We slept for the “night” in the stairwell, until I was woken up by what sounded like someone doing pushups. When I opened my eyes, yes, Arkady was doing pushups. After watching him for a while, Sky tried imitating him, but couldn’t do a single one. She looked really upset about that, until I told her that I probably couldn’t do any either. Being a desk slave doesn’t help with fitness. Instead, we just ate a small breakfast while Arkady finished up his workout.

A: “Alright. Let’s get moving.”

I’d been hoping he would take longer. The more time we spend down here, the longer before we reach the top. And I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen when we get there.

My concern made me drift off as I tried thinking of a solution, so I didn’t realize anything was wrong until Arkady stopped walking.

A: “Well. This is weird.”

It took me a moment to notice what he was talking about. And when I saw it…. The stairs we were walking on were going sideways. And when I looked up, the stairway continued to twist around at impossible angles. Imagine an Escher painting, but without the limitations of a 2D image.

A: “Kid, you getting any feeling that everything’s about to explode at us?”

*Sky shook her head*

A: “Hm. I still don’t like this. We’re getting off the stairs.”

We went through the next door out of the stairwell. I tried to check the floor number, but couldn’t make it out; the numbers painted over the door just looked like a white blur. We went through the door, and found the floor on the other side to be far larger than any room in the building should have been. Rows of cubicles stretched on and on, seemingly past the horizon.

A: “Looks like it’ll take a while to walk through here….”

That was certainly true. We walked for hours, without any indication that we were getting closer to the end. After a while, my legs started cramping up. Endurance is not something I am built for. But I knew there was no way Arkady would be willing to stop.

Sky was having similar problems, and she actually collapsed from the pace we were going. Without a word, Arkady picked her up and started to carry her. She seemed frightened at first, but soon calmed down. For the time, at least.

D: “You really are in a rush to get out of here.”

A: “Of course. We need to get to the top of this building as soon as possible so I can kill this kid.”

That set Sky into a panic, and she pulled out of Arkady’s arms, falling onto the ground. Arkady just laughed at her as she crawled behind a desk, like it was a joke.

D: “What the hell? Why did you do that?”

A: “Because it was fun?”

D: “You really hate us so much that you’re willing to mess with her head just for fun?”

*Arkady seemed genuinely taken aback by what I’d said.*

A: “That’s ridiculous. I don’t hate either of you.”

D: “You keep talking about killing us both!”

A: “And? I’m going to kill you two because I feel like it, and it might forward my goals. I certainly don’t hate you. At most, I’d say I feel mild disgust towards you. And even then, it’s nothing personal. It’s just because you’re proxies.”

D: “So that’s it. You’re disgusted with us so you think it’s okay to just wholesale slaughter every one of us.”

A: “Whether or not it’s okay doesn’t factor into it. I kill proxies because I feel like doing so.”

D: “That’s not a real reason!”

A: “Isn’t it? Why do people climb mountains? Because they’re there. Why do I fight the Slender Man? Because he’s there.”

D: “No. That can’t be it. Dozens of people are dead because of you. You can’t have done all that just because you felt like it.”

A: “Can’t I have?” *He pulled a chair from a desk, and took a seat.* “Tell me writer girl, what are you?”

D: “What?”

A: “Okay, easier question. What am I?”

D: “You’re a sociopathic murderous monster who-”

A: “Wrong. I’m a collection of subatomic particles undergoing a continuous process of chemical reactions which, as a result of entropy, will eventually break apart.”

D: “What does that have to do with-”

A: “Everything.” *He stood up and started pacing, making me wonder why he’d gotten the chair in the first place. Sky peeked out from behind the desk to watch.* “Everything decays. Everything dies. You, me, the girl? All of us, dead. The time in which we are alive is barely a blip on the timeline of the universe. And once we are dead, everything we have done is for naught.”

D: “Oh come on, you’re being dramatic. People don’t just vanish when they die. They leave an impact on the world. They still did things, there’s still people who remember them.”

A: “They’ll die too. And all your accomplishments will weather away like dust.” *A laugh.* “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings/Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” *He sat back in the chair* “Even after all the things I have done, you think it will matter in the end? I could become the most famous, most accomplished human in the world. And none of it would matter. In 3 billion years, the rising temperature of the sun will have rendered Earth unsuitable for habitation. In 4 billion years, the Andromeda Galaxy will collide with the Milky Way. In 3x10^43 years, all stars will have died, leaving only black holes. And in a nearly immeasurable time after that, those black holes will die as well, leaving only subatomic particles. And then even those particles will decay. In the end, there will be nothing. Nothing at all. In the end, no matter what you do, it will turn out the same. Your life, this little adventure in the tower, even the Slender Man’s millennia of work… all of it will be rendered pointless. There have been eternities where humanity did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened.”

D: “That’s… a really depressing way to look at things.”

A: “No. Wrong. It’s not depressing.” *He smiled, showing way too many teeth.* “It’s liberating.”
*Arkady stood back up, and resumed pacing.*
A: “People are always so obsessed with death, acting as if their whole lives revolved around it, almost like they worship it! They worry about how they will be remembered after death, they fear things that might cause death, they build entire religions around what they want to happen after they die! And for what? We’ll die. We are doomed to death from the moment we are born. There’s nothing we can do about it. So why worry about the inevitable?” *He stopped pacing.* “God is the pain of the fear of death. He who will conquer pain and terror will himself become a god.”
*He looked at Sky and me for a few moments, as if expecting a response, and then frowned.*

A: “Neither of you have read Dostoevsky, have you.”

D: “No….”

A: “Never mind then.” *Started pacing again* “In the end, the realization that none of your actions matter is true liberation There is no greater calling in life. No invisible force of morality and justice given to us from on high. The only thing in your life which matters to you…” *He stopped, and looked directly at Sky* “… is yourself. You are the medium through which all your experiences are filtered. You are the one who determines what is right and wrong. You determine what your purpose is. Not a god. Not a master. Only you.”

D: “That’s ridiculous. Philosophies which preach selfishness are inherently self-destructive. It’s the reason things like Social Darwinism don’t work. The strength of humanity has always been cooperation, achieving greatness from working together, not individuals acting solely in their self-interests.”

A: “Humanity can burn for all I care. Trying to improve their condition is as pointless as any other endeavor.”

D: “That’s… that’s just… that’s impossible to argue with. You’ve declared any other goal except for your own as meaningless, preemptively blocking any attempt to argue.”

A: “Yes. Hence its genius.”

D: “It’s not genius, it’s pseudo-philosophy. And it’s still a big jump from ‘Life has no meaning you should do what you want’ to ‘I am going to kill an eldritch god.’ Under your reasoning, the best thing any of us could do would probably be to stay home all day and eat ice cream until we died.”

A: “That is one conclusion that could be drawn. It’s the one most people seem to reach. But it’s just so… boring. With the limitations of slave morality and death worship thrown aside, what should I do? Dedicate myself to nihilistic hedonism to satisfy fleeting physical urges? No.”

*He walked toward the windows and looked outside, where the storm was still raging outside*

A: “Why waste my time on such a petty action when I could become something more? When I could become something greater?” *He turned back toward us, as red lightning flashed behind him* “Throughout history, conflict has been the force which has driven humans to rise up. When two ideas clash, only one can survive. To win, they must adapt and grow. The greater the obstacle, the greater the growth.” *He clenched a fist, and raised it to his face.* “So what did I choose for my opponent? My great obstacle? I chose the greatest conflict. I chose to battle a God. I will throw everything I have into his destruction. My purpose shall become the end of him and everything he has created. I will plunge the entire Earth into fire if I must. And in the end, only one of us can be left standing. If I win, then I will have become like a god myself. And if I lose… well, then I’ll be dead. When it’s all done, it makes no difference.”
*He raised both his hands up.*
“For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!”


Then he just started laughing, unlike any laughter I’d heard before. It was insane, but not like the wild cackling of some crazy proxy. This madness wasn’t some out of control fire. It was like steel. Cold, hard, and completely under his control.

The Boss terrifies me. He’s an unknowable mystery, and I fear him for it. But when I watched Arkady laughing in front of the storm, I felt a different kind of terror, that might almost be as strong. Because the Boss is a monster. He’s supposed to be like he is. But Arkady’s a human. And yet, in spite of that, I have no doubt that he would burn the entire world down if it was in his way and he had the means to do so. He would kill us all on a whim, and it would have no greater emotional impact on him than any of us would feel stepping on an ant. And that scares me more than anything I’ve ever encountered before.