Chapter 8 — Descent
And thus begins Chapter Eight.
Now, children.
We walked.
And walked.
And
walked.
The council glances toward Hat Guy and Ribbon Girl.
They were fine.
Of course they were.
Functional lungs.
Useful legs.
Normal cardiovascular systems.
Me and Axe?
Children.
We were suffering.
Again.
Apparently our Karkala staircase humiliation had not been an isolated incident.
We simply possessed matching respiratory limitations.
The council nods.
Romantic compatibility:
concerningly complete.
Hat Guy and Ribbon Girl would move ahead.
Then stop.
Wait.
Look back.
There we were.
Axe bent slightly,
hands perhaps on knees.
Me attempting to breathe without making the sound of a dying accordion.
The council listens.
Then we caught up.
Walked another stretch.
They moved ahead again.
And
repeat.
Were they annoyed?
Maybe.
Sympathetic?
Possibly.
Entertained?
Almost certainly.
Children.
I don’t know.
I was too busy attempting not to die.
Eventually,
after enough walking,
enough stopping,
enough internal negotiations with my lungs
building.
The council looks up.
Not obviously remarkable.
At least not from outside.
Except
music.
You could hear it.
Bass.
Rhythm.
Life inside.
The council nods.
Party.
Finally.
Hat Guy walked in.
Ribbon Girl followed.
Axe and I followed them.
And yes
party.
People.
Drinks.
Music.
Pub lighting.
Bodies moving.
The sort of nightlife I already understood.
Children.
Normal.
This was familiar territory.
I relaxed slightly.
Ah.
Pub party.
I know this.
Bars.
Music.
Alcohol.
People shouting directly into your ear because apparently loud environments require everyone to forget language has volume settings.
The council nods.
Fine.
Good.
But Hat Guy did not stop.
The council pauses.
He kept walking.
Straight through.
Past the bar.
Past the people.
Past the obvious party.
Deeper into the building.
Ribbon Girl followed without hesitation.
And naturally
Axe and I followed.
The council becomes suspicious.
Because by now,
Hat Guy had established himself as:
Not cop.
Smokes weed.
Has mysterious pills.
Knows party.
This was enough accreditation for University Nuo.
Children.
Standards were flexible.
We moved farther in.
The music from the pub dulled.
Then
stairs.
Down.
The council groans.
Stairs?
Children.
Not again.
Fortunately,
descending.
Our natural habitat.
We went down.
And somewhere below
the party above began disappearing.
One step.
Another.
Walls.
Concrete.
Less light.
Less sound.
Then
floor.
The council looks around.
And there it was.
A door.
Not on the wall.
On the ground.
A metal door.
The council goes completely silent.
Children.
You know those doors in horror films?
The ones no sensible human opens?
The ones where the audience is already shouting:
DO NOT GO DOWN THERE.
That.
Metal.
Heavy looking.
Embedded into the floor.
And suddenly
silence.
The pub above?
Gone.
Music?
Gone.
People?
Gone.
We had descended deep enough that the entire building seemed to have stopped existing.
The council whispers.
No.
This is weird.
Exactly.
This was the first moment where even my chemically flexible judgment produced:
Hmm.
Maybe not.
Axe’s hand found mine.
Or mine found hers.
Doesn’t matter.
We held on.
Children.
Not romantic hand holding.
Anticipatory hand holding.
The:
If this becomes a murder basement,
we die together.
The council nods solemnly.
Hat Guy crouched beside the metal door.
And knocked.
The council leans forward.
Not
knock knock knock.
No.
A pattern.
Rhythm.
A coded knock.
The council becomes alarmed.
Children.
Coded knocks are never attached to ordinary rooms.
Nobody uses a secret rhythm to enter a respectable bakery.
The knock went:
some sequence history has mercifully forgotten.
Pause.
Silence.
Then
movement beneath us.
The metal door opened.
The council collectively recoils.
And out emerged
a bearded man.
Dreadlocks.
Face appearing from the ground.
Children.
At this point,
I was reasonably certain we had entered a side quest no university syllabus could explain.
He looked at Hat Guy.
Looked at Ribbon Girl.
Then at us.
The two obvious additions.
Hat Guy said:
“They’re with me.”
The council pauses.
That’s enough?
Apparently.
Dreadlock Gatekeeper accepted.
We entered.
Children.
Into the floor.
The door shut above us.
And there
more stairs.
The council stares into the darkness.
How deep did this place go?
I don’t know.
Objectively?
Maybe two steps.
Maybe three.
Maybe a short little descent into a lower room.
But altered consciousness does not believe in architectural measurements.
Children.
To me,
we were descending into Lucifer’s domain.
Every step seemed deeper.
The air different.
The silence heavier.
Axe still holding my hand.
Hat Guy ahead.
Ribbon Girl beside him.
And nothing behind us but the metal hatch back to civilization.
The council grows quiet.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Probably three feet.
Emotionally?
The Earth’s core.
Then
another door.
The council freezes.
Of course.
Because apparently one secret door was merely reception.
Hat Guy approached.
The door opened.
And children
holy hell.
Sound.
Not music.
Sound.
Pressure.
The council jolts.
The volume hit first.
Before I understood the room.
Before the lights.
Before the people.
Bass slammed into the body.
The kind you do not hear with ears.
You feel it in the ribs.
Chest.
Teeth.
Bones.
The air itself seemed dense.
The council watches.
And for a second,
standing in that doorway
it felt like a wind tunnel.
As though the room were physically trying to push us back out.
Children.
Maybe no actual wind existed.
Maybe the speakers were simply that powerful.
Maybe whatever pill Hat Guy had given us had begun editing physics.
I cannot separate those things now.
The feeling survives.
Pressure.
Immense.
Then
light.
The council looks past me.
Neon.
Everywhere.
Walls.
Furniture.
People.
Colours glowing where colours should not glow.
Lines of light.
Shapes.
Clothing.
Faces catching strange hues.
Children.
Even the humans seemed neon.
The entire room looked like somebody had taken reality,
removed its sensible colour palette,
and replaced it with:
Yes.
More.
The council grows quiet.
I stepped inside.
Axe beside me.
And suddenly the bass surrounded us completely.
No more doorway.
No more silence.
No more little metal hatch.
We were inside.
Children.
I had partied before.
A lot.
Bars.
Pubs.
College nights.
Alcohol.
Crowds.
Music.
But this?
Different species.
This wasn’t people drinking while songs played.
This was an environment.
Everything participated.
Sound.
Light.
Movement.
People.
The room itself.
The council nods slowly.
And I loved it.
Immediately.
No adjustment period.
No:
This is a bit much.
No:
Maybe we should leave.
Children.
I looked around and something in my brain went
Oh.
Ohhhhh.
The council smiles.
Recognition.
Not of a place I’d seen before.
Of a feeling.
Like discovering a room designed by people who had somehow received the same defective instruction manual as me.
Loud?
Good.
Weird?
Better.
Neon?
Excellent.
Secret basement beneath another party accessed by rhythmic knock?
Children.
Perfect.
The council laughs.
I turned toward Axe.
And she turned toward me.
The look.
Children.
You know the look.
No words needed.
Eyes wide.
Smile forming.
Both of us processing the same revelation.
We are home.
The council grows quiet.
Not literally.
We had an absurd resort room upstairs with a cloud bed and Jacuzzi.
That was technically home base.
But this?
This felt like discovering a tribe.
Axe saw it too.
I knew instantly.
Because that same expression sat on her face.
The one that says:
Where has this been?
The council nods.
Years later,
I would know places like this better.
Raves.
Psychedelic parties.
Hidden rooms.
Music loud enough to physically rearrange your organs.
I would understand the culture more.
Know how these nights move.
Know that sometimes the party you see from the street is not the actual party.
But this was before that.
Children.
This was discovery.
The first door.
The first descent.
The first moment the ordinary party peeled open and showed me something underneath.
And perhaps that is why it burned itself into memory.
The route itself felt mythic.
Normal building.
Normal pub.
Walk through.
Stairs.
Silence.
Metal door.
Code.
Dreadlock guardian.
More stairs.
Second door.
Then
boom.
Another world.
The council nods.
It felt earned.
Like we’d passed through layers of reality.
Even if objectively we had walked downstairs into a hidden party.
Altered consciousness does not care about objective geography.
It builds mythology in real time.
Children.
And standing there,
Axe’s hand still in mine,
the room exploding in colour ahead
I did not think:
This is the beginning of my appreciation for raves.
No.
Story Nuo did not have future vocabulary.
I thought something much simpler.
Fuck yes.
The council erupts.
Historical accuracy.
Hat Guy looked back at us.
Probably amused.
Perhaps he’d brought people here before.
Maybe he knew exactly what that first doorway did to newcomers.
Ribbon Girl already moving farther inside.
And Axe?
Axe squeezed my hand.
I squeezed back.
Then
forward.
The council watches.
Into the room.
Into the neon.
Into the bass.
Into whatever that pill was slowly turning the night into.
Children.
The anniversary shit show had not yet become a shit show.
At this precise moment?
It was glorious.
Absolutely glorious.
We had started the day in Carlos,
stopping for dogs.
Then luxury.
Jacuzzi.
Buffet.
Temporary friends.
Campfires.
A mystery envelope.
And now
a hidden neon world beneath an ordinary pub.
The council smiles.
Malpe had layers.
And we had accidentally found one.
Perhaps that is one of the reasons I still love wandering without checklists.
The advertised thing is often merely the top floor.
Sometimes somebody you met ten minutes ago walks straight past it
and shows you a metal door in the ground.
The council listens.
But again
Present Nuo thought.
Not University Nuo.
University Nuo had exactly one active conclusion.
Party.
Good.
Axe.
Here.
Better.
The council nods.
Simple man.
I looked at her again.
She looked back.
Same grin.
Same awe.
Same complete willingness to go farther in.
Children.
We were home.
And the night
was only beginning.
Thus concludes Chapter Eight.
The Lung Based Delay.
The Ordinary Party.
The Descent.
The Metal Door.
The Coded Knock.
The Dreadlock Gatekeeper.
The Door Beneath The Door.
And The Discovery Of Home.
Children.
We thought Hat Guy was taking us to a party.
He was.
He just neglected to mention
the party was hidden beneath another party,
behind a horror movie hatch,
guarded by a bearded man with dreadlocks,
and loud enough to alter atmospheric pressure.
The council nods.
Naturally,
we loved it.
