It’s something that you can’t tell if it’s out of a dream or a nightmare or something sick and twisted that rots in the middle. On one hand, the room is stunning. Perfectly polished marble tiles line the flooring, casting a faint sheen across the room. The color of that marble is impossible to tell as hypnotic scarlet light is cast across the room from a massive stained window. The water in the pool is perfectly still, walls of the oasis lined with exceptionally cut porcelain squares in every shade of red known to the world. The shade gets darker the deeper down they’re placed, ranging from a bright neon and then slowly but surely darkening until it looks almost black. Hand crafted patterned tiling lines the rim of the water, giving it a mystical feel. Under the surface of the water, there are no filters, drains, nor troublesome jets. There are no deep pit drains with the grated plastic drains that cause agony when stepped on. The water perfectly reflects the pattern in the window and adds its own pale crimson aura. It’s ethereal. 

Yet on the other hand, it’s terrifying. Twisting pillars of human flesh, muscle, and bone spiral up towards the ceiling along the smooth stone walls. Glowing red eyes stare unblinkingly from under smaller, bloodred windows. They watch with an unreadable expression as they lack a nose, a mouth, a face to rest upon. Yet they seem to pass judgment, keep secrets, and hold stories to grim for any fairy tale. The stained window that lets in the most light, is marked by an eye of shimmering obsidian that stares down into the water. It, too, hides something behind its stone cold and unblinking stare. However, unlike its many glowing librarians, it writes and composes the story of each and every soul who has come to this place. Past, present, future, every soul, every story, it writes for its librarians to catalog, all without arms to write with, words to speak, or paper to hold the information. The pool itself has no visible bottom and it is impossible to tell if it is simply an illusion or truly an endless watery void. 

The decor is just as absurd as the room itself. Exactly ten beach chairs are placed in a perfectly symmetrical pattern around two sides of the pool. The ruby lighting bounces gently off the gleaming silver frames and then rests on the seats so totally black, they seem like windows to the never ending void. Each chair has two garnet red cushions, and one the left side of each unearthly seat, rests a circular table of cold steel and immaculately polished petrified birch. A chandelier, lacking both candles or bulbs, hangs from the arched ceiling. Once kaleidoscopic crystals now seem warped and distorted from the window’s bloodshot gaze. They dangle innocently from the bones of once formidable creatures, not of any world known to humankind. The bones are held together by unnatural cartilage showing no signs of decay, and although there is no draft in the room, the chandelier slowly rotates back and forth. Gazing out the window, the sky is still bright although it is nightfall. But not the obnoxious luster of midday. Rather, the serenity of dusk, cast in vermillion. The stars glisten ivory as the waxing crescent moon burns maroon and seems to drip out of the sky the longer you gaze at it.

Only the echo of cautious footsteps can be heard. There is no melody of the chaos all around the twisted hallways that lie outside the double petrified birch doors. The whole tiled chamber is still with a silence that is both relieving and suffocating. As well as mute, it seems to be breathing. Maybe it’s simply the casting of the light, the miasma inhaled on the way in, or the flesh that lines the wall, but every tile seems to be alive with a faint energy. A pale red leaf, held for far too long in a threadbare pocket, is dropped over the water and slowly flutters down. As soon as it touches the drink, it burns with a piercing sky and ultramarine blue flame before disappearing altogether. Fear and curiosity enter the atmosphere of the room as boots walk closer to the edge. The standard smell of ammonia and bleach is mixed with an aroma that is reminiscent of both the copper smell of blood and slight tones of eucalyptus. The sudden urge to test the water emerges as if from the seemingly endless depths itself. It will either be euphoria or agony. 

Skin, covering phalange muscles and bone, gently skim the surface of the water, sending ripples across the once still fantasy. There are no scorching flames, riptides, ashes, or scorching coals from bleeding clouds. The water is lukewarm, soothing, intriguing. Inviting even. The near inaudible sounds of water lapping against water and water against tile is heard. Despite the ground being impeccably even, the water drains from the tile back into the pool. Slowly but surely, the sound of coots being unclasped and unlaced begins to reverberate across the room and mercifully cool tiles meet scraped kneecaps and the calloused soles of feet. Tiny beads of moisture cling to the tiles as the urge to leap in becomes even more powerful along with a heart-dropping terror of what awaits during the dive into the unknown. Fear and curiosity wage a war against one another, fighting for dominance. Larger beads of water drip off the hand and fall back into its home, catching the light, looking more like drops of red tourmaline than water. A bet is then made inside a tormented skull. If the urge to jump wins out and it ends in agony, so be it. A foolish end for a foolish being. But, if it is euphoric… the odds aren’t likely. It has a chance to just be a standard pool as well.

There is a minor hesitation as the eyes in the room finally turn, waiting for their obsidian commander to share this soul’s story. Some of the crystals in the chandelier are now illuminating, creating minor shades of off-red colors on the ceiling and the bones that hold them. There is still a chance to run, to turn around, and re-join the battles outside. But once again stillwater seems to whisper, jump. The urge is overwhelming now as the sound of ragged breathing echoes across the tiles, the slate walls, and the twisting flesh. It rests on the chairs, glides across the patterned tiles of the water’s edge, and yearns for an answer. The bottomless water seems to hold that answer and more the way a parent teasingly holds a sweet away from a child. But, when the parent finally hands over the treasured bit of sugar, gratitude and joy seep through the cracks of frustration. Much like now as the urge overpowers the fear as bare feet step back before the sound of a mighty splash sings throughout this forbidden red room. The water soaks into and underneath dark clothing, unkempt hair coming out of its neat holdings, and covers a face with eyes squeezed shut. It seems to soak into every bone, every muscle, each nerve becoming encased in the water. It burns with a ferocity unmatched as a mortal body stretches out under the surface. 

When time has passed and pale lungs scream for air, the body has already sunken too deep with no bottom in sight. So graying lips part to accept fate and instead of finding a tide created by Death, they find air. The kind of air that is the mild cold of the sunrise during the early summer. It’s sweet the way vomit is before it becomes sour. Lungs satisfied, they now scream to dive deeper, leaving the light of the room behind. A dark jacket floats back up to the surface as water rushes to take its place. It is insanity at its purest, most bizarre form. Chaos made into something to treasure. After seemingly endless minutes pass, the calloused feet find a bottom so far down, all traces of red light have gone. They push up slowly and along with the rest of a body, drift to the surface where they burst through like a whale breaching the surface of the ocean. A scream escapes from its cell within lungs, trapped no longer behind the iron bars of ribs. It's impossible to tell if it's a scream of joy or agony but it echoes off everything in the room. The answer is clear. It’s a scream of the pure joy of the experience and the sheer burning agony of the end of it. The eyes on the wall blink in response, the flesh columns twist and re-shape themselves. The chandelier has a spike of light before fading again and the eye in the window seems to watch with a new gaze.

The world outside is burning away into ash and smoke but here, there’s relief from it all. A blood red dream of water, stone, and flesh in a sea of nightmares that chase unrelentingly. It’s almost a bittersweet irony that in insanity, peace can only be found in a room so split it causes more of the same. Laughs follow the scream, spiraling out of control until it’s more of a choked out sob. A separate set of footsteps approach, these much softer. Stinging, reddened eyes look up into golden yellow ones. The clothes of this stranger are finely made and fit perfectly. But there’s something in those eyes that screams, danger. The reddened eyes can finally see it for what it is. Insanity in its truest form. Chaos of every nature, packaged, delivered, and stored within their body. Crystals, wrapped in bones, are set gently into rings, resembling the ones in the chandelier. But the sobbing doesn’t stop, and no movements are made to exit the pool. Blood pools in those reddened eyes, dripping onto patterned tiles, disappearing against the red and black. The eyes on the wall turn golden and stare with the same spark of insanity. Laughter and sobbing mix into a broken, twisted up mess as the being…no… the god of this insanity speaks.

“So, mortal. Did you have a nice swim?”