Deadlock Symphony

The inspiration for this came from a song I kept hearing in the car on the way to work. It's called "Deadlock" and describes something horrifying in a most poetic manner.

I awoke in the same room again. It’s always the same room.

At least to start. Solve the puzzle. Move through the door. Solve the puzzle. Move through the door. On and on until the end of the day. I think that’s the thing. Then I find myself back here. I’ve done every puzzle in every room I’ve visited so many times that there’s no time left in the day to try a new one these days.

I awoke in the same room. I solved the puzzle. I moved through the door. I solved the next puzzle. I moved through the next door. I don’t know why I even try anymore. I know I’m just going to get back to the same room that I got into yesterday. I’m going to stare at the blank walls, blank ceiling, blank floor. The door will be gone. It’ll just be me in there with my thoughts. I’ll inevitably sit down and fall asleep. Then I’ll wake up in the same room.

Again. Same room. I’ve spent the whole day in this room before. I’ve fallen asleep in other rooms. I always wake up here. I’ve tested all the false and alternate solutions to every puzzle along the way. I can’t remember the last time something different happened here.

I awoke in the same room. I moved from room to room until I arrived at the ultimate puzzle, for I don’t believe the last room has a puzzle. I sat at the door into the empty room for hours. I never stepped inside. But in doing so, I may as well have spent the whole time in there, for all the stimulation I got staring at an empty room. I don’t know when I finally fell asleep.

I’ve been wandering these puzzle rooms for hundreds of days. Probably thousands. It isn’t even fair to say I solve the puzzles anymore. I know the solutions. They’re as much a part of me as the path through this place is. When I first started out, I had no idea what was happening. I awoke in that first room with its first puzzle. It took me almost fifteen days to finally solve the thing. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in the next room.

I awoke in the same room. Day sixteen was when I started to realise there was more at play. I quickly recreated the solution from the day before and moved into the next room. Quickly. That’s relative. The next room took me nearly twice as long. And every day I would find myself back in the beginning. Forced to solve the same puzzle again. It quickly became automatic. I pushed into the second room. I solved the puzzle. I moved on to the third, where I was stuck for a long time again. You quickly lose track of the time.

I’ve counted the puzzles. They always come in the same order. Always. Eight hundred forty puzzles. Each solution able to be recreated in a little under a minute with perfect execution. I should know. And then the blank room. If you work through the whole of the puzzles, you are greeted with that. Some prize. I always hoped it would be something meaningful. An exit. Some answer to why I’m here. But that is what I got. Emptiness. Nothingness. I searched for hours the first time I made it in there, hoping for some clue, some small indication of what to do next. I almost didn’t even notice that the door had vanished into the wall behind me. Then I curled up in a ball and cried.

I awoke in the same room. It was furnished with a bed. Cozy, but not too much so. Enough that you could rest. Not enough that you’d stay in it. You are expected, after all, to solve puzzles. Lots of them. Eight hundred forty. And then. Nothing. A room where your whole purpose is to just sit and think I guess. It’s all I’ve ever managed to do with the thing. Weeks of careful inspection when I first found it turned up nothing. It’s just an empty room with plain ceiling, walls, and floors. Painted the most disgusting shade of ivory. Almost like they wanted me to hate even the thought of the room.

It’s not even a relaxing place to sit and think. No chairs. No decorations. No nothing. Just me. Alone. In the emptiness. It’s isolating and horrifying in a way I can’t begin to define. Yet every day I work through the puzzles. Every day I make my way to that empty space. Some days I go in, only to have the door vanish again. Some days I sit outside and ponder the space, knowing it holds nothing. Some days I walk all the way back to the same room. I curl up in the just slightly uncomfortable bed and go to sleep, knowing full well I will awake and have to repeat it all again tomorrow. It’s the only joy I get in this place now that all the options have been explored. The choice in how I spend the end of it.

I awoke in the same room. But this time I had a thought. Why should that room be empty? Why could I not just bring things from previous rooms with me? There were chairs. The slightly uncomfortable bed. Some of the puzzles could be carried about and transported from room to room. I had lots I could put into that empty space. Then I wouldn’t be alone in the empty room. I’d be alone in a well-furnished space.

So I made my way through the puzzles. Then I spent hours transporting the items from various rooms into the final empty one, careful to never set foot inside. When all was said and done, I entered the space. For once in this miserable nightmare, a space felt comforting, welcoming, almost like home. I set about thinking. Surely there was something to be done here. Surely there was a puzzle to be solved. This couldn’t be the end. That was the final thought on my mind as I drifted off to sleep.

I awoke in an empty room.