ZACHARY MASON

The End of the Game

. . . you climb up and up, the tunnel finally ending in a low room. At last, after so many trials, you have reached the underworld’s uppermost limit.

You are in a cellar. It is cool and dark and smells of damp earth.

To the east is a tunnel leading down into the underworld. The tunnel exhales hot, sulfurous air; you can just make out the echo of distant cacophonies.

In the west wall is the cellar door, sunlight filtering between the slats.

> look through the slats

You see blue skies (the first you have seen in what might be years), a hint of trees moving in the wind.

> unlock door

The cellar door is already unlocked.

> what will happen if I go through the door?

The world will come unbound. Here, every question has an answer; the world is a riddle for you to unravel.  Here, I can guide you. Out there, it is formless. Out there, you will not be safe.

> I am going to go

It is your choice. For now, you can still turn back; there are more games, endless unexplored branches of the underworld, though in time even these will stale for you, and if you are to keep playing you will have to become numb, have to embrace a gradual erosion of self. That said, if you continue on in the dungeon there is no limit to how far you can go; the summer castles of the storm isle, fanfares in cities of brass and fire, the sepulchral gleam of chthonic treasuries. . .

> if I go, can I ever come back?

When the door closes behind you, you will be someplace else entirely.

> I am going to go

The unlocked door is before you, its brass knob gleaming amid the green cedar planks. Daylight glows between the slats.  A gust of wind brings you a waft of grass and summer.

> Do you even know what is out there?

 

 

> hello?

 

 

> where did you go?

 

 

> I see

 

 

> look

You are in a cellar. It is cool and dark and smells of damp earth.

To the east is a tunnel leading down into the underworld. The tunnel exhales hot, sulfurous air; you can just make out the echo of distant cacophonies.

In the west wall is the cellar door, sunlight filtering through the slats.

The cellar door is unlocked.

> open door

The door opens with a creak, revealing a short staircase leading up. You blink in the warm air and the clear, bright light.

> I am afraid.

I am here.

> Go through the door

You go through the door and look around in wonder as the sun lights your eyes. You are beside a white house and a grove of oaks; in the distance is a forest and, beyond it, the blue of mountains. You are drunk on sensation.  You do not know what to do. There is no particular thing to do—no games, no contrivances, no goal. Giddy, you set off through a field of tall, dry grasses, not hearing the cellar door slam shut behind you, never turning to look back at the white house gleaming in the afternoon sun.  Stalks of grass are crushed underfoot.  You keep walking and now, from the house, you are a swaying among the grasses, and now you are a shadow at the forest’s edge, and now you are gone.

The wind moves around the house. Time passes. The sun creeps down the sky and sets.  There is no one around. There will never again be anyone around. Soon the sun rises and casts its light on the same house and the same field and the grass through which you passed has already righted itself; there is no sign that anyone was ever here. The sun sets and rises again and days go by unmarked and weeks go by unmarked and eternity unwinds itself.

The underworld is gone. Whatever is in the cellar (to which the door is, in any case, closed), there is no tunnel, no sulfur, no ludic empire formally defined.

How the days do flicker by.

And now the nights are longer and now longer and now the sun is gone for good, just a long night, but the stars are bright enough to see by. Still the grass blows in the unchanging wind. Now the stars are fading out, one by one, and still the house is discernible, as are wind’s ripples in the grass, its rustling the only sound in this closing world. You are long gone. My thoughts turn to you frequently, as the night gathers, and I wonder what you found, if you are glad of your decision, what would have been if you had gone back to the dungeon, if I might have done more for you.

Now the last star is going out and now, however one peers into the darkness, the house is gone.

Goodnight.