Quiet Mourning Yet You're Still Standing

A certain type of silence settled over the motel room. The kind that was an odd mix of anticipation and finality. He swept his gaze over it one last time; the cheap bed was neatly made, the cheque on the table alongside the room’s keys, a digital clock displaying 12 am, and a wooden nightstand next to the bed with a lamp. What little belongings he had were already shoved into his backpack. The rest of the place was beyond him to fix. The sickly green paint was peeling on the walls, the carpet was torn and stained, crooked paintings were hung up as a sad attempt to make this place look more “lively,” and the too-small windows let in just enough moonlight to see if the sky was clear outside. Instead, all it showed was the thick, ominous clouds swirling.

He silently slipped out of the room. The hallway was dimly lit, showing off equally dismal conditions. It was a narrow passageway with a few doors dispersed across the walls, featuring scenic paintings hung between them. There were windows at both ends of the hallway that allowed some additional light to enter, and a short stairway led to the lobby area. The only noise came from his muffled footsteps and the bombinating lights.

A weak smile tugged at his lips. He couldn’t believe it was finally happening. He raced down the stairs, figuring that nobody was really here. Who comes to a cheap motel when the çürüme fırtınası was about to start? The lobby was deserted. He scrambled towards the glass doors that showed unusually dark snow littering the ground and a downpour of fat flakes crashing down. His heart raced. The doors groaned open, letting the wrath of the wind strike him.

This was it.

The forest was on the opposite side of the motel. It was vast and looked ready to engulf the tiny place. The only thing separating them was the cracked road that raced off deep into the quaint terrain. He clumsily stumbled his way over there. Each breath felt like icicles stabbing his throat, and flakes burnt his arms and body. He never felt more alive. It was an odd feeling; the cold actually affected him. He couldn’t even remember the last time he ever felt cold.

He raced deep into the forest. He could feel them. Their soulless eyes observed him with expressions of deep sorrow sketched out on their faces. It was mainly his kind, moons, but a few planets were scattered here and there, with serenity seizing their bodies.

Light was getting weaker to the point that he could hardly see a few steps ahead of him. Black dots filled his vision. The snowfall grew more intense, and burned him to the core.

Thoughts shattered like glass and kept remoulding themselves over and over into incomprehensible babble. Random flashes of Mom, Dad, and his “friends” turned into a messy watercolour painting. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m so sorry.”

His legs shook so badly that he sat down by a tree. The world was a smear of browns, greens, blues, whites, and black. Sounds grew distant. Limbs numb. Barely breathing. His eyelids grew heavy, but just for a moment, he saw a soft orange-yellow light before his consciousness broke into a million pieces. He smiled.

“Oh, by the broken stars,” a voice huffed. “Get up, Little Moon.”

He groaned, burying his face deeper in the soft blanket. Couldn’t the angels wait another five minutes? The warm air settled on him like a lazy cat as classical music strolled around him. The cello and piano beckoned him back to dreams of coffee shops and bookstores, and it even felt like it eased his dull headache to a mere murmur. His limbs were clearly in agreement. Any time he moved, even just a small amount, they complained.

“You’ve been like this for two days; enough already.”

A rough hand shook him awake. He cracked his eyes open, and soft yellow light flooded in. It felt strangely like home. When he was a kid, Dad would have to wake him up before school started, and the spring day, he was clearly more excited about it than he was. He groaned. “Just give me one more five minutes.”

“Absolutely not, get up. You need to eat something solid already.”

He forced himself upright and looked at the rest of the room. It was shockingly ordinary, despite its weird, obtuse triangle shape; pale blue walls with windows showcased several bizarre-looking houses. A TV was mounted on the longest wall, along with speakers, which were positioned almost opposite him, but not quite. Everything felt off. But in a way, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that this room shouldn’t be able to exist. Well, I’m probably in some sort of afterlife, so maybe higher beings are just funky like that, he thought dismissively. His thoughts still came in slow and staggering, but seemed to be barely working properly. He flicked his gaze to the wooden nightstand with a tray that had a cerulean teacup with flowers carved into it that looked like milk with a slight pink tint; generic sugar cookies were next to it, and a small black bowl of oatmeal with berries in it. Why would I need to eat if I’m already dead? Or is it because higher beings like the taste of food?

A sun towered over him with bags under his eyes. He was obviously different from any sun he’d seen; unusually sharp, dull orange wedges ringed his body, he had a xanthic yellow for the main body, and thick, pointed teeth. He glowed softly, but it was pretty weak compared to the average sun. His limbs were unusually long, and his eyes didn’t look right. They started black and faded into a bright crimson. It sort of reminded him of a demon or maybe somebody who had caught a particularly nasty eye disease.

“How are you feeling?” His voice sounded vaguely familiar. Deep and smooth like a rock that the ocean had neatly carved.

“F-Fine…” words struggled to crawl towards him. He felt like a fool, yet the sun stood there patiently until it finally came to him. “Who are you?”

“I’m a famous geologist in your world; you probably have heard the name Parlamak if you’re in those circles. I also went by a few others, such as ışık, Lüminesans, and, uhm, one kid gave me the nickname Sunny,” he smiled at the last one. “He was a weird kid, but he was sweet.”

He furrowed his brows. That name, but it couldn’t be. Gears began whirring in his mind. A sense of dread mixed with excitement clamoured for attention. Thoughts began breaking into stride now, squawking at him to notice. No normal person would actually nickname their friend ‘Sunny,’ but I…why now? Why would he show up in heaven to help me? I only saw him when I was like ten or younger. Maybe he’s confusing me with someone else? I don’t remember any news about Parlamak dying or going missing. Why does he look like that now? Maybe I’m actually in-

“Hey, hey, come back to Spiralland. I never even got your name,” he said gently. He grabbed a cup of tea and a small plate full of generic cookies and handed them to him.

“It’s spelled Koray, but pronounced core-eye,” he replied mechanically.

He absentmindedly drained the cup that was full of honey, milk, and something floral and sweet. Warmth spread across his whole body, and whatever soreness was still there seemed to have vanished. The cookies, on the other hand, tasted like nothing, but he nibbled on them anyway. He needed to buy time to think.

The stars aren’t lining up. Even if this…thing was Parlamak, he had barely spent time with him, let alone for him to be of any significance besides in an admiration kind of way. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have Mom or Dad here, or if they just wanted to be cruel, flat-out one of his “friends”? Maybe I’m in hell or probably purgatory. That’s it. It has to be it. He sighed, leaning back. I really deserve that much cruelty? I have nothing left. He flicked his gaze over to Parlamak/Sunny, who looked completely dumbstruck.

“Where am I? I’m guessing I’m in purgatory, but I don’t get why you, out of all the stars, are helping me.”

“Y-You’re not in purgatory. We’re currently in between my world, Hushwater Vale, and Spiralland. What we’re technically in is something called the Veil, although the details around it are murky; the only surefire thing we know is that people…” he went quiet for a moment, before carefully choosing his next words. “Who are in the process of exiting the door wind up here.”

He furrowed his brows. “That’s awfully convenient, isn’t it? And you just happened to be there when I decided to let go? Now? Out of all this time?”

“It’s not as sinister as it looks; it’s quite common for a few of us to go out to try and stop you guys before it’s too late. So rest assured that you’re alive and recovering.”

This is way too good to be true. Narrowing his eyes, he examined Parlamak over again. He took inventory of every single thing off with him and tried to pit it against the Parlamak back in his world. Everything looked wrong. Flat out. Nothing in his colouration even remotely looked like him; his limbs were all slightly too long to be right, and even his pupils were wrong. Too bright instead of drab red at the end.

“Uh-huh. You’re telling me that you somehow manage to have the time to go research a bunch of geological phenomena, live here, and deal with suicidal celestial objects? Yeah, sure.”

Parlamak gave an exasperated sigh as if he had had this conversation a million times before. “I decided to volunteer for-“

“You’re a terrible liar,” he interrupted.

“I’m not lying. Do you want me to show you the paperwork and emails? What can I do for you to prove that you’re not dead or in hell? Since you CLEARLY can’t handle being civil at the moment.”

Koray bit his tongue. What would I even do with that evidence? Yell at him? Beg him to change his mind? I doubt I’ll be able to pull that off. Even if he’s lying, what am I going to do about it? Run away? I’ll probably wind up getting captured and put somewhere infinitely worse than this weirdo. I could somehow keep myself hidden from him long enough to escape, but to where? I should’ve just played nice. Goddamnit. He sighed. “Never mind, forget about it.”

Parlamak shot him a perplexed look as he clumsily got out of bed. “Give me a tour and tell me about your world.” He didn’t mean to make it sound so dismissive, but he was too agitated to really care.

“A-Alright, why don’t we also go around the Neighbourhood too? I think some fresh air would do you some good,” he said delicately.

“Sure.”

Parlamak’s home was a nightmare of nonsense. Hallways ambled on for what felt like an eternity, then abruptly veered in one direction; some parts were too tall, too short, or somehow too angular. Koray desperately tried to tie the house down through what he saw in the windows, but it showed off more of his own home or random parts of the sky as if it were mocking him. Anxiously rubbing his thumb against his finger, he switched to trying to anchor himself to one of the five million artworks scattered around the place and tried creating a mental map.

It didn’t work.

The paths twisted in on themselves, abruptly ended, or weren’t even comprehensible. His mind was spinning. Parlamak was too busy engrossed in his own ramblings to notice. He pointed to a staircase and warned him to never go down any of them except for the one with the blue ribbon snaking through it, since those led to other guests’ rooms.

How on all of Spiralland was he ever going to get out of this house? Let alone escape if the rest of the Neighbourhood was like this. A lump began forming in his throat as he dug his nails into his palms as hard as he physically could. He clenched his jaw hard and forced himself to keep his breathing steady. He kept his gaze locked onto the floor, hoping against hope that Parlamak wouldn’t notice. He couldn’t trust his voice.

Anger began to simmer in the back of his mind. Why can I never do anything right? Can’t even have a proper send-off- no, I have to wind up in some screwed-up world, and for what? To stick around longer? Be more of a nuisance than I already was? What-

“That’s the end of my house tour; let’s go outside.” Parlamak opened the front door, revealing a generic-looking suburban Neighbourhood. Even the geometry looked normalish, but what startled him was how empty and still everything was. All the houses had their lights off, including Parlamak’s; the starlit sky showed off a long winding road with cars neatly parked by each house that looked like they had just been bought, and everything had a strangely curated feel to it. Toys were placed in front yards, but they didn’t have a speck of dirt on them, and neither did the plants look real; they all looked too clean. Yet despite all of this, he felt a million eyes burrowing into him.

He had to be lying; there was no way this wasn’t just hell. He thought belatedly, I…I guess I deserve this.

Parlamak seemed to walk more slowly and was much less talkative. Even his natural light seemed to have dimmed. Silence crept up on them like a cat, until the only noise was their footsteps echoing. Koray tried to distract himself by studying the tall and twisting buildings that spliced between homes at random intervals, but he couldn’t stop looping back to it. He kept anxiously glancing at Parlamak as if at any moment he would turn into his true form and begin tearing him apart and constructing him over and over for his amusement, but the sun kept quiet. He even looked pensive. It was pointless trying to even look at the homes; it was too dark to make out anything, let alone how many entities were watching him.

He swallowed. Tears pricked his eyes.

They walked like that for a while. His entire body aching, and the desire to just crawl back into bed and forget everything was beyond any words in any language to even begin to convey. Parlamak didn’t take notice, or maybe he did and didn’t want to intrude, but he pointed at one of the tall twisting buildings and quietly began explaining what it was.

“Those are malls; they’re similar to ones in your world, except they don’t take money; they take other objects, memories, and emotions that you hold dear in exchange for something. I think the only ones that don’t require that were non-magical items. I remember getting you a toy dragon from that one over there, and you practically lost your mind over it,” he chuckled.

Koray didn’t say anything. He just watched the building intently until Parlamak finally called it quits for the night.

The room was pleasantly warm, and the TV had shut off on its own. The bed had made itself clean, and even the tray and food were gone. He lumbered over to it. It felt like the weight of the universe had crashed onto his back, and by the time he crawled into the soft sheets, his mind drifted into endless nightmares and ridicule.