Chapter 1
He slid all the way down the dark slope and landed into a hellscape.
All around he looked, and everywhere was the same arbitrary patterns. He found himself in a sort of cave, made from pieces of painted wood, wallpaper, and various furniture. It was like a house had exploded, and every side of it scattered into new jagged walls. A jigsaw puzzle put together incorrectly, the pieces all amiss.
Lincoln pushed himself to his feet. A pain in his head hit him all at once, making him fall back down. He once more weakly stood, his body trembling. Where was he?
Upon giving a closer look, a hint of nostalgia struck Lincoln. Something about the broken wood, the colors of paint... it all meant something to him. He walked along the wall, feeling the texture of the furniture that was stuffed into the floor to form parts of the ground. None of it made complete sense. Who would so lazily construct a cave out of scraps? Scraps that one could only compare to the remains of a hurricane, now strewn about the walls and floor.
His thinking ceased; all his questions were silenced. He could only focus now on the painting that lied on the ceiling, staring down at him with two eyes. It was a painting his mother had brought home from an art class she had attended, how she loved to paint! It was a beautiful bright self-portrait, and Lincoln always remembered it for how proud she was having made it. The day she showed up holding it in both her arms, smiling as all his siblings rushed down from their rooms to see it. She painted something herself, a painting of herself, and all the family gathered around to appreciate it.
So why was it in this scrap cave? The painting was anything but scrap. After the emotions that arose in Lincoln after seeing the painting withered away slowly, he came back to reason. "Why is this painting here? Mom never made any copies of it" he thought, "so how did her painting get here?" He doubted someone moved it or stole it, after all who would cherish a painting that personal outside of his family? Did his mom leave it here? Or perhaps, none of this was real, and this was all a dream world made from the remnants of memories.
"That's it!" Lincoln thought. "This isn't real! That's why I see wood splintered everywhere, that's why my mom's painting is above me!" He felt satisfied with this belief, that all the things around him that were confusing, were simply not real. However as Lincoln waited to awake from this odd dream, he slowly became agitated. He almost started to panic. "Why am I not waking up?" He repeated this in his head as his eyes zipped around the room. He pinched himself, stomped on the ground, flipped random light switches on and off, but none of it yielded a result. He stayed within this world, with his hope now fleeting.
He gave up, and was forced to accept it. The walls around him - they were tangible. He could touch them, feel them, and perceive that they were there. Though Lincoln was comfortable with the idea of it all being a dream, it felt too real. He scanned the room for the tenth time, trying to find something new to relieve and refresh his anxious eyes.
There he found it. Atop a wooden table that was further back in the corner, sat a vase. It was decorated with a pink orchid flower. Immediately Lincoln again felt a sentimental spark within him. That flower was Clyde's dad's "eternal love orchid." It brought forth the memory of the time they both accidentally overwatered it, causing the flower to wilt. Lincoln laughed out loud, amused by this memory, picturing their terrified faces when the flower slumped over. These memories felt nice, but they also hurt. He felt lonely, being reminded of his mom and his best friend. He longed for another moment with them. He wished to see them again.
The fear of entrapment Lincoln felt before had now been replaced with a determination. Wherever he was right now, he knew he would get out. So where was the exit? Where was he to go?
Where even was he?
