Still not getting it?

When he opened them again, he was standing in a room. the room had features he had only seen in history and culture books from school. The walls of the room were made out of wood and paper.

The floor was laid out with Tatami mats. Damian searched for the door he had come through, but it wasn't there. He scratched his head with his right hand and realized he wasn't holding the key anymore. instead, there was a symbol, depicting the key, tattooed under his wrist.

Damian stared at it for a while and tried to peel it off somehow but to no avail. eventually he gave up and decided to look around the room some more.

It was pretty empty, but he spotted a closet with a sliding door which contained Nothing except some dust. he left the room through the next best sliding door he could make out and stepped outside the house.

Apparently, it was located inside a forest in the middle of a large clearing that reached a diameter of about 100 meters. there was a small road of cobblestone leading from the entrance of the house in the direction of the forest, but it ended exactly where the line of trees began.

He tried to reach the nearest tree but about 75 meters away from the house he bumped his head on something he wasn't able to see before. he fell on his butt and while rubbing his head he asked out loud:" what the hell?"

After he Spoke these words, a transparent, white Dome appeared that engulf the entire house with a radius of about 75 meters. He started to touch the wall and try to find … Actually, he wasn't really sure what he tried to find.

He just tried to comprehend what the thing in front of him was. after a while he gave up and while slightly panicking, he returned to the house. He tried to make sense of the situation and thought about what had happened up until now.

'Apparently it doesn't matter if I touch anything. up until now the only results I got was by uttering something out loud'. he decided to give it a go and while standing in the middle of the room he had first step foot into and tried to issue some verbal comments. after a while without any results, he lost his cool and screamed: "Explain yourself, god dam it".

Surprisingly this showed an effect. in front of him manifested a vaguely human silhouette. It had practically the same outline as him except there were no features and its body shone with a dim, bright white light.

It looked him up and down and from somewhere that was definitely not in front of him he heard a voice that was also very similar to his. "I have still the clearance to throw you out so I would like a bit more respect.

'I'm just a security system but I would still like to be treated as a person not a servant".

Damien was bewildered by what the silhouette had said but recovered instantly and asked:" what are you". It definitely disapproved of his tone because it crossed its arm in front of its chest and tapped with its foot.

There was also an annoyed humming sound all throughout the house. Damian closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He tried to cope with all the wacky nonsense that had happened in the last few minutes to not be as rude as a pissed off truck driver. he opened his eyes and stretched out his hand:" I am sorry. my name is Damian. "

"Would you please tell me who you are." the white figure didn't give him his hand but was definitely pleased judging by his voice.

"I appreciate the effort, but we don't do the 'hand thing' here. you can call me whatever you want I don't care. now what is the more interesting thing is what I do.

'I'm in charge of all functions in this facility. Room composition, interior, arrays whatever. you want something changed I can do it."

Damian looked dumbfounded at the mass of white light. he massaged his temples and asked:" sorry but what do you mean with arrays."

Now it was the shadows turn to be visibly confused. or at least it would have been if it had an expression. "You seriously don't know. did you get any kind of explanation?

Do you at least know what this is all about?" Damian sighed and shook his head. the silhouette scratched its temples and spoke with a flustered tone: "Then I'm sorry for not showing myself earlier. I thought you just didn't wane talk to me. first of all: how exactly did you get here."

It sounded apologetic but at the same time it started to become a bit wary of Damien.

"I found a key and a note behind the mirror in my bathroom. the note told me how to find some hidden room and another note in that room told me how to use the key to get here."

The silhouette breathed a sigh of relief. "So at least you came through the proper channel. You happen to know what happened to old victor." It asked. Damien bit his lower lip and looked down. "From a heart attack. Two weeks back."

The silhouette stood stock-still for almost half a minute without saying anything. "oh". It didn't say much for some time afterward either while it tried to find another fitting topic.

But bevor it could think of something else to say Damien calmed down and asked a question instead. "You wouldn't be able to give me a quick summary of what is really going on here." the being in front of him sighed in relief.

"Yes and no. Yes, I will give you a summary but there is no way in hell it can be quick if you are really that uninformed. God damnit I don't even know where to start."

As it said this a voice from outside could be heard. "You know that we don't care enough to do that. Right?" the being of light jolted in a straight, stock-still, position as it heard this voice.

"No one likes waiting outside. we are no exception so would you be willing to let us in", asked another voice from the same direction. The being of light seemed very nervous and repeated: "oh God oh God oh God" over and over while running in a circle.

"Yes, we hear you. Let us in already." the first voice replied two it's panicking words. The light being gathered itself and opened the door without actually touching it. just by waving its hand.

It also exited through the open door and Damien followed suit. outside of the light Dome hovered two clouds of mist. Or at least so it seemed to Damian.

They were not really distinct except for the fact that one was white, and one was black. "I'm going to let them in," the light creature said and a hole big enough for both clouds to enter opened in the barrier.

they both hovered in but as soon as they crossed the threshold they changed from there vague, gaseous form into 2 frankly very similar looking people.

Once again, the biggest difference Damien could make out was that one of them seemed to have fallen into a pot of white paint and the other was the same but in black.

Both of them immediately took a deep breath and exhaled with a sigh of comfort. After that they both approached in Damian direction. or rather in the direction of the light creature which was standing in front of Damian. it seemed quite nervous but not intimidated or frightened.