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Black Alchemy (unfinished)
I awoke in a strange room, my face half buried in a deep shag carpet.
My lungs burned as I attempted to draw a breath. I start hacking up a lung, expelling a small cloud of dust into the stale air.
"Where am I?"
The darkness answered me; "From where I stand, you on the ground, you shmuck."
I clamor to feet, startled. Through the darknes, I could see a man standing beside a lavish wooden door. His features were quite plain. His skin was like tarnished bronze, with the exception of this head which shined even in the shadow. His eyes, a deep mossy green, were hard and uncaring. A tall man dressed in a classic barmans slacks and collared shirt, he stood with his back against the door.
"You look lost son." His voice was rough. Like sandpaper be dragged across your face. "Do you know where you are?"
Bewildered, I could barely force out a response "No idea."
With an almost devilish grin, he motioned me forward as he opened the door.
"Step inside friend. You might just find some answers."
A thick smoke made its way through the now ajar door. something wasn't right about what lies beyond that threshold. There was something sinister within. Something grim. Something alive...
...and with a taste for jazz music. I could faintly hear it in the distance.
I never realized that I'd entered until I heard the door close behind me with an unnaturally loud boom, locking shut. That smoke from before had returned, only now it have enveloped the entire room. The aforementioned jazz began to up the tempo, getting faster and faste. And also...louder? The smoke thickened around me, almost as if it were trying to devour me. It slithered into my nostrils and mouth, casting a veil across my eyes. I panicked. I though:'This is it? This is how it ends?'
The he moment I felt like I would lose consciousness, the smoke dissipated.
Around me was a scene of pure disorder, chaos, and pure enjoyment within a confined space: a jazz club. The music was equal the the sounds of laughter, conversation, clinking drinks, breaking glass, so on and so forth. It was a scene straight from the Roaring Twenties.
Yet something felt odd. The figures around me moved and sounded exactly how you would expect, shuffling around within the crowds, drinking, smoking, talking, laughing. In general, everyone was having a good time
Yet why did everyone's face look so...dead?
I meant this in both a literal an metaphorical way, fore not only did no one show any form of emotion, being blank face, but it appeared as though the flesh on each and every persons body was lifeless and grey.
The only exception to this was the bartender. He sat behind the counter, staring at at my with an almost devilish grin.
This man. This alabaster demon. He knew what I needed.
Pulling up a seat, he begins crafting me a drink before I could utter a word.
Finding my voice, I call to him "Hey, Barkeep, where the hell am I?"
He grunted at the question, then proceeded to answer me.
"Call this place what ever you want. We don't have a real name for this joint. Then agai, I'm kinda fond of the sign one of these schleps made for me."
He pointed to the aforementioned sign.
Black Alchemy.
"Huh, cheery." I hadn't noticed the drink that had been placed in front of me. It was some blue-green cocktail in a martini glass. "The hell is this" I asked, pointing to my glass.
"It's a house special. The Memento Mori."
