The Architects Chapter Eight: Saving The World

I fall asleep in the bathroom, my nose filled with the frangrant scent of old piss and bleach.

I wake up to the sound of a buzz saw.

Yeah, that wakes me up fast.

“What the Hell?”

The buzz saw apruptly stops.

“Oh good,” says Alexei, peering through the crack in the door. “You’re alive. That means I don’t have to destroy the door.”

“Uh... looks pretty destroyed to me.”

“Nonsense.” Alexei snaps his fingers like a comic book supervillain, and the door is back to normal. “Can you unlock the door?”

I unlock the door.

Where in God’s name did he get that saw?

You know what? I’m not even going to think about it. I fell asleep in a bathroom. This is a new all time low for me.

I think that once I get back to my body, I’m going to forget that this ever happened. Block it from my mind. That’s some sort of coping mechanism or something. I forget what it’s called. Something amnesia. psychotic? Diss... dissapate? Destruction? I don’t know. It starts with diss. I’m pretty sure, anyway.

“You’d better open up,” Alexei says. He revvs up the saw. It’s probably meant as a joke, but I don’t think it’s funny. I think it’s fucking terrifying.

I open the door.

“Mr. Kerpetski, I believe it is time to return to the grind. Let’s get back to work.”

“Uh.. yeah. Okay.”

I follow him into the bustling sci-fi streets outside the Zeuski apartment building. It seems like everything here has Zeuski’s name on it.

Dissociative.

For a moment, I don’t know where the word comes from. I know it’s Amanda’s mental illness, dissociative identity disorder...

Oh yeah. Dissociative amnesia. That’s where you forget about a traumatic event.

Funny how these things just randomly occur to me. Like I just about had a hemorrhage trying to figure it out, and now... poof. I remember it.

A rough hand yanks me out of my thoughts— and out of the way of a car.

“Pay attention, Mr. Kerpetski. The city moves on.”

The city moves on. It doesn’t matter if I’m frozen in my thoughts. Even when I’m a god, life moves on. The way Alexei says it makes me think it’s a popular phrase here. The city moves on.

I kind of like it, actually.

But then I hate myself for it. I’m not allowed to like this place. I’m not allowed to feel at home here. I have to get back to Amanda. Before the real Mr. Kerpetski wakes up and goes on a rampage, destroying everything I care about. After proving my skill yesterday, I think today I can finally work on my big project.

My portal to get back home.

I suck on my blood slushi as I step into Alexei’s office.

I’m sort of thinking of something similar to the Empire State Building. Big, bold, dark.

Why am I thinking so hard about this? The exterior isn’t important. Neither is the interior. I just need to focus on the portal. I need this to work. I need to get back to my body. To my time period. To my real home.

I don’t belong here. And I never will. It doesn’t matter that Alexei thinks I have skills. It doesn’t matter how comfortable the apartments are. It doesn’t matter. What matters is getting back to my average existence in a catastrophic year.

I don’t belong here. I just have to get to work.

After all, inter-dimensional time machines don’t build themselves.

Even when you’re a god.