Wheels within wheels

This place knows. Knows I know of it. I left the diner to find something more nutritious than meat patties and vegetables. I took great care to stay on the streets, in the open, anywhere I could make an easy escape. The deli nearby was a nightmare. My heart nearly hammered it’s way up my throat, it was too small, I could swear I heard the rattling of cans whenever I turned my back.

And then I smelled it. Smoke. The acrid smell of burning wood and melting plastic. I didn’t need to go back. I knew, I just knew. The diner, all it’s contents, destroyed. There’s a latin phrase for this. Genius Loci. I thought I was trapped in a never ending nightmare. I never stopped to think of it, assuming the nightmare was no more aware than I was of the cells in my body. But it is. It’s awake. It knows me.

I saw a figure the other day. Not a retreating one, or something out of the corner of my eye. Someone else.

I was sitting in the diner reading the notes, as has been my ritual since I found this place. When I looked up, out the window, there it was. At the street corner, a distant figure, watching. I contemplated chasing after it, the thought of social contact after so long nearly stirred me to my feet until I remembered my readings. Blurred, faceless antagonists lurking on the streets, in the fog. 

I sat there, heart crushed, debating with myself over whether to barricade the door or not. In the end, I pushes a table against it and braced it with a few stools. It won’t keep anything out, but the noise will wake me if I’m asleep, and at very best, it will buy me precious seconds to escape.

I’m almost through this stack. One more page, I promise myself, one more page and then I’ll move on. I’ve been telling myself that for days.

I’m currently in a diner. Odd place to rest, yes. Up until a few days ago, I had been wandering through the town, drowning in a sea of rusting metal and decaying houses.  Each time I passed this diner, I was filled with an oddly familiar, nameless fear.

Yesterday, I went in.

Nothing was as expected. Instead of dust caked tables and floors, I was greeted by notebooks. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. All neatly stacked, from floor to ceiling, some with only a fine coating of dust, others with what could be years or decades piled onto them. Eager to find facts, I ripped into them.

Each and everyone of them was written by me. All of them carry the same theme, the same content, journalistic style, lists of names, dates, places. Rantings and ravings before a blank silence. Every notebook is incomplete, all halt on the author, myself, losing hope, giving into fear and paranoia. 

It’s maddening to think I’ve been here before. To think that I’ve been here for so long and always met the same fate. Did I forget myself each time? Was I somehow subconsciously aware, like a word forever on the tip of my tongue?

I will not give into this place, whatever it is.

This place is..broken. Caught in an instant of time like a fly in amber. Everything is the way it was the day before, reset like a clock. The stores that I’ve been taking my food from, the pantries I’ve raided, no matter how much I take, the next day they’re full again, shelves bursting with a wealth of food. And yet my food supply remains the same, my place of residence holds onto every little change I make at the end of the day. Am I really in a town? Or am I like a hamster in a wheel, always running to the same place? I’m not so sure of anything in this place.

But no matter what I do, I can’t escape the feeling I’ve done it before. Deja vu is always on my mind.

The fog has been growing thicker as of late. Darkness falls sooner, what light there is during the day is gloomy. Every alleyway is now a gaping maw, an endless expanse of black opening onto dimly lit streets. 

I’m thinking of heading further into town. I’m hoping to find the town hall, a library, someplace with records. Maybe I’ll find a map and name for this town.

Walking down these streets inflicts a strong sense of deja vu, almost as if I’ve walked them before. When I turn corners, I swear I can recognize land marks, specific places, followed by the stronger urge to go towards them.

But the sense of deja vu is always washed over by a sense of dread. Every second I spend outside feels like something’s watching me, that if I turn at any moment, there will be something behind me, staring at me, laughing. I swear, I can see movement in the windows out of the corner of my eye, and when I look, emptiness. Curtains, shutters and darkness are all that I see. Every bone in my body screams at me, tells me to flee, but my curiosity gets the better of me. I stay on these streets, hairs prickling on my neck, exploring this dead town. 

I’ve spent the last two days scouting through this endless fog. The sun casts a muted light during the day, giving everything a gray pallor and casting deep shadows. Nights are pitch black, the street lamps producing small halos of light on empty streets.The air feels like a heavy weight on my shoulders, it has a metallic tang to it, almost like blood.

I try to be indoors before sundown..but curiosity compels me to stay outside. This place is beautiful, in a lonely way. The houses are in a state of decay, peeling paint, dust caked windows. The streets are littered with the slowly rusting hulks of cars, possibly decades old. I’m not sure. People must have lived here once, but their absence oddly comforts me. 

The air though, the air unnerves me. It’s heavy, oppressive, it has an iron taste to it, almost like blood.  I’ve taken to wrapping myself in whatever thick clothing I can find to keep out the cold and damp.

I’ve been fortunate so far in finding supplies. Food and water are in abundance, and yet, they are all curiously missing their expiration date.  So far I haven’t melted into a heap of quivering meat vomiting for hours on end. We’ll see how that goes in the next few days.

I did find a pistol earlier. I unloaded it and took it with me, if I do come across someone, the sight of it should keep them back. And unloaded, I don’t have to worry about putting it to my temple if the isolation gnaws away at my rationality.

My name is Nathan Grey. I don’t where I am, I don’t know how I got here. When I look out the window I see an endless expanse of rusting cars, decrepit buildings, and a constant brooding fog, an empty, shell of a town. And yet, despite all this, the subtle decay all around me, the water stains in the walls, piles of dust on the carpet, crumbling plaster, the power still works, the water still runs. This computer, and this home are all I know currently. I haven’t the heart to leave it and explore this town I appear to be trapped in. Looking out the window fills me with a nameless fear, something eating at the back of my mind, almost like a half forgotten memory ready to burst to the surface. 

And yet, when I woke up this morning to the soft glow of this computer screen, there was one post. Why are you anchored here? I don’t know what it means. How many times have I been here before? What if this is just something I’m dreaming, my mind expanding on half remembered stories and twisted fears?

Why are you anchored here?