You Can Check Out Any Time You Like

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

The wristwatch keeps ticking as I walk to another normally-lit hallway with rows and rows of doors. I open the first door I see, and once again the room is empty. It's rare for one of these rooms to be filled. Usually it's filled with air, usually it's filled with nothing. Most of the time, it's filled with air and nothing, with a normal smell of normal smothering the air around me. I swab the normal carpet floor with my finger, and once again, the normal amount of dust accumulates on my finger.

Exploring this purgatory has been nothing but extremely boring. To be fair, most purgatories are boring, but this one was especially boring. Even in boring purgatories, the boringness is canceled out by a Thing happening, like an unknown being approaching you at relativistically slow but sure speeds, or meeting a Librarian who has somehow lost their way. For the eternity I have spent here, everything has been normal so far.

I open a door. This door is full of stench, a distinctly non-boring thing so far. Inside was piles and piles of desiccated bodies, sitting in an orderly fashion, with various pieces of clothing surrounding their bodies, ranging from old robes to futuristic wear. I quickly close the door and walk away. This was the only door with those bodies, I think. I hope I don't see those ever again.

I open another door. It's full of bodies again, this time all compressed into one block of desiccated flesh that spans from the center to the edge. The past 10 meats I've eaten leave my stomach. I don't eat for another 10 rooms.

I look at my wristwatch — it reads 03:00. 3 hours after I shifted into this Space. I stare at the wristwatch as the second hand passing by the minute hand. I grab the needle, stab myself, and wince in pain as blood flows and crusts around the wound.

---

I play with the barrel of my revolver as I check each door along the hallway. Normally you aren't supposed to do that, but exploring the endless rooms and hallways of this Space gets boring too. The normal hum that was always present in the air keeps humming as I open a door, check inside, swab the floor, and get food or water samples if the room has them. Repeat for an infinite amount of rooms and I can't help but wish for something dangerous right around the corner but every single time I turn around the corner into another hallway filled with more goddamn endless doors with the same goddamn contents, I can't help but wonder what god is so cruel that it will construct a whole plane like this for its creations and why did this even have to—

I space back in.

I don't know what just happened, but I continue walking, a little faster than before.

I open another normal room with normal air and normal floors. Feeling dead inside, I measure the size of the room with my pinky, and notice that the room is around 20 pinkies long by 50 pinkies wide. I go to the next room, measure the size of the room, and to my utter and bewildering disappointment, discover that the room too is 20 by 50 pinkies. I move on.

The next door I opened had bodies in it, this time all naked and small. I quickly close it and run off to the next door, a water room. It has another body under the table, occupying the room from end to end with a stench of death. I didn't eat or drink anything for the next 10 rooms. Or 20 rooms. I've been wandering for so long, I've lost track of how many doors I've entered. To stop this, I smear a bit of blood on the next door I come across. I do this for every door now.

I look at my wristwatch. It is 07:00, second hand passing by the hour hand. I grab a new needle, stab myself, and stare as the blood flows freely from my finger. My fingers feel numb. The muscle inside my mouth feels foreign. I try to cut it out, but I am reminded of its name. "Tongue". I stop myself as the blade touches my "tongue" and move on.

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In this Purgatorial Space, each room consists of 20 pinkies by 50 pinkies. Each room has a normal amount of air, and every 3 rooms, you get a room with a table at the centre containing a glass of water. Sometimes there's a body underneath the table, sometimes there's not. I think. This glass of water has a slightly nutty taste, and it is enough to keep you hydrated. Every 7 rooms, you get a room with a table at the centre containing a plate of unknown desiccated meat. It is salty and boring, although I am thankful that I can still taste salt, or at least I think it's salt. There are no bodies around the meat, strangely enough.

Shifting into a Purgatorial Space always comes with risks. Sometimes it's just an endless hole that you fall into, and you have no choice but to shift right back. One time I shifted into the classic White-Void Type Space, but the floors were screaming. That's why I have earplugs on me now. Most of the time, the Space itself has a deadly peacefulness to it, where you can easily forget all your troubles with numbness and boredom. I would describe it as being blackout drunk, except without the liver damage.

The fluorescent light keeps on humming. It is louder than before, I think. My arm feels heavy. My ears are ringing. My brain is foggy.

After an eternity performing the same motions of checking rooms, swabbing floors, drinking drinks, and eating foods, I momentarily glance at my wrists. I see a spot of red. I force myself to stare at it. It is a wristwatch. My wristwatch. It is 11:00, but the background is a deep, deep, bright-blood red.

Fuck.

I calmly rush to grab the knife and bowl from my backpack, and peacefully start chopping away at the body parts that I cannot feel. While serenely and frenziedly reciting a purging spell, I hear a crack as I try to composedly cut through a bone. The bone was placed by my arm inside the bowl, while a small circle with unknown and weird symbols was drawn by my other stump under the bowl. I unhurriedly recall a short phrase. I close my eyes. I pray to whatever god that created this hell hole that my offering was enough.

My mind opens to the same hallways, but there are multiple people in it, the same bodies I've seen throughout my journey. A light shines at the end, and I walk forward, opening each door, receiving each morsel of food they offer. Every time I eat, I remember stuff, things. My name. My age. Who I work for. What I must do. At the end of the hallway, a grand banquet — table filled with delicious leaves and sweet flowers of all tastes and colours. I sit at the head of the table, calling each person around me to give me more. I die. I am one of the people offering myself food. I die again. I am one of the servants, giving myself food. I die once more. I am the hallway, feeling the thousands of lives and feet trampling under me. I die. I am one of the flowers offered, a lotus. I slide down the throat of me. I die. On and on and on it goes, until I am both one and many. I am part of everything. I am one with everyone, and everyone is one with me. It might be too late. It might be too early. Whatever I am currently feeling right now, I am certainly ascending to Elysium.

My self suddenly plunges into the deepest coldest parts of the universe. A throbbing crushing pain smothers myself as I feel a deep, deep pressure compress me. I feel pain as my whole being is described in a short word, an infinitesimally small length of time and space as I think what is supposed to be "parts" of me come out of my being. I remember what they are called. "Arms", "Legs", "Head". I try to break out of these constraints, to no avail. All these experiences, all these feelings, all compressed into this insufficient shell of a being. I feel this small shell, this weak and mortal shell, burst, bleed, break, then be born again. On and on it repeats, a neverending symphony of pain and suffering as I am forced to be alone in the universe once more, until I re-open my eyes.

I am in front of a door with the Foundation logo.

I scream. I cry. I pray to be sent back.

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