CHOOSE YOUR OWN MINDFUCK: A Night in Eighth Block Tower (B2)
Bedlam Bible fans! Explore the Eighth Block Tower! Choose your fate! New posts every Tuesday and Friday. September '23 through December '23. Don't succumb to the huummmmmmmmm...
You’ve decided to go with Gale…
You follow Gale into the front entrance of the Eighth Block Tower and instantly you’re greeted by a wall of dense air that smells like two parts motor oil and one part black mold. The air is so thick you feel you have to breathe deeply in order to get the right amount of oxygen to your brain. This has you feeling lightheaded pretty quickly.
There’s a lot of miscellaneous debris spread across the floor in the foyer and you find yourself staring at the floor as you walk through the building, making sure you don’t step on any of the shards of broken glass, of which there’s plenty of.
The foyer is essentially just a small room with a broken chandelier and a flickering wall lantern, not at all inviting. There’s an elevator in this room, but someone has carved the word ‘busted’ into the steel door, so you don’t have much faith in its ability to perform its duties. You push the call button on the off chance that someone has serviced the elevator since the carving, but nothing at all happens. The button doesn’t even light up. There’s a sign fastened to the wall that simply says ‘STAIRS’ along with two red arrows pointing in both the left and right directions.
“I don’t think that elevator’s ever worked,” Gale says. “One time, I pried the door open just to see what it looked like on the inside, and it was just a hole. It runs straight through the building, like any other elevator shaft, except this one goes farther than that—deep into the earth, like a pit to Hell. Even in the basement, you can open the elevator door, look down, and see nothing but dark. Maybe someday I’ll get the courage to explore down there, but that day is not today.”
A cold shiver runs through you as you look back at the elevator, seeing it now with new eyes. For some unexplained reason, you feel connected to it now. Something deep down tells you you’re meant for whatever resides inside that negative space, but you shake it off, hoping it’s just a bout of anxiety conjured up by being inside the dreaded Eighth Block Tower.
Gale begins to walk down the hallway, towards the staircase. You’re sure to follow close behind, to protect her—or at least that’s what you tell yourself. Not because you’re scared—no, that can’t be the reason…
You notice a crumbling poster that’s barely clinging to the wall. The cartoon image of a purple television with a giant red ‘X’ plastered over it is featured prominently on the face of the poster, along with a phone number and the words, “SAY NO TO BRAIN POLLUTION.”
“What the hell is this?” you ask. Gale spins around and when she sees the poster, her eyes immediately light up.
“Oh, man… so I have this friend—,” she starts, but then pauses and laughs. “The friend we’re on our way to see, actually. Anyway, he was curious and called the number on the poster and it turns out that the guy who put these up, well, he’s like some spiritual guru… or something. He’s come up with some new age way to fight against the tower, to keep it from getting inside your head. He performs all these bizarre rituals, and supposedly they actually work. My friend swears by it. Says it’s changed his life. He’s been trying to get me to join their group, but I don’t know… it feels a little cult-y to me. Kinda gives me the creeps. But still, I’m intrigued enough that I have the number stored in my phone, just in case I ever get desperate enough to call, I guess.”
“You believe in that stuff?” you ask, then silently contemplate your own answer to the question. Do you believe in that stuff? You’ve never given it much thought before. Seems like a gimmick. You’ve known people who’ve fallen for stuff like this. It almost always goes back to money… some kind of pyramid scheme where the guru is the only one truly benefiting. But then you think there must be true healers out there, individuals who have nothing but the best of intentions. Not everyone is a crook. You’re sure there are certain people with gifts, people who have easier access to the spiritual realm than most others, because you’ve seen it before.
Back in prison, your cellmate claimed to be a spiritual medium, and he even proved it by giving you a free palm reading. He didn’t really say too much, but everything he did say was completely accurate. Now that you’re thinking about it, you’re reminded that he mentioned only one thing about your future. He said there was a break in the life line of your palm—or something like that—and it signified a great change in your life. He said that had he been reading tarot cards instead of your palm, then the card that would’ve been drawn would’ve been the tower card. He said it means the same thing—a shift, a place in your life when you go from being you to another version of you. Perhaps he literally meant the tower, as in Eighth Block Tower. This could be it. Your big change. You open your palm and look at the break in your life line as if it’s one of those maps at a rest area, the break being the large red dot shouting “YOU ARE HERE” in bold black letters.
“It doesn't matter what I believe, or what you believe,” she answers. “Whatever’s real will still be real, whether we believe in it or not.”
She turns around and walks toward the stairs once again.
“You know, now that we’re talking about it,” she says, still walking forward. “I think I might give him a call. A lot has happened in the last few weeks. I could really use some guidance. Maybe it’s what I need to finally get my life back on track, you know?”
You nod, thinking perhaps you could also benefit from a little change in spirit, but you say nothing to her about it.
The two of you walk up the stairwell, several floors up, and once you’re on the right floor, Gale opens the door to the entrance and waves you in. “Age before beauty,” she says, then giggles.
The entrance leads to another communal hallway, almost exactly like the hallway on the first floor—malfunctioning lighting, ragged carpeting, and shit scattered everywhere, as if the place hadn’t been given a thorough cleaning since the day it was built.
Your stomach sinks. You’re not sure why. You have a feeling deep inside that something terribly wrong is happening inside this building, especially here on this floor, and now you’re right in the middle of it. You’re sure you’re only seconds away from being exposed to the brunt of all its madness. You nearly throw up, but somehow keep it down.
Finally, the two of you are standing outside the front door of Gale’s friend’s apartment. She leans in and stands awkwardly, staring off into space. You’re not sure what the hell she’s doing, but the hallway is really giving you the creeps and you don’t want to be standing inside it any longer than you have to, so you raise your fist to knock on the door. Immediately, her eyes flare and she grabs your hand to pull it away. You wait for her to explain, but she only extends her index finger and holds it up to her lips, as if to say keep quiet.
She opens the door slowly, sure not to make any noise as she steps inside the apartment. You follow suit, mirroring her every move, happy to finally be leaving that spookish dark hallway.
It’s dark inside the apartment too, but there’s a totally different energy inside this space, you notice right away. Normally you’re not sensitive to things like that, but you assume the tower is already working its way inside you. Things are changing. You feel it moving through you in waves. Being inside this calmer setting feels as if you just stepped inside a force field of positive energy, and you welcome it.
There’s music coming from the living room, and it sounds calm and soothing. You follow Gale through a small crowd of young adults, all gathered around the source of the music, until you find a space where you both can see the action clearly.
There’s a rather large man sitting in a wheelchair in the center of the room, wearing a silk, red button-down shirt and playing a bright blue electric guitar. Every note cuts through the air, as if he’s carving a sculpture right in front of you. He holds his head back when he plays, facing the ceiling, just riding the vibrations. The music he’s playing is some of the most powerful and enchanting blues music you’ve ever heard, but that may be just due to the fact that you’ve never heard the blues performed in a live setting before. It’s intoxicating.
You look around the room. There’s empty food containers on the countertops in the kitchen area and hardly any furniture in the living room. You assume it’s because he performs like this so often that he considers his apartment to be more of a creative space than a living space. There are about fifteen or so others in the audience, all stoner kids, with long greasy hair and baggy clothing. At least half of them are smoking a substance that smells nothing like tobacco or weed. It has a more mechanical smell to it—like burnt motor oil or hot machinery. Their eyes roll back inside their heads when they take a hit from it, causing them to look somewhat possessed by demons. It makes it easy to differentiate between the high and the sober ones.
As you turn your attention back to the performance, you notice an open guitar case at the performer’s feet. Every now and then, people from the audience lean in to throw dollar bills into it. You remove the wallet from your back pocket and consider giving the man a couple of bucks, but honestly you have so little you can’t spare it.
Without the shoebox full of loot, you have next to nothing to start your new life. It has you rethinking your decision from earlier.
— To leave and go after the cash, click here.
— To stick around, click here.