Please hold the line

The machine stopped and turned off the instant I screamed my greetings. I could have never imagined something like this. It was kind of out of the range of what my imagination could have created.

While I was still admiring the thing and hoping to have finally found a person in this place, somebody threw a rope ladder down to me.

Strangely nobody seemed to have appeared at the top end of the ladder but this detail escaped my attention for just a moment.

I climbed the ladder with quite some difficulty. Under normal circumstances I would have avoided using it at all, but this situation was beyond normal and the alternative was staying alone in this field.

The moment I reached the top of the ladder I climbed on, what I would call a deck, laid there for a moment like a fish taken out of the water and then stood up, brushing the dust off my clothes.

Only then I realized that whatever this was, the people here didn’t seem to help me out of pure kindness. Either this or greeting guests with drawn weapons was normal in this place.

“Hello…”, I said yet again, trying to strike a conversation.

The one who seemed to be the leader of the group apparently already grew tired of me. He turned around and said something to his thugs  before heading inside the machine.

I will skip what happened next, but I can tell it wasn’t pleasant. The pain of metal piercing through me is something I would never get used to.

The next thing I knew is that I was surrounded by darkness. For a moment I thought the pirates or whatever they were had taken me inside the ship, but then I realized that this was probably not it.

It is said that if you die in a dream, you wake up, because your brain doesn’t know what comes next. If this is true, I managed to die two times in one day.

Before I could continue to ponder about these thoughts, a deep female voice spoke through the nothingness.

“Mhh… no…. That didn’t seem to be the right one.”

“I…is anybody here?”, I asked into the void.

“We will be at your service as soon as the next employee is ready to talk to you. Please hold the line.”, said another more friendly voice.

There was nothing above or below me, I couldn’t move from my current Position anyways, so I just continued to wait. Not like I had a choice in this matter though.

As if to add to this strange atmosphere there started to play the most average hold music I could ever witness in my life until this point.

“We are sorry for letting you wait and hope for your understanding.”, said a monotonous voice from seemingly everywhere and nowhere at all.

I tried to navigate myself through the dark nothingness by rowing with my arms, but I didn’t move at all. Leaning backwards also seemed to be futile. This was an entirely new experience for me and I definitely did not enjoy it for even the smallest second.

The time reminded me of the time I had to spend basically any time I called at any company, waiting for somebody to take the call.

Whoever invented hold music, likely got a place in hell. The music started to work on my mind and seemed to cover it into a mist, dampening my ability to think rationally. First, I started humming along with the music’s rapid, frenetic rhythm and before I knew what happened I was dancing along in a way somebody who can’t move in his place would.

“We are currently doing our best to give you the best service we can offer. Please hold the line.”

My moves gradually became more open and ecstatic.

“Dance like nobody watches!”, a deep voice in my head growled.

“You seem to enjoy yourself.”, a new voice said in a cheekish way. The music stopped and with the dying of the last sounds the mist on my mind seemed to lift instantly.

“What?”, I asked in a moment of disorientation.

“Anyways. Fun is over. At least for you.”

“That would assume that the fun had started yet.”, I responded, unsure what to do.

“Oh! How unexpectedly sharp of you, smartass.”

The response send shivers down my spine. There was something glacially cold about the tone the voice had taken.

“So… what do we have here?.... ah yes…. I see…. Oh!.... one of this kind…. Hooray….”

The voice seemed to be kind of distracted. Apparently, whoever I was talking to just seemed to gather information.

I felt that it wouldn’t be a smart idea to upset somebody who I couldn’t see while I couldn’t move so I just sat (?) there in silence for whatever would happen next.

“Mhh… why not. Let’s try this one.”, the voice finally said, sounding bored.

“What are you doing here?”, asked another voice.

“Too late! Three, two, one, go!!.”, the first voice quickly added before it felt like I was suddenly fired out of an invisible slingshot, without any warning.

“What have you done?”, asked the second voice in a panicked way, while I raced my way through the void at tremendous speed, approaching a light that rapidly grew faster as I flew towards it.

It grew and grew until it filled my whole sight and I had to cover my eyes from its brightness until suddenly it seemed to be gone.

Silence surrounded me, that was gradually broken by the sound of crickets or cicadas that seemed to have paused out of shock over my arrival.

I took my hands off my eyes and saw that I stood on a road in the middle of a forest. It was night already and the road seemed to pass an old mansion in the distance. The windows of the mansion were showing signs of electric light burning inside of the house.

My hand touched my Shirt. Then I looked down. No wounds, no dirt, nothing.

So it was a dream? But what was this whole void-episode about?

Before I could continue to ponder about these questions a lightning struck through the night, followed by the deep growl of an approaching thunder. The sky seemed to be hung with clouds and the air turned humid in a way like it only does before a heavy thunderstorm during summertime.

All of this didn’t leave me much of a choice but to try to reach the mansion and hope for the compassion of its inhabitants.