This chapter is dedicated to @raindrop_on_roses627, an excellent writer with a talent for writing lovely prose. Her story Between Breaths is beautifully crafted and deserves a ton of reads. Check it out when you can. 

"Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future."

― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

My dreams were loud and disgusting. My sensorium eddied and bucked in a steady stream, a current of memories (memories?) and fantasies. I was cut off from the whole thing. Like I was a hawk, adrift in the air currents above my own dreramscape. I started counting seconds, using time as some kind of fervent, desperate anchor to reality.

Then I realized I didn't believe in reality any more.

The dream lasted exactly six hundred and sixty seven minutes.

When I woke up, a little man was hovering around me, dressed in a sordid wife-beater. He was old. He did not lecherous, which was a relief. I was in an underground cavern of some kind, propped up against a cave wall. Bars blocked the exit, with a little electronic card-scanner making sharp little red beeps at its corner. My leg was patched tightly in gauze. I could feel the sharp prickle of ointment below the thin cotton. It hurt, but not excessively.

"Rubber bullets." The old man said. He was fiddling with a rubiks cube. "That's why it doesn't hurt so much. The bandages and stuff are all good?"

I nodded. "Did you patch me up?"

He grunted. "You were squirming around a bit too much, and I had supplies to spare."

"Thank you." I told him.

He went back to his rubiks cube.

"Where are we?" I asked him.

"The Yakuza keep. Pleasant sort of place, if you don't mind the dark. Security detail is polite enough. Food is good. Bit too salty sometimes, but you'll get used to that. What's your name?"

"Priyanka Chopra." I told him.

"Huh. So creative."

I squinted at him in the dark, the only light coming from a warm, orange bubble lamp above us.

"How did you get here?" I asked him.

The man sighed. "Because I promised a man I'd do something and I didn't do it. And now I've destroyed the world."

I raised my eyebrows. He looked at me and gave a little chuckle. "Hungry? Thirsty?"

"Not really."

He turned from his rubik's cube to look at me. "I've seen you before."

"Where?" I asked him.

"I can't seem to remember."

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Listen, when your leg gets better, you're going to have to start exercising. You've got to keep fit. It's pretty bloody easy to get flabby over here."

I stretched my body. "I'm locked up here."

"Obviously."

"For how long?"

"Till you die."

I yawned. "Whatever." I went to sleep.

"Get up!" the old man said. "They want to see you."

I got up. I stretched a bit, washed my face and walked up to the bars at the mouth of the cavern.

The door was open. The man in the brown T-Shirt was there at the doorway, gun in hand.

"Come on, then."

I looked at the old man. "Go." he told me.

I followed the man who shot me.

"Sorry about that." he told me as we walked through the dark corridor. "Nothing personal. I had to do it, you know. Company policy."

I said nothing. I continued to trail behind him, my arms tense and sore from the previous day's (day? har har) workout.

The man stopped in front of a wooden door. He rapped three times.

"Send her in." A voice said from inside.

He opened the door and pointed. The room was so brightly lit my eyes stung. I couldn't see anything.

I walked in.

"Sorry about the light." the voice said. A merry little voice. "I can't abide the darkness."

I opened my eyes. A huge man sat behind a polished wooden desk. He was dressed in a neat, black suit. He had tentacles for eyes. They squirmed in the air.

"Come on. Take a seat. You don't have any problems, I hope. Food and everything?" he asked me.

"No." I told him.

"Good. Excellent. Can I get you a drink?"

I shook my head.

"Alright then." he leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, his tentacles writhing inches before my face. "Let's talk."

I gently leaned back into my chair and willed myself to look him in the face.

"First, let me ask you. Have you heard of our...agency, before?"

I said nothing.

"I imagine you have. The locals...they tell tales. Anyway, the less you know about us the better. Do you wish to know why you've been imprisoned here?"

I nodded, trying to determine whether he could see me or not. He smiled.

"Don't ficing play games with me. Don't try to test my abilities. My capabilities, what I can do, they mean nothing to scum like you."

His tone was exactly the same as when he was offering me something to drink. It sounded rather ridiculous in his small child's voice.

"Now answer me. Do you want to know why you're in here and why you want to get out?" he asked again.

"Yes. I would."

His tentacles were slowly and meticulously massaging themselves. I couldn't stop looking at them.

"You are in here because you are a DB. As we speak, as you sit here, you are slowly destroying this world. Do you understand?"

"No."

"You are flesh and bone. But you also have a soul. And a mind. You have everything. And you are here. And you are destroying everything."

"You are not flesh and bone?"

"What I am does not concern you. Now, listen carefully. You were given some kind of food when you entered this world, am I right?"

"Yes. The commitment."

"A local superstition. What you ate is a highly concentrated mental steroid. Pure energy for the mind. It quenched your thirst, no doubt, because your thirst was a physiological reaction to your mental condition at the time."

"What condition?"

He held his fingers together tip to tip and then made an explosion gesture.

"Complete and utter confusion. It's like taking a three dimensional being into a four dimensional world. The idea that time and space is relative is too much for an earthbound mind to take. So, it disintegrates. That's how the ghosts die. But you. You're body, soul and mind all rolled up in one. So you'll die soon. And when you die here, you take all of us with you."

"Die?"

"The commitment. It will kill you. At a much faster rate than the ghosts. A week from now, maybe."

"How do I get out of here?" I asked him.

"The mouthpiece..."

"Sent me back." I cut in.

"That leaves only one option. The Queen of Cats."

"And that is?"

"The Queen of Cats is a sort of deity. The cats worship her. The ghosts respect her. The half-lives, like me, we owe our lives to her. Ideally, she should be able to get you out. You can go back to leading your life as best you can. You might suffer from some sort of mental defect. Or you might become a genius. I don't know. But it will be a way out."

"Where can I find her?" I asked him.

"The cats might know. They don't interact much with us. They handle their own jurisdiction. You'll have to win their trust. Enough trust for them to share their religion with you."

"And then?"

"And then they might tell you how to get to her."

The two of us were silent. His tentacles were reaching for me, twirling with randy idiocy. He stretched back.

"Expect no help from us. We're not very trusted outside our area. The moment they spot you fraternizing with us, they'll kill you. which will kill us all. The moment you exit our dungeons, your own your own."

On my own. Nothing new for me.