This is both a continuation and a change to the previous story (part 3). The chunk below replaces the ending from part 3, before moving on to part 4. I am currently trying out telling this story in both the first and third person, and would love some feedback on which works best (see the story Black Rock City). Comment or send feedback, you bastards! Especially if you are burners!
*****
new ending to part 3:
The exit was nowhere to be seen. The curtain had dropped, or the world had turned, but there was no way out of the little dome. Panic started to rise in my gut. Slowly, like a dark wave rising in the distance, the Horned God was standing up. I pushed Darcie towards the wall of the dome. There had to be a way to fit under the dome; it was just a frame and some canvas after all. I pushed and lifted the fabric. Finally a gap appeared and I shoved Darcie through it.
I took a last look before diving through the gap. Behind me, the Horned God was standing to his full height, his horns brushing the top of the tent. His face remained in darkness, his eyes glowing red. He spoke, or laughed, or made a sound that shook the air in my lungs. I dove through the slit in the tent.
I fell face first in the dust of the Playa. I scrambled quickly to my feet, pulling my body all the way through. Darcie was standing there, looking out, not moving. I stood up next to her, taking her hand, about to pull her away from this place. But I looked at what she was looking at, and I froze.
We were not on the Playa anymore. Or rather, we were on a different playa.
It was still night time, and the same ring of tents glowed brightly under a starry sky. But the dark sky was ribbed with color, ribbons of ephemeral light dancing above our heads. The moon was so bright it looked like a bright disc, like a pale sun in the black sky. And the Man, the giant wooden statue that was the center of the camp ground, was gone. Instead, an enormous black stone, shaped like a flake of some shiny obsidian, rose up, a dozen stories tall. Windows and balconies had been cut out of it, and the inside was obviously lived in.
The Man was gone, replaced by a Black Rock City.
part 4
Darcie and I staggered forward, hand in hand.
The night-filled Playa in front of us was oddly familiar, until your eyes focussed on the details. That was not an art car crossing the dusty plain ahead of us; that was a gigantic shark made of light swimming through the air, three feet above the ground. A pirate frigate sailed across the playa, a trail of gold dust lighting its path as the bow split the dry land. On the deck wild men and pirate wenches danced to a drum beat echoing from its hold.
People were walking or riding exotic bikes all around us, just like on the other playa. But their faces were off, off in many unique ways. They were not wearing masks. Those were strange elven eyes staring back at us, that man over there was not on stilts, he really was eight feet tall with horns growing out of his forehead.
I started to laugh, giddy and terrified. Whatever was burning in the hookah back in the dome was some potent shit. I had never tripped like this, never experience a drug that caused such precise and concrete visuals. Because this had to be a bad trip, or I was losing my mind.
I clutched at Darcie, who huddled closer to me. The look on her face told me she was seeing the same sort of things as I was.
But then she spoke.
"That guy is too tall. How can he be that tall? Are these horns real? What the fuck," she exclaimed.
She was pointing at the same tall man I had seen. She saw it too. We both saw it. Which meant we were neither tripping, nor insane. We were indeed somewhere else.
Our immediate vicinity was the familiar hodge-podge of tents and shade structures. Lights and streamers were tied to them, just as in the place we had just left. In a way the familiar sights were more disorienting. We were still there, at Burning Man, the landscape was still the same as before. But as soon as I focussed on the details, it all went to Hell and the world stopped making sense.
A shape moved nearby, making me jump. A thin man, clad in grey dusty robes, was slowly standing up. He had been half-covered by a swell of dust that had accumulated against the wall of a nearby tent. He slowly unfurled himself, dust streaming off of his body, off of his face, until he finally turned and fixed his eyes on us.
He raised a single finger, pointed it at us before curling it back, inviting us to come closer. Unable to find a reason why not, I moved towards him. Darcie clung to me and followed.
"Water," he croaked, as we came near him.
"We don't have any," I replied, looking down at myself, at the mostly naked Darcie, trying to emphasize the obvious truth of my statement.
There was no place for us to even carry any. The grey man coughed, sending little billows of dust towards us.
"Shit," he said, defeated.
"Sorry," I said.
"you guys are new here, right? Yeah, it's obvious, look at you, all pink and fresh. They're gonna eat you up," he said before chuckling dryly.
"Where are we?" asked Darcie.
"Who's going to eat us?" I asked.
The grey man chuckled again.
"Ah," he said, "you guys are in for a treat. Look around you, it's fucking Burning Man! Year round! All day and all night, because, technically, it's all one long night here. It's the fucking best!"
"But things are different.." I stammered.
"Well,..it is the fucking Fairy Realm, so, yeah. It could also be Valhalla, I'm pretty sure I saw a Viking once. Or some mirror world. Or maybe we're all dead. Which would explain the bones."
Darcie and I followed his gaze. There, half covered by the swell of dust, was a human skull. When I looked around I noticed, here and there, more bones. Femurs and skulls jutting out of the playa, mostly covered by the dust.
"Is this Hell?" asked Darcie, her voice quivering with fear.
"Fuck no! Or if it is, it's the best fucking Hell you could ask for! It's party all the time until you drop! And then, when you do drop, ...pffffff..." He made a blowing noise, his hands opening and embracing the bone-strewed dusty plain.
"I don't want to die here," said Darcie.
"There's got to be a way out," I said.
"Did you guys...exchange anything? Bodily fluids maybe? With some weird dudes? Because that, my friends, is how you sign a contract down here. You give something, you receive something...nothing is truly free."
The last day suddenly made a lot more sense. The man and the beautiful women, extracting "contracts" from unsuspecting partiers. A metric ton of guilt and shame fell on my shoulders. This was Hell, this was indeed were we come to pay our debts.
Darcie's hand landed on my shoulder, comforting.
"There's got to be a way out of those contracts. We didn't know," she said.
"You guys are cute. Dumb, but cute. I like you. How's this, you get me some water and I'll help you. I'll tell you everything I know, all my tricks," he replied.
