[Short Story] Pain Spiral, Part 1

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“Emotion is power. Real, honest to goodness energy. I know how ridiculous it sounds, that’s why it’s so difficult to convince anybody who doesn’t already know. Despite the fact that everybody experiences the immediate reality of it any time they’re intensely happy, angry, sad or whatever else. It’s something you can directly feel is true.

Of course you cannot see it. Neither can you see wind, sound or magnetism. But it’s easy enough to observe their effects. The effects of strong emotion, channeled into writing, painting, sculpting or music are impossible to miss. Nothing of real quality has ever been made except by the infusion of potent emotions during formation.

It’s why there are no skilled artists who never suffered. No interesting people at all who haven’t suffered, really. Suffering is the fire which smelts iron from ore, the hammer which shapes that iron into a blade. It’s the eons of heat and pressure which turn a lump of coal into a diamond. The more of it the better, provided it never exceeds what you can survive.”

I turned over the crumpled sheet looking for more. The back was blank, though. Why leave this? Nothing in the way of directions. No signature either. I smoothed it out, folded it up and tucked it into my pocket anyway. It was the first sign I’d come across that anyone else might’ve been here recently.

I found the coordinates for this place on an urban exploration forum. Took months of participation before anybody would share the primo sites with me. Web communities tend to be like that. If you’re brand new, you’re dogshit. Too many pop in expecting a list of the best urbex sites to simply be handed to them.

Cynical assumptions that they’re some stupid kid looking to tag the place with spray paint prevents it. That’s the practical reason. There’s also a sense of entitlement among the veterans. A feeling that because they jumped through the hoops to prove themselves, anyone else looking to break into the urbex scene should have to do the same.

My light began to flicker. I’d wondered for the past hour if it was really growing dimmer or if I was just imagining it. I’m loathe to swap out the batteries until it’s completely empty, but the meager light coming out is essentially useless. I pop in a fresh pair and leave the empties laying on the asphalt next to the ramp which leads to the floor below.

Big no-no. Pack out everything you pack in, leave it how you found it. But by now, that was the furthest concern from my mind. According to my phone I’d been down here for eleven hours. A thin retractable USB cable continually kept my phone topped up from a battery pack in my jacket, which I originally bought to support my DSLR back when I got into photography.

The floor below is just more of the same. Concrete walls, pillars and ceiling, with a floor consisting of jagged black asphalt. Like any parking structure I’ve ever been in, except that there are no cars. I’ve also not seen any signs with text on them, no utility closets or emergency exits. As if it’s not designed for people, either. After locating the next ramp, I descended another level. There, stuck to a pillar, I found the next page.

“Freud called it psychic energy. That which motivates our actions, which underlies every desire. Being Freud, he of course concluded that it originates from the libido. Something Wilhelm Reich agreed with, though he called the force “Orgone”. Franz Mesmer, for whom Mesmerism is named, labeled it “animal magnetism”.

Our world is a teeming ocean of this energy. Modest exchanges of it taking place between billions of people every day, small scale eddies and currents which occasionally align to form a powerful, concentrated surge. During wars for instance, natural disasters, terrorist attacks and so on.

Even then, once the differential is equalized, a state of peaceful stability follows. At least until another buildup occurs. All of it taking place invisibly, but it’s as real as anything else. To ignore the role of emotion in shaping the world we live in is like striving to understand weather while discounting the sun.”

I came expecting bitter cold, and wasn’t disappointed. I’d dressed for it but still was never properly comfortable. Even though I rarely stopped moving, the cold always penetrated the layers just enough to needle my skin. To keep me on the verge of misery, however resolutely I resisted it.

It wouldn’t be so bad except that my shoes are coming apart. I use a ratty old pair when I do this, as these places tend to be filthy. So on top of the fatigue and shivering, my feet are wholly numb. Wet too, though I don’t recall encountering any water. I reached the next ramp and shone my light down it. I don’t know what I expected. Every floor is the same.

A few floors later, I found the next note. Confusing, but heartening. It must mean there’s a way out. Whoever left these must’ve meant for them to be followed, like bread crumbs. I felt water on my face and wiped it, only to discover it was my own tears. Am I really so weak? I’ve always enjoyed this before, even the times when I got lost. I’ve just never been lost for so long. I smoothed out the page, shone my light on it, and read.

“While it tends towards balance, there are special circumstances under which a feedback loop occurs. Recursion, but with increase. If you’ve ever placed a microphone too close to the loudspeakers it’s connected to, you already have an intuitive understanding of how this works. Louder and louder, accelerating to infinity except that the available energy is finite.

The natural equivalent is the black hole. A gravitational singularity which only continues to accumulate mass, warping spacetime to a degree which approaches infinity as you travel into its core. The laws of physics, elsewhere conducive to life, behave more and more strangely as you approach. Unfathomable sights, sounds and experiences for anyone unlucky enough to be pulled in.

What would a singularity of suffering look like? Would you recognize it quickly enough to save yourself? A swirling vortex of emotional energy, formed by such intense pain and despair that it compounded on itself to infinity. Normally such energy dissipates into your loved ones when you die. A part of your soul lives on in them, literally.”

More gobbledygook. The longer I trudged onward, the more seriously I began entertaining the idea that I would never see sunlight again. Hardly unprecedented. I recall a post on the forum, one linked to from a much more popular site. The story which made me interested in exploring forsaken places to begin with.

In 2005, a group of teenagers threw a New Years party in the Odessa catacombs in Ukraine. Originally sandstone mines dating back to the early 19th century, they’d been used by various groups since then as a hideout for thieves, as a bomb shelter, and at one point a base of operations for rebels during Nazi occupation.

The tunnels span over 1,500 miles. All too easy to become lost in, with no hope of escape if you haven’t brought some reliable means of navigation. The sort of precaution that doesn’t occur to a bunch of drunken teens. The girl became separated from the group, wandering on her own for three days. Estimated, as that’s how long it takes to die of thirst.

Her friends notified the authorities but it took them two years before they were willing to mount a search. No official explanation was given as to why they waited for so long. Really, it was over the moment her phone ran out of juice. As she’d brought no other light source, any hope of finding her way out died the moment her phone’s battery did.

The story stuck with me ever since I first read it, my sleep frequently troubled by recurring dreams of wandering in the cold darkness. Eventually collapsing, dragging my weakened body across rough, frigid stone. She must’ve cried so much. Even knowing it would only accelerate dehydration. Must’ve held out hope, for the first day at least, that somebody would come.

But nobody did. Perhaps she thought once or twice that she heard someone approaching. A rescue crew? Her friends? Only the distorted echoes of her own sobs. With no sense of direction or time she may as well have gone in circles, over and over, before collapsing.

What did she think about in her final hours? The friends who didn’t come? Her family? The future she might’ve had. A husband she’d never meet. Children she would never raise. Or maybe she held out hope until the very end that help was still on the way. Until she passed out for the last time, breathing slowing down over the next few hours before…

All they found was a crumpled heap. Pitiful mound of soft decomposed matter filling out the ragged remains of her clothing, a massive colony of mold covering it all. Spreading out from her final resting place, an immense white and brown stain outlining everything she’d once been.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 2!}