The Home of Stories, Nishant Perla

I stumbled into the room with the light, hoping I had made my way outside. Sadly, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. Instead of a view of a golden desert from snow capped mountains, I saw a room lined with gold. Silver torches were placed all around the room, giving it a heavenly glow. I grabbed one and made my way through the room. Everything was neatly organized, separated into size, shape, type of metal, and other categories. The floor was tiled with all the colors of the rainbow, creating a beautiful pattern. The ceiling had gold-tipped bronze chandeliers, each of them unique and extremely intricate. The walls were the most interesting. They were covered in paintings and drawings, both crude and extravagant. As I approached the images, I realized what I was seeing.

Each wall was covered in stories from different parts of the world. One wall detailed Gilgamesh’s journey to find the secrets of immortality. It showed the Great Flood, his friend’s Enkidu’s death, and many different adventures that he took. Another wall shows the Ramayana, with images showing Ravana kidnapping Sita, Rama’s adventure to save her, and Hanuman burning down Lanka. I turned around, and took in the depiction of Hercules. The wall showed his twelve labors; bright colors showed his fight with the Nemean lion, a dull image showed him shoveling the stables, each looking more beautiful than the last. There was an entire wall dedicated to snakes from around the world; Jormungandr shared the same space as the Rainbow Snake. This place looked like it was a graveyard for stories.

I frowned. These stories were from all over the world; how had they all gotten here? I saw an image of Quetzacoatl, a mythical snake from Aztec mythology. The Aztec were on the other side of the planet! As I looked around more, I could see what looked like cave paintings at the bottom of the wall. Each of the coins or artifacts each had a picture on it, telling yet another story. I shook my head in wonder, trying to think of the possibilities.

I picked up a ring and a lamp, which both had a shiny ruby attached to it, when I realized something. I ran back to the front of the room, and confirmed my suspicions; the stories were all in chronological order. The room started with cave paintings, and then the drawings would get really detailed and intricate, then suddenly fall back to simple drawings. The cycle kept repeating, but each cycle started better off and went further than the last, with a few exceptions. The last cycle ended only a couple millennia ago, and it was shown with a ton of different drawings of a flood, famous stories from all over the world. There was Noah’s Ark, the Sages and Matsya, Turtle Island, Gilgamesh on his raft, and Deucalion and his chest, among many others. As I reached the end of the hall, I saw different modern folktales and extremely popular stories.

I also saw pictures of different cities in the world, and I was blown away by the accuracy and detail in each of the images. I frowned, and wondered yet again how these pictures came here; that fact that it was thousands upon thousands of years old confused me even more. I realized that these stories were what shaped our histories. They taught people morals and what to do and not to do. It utilized people's creativity, inspiring a lot of people. In fact, things like Greek myths influenced a lot in today’s society! As I was exploring, I came across a section of lifelike statues. They looked so human, but the only thing off about them was that they were covered in black ink. I saw a lot of different pictures, some of them really detailed while the others just looked like a kid’s drawings. The placement of the statues was a bit off, as it didn’t seem to be a part of any mythology. I shrugged it off, thinking it just didn’t have a place. I sighed and looked up from the statues and noticed black smoke in the corner of the room. As I approached it, I heard hissing, and I noticed it was only in one corner of the room. It was slowly moving up and to the side, and left behind markings. I leaned in, and noticed that they were pictures just like the rest of the images in the hall. I gasped in surprise as the realization hit me. This smoke was the one that had created all the images! Suddenly, the hissing stopped. The inky black smoke peeled from the wall, and fell to the ground with an audible plop. I stared at the blob for a second, before it started rushing towards me, leaving behind a small ink trail. Before I could react, it had latched onto my fingers, and started crawling its way up my arms. I screamed and swore and looked around frantically for an exit. I saw a doorway shining with sunlight and started to rush towards it. The ink creature started swinging wildly, trying to slow me down. I was flung in all directions, but it only slowed down a little. Each time I broke something, the thing started to move faster. When I reached the doorway, the smoke creature had reached my shoulder. The second I stepped into the light, the ink hissed and jumped off and crawled back to its place on the wall. It continued with its drawing and acted as if I had never been there. I looked down at my arm, and stared in shock at what I saw there. It looked like I had gotten a bunch of tattoos—thin black lines snaking across my whole forearm—from my fingertips to my elbow. The progression in the art style was the same as the chamber walls; at my fingertips, the drawings were just stick figures, and as I twisted my neck to look at my shoulder, I could see the colorful, elaborate drawings. I collapsed in the doorway, catching my breath, just out of sight of the ink creature. I looked closely at the drawings and was shocked when I saw my journey in that chamber. From a stick figure entering a cave to a precise masterpiece of me running out of the doorway, each step of my journey was pictured as a tattoo on my arm. I stood up slowly, taking in everything that happened. I thought it would be an amazing story to tell. However, I quickly realized that people would just think I’m crazy and brush me off, maybe even taking me to a hospital. I vowed to keep this to myself and walked to the bright light. I realized that this wasn’t a place for stories to die, but for them to be born. Stepping through the second doorway, I tripped and stumbled into what I hoped was outside.