Finish The Story - Week #47 Entry -Try a Game in The Hall

Try a Game in The Hall

by @f3nix

"Five.. twenty-eight.. twenty-two.. twelve.. seventy-nine.."
The marker's mottled surface is like that of a glass marble. It's hard to say where it starts and where the woman's fingers end. It flies on the large bingo card: a tablecloth covering the entire table, whose borders move in a capricious Moebius ribbon. Slender curls emerge rhythmically on the plasticised surface each time the marker grazes it. Now, the instrument is obeying to the imposed angle and pressure, producing the sound of a cat tongue licking a window. Between a number and the other, the woman clings to that image like a castaway anchoring to a slimy rock.

"Thirty .. thirty-one.. ninety-eight.. sixteen .. forty .."

The room has no windows but its walls are brightened by an arabesque of pulsating lines. When the plot detaches from the walls, it innervates on the orange rug and converges on a humanoid obelisk in the center of the hall. Thin wrists flex in synchrony, marking the numbers on the tablecloths every time that the obelisk punctuates them in a propagating fibrous echo. The fleshy organ of this creature is the only hallmark in an otherwise completely smooth mannequin's face. Its mouth unfolds through a complete circumnavigation of the dull head. Its lips are the valves of an agonizing oyster.

"Six .. thirty-three .. sixty-six .. eighty-six .. forty-one .."

The woman's slender fingers move a lock of hair back to the ear. In the time of a sigh, a caress lingers on her temple without the marker losing its rhythm. Sometimes, a new customer enters and takes a seat at a table sinking into one of the faux leather chairs. Soon enough, his face will begin to melt, dripping on the card's elusive signs, becoming one with them. In one of those ephemeral moments between a number and the other, the woman was able to raise her head and glance beyond the bingo door. The outside is the mute vowel of a blinding white expanse.
Sometimes, she struggles to remember her arrival. A cat licking a window reappears in her mind until a number sweeps it away. If there were windows in the hall, would that white nothing leak through them and fill the hall?

"Eighty-one .. thirteen." All in a sudden, the electricity of a look runs through her. It's a man from the table nearby. "..ty .. ninety-two.."

The marker hesitates in mid-air barely enough to make her lose a number.

As she looks back at the man see can see his marker just sitting on the table. His eyes lock onto hers and she lets more numbers slip by. She can feel the pressure of the room try to force the numbers back into her mind. But she can’t break his gaze. She watches as he picks up his marker and tosses it away. She feels the marker in her hand. It has become a part of who she is. Yet he tossed it away. I can do the same. With that she held out her arm and let go. Watching as the marker fell towards the floor. As it bounced off the ground all the noises stopped.

The man stood from the table and walked over to her.

“I have finally found you Artemis. Apollo sent me.”

I know those names. Apollo….warmth wrapped around her remembering her brother. Artemis my name. How could I forget?

“Where are we?”

“Trapped in a world made by Eros”

That name also brought back memories. Such a handsome man yet Eros was always up to no good. Her mind was starting to remember more and more. A visit from Eros was one of the last things she could remember.

“Dionysus?”

“Good you remember me. It is time we left this place.”

She followed Dionysus as he headed for the door. Still all she could see was the white expanse on the the other side. Yet he never slowed down and they charged out the door.

The room vanished as the left it. The two of them floated in the open space the white light blinding her. She could barely move but she saw Dionysus working at something in a bag he carried. He pulled out a pitch black cloth and tossed it over them.

“It is so he can see us.”

“Who?”

“Your brother of course.”

With that a arrow stuck the cloth from above. She grabbed it and more memories filled her mind. Of times hunting with her brother. He was almost as good as her with a bow. Dionysus took the rope off the arrow and tried it to the cloth and was wrapped around them. They started to move pulled upwards.
When the broke the surface it was like being pulled out of the ocean. The cloth floated on the surface and standing there with his bow was Apollo.

“How long was I trapped?”

“Three years.” he said tossing her bow and quiver to him.

“I will kill Eros”

“Think back Artemis, how did you get trapped?”

She looked back in her mind to that last talk with Eros. He was bragging about a prison that no one could escape not even a god. Then it hit her. She told him it wasn’t possible to put a god in a prison. Then she could remember coming here with him and her brother. She could remember diving into the white void.

“He won the bet didn’t he?

“Yes he did”

Image by @EdibleCthulhu

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