The Vault (9)

I took a red pill, sat in my meditation posture and entered The Zone. Once there I was able to enter the Vault.

This time neither the man nor the woman were on reception, instead it was Adrian.

"You're here," I said.

"Just helping out," he said. 

"Where do I go?" I said.

"I've no idea," he said. "I'm new in the role."

"Shall I just go to my hamster booth then."

"Better had. I'll just be out here in case you need anything."
 
The hamster was in its train-cage as before, sucking on the water bottle.

I sat down at the screen. I wondered whether to open the cage and put the hamster in its wheel, but it beat me to it, climbed into the wheel and started to run. The screen flickered into life.

I am pissing. It is the biggest piss ever, an enormous stream of urine that I've been holding onto ever since discovering that the nearest toilet on the train was out of order.  It had been a long journey to find a working toilet.

The toilet bowl is high-up and I am standing on tip-toe trying to reach to maximum height so as to piss down. Innevitably my aim is flawed and piss-dribblings splatter onto the floor.  

I finally finish and feel guilty about the piss on the floor. I remember the Prime Minister, the important-looking man off the telly that I'd passed through, so I tear off some toilet paper to mop my pee from the floor.

The toilet paper is soft, much better than the paper I have used before. It is, I realise, first class toilet paper, the sort that the Prime Minister uses. Prime Mininsters don't use the same toilet paper as the rest of us. 

Eventually I finish and wash my hands. I check I have zipped up my fly, because I don't want the Prime Minister to see me with my fly undone.  Eventually I am confident I am ready and open the door.

My adult self understands the scene straight away. There is a dead body on the floor, the security guard I passed in the corridor, he is lying face down in a pool of his own blood. 

But I can feel my child s-eyes confusion, this is something the like of which I have never seen, I have never encountered death, not so much as a dead hamster at this age.  I can smell the blood, and this too adds to the confusion.

I stare for a long time at the corpse then I turn and run. The image on the screen changes, I run to the door I passed through, to the Prime Minister's carriage, and run through. I say nothing, but I am screaming internally, and my older self hears the scream. It is in this state of blinded terror that I run into the next corpse, the security guard in the suit who had been standing next to the prime Minister. He too is in on the floor in a pool of blood. 

I stumble past him, over him, messing myself with blood as I do so, it is over my trousers, my shirt, my shoes. 

As I stumble forward, I look to the left. The Prime Minister is in the process of being stabbed. The man opposite him has grabbed him by his tie, pulled him across the table, and is in the process of stabbing him. Watching now I can see that the knife is well place, directly through the heart, this is a man who knows how to kill. 

I run screaming down the train.  As I do so everything happens at great speed. The door at the end of the carriage opens and I see my mother, the guard next to her rushes in. The man sitting next opposite pulls on a chord and leaps out of his seat and through the door at the end of the carriage, the train squeals to a halt, the guard rushing towards me stumbles, I stumble. I turn and look at the killer as he opens the train door and leaps outside. 

The child version of me sees too much, he is overwhelmed, he passes out.

But before my eyes close and the screen goes blank I take one last look at the killer before he flees. I know him, of course. Bunter. He is now the most famous man in the country, the man expected to take over as Prime Minister, the glamorous Foreign Secretary, the darling of the press conference, the darling of the tabloid press. This is him, twenty years younger, covered in blood, leaping from a train, but undoubtedly the same man.

My eyes close and the screen goes blank.

The hamster stops running, as if he is controlled by the screen and not the other way round. 

I turn round to see Adrian, standing in the doorway. He has been watching everything.

"Time to go," he says. "Job done."

I followed him out of the Vault. 

I woke up alone in my room, in my meditative stance.