Trey sat on the steps of the tower processing his most recent memory, he thought about Ava and how infatuated he was with her but no matter how hard he thought about it he couldn't understand why he was so in love with her.
"She's no good, yknow." Mr.T spoke as he emerged from the wall stepping to Trey's line of sight.
"And you're too much of a pushover to actually kill her? You're not gonna get another chance Packston."
"Man, you just never get tired of hearing yourself speak!" Trey quickly shot back at the reptile-headed man.
"So what if I do? At least I like myself right now."
"I-"
"Then again I guess you've always played victim, hm? Always with the self-pity."
"You don't know me!" Trey shouted as he stood up. Mr.T stared at Trey for a moment before shaking his head.
"I know you better than anyone in the world. Better than you know you."
"Stop being so cryptic! Man, I just want to leave!"
"You don't deserve it yet. Keep going up, you'll reach the top soon enough." Mr.T said as he turned and walked into the wall. Trey stared at the wall for a moment before letting out a deep huff of frustration, his hand coming up to rub his face.
Trey began his walk back up the steps, he had begun to wonder just how tall this tower was even if he had stopped questioning the logic of how this tower was shaped and structured. Logical thinking had seemed to be almost completely abandoned at this point, Trey had stopped wondering if time was a concept here, he stopped looking for an explanation as to why he was in this place but rather how he would get out. All that mattered to him was finding out who he was and leaving. After what felt like hours of climbing the steps, Trey had finally reached a pyramid-shaped room, having three walls. Inside the room were many shelves filled to the brim with stone and metal tablets, in the center of the room was a curved stone desk, and sitting on it was a black and brown owl with green eyes.
"Mr.Packston!" The owl, who had a strangely sophisticated-sounding masculine voice, spoke up.
"Oh, a talking owl," Trey mumbled with a slightly piqued tone.
"I knew you'd say something like that." The owl said before chuckling, its wing coming up to cover its beak as it did.
"My name is Opto, it's nice to finally see you here at the peak of my tower!"
"I don't think you'll give me an explanation about what's going on will you?"
"You are correct," Opto confirmed.
"You see, it is against the tower rules to tell its guests why they are here. What I will tell you is that you are here for a purpose."
"What is this place?" Trey questioned as he looked around the room at all the shelves.
"This is the Hold Of Legacy. You see everyone who comes here has a past, a present, and a future. They are all stored here. Only those who need fixing are brought to my Tower of Trials."
"So I need fixing?" The owl simply nodded at Trey's question.
"Mr.Packston, I want you to know that you are going to have to suffer for this process to be finished. You can't leave, you can't resist. Destiny is an inevitable thing but it's what you shape it to be, not what you may think or hope it is." Opto hopped to the edge of his desk and squinted at Trey who stared back at him with furrowed brows.
"Your final trial will be a maze that everyone is put through. At the center of that maze, you won't just find the last piece of yourself but you will have to decide what to do with yourself." In response to the speaking owl's words, Trey laughed
"Holy shit dude you're like the perfect stereotypical wise owl. Ya' gonna tell me how to unlock my third eye next?"
"Mr.Packston I'm merely offering some guidance. But if that's what you want…" The owl waved its wing and suddenly Trey's forehead opened up with an extra eye, the sudden change caused him to hiss in pain, and when he started to see out his forehead he reached up in discomfort to cover the eye.
"Take it away! I'm sorry!" Trey shouted in desperation.
As easily as Opto made the eye appear he made it disappear.
"I'm essentially god here Trey, you'd best watch how you treat me. I find it interesting how quick you are to plead and beg when you're faced with consequences." The owl turned away from Trey almost as if disgusted by the man.
"Away with you." With those words, Trey found himself in a fleshy maze. The walls were around 20 feet high and made up of peeled skin-like material over a substance similar to muscle, the floor was made of a material similar to that of a heart cardiac muscle. The smell of the maze could be described as a mixture of cow manure and blood, the sky was a mixture of orange, yellow, and green colors.
"Shit!" Trey covered his nose and mouth with his hand in an attempt to block out the wretched smell. He took a moment to ground himself and assess his surroundings before he started to walk, his steps made a squelching noise as his feet made contact with the ground.
"Is shit your favorite word, Trey?" Mr.P questioned as he appeared walking alongside Trey.
"You're here too?" Trey glanced at the snake-headed man.
"Course I am! This is practically the main event. I wouldn't miss it for anything. Also, Opto wanted me to be the hint genie."
"So what? I get 3 hints on how to beat this maze and then it's over."
"Yup! You get smarter every time I see you, that's surprising for you." Mr.P smacked Trey gently on the back.
"Oh my fucking god, you must be the funniest person I have ever gotten the chance to meet," Trey said with an obviously sarcastic meaning.
"But you never really met anyone else because you were so involved with that girl who let you screw her once and then ran away. I'm not supposed to be the funniest man you know." At the reptile's words, Trey grit his teeth as he came to a stop and reached to grab him only for Mr.P to disappear.
"What a pussy!" He huffed as he turned to start exploring the maze again. He walked and walked and walked, minutes turned into hours, and after that, he wasn't sure how long he had been exploring the flesh maze. The smell was making him dizzy, for the first time since he had arrived in this place he was starting to get hungry and fatigued. He sat down on the flesh at some point to catch his breath, to think.
"Mr.T…" he mumbled weakly
"Yessss?" The snake man appeared and leaned over Trey.
"What can a guy do to get some food in here?"
"Are you using up a hint?" Mr.T clapped his hands together.
"Just tell me!"
"Okay! Fine! You've grown this really harsh attitude and it's starting to make my job less enjoyable…" In response to his words, Trey stared at him with what can only be described as hatred.
"You're not scaring anyone. Anyway! The only source of food that you have is all around you actually." The man shrugged.
Trey sat there for a moment as if processing the information he was just given
"Are you telling me t-to… eat the flesh."
"No! Hell no! I'm not a mon-… I'm not evil! I'm suggesting you eat the maze because it's the only option you have." Trey slumped over, his face falling into the palms of his hands.
"I can't stand it any longer." he sobbed quietly. Mr.T shifted uncomfortably and patted Trey on the back
"There there Packston. Uh. I can give you a hint on how to finish the maze if you want?" Mr.T offered it as a way to stop Trey from crying anymore.
Trey's hands fell to his legs his hair hanging down over his eyes
"Okay." He mumbled with a sniffle. The snake-headed man nodded and took a few paces back.
"If ya want to leave then you just gotta follow the eyes. But, uh, avoid the mouth. You'll die if you don't." And with that, Mr.T sank into the floor, disappearing once again. Trey rubbed his face, stood up straight, and kept walking. Even if he didn't understand what Mr.T meant he understood that he wouldn't die here. He couldn't. Trey began to wonder what would happen if he did die, would he just come back to the start of the maze? As he pondered these things his knees gave out and he fell to the ground. He needed to eat something and soon. So he did. Trey clawed his fingers into the floor and took a large bite out of the ground, and a pus-like liquid started to spurt from the flesh as he dug in with his teeth and swallowed quickly without chewing. Trey gagged at the texture even if there was no taste.
Suddenly the sound of tearing flesh and footsteps could be heard to the left of his position. He froze, his neck hairs standing up. For some reason, all of his senses were screaming at him to get up and run the other way. Then he looked over. There he saw it, a tall muscular man wearing a black and white suit, the head replaced with a mouth that had a frown on display. It was carrying a large axe that was being dragged across the fleshy ground, and it was walking towards Trey.
"A mouth. This is so fucked up." He mumbled to himself as he got up and ran in the opposite direction.
The creature ground its teeth together and slung the axe onto its shoulder before taking off after Trey. It was much faster, when Trey looked back he let out a shout of panic as he pushed his legs to carry him faster. He made hard corner turns and tried to slip the man up but it wasn't stupid. He was running out of stamina and fast, before he knew it the creature had closed the distance and raked its axe across his back, sending him sprawling to the floor with a yelp. The wound on Trey's back seeped blood as he sat upright "Survive!" It was all that he could think of in that moment. The creature let out a noise akin to a chuckle as it reached forward and took Trey's hand in its own, it raised his hand to its mouth before chomping down on his fingers with a crunch, easily tearing his index and middle fingers off with one quick bite.
Blood spilled onto the ground and Trey let out a scream of pain as he kicked the creature in the gut making it fall on its back as it chewed on his fingers.
"No!" He got up to keep running only to be grabbed by the ankle and pulled down. He and the creature rose to their feet, Trey holding his wounded hand with his other, and the creature grinning at him with blood-stained teeth. It was like a switch flipped for Trey "Fight!" Replaced the initial command to flee as he moved in quickly, throwing his fist into the side of the creature. He felt his hand press through the muscle and rattle the ribs. Still, he was so focused on the attack that he didn't notice the creature's fist that had flown in and made hard contact with his stomach, crushing his internal organs with a squelch, blood flowed up to his mouth and poured out onto the ground as he crumpled over.
As fast as the last attack came in the creature slammed its knee into Trey's face, crushing his nose and shaking his brain up in his skull as his head flew back, blood flying out of his nostrils. He simply couldn't win this fight. Trey was going to die. But he absolutely refused, he refused to fail himself again, he realized in this moment that the beating he was taking was only physical, if he had the mental sturdiness he could, no, will survive. Trey fell to the ground and as his body made impact with a squish he turned his body to roll over to the axe that the creature left on the ground.
"Gotcha!" Trey shouted as he grabbed the axe, the feeling of only 8 fingers grasping the handle not stopping him from using all his strength to sit up as he swung his axe at the monster. As he swung, it lifted its leg to stomp down on Trey but the motion was already complete, and the axe slid into the leg of the creature making it let out a guttural screech as it collapsed to the floor.
This wasn't over, not even close, Trey knew this as he let out a cough and climbed on top of the creature grabbing the bottom set of teeth. Its mouth closed shut and the teeth sank into Trey's hand, blood gushing out as Trey yelped and tried to pry his hand from the creature's mouth as he grit his teeth. As he pulled his skin and flesh started to scrunch up as it slowly slid off the bone. Trey almost puked as the crunching sound and as he watched the bones of his hand begin to be exposed to him, but he didn't have time to as he felt the monster's hand latch on his chest, its fingers digging deep into skin and muscles. He finally, with one last cry of pain slid his hand from the monster's mouth as he watched it spit out the skin and flesh. Trey shoved both his hands into its mouth and grasped both rows of teeth before beginning to pull them apart, attempting to completely destroy its "head" that just so happened to be a floating mouth.
Trey looked down to see the flesh and muscles from his chest being torn off his body as the monster struggled against him. He kept telling himself not to pass out as his eyes started to close, the pain being the thing that he focused on to save himself. He cried out with one last yank as he separated both rows of the mouth, holding them at his side. The creature stopped moving. There was a beat of silence. Trey let out a sigh as he fell over onto his side and passed out. When he was out it had felt like nothing he had ever felt before, it was both the gentle hand on the cheek and the kiss on the forehead, it turned into the softness of a hug and the rush of a first kiss, all kinds of colors swirling up inside him and blasting out in waves of light and warmth, it then turned into the feeling of an orgasm and… he awoke. The sky was still the same color, and the walls were still fleshy and moist. The smell came to him quickly making him gag.
"I'm alive." He mumbled with a smile as he sat up to check his injuries which had disappeared.
Looking around he found himself in what seemed to be the center of the flesh maze, at the center was Ava. She was sitting down sideways, staring at him with a somewhat blank expression. Trey got up and walked over to her with a puzzled look on his face.
"And what's your trope? The other one was strong and violent, the first was sweet and caring but also mysterious. So…" she shakes her head
"It's just me. Plain old Ava. This stink is really messing with me…" She paused and giggled
"Let's change the scenery." Suddenly the surroundings changed from the fleshy hell to an apartment living room. Trey looked around.
"Hey this is-"
"Your apartment? When you stalked me?" She smiled warmly at him. He gave an even more puzzled look as she sat down on that rugged old couch.
"Stalked you? I didn't stalk you! I came to be with you when you showed me how you felt. You just up and left!"
Ava shook her head as she crossed one leg over the other, placing her hands on her knees.
"Trey you did what you thought was best. But you did stalk me. You followed me across state lines, found out where I worked, and found out where I lived. You watched me for a long time before you ever came to see me at my job." She spoke so calmly and softly, as if she were talking to a child.
"No! No! I basically gave up everything to be with you! I-I came with you! I-"
"Trey… you don't even know what happened after you came for me. Let me show you."
Suddenly he was taken back into the depths of his mind to explore the last piece of himself. He spoke.
"My days after she had completely rejected me from her life were kinda fuzzy. I always felt like I was staring at a screen and past that screen was the greatest prize I could ever win. Only I had to work extremely hard to break that screen. I wondered why Ava didn't want me anymore. She just blatantly ignored me whenever I tried to speak to her, she didn't even look at me. I had some free time so I started going to the library more and kept my eye on her. I also joined a book club to have a really good reason to be in the library, which also allowed me to meet her friends. I befriended the people in the club, all of them only a little older than I was. It all felt so fake, like the relationships were just about as real as the characters in some of the books we read. I missed Ava so badly.
I would start to take pictures of her in whatever cute clothes she was wearing that day, which just made me feel so close to her. I loved going home and masturbating to the pictures while I remembered the feeling of her body in that closet. It gave me great pleasure to know I had gotten the chance to do that with her. It felt so so good, I couldn't get it out of my head some nights. It was like the feeling of getting high for the first time over and over and over again. I wonder if she enjoyed it as much as I did, she wasn't all that vocal when we did it. It burdened me greatly to know that I could never tell her how I felt about how things were going.
One day I was invited out to a party with my "friends" I was reluctant at first because I honestly hated large groups of people. It was a house party so if there were a lot of people it would have been a serious issue. My reluctance was short-lived because of a conversation I heard that included Ava and the party, which told me she'd be there. The night of the party I showed up and there were plenty of people. I didn't feel the need to talk to any of them. Instead, I had my eye on the woman I loved, who was getting harassed. I wasn't surprised that she was handling herself but the way that older man was touching her set something off inside me. I walked away from my friends to intervene. I remember that I said something corny like "back off" and then I remember waking up in a car, my head feeling like it had just been slammed in with a sledgehammer.
I was in Ava's car. She was staring at the road with this unreadable expression. I tried to talk to her but she didn't want to hear me speak. She told me to "be quiet." So did. She started crying mid-drive. It was one of those really uncomfortable moments where you think it's best to just leave, but I couldn't. I remember the moment she let go of the steering wheel, the panic when I realized that she was trying to kill us both in that car was not as overwhelming as the bliss of knowing that my heart wouldn't be torn up anymore. Her car slammed into a tree and some of the tree lodged into the car. Maybe… we are both finally together."
Trey stared at the floor his mouth slightly agape.
"You killed us?" He muttered
"I don't think we died. The car collapsed in on the passenger side. So… maybe you're dead."
"You bitch! I did everything to be with you! Why would you ever do that! Do you know how long it took me to get in a position where I could be close to you!? I-"
"I do know. And I'm completely disgusted with that thought." He rubbed her face with slight disappointment.
"Trey… oh Trey. I loved you, I did."
"I-I loved… why did you do it then? You fucked me and then left, you ignored me when I wanted to be with you and then you put us both into harm's way! Why! Tell me why!" Trey shouted.
"I loved you!"
"You're confused. Trey, I loved the man who would listen to me rant on about whatever I needed to speak about, I loved the man who accepted things for how they were, I loved the man who comforted me when my abuser labeled himself as my boyfriend. The truth is we had an entirely one-sided love. You didn't love me, Trey, you got obsessed with me. I had sex with you because I thought that giving you that would allow you to move on when I tried to get away from my abuse and the life I desperately needed to get away from. I couldn't handle a man's touch anymore, I wanted that special moment of ours to be the last. Then I left.
Of course, when you followed me I felt deeply distraught. I had realized that I just fed a deep and deepening obsession. I realize that having sex with you was the worst mistake I ever made. Trey when you came into my work, when you moved into that apartment, when you joined that book club it forced me into a corner. I realized I could never escape my old life, and I fell into this pit where I would ask myself why I fell so deeply in love with you and why I was running. I felt numb, I felt assaulted, I felt like I was more alone, and also more swarmed than I had ever been, even since the institution. Trey your obsession drove me into a state where I believed the only way for me to run was to kill myself. I'm so sorry my love."
As tears streamed down Trey's face, she just sat there and watched him cry.
"No. No! I'm not a bad person."
"You stalked me. You didn't mean to but you did.
"I-…" Trey gritted his teeth and stared at the ceiling.
"Ava. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry Ava!" He sobbed as he tangled his fingers in his hair. Trey sobbed and sobbed, not for Ava or for himself but for the sake of crying. She stood up and walked towards him, and when she reached him she gave a soft smile.
"Trey. I love you. But now you gotta move on. And so do I."
Trey shook his head and looked at her.
"I'm scared to let go."
"I am too."
A long silence fell between them as the room around them started to crumble and they were left in the white void. They held each other's hands, Trey giving a look of deep sorrow and Ava giving a smile of relief.
"Will we see each other again?" He questioned.
"I don't think that would be for the best. But… maybe when we're different people. Maybe we can truly fall in love with each other."
"I'm sorry. Ava, I'm so sorry." Trey apologized for the first time as he gave a smile.
"I don't even love you. Thank you for letting me be yours." Trey finally let go of her hands.
Everything was right.
That morning a little girl had wandered out onto the street… she met a starving boy. They would surely die together.