"Doesn't matter, boy!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs. "You can never put a price-tag on fame!"
Mr. Fairfax cocked his head at Finn, "did you try and put a price on fame?"
"Puttin' a price on fame is a big no-no, in Dean Town." she said, chidingly.
"Never, ma'am." Finn spat out, "wouldn't dream of it."
"You come from the big city?" she said, shoving a cigar between red lips. "Vegas seems like your stench." she sniffed, her nostrils flaring and briefly transforming into exhaust pipes.
"Yes, ma'am." Finn had finally begun to locate his backbone again. "Raised near the strip."
"Well, it won't matter now." she said, walking over to a door that had suddenly appeared. Infernal, hellish screams came from within. "By the end, we'll all be birds of the same feather."
"What?" asked Finn as she opened the door.
Before he could process it, Miss Delgado's hands extended into white claws that grasped the young man by the scruff of his neck and jettisoned him out into pure oblivion itself. A spinning mess of chaotic entropy that threatened to drown the aspiring star in the technicolor abyss of whatever the hell he'd been thrown into. Screams, moans, groans, shrieks, howls, and other primal sounds that could only come from a place of pure passion; and suffering, clearly.
Down, down he went until he could sense no more. Blinded by the lights, deafened by the noise, and ultimately numbed by the whirlwind that battered the body that was once hardy, durable and full of spunk. The poor lad had been turned into a spineless sissy squawk before he'd kiss the sandy ground that he'd become half-buried in. At least then, the screaming had stopped, and he found a moment of calm amidst the insanity that Fairfax had plucked him into.
He sat there lying in the purple sand, a tiny drop of a tiny man in what seemed like an endless, limitless expanse of nothing but cold, purple grain. When he raised his head from his almost drunken stupor, he saw the sky was a bleak shade of red, sprawled across miles upon miles. The poor sap wondered if the jumbo juice he drank was still coursing through his veins, or maybe that he was actually in hell.
Both were true.
In that desolate expanse of cold, purple sand, Finn's mind unraveled like a frayed thread. He had heard stories of Hell, but he hadn't ever been the faithin' type. Panic and despair, horror beyond the years, took hold of him as he realized the gravity of his situation. He felt as though he were a pawn in some cruel cosmic game, a playful game of chess where God and the Devil nip at each other's chess pieces, and he had lost, condemned to an eternity in this nightmare.
"Look at him," I muttered under my breath, my words dripping with contempt. "A city slicker who thought he could chase fame, now reduced to a quivering mess."
Finn's mind raced with questions, each more agonizing than the last. How had he ended up here? Was this truly Hell, or some bizarre dream born of that strange woman's actions? Was that drink too strong? The sky above, a bleak shade of red, seemed to mock him with its lifeless expanse. A sly grin even carved its way through the cloudless void, a golden smile that cackled and cackled til it couldn't anymore.
His thoughts were interrupted by a distant, haunting wail. It was a sound that seemed to emanate from the very depths of despair itself. Finn's heart pounded in his chest as he realized that he was not alone in this forsaken place. There were others, countless others, all trapped in the same torment, or so he thought.
He looked to his left, noticing a buried, flickering, Neon Sign. It read: 'DEAN TOWN.'
I, still filled with disdain, couldn't help but find humor in Finn's walk of shame.
As Finn lay there, overwhelmed by the cacophony of suffering that surrounded him, he knew that things had gone awfully, awfully wrong. The world had turned its back on him, and I reveled in his torment, relishing every moment of his misery. Delicious, like apple pie on a lazy Sunday.
As Finn wandered through the desolate landscape of purple sand, each step felt like an eternity. Days, perhaps even weeks, passed in this relentless march. He had almost resigned himself to the idea that this would be his eternity when he stumbled upon a lone motel in the distance, a beacon of hope amidst the desolation. Its neon sign read "The California," a cruel irony in this otherworldly Hell. The motel was a stilted shanty building that sat on a crooked hill with a jagged underbelly. From where Finn was standing, it would take hours to get there, even for an able-bodied man.
Summoning what little strength he had left, Finn made his way to the motel's entrance. He rolled through the doors and into the dimly lit lobby, its atmosphere heavy with a strange mix of nostalgia and decay with a heavy undercurrent of some seriously dank smell that must've been a concoction of perfume and porous sweat. Finn had quickly wondered if there'd been an embargo on deodorants or air fresheners. The air was thick with an eerie silence, broken only by the faint hum of the flickering fluorescent lights.
As Finn approached the front desk, he noticed an otherwise frail lady sitting there, her appearance remarkably out of place compared to how swanky and clean the interior of the motel looked. She had rotten skin and a misshapen face that had more stitches than skin pores. Though her unfortunate lot in life, she had a smile that couldn't ever fail to make any miserable sob's heart flutter.
The lady looked up as Finn approached, her gaze penetrating his very soul. Without a word, she gestured for him to sit down in one of the sparkly clean bright red armchairs that lined the lobby. Finn hesitated for a moment, his mistrust of this strange place and its inhabitants still fresh in his mind. However, exhaustion and desperation won out, and he sank into the chair.
As he did, a spotlight was shone upon the stage where four suits began to lay down a slow and nice contemporary jaunt.
"You're back, already?" the lady finally spoke, her voice carrying a strange mix of warmth and sadness.
Finn tilted his head, unable to find his voice.
She offered a sad smile. "We've all been where you are now. Lost and confused. This place, it's not what it seems. Don't trust any single inch of it."
Finn's curiosity was piqued despite his fear. "What is this place, then?"
The lady leaned in closer, her eyes locked onto his. "It's a crossroads, a place between worlds. You've entered a liminal space, neither here nor there. Nobody wants to be here; that's true."
Finn couldn't comprehend the cryptic words, but he felt a strange connection with this woman, as if she held the key to his understanding. He'd begun to think she was speaking in riddles; well, to him, everyone usually is.
Before he could ask more questions, the lady extended a gloved hand. "I'm Morgan. I'm responsible for this place."
Finn hesitated for only a moment before shaking her hand. "Finn. Finn Faraday."
Morgan's smile widened. "How did you get here, anyway?"
"Film contract." he bit his tongue; he didn't want to say more.
She laughed shakily, "Lotta those going around, these days."
"Meaning?" asked the clueless fool.
Morgan piped up after taking a deeper breath than usual, "movie deals, stars wanting to brave the frontier and become the next big, best thing. Terrible ordeal, really. All of you that come through here, are much the same."
"I didn't tell you where I was from.." Finn's clueless puppy eyes widened more than they should, "Mr. Fairfax went through here?"
"Many have," she said, "cut from the same cloth; feathers ripped off of the same bird. That sort of thing. You're familiar. Your smell, your sound. You."
"So people can break out?"
Morgan laughed like she'd heard the joke for the fifteenth time. "It's called success. If you make it here, you can make it anywhere." This was the sixteenth, now.
"So, if I get stuck here, does that mean I failed?"
She shrugged. "You only fail if you take the easy way out."
Finn leapt out of his armchair like a bat outta hell, charging straight for the front desk. He stared at the lady with a gaunt expression, like he'd seen not one, but TWO ghosts. "Give me a straight answer, lady!" he slammed his fist on the wooden front desk. It hurt.
She smiled at him before gesturing to his arm chair, "take a seat, Mr. Faraday."
He was taken aback by her kindness in the face of his utterly belligerent behavior, screaming at the top of his lungs. The place was still spinning. He was dizzy as hell, and began to drift into the great unknown; even more unknown than wherever the hell he'd ended up in the past hour. A nightmare within a nightmare, within a dream, within a nightmare, within a nightmarish reality.
Finn woke up some time later, hoping he'd still been dreaming, or that this whole thing was some elaborate, and convoluted story with no end in sight, indeed had an ending. He wished and wished and wished, closing his eyes a fair few times, till he stared up at the shoddy red ceiling. He saw the drywall that had already begun to fall apart, the flower motifs that were fading from that surface but most importantly, he saw no end in sight to his nightmare.
Morgan tapped him on foot, sending him reeling from his daydream, anchoring back in that bitter reality. He could taste that flavor on his tongue if he opened his mouth.
"I understand you're still coming to terms, so I'll recommend that you just accept that things work like they do, around here." she said with rehearsed somberness. "The quicker you make amends, the better. Trust me, it's the hope that really kills you, not this place or anyone in it. You're not the first. I assure you."
Finn had become an emotionless runt, now. Devoid of any of the passion he'd brought in with him from that other place he thought he'd spent all his life at. He thought of all those memories, all the friends, enemies and loves. All the faces turned to blurred scribbles on a piece of paper. The sounds of white noise that did nothing but cloud his hearing like TV static. Even the tastes had begun to fade from the man's palate. Everything that made him Finn would soon become a thing of the past; pure erasure.
He looked around again, taking in the surroundings like a sponge sucks in water. Opening those big eyes of his to look at every little detail that littered the environment. At the end of his scan, he landed his gaze on Morgan's horribly disfigured face. She was looking at him with a confused, albeit cute, sneer.
It was at that moment that he realized something. A conclusion that took him far too long to reach. A key that was hidden right under the rug; something all too obvious that he should've known ages ago, but still, Finn wasn't the brightest bulb. It'd taken him a while, as Morgan stared in confusion, her form shifting and undulating in the strange space they were in. A hotel room that was unlike any other. Ripe with the foul odor of crunchy cigarettes and expired booze that drenched and soak some of the curtains.
They locked eyes once again, Morgan poking her head in, hoping for Finn to come out of his ridiculous stupor.
And for a second, he had it, the next, he'd lost the lead.
Finn felt like a castaway adrift in the sea of the unknown, and Morgan's words had given him a faint glimmer of hope. He listened intently as she continued to explain the situation, talking his ear off.
"You see, Finn," Morgan began, her voice laced with a mix of sympathy and wisdom, "this place isn't just a void. It's a crossroads, a place where the lost and the ambitious cross paths. The stories are plenty, and they are true. Where you are now, doesn't have to be your final destination. It's up to you, really."
Finn nodded, his eyes searching for any clues in the dilapidated motel lobby. He thought of his dreams and ambitions, the drive that had led him to make that fateful contract in pursuit of stardom. He wondered if there was a way to escape this liminal space and return to the life he once knew.
Morgan leaned in closer, her stitched face conveying an eerie sense of compassion. "There's a way out, Finn, but it won't be easy. You need to find the key to your own success, not the kind that leads to fleeting fame, but true, enduring success. Only then can you leave this place. Whatever you do in this place; do it with passion."