The First Door

[Guu]

The room was composed of purple and blue crystals, all six walls shiny and shimmery, polished to a smooth surface. Inside the room was however, only brought more questions than answers.

It was a children’s playground, much like the kind she’d seen kids play with in movies and television, but she had never actually played on one because you couldn’t really find too many of them in the jungle. It was composed of a slide, a jungle gym, a roundabout, and a pair of swings. All of them look worn, as if they’d seen many play sessions over the years. However, the oddest feature is that every single one of them had yellow tape around them, with the words “caution” repeated in bold black lettering. Every single playground accessory was blocked off thanks to the tape, with exception of the roundabout.

Guu figured that none of this was accidental and she was intended to find this playground in such a state. Thinking the roundabout was important somehow; she grabbed onto its thick metal bars, and started pulling it around in circles, building momentum. As she did, she heard a metal chain dragging around somewhere. Thinking she was making progress somehow, she kept going, the chain grinding against some metal surface. She ran at top speeds, the playground around her turning into a blurred mess to her vision.

Eventually, the sound of the grinding chain halted, but to her surprise, the roundabout didn’t stop. Thinking she had accomplished whatever she was intended to do, she hopped on with the intention to ride the momentum out.

However, as soon as she felt those g-forces pressing against her body, her adrenaline suddenly kicked in. Her heart was racing, her body was trembling, eventually, she just shut her eyes and let it all come to her. One would say she was enjoying the rush. As the roundabout slowed to a stop and Guu’s head stopped spinning, she witnessed as the tape around the jungle gym suddenly burst into light and evaporated away.

Heading over to the jungle gym, she inspected it carefully, both with her eyes and her senses. It was composed of multi-colored monkey bars, arranged in a cylinder with a rounded top. She guessed it must have been three meters tall at least. Something was hanging from the ceiling just over the jungle gym. It was way too small to make out exactly what, but it was attached to a rope. She stretched out an arm to reach at whatever it was.

But felt it slapped away by something. She suddenly noticed the white monkey playing at the top of the jungle gym, swinging around on the bars. It peered down at her and laughed before disappearing from sight in a single jump.

’Could the monkey suppress its presence like I could?’ She thought.

She sent out her arm again, only to feel it swiped away by another paw.

’I guess I’ll have to meet it half-way.’

She placed her foot onto one of the metal bars. Grabbing onto another bar, she used it to lift herself up, climbing her way up the jungle gym. She carefully listened for the monkey, expecting it to shove her off or something. Eventually, she made her way to the rounded top of the jungle gym. Taking the slope to stand freely, she scanned around for the monkey, only to not see it on the jungle gym at all. In the corner of her eye, she saw it running off away from the playground and through a door that dissipates as soon as it’s through.

Confused, she climbed the rest of the way up. Sure enough, it was a rope, but at the end was a diamond bolted onto the pointy end of it. She thoroughly looked it over. On the middle of the long flat end was the words engraved: “Cubic Zirconia.” She sensed around, seeing if she missed anything. Sure enough, the rope was attached to some strange mechanism. Following her instincts, she tugged on the rope as hard as she could. Not far away, the tape around the swing set disappeared into light, much like the tape around the jungle gym. She climbed her way down and headed that direction.

Not far from the swing set was two sets of footprints, perpendicular from the swings. She noticed that one was her own, while the other belonged to something bigger: a full grown adult. She stepped into her footprints, the sand felt warm around her feet. She saw it glow in an orangish color. Having a hunch, she hopped in one place, and the force from the jump caused the sand to glow far brighter. She remembered reading from a manga how some kids would launch themselves off the swings and land in the sand; maybe this was what she had to do.

She climbed into one of the swings. She slowly pushed herself back and forth, building up momentum with each pass. Eventually, she was swinging high enough that the chain holding her seat up was at the same height as the bar. She let go, launching herself into the air. She twists her body midair and lands perfectly on the footprints. The sand around her feet glowed brightly. The light was almost blinding. However it quickly petered out.

She pondered to herself what she could possibly be missing. However then she remembered the second set of footprints.

‘Am I supposed to do this with somebody?’ She thought, frustrated. ‘How am I supposed to find someone else? Was I supposed to recruit the monkey?’

However, she felt a hand press on the top of her head. She looked up. It was her adult self, standing next to her, smiling genuinely.

“Would you like to ride the swing with me?” She said genuinely.

Guu wasn’t sure if this was an imposter, or if her subconscious had built her out of her shapeshifting again, but she felt oddly warm seeing her no matter the circumstances. Young Guu lifted her arm up and took Adult Guu’s hand. She nodded to her.

The pair sat side by side in the swing, hands held. They built up the momentum again, and together, they launched into the air, landing perfectly in the footprints. The sand lit up around both pairs of feet, and the tape around the slide dissipates. She looks up to meet eyes with her adult self, but finds that no one is there. She couldn’t help feel a bit lonely at this revelation.

As she makes her way to the final attraction, she took a moment to question the situation. It was obvious someone was trying to test her, but what motivation would they have for that? Why did it take the form of a playground? And why was it so easy so far? He thought gravitated towards the monkey. That monkey could have easily made accomplishing her goal way more difficult to achieve, but it left as soon as she stopped trying to stretch her way to the top. What did they hope to gain from this?

Questions still far from answered, she made her way to the slide. The slide itself was a long tube that span in circles downward. She climbed up the ladder and onto the platform where she stared down the mouth of the slide. With one final big breath, she sat down into it, and pushed herself forward.

Once again, she felt herself having fun as her body was propelled down the tube, but she couldn’t help but notice that the slide was going on for much longer than it appeared from the outside. She was certainly being taken someplace else, but for the moment she didn’t have a care. The inner child that had been chipping away this whole time had finally broken free as her social face takes over and a giant smile spreads across her face, and she yells out in pure glee.