Crazy Lucius On A Haunted Beach

The sky was full of haze, a pale magenta high above the grounds below, dancing across the air and taunting the pastel sun. Swirls decorated the sky, boundless clouds in a constant state of eruption that shadowed the land in a dreary flare. Metallic gray shades painted the foreign landscape, ensuring that Lucius was made aware that an unfamiliar and unrecognizable world lay ahead.

Through the cracked opening with its golden entrance, through the looking glass with its satin gloss, a petulant city awaited.

What appeared to be half torn down and decrepit buildings lined the unpaved and ravaged streets, an accumulation of grime covering every surface. The makeshift doorway led to the open hallway of the city, a long and wide path like a direct entrance into the belly of the beast.

The derelict buildings offered a cold welcoming, seeming not the slightest bit impressed by Lucius’s arrival.

Without any direction or idea of his next steps, he walked deeper into the heart of the city, the views of his surroundings becoming more apparent, the oddities that occupied the space standing out more and more.

The more he looked, the more he saw.

Chrome spirals shaped like spinal bones protruded from the ground at random, their paths completely unmapped, reaching towards the sky as if they wanted a taste of the cherry heavens. No forms of life were visible anywhere, as if the city itself had swallowed everything whole and spit back out the remains.

It’s like walking through a dream, everything towering over me like it’s waiting to tear me to shreds. It’s so unnerving. I can’t even think straight, even after just waking up, I’m exhausted.

Lucius continued to follow his yellow brick road, although he had to settle for dirt instead of gold.

Centered alone in a barren square, just ahead of his position was a fountain, a vast circle of pale stone laced with veins of crystal that caught and fractured the light. The square around it was bare, a wide expanse of cracked tiles that stretched to the horizon.

Water poured from the fountain’s rim in thin, glass like sheets, folding back into itself with impossible precision. The sound should have been ordinary, but instead it was layered, like whispers echoing down a long corridor, every droplet carrying an incohesive voice.

I’m still so thirsty, that last bit of water I drank didn’t even feel like anything. Maybe I imagined that too.

Dropping to his knees in front of the water, parched, his reflection shivered in the flowing glass of the fountain. He thrusted both hands into the water, scooping to drink, but the liquid did not yield.

Instead, it climbed.

The water clung to his skin like a snake, spiralling upward in luminous ribbons, coiling around his arms, his chest, his throat. It poured into him as much as it poured out, flowing in reverse.

Suddenly Lucius was no longer kneeling at the fountain.

He hovered above the streets of his own city, the winter air brushing past him as shadows from snow covered skyscrapers stretched the roads into muted gray. And there, within its endless, shifting panes, a memory surfaced, his memory, replayed with fragmented clarity.

This…this is from last week, when I went out for coffee with Kenzo. Over there, I can see us walking.

Fragments flickered.

Kenzo’s words carried on the breeze. “Man, I need a warm drink immediately, feels like my insides are freezing up.”

Then, in a blink, they were already inside the café, the air sweet with caramel, amber light spreading warmth across polished surfaces.

Another skip. Kenzo’s hand sliding mugs across a booth marked with sigils of the sun’s eternal cycle. His own reflection caught in the dark liquid before him.

“Last night was rough... blur, can’t even remember.”

“Your dad came by again.”

Kenzo’s groan echoing as though underwater. “Hate how he just barges in...”

Faces swam into focus, then melted back into light. Selina’s name flashing across a phone screen like a flare in the dark. Kenzo’s voice, hushed, circling guilt.

Then another skip.

His best friend leaning back, eyes intent. “What about you though, it’s been a while...”

Lucius felt his own heartbeat surge as the memory bent sharply, his past self’s fists tightening, knuckles splitting, blood dripping silently onto the table. The fountain forced him to watch, omniscient, as panic wrapped his past self in invisible chains.

“Don’t say her name.”

The words thundered louder than the falling water. His chest constricted, air catching in his throat though he no longer had a body here.

The scene shuddered, fragments scattering, Kenzo’s apologetic eyes, an attempt at a subject change.

“The doorman said you came back pretty late...”

But Lucius already knew the answer he had given. Half a truth, heavy with what he had withheld.

The memory ended where it began, his hands around a mug, gray handle against pale fingers, reflection swimming in black coffee. He watched himself take the first sip, his voice barely audible as the light dissolved around him.

“No, nothing ever does.”

The visions shut off like someone had pressed the off button, and he was back at the fountain, the water falling as though nothing had stirred it. There in the reflection was the beautiful landscape of naked amnesia, a haunted beach of his own face.

His hands were empty, yet still trembling, the memory having torn its way out of him.

“What the hell just happened!?” he screamed out loud.

Lucius stumbled back from the fountain, his pulse hammering in his ears. His legs moved before his mind could catch up.

One step, then another, until he was sprinting across the vast, empty square. The tiles echoed underfoot, each impact reverberating loud, the city wanting to remember his panic.

I have to get out of here. I can’t stay here. I can’t...

Every breath seared his lungs, the air thick with a taste he couldn’t name, sharp and metallic, like fear given form. His thoughts splintered in a dozen directions at once, the water crawling up his arms, the voice in his throat that wasn’t his, Kenzo’s face repeating itself in fragments like broken glass.

That wasn’t just my memory. There was something else, like it was poisoned and taken apart to pieces. Maybe I’m dying, this must be purgatory. Or maybe I’m already dead.

The square stretched endlessly behind him, shrinking the fountain to a pale blur of light. Yet even as it faded, Lucius felt its presence tethered to him.

He ran faster, desperate to outpace the weight of it, to outpace himself.

The streets bent strangely as he fled, turning where they shouldn’t, lengthening like corridors in a dream. His fear fed the city, and the city fed it back, walls looming, windows shuttering, the silence pressing close.

He felt like prey.

Keep moving. Just keep moving. Don’t stop. Don’t look back.

At the end of the wide street, something rose ahead, a dark shape against the sky, vast and unmissable. Lucius slowed, breath ragged, every nerve alight. His steps carried him forward, though his body begged him to turn away.

The fountain’s grip was gone, now replaced by a new presence, waiting for him up ahead