Chapter 4: What Lies Behind the Crimson Curtain

Chapter 4: What Lies Behind the Crimson Curtain

For two days, Aaron didn’t go near the pantry. He tried to live his life, a desperate pantomime of normalcy. He went to work, staring at his monitor while the monochrome static fizzed and popped at the edges of his vision, a constant, nagging reminder of the hole in his head. He tried to eat, but food tasted like cardboard compared to the memory of the tart. He tried to sleep, but his dreams were filled with the image of a wide, unblinking smile full of needle-sharp teeth.

The confetti was the worst part. It was a plague of glitter. He’d scrub his skin raw in the shower, only to find a fresh hexagon clinging to his arm when he dried off. He’d meticulously pick them from his clothes, his furniture, his carpet, but they would always reappear, shimmering in the dim light of his apartment like malevolent little eyes. The game was branding him, marking its territory. His reality was fraying at the seams, and these glittering threads were all that was holding it together.

He couldn't go on like this. The thought of offering up another memory, of carving out another piece of his soul for a fleeting moment of pleasure, was nauseating. The emptiness left behind was worse than the original pain. He was being hollowed out, replaced by static and cheap thrills. But the craving, the deep, addict’s itch for another hit, was a constant, gnawing presence.

He was trapped. Feeding the beast meant losing himself piece by piece. Starving it meant living with this unbearable, hollow craving forever. But there was a third option. A word he had ignored twice.

RISK.

The word itself was terrifying. What kind of "thrilling physical challenge" could a creature like Lady Lacuna devise? His cowardly nature screamed at him to stay put, to weather the storm. But as he caught his reflection in the dark screen of his laptop, seeing a shimmering piece of confetti stuck in his eyebrow, a different feeling took root: anger. A cold, hard knot of defiance. He was tired of being a victim. He was tired of being her contestant. He needed to know what he was really up against. He needed to see behind the curtain.

His heart thudding a frantic, panicked rhythm against his ribs, he walked to the pantry. This time, there was no hesitation, only a grim, suicidal resolve. He threw the door open.

The void welcomed him like an old friend. Lady Lacuna stood in her spotlight, her sequined dress the colour of spilled blood tonight. Her smile was a perfect, predatory crescent.

“Back so soon?” her voice boomed, dripping with insincere delight. “I was beginning to think you’d lost your nerve! Tell me, Aaron, what delectable morsel of your past will you be serving up today? The sting of a first heartbreak? The shame of a failed exam?”

Aaron clenched his fists, the knuckles white. “No,” he said, the word coming out louder and firmer than he expected. “Not Reward. I want to know the odds. I choose RISK.”

For the first time since he’d met her, Lady Lacuna’s composure shifted. The fixed smile didn’t falter, but a flicker of genuine surprise—and something akin to ravenous delight—danced in her dark, empty eyes.

“Oh?” she purred, the sound a low, predatory chitter. “A gambler emerges from his shell! How very… exciting.”

The change was instantaneous and absolute. The cheerful, booming fanfare music cut out, plunging the void into an unnerving silence. The single, harsh spotlight above her winked out of existence, replaced by a diffuse, sickly twilight that seemed to emanate from no source at all. Lady Lacuna’s smile twisted, losing all its manufactured warmth and becoming a naked expression of hunger.

“Very well, player,” she hissed, the word ‘player’ now sounding like ‘prey’. She made a grand, sweeping gesture with one long arm.

Behind her, where there had been only blackness, a curtain materialized. It was a vast sheet of heavy, crimson velvet that seemed to absorb the dim light, its folds as deep and dark as surgical incisions. It didn't open with a smooth, theatrical pull. It parted down the middle with a wet, tearing sound, like cartilage being ripped from bone.

Aaron’s breath caught in his throat.

Behind the curtain was not a game show set. It was a world. A nightmare landscape under a bruised, purple-black sky where no sun or moon had ever hung. Twisted, skeletal trees, white as bone, clawed at the air with gnarled, leafless branches. The ground wasn't soil or rock; it was a deep, shifting carpet of iridescent confetti that stretched to a jagged, unseen horizon. And the air… the air was filled with a low, constant, chittering hum, the sound of a thousand insects rubbing their legs together.

And then he saw them.

Unfolding themselves from the shadows of the bone-trees were creatures. They were tall and spindly, moving with the jerky, unnatural grace of stop-motion monsters. Their bodies were fashioned from what looked like obsidian and shadow, all sharp angles and exoskeletal plates. Scythe-like forelimbs were folded neatly against their torsos, and their triangular heads, perched on thin necks, swiveled with impossible speed. They were praying mantises from a child’s fever dream. The Laughing Mantis was not a brand. It was a species.

“The game is simple,” Lady Lacuna’s voice whispered directly in his ear, though she hadn't moved. “Across that field, you see the prize.” She pointed a long, sharp finger. About thirty yards away, resting on a pedestal of jagged, black rock, was a small, pulsating orb of soft, white light. “Retrieve it. Bring it back to me. Do try not to attract any unwanted attention. They can be so… possessive.”

Aaron stared, his blood running cold. Two of the mantis-creatures were patrolling near the pedestal, their multifaceted eyes scanning the landscape. They moved with a horrifying purpose, their serrated limbs occasionally clicking against one another. This wasn't a game. It was a death sentence.

But turning back felt like a worse kind of death. He had to know.

He took a deep breath and bolted.

The confetti crunched under his sneakers with the sound of a million tiny, shattering bones. The sound was deafening in the still air. Immediately, the head of the nearest mantis-creature snapped in his direction, rotating a full 180 degrees with a dry, clicking sound. Its huge, black eyes fixed on him. It let out a shriek—a high-pitched, piercing sound like metal shearing against metal—and lunged.

Adrenaline dumped into Aaron’s system, a primal fire of pure terror. He dodged, scrambling sideways as the creature’s scythe-like arm sliced through the air where his head had just been. He didn’t stop to think. He just ran, his lungs burning, the chittering sound rising to a furious crescendo all around him. He could feel them closing in, their sharp footfalls rustling the confetti right behind him.

He reached the pedestal, his hand closing around the orb. It was warm and thrummed with a faint, living energy. He ripped it from its stand and spun around, skidding on the shifting ground. Another creature was right there, its head cocked, its forelimbs raised to strike. He ducked, but not fast enough.

Searing, white-hot pain exploded in his left forearm. He cried out as the creature’s razor-sharp limb slashed through his jacket and deep into the flesh beneath. He stumbled, clutching the orb to his chest, and scrambled back towards the crimson curtain, the portal to his world. The shrieks of the mantises echoed behind him, a chorus of alien rage.

He threw himself through the opening, collapsing in a heap on the hard linoleum of his own kitchen floor. The pantry door slammed shut with a deafening bang, plunging him into darkness.

For a moment, he lay there, gasping, his body screaming with pain and adrenaline. The world was blessedly, terrifyingly normal. The drone of the refrigerator was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. He looked at his hand. The glowing orb was gone.

But the wound was not. A deep, ragged gash ran from his wrist to his elbow, blood welling up and soaking the sleeve of his jacket. The pain was real. It was agonizing. He pushed himself up, his vision swimming, and staggered to flick on the light switch.

He looked down at his arm, and a fresh wave of nausea and terror washed over him. The wound was deep, real, and bleeding profusely. And embedded deep in the raw, torn flesh, glittering amidst the crimson blood like shattered jewels, were dozens of tiny, iridescent shards of confetti.