"Okay, I'm ready. Please begin the trial." I sat in a lotus position in the middle of the room, candles burning all around me.
The Elder nodded, pulling a bag of herbs out from his pocket and burning them with his energy, spreading the aroma around the room. The results were nearly instantaneously. My eyelids drooped once, twice, then closed, sending me off into a deep dream state.
When my eyes opened, I found myself already standing, staring down into a hallway with long, dark brown walls and one ornate crafted wooden door at the far end.
"Huh. So this is a dreamscape, huh? It really does seem extremely realistic. I honestly can't tell the difference… Does that mean it's a perfect replication of reality, or just perfect to my own perception…? Huh?" As I wondered about the properties of the dreamscape, nearly a dozen doors popped up along the sides of the hallway, all the same type of door as the one at the far end.
"Copies?" I wondered, opening the closest one. "...That's the Matrix." I found myself watching the scene from the movie, on the street with the slow-motion bullet dodging.
I'd never much cared for that movie. I shut the door, moving on to the next one. I had time. No matter how many doors appeared, the one at the very end of the hallway was the one that I knew I needed, and I wasn't going to lose it.
"Ha! Yaah! Masenko! Take this!" This time, the room was dark, except for two figures jumping around. This scene was from Dragon Ball Z, Gohan and Krillin's Image Training thing that they did on the way to Namek, since Bulma hadn't thought to remodel the old ship so that they could do real training during the journey.
"Okay, I'm starting to understand. Everything that my brain references shows up as a door. Oh, god…" As soon as I realized the true nature of the trial, I shut the door to the Image Training memory, my heart hammering in my throat, terrified of what I'd find, now that I'd had time to analyze my situation and draw a few conclusions.
Sure enough, the hallway that'd once stretched only around a dozen feet, now extended into the distance, further than the eye could see, doors on either side.
…
"Clear mind… Clear mind… Clear mind… Don't think… Nothing…Oh, screw it." I'd been running for days, repeating the same mantra over and over again. Clear mind. Don't think. Nothing.
No sign of the end of the trial yet.
I was beginning to find myself pushing away the concern that I'd be stuck in this stupid hallway forever. I didn't want to open a door with that concept on the other side.
Still, though. The concerns were starting to get to me, making it harder and harder to clear my mind, not that clearing my mind changed the thoughts that I'd already had. As such, I stopped my jog, opening the first door I laid eyes on without thinking twice about it.
I froze, watching water rhythmically crash onto the shores of a beach. Silently, I closed the door and opened the next one.
Empty, white room. I tried one final door.
"Giant pane of glass." Literally… Just… A giant pane of glass. Is that what my brain unconsciously pulled up when I said the word 'clear'!?
"...I need a break."
I backtraced two doors and entered the room with the beach, taking my shoes off to soak in the pristine, white sand.
There was literally nothing else here… Just a door, sand, and the vast, calming ocean. It felt so great between my toes that I sat down and simply watched the waves for a while, forgetting everything for just a moment, especially this stupid trial as I wiggled my toes against the sand.
"Pep would love this." I muttered to myself, just imagining the girl's enthusiasm. She'd have started with her feet, then buried her hands just to feel the sand, then she'd have simply started rolling around on the beach, until she was completely covered in sand.
Then, she'd probably get angry, because she was completely covered in sand. I chuckled imagining it.
Too bad there weren't beaches like this one in real life. This beach was literally nothing but sand. No rocks, shells, or life-forms of any kind. Just sand, and the water was crystal blue.
It wasn't real. As great as this distraction was… I needed to get back to real. It'd definitely been several days already. Standing, I opened the door. It was time to get to the hallway, and finish the trial.
"...What? Where's the hallway?" On the other side of the door was the surface of Namek, with two giant spaceships and a handful of small metal tent-like temporary structures. It was the Celatus camp on Namek.
This was a thought, not the hallway. I didn't know that I could go straight from thought to thought… Was I trapped inside my thoughts forever?
I closed the door, then opened it again. Still the same thought. Interesting, it didn't change from what it'd been when I first opened it.
This time, I closed the door and inspected the doorframe, and the back of the door.
There was a knob on the backside of the door, too. In fat, I couldn't distinguish a single difference between the two sides of the door… I wonder…
Opening the door from the other side showed the hallway once more. I must have opened the other side of the door without realizing it earlier.
…I wonder…
This time, I spun around to the other side of the door and entered the Celatus camp thought, then spun around quickly and opened the same door again from the other side, entering the new thought without even looking at it.
"Who are you?" The man in the lab coat, standing over a cathode ray tube, didn't respond to me. Another thought… Probably because I was thinking of what I was doing like an experiment.
Dammit. Same problem once again. I'd had about enough of this. The problem wasn't getting to the end of the hallway for me, anymore. It was clearing my mind.
Monkey with a pair of cymbals.
I opened the backside of the laboratory door and entered an empty space, with nothing but a toy monkey holding a pair of cymbals staring back at me.
Monkey with cymbals.
I opened the backside of the door again. Another toy monkey holding a pair of cymbals.
Monkey with cymbals.
Again.
Again.
The more I did it, the more the toy monkey seemed to stare deep into my soul.
Monkey.
With.
Cymbals.
Monkey with cymbals.
Toy monkey.
With cymbals.
Toy.
Toy.
Monkey.
Monkey.
ISSA MONKEY!
TOY MONKEY! ISSA TOY MONKEY!
CARRYING CYMBALS! MONKEY! TOY!
"GAAH! MONKEY!" I screamed, sitting bolt upright on the bed.