Chương 14: This is never going to work.

George watched Charlie through the small circular window. He was lying in a pile of tricycle pieces with George's button next to his head. Nod was right. His chest was still rising and falling. >>Tick tock, George. 09: 32.

"Yeah," George said listlessly, and slowly backed away from the door. >>Let's keep it simple. First, go check out his cradle. See what you see. George nodded but said, "Nod… I don't want to do this. Why did he come at me? I don't— I don't get it." >>Stay focused. Go into his house. Find something to defend yourself in case he wakes up. If he doesn't wake up, when that door opens, you kill him.

"How can this be the objective? I thought we were going to do the trial together. He said you just find things. I thought it would be like… I don't know… a puzzle or something." >>Yes. And then he sprouted a narwhal tusk from his hand and tried to open you with it. >>You're fighting for two here, George. Keep it together. >>Mental toughness. Grit and all that. >>You're a lean, mean ass-kicking machine.

"I don't think I am, Nod." George stumbled down the hall and found that he couldn't make his legs move any faster. He walked back into the room they'd been sitting in and almost tripped over the chair he'd thrown. Charlie's door was indeed open. George walked down Charlie's hallway and peered inside. Charlie's cradle was very different from George's. He'd found some way to expand it. Or maybe his had been different to begin with. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of a clear material that looked like glass.

Through the ceiling, he could make out a bedroom, bathroom, and TV room upstairs. He could see the dark square of a bed, dresser, a rug, a toilet, and a shower. There was even a large, overstuffed chair in front of a giant flatscreen TV. The rooms were organized in a 2x2 cube around a short central staircase. On the ground floor, there was a kitchen to George's right, complete with a tall silver fridge, a spice rack packed with jars, a table, and one chair.

Behind the kitchen, George could see a room with a bar that looked like it had been ripped straight out of a pub somewhere. There were three bar stools in front of it, and the back wall was mirrored with shelves full of liquor bottles stacked in rows against it. >>Guess he bought more than blue jeans and cigarettes. As George looked from left to right, tooltips from Identify scrolled through the side of his vision.

<Stair railing> <Panasonic Flatscreen TV> <Lay-Z-Boy> <Oven> <Refrigerator> <Formica countertop> <Matryoshka figment> <Matryoshka figment> <Matryoshka figment> <Matryoshka figment> <Matryoshka figment> … <Matryoshka figment> George looked at the items labeled Matryoshka figment and saw a haphazardly stacked pile of silver cubes in the corner to his left. The pile was waist-high, and each cube was slightly smaller than his hand.

"What are those?" >>Beats me. Touch one? George crossed the room and reached a finger toward one of the cubes, but as soon as he got close to it a notifcation flash in his vision. Absorb Matryoshka Figment? He jerked his finger away and thought, No. >>OK… maybe it is best not to touch the mysterious cubes. Let's stay focused. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Hopefully, Charlie won't wake up.

But if he does, we won't have long—and this weird glass apartment is all we've got. >>A man with no memory and his brain spider walk into a bar… >>Technically, we have 18 minutes since when your door opens, this door is going to close. So Charlie will be out in the common room and you'll still be in here for another ten minutes.

"Got any ideas?" >>Dig around. See what you see. It didn't take long to hurry from room to room and get a sense of what they had to work with. Aside from the abundantly stocked liquor selection, it seemed like a weirdly normal, if spartan, bachelor's apartment.

"What's with the glass walls and floor?" >>Beats me. Maybe it just means: "Charlie James is a creeper." >>Speaking of, why don't you go check on the guy? George jogged out of Charlie's house and back down his own hallway. When he looked through the porthole, Charlie wasn't there. He pushed his face against the window and looked from side to side and saw him. Charlie was on his hands and feet with his back to the door. His shirt was gone, and George could see lumps moving under his skin on his back.

His knees pointed the wrong way, and George could see that his feet weren't exactly feet anymore. They looked more like hands. His toes had elongated and ended in small, sharp spurs. George heard a moan come from inside the cradle, and the toes flexed and made a fist.

"Oh, shit," George said. Charlie's head whipped around and looked directly at the window. What was left of his face had become wider, and sprouted a sharp brow ridge that disappeared into his hairline. His mouth leered open, crammed with more teeth than belonged in anything human. Another spasm wracked him, and Charlie curled around himself and cried out. >>Well put, George. 06: 03. Get a move on. George ran back down the hallway.

As he passed the table in the common room, he saw Charlie's pack of cigarettes with the lighter stacked on top of it, and an idea started to assemble itself in his head. >>There's gotta be a knife in that kitchen, George. Go grab it and get ready. The Creature Formerly Known As Charlie is going to be mighty angry when it gets done switching to beast mode.

"And when my door opens, Charlie's will close?" >>Seems like it.

"Ok. That could work." >>What?

"We'll burn him." >>…Pardon?

"A trap. We'll set him on fire, and then I won't have to kill him. I mean… directly," George said. >>Seems like you've had an idea. >>Is this like George's Trike of Dreams? Walk me through it. Instead of answering, George grabbed the lighter and cigarettes from the table. After a brief hesitation, he tipped the table over and stacked the chairs on top of it. Then he turned and headed back into Charlie's rooms, breaking into a jog. Nod was right—there had to be knives in the kitchen.

George pushed through the door, rifled through drawers until he found them, and pulled out the longest one. He returned to the entrance and set it just inside the door, placing the cigarettes and lighter on top. His hands were slick with sweat; he wiped them on his pants. Then he hurried back into the kitchen, yanked an entire drawer free, and carried it into the common room, tossing it onto the growing pile.

He went back for the rest—dumping their contents onto the floor and hauling the empty drawers down the hall one by one. >>4: 03"I know. We need more stuff that burns," George said. George ran up the stairs and yanked open the dresser drawers. They were filled with clothes. He grabbed armfuls and hurled them down the stairs. Then he stripped the bed, tossing the sheets and pillows after them. A quick glance at the bathroom revealed a paperback sitting on a stool beside the toilet.

The book and stool both went on top of the pile. He ripped the shower curtain off the rod and threw it down, too. He pulled the cushion off the overstuffed recliner in the TV room. As he rushed from room to room, George slipped on a rug, then snatched it up and tucked it under his arm and ran down the stairs to move the pile that had grown there out into the common room. >>George. I see what you're doing but Charlie's not going to wait for you to build a bonfire. We don't have time for this idea.

"Not done yet," George said, slightly out of breath. George ran into the bar room and grabbed one of the heavy wooden bar stools and a bottle of whiskey from the top shelf. >>Ah. George threw the bar stool on the pile in the common room and poured the alcohol on top of it, soaking Charlie's clothes and sheets. Finally, he threw the bottle at the ground, and it shattered, leaving sharp shards of glass scattered across the floor. >>02: 55"There's still time. We need more."

George went back to the bar and took as many bottles of liquor as his arms could carry. He unstoppered one of the already opened bottles and poured it on the pile. >>Too long. Smash them. George raised the next bottle over his head and threw it onto the pile. It shattered on the edge of the overturned table. He threw the rest of the bottles all around the room, and they broke on the walls and floor.

He made three more trips to the bar, breaking them all around the room and making sure that the pile in the center had plenty of alcohol on it. >>00: 42. Not much time before that door opens.

"I know. One more thing." George went back for one last bottle and laid a trail of whiskey from the common room down Charlie's hallway. He tipped the rest of the bottle on its side a few feet away from the door, where a stream of alcohol slowly glugged out of it and then stopped. George returned to the door, grabbed the pack of cigarettes, and tore off the flip-top. >>00: 22 His hands were shaking as he held the lighter to the top of the half-empty pack.

The flame caught on the side of the box and started to climb to the rest of the box. New Milestone Achievement: You've crafted your first trap Bonus unlocked: Additional reward >>This is not going to work.

"It is going to work." >>OK. It might work. >>If you get extremely lucky. George carefully set the burning pack down on the floor so that it stood upright. The cigarettes burned together, sending up a tall flame and black smoke. >>00: 10. Get inside. George backed up until he was inside Charlie's door and picked up the knife. >>5, 4, 3, 2, 1. At the far end of the hallway, he saw the door to his cradle open—and the creature crawled into the doorway.