Ru

Ru

Deep within the Tower is a city called Ru.

It is protected from the Sorceress's empire by the very fact that it is wrapped in itself, like a black hole, and that none may enter or leave it, except in the twilight been waking and sleeping.

The Sorcerer calls the city of Ru "The Warren of Man", for it is contained within itself, like a terrarium inside of a glass vessel, and the city contained within is trapped in an eternal cycle of building and destroying. Nothing is taken away from Ru, nor is anything added, and each iteration of the city is built on the ruins of the last, such that each one borrows a little of the cities which came before.

It is an endless cycle of civilisations begetting civilisations, ever advancing and regressing, rising and falling, becoming and forgetting.

Each revolution of Ru is an age of a civilisation, and each civilisation thinks that it is the pinnacle of mankind, unable to be surpassed in ethics and learning, and each one eventually falls, making way for the next one.

Within the city of Ru has existed, at some point, every configuration of laws and beliefs that are possible, and some have lasted long, but all fail in the end, every possible civic policy has been tried in a countless number of ways and all the cites have, in the end, collapsed.

And the cycle of Ru will go on forever, until utopia is reached just before the end of time, and each iteration will claim it's own greatness and sorrow, and write it's own story on creation.

Within the city of Ru is a boy on the cusp of manhood, Lewis; he has arrived at his late teens being tall, thin, with nondescript brown hair, and with a passion, always, for those who are like him, for other boys, and ever since his sexuality first blossomed forth he knew, even before he knew what it was called, that the boys in his class had a magnetic pull on him.

He'd sit in crowded classroom and dream of the other boys, but not in a specific way, the passion he felt at that young age could not be named by him, could not be understood except as fascination. The other boys were growing interested in girls, but Lewis did not know this, for he did not see within their minds; he assumed that the others were like him, that they felt this strong attraction for the lithe and fine physique of other boys.

He knew, in his mind, that men married women, and had children with them, but Lewis was innocent, he knew nothing of the way the world was, and so he assumed that he, too, would marry a woman and have children, and that his fascination with boys did not prohibit this or make it harder.

In his innocent mind it felt natural. He was just like everyone else, everyone felt the same as he did; they felt this tender feeling when looking at the other boys, and he was not old enough to understand that it was supposed to be women who made him feel that way.

But this innocence did not last, did not last long after Lewis was introduced to the concept of being "gay". When his young mind parsed this concept it understood it with the derision with which it was spoken; it was not a good thing, unnatural, abhorrent, and connected to deep feelings of love for other boys.

It was from that time on that Lewis knew that this aspect of himself must be hidden and never expressed, but he tested the water, asked his mother why she thought people were gay, and she scoffed that they felt the need to special.

Lewis felt no need to be special, and he did not want his mother to think that he did; in fact he felt the need to unburden his mother of him, as he was just a mouth for her to feed, someone to cause her problems, and a burden which she must bare.

In truth, Lewis had little happiness in his life as he was forever listening to his parents shouting from his bedroom. His father said he was too soft and blamed his mother for coddling him, his mother said he was just sensitive and he'd grow out of it.

He hoped he would grow out of it, and start to play sports with the other boys, instead of wanting to caress them, and that his parents would stop hating him for being so unlike the other boys.

Even his sister turned her nose up at him, mocked him for not being tough enough, bullied him because she knew he would not hit back. Anger was not in his nature, fighting didn't feel right to him; he wanted his sister to like him and he thought that maybe if he was nicer then she would.

But Lewis had an odd habit of making little cuts on his skin with a penknife, he didn't know why, only that he did it when he was bored and his chest felt tight.

When he was thirteen there was another boy in his school whom Lewis felt himself oddly drawn to, just as the other boy seemed to seek him out, and sit next to him, and compliment him, and find excuses to touch him, and be near him.

He sometimes wrote things in Lewis's school books, or hid them, or stole his pencils, and he seemed to do any number of things to try to get Lewis to pay attention to him.

Lewis found himself seeing the boy as a familiar presence, even if he was a disturbance, and then as a comforting presence, even if he was annoying, and this was not what Lewis understood as attraction at the time, but it did not take much, when the two of them were alone together, for them to start testing how close they could get to one another without the other pushing them away.

In the end there was no stopping it, their minds ran high on each other's scent, and a single kiss changed the way that Lewis thought about him, it intoxicated his mind, pushed all common sense to the background, and made him drunk with love.

And six years later, he stood on the cusp of his twenties with a hoard of unpleasant memories from his school days; his mother kicking him out of the house, his father's quiet embarrassment, his sister's indignant instance that he'd shamed their family, and lifelong friends and cousins who simply pretended that he didn't exist anymore.

And then, at nineteen, he stood on the cold streets of Ru, waiting for a friend in the fog, feeling nothing in particular, but seeing flashes of memories play before his eyes; paint thrown on him, stones thrown at him, his mother's ashamed tears, and the words said to mock him in the corridors of his school.

He remembered little of that time, but what his mind kept from his school days was nothing but pain which he became numb to, until the frightful memories were like friends, so familiar that it was hard to imagine life without them.

His parents relented in this shame but insisted that he clear his name in the eyes of the world, that he not make a show out of his affection for men, that he keep it hidden, that he never mention it to them again, and he felt... nothing in particular about this.

He rarely had a feeling cross his mind that wasn't akin to "I'm hungry", or "I'm sleepy", and he could no longer even remember his feelings of love or passion; it felt as if his mind had turned off the tap, and that was for the best, in his eyes, as the love he had once felt had caused him innumerable problems.

His friend arrived; he was tall, like Lewis, but not thin. He was quite voluptuous for a man, his face full and soft, his hair long and tied into a pony tail, his eyes green and soft, his fingers strangely delicate.

Lewis had known him a few years and Lewis knew that this friend of his had a penchant for wearing long dresses and necklaces, but only among his trusted friends. Out in the street he was nondescript, aside from his oddly feminine manner and gait; coat and polished shoes, a scarf for the cold, and a simple reddish shirt.

"Are you ready to be amazed?" The cross-dresser asked.

Lewis nodded and followed him through the fog.

Lewis found the cross-dresser to be friendly and cordial, and he had introduced Lewis to many other people whom he'd liked, but the cross-dresser himself was sometimes a little bit hard for Lewis to bear.

The cross-dresser had a tendency to accuse Lewis of emotions which he was not feeling; he would tell Lewis that he looked sad, or angry, or like he was about to cry, but Lewis felt none of that. But the cross-dresser had a way of bringing out Lewis's sharp intellect and his insights, he had a way of listening to Lewis that felt like he was really listening, like he really cared... and it unsettled Lewis a little.

Why did anyone care what he thought?

And when the cross-dresser spoke to Lewis he spoke of people, almost always, or of things that other people had told him, as if he adsorbed all the things that people said and cherished them like jewels.

He had many female friends too, but he knew that Lewis was uncomfortable around them, and he seemed to smirk when Lewis went silent around women, but Lewis just didn't know how to deal with women; his sister had been a mystery to him, as had his mother. The women in his young like had been irrational, emotional, and prone to making Lewis confused and feeling a desire to withdraw.

Women made him feel uneasy, so uneasy that he often couldn't speak, or did not with to speak, in front of them, lest they speak back to him and make him feel that stabbing in his chest, like he did when he was young and watching his mother cry, and he was forced to helplessly watch her wailing and her pain.

The cross-dressed lead Lewis to the university campus, and then past the square gardens, and into the ancient stone buildings.

He took Lewis to a room underground, a room which was entered by a long, white corridor which made Lewis feel uneasy for some unaccountable reason; the place was silent, almost too silent, and Lewis did not like empty silence, for that was when he began to feel uneasy, tense, and sometimes like he was being watched.

The room that they ended up in was small in footprint, but tall, very tall. On one wall of the room was a great structure of copper and steel, with intricate patters on the surface, at the top of the structure were what looked like two doors.

At the base of this high wall was a machine, again made of copper and silvery metal, shaped like an egg, with an opening in front for a person to enter.

"This machine." The cross-dresser began, "Can show you your future." He waited for Lewis's reply, but none came, "And it can also show you your past, but only your childhood, when you were about ten."

And Lewis felt a strange feeling, like vomit rising from his gut, and that feel transformed into tension in his shoulders, and finally it rocketed to his mind where it became... panic.

"Childhood?" He whispered, "Are you allowed to see you childhood?"

The cross-dresser gave him an odd look, "You look like you're scared." He said, "Of course you're allowed to see it."

And the panic Lewis felt redoubled, and his mind was almost consumed by fear at the idea of seeing his childhood; it was forbidden to see that, it was in the past, it didn't matter, surely his mother would be angry with him if he looked into the past?

"I'll let you see the future first." The cross-dresser said, "Since everyone remembers their past, most people want to see the future."

Lewis did not particularly remember his past, and he knew that he was not allowed to, to remember his past was a sin, for his past belonged to those who raised him, not to himself.

"Yes, future, OK." Lewis said, unable to shake his feeling of fear.

Lewis stepped into the machine and he saw

a vision of his future,

but it made no sense.

The future-vision that the machine revealed to him was just... a scene looping over-and-over again... a scene from an old movie... just looping, without end.

How could that be his future? How could a movie made before he was born be his future?

And it was just a scene of some characters doing nothing in particular, waiting on a train, exchanging a brief word... it was nothing... just and endless loop of nothing notable?

Lewis stepped out of the machine and the cross-dresser asked him what he saw, but Lewis did not know how to answer.

"Well, it might be broken." The cross-dresser said, "Let me try to look at my past, I haven't done that yet; if it's broken we can fix it, but I'll give it a test first."

And Lewis stood back.

How could he look at his past?

Wouldn't his parents be angry with him?

His past belonged to them, not to him!

It was not his past to view!

But Lewis said nothing and simply watched at the cross-dresser entered the machine

and vanished into thin air.

Lewis stepped back.

The cross-dresser simply vanished, without a trace; no noise, no light, just nothing.

He just stepped into the machine and he was gone.

Lewis was overcome with a gnawing feeling.

He thought to run and find someone, to tell them what had happened, but he turned around and faced the empty, white corridor and his mind made him think that it was expanding and growing longer, like there was no way he could run down it.

And he turned back to the machine and the cross-dresser was still gone, and the machine was static and silent, and the ominous patterns on the wall loomed over him.

He tried to set foot in the corridor but it was just too silent, too empty; it was a space beyond time where memories could be found, a blank space, and Lewis's heart was hammering.

The corridor grew ever longer.

The time that the corridor stretched over grew ever more vast.

Until it stretched across Lewis's whole life.

The next thing Lewis was aware of was that he was sitting in a cafe somewhere else in Ru.

And he felt... nothing in particular.

He sipped a drink and the world was noisy with people chatting, the sound of glasses clinking, and the sound of plates being placed on tables. Everything was loud and that was good; the noise kept things in check, it kept thoughts anchored to the time and place which was appropriate.

But, as Lewis sipped his drink, he noticed that there was another drink on the table opposite him.

Had he been in the cafe with someone else?

Who?

And where had they gone?

He looked at the drink and felt... nothing in particular... except a strange absence of feeling, and a knot in the pit of his stomach.

The cafe was busy, filled with people, and he looked around but nothing seemed odd to him.

But who had been drinking with him?

And then he heard the people in the cafe suddenly gasp.

And Lewis looked around, and there was his friend, the cross-dresser, standing in the middle of the crowd, but no longer in his plain coat and trousers, now dressed in a purple sash which covered on the top half of his naked torso, and his feet bare, with black trousers on his legs, and his brown hair falling freely about his shoulders.

He stood in the cafe and looked dead ahead, but only for a second, then he vanished once again, just as if he's slipped out of reality and into whatever lies beyond.

The people in the cafe were silent for a few moments before the cries of "did you see that?" started to erupt and people began moving quickly to the spot where the cross-dresser had appeared.

And Lewis turned back to his drink, and the image of the cross-dresser in his purple sash was still in his mind.

And soon, the cross-dresser was everywhere, walking down the streets, even multiple copies of him walking down the same street. He appeared in every corner of Ru, from the tops of buildings to the inside of people's houses, but only for a few moments before he was gone again.

Lewis, too, saw him countless times each day, popping into and out of reality, and Lewis kept his head down so as to avoid look at the many version of his friend. Other citizens of Ru were in a panic at these innumerable ghosts of a young man in a purple sash, but Lewis just listened to the noise of their screams and confusion and it helped him keep his mind full of sounds, which helped him walk through the, normally-quiet, streets without so much awareness for his own memories.

Lewis dared not go back to the time machine, nor did he dare tell anyone about it; it was forbidden, a thing that created a link between who Lewis was now, a strange and quiet young man, and the things that he had once been, but which he could not remember; his mother's son, filled with potential that he ended up wasting.

But, only a few days after the ghostly apparitions started to appear, they stopped, and Lewis was at home in his room, trying to sleep, when the cross-dresser appeared to him.

At first, Lewis didn't think much of it; he'd been appearing and disappearing constantly for days, but as Lewis looked at him through sleep-fogged eyes he observed that he didn't stay for a second or two, but that he stood for more than a few seconds.

And he moved!

And then he spoke: "Lewis," He said, "You won't believe what I've been doing, you won't believe what I saw!"

Lewis sat bolt upright in bed and turned on the light in his room, and, sure enough, the cross-dresser was there, smiling at him, and Lewis stuck himself against the wall in fear, his body clenching up like a collapsing tower.

"No, no!" The cross-dresser said, "It's OK."

But it was not OK.

Lewis looked upon his friend and saw that he was different once again, but this time he sported a proud pair of horns, such as you'd find on a bull, and a long robe made of fine silk, almost like a dress; purple mostly, but fringed with gold and black threads. His long hair fell down his back still, but he was taller, and more lean, and,

he had the legs of a bull or a goat!

Yet he still stood upright by Lewis's bed, smiling down at him.

"Lewis," He said, sounding excited, "This whole city it's - it's not all there is!" He smiled brightly, "Lewis there's this thing out there, it's - well, I found a way out of the city! And there's this huge Tower like you can't imagine and - and there's this garden! It's -"

And Lewis's door blew open quickly.

And a gunshot sounded out, and the chimeric cross-dresser fell to the ground,

a bloody wound opening in his chest, and

parts of his head flying off to mar the wall opposite the door.

And Lewis's dad stepped in, holding a gun, looking at the corpse,

and then at Lewis,

and he said something,

but Lewis didn't hear it.

And the next thing Lewis knew he was back at the machine, and everything was the same, but darker.

The machine!

Lewis found himself standing in his normal clothes, no longer in bed, and his head hurt and he felt like he'd been drinking, but

he didn't remember.

And the machine seemed to smile at him, and Lewis had to fight the urge to run backwards blindly.

But his breath drew in itself and he had never felt greater fear than he did in that moment.

He spun on his heels, back into the long, white corridor,

but it wasn't there,

the corridor, one white, was filled with a darkness,

a shining darkness so dark that it seemed alive!

And on the face of the darkness were words and images!

Lewis had written those words, he knew it!

But he could not recall them!

And now they were written in blood on the darkness, and images floated over the darkness like vile clouds; images of terrible things being done to children!

Torture!

Rape!

Mutilation!

Lewis had never felt so much all at once and before he could even turn away, the darkness seemed to peel back and with it he saw a figure, a person, or what might've been a person. His skin was pale as paper, his eyes black as obsidian, he sat upon a chair, a throne, tied to it with ropes,

and upon his back and shoulder he wore a coat of spikes which dug into his flesh,

and each movement he made was agony!

Each time he even blinked the spikes would shift in his flesh and impale him anew,

and his life was a parody of life! A joke! He lived but even the smallest movement made him long for death!

And upon his head a broken crown, dug into his skull, his flesh having grown over it!

A King with a Broken Crown!

Wrapped in agony.

"The past is your only way out, Lewis."

He spun on his heels and looked once again at the time machine, but he felt no extra fear, for even the redoubling of the fear he had just experienced wouldn't have registered.

He flew into the time machine, and away from the ghastly King,

and then,

he saw

a vision of himself, as a boy, of about four, and a vision of a little girl

but somehow this girl was also him,

and time was frozen in this vision, a single moment of something that was not Lewis's past was frozen before him, this one moment, taking a whole lifetime to play out, not quite stuck in time, but it would not be until Lewis died that the moment would end.

The boy and the girl - who was also him - said goodbye to each other,

knowing that they would never meet again.