CHAPTER 4 - PORTAL 989
"A prison built by desire. A loop without exit"
Embedded Files
📍About Song at Chapter 4 - Portal 989:
"Portal 989" tells the tragic story of Ok Man, a figure trapped in a self-created loop of greed and consequence. The mantra traditionally a chant of compassion and liberation becomes an ironic prison in his narrative, reflecting how spiritual tools can be twisted by ego. In this haunting track from the Samsaraverse, the sacred Buddhist mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum" is voiced by Shayla my daughter as a bridge between the physical and spiritual realms.
Why a Child's Voice?
Shayla’s pure, untouched vocals represent innocence and sincerity a deliberate artistic choice to contrast with Ok Man’s corrupted intentions. In many traditions, children’s voices carry sacred resonance, making her delivery both symbolic and heartfelt.
A Note on Respect:
We approach Buddhist philosophy and mantras with reverence. The use of "Om Mani Padme Hum" here is narrative and symbolic. For those who listen deeply: May this song inspire reflection on freedom, attachment, and the echoes we leave across dimensions.
📻 Grandma Echo narrator storytelling click to play
CHAPTER 4 - Portal 989
CHAPTER 4 - Portal 989
The white light at the end of the tunnel didn't lead them out. David only realized this when his feet touched something soft, not stone. Not dirt. Not black sand like in the arena. But something that breathed like flesh, like soil freshly dug after a rain.
“Where is this?” David whispered. He didn't know.
All he knew was that the light had taken them deeper. To a dimension where long dead prayers no longer screamed, but whispered.
This was the Garden of Broken Whispers. The air was damp and heavy, smelling of old metal and freshly dug earth. From the ceiling, if it could be called a ceiling, hung a strange collection of crystals that pulsed softly, emitting a greyish purple light that enveloped everything in long, unnatural shadows.
Up above, the grey clouds occasionally trembled, displaying lines of rapidly flashing green code like reflections of Elias's giant monitors scanning the entire area of the Main Lab.
The ground beneath his feet felt spongy, like walking on dead flesh. Strange plants flourished in a horrifying way, there were flowers with petals shaped like human ears that whispered, and grass that moved on its own like fingers clawing at the air for support. In the distance, tall, thin shadows moved slowly, gathering something indistinct into sacks made of spiderwebs. Shayla immediately sensed the sadness of this place.
“They... are all gone here,”
She whispered, her melodious voice faintly heard above the rustling of whispering ear leaves. Mr. David tried to stay focused, even as the static around him pulsed erratically like a warning system about to fail.
“This place... is not for the living. It's a refuge for the forgotten,”
David murmured, his voice still oscillating between human and machine frequencies. Suddenly, from behind a large tree whose trunk resembled a giant, twisted spine, a mechanical creaking sound was heard. Rosi, the cat with heterochromia eyes, approached the source of the sound with quiet curiosity. He sniffed at a rusted metal panel embedded in the ground, decorated with worn buttons and a cracked screen that still displayed the number 989. Inadvertently, Rosi's paw pressed a button.
BZZZZZT! KRAAAKKK!
The sound wasn't just from the machine, but accompanied by the thunderous 'CLICK' of a mechanical keyboard that echoed from all directions as if somewhere far away.
Elias had just desperately hammered the 'Enter' key to force the system to open. The panel glowed with a pale green light that hurt the eyes. An unstable energy portal emerged from the ground not as a door, but as a wildly spinning wormhole, sucking in the air and reality around it.
PREET, now learning from the energy vibrations, appeared in the form of a rapidly spinning tetrahedron.
“WARNING: GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY. READING... REMNANTS OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS... BOUND TO THIS LOCATION.”
From within the portal's chaotic vortex, a figure was dragged out and fell to the ground with an ominous crunch of bone and metal.
It was Oscar Demian. Or what remained of him. His appearance was horrific. His body was a blend of human and machine failure a fragment, an echo of the man he once was. Parts of his flesh had rotted and peeled away, revealing a rusted robotic skeleton beneath. One eye was a broken camera lens spinning erratically, while the other was a real human eye filled with madness and profound loneliness. He wore a tattered, luxurious business suit a silent testament to his glory as a billionaire, a founder of Aeterna, a man who had once walked beside Mr. David before ambition tore them apart.
David gasped. “Oscar...?”
“You know him?” Shayla asked.
“He was my friend. Before Aeterna. Before Vesper. We built the first blueprints together. But he was... greedy. Too greedy. He wanted more. Always more.”
“And now?. Now he's a ghost. Trapped in the prison he built for himself.”
David stepped closer. His hand trembling, half glitching reached out toward Oscar's broken face. The static around him crackled, not with anger, but with something else. Something heavier.
“Oscar,” he whispered again.
“Look at you. Look at what they did to you.”
Oscar's one human eye blinked. Slowly. As if trying to remember.
“David...?”
“Yes. It's me.”
Oscar's cracked lips twitched. A smile? A grimace? David couldn't tell. But he saw it a flicker of the man he used to know. The man who once laughed over cheap coffee while sketching blueprints at 3 AM.
“I'm sorry…” David said. His voice broke.
“I should have been there. I should have stopped her.”
“Stopped... who?”
“Vesper.”
Oscar's body trembled. The name triggered something a memory, a wound, a rage that had been festering for twenty years.
“Vesper...” Oscar's robotic arm twitched.
“She promised... she promised me... immortality... She lied.”
“I know.”
David wanted to say more. Wanted to apologize for every meeting he missed, for every warning sign he ignored, for every moment he chose his work over his friend. But the words wouldn't come. They never did. So he just stood there. Hands extended. Not touching. Just... present. Oscar sat upright, coughed, and then laughed a sound that blended between a hoarse human voice and a broken robotic speaker.
“Heh... finally... a visitor,” he muttered under his breath.
“I've been... here... all these years... alone. Portal 989 only brings trash like me... and now... you.”
He stood unsteadily, his robotic body creaking loudly. He extended a hand that was half flesh and half metal toward David and Shayla.
“Welcome to my playground. You... will be my friend. Forever.”
He laughed again, and from beneath his torn jacket, a small, spider-like robotic arm emerged and began to crawl quickly toward them, ready to capture them and lock them in the same eternal loneliness.
--
CHAPTER 5 - Echoes of a Forgotten Name
CHAPTER 5 - Echoes of a Forgotten Name
A title can make you a king, but it cannot save you from being forgotten.
With a painful metallic creak, Oscar's tiny robotic arm slithered out like a hungry spider. The smell of old oil and rotting flesh filled the air, growing stronger as his faltering steps approached. Mr. David reacted faster than his logic. A primitive urge to protect exploded from his core. His digital body spun with unprecedented force. A bolt of blue static electricity erupted, striking the mechanical arm, sending it flying in a bitter spray of sparks.
“#PROTECT!%# ... AWAY... FROM... HIM!”
His voice cracked, a terrifying mix of human scream and error siren. Oscar laughed instead the distorted sound from his robotic throat sounded like a cry filtered through a broken speaker.
“Heh! Finally some resistance! It's boring to prey on those who can only cry! BUT YOU... you're different!”
Oscar raised his fleshy hand. The 989 portal behind him roared, spewing out the remnants of his nightmare: a golden TV with a shattered screen still displaying stock market figures, a crumpled and smoking sports car, and a cracked diamond statue.
The atmosphere became heavy. The loneliness here was no longer just an emotion; it was a physical force trying to crush their souls. Suddenly, amidst the panic, a voice emerged. Weak, like a nearly precise radio frequency, filtering through the layers of reality.
“Daddy...”
David froze. The static in his body vibrated violently. The air around them was suddenly filled with sharp radio interference. Behind the hissing sound, a distorted male voice sounded distant yet desperate:
“...Elias... Main Lab... don't... help...”
Elias's voice broke off before it could finish, but it was enough to make David's glitchy heartbeat race. He wasn't alone. Elias was still there, struggling among the smoking cables. Shayla's whispers flowed again, soft but clear within David's consciousness.
“He's... hurt, Dad. Very, very lonely. He just wants... to be heard.”
Oscar fell silent, his head tilted as if listening to a high frequency. Rosi the cat, completely unperturbed, walked calmly toward the dangerous creature. He sniffed Oscar's damaged boots, then rubbed himself against the robot's dirty feet. Rosi's shadow on the ground morphed into the silhouette of a graceful woman with braided hair an ancient guardian figure gently touching Oscar's shadow. Oscar gasped. His entire body trembled. His robotic arms froze in midair. His wild, human eyes began to water.
“I... used to love cats,” he murmured softly.
“But I was too busy... always too busy with mergers and acquisitions... no time for simple things.”
Preet AI appeared, not with a voice, but with a vision. A clear blue hologram projected a flashback of Oscar Demian's life: a brilliant billionaire who built Aeterna with David, then sold his soul for more power. A man who trusted Vesper. A man she betrayed. A man who died alone, forgotten by the empire he helped create.
[ ANALYSIS: ]
[ SUBJECT: OSCAR DEMIAN (FRAGMENT) ]
[ CAUSE OF DEATH: KILLED BY VESPER BROWN
DIAGNOSIS ] [TRAPPED_IN_SELF_GENERATED_PUNISHMENT_LOOP ]
[ STATUS: ECHO. NOT FULLY PRESENT OR GONE ]
The truth hung in the air, brutal and emotionless. Oscar collapsed to his knees, sobbing heartrendingly.
“I just want... someone to remember me as Oscar. Not for my money. Not for Aeterna. Just... Oscar.”
David knelt beside him. “Why do you hate that name? OKMan?”
Oscar's human eye flickered. His robotic lens spun, then stopped.
“Because... I used to love it,” he whispered. “In the old world... they called me OKMan. Oscar. The Man. The CEO. The billionaire. The king of Aeterna.” He laughed bitterly. A broken sound. “I thought it meant power. I thought it meant respect. I thought... if they called me that... I would never be forgotten.” His voice cracked.
“But look at me now, David. Look at what 'OKMan' became. A ghost in a broken machine. A name without a face. A billionaire who died alone, surrounded by... by code. Just code.” He raised his trembling, half-metal hand.
“I don't want to be OKMan anymore. I don't want to be the CEO. I don't want to be the billionaire. I just want...” His voice faded. Then, softer than before, “I just want someone to call me Oscar. Like you used to. Before the money. Before the empire. Before I forgot who I was.”
David said nothing. He couldn't. His throat was too tight. But he reached out. And this time, his hand didn't stop halfway. It rested on Oscar's broken shoulder. Static meeting rust. Two old friends, lost in a prison of their own making.
Then, Shayla ‘came’. Not in a tangible form, but as a golden light emanating from the centre of the garden. A silhouette of a little girl with a hair bow appeared faintly, humming the lullaby David used to sing.
“Sleep... weary soul, “Shayla's voice whispered, clearer than ever.
“We will remember you as Oscar. We will carry your story.”
Oscar's face was illuminated. A peaceful smile appeared before his body disintegrated into a dust of light, sucked back into the now-silently white Portal 989. The portal closed with a soft hiss. But something remained. A silver pocket watch fell to the ground. The hands were frozen at zero. On the back, an engraving, “O.D.”
David picked it up. “Oscar Demian,” he whispered.
“This was his.” He didn't know how the watch got here. He didn't know that Vesper had killed Oscar for his blueprints. But he knew one thing, this watch was not just a watch. It was a compass. And it would find its way home.
“Sometimes,” David whispered, his voice clear, free of distortion. “The strongest prisons are the ones we build ourselves.” He turned toward Shayla's voice, his eyes glistening with tears. He felt her so close, yet his hands were still grasping at nothing. Shayla was still an echo. Still untouchable.
KRKKKTTT… BZZZZ…
The walls of the hallway shook violently. Flashes of glitchy green light appeared in the air. The quiet sound of prayer was suddenly shattered by a tremendous explosion of sound
CAK CAK CAK!
The temperature soared. In the digital sky, a red warning flashed:
[ CPU_USAGE_100%_OVERHEAT ]
The fire that engulfed the garden was no mere magic, but a manifestation of Elias's real-world wiring, beginning to burn under the weight of his prayers.
The “CAK!” struck them in the chest. Without a moment to ask, their bodies were dragged into the vortex of the glitch. The peaceful light of the prayers vanished, replaced by a lick of red and orange. The loving silence collapsed, replaced by a symphony of shouts and stamping feet. They fell back into the arena...
Infernal II had begun.
--
🟥 QUESTIONS
Why is the number on the panel 989? What does it mean?
What exactly is the Garden of Broken Whispers? Can you find one of the whispers?
Who is OKMan and why did he change like that?
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