Pip's Hellsborough Diary
There is drug taking in Hellsborough and The Dark Peak, mainly a thing called rockcrust, which will jack you into the murk and let you experience what is known as scerm, apart from that, there's alcohol and weed, so it makes the off-world almost seem dangerous by comparison. I don't curse much, there is very little cursing on this website, or in Hellborough in general to be fair -- it's all pretty tame, really.
Why do I tell you this? Well, it's all to do with my first time. The first time I came through The hinge. When The Hinge claimed my virginity, is one way I could put it. That first time is exhausting. All that unknown. All that trepidation. All that excitement.
I uttered those incantations, the ones I had deciphered from the milting semagrams -- a semagram that I held onto tightly as the world began to shift, and with no bodily movement, I transgressed The Hinge and came out on the Hellsborough side. Or at least I thought that's what had happened since, moving between parallel universes is nothing but a non-event.
There were no great claps of thunder, no bolts of lightning, no sign from the universe that I had done anything that I shouldn't have done, that I had broken any rules, that any rules had even been broken.
There were two questions in my mind: Had I crossed over at all? And, what now?
To answer the first question, yes, I felt exhausted, but was that just nervous energy being expended after what I had thought I had done? If I had done anything?
Then I fainted. It was then, as my consciousness began to ebb away and my frail mind clutched at the fading straws of my awareness, that I realised -- physiologically, if not in a cognitive sense -- that I was being poisoned.
The murk. It was not initially evident to me when I "stepped" through The Hinge without moving, but within seconds, it had wrapped itself around my alien form, curling up my legs and enveloping my chest; smothering my face.
And then my eyes were open again and I breathed, fitfully at first, then deeply, from the psycmask (as I now know it) that covered my face, purifying my air supply, and filling my thoughts and brain with strange images and sounds that made me feel like I had been transported through some new portal to a world more alien than I could ever have expected to experience.
I passed out again from the sensory overload.
When I next awoke, the psycmask's sensitivity must have been reduced, since the sounds and pictures that now flooded into my mind had a calming effect. Rivers and hills, trees, flowers, flappers and creatures of the forest -- familiar sights to someone not unused to doing a bit of exploring of one's locale.
Words whispered into my feeling: Mutable, fluid, transforming. Informing, advising me of where I am, what I am, where I'm going, where I've been, when and what, and how and who.
And then I am sat upright, aware of my surroundings. I am in a room, it is an old room, possibly the oldest room that I have ever visited. It reminds me of a museum, except it is a museum that is genuine, not one that been thoughtfully curated and dusted down everyday before paying visitors arrive; this room is a lived in room. I am reclining on a chaise longue, my back supported by its back, my legs horizontal. There is a huge mirror, I see myself in the mask out of my left eye, I am an abomination. There are paintings, portraits, military figures; they wear masks, like the one I wear.
What appears to be a giant hand bangs the chair beyond my shoeless feet (where are my shoes, I wonder, I had shoes when I arrived here, I'm sure I did), making me and plumes of dust jump. Then I realise my senses aren't attuned right. The hand is normal sized, it belongs to a slender form with a grizzled chin, and it was a pat, not a bang -- a self invitation for this person to take a sitting position beyond my toes.
Damn good job I took that crust when a did, young'un, that Murk had tha good, was only cos I was surfing t'scerm that a found thee when I did; lucky n'all this old 'ouse sits right on t'junction an we still 'ave these 'eadbangers kickin about, I reckon tha'd been crozzled.
From that day until this, I have never forgotten how Van Hallam managed, largely by accident, to save my life, but I will be forever grateful.