TEMNEM (Part 5) – Duality

-Story in installments-

The story is divided into two parts. Two perspectives. Ylamona’s and Mbar’s. Both will be portrayed through the consciousness of each of them.

Chapter 1

A sharp pain in my head tore me out of my memories. For a moment, I forgot I was in my animal form as I tried to rub my forehead with a hand and ease the pain a little.

There was so much that needed to be done. Take Mbar to the room with the elevator and the machine. Go down to level minus 455. Any further planning came down to: When I get there, I’ll see. The end was approaching, and I felt so powerless. Too much responsibility had been placed on me, all eyes fixed on me. But whose eyes? Who even says I have to do this or that? When and where did I agree to this? Why me? Who even am I?

Questions without answers, and this cursed place pulling me deeper into itself. Fragments of memory were beginning to fade from my mind. I needed to leave this place immediately. I was afraid I would start forgetting like the rest of the population here. Then I would become like them, a lost fool who agreed to enter hell expecting to come back out of it. It didn’t happen, and it never will. The only exit is the end of everything.

I returned to my Virteleonian form, noticing I was completely naked. My clothes hadn’t followed the transformation. It was so obvious, and yet I was angry no one had mentioned it to me. Until now, I had only changed forms a few times, but it had always been either in the shower or immediately after waking up in bed. Back then, naked, I never even thought about clothes being able to disappear.

There wasn’t much time left before the beginning of the new day. An hour at most. I grabbed Mbar beneath both armpits and started dragging him toward the room with the elevator and the machine. I had to do it before the Reset ended.

In the corridors, I ran into more glowing green floating spheres, which ignored us. They had collective memory. Or maybe they were the same ones I had chased away before. Trivial things at this moment, things I didn’t want to waste my thoughts on.

Sweat dripped down Mbar’s head, relentlessly revealing the strain of dragging his sleeping body. A few creative curses slipped through my lips as I crossed the final corridor before reaching the desired location.

After lowering Mbar beside the machine, I sat down on the cold floor to catch my breath. Wrapping my arms around my bent knees, I thought about the next steps. Pulling the lever and descending to level minus 455 was an order that had to be carried out. But just like the first time I came here, the worm of doubt crawled into my existence.

It wasn’t procrastination. Not consciously, at least.

Some crashing and banging echoed in the distance. Jumping to my feet, a thought flashed through my mind:

What if I don’t obey? Maybe I could just…

Chapter 2

The doors burst open with such force they nearly flew off their hinges.

“What are you doing? How dare you disrupt the order of things?” – said a frantic girl.

It was Mojra, the girl who welcomed newcomers. Just what I needed right now — that bitch.

“Leave the room and forget you saw us. I’m telling you, it’s better for you that way!” – I said so calmly it surprised even me.

“Who are you? You know I have to report this.”

The pressure inside me began to rise sharply. Anger and irritation at this stupid situation mixed with a sweet, wicked satisfaction at what I would inevitably have to do if this idiot kept questioning me.

“Get out! This is your last warning. Report me or don’t, I don’t care, just get lost!”

Mojra, her ego wounded, believing she had more influence and dominance over me, made a cardinal mistake. She tried to physically confront me. And that’s something I do not forgive.

Like any woman unskilled in physical fighting, she reached for my hair. In one swift movement, I dropped to the floor and trapped her legs between mine in a scissor hold. She fell, striking the edge of the machine on the way down. Dazed from the impact, she flailed her arms trying to reach me, her gaze vacant from temporary blindness.

That was the moment she no longer had any chance of leaving this alive.

I sat on her chest and, alternating left and right fists, marked her final moments with heavy blows. Blood sprayed everywhere. On me. On the machine. Even the closed elevator doors were not spared.

She was tough, I’ll give her that. I was already starting to tire by the time her attempts at defense weakened enough for me to say she was fully incapacitated. She was showing her final signs of life when I noticed a pen tucked into the outer pocket of her blood-soaked shirt.

That would do.

I grabbed it with my right hand and drove it into her throat with all my strength. Gurgling. Blood bursting out in a heavy stream. Final silence. Her body stopped thrashing.

What a fucking mess.

I looked toward Mbar just as he opened his eyes.

He had awakened.

His eyes widened as he stared at the surreal chaos before him for several moments.

And then he screamed for a long, long time.

Chapter 3

A heavy, dull thud. It was followed by smaller impacts, interspersed with a sound resembling a whimper. Painful. I opened my eyes, seeing the ceiling of some room. The absolute horror of not knowing where I was, what time it was, or what day it was. Who am I?

I managed to prop myself up on my elbows in search of answers, only to witness a fight between two women entering its final stage. But why was one of them naked?

The horror growing from the depths of my stomach, climbing into my throat like the delayed reflection of a long-dead star, accelerated sharply when I saw the naked woman take an object and plunge it into the upper body of the other woman. It was there; I felt it, ready to gush out of me.

The naked woman sat triumphantly on the floor and looked at me. And then, it erupted. I opened my mouth and began to scream.

I don’t know how long it lasted. I wouldn’t say much time had passed. I was in a kind of trance. Shock. I didn’t even see her approach me and start slapping me. After the fourth blow, I snapped out of it and found the strength and courage to look at her again.

“What is it? Have you never seen a naked woman before?” – she spoke, giving me a wide smile.

I wanted to say something, anything, but all that followed was a broken stutter. She slapped me once more.

“Wake up. We don’t have much time. You have to help me clean up this mess.”

“I don’t understand.” – I finally managed to say something meaningful.

“What exactly don’t you understand? This here?” She pointed to the dead body of the woman who now, as I looked closer, seemed familiar from somewhere.

“I told her to leave us alone, to go away. I was nice and polite, but she attacked me. She got what she asked for. End of story.” Her voice trembled with rage and disgust.

Numb with shock, paralyzed by fear, I remained silent.

“Listen, I know you have questions. Dammit, you’ve forgotten everything. I promise you, I’ll explain everything in detail—who you are, where you’re from, what you’re doing here. Just help me resolve this situation.” – she said, offering me her hand, which I obediently took.

Survival instinct told me to listen to her and do everything she said. A part of me, in the depths of my existence, was screaming with the desire to find a door and run away from here.

She approached me and, with a strong jerk of both hands, tore the clothes I was wearing in half.

“We have to clean up the blood as much as possible. There’s a high probability that no one will find this place for a while. Long enough for us to carry out the mission.” I sensed nervousness in her voice.

“Keep your underwear on for now. If we need them, we’ll use them too.” – she continued in one breath.

***

We didn’t do a great job with the cleaning, but since she kept emphasizing that time was running out, we moved on to the next phase, which involved entering an elevator. When the glowing number -455 appeared on the screen inside the elevator, the doors opened.

“You can leave her right there.” – she said, pointing to the space to the left of the elevator doors.

I carefully laid the dead girl on the floor and took a closer look at the room we had entered. A pile of boxes was scattered everywhere. The room had no windows. Small screens were mounted on every wall, filling every inch of space. Numbers appeared on the screens, occasionally changing into words I didn’t understand.

“You said you would explain everything to me.”

***

Mbar. Ylamona. Temnem. My diary. The end of everything.

The massive amount of information made my head spin.

Ylamona was studying the screens after checking every box on the floor and finding nothing.

“A message will appear on one of these screens. When the time is right. The problem is, we don’t know exactly which one. But, if my memory serves me, the light in the room will flicker before the message. Ten seconds will follow, during which all the screens will freeze. We’ll have that much time to find the right screen and read the message. We’ll split up. You watch one half, I’ll watch the other.” – she said, lowering herself into a sitting position on the floor.

“Ten seconds seems like very little time to guess the exact screen.”

“What can we do. It is what it is. We have to hope for the best.”

“The best? I don’t want to die.”

“Who says you’re going to die? The end of everything doesn’t have to mean death. Maybe it will be a Reset on a higher level. Don’t rack your brain over it. This must be done. Whether we want it or not.” – Ylamona said in a somewhat wistful voice.

A few minutes passed, which we spent in silence.

And then, a flicker of light. Ylamona nudged me with her hand and quickly stood up, searching for the message in her part of the room. I didn’t have to get up. Right in front of me, a message appeared on the screen.

Even an anomaly has its own anomaly.

A flash followed. And then, total darkness.

-End of Part 5-