Secrets of the Puppet-Master

The door slammed shut, and the lock clicked. I was locked in again. I looked back at my cell. The surfaces of the walls were almost concave, as if they were inwardly curved, like lungs or a brain. It was disturbingly organic; I would have preferred straight lines and 90-degree angles to this endless maze of white.

I turned away from my cell and walked down the hall. I had no idea how long it took me to reach the end of a hall, but every time I reached an end, there was another hallway that led me deeper into my prison. It seemed infinite, like a Möbius strip, and though that might have been interesting under different circumstances, I found it deeply unsettling. This place was not just infinite; it was impossible.

I heard footsteps behind me. A guard? Not likely, most guards don't walk with such a confident gait. "Hello?" I called out. No response. "I'm looking for a man named James! Do you know him?" Again no response, and the footsteps continued to grow louder. "Is there anyone here who can help me escape?" Still no response. I turned around to see a woman standing before me, wearing a blue dress with yellow polka dots and a cardigan sweater buttoned up to her neck. She looked exactly like my grandmother had when she died five years ago.

"Carrie!" the woman exclaimed as she hurried towards me and wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug.. Surprised by her sudden appearance and somewhat unnerved by the hug (nothing like this had ever happened in any of the other dreams), I instinctively began to pat her back awkwardly until she finally let go and smiled at me warmly. "It's so good to see you Carrie," she said as she gave me one more squeeze before letting go of me again and stepping back so that we could look each other in the eye more clearly.

"How do you know my name?" I asked skeptically, eyeing her cautiously as if she might be some sort of alien disguised as my grandmother getting ready to abduct me for scientific experimentation or something similarly absurd. "And who are you anyway? You look just like my grandmother."

"Of course, honey," she replied matter-of-factly while taking off her glasses and cleaning them on her sweater with slow deliberation. "We're family after all." Before I could ask anything else, she put her glasses back on again and said "Now how about we get you out of here? That's why you came isn't it?" The question would have been more intriguing if it didn't sound so much like something that would be said in an ad for some overpriced electronic device promising a life devoid of problems rather than an answer to what has become one of the most pressing questions in my mind lately: How do I get out of here? To say that I was baffled by what this woman just said would be an understatement; who knew my grandmother could be so cryptic? But instead of trying to figure out what she meant by that cryptic reply, I decided to play along with this surreal conversation for now since it seemed like all roads lead towards escaping this hellhole eventually anyways; although how someone who looked like Grandma could help with that was beyond me right now.

Before I could say anything else however, Grandma beat me to the punch: "Why don't we start by getting you some food first," she suggested brightly while putting her arm around my shoulders and leading me down another hallway on our way towards what looked like a cafeteria at first glance but actually turned out to be something quite different once we entered it: A modern kitchen with all sorts of appliances lining its walls (which didn't make sense because there wasn't any electricity running through the building) where Grandma proceeded to prepare us both sandwiches and hot chocolate (even though it didn't seem like either item required any cooking). Once we were both served our own sandwiches (which also seemed odd because everyone knows that sandwiches should be made with bread not bread slices stacked together), Grandma handed one sandwich over to me before sitting down next to me at one of the tables lining the room next to where Grandma had been standing moments before when making our sandwiches; the two tables closest to us were occupied by two other people sitting across from each other talking quietly while they ate their lunch before they looked up at us expectantly when they noticed us sitting down next to them at their table. One of them also wore a blue dress with yellow polka dots while the other one wore grey dress pants along with a wrinkled white shirt that seemed too big for him despite his rather small frame; his face however seemed oddly distorted somehow even though he looked perfectly normal otherwise once he put his glasses on again after finishing his sandwich - which is something he did almost immediately upon noticing us sit down next to him at his table: He took off his glasses then stared intently at us for several seconds until he started nodding sagely as if he had just figured out some complex problem before putting his glasses back on again once he realized neither of us were going anywhere anytime soon anytime soon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .