stopped there. I sat down, Picked up the pen, and began to write.
"because we cannot replicate our past, in any way possible. We cannot bring up what we need, when we have depleted it. We reapeat, and come to a certain point where and when realize who, and what we are. What our purpose is. I leave this note to you because it is critical to your subsistence. When the illusion terminates itself, you will find what the illumination is. After all, we cannot keep ourselves tethered to the past forever." I looked at what I wrote. I wondered how I possibly knew what to write. The edge of the paper glowed a bright green. Under it, a bright shone through the paper, revealing a series of upside down and backwards symbols. I looked up at the ceiling.
"You know who you are. You know your purpose. If you do not finish whot you started, you will be stuck here. you will become anchored to this place for all eternity. Don't be like who you were. Don't go back. Continue." I took the paper with me. I walked until I spotted a door marked B. I used my second key. it opened. Inside, was what seemed to a lift, made out of glass. I stepped into it. It proceeded upwards. Through the glass, I spied more people. They were proceeding at the same rate, all looking down. In the pockets, were notes, and keys. The lift stopped. We all stopped. Glass walkways began to protrude from the lifts, and the door opened in front of it. We all walked to the middle. Suddenly, without any sort of consent from my brain, I reached into my back pocket, and lifted the letter I wrote. I Put it down on a table, first. Everyone else took out the same exact letter, but each one had a series of sentence fragments. Everyone put theres on the table. A sentence stood out.
"All of you are here, but soon, only one will find more." All of the other peoples' walkways started to slowly go back inside the lift, where they then proceeded back underground, further than I could see. Suddenly, the lift that was in front of me, started to move, downards. Then doors and doors started to rotated vertically, until it stopped. Then it rotated horizontally. Finally, a door marked C stood in front of me. I put in my third key. A voice suddenly spoke to me. It said "Yield." I walked through the door, but my feet never touched any sort of ground or floor. I was falling again. Suddenly, a light hit my pocket where the keys were, and another key was then lifted from my pocket, and it rocketed straight through a thick darkness, and into a locked door. I fell through the door, and I was lying on the floor. I had hit a wall, and fallen down. it didn't hurt. How on earth did this happen? I fell vertically through the top of a white box, but there's no entry. nor is it possible for me to actually hit the wall when falling vertically. Unless...
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I was standing on the wall. My perception of all physics has now been destoryed. I should not believe anything I see. I should not believe against what I see. I must be cynical. I got to my feet. This room looked like a waiting room at a doctors office. Chairs on the floor, with the occasional plant, lined the sides. One of the plant's were shinging. Green. I ran to it. As I jumped into mid-air, the gravity shifted. I was on the other wall. I reached into the plant. On a ring, there were three keys. One had the letter Y on it. Another had an A on it. The last one had an I on it. I picked it up, and the whole room faded. I was back at another shaft, but this time, It was all white. On the wall, in blood red text, A message said "You Are Illuminated." Another note lay at the bottom of this shaft.
"You wrote the last note. You know why. You know where you are, I need not tell you why. Find your shell, and crawl back home." I wondered. Suddenly the floor lit up green. Then, it started to get smaller and smaller, parts of the floor falling off. I stood in the middle of the shaft. All that was left, was a green circle around me.
"I am Illuminated."
I began to fall.
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I was tumbling, mid air. I could see the small floor close in on me. It looked carpeted. A figure could be seen lying on the floor. I closed in on the ground. I saw who the figure really was. It was a transparent me. It was holding a small device, which said stop, and a green button. I fell into the figure of me, perfectly conforming to it's pose. I opened my eyes. I clicked the button. Next to me, was one last note. It looked scribbly.
"I have written this not in mid-air. I am about to die, and I still do not know what this thing does. If another frame of myself comes through, take the device. You have now reached the present. Use the machine behind you, but besides this, never ever look at another one of you. You'll be looped. You'll cause a time paradox. Time will speed up, until the universe ends, and another dimesnion is created. go home." I kept the note, and I grasped the device. I turned around. A machine with half-arch arms stood looming behind me. 3 numbers were in 3 circles towards the base of it. Suddenly, I looked up, to see another me falling. He peered at me, with an angry face.
"No!" it shouted. The word "Desotry this" Was carved into the machine. I hit the power button, and cut the cord at the same time, as it sucked me in. Something was holding on to me, through the portal. It was the other me. I hit it's wrist as hard as I could, as pain shot up my wrist. he let go. I was tumbling. Through the whiteness. Suddenly I emerged on the other side.
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"Finally. Do you know who I am?"
"No."
"I am here to make sure you found the present."
"How?"
"I Monitored you. The present was frozen, in the single time frame that you hit the ground. You have made your way out of the middle of the network. The past still worked. There is no future, though."
"How so?"
"I'll explain. The future is interactive. the past is a post-future creation, therefore, the past is null, constrained to what yoy though was the future. it's basically a freeze moving across ice. That's an expression, though. You can chnge the future. it's intercative. if a ball moves across a table, you can watch it fall, or you can catch it. The future does not make a decision until the very last millisecond. Therefore, There is no real future. It is to be determined by every single organism."
"Ok. How do I leave?"
"You don't. it's your turn to create the future."
"Excuse me?"

The man was gone.
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I mustn't panic. But I need to get out of here. I stand alone in a dark room. A single window with a valave under it shows me top-down views of every single place I have visited. I punched the wall, in frusturation. I cannot be stuck. There is no possible way. I keep gewtting closer to the end, but I go farther and farther underground. I punched at the wall, I dented it, I destoryed parts. Light shined through one of the holes I made. it was a single hallway. With a door at the end. I punched and kicked my way through the wall. I ran, although I'd hadn't slept in what seemed months, I ran to the door. it was unlocked. I opened it a little bit, and the door burst open, ripping itself from the hinges, as I tripped and was sucked in as well. I was rocketing donwards, at amazing speeds. other things passed me, too. An ominous voice that seemed to circle around me spoke these words.
"You will be in the core. You will leave." I looked downards, at the impending bright light. It was blue, and intense beyond all means.
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I hit the light at an amazing speed. I didn't go into it. Instead, all the light suddenly rocketed up the shaft I had fallen through, and I was lifted at an incredible velocity to the top. The ground broke before me, I was on a street. I watched the light blow the building to bits. I heard every door around lock with a "Click." Where was I? I ran down a path, And behind me, Parts of it started to fall off, and another white abyss swallowed me up as I fell downwards.
"You must stay!" A voice around me screamed as I landed back into the room with the valve and monitor. This time, pipes surrounded me, and a note could be seen whipping through the tubes. I ran to it, and smashed the pipe open, as the green liquid spilled onto the floor, staurating and drying instantly. At the same time, blood spilled from under the valve and monitor. I took out the note.
"You are in the control room of the Submachine network. This controls every single last Submachine portal, and where it goes. On the left wall, there should be a faint discoloration. If you press it, you will reveal the truth. The Network is alive." I put the not back down. I walked to discoloration, and pressed it, with a hesitant motion. The walled Flashed white, And a control panel, and another message, with a picture hanging on the wall of an aold-fashioned desk with what looked like artists' tools sat on it, and a roof with many antennas could be seen in the background, over a harbor.
"Concentrate. Bind your mind to the entity behind the frame." I stared at the picture. I felt some sort of force pull me by my feet, as I opened my eyes to see that I was in the setting of the picture. Another desk was now able to be seen, at the other end of the room. Attached to the edge of it, was a lens, and an Eyepiece, and a slot for film to go in. I picked up a film roll on the desk, and inserted into the strange machine. I looked into it. A shelf cudl be seen, and a film roll, a key, and a knife was lying on the table. I wondered what this was all about. I flinched as a hand similar to mine reached out to the shelf, and picked up all of the objects. The film ended. I checked my hand. I had a knife, a filmstrip, and a key. this was amazing. I wondered if I could go outside. What if I did? Would I break the network? I walked over to the door, and inserted the key. I was now in a room, with lumps under a canvas, squared off, and positioned one inch apart from one another. On the wall, another message was written.
"Shift 7. 5ni, 3eyxm." Shift 7. Shift 7? What was Shift 7? I had once studied a little bit of Cryptography... It then dawned on me. Shifting in the alphabet was going backwards. If you wanted to start with e, and Shift 7, you'd count backwards 7 letters from e, and you'd have the first letter of your code. I went through the alphabet in my head, trying to crack the code. this took me several tries. I had finally decrypted it. 5up, 3left. It was like a Descotts plane. I had the coordinates. I just needed a point of origin. I looked around. A red dot in the center of the wall told me which wall I should use, and my point of origin. I found the lump I needed. I thrust the knife in. A piece of paper, which had a written message on it told me to cut the canvas in the shape of a door, but do not cut the other lumps. I tested my curiosity. I thrust the knife into a different lump. A scream of pain, and what looked like blood shot out of the lump. I backed up. I cut in between the lumps in the shape of a door. The canvas fell off, to reveal that every lump was a case of plastic, with a moving entity inside. I looked up at the ceiling. A sign above said that this was the "Mind room." I think I may have killed somebody. My stomach churns as I wonder why on earth I am here. It's just another mytsery for us to solve.
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The door that I had cut out was a blank space in the wall. I was now looking at a street. The space was wedged into the street, actually. I cut more spaces in the wall, to reveal that I was buried by what appeared to be a landslide. How was this possible? This seemed to me like a dream, and only a dream. I couldn't hurt myself. I was numb in a nova-caine way. I walked away from the door, back to the room with the desks. Still, I could see a roof top outside. I threw myself against the window, shattering it. All the pieces of glass flew outward without stopping. The laws of physics must be unapplicable here. I suddenly thought of a law. "For every action, there is an equally opposite reaction." I decided to test this. I looked around the room. Across the room, lie 2 bricks. I picked them up, weighing them in my hands. I put one on the desk, and slid the other one directly into it from the other side. As if there was no friction, the other brick bounced across the room, denting the wall, while the other brick stopped exactly where the point of impact was. I felt severely confused. I sat on a chair in the room. For what seemed like endless hours, I pondered about this place. I had no way to tell time, which I had noticed. This place was completely desolate. I saw footprints, but even if I followed them with my eyes, they stopped in mid place. I wondered about Inter-dimensionary travel. I had once written down a theory. I had written that a dimension was another time-frame in the universe, in which cosmic powers as in supernovas destoryed it, or what I called the core, which was the planet holding the most intelligence. Then, evolution would just start all over again. But, there are man-made ways to end a dimension. Nuclear wars... Bloodshed. I decided to climb out of the window.
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I had been ambushed by my own sense of direction. Gravity now pointed me to the side. I fell up against the side of the building. What was even more disturbing were the silhouettes of moving people plastered to the sides of the walls. I had decided in my mind that a nuclear bomb had gone off here. I ran my hand over a silhouette, and it came alive. It dropped, collapsing. Will I be a silhouette someday, too? What do I see when I die? Blackness? or am I already dead? is this purgatory? Do I even believe in it? I touched the ground with a foot. I lurched forward, and fell to the ground. gravity shifted once again.
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This now the present. For 6 years now, I have wandered this strange place. My hands look the same as they did. I do not know what day it is, for every day is the same. No seasons. No night or day. But today, I will find an anomaly. How I know this, I simply have a feeling. Occasioanlly, The light from the sun glints off the sky. Which brings me to wonder. Where and why am I here, once agai--. I stopped. My hands brought themselves to face level. I touched mid-air. I was looking at a wall. I ran my hands along a small crack in the wall, and punched with all my might. Suddenly, voices echoed through the hole.
"he's here."
"Finally."
"What should we do?" I ripped apart the wall with such force... But there were no people to house the voices. Just an empty halway with a door at the end. I ran to the door. I ran, and ran, but I didn't get any closer.
"Run!" The voices screamed to me, as I tripped, falling down, down.
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"No!" I screamed as I woke up in a room, with a control panel, ripping a metal wire out of my spine. I got up, and looked around to see my exploration team.
"Quickly! Sedate him again! Do it!" Somebody yelled, as I grasped for the door knob. It was never real, it was simply never real. I was too late. I felt the needle in my skin, as my vision blurred. I threw open the door. A hallway with more doors, and submachine portals beaming people away. I ran, but I tripped over my own two feet. I blacked out again.

I am not a experiment. I am a human. I despise my own curiousity. I will get out. No matter what.