The cracks in the wall were widening with every step he had taken, as the things he remembered began to shift and change. He was remembering the same things twice, but with slight differences.
Corey, for example.
The scars on her he hadn't noticed, because he would have asked how she got them and that was the knowledge hidden from him.
Why was him not knowing her strange? People from the upper levels may never even meet people from higher levels, higher employs. Why didn't he just assume hushed was from higher up?
'It would have been hard to explain why they were eating at me and Matt's place if she were of higher employ-'
His mind froze, a new word coming up, a simple one.
'High caste. We are castes, not employs.'
He could remember two lives, where the words interchanged between them, with slightly different meanings.
Employ meant they worked for a company. The board.
But caste... it was a position in society. A town even. A small city maybe.
The hive was its own society beneath the earth, and castes were its citizens, born within the Complex.
Simon paused at that word too.
Complex. Like a name almost... like...
...Hive.
He stumbled as he almost fell against the elevator tube, holding his head as the barrier roared, a lion in his mind as he got so close to the things he shouldn't know yet, shouldn't know until he reached the surface, he was breaking the rules-!
Simon reached up and slammed the button, clutching his head even as mental claws scraped the inside of his skull.
"BANG!" The button bounced back after being pressed, lighting up with an orange glow.
The orange seemed so over saturated, as did the light of his flashlight he had dropped, so intense as the light swirled around him, like swirls of paint depicting light.
'I'm in a Da Vinci painting.' The random thought entered his head amid the screaming pain.
The lion paced, kneading it's claws into him, as the attack stopped, his previous train of thought that came too close now shredded bits around it. Shattered bits of his own psyche littered like shredded paper.
Simon giggled at the lion in his head. "You're gonna make me all buggy if you keep ripping stuff in my head."
He swayed a bit, almost drunkenly as he waited for the elevator to the surface to finally open.
"Emily said bugs get in our brain! Are you a bug Mr Lion?" Simon laughed, he knew something was wrong with him.
'But what could be wrong? I'm so dreamy and happy, it's all buggy and briiiiiight...'
He squinted as the brightness confused him, even in his addled state. 'Hey wait a second, it should be dark right?'
He turned to see an open door in the metal tube, white light spilling out of an elevator.
The surfaces of the inside of the elevator were black, yet shone with color as the light bounced off it, as though an oil spill covered every surface perfectly.
"Oooh... shiny. Do you like that, Kitty? Mr Lion..." he gasped. "Or are you a Missus?! I'm sorry, I appear to have been quite rude Ms Lion. Do you like the shiny things? I like them. I have one right-" he bent down and snatched the flashlight from the ground triumphantly.
"-here!" He finished with a crow, and skipped into the elevator, turning to see a blinking white light, 2 buttons alone in the elevators directory.
The top of flashed, pointed up with a triangle for an arrow.
"Look! It's like one of the eyes of that face! The face of a..." he trailed off, trying to remember what that oval face on the paper was from.
"It's like one of those orange things they carve!" He shouted as he finally remembered seeing that face on round orange objects in an old world vid.
"Jack... o... light?"
He shook his head. "No that's wrong."
Simon opened his eyes only to blink in comedic surprise. "Oops, forgot to hit the button!"
He pushed the button, and the light turned off as the elevator began to move.
"Whoah!" Simon's legs bent exaggeratedly to adjust to the sudden acceleration. "That's a fast!"
Nobody was there as an audience to his strange antics, or mispronunciation.
Simon looked around in silence for the next while, wishing somebody was there to talk to.
'The colors in the walls are really bright! It's like someone took a picture of an oil spill with sunlight on it and turned the saturation up reeeeeally high!'
Simon kept swaying from his heels to the ball of his foot, lifting himself up before coming back to sway back. He practically seemed incapable of staying still, jittery and moving.
'The truth of the Hive is the Complex... a shelter for humanity...'
Hidden beneath the madness of a torn mind, thoughts flew unnoticed by the Lion, snakes winding past it through the "grass" of broken psyche.
'The outside is unknown... the outside is unexplored... we know nothing of the surface tribes...'
'Then why am I so certain that there ARE surface tribes?'
"Ding~"
The chime was sweet and pure, as the doors slid open.
Simon stepped out, and found the ground and walls to be made from cool stone, roughly hewn as through the cave he found himself in was carved out long ago.
Strings of lights hung from the ceiling, lightbulbs shining dimly orange.
Simon blinked curiously, before splitting a grin as he looked around the dark cave, as though surrounded by many. "Okay, who left the lights on? Guys?"
He laughed at himself, turning to an opening of light, blinding and white ahead of himself.
He stepped out of the cave, and covered his eyes as they watered in brightness that blinded him.
He kept blinking beneath his hand, and keeping his arm raised to block the great source of light burning his eyes, looked around.
"...holy shit..."
There were... plants.
The ground was red rock and dust, dirt and sand, but trees were there!
Actual trees!!!
He walked over to one on the same hill or mountain he was currently on. He wasn't sure what the right word was for whatever rise in the land he was on.
He reached the tree, looking at how it had no leaves, but many pine nettles, dark green alongside the dark wood making them appear almost black.
He touched it, and it stung with how sharp and "pokey" the nettles were.
"Ha..." he let out a shaky breath as he grabbed the branch fully, letting the nettles scratch him, and he began to shake as tears fell from his eyes.
'Life still exists on the surface.'
He turned and looked out past the sparse pine trees, to see a swamp perhaps?
'I've never seen one before, but... that's probably a swamp right? Way too muddy and broken up to be a lake for sure, and it looks like it's got a lot of weird plants in it.'
He looked back at the cave he came out of, only to realize a slight path existed from it, a more beaten part of the earth.
'Why is there a fresh path if the area below with the elevator is so dusty? Even if some people have clearly gone through?'
His thoughts moved unhindered, as though the Lion lay peacefully, uncaring of what he thought now that he was here.
He moved back to the path, almost tripping over a stone the easily the size of his head, as he stumbled about.
His mind was still unsettled, as though all his memories were seeing double, and everything was so loose and broken-
He rounded the edge of the rocks before him.
He gazed out over the sea of fabric and canvas, and plastic sheets.
And Simon stared, as his mind whirled like a cyclone, a thousand things fitting together.