At first there was darkness.
And then there was light.
I found myself in a corner, next to a rough border running to the north and west. It was tightly woven with threads of skin, blood still gushing through in little rivulets of crimson. I was standing on a marble square. It was too white, too polished. Too clean.
Next to me was a darker square, made of dark wood, soulful and deep. And on and on, white and black, over and over, 8 metres long.
8 metres to the north, 8 metres to the west. I could see where it ended at the other end, that skin-border running northwards to the other side of the giant square.
The blood was still gushing.
Eight times eight.
A chessboard.
It had been a long time since I had first sat down to a game of chess. I was 10 years old when my father tried to teach me. Bishops move diagonally. Knights move in an L-shape. Castling. Promotion. En passant.
So many rules. On and on and on.
I never really understood it, so after a few weeks of my dad trying to teach me, I lost interest and disappeared outside. The old chess set sat on the shelves, collecting dust.
Now I was dragged back into it.
My brain still felt foggy, and nausea rose up to my throat. I turned and coughed to the side, but nothing came out. It was getting increasingly hot too. I was vaguely aware of the sweat bearing on my forehead and on the palms of my hands.
It was then that I slowly realised that there was something heavy on my head, like I was being pushed down by a stone brick. I flicked my eyes upwards and saw it was a marble crown, the spikes gleaming in the dim light; downwards and a white stone pedestal came into view. My legs were tightly glued together and onto the pedestal, and encased with white stone. My arms were pinned by my side.
There was a click and a knight rose up next to me. Or rather, it wasn’t the head of a horse that I was used to, but a man on a white pony. The poor animal was half-dead, bruises covering its hide and skins and bones poking out through its flesh. The rider slumped against the side of the horse. His face was pale and sickly, with only the whites of his eyes showing. Drool dribbled out of his mouth.
He was holding a lance, its tip long and sharp. There was a scarlet band on his left wrist, and N3 was written sloppily on it.
“Psst,” I said. I was desperate for information. “What is going on?”
“Again…” muttered the man. His eyes closed and fluttered open again. “Again…”
There was a click and the board opened up to reveal more pieces rising to the top in an invisible elevator. Bishops. The other knight and rook. The queen came, dressed in a holy white dress, her blonde hair cascading down her shoulders. Her graceful smile was held up by a pair of safety pins, stretching her face wide like Play-Doh.
The king’s face was grim as he stared ahead. Someone had painted a naked Jesus on his cross on his hat. It grinned at me, its head slanting a bit to the right.
Shadows twisted and turned on the opposite end, morphing into human forms, which I assumed were the black pieces. Finally the pawns came out. They were so small, about half my size.
The pawn in front of me whimpered.
“I…I want to go home.”
Small, meek. The voice was shaking.
A child. A…small child.
The kid was also glued to a pedestal, her legs stuck together. Her hair was crudely shaved off, leaving behind patches of skin. She only had one ear; the other side revealed a gaping hole.
Her shaking hands gripped a dagger.
This is sick.
“I’ll help you go home,” I whispered. I have no idea how but I must. For the sake of the kid.
The next thing that throbbed through my head was the ticking of a clock.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick
“e4.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was loud, booming, sweeping over the board. I looked as far up as my head could allow, but saw nothing. The room was completely dark, save the soft shadows dancing on the ethereally glowing board. I could see silhouettes of hands flying above, puppeteered by masters with no faces.
The king’s pawn moved two spaces forward. The kid was pale, sweat mopping her brow and drenching the skin. Chains were wrapped tightly around her small body, attaching them to the pedestal. She blinked, aware that the whole world was watching.
“e5.”
Black also moved its pawn two spaces forward, as in common with chess. It was impossible to tell anything about the voices, male or female, ethnicity, nationality, anything. But I could feel their disembodied grins on me, some kind of satisfaction on what was going to happen.
“Knight to f3.”
I mouthed good luck to the poor soul as he slid out. Both man and rider looked like they needed a hospital.
“d5.”
The Elephant Gambit.
I didn’t know how I recognised this, maybe an inkling of when my father tried to teach me some simple openings. I could see the black pawns now, trembling, shaking black pawns. Young boys with shaved hair and dull eyes, half-naked and holding well-used daggers.
exd5
This was it. The first capture of the game.
The white pawn seemed to hesitate, and I could see the fear and panic in her face, her futile efforts to resist. But her arm jerked up anyway, punching it through his heart.
The boy moaned, as blood cascaded down to the board. He wobbled for a bit, one second, two seconds, then the whole piece collapsed face-first in his own blood.
There was a moment of silence.
From above came the sounds of disembodied laughter, and unintelligible words praising the use of a gambit in the opening.
Time seemed to stop. Broken only by that clock.
Tick
Tick
Tick
The square swallowed him up, his body disappearing into the abyss below. I heard the disembodied voice again, though it only echoed in the corner of my head.
A kid…that was just a kid…
Could it happen to me? I was a rook. I could die too. A rook sacrifice. A rook blunder. Tactics. Combinations. Anything.
I could feel Death’s hand on my shoulder already.
“Castle kingside.”
The king stared at me as he shuffled towards me. I could see his tag now, K20 in sloppy big black writing. His eyes were hollow. Haunting.
I felt myself slide through him and take my place on his left. Up close, I could see his pasty skin. This was someone who had stayed here for far too long and had given up going home.
He was staring straight ahead now, but he was muttering something over and over again in a mantra, like it was going to help him. His voice was strangely slurred. Like he had downed a bottle of vodka every day.
“No more…no more…no more…”
“Knight to d5.”
“Rook to e1.”
Cold fingers ran up and down my spine. I never wanted to be a part of this. I didn’t want to be part of the action.
But I felt some strange force, a breath of air. A strong push of wind, nudging me to the left. I tried to resist, but it was like swimming against a river current. It wasn’t any use.
Now that I was standing in a centre file, I had a sweeping view of the board. There were only a few pieces in play but in this strange light I could clearly see their expressions. Confused. Terrified. Resigned.
The knight and bishop moved backwards, and then I heard:
“Rxe4+”
My mouth ran dry.
Oh no.
I could see the kid. He was shaking so hard he was pissing himself.
The force shoved me forwards. Soon I was standing right in front of him. Small. Innocent. His eyes were as big as nickels. His mouth moved. Please.
They made me raise my fist. I never noticed before, but they had fit something over them. Spikes rose out of my fist, gleaming and sharp.
His face shattered like a porcelain mask, blood exploding in all directions. I hammered his face some more, over and over, and more blood spurted out in a crimson tap. The kid gurgled and collapsed.
The floor opened up underneath him and I moved into his place. The blood sloshed under my pedestal. I could hear the sadistic bastards cheering in the distance.
Blood splattered my clothes. I was still holding my fist up like I was proud of killing a kid. I tried to put it down but it was stuck in place by the same unknown force. Frozen.
It was just a kid…
Pieces moved all around me. My lips were quivering; my mind was blank. The blood was still dripping.
At another point I had to kill another kid, a pawn unlucky to be on the e6 square, but I felt nothing. My fist shot towards him like a rocket, though I tried my hardest to pull it back.
He shattered. Collapsed.
Black blocked the check with a bishop, an old man in his eighties and a haunted look in his eyes. Castled.
I was numb to the rest of the game and the increasing amount of deaths. The players took particular joy in blundering and capturing their opponent’s blunders, and their laughter burned into my ears. One knight died. Bishop. Black’s queen, who smiled as I crushed her skull, as if finally thankful that death had come.
The pristine black and white squares had grown increasingly red, blood creeping towards the borders of the board.
I still remember to this day, the final two moves of that particular day. I still remember how I felt. Elated. Relief.
Free.
“Rxc3”
The pawn said nothing as the opposing rook raised his fist. Her head rolled to my feet.
“Queen to f7 checkmate.”
The queen raised her sceptre and buried it into the king’s heart. He moaned, collapsed. For the last time the board swallowed a body.
Checkmate.
It was over.
We had won.
I didn’t know what happened after that, but I suddenly found myself back home, in clean clothes, as if nothing had happened. I swore I heard footsteps and the click of a lock, and felt myself being carried from place to place, but it was ebbing slowly out of my memory, like it had been a dream.
My eyes were drawn to my dining table, where a chessboard was set up. It was like somebody had played a game and left it there without cleaning it up or resetting the pieces. The words GOOD GAME! was scrawled in blood above the chessboard.
Then I immediately noticed three things that once again sent chills up my spine:
It was exactly the same position as I had remembered. The pieces all had our faces on it. My face was carved into the white rook. Giddy with joy, like I had enjoyed the game.
And finally a flash of scarlet on my left arm.
Someone had written R1 on it.
