I stood with my sneakers implanted in the sand, a cold wind freezing my skin. Dense fog hung in the air like a disease, though it remained a stagnant filter to my reality without shifting even a hair in the breeze. The sting of rime fixated on me and disregarded the space in which I existed. The ocean flowed gently beside me, barely visible through the oppressive mist, emanating a lush hum that blended with the howling of the wind. Standing before me through the fog was my creation, something never before witnessed on this earth: a being with no mother nor father, spawned of raw genetic material in a perfectly vertical lineage.
Me: “I created a clone of you, a homunculus.”
Riad: “A clone?”
Me: “Yes.”
Though resemblant of its originator, it drew a wide rift between man and homunculus. The being towered over me, undoubtedly larger than its progenitor who was already near seven feet in height. Its flesh was primitive and nude, hairy throughout its torso, though bald in the scalp and its abnormally shrunken and aged face. The proportions of its figure were more primitive than its predecessor, or any modern man, as though it were a aftermath of brutal evolution rather than the careful transmutation of matter.
Riad: “Why?”
Me: “It’s not entirely clear to me either. Maybe it's a model for something. Maybe it will inspire me.”
Riad: “I’m not sure I even believe you.”
The homunculus stared at me with a faint grin, hardly wide enough to display its teeth. I stared back, my skin quivering in discomfort, though I was disturbingly unsure of whether the creature could sense it. Something about its abject naked form felt fundamentally obscene. Its wrinkled visage projected itself forward through my eyes, branding itself on the surface of my arachnoid mater. The air seemed to bend and crackle around its pale, bristly skin. The gap between man and homunculus was just as wide as that of pregnancy and alchemy, that of womb and reagent. Even so, I’d reached a status not far from the creator, achieving what man looked to him for until this very moment. I’d spawned a standing, breathing, warm-blooded piece of tangible life out of the arcane.
I found myself standing just inside the brink of Anthony’s dorm, dragging my eyes around as though it contained too much information for my head to consume and allow me to walk simultaneously. The room was painted by vibrant blue lights and air that smelled strongly of ash, a potent aura that indicated the psychedelia present within its inhabitants’ flooded minds. Filling the space were prostitutes, as evidenced by their provocative orientations with leather boots, crop tops, small bras and smaller skirts. Gavin stood at my left, conversing with a woman sitting coyly in a couch chair on all fours, sticking out her rear like a stretching cat. I could see her black thong beneath her skirt. Degeneracy dripped from their tongues and stained the air with hedonism as they suspended their minds for pleasures of the flesh.
I stepped through the room, feeling like an unseen observer, and noticed Anthony sitting on the couch to my right, moaning as he received oral sex from a woman whom his girlfriend was likely unaware of. I never took him for a man who’d indulge in such treachery, and I didn’t wish to watch it happen. I intended to keep my vision level and avoid expressing any disgust or–god-forbid–curiosity, but I briefly glanced in his direction. He pulled his legs together and hunched forward, grunting in ecstasy as the prostitute’s head bobbed between his legs. What a mockery of love, a synthetic surrogate to intimacy. I found it hard to believe that man’s lust could surpass its love, that dark desires could devour fidelity.
I crossed into Whitman’s room and found him exhaling smoke towards an open window at the back of the enclosure, exchanging oxygen for hallucinogenic vapor through his bloodstream, holding a bong and a lighter in his hands. Another prostitute stood across from him, inspecting her painted nails. He coughed twice into his elbow and gazed at me, uninterested.
Me: “Whitman, I’ve created something incredible.”
I chose not to speak about the prostitutes, as it was none of my concern. He stared, unchanging.
Me: “I’ve created a homunculus of Riad.”
He spoke with a tinge of aggression, and I was unsure if it was genuine disbelief or just apathy.
Whitman: “A homunculus? That’s not possible.”
He placed the bong on his desk and gestured for the woman to come closer, which she did.
Whitman: “Get out of here. I’m busy.”
They locked lips and I returned to the common room where Anthony was still being fellated by a stranger, slowly closing the door and ignoring the last few moments of information circulating my brain.
My vision abruptly evanesced to raw blackness and I ceased to hear the familiar sounds of dialogue and moans. My senses snapped back into place as quickly as they had vanished, and I briefly stood motionless in fear. I had materialized in a large square plaza with repugnant yellow tile flooring and white concrete walls, eerily silent and devoid of life. This space could have been some derelict simulacrum of earth and I’d remain unaware. In the center of each wall was a steel door with text overhead, all having what looked like the names of places I didn’t recognize. I swiveled my head in confusion and arbitrarily decided on a door. My senses quickly cut out and returned again, leading my heart to descend through my rib cage.
As I approached the door, I noticed a small white button on the wall beside it and realized that I was surrounded by elevators. I poked at the button with my index finger and the doors opened without delay, lacking the distinctive friendly chime and instead producing a deep rumble, groaning as though vexed by my calling. I stepped into the elevator and immediately noticed its claustrophobic size, with walls and floors the same hideously dry and corporate yellow as the tile. I stood beside a man about my age, almost touching his shoulder with mine, and the doors shut behind me with the same rumble. He opened a small vial of a white powder and screwed it into his nostril, plugging the other and furiously snorting the substance. He made a pained face with a crinkled nose, and exhaled as the elevator began ascending swiftly.
The back wall of this chamber was split vertically as though it were a second set of doors. Sitting on a shelf between each side was a strange dichotomy of items: bottles of red wine, smooth and reflective with a golden floral pattern on the glass, and beside them, plastic bottles of ketchup, half empty. I turned to the man who was leaning his head back with the vial upside down in his nose to access the last of the powder. I asked him if the bottles were his, and he lowered his head with a sniff, telling me he couldn’t afford ketchup nor a backpack like mine to keep it in. I stared in confusion for a moment and looked again at the stash, seeing the presumably abandoned commodities. I dropped the bag from my shoulder to my hand, grabbing two bottles of wine and two of ketchup to place horizontally in the bag so that they wouldn’t rattle. I had no knowledge of who they belonged to, and I hadn’t considered if it was wrong to take them, but I didn’t care. I’d do as I wished.
The elevator doors opened and I was on the ground floor again despite the apparent movement. My senses briefly vanished as soon as the rumbling stopped, then after my first few steps, then again as I sprinted forward in panic. My mind flashed fervidly from my surreal liminal materiality to total darkness, placing me on a different part of the unsightly tile floor every time. I feared that I would shatter my skeleton against the walls or simply fail to reappear after vanishing. Each lapse in sensation felt like a contraction, squeezing my brain with deadly force, wrapping a shroud across my face and blocking my nerves from processing light or sound.
The contractions struck me with higher frequency, pinching my eyes and ears shut with increasing force. My mind was racing between intervals of delirium, trying to envision someone who would believe my feat of paranormal mastery, someone who could heed my words in this vacant hell.
Perhaps I’d done something wrong. Perhaps I’d created life that was not meant to be on this earth, and my actions of the past had twisted reality in some malevolent way to bring judgment on my current self. Or perhaps there was no God nor righteous entity to punish me, and I’d simply fractured reality and set it spiraling out of its grand order. I sprinted frantically between segments of consciousness, noticing a digital clock placed high on the wall. It read “3:00 AM” in bold red text, and I knew that signified nothing less than the worst. It was the hour of forbidden sorcery, an antithesis to the time of bloody sacrifice two thousand years prior.
The contractions came at a scorching rate, pulsing through my whole body and disorienting my mind beyond time and place. I felt my form being imperatively moved, rising in turbulent fragments as though being squeezed and pushed through a narrow passage. I wasn’t ready to be reborn, to cross from a natural vitality to a forced existence. I’d done something terribly wrong. I’d sinned and failed to repent before divine punishment began breathing down my neck. I wasn’t ready to live this tainted, impure life.