Tyler doesn't sleep that night. And he doesn't sleep the next day either, as everyone else seems to be doing. When he goes for worship in the morning, then for breakfast, then for his chores of the day – he's in the cleaning team for once – Tyler seems to see his surrounding in a brand new (y e l l o w ?) light.
They're all standing and walking and talking only when the need arises... but they're not there at the same time. Nonexistent. Their eyes are open, but blind. Their bodies move but they're dead. There doesn't seem to be any form of life left in these zombies, and it takes a second – a horrendously long and frightening second – for Tyler to understand that he was that way only a couple days ago. Suddenly, he feels like he just woke up from a thousand-year sleep and is only just starting to be able to see things clearly.
At lunch, he forces himself to eat a disgusting yet tasteless meal, the same thing he would have prepared if he was in the cooking team, just like last week. Or was it last month? Or yesterday? After that, he walks to the sinks to take on his duty again, slowing down to match the pace of his companions. Have they always been so slow? Tyler wonders. Or have I never been this fast? Trying to brush past these thoughts, Tyler washes his plate and all the others, cleans the kitchen, then goes on to dust the dining rooms, mop the floors, bring a new shine to the toilets and the showers and everything else to keep himself busy, yet time does not seem to pass.
A day in Dema has never felt so long to Tyler. It didn't used to be so hard. Tyler doesn't even remember a time when he has been bored in Dema... but now that he thinks of it, he doesn't remember much at all. He knows he's worked, he's done stuff here, a lot of it. He has cleaned, like today, he has cooked, he has built grey walls for new rooms, he has gardened and harvested... but he does not remember one specific moment, as if parts of his brain have been shut, only leaving the parts he needed to function without thoughts...
This doesn't help, Tyler thinks. It only makes it worse. Tyler wants so badly for time to jump to tonight, but thoughts are messing with his head, giving him a headache. So, when nightfall finally arises, when the alarm rings the end of all work, Tyler is relieved to finally have some down time to try and make sense of... make sense of what exactly? Tyler isn't sure.
He goes.
He eats dinner.
He heads to the shower, washes his body, gets new gray clothes.
When he makes it back to his room, Tyler has almost forgotten the thoughts. Even the idea of thoughts is something quite weird. Aimlessly, he goes to the window, looks outside. All is gray. Dark gray. No y e l l o w.
No what?
Tyler shakes is head, looks up. The moon is there. Tyler turns around, and sure enough, the lights have turned on, drowning the room in a neon hypnotizing glow. Automatically, Tyler approaches the lights, getting to his knee. The lights make him do it. The lights help. That's what they do.
Tyler closes his eyes and starts doing what the lights want him to do: he meditates.
He breathes slowly, letting the Word invade him.
Dema is good. Dema is safe. Dema is everything. No escape, no trouble. Because Dema is good. Dema is safe. Dema is everything. No escape, no trouble...
Tyler's body is in a trance now. His head has jerked back, almost as if the boy is looking at the ceiling, but all he's looking at is the lights.
...safe. Dema is everything....
He breathes slowly still, mouth slightly opens, and he doesn't think. He doesn't think at all. He lets the Word flow through him. He's not in Dema. Dema is in him.
...escape, no trouble. Dema is good. Dema is safe...
Tyler breathes in. Tyler breathes out. For the longest time, he stays there. He can't think. He can't smell. He can't hear.
Or can he?
...is everything. No escape, no tr-
stisup
...is good. Dema is-
heavy
...everything. No escape, no-
steady
... safe. Dema-
EASTISUP
Tyler opens his eyes. He's no longer asleep. He can see clearly now. He can hear it. The music. It's there. Outside. But also in his room. In his head. In his mind. Just where it should be. Where it should have been all along.
Rapidly, he stands up, his mouth quietly repeating the last words that resonated in his head – eastisupeastisupeastisup – and runs to the desk, from which he opens the first drawer. There, amongst the yellow petals – he not only knows they're yellow now, he sees them yellow – is the piece of paper he picked up at the Wall, the first time he heard the melody. It still looks like an E with a longer middle line. Tyler looks at the parchment for a second and then, without a doubt, turns it ninety degrees to the left. The E is on his back now, looking up ahead.
EastisupeastisupeastisUP.
East. Is. Up.
Tyler folds the paper, puts it in his pocket. He doesn't think when he grabs a backpack from his bed and starts packing a couple items he had forgotten about. A red beanie. A pair of... sunglasses? Tyler doesn't think when he does that, not because the neon lights prevent him, not because he's asleep even though he is physically awake. He doesn't think because he doesn't have to.
He knows exactly where to go.
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