I peer down into the glossy, almost glassy texture of the ground that lay beneath my feet. It seems that just beyond the surface, where grass and dirt should be, there is only a cryptic scene of carnage. Old steam ships, warships, other rusted naval vessels I don't recognize...they are all stacked end on end, vertically, building a ghastly rusted tower that ascends from some hellish world to where I now stand. A thin, smokey illusion of grass veils the weird window into this strange pit. A kind of simulation of grass atop the strange surface.
I seem to hover above the grass, as if a glass plate had been placed over it, I stomp my feet to be assured of this. The grass still seems to move a bit, but the stalks sway as if they were underwater.
I stare again at the tower. It goes from my vantage point down into what I can only say is an abyss, a dimly lit, cloudy abyss. Faint red and yellow lights dance around in black smoke. This tower, or almost a ladder of some sort as I've come to see it, wasn't just made from the derelict naval ships, I realized, but also ships I would consider futuristic. And the odd pieces of wood here and there suggested ancient ships. Still, metal is the predominant material used here, and ships seemed to be the main theme. Chains, so many rusty chains, hold the thing together, like some kind of giant prisoner. The metal is extremely rusted, and I've been noticing it's often shredded into shards and is clunkily fused and rammed together with its other parts. The streaks of blood-red rust are pasted all about this strange structure, and occasionally I swear I see objects of strange fashion on the more futuristic looking ships.
I'm finding that my sense of time is going...away. Even my ability to grasp tense, to figure out if I'm here, now, or then. For now, I suppose I'll just have to consider myself here. I briefly look around, away from the plane of the ground and out to my surroundings here, and they seem to be getting blurred. I thought I was in a backyard, but now I'm not even sure what a backyard is. I decided to shift my gaze downward again.
I keep getting reminded of a trainwreck, each of these ships are like separate little cars that got rammed together. But then some sick sadist giant wrapped tormenting chains around them, bounding them forever into this hellish ladder, that goes to...hell? I'm not sure what hell is. I'm not sure what I am. But I do feel more like meat now. Like a steak sitting on a glass plate. Like a bobbing dead seal on the ocean surface. Rabid sharks below.
In the stirring cloudy smoke, liquid shadows begin to stir. Drumbeats begin to sound. I'm not sure if this is happening, going to happen, or already happened. I'm just in a grass field now, I notice. The sky is white, erased. My horizontal field of vision only leads to whiteness. Grass fades out into a gradient, then dissolves, goes white.
The drums get louder. I smell gasoline, but it's sweeter, and mixed with a musky cardboard scent. I also smell pork, papaya, and dead bird. I study the ladder closer, admire the intricate port holes, windows, view-screens, old sails. A hellish, smashed together monstrosity. But it serves a purpose, I could feel. Or I can feel. I'm not sure. I stop and enjoy the gas smell, I also smell fresh cut grass. The grass sways as if stirred by a great wind, and I smell an overwhelming scent of dead fish. Or maybe I smelled it. I suddenly feel like the ocean, smell salt and sea weed...kelp. More like ocean water that has pooled and gone rank. A faint pipping noise flutes across the air.
Something climbs the ladder.
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