The Facility (Chapter 17) (Patreon)

Chapter 17 = The Mystery Option: You ended up pondering this choice much longer than your previous choice with Dollmaker. You wanted nothing more than to see SONAD, that monstrosity get shut down so that it could never again do to others what it had done to you. On the other hand... if you were being honest with yourself, your main goal was to get out of this place; make it to the end! Besides, you reasoned with yourself, if you didn’t make it out of here then there wouldn’t be anyone to tell the world anyways! So it wouldn’t much matter.

After deciding against shutting SONAD down, the only real question was whether or not to go for the Mystery Option. The thought of it filled you with intrigue and concern. What if it was something like, ‘Take an Enema.’ That would put you in a really good position for the next challenge, you thought sarcastically.

“I don’t have all day Challenger.” The Creator mocked. “Hurry up and make your choice already.” You wanted to flick off ‘The Creator’ but the voice still seemed to be omnipresent and you wouldn’t even know where to flick something off if you tried.

Finally, you let out a soft sigh and spoke, “I choose... the Mystery Option.” You say in a strong voice, doing your best to keep the nerves out of it.

‘The Creators’ voice quickly let out a powerful chuckle. The mixture of the voice sounding robotical as well as human-like was giving you weird vibes. “Good choice Challenger, though your consequence is the knowledge that even if you manage to leave this place, ol’ SONAD here will continue to enjoy their time tormenting challengers.

You glanced at SONAD. Both Nurture and Discipline looked as relieved as a robot could manage on their display screens and gave each other a high five with their long arms before turning and wheeling away quickly out of sight into the factory. “See you suckers!” The voices say in unison, laughing maniacally as they disappear around a corner.

“With that out of the way, now comes your choice Challenger. Your, ‘Mystery Option’. Are you ready?” The voice says with a hint of amusement.

“I’m ready.” You say, once again trying to keep the nervousness out of your voice. At this point you’re practically waiting for a big pie to just come and smash you in the face. Suddenly a panel opens up in the floor in front of you and a small table rises out of the floor, replacing the panel that had disappeared. On the table was a box. A small box wrapped up like a present. Red and white paper with a little bow on top.

“Inside rests your choice Challenger. Use it well.” The voices words ring in your head as you reach to the present and undo the bow. A couple seconds later and you’ve torn all the wrapping paper off of it, and open up the top. Still a little nervous, you slowly peek into the box and are quite surprised at what you find. Inside is nothing but a piece of paper.

“What the fuck?” You say. You’ve been tricked! You could have had SONAD for a one time ally, or at least had the satisfaction of shutting that stupid robot down forever, but instead all you’ve got is a piece of paper! It probably just says, ‘Gotcha!’ on it. You reach inside of the box and your fingers grip tightly on the piece of parchment. You pull it out and read what it says, but to your surprise it’s got a word on it that you don’t recognize. A different language perhaps? The word is in strange symbols that you can’t decipher... but somehow... you can read it... you begin to speak aloud, “Por-Tu-Fa--.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The Creators’ voice booms out. There’s a small pause before the voice continues, “Turn it over.” You do so and see that there are normal words that you can read on the back, the words on the back of the paper read,

“Ten Second Time-Stopping Spell

Single Time Use”

You read over the words multiple times just to make sure that you’re not reading it incorrectly. This can’t be real... is this place serious?

“Time stopping spell? Seriously?” You say to the disembodied voice of ‘The Creator’. “This is a joke right?”

“Is it?” The voice says in return. “Read over that word of power in your head only. Memorize it. And tell me that you don’t feel the energy coursing through it.”

You give an odd look to no one before doing as the voice says. You read over the word or phrase multiple times in your head. Despite yourself, you feel it completely memorized in your mind. As if you couldn’t forget it even if you wanted to.

“Think of the spell and your head kinda like a hard drive. You no longer need that piece of paper. The spell had downloaded itself into your mind, accessible whenever you desire it. All you need to do is think about it and the spell will come to you and you’ll be able to say it aloud. Just remember... it’s only for ten seconds, and you can only use it once. So don’t waste it.”

You don’t know if you believed in magic, but after the things you’ve seen here so far, you’re not sure if you’d put it past this place. Whether you believed in it or not, ‘The Creator’ was right. The word was stuck in your brain and you could think of it as easily as your own name if you tried. When you thought of it, you could feel the power surrounding the word.

“Time to move on.” The Creator says, and a large panel in the back wall opens up. With a deep soft sigh, you place the piece of paper back down on the table and walk towards the panel; confident that forgetting the word now burned deeply into your mind is impossible.
 

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This story was written by Zander Chesney You can find more of his content here : https://zanderchesneyoriginals.tumblr.com/