I'm Finally Back
My fingers are trembling, and I'm so excited right now that I can barely type. I tried using speech-to-text, but the results came back a complete mess. So allow me to get my emotions in check…
Okay.
My name is James Burke, a Pennsylvanian. Of course, that's hardly important. But first, for you to truly understand my present excitement, allow me to turn back the clock thirty years.
I was raised by a single parent. My father ditched me and my mother when I was still fairly young. To provide for me, who was five or six at the time, she quit her low-stress job as a salesperson and left to toil as an assembly worker in the factory. To be honest, what exactly that entailed has escaped me. All I know is that before the age of fifteen, all I saw of her was the exhaustion she carried home with her each evening. At the crack of dawn, she'd be gone again.
During the day, my mother entrusted me to a local gang. Given the conditions of our family, attending school was a pipe dream. Luckily for us, families like ours were a dime a dozen in our low-income neighborhood. The kids with no one left to take care of them would be rounded up by the gang and taught some basics along with being babysat all day. In exchange, my mother had to cough up a large chunk of her salary. Was this a mutual relationship or a coercive situation? Hard to say. But three generations and a good few decades in, this way of life was deeply ingrained in our community.
In the gang, the role of babysitter was certainly not the most glamorous. The member in charge of us five was called Chris — just Chris — a young fellow with red hair. Couldn't have been a lot older than we were, but to us kids, he was a mentor, playmate, and leader. He was like a half-father to us: kind, available, and patient.
Behind our neighborhood lay a defunct lot. Perhaps owing to the place's remoteness, nobody new ever came along to do anything with the vacant block. After our afternoon class (if you could call it that), Chris would shepherd us to the deserted streets before it got completely dark. A "scavenger hunt excursion," he called it. One day, when I was ten or eleven, Chris brought us there as usual.
I'll never forget it. As the evening came extra early on that dry day, the sky was draped in a weary orange. It was the first time Chris had taken us out to the west side of the abandoned block, a place he'd forbidden us to go for years on account of structural instability. I don't know what made him change his mind, but this development undoubtedly excited us all.
Maybe it was our overjoyed frame of mind that made the afternoon pass so slowly. We walked through one abandoned bungalow after another, rummaging through each one for anything left behind. Chris had his spray paint can, and every time we passed through a house, he would leave a gang sign on the wall. We gathered around the signs cheering, "Long live, Chris!" Just like that, we played until dusk fell and swallowed up half of the sky. But we still couldn't get enough, so we pestered Chris to take us through one last house.
A house like no other.
A small square lay to the west side of the defunct block, the house among the many buildings that surrounded the square. It was obvious that this house wasn't built for living in; it was shaped like a hemisphere flipped onto the ground, a bit like an Inuit igloo, roughly the size of four bungalows stacked together. The walls of the house were pearly white and clean, which looked out of place among the dilapidated buildings. No, scratch that. It didn't even look like it came from the same world. Above the entrance, facing out onto the square, hung a neon sign that read "Dias Funhouse." I've got no idea if it was 'cause of a mismatch of wires or something, but that sign, which should've been out for more than a decade, still occasionally turned on.
We couldn't peel our eyes from this special house, and Chris knew it. He looked around nervously before warning us to follow closely behind him as he pushed open the wooden door.
Our biggest surprise was yet to come. The house had electricity — the lights were practically gleaming. The entrance led to a curved hallway, the ground covered with some sort of green cloth, the ceiling adorned with cotton weaved in the shape of clouds. The glow from the incandescent lights shone down on us through the material. This area had long since been cut off from the grid, so what was still powering the lights? Our curiosity was immediately piqued, urging Chris to take us deeper and deeper into the house.
The hallway seemed to curve halfway round the edge of the place, and the entire journey was illuminated by flashing lampposts, as if the house was still in use. We were looking forward to seeing what the "Funhouse" had in store for us on the inside. Would there be toys? Or a whole bunch of paper and pens for the kids to write and draw with as they pleased? Or an indoor playground packed with slides and trampolines?
However, when we reached the end, all we saw was… a hole in the shape of an archway — there wasn't even a door. It was just a hole in the wall; pitch-black inside, and nothing that lay beyond could be seen. Even the lights in the hallway did little to help the darkness.
There was only an empty void.
I felt distinctly scared. I'm scared of the dark, but I've almost never told anyone; this would almost certainly get me called a "sissy" or a "softie" in the gang. Even though nobody was looking to start shit with a little kid, I was careful about this stuff.
But another kid in the group, Jack, the boldest one among us, clearly held no such reservations. He practically swooped in — not even Chris could stop him. Chris quickly dove into the black hole, trying to see where Jack had gone.
In an instant, their figures were swallowed up by the darkness. We remaining four looked at each other in shock, none willing to go in after them, likely too afraid. But soon, we heard eruptions of laughter from the other side of the entrance — familiar laughter that sounded like Jack.
"Oh my god, here it comes!" We heard him say.
"Three, two, one, go!" This was Chris's voice.
And then they exploded into laughter together, like they had done something incredibly amusing. Our eyes were wide open, trying to get a good look into the darkness, but we couldn't even see their outlines. Little Eisen couldn't take it anymore and yelled into the hole:
"Chris? What are you guys playing?"
From the darkness, laughter only grew louder. It took a while before Chris composed himself to reply, "Come on in, and you'll see!" And then more hooting came from inside the room, and Jack's thrilled count to three.
The kids outside finally lost their composure — little Eisen rushed into the darkness, followed by Wood, followed by our youngest, Rick. Their backs darted beyond the threshold, then disappeared entirely. From the pitch-black room soon came the sound of their rejoicing — "That was amazing!" "Do it again!"
I'd never heard them laugh so hard in my entire life. But before me lay only a shadowy hole.
Just then, Jack seemed to notice me standing outside alone.
"James? Why aren't you coming to play?"
"James? Are you just gonna stand there?"
"James? Take a look at this!"
"Holy — come look! James, get over here right now."
And then they all collapsed into another fit of hysterics. I felt like I was on the verge of rushing in — what's all the fuss about? What's this room got, anyway? What were they playing? To say I wasn't curious would be a bald-faced lie. But for some reason, my feet felt like they were being weighed down by liquid lead, utterly unwilling to budge an inch. I gazed into the darkness that permeated the entrance and broke into a cold sweat. I didn't know what I was afraid of, but there was this voice in my head whispering, "Don't go in, don't go in, James, don't go in." And then that voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of their joy.
I shouted into the hole, "I don't wanna go in; I'll wait for you outside!"
There was a lull in the commotion coming from inside the room before five voices started to laugh even harder. Chris even laughed himself into a coughing fit.
"James, you wuss, you're afraid of the dark!"
I have no memory of what happened next.
It was like this piece of memory had been snatched away, or something frightened me into forgetting. The people sent by the gang found me on the abandoned block the next day. They told me that I was huddled alone in the corner of the square, my eyes dull and unresponsive. If the clothes I was wearing hadn't attracted the attention of the scouts, I might have frozen to death out there. After they brought me back, I seemed to be out of it, constantly mumbling the names of Chris and Jack and the others under my breath. It took me several days to recover. They almost thought that I had gone mad.
I don't know why I ran back to the square — I don't even know how I got back. Did I end up going into the hole in the end? What did I find on the inside? I had absolutely no recollection of the events.
After that, Chris, Jack, and the others never reappeared. Fear kept me from going back, but when the gang caught wind that they had gone missing on West Street, they sent out a search party that lasted a couple of days. Our reputation was on the line, after all. In the end, they never found Chris or any of the other four. No bodies, no clothes, not a single trace of their presence. It was almost like they'd vanished into thin air. A week later, the gang gave up on the search and announced that Chris and the others musta gone AWOL.
I asked the adults who came back, "Have you checked Dias Funhouse? That was the last place I saw them; maybe they're still in there. It's the big one, right on the square on West Street. You can't miss it!"
They gave me a long, hard look and asked, "What funhouse?"
There has only ever been a circle of bungalows bordering the square on West Street.
Although the gang's search had come to an end, my story was far from over.
In the following thirty years, Dias Funhouse, Chris, Jack, and the others have never left my mind. I dream about them once a month — I dream of myself standing in that cramped hallway, facing that pitch-black hole, listening to their wildest, sincerest laughter. I listen as they invite me in over and over, telling me again and again how much fun they were having.
The funhouse became the origin of my most unrelenting nightmares. I still can't recall exactly what happened that night, but I've been standing in front of that hole for over thirty years. From ten years old to forty, from Joelson Town to New Seals, from a street kid to their Mr. Postman.
From the Frontrooms to here.
I can feel their laughter growing sweeter and sweeter. From that first night I no-clipped into Level 0, Jack's thrilled cheers bounced back at me through the darkness. "James? Have you finally made up your mind?"
I didn't know what he meant at the time and was only accompanied by the sense of uneasiness when I awakened. But now I understand, standing before the doors of Dias Funhouse once again.
Its sign still welcomes me as if no time had passed at all.
I don't plan on telling anyone how I found it. I don't want anyone to go looking for the funhouse, at least not until it finds you first. I don't plan on reporting it to the MEG, lest they make it a real level or a room or something, because I can't tell if I'm just experiencing a thirty-year nightmare.
…
I can already hear their voices. I've kept them waiting for long enough.
Mirth Ending
You've finally returned to your childhood happy place. You worry you might be late, but don't fret! We've all been waiting for you — come in and play!