《The Wired Phantasmagoria Grimoires》


 Prologue: The Wild Hunt

    Prologue: The Wild Hunt


    It was a clear and cloudless night, the kind that seems to ward off evil. The moon held such an overwhelming illumination that it almost seemed like a blueish counterpart to the sun, and the indigo shadows cast by the superfluous and thusly dimmed street lamps were preternaturally sharp. Every so often, the slightest breeze would tickle the flesh of any potential observer like the touch of a cold blade, and the streets were empty. It was approaching one in the morning, after all, and no one had any reason to be out anymore.


    These conditions were known by many names, none of them fitting the auspicious atmosphere. The Hunter''s Moon. The Tartarus Moon. Phase//Flood. Ask who you like, and no one would tell you nice things about this kind of night. And yet, it remained still as an undisturbed lake in a cave.


    Until a stalactite breaks off and pierces the surface.


    A man of average height and build tears into view. Rubber soles not meant for running slap pavement with the grace of a fish thrashing on a dock. He''s churning his legs, arms, everything, in a primal dance meant only to propel his body forward. With each panicked gasp, he filled his lungs and throat with cold blades. His legs were filling with lactic acid and beginning to ache, but as expected, there is no time to think, no time to process, for he must keep tearing down the pavement. That is all he knows in this moment. Sheer instinct pulls him forward, stride by aching stride, for even if it kills him he must outrun the rotting terror bearing down on him with too many powerful legs.


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    As expected, he trips.


    Maybe it was fate, maybe it was years of horror movies dictating to the public subconscious that people stumble when danger is on their tail. Maybe it was the man¡¯s utterly uncautious stride, or some combination of the three. Regardless, he tripped spectacularly, with a sort of- almost- grace, the way even the gawkiest pelican can have a moment of grace landing on the sea. He came down hard on the parched pavement with the kind of slap you hear when a train hits some kind of large animal, and didn¡¯t get back up. His quivering betrayed the reason: not injury, but terror. For ten eternally long seconds, he anticipated all varieties of claws, talons, barbs, stingers, and the like rending his ever-so-lively flesh. In that span, the shifts of several sharp breezes made him flinch, thinking his number was finally up. But then another ten seconds pass, and another ten, and another, all riddled with nervous shakes. By the time a minute has passed, the man is sure it¡¯s been at least an hour but still dares not move. Slowly, ever so slowly, the tension in his back, primal muscle memory of once-raised hackles, fades with his crashing adrenaline, and he falls asleep in a churning panic.


    By the time the moon sets, the creature that was pursuing him slinks away, each step resounding with a metallic clink off the pavement. A target frozen in fear is no good for its needs.


    At the same time, in a pigsty of a room across town, a certain digital occultist inputs data with quivering franticity. Alistair Macabre (or DenpaDante219, depending on who you ask) had just broken the surface of a moe pool they were drowning in to aid the Wild Hunt, a group tracking abnormalities across this city. Alistair had been tracking this specific anomaly, known colloquially as the Steely Manticore, and had been for their entire time running in occult circles. It is here that our story proper begins.

 Account 01: Witness The Shattered Age

    Layer 01: Where Shamblers Dwell


    Deep below the land you or I could inhabit lay a hollow so foul it could only be called a lair. The floor glistened with various excretions and slimes, while the air was thick with a green haze- or perhaps it was a smoky veil that only appeared green under the sickly, mysterious cocoons that dangled from the ceiling. Either way, it would be indescribably rank to a human nose, not that any drew breath here. The only things even resembling humanity in this pit were long dead and festering. Don¡¯t mistake this room for a necropolis, though; it was undeniably teeming with life. For all the telltale signs of radiation, poison, and things too ancient to have scarred our evolution, the most primal fear a potential observer would feel would be towards the walls. The five of them were coated in a writhing coating of skinless flesh, peppered with eyes and pupae not unlike a bagworm¡¯s in shape, but large enough to hold a horse and made of computer components, all steel and silicon. Every so often, one would rattle like the tail of a peeved serpent, and a tube of green liquid would slide down to it from a complex web on the ceiling. This room was a combination nursery and stomach.


    ¡°You won¡¯t tell anyone about this, right?¡± I feverishly questioned the masked figure in white. ¡°I¡¯m really not supposed to tell anyone about the Master¡¯s machinations, but it¡­ it¡¯s just too much. He¡¯s gone too far. He¡¯s no longer serving the Precursors, he¡¯s gunning for their throne, and that kind of blasphemy makes me sick.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry.¡± The voice came from behind me. ¡°Your secret¡¯s safe with us.¡± A grotesquely muscular man wearing the crown of a Hercules beetle approached me. ¡°Nature is now its own beast, free from the dogma of any of our forerunners. If you feel this is right, your making it to us is a sign of your strength, and strength is all you need in the Swarm.¡±


    ¡°STRENGTH IS ALL YOU NEED,¡± came the chant from the faces in the walls. Dozens of them, stacked upon each other like cells in a honeycomb. Though, calling them faces was a bit of a misnomer- there was only the suggestion of features beyond a pinched mouth and uncannily large eyes of black glass. Now that I¡¯m looking, it¡¯s kind of hard to pick out one face from the next, when they all run together¡­


    I was snapped out of my thoughts by a commanding voice. ¡°At any rate, simply relax. You did the right thing,¡± said the beetle-crowned man. ¡°We rely on people like you to stay on top of things. Won¡¯t you at least give us your name?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m sorry,¡± I replied with a nervous chuckle. ¡°I really must be going. My family is waiting for me.¡± I said, heading towards the sole entryway into the room.


    My path was blocked by a wall of chiton and muscle. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, friend. We know what you had to do, to get as deep in the Ancient Chambers Society as you did. Your family is waiting for you, but not at your home. Won¡¯t you stay just a few more minutes? We can get you something to drink and discuss the Chambers further. I¡¯m not sure on a few details-¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I really must be going,¡± I insisted, and stepped around him,


    Only to find my path blocked again.


    By a wall of faces.


    No, these weren¡¯t faces. I was trapped by a wall of gray flesh, tiny mouths, and bulging eyes.


    Tiny mouths that opened impossibly far, and spewed crimson at me with the force of a fire hose. Blood knocked me back, and I hit my head on the waxy cobbles at my feet. No, not blood, the coppery smell was missing. In its place was an overwhelming sweetness, not like any fruit of this world but all of them artificially blended together. It was an overwhelmingly saccharine miasma, a stink like viscera stuffed with cherry syrup and just as offensively crimson. Red and warm and heavy and hot and nothing and dark and blinding and sweet and red and sweet and sweet and sweet and sweet and sweet


    ¡°Rejoice, failed husk. You have earned the grace of Mother Titania. Go home. Walk among men and crave the Royal Jelly. When you return, aching and hatched, longing for something half as sweet, we will finally have a use for you.¡±


    I came up sputtering. I had no idea what this rat bastard was on about, but I hadn¡¯t left the crazies in that chamber besieged with stench, clearly. But hey, he¡¯s letting me go free, free from this grid of faces and the Swarm and the waxy cobblestone and those muscles that were more bone than flesh-


    Yes, it wasn¡¯t until I was once again under the sliver of a moon and the purple sky that I remembered the Jelly. It was gone from my mind the moment I stopped drowning in it, and never came back until I was too deep in normalcy to risk letting slip words of cults or abominations. And come back it did! I staggered home, my sinuses saturated with fermented flowers, and attempted to sleep. It was an eternal waking petrification of my own making: I was too consumed by my itch for the Jelly to escape to a world of dreams, where fountains of the stuff lay. By the time the sun¡¯s rays singed my vision, sheer exhaustion led me into a restless sleep.


    Layer 02: I Cannot Stomach These Forms And Colors Anymore


    Immediately, I was shot through with a bolt of tension, the kind that beads up sweat on your palms and spreads quicksilver beneath the skin. The kind that makes your brain stem light up like a Christmas tree, the kind of panic that we tell ourselves only animals feel so we may sleep unchallenged at night. But that storm still rages within me and all who have gazed into the abyss for sufficiently long. I saw serpents, and tears, and I saw my family again. I saw all my evils as a microcosm of humanity¡¯s evils, my slaughter of the innocent for understanding this world as parallel to so many cycles, and yet I internalized none of it. All of it rang true, but none of it spoke to me, because I didn¡¯t regret, for an instant, selling my soul. I saw more.


    I saw great beasts walk, live, die, love, kill, all as humans did on a much grander scale. Planets were kingdoms. A king¡¯s robes would be dyed in hues out of space, then stained with blood thinner than tears and darker than the vacuum above. I saw the birth of humanity, first as mangled homunculi who walked as if they felt no pain in their twisted forms, and then as something recognizable as a person. I saw them forming hives, no, villages, all for the sake of overlords from space. I saw them fight for their own favorite forms, and laughed above it all, knowing everything they would forget.


    As all do, those elder beings died, and in such secrecy their lives couldn¡¯t be proven. Everything they contributed to humanity was attributed to other such beings, or concepts, or entities, those beings that became known as gods, demons, and later, philosophies and ideologies. I saw humanity spread across the planet, fight, and kill each other, as proxies of beings that could no longer reap the benefits. I saw them fight for their favored ideas, those shapes in their head, and I wept, knowing everything they had forgotten.


    In comparison, my own sin was a mere speck. So what, I took a few lives? I became a being who could speak on the founders of conscious thought. I didn¡¯t know if anyone else had made it this far, if these doors had been opened yet, or if they could be closed behind me, and I had to find out no matter the cost. I took on more of a burden than those ingrates, those who died in my wake while I suffered on with guilt and madness! I, who would find out the truth, I who had faith in myself, I, who relieved them of the pain of knowledge, got nothing but the world¡¯s scorn and shit!


    I must know more. I must know more. I must know more. But that is where my pitiful humanity shattered my sleep. I awoke drenched in sweat, with more of a hunger in my head than ever before. That hunger was all consuming. I could not feel anything but the itch for more, more dreams, more knowledge, more prophecy, more Jelly.


    Right.


    The Jelly.


    I looked down at myself.


    Overnight, my skin had blossomed into a patchwork of spongy off-white spheres, fed by my sweat and my desire. Once again, the bolt of terror tore through me, but only for a second. The hunger gnawed back into my consciousness with even sharper incisors. Weremyfingersalwaysthislong I must return to the Jelly. Wasmetalalwayssosoft I must consume all the Jelly I can find. Whatishappeningtome I must drown in the Jelly! All these thoughts, I must drown them in the Jelly and let them float out of my mind! My will is the pith of a pomegranate, and I am starved for the seeds, so drown me in that Jelly and let everything else float away to those who need it more. LetitnotbesaidIamanuncharitableprotector I must find the Jelly.


    Weeks passed.I scraped and scratched and hunted for any drop of the red stuff I could find. I took all kinds of sap and nectars and mixed them in filthy mugs trying to approximate that Royal Jelly, to no avail. No human narcotic could replicate that sensation beyond taste, either, but I tried them all in a futile effort to keep myself away from that vile Swarm. Then I partook in all of them in combination, again and again, with disregard for side effects or unlisted ingredients, without even a hint of the feeling from the Jelly. My eyes, already darkened from lack of sleep, grew at once bulbous and began to sag to comical degrees. The skin around my nose burned up and fell away from so many cut powders until I breathed through a skeleton¡¯s nostrils, and my lips shriveled inwards into a puckered, warped parody of a grin. Flesh flaked off of my bones in strips, and I wasn¡¯t sure if it was from filthy paraphernalia causing rampant rotting infection, filler ingredients in the cheap serums I escaped to, or the intended effects of some part in the cocktail. My face had followed my mind down the path of distortion, but I wasn¡¯t giving up on the Jelly. Not when I was one step closer to finding a way out.


    Nature. Of course. It had to be in nature, the realm of the Elder¡¯s forgotten children. (In these weeks, I had taken to seeing everything through the lens of that dream, the only thing I could believe was True.) It started off small-scale; I¡¯d steal small animals from pet stores and feed them only nectar, as much as they wanted, until the rodents ate themselves to death. And then I drank their blood, that blood which should have been sweet but instead went down like warm sea water, the kind that served as a cosmic petri dish in my dream. In the way of all things, as I¡¯d seen, I wouldn¡¯t let their deaths be in vain. I would uphold the cycle, honor their heat, and consume them. If it meant getting closer to answers for my fellow humans. It was a small price to pay. It just escalated from there when an unenlightened face in the crowd wandered into my camp. A bolt of panic shot through me once again, bringing tides to my palms and earthquakes to my flimsy joints.


    I couldn¡¯t stop. I found myself drawn to nature¡¯s swarms, cracking open hornet¡¯s nests and beehives with a hope-drunken fervor. Handful after venomous handful of stinging, frothing fury crunched beneath my molars. My hands and mouth swelled up and inflamed to several times their original size, but I could hardly feel it when compared to the spoils of my conquests. Each nest was worthless; hornets yielded only rotten meat, which my lips and cheeks were rapidly becoming anyway, and the paper pulp of their nests, which filled my stomach at least. Bees¡¯ nests fared little better. After tasting the Jelly, honey was nearly unpalatable in its bitterness, and the wax soothed my skin enough to feel the residual pain of the stings again. I would never go for bee nests, were it not for the smallest treasure chamber tucked away inside the most cloistered box: the queen¡¯s chamber and her tiny dollop of Royal Jelly. It didn¡¯t come close to the delicacy produced by the swarm, but it dulled my itch, if only ever so slightly.


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    I was finally granted access to the hive one day. I don¡¯t remember how I got there, but once more I stood at that spindly spire that stretched, like a brittle spear, towards the heavens. It bore bronze branches that splintered off from the main trunk but were too small to hold any actual rooms. Surely, I thought, this spire isn¡¯t tall enough to disguise full rooms as miniatures from an underlooking view. I wish I had appreciated that, my final sane thought, before pushing forth into the tree. That tree with rot in its roots, a hollow trunk, and faces in the walls. The place where I first lost my mind- and came back for more. Every cell in my body was screaming for me to run away except for the tiniest node of my brain, that which magnetically drew me back to the hive.


    Layer 03: With Roots Above And Branches Below


    I found myself in the middle of a spiral staircase, passing landing after landing but never stopping. From pulsating spore-like eggs near the ceiling, a sickly yellow haze illuminated the stairwell. The walls were covered in metallic motifs of so many spindly-limbed humanoids, their near-perfect silver gleam only silenced by dancing shadows from the glowing pods. In such a beautiful lair, I was a puppet to a mind not my own, climbing on as my legs, shot through with necrosis and vile venom, exhausted themselves beyond any ability to be moved by human will. My head grew lighter the higher I climbed, but that only made my overwhelming desire for Jelly displace what remained of my consciousness further. Was the chamber so high up last time?


    Was it above ground at all?


    Am I being exhausted, like a gazelle chased down over miles, as my body eats itself to keep moving forward? Am I hunted by something beyond my comprehension? Will my labor be rewarded?


    Just as I started to doubt, the umpteenth door opened with a creak. Inside was a room with three walls of a deep velvety red, hardly visible under an intricate web of silver and brass adornments, all distinctly macabre or occult. Skulls of various creatures in profile were a common motif, as were spiders and other stereotypically spooky creatures. It seemed anticlimactic, after the legitimately eerie trek, to be greeted with decor out of a 1930¡¯s Universal monster movie. The only thing out of place was the largest decoration. On the wall opposite the door, above the lone window (stained glass, of course) hung a pair of silvery Sock and Buskin masks large enough to be worn, but too distorted in their respective joy and despair to fit on a human face.


    Upon entering the room, everything changed. I turned around after stepping in to see a wall of gray flesh


    So many eyes


    Mouths everywhere


    The man dressed as a beetle


    I grew fainter. The cravings almost wore away what little solidity remained in my stance. I tried to brace myself with a hand on the floor, but I jerked it back instinctively after the moist floor dilated at my touch. The floor, the ceiling, the back side of the door, all were built from the Swarm and studded with twisted alien features.


    ¡°You OK there, my boy?¡± asked the buff man in the beetle¡¯s crown, from his chair upholstered in velvet. ¡°You need something to drink?¡±


    Something in me snapped at those words. My jaw clenched and my spine seethed, the numb headache igniting into something far more sharp and concentrated. I hissed, ¡°YOU KNOW DAMN FUCKING WELL WHAT I NEED TO DRINK! I NEED TO FUCKING DROWN IN THE STUFF, YOU FUCKING SNAKE, AND I NEED TO DROWN IN IT NOW!¡± Even in my enraged state, I surprised myself. I didn¡¯t know I was capable of making such guttural sounds with a human throat. In an age more receptive to prayers and superstitions, I must have sounded like I was speaking some unholy tongue. HOWDAREHETAUNTME! DOES HE HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT HE¡¯S PUT ME THROUGH!


    ¡°You seem upset,¡± he said with a chuckle, ¡°so just tell me how you reacted to your first dose.¡± He indicated to the chair next to him, a recliner from a more civilized age of exposed gears and form interwoven with function. Sitting on it, I could feel my resentment drain away with rivers of comfortable heat, like water rinsing dried blood down a shower drain.


    Layer 04: Fairy Empire


    And so I told him of my enlightenment that came to me in a dream¡­ Or something. I couldn¡¯t tell him where I joined into the spiral of human malice, I just couldn¡¯t relieve my actions a third time. But I told him of my visions of shamblers and squid-headed monstrosities walking the earth, of their passing into the planet, our crafted replacement idols, and how history shaped in their wake. The whole time he said nothing, but silently nodded with his chin in his paw-like hand. ¡°It sounds like you read the Records.¡±


    ¡°The records?¡±


    ¡°The Akashic Records. Stored in the collective unconscious is the entire history of this planet and everything on it, in fleshy server rooms called Chambers. We only access them when we put aside ourselves and enjoy indulgences from our forerunners; our Elders, those imperfect beings who died so that we may approach utopia. It sounds like you read a pretty tough portion of them, especially for your first visit. I doubt anyone could have seen what you did. Good job.¡±


    I was stunned. I again felt it, that bolt of unsteadiness. I never thought I¡¯d find pure anxiety comforting, but after the months I¡¯d had, I welcomed signs of my humanity. Those thoughts were swept away by the realization of what I¡¯d heard. I bolted straight up. ¡°Does that mean I need to see more? Can I have more Royal Jelly? I can know more?¡± I inquired fervently.


    ¡°Unfortunately, not yet. You didn¡¯t react well, I think it¡¯s safe to say. If you think it went well, we can look into it, but you need to hear something.


    What you saw wasn¡¯t the whole ¡°truth¡± as you might read it in a war. It¡¯s just one of many speculations on the nature of our universe, presented as objectively as possible- that is to say, as though you believed it. And it sounds like what you saw resonated with you, which is great! But we need to discuss-¡±


    I cut him off at the first sign of resistance. ¡°So you¡¯re denying me more knowledge?¡± I stood up. ¡°I went for so long without coming back here, only to finally make it over, climb this spire, and then be denied the Jelly? Is that what you¡¯re saying?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re just c-concerned that you¡¯re taking th-this a little too seriously, is all. Remember, you only saw a possibility of the world¡¯s origin, so, ahhh¡­¡± he trailed off.


    ¡°SPIT IT OUT!¡±


    ¡°Maybe Royal Jelly isn¡¯t so much of a match for you,¡± he said. My gaze flew about the room while he spoke. ¡°That¡¯s all I wanted to... teeeeeeeeeeee


    His voice lost its clarity to me at that moment. My ears began to ring. Time slowed to a crawl. On my hand


    That same hand I braced into an insectoid eye with


    Was a familiar red syrup


    I licked my palm, and my brain lit up like my neurons were soaked in gasoline, just waiting for this match. In that moment, those smudges of jelly from those waxy, imperfect hives may as well have been dogshit stuck to my shoe for how appealing they were. This was the closest to satisfaction I had reached in the weeks I spent tantalized. Everything was on fire with the urge for more. I licked my filthy hand until my neurons cooled and I could taste the coppery bite of my own blood. The man in the beetle¡¯s crown was still talking, unaware of the madness I had oh-so joyously indulged in. I lunged for the wall, only for his blathering to abruptly cease as he tackled me backwards.


    My withered,almost shrink-wrapped form was able to slip through his arms, causing him to land face-first and stun himself. I kicked at his face once, softly, experimentally, to a small pained groan. It was almost funny! I did it again, and this time couldn¡¯t hold back a giggle. I kicked harder. Something crunched, he yelped, and I cracked up. I kicked his ear like one would a soccer ball. Blood trickled out and he let out a single pained sob. Again and again I wailed down kicks, bruising and battering the man who tried to hold me back, going into fits at his various responses. I decided to try something different. ¡°Last one¡­¡± I taunted, and waited five seconds. No reaction. I let loose with my heel at the top of his head. No reaction. I attempted to spin kick the horn off his helmet. It snapped, but the man wearing it had nothing to say. I poked him with my toe, in the eye, and nothing happened. I kicked his eye, and felt it give way, but the beetle man still lay silent. Either he¡¯s dead or very unconscious, I thought, and turned my attention to the other eyes, those lining the walls.


    I poked one experimentally. It winced with lids of gray flesh. I poked again. Royal Jelly pooled up in the corner. Now we¡¯re getting somewhere. I jammed as many of my lengthened fingers into as many eyes as I could. I closed the door and ran the distance of the room, trailing my claws into as many eyes as I could, with the joyous malice of a child pressing all the elevator buttons. I threw the chairs into the walls, stuck shards of the beetle crown into the all-encompassing pupils, poked and prodded and did the due diligence of a proper scientist. Every drop of Royal Jelly went down like¡­ well, like nothing else. It was intoxicating beyond words. But I needed more.


    I pulled a book of matches from the pocket of my jacket, lit one, and put it to one set of the wall¡¯s lips. It started sobbing, but before it should have felt the heat of the flame. It anticipated pain and feared it. I tried it on another mouth and found the same thing. After putting the match out in a particularly dry eye, I rummaged through my pockets. I found a salt packet, which I applied to as many eyes as I could find. They shriveled up like a slug would, and promptly wept delicious tears. I threw pins like darts in the walls, and they were even more effective than the matches. I stuck them between my fingers, as if they were spiked knuckles, and swung wildly at the walls. That was the ticket. The ceiling, wall, door, floor, all erupted into delicious weeping. Jelly streamed from their eyes like ambrosia from Olympian fountains. I drank tears from distorted masks of grief in a frenzied voracity. I slurped, I licked, I guzzled, I soaked my maw in that delicious Royal Jelly, that power, that taste, that can only be earned through fear. The faces began to regurgitate Jelly, out of terror at my avarice, and I only continued.


    If they would only reward me when I scared them, then I would become a nightmare. I dug my lengthened fingers into the bulging, alien eyes around me, past puckered mouths to the rawest throats, all in the name of that most intoxicating elixir. I now thrived on fear and repulsion, on tears and vomit, all in the name of the truth. There had to be more to the Records than what I¡¯d seen. There had to be meaning for the curse I bore, for the hollowness within humanity.


    As I pried, as I defaced the hive, my mind expanded until its vessel was no longer sufficient. Gray matter wound into ropes and burst through my skull, finally relieving me of the throbbing pressure that plagued me for months. Brass motifs and metal embellishments rattled and broke free of the walls, shaping themselves to fit my needs as they metallically grafted me a new form, one with too many arms and too few fingers. One too spiny and cold to be called human, or even of flesh.


    The Man In Yellow began to transform, not that he cared in his intoxicated furor. It started simultaneously at his prying, quivering hands and his equally unsteady heart. Each set of unnaturally long fingers fused into a single pincer, with the once-deft thumb becoming nothing more than a flimsily opposable scissor blade. His chest, covered only with his tattered yellow blazer and loose skin that hung off his bones like damp clothes off a scarecrow, took on a much more imposing form as metal began flying to and layering itself on it. After frighteningly little time, his once-human body resembled the trunk of a metal snake or the jointed carapace of some shellfish time forgot.


    This distortion spread, like embers through paper, to his limbs. The arms were first to go: this new parasite ate what remained of his sickly thin upper arms until only a ball joint remained, then put that energy to use growing his forearms to wholly unnatural lengths. With a stomach-rending snap the ulna and radius separated, unzipping the claws into a crusher and blade. From those two pieces, the strong upper part regenerated its opposable blade, and the part once called a thumb became a spear-like point, fit to scrabble and heave this new monstrous form across the terrain. Each remaining bone warped into the proper shape to hold new elbows, shoulders, and joints that humans had no need to name. His legs, similarly, were consumed at the thighs and split at the tibia and fibula, but for the briefest of moments struggled to rend the still-intact feet. They fell before the metallic embers, though, and each ragged half became encased in brass to form more claws. Finally, as before, everything bent into shape to accept articulation. The Man In Yellow could now properly be called an arthropod, a being with jointed limbs.


    Finally, the Man In Yellow¡¯s head. That pulverized parody of a handsome countenance, rendered raw by contaminated serums. As if predestined, the final piece of greebling to grow over his face was a mask caught in the throes of mad laughter. Its weeping partner remained stuck to the vermilion wall. The metal spread to the man¡¯s now-sparse hairline before stopping and re-molding itself to the raw features beneath, serving as a second skin. His ears, once gnawed down to fractions of their former size, grew to grotesque lengths and pointed tips, and were the only flesh visible above the neck.


    And thus, the Steely Manticore was born. I, the parasitic ego that consumed him, was set free from the Swarm, and now that you¡¯ve read this passage in the Wired Phantasmagoria, maybe a little part of me is in your brain now too. Feed me well while I stay, please!


    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    Alistair sighed. Who could believe this shit? ¡°I suppose I have to,¡± they said aloud. It¡¯s in the job description of any self-respecting occultist loon to believe, or at least Want To Believe. They stood from their chair, silver chains jangling and purple cloak unfurling down to their shins. ¡°It¡¯s time to go to work.¡±

 Account 02: The Wretched

    Layer 05: Juno Reactor


    Standing up, I took in the space I called home. Most of the light came from the screen of the Portal To Knowledge (my name for my crappy starter laptop bolstered with a nest of USB accessories and external drives), owing to the perpetually-shut blackout curtains over the double window. The only difference this really held was that the bright yellow sunlight was forever replaced with a moonlike blue glow, which set the mood nicely. To my back was a shelf filled (and then some) with various novels, comics, manga, grimoires, and other useful texts, which I didn¡¯t really need in this wired-together age, but were still nice to be able to flip through. Various collected animal parts and posters for out-of-date anime and bishoujo games filled any spare wall space, and the floor was spoken for with bins of nails, chains, bones, and the like for curse crafting. The most interesting storage space in the Room, if you could call it that, was the fuzzy shadow cast by the aforementioned light of the screen.


    It was home to my partner-in-not-quite-crime, Alice Nightshade Persephone VII, called by many nicknames to save time and sentence flow. I just called her Alice, or sometimes Marisa for reasons that will become apparent.


    I felt a tugging sensation at my lower back, and my warped Nosferatu-esque shadow spat out a silhouetted marble. That small, flat circle became the origin point of a tightly wound spiral that spun out hypnotizingly. It eventually warped and unfurled into a double helix, which then bent itself into the form of a second human beside me. The silhouetted form sat up, bringing a lacy witch¡¯s hat and elegant gothic dress into the equation. The flat black tone repelled itself off her with fluidity and bounced back into the floor, to form her own shadow.


    I exaggerated a yawn. I suppose she can put on a show, but it gets old the thousandth time you¡¯ve seen it.


    ¡°You found something?¡± Alice asked in her typical flat-but-not-deadpan cadence.


    ¡°I definitely found ¡®something,¡¯¡± I said, ¡°whether it¡¯s something useful is another question entirely.¡± This was something of a standard response for me. You can¡¯t believe everything you see, especially not on the Necronomicon forums. Like any other occult or horror-themed site, there was always the chance you were reading some urban legend bait or a failed, overly edgy creative writing project presented as fact.


    ¡°You always say we can¡¯t take chances.¡± Alice shot back.


    ¡°And with something like this especially, we can¡¯t. But that¡¯s exactly why I don¡¯t want to. I¡¯m¡­¡° I trailed off. I was going to say ¡°scared,¡± but that¡¯s not quite right. I wasn¡¯t scared of the Steely Manticore, exactly, given its origin it has plenty of weak spots. Creatures born of pain alway fear acids or salts, sharp substances like those. Its metal-on-flesh construction meant it would probably be scared of fire. If it came to it, I could always try to trick it off a high building. I was wary of hunting and killing something that only made itself ¡°evil¡± from an addiction. It didn¡¯t seem right, punishing someone who was a victim of circumstance like this.


    I had to stop thinking like that. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m carrying out some kind of law or code. When a Gargoyle pops up that hurts people, I stop it. That¡¯s the debt I owe this city, and I intend to pay it in full. Besides, I wasn¡¯t completely innocent, nor was Alice, or anyone in this world of blasphemous shamblers and creatures beyond death. One people¡¯s taboo is another¡¯s sacred rite. I¡¯m not hunting the Steely Manticore for once being a victim, but for becoming a perpetrator.


    My train of thought¡ªno, at this point, more an affirmation¡ª was interrupted. ¡°Hey, are you ok, Alistair?¡± Alice asked, with a tilt of the head and a widening of the eyes.


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m fine. Just don¡¯t want to fight a metal monster with nothing but these Flaying Chains.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be. I¡¯m glad you could seal it away.¡±


    I could feel my gaze slipping a thousand yards away, remembering the events of last spring. But that¡¯s not important right now. ¡°Shall we?¡± I gestured to the Door Out Of DISpace, the way out of this Room and into Wintertree proper.


    Alice nodded. Her hat slumped forward like an ice cream bar in the sun, and the wide brim collapsed to become a veil over her pale face. The white cup sleeves of her dress absorbed the black apron like paper soaking in tea, before consuming her long, thin arms in their inky shadow. Similarly, the frilly ankle-length skirt of her dress stretched like a silhouette in the evening sun, until it fell into that two-dimensional pool of fuzzy indigo shadows.


    With Alice in my shadow pocket and no small amount of fear in my heart, I left those comfortingly soft blue pools for sharp black ghosts that live in the corners of my vision.


    Layer 06: Dark City


    The purple-cloaked one showed up again today, walking carefully and nervously twitching. Avoiding crowds like the plague, or like there was one about. Talking to someone who didn¡¯t seem to be there. Running hands over the chains adorning that endlessly folding poncho any time someone looked their way. An enigma, the most uncanny being to walk on two legs in this city from Hell.


    They often say the scariest monsters are human, and while I don¡¯t like arguing old cliches, any monster like THAT one that walks in the skin of a human can¡¯t be called human at all. Humans have something inside, a heart that beats when its owner locks eyes with another person, not ticks and twitches. They¡¯re warm. We¡¯re warm, dammit. My subject is nothing but a cold blue shadow under the light of a platinum moon, even on blindingly golden days of the sun like today. Maybe it¡¯s their shadow, that shadow that seems a little too soft for a cloudless day like today. It hurts to look at them, occupying this space out of time and this time out of space.


    But it¡¯s my job to keep watching.


    Allistair snapped their long, slender (some would say pencilish) neck to the right so far their head twisted with the tendons. This was a habit of theirs, born from the kind of paranoia only late nights neck-deep in the occult can burn into the brain. There was no one there, of course; I had made sure of that. This dimension, this flat, dark plane, this universe freezing for want of another life form to give off even a little heat, provided an excellent view in its emptiness. I could see everything from here, or at least a reflection of everything. The spires jutting to the heavens from the skyline here are drills pointed to the Earth¡¯s center. People walk on the ceiling of a cave like bats and the sky, pale as an overexposed paragraph, glows like the core of Hell below my head.


    It seemed I was going to be dragged around by a wandering human form for a while, and I could live with that. Beats walking. Though, I would have liked to know where we were going. Alistair¡¯s a rare kind of person, both dedicated and competent, but perpetually lacking in communication skills. Or ability to communicate whatsoever. Owning the keys to Juno Reactor didn¡¯t help their hermit-ish tendencies at all. If you couldn¡¯t guess, Alistair is really not well, at least not by my standards. But they¡¯re the kind of ¡°not well¡± that people mistake for charisma, not the kind that gets you locked up or shut away in an attic or institution somewhere. The difference is still lost on me.


    ¡°We¡¯re here,¡± comes the call from my companion, but I am still lost in my own mind. What happens when Alistair is deemed a menace, a threat to themself or others? Will I be hidden away in some cloistered padded room with them? Will I be in their shadow the whole time? How will I live? None in the line of Alice Nightshade Persephone have lived normal lives within the law. No one taught me how to be human, and I hadn¡¯t needed to worry about being one until¡­


    My thoughts are jerked to an abrupt halt by my shadow¡¯s owner twitching their lanky arm at its sharp elbow. Like a cheap action figure left in the sun, it hinged and flopped without any resistance on a strict axis. The odd display snapped me out of my rabbit hole of anxiety, if only for a second before I questioned if my fears had come true. I saw a pair of grinning obsidian eyes above Alistair¡¯s purple scarf, though, and at that moment I understood their intent. ¡°You¡¯re alright?¡± they asked, in an unusually down-to-Earth tone.


    Alice smiled to herself at my words, though I couldn¡¯t see her face in the shadow. I could just¡­ tell. That¡¯s good, I thought. She doesn¡¯t need to worry about me. She couldn¡¯t see my other shadows, those black sports cars with their tinted windows and silver detailing, trailing me down narrow alleys. She didn¡¯t see the grotesque statues made to (rather poorly) hide cameras in their throats and eyes. She didn¡¯t see the men in black suits and red-tinted glasses, holding notepads and velvet bags of salt, waiting wherever the exit from Juno Reactor happened to manifest. And it was for the best that things stay that way.


    Now, though, we were out of the radius of the drones and the droning hum that accompanied them. We were on the outskirts of Wintertree, almost a suburb really, a part of town where patches of grass separated the overlooking towers. The spindly spires, the wrought-iron, the grotesques and (little g) gargoyles, and all buttresses, flying or otherwise, were far in our wake. No cults lay claim to this part of town; everything here was built by human hands with no inspiration besides profit and uniformity. Here, I was surveilled like anyone else in the modern age, no more or less. Alice shouldn¡¯t have to see this dead part of Wintertree, this necropolis-in-all-but-aesthetic, but she unfolded herself from my shadow nevertheless.


    Layer 07: I¡¯ll be the brightest someday


    It was almost too uncanny to believe. The girl in the Purple Raven¡¯s shadow moved like a cartoon, some squash-and-stretch mess. One minute she was standing flat as a board on the other side of perception, the next she was a speck of a silhouette, darting around midair unfolding herself into two, then three, dimensions. After that bizarre ritual, she simply sat cross-legged on the patchy lawn, carefully picking a dead chunk so as to not stain the white lace border of her shin-length dress with chlorophyll. Like a human would. Even without the Council paying me handsomely and supplying me Sight Pleroma, I had to keep the binoculars glued to her like a hawk after that display.


    That is, until my main target, that chain-adorned figure I knew only as the Purple Raven, made a motion for her to get up and they headed to the door together. That person lifted a slender finger to the doorbell¡­


    Only to pause, and then knock on the heavy steel. Once bitten, twice shy, I thought. I know something about you, and you don¡¯t even know I exist. No way does someone instinctively know to knock on a steel door when a doorbell is available, unless they know how far reaching the Sun King¡¯s fingers are. In his infinite wisdom, Lord Oberon randomly selected buildings both in his service and under his ownership, and essentially bugged the doorbells to set off an alarm whenever they rang. Aside from the obvious benefits, keeping track of the comings-and-goings across the spectrum of his holdings, it meant in-the-know folks like the Purple Raven would stick out more, as this information would then be ¡°leaked¡± to occult databases and fora.


    The next step of the protocol proceeded. The doorman, Euctenjanus, would open the door ever so slightly, ask the visitor to state their business, and then invite them in no matter what they said. This false sense of trust was important. It¡¯s how the Swarm keeps up membership in the wake of the storm of missing persons cases that had stagnated over Wintertree since its founding. To be fair, not all those, or even most, were our fault. The Purple Raven exchanged words through the slight crack in the door. As expected, they earned entry.


    As Alice popped from my shadow, I felt that ever-present drilling of eyes on the nape of my neck, but for her sake, I choked down the urge to make notice of it. The paranoia never truly faded, just recessed, and mentioning it even at its worst would just worry her. Right now was an important time, too, so it¡¯s definitely best not to say anything.


    Alice took a seat on a patch of dead grass. ¡°So, Alistair, you sure this is the place?¡± she asked, with an inquiring tilt of the head.


    I nodded towards the sign, emblazoned with the SIDHE crest. The SIDHE buildings were all the same, those kind of squat, old, brick rectangles that populate office parks and dot every populated area built or rebuilt post-automobile. I tried to say something like ¡°Pretty sure, now let¡¯s move,¡± but the imaginary drilling gaze proved to be too much to act through. The words got stuck in my throat, they couldn¡¯t make it out while I was swallowing the bitter pill of my crumbling sanity. It was all I could do to silently gesture towards the door with a stiff hand, saying ¡°after you¡± as a butler would.


    She smiled at this. ¡°No, you¡¯re the expert! You first, I insist.¡± I matched her with a wry grin and a defeated nod of the head as I went for the doorbell.


    Time slowed to a crawl, and just before I hit the buzzer, an electric bolt of terror shot through me as if conducted by my sweaty palms. The dual-pronged scrutiny hitting on the back of my head was two burning cold fangs boring into my hippocampus, twisting like a spasming fish turning clock- and counterclock- wise on a parched dock. It took every ounce of my hollow and unstable resolve to not turn around, to not give myself¡ªand Alice¡ª away. I locked away my instinct to flee, but in that conscious repression, I could feel my body heat rising as my primal humanity prepared me to bolt and run at a moment¡¯s notice.


    So, I knocked on the door.


    One second passed.


    Then another¡ª


    ¡°What do you need, friend?¡± came a rough voice from the other side.


    I coughed up some excuse about ¡°needing to be there¡± without providing any specifics, and was met with suspiciously little resistance. As the door opened wider, that vague, intense ¡°bad feeling about this¡± began coalescing into a solid fear. I took a step forward


    And the solid fear in my gut writhed like a nest of snakes. I knew it wasn¡¯t real, a hand to the placid skin of my abdomen confirmed as much, but there are worms underneath my skin make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop


    That step felt like it took an eternity, like the ground beneath my feet and my legs were both stretching like taffy. Like my feet would forever run parallel to my next step. Like my gait and the ground were racing to the end of a black hole. It seemed impossible to pull myself forward, but eventually, of course, my chunky leather boot made contact with the ground.


    Alistair didn¡¯t notice me disintegrating into their shadow, not one bit. In fairness, it didn¡¯t take a genius to see they were preoccupied with wearing a phantasmic mask of bravery.


    My targets entered the building and left my sight.


    Similarly to my first step over the threshold, my eyes seemed to revolt against the idea of looking at my host. It felt like they were spinning 360 degrees square, except right in front of me where I needed to see, dammit. Finally, as with that terrifyingly slow step, my vision adjusted to the building lit only by what little of the harsh sun could seep through the cracks in the boarded up windows. That was more than enough light to know what I saw, though.


    A tall, skeletal man waited on the other side. He was so tall that he had to hunch to fit below the standard 9-foot ceiling, and he wasn¡¯t so much skinny as shrink-wrapped in skin to an organless extreme. His straw-colored hair hung lank from his gourd-like head, but the most uncanny thing about him was his face. He was movie-star handsome¡ªno, angelically beautiful, but with the stubble and angularity modern cosmetics afford the platonic ideal of male beauty in the present day. Everything else about him churned my already-shaky stomach, a sensation only amplified when he began to speak.


    His voice was raspy, like it came from an acid-burnt throat, and he gestured while he spoke with movements erratic and jerky like a marionette. His mouth opened too wide for the sounds he was making, almost unhinging like a snake¡¯s jaw on his ¡®O¡¯s and long ¡®A¡¯s. Fitting his repulsively thin frame, he seemingly lacked any control over his forearms, but moved them as if they were linked to hydraulics in his upper arms or strings at the elbow.


    Despite his looks, his greeting was fairly standard, if a bit formal. ¡°Hello and welcome. What may I do for you on this fine afternoon?¡± He tilted his head as if an invisible noose had tightened around his neck to stop his words.


    ¡°Ah, I heard there was a call out? For people wanting to know more about the truth of the world? That¡¯s¡­ why I¡¯m here,¡± I replied, with enough of a nervous fervor to my voice to sound like I hadn¡¯t slept in a while. The facade of madness was essential to gathering signs of the Swarm.


    The skeletal puppet¡¯s shoulders shot up. ¡°Certainly! Do you have an appointment? Ah, no matter, no matter, the Celestial Crown is always hungry for new adherents, please, please, please, follow me!¡±


    I nodded deeply and followed down that tunnel of white cinderblock. His gait, all things considered, was surprisingly human. The clack of his bare feet, and the turnover rate of his steps, were all that betrayed his walking silhouette as uncanny (well, besides his proportions.) Hell, from the back, the white jacket he wore as a cape largely hid his husk-like build. I could almost pretend I was just walking through a nice hospital¡­ Behind a nice doctor¡­ Someone who would poke me full of needles and nice, cooling serums, give me a nice, long nap, and make me wake up feeling all better¡­ I could feel my stiff shouldderrrs loosinngn, my tensioooo;;n vaporizin g gg with my lucidddi; tyy yy¡­


    Something spiked me in the ankle¡ªinside my boot? I dug my numbed fingers in and found a jet-black pin, like a tack with the plastic broken off. How did that get there? Who put it there? I looked around in a panic and found myself standing with heavy lungs in a room filled with a pinkish haze.


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Layer 08: I am falling, I am fading


    Alistair looked confused, betrayed, like a tattered rat in a corner trap. Blood on the walls, gaps in the mind, well on the path to madness. We may not be able to change you to the shape of a monster, doll, but we¡¯ll fill you with the mind of one. Forget your actions, surrender to the Swarm once more, give us your power and you can have power. It was already right in our hands, it was already a part of our spiral, like all others who draw breath. Why did it still fight us? What did we do to deserve such disrespect?


    I idly glanced over to my expired puppet in the corner. I had almost mastered the art of faces, so I suppose that¡¯s good. Though a lot of the beauty the best of my successors held was tarnished by the ashen gray pallor of death, and I never could get the limbs just right. I had this drive to make them long and spindly, like the Ancestors¡¯, but humans found that repulsive. The INSOLENCE! They DARED defy the Gray Old Ones? I settled the buzzing cacophony of voices within me. Now, now, little ones, the young ought to be the true object of our worship. We will all fade to ash someday, and be surpassed. Praise those who will follow us. Be not envious! Rejoice for them!


    The Swarm within me responded. Indeed, rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!


    Those words would cause an intellectual feeding frenzy, but the hive would be sated. For my part, the Noosphere would be at equilibrium. I knew not if the Lunatic Queen could say the same, nor if she had captured anyone as powerful as


    THIS. This panicked creature before me. Oh, how it crawled and writhed and slithered, so unintelligently, so inhumanly and alone! What a pitiful approximation of life, this love-born doll was! You¡¯d be better off if you¡¯d just Turn already. Adknowledge what you are, stumble across that knowledge and join me in your despair!


    Something caught my eye.


    That purplest creature had taken to pacing the halls like a tiger in a too-small wrought-iron cage. Now this was interesting. This¡­ felt almost like Glamour. I tried to remember the last time I was fascinated like this, but the hunter¡¯s spectacle blocked that light I was trying to focus.


    I don¡¯t remember how long I stumbled around that orchid-pink labyrinth for, how many hallways led to nothing but concentrations of that pink Vapor. I could only tell you that I made it out with hollow-feeling veins and unbelievably heavy limbs. If there are no gaps in my memory, I thought, then it wasn¡¯t that long ago I was judging the Doorman for his encumbered gait. Was he once human? Is there any saving him now? I wasn¡¯t going back into that Vapor for a while, though, that¡¯s for sure. Now that there were but traces of it in the air, it was qualifiable beyond its intoxicating properties. It was a perfume, of all things, but a sickening one, one that made the most concentrated chemical deodorant smell like the lightest touch of rose water. As disgusting as it felt settling in my chest, in my lungs and stomach, it felt like it was pulling poisons out from my sinuses and throat, like it was revitalizing me in some way. Was that a trap, to entice me to breathe more of it? I pulled up my purple scarf over my mouth and nose. Either I was paranoid or I was taking the proper precautions, and neither prospect scared me.


    All I felt was¡­ oddly enough, rage. Not a warm rage, the rage of a beast cornered and bleeding, but a freezing rage. The rage of a being acknowledging that they had been hurt and putting a clear mind to premeditated revenge. I didn¡¯t feel the kind of rage that made the wielder¡¯s face burn red, it was the kind of rage that turned other people¡¯s faces a blue pallor. The kind that¡¯s scary, not an embarrassment. The kind of cold-blooded rage you hear about maybe once a century now flowed through my brain. Right now, there was nothing but finding out who had attacked me, how, and then dispatching them. In the blizzard of my thoughts, phrases like by any means necessary and flay their brains with iron chains could be picked out, devoid of any other context.


    Alistair was scaring me. I was losing them already. I knew it couldn¡¯t be done, I knew my blood couldn¡¯t make a proper seal and my magic couldn¡¯t make Flesh proper, but there was no other choice. There was no ¡°attempt,¡± only ¡°create¡± or ¡°fail¡±. I had been locked into a pocket existence of game theory, and could only escape by locking Alistair in there in my stead. I swore, on that day, to make it up to them¡­ somehow. Putting that shadow pin in their boot, to save them from the Haze, was just the first step.


    But now¡­ What could be done for this beast? Beneath tendrils twisted lay two sharp, cold eyes of obsidian, then a shapeless shadow of purple studded with glimmering silver. This was no longer the form I had made to seal a wayward soul; this was something wrong. No, someone wronged. Something I made and had no idea how to stop.


    So, shamefully, I did nothing. Nothing but reach into my pocket and pull out a certain ruby crystal that glittered scarlet even under a blanket of sheer blackness. I looked into it and felt numb at my failed machinations, the trials of a failed mage, at my life, no, at seven lives of failure.


    I pushed on, stalking the Vapor-free halls for any sign of life to snuff out. I could no longer feel my feet touch the ground, nor my clothes on my skin, nor the twitching of viscera beneath. Every single bit of my attention was poured into my binocular vision and my ears. I drew shallow, slow, silent breaths.


    Time passed by. The golden light of the sun gave way to the moon¡¯s less voluminous silver rays, and my frozen rage slowly melted into a puddle of mere resolve. I was less hunting, and more searching. I felt a calm from the blueness around me, that thawed me slowly rather than the sun¡¯s attempts at sheer sublimation. Then I rounded the corner and saw it.


    I saw someone I¡¯d never seen before, but knew the shape of. I saw a man, a tall man concealing an obviously-muscular frame in pale green robes¡­ no, they were somewhere between robes and the kind of green scrubs a surgeon would wear. This man was definitely not a surgeon, though. You couldn¡¯t fit his scraggly silver beard under a mask for operations, for one. And, well¡­ I couldn¡¯t see his face. All I could make of it were two glowing eyes beneath a hood adorned with a rhinoceros beetle¡¯s horns.


    He called out to me. ¡°Hello! Are you alright? It¡¯s rather late, you know¡­¡± He trailed off into a chuckle.


    I approached with quick and decisive strides. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±


    ¡°You may call me Kurtzberg. Might I have your name?¡±


    ¡°You may call me Seelie February Melting, or just Melting if that¡¯s too much. Do you know where the way out of here is? Or where any head doctors are?¡±


    ¡°Doctors?¡± The man looked as confused as one without a face could.


    ¡°Yeah, doctors¡­ this is a hospital, isn¡¯t it?¡± Maybe a hospital for souls. I was absolutely trying to confuse this¡­ thing into giving up any information I could get.


    ¡°Close enough. This is a place of healing, surrounded by death, though unlike your hospitals this is also a beautiful place of rebirth!¡± His words were followed by a high-pitched hum, or buzz, or something, that seemed to come from all around us.


    ¡°Right. Well, should we find whoever¡¯s in charge here? I need to get home,¡± I said, turning around in preparation to walk. I threw a nervous chuckle in there to lighten the atmosphere, but I somehow already knew what I was going to hear before the words escaped Kurtzberg¡¯s lips.


    ¡°You¡¯re speaking to him!¡± came his booming reply.


    Once again, my nerves became nothing more than a white-hot filament for a prickling bolt of terror.


    Layer 09: The Chains Are On


    Those eyes. Once again, I could feel the glare of unfeeling red sclera on the nape of my neck. Exactly the same drilling, tearing feeling, like a lens focusing sunlight to a burning point, that I felt at the entrance to this SIDHE compound. This time, though, it wasn¡¯t like it was chopping through my flesh with abandon. This gaze was like pounding hooks into a mountainside. Its owner was waiting for me to do something specific, not just watching to see what I would do like so many Men In Black had.


    Well.


    Might as well put on a show.


    I staggered my bony fingers in a claw, then brought it up to the brim of my hat. My other hand wrapped around my waist from the back. I tilted my hips back, though it couldn¡¯t be seen under my cloak, and finally


    I turned around.


    I knew I wasn¡¯t going to see anything nice, but I wasn¡¯t prepared for the view before me.


    The man had shed his scrubs, and stood before me a twisted mess. His body was lean, with a surprising amount of striation to his muscles for how deformed he was. Most obviously, he had an extra pair of limbs; vestigial arms, with all the apparent strength of a chicken¡¯s wings, halfway along his ribcage. His legs were proportionally short and stumpy, and the expected set of arms at his shoulders stuck out to the sides somewhat but were otherwise the same: short and muscular. His torso was his greatest incursion into the uncanny valley. The scant, pale moonlight accented the ridges of gnarled muscle and bone, which seemed to have churned and fused together to protect his organs better than any ribcage could. In the top left and bottom right corners, the skin twisted together in clock- and counterclockwise spirals, shot through with dark purple veins and converging in a pool of almost black blood pooling beneath the skin. From what I could tell, he held an otherwise pale gray complexion, though it was mottled with patches of sickly yellow and bruised magenta.


    As with looking upon the Doorman, shifting my view to his face seemed Sisyphean. Space seemed to warp before my eyes, or perhaps my vision was being endlessly zoomed in, focusing on smaller and smaller patches of the beast before me. Once I laid eyes on Kurtzberg¡¯s face, I immediately wished I hadn¡¯t. I couldn¡¯t count how many eyes he had. I just knew it was too many. His nose was a non-entity; instead, tiny pinprick holes dotted the space above his beard but below that patch of vision. And even through that loose cluster of wiry silver on his chin, I could still pick out a pinched together wreath of twitching mandibles and probosci that no humanoid form should possess. How he spoke was anyone¡¯s guess.


    Most jarring about this accursed form was the spike in his head. Or rather, two of them, grafted onto a perfectly bald scalp. One was longer than the other, and forked in the front, while the second was shorter but thicker and curved up from the nape of the neck. These were the rhinoceros beetle horns that I assumed were a part of some weird getup, but no, these were genuine parts of the distorted Gargoyle before me.


    At any rate, this wasn¡¯t a fashion show (despite my pose.) All appearances, right now, are psychological warfare, and I was falling behind in this arms race. I locked eyes and walked backwards from the imposing form, left and right feet on a straight line, as if walking a runway in reverse. I moved my head as little as possible from a slight downward tilt, and froze my face in an emotionless glare.


    Space bent again.


    My left foot took entirely too long to come down.


    The effect would be broken.


    I twisted around, showing my back for the briefest of seconds¡ª


    ¡ªI could already feel Kurtzberg lowering his shoulder and charging¡ª


    And I made up my mind to counter. I flicked both sets of index and middle fingers, and four silver chains ending in cross-shaped stakes flew forth from my shoulder blades like wings. Center of mass and center of magic were often the same, so I¡¯ll send two to the left shoulder and two to the right waist¡ª


    As always, the Crucifixion Mass struck true.


    I willed them to keep spinning, to drill into that false exoskeleton, push through the reinforced husk and wound it¡­ But they didn¡¯t. Those craters, heavy with blood, just held my stakes and spun them like bullets on ice.


    This wasn¡¯t working. A twitch of my fingers, and the chains returned to their origin. I jumped back, with less composure than before. Kurtzberg frowned at this.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you want to go home? To return from the Nothingness Spiral you came from?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t play like that. You want me dead, and we both know it.¡±


    Kurtzberg cocked his head, or more accurately he slumped it to his left. There was no control in this movement, it was more a spasm of a puppet with a cut string. With a surprising softness he said, ¡°I don¡¯t want you dead. I want you to see your folly! You can never win, can never cut out the space around you, without accepting followers! Without accepting your personality as the basis for a cult! People tie themselves to your shadow willingly, and you cut their bonds to you¡­¡± He shifted his weight forward. ¡°SO IT¡¯S BACK INTO THE COSMOS WITH YOU UNTIL YOU LEARN!¡± Kurtzberg flung himself at me, horns first and with all his weight, with all the hydraulic power of those short, jointed trunk legs.


    I sidestepped, but couldn¡¯t prepare a counterstrike in time.


    I could feel color and heat fade from my face. Alistair didn¡¯t stand a chance as things were, and our opponent knew something of my existence. Something had to be done. I strode carefully over to Alistair¡¯s choppy, moonlit shadow, and whispered to its ear, ¡°The bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame.¡±


    It didn¡¯t matter what I said in that moment, only that I reminded Alistair that they weren¡¯t alone. This power, Shadow Suggestion, wasn¡¯t optimized for combat at all. I could do the most to help from a support role. And it seemed I had done exactly what I needed to. Alistair¡¯s eyes once again went obsidian-sharp and glimmered with the colors of an oil slick beneath the silver of the moon.


    I don¡¯t know what it was, but images, words, sounds, streams of thoughts rushed through my head from that moment. Listlessness burnt away. My hollow veins seemed to suddenly fill, almost bursting from the volume and heat in my blood. And yet, I wasn¡¯t aimlessly angry, the way I was when I was hunting earlier. I had a goal, and determination, and a million ways to achieve it.


    I focused on one memory, a vividly detailed cut from an old anime movie where some city-dwelling psychic or another released his mental constraints and let the flesh of his arm swell and bubble into a monstrous biomechanical appendage. Almost unconsciously, I let my left arm go limp like a puppet¡¯s, accepting strings.


    I sent chains, so many chains of various sizes, all writhing like silver tentacles, to coat the drooping limb. To reinforce it, and grow it, into a cat-o¡¯-countless-tails, into a squirming metal monolith, a nonliving monument to life born of a cold vacuum. Something made with love, used to flay and fight and lash out. A supporting spear of pale bone pierced through the middle¡ª


    ¡ªthrough my palm¡ª


    And acted as a reinforcing core to the nest of living metal. At last, those chains stopped growing, though they thrashed around still. Each ended at a cross of some variety, be it a small, angular bladed stake on the thinner chains or the meatier, glistening maces on the end of the four industrial-grade chains, the ¡°pillars¡± of my improvised flail. I lifted my left arm, heaved it at the shoulder, and threw this writing mass of metal at my opponent from the side. No matter his strength, he won¡¯t be able to parry all of this, and no matter his speed, he won¡¯t be able to outrun it.


    And yet.


    With a last minute jump, Kurtzberg hurled himself like a cannonball through the ceiling above , tiles and frames alike, and hunched in the dark space between the next floor and this one. That twisted face glared down at me, tilted to one side. ¡°Why do you have to go and react like that? I¡¯m only trying to help you home, poor lost Doll¡­¡±


    ¡°DON¡¯T FUCK WITH ME!¡± I wrenched a clump of chains from the wall they¡¯d been embedded in and flicked them upwards. He chuckled, and rolled left so my attack overshot him, and missed to the right. He was too confident.


    I relaxed control over the stuck clump of chains and allowed the two halves of my weapon to rejoin, like a room-sized pair of scissors. Kurtzberg dropped from the ceiling like a leopard from a tree with a mad grin of confidence on his face, but it was too late. The sheer wall of metal chopped his horn clean in half.


    He landed hard, rolled on his twisted stomach from the strike¡¯s momentum, and stood with that mad grin still on his face. Laughing. It took me a second to see what inspired such joy. Where his horn once was, a glistening pink elephant¡¯s trunk now jutted forth. It lashed out at me, and continued forth as I wrapped it in silver chains and studded it with blisters. Such a sensitive-looking instrument must feel it, I thought, so it¡¯s safe to assume its wielder is either berserk or insanely determined. Either way, he doesn¡¯t seem to feel pain. The trunk approached my face in a charge to the beat of a mad cackle. I flung everything I had at it, to knock it off course, but the trunk was undeterred by even heavy shipping chains, and


    The nostrils


    Erupted into two clusters of tiny, writhing, worm-like tentacles.


    These grew longer and approached my mucus membranes, my nose, eyes, and mouth, like they were going to pry me open from the face like a fleshy shellfish. Thinking fast, I leaked the thinnest silver chains I could muster from my tear ducts and wept to burn away the attack. It didn¡¯t matter how resistant Kurtzberg was to pain, if I could blister his weapons until they couldn¡¯t fit where he needed them. The skinless worms swelled with blood and pus under their thin outer membrane and were forced to retreat; but I pushed on. This time, I only controlled my legs as I ran. Control of my chain arm was entirely up to my instinct, informed only by what my own two eyes could see regardless of my ability to understand it. Metal writhed like flesh, futilely picking at armored skin like a school of sharks frothed into a feeding frenzy against a shipping container.


    Until a hit landed.


    Just above Kurtzberg¡¯s stout throat. Out of thousands I registered one successful hit, against his mouth.


    That same


    That oh-so-distorted


    That mouth.


    The only weapon any devil ever needs.


    That twitching pit of disgust and bubbling saliva and frothy apathy.


    Kurtzberg¡¯s mad cackles could still be heard, distorted by blue blood gushing from those rapidly-tattering mandibles. Chains struck true, time after time, burning away chitin, and he just laughed through it all, until he coughed and collapsed. I called off the chains and went over to see his condition for myself.


    His weakened eyes conveyed as much of a smile as the mangled remains of an already-grotesque face could. ¡°You bested me, Purple Raven.¡± he choked out.


    ¡°So reward me. What do you know about the Steely Manticore?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what you call it? The evolution of the Man In Yellow?¡±


    ¡°Who? Yeah, sure. The metal beast that¡¯s been eating people¡¯s brains. Let me pick yours about it for a moment. You know where it is?¡±


    ¡°I last saw it at the spire, being born. Search places of decadence. Drowning in excess is its nature, and its poison is terror.


    Enjoy your prize, Doll. But you will not beat my puppetmaster. You cannot triumph over Oberon, he with thousands of lives pledged to his shadowy wake. May the Descendants help you, should you incur his wrath.¡± Kurtzberg dispersed his body into thousands of uniformly iridescent beetles that scuttled off, rejoining the bluish shadows.


    I had no idea what Alistair saw that made them run like that. I heard it, of course, that overwhelming buzzing, and I knew it must have been something from the squirming shadows that hung from the floor around me. But we needed to get out of there. The sun was rising again, Alistair was no doubt exhausted, and I was too, from fading into the shadows for so long. This was going to be a tough move, but it seemed like our only choice. From Alistair¡¯s shadow, I pulled the opposing wall¡¯s silhouette until its caster collapsed in a single chunk of brick. I yanked Alistair by their shadow through the new gateway and out into the deep orange, before pulling up the wall behind us from its raw shape and returning to the world of color.


    Alice popped out of my shadow with no fanfare and promptly collapsed. Here we were, having escaped the clutches of death by the skin of our teeth, with nary a clue towards the Manticore¡¯s reign of terror. ¡°We¡¯re fucked.¡± I reached for the handle of the door to the Juno Reactor, and entered my cluttered space once more. Door ajar, I picked up Alice¡¯s disturbingly light unconscious self and laid her down on her bare mattress. (I slept in my chair at the Portal to Knowledge.) We knew slightly more than we did 24 hours ago, but at what cost? Was this all a pointless endeavor? I sat at the Portal and began chronicling it for the Necronomicon nonetheless.

 Account 03: Mechanical Kid and Chemical Bride

    Layer 10: Twisted Metal


    Alistair glanced around the Juno reactor, out of either stale melancholy or sharp paranoia. Neither would be out of the ordinary for them. Alice was still unconscious on her mattress in the corner, and that wasn¡¯t unusual given how much she had exhausted herself. The Skeleton Key Of Shadow, as she called her abilities (though, only to herself) was a power best suited to a sprinter, best used in short bursts, and rarely for extended periods. Of the few who knew of Alice¡¯s ability, none had any idea if it carried side effects, or what they might be, so it was best to play things safe.


    A tendril of hair, shining like a golden wire, curled around Alice¡¯s closed left eye to frame her eyelid. Her hair had a tendency to do that, shift-ever-so-slightly while she slept peacefully. She used to have nightmares, from which she would wake with her hair writhing about like a nest of salted worms, but they seemed to be a fading relic of her past. Alistair noticed something, stood, and walked over to Alice¡¯s sleeping form. With a cautious, trembling hand, they slid her hat off her head and placed it, brim-down, on the mattress. Satisfied, they returned to their seat¡ª and froze.


    A bolt of terror tore through me. I felt it again, the presence of those featureless eyes watching me, except this time from all directions. The localized pressure from before, like a pair of needles, was spread out, forming a dull pressure around my skull. Just stop it. You¡¯re not real. You¡¯re not watching me. You can¡¯t reach me here. I¡¯m safe. Each counter-delusion only reminded me how wrong it was to react this way. Most people would feel watched and write it off as a quirk of psychology, nothing to be worried about; just another latent bug in a program meant to keep them alive in a prehistoric savannah. I couldn¡¯t shake the feeling, though, because my system had adapted to a new rule of nature. One where it¡¯s still most useful to assume you are being watched for the sake of survival, but you have to sit with that knowledge. To escape the eyes, you have to blend in as much as possible, give into the drive not to flee or fight, but to freeze. Doing that means not being so reckless as to be categorized a threat to oneself, while also not being paranoid enough as to be considered a threat to others.


    So, I told myself the eyes weren¡¯t there. If I believed it enough, surely my brain would get the hint someday.


    A car speeds by somewhere outside the window, and barely scratches my still-rattled mind.


    That was close, I think. To think, I was almost noticed, that I was so careless as to leave the door ajar. That miniature square half-door, my one way into the lives of Alistair Macabre and Alice Persephone Nightshade VII. The only way I can do my job. Well, not the only way¡ª I¡¯m sure that computer had been riddled with spyware, some of it ours, but otherwise there wasn¡¯t much I could do during the hours Alistair spent shut up in that study out of space.


    I drove on through the night. A half moon illuminated the broken cloud cover, casting them in a silvery blueness. The only break to the indigo sea on the ground was the occasional pale yellow streetlamp, but otherwise I sailed through the empty streets at a nice pace. If everything went to plan, I¡¯d make it back just before sunrise. That¡¯s good.


    And then, a bolt of terror shot through me.


    I pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road like a man possessed, and got out. In retrospect, I don¡¯t know why I did so, nor why I stood watching the road in front of me. I just got this¡­ feeling. Like some other vehicle would have just hit me, even though I was the only one on the road at this hour. My eyes stayed glued to the asphalt ahead. Nothing happened, but I had no reason to stop looking.


    Minutes ticked by as images flooded my mind, images of a fate avoided. I saw my body torn and twisted, flesh indistinguishable from contorted metal. Bone and glass, equally shattered and jutting. Sensations, too, saturated me, the unending tide of another vehicle bearing down on me perpendicularly, crumpling the car like a can, tearing pains and shooting soreness piercing me all at once. Leaden sickness in my gut as my organs bled. A neck locked by whiplash, my eyes frantically darting around like some kind of inverted owl. My brain is bruised and fogged with shock, only allowing me to think I¡¯ll be ok, despite my obviously being on Death¡¯s doorstep. But it¡¯s ok. I escaped that fate. I¡¯d live on. I wouldn¡¯t fade out like that, because I trusted my instincts.


    I was so consumed in this fantasy of a fight to survive in flesh torn and twisted that I barely even noticed the incisors locking into the back of my neck¡ª human ones, at that. All the fear I felt moments before left me, along with any feeling but an anaesthetic relief to be alive. Not exactly hope itself, but an infatuation with the existence of a tomorrow for myself. Dizziness slowly pooled in my head. My vision filled with static, until all I could see was a single centered fragment of the white dashed line demarcating the lanes. My veins felt hollow, and watery blood splashed around my circulatory system. My heart shuddered to keep me alive, just to keep panicking over a death that never was. I tried to move a hand, and realized I didn¡¯t know how to. All I could do was torture myself with visions of that crash that didn¡¯t happen and rejoice in my hellish reality.


    I licked my lips, or the metallic edges that stood in for them these days. Shreds of fearful brain still lingered, and I wouldn¡¯t waste a morsel. As sweet as the Jelly was, terror was in the depth of its flavor. It was the difference between eating raw sugar versus a slice of cake. I can¡¯t believe I ever settled for Royal Jelly, I thought.


    Lest I rile the Hunters, this had to look like an accident. So I set about mangling the car, punching out the windows with my sickle-tipped legs and churning metal beneath my claws. I tried to bend everything from the front back, so it would look like a head-on collision.  With a final heaving effort, I hoisted the vehicle¡¯s shell overhead and flung it several feet, hood-first, into the far side of the ditch parallel to the road. Finally, I smeared forgotten blood from my meal in the grass, so it looked like a wounded animal had limped off into the thinning patches of forest to die. That ought to do it. My stalking ground, this cursed patch of road, was seen by all but the most lunatic as a common crossing for deer, nothing more.


    As I reveled in the fading aftertaste of my meal, a throbbing, pulsating pain began from the back of my dilapidated skull, rattling the silver death mask that had become my face. I instinctively whipped around to find a procession of figures in tattered black cloaks shuffling up towards me. Glancing up the line, they had gotten within a few feet of me before the pain alerted me to their presence. All of the figures, from the tallest, broadest adult (who reached about 9 feet) to the shortest child picked at their pale arms, the only bit of exposed skin, as if to pull out the hairs. From the closest procession members, though, I could make out their true objective; the shufflers were pulling strands of deep purple and maroon yarn from beneath their skin. One strand apiece, one never-ending strand that nonetheless never trailed on the ground but just kept pouring from their skeletal forearms like velvety veins. The procession overtook my stunned form and kept marching down the road until they faded from view. It was only then that I realized: their footfalls were silent, and they left no footprints in the loose sand on the shoulder of the road.


    <h4>Layer 11: VI_VI_Sect</h4>


    The night bore on. I couldn¡¯t sleep in this chair. Sweat seemed to pool under my skin, condensing on my hollow veins. I couldn¡¯t tell if the pulsating industrial noise was stuck in my head, coming from my earphones, a result of some nest of pipes outside my window, or just another auditory hallucination. The gaze on me had long since faded. Nothing existed except the screen. With heavy eyelids, I scoured each pixel of spirit photography I could find, hoping to wear myself out sorting editing artifacts and supernatural warping. A dull ache nested in my washed-out brainstem. Rheum and tears baked into a crust around the eyes which sat in sunken sockets. Pallor was cast upon my face. Gaps studded my memory of the time since arriving home that I wanted to chalk up to forgotten stints of sleep; the writhing sensation in my intestines told me that was an overly optimistic projection. I blinked, and one of my eyes clicked in its socket, pushing a bubble of evaporated moisture from under the lid. The computer fan began to hum, then buzz, then roar, but I pushed on despite the strain on my hardware.


    The machine didn¡¯t matter. The ghost must be fed.


    Amateurish work, really. I screenshotted the shattered line of pixels where the glow began and linked the image, with no further context, in a comment. Next one was a standard ghost model from a common prank app. This is getting boring, I thought, stretching my arms above my head in a futile attempt to stave off spine stiffness. Was that door always there? Behind Alice¡¯s mattress, there was a square door of about the same width as the main entrance to the Reactor. At any rate, it¡¯s behind the mattress. I could feel my eyelids getting heavy, my head slumping, fog setting in over my thoughts¡­


    Only for an electronic message tone to jolt me awake again. Dammit. I looked. It was from a twelve-year-old account called MortalKombatUltra, who was probably reputable if their account had been around that long. A quick scan of their posts and replies revealed nothing less reputable than the typical cyclical memetic gags, so it seemed ok to trust the message¡¯s contents. They were as follows:


    Hello there. You seem to know what you¡¯re doing, so I¡¯ll tell you something neat. There¡¯s this stretch of road that isn¡¯t. Go down the alley on Betterman, between Wharfham and Ibitsu downtown. It¡¯ll end in a dead end if you¡¯ve got the right one. Turn around and try to leave the alley, and you¡¯ll be there.


    It¡¯s up to you to trust this now.


    I looked over at Alice. In her unconsciousness, she couldn¡¯t join me, and I know she wouldn¡¯t want me to just leave, but there was no other way. Who knew if MortalKombatUltra had told anyone else about this ¡°road that isn¡¯t¡±, people potentially less capable than myself. People who could get hurt. Yes. I¡¯ll go alone, this once, so no one else has to.


    I strode over to the door to the Juno Reactor and placed my hand on the ornate doorknob. From the inside, it was a plain industrial panel of gray steel, with a single small window. Exactly like you¡¯d see in a public school, or office building, or old folk¡¯s home, except for the details. That window was latticed with brass detailing in place of the black plastic you¡¯d normally see. Instead of a stainless, rectangular handle, this door had a delicately filigreed knob, with a brass emblem of a squid¡¯s head mapped to the globular ornament. From there, lines emphasized each curve and tentacle like ripples in a pool of quicksilver. The most immediate modification one could notice was the lock¡ªor rather, locks. There was one, as expected, on the aforementioned doorknob, that accepted a skeleton key. (Both Alice and I held a copy.) There was also a sliding deadbolt that could not be undone from the outside, a chain lock with links thick enough to stop most bolt cutters, and a small metal bar at the top and bottom of the frame, mimicking the castles of old with modern technology. Undoing all these was a hassle, but a necessary one: technically, any door could lead to the Juno Reactor, if no one was in the room said door would normally access and the opener knew of the Reactor. No one had ever accidentally broken in,


    I just didn¡¯t want to take chances.


    Should I leave a note? I thought, but I was already out the door by the time I finished considering it. No use unlocking the noisy main lock, and chance waking Alice up, just to leave a message in my place. Yeah, I¡¯ll go alone. It¡¯s ok.


    I walked into a rainy night on Ibitsu Boulevard. Neon lights stained the torrential sheets all shades of pinks and blues, and street lights dripped pale yellow pebbles into the glistening obsidian road. It was a world of light, not a ray of it from the sky, but all from human minds and hands. I nervously pondered this as I strode the several blocks to the intersection between Betterman and Ibitsu. Most people, at this hour, were returning home to the gargoyle-studded towers uptown. If not, they were traveling off the streets, either up- or down-stairs to labs or studies, or to the Internet. Either way, my hunched, purple-cloaked form stood out against the currents of people and the less stable stream of motor vehicles that divided us.


    Thinking of the cars reminded me that I was ultimately traveling to a patch of road myself with no reliable way back. I really should have left that note, I thought, as I turned onto Betterman Lane. Well, it¡¯s too late for that now. I¡¯d hate to jam pieces of paper under a door that doesn¡¯t fit the criteria to link to the Juno Reactor.


    The new street offered a totally different atmosphere to the crowded ¡°second day¡± on Ibitsu. Here, the rain fell in a silent mist, and the only illumination came from a single flickering street light, much more yellowed than its cousins. Nonetheless I could still see my destination, or at least the door to it, in the form of a gap between two brick buildings. I approached it, and kept walking. Once around the block, to pre-emptively confirm it didn¡¯t reach the street parallel to Betterman, which it didn¡¯t. (If I had been paying attention instead of getting lost in my own thoughts, I would have noticed that on the way in.) I kept walking with my eyes on the low skyline. No one was visible on the rooftops, and no one was on the street level. Someone could have hidden in the throbbing pipes, someone with inhuman flexibility and strength, but if I considered a second Gargoyle in the middle of this case, I had already lost. My mind flashed back to the handsome puppet, and the disfigured beetle-man Kurtzberg, but neither of them seemed built for climbing.


    I rounded the corner back onto Betterman Lane. Once again, the streets and sidewalk were empty, the doors were all locked for the night, and no one was watching my back from bustling Ibitsu. I left the domain of the lone streetlamp, and entered the pool of indigo shadow and dull humming that was the Alley. It took my eyes a minute to adjust to the complete lack of light, but once they did I realized the corridor was functionally not much wider than my shoulders. From the outside, it looked like two people could comfortably walk side-by side past clean-cut brick walls, but now that I was down in it, I could see the source of the hum: layers on layers of pipes, gauges, vents, and miscellaneous industrial paraphernalia coating the walls like ivy. All of it seemed to pulsate to a rhythm of sorts, hinting at it being one complex setup, but I couldn¡¯t make heads or tails of it. So, I pressed on, rather than display my defenseless back to the street.


    I was walking for way too long. Even with my cautiously shuffled steps, there¡¯s no way it should have taken as long as it did for me to reach¡­ I looked back. No, that seems right, but I would be able to see the end in front of me, touch it even. I brought a hand forward and felt nothing. Blindly groping forward, still nothing. I turned to the side, and shimmied forth with my hand on the uneven wall of metal growth, but I couldn''t distinguish between one chute and the next pipe by sight, much less touch. In short, I had no way of knowing if I was making progress. Despite the sinking feeling in my gut, I had to press on.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    I walked, and counted to 300 in my head, pacing myself on the churning, ever-louder beat of the pipes. I don¡¯t know why I even bothered turning to check¡ª the pale yellow glow of the streetlamp was no further away than it was earlier. Maybe this wasn¡¯t the best idea. Maybe I wasn¡¯t meant to find the end of this path. I turned back when an impossible glimmer caught my eye.


    I don¡¯t know how it even shone with the one light source being so far away. I don¡¯t even know if I imagined the glow, if it was some primal core of my brain sensing something the way it would have seen a leopard¡¯s eyes in pitch darkness. Some sixth, or even seventh, sense, the kind of complexity in our brain that is necessarily unknown. One of those wrinkles to the human mind that allowed for curiosity, but itself slipped into vestigiality in a post-food-chain era, making it a waste of time to investigate. Nevertheless, something was there: two thin, cylindrical pieces of rusted steel, jointed together with a loose bolt, and pneumatically twitching. I assumed it fell from one of the two walls of metal, but I didn¡¯t know where to begin fixing it, so I pocketed the scrap as evidence and kept walking.


    Straight into a metal box.


    I heard a bell-like crunch as I pulled my forehead away from the now-shattered gauge. The hollow ring from the (empty?) box tore through, and eventually assimilated into, the pulse of the pipes. Looking in front of me, intently looking, with a purpose, I could make out the fuse box I had walked into, a dark green service door, and tubes branching from the box outwards, like veins giving life to the mass of pipes behind me.


    Up on those tree-like tubes was a sight I¡¯ll never forget. It was dessicated and hollow, but unmistakably human. Leathery skin clung to an empty ribcage. In fact the entire torso was flayed open, and completely dry. Both of the body¡¯s arms and one leg were pinned out to the side like a combination of a crucifixion and the Vitruvian Man. The skull was a mess. The face was skinless from the nose to the middle of the neck, the facial bones were so scarred as to look like shredded plastic, and everything from the eye sockets up was shattered into what appeared to be an emptied cranium. I don¡¯t know why it mummified so, instead of rotting as it should have. Maybe the techno-ivy was some kind of advanced disinfection unit. I forgot my instructions wholly, though, and bolted from the alley. When I passed back onto the sidewalk of Betterman Lane, a belated wave of nauseated dizziness forced my eyes shut.


    Layer 12: Onyx Wings Behind Despair


    Alistair stumbled through the door, shattering my sleep with the heavy turn of the lock. I looked up with bleary eyes, and they were a mess, covered in rust-colored stains and sporting tattered holes in their purple cape. I think they had a black eye, too, unless that was just a trick of the light, nothing more than the normal black circles they sported from a minimal sleep schedule. Either way, the bright red scrapes up and down their one visible arm were certainly not a good sign.


    ¡°So where did you last see this ghost?¡±


    ¡°Phantom. The Phantom in Purple,¡± Seelie insisted, as she was wont to do.


    ¡°Everyone has a name for it. Where was the damned thing?¡±


    ¡°In the alley, below me. It stared at my camera for a good long while, but the tape is dead now.¡±


    The black-suited man wrinkled his brow above those red wrap-around sunglasses. ¡°Do you have the slightest bit of proof you saw it? That it was here?¡± he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. ¡°The higher-ups¡¯ll have my hide if I don¡¯t come back with something tangible for the Records.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, I would have led with that if I had one. I¡¯ve heard how you people are.¡± She reclined dramatically against the doorframe, allowing the loose crimson sleeves of her velvet dress to fall to her elbows. ¡°Is there anything else I can do to help?¡±


    ¡°Come with me to the Spire. Please. I¡¯m sorry to trouble you, but we need to ask more questions in a more controlled environment.¡±


    ¡°Just come on inside! I¡¯m dying just looking at you standing there so poised. It looks terribly uncomfortable. Join me for a moment and I¡¯ll answer any questions you have.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll have to take a rain check,¡± the man in black said with a cold smile. ¡°I should get going now, with or without you.¡±


    Seelie put on an exaggerated pout. ¡°Oh, fine, but give me one moment. I need to shut off my computer.¡± She carefully logged out of the Necronomicon forums and powered off her desktop before walking through the still-open door.


    I opened my eyes to find myself standing in a box. A 100 cubic foot box containing a stretch of road, but nonetheless a closed space. It didn¡¯t have any walls, but the bounds were as apparent as the invisible lines denoting the difference between the last step in a staircase and the floor one travels to on it; one could easily feel them out. And, in this case, I felt I could not cross them.


    There were other clues, too, like how stale the air was, the trapped stink of decay from the woods, the lack of a breeze, the way my shadow fell just-so-slightly removed from my feet. This road should have been bustling, or at least seen some use, at this hour, but it was entirely desolate. What time was it, anyway? It was bright as noon, but entirely due to the density of street lights; the sky above me faded into a light purple. The more time I spent here, the less natural it felt, and the more it felt like a room meant to resemble the outdoors than a closed-off section of it.


    As I thought, I paced the stretch of road available to me, and right when I realized how enclosed this room was, a rotting stench boxed me in the nose. I stopped dead in my tracks, momentarily stunned by how foul it was, and yet how elusive its source was. This wasn¡¯t the cyclical decay from the forest, either; this smell was indicative of life fed to industrial machinations and turned to sludge, rot removed from the conservation of energy. This was the smell of suffering, dismemberment, playing with one¡¯s food, gazing into an entropic fire and sending its heat spiraling away to the depths of space. It was, in a word, excess.


    Peering over the edge of the asphalt, I saw what it was, exactly, that possessed that curious and terrible stench. The ditches on either side of the road were filled with


    Bones


    Black sludge


    Flaccid chunks of skin


    And combinations of the above


    All wriggling as one.


    I could hardly react when a greasy black mass lunged forward at me from the depths of this deathly river. The flying carpet, drenched with decay and bloated with disease, was probably once a crow¡­ Or for all I knew, it could have been a dove dyed black with decomposing tissue. Now, though, it was a pained abomination. I sidestepped the frenzied lunge at the last minute, causing its all-out attack to crack a patch of the graying asphalt into a cloud of dust and gravel. The crow lay still, either unconscious or dead. I flung a single cross-shaped dagger into its heart, or the closest approximation I could find, to make sure it wasn¡¯t hurting any more.


    ¡°Quite valiant.¡± The scarred voice came from the hill behind me, a view overlooking the gore nest that spawned this hellish bird. I turned


    And finally laid eyes on it.


    The Man In Yellow. The Steely Manticore. The creature I had been hunting for what felt like a lifetime. Although it looked more like a centaur, with a metal scorpion¡¯s body in place of a horse¡¯s, than any description of a manticore. There was still no doubt in my mind that this twitching mass of biomechanics was the Manticore I had heard about.


    The Flaying Chains swelled and burst from my left arm, leaving only a javelin of bone where a hand once remained. More and more skin unraveled and tore, up past my elbow to my shoulder, to the point where I was debatably humanoid. My arm, that lone ivory shard hung limp, surrounded by countless metal strings and four industrial-sized chains fit for crushing. Each small chain ended in a bladed cross, and the crushing Pillars boasted heavy headstones to boost their weight. I swung the jangling mass at my foe¡ª


    A wave of nausea shot through me. Alistair was doing something they shouldn¡¯t, I knew that, but what, exactly, I had no idea. Since I was stuck inside this room out of space! Locked in here! My shadow distorted around the edges, and that gave me an idea.


    Metal hit metal. Tiny little blades took hold in the jagged asymmetry of the creature¡¯s hide, and got stuck as the Pillars bent plates back around them. But only for a moment; the Manticore¡¯s mighty metal trunk twisted, and I hit the pavement hard. All the air was pushed from my lungs, and the force of the impact snapped the firmly anchored chains from my control. Tiny links rained down like a rain of quicksilver. The Manticore chuckled, deep in its throat. It was a sound absolutely devoid of mirth, and almost of passion as well; almost like the beast was bored.


    I might as well put on a show.


    If I had been paying attention, I would have felt my shadow ripple, as if a pebble had fallen into the same two-dimensional space as it. But all my focus was on manipulating the Four Pillars. I slammed them into the Manticore, again and again, until the headstones broke off and cracked open on the asphalt below. But that wasn¡¯t enough. With flicks of my remaining fingers, I sent the final links flying at each of the beast¡¯s scythe-tipped legs. They melted cleanly, forming flexible spears.


    It was clear I was doing something; even the Manticore, with its metal parody of a human countenance, made its savviness clear with a tilt of the head and a bemusing clicking sound. Even that bastion of strategy, common wisdom, and psychological warfare was floored by my next actions, actions I didn¡¯t even understand fully at the time. The first point tore into my remaining shoulder, one link at a time shredding bone and muscle alike, before erupting out the back through my right shoulder blade. Two chains, link by agonizing link, pierced either side of my navel and burrowed around my viscera until they found the sides of my hips, at which point they shot out, to act as second, stilt-like legs. The final chain, rather tamely, wrapped itself around the ivory remains of my left arm. I was now a tripod, twenty feet up in the lavender sky, dangling tiny knives from silver strands. Each leg locked into distinct segments and began pulling me


    Towards the river of rot.


    The Manticore began his terrible laugh again. ¡°You can¡¯t escape the desire to die, Allistair Macabre. It¡¯s baked into you. You just need to burn yourself up and self-destruct, to honor your purpose in this world. I¡¯ve seen the story of your birth, and I pity you, but you need to embrace why you existed in the first place.


    You, and all humans, are food for those of us who know more. For us civilized enough to command mountains, you are to move them for us. Out of all humans, though, you should be more willing than most to die for the cause, any cause, so long as it catches your eye. You should BURN!!!¡±


    I whipped my left arm downward, in an attempt to skewer the damned Manticore¡¯s head on the chain, but missed horribly. All I got out of those foul metal jaws was another joyless chuckle for my efforts.


    The creature struck back. It let its neck go limp and vomited slick, rust-colored oil straight up at my new center mass, while I was squirming to recover my chain and avoid the rotten assimilation I was being dragged towards. I took the oil full force, and realized it was actually


    The Manticore¡¯s sickened blood.


    It reeked coppery and rotten, it stank of rust. When it hit skin, I felt it seep into my pores, I felt that I¡¯d never be clean again. That slime would never wash out, or stop twitching, crawling, churning, frothing. I¡¯d try to sleep, and want to go scrub myself raw. Any time I was sitting still, by myself or in a crowd, I¡¯d feel marred by it. I¡¯d feel that oiliness sliding around on my skin any time I let myself think, with no noise, forever. And that, knowing that the Manticore¡¯s blood spray could wound me like that, just made it all the worse.


    Why bother?


    I tried to stave off such thoughts, but ¡ª


    You know the theories. You know it¡¯s probably all hopeless.


    You know we¡¯re either racing towards the end all other sentient species met, or else have passed it and are all alone, or else are working under them, or else¡ª


    ¡°Shut up,¡± I told myself. For there was one ray of hope, one absolute truth in this universe. And it was right here on this planet.


    As surely as there was light, my shadow would fall, and fall it did. Right onto the corpse of that poor crow.


    I picked up the greasy mass of feathers with my spare chain. Feeling out the beak, I made that my new spearhead in place of the now-dulled final link. All the while, the Manticore looked me dead in the eyes and made promises of ¡°moving as one,¡± ¡°strength in numbers,¡± ¡°true community.¡± He bullshitted me that I couldn¡¯t trust my own two eyes, that everyone I knew was out to get me, everyone except him of course. Just accept the churning black tide of rot. ¡°Just lay down and be preserved and rest on your laurels, sleep at last, as a beautiful doll,¡± he told me, with all the saccharine sickness of a politician.


    It was that last word that snapped me out of it. Doll. That word Kurtzberg had called me, that thing I wasn¡¯t but always was compared to. That thing I thought I was for so long, that thing I tried to emulate; that idea I now hated and yet still held fast to, the idea of myself as some static representation of a person rather than a real, live, animal. I dug that obsidian beak into the Manticore¡¯s pointed ear. Feathers flew by in the eternal second it took to impact, like some filthy dart, and like a dart it stuck true in its target. I shoved more and more and more and more of the thick chain in through the Manticore¡¯s ear, and I couldn¡¯t even hear the beastly howls that resulted. My face was so clenched that my inner ear couldn¡¯t vibrate, so I was temporarily deaf.


    Maybe this wounded monster was more of a siren than a manticore. Regardless of what it was, it stumbled off into the woods, hopefully to die, and I recalled the Flayer. The pavement came to me with a meaty thwack. As my left arm reconstituted itself, I could feel the holes in my shoulder, gut, and hips sting more and more. But that didn¡¯t matter.


    The box shattered. Nothing changed at first glance, but the atmosphere sharpened. Everything seemed much clearer. That lavender skybox seemed to layer into cerulean, instead of being one flat tone like before. You could see some of those ever-present towers from the Old Ward, too, which couldn¡¯t scratch the artificial cleanness from before. The stench of death remained, but it was slightly less concentrated. There was a pile of wrecked cars on the side of the road. I picked one, opened the door, and found a familiar lock.


    Alice was sitting up on her mattress. ¡°What happened to you?¡±


    I gave her a weary look, and passed out.

 Account 04: Which Side Of The Glass

    Layer 13: Ghost Against The Machine


    Ithurtithurtithurt! Fuck! What¡¯d the little shit have to do that for? I open my heart up to a fellow ruthless seeker of knowledge, and this is the thanks I get? All I wanted was to enlighten¡­ I just wanted to know¡­ And know, I would. This wouldn¡¯t be the end of me. This metal body was all I needed to survive. Right now I was painfully aware of the shriveled, emaciated form that used to be the Man In Yellow being kept alive by this scorpion-shaped iron lung. I was wearing the skin of the Manticore right now, not the other way around. I owned the Manticore. It would be another step to accumulating knowledge. I just needed some upkeep, is all.


    We arrived at the Spire, myself and the Man In Black, finally. The sun was low in the sky, and too big, casting a deep orange glow over everything not coated in stretched-out shadow. . I knew they had been keeping an eye on me, but for what, exactly, I wasn¡¯t certain. They couldn¡¯t have known of the Umbral Plot just from watching me; I didn¡¯t even understand it all myself. I was just a cog in some larger machinations. So why? Why did I have to mask my intent and go along with the plan and just trust that The Moon Was Watching Over Me? I worried, and worried that worry was showing, and spiraled into a twitchy wreck before I even entered the Hive. I tripped over the hem of my chartreuse velvet gown getting out of the car, just a little, but in conjunction with my fidgeting, it was enough to (probably) come across as suspicious.


    And then I saw that thing. The giant bug with the face of a man, slinking like a tiger and jingling like a wind chime. Silver chains dangled from a hollow carapace as it stalked towards the car.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± the Man in Black asked with a frown.


    ¡°I require healing!¡± came the creature¡¯s raspy reply. ¡°Please, fellow of mine in service to the Sun¡­ It hurts so so much. The pain consumes¡ª¡±


    ¡°Alright, alright, spare the theatrics and follow.¡±


    The creature seemed overjoyed at this. ¡°Oh, thank you! I am in your debt, truly, truly, thank you!¡± It bounded behind us now, like a deathly skinny puppy with double the number of legs it should have had. I, too, was overjoyed. This¡­ thing demolished any ability of mine or my companion¡¯s  to get hung up on subtleties.


    We reached the door of the Spire.


    Eyes shut, I still saw. I saw fire in the aether, where it should have died. I saw shimmering iridescent waves of heat tear newborn stars to shreds and birth new ones in their wakes, I saw mighty suns implode in mere instants to dirths of light. But, none of these things I saw in much detail. I saw little bits of each of them, washing over my eyelids like waves of film, and I let the tides carry imagery as flotsam to my vision without holding onto anything in particular. While I don¡¯t remember all of what was in front of my eyes, hell, I hadn¡¯t even really taken in most of it to begin with, I got the gist. I saw the universe as a single shimmering continuum of death and rebirth, with no bias towards my own planet or another. In essence it was the purest documentary never recorded and ever shown, entirely objective and entirely alien to anything I could (or wanted to) enjoy seeing.


    Because, yeah, it was a painful watch; salt from this visual tide burned my eyes and nostrils. Warm, salty thin liquid sloshed to the back of my throat and chafed it raw with the particulate it carried, the idea that I was seeing the mind of something greater than myself and yet all the colder for it.


    Despite myself it still birthed a new phrase to swim around in the overcrowded tank of ideas in my head: Observe the Archetypes, capitalized exactly like that, as though ¡°the Archetypes¡± were some idea of religious importance.


    Alice sat on her bed and watched as Alistair¡¯s eyes twitched frantically in their owner¡¯s sleep. It was hard to watch, but they needed to rest after a stunt like that. But goddamn, she thought, if I don¡¯t have half a mind to run out while you¡¯re out cold, and see how you like it¡­ But she remained at her purple-clad companion¡¯s side.


    A skeletal hand coated in thin, taught skin pulled the elaborately gilded wooden door to the Spire open. I could have sworn it was solid brass last time, Seelie thought for a moment, but such frivolous things were not to be contemplated right now. Right now she was about to have an audience with the Sun King Oberon, or at least one of his avatars, and she had to be focused even if she was technically employed by his wife. The heavy door swung open, and a tall, thin form with milky pale blue face and sunken, beady eyes bowed slightly. He parted his puckered, thin lips and offered a simple, ¡°Greetings.¡± A few loose, wispy hairs grew from the sides of his sharply wrinkled scalp, and his nose was so small and flat as to appear nonexistent from even a conversational distance, though the shape of his face wasn¡¯t distorted to reflect this. If anything it appeared disproportionately stretched out in the center, without a nose to give context to the surrounding space. In short, this doorman was clearly inhuman.


    ¡°We¡¯re here to speak with Head Archsee Puck,¡± came the blunt response from the Man In Black.


    The milky-skinned man nodded and tossed his blood-red cape over himself, revealing a beautiful outer layer of golden thread. Seelie gasped quietly in awe of the sudden transformation, but followed dutifully along with the Man In Black. The tiger-like mass of metal stayed behind the pair and didn¡¯t appear to be able to enter. Nevertheless, Seelie pressed on with her companion. She didn¡¯t have any particular reason to dislike the creature, but it seemed to ooze danger from its swollen metal form, and in her line of work that was reason enough to keep one¡¯s distance.


    The hallway seemed infinitely long. Portrait after doll-like portrait of mechanically posed gentlemen and ladies lined the vermillion walls, their eyes not quite following the observer so much as seeming to always look past them. Just next to them.


    Behind them.


    It was only after three times passing by the repeated image of a tall fellow with a pipe in one begloved hand and a slightly-too-long skull in the other that Seelie realized they were walking in circles. It took more repetitions before the shadows cast in the orange glow from the bracket lights betrayed the slight negative tilt the hallway was on¡ªin other words, that it was not a hallway at all, but a ramp.


    She tapped the Man In Black on the shoulder. ¡°Where is he taking us?¡± she asked, with a touch of uneasiness in her voice.


    Even that slightest touch perked up the ears of the perpetually moonlit doorman.


    ¡°I assume, to one of the meeting rooms upstairs. We¡¯re going up, by the way¡ª not just in circles,¡± he hastily added.


    He underestimates me, Seelie thought. ¡°I see. So who¡¯s our friend?¡±


    A swirling flash of gold and crimson erupted ahead. A blink-and-you¡¯ll-miss-it metallic glint. And then all was still again, as if nothing had happened.


    Layer 14: Golden Sun


    Two nine-inch metal rods¡ªcurse nails¡ª blossomed from the Man In Black¡¯s wrist. He could do nothing, say nothing, so overwhelming was the shock. Extending a trembling hand, he wrapped a finger around the flat head of the left nail¡ª


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t do that.¡± It was the trembling, yet resounding voice of the doorman. ¡°There are some important veins thereabouts, held together by nothing but the Spell you¡¯re under. If you want them removed, you¡¯ll walk by my side and let Seelie follow us alone. Oh yes¡ª¡± he paused to acknowledge Seelie''s taken-aback-ness¡ª ¡°I¡¯ve known your name for a while. I was at the table when we decided to start watching you.¡±


    The paintings grew and warped to cover the hallway¡ª stairwell? Ramp?¡ª ceiling, floor and all. All the stately, important looking subjects, too, morphed into one person, not faceless but of implacable features. Look askance and nothing would have seemed out of the ordinary about their face, but focusing on closer details revealed the quantum visage he held. Eyes neither bulging nor beady, nose neither pinched nor flat, lips neither thin nor full. His jawline shifted shape, too, like waves hitting a shore. The one constant was the aura the figure gave off¡ª that of a king. A warm, charismatic ruler who nonetheless held more power than even the most benevolent individual could justifiably wield. One word sprung to Seelie¡¯s mind:


    Gold.


    As a metal, it conducts heat very well, leading it to often be warm to the touch. It¡¯s also quite soft and malleable, as a well-intentioned ruler might be susceptible to influence from his subjects and advisors. As a color, it¡¯s bright and warm, perhaps the brightest of all; as even without a metallic element, gold can only be conveyed as a gamut of pale yellows to dark oranges, a spectrum of warmth. In these ways gold was the symbol Oberon, the Sun King, had been assigned, and such was the impression he made.


    The milky pale doorman knelt silently, and was met with a chorus of deep, whale-like rumbles with the odd buzzing click tossed in. It was brain-rattling gibberish, to Seelie, but the doorman seemed to understand. After what felt like an eternity, he unfolded his nearly-insectoid form and faced Seelie once more. ¡°I have been ordered to introduce myself. I am Nosferatu, first Leecher of the legions that will be. I have aligned myself with my deadliest threat so that I, and the children born of my bite, may stalk the shadows. Whether under the sharpest midday sun or softest glow of the Hunter¡¯s Moon, Nosferatu¡¯s Legion will never be cleansed away!¡±


    Seelie knew the rumors, of course. She was an avid user of the Necronomicon Forums, where you couldn¡¯t throw a stone without hitting some bait thread about ¡°VAMPIRES IN REAL LIFE???¡± She usually ignored them, as did most savvy users. Using the name of an already-known monster archetype in the title of a thread was a sure sign, more often than not, of lazy bait. It¡¯s easy to get attention when you talk about something people already know. Most true stories were titled something less specific, but not so vague as to be endlessly applicable (for that was another genre of hoax entirely); think something like ¡°I¡¯ve been feeling anemic on my walk home.¡± Actually this was remarkably similar to the thread Seelie had been reading before she was dragged along to the Spire. Although Nosferatu is pretty on-the-nose, name-wise, she thought.


    The whole time she fell inside her own head, like a hole, like a bottomless pit, eyes bore into her forgotten physical form. One pair belonged to Nosferatu, two glimmering obsidian beads sunken into desaturated teal leather. One of the pairs did not belong to the Man In Black, who presumably valued the structural integrity of his ulnar veins too much to turn and join the viewing party. Most of the eyes, though, not pairs but raw numbers of eyes, new ones each time you looked, belonged to the painted avatar of the Sun, that raw Mobius strip portrait of power covering what had to be the entire interior of the tower. If Seelie could pull herself back out from her thoughts, she would have been able to understand Nosferatu¡¯s meaning, when he asked the Sun King, ¡°Please forgive me.¡± She would have known what it meant when he cradled her head in the crook of his arm and appeared to kiss her neck, oh-so-delicately. Maybe then, she would have understood his plea for forgiveness was both to the one he served, and to Seelie herself.


    As it stood, pure sensation was her mind¡¯s only lifeline to her body and soul; so it was that with the relief of heat draining from her over-pressured cranium that Seelie¡¯s perception returned. And it returned sharper than ever, as well. The first comparison she could make, recency bias being what it is, was to her first time with Powder Pleroma. At least, that¡¯s the name it was sold under; an experimental new stimulant that combined cutting edge medical technology and mysticism tested by centuries. Seelie was pretty sure it was run-of-the-mill cocaine. In a similar vein, though, this¡­ Power, yes, that was the only way to describe it, this overwhelming ability to perceive and react, held a similar kind of mystique. It was the kind of appeal that only some forbidden fruit can hold.


    I, The Manticore, paced by the heavy door. I¡¯d been waiting for what must have been an eternity, I hadn¡¯t consumed any fear in a few nights, and I was in pain, leaking rusty blood from a thousand newly-opened gaps in my armor. The once-orange sun was now little more than a meaty purple-red silver on the far horizon. What¡¯s keeping them? I thought.


    And then the door unlatched, from the inside, loudly. A familiar set of long, thin, milky-blue fingers came into view to push the door further open.


    As the wall between inside and outside shrank, I realized I could not smell a single fully human soul in the corridor inside. I could pick up the same once-human-now-programmed machine mind that all the Men In Black had, and two presences of cold power surrounded by¡­ something, something with such multifaceted mental force behind it that I didn¡¯t even want to have to consider it. It¡¯d be like trying to figure out a person¡¯s psychology by starting with the atomic makeup of brain matter and hormones, too massive a task to ever be useful. But that was it; there was no capacity for fear anywhere in the Spire. Fuck this, I thought. I¡¯m going hunting. Even with my boundary field destroyed, the barrel I shot fish out of, I¡¯m still the fucking Steely Manticore. If you didn¡¯t fear me, even a little bit, you were either lying, insane, or unconscious.


    Some would say that the Manticore¡¯s entire existence was born from a desire to be observed as intimidating, either with knowledge or physical prowess.


    Another goddamn line. More of this crap had been invading my thoughts, all this flowery prose that stood in staunch opposition to me, the beast who collects fear to understand it. That¡¯s what I¡¯d always been, all the way back to the days when I killed for knowledge, to know what we breathed for.


    It was nice, finding a framework to understand one¡¯s purpose; especially after so long spent drifting from fascination to stray fascination.


    With that happy thought, I set out


    Something crawled and prickled, beneath my metal skin.


    Layer 15: I Know A Ghost


    I awoke in a cold sweat in a bed of pale powdery sand. The repetitive sound of waves crashing, again and again, nearly lulled me back to sleep, but some small squirming hook in my brainstem kept wriggling and jerking me awake, so I sat up. As I did, my skin seemed to tighten around me ever so slightly as my sweat evaporated into a salty shell. The sea ahead of me was a sludgy teal, and it was at this point I realized what sensation was keeping me awake.


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    The smell.


    Ahead of me lay a literal dead sea; chock-full of nutrients if the color was anything to go by, but home to nothing to eat them. All that potential energy just went to waste, rotted in the harsh sun¡­ which wasn¡¯t actually so bright as I thought. Looking up, I couldn¡¯t quite make out a distinct shape of the sun, though it did hang directly overhead in a cloudless sky. Sending my gaze earthbound once more, I looked inland this time. Behind me, rolling dunes stretched for a good 500 yards or so, studded with a forest of ornate crosses that nonetheless seemed patched together from sheet metal. A few had bent over in the sea breeze, making the picture even more reminiscent of a maritime grove. Beyond that, I couldn¡¯t tell you; I couldn¡¯t manage to focus on anything so far from the primal sea in front of me.


    Was it really the stink of excess? I sat there, taking in the scent with nothing better to do, and couldn¡¯t answer. It did remind me somewhat of the smell of the woods, when condensed in the Manticore¡¯s boundary field, but it felt so¡­ wholly one, as if every part of every thing had decayed into it. This sea reeked of assimilation the same way those foul black rivers of death did. Images flashed through my head; fuzzy images of flesh flaking off bones in a swirling tide, fish and insects and even smaller things picking away at bone only to fall apart themselves, minds and souls decaying away in the same way. And yet it wasn¡¯t wasted, it was instead becoming potential energy for new life to grow from.


    I¡­ I don¡¯t think that¡¯s quite right. I don¡¯t know why I thought of it that way at first, but my instinctual response wasn¡¯t one I agreed with. This rotting sea was sickening me, at the thought of its existence. I have to get off this hellish beach, covered in this jagged white sand with all these flimsy reminders staring at my back (because I don¡¯t dare turn from the waves now.)


    I have to go home. But there is no home. Everything past the dunes is gone, and everything in front of me is going away.


    As panic set in, a slender figure in a long white robe (dress?) emerged from the crosses behind me. I felt like I should know¡­ her? But I couldn¡¯t see her face, I couldn¡¯t describe her in any qualitative sense, nor even in database tags. She was such that only vague aesthetic language flitted across my mind when I saw her, words like ¡°ethereal¡± and ¡°fleeting¡± along with phrases along the lines of ¡°like a ghost beneath a full moon¡± or ¡°the physicality of a salp colony¡±. The word ¡°colony¡± set off another string of synapses, sending words like ¡°coral¡± and ¡°cancer¡± and ¡°polyp¡± to fly across my mental corkboard, but I had to pull myself out of my head.


    And she was gone, just as quickly as she had shown up.


    Then back again, right at my side. She tapped my shoulder. ¡°Time to wake up.¡±


    Alistair shot awake in their chair at my slightest touch.


    I was drenched in a second layer of panicked sweat tightening around me once again. I was freezing, too, except for the small warm handprint on my shoulder. I turned to my left and saw Alice watching over me. ¡°You ok?¡± she asked me with a slight smile. ¡°You were thrashing around in your sleep. I didn¡¯t want you to fall out of your chair, so¡­¡±


    I struggled to piece together what happened. I remembered opening a car door to return to the Juno Reactor, and then I must have fallen asleep, or else passed out¡­ Goddammit. I hate this. I hate it. I just want to know where I was, what I did, what I should know, I hate this, I hate all these gaps in my memories.¡± I cut myself off when I realized my thoughts were coming out of my mouth.


    ¡°It¡¯s ok! Really, not much happened. You came in, collapsed, and I just kinda¡±¡ª she pantomimed dragging something too heavy to lift¡ª ¡°carried you over to your chair.¡±


    That was not carrying, I thought, but kept my commentary to myself. ¡°Thank you. And, I''m sorry.¡± Alice had no response. I don¡¯t know if she heard me or not; even though I fought the tightening of my vocal cords with everything I had, sometimes my voice just wouldn¡¯t make more than a squeak, and I feared this might be one of those times. ¡°Thank you, Alice.¡± That was all I really needed her to hear.


    The moon rose low that night. It hung in the cloudless sky like a limelight, or maybe an eye. Said sky seemed so much closer to the ground than it should have, like the world¡¯s verticality was¡­ well, maybe not reduced so much as shifted downwards. Usually in Wintertree, the omnipresent skyscraping spires seemed to hold the sky up like a sanctified ceiling, only failing to deliver the illusion of the outdoor cathedral on the foggiest nights. Tonight, despite the cloudlessness, a different fog set in over everything. A silvery light of clarity, as blinding as any impenetrable pea soup. The Hunter¡¯s Moon bore down on the city tonight.


    Layer 16: The Night That Fate Stood Still


    I was enraged. And starving. I just needed fear, and this damnable follower wouldn¡¯t even provide me that. My head spun inside its metal casing. I felt thin blood pool in the tips of my shriveled, vestigial limbs. I felt the paste that could once have been called a heart slosh that rusty fluid through mostly-hollow veins. Despite this raging dizziness, I had a duty; I owed it to the man I once was, the Man In Yellow, the man who killed for knowledge, to keep consuming; souls, minds, bodies, or maybe just brains, the intersection of the three.


    I picked my way through hazy tunnels and tore through false walls like a man possessed, though I¡¯d long since lost that excuse. Now I just had to make things right, or as right as they could be. FUCK! White-hot pain tore through my remaining nerves, emanating and pulsing from my mutilated ear like sound through a subwoofer. I throbbed, every bit of the gnarled flesh that once was a Man In Yellow on a quest for knowledge shuddered like a dying pulpy heart.


    And still, I pulled myself forward.


    Creaking metal spikes tore through cardboard, plastic, and brick in equal accord. Wires snapped and sparked beneath my claws. Something burned in my wake. I¡¯m sure my pained blade to the universe caught someone¡¯s eye, but everything just hurt and I needed my family again.


    A courtyard garden. A man reads a book on a stone bench. The cover is inscrutable, as are his features. The shape of his face, the tone of his skin, even the length and color of his hair are obscured by an ever-shifting oily haze. Surrounded by tall stone walls, he would have been invisible to the universe were it not for a lone observer standing in the falling snow, close enough that you can tell she knows him. She¡¯s pale, and tall, with long blonde hair so light it¡¯s almost silver. Despite the wintry weather, she¡¯s dressed in a thin white sundress, the kind you¡¯d see someone wear on a walk to the beach. And she may as well be standing in sand, not snow, for how bothered she is by the chill, eyes on the man drowning in information.


    The man and the woman are holding hands now, book and castle and snow nowhere to be seen. In their place, there¡¯s an enormous meadow soaking in the dying orange rays of a day well spent. Two children, both who seem to take after their mother in looks, are running around in some anarchic revision of tag that only children can comprehend. The pair from the courtyard sit on the grass, the woman in her same dress and the man in a blurry mess of khaki and seersucker, I can¡¯t remember what it was that day.


    Yes, these are my memories. Not all so idyllic as this, of course. There were days where I was alone in my study, weeks even, without so much as seeing the sun. There were certainly nights my wife screamed at me that I was never there, that I only cared about my inane scrolls and endless research, and the kids howled from their beds knowing their parents fought. There were tensions between my work and my family, to say the least, but I never thought they¡¯d impede me in any way.


    Then that one fateful night. I had stormed off to a certain castle after a bad fight, determined to prove the worth of my work before the Society of the Ancient Chamber. They were my second family, my true family, for they were the only ones who understood the dire importance of my days spent consuming information. Something was different today. I could usually expect a warm greeting and warmer drink to tide me over while waiting for everyone to arrive. We¡¯d wait in a high-ceilinged entrance hall, various shoes clicking on black and white checked tiles as we milled about chatting and sipping tea or cider under merry orange candlelight from high above. We¡¯d then retire to a Round of throne-like armchairs in some cloistered chamber. There we would discuss the occult, the nature of our findings, and things such as, along with cracking jokes and forming repertoire. It was half work meeting, half social gathering, and a full-time preoccupation for me. Despite our egalitarian seating arrangement, I was something of a big-shot, close to the (very) unofficial leader position. As ashamed as I am to admit it now, I felt more at-home there than I did with my wife and children.


    Today was different. I swung open that familiar heavy oak door and was greeted not with warmth, but the inside of a hollow obsidian prism. A blue glow spilled from who-knows-where, revealing my acquaintances and colleagues standing in a circle around some mangled puddle. I hustled into place, and the meeting began.


    ¡°Scholars, I have seen the Truth with my own eyes.¡±


    I don¡¯t know who said it, but murmurs spread throughout the circle.


    ¡°I have nearly scratched divinity. If you have any trust in me, or what you¡¯ve seen in your studies, listen well. The people outside of this room are nothing but playthings for the enlightened and the divine. Toy with them as your urges dictate, and don¡¯t worry about the consequences. That absolute and brutal rule of the strong and knowledgeable is what makes divinity divine. I have seen it.¡±


    Everyone fell silent.


    And I don¡¯t remember much after that. We drifted apart with hardly any parting words, and I eventually found myself at home. It was then that I realized how fully I had accepted my nature, how entirely I internalized my newfound justification for auto-idolatry. I was a puppet of the divine, yes, but I am also destined to be that same force. My head spun. This is¡­ Awesome. As in, it inspires awe in me, to behold myself.


    I mustn¡¯t get carried away, though. I have duties, as one who can ascend to the highest throne.


    ¡°Humanity is a god. A fractured and failed one, but one with all the pieces to stand amongst the Sun and Moon. There is a power in the record of our species that is matched by the Sun¡¯s explosive isolation or the Moon¡¯s proximal pull. The power of our human mind is so great that we could, potentially, alter our very cells, even atoms, with the power of concentration alone.


    As members of this Society of the Ancient Chamber, holders of this knowledge, you now have exclusive access to any of the people below us. Make them your followers, forge alliances, assimilate them into yourself, when you feel the time is right, and who knows? You might become the avatar of Yaldabaoth.¡±


    This final word, this final name, seemed to make the room shudder.


    I opened the door to my home. Unlocked, as was the norm. This was a pretty nice and trusting corner of the world. Behind me, I dragged a silver axe. With each breath, my yellow pinstriped blazer seemed to shrink around my chest like a python squeezing the air from my lungs. And looking back, that was the first time I saw myself from the outside, the first time my face was clouded in the silvery cocoon of the ethereal and unknowable.


    In this moment, I have no need for such weak-willed, spinelessly empathetic beings. I need my true friends, those truly devoted to finding Truth, I need to be known again and loved again by the crowd in dark blue. But I cannot sleep, and when I can, I cannot dream. It is only in dreams I feel known and loved, accepted, admired even. I¡¯m looked up to, respected, for my knowledge, for that intangible pleroma that won me nothing but pain in my waking hours. I swung the axe down with all my might. Again and again. I obliterate the bodies, those temples upon which entropy feeds. One less agonized heat sink. I made a difference to that one. Not everyone can be saved. They¡¯ve seen too much of me. This is for the best. I didn¡¯t know I had those thoughts at the time, but if I had them now, in retrospect, I must have had them all along. Squelches turn to crunches turn to hollow thunks, as my might drives the head of the axe into the rust-stained floor.


    This is the first time I remember what my self-worship wrought.


    A stomach, maybe even mine, grows bloated, and from my deepest viscera I belch a sickening pink cloud of vapor with a hiss. It fades away into the cool evening breeze. My clawed legs begin to carry me back to the onyx pyramid, or castle, or whatever it is these days.


    The Manticore clicked its way down those frozen asphalt rivers with intentionality, like it was stalking something, though it had no particular target in mind. Maybe ¡°sensible¡± is the only criterion my prey needs to meet; not so insane as to be fearless, of course, but not so tied up in illogical superstition as to avoid things that go bump in the night. Things like me. Beneath the metal mask, a lipless face twisted into a smirk.


    Yes; I have had my humanity rejected for me, I have been exorcised from this society, the one place I can call home. There is no place for well-intentioned evil in this world. So I must continue to eat past satiation, because it¡¯s all I can do when left to my own devices. Better to destroy the world than myself, if something must be destroyed.


    My thoughts were interrupted by a tide of noise behind my back. Footfalls, you could have called them, once, but these were frenzied and hungered, like the steps of a hundred-legged monster. Or¡­ No, these were human footfalls. I whipped around


    Or meant to


    Some kind of instinct kept me turning with what felt like the pace of a particularly slow hour hand, like these scythe-like claws were baked into the pavement each time I took a step in my clumsy tank-controlled reorientation. It took all my remaining will to force those pneumatic contractions to go through. I was so tired that my muscle might as well have not existed, that my split limbs may as well just be rotting bone scraping patched-together metal at this point.


    And then I saw it.


    A procession all in black, each member plucking one long veiny string (or maybe a stringy vein) from their arm with lunatic abandon. But now, their listless shuffle had been replaced with a lunatic full tilt sprint, and the careful extraction of the string became equally frantic. Some had sloughed skin off their arms to approach the string¡¯s origin. Others had started scratching at the base of the string, and still others had broken off the offending arm entirely, pulling the string from the shoulder stump among shards of bone. The most disturbing were the ones who had forgotten the string all together, letting it trail behind them like a banner as they dashed forth.


    This lunatic Wild Hunt surged past me, just as they did as individual shells in my hunting ground. Whether this was the tax they paid to a being superior in its knowledge, a good turn in thanks for letting them march past earlier, or simply ambivalence towards my existence, I didn¡¯t know; but as loathe as I am to admit it, I was grateful all the same. I hold just one fragment of the Shattered God within me, and a crowd holds many; that¡¯s just simple math. No matter how much better my single fragment is, more of Yaldabaoth¡¯s will is held in the collective consciousness than in any person. So, I reasoned as the maddened footfalls swelled up around me, I too should hunt. I should lead a hunt of my own. I should take the burden I was forced to bear and distribute it among many. It reduces harm to hold it in common.


    The moon bore down as the Manticore had this revelation. poppop PopPop Pop Pop BAMBAM. On either side of the street, lightbulbs exploded under some mysterious silver pressure. Glass rained down and chimed upon hitting the pavement. The only light, now, came from the sky. The giant round moon, ever watchful, that seemed to be within grasp now, lit the cloudless sky a deep blue.


    The same blue as the Society¡¯s robes.


    The Manticore had an idea.


    basked in heavenly silvers and blues


    for the first time since that hated day in the obsidian pyramid


    he felt truly alive.


    A papery fluttering sound emerged from the craggly overlapping sheets of brass on his back. Eventually, it morphed into more of a buzz, or a hum, and with a mighty crunch, oblong plasticy wings burst forth. The Manticore allowed them to carry him to his destination, and so the limp multi-legged form took to the darkened skies.

 Account 05: Silence of the Blue Night

    Layer 17: (Truth Is) Better Than Suicide


    As all living things do,


    That limp form burned fuel and churned away.


    The brain swirled and contracted like a great eye, seeing everything it wanted to see. Everything it looked for.


    The Steely Manticore had struggled to be born, and now it would do as it wilt.


    Those words echoed amongst images of a lonely planet in a bleaker void. The man who once held a name, then a yellow cloak, then a page in a digital bestiary, had read them once. Once upon an evening snowy, in a castle courtyard, he read those words.


    Do as thou wilt.


    Something about that struck a chord in that freezing gray, and he vowed to himself to live by those words.


    Was he really doing ¡°as he wilt,¡± though, or was he doing as his psyche wilt? Was the world expressing itself through the Man In Yellow? Was his supposed hedonism actually a surrendering of control to some higher power?


    Those gaps in his memory. Were they, truthfully, gone, or were they appeasements to an otherwise-unanswered God?


    Doubt resounds against hollow steel.


    I can feel something pulling me deeper into my own head. Whether I should explain myself, or keep silent, I don¡¯t know. If I do say more, then what do I say? I¡¯m touched by Alice¡¯s gesture, and I don¡¯t want to seem cold, but I also don¡¯t want to assign more meaning to it than was intended.


    Was it out of love? I feel loved. It¡¯s a nice, warm glow I haven¡¯t held in my chest in a long time, ever since ¡°that day¡±. I¡¯m scared that it is. Now that I hold this warm lantern, I¡¯m terrified of losing its radiant shine. Not so scared I¡¯d lose my head, no, I keep things cool, analytical even. I won¡¯t misstep. This is a dance I¡¯ve danced countless times over, and then again never in my life. I¡¯m not afraid of love, or something being done out of love, or of ¡°that day,¡± of anything within or without. It¡¯s when the inside and outside of myself mix that I start to worry. Physically, or emotionally, what¡¯s inside me should stay inside and what¡¯s outside should stay there.


    I wasn¡¯t awake. Because now I was staring at a page of my bestiary, or rather at a pale blue screen that I couldn¡¯t read with my thousand-yard stare. I was looking into a single pixel at a time, but not really; I was looking into my entire self and trying to figure out what my most recent thoughts said about me. How to reconcile them with the frail continuum that is Alistair Macabre.


    A tap on my shoulder. ¡°You¡¯re ok?¡± Alice asked. She tried to hide the bullets, but it was a loaded question. I could tell, from how shaky her voice was, that this was a desperate search for some anchor to her empathy.


    So, I did as I would; I nodded. ¡°Don¡¯t¡­ touch me, though, please.¡±


    It was a lie, from a certain point of view. But from a certain point of view the sky is purple, or red, or black, not blue. From certain points of view, there is no sky, just a gradient atmosphere. The most immediately useful truth would have been that I was not ok. I felt myself recoil from even a soft touch. I was spiraling into my own head. That much, I knew. But I also knew I had to try to get better, for not just my own sake, but Alice¡¯s. Because she knew it was a lie, most likely. She was hardly even asking in the first place, more of a declaration: ¡°You aren¡¯t ok right now, just so you know.¡±


    In that way, it was more useful to interpret her words as ¡°I feel that you¡¯re in pain,¡± rather than ¡°Are you ok?¡± No matter how I look at it, that was reassuring. No matter why she carried me to the chair, Alice empathized with me, even after my dumbass stunt.


    A notification shattered my second mask of thoughts.


    Hey. How was it? Did I help you any? Did you find anything interesting? Sorry for all the questions. Everyone¡¯s just curious. Well, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve seen, but people are losing their minds, on the main boards even. You¡¯re famous. Like, crazy famous, as the person who became a hunter. You¡¯re kind of a meme. Ah, but not like a funny meme, like, you¡¯re a grassroots celebrity. An idol, even. Anyway, if I helped you, mention me in your post. I could use some of that fame too you know.


    -MortalKombatUltra


    I can¡¯t do this right now.


    I really don¡¯t need some pseudo-cult to develop around me. I don¡¯t want power, or fame, or anything. It¡¯s too much trouble. I just want to do some good with my life when possible, so that I don¡¯t have to worry about it when I do things for my own sake. I don¡¯t want to have to deal with faceless followers calling my name, because each of them has a face, it¡¯s just that you can¡¯t see it from a seat of power. I don¡¯t want to be that, some symbol for drifting souls to latch onto, any more than I want to be a parasite on a personality. I just want to live until I die, hopefully with a net positive of happiness.¡± I bury my face in my hands, and realize I just said that¡ª all that¡ª out loud. Dammit. Even someone who lives in my shadow shouldn¡¯t have to hear my externalized monologue.


    Alice just nods, though.


    Everyone thinks this way. Alistair is not special for aspiring to be a scratch against emotional entropy. ¡°I think you should just do what you want to do.¡±


    ¡°How,¡± comes their muffled reply, ¡°Can I do that, when I can¡¯t even do anything I need to?¡±


    ¡°People are prone to lashing out when they¡¯re in pain, or tired, so don¡¯t hurt or exhaust yourself, for a start. And more than anything, you need to enjoy the life you have. Like it or not, you were born into this world, so you can either tie yourself up with fake obligations to some vague notion of ¡°society¡± or cut loose, do what feels right. Excluding what hurts people, of course, but that¡¯s exactly it: excluding harm, not including some vague, subjective ¡°virtue.¡±


    Alistair sits up. ¡°But that¡¯s wrong. I¡¯m no different than anyone else, so why should I do what feels right to me and not what feels right to some other person? And what if both of us are wrong?¡±


    ¡°There is no ¡°wrong¡± or ¡°right¡±. Just do what makes sense to you, and let things happen as they may.¡±


    ¡°What if I told you my current actions ¡°make sense¡± to me?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d ask you to explain them.¡±


    ¡°Can you explain yourself, then?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re overly selfless, I think, and scared of being selfish. That¡¯s  dangerous, because it leads you to keep your distance from other people so you don¡¯t hurt them. Compared to an overly selfish person, though, your actions lead to the same outcome; hurting other people. So why bother cloistering yourself like this? If you were too selfish, you¡¯d still hurt other people, but not yourself; you¡¯d reduce harm.¡±


    ¡°But that¡¯s not enough, and besides, I¡¯m still hurting people.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m getting there. Abandon the perception of yourself as ¡°selfless¡± or ¡°selfish¡±. Stop watching yourself so closely. You¡¯re a person, first and foremost, not a number in a universal calculation. You and I are gonna be dead in about fifty years. Do you really think the sun or the moon give a fuck about fifty years?¡± I¡¯m fed up with their mopey bullshit at this point, and I¡¯m tired myself.


    Alistair didn¡¯t think about anything; the fact that I only woke up when they got here, the effort I put in to get them to their chair, the time I spent fretting over them in their sleep¡­ all of it, they took for granted. And that¡¯s for the best; Alistair¡¯s spread too thin as it is, and I want them to be happy, but I, too, have limits.


    She was right, of course. I couldn¡¯t call myself an occultist without ¡°Doing as thou wilt,¡± or at least being familiar with the concept. But¡ª


    ¡°I get all the happiness I need from doing good for the world. Like seeing you rest when I headed out earlier. Knowing you were sleeping peacefully brought me comfort as well, comfort I might have needed to survive. I don¡¯t know if your support there would have been worth the trade off.¡±


    ¡°Rightttt. Well, just wake me up next time, ok? Don¡¯t feel bad about this last time, I know you¡¯re doing your best, but there¡¯s no inherent virtue in discomfort. So if you¡¯d feel more comfortable with me, let me know and I¡¯ll go with you. I get more than enough sleep anyway.¡± Alice smiles softly.


    I nod and give an affirmative ¡°mhm,¡± with a similar warm grin. ¡°I think I wanna stay in today. If that''s ok with you?¡±


    Layer 18: Signs Of The Swarm


    I spit and spit and spit pink froth, I hack until my throat is raw, but the taste will not leave me. The terrible, stinging, bitter smell of fearlessness; if I have one weakness, it is that. I don¡¯t even want to imagine the taste of a mind drunk on the stuff, on courage. The stink alone is enough to repel me.


    I look at the unconscious form in front of me and curse its owner¡¯s lack of coordination. How hard can it be, to stay on your feet when you¡¯re running for your life?


    Spots of the road glimmer in the pale blue moonlight. There¡¯s the pools of slightly crimson spittle, and grayish vomit shot through with more concentrated scarlet, all turning a sort of purplish-red. Then there¡¯s the colorless glass from the lightbulbs that shattered in the wake of my mad, starving dash. That is truly beautiful to behold; each piece is a microcosm of the gorgeous eye of lunacy above me, distilled into a single shard. It¡¯s almost hypnotic.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    But I can¡¯t focus on that now. I need to return to the Castle and take my revenge.


    I was there before I even knew it, scuttling along the nearly-empty streets on scythe-tipped spoke-like legs with the speed of a cockroach in the sun. My faithful companion, the moon, has been on me like a shadow the whole time. Looking up into the sky, I think I asked it for fortune, or protection, or something like that. Something like a blessing, but unclean enough for a plague rat like myself.


    I had made peace with my role. I am as I wilt, and I wilt myself to spread disease, rot, decay, paranoia, and all things filthy so that I may feed. Even with my bounded field destroyed, I¡¯d just make the world my domain. Instead of relying on a set loop of actions in my hunt, any method would be on the table until proven inefficient. And thus, my plague would spread.


    The moon was looking upon my back, casting my warped silhouette into the twisting mess of towers ahead of me. I knocked on the thick wooden (pine? They smelled like it) doors with a gnarled metal claw. No response.


    I knocked again.


    No response.


    And I smelled no fear. Just the, by now, overwhelming sharp coniferous stench of the doors blocking me from the chambers I needed to return to, one way or another.


    I knocked again, heavier and more frantically, and this time the door opened.


    Fell open on it¡¯s hinges, really.


    Mechanically, almost.


    Slowly, too, like an old man getting up from his chair, and with the same kind of creaking and groaning.


    It¡¯s like the door wasn¡¯t even latched, let alone locked.


    This was strange. When I was a member of the Society we kept the door locked tight, whether the castle was occupied or not. The only key was gold, lots of it, and it had to be gold. Cash would not suffice. As for a key proper, I never saw one. I was never the first one to arrive and never questioned who locked up. The less one knew about the workings of the Society, the more one could learn about the world outside it. So I never wasted my time questioning the order of things, I just accepted that they were in order and did as they taught.


    The lobby was dark, but not pitch-black like it was on the Day Of The Obsidian Pyramid. My ally the moon spilt enough blue luminance from behind me that I could make out the checkered tiles on the floor and the glimmering silver ornaments on the walls. So, I walked deeper in. I stalked down countless velvet-lined hallways, opened countless elegant doors, peered into so many studies and bedrooms and rooms with no purpose. Eventually, at the end of a corridor that was so sheerly long it had to border an outside wall, I found something other than a room.


    The door was slightly shorter than the rows of others, probably because of the convex arch at the top. It bucked the gilded mahogany uniform the rest of the interior doors wore, too, instead looking to be made entirely out of unvarnished wood, knob, hinges, and all. The knob even had bark on it, presumably to act as a grip. With a quivering claw (Dammit why am I shaking when I¡¯m not even scared) I unlatched the door and looked out upon a muggy, almost oozing stairwell. The kind you¡¯d see in any skyscraper, at least in shape.


    In place of the standard fluorescent bulbs, though, were pulsating sacs that emanated a dull sickly glow, somewhere between green and yellow. The walls were littered, no, covered in metal motifs; insects with spindly legs, humanoid, bug-eyed creatures, shapeless things that I can only describe as natural. They were probably responsible for any amount of visibility in the stairwell, given how dim the light was, it needed all the help it could get to be reflected around the place. I took a cautious step onto the landing in front of me and felt the ground give way, almost recoiling at the touch of my sharpened foot.


    In the green glow, I assumed it was just some sort of moss. This was a grave mistake.


    I descended the stairs. I don¡¯t know why, in retrospect. There was no reason why I didn¡¯t go up, but I had a feeling like I knew this place and knew nothing good was above me. Like all the ennui of searching that led to this staircase would just be repeated again, and I don¡¯t have it in me to do that again.


    With each staggering step downwards, I noticed the environment changing around me. Everything seemed to get brighter, and I saw why, looking closer at the walls. The metal forms seemed to blur together, or melt into each other, forming these hybrids of humanoid and insect, the deeper I ventured. Then


    I turned the corner on the final set of stairs.


    I hadn¡¯t noticed the floor grow softer, either.


    But when I reached the bottom I certainly knew. My scythe-claw pierced the swollen ground beneath me and released a sickening squeal of gaseous decay. I looked up, slowly, and saw it.


    Before me was a room, each of its five walls heaving with mammoth pulses. The air was heavy and hot and thick with fluid. Metallic sacs hung from the walls amongst great glowing pustules like the ones in the staircase. Indistinct black blurs swam about inside these, making them less useful as a light source. But that¡¯s ok. Some things are better left to the shadows.


    I could tell some things, without having to see them. Like how the room had a pile of eyes in the center, or how the ceiling was a grid of girders and wires connecting to the metal walls of the stairwell like some massive circuit. I didn¡¯t need to see what was in those metal pods, or the glowing ones for that matter.


    And I didn¡¯t need to smell the pheromones it spilled forth. I really didn¡¯t need to know that it was rejoicing in the same predatory throes I felt when eating fearful brains. I turned to the stairwell in a panic, and dashed back up, my spindly legs passing five, seven, ten stairs at a time even as I could feel myself shaking to pieces like a rupturing heart that refuses to stop beating.


    I didn¡¯t even notice the wall of flesh that had constructed itself in my path.


    Shockwaves sent pieces of metal, of me, clattering to the ground, but I didn¡¯t waste a second tearing at the sickening purple meat before me. I clawed and clawed and clawed with fury, divine fury befitting a god of knowledge and the hunt such as myself, with rage at this living cradle of filth that would eat me, use Me to keep itself alive? Unthinkable. A scythe snaps off in the striated meat, and I attack with my pincers in its place. It¡¯s almost more efficient, like a storm of scissors.


    It¡¯s not long before the tissue before me is so thin that I can see the pale green light on the other side. I can¡¯t help but to feel hopeful, that maybe I can survive this too. With that hope comes clarity to a maladapted mind. I think back to what I could scry from my dreams, terror squids and blobs of flesh sculpting humanity into global dominance, and I have to say, it checks out. I could have seen an elder one and lived to tell the tale! Some sound rings out, bell-like and joyous, just as I open a hole in the squirming obstacle before me.


    The hope against hope swells up once more, and I attack with renewed vigor, hacking my way through with everything I¡¯ve got. My scythe stump, I find, has developed into a sort of two-fingered hand, so I pick up the remains of my old leg and throw it back into the fray until I¡¯m confident I¡¯ve dug out enough space to crawl through.


    But I can feel the decay and the hunter¡¯s glee at my back, and so knowing there¡¯s no time to waste I have to rely on my metal shell to cut some of the path. Legs scramble to keep their hold, their hydraulics fail and reset themselves, and all just to get my head through to the other side. I have made it through, though.


    Parts of me snap off into the mass of flesh.


    I WILL NOT FAIL.


    A sickening, squelching pop rings out.


    I slide forward, glistening and small.


    The metal shell is not a part of me anymore. My body is raw and red, rotten, wasted away, with visible bones in some places. Everything that kept me alive, that inspired fear, is gone. I sting all over. I¡¯m covered in a thousand raw cuts, or maybe just one big one. I think I¡¯m skinless.


    No, that¡¯s wrong.


    My face still has skin, skin and a metal mask that¡¯s still laughing along with me. Laughing tears of joy, tears of blood, all from warped eyes on a twisted face. The only complete part of me, anymore, is my face. The rest is rotten and atrophied, closer to a corpse than to anything you¡¯d call as a human. But it¡¯s


    Still


    Not separable from what once was me.


    Not entirely, anyway. Strings of flesh, veins, still tie me by the abdomen to my abandoned skin in the metal shell. And I don¡¯t have the strength to tear them away.


    So I¡¯m dragged back into the maw, slowly, like a puppet behind a bus, and I regret calling that purple-cloaked figure a ¡°doll¡± when I¡¯m now so fully at the whims of another entity but hey, it¡¯s not like anything can be done about that now.


    I¡¯m leaving a trail of clear ooze, and I¡¯d honestly prefer if it was blood, though I¡¯m sure all that is in the Manticore¡¯s shell by this point.


    My bony legs, or what remains of them, all four, are locked against the flesh wall. There¡¯s no strength in them, it¡¯s just brittle bone keeping me from being swung up and eaten head-first. And just when they¡¯re about to snap¡ª


    ¡°Well, now, look who it is.¡±


    My eyes roll back instinctively.


    Behind me


    There is an imposing presence, cloaked in minty green fabrics with the crown of a Hercules beetle on his head.


    I can¡¯t do anything. I want to scream at him, that he started all this by including me in his sick ritual and stealing my mind and warping my thoughts but that¡¯s not even true, this was all my choice from the very start. Or rather, if anyone was a maladaptive influence it was the Society, not the Beetle King, not this massive form I suddenly want to call¡ª


    ¡°Oberon. Sun King. Or at least, the Earthly avatar of him.¡±


    I can sense a flayed smile beneath his shadowy hood.


    ¡°I see you¡¯ve met Titania¡¯s pet project. That¡¯s too bad. No one should know of both of us. That¡¯s just not fair to everyone else, you know.¡±


    Some splitting pain rings out, from the crown of my head downwards. Then again, from my left ear. Finally I see it, a giant insectoid club foot swinging down to the top of my head.


    The Man In Yellow, in his final moments, thought desperate apologies, but could not vocalize them.


    A skeletal metal image was added to the wall right by the Door Between The Cosmos, that silver door that marked his descent into death.


    End of the Manticore Arc


    Owl-like obsidian eyes jolt open. It¡¯s the middle of the night, and the churning of great machines in- and outside the hospital window keep the child awake. The others in the ward are sound asleep, and so this child stays up, an outcast among outcasts.


    Medical Mechanica coming soon!

 Serial Experiments Arc: Prologue

    Record 01 (09/XX/XXXX)


    Name (LAST, M. First): ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€


    DOB (MM/DD/YYYY): ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€


    SEX: ¨€


    Subject demonstrated a heightened awareness of observers, whether they were in the room or not. Subject also displayed a susceptibility to ¡°new¡± or otherwise unproven ideas, both about the subject and about the world at large. We informed Subject that ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€, fairly entry-level knowledge within the Cosmanimic Order, and Subject took it in stride. In Subject¡¯s own words: ¡°I don¡¯t see why that couldn¡¯t be.¡±


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Subject also took news of the tests, that is to say, their existence, fairly well. Subject displayed little to no ill symptoms under either Illustrious or (simulated) Illustria. Once told of the ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€ properties of Illustri¨€, Subject simply nodded, but did not report any heightened emotional or ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€ symptoms.


    Based on the above, I recommend Subject ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€ be classified as Thymoystichius. I explained this to Subject; Subject simply said ¡°That sounds about right.¡± I would be interested to know if Subject would have responded any differently had I described other traits.

 Account 06: Fortune and Glory Kid

    Layer 01: Pax Vesania


    I¡¯m standing in a crowded room with a high ceiling. Fluorescent light bulbs bear down on the people milling about the place, and the din of a few dozen casual conversations bounces off the bare tiled floor.


    I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m doing here, besides standing out. The idea, I assume, was to get people to socialize and relax after being tested. But there¡¯s so many Upernooious and Eserosius dancing the delicate dance of conversation together, and I don¡¯t even know where my own place in such a display would be. Is it an art, one that¡¯s felt out? Is there a technique to saying things that will fascinate your partner? I don¡¯t know, and I¡¯m too scared to get pulled into a whirlingly hypnotic display of language to find out.


    The pale beams bear down like an oppressive sun.


    I can¡¯t take it.


    The chatter grows louder.


    Just like I was told it would at times like these.


    Before I know it, I have my eyes closed and head tilted back, trying to lose myself in the glare through my eyelids. Even after a couple dozen minutes tick by, I¡¯m not finding much success. And then my strainedly meditative state is broken by a tap on the shoulder.


    Standing out against the sea of backs is a person, and that¡¯s about all I could say about them. Every quality about them quivers and shifts like rays of sunlight on the bottom of a pool, utterly indescribable not from shapelessness, but from that shape being discarded by the time one finds words for it. Not even their clothes are immune; though they never become anything more elaborate than casual wear, their shirt wanders styles, drifts from long- to short-sleeved, and runs a gambit over the more washed-out end of the color wheel.


    The last thing I remember was seeing that shirt fade from a black tee with some implacable logo printed on it, to a white short-sleeved button-down. It¡¯s almost like seeing that shift take place, the act of noticing it happen, booted me back into consciousness. Or maybe that shirt is just some kind of sleep-nullifying charm. Either way, I¡¯m thrown from a comfortably uncomfortable dream into a sharply cold awakening.


    The sun¡¯s not up yet, of course. Just my luck. There¡¯s nothing to do except go back to sleep. In my heart of hearts, I know trying to sleep is as futile as my attempt at sensory deprivation back in that room of chatter, but I don¡¯t have much of a choice.


    Lying there, feeling my cold sweat soak off me, as I turn and toss and try to empty my brain, one melancholy revelation drifts to the surface. I never heard that person speak a single word, before my dream shattered.


    Hours float by. I¡¯m not sure if I ever fell back asleep.


    Eventually, the sun cracks over the horizon, and I pull myself to my feet with it. I don¡¯t have anything to do today, though. I¡¯m not in school, and I don¡¯t have a job. My job right now is feeling better, I¡¯m told. I still don¡¯t talk to anyone but the doctors, like I¡¯m contagious or something, even though I don¡¯t feel chills or anything. Those attacks that leave me hazy and sweating ice only happen in my sleep.


    Waking days are a haze. Not entirely an unpleasant one, either; everyone¡¯s very nice to me, even though I can¡¯t make myself talk. It¡¯s not a matter of not having the words; I have things I want to say, but the vibrations feel like they¡¯re coming up the wrong pipe, or else just sliding past my voice box like a writhing mass of eels. Either way, I have no reason to be upset. I can watch movies whenever, or I can try drawing this churning feeling. I could read, too, and I¡¯m told I enjoy that, but these days written sentences gum up my eye sockets with molasses. Spoken ones are about as clear as molasses; not entirely opaque, but a lot of nuance gets lost in the deep sepia tint.


    The people orbiting me are virtuously patient with my blunders, though. It¡¯s like they can see into my mind, see my every thought, see my circumstances, and as comforting as that should be I can¡¯t help but feel like a pinned-open frog drying out before their gaze, which just makes me feel worse. I¡¯m doubting the people who care for me, who want me to be happy. What¡¯s wrong with me?


    That¡¯s still up for debate. I hear the, let¡¯s say, passionate discussion, every night as I try to drift off. There seem to be as many theories as there are stars in the sky, and as many diagnoses as there are planets orbiting those stars. I¡¯ve heard everything from ¡°PTSD from early development ostracization¡± to ¡°Poisoned by satellite radio¡± and if I¡¯m being honest I¡¯d feel better if it was something like the latter. At least I wouldn¡¯t be the only case of this particular strain of sickness.


    But personally, I feel fine. Not worth all this trouble, perhaps, and maybe a little shy, but otherwise I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll grow into myself. The pills, ¡°meds¡± as they¡¯re called around here, almost insistently, taste bad. They¡¯re either rubbery, slick with grease and stink of rot, or they¡¯re sweet, too sweet, so sweet I feel like I¡¯m losing my mind. Either way it''s an unpleasant experience.


    They used to have me wear these glasses, too, with reddish lenses. I think that was when ¡°Straight To Video¡± saw me. (I¡¯ve given nicknames to all the doctors over the years.) She took one severe look down at me and said, ¡°Oh yeah, that¡¯s a case of screen poisoning if ever I saw it.¡± She went into some spiel about how blue light was poisoning our humanity, drawing us so close together we can¡¯t speak. This was a few years back, so I never got all of it. I left her hawkish gaze with those Spectacles and a sheet of stretches to do before watching movies or playing games. They didn¡¯t do anything much, nothing that I could describe anyways. But the world felt like it was crushing me in a candy-colored embrace. Everything I saw through them was addictively beautiful, so much so that it all became stale after a while. I had to stop wearing them, anyway, since that was around the time I got prescription lenses. I still remember the final words that doctor spoke to me, too.


    She tilted her head slightly, like a confused puppy, and said, ¡°Awh, that¡¯s too bad.¡±


    And it seemed like she meant it. She wore a genuinely sympathetic face, maybe even exaggeratedly pouty, but exaggerated in the camp sense that carries sincerity. Either way, she was a completely different person than the steely ideologue I remembered. She seemed genuinely sad she couldn¡¯t have helped me get better.


    There are so many people like that out there, who I know care for my well being, and yet I can¡¯t get better.


    There was a man I called ¡°Desire Blue Sky¡± for his solar fixation. He claimed my problem was that I wasn¡¯t getting enough sun or exercise, but himself seemed to never leave his office. Said office was almost like a greenhouse for how many windows it had, though his mouth turned down at the corners like a fish¡¯s. That¡¯s about all I remember, though. These sort of ¡°bugbear practitioners¡± whose very being seemed to be layered in hypocrisy made me feel spurned by the world for a bit there.


    That is, until I got REAL help. Or, started getting it, because that¡¯s what¡¯s happening now. There¡¯s a team of people working together to find what¡¯s wrong with me and how we can launch a multi-pronged attack on it. Almost like the kind of conspiracy I want to have happen around me.


    When I grow up, I want to help people the same way, not necessarily as a doctor but in a way where the act of helping them helps me too.


    Layer 02: Medical Mechanica


    I can¡¯t believe I sent another bright-eyed kid out the door with a bottle of this stuff.


    I leaned back in my chair, watching the thin beams of sunlight glimmer off the nameplate on my desk: Dr. Brundle Vepar, it read, same as always. What are we even pushing these days? I idly turned the translucent pink cylinder in my hand, and the powdery capsules inside rattles. It had been a while since something worked, just worked, with no complications, no side effects, and no sticky hairs getting in my clean grid. Where¡¯s the surgical precision I signed up for?


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Other than the impeccable presentation of the office, there was nothing absolute about medicine, especially not psychiatry. Nothing clean about it, either, with all the high-paying contracts tying us to this or that drug company.


    There once was a time when I wanted to be a medical hero, extending the miracles of modern medicine down to the ailing masses. But in my first semester of med school, I realized that I¡¯d have to climb over a lot of people in order to reach a good vantage point. In my depressed throes I refocused on something less selfless; the salary. I could at least do some good with that, right?


    Once again I had forgotten to look for a bigger picture.


    Where was that money coming from? I think I just assumed it had something to do with insurance. I was never a money man, but I didn¡¯t think it was this bad. Fact is, it¡¯s a total crapshoot if you see the person who can prescribe you what will work for your brain. You¡¯re not just searching for a cure, but someone who will grant it to you. And I¡¯m complicit, because what choice do I have?


    There¡¯s just one patient I see who seems to be doing well. And his appointment is next.


    ¡°Augustus?¡±


    A young man in a red hoodie stood up. ¡°Dr. Vepar is ready for you,¡± the receptionist said with a smile. He silently nodded, lank black hair falling in front of his eyes.


    ¡°Hey there, Augustus! So, how are things?¡±


    The boy smiled, but said nothing and kept his head downcast.


    ¡°One of those, huh? Those days? Well, hey, if you don¡¯t have any complaints, let¡¯s keep you on Pleroma. Everyone has ups and downs, that¡¯s normal.¡± Dr. Vepar was frantic, but didn¡¯t let it show on his face. Panic only showed through the tiny cracks between his teeth that shone from a shark-like grin, empty of both malice and joy. Augustus, with that Catoblepas-like downwards stare, didn¡¯t appear to notice anything strange with Vepar¡¯s expression.


    ¡°Sound good?¡± asked the doctor.


    Augustus tilted his head up just too slowly to look quite right, and made a drilling eye contact. ¡°Sure. Thank you.¡±


    Elsewhere, in narrow streets burning a dim, rotten orange, a fire was lit. Above the flickering flames stood a wicker¡­ man? No, this was like a bee, or a fly, given humanoid form. It had a woven stomach bloated with flammable stuffing, and a face just as convex with its bulging eyes. And it burned gorgeously, as another spark in the setting sun.


    The hooded red figures responsible for the ignition began to cavort madly along with the flickering infernal tongues. Their twisting shadows were but another element of chaotic lighting in the once uniformly aflame row. There was the orange of a dying day, yes, and the paler yellowish hue from the fire that danced off the uniform glimmering doorknobs. This was illumination by the hands of humans. It lent some credence to the myth of Prometheus, gifting divine flame to humanity, for now in its hands these all-too-corruptible husks held the power of the sun.


    Hours pass. Howls resound off narrow walls as the horizon overtakes the dying light.


    Layer 03: A Day


    My name is Alistair Macabre.


    This is a new thought for me.


    And then, I recognize the ceiling above me.


    Like these past¡ªwhat, eight years?¡ª were but a dream, I knew I was alive. There was no haze about me. I move with a physicality I never knew. I may have risen from my bed before, but this is the first time I feel awake.


    There is little in this room. Just the bed I lay on, a bedside table, and a dresser topped with a small mirror. It¡¯s austerity in its most practical form; not barren, but full of just enough to sustain itself.


    There is a desire in me to clutter this fresh space, but I don¡¯t know what to fill it with.


    As awake as I feel, I also feel cold. Or maybe it¡¯s better to say I can feel myself leaking heat. There¡¯s a blanket over me, a thick one at that, but it may as well be newspaper.


    Without another heat source next to me, I can feel myself emptying.


    Which is strange. I know, somehow, that I have never been loved as anything more than a cause or a special case. So this absence shouldn¡¯t be. I never had someone to take for granted, and yet I ache as though I had.


    Sunlight pours in through an undecorated set of windows. I¡¯ll have to fix that.


    My clock doesn¡¯t have an alarm, so it must have been that light that woke me.


    As I come to, the enlightened feeling starts to fade. I don¡¯t know why I felt special today of all days, but I know that it¡¯s nothing more than a delusion. There¡¯s no such thing as overnight turnarounds; my life, at least, has been more of a gauntlet than that. A series of challenges and trials I crawl through in the hopes of reaching the starting line towards fulfillment.


    Twelve hours cannot change someone¡¯s life.


    A boy in a crimson robe sits in the rays of the rising sun.


    Around him are scattered white wolf-like dogs, blank black eyes filled with mindless contentment. Their tongues loll out of open grins, gazing up at their master with automatic adoration.


    He walks down the narrow street, past glimmering doors, wrought iron fences, and a pile of ashes, and his familiars follow obediently. They trot along in his footsteps as if his every move is holy.


    On my way out of the room, I spot something. There¡¯s an amber jar on the floor, with a white cap. A case for prescription medicine. Said cap is clean, free of the dust bunnies that litter the baseboard, so it must have been placed there recently.


    The label reads:


    Pleroma


    Active Ingredient Ext. Of Decorated Gelatin


    Inst. For Use: Take one pill by mouth in the morning, and one at night. For mental health use: If symptoms worsen, persist with dosage until prescription runs out. Only stop taking if physical side effects (I.E. stomach pain 10-15 minutes after use) persist after your evening dose.


    I¡¯m, of course, suspicious. But hey, it can¡¯t hurt. My glowing ethereal revelation is already growing dim, and I can feel the heat leak from me more than ever. It¡¯s not like there¡¯s much I stand to lose.


    The pills are powdery, and a pale pink. They smell like some kind of wetland flower, I think. Memories briefly flicker through my head as I crunch the capsule, releasing its odor. In the time it takes for the pill to disintegrate, I remember being small, in the days before I even thought of myself as wrong. I stretch my tiny stride as far as it will go between stones¡ª no, cubes. Concrete cubes, mostly sunken in deep green water. I¡¯m walking across that water on cubes, like perfect islands, surrounded by unstable meadows of scentless water lilies and framed by shores of pungent lotuses. That¡¯s the smell! Lotuses!


    It¡¯s no sooner than I put my finger on the scent that it dissipates, with a final powerful gathering in the back of my nose, and then, nothing.


    Those sweet vapors give me all the resolve I need to push forth. If I am truly awake, as my useless feelings dictate, then I need to work. If not, then I need to try to get there, to fix myself.


    So, I open the door¡ª


    And a million images hit me all at once.


    The few I could pick out were¡­ absurd, at best. Mostly, poorly drawn caricatures of human emotion, that it seemed everyone but me understood. As I watched, I was able to pick out more and more from the overwhelming flow of consciousness bearing down on me, with considerable effort. I began to see correlations between one twisted grin and something that seemed an inverted, but equally churned, frown. Screams of rage mirrored by tearful acceptance. I looked closer, and found a greater knowing: these exaggerated responses were born of everyday occurrences everyone understood. And they were not static. These distorted reflections warped before my very eyes! They evolved into new images, bearing the same meaning, in real time!


    I forced my way against the current with tremendous effort. By the time I could close the door behind me, the images had become a new breed of surreal; fractured, polygonal images of nature. The setting sun rendered in neon. Animals with sharp edges. Stock photos of people clad in clothes I hadn¡¯t seen since the time I walked on those cubes amongst the lotuses. As strange as these images were, I could see the shadow of intent looming behind them. I had seen the idea in a different shape. What they stood for. So they were not surreal, anymore, but a hyperreal visualization of the human mind. Of the perception of the self as a briefly heroic archetype.


    Something smoldered in my head. I had to look away, and so look away I did.


    I didn¡¯t know it at the time, but on that day, I beheld a form of Akasha.


    A figure clad in purple staggers into my view, but seemingly cannot see me. My followers five yap and whine, but I hush them.


    Just by looking, I can tell.


    I need them, this purple one. I need this blank doll.

 Account 07: Down In It

    Layer 04: A Day (Part II)


    In retrospect, it was one of those days that probably changed everything. In the fact of its existence, it shattered my perception that change takes time. Rome wasn¡¯t built in a day, but it burned in one. In that sense, backtracking and falling can happen in a single instant, and that¡¯s all it took for the Superbeast to lay eyes on me. That¡¯s all the time it took to swallow Pleroma.


    If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, how does falling off a cliff start?


    It starts¡ªand ends¡ª with a single misstep.


    If you¡¯re lucky, you can stop the fall before you hit the bottom.


    But at that moment, I didn¡¯t know I was in freefall.


    I simply walked through and absorbed humanity through its unrefined, purest extract of inane expression. I eventually saw the lines that connect X to Y to Z. It made me feel¡­ enlightened, I suppose.


    It was like reading sheet music as a record plays, because your knees lock up at the thought of dancing; you still feel the music, but in a much more codified and disconnected way. Cold, even. Not that I¡¯d know. Music was never my forte, especially not playing it. I could discuss it well enough, in writing of course, and actually that¡¯s how I think the Man In Red reached me first.


    From out of the connected cranial soup, I began to notice the connecting lines making patterns. But once I was that far, the images faded away like starry static leaving my vision after standing up too fast. The street was lined with buildings in a semi-regular grid, and those buildings were irregularly studded with brown doors, carefully ornamented with glimmering silver. This city popped into being like it had been there the whole time.


    Had it been?


    I wake up, truly awaken, for the second time today. But this time, there¡¯s a reason why I feel accomplished in leaving sleep.


    The city around me is equally aflame in pale yellow and soaked in dense blue. Gargoyles are split down the middle between the sun¡¯s rays and their own deepest shadow. Bronze and gold embellishments glimmer off the dull stone brick walls they inhabit. A slight breeze sends thick chains somewhere in the sky clanging into each other¡ª but otherwise, all is silent.


    And then I hear it.


    ¡°Hey.¡±


    Cool as you like despite the blistering heat. He stands there in a deep crimson robe, shot through with gold thread. There¡¯s an aura about his sleek black hair and sunken eyes that feels like realizing you¡¯ve given up on a childhood wish, like having the money for an expensive toy only to realize you have no desire for it but buying it out of obligation to your past self. Seeing him fills me with nostalgia for a version of myself that never was or, probably, should have been, but that could now be.


    And ordinarily, acknowledging the futility of living for yesterday would mean I would take my own advice. I wouldn¡¯t interact with this crimson pillar of lost comfort.


    But today of all days, the day when I took a strange pill and proceeded to see everything I was an outsider for not seeing before? On this day, I feel empty. I could go watch a movie, but it wouldn¡¯t measure up to the scope of what I just saw. I could try, futilely stimulating that fragment of my psyche with the biggest-budget blockbusters, but their noisey chimes would ring hollow. With all the effort into scale, the detail would be nothing like the world of ideas I just saw.


    I¡¯m loath to admit it, but in my powerless state, I see an opportunity to use another human being¡¯s companionship solely selfishly.


    I croak out a ¡°Hello.¡±


    He cocks his head. ¡°How¡¯s it¡­. going?¡±


    ¡°Well, I suppose. You?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± I can feel the impatience in his words. So¡ª


    ¡°You like dogs?¡± A curveball, but it¡¯s one I know is common enough that I won¡¯t look inept at conversation.


    ¡°Of course I do. Don¡¯t you already know that?¡±


    What¡¯s that supposed to mean?


    ¡°Well¡ª¡± I pull out a photo from my wallet¡ª ¡°look at this.¡±


    I don¡¯t know how I know a relevant picture would be there, but there it is. Two dogs with fur like wool and eyes like the black marbles in a teddy bear. Gazing into the camera with a look of completely earnest trust, they¡¯re adorable.


    ¡°They¡¯re cute. I can tell they like you.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, yeah, they¡¯re pretty well trained.¡±


    ¡°So are mine.¡±


    ¡°Lemme see?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t want to see them right now, it¡¯s OK. Later, though.¡±


    I¡¯m confused. Of course I want to see them. That¡¯s why I asked. But all I say is, ¡°OK.¡±


    It¡¯s not worth fighting over, especially not when I¡¯m dancing such a delicate dance with someone who fascinates me this much. The pressure is on. I don¡¯t want to choke here.


    ¡°Are you sure?¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± I¡¯m legitimately off guard now.


    ¡°Never mind. I¡¯m just making sure you¡¯re paying attention.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re weird, you know. But not in a bad way. You¡¯re actually pretty interesting.¡± It¡¯s a risk I have to take. There¡¯s no reason for it, but I want to know this person more.


    Actually, there¡¯s plenty of reasons.


    That feeling of awakening enlightenment is beginning to fade again. It¡¯s hit me that I don¡¯t actually understand anything. I just think I saw a bunch of vaguely applicable symbols, like some cosmic Rorschach test or visual horoscope. Maybe my red-thread-corkboard reading says more about me than it does the world. That¡¯s actually pretty likely.


    With that theory in mind, maybe getting out of my own head would provide a more complete understanding.


    And besides all that, I¡¯m lonely. There¡¯s some kind of vacuum in me, a cold void searching for something and all-consuming in its search. My head is like a hole, and maybe this Man In Red could fill it in.


    ¡°Well¡­ thank you. You¡¯re quite interesting yourself.¡±


    Several seconds pass.


    I think I just made a mistake.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ll see you around,¡± he says, kicking at the ground as he shuffles off.


    ¡°Ah, wait¡­¡± I call out to his back. ¡°I don¡¯t think I caught your name?¡±


    ¡°Augustus,¡± he calls back.


    ¡°I¡¯m Alistair.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s been a pleasure, Alistair.¡± The ¡°r¡± Dopplers off as he spins, almost giddily on his heel.


    I don¡¯t blame him. I¡¯m ecstatic as well. Joyful, maybe even for the first time. This part of the world, or this new life I¡¯ve stepped into holds more beauty than I thought I was meant to see. These streets are dingy, but oddly complete. They¡¯re an aesthetic whole. In the same way, my conversation was choppy and awkward, but it was balanced in that state. I was talking to someone truly like me.


    Layer 05: Caustic Disco


    Thunder shook the dry earth. Heat lightning rained down in place of water. Somewhere, a lonely pipe organ squeaked out a haunting, wailing melody. The notes caught on the pounding roars of the sky, and the two sounds amplified each other in their dissonance.


    I walk down the empty street, my boots (since when did I own boots?) hitting the asphalt with muffled rhythmic clacks. But everything is muffled, from the electric buzzing from wires unseen to the chatter from voices disembodied.


    Only one sound pervades the dampening bubble around my head. I don¡¯t even know if it¡¯s particularly loud, or if it just sounds that way against the auditory blur.


    Nonetheless, a papery flapping noise wriggles into my ears and catches fast, like some kind of parasitic worm. It¡¯s the kind of sound you¡¯d hear in a movie, when a moth or a bat takes off at the camera. You don¡¯t hear things like that in real life, though. Any animal that lived in the dark would have adapted such superfluous sounds out of its movements long ago.


    Things like that only spring to mind later, though. In the moment, my chin jerks up like it¡¯s on a string and my eyes slip about in their sockets, all in a mad dash to locate the source of the sound.


    I can¡¯t see anything, though. If this crepuscular blood-orange sky has secrets, it hides them well. Maybe along the clotted purple horizon, where night has already fallen.


    I kept walking, paying the incident no mind and instead mulling over my meeting with Augustus. The air about him seemed steeped with a certain allure, something I couldn¡¯t quite put words to without sounding like some kooky mystic. I guess it¡¯s just what people call ¡°charisma¡± that seemed to surround him, yes, charisma glowing like a fog of gnats in the radiance of a lightbulb. Kept from burning in the would-be flame by a single impenetrable pane of glass, that swarm could lend even the most clearly mechanical sun an ethereality that no celestial body could scratch.


    I¡¯m probably off my meds again. I¡¯m being illogical. Ethereality, luster, things like that are for romantics and believers, which I¡¯m not supposed to be.


    In retrospect, that was the first time that ¡°something¡± clicked in my back. Clicked, like a switch flipping, in my back, in a space between my skin and the spine that dug out into it. In a space that should not have been.


    Dr. Vepar stumbled, toe meeting heel meeting pavement, and went down flapping his arms in a whirlwind of papers. It was such a nice night before this, too, he thought. Just the right kind for a walk home from the office. He¡¯d even gotten out early enough that the sun was still up, so he could have finally taken all those records home to be shredded. Even with Pleroma money, he thought, we can¡¯t get a shredder for the office. Most of that went back into promotional materials for Pleroma and other SIDHE products, as the contract demanded. Ballpoint pens and pamphlets couldn¡¯t possibly cost as much as SIDHE took, but thinking like that was depressing. Especially on such a nice evening, it¡¯s best to stay positive. That was Dr. Vepar¡¯s motto in life, and one he frequently passed on to his patients.


    So, he¡¯d stay calm and collect these important records, before any blew away. As he reaches for a spilled file¡ª


    ¡°Can I help you with that?¡± A voice, from above.


    Dr. Vepar looks up. There¡¯s a tall man in a suit and shiny sunglasses looking down at him. It¡¯s a nice suit, but it doesn¡¯t fit very well, Dr. Vepar noted to himself. It¡¯s too loose.


    ¡°Sir? Are you ok?¡± The stranger asks, a note of concern worming into his voice. ¡°Do you need help with those?¡±


    Yes it¡¯s too loose and his eyes are sunken and he moves just a little too jerkily and he¡¯s too polite for someone who¡¯s just met me and and and and this just isn¡¯t right.


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    Layer 06: Papermoon


    I close my eyes and take flight. Below me, some shadowy flame burns itself to a glowing ember, and I use the remains of leaking heat to gain altitude.


    I¡¯m told I¡¯m a hero, the kind with a secret identity who fights in the name of the moon. Some ultimate ally of justice. Really, I¡¯m just a person like anyone else with the opportunity to do good on a larger scale.


    Sometimes, I don¡¯t even manage that, though. More often than not, it¡¯s all I can do to minimize harm.


    ¡ª12 hours earlier¡ª


    Luna Elise Lavenza takes flight with a vertical leap, just as a wall of bullets punch dusty holes into the brick wall she was just crouching in front of. There¡¯s not much I can do from up here, she thinks, except keep moving. I¡¯ve got to find an opening. A chorus of explosive bursts ring out from somewhere in front of me. But¡ªas a twitch of my feathery antennae tell me¡ª they¡¯re not headed for me.


    I tear through the air, around a corner¡ª


    But the sight that awaits me freezes me in my tracks, so sharply it¡¯s like it¡¯s pulling me backwards.


    The pink mist hasn¡¯t even settled.


    There¡¯s a pile of bodies, piled up in a vignette of panic. None of them were fighting back; all these people were trying to escape. Evacuate. They were trying to evacuate this scene my existence caused.


    Couched over them is a lone surviving figure, clad in a red high-collared cape and olive body armor. Its head is covered in a silver helmet, the bucket-shaped kind a crusader would have worn. In its hand, a still-smoking gun. From its mouth, words I cannot individually make out, but which amount to apologetic promises to cleanse.


    Slowly, ever so slowly, the ritual is complete, and the Hunter turns to face me. This time, I can hear its words all too clearly.


    ¡°Their blood is on your hands, Instance Of Gremory. You may choose between sanctified flame in the Crimson Court, or thirty silver stakes here and now. What will it be?¡±


    Give me a break. There¡¯s no reason for me to have killed these people. Hell, that¡¯s putting it lightly. I¡¯m supposed to protect them, and in the past I suppose I would have broken down at this sight. Flown into a rage at the Hunter who did it, too, but I already know how that ends. With me getting hurt and with it telling me something like, ¡°I¡¯m the only other witness,¡± or ¡°No one will believe you didn¡¯t kill them.¡±


    I should be outraged and disgusted; even if I¡¯m not, from an optics perspective it would be better to feign some kind of reaction. But like the Hunters are so used to reminding me, no one is watching. So, there¡¯s no reason to get upset, not when I could speak with my actions.


    Because these people must be avenged, if they could not be protected.


    ¡°Listen,¡± I begin¡ª


    But it seems the hostility in my voice was too much.


    ¡°SILVER STAKES IT IS, THEN.¡± Its voice is like a computer¡¯s attempt at anger¡ª loud, metallic, and tinged with a hollow ring.


    Shots pour forth, ringing out with an ascendant cacophony. I shoot skyward myself, with a frenzied papery flap. Echoes behind me paint a vivid image of sun-bleached asphalt exploding into ashen powder, and I don¡¯t dare look back, not when that deadly metallic spread nips at my toes even now.


    But that only lasts a second, before the Church Hunter¡¯s magazine runs dry.


    I can only counter while he reloads, so I have to move quickly. Tucking myself into a dive¡ª a maneuver my mothlike form isn¡¯t well suited for¡ª I shoot towards the ground. I am my only bullet.


    My mouth opens in a silent scream. From its depths, my tongue uncoils into a fleshy needle, and tenses into a spear hard enough to scratch metal. With the force of my sudden descent, though, it does more than just scratch the Hunter¡¯s helmet. It shoots straight through the back of its cranium and bursts through the red glass visor. I relax my proboscis just in time for the armor to crumple.


    From the gaps in the plasticy plates, a rotten black goo oozes out and collects itself in a puddle of pure midnight, before pulling itself down the street and shambling out of sight. As the last remnants of the ¡°body¡±¡ªthe parts of goo shot through with fibrous tendons¡ª seep out, the uniform clatters to the ground. The gun is still held tight by black-gloved fingers.


    I feel eyes from behind me.


    Turning, still crouched over the husk of a Hunter I have just vanquished, I lock eyes with a young girl in a blue dress. She clutches what was once a teddy bear, I think, but its once-plump body has bled all its stuffing. Now, it¡¯s more like a small blanket with a stuffed head.


    ¡°You ok?¡± I ask. Stupid question, really. I¡¯m not, and I see these kinds of things all the time. But she just nods, slowly at first, then enthusiastically.


    ¡°You saved me!¡± she says. ¡°Thank you!¡±


    ¡ª12 hours later¡ª


    I suppose I really did.


    From the moment I failed to protect those other people, I had a choice.


    I could have performed self destructive rage, or I could have kept anyone else from getting hurt. I¡¯m glad I chose the latter, but I¡¯m disturbed that I even felt a pull to rage. It feels like a failure to measure up to being a ¡°hero¡±. A real hero wouldn¡¯t have had to think about it. They would have instantly, instinctually, acted correctly.


    If I acted instantly, on instinct, that little girl would never laugh again, cry again, nor have another chance to hug a little more stuffing out of that bear. Her story would have ended, and I would have burned myself up for it.


    I did save her, though.


    How many of her did I fail to save?


    Thoughts like that never leave. I don¡¯t think they ever will. But every time they force their way into my head, it only strengthens my resolve. To live, if my existence is a sin in the eyes of the Church Of The Sun. To fight, if their Hunters would harm innocents.


    Because I¡¯m supposed to be a hero. I was made to be a hero.


    Layer 07: Meet the Creeper


    The figure in purple stumbled out onto the street. Into my domain.


    But I am one of the few worthy of holding power in this world. My dolls, my dogs, my followers, would all agree. Some of them have the opportunity to disagree, and the rest gave away that ability willingly.


    Either way, it¡¯s not my fault. I deserve my meager success.


    I¡¯m not 100% right all the time, but I do always have the best intent. I think that justifies my failings, don¡¯t you?


    Anyway, the purple-clad figure.


    He was beautiful, beyond compare. Statuesque, in every sense of the word. Literally, he stood a good head-and-a-half above me. But also, like a classical statue, he stood with poise and elegance, seemingly on instinct. Hands sharply pointed down, shoulders pinched back, like an angular bat beneath regal wings.


    Despite his confident stance, he stumbled about madly. His eyes twitched like he was in a frothing cloud of birds only he could see.


    That combination of madness and beauty was an equation for the perfect doll. The kind of person who would flail his eyes about in public, while also taking care to stand regally, has just enough ego and madness to be wiped blank, made a tool of the Leecher Collective.


    He approaches me. But it is imperative that I make the first move.


    ¡°Hey.¡± I try not to make it sound too flirtatious, lest I startle this sacred deer; but some cloistered cavity in my chest twitches as the word leaves my lips.


    Their voice is soft, croaky, yet not as deep as I expected. High enough to call my initial clocking into question, yet not so high as to boomerang around. It¡¯s a fledgling raven¡¯s cry, the first timid hops a creature of darkness takes towards self-assertion. More than anything, though¡ª


    their vocal chords sound unused.


    I stifle another shiver.


    I must play things cooler, better than this. It¡¯s only fun while I have the upper hand, and I only keep that position while I keep my partner jumping for the prize. Taunt with an out-of-grasp reward, and you risk inciting despair. Crafting slivers of hope keeps the act of collecting fun.


    So; I feign slight shyness. ¡°How¡¯s it¡­ going?¡± I ask with a slight tilt of my head.


    The tiny dash of demurity I threw in there should be incentive enough to pursue me further. I just have to be careful not to roll over too much.


    ¡°Well, I suppose. You?¡±


    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m fine.¡±


    Hm. How boring.


    ¡°You like dogs?¡±


    To anyone else, this would seem an insignificant remark. But to someone such as I, who had staked an empire on, and flown a crest of, canine appreciation, this held more weight. It was a sign of complete acquiescence, an eagerness to please, an eagerness to roll over and empty one¡¯s thoracic cavity if I wilt it on a whim. This is better than I thought.


    ¡°Of course I do. Don¡¯t you already know that?¡±


    However, for the briefest of moments, as I silently rejoiced in my acquisition, something terrible shot through me. A bolt of terror. One tiny thought of unplanned instability. Why ask after dogs, specifically? So innocently, too; which could be rationalized away as a similar strategy to my own, albeit executed with the tact of a sledgehammer. But I was spiralling, now. Do they know?


    Do they know why my crest bears a hound? Or just the surface level associations, that my flag does bear their image? This may have been a critical error.


    Thankfully, I am dealing with a young fool. At least a year my junior, and that year being a crucial one in mental development I hold the upper hand. For they just smile, purely, and dig around for a photograph briefly. ¡°Then¡­ Take a look at this!¡± An image is thrust at me.


    It¡¯s heinous. Poisoned with poise, but completely lacking any of the elegance its owner displayed. It¡¯s tacky. Saccharine. The subject is a pair of creatures so stripped from their lupine roots that they can hardly be called dogs at all. They¡¯re wooly and lanky, more sheep than wolves, lazing about the floor with eyes like dull marbles. But their relaxed poses aren¡¯t even natural, I can tell that much. I can see them looking past the camera at the photographer, thirsting for the treat inevitably behind the lens.


    They¡¯re pure creatures, so I can¡¯t stand to see them manipulated like this; by transactionality to be shown off at their artificial best.


    If you truly loved dogs, you¡¯d seek out more intelligent ones.


    ¡°Cute,¡± I nonetheless manage. ¡°I can tell they like you.¡± Of course they do. How badly would you have to fuck up to get a dog to hate you?


    They mutter ¡°They¡¯re well trained,¡± and swallow a scoff. They love you for being a human who gives them food. Don¡¯t get it twisted, you did nothing to earn this.


    I can¡¯t say that, not now anyway. ¡°So are mine.¡±


    Their eyes glimmer at this, glimmer like obsidian shattering beneath a hammer. Catching the light out of obligation. There is nothing for a stone to do then but break. Likewise, this person can only be fascinated (or convincingly pretend to). ¡°Can I see them?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t want to see them now. It¡¯s OK.¡± This is true. You cannot see them now, even if you wanted to. It would be difficult. At this point, you are, in fact, better off not seeing them.


    Of course, they settle for that non-explanation. I have two concurrent theories about what kind of person this is; either someone who does not rock the boat, or someone who has been taught not to. Either I can teach them how to rebel, or I can push them back to their sealed-away instinct.


    Either way, I am a hero, by the closest thing to an absolute this world has.


    ¡°Huh?¡± They¡¯re confused. I must have said something strange.


    ¡°... Just making sure you¡¯re paying attention.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re weird, you know. But not in a bad way. You¡¯re actually pretty interesting.¡± Where did that come from?


    Although, I¡¯m not displeased to hear it. I think this is a sign that some wires have been crossed, no, that I have crossed the wires I needed to cross in order to build the Perfect Circle.


    But of course I¡¯m weird. For me to be a hero, I need to stand above. And to stand above, one must necessarily stand out from the crowd. It¡¯s good, though, that I¡¯m dealing with the kind of person who sees that. They might actually be smarter than I gave them credit for.


    ¡°Well, thank you,¡± I reply. ¡°You¡¯re quite interesting yourself.¡± My voice is saturated with a pastiche of humble acceptance, and then, obligation to return the compliment. ¡°...I think I¡¯d better get going.¡± I may be laying on the falso discomfort a little thick, but I really should get back to the Tower.


    As I turn, something truly gross catches my eye. Between the cracks in the asphalt, a fleshy node has sprouted, supported by a messy web of stiff veiny stalks. It¡¯s like a spider carrying a sac of eggs the size of a tennis ball, all carved from organ meat. I kick it, and watch it floppily bounce over the cracked pavement.


    ¡°Ah¡­ wait,¡± comes the croaky voice to my back. I spin on my heel, following through the momentum of the kick. ¡°I don¡¯t think I got your name?¡±


    ¡°Augustus!¡± I call out as I walk backwards.


    ¡°I¡¯m Allistair!¡± comes the reply.


    ¡°Nice to meet you, Allistair!¡± I complete the turn and continue walking away normally without missing a step.


    The walk back home passes in the blink of an eye. It¡¯s boring, so boring, as most things are these days. Nothing stands out to me anymore, nothing except new dolls. New minds pledging allegiance to me, well, that¡¯s nothing special. But when I come into possession of a new, gorgeous form to behold, to call my very own, something I can reach out and touch; that¡¯s cause for celebration. Maybe it¡¯s the physicality of some new thing, or maybe I¡¯ve grown too used to more complex treasures.


    Is my collection really such a simple treasure, though?


    Maybe ¡°simple¡± is the wrong word. But the appeal is simple; it doesn¡¯t take any thought to appreciate absolute power over another¡¯s entire being. It¡¯s the basest human desire, to tear down and rebuild one¡¯s surroundings in one¡¯s own image. Identity is all I stake claim to. My own self, spreading from person to person not like a wildfire or disease, but like a new idea. My self touching, growing, putting down roots, feeling out the cavities and extremities alike, all in order to never¡ª


    ¡°Die.¡± The single word escapes my lips. It surprises me that this is the conclusion I¡¯ve come to.


    I don¡¯t think I want immortality. If anything, I¡¯d rather die before my influence loses hold. I just want to live in this hostile world, and I¡¯m willing to do anything to do that.

 Account 08: Double Cross

    Layer 08: Wolves In The Throne Room


    Something about that tower just spoke to me. Perhaps it was its perpetual skyward thrust, or the uniformly crimson color, so deep it was almost black. Maybe it was something harder to codify, not so easily bolted to a metal framework of reasoning. Or maybe it could be bolted down, but wasn¡¯t itself so inflexible as to hold metal without tearing.


    Either way, it comforted me to think of it as mine. The one jutting peak in this city that belonged to me. Its incursion on the sky was my own ascension. The mark it left on the skyline was my way of forcing the uncaring city to notice my existence. It wasn¡¯t particularly tall, or otherwise noteworthy, especially compared to the seemingly omnipotent spires. You wouldn¡¯t even see it in most pictures, if you weren¡¯t looking for it.


    But it was mine.


    I turned down a thin alleyway. As I approached my preferred entrance in silence, I thought back on my encounter with that purple-cloaked¡­ Person. Drifter, really. I could see it in their eyes, or the version of them I could remember. They looked glassy, but not like a doll¡¯s glass marble eyes, sharp and dark like glinting obsidian. Volcanic glass, I thought to myself, desperate to finally tie these loose threads together. That sheen signified, to me, some desire to live, some yearning for something greater. The kind of hunger that can lead someone down a dangerous path. It¡¯s good I met them first, before someone like


    As Augustus pondered, a dull hum chugged on, like an altogether different glass. This drone was far duller around the edges and frosty like sea glass. It may have been the output of insects, or small motors, or power lines, or maybe too many minds all trying to think over each other. However it¡¯s worth noting that Agustus didn¡¯t; didn¡¯t note the noise, that is, and that¡¯s because it¡¯s as much a constant part of this city as the overlooking spires. It¡¯s so ubiquitous that most people consider it silence, if they consider it at all. It signifies an auditory zero; it¡¯s a sound that stood in for the all-too-intimidating air that true silence carries. It¡¯s only there to be broken by some noteworthy noise.


    Which, of course, it was.


    Frantic barking and snapping yanked me out of my own head. Before I could get to the door to the tower, I had to go through a small ¡°yard¡± (now mostly concrete and dirt) guarded by a shoulder-high wrought iron gate, and, invariably, some number of my precious dogs.


    Guarded isn¡¯t quite right. The worst they could do to an intruder is growl; they¡¯re too well-trained and well-raised to attack people at random. And they¡¯re big dogs, energetic but unaggressive. That¡¯s why there¡¯s any number of them in the yard at once; they can come and go from the tower to the yard and back as they please, because I know their behavior and trust them to act as they were trained.


    I opened the gate a sliver, slid in, and waded through the now-calm sea of fur. Carefully, of course, I didn¡¯t want to step on any paws, so I walked with shuffled steps on tiptoe. Entering the tower, I could hear more of my dogs milling about up ahead, beyond the narrow vermillion walls of the entranceway.


    Thymostichus. You¡¯re adaptable, if nothing else. You¡¯re open to new ideas, but not ever willing to accept anything as part of yourself. Everyone has to be right, from a certain point of view, but you can¡¯t get along with anyone who would disagree with the continuum you see. You trust easily¡ª some would say too easily. You can¡¯t ever pin down one dream, or goal, or anything like that. Instead, you drift about from person to person, dream to dream, aesthetic to aesthetic, making it all logically fit your empty ideals and tastes so expansive as to be meaningless. You are no fool, but you are The Fool. Empty.


    This is indeed, what it is. How you are.


    Those words ring through my head like the throb of a migraine.


    They stuck with me in a different way than ¡°Straight To Video¡± and her spectacles, or ¡°Desire Blue Sky¡± and his fixation on the sun, or any of the other quacks with their bugbears, their pet theories. They stood for a madness so adhered to method as to be inseparable; they were true believers of their own doctrine. If that one solution they offered didn¡¯t work, there was nothing else to be gleaned from their wisdom. Being given a label, a name to my brain, a steel frame to hold my gray matter, that''s what I really needed. I needed that prognosis divination to know how to be, simply because¡­


    Why, again?


    Because no one else knew how to deal with me? The test proctors, who wanted to see how ¡°one of those¡± would deal with their questions and worksheets, all got fed up with me. As a really young kid, before anyone could pick out something wrong about me, I started arguments, or at least tried to, because no one around me could understand my solutions. When the tests went from mental to clinical,even legitimate doctors with their gauntlets of rattly plastic capsules and powery pills scratched their heads. Ditto for those masked men with their vampiric needles who were convinced the problem was in my blood. No matter how greedily their metal familiars drank, it was never enough; it was always my fault for being light headed after those butterflies gorged themselves on my veins.


    I grit my teeth.


    This quickness to anger, I¡¯m also told, is a side effect of being a Thymostichus. It makes enough sense¡ªIf I¡¯m not overly committed to any ideals, it would make sense that my emotions could switch on a dime¡ªbut I seem to vaguely recall a time where I was calmer. It doesn¡¯t matter right now, though. If I ever was like that, it was out of naivete. I¡¯d like to think I¡¯ve become more mature, if nothing else, throughout these endless tests.


    But before I know it I¡¯m at my destination, that door out of space, having walked in (I think) one big circle. No, wait, that can¡¯t be right. This door is not the door I left through, but something in my gut, some squirming, lying instinct, tells me it is the way back home.


    ¡°I think you think about the past too much.¡±


    I jump at the voice, or more accurately, at the appearance of its owner, slumped in the harsh glow of a streetlight. All things considered, its sudden intrusion on my ears is not terribly startling; it¡¯s soft, quiet, not quite deep nor high, and tinged with a slight lyrical accent I can¡¯t place.


    But the face of its owner is another story.


    A mouth not unlike a human¡¯s, but split at the bottom like a snake¡¯s, and with a pointed coil for a tongue, hanging limp between that vertically fractured mandible. How does a tongue like that even form words? Never mind that; the speaker doesn¡¯t have a nose, either, just a double-barreled set of nostrils, like a skull.


    Something tells me to stop looking there. Some little voice in my head, some primal instinct like an emergency brake for my psyche. But I override it and keep looking, looking up until I meet the gaze of featureless black marbles. They¡¯re endlessly deep, like twin lakes in a moonless night, and I sink to their rotting beds in an instant. Some oily mud sucks my feet deeper¡ª


    No, no, nononononono, that couldn¡¯t be right. If the sclera were black I wouldn¡¯t have been able to see them in the newly minted night; they were, they had to be some other color. Deep, dark, bleeding, stinging crimson. Yes, looking closer, there¡¯s a line between dark gray irises and the deepest red imaginable, like obsidian stained with wine.


    It breaks my heart.


    Because, despite this monstrous, shattered face, when I look at this person, I see just that; a human. Someone whose form may have been fractured beyond recognition, but who still holds an ego in one coherent piece. If those eyes were truly hollow, sheer black, I could have pretended they were empty sockets, or at least in the same league as the unfeeling receptors of a hornet. But they were once like my own. This person was once like me.


    ¡°Sorry. I¡¯m still recovering.¡± That hypnotic voice again.


    ¡°Can I help?¡± I ask, surprising even myself. ¡°You, I mean. Doesn¡¯t it¡­ hurt?¡±


    ¡°Ah, no worries. If it did, I¡¯ve gotten used to it since.¡±


    ¡°I see.¡± An awkward silence fills the air. ¡°So¡­¡±


    ¡°Sorry, by the way. For intruding on your thoughts. They¡¯re not mine to look at, but you seemed to be in pain, and my antennae¡±¡ªa pair of feathery stalks I hadn¡¯t even noticed twitch at their mention¡ª¡±tend to pick up on that sort of thing. People calling for help, and whatnot. Not to say you were calling for help, I intruded, that¡¯s on me¡ª¡±


    ¡°No, thank you, I appreciate it. You¡¯re right, I think.¡± I could hear a crackling sound coming from the mind-reader. ¡°Are you sure you¡¯re alright?¡±


    ¡°Better by the minute!¡± comes their chipper reply. ¡°Just give me a moment to¡ª¡± crunch ¡°¡ªfix this. That¡¯s much better.¡±


    The figure finally stands up, leaving the world of vague shadows and ascending into full view. ¡°Now that I¡¯m back the way I should be, let me introduce myself. I¡¯m Luna, Luna Elise Lavenza. Moth-By-Night, some call me, but I don¡¯t really like that name. Please just call me Luna, or Luna-Elise if you want, or ¡®Miss Lavenza¡¯ if you¡¯re a stickler for titles like that.¡± She smiles a little at her joke.


    ¡°I¡¯m Alistair, uh, Alistair Macabre.¡± I feel like I¡¯m forgetting something. ¡°It¡¯s a pleasure to meet you.¡± That¡¯s it.


    With a dramatic toss of one inky black pigtail, she replies. ¡°The pleasure¡¯s all mine.¡±


    We start walking, nowhere in particular. Formalities disposed with, there''s an unaddressed tender something that hovers in the air between us, weighing down on my mind like a humid fog. But I can¡¯t quite put my finger on it, that rogue element gnawing at me with fangs of guilt.


    ¡°It sounds like you were going through it, back there, I mean. I don¡¯t know if I can help, but if suffering alone isn¡¯t your speed, I¡¯d be happy to lend an ear.¡±


    Ah, yeah, that¡¯s it.


    Despite how nice she¡¯s being¡­ No, because of how nice she¡¯s being, genuinely, reflexively kind, stumbling over herself, almost, to reach out¡­ Something about her, maybe, tone is the right word? I don¡¯t know. I feel better, at least. I think.


    ¡°Hey, I can¡¯t read your mind in this form, and I¡¯d prefer not to transform if I can help it. It hurts, you know.¡±


    ¡°Transform?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a long story. But, yeah.¡±


    I cursed myself, for being so self-absorbed, so dedicated to making sense of myself, that I didn¡¯t even notice Luna¡¯s form shift. She was no longer that fractured, pitiful monster who called out to me. Gone were the serpentine mandibles, coiled tongue, and antennae, replaced with red lips and black hair in two long ponytails, shocking against a milky pale face in the scarce moonlight. In place of those bulging, deep sockets of sheer blackened vermillion, stormy gray eyes gazed intently back at me. ¡°So you can,¡± I manage, through the shock.


    I wouldn¡¯t say the difference was night and day, more like two sides of the night. As she was now, Luna fit right in with the cool, calm blue that follows the sundown. Before, she was another side of the night, a maddened and frantic thunderstorm in the early morning. Insomnia, visions, scratching in the walls, a haze growing around the brainstem.


    Luna cocks her head slightly, and waves a hand to snap me out of it. ¡°Anyone home?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Sorry, just¡­ thinking, is all.¡±


    ¡°Right. Well, like I said, I can¡¯t read your thoughts right now, but feel free to share.¡±


    ¡°Ah, it was nothing interesting.¡± Another awkward silence lengthens its stride, threatening to catch the conversation. ¡°So you can transform? How does that work? Do you have, like, a catchphrase, or a pose, or a gadget?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re making fun of me, aren¡¯t you? Well, no, it¡¯s not that simple or clean. As a kid, I took part in a lot of clinical trials, mostly for focus boosters and things like that. One day, I went in for some mystical-sounding supplement¡±¡ªshe waves her fingers around, like she¡¯s telling a ghost story¡ª¡±and it worked. Really well. Apparently I passed out after I took it, and they called my name to wake me up, but my first association with ¡°Luna¡± was the moth species, and so I started to¡­ morph. They had to put me under anesthesia to get me back to normal that first time, so it¡¯s a good thing the trial was at a hospital already.¡± She pauses, both her speech and her stride. ¡°Well, that¡¯s my origin story, I guess. So what about you?¡±


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    You know, if it wasn¡¯t for you de-transforming in front of my eyes, that would be completely unbelievable.


    I chuckle. ¡°You know, I don¡¯t think I have an origin story. I don¡¯t think most people do, actually. That¡¯s¡­ pretty cool, I guess, that you do. But yeah, you already know most everything there is to know about me. I¡¯m some super-rare personality type, called a Thymostichus, that doesn¡¯t really get super attached to people or ideas, only really concrete things.¡± Or so I¡¯m told. ¡°I tried a bunch of stuff to try and fit in better, fit in better with the world of Eserosus and Uperlogius, but none of them really work, I don¡¯t think. Basically, I¡¯m not romantic or enlightened; I¡¯m supposed to be more of a database, empty of everything but storage. I think. People also tell me I¡¯m quick to anger, apparently, so there¡¯s that.¡±


    She nods. ¡°What do you think? About yourself, I mean. What if no one was watching you, or told you what you were, or supposed to be. What would you be like then?¡±


    This time, I freeze. ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°It sounds like¡­ well, this is just the way I see it, and I don¡¯t know you very well yet, of course, but it sounds like you¡¯re trying to be everything people say you are. But that¡¯s just the way they see you, and by trying to accommodate that, you¡¯re giving them inaccurate data to extrapolate from and, more importantly, constraining yourself. Your own expression.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but¡­ I don¡¯t know. I¡¯ve been told this by a lot of people, too many for them all to be wrong.¡±


    ¡°I agree, maybe they¡¯re not wrong about you being a Thymostichus. But maybe you¡¯re taking that the wrong way. Like, entirely backwards, even. People called you that because you acted like one, more than you did Eserosus or Uperlogius, not because you were nothing but Thymostichus. You¡¯re you, first and foremost, right?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± And I really don¡¯t.


    I don¡¯t know what I am, if not what I¡¯ve been observed to be.


    My head spins, and something like a nest of eels writhes in my gut. I really don¡¯t feel well. At all. I think I need to stop this conversation.


    Luna hasn¡¯t said anything I can hear. I can¡¯t hear her footsteps, either. All that I can perceive is my racing, pained thoughts, and this one crack in the sidewalk that gets more and more and more and more complex and fractalized the more I stare into it. It branches and branches and branches into more and more and more hairs in the concrete and I think I could watch it squirm in tableau forever. My thoughts are loose and strummy, slipping down my nose through my throat and to my churning stomach like mental mucus. My veins are empty, or at least feel like it, especially around my joints that feel like they could fly apart at any moment like hinges sunken in rotten wood.


    I have to sit down, before my kneecaps fall off.


    I fold to a crouch, slowly, and then slide back, sitting up with my legs out. Never once breaking eye contact with those flickering lines on the ground.


    Layer 09: Dreams Of Dragon¡¯s Fire


    I awaken surrounded by captivating silver decorations, intricate like family crests but in all different styles. Each one is an image of some twisted hybrid animal in a flat profile, but some look more like Egyptian hieroglyphs, while others look more like cave paintings, medieval woodcuts, or Japanese ukiyo-e. The common thread is the amount of movement conveyed in a very still, very flat surface. It almost looks like the subject, each image¡¯s beast, is churning its body, spasming forward in a futile attempt to escape a two-dimensional prison.


    There¡¯s nothing else to focus on in the room. Besides the elegant bed I was just resting in, the room is bare of furniture. Those crests are the only things on the wall, which is painted sheer crimson in an almost dizzying solid block, broken only by glimmers of glamorous silver and a single door, made of wood so deeply stained it appeared an inky black.


    I want to get up, turn the engraved golden knob, and leave this place. Leave the gaze of the beasts that should not be. But my body will not move. I strain for what feels like hours, and fail to even twitch my big toe.


    Eventually, the door swings open with a splitting creak, and the locking stiffness in my joints dissipates at once. But no one walks through.


    Thin pale beams pour through the door frame, but it¡¯s otherwise stubbornly empty.


    No matter how hard I look, no one is coming for me, and I¡¯m not sure if that should calm me or scare me more.


    Well, if no one is coming, I might as well get up.


    My bones creak and pop like a bull walking in a settling building. Every muscle in my body is sore, and despite my awakening implying sleep, I¡¯m immediately exhausted.


    But, no one is coming for me.


    One aching step at a time, I push onwards, until I¡¯m in the hallway and fully exposed to a full-scale vermillion assault. It seems everything in this place is red, from the wine-colored curtains to the scarlet carpet that slithers along the rusty wooden floor. Yes, even the floorboards are as close to red as wood can naturally be. The lights are the only thing not tainted by the color of blood. Gazing skyward, into the blinding bulbs, is my only relief from the scarlet onslaught.


    I start walking down the hall, head tilted back like I have a nosebleed, gazing into the intricate depths of the engraved story on the ceiling. Again and again, beautiful figures rise, rule peacefully, and then sire beasts from their shadows. They all fall, inevitably. I¡¯m speed-reading this M?bius strip tapestry, falling deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine grooves on each rotation, By the time I reach the section of the hallway detailing stories, or instances of the same story, I recognize, I have no idea how to get back to ¡°my¡± room. Or if I¡¯m alone here. If I¡¯m getting closer to an exit, which may or may not exist.


    An ice-cold bolt of fear runs through me, from the palms inwards, burning my spinal cord in a bid to impact the soles of my feet and my still-tender brain. My fear completes its quest in a fraction of a second, as it always does; I involuntarily shudder, but otherwise try to ignore it. Then¡ª


    ¡°Hey.¡±


    I recognize that voice.


    He almost blends into the decor, in his deep red robes. The shocking scarlet cape, breaking up his form, doesn¡¯t help his visibility. Even that spiky, blinding mop of dark hair could be confused for a shadow.


    ¡°Augustus! What are you doing here? How¡¯d you guess the dress code?¡± I laugh, gesturing to our surroundings. I¡¯m only half-joking; seeing his clothes so perfectly match the interior design makes me feel a little out of place in my purple cloak and black hat.


    ¡°I¡­ live here? Or at least, I have for the last couple months. So how long have you been here?¡± He starts walking, and gestures for me to catch up.


    I scurry to catch up, and match his pace. ¡°Me? If I had to guess, about¡­¡± I don¡¯t know, actually. It had to have been an hour, at least; but approximating it is a Sysephean task. That swirling fascination made time fly past, while the residual ache in my bones continually heaved the second hand back kicking and ticking and tocking and screaming and clicking.


    So, it¡¯s less like rolling a boulder up a hill day after day, and more like trying to roll the boulder up and down the hill at the same time.


    ¡°Well, time is fake anyway.¡±


    ¡°That it is. Anyway, don¡¯t strain yourself on my account. I was just curious.¡± HIs smile is too friendly, not like a shark¡¯s barely contained bloodlust, bristling with teeth; no, it¡¯s more like a dolphin¡¯s, legitimately overjoyed to have the social upper hand.


    Does he? I wonder. I¡¯m not supposed to be able to read people, even their simplest cues, but some vestigial organ, older than sentience, tingles nervously nonetheless. Maybe it¡¯s something entirely different from my mind, my brain; maybe this is what they call ¡°instinct.¡±


    ¡°You know¡­¡± Augustus tilts his head back at me, tilting his chin up as he tosses his gaze back over his shoulder. ¡°You¡¯ve been awfully quiet today. What¡¯s on your mind?¡±


    How can he tell? How does he know to ask what I¡¯m thinking about, when I¡¯m barely even conscious of my own silence?


    ¡°Nothing much. I mean, I¡¯m not even thinking about that much. Just¡­ picking myself apart, I guess.¡±


    ¡°Hm. Well, you might not like to hear this, but I think that kind of contemplation is a good thing. The truth is often painful, but if you must feel pain, it¡¯s best if it''s inflicted at your own leisure rather than someone else¡¯s.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I should probably qualify that statement. Conventional wisdom says to trust your instincts, to believe in yourself; but that¡¯s wrong. It¡¯s not even really true ¡°conventional wisdom,¡± if you ask me. I think people only believe in themselves, their instincts, because they were told not to create anything more. They believe their instincts because they can¡¯t think of a hardline set of morals to follow, so they just do what feels right on a moment-to-moment basis.¡±


    We turn a corner into a hallway with deeper vermillion walls, and his face darkens into a scowl, as if to match them. ¡°Although, that¡¯s not the worst way to live. You could be like one of those foul Church Hunters, and have your morals tied to someone else¡¯s doctrine. I don¡¯t even know if that¡¯s more tragic, or despicable, but I hate it.¡±


    My confusion must have shown, because Augustus stops in his tracks to turn and face me. ¡°You know about the Church of the Sun, right? And their Hunters?¡±


    ¡°The name sounds familiar, but I can¡¯t place it.¡± This is true. The name ¡°Church Hunters¡± rings some kind of bell, like something I read about or saw in a movie once, but I don¡¯t have any context for it in real life.


    Augustus scoffs through gritted teeth. ¡°Essentially, the Church of the Sun declared all who reject them to be one of 72 demons. Anyone who neither follows nor rejects the Sun doesn¡¯t matter to them, so their lives are essentially forfeit as the Church Hunters retake Wintertree. And anyone who follows them must ¡°burn¡± their own moral code in place of the Doctrine Illustrious. They, essentially, act as a single hungry beast that consumes everything that makes a person¡ªmorals, lives, and identities.¡±


    I¡¯m shocked. I know the world isn¡¯t a nice place; I know full well the cruelty of the human animal, especially to those they see as ¡°other,¡± as too quiet or ¡°marked¡± in some way by difference, but this is on a whole other level. This isn¡¯t like an animalistic instinct lashing out at a potential threat. ¡°There¡¯s¡­ no excuse. There¡¯s no justification.¡± It¡¯s just¡­ ¡°Absolute evil.¡± I look up into Augustus¡¯s eyes, no longer hidden behind sheer blinding bangs, but looking into my own with warmth like clear water. ¡°What can I¡­¡±


    He smiles. ¡°There is hope. I¡¯m part of an uprising against them, a leader of it actually. If they are a beast, my hounds and I will hunt it down. We will fire flaming arrows at their pure ivory tower from our own crimson nest. If you want to join me, I could work it out so that you have some kind of higher rank. You¡¯re a smart person, I think. A strategic role, as a tactician maybe, would suit you.¡±


    I start to answer¡ª


    But Augustus cuts me off. ¡°Don¡¯t rush into things. Think on it, and give me an answer next time we cross paths. I don¡¯t want to rush you, and besides, getting you in as a tactician will take time.¡±


    ¡°Alright. I¡¯ll do that. But I think my answer will still be ¡®yes¡¯.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m glad to hear that. Now then¡ª¡±


    Augustus pushes a door open. The hallway, deep and dark crimson as the inside of a vein, is flooded with enough sunlight to make it almost pink.


    ¡°I have to get going. You want out too, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Ah, yes, please,¡± I stammer out, slipping past him and through the door. ¡°Thank you.¡±


    ¡°No problem,¡± he calls after me, but already it barely registers.


    As I start my stride down the narrow alley, something gnaws my nerves. It shocks me with each instance of its icy touch like bullets of cold rain pounding down under the skin. Parallel to those frozen attacks on my nerves, something else entirely burns along my veins; some kind of equally unpleasant ignited instability, twitching and churning and flickering like a dying lightbulb. My pace, both of feet and heart, quickens, but the glimmering exit to the main road remains fixed ahead of me, like a carrot on a stick.


    I don¡¯t want to look behind me. Something tells me as much. So, I look up. Up to the sky, the low ceiling that stretches on forever, the gray haze that burns as white smoke in the angry glare of the sun. I tilt my head back farther and farther, so far that my hat falls off and my neck is bending backwards and I¡¯m looking behind me in an entirely different way than I had intended not to.


    The alley¡¯s brick borders that range from deep red to pale orange. Stale puddles in the bleached gray asphalt. Back entrances, mostly rows of doors flush against the bricks, with a few that jut out or in slightly.


    In other words, there¡¯s nothing out of the ordinary


    Nothing is there.


    I can¡¯t see anything there.


    I shouldn¡¯t worry about it. Because, what had Augustus just told me? Not to trust my instincts. The only reason I was scared was my own instincts, nothing thought out or rational or more true than some prehistoric nagging hook in the brain designed to keep me safe from long-dead megafauna. I know this, and yet, I still feel afraid.


    Layer 10: Into Your Sanctum


    Candles flicker off glossy wood. Throngs of observers in birdlike masks gawk from their perches, like pews or stadium seats, stacked atop each other. Beaked heads with glassy eyes observe everything below from atop crooked, hunched necks.


    Their unblinking, collective gaze lands firmly on a stone table. A stone table waist-high, long enough for a person to lay on, lit by an uncomfortably low-hanging chandelier of sharply-wrought iron. And, of course, the man who stood beside it.


    I will always hold the tube, that which pierces. The syringe, the ovipositor, that is an extension of my holy, pure, glimmering hand.


    So thought Dr. Brundle Vepar in his first and final moments.


    As he continued down this path of thought, the formative ideas that made up his ¡°code¡± disintegrated like loose fibers in his hands, and yet the self he formed through his actions grew more defined.


    How can I do no harm, when I have to earn the power to affect change? No, this is the less harmful option. If I refuse, they¡¯ll kill me and have someone less merciful take my place. Someone who will unquestioningly carry out these kinds of baleful operations. I should be the one to play this role, repentfully as I will.


    He barely believed his own self-justification. But things weren¡¯t always like this. Dr. Vepar, once upon a time, lived by a much more stable, provable doctrine. His every day was spent creating and consuming as little as possible, to atone for the chaotically spiralling harm his continued existence required.


    How could someone throw away such an infallible purpose?

 Account 09: Still Doll

    Layer 11: Smothered Hope


    Loose wrinkles flapping in the wind. Stretched and strained patches, constraining and restricting organic movement. If Dr. Vepar were to put it into words, he would probably say that quality was what drew him to the doll-like man. Maybe he related to it, or admired it. Regardless of the reason, that creature fascinated him.


    As it staggered about, chained by its stretched-thin clothes, collecting scattered documents, it was entirely unaware of this fact. That glamorous phantasmagoria, born either of apathy or oblivion, clung to the man¡¯s black suit, leaving an almost visible trail in his every movement. His almost lack of consciousness was allure, pure and simple; doll-like and receptive allure.


    Dr. Vepar felt like he¡¯d seen a less concentrated version of it before, but could it really be called the same quality of ¡°absolute emptiness¡± if it wasn¡¯t as intense? Just as a neon pastel cannot exist by definition, neither can a tempered absolute. And certainly, no paler iteration of this staggeringly numb, passive benevolence had ever captivated him so.


    Despite walking the same path as his patients, this constrained creature wound up in an altogether more fascinating destination, someplace farther down that road.


    ¡°Ahem.¡± Dr. Vepar looked up with a start from his crouched, hunched perch on the ground. As he squatted, hunched over the measly few papers he was able to collect, the man in the suit offered the remainder of the documents in a hand outstretched downwards. ¡°I got them for you.¡±


    ¡°Thanks. I mean, thank you. Really, I had a rough day today, so I really appreciate the help,¡± Dr. Vepar said, accepting the papers with a smile.


    ¡°Where are you headed? I have nothing but free time, if you want someone to walk you there. I¡¯m sure you''ve heard about the Golden Howlings, right? It¡¯s dangerous for people to walk at dusk these days. Even besides, the sun is setting and your hands are full, so let me help.¡±


    Indeed, the sun was setting, conceding more and more of the sickly orange dusk to deep blue night by the minute. Dr. Vepar had dropped those papers under a ceiling on red-hot fire, and now the eastern skies had cooled enough to see glimmering, far-off suns. Did I really sit there, thinking, for that long?


    ¡°Yes, please, if you¡¯re sure you don¡¯t mind.¡± Dr. Vepar saw no malice in those glassy eyes, only the kind of doll-like fragility that the filthy streets of Wintertree eat for breakfast. And while the doctor had long since harded himself to the kinds of oozing, spiny horrors that lurk in shadowy corners, someone more innocent would surely fall prey to their machinations.


    Even if it is an inconvenience to accompany me, it¡¯s still mutually beneficial. So, it¡¯s ok to accept his help.


    At last, Dr. Vepar rocked back to his heels, and then swung forth to his toes to stretch his calves. Sitting in such an unnatural position for so long had laid a blanket of soreness upon his lower legs. He turned to face his compatriot. ¡°Should we get going, uh...¡± The doctor trailed off.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I don¡¯t think I ever got your name. I¡¯m Dr. Brundle Vepar¡ªBrundle is ok.¡±


    Blank poise melted into a soft warmth on the other man¡¯s doll-like face.¡°Nice to meet you. I¡¯m Uikka.¡± He gave a cordial smile that quivered, ever so slightly, at the edges.


    Is that the struggle to stay hidden, to hold back open joy? Or something like a quivering lip, betraying tears never allowed to flow? Or is it simply a tic? Or perhaps something only I could see?


    ¡°Well? Where are we headed?¡± Uikka asked. There wasn¡¯t any unpleasantness or impatience in his voice, just genuine curiosity.


    ¡°Oh, just a few blocks down. Let¡¯s go, shall we?¡±


    ¡°Lead the way.¡±


    One staggered, one strode, down streets shining silvery beneath a young moon.


    Things unseen silently shriek, writhe, and burn up, all without leaving the glistening puddles they at once inhabit and exist as.


    The lids of too many eyes collapse in the wake of the doctor¡¯s sanctified white coattails.


    Tongues cannot loll from mouths robbed of breath too soon to fall open.


    There isn¡¯t even time enough for these primordial larvae to gasp dramatic final breaths. It¡¯s all they can do to wheeze out one last scrap of toxicity before falling still.


    Dr. Vepar doesn¡¯t notice. Nor does Uikka, or anyone else for that matter. Because these things that live in shadows and in the corners of vision cannot be seen. At least, not as they are.


    ¡°I have to ask: Is that suit uncomfortable?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Your suit. It¡¯s so tight on you in some places, and so loose in others. I imagine it¡¯s like swimming with your hands tied. Do you want to go get a change of clothes? I¡¯m sure there¡¯s somewhere still open, even if they don¡¯t have anything as formal as what you¡¯re wearing right now¡ª¡±


    ¡°Thank you, but this is ok. More than OK, it¡¯s about the only kind of clothing I can deal with. Anything else is just¡­ I feel like it¡¯s drawing and quartering me any time I move. Like my limbs could go flying off at any moment. It¡¯s hard to move in this, yeah, but it¡¯s better to be locked in a box than pulled apart. You know?¡±


    I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t get it, at all. But¡ª


    ¡°Well, yeah, that sounds like the better of the two options.¡± I say with a chuckle. What else can I say to that? You don¡¯t just tell someone something so¡­ graphic. He could have just said ¡°I don¡¯t mind,¡± and left it at that. I can respect someone for dealing with discomfort in silence. But I¡¯m not close to him or anything.


    I never needed that explanation.


    Not just in principle, either; because it feels like needles of empathy are burrowing into me, piercing me all along my spinal cord and entering my brain through that tiny little hole at the back of the cranium. Each tiny spike chips away at the bone like fingernails at a scab, adding more and more tiny bone flakes to the complexly pained equation, picking and pulling me apart.


    I know the feeling of great internal tides swirling against each other deep in my gut. I know how it feels to be pulled apart, from an internal point no clothes can comfort.


    But I can bear it silently. I have to. So why can¡¯t this¡­ Why can¡¯t he just keep this to himself too? It hurts to hear.


    Maybe this pain is a clenched hatred¡­ no, jealousy, for this blankly benevolent dollcreaturemanthing following me around showing me transcendental light¡ª


    ¡°Hey, are you OK?¡± Uikka¡¯s soft, concerned voice doesn¡¯t reach me. I can hear it, but not register the meaning.


    Nevertheless¡ª


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m ok.¡±


    It¡¯s an automatic response that I¡¯ve trained myself to give. Though, over the years of forming auto-obscurity into a code, I¡¯ve found comfort in it. In that way, it isn¡¯t a lie to say ¡°I¡¯m ok¡± when I¡¯m not; it¡¯s more of a mantra to arrive at the desired outcome. It takes being seen as functional for me to be able to function.


    Uikka once again snaps me out of my own head. ¡°Glad to hear it. So, where are we going?¡±


    ¡°My study. It¡¯s my home right now. Whenever these incidents pop up, I move somewhere closer to the office. It¡¯s not very comfortable, which is why I haven¡¯t moved in full-time, but I need to shred these files for security reasons, and, you know, sleep.¡±


    Behind sockets of glimmering ruby, I see a dewy glint. Interest. The  downy, sickly offspring of fascination. I must keep this tiny force alive. Warm. Keep the bugs from eating it as it sleeps. Nurture it into a reciprocated fascination. Why, I do not know. But I must.


    ¡°Fair enough.¡± A hint of mirth tinges Uikka¡¯s acknowledgement; the most perfect and precise drop.


    Drawing me ever closer, in fascinated resonance with his interest.


    A slick slithering something catches my eye for a moment. It¡¯s a spastic, sudden movement, like a puddle writhing with eels, but only for a split second. As soon as I turn my head, the miniature beast is, once again, just a filthy, stagnant puddle in the gutter.


    And yet, as I walk, the feeling encroaches. A pressure. The feeling that a million minds surround me, in the air, in the water, in each and every window in each and every building and behind each and every door. Logically, they were always there. But I couldn¡¯t see before just how many people there are, and how many minds there are besides. How many eyes are there that could see me? How many minds could form judgement on me?


    I am not enough. That distinct thought shoots through me. I could not see these living sludges for so long; even now, I cannot look for them. How many people could? How long had I been locked out of the ability to See, this part of existence that feels so natural?


    There are eyes in puddles of filth and rainwater. There are eyes in the mouths of each and every gargoyle. There are eyes in the shadows cast by shadows, in the crooks of soaring ceilings, in hidden gardens, in back hallways, in secondary stairwells. There are eyes anywhere and everywhere nothing should be. Watching.


    And there are also eyes in every glowing window, in each twinkling pinhole in the sky, in every stray sunbeam. In each and every of those needle-like towers, grasping towards the sky like the fingers of a corpse, there are countless eyes. There are eyes in the heads of people, and in the head the people share. Those eyes are the eyes that see. Every heartbeat, a blink. Every blink, a heartbeat. Primordial perception, primed and waiting for a lightning strike to ignite it to life.


    My head hurts.


    Wings rustle somewhere.


    A sharp unlatching is all that can cut through the haze. Even then, it barely reaches my ears. I¡¯m too consumed by Sight, seeing these unseelie drops, to hear or smell or feel much of anything.


    I should have toppled over with each of my staggering steps. I could see visions of myself passing the point of no return, biting the street, hacking blood and teeth into the dry, hot night. Spitting my mouth cottony until the tiniest hint of pink had left me. Again and again, my life flashed before other being¡¯s eyes.


    If I ever did hit the ground, it would have been a relief.


    Eventually, after countless tantalizing bungee jumps into Hell, I landed. Not on baking brimstone, but something soft and higher than the street. Above it. This final fall was one into sleep. Even resting my eyes will not grant me respite from my Sight, the midsummer dreams of august fairy kings that haunt my twitching midnights and witching hours.


    Layer 12: It Turns In Equal Ways


    I can¡¯t see anything. I can see nothing. Nothing looks like gray fog, so all encompassing that you can¡¯t tell if it¡¯s pea-soup dense or just a misty haze boxing you in an otherwise-clear space. It¡¯s all around me, impossible to look past and yet void of features to focus on. So I just stare, let the seconds drip by like drops into a basin.


    Eventually, it overflows. Sparkling cold washes over my mind, cleaning out so much stagnant lukewarm filth. A single starlike point draws near from the fog, at first nothing more than a barely-visible dot of light, and then distinctly, verdantly, throbbingly, green as a poisoned sun. It saves my tired eyes from pacing for something to see and spares my mind the rot of taking in the featureless fog.


    It¡¯s only right to approach it.


    I set off with vigor. My pace churns, step over step over step. I cut into the fog that held me back, and while it doesn¡¯t give way, the feeling of progress is victory enough in and of itself. Above me, I can almost see clouds. Below me, the ground makes itself more apparent. I can¡¯t see it, because I don¡¯t want to look down, but the feeling of my feet tells me enough. It¡¯s soft, but not hungry to slow my steps. Nor is it so solid as to push me forward. Every step I take is one I choose.


    Time passes; though how much, I couldn¡¯t tell you. Not a sink¡¯s worth, but more than enough to fill a cup. Yes, it was certainly less time than I waited back in the foggy clearing.


    My feet are heavy. Every step is a boulder smashed to gravel. Up, down. Raise, fall. The hammers move in cycles, and the distance to the light chips away to less and less. Never nothing, though. The wispy, taunting lantern dances away like some celestial body or the end of a rainbow. Every fiber in my legs is burnt ragged, sparking like a dying wire, but I still pull the rope again and again. The pleasant receptiveness of the ground is a repeated invitation to rest, hellish to resist, but I do. Again and again, as I am tested, I walk towards the light.


    It stops running. And blinks out.


    The fog fades.


    I¡¯m in a field of thin towers, columns, really. Between them, more and more swirling lights dance about, and though they are but featureless orbs, I can tell¡ª


    They¡¯re all facing me, gyroscopically as they frolick.


    Each light is watching me. Each drop of vivid chartreuse luminance is staring into my soul, with the same set of eyes. Noting my every movement, though I¡¯m frozen like a deer.


    The thought shouldn¡¯t discomfort me. I owe these lights, every instance of their soft glow, my sanity. I faithfully followed one light to get here. Why do I doubt them now? How can I?


    Is it paranoid to fear the wispy green fire, now that it¡¯s looking at me? Or was it naive to follow it in the first place?


    The world doesn¡¯t give way to my swirling thoughts, like it usually does. I still have to reckon with, even return, the glowing stares as I damn myself to contemplation. I can¡¯t focus.


    A splitting crack rings out, and the lights scatter like crows.


    Before me, a column has roughly bisected itself, slumped to either side. Inside, black stone speckled with silver glimmers in the faint pale light. Light from where?


    I jerk my gaze skyward, to the purple clouds that burn like cotton balls to the west. On the opposite side of the sky, the barely-visible moon. It¡¯s a classic picture of a sunset; but the sun is nowhere to be seen. Only its influence remains, and before long even that burns to ashes.


    The sky is a blue like black. It¡¯s the closest thing the sky has to the color of old dried blood or freshly opened veins, that black crimson. Empty, featureless like the fog. Nothing reigns here, for better or worse. Occasional clouds force the blackened blue to flirt with equally deep purple, but they drift on with time. Such is the lonely existence of the ashes of the sunset. If you¡¯re watching these remains, you might as well not have eyes.


    From the ashes, though, an igniting agent returns. That once barely-visible moon trudges along until it¡¯s a glowing silver disc in the sky. Soft as it is, it¡¯s still offensively bright compared to the sharp darkness. Once more, the fullness of the world can be seen.


    For better or worse.


    The bright silver rains down like a storm of arrows. Some find their mark on black wood towers around me. Some others bounce off that same sleek blackness, and end up stuck in the ground. The ground. The ground, a deep crimson, not approaching black like blood, but rather distinctly red, like spilled viscera.


    No, not spilled. Inverted. It¡¯s shot through with deep purple and blue strings. Veins.


    Bone white light pouring down onto the resonating, pulsing, inside-out corpse below my feet.


    Suddenly it stinks of gas born of the rebelling earth and the invisible things that eat corpses, of sulphur and phosphorus and fumes, like bloat and disease and death. This world I now see is a corpse foul and writhing, unmoving and full of life, stiffening, fertile, and dead. The source of life. Something stinking, foul, despised, yet known to be natural, needed even. Divine and falling apart, fiber by rotting fiber, fur falling off in sheets to reveal dark red flesh and bones a clean white.


    A single drop of froth falls from my lips.


    I don¡¯t remember when I sank my teeth into the ground. But before I knew it I was gorged with rotting meat, yet still tearing away, opening capillaries with each bite. Creating miniature geysers of black vermillion. Soaking my face. At a certain point, maybe with the inaugural bite, my teeth bent and broke and tore themselves from my gums. My own gushing crimson mixed with the blood of the earth, became indistinguishable from it, just as each illuminated eye was indistinguishable from the other. Just as the eyes in each pool of shadow were indistinguishable from each other, and the darkness they resided in. Drops become puddles, puddles overflow and run into each other and become seas.


    And then.


    As soon as the fog set in, as suddenly as that lone light appeared, everything around me vanishes. Even my consciousness flickers out to a line, and then a lone point, of light, and then nothing.


    Dr. Brundle Vepar awoke in a handsomely decorated study. Every furnishing was deeply stained wood, every chair and sofa upholstered in glistening brown leather. Brass engravings embellished every edge of the comfortably full bookcases and every knob on the glass-fronted cabinets, home to an amount of traditional medical paraphernalia neither austere nor gaudy.


    Hidden among these was a singular metal rod, about a foot in length and four inches in diameter, that came to a sickeningly sharp, glistening point. A stake. A silver stake, touched by the Golden King Oberon. Dr. Vepar, for most of his life, was not an especially ardent follower of the Sun King, but he had seen some of the healing that ¡°his people¡± had done and was duly impressed. He believed in Oberon the one way believes in a friend¡¯s talents, though to vocalize such a view would be blasphemy punishable by ¡°exile from the law¡±.


    As he awoke, Dr. Vepar felt a surge of purpose within him, drawing him to the stake, to the Church of the Sun King, to a new mental manual. A doctrine inserted into him as he slept.


    I must impale Uikka with this stake. I must sacrifice the doll who gave me eyes, if I wish to continue seeing, feasting upon the dead Earth, following glowing green orbs.


    I must?


    No, I want to.


    It would be wonderful to make Uikka a part of the rot. It would be an honor and a pleasure to free his spirit from that crumbling doll and give him a new purpose.


    Layer 13: A New Trend, Indifference


    Through the pale gray cloud cover, the sun was nothing more than a slightly illustrious stain. It oozed a sickly pale yellow haze no brighter than the moon¡¯s silver, and to the bleary, pressurized eyes of a Dr. Brundle Vepar, its position directly overhead seemed like destiny itself touching him. Reassuring him that his actions were right, done of a pure heart in the name of good faith. Guiding him, through mazes of so many needlelike spires silhouetted against an ashen sky. Pushing him forward, though his long, aggressive stride twisted necks. Each clack of his boots on pavement was like a hammer to a knee. Where the tails of his long white coat were not clasped together, they thrashed about wildly like sails in a storm, or snakes aflame, with a great rumpling of canvas each time he took a step.


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    Dr. Brundle Vepar moved with purpose, and it hid his pain very well. So well even he could barely feel it.


    How long has the back of my skull throbbed like that? No, not just there, it¡¯s all around my temples, too. Stress? I¡¯m not stressed. My jaw hasn¡¯t been this loose in years, I don¡¯t have work today or ever again. All I have to do is indulge my fascination; show Uikka the light, and then I can do as I please.


    Behind green-tinted lenses, Dr. Vepar¡¯s gaze drifted skyward as he sliced the streets beneath him. With an almost audible intensity, he stared down the spires above. Each and every etched detail of them gleamed in the slight glow of today¡¯s lunar sun, so even things usually hidden in shadow could be seen. Grotesque things. Images of horned beasts and masks of death, twisted birds and over-extended necks. Great wars, wrathful skies, fields of rot. Powers within, churning and roaring inside the hollow parts of people; acting as fullness, but one imbalance away from disintegrating the mind and body into loose fibers. Dr. Vepar squinted, and saw thin silver needles, strange powders and elixirs, scarlet tonics, holy fire, masked forms in white robes. He saw restrained forms screaming, contorted in agony, hammers and chisels and heads. He saw waves of suffering calmed to gentle seas and slowly baked away to dead salt flats.


    The stake weighed heavy in his pocket. But it was balanced by the mallet, on the opposite side of his body on his belt. Despite his reliance on ballast, Dr. Vepar¡¯s stride still brought to mind flight on occasion. His movements effortlessly combined winged elegance and intimidating efficiency, like a spider in its web. He was at home on these streets inundated with achingly cold mist; for the burning haze of pain behind his face canceled it out. If he felt turning a corner was the right way forward, he did so, decisively and sharply. If he felt like continuing his path, he did so with equal determination.


    Small green lights, no larger than grapes, drifted in his direction from gaps in the gutters. Cautiously, like birds to a pile of seeds. One got too close, and was snuffed out beneath a hasty step. Tiny ferns with fronds too thin to even look green stretched skyward from cracks in the concrete. The doctor ground those hands to smears of chlorophyll on the pale gray. A small puffball mushroom lay in his path, and wheezed its last in a cloud of spores.


    Countless small things crumpled under his heel. Not because the doctor was a malicious man, but because things written in stone along the sky stole all his attention.


    Pale, milky pits of sap reflexively shut their doors in response to the vibrations of his approach. A fly, bloated with rotting crimson excrement and drunk on fumes from the Pitcher¡¯s blood, snaps out of its sickening haze just in time to avoid Dr. Vepar¡¯s hasty footfalls. In the next second, it is impaled between the eyes with a thorn shot from somewhere unseen.


    The ghastly grapes of foxfire regroup in the doctor¡¯s frantic wake, chattering amongst themselves and hopping about. A glowing slice falls loose from one, forming a shape like a crude crescent, and the dying beast unhinges itself into a bristling maw. Its compatriots pop in the face of rough, jagged edges that act as incisors. One remains. It stabs the initially lost piece into itself and bludgeons the murderous orb until they both burst into luminescent goo.


    Dr. Vepar saw none of this, and yet gazing into the nooks and crannies of the towers, he absorbed a similar truth.


    Nothing begets nothing. Everything is born from something. Yet all things return to nothing. This is the spiralling course nature walks. As soon as I think those words, I curse myself with a silent sneer. What kind of self-respecting adult still thinks that way? What¡¯s the matter with me, to take away such a dour, trite, cliche impression from getting to see the structure of my city? I so rarely get time to run basic errands, and now that I have a free day, I immediately fall into pessimistic pseudo-intellectualism?


    It¡¯s not that deep. It just looks that way from down here.


    As intricate as those carvings are, they don¡¯t speak to anything besides the sculptor¡¯s personal tastes. In those stones and metal panels are stories of lives wasted in indulging one¡¯s own flittering, temporary aesthetic. Disgusting. Virtueless. How much good could have been done in this world, with the time and money and effort put into those images hardly anyone would see?


    It doesn¡¯t matter. I¡¯ve paid them too much thought already, and I can feel Uikka is close by.


    Glowing haze starts to seep into view as I walk. I flit my eyes around, but that just makes the puddles of luminescent fog expand faster. They close in, drawn downward to my pupils. Pushing my eyes against the back of their sockets. Giving slack to the optic nerve. Finally, the surface breaks, and a radiant glow fills my vision.


    My ears ring.


    The brightness is painful, slightly cool in color but hot to the touch.


    My head feels like it¡¯s going to split open in a ring, from my eyes around to my temples to the very peak of my neck. I would welcome a rusted gray-green pulp, in place of consciousness bearing this floating agony.


    Something breaks those choices. Some pitch-black pinhole in the all-encompassing light. Then another, and another, and another, like bullet holes from rapid-fire needle shot. The cool relief of darkness oozes throughout my vision, no, my entire perception. With it, my will settles from a shredded sea frothing white to a pool, calm like black glass.


    Sight returns. I¡¯m standing on a stage, looking out into a sea of darkness, nearly absolute darkness save for the glimmering lenses of goggles staring back at me. In my hands, a birdcage. In the birdcage, loosely coiled like a dead snake, there¡¯s a spine. A human one, probably, though the tailbone is too long. No, it¡¯s just warped, like it¡¯s been bent upwards and out. I don¡¯t know what to do with this, but I should do something, right?


    I look out to the audience expectantly, but the lights blind me for a moment, and I¡¯m back in that burning void. Chained once more to agony, for just a second, but enough to draw moisture from my now-sensitive eyes. This time, I¡¯m in darkness, standing before a slab of stone like a surgical table. Above me, bearing down on the back of my crooked neck, is a single lightbulb. That¡¯s all I can feel on me, though; no gleaming eyes or hungry expectations, no one I have to impress.


    Except one. The fascinating doll I need to impress most. But even he isn¡¯t looking at me.


    Layer 14: The Staking


    Uikka has traded his suit and sunglasses for a loose off-white robe, the kind of blue-tinged white that hospital bed sheets are made of. The sleeves and legs end in a thin straw-colored rope tied tight, so a little extra fabric billows over. The same kind of rope, but thicker, is tied around his waist as a belt and at his neck as a¡­ collar, I suppose. When my eyes meet his, his gray irises alight like summer storm clouds sparking with lightning.


    ¡°How¡¯s it going?¡± He asks me, too nonchalantly. ¡°I figured I¡¯d see you again, but I didn¡¯t think it¡¯d be so soon. When¡¯d you break?¡±


    ¡°Break?¡± I don¡¯t know what he means. I never ¡®broke¡¯. ¡°I¡¯m here because there¡¯s something I have to do, as a person.¡± Yes, that¡¯s right. ¡°I have to honor my fascination, born as it is from the fullnesses swirling within me.¡± That, too, is true. I know what I have to do, and on the way here, I realized something. It is what I always wanted. To ¨€¨€¨€¨€ him. From the moment I laid eyes on Uikka, I had one churning, primal desire. My will to ¨€¨€¨€¨€ was the origin of my fascination, the seed that I drew a beautiful, complex, entirely false tree around. ¡°At the same time¡ª yes, this is my path, the path I cut¡ª I must retain my humility. My art shall be nothing as sickening as the images of death and woe that dot our skyline. Have you seen them? They¡¯re hideous images of Hell, unfit to reach for the sky, and terribly indulgent to boot. I am not so foolish, so gluttonous, as to consume such quantities of potential for excess; excesses such as as a permanent expression of that which temporarily cools my scorching mind. No emotional relief is permanent, or even as close to undying as an image set in stone or metal. To express it in such a medium is a conceptual failure. On top of that, they serve no purpose. Stone and metal bring nothing into this world, and serve no purpose but to accelerate the self-destructive spiral humans, and indeed all life, are fated to walk.¡± It¡¯s all coming together! The pieces fit! I can see the lines connecting thing to thing, idea to idea! The neurons are soldering together, more than I even thought possible!


    Uikka looks, appropriately, amazed. ¡°I knew it,¡± he says, with a relieved smile spreading across his face. ¡°I knew you had it in you. Now, come on, show me your art. Your art, that will begin to offset your tragedy. Show me your first steps.¡± He looks at me earnestly as I help him roll onto his stomach.


    I set my free hand on his upper back. ¡°Easy there. Just a minute. Are you feeling ok?¡±


    ¡°Yeah! Don¡¯t worry about me! I¡¯m jus¡ª¡±


    Clang!


    From the moment I saw him, I wanted to stake this beautiful, fascinating doll. My carefully placed stake shoots forth from underneath Uikka¡¯s tailbone, sloughing off skin.


    A shocked yelp escapes his lips.


    Clang!


    A pained gasp, this time. I can see my blank white bone canvas.


    Clang!


    This time, a hiss. The tailbone is now flush with the last vertebrae.


    Clang!


    ¡°Why?¡±


    It took four strikes before the shock wore off and betrayal set in. It also took four strikes to bend the tailbone past the spine, something that shouldn¡¯t be possible.


    Clang!


    ¡°I thought¡ª¡±


    I¡¯m amazed he¡¯s still conscious.


    ClangI


    Uikka¡¯s warped tailbone has bent up enough to send nerves spilling from the frontal side of the spine. Surprisingly, there¡¯s little blood.


    ¡°I thought¡­ your art was life¡­ more life than stone¡­¡±


    Clang!


    ¡°Wasn¡¯tthatthepoint?¡±


    He says it quickly, all in one breath, and goddamn if it isn¡¯t hilarious. I feel my lips pull back involuntarily. ¡°Hey, Uikka?¡±


    Through stifled sobs, he replies. ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Ask me how it got burned.¡±


    ¡°Wha¡ª¡±


    Clang!


    ¡°WHATDOYOUMEAN?!?!¡±


    He¡¯s not even trying to hide his tears now.


    ¡°Ask me, ¡®How¡¯d it get burned?!¡¯¡±


    Clang!


    ¡°H-How¡¯ditgetburned? Like tha, at?¡±


    This is boring. ¡°No, not like that. At all. Just¡­ don¡¯t worry about it, This¡¯ll be done soon enough.¡±


    The hammer slips. Slams into my hand. Something snaps, like a row of toothpicks being pulled apart by two rubber bands. So does the room around me, the single light, the empty darkness to my back, the table, Uikka¡¯s broken and yet almost entirely whole form.


    From behind me, muffled applause. I turn, and see a stretched, hunched, barely-human form. Face, hidden behind a bird-like mask. Limbs, long and spindly things like the legs of half a spider, peering out from behind a gigantic black cape. This giant crow before me stinks, like rotting plants, writhing peat, like glowing bog gasses. With a great shudder that rattles its skeletal frame, the upright beast begins to speak.


    ¡°Are you just going to give up?¡±


    I shake my head. ¡°But¡­ Uikka, my canvas, is gone. I broke it. Can I have another?¡±


    The crow¡¯s voice is muffled by both his mask and his mirth. ¡°You may have as many as you need.¡±


    I turn, instinctively, and I¡¯m back in the medical theater, with an unbroken Uikka in front of me. This time, he¡¯s unconscious, or at least, already laying on his stomach. But that¡¯s not the biggest change.


    I feel eyes on my back.


    The rusty darkness behind me is shot through with a single flickering light, a candle, dripping white wax onto gleaming mahogany. Two glass goggles stare back at me, illuminated in the modest flame. The shadow of a beak, long and thin like a thorn, bisects the small, orange, illustrious circle. In gloved hands, my observer holds a clipboard and an extravagant black quill, like an ostrich plume.


    ¡°Please don¡¯t mind me.¡± The crow calls to me roughly, in sharp contrast to his clipped and almost whispered tone earlier. ¡°I¡¯ll just be taking some notes, if you don¡¯t mind.¡±


    ¡°Please.¡± I nod, and return to my work. This time, the stake and hammer are presented in neat rows in a surgical tray, jarring alongside much more delicate instruments.


    I ignore those gleaming subtleties, and pick up my preferred tools. The brutish earthly hammer and the blessed silver chisel. They¡¯re all I need to mold this bone as marble before me.


    Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!


    I¡¯m being much more careful this time. Careful, not to wake Uikka, not to disintegrate him, not to wound myself, and careful for the sake of my observer.


    Ting! Ting! TIng! Ting! Ting!


    It went on like that for some time. So long, so many times the hammer struck the stake and the stale struck the bone, witn so little to show for it. Hunching over the stone table began to take a number on my back, so I clenched my stomach. Still, I was so fixated on perfection that my stomach began to ache. Not the soft soreness one would expect from extended tension; no, this was a swirling, poisonous sickness deep in my gut. Bile rising and falling like tides, something gurgling every so often, little kicks like a nest of eels dwelled in my swampy viscerae. I''m making myself sick, continuing this way.


    But I can¡¯t stop.


    Ting! TIng! TIng! TIng! Ting!


    This is what I am doing, and I cannot stop while observed. A bead of sweat rolls down my side. The light is not a hot one; it¡¯s cold, and having looked at so much beneath it, I notice every little break in its uniform glow. The slight sickly green tinge, like a drop of highlighter ink in the ocean. Imperceptible to all but my sharklike black marble eyes. How about the way the edges, far to the edges of the stage, warp and shimmer every so often, just in the corner of my eyes? The way dark spots dart across the puddle of light? They¡¯re small, tiny, but move too uniformly to be insects. Shadows? I don¡¯t think so. In this soft-edged light, shadows are blurry things that float about with little regard for what cast them. Sometimes, they contrast so little as to barely exist, just chartreuse flotsam in a spring green sea.


    Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! TIng!


    I don¡¯t know when the second candle showed up. The second observer, the second scratching voice of a quill. Nor the third, the fourth, the fifth, or any countable number besides, until the frantic clawing of inky needles became even more maddening than the ignus fatuus lantern above me.


    ¡°Don¡¯t mind us.¡±


    Ting! Ting! Ting! TIng! TIng!


    I tried my best to comply.


    Ting! Ting! Ting! TIng! TIng!


    When it all got to be too much, I kept my head down, stared at those drifting shadows, and remembered the heinous carvings in the sky. I remembered hate, the burning hate I had for those supposed objects d¡¯art that did nothing but pull me, kicking and screaming, backwards, into a body of hot blood and wax wings.


    How much have I changed?


    Another juvenile platitude. It¡¯s been said so many times it¡¯s lost all meaning. ¡°No one could possibly give their all to escaping some mental Hell of their own creation, only to end up back there.¡± I muttered this last part under my breath, maybe just to hear my own voice, or hear something besides the infernal scratching and the glimmering rings.


    Ting! Ting! TIng! Ting! Schlop!


    Another misstep. Where a clean ¡°Ting!¡± should have rung out, something wetly squelched. The stake wouldn¡¯t move now. So much of the flesh around the base of Uikka¡¯s spine was raw, not even bleeding but oozing, and cavities had started to make themselves visible. Blackened crimson caverns. Like blood under moonlight. Some glisten beneath this hypnotic lantern. Others remain bone dry and flaky. The closer I look, the more entrances make themselves seen, stacked on top of each other like cells in a beehive. The stake is stuck in one of the first ones I noticed, just above the hip and to the left of the spine. Wiggling it around, the silver clacks against bone more often than not. It¡¯s probably been sucked in by some kind of weird postmortem vacuum.


    Clack. Clack. Clack.


    I frantically twitch the stake around in circles, like a loose tooth. Each time it clicks on the bones, I feel some heat within Uikka grow more intense.


    Drops of cold sweat slither down the sides of my ribcage, tickling me like caterpillars falling off a cliff. I have to stifle a laugh.


    ¡°Is something the matter?¡±


    The voice comes from behind me. It¡¯s the observer in the birdlike mask.


    ¡°Not a thing. My hand is stuck, that¡¯s all.¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t have you smearing the canvas. Allow me.¡±


    Uikka erupts into green flame, pouring skyward from each hole in his back from a basin that will never empty. The table is now a pyre. That fascinating doll is gone, up in smoke, with something precious trapped inside.


    Everything falls away around me. The mahogany darkness, the pooled orange glow, the rivers of melted wax, the glimmering eyes, everything. I¡¯m standing in completely empty darkness, once again.


    ¡°Are you just going to give up?¡±


    I don¡¯t even need to turn. All pretenses of decorum are gone. The masked observer speaks in a hoarse, pained croak, drawing out his words. Slurring, drunk on his own presentation. Beyond satiated, gut bulging with the seeds that were supposed to grow under my care into fruits of my labor. Mine.


    ¡°Disgusting creature. Scavenger. Walking rot.¡± I can¡¯t stop it. I babble inanely, words beyond definition, shapeless, formed only by feeling, what feels right. ¡°Filthy, unclean, feathered, raucous mouth, feeding and shitting and bleeding and squirming your filthy tattered wings all the way to the cesspit.¡± Something peels from my back and hits the stone floor with a wet slap. I don¡¯t care. It doesn¡¯t hurt.


    My spinal cord being ripped out should hurt, but it doesn¡¯t.


    Some rusty shadow forms in the gap carved by my vertebrae. In the dark crimson line bisecting me. That line grows in depth, pops out, flails around and becomes something inhuman. A tail.


    I can feel drops of shadowy fluid fall into my hair, writing lines in the white-blond. I can¡¯t see it, but I can feel the pattern in my mind¡¯s eye, as if I am looking down¡ª


    Down from above.


    At last, I turn around.


    An eight-foot tall pillar of flesh cloaked in black cloth looks down at me. That mask, like a bird¡¯s head, sits abandoned at its base. In place of a face, there was a crawling mass of black droplets.


    No. Not black. Red. Deep red. Blackened crimson. Squirming.


    Something tells me that this deep red is not blood, but something in our blood. All living things¡¯ blood. This is the ¡°primordial soup,¡± the ancient sea, lifeless but fertile. The Sea Of Fools. I don¡¯t know why that phrase springs to mind. I don¡¯t know why I know any of this. I shouldn¡¯t know this. I shouldn¡¯t even think of it. But now that it has been thought of, it will not go away. No matter how empty or gargantuan the box, it will not sufficiently contain my perception.


    A long, thin, insectoid leg emerges from where the mouth ought to be. Then another, and another, and another, shockingly black against the deepest crimson. Four in total, in a row, drawing close. Before the thorax can emerge, the stomach bloats beneath loose black robes. A nest of serpents, steeped in slime, burst forth, vomited by human-shaped potential. They paint the stones dark with their ooze, landing with individual impacts yet writhing as one baleful, pained mass.


    One pops like a grub beneath a fishhook. Then another, then another. Four pillars, thin like twigs yet unwaveringly bearing a fuzzy spider¡¯s carapace, like a coffin studded with beady eyes. Twitching, frothing mandibles extend towards me in slow motion, hairs and fangs alike aimed at me like nails. I could count the bubbles of spittle, could see the venom pooling, when the spider, too, burst; this time into a glowing red speckled with gritty, ashy sand.


    The lightest gray hide. Visibly rough. Tiny eyes twitching like flies. Tiny black eyes. Tiny black frenzied eyes, seeing nothing but given the knowledge of blood in the air. It has no legs to land on the ground. Instead, it continues out of the seething mass of the ancient sea, growing and growing and pursuing me as I stumble backwards. Hunched. Thick. The neck of a gargoyle. Endlessly starving, or just frenzied, and at some point pained. It¡¯s gone too far to stop. The shark¡¯s head continues towards me, even as it weeps amber tears from unseeing eyes clotted up with ashen blood. It cannot stop. The neck, thick as it is, eventually buckles under its own weight, with a sickening crunch and a fountainous fanned spray of bright red. Red too bright, red so bright it looks like paint, so bright it almost glows next to the dried squirming pillar.


    Next to go is the mask, lying forgotten on the floor. The beak lengthens into a stinger, the goggles unfurl into transparent membranes, the myriad leather and rubber straps roll up and harden into countless legs, twitching and stretching like a crab¡¯s. It alights with a great buzzing and drifts towards me, a nonchalant bumblebee on a summer¡¯s breeze. It drones on and on towards me, paced and unstoppable. It could hunt me down, and I could not escape. I could run, but it would outlast me. I could cover my head, but it would simply eat through my hands. Any blows I could deal would ricochet off its exoskeleton. There is no point running or hiding or fighting. I know this as I know the name of the Sea Of Fools.


    The buzzing slows to a soft hum, and then stops all together. My quivering palms, raised in front of my eyes, twitch at nothing, feeling imaginary spikes of dual-clawed feet. But they never come.


    In front of me, the great insect lays on its back, stomach skyward and legs coiled. A dry husk, completely and utterly dead.


    Skewered suddenly. Pulled haphazardly in one direction, and then another, by some jabbing black arrows my eyes cannot discern from the shadows around me.


    As if in response to my thoughts, a mass of antlers before me ignites, like a chandelier, orange flames flickering on each point. In the newborn light, I see crows. So many crows. Nothing more warped, though. Nothing is strange about them but their number. I can¡¯t count how many there are; they look almost more like a mass of jutting wings and beaks than individuals of a shared species. But no, stragglers in the far corners of the room jump and glide about, trying to approach the feast before them, the feast my fear built. There¡¯s one thing they haven¡¯t touched.


    My spine.


    It lays stark white against the deep rust of dried blood on fabric. Wholly dry, wholly inedible. Coiled and alert. Like a snake. The bone chain I held on stage in that dream that seems a century ago.


    Silently, proudly, owls descend on the crows. I barely notice, lost as I am in the depths of vertebrae. Feathers fly, organs ripped from downy breasts, beaks grow scarlet. Owls and crows alike fall to talon and hook and beating wing. I stare evermore at the snowy serpent I birthed. The frothing madness falls silent. Not a movement can be seen, save for the gentle drifting of down feathers like snow.


    Beneath the lights bone bore, as the newborn Tailed Beast cradled his separated spine, the observers descended. Their beaked mouths opened just a little too wide, and they drank of the luminescent scarlet. They gorged themselves on the corpses of combatants corvid and strigine alike. Eyes, organs, scraps of muscle and fat, bone, skin, feathers, all that could give life was consumed in a frenzy. Pointed beaks drained the corpses of their remaining blood. Heads with empty sockets, dangling spines like tails, lay off to the side, but even they were not wasted.


    The vultures exerted themselves fully, prying and gnashing, trying and bashing, straining fingernails and beaks and the strength of their own bones as pliers and hammers against seemingly unopenable craniums. Frantic scratching, bone against bone, bashing head against head, in a display almost as violent as the battle but far less futile. For the skulls did give way, and out spilled teaspoons of gray matter with the consistency of cotton cheese, sometimes wriggling with madness or worms, but mostly blissfully still.


    Dr. Brundle Vepar simply slumped against the wall, pinching his tail and gazing into his prize for a thousand yards. The vultures did not pick at him even once. As still as he was, he was undeniably alive. Frothing with fullness and purpose beneath a still exterior.


    An exterior like a still doll.

 Account 10: A time of monsters (part 1)

    Layer 15: Ripped the Soul


    I awaken melancholy and exhausted for the umpteenth time this week. I don¡¯t know why it is that my eyes fill with tears as soon as they creak open. Or maybe I have too many explanations; each and every time I awoke I could put a different name to the reason for this hollowness. Loss? Anxiety? Just a plain lack of sleep? I don¡¯t know for sure. It could be any one of those, or any combination, or none of them at all. Self awareness is probably entirely out of my depth.


    I probably don¡¯t know myself very well at all. It¡¯s certainly easier to hand the wheel over to the endless carousel of cavorting medicine men, presenting me with their formulas and fullnesses.


    Sunlight. Moonlight. Human¡¯s light. More stress. No, be yourself. Free time. Timetables. Relax. Tense up. Don¡¯t fight it. Take these pills. It gets worse before it gets better. Listen to your body.


    It¡¯s enough to drive anyone off the deep end. The dichotomy, between the self-declared iron-clad objectivity of medical science and the mushy human body, so prone to tear itself apart in the face of logic and code, it all just amplifies the absurdity. Everyone¡¯s just a test subject for their own good. No one knows anything, myself included.


    That¡¯s right. I don¡¯t know anything either. Who¡¯s more likely to be right: a great old field of study, elder to immortality, or someone who had to be taught to think?


    How absurd. How prideful. Disgusting. My left arm throbs with a sharp, heavy pain.


    Bow down.


    My head feels like it¡¯s being pressed by some towering industrial machine, while also being too hard to crack. So instead of opening up peacefully, my scalp burns just below the surface. So hot, it¡¯s tantalizingly close to numbing, but never quite does.


    It might be getting worse, but it¡¯s been like this forever. My head¡¯s always ached like this. My brain¡¯s always swirled, and been swirled, like this. It could be even worse.


    With quivering hands, I extract a single pink capsule from the amber bottle that always seems full. I swallow it dry, with an eyeful of parched and blinding midday light, as I open the door. Stinking plastic and sickly powder draw a chalk line as the pill drags its feet down my dry gullet.


    My head is numb. It still aches, but I can¡¯t feel the throbbing pain, just a pulse. Like the moon over a still sea, the cause remains, but not the effect. The vice grip on my head is still as constraining as ever, but at least it doesn¡¯t hurt.


    I take a sudden left off the sidewalk into a narrow street soaked in cool purple shadow. With the blinding off-white gone, so many little details of the world make themselves seen. They jump out of concrete and stone, like frogs from tall grass. They bare fangs like tiny needles. They whisper in a hissing chorus, something that should have driven me mad but instead actually settled my mind a bit. Their chant speaks to me, in its lyrical prophecy.


    ¡°Come before us, one raised of thorn


    O, sharpened pill and pointed bone horn


    Why dost thou wander, empty, forlorn?


    Speak thine woe and be reborn.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t know why, but I woke up this morning like I¡¯d just beheld a terrible tragedy. It¡¯s like a loose thread in my mind; I can feel wrinkles of gray matter coming undone as I pull at it, desperate to find the source, but it all just disintegrates.¡±


    ¡°Speak to us not of concerns of flesh


    For meat and brain, we have none left


    Speak purely of mind, whole and uncleft


    Our words will guide you on your quest.¡±


    ¡°Well, I suppose I don¡¯t exactly know that my brain is crumbling¡ª


    ¡°AH! The truth, for what you truly perceive


    Is little more than the sum of your belief


    You believe in no line between mind and the meat


    But that¡¯s all backwards, according to me


    This world¡¯s a big one, as I¡¯m sure you¡¯re aware


    Between truth and illusion, a border, a hair


    How can you tell what¡¯s a lie, and what¡¯s actually there?


    What¡¯s objectively present, and what is merely thin air?


    Reach out a hand? How do you know that it¡¯s yours?


    Ask a second perspective? Are other eyes so pure?


    Lean on your friends, on your common rapport


    And believe what you like? I can see the allure.


    But there¡¯s just one problem with solutions like these


    The common affliction ailing humanity


    There are infinite truths, between you and me


    But without love, none can be seen.


    We humans are a species in love with the lens;


    We look through the keyhole and peer over fence


    Look for outstanding evil, to justify our ends


    But behind our own backs, nothing is different.


    Seeing everything would drive one insane!


    Corner of a padded room, babbling, inane


    So what¡¯s the solution? Can I cut through the pain?


    Or will I be empty ¡®till my dying days?


    Seek fullness, seek treasure


    Look for love, control weather;


    It¡¯s all the same, apart or together ¡ª


    AT THE CENTER OF THE SPIRAL IS A VOID.¡±


    I jump. The singsong, multifaceted, rainbow voice of the street faeries morphs into something deep, harsh, and evil; a single beam of blinding white light. Illustri¡ª


    ¡°DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?¡±


    The voice, no, the roar came rushing back into my ears, subcutaneously filling them with ringing static and a torrent of hot blood.


    ¡°DO NOT BOW BEFORE PANOPTICON. KNEEL NOT BEFORE PERCEPTION. THE ALLFOLD PATH LEADS TO DEATH BEYOND IMAGINATION.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d be a l-lot more l-likely to t-take your advice, i-if I knew who you were.¡± My teeth chatter with shock, like my quivering fingertips and unsure legs.


    Because, that¡¯s the thing¡ª the more I hear this voice speak, it¡¯s not so scary; more warmly booming than intimidating. Once the shock wears off, I¡¯m sure I¡¯d be more than happy to discuss things with it.


    ¡°Look, please just say things clearly. I can¡¯t understand otherwise. I¡¯m a Thymoystichius; I¡¯m not supposed to be able to interpret impressions well, or at all really.¡±


    ¡°YOU WILL KNOW SOON ENOUGH. FORGET NOT THIS ENCOUNTER.¡±


    I can¡¯t get a word in edgewise before the Needly Chorus erupts again.


    ¡°Set out, evermore, onward, young raven


    Like Hero Eleven, forthwith determination


    Unchained, but tied, fast to incantation


    Search out a crimson peak for your salvation.¡±


    With those words, the sun hit its midday position, finally drying up the last of those wriggling shadows and the myriad voices with them.


    Ordinarily, I wouldn¡¯t have any clue what to do next. But I actually have a pretty good idea what the ¡°crimson peak¡± is. Among a range of spires, clad in blue-gray haze and shot through with occasional sandstone striation, one bright red tower stands defiantly above the rest, like a trickle of blood from the sky.


    Layer 16: The One Who Will Feel You


    In a matter of steps, too many to count but not enough to take them to the Crimson Tower, Alistair stopped sharply. As if chained in a yard and out of slack. No sooner have they stopped than my vision twists, grows fuzzy, and then fades to a pale black, like a computer screen through closed eyes.


    Something hits the ground with a thunk. The kind of solid, yet resounding noise great stalks or masses of vegetable matter make. The sound of crunchy water-filled cells sloshing into each other like solid waves. Fullness, falling into itself.


    I turn around, expecting to see food refuse or limp compost dropped from a far-away window. Some decaying pile of green and brown. I didn¡¯t expect to see a person, much less one dressed so resplendently, standing there in velvety crimson robes. Dark hair, like blinding thorns over his eyes, but still definitely looking at me with a stare like a hawk¡¯s.


    He covers the dozen or so feet between us in a blink. ¡°Hey, Alistair,¡± he says by way of greeting. But I can¡¯t hear the rest of his words, because he reaches out an empty hand¡ª


    Augustus¡¯s touch covetously drips to my left arm like molten metal, making contact that should have wicked my skin aflame. I should have melted like wax, judging from the pain, sharp enough to repel my arm from his grasp almost instinctively.


    I immediately feel stupid for allowing it. Of course, his touch didn¡¯t leave so much as a mark of reddened tenderness. Though it felt like white-hot metal plunged into my arm, to any third-party observer, I¡¯d look crazy for reacting as I did.


    I swear though, for just a minute, I saw flesh slough away like a thick liquid, blood evaporating, and¡ªsilhouetted against a hot glow like a sunset¡ªa collection of tiny metal rings locked between the two bones of my forearm.


    But of course, no such thing had happened. Despite what flashed before my eyes, my left arm is in unmarred continuity with the flesh around it.


    I look up from the arm I''ve been dumbly staring at for who-knows-how-long, back into a newly formed distance between myself and Augustus. I must have stumbled back without thinking, but so far? Or, alternatively, such a short distance? It¡¯d make sense for me to have reacted like I¡¯d been bitten, or else to run for a distance, but creating this middling distance would do no good in the face of a real threat. So, it couldn¡¯t be true instinct that drove me back.


    Ah. I¡¯m going fuckin¡¯ nuts.


    ¡°Uh, Alistair? You okay?¡± Augustus¡¯s words finally reach me. I have no idea how much he¡¯s said that I¡¯ve just ignored. I really must seem crazy.


    ¡°Yeah, yes, I¡¯m fine. Sorry about that. I just¡­ must have bruised that arm or something.¡± It¡¯s a terrible lie, one that doesn¡¯t even begin to cover my reaction, but it¡¯s got to be better than no explanation at all. ¡°What are the chances of seeing you here, huh? I was just going to¡­¡±


    Well, that¡¯s not good. I¡¯m trying to regain normalcy in this conversation, and I can¡¯t remember where it was I was expecting to see him. Was it the hospital? No, they hadn¡¯t wanted to see me for a while.


    Augustus stands before me, head tilted slightly, looking at me with softly concerned, hidden eyes. Eyes I cannot see, but know I can trust.


    ¡°I don¡¯t remember. Well, I was going to see you, but I don¡¯t remember where, or why. I just knew I needed to see you, like a string or a rope was pulling me towards you.¡±


    The corners of Augustus¡¯s mouth curl upwards in an amused grin, sending wrinkles just past the scarf that hides the bottom half of his face into the cheekbone borderlands beneath his blinding, tangled mane. ¡°Geez,¡± he said, breathily¡ªno, while sighing, ¡°you¡¯d think you could remember something as important as a fight to the death for justice.¡± His disappointed words were betrayed by a playfully chiding tone. ¡°I envy you. You must have an exciting life, for something like that to slip through the cracks.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not like that!¡± I slip into his groove. ¡°Well, maybe it kind of is. I¡¯ve just had a lot going on, and I can¡¯t keep up with it all.¡±


    ¡°Is that so.¡± He doesn¡¯t ask it, really, he states it, more bluntly and teasingly. Head tilted back more than normal, to look up at me down his nose.


    ¡°Yes! Well, I¡¯m going to join you. If you¡¯ll have me. Please.¡±


    ¡°And so I join you, as you join my Lunar Insurrection.¡± Augustus smiled, saying ordinary words like a rehearsed incantation.


    And that¡¯s it. There is no flash of lightning, or rumbling of the heavens, no dramatic shaking of the numbing gray norm. I am now sworn to another¡¯s ideal, by my own volition. It makes sense; fail to produce a reason to live, and you eventually latch onto another¡¯s golden veins of purpose. Sate your thirst; let your empty husk be filled.


    ¡°Well, we should probably have some way of contacting each other, besides chance encounters. Do you know the forum group Salomon.is? There are some interesting resources on there. If you get the chance, check it out. I¡¯m usually on the more news-focused boards, gathering intel. The stuff about street-level info is usually just a bunch of hoaxes at best and malicious disinformation at worst; stay FAR away from that. My username, for the time being, is C4rdinal, but I¡¯m at risk of deletion. This is dangerous work!¡±


    That slight bit of uncertainty flies from his lips like a feather, eventually settling in my stomach. This is, I think, the first time it¡¯s really hit me that this is something real. It¡¯s not a call to adventure like in the movies; I¡¯m making a life decision here. Words I¡¯ve never heard before spring to my mind; dramatic phrases like quotations I¡¯ve never read. They mush together in writhing masses of veiny purple metaphor, and the inside of my head starts seeping and running like sickening ink.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry.¡± Augustus looks at me with softened eyes, a hand on my shoulder. ¡°We¡¯re more tightly knit than the Church of the Sun could ever be. Everyone by my side joined me by choice, and stays by choice. In that, we have an advantage beyond numbers or influence.¡±


    ¡°Well, I feel better about that, at least.¡±


    ¡°As you should. Now, we are severely outnumbered, and relatively unknown. Before you met me, did you ever know of the Lunar Insurrection? I assume you knew of the Sun Church, though maybe not their specific crimes¡ª¡±


    ¡°I knew all about them.¡± I don¡¯t tell him that I chalked up the stories to exaggerations, even when evidence was right in front of my face. Evidence like Luna, torn to shreds by her own will to fight. Evidence like doctors preoccupied by the sky, of all things. A thousand more pieces of past, all connecting by golden strings before my eyes. They cross each other, weaving and almost tangling as they create a tapestry meant to carry current. Igniting current. A theory that sets me ablaze internally, filling me with golden flame.


    ¡°Yes. I¡¯ve always known, but before today, I did nothing.¡±


    ¡°Well, today is as good a day as any to start.¡±


    I don¡¯t have any words.


    It¡¯s common knowledge that the best way to start improving is to stop declining. But it¡¯s like I¡¯m hearing it for the first time.


    No. It¡¯s being said to me for the first time. It¡¯s been said in my vicinity, to my face, and within earshot; ostensibly ¡°to me.¡± But this¡­ this is the first time it feels like advice rather than applied platitude. But who cares how it fee¡ª


    ¡°Well then! With that, let¡¯s get you acquainted with everyone!¡± Augustus interrupts my train of thought, though it¡¯s not an entirely unwelcome interruption. He gestures grandly to a set of square double doors, stained a deep reddish brown. They¡¯re vaguely familiar, like I¡¯ve seen them in a recurring dream or looked past them a million times. I¡¯m so caught up in my thoughts I almost don¡¯t notice them open automatically. That should be impractical for such heavy slabs of wood, but maybe they¡¯re lighter than they look. Or maybe it¡¯s just the anachronism, such old-fashioned doors opening automatically, that sets me off.


    Layer 17: Dissolve


    Beyond the doors lies another implacably fanciful scene of mundanity. People stand scattered, like chess pieces mid-game, on tiles alternating white and red. The ceiling is so high, it¡¯s a wonder the chandeliers can manage to light the place at all. Their intensely electric glow nevertheless stretches to the pinstripes of velvet in the crimson walls and even manages to make the floor tiles gleam. With the room being decorated in such cohesive colors, the inevitably-clashing ensembles of the crowd below should have ruined the almost hypnotic effect; but if anything, the varying hues all synchronized very nicely to create an iridescent sheen to the bottom of this picture.


    The air wavers. Not with heat¡ªthe entrance hall retains a comfortable temperature despite the crowd¡ªbut in a way almost suggesting a ripple through the atmosphere


    Were those staircases always there? The balcony was, but the staircases? Those ivory banisters, so shockingly bisecting the monolithic vermillion, should have made an impression long before now.


    Maybe I was just distracted by the crowd. Yeah, that has to be it. It¡¯s like that dream that used to play again and again, almost nightly in retrospect; the one where I stood, unapproachable, and lost myself gazing at stains in an unfamiliar ceiling. I guess I just open myself to the suggestion of aimless haze in gatherings like these.


    Before I know it, I¡¯m inside, over the threshold and beneath the ceiling that stretched to the sky. One foot on a red tile, one on white. Ugh. That¡¯s gonna bug me. I try to match my feet on the red tile in front of me, and wind up turning myself around. Again, I take a stretched step, over the inverted set of tiles directly in front of me and into the next matching pair. This time, I take care to put my feet as close together as possible¡­ but my caution goes unrewarded. In the pointed oval between the arches of my boots, there¡¯s a sliver of dichotomy, stark and mocking like a jester¡¯s tunic. Red and white.


    I lost track of how many times I tried to stand on just one tile, and how many methods I used besides. Shuffling my feet almost worked, until I tried to nudge the last stubborn sliver of my heel free from the red tile. But on the last twisting heave, I pulled a little too hard and crumpled into the scarlet square. Maybe I was too frantic, too emboldened by my nearing victory against the impossible floor; but either way, when I got to my feet, each was firmly planted in different colored tiles.


    I eventually find myself at the leftmost of the twin stairways that trace the rounded edges of the semicircular room. Vermillion carpet tumbles down the steep steps, shot through with brighter red lines that draw my gaze against the current and to the balcony. Overlooking it all, our host. From this distance he¡¯s a pillar of a man, faceless and featureless beneath scarlet fabrics and a mask of dark bangs like brambles. Despite appearances, he¡¯s apparently especially alert as he waves me over excitedly.


    Once I¡¯m in earshot, he allows his sharply overlooking decorum to fully melt away.  ¡°Alistair! Come here! I¡¯ve been wanting to show you this since we first met. Trust me¡ªit¡¯s much more fun than anything out here.¡± He pushes aside a thick velvet curtain the same color as the walls, one I didn¡¯t even notice from the bottom of the stairs. ¡°After you.¡±


    I guess this has something to do with being a strategist. So, without asking any questions, I duck under Augustus¡¯s arm and into the dark hallway.


    ¡°Follow me,¡± he requests, and I do, past dim orange sconces and mahogany doors bleeding navy blue in the dark. From there, our countless muffled footfalls are the only thing breaking a comfortable silence. My Ariadne leads me through turn after turn, left, right, left again, never opening any of the alluring doors that flank us on our journey.


    At some point, we come to a hall of windows. A clear night has fallen since entering this hidden labyrinth, and its descent dredged up a moon one sliver away from fullness. Drawing my eyes back in from the window, they snag on a familiar captivating ceiling. It weaves a golden tapestry under pale blue and deep shadow. But a duelling glamor interrupts my fall up into the rabbit hole. Augustus finally unlatches a door, directly behind me.


    In the second it takes me to glance over, he¡¯s slipped out of view, leaving an almost-empty door frame behind. Through the portal, I can only see a single wavering light, tempting death as it dances freely in place. A candle. One candle, in an otherwise pitch-black room.


    More things come into view as I grow closer. Gnarled piles of antlers in each dusty back corner. Feathers, no, entire wings dangling from the ceiling on thin strings, in a fractured parody of flight. A gleaming bronze ornament shaped like a tree, each of its many boughs capped off with tiny glass bottles.  The far wall is the last thing to make itself seen. It ¡®s mostly the same velvety wine-red as the rest of the walls, save for one giant dark gray curtain directly opposite the door. Augustus steps forward¡ªhe was waiting along the wall, right next to the door¡ªand unceremoniously pulls the curtain down, snapping rings and pulling anchors from drywall with repeated, maddened, entirely silent tugs.


    ¡°THEY¡¯RE DEMONS! THERE ARE DEMONS IN YOUR COMPUTERS! YOUR SCREEN IS A HELLMOU¡ª¡±


    A red blur, a sickening crack, and the unhinged voice falls silent. A Church Hunter appeared, seemingly from thin air but truthfully from the thick inky shadow. It shrinks into a crouch over the unconscious madman, muttering something the whole time. I don¡¯t need to hear what it¡¯s saying to know the Incantation of Ritual Justice. In the name of Father Sun, we find thee guilty of crimes against an aspect of the Solar Presence. Golden One, please forgive this foul fractured outcast, in your prominence. The creature¡¯s silence is evidence enough of guilt. Amen and adjourned.


    Another crack rang out, and then another, and another. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. The Hunter didn¡¯t stop. Thwack. Thwack. Thwhelch. A breakthrough, perhaps of skin through bone. The resounding evidence of brutality grows wetter and wetter until it sounds like great sucking steps through a marsh of gore.


    Layer 18: Silent Torment


    I blink a couple of times. There¡¯s¡­ something shapeless in my head, a silvery glowing mist going from my eyes through my brain down to the back of my neck, like some concussive cataract clouding vision and perception at once. I feel like I could float away at any moment, like I could disintegrate from the inside out. Is this how it feels to be one of those shuddering homunculi? Although, I don¡¯t remember where I¡¯ve seen it, an image of a pale, rail-thin Vitruvian Man, strung up on a wall, shivering so hard its spread limbs might just snap off¡ª


    A sickening crack interrupts my thoughts.


    I bite my tongue to hold back a gasp.


    Tongue still clenched beneath my teeth, I turn a corner and come upon the nightmarish scene. A Church Hunter, perched like a vulture over a collapsed human form. And to its back, a forest of spores glowing a sickly pale green. They sit like eyes on stalks, eyes that can somehow giggle with full and earnest joy. The Church Hunter stands in a flourish of its bright red cape, pulls out, no, materializes one of its guns, and starts beating the jumbled pile of limbs in front of it until they don¡¯t even have that shape. It¡¯s sickening. It¡¯s sickening, and yet, I can¡¯t look away.


    I¡¯m always like this.


    Transfixed by evil things, like those strung-up flesh constructs tearing themselves to bits. I can never act. I¡¯m damned by the will to freeze, and pride myself on never fleeing. But it¡¯s not like I fight. Not at first. I have to talk myself into it, each and every time.


    When you subtract the unthinkable, whatever¡¯s left, no matter how undesirable, must be the correct action to take.


    I constructed this saying a long time ago. I fished it out of golden ideals and quicksilver ether, bit by bit, and then hung it up on the inside of my head. A mantra, for when my feet refuse to move and my blood refuses to flow.


    I don¡¯t even have to recite it anymore. Which is good, because I no longer have a tongue. The inside of my mouth filled with heat and the taste of copper. Splat. The blood rapidly drained from its now-fractured basin: my jaw, split into writhing mandibles. From the stump of my tongue, a thin cartilaginous tube unfurled. It should be horribly painful, but it isn¡¯t anymore. The sensation of cold wind hitting my palette from below used to feel like a violation; now, I hardly notice.


    I can¡¯t notice, because I have to act.


    In a step, the distance between myself and my target halves, then halves again and again. Before I know it, I¡¯ve overshot the Church Hunter, and it¡¯s alerted to my presence. But it doesn¡¯t matter¡ªI can fly. I can move in a dimension these programmed instances of a mind can¡¯t even wrap their¡ª no, its head around. This is going to be easy.


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    Then why did you hesitate to act?


    For a second, my steps upward¡ªwait, no, flaps, steps taken with the wings are called flaps¡ª pause, just long enough for the Church Hunter to get me in its sights. And with a tinny blast, I¡¯m spiraling to the ground on wings like hole-punched paper. The swirling seconds seem like hours in free fall. Where did I go wrong?


    That¡¯s pretty obvious; I damned myself the second I overthought my actions.


    I know that action comes before philosophizing, but I can¡¯t seem to put that into practice.


    These wings are useless if my brain is chained to the ground.


    Images flash through my mind. That little girl with her disintegrating teddy bear. The stranger in the purple cloak who looked at me with glittering eyes. The homunculi on the walls, the surviving ones who thanked me for rescuing them, who called me a hero.


    Why am I remembering that now? Why am I only just remembering that now?


    No. I won¡¯t do this again. It doesn¡¯t matter why. All that matters is that I did, in fact, remember those people who looked upon me as a hero.


    The spiral inside my head doesn¡¯t stop there. As I spin internally, my body goes into a corkscrew in the opposite direction. Physically, I progress. Mentally, I look back. I look back on a time I¡¯d forgotten, or maybe just not let myself remember. And I don¡¯t see a thing. I don¡¯t see a thing I don¡¯t already know. I know I saved those homunculi, because I wouldn¡¯t be able to live with myself if I hadn¡¯t.


    That¡¯s right. I see it. From behind, as if looking over my own shoulder, I see something terrifying, something stretched and pale and dripping with folds of skin like wax, thanking me for saving it.


    Even if it was just that one I saved, that one homunculus¡¯s continued life is proof of my own.


    There¡¯s no reason to stop now. Even if I failed to save one person today, I have to fight for the chance to save someone tomorrow.


    Sight returns to me. I¡¯ve unthinkingly pierced the Church Hunter in the gap between helmet and neck guard. I¡¯ve shot it through with a giant needle. Shot it through the bottom of the chin. My extended proboscis crinkles with each stinging, heavy breath I take. Hungrily, devouring oxygen even as it feels like it¡¯s tearing my throat apart. The crinkling stops. Any section of papery membrane that came in contact with the black mud beneath the Hunter¡¯s armor has been sucked away by its viscosity. It¡¯s long gone now.


    Parts of me, mind and body, are long gone.


    My memories of saving the homunculus, actually taking the actions to save it, are rotting, rotting  with scraps of my mouth and the powdery scales from my wings. All that remains is the vague shape of someone called Luna Elise Lavenza, and the mind that knows herself as such. But¡ªand this is the time for these kinds of thoughts¡ªwhy? Why is a fractured version of me still seen as, and expected to be the same person? Is it even wrong to assume I¡¯m the same person? Have I changed so much, from the person I was when I saved that homunculus?


    No, I¡¯ve definitely changed. And just as a tattered shirt is no longer a shirt, but a rag, I am something other than the Luna who was born into this world. I am no longer a human, but a hero, something with an entirely different purpose compared to a human. I am not alive to live, or to know love, or to look at the stars. If it wasn¡¯t necessary to stay alive, I wouldn¡¯t eat or sleep or breathe. I have to improve.


    I have to be better than the Luna who froze and let so many people die.


    Because I¡¯ve traded normalcy for this strange purpose, I must achieve it perfectly.


    The stone wall behind me, studded with spores as it is, rots into phosphorescent powder with an earthy crack like roots being pulled from the ground. Behind it, a tunnel stretches into a pale green haze. The walls are lined with craggy stones, and even from here it stinks like plants and animals rotting together as one writhing mass. No, not just plants and animals; it smells like the world itself rotting, like dirt and stone and meat and wood all falling into a shapeless pulp together.


    When presented with the entrance to a dungeon, there¡¯s only one thing a hero can do.


    The ground (floor?) inside is a mass of hyper flat stone and steel slabs, slick with moss and stale moisture. Each step is a massive effort; every footfall has to be at least roughly parallel to the ground, so I have to lift my knees up and outward mechanically. It feels wrong, but not as wrong as the ground sliding beneath normal steps.The hazy, bile-colored glow in the distance is like an underground horizon. I never approach the source no matter how far I advance, but I never walk in the dark, either; I¡¯m surrounded by these tiny floating lights, wispy and willowy and bathing my surroundings in an almost neon phosphorescence. They feel almost like a kindred presence guiding me along, and despite it all, I almost feel like I¡¯m dreaming, or walking through a garden of some kind. It¡¯s nice, in the way being sad or sick is when you know someone will comfort you. Slightly uncomfortable, but certainly not the worst place to be in for a little while.


    Hours pass. The utter silence starts to wear on me. My careful steps ensure not even the clack of shoes on stones break up the moments. These lights that once seemed so friendly turn my stomach now, almost mocking the sun with their green-stained attempt at off-white. Is my heart even still beating, with nothing to time itself to? Am I even alive? Is the endless expanse of silent fog depriving me of my life as well as my sense of space? Why do I even bother taking these exaggerated steps on my numbed legs? Forward, ever forward, again and again, for what? All I can hope for is a spark of pain. Why won¡¯t my legs protest my unnatural gait? Why do they stubbornly hand me step after perfect, monotonous step?


    It¡¯s hopeless.


    ¡°It¡¯s hopeless, it¡¯s hopeless, it¡¯s hopeless, it¡¯s hopeless¡­¡±


    A chorus rings out, echoing off the hard stone walls.


    No, that¡¯s not right. The voice is coming from the walls. The walls. The walls¡ª


    The walls are a chattering mess of clattering teeth and clacking jaws. Yes, jaws; what I thought were stones upon first entering are actually¡­ skulls. Piles and piles of skulls. Crumbling, dilapidated crania, each one a now-abandoned home to a human mind.


    ¡°Oh, so you¡¯ve finally noticed us. Welcome to the Maze Of Rot, where demons gather! Although¡­ You don¡¯t seem to be a demon. Are you? No, what are we saying, you¡¯re not a demon to us. But to the people above us, you just might be.¡±


    ¡°I know the Sun Church has designated me an Instance of Gremory. I don¡¯t need you wasting my time, telling me things I already know.¡±


    ¡°So, you¡¯re aware, you¡¯re aware, are you? Good, good, goodgoodgood, that saves us a lot of time. You don¡¯t want us to waste your time, so that¡¯s good. You don¡¯t want us to ¡®waste your time telling you things you already know¡¯; would it be a waste of your time, to tell you things you don¡¯t know?¡±


    ¡°Obviously not, so long as it¡¯s helpful.¡±


    ¡°What is helpful? Do you want us to tell you where you are, where you¡¯re going, where you¡¯ve been? What lies beyond life, what lies beyond death, what sleeps below and above you? What lives on the surface of the moon and the core of the sun, what makes you who you are? Between us, we know everything. But we¡¯re not telling! No, we can¡¯t tell you everything. We can tell you one thing, for now; one question, answered with poisoned decorum and chattering poise. So, ask away, dear Instance of Gremory.¡±


    I¡¯m really in no mood. This kind of excessive presentation is the kind of thing that slows me down, freezes me in place. It¡¯s no different than picking apart my thoughts in the heat of battle; just a waste. ¡°Can you tell me how to get out of here?¡±


    Yes. After all, this place is¡­ it¡¯s sick. It¡¯s steeped in sickness, and that sickness is seeping into me in turn.


    ¡°Why do you want to know that? We saw you, we did, you walked right into the Catacombs, without a moment¡¯s hesitation, you just walked right in there. Why? Why do you want to leave now? Why not stay a while longer? Stay, stay with these old bones for a while, attempt to atone, or just enjoy our home!¡± The walls let out a chattering cackle.


    ¡°I want to leave because I¡¯m not feeling well. It¡¯s not really any of your business, but that doesn¡¯t matter. Now can I go?¡±


    ¡°Why would you want to go? Do you think, oh, wethinks she does, the little moth thinks she¡¯s going to feel better in the fresh air? In the night sky? Does she think she needs the moon to feel better? No, no, no no no; in here, this is just like the moon, this is the cosmos in microcosm, this is the whole wide sky bottled up and put in a tunnel, just for your drinking pleasure! Come on, down the hatch! Keep walking and you¡¯ll feel better!¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯re just going to be a headache, I¡¯ll keep walking until I get to the end of this tunnel. No matter how long it takes, there has to be an end. If the sky is contained down here, there has to be a bottom to this bottle.¡±


    The voices adopt a new singsong tone. ¡°Maybe there is, and maybe there isn¡¯t; we don¡¯t know¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t screw with me! You¡¯re the walls of this place; you have to know. Why wouldn¡¯t you know? You go all the way down and all the way back up; you know fully well there is a point where this sick tunnel ends.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re not the ¡®walls of this place,¡¯ no, we aren¡¯t. We¡¯re just skulls. We¡¯re just people. We¡¯re just lives, subjective experiences, chemical reactions. We never thought we had to ¡°know¡± everything, or save everyone, or anything stupid like that, no, we never looked up to the moon or the sun or the stars and thought ¡®mmmm, yes, we belong up there,¡¯ we never pretended to be something more than human or less than human or post-human; we just lived and died, in peace and happieness.¡±


    ¡°...I see.¡±


    I don¡¯t get it, though, not really. How can anyone be so proud of their indifference? In a world like this, so full-to-bursting with pain and tragedy and death, how can you live without a constant blistering anger? How can you say you¡¯re alive without that basic reaction? It¡¯s simple; everyone knows people shouldn¡¯t be killed for being sick, or acting out harmlessly. What¡¯s the point of being a part of the human species if you can¡¯t even acknowledge that simple truth?


    To tell you the truth, I want to tear these walls of skulls down. They¡¯re starting to look a whole lot like enemies. I don¡¯t even see individual bones when I look at them anymore. In the shadowy gaps between skulls, I see the slit visors in those terrible bucket-shaped helmets turned sideways. The faces just become texture over one mass of black mud, hiding behind a death mask.


    I want to tear down these piles of chattering grinning armor, dig into them with fury, like some clawed beast. But just when I approach the wall¡ª


    ¡°I apologize for them.¡±


    A resounding, soft voice, at once comforting and controlling. Reassuring. Motherly, but not doting.


    ¡°Please forgive them. I¡¯m afraid it¡¯s not often we get visitors, so they¡¯re not very¡­ approachable.¡±


    She talks about the skulls like they¡¯re her pets.


    ¡°Please, let me get you something to drink, at least.¡±


    A skull, directly in front of me, with its mouth at eye level, starts to¡ª


    Oh.


    It starts to hack up something. Little crumbles of something brown and shriveled, like a giant raisin, fall out through the bottom of its mandible. Suddenly, it lunges forward on a snakelike spine, curling up and then sharply back down again. Locking hollow sockets on my own eyes from above, like a twisted-up gargoyle. With scarcely a creak by way of warning, a torrent of a liquid like pearlescent milk pours forth from its hollowly unhinged maw. The stream hits my face hard, a sharp coldness pushing past my loosely closed lips, down my throat, out through my nose. It¡¯s so hypnotically sweet that I instinctively gasped at its first appearance to capture even a wisp of its¡­ grace? That grace damned me; now, trying to plug my mouth shut is useless against the flood. My mouth fills, then my stomach, and my throat, as more pours ever forth. More of this hazy stuff that makes my head spin and my skin tingle. What is this, anyway?


    As if reading my thoughts, the voice again worms in through my ears.


    ¡°You are drinking Soma, the milk of the Moon. Relax. It¡¯s ok. You were born in the Moon¡¯s light, and so her milk will help you to grow. Ignore the sensation of the Soma clashing with you. Does the body, mind, or soul of Luna Elise Lavenza feel any better? Healed, perhaps? Maybe even improved? Do you think you¡¯ve improved?¡± She asks these last questions coaxingly, like she already knows the answer and just wants me to confirm it.


    It doesn¡¯t matter. It¡¯s not like I can answer, not with my mouth perpetually full of sickly fumes and frothy liquid. My footing shakes on the already slick ground, or maybe it¡¯s my head spinning; either way, it doesn¡¯t free me from the vomiting faucet that almost seems to follow me. Celestially. Like the Moon.


    My face is numb from the cold, completely prickling with a thousand little needles, and I can barely think, I¡¯m so dizzy.


    The walls ripple. The floor seems to swim beneath my feet¡ªno, I¡¯m sinking through it, straight through it and into something far less stable than stone. And yet, I can move through solid rock as if it were nothing more than fog. If anything, despite the somewhat unstable footing, it¡¯s actually easier to walk on the mossy-seeming ¡°second floor¡± than the sheer, slick stone slabs I had grown (almost) accustomed to.


    So, I press on as I have. But it¡¯s not entirely that simple.


    About fifty steps down the catacombs, my head starts to spin, counter to the direction the walls were but around twice as fast. It¡¯s not that it¡¯s dizzying; despite the speed difference, the two effects have a kind of dissonant effect that cancels out the feeling of movement. No, the problem is the movement itself. When the issue was all in my eyes, I could write it off as an effect of the Soma and move on; now, though, my head may as well be turning on a point. It certainly feels that way.


    I can¡¯t even tell which way is forward anymore. I¡¯ll have to trust these walls, gelatinous as they appear to be, to lead me to either the bottom of, or exit from, the catacombs. But when I go to steady myself on the shattered monolith of skulls, something unexpected happens; my hand sinks through, as my foot did to the floor, to a wall bearing a familiar springy texture. It¡¯s just like the second floor.


    This might be a bad idea.


    It might be a bad idea, but I have to try.


    I place my second hand on (in?) the wall, and approach slowly. Slack builds up in my elbows, and before I know it, my head is inside the wall of skulls.


    It¡¯s unbelievable.


    The air is thick with humidity, and warm enough to lull me into a daze almost instantly. Everything is bathed in a silvery glow, like a midsummer¡¯s daydream, and the light just keeps splashing off every glamorous pearlescent surface. It¡¯s¡­ It¡¯s a palace. There¡¯s no other way to put it; this room is a monument to some silver nobility known only in dreams. Columns, gilded in silver and shining iridescence, stretch far above my head to a vaulted ceiling higher than the stars. The floor, now solidly beneath my feet, is a frozen sea of cream-colored marble tiles, shot through with rivers of silver tears. Before me lies an austere room, bare like a mausoleum save for a single chair.


    No, a throne. Four elaborate silver legs hold up an empty seat of velvet, dark blue like the night sky, and a back-rest to match. The silver frame is covered with engraved images of somethings like flowers¡­ sea creatures? It seems that way. Jellyfish, anemones, slugs like flowers; and in between, gleaming patterns, nonetheless rough to the touch, that evoke corals of all varieties. Maybe it''s the blue-approaching-purple velvet, maybe it''s the delicateness of the creatures carved into its silver, or maybe it''s just the glimmering aura around the whole thing, like a pearl found in a daydream. It reminds me of... Alistair, that kid in the purple cloak, the person who seemed so broken and burning with pathos. Thinking about them again brings a heavy moisture to my eye, one I can''t even feel until it grows too heavy for my eyelashes to bear and it rolls down my cheek.


    I can¡¯t help it.


    Sobbing, I approach the throne.


    Layer 19: Jasmine And Rose


    In the space Augustus has just opened, there stands a golden statue. It¡¯s easily six feet tall, but it stands above me on a stone base about a foot high. It still seems like¡­ somehow, like this undeniably static object is looking down at me, reaching out its hand to me, like it¡¯s offering me its grace. It¡¯s sculpted with a certain prominence, a nobility above any throne. There¡¯s a feeling of love in its craftsmanship that goes beyond artistic passion and into fanaticism. Pride in one¡¯s work would manifest in slow, careful hammer strikes, whereas the fervent reverence with which this¡­ thing was made has left its entire body textured with tiny, constant, uniform craters. Despite this, it still gleams in the low candlelight, casting flickering and warped reflections on the narrow walls of its home alcove. Its outstretched right hand almost touches my nose with the still, cold tip of a delicate finger.


    That hand.


    That hand, contorted like a dead spider, yet still undeniably beckoning me in tableau, opens up like a mouth. If it were made of flesh, it would have glistened with serum before giving way to crimson saturation; but this is a metal hand. It¡¯s a metal hand, so it¡¯s perfectly normal that the outer layer should slough away like that. There¡¯s a mesh frame underneath, more bronze than the gold skin, but surprisingly still as reflective. The fractured candlelight bounces around inside, sometimes flitting up into the hollow arm for the briefest moments, but mostly falling on the walls as radiant pinpricks.


    ¡°That¡¯s supposed to happen,¡± Augustus reassures me. Those are the first words he¡¯s said to me since we left the entrance hall. And they¡¯re betrayed, too, by his giddy grin and by the suppressed mania staining his tone.


    As if on cue, though, something else starts to happen. Those tiny fiery stars cast about by the mesh start to grow dim; the air itself seems to be getting thicker. No, not thicker, but redder. Redder. So much redder. Like the candles have fallen over and risen up to consume the room; but they¡¯re still the same as ever. Little waxy white soldiers standing faithfully at attention with their heads on fire. No, the air is red because something red is mixing with the oxygen in a way light just can¡¯t.


    Saffron-colored mystic mist


    Venting from the fingertips


    Of solar golden prominence


    Something rings in the back of my head. There are circles in the back of my mind; so many tiny thin circles bumping into each other, ringing out, colliding with the top of my spine, tearing a path like clattering ripples. At first, it seems like a textbook case of pool-table chaos theory, but no¡ª they¡¯re resonating. Eventually their message makes itself heard over the fading superfluous din.


    It¡¯s so simple.


    It¡¯s so simple, and so stupid.


    If anything like that could work, it would have done so already.


    Either way, I¡¯ve heard it a million times.


    That simple, crunchy, almost raspy beat; plainly electronic, I¡¯ve heard it a million times. It¡¯s boring. It¡¯s not interesting. There¡¯s nothing impressive about it.


    And the words? The words are nothing. Nonsense about heaviness, vast skies, various specific flowers, all the same things I''ve heard so many times before. I¡¯m not interested; it¡¯s just nonsense. Trite, immature metaphor. Spit it out already. I don¡¯t care about the sky. I don¡¯t need wings. I don¡¯t want to fly, or think about flying; I don¡¯t want anything


    The song grows quiet, and a voice speaks over it, though only barely.


    What are you so afraid of? You think there are demons in the computer?


    What?


    You think there¡¯s something wrong with what the computer brings you. It has to be demons in the computer, right? It¡¯s the only explanation for these Unsee occult images shot into pulsing electronica, asking to grant your wish. And this is a crossroads, right? So make your deal with the Devil and stop holding up the line.


    Stop that. You sound crazy. I¡¯m not crazy.


    That¡¯s right. I¡¯m not crazy.


    No, I think you are. I¡¯m not.


    Well, I¡¯m as sane as you are.


    I can¡¯t be crazy.


    Anyone can be.


    I tried so hard to pass their tests. I¡¯m not crazy, I¡¯m a genius. They love me, or at least, the smart ones do.


    If you¡¯re so smart, then how come you¡¯re here? Talking to yourself in your head, playing a game of conversational ping-pong with a swirling counteractive force?


    You¡¯re not real. At the very least, you¡¯re not a real part of me.


    You¡¯re acknowledging my existence. And I am replying. That makes me real enough. Can you say the same?


    What?


    What are you, beyond ¡°the will to be considered valid?¡± Do you have an identity of your own? Personality traits? Likes and dislikes, that you would stick to even if someone smart disagreed? Do you have any taste? Goals? Dreams? Desires? What about¡ª


    Stop it.


    Wishes?


    ¡°Please, just stop. I don¡¯t want anything, least of all to be asked what I want. Please, stop, just don¡¯t worry about it.¡± I¡¯m so impassioned that I speak my thoughts out loud, shattering the string pulling me into my head.


    Even if I had a wish, so many other people deserve that chance more than I do. So many people who have been wounded or lost family to the Church Hunters, people who have lost everything, so many people who never had anything to begin with. A whole world out there.


    A whole world of people who don¡¯t need to be anything in particular to be worth a damn.


    People who can dumbly drift from place to place, with the label of ¡°Sun¡± or ¡°Moon¡± as a magic ticket out of being seen as a freak. People who can like things without having to consciously suppress their interest. People who are allowed to have passions without being analyzed, or asked why. People who are allowed to dream without being some ¡°inspiration¡± to the ¡°drifty-minded Thymoystichius,¡± without the pressure of spotlights and pedestals. People without any chains under their skin. People who are allowed to live.


    If you wanted, you could be that. Or at least, you could work to make that an option.


    ¡°...I don¡¯t want that.¡± But why?


    Why... don¡¯t I want that?


    Because that world has been baked into me, and I¡¯ve been baked into it. It¡¯s a part of me, and not an irrelevant one. The world does inform some things about me. My fascinating ability to flow, from metaphor to metaphor and topic to topic? That¡¯s something only a Thymoystichius could possess. We shouldn¡¯t get so hung up on things like ¡°making sense¡± to anyone but ourselves.


    But that¡¯s just selfish.


    You¡¯re talking to yourself. Of course you¡¯re going to wind up selfish. Both parties are the same person; we make up 200% of this conversation. Make a single concession to me, let me get one word in, and you¡¯ve been twice as self-indulgent as you could be by talking for an hour to one other person. But you just let me keep going, so I guess you must really like yourself.


    I don¡¯t think you¡¯re me. You exist, but you¡¯re not me.


    I am, but that¡¯s ok. What are you gonna do when you wake up?


    Wake up?


    You think anyone could do this and still be conscious? Tell me, what do you see?


    I see¡­ I see a hollow sun. A hollow sun, and a beach, and a visible aura of pain because my head is throbbing to the beat of a drum machine. I see a field of crosses sticking out of the sand, and I see¡­ A woman dressed all in black, standing among them.


    Interesting. You think there¡¯s any place like that outside of your dreams?


    There could be. I don¡¯t know everything; everyone knows that.


    What do you think?


    I don¡¯t know.


    Fine. What will you do when you can no longer see the beach? When you see the statue again, and Augustus, and the candles and the antlers and the feathers and the red walls? What will you do then?


    I don¡¯t know. Whatever I end up doing, I suppose.


    You¡¯re hopeless.


    And with that, the dream I didn¡¯t even know I was having shatters around me. The last thing I feel is a tiny warm hand folded inside my spindly and freezing grasp; and then even that heat fades away.


    In its place, an emptiness rushes in like cold water. A vacuum filling me with nothing. My left arm is little more than a mummified string of linked bones; at least it feels that way. I can¡¯t actually see anything. Before me is an endless expanse of white, like a photo negative of a view behind closed eyes. It¡¯s the nothingness of eyes opened too wide, the void wrought by trying to see everything. But I don¡¯t want to see, or know, everything. I know that¡¯s not possible.


    A terrifying image fills the space in an instant. It¡¯s not of anything in particular; but it glistens like open flesh or polished stone, some color between purple and rusty brown. Striated, shot through with deep blue, a tableau of swirling shapelessness. What¡¯s before me is a contradiction, something that cannot exist. And it doesn¡¯t; I know it doesn¡¯t. It¡¯s only an image of something, not that thing itself.


    The image disappears, and is replaced in an instant. This time, it''s a picture of a pile of objects in a dark corner, lit only by a harsh camera flash. Some of them are hard and defined, some are light and feathery, others still gleam wetly. All of them are neutral toned; some blend in with the off-white carpet, others are a deep, ashy gray, and still others are a silky brown that approaches gold. But for all I can describe them, none of the objects have a name. That fabricy-looking thing is like a lampshade, but it¡¯s half-inverted and looks like it¡¯s melting. Sure, that curved handle might be a part of an umbrella or cane, but it catches light with the wet clarity of opened flesh. That thing over there might be a bird¡¯s wing, but it¡¯s studded with human-looking eyes. And the more I strain, the more each item bleeds into the next. Eventually, it makes more sense to classify the pile as a single, multifaceted object.


    The next image is a hand. It¡¯s a hand, though not a human one. Each of its seven fingers are longer and thinner than seems possible. Indeed, they¡¯re gnarled at the joints, wrought into a claw like a dead spider, straining against dull green skin stretched too tight, as if this design brings pain upon the poor creature cursed with it. It has no nails, only glistening patches of raw skin. Its fingertips are studded with hairlike barbed fibers. It¡¯s terrible. I can¡¯t stop looking, even though no matter where my eyes fall, I find some new baleful perversion of what a hand should be. I find so many new ideas of a lifelong misery baked into the flesh. This hand fills me with existential dread, and I still can¡¯t tear my eyes away.


    The image changes.


    But the hand doesn¡¯t disappear.


    It¡¯s just moving now. Moving so quickly, so decisively, cutting through the air with none of the creaking agony I would have expected. Those fragile-looking fingers dance gracefully, as if pulling strings of an invisible harp; the skin has more give to it than I expected. It stretches, but doesn¡¯t break. This is an almost hypnotic experience, seeing so many parts moving so deliberately, all at once like a perfect, tiny machine and a thriving animal.


    The hand is gone; for as long as a blink, the void is back before it gives way to a new image.


    I think it¡¯s a hallway, but it¡¯s¡­ bleeding. Bleeding a thick fluid, so deep purple it approaches black, from the line between the ceiling and wall, in ropes shaped like needles.


    The hallway vanishes as soon as I register what it is. There¡¯s a blinking void, and then something else.


    A tangled pile of antlers, so sheerly pale that they seem to glow. Then something lined with feathers as a bird¡¯s wing, but entirely the wrong shape. Curved backwards like a U, too gently to have been snapped. And studded with what appear to be human eyes. It looks to be still, unlike the hand, but the more I look, the more those eyes seem to stare back at me.


    They blink in unison, and the image alights into embers from the edge


    The void reappears for a brief second; its entropic aura is a cooling water for my red-hot mind. But the hammers strike again.


    A golden statue. Clang. Hiss. A thick-barreled hand cannon in a hand covered by a latex glove. A squeaking finger pulls the trigger, and muddy black sludge shoots forth from the barrel with a wet sucking noise. When it hits the air, it seems to harden into tentacles. One of them is tipped with an eye, one a knife-shaped shard of bone, one a mouth of needle-like teeth, and the rest are tangled in a knot around the grip. Shards of a latex glove sink into the viscous fluid.


    A blink of the void.


    Someone standing in a corner, back to me, head hunched over or else missing entirely. My eyes flash down to their feet; I see a pool of blackened crimson just in time for the whole scene to crumple back into nothingness.


    The void is closing its eyes, briefly, but longer than blinks, between images now. I have no idea how many of these things I¡¯ve seen, growing more explicitly terrifying the more restrained the display. I¡¯ve long since lost the ability to discern individual objects; things just register as ¡°wet tubes¡± or ¡°dry glimmers¡± or ¡°structural monoliths¡±, impressions more than names as such. And the hammer clangs, again and again, dully beating these images into a hot, receptive mind.


    A thin wet slice through shapeless flesh, rimmed with tiny down feathers. Clang. Hiss. The void makes itself known for longer and longer each time, it seems, letting my brain fully harden around each nightmarish instance. The reprieve is anything but a blessing.


    A small, harsh light gleams off wet purple tubes, thick and corrugated and writhing with life. Thrashing around, kicking up a thin green fluid, before connecting (locking?) into unmoving bricks of bone, forming a circuit board of flesh. Clang. Hiss. Black scraps of bloodstained fur hang off a deerlike skull stained gray with rot. Clang. Hiss. A wall covered in tiny faces, carved concrete masks of tragedy weeping crimson tears. Clang. Hiss. Ragged horns jutting from an unmistakably human forehead. Clang. Hiss. A stinking sac of bile, wriggling like a bloated leech and with such fervor that it starts to tear itself apart. Clang. Hiss. The same eternally moving thing, this time being pierced through from above with a golden spear, again, and again, and again, almost frantically. Clang. Hiss.


    The final vision leaves me shaking. I¡¯m standing on warm ground in scorching air, being watched by something I can¡¯t turn my head to see. My eyes are fixed eternally skyward, watching as a darkening crescent continues on its collision course to the sun. Slowly, like a car crash, the two begin to overlap, and the world shatters around me. I¡¯m returning to the endless field of pale entropy. Before my sight and heat are consumed by pale chill and endless white, an image burns into my retinas. Something like a hollow sun, something like a white flame filled with the shadow of the moon. Something I¡¯ve never seen before, but know, instinctively, as an omen of some sort.


    The cold abyss gives way to a familiar room, warm with candles that smoldered short and cluttered with organic matter. Feathers. Antlers. A golden statue in front of me, and a man in red robes sitting cross-legged, as if meditating, in front of it. But I can barely take all that in, because I¡¯m shaking now, shuddering so hard I can barely keep my footing. Withdrawal, I think. I think I became addicted to that slideshow from Hell. I think I need some kind of metal medicine. I think I¡¯m really sick now. I think¡­


    I think there¡¯s something living under my skin. Or else, my brain is telling me there is. No, there¡¯s something in my left arm under the skin. Scratchscratchscratchscratchscratchscratch. I scrape and scrub, but neither the dull sting nor pale red under my fingernails bring any relief. It¡¯s deeper, and far too unclean, baked into me. I need surgery; I need a sturdy hand and solid metal to get this thing out of me.

 Chapter 11: Nightmares Of An Aether Drinker

    Layer 20: Neon Genesis


    I ripped down the curtain, and sure as day my good, golden friend still stood there. Alistair, of course, moved past me to gawk at the statue¡¯s intricacies, but that¡¯s all fine. The statue is meaningless. It¡¯s a distraction. I¡¯m after its contents: Undistilled fullness. ¡°Pleroma of Prominence.¡± Something like that. The same stuff that¡¯s in SIDHE¡¯s pills, minus the filler they pack into each delicious tablet, all the fairy dust and moon rocks. This stuff packs a punch a thousand times stronger, a million times sicklier, and all that much closer to Truth.


    But careful study has taught me that I must be taken in by its effects before my companion, who will see something far more¡­ internal. A gooey and subjective ¡°truth¡±. Hard to pin down. More a reflection of themselves than the Truth. I must admit, it¡¯s interesting seeing my dogs, and especially my dolls, try to square the circle of belief in me versus their own eyes. Watching them liberate themselves from the constraints of the Sun Church and find their own path forward, behind me. It¡¯s¡­ it¡¯s nice.


    There was a thin hissing noise. The air grew thick with red mist, which I greedily inhaled until I couldn¡¯t see the light of the candles anymore.


    From out of the crimson fog, a figure appeared; a man muscled like a lion, equally powerful and lean. A figure mostly human-looking, save for the horned crown he wore. One horn swept forward and forked close to the end, resulting in a tight Y shape. The second horn was effectively a shorter copy of the first, sprouting from the back of the head and bending forward, the forked tip replaced with a wickedly sharp point. The man in the beetle crown. I had come to know him well over visits to this place between mind and matter.


    ¡°Shall I tell you a story?¡±


    That¡¯s weird. He usually offered me a greeting before we discussed anything, and we always spoke as scholars, interested in the Truth; never as storyteller and audience. That tradition is solely in the Sun Church¡¯s domain.


    ¡°Uh, hey, it¡¯s me. How¡¯s it going?¡±


    ¡°Would you like to hear a story?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve come here as I usually have, to learn the Truth of this world. I don¡¯t need any stories.¡±


    ¡°Would you like to hear a story?¡±


    ¡°Stop asking me that, would you? Can¡¯t we just have a decent conversation?¡±


    ¡°Would you like to hear a story?¡±


    He¡¯s really pissing me off. ¡°Listen, this isn¡¯t funny anymore. Waste the Sun Church¡¯s time, not mine.¡±


    ¡°Would you like to hear a story?¡±


    It went on like that for some time. Eventually I stopped responding, because something dawned on me. It has been a long time since I¡¯ve heard a good story. Everything I read was informative, or else non-narrative. Yarns of brutality and blood, sticky images that evoke emotion but make for terrible stories. Similarly, I only watched clips of Sun Church atrocities, over and over, studiously, trying to discern their tactics. So much pain, so much pathos, and yet all of it, real. More than any gaudy explosion of squibs or melodramatic spilling of ink, it¡¯s real and moving. Moving. Oh, fuck, is reality moving! It works me up into a burning froth! Gives me the power to bend the overwhelmingly physical monolith to my will! Why bother greedily consuming narrative, when reality has all the punch you need?


    Except¡­


    ¡°Would you like to hear a story?¡±


    I would. For some reason, even though it doesn¡¯t make sense, I would. I¡¯m starving for one, and I don¡¯t know why when I get everything I need from the extended play that is reality. But just for a moment, to forget the real world, it would be¡­ ¡°That would be nice. Please tell me your story.¡±


    A grin breaks out across the beetle king¡¯s face. His teeth appear pink through vermillion fog. ¡°Very well.¡±


    In the beginning, there were four mighty beasts, and a host of other animals besides. The four are the most important, though; they were old, older than the trees in the forest and older than the mountain that forest surrounded. More than that, they would go on to live for thousands of eternities. They were the tortoise, wise and learned but weak in body and terribly slow; the fire-bird, forever warm of body and heart, ambitiously reaching skywards through a life of fire and ash; the tiger, strongest creature on land and ferociously strong-willed; and the dragon, quietest and most tempered of all beasts, but the largest, strongest in the sky, and therefore, the hungriest.


    These four creatures lived in harmony, until one day, when their peace stretched too thin. The forest was growing thin with prey, and so the four convened in the Mountain Hall, the interstice between sky and land, to discuss the matter. It wasn¡¯t long before a fight broke out. The dragon had taken too greedily from the forest, if you asked the tiger. If you asked the dragon, the tiger hunted too infrequently to claim any of the wild game as his own, when the dragon needed more food to fuel her flights. The tortoise and fire-bird stayed out of it; the tortoise had no stake in the matter, being a plant-eater, and the fire-bird was more concerned with affairs of the sky than the ground. So the two parties were at a standstill of sorts, passing blame back and forth.


    All the while, the deer were gone, the oxen were gone, the boars and goats and all other creatures were no-where to be seen. Eventually, the tiger left, and decided he would take whatever beasts remained in the forest as his own prey. He grumbled, as did his stomach, and his hunt began.


    Days passed. The tiger, ever proud of his strength, refused to eat lesser beasts like the game-birds or snakes, and certainly never would stoop to eating fish. But he grew hungrier, and the greater creatures seemed to be gone. Over days stuck to this code of deprivation, stumbling, losing clarity of thought and sight, he finally broke.


    And how he broke! For in a clearing, the tiger saw the most beautiful red and gold pheasant he had ever seen, so gorgeous he would have taken it as his prey even if deer and oxen were plentiful.


    The tiger wasted no time pouncing on the pheasant, and set about eating it. His fangs, again and again, sank through sun-colored plumage and into warm flesh. He slurped down red with a voracity that disgusted even himself; but that disgust was a trifle against his hunger. Oddly, though, bite after bite, the pheasant did not stop moving. It squirmed and thrashed against powerful claws, and cried for mercy to ears deafened by hunger, until only its head remained. The tiger, now full, looked down and realized what he had done. Before him lay the head of the undying fire-bird. Stripped of breath, but still speaking, speaking with moist and hollow eyes, asking to be completely eaten by the tiger. Pleading to not be left in a half-consumed state. The tiger was raw with lament, and, of course, fulfilled his friend¡¯s dying wish.


    As he slept, belly full for the first time in a long while, something happened to the tiger. He began to burn bright, a glowing hot gold like the sun. Unable to sit still even in sleep, the tiger overflowed with energy. He thrashed and squirmed and never knew peace. Dreams haunted his mind for the first time. He ran no faster, but for longer; he felt no hunger, even though the beasts had not returned to the forest; he was, for all intents, even stronger.


    The dragon took notice. From her home upon the peak, she watched everything; but nothing so closely as the tiger, for he was her only potential rival. Seeing the atrocity he committed in his deprived and pained rage, the dragon grew anxious for the first time in her long life. She watched the burning tiger run for hours, and then days, around the forest, tirelessly, almost automatically. She watched as the powerful tiger tested his bite on so many necks he would never deign to feed on. This is the true greed, she thought, of which I have been accused.


    In her desperation, she took to the mountain hall and met with the tortoise. ¡°Tortoise,¡± said she, ¡°it is evil for me to ask this of one so peaceful as you. But you are the final hope of the sky¡¯s virtue, something you never knew or had reason to care for. Selfishly, I beg you, let me take your wisdom and power, patience and fortitude, into my own. Let me make your flesh as my flesh and your mind as my mind. Let me consume you, and show you the feeling of flight.¡±


    The tortoise thought a while, and with characteristic slowness replied. ¡°I have lived a long time, even among dragons and tigers and fire-birds, I have lived a full life. I have seen trees grow from twigs to towers, I have looked into the depths of the sky, I have known winters and summers and all things in between. I know all that I care to; all but one thing. I have never seen the peak of this mountain in all my years; even in summer it was too cold. Show me that; let me know the sky, and then let me know no more.¡±


    The dragon solemnly nodded and took the tortoise into her claws. Up and up, ever higher she swam through the sky, cutting through the air in a spiral like an eel among the clouds. The mountain narrowed beside her ascent. Cold air stung her scales and lungs alike; the tortoise coiled into a ball to stay warm. They say the cold air froze dragon¡¯s claw to scale, and today¡¯s tortoises wear their shells in commemoration of this flight. Eventually, the jagged cliffs faded into mist, too thin to be seen among the thick clouds, and the dragon ceased her ascent. She landed upon a slight indent, a crater at the top of the world; the peak of the mountain. The tortoise unfurled from a shell newly forged, and looked around. Blindly, though; with eyes sliced by the cold wind, the world from on high appeared as a void.


    The tortoise said the only thing that came to mind. ¡°It¡¯s beautiful. I am ready.¡±


    With any more warmth, the dragon would have wept. As it was, her tears refused to flow; whether this was due to the cold within or without, no one will know.


    She picked up the tortoise once more, and kept climbing the sky until she could climb no more. Her entire body ached from the cold and exertion, but she had to push on, to make the tortoise¡¯s death a clean and noble one. At the peak of her ascent, she let the tortoise fall to the ground below.


    The ground below.


    That ground was a fiery wasteland now. Absent any observers, the tiger still prowled his lands scorching the earth around him with flames of golden prominence. Game-birds and snakes cooked alive in his wake, and rotted into dirt made newly bare. Rivers dried up when the tiger crossed. The once-verdant land became a plain of ash, but still, the burning tiger could not stop himself. His claws tilled the earth, but planted no seeds. His flames struggled to catch on ashy remains of embers.


    The dragon dove to recover her friend, and what she found was unrecognizable. Almost formless flesh, held together by charred sludge. This was no longer the tortoise. Anyone who didn¡¯t know the story thus far would see this as a repulsive thing from a corner of the far-away sky, or else the depths of the sea. The dragon, though, starved from her endeavor, her climb to the top of the world, saw only a meal.


    With a voracity matched by only the tiger, the dragon fell upon her final friend¡¯s remains. Frantically, like a vulture in a frenzy, slurping down tissue and organ meat and the remnants of bones. She found satiation in the corpse of a friend, taking the tortoise into herself until not a scrap remained. Once more, the tortoise was whole. Once more, it was solid and recognizable, though in an entirely different form. A solely mental one that nonetheless hit the dragon like a brick.


    For she knew the tortoise in life and in shape. She had memories of sage sayings the tortoise shared with her, and knowledge that had kept her alive, stories of the comings and goings of the prey animals. She remembered the tortoise¡¯s understated wisdom, curiosity, appreciation for everything; in a word, ¡°completeness.¡± The dragon remembered the shattered mass of flesh, and saw in it the remnants of someone dear. Someone admirable.


    No coldness could hold back her tears now; in her voracious consumption, the dragon learned many things. She learned the secrets of fire and how to listen to the wind; she learned how the water speaks and how the trees listen. She learned which stones to mix to send sheer force tearing through space and which leaves to eat for all sorts of illnesses. She learned many things, most of which she didn¡¯t even know she had learned. Most damning of all, she learned of will. For the first time, the dragon understood why the tiger¡¯s transgression was so grave, so unforgivable; he had ended the life of another conscious being with no reason.


    And so had she.


    But with the mind of the tortoise, the dragon thought of something; a way to give her consumption a justification. At the top of the world, the place of her friend¡¯s last desire, she would build a monument to his knowledge. A laboratory of sorts; supplies of healing plants, the rocks of bludgeoning wind, all around a giant bonfire. And there, the dragon would keep learning, for herself and the tortoise that now lived only as a part of her.


    And so, she gathered ingredients. Sprouts of jasmine and rose, wispy willows, all a forest in miniature in the ashen blank slate the tiger left behind. Lichens and mosses clinging to bare rock. Roots buried in scorched soil, the only remnants of great trees. But remnants they still were, and so the dragon took them gratefully.


    Healing, creation, that was but one part of the dragon¡¯s Work. From the stones reaching skyward, the great cliffs, she took into her hands loose iron sand. From bubbling spots of Earth¡¯s vented excess, she plundered brimstone. At last she traversed into the tower reversed, the orifice of the ground; the cavern stabbing into the earth below the Mountain Hall. The land at once most plentiful and most foul, full of creatures without eyes and eyes without creatures. A place alive with rot and filth alongside countless precious stones.


    Even still, the dragon pushed onwards, against a smell nearly visible and a thousand gazes from eyes unseen. She cut through the abhorrent air even as it teemed with untouchable monoliths of spores; tiny crawling things seeking heat in which to place roots. In these halls drenched in disease, the dragon indulged her hungry hands, feverishly gathering phosphorus and salpeter, crunching gemstones to dust in pursuit of purer mundanity.


    All the while, the tiger burned brighter. Hotter. Hungrier. He dared to touch the only place he had not tread, the bleak and freezing peak. With the ground burned down, the only place to go was up. Skyward, without wings.


    Wings. As he climbed, the tiger thought about wings, and the creatures who bore them. He remembered great leathery sheets tearing through the night. He thought of glassy wings, thinner than paper, buzzing delicately in perfect chitinous sockets. Glimmering cloaks of purple emperors, pale greens like puddles of starlight-colored paint, all floating by like flayed blossoms. And somewhere along the way, his mind stumbled. The tiger remembered resplendent plumage, feathers shining in colors he¡¯d only seen in matte petals. Feverish golds and humid scarlets and all warm shades besides, side by side by side in a cloak fit for a king,


    A new flame consumed the tiger, one sickly and unidentifiable. It was something that split the difference between shame, envy, and pride, but couldn¡¯t be called any one. In being none of those feelings, it was empty. Void of meaning, and hungry, craving definition in fullness. It was a truly all-consuming feeling. By feeling it, the tiger had unknowingly cultivated something on those slopes. The crop in his wake, that emptiest feeling, would sprout, grow, and then die. It would die, and under weight of time and heat of earth, it would become a sort of coal that burned into tragedy.


    And the tiger climbed on, unaware of what he had sown.


    He climbed on, until he reached the crater at the top of the world. The crater between ground and sky, earth and aether. It was entirely unfamiliar; and of course it was. The tiger had never seen this place before. But there was some part of him that had and knew how wrong this scene was. For this, the peak of the world, was ringed in stones and plants chosen carefully, shards of nature with an application beyond the station of their beginning. In the center of this hoarded machination was a sheer white flame, a prize jewel flickering and fascinating and yet unwavering. The Earth, the tiger¡¯s domain, now was crowned in a knowledge beyond instinct. Something the tiger saw as alien to his world and heretical to his rule.


    And yet. The fire burned with an unmistakable Glamour. Those white flames glistened as if soaked in oil from a raven¡¯s feathers, and seemed to flow not like fire, but like a waterfall into the heavens. They called the tiger¡¯s name; they offered warmth to a creature who leaked so much heat and yet could hold none. What else was there to do?


    Just then, the dragon returned from the depths of the world, claws full of stones profane and beautiful. At first, the tiger only saw her silhouette against that pyre of pearls and gold. Slowly but surely, though, more of her form came into his sight as she approached the flames, until she was but a few steps from it. Mirroring the tiger, the dragon appeared transfixed by the flames.


    In truth, both beheld each other.


    The tiger looked upon the dragon, and saw in her place a mighty serpent dusted in eyes. And the dragon looked upon the tiger, and saw in his place a birdlike and skeletal creature wreathed in flames. They should have hated each other as opposites, and yet... The dragon, sickened by air thick with moisture and stench and life, saw the tiger as a husk, thorny and parched like paper. The tiger, burdened by a dry and pained exile on fire, saw the glistening eyes and jabbering intelligences coating the dragon.


    They saw in each other an opposite. A fullness.


    Step after cautious step the pair drew closer,


    until they met in the middle and were wicked alight.


    The tiger reacted to the flame first. The jagged boneyard beneath his loose skin finally bloomed. The constrained pain, the mass of thorns inside, burst forth into countless sets of wings. Papery wings of the moth; shimmering wings of the butterfly, beetle wings like transparent leaves. Leathery shrouds, as worn by bats. And of course, so many birds¡¯ wings. Pitch black patches of crows and ravens, and owl¡¯s wings, masses of silent grays and browns. Ragged resplendence, the plumage of a condor. Hummingbirds¡¯ wings like tiny twitching emeralds, rotating frantically in a futile endeavor to lift this thing. From the tiger¡¯s head, two sharply defined ivory wings jutted forward like holy horns; the wings of an albatross. And from his shoulder blades, the most painful-looking bones of all, burst two enormous wings dyed in the oranges and reds of a setting sun. I have not seen the bird that bore these wings, and I¡¯m sure you haven¡¯t either; but the dragon had, and she burst into tears at the sight of them.


    Tears. So many tears, from so many eyes. Bright red, but thin as water and sickly sweet. Tears of a despair that relished in it¡¯s autophagy. The kind of sadness one could get used to feeling, not because it¡¯s ever easy to bear but because it eats any resistance away. A bludgeoning sickness born by deprivation, a maddened bottomless consumption, a frenzied thrashing in an inhumane mix of spider¡¯s web and mouse trap. Call it what you wilt; that curse flowed from countless baleful eyes and ran down the mountain, where it irrigated seeds the tiger had sown.


    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Pandora¡¯s ¨€¨€¨€ had opened.


    The mass of eyes and the rat king of wings at last touched, circled in flame. At first contact, the two tore into each other with the instability of wild animals. Claws tore into flesh and snapped off. Mighty blows broke bones on both sides. In their frantic magnetism, their attempts at Pleroma, at fullness, they only built a common pain. From


    The dragon held the tiger and began to fly, and the tiger held the dragon and began to do the same. They could not think, so great was their union of knowledge and instinct. The dragon wrapped around the tiger, and the tiger began to carry the pair even higher, past the sky to a place beyond. A void, empty of all but potential. Wings and eyes began to bleed together, bony shoulder sockets meeting mucous membrane, only to tear apart. And then again. And again. Again and again, quills pierced sclera, withered bats¡¯ hands grasped at irises, chitinous veins buzzed and flayed eyelids. Eyes and wings violently became one in the face of flame.


    This was the first creature born with a Will; something that would fall to Earth as the pair ascended in eclipse.


    They never returned. The creature once known as the dragon became the Moon, and the no-longer-tiger was now the Sun. Their child might have been something else, a third celestial Will, were it not for the Earth. It hit the mountain peak and then shattered into a million pieces like seeds. Like seeds, they grew, grew into people, nurtured in soil made rich with volcanic abandon and saturated with pain as water.


    Pandora¡¯s EYES had opened.


    For now, Humanity existed; each human a part of a shattered whole born and raised in isolation. Made to know fear and despair and rage, and made to know reasons to justify the same. They¡ªwe¡ª had an undeniable advantage over the creatures that never even approached Will, and yet we used that power to hold each other down, lick them with tongues of flame and pain, until that seemed the natural order.


    ¡°And so, it is told.¡±


    I¡¯m stunned. What the fuck was that? Why¡­ In what world is that at all OK?


    ¡°Why would you ever tell me that? That everyone¡¯s just out to get me?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s only a story, Augustus.¡±


    ¡°Fuck off! There are people who would do me harm, and they do it for reasons that must be crushed. Not because of some ¡®innate human nature to hurt¡¯, but because they are wrong. So don¡¯t you sit here and tell me everything you¡¯ve just shown me, told me, made me see, whatever, like it¡¯s the truth.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s only a story, Augustus.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s what the Sun Church tells you, too. ¡°Just relax and enjoy it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s just a story.¡± ¡°You¡¯re looking too much into it¡± Except, it¡¯s a story told in real life. With real life consequences. People die because of stories like this. Harm gets done to innocents, because of stories. Goddamn it, this is why I¡­¡±


    ¡°Why you what, Augustus?¡±


    ¡°None of your fucking business! And stop that¡­ That eerie repetitive sing-song-ey thing you¡¯re doing with your voice. Cut it out with that hypnotic repetition! It¡¯s driving me fucking insane!¡±


    Goddamn it all. I just want to wake up. I hate these fucked-up illusions. I just want to open my eyes, but I can¡¯t. I¡¯m held here, in this uncertain domain absolutely ruled by the strange little man in front of me. It¡¯s a nightmare I can¡¯t wake up from, in an entirely different way than usual.


    Layer 21: Hyper Curse, or, ¡°That fae touch turns obsidian into black pearls¡±


    My left arm is still raw, like the very top layer of skin has been eaten away by some tiny starving things. It doesn¡¯t hurt, unless I poke at it; mostly, it just prickles in the cold. The numbing stillness in this room, stony and oblivious to the candles. It doesn¡¯t hurt, but it¡¯s certainly not comfortable. It hits my bones like phantom spears, passing through flesh and nerve as if to invade me without causing me any pain.


    It doesn¡¯t hurt, but still. I hate it. I hate this room.


    Augustus is still¡­ asleep? Passed out? Either way, he¡¯s unconscious. There¡¯s nothing stopping me from leaving, and yet something feels like it''s tying me to his crumpled form. Should I leave? Some feeling, anchored in the base of my neck, pulls me to the door. Should I stay? I can¡¯t just turn my back on Augustus like that. Besides, it¡¯d be rude to go walking around. He invited me back here, to this room, nowhere else.


    I don¡¯t really care if it¡¯s rude, though; the fact is, this room is unpleasant, and I¡¯d like to leave. I¡¯d like nothing more than to leave, but something is shackling me here. Tying me, blindfolded, to a post before a firing squad of ghostly fingers. Cold ectoplasm dripping down my back. Shivers up and down and inside my spine. And I can¡¯t move, because¡­ Because as much as I want to leave, there¡¯s an equal and opposite will to stay here. I don¡¯t know how I can have two wills like this, if one or the other is something grafted on, nurtured within me to temper my nature, or if both are a product of a desire to be torn apart.


    Or maybe I¡¯m just ¡°of two minds,¡± as they say. Maybe this isn¡¯t even a unique position to be in. Maybe I just want to make myself feel special, because I can¡¯t make up my mind about whether to watch someone sleep or to leave the room. Well, that came out wrong. I guess, yeah, it would be pretty invasive to watch Augustus when he can¡¯t look back at me. He doesn¡¯t strike me as the type to care much about conventional etiquette, anyway; I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll understand if I have a look around.


    So, at last, I open the door, and return to a hallway I know to be dizzyingly scarlet. Now, though, in the faint light of the night, it¡¯s stained a monolithic red-violet, like choked flesh too full of blood. Almost alive, almost pulsating with the shadows of trees in the silent breeze. Almost alive, like the shadows and puddles in the streets. Almost, but too dry and too codified to hold that kind of culture.


    A different kind of culture drips from these stalwart walls, hangs from the ceiling like two-dimensional stalactites. Art, ideas, and the art of ideas. Progress, in circles. Stories in glimmering images, images of gnarled beasts and great heroes, of wise guardians and motherly spirits. Hellish, churning wars in tableau, and portraits of a dying world. First images of trees, then temples, then newly gleaming towers, all rising from ashes to pierce the heavens. All these great ideas, festering and manifesting in turn.


    Maybe those two kinds of cultures aren¡¯t so different.


    I find myself standing before a door, having walked a good distance lost in thought and in the images on the walls. On the door, no, in the door, there is a great forest. A sea of palm leaves, studded with pomegranates, all surrounding a proud woman cloaked in pale blue robes. Under one arm, she holds a scroll, and she is flanked by a pair of pillars. It¡¯s a testament to the detail in this door that there¡¯s an indication of writing on the pillars, but I can¡¯t make it out. The woman¡¯s head is about the size of a peephole; she and her pillars are dwarfed by the intricate arboreal ocean making up most of the door.


    It¡¯s not like I have anything better to do than open it.


    There¡¯s a stairwell behind it, a disappointing one, if I¡¯m being honest. Corrugated metal steps, plain white cinderblock walls, like a stock asset from an office building. Apparently, I¡¯m on the bottom floor of a seemingly infinite number above me. I don¡¯t have anything better to do, so I climb.


    The first flight doesn¡¯t have an exit. Nor the next, or the next, and by the fourth landing I was ready to turn back if another door didn¡¯t make itself known soon. Luckily, there was one, just as elegant as the entrance. It¡¯s a monolith of dark mahogany shot through with gold in a fractalized version of the palm/pomegranate forest I entered through, a sharp contrast to the barren pallor surrounding me. Over everything, there¡¯s the robed woman again, this time with arms spread wide like wings, scroll unfurled, and a face twisted into a gargoylesque visage. She¡¯s bigger, too, like she¡¯s jumping out at me. The pillars are closer, but this time they¡¯re just sheer, smooth columns. No writing, nor even texture. Disappointing. Honestly, the whole thing feels almost crude, or would were it not for the detail in the image. Every line in the woman¡¯s unreadable, undeniably extreme expression is captured exquisitely. Even as the pillars are untextured, they are not undetailed. Their smoothness is emphasized with dings in the mahogany that expose more of the gold within.


    Enough dragging my feet. I go to open the door, and grasp air where the doorknob should have been. I look up, and I¡¯m staring into the purple blackness of a cloudy night sky. I look down some, and meet wild gray eyes, flashing behind wind-whipped black bangs.


    ¡°Luna?¡±


    ¡°Alistair?¡±


    ¡°Hey, it is you! Uh, what¡¯re the odds of seeing you here? Like, I was just here because of this guy I know, Augustus¡ª¡±


    ¡°Oh, you know Augustus?¡±


    I¡¯m kind of shocked. Sputtering for a bit, I manage a reply. ¡°Uh, yeah, I didn¡¯t know you did too. Is it just me, or is there something hypnotic about him? He stands there like a snake¡¯s slit pupil, sometimes, and I think that I would follow him off a cliff. Is it his posture or something?¡±


    ¡°Huh. I don¡¯t think he¡¯s all that captivating. And you know, that¡¯s kind of dangerous. Come on out here for a second.¡± Behind her is a sheer, flat rooftop, a room with four mesh walls and no ceiling. There¡¯s nothing of the remaining flights of stairs to see. This might as well be the top of the tower.


    I follow her lead outside. ¡°Yeah, I know. That¡¯s why I brought it up. Anyway¡ª¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t think you get it. Not really. I think he has the kind of personality that attracts a cult, or something. I don¡¯t feel it, but I know what to look for, and he has all the signs.¡± Luna sits down, back against the fence, as if to punctuate her point.


    ¡°What are you talking about?¡± I mimic her a few feet to the side.


    ¡°I¡¯m a little hazy on the details, but back when I got my powers, there was some reason I was in that trial in the first place. And I think it has something to do with Augustus, or at least someone like him. Some commanding presence.¡±


    ¡°Like what?¡±


    ¡°Like the Sun Church.¡±


    I¡¯m stunned. I can¡¯t believe she would just¡­ accuse Augustus like that. ¡°Hey. Augustus hates the Sun Church. He¡¯s not anything like them. Trust me on this. He¡¯s a good leader, and a great person besides.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure he does hate the Sun Church, and rightfully so. And that he does what he sees as right. But I¡¯m not sure that amassing an army is the way to go. I think people need to fight on their own terms, the ways they can, so they can live happily after we win.¡±


    ¡°Personally, he hasn¡¯t asked me to do anything I don¡¯t want to do.¡±


    ¡°Has he asked¡ªordered¡ª you to do anything you want to do?¡±


    I have to stop and think about that. ¡°Well, I don¡¯t really think there is anything I want to do in particular. I don¡¯t really know where to start, how to live as another sword against the system. Do I just go out in the street and start screaming at the sky? No, right? But then, how do I live without just becoming complacent?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s really nothing you want?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t really think of anything, no. I like reading fine enough, and movies, but¡­ I don¡¯t know. There¡¯s not much for me in pages or frames anymore. Whenever I¡¯m told a story, I just feel guilty the whole time. Like I¡¯m becoming spineless and complacent, without even becoming aware of it. Maybe¡­¡± I trail off. I don¡¯t want to say it. I can¡¯t say it. It¡¯s a closed loop; because I want to admit that I do want things, but feel guilty for indulging when my life could be so much worse. But then, to say that would be indulging a desire to make my feelings known, I¡¯d feel guilty, and have no one to blame but myself.


    Luna, for her part, is still looking at me intently as ever, owl-like eyes wide beneath the stars. ¡°I think¡­ I think that kind of thinking is why people join up with the Sun Church. The feeling that they need a grid, some unchanging path, to move along in life. But you know, I don¡¯t agree¡ªshocking, I know. You, along with most everyone, know how to be good enough to each other to drift by, ¡°Doing as you wilt.¡± You know what that means? To me, it¡¯s the idea that we all know what the right and wrong things are; it¡¯s not that hard to figure out. It¡¯s an expression of self-confidence.


    And you know what the funny thing is? To a lot of people, those words are evil. The person who wrote them called himself ¡°the wickedest man in the world¡±, and plenty of people agreed with that title. I want to know what you think about that; as for me, I want to believe in myself so strongly that I would accept the title of a demon to do so.¡± Luna¡¯s beaming as she finishes her sentence, but her pride snaps and drags her face sinking all too soon. ¡°Sorry, I¡¯m so sorry, I went on for way too long¡­ Argh. Sorry.¡±


    Contrary to Luna¡¯s self-flagellation, her speech stirred something within me. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. I¡¯d like to think I¡¯m a wicked person, too. I mean, I already do; in practice, I have a lot of debt to work off from the years I spent rotting and unaware. I think I¡¯m pretty evil, going by the outcome of my existence. But at the same time, I think it¡¯s more a matter of fighting back the bludgeoning haze that seems to seep from my will. Now that I¡¯m awake, I have to keep my eyes open, no matter what. Even if they sting, or well up with tears, even if I just want to rest, I have to keep my eyes open.¡±


    ¡°Is that what you want? To be forever hypervigilant?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think it matters what I want. It¡¯s what I owe the world.¡±


    ¡°I think we¡¯re going in circles here.¡± Luna chuckles. ¡°Hey, can you try something? You mentioned feeling like you wanted to go out and just scream earlier. It¡¯s just you and me up here, so give that a shot.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I¡¯m genuinely confused.


    ¡°Just try it. See if it makes you feel any better. If not, what¡¯s the harm? So go on.¡± She sits forward and grabs the air, dramatically making a fist. ¡°Untie those knots in your chest; spit your restraints from your mouth as spider¡¯s silk! Howl, howl madly, like some Wallachian haunt, embrace the lycanthropic urge to rebel! Scream at the moon, howl, wail, cry out, make a single auditory scratch against the universe!¡±


    She¡¯s getting so into it, I can hardly stay detached. So, I work my way into a squat, and then stand with arms crossed like a mummy. When I¡¯m fully unfolded, I shoot my arms to my side and yell. I stand up and scream, emptying my lungs of all the pain of flame and burn-out ash, every bitter pill and wasted day. All this trash filling me up just spews skyward, invisible and noisy, until one thought catches on my teeth and blocks the whole thing up.


    I must look like a fucking lunatic.


    I fall silent. Breath won¡¯t catch in my throat; the rumbling in my voice box is completely gone, replaced by a deadened hiss. Air just leaks from me, and I can¡¯t make a noise or anything. I probably look even dumber with my mouth open like a fish, so I shut it. My breathing regulates, but I still don¡¯t think I can make a sound.


    Strangled as I am, I crumple into a ball, slumped, the back of my neck pressed to the fence. Forced to look up. Above my head, there¡¯s a deep purple sea, impossibly alive with stars swirling like plankton around the moon. At least, that¡¯s how it looks to me. I know that¡¯s not ¡°actually¡± how it is. But to a mind deprived as mine, stripped of air and stability, the shifting and tiny moon is a pillar; the unmoving pyromantic masses, stars, are nothing but flecks. The sky, too. It¡¯s not a thing that starts or ends. But to my eyes, it is; I could push through the shimmering surface and sink into the inky purple mud at its depths, if only the vertigo in my scrambled head would make itself real.


    ¡°Hey, Alistair?¡±


    It¡¯s Luna. I let my head fall to face her, but I don¡¯t say anything. It¡¯s not like I can, anyway. Not right now.


    ¡°Do you ever wish you could fly?¡±


    No.


    My instinctual answer screams out. Of course not.


    Besides, by the time I was born, humanity had flight figured out for generations. We¡¯d used it for everything from mass slaughter to tying the world together; from machinated profit to grand romantic gesture. Flight has been written about, studied, codified¡­ the skies are just another field of study, another discipline to be devoted to. It¡¯s just another thing that humanity can see the gears of, the mechanics behind, and it¡¯s yet another thing that I have too wide a perspective, that I¡¯m standing too far back from, to be allured by.


    Something tells me that¡¯s not what Luna really means, but I shake my head anyway.


    ¡°I see.¡±


    ¡°What about you?¡± I shock myself with my words.


    Not the words themselves, but the presence of my speech. Of course, I damn my thoughtlessness as soon as the words escape my lips. I met Luna shrouded in wings like wilting and tattered petals; flight is probably something of a sore subject. But bluntness like that, it¡¯s just a part of my Drifting Sickness.


    For her part, Luna just laughs it off. ¡°I used to, actually. Then I got my wish, and, well, I can¡¯t say it¡¯s the wings that make me unhappy, so much as how I¡¯m drawn to use them. I¡¯d rather not fight so much, I wish the world was more still, you know? Or maybe¡­ Maybe I never wanted this kind of flight, and I wanted to fly as the jellyfish swims. Led by chance, or currents, or whatever strings may drag me.¡±


    A new voice enters the fold at her words. From in front of us, invisible to twin skyward gazes, comes a voice harsh and soft at the same time. Bruised.


    ¡°This is what I can¡¯t stand about you, Luna. Constantly romanticizing everything.¡±


    There he stands. Fascination himself, Augustus. The monolith of screaming crimson. Even beneath his scarf and bangs, he wears the twisted mask of a scowl.


    ¡°You just won¡¯t look at the world as it is. You stumble around in the dark, hoping to see something pretty in the shadows. You run scared any time suffering is illuminated before you. It¡¯s like you¡¯re blinding yourself to any part of this world that¡¯s not ¡°darkly beautiful¡±, when you know as well as I that these streets are tarnished.¡±


    Luna just smiles. She smiles the smile of a shattered mask; the kind of smile that ought catch tears in its corners, though she sheds none. In their absence, her smile seems more ephemeral than unhappy, like the Mona Lisa¡¯s.


    As for me, I just keep my head down. Augustus is wreathed in some aura unpleasant; not a frosty disapproval nor a burning rage, but something jutting and off-putting. A sea of spikes wrapped in bright green mist.


    ¡°You¡¯re probably right.¡± Luna, seemingly oblivious, just smiles her same sad smile.


    And just as soon as his wrongness flared up, it softens; fades back into the bludgeoning shimmer I know him for. ¡°Yeah. Let¡¯s just discuss our strategy. I know how to hit the Church where it¡¯ll hurt.¡±


    I can¡¯t stand it. I hate those two civilized masks, clattering against one another, when they¡¯re so close to shattering that even tonight¡¯s dull moonlight shines through the hairline cracks. I hate seeing Luna so clearly hurt and so completely hiding it; I hate seeing Augustus lash out so calmly, like it doesn¡¯t even matter. I want to know them both, truly and deeply, I want to know why Augustus wraps himself in freezing charm and why Luna won¡¯t let herself cry. And for my own sake, I want to see why they¡¯re the only two people I care about anymore. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s just a matter of ¡°being the only ones to show me kindness¡±, there has to be something more to it than that. But damn it, as it is, there¡¯s nothing I can think of that I know about them tying them together.


    I want to know.

 Chapter 12: Into The Tower

    Layer 22: Parry romantic, things seen by sunlight


    Damning hotbright in here. Or was it? Maybe my eyes are just sensitive from those hours captive in the fog. In reality, this room is probably dark, yes; filled with a darkness moth-eaten by a few candle flames and their doppelgangers mirrored in the shinier organic totems. Blurred colors sharpen with blinkaway mist. The sheer white antler pile in the corner is a dull and dusty gray, cloaked in shadow as it is. My great golden friend in his alcove was attended by more flickering twin flames than any goat skull or bird wing in the main room. All things are as I have left them...


    Except one.


    Alistair was nowhere to be seen.


    I flew to the door, scanning the room once more; but to no avail. My eyes just slid; slid over ragged shadow and hardened, empty walls... flying, frantic, like a carriage through a moonlit forest, wobblewheels dying as the wolves close in. These eyes never caught on to anything new. No bump in the road to send them splintered asunder; they met no resistance on the macabre decor, scenery upon my many visits. At last, I could spare myself the agony of the search. At last, I am forced to admit that Alistair was not here.


    Another blinding brightness, filling my vision. Acheflame, chemical white and sheer, save the growing ashen impression. The snake autophagous, devouring its tail; masticating itself with stubby needles, sliding deeper and deeper into that glistening socket, the mouth. Fed¡ªsacrificed¡ªto itself, in perpetual motion, wheel burning with friction and the fire of bent-back fingernails.


    From out of the light, a bloodblackness formed. The shadows and textures of the real world, revealing all. A battlefield before me, chessboard in ivory and crimson. A sea of clamorous conversation and clashing filigrees on dark fabrics. A grimy light, oilsmeared orange, turns the stomach not the brain; at least it was canny. Nearly human in its flickering...


    That¡¯s why they give hated dinbirth to each deaf other. The flickering light, the wavering light, it¡¯s not enough to see by. Not to see fully, anyway. So, they bash their heads together trying to explain themselves, how they see themselves, like it''s truth by speaking it. Like they¡¯re not just invoking the light they want to be seen in. It¡¯s all a game of connotation. ¡°Angsty¡± and ¡°brooding¡± are out of fashion, so for the moment "contemplative" will have to do; until that, too, is damned, unusable, to the annals of low-art words.


    I don¡¯t judge them, my followers. They¡¯re rebels, we were rebels, after all, nothing more than shards of a mirror punchbroken, doing what they must, slicing back the fleshy force brushing them under the rug. Yes and as mirrorshards we exist as reflections of the world around us. This world, murky as it is, needs an inextinguishable light brought to its shadows. The Church of the Sun¡¯s crimes shall be brought to light. The Crawling Puddles will be plunged for all they have hidden. Darkness expunged, before a pure cleansing tongue, a stream of glimmering water into a bucket of oily filth. The mysteries and mysticisms that keep minds churning through the night, I must burn them.


    Something called to me within the labyrinthine halls of my home. A door to a room beneath the sky, and no other ceiling besides.


    I was there before I knew it; I¡¯ve flown down these halls crimson and intricate, carved as they are with mirrors of the stories in the skyline so many times. Here, below, or near enough, down in these foul streets, there is something like that which lines the sky. Scrying into the record on the walls called to mind another of those echoed sentiments, common as it is cliche. Opposites as twins in denial. The tragedy of gazing too deeply into the void. ¡°As above, so below.¡±


    That idea wasn¡¯t wrong from the start; no, it was once profound. Now, though, it¡¯s so misunderstood by the average mind, and in that misunderstanding, made demonstrably incorrect. As it is written, it has been made rote. Things in the sky and Things below the Earth, below these streets, they are not the same, and never can be. Despite what common knowledge may tell you, it is impossible to become the very thing one is sworn to destroy, if you start from opposite ideals. The phrase means ¡°Nothing flies above as nothing lies below.¡± Nothing below my feet is the same as Nothing above my head. No matter how hard I look or how much I want to see something, empty space will be empty. Only my own eyes will never deceive me.


    Perhaps this stumble and subsequent fall into my own head stole the memories of walking to that door. Do I only have memories of the space within, and none of the space without? Regardless, that door before me¡ªit was frozen, ghost-touched, and stopped me dead in fiery flight. Never before nor since had I seen such spiderwebbed scars across wood. These fractals I thought only existed in frost-kissed metal or wounds traced by lighting; never like this. Never recorded like this. Never so immune to time or heat or necrosis. I¡¯ll have to remember that, I thought, as I swung open the door to the sky.


    Layer 23: Bewitched


    ¡°It¡¯s simple, really. We light a fire. We smoke them out.¡±


    Augustus¡¯s eyes glistened, knifelike in the moonlight as he spoke. He had come out of nowhere, it seemed, but was no less welcome. The silence had grown mirrored with moonsilver, taught breakwaiting; shard''s bite was welcome to numb fingers.


    Luna looked less convinced. ¡°Arson? I¡¯d be all in for it, but the Healing Churches don¡¯t stand still; you know that better than anyone. The Hunters just¡±¡ªshe shudders, like a cold memory has slithered along her spine¡ª¡± show up.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not talking about lighting a Healing Church on fire. I mean burning something in the street. A little ritual of our own.¡± Augustus explains himself further, but it¡¯s not necessary for me to get his drift.


    ¡°The Golden Howlings. They¡¯re perfect. We don¡¯t have to fake any symptoms or delusions of our own; just pretend to go along with the prevailing winds. Those rotting winds of septic madnesses, hot and humid fronts.... They wick embers to wicker men, and set alight will and wit alike.¡± I glance over at Augustus¡ªmy heart skips a beat. He¡¯s actually looking back at me. Not observing, or scrying, but gazing, like I¡¯m some strange celestial speck.


    And why shouldn¡¯t he? I¡¯d said basically nothing, but it sounded good enough. There¡¯s no response to be given. I¡¯d just babbled something, but it felt right. I might not have said anything, but it felt right.


    Even as I realized my own happiness, though, guilt was born like heavy chains in my gut. Snippets of thought¡ªhedonistic, self-indulgent non-communicator, hollow ramblings of a wannabe fascinator. ¡ªcoalescing¡ªShut up. Apologize for your balefully silvered tongue or shut up¡ªfrom flaying admonishment to a self-reflection¡ªPeople don¡¯t talk like that.


    From the hating masses, one thought stood out. A singular, full thought. An image of giant spikes jutting in all directions, into each other, towards the ground, skyward, sideways, and all degrees between. It was a wall of brambles with no rounded stems and more thorns in their place. Dangerous, and repulsive. The words echoed, a chant mechanical, rising from fog to a timbre clear and clean as those omnidirectional points.


    Seconds had passed in silence, but they might well have been hours of agony, the way my brain formed thorns against itself.


    ¡°I see.¡± Luna gave a small nod. ¡°Is that right, Augustus? I like it. I¡¯ve never thought to use madness as bait before, but it¡¯s a good plan. How many fighters will we need?¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s the problem. I know you fight like a demon, and I can hold my own, but we¡¯d need at least one more person touched by Dream Insight. I don¡¯t think ordinary fighters will be able to do much against Hunters in such numbers as I foresee; it¡¯s hard enough for them to pick off lone Instances. Luckily, we have such a person here.¡± Augustus turned to me. ¡°Alistair, I¡¯d consider us close, if I¡¯m being honest; certainly, we are kindred spirits, I feel. That in mind, can you do a couple favors for me?¡±


    ¡°Augustus! Don¡¯t you dare.¡± Luna glowered. Her eyes were normally a stormy gray, true, but now they seemed to darkly rumble with malicious thunder. ¡°You will not involve Alistair in this life. Come here for a moment?¡± She motioned to Augustus, and whispered something to him furiously.


    Augustus¡¯s face wrinkled sourly. ¡°Alistair, I think the choice should be yours and yours alone. Do you want to know the kiss of Magick? You¡¯re primed for it; I can see that much. Or do you want to run from this cause? Bury your head in the sand, and live in peace with the atrocities that keep you afloat?¡±


    What kind of choice is that?


    It shouldn¡¯t have even needed to be said. ¡°Killing people and calling it healing is wrong.¡± It¡¯s so obvious; why wouldn¡¯t I do everything in my power to set things right?


    ¡°Of course. I¡¯m not going to turn away now. I couldn¡¯t say no, even if I wanted to.¡±


    Something adrift may never turn away. The thought flashed inside my mind for but a moment¡ª


    ¡°Then hold out your left hand.¡±


    ¡ªBefore Augustus began his ritual. Killed it, both the thought, and the thing in me that germinated it.


    I do as I¡¯m instructed. Luna turns away to the door with a motion like a wince¡ªreally, what is her deal?¡ª and Augustus approaches me. He takes my left hand in both of his, and his touch burns. It burns, but I can¡¯t move my hand.


    My brain screams at me to yank my hand away, but the instinct just stagnates, freezes somewhere between neuron and nerve. Even as heat crawls up to my shoulder, as frost spiderwebs out from the base of my neck, as the two meet behind my heart, bisecting it in sheer light and murky darkness, I can¡¯t move. I¡¯m a statue right now, or a doll. A screaming mind in an immobile body.


    And then, it all snaps and breaks; the heat, the cold, the immobility, the pain. It¡¯s all gone, and I can move again.


    Augustus looked at me with a look of cautious optimism. ¡°Everything ok?¡±


    I nodded.


    ¡°That¡¯s good! Did you see anything weird, or feel anything unnatural?¡±


    ¡°I felt like I couldn¡¯t move. Like I was a doll being broken.¡± I wasn''t in the mood to explain everything.


    ¡°A ¡®doll being broken,¡¯ huh?¡± Augustus nodded, and made a strange puckered expression of understanding. ¡°That¡¯s good. I¡¯m glad to hear it.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be. It wasn¡¯t a pleasant feeling¡±¡ªhe interrupted me with a smile, slight and silent, yet no less potent for it¡ª¡± but it¡¯s over with now.¡±


    ¡°Sorry,¡± he said, whispered really, that same enigmatic smile never leaving his face. It marked his apology as almost insincere, but strangely, I didn¡¯t really mind. So long as he kept looking at me like some celestial enigma, I would accept a thousand cheerful lies.


    Layer 24: Scanners/Scrying the Wretched


    There was simply no question about it: Alistair had some of the greatest potential for magic I had ever seen. Not because of any extraordinary skill, or any particular qualities about them as a person. (I¡¯m sure that objectively speaking, the person I knew as Alistair Macabre was about as special as anyone else. Avatar to a thousand tiny glitches in the human form, and holder of a blood doubtlessly storied; just as dully glimmering as everyone.)


    However, there was, in their eyes or perhaps in the air around them, a disinterest in those similarities. Almost an aversion to humanity¡ªno, to individual humans, besides myself and Luna. Given the choice, Alistair would dance stumbling steps to stand as everyone else, rather than pick, and fall in with, one instance of the crowd.


    It¡¯s not too much of a stretch to assume they saw the crowd as one unapproachable mass, rather than teeming individuals; and I can¡¯t blame them for that. I see the chattering throngs the same way.


    That can be dangerous, though. Just as easily a dive down a slippery slope as it might be the first ascending step on a staircase grand and pure.


    Alistair first impressed upon me a certain untouchable loftiness, as if above or ahead of me on those shining marble steps, or flying like an eagle among great cliffs. Something noble and pure and towering. The closer I approach, though, the more these little idiosyncrasies about them stand out. Beneath the cloak feathered with flecks pickpocketed from fuller beings, the hollow bones of a fascinating creature lay. But only bones. Between coat and bone lay a great void; a hungry vacuum and an equally repulsive force like the one that stays one¡¯s hand from necrotic carrion.


    Well, there¡¯s no other way to put it. Alistair Macabre was, quite simply put, empty. Torn apart by twin serpentine anathema. Dueling dualities, unknown to the sun nor known by the moon. Forever walking the interstice, eternally crepuscular. A wasteless blank slate, just waiting to be engraved with a sigil. The touch of my tongue, silvered and purifying, had been their savior chisel.


    I pondered this sad fact of fracturedness as I flew through the halls, pace frantic below the gaze of that glimmering mythic web. For as much as I adored this crimson labyrinth, I equally abhorred its mirror above; those hyper-flattened distortions of myth, distorted and misinterpreted to fit together neatly and peacefully. That insistence on archetypal transcendentalism seems a blinded affirmation to Alistair¡¯s zero-sum hollowness. Assuming that ideas have an equal opposite just leads to defeatism: What good is any effort if a perfect, wasteless counter must also be born from it?


    No, even without such a justification, Alistair¡¯s perception is wrong; for the poor soul is afflicted with the Drifting Sickness! The rot that lands its necrotic fly-feet upon a Thymoystichius mind, drags gray matter in tiny talons as it drunkenly floats about the room! I must, though, take great pains not to pity Alistair, nor any other fed to such shelled phantasms. Though compared to me, or any other man of sanity, they may be invalid, gibbering insects, there may yet be something unseeable in that baleful stare, in the thousand yards those hollow sockets scry into beyond the visage of a conversation-partner. Or perhaps that is just the prevailing wind kicking up dust and clouding my mind, and perhaps the Drifting Sickness is not to be pitied but loved¡ªno, such a thing is far too simple to be truthful.


    Augustus didn¡¯t know it yet, but behind a murky curtain in the mind, deep within the slumbering subconscious, a fire had been lit. An idea, too repulsive to be seen, had been conceived; not yet born, not yet emerged from darkened womb to the shattering light of knowledge, but no less disturbing in its embryonic state. A despised, and indeed despicable, third option, between pity and love; manipulation. For by its deprived nature, the Drifting Sickness could so easily be made autophagous! The twin snakes, solar and lunar pleromas could be wrought to an infinite ouroboros, and fuel mass ambitions with their perpetual consumptive friction.


    Or so I, a spore-eye of Oberon, see it.


    Layer 25: Sworn In/Until 13th Card Do Us Part


    After Augustus took his leave of the roof, I didn¡¯t have much to do besides follow him. And so, I too opened the door studded in gilded frost-kisses, almost blindly, certainly in a haze. But my static tingling was shot through by an embrace about my waist, warm and sudden and so nectary in its impression. I looked down and met Luna¡¯s eyes; twin storm clouds welling up with puddles to laud upon the earth.


    She was quiet for a moment, and seemed so terribly small, even smaller than most do besides me; but after a bit she shakingly asked, ¡°What did he do to you? Out there, on the roof. Did it hurt?¡±


    ¡°He just held my hand for a bit, and I felt a little funny, but it wasn¡¯t at all bad. I remember his warmth more than anything like pain, and my fingers tend to swim towards icy numbness anyways, so it¡¯s more than fine in the end.¡± I¡¯d meant to answer simply, but the words just¡­ spilled out. Fleshthick petals I was taught to constrain to implication; a waver in the voice perhaps, or other such invisible subtleties; lest my conversational partner doubt my effort.


    Luna, for her part, didn¡¯t seem to mind my display of emotion, more concerned with¡­ how I was feeling? That couldn¡¯t have been right, no, she was simply stunned I was feeling anything at all, that had to be it. The fact that such a phantasmal shell, monochrome as myself, could display peacock-vibrant emotion was indeed something to behold. Worth acting concerned for, even; concerned for her own ability to perceive. Yes, that must be it.


    I could even empathize with that feeling... the comet-tailed discomfort that follows with the ground being shot out from under you. Muggy blood evacuating the fingers and pooling in the palms, at once chilling and scorching and undeniably staticky. I knew it well; and I had caused it, and the squirming sensation of wretchedness began its baleful gutward cavort once more.


    Luna said something; shamefully unheard over the roaring ring in my ears. The tiny buzz of a million ghostly insect-mouths, crawling and clacking chitinous in the crimson-tinged shadows. Or maybe it was just one tingling mass, making its home wallcrawling and watching...


    Either way, her words were muted by something massive and dreadfully alive.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    I think I asked for her to repeat herself; I think. My voice was but another in the coral chorus of screaming nymphic polyps. This, my wretched insect tongue, was in sharp contrast to Luna¡¯s voice, lilting lovely even in those throes of pathos shown on her face; any further meaning was stolen by the screaming of cicadian arrythmia. (It was an insect heart beating itself to an excited pulp; given to the invasive thrill of looking the mind in the eye.) Her intent was polished away by a thousand spiny locust¡¯s hands, until nothing remained but a reminder glimmering like a doll¡¯s too-smooth flesh.


    Not gold, no, entirely unlike that prominent idol that spat the Sandman¡¯s substrates in my face. When Luna wept her words to the ocean of noise in the sky, she summoned the impression of a pale silver mirror, cooling and soothing in a way even tamest candle-flame cannot be. And despite how euphoric it felt, being both embraced by heat and held by the moon¡ªI recoiled. As much as the hallway would allow, I recoiled, slumped against the crawling wall. I crumpled, utterly and instinctively, in the face of closeness.


    It¡¯s one thing to look upon a glowing Wisp from a distance. It¡¯s entirely another to see its face.


    No, that¡¯s ok. It¡¯s ok to feel so repulsed.


    I don¡¯t think I felt repulsed, though, not at all. I wanted to be close to Luna. I want to talk to her more and listen to her more. But if I ever tried to extend a hand, I¡¯d just be pushed away by some unseen force. This dream of mine, connection? It¡¯s spiny cruelty, in all directions and equal ways.


    I didn¡¯t feel repulsed, I am repulsive. Dangerous and repulsive.


    ¡°I am a forest of thorns, a bramble nest masquerading as a home. So just burn me down now. Don¡¯t get too close; I¡¯ll latch onto your skin and tear you apart, while you unravel me by writhing in the pain I cause.¡± Words pouring like a tide of sand from my throat. Hoarse. Dry. Buzzing. Hated. Comprehensible, at least, but then only certainly to me.


    Luna just looked at me, drenched in a sadness so heavy she visibly slumped. I couldn¡¯t tell if she was speaking or not; the swarm was cacophonous as ever, and my vision was growing ever-blurrier as my eyes watered with some kind of wholly psychological enervation. An exhausted pain I hated myself for experiencing, much less succumbing to.


    Succumbing to¡­


    Sleep, that siren, pulled me limply into its murky depths.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    The next thing I knew, the fog of sleep lifted from my eyes, albeit slowly and heavily; but with its humid mass it washed away the harshest of the inky wretchedness that so afflicted me the night before. I lay where then I stood, in the stairwell from the roof, but Luna was no longer by my side. Her absence was painfully apparent, and yet nearly drowned out by a pinpoint stare from above. Like an obelisk upon a mountain, Augustus stared down at me from three steps above my constraining cot, eyes glimmering with the impression of supergiant death. If looks could smite. If looks could condemn. Something icy slithered to my palms, a thought messily birthed from half-awake paranoia. Am I already dead?


    But suppressing my vain self-perception, I had to be alive; for Augustus didn¡¯t look at me with the reverence one casts upon a corpse, but the disgust and pity reserved for those holders of an invalid will. Like the kinds of people who shirk any sort of duty to sleep on the stairs, or who get drowsy in conversation. No, who can¡¯t even hear their conversation partners over their own self-obsession.


    ¡°Am I really so pathetic?¡± I asked Augustus, and maybe myself.


    ¡°No¡­ No, not at all. You could be great someday, even; you have it in you to be some grand figure, prominent among giants. And as for now, well, you¡¯re on the pathway to getting there,¡± he replied in a thin, almost whistling whisper. But his glare never changed or softened; like the sun, it just kept beating down on me.


    A hollow anchor. That¡¯s what his presence was. The warmth of Augustus¡¯s solar gaze just lulled me, driftingly, between lucidity and slumber. If he even intended to help anchor me at all, he was failing. Miserable dissonance ringing out, the hollowest pair collide. Damn this loveless house.


    Even if that wasn¡¯t the kind of thing I thought, I certainly felt it. I felt it, even if not in those words. I hated so much that I silently ground my teeth together and wished to taste copper from between them. I wanted, so badly, to hear a crunch and feel a shooting ache and taste fresh bone meal; I craved disintegration, and I didn¡¯t know why. I knew the cause, but didn¡¯t know why it created such an effect in me; and that was more maddening than the burning in my brain.


    ¡°Why¡­ Why me?¡± I asked. ¡°I¡¯m not¡­ I don¡¯t think I¡¯m worthy of this¡­¡± The words came in a choked flow, and so the sentiment behind them built up a reservoir in my throat. ¡°Why do I get your magic? What¡¯s so special about me?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not about you. It¡¯s about me. This power is mine to give, to all I wish to give it to.¡±


    I chose you; you should be honored. It didn¡¯t need to be said. Augustus was a powerful person; a rebel eternal, yes, but powerful nonetheless. He emulated the system perfectly, in his grand parties, in his seemingly endless collection of art and artifacts. He was noble, in all but title, but it was that absence of anointment that gave him appeal those most spat upon. Augustus¡¯s presence demanded respect, but his actions made him seem worthy of it at the very least. Truly, he could have been a golden king.


    In turn, his magnanimity made me feel all the more wretched. Where he was a pure and shining leader, I felt like a blood-bloated leech made ouroboric, consuming myself to stay sustained. Focusing inward, into a spiral, crawling with rot and lovelessness.


    Bile, black with blood, swirling and turning, flooded the clear basin of tears in my throat. My mouth stayed firmly closed, though; and I only just tasted acidic fumes unfurling to lick at the back of my tongue.


    ¡°You seem ready to explode,¡± Augustus said, ¡°So let¡¯s make sure that you¡¯re aimed right at the Sun before we pull your pin.¡± There was no empathy or love in his voice, all of a sudden; just frantic jests at my expense. But at the same time, something about his laid-back demeanor cooled me, just as howling at the moon did. And I felt no crushing shame, now, for I had done nothing! I flowed with the moment, read the room¡­ I think, on that day, with Augustus, I finally found my place.


    Layer 26: Knights into Dreams


    ¡°We charge.¡± Augustus¡¯s voice was a heavy sword. ¡°We light the fire and we dance with the frenzy of a charge, until the Hunters make themselves seen; at that moment, we fight like the demons they say we are.¡±


    He spoke to everyone around the fire, but most of all, I felt he spoke to me.


    No. I shouldn¡¯t think like that. How wicked and cold must one be, to forget another¡¯s admonishment of narcissism so quickly? My every thought just proved his point, it seemed.


    I still quivered, the same way I had before regrouping with the remaining colorful court upon their sanguine chessboard floor. That wavering exhaustion stayed with me as we shuffled down streets chilled with mist towards The Spot. No one could tell me where we were going; and once we arrived I knew why.


    Our destination was not a place at all, to an unknowing eye; even to mine there was nothing defined about it. It was a patch of road demarcated only by a certain... reverent air about it. The only thing one could call it was ¡°The Spot¡±; with no defining features to make it a landmark, this place was merely a point in space made prominent by repeated gatherings. The surrounding buildings were nothing but the same ornate space-filling seen throughout Wintertree; homes to people unknown and businesses, offices, wherein I have no reason to be. The plentiful metallic embellishments¡ªknockers, doorknobs, seemingly random ornaments¡ªmight have sparkled afire in daylight, under brighter skies, but in the stagnant doldrum mist they only caught water and fogged over.


    They seemed so dull to me, but Luna still gazed, transfixed, at a bronze emblem shaped like a lion¡¯s head frozen in a grotesque roar.


    She was still the only one among Augustus¡¯s court I knew well, so I approached and greeted her softly, to not make her jump. She started regardless.


    ¡°Alistair! You move like a ghost sometimes!¡±


    ¡°Sorry,¡± I mumbled in mild shame. ¡°So, what about this¡±¡ªhere I gestured to the lion¡ª¡±so transfixed you?¡±


    ¡°Nothing, really,¡± Luna replied, ¡°It¡¯s the way the dew looks on this almost-smoothed metal. It¡¯s beautiful, almost magical.¡± She smiled slightly, and sighed happily before snapping to almost hysterical excitement. ¡°Come here, take a look!¡± She waved me over.


    At her flapping beckon, I approached and crouched to look for what she saw: tiny droplets of water, each a pearly lens to its own seafloor and a metallic-tinting mirror to the sky. Perhaps as a result of the unique curvature, attempting to cast in metal the details of flesh, the sharply silver underbelly of the surface formed a sort of frame around anything seen through each dewdrop.


    It was unique, but hardly magical. Beautiful, sure; but why, or even how, such a small thing should even catch someone¡¯s eye puzzled me.


    But it made Luna happy, so even if I didn¡¯t value the sight so much personally, I still treasured it for her.


    Our brief reprieve was broken by a muffled roar and a scorched wind to our backs. As we turned around, both startled this time, I noticed the dew droplets running from the lion¡¯s gnarled visage in wake of the burning disturbance. The image was quickly cleansed by sheer white flames, dancing taller than myself, licking, in the process, the many feet of an insect effigy strung upon a gargoyle far overhead.


    Augustus prodded the bloated thing in the flames with a long, thin metal rod, seemingly for no reason beyond ceremony, before he made his short rallying speech.


    The crowds fell into rhythmic chaos, as expected, save for two¡ªwell, three¡ªafflicted with Drifting Sickness. Red pole-holding leader, of course. And then the pair by the entrance: the pale green girl drawn to the Leonine Solarity like a moth to¡ªwell, to a flame¡ªand the mysterious purple flag... windbent to outside fascination... rasping banner.


    Must investigate further. Pulsed thought, tic-twitch the brain. It''s starting. Frontal lobe trigger-finger, itched. Point and shoot streaming consciousness¡ªblack spurts. Like blood in the night. Or obsidian. Sharp shadows. Ugly contrast in a world build for chiaroscuro.


    The brain is full of blood, the liferopes... gutswamp gurgles, births steam. Pearlescent gunmetal, wrapped like plastic to a corpse; a thousand racing camels softly jangledance up stairs. Great hunchbacked moose watching, with oaken antlers and stared-at jutting knuckles. Feels a chemical freak. Lollops after the crowd anyways, as they bleat out rejections.


    A spiral staircase unfurled from the square¡ªskyward; echoed the spire forest around us. The multicolored masses swirled, as if alive; swept in the current, I had no choice but to fall in prismatic line. Some force compelled us all to Climb¡ªbig "C" seemed appropriate at the time. If ants got religion it would stink like that crowd. Pineapple pheromones, yellow and crazy, jitterbug swarm feeding... a frenzy as nonviolent as gasoline is cold.


    We were not alone in our ascent. Figures in heavy ashen robes watched us pass upward. Stony psychopomps (scare the child in us all) graveyard statues ribbon-cutting our egos.


    ¡°What happened to that one?¡± one Observer asked another, hushed and concerned.


    ¡°William Telled the mind, gone wrong... drunk on the power of showing off...¡± Words, candletrails.


    Vaguely remember an anecdote about something similar, a pretty autumn accident, but the wind here is silver sand and it''s hard to think. Delirium, they call it. Mind drifts within and without the humidity, sailfloats on the sea in the sky... slips from the rut-grooves in the road. Try to weigh myself down with etymological thoughts. Or is it entomological? I certainly feel like a bug. Biting chitin, biding time beneath the skin... something about that resounds funny to me (brain shakes; a terrified animal)


    Where has the beauty gone? A spiral thermal cut the haze of forever ascension. Just for a moment, I felt my old self come back. Where has the beauty gone? My self used to be defined by elegance, by rambling thoughts and woven metaphors, tongue-dance ivy cast in purple smoke... now that''s brokendead, a bird to a windowpane. Put to growth, in death? To forest floor rot? Is the new tree any good? Can''t think about it, just want to keep climbing. Insect instinct to bullet points; fractured glass. Pretty fragments. Watch me glitter forever...


    Lizard revelation writhes in a pool of spilled milkblood; pink, creamstone quartz. I felt sick.


    Map the dream? What a foolish errand... bitingly frustrating, rolling up a hill like a sheet of paper. I don''t think I meant to dream-chart, and I never needed to; I just need to dream-quest. To experience the sweet-sick haze, the gaze into the abyss as a tennis match. To sleep, to live, not to see but to feel. I, my tongue, as one; the purple rambler. A wyrm engorged with flickering words; swollen with an iridescent flame. And belching Shimmer.


    We were trapped, then¡ª myself, and the writhing vine in my skull. Trapped in a waking dream that stubbornly retains its perfumed air; refuses classification as a ¡°nightmare¡±.


    In my folly the dream had become uneasy. There was no perfume in this visceral antechamber. These walls were rot and blood, black worm-tracks... bullet holes shaped like smoke tails of candles, loopy doodle themselves into iron-brand John Hancocks on my gray matter... can¡¯t touch anything without hotdry metal staining it all in rusty ash.


    And it''s all this hate-watching city''s fault.


    ¡°That¡­ That is just not true,¡± said the man in the beetle helmet. His proclamation dammed the stream of biting consciousness within me; made me notice, truly, the stone-rot details of the Healing Church. The moth-bitten tapestries in sick yellows and reds, (ancient ochre bloodstains writ to silk) the amber dance within the antechamber, jailing air of chiaroscuro, saps the mind''s eye blind... matchstick delirium set in again...


    He spoke so authoritatively that I almost believed his judgment. So authoritatively, and yet with such a spitting fury... I scrambled, fearful, to place the last time I¡¯d heard such conviction in one¡¯s own words.


    Augustus, fascinating as he was, didn¡¯t even compare; it must have been¡­ Luna, back on the roof, tempting me with heavenbound psychological relief. Her theater mask then was as exaggerated as the beetle-helmed man¡¯s expression; but where she was resplendent, he was uncanny. Gnarled, scarlet. For a moment, I was a clueless child again, scalded by the paternal red-faced rage. Paralyzed before Saturn, devoured by his rings of fire.


    Hollow veins again, half-empty; filled, such as they are, with hot sludgy blood.


    I could practically feel the blood draining inward from my fingertips (they¡¯re bleeding heat again) and flushing my face with a deathly shame. Glancing down confirmed my suspicions; jutting from my palms were ten waxy yellow candles, completely unlit while my face was aflame. Some part of me thought that was unfair.


    The man in the beetle helm continued his beet-faced tirade. ¡°The Sun sees your lies! The Sun knows the truth! When the time comes, you¡¯ll see disappointment scrawled on the ceiling as you learn of gnashing fangs and lashing flames. Angel-flame from furthest space will flay the skin and flesh and blood from your bones, and when you are finally pure, you¡¯ll look into your shadow to see maggot-ridden filth gnawing it to disintegration all over again until there¡¯s nothing left. The all-loving Sun will hate you, all because you had to lie.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯M NOT LYING!¡± I screamed; a scream that drained from me so much breath... I felt like an apparition fading into film, demystifying the spirit photograph. ¡°I know that I have a long way to go before I¡¯m anywhere near good enough. I know that already.¡± That¡¯s right. So many more doors to open and chalky changes to swallow before I deserve even the spark of a smile. So many steps to climb before I¡¯ll know even the embrace of the wolves at the gates. ¡°Why would I throw all that progress away now?¡±


    ¡°Tell yourself whatever lie you like. Tell yourself that life is all just one big tragedy, a spiral into despair, if that twisted truth is the only shape you can find a comfortable place in. Just don¡¯t tell me it¡¯s the truth. Your pleas of innocence to me are sacrilege. Scream it to the Sun instead. Declare your candor to the sea in the sky. Meet the gaze of the solar eye. Look into it. And, as you wilt in undying fire from the sky, hiss your lies to the deafened abyss.¡±


    Layer 27: Death and Rebirth, By Sleep


    ¡°All it takes is one bad ¨€¨€¨€¡±


    When I was a child, I saw something in the hallway outside my room. Something that filled the space between the walls, wholly and completely swallowed it in a featureless crimson mass.


    Well, featureless isn¡¯t exactly right. It throbbed, beat like a heart, stretched like a membrane in unequal ways. ¡°Crimson¡± isn¡¯t exactly right either. It was stained a color out of codification, the seeping deep violet of organ meat mixed, like paint, with blood fresh from a clean cut.


    Despite this, it left the impression of a crimson monolith. It was something my young mind could only call a monster. Of course, I was told it was nothing of the sort. It was dreams coming to my head, or the Sandman on his nightly errand, to plunge me into dunes of crushing slumber. It was just lights, lights from the outside twisted and warped into a bleeding shadow. Or it was something in between. Something conjured by a mind teetering on the cliff of the nightly death we call ¡°sleep¡±.


    I know what I saw. I knew, even back then, that what I saw was nothing so intangible as an illusion or a bedtime story; nor even was it a boogieman. It was a definitively present aberration of flesh. It was definitely there. I could never forget the throbs, the way they echoed so, rattling the floorboards and my frozen nerves alike. It was definitely there.


    For if it wasn¡¯t, why would the sprites upon my pillow apologize to me so fervently, every night, for years and years? The tiny little glowing things that robbed me of sleep, those little flecks of sharp sunlight, like needles to the eyes, chanting again and again in tinny repose: ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°For what?¡± I always wanted to ask. But I was paralyzed by that glowing dust. My jaw locked, my arms and legs invisibly chained, my eyes only able to blink shut for a moment; even then, those dancing things left impressions on the inside of my eyelids like shards of sand.


    As I grew older, fae touch faded from my life. I awoke to fewer and fewer ashen footprints on my pillow, and drifted off to far fewer barely-audible apologies. Perhaps they were done atoning, or perhaps they took a new form. Maybe that¡¯s what the Pale Spider was: so nicknamed for being pale like moonlight, not necessarily in hue but in its misty density; and a spider not in form but in movement, the way it leaned into the horizon between two walls and the ceiling. Never speaking a word¡ªlooking back, did it even have a mouth? ¡ªjust staring into me. Scrying, eyeless, into my sleeping mind¡ªno, it must have had eyes, and I just don¡¯t remember them, for what blank brow could so slice me?


    I think I finally get it now. Everyone wanted to pretend that the hallway-eating heart wasn¡¯t there, but they couldn¡¯t just tell me, ¡°Play along,¡± not without shattering the masquerade for themselves. So they covertly enforced the idea. The Seelie specks about my pillow? They were apologizing for the Sight they forced upon my weary eyes; apologizing for existing. Even then, I knew that was wrong, but still envied their plight. That of the selfish hero damned to keep moving forward, further and further along the spiral staircase of their own justice. Deeper and deeper, or higher and higher; it matters not, when the sky is a sea. Eventually, the pressure makes a spine more of a hindrance than a boon. A human is reduced to a jellyfish, all to keep being a hero by their own standard. All to earn a reliable walking-stick, the knowledge that they are ¡°better than they think they are¡±.


    Sometime between then and now, I finally did it. I finally closed my eyes, fled those baleful existences, saw the ¡°better me¡±, and what am I greeted with?


    Cursed gnosis gnawing at me. A look in a mirror that never should have been. A duality, between and beyond beautiful lucidity and the beastly dream.


    I¡¯m being pulled apart by two corpses. The drowned and the desiccated. Mother and father, sun and moon, heat and entropy, an excess and its equal opposite. In the middle¡­ is me. I¡¯m an existence chimeric, cobbled together to split the difference between all dichotomies and yet find homes with neither side. Hollow and nameless, the celestial body of the eclipse. Unable to be filled, shattered as I have been by these dual dueling pleromas. Wandering as I wilt, and wilting as I will be.


    All it takes is one bad DREAM.


    The world here, not black and white, but brown and gold.


    Here lie fires, mighty pyres, fallen a numbing, bludgeoning cold


    I think I Know now, why the Beast does fear flame


    I gaze upon the cage, invoke its truest Name


    Somewhere, between your eyes and the horizon, there dwells a Thing. A Thing is, to those forgotten by times like tides, something alive with no other features besides. It might be tiny and glowing; it may be a great shadow. It may fly like a carpet, or it may fly on ragged wings, or it may be chained to the ground. It may drift, it may move with a determination; it may have a mind, it may not. It might be a mass of tentacles, or it may be a single glowing dot. All that a Thing is, is what it isn¡¯t. It isn¡¯t any creature science has recorded. It doesn¡¯t have a name, besides Thing. You have not seen it, but you may look for it; and you may only know what to look for because I have seen it. And when a little piece of me is a little part of you¡ªall of you¡ªthen you know what to look for.


    An apparition, perhaps? A glowing Will on the edges of a sight tinged by rotting madness? Or maybe some Thing more solid? A Thing cast of something unlike the chitin that constrains the flesh, and the bone the flesh sloughs off of? Not quite a walking worm; but rather something that walks upright on jointed feet, drifting between high and low life, wavering from ascension to invalidity and back again. Or maybe some Thing more certain still? Something like a living wall, a mass of crimson flesh?


    Is that what you want to see, in the sepia shadows that call the staircase, the hallway¡ªthe liminal¡ªhome?


    No? You wish to tread deeper into this cluttered menagerie? Do you seek some Thing like a more familiar creature? Perhaps a deer, or a dog, or a horse, or¡ª indeed? A human? I must warn you; these Things are not to be taken lightly. But I¡¯m sure you know the risks. You¡¯ve already seen the Thing you seek, after all, on these streets. There was no cage, then, right? Or none so solid as I have here, perhaps; or perhaps there was indeed a cage, but one of fog, not binding iron. A cage drifting on the wind and parting at even slight touch, and of course you were inside it, not the Thing. Of course.


    Very well. You may See whatever Things you wish to See.

 Chapter 13: An End To The Experiments

    Chapter 13: We Have Such Sights to Show You


    Layer 28: As Nightshade Wilt


    ¡°Thus, we the humans, once a lowly shambling mass, would find soul in Sol. Our Father, the Sun. He asks little in return, verily, he asks for inaction. He asks that we bear not the lights of our filthy will; that we leave it to the Sun to give us light. He asks for us to continue shielding the Moon, those fair and weak and without lights of their own to follow. He decrees that in exchange for bountiful life, we need only passively return the favor. All are subjects free from pain and prolonged misery, beneath the merciful Sun. Burn in purity, knowing eternity; the flaming wheel perpetually turns. By Hallowed Gold, amen and adjourned!¡±


    Dr. Vepar finished his lecture¡ªsermon? Seminar? ¡ª and turned from the podium to face me. Churned it on, postrhyme, spurted the Alraunic spoutmouth. ¡°See now, what we do isn¡¯t so bad. We just help people find the selves inside the shell. What they couldn¡¯t see before, for all that¡­ excess in the way. We cut out the debauchery of ritual and the hubris from modern medicine to create the only perfect Art under the Sun. Light where magicks and science alike are Dark. We seek nothing so selfish as comfort, nor something so malleable as truth. Instead, we will forge our own knowledge, pure as the Sun and just as limitless. In this gnosis we shall be made complete.¡±


    ¡°Should the Sun allow you to see falsehoods, would you abandon this path?¡± Augustus interrupted from next to me. He was cool as always, a sharp contrast to the burning panic I felt. The feeling of a fish in a backwater being put to fevered steam.


    The ache had never really cooled, the jaundice about my brain never really went away. My eyelids collapsed, beaten past matchstick ropes that were never really there. I''m ashamed to say it; but exhaustion won.


    From out of the darkness, two aphid-sized suns. Specks of glowering flame, growing yet staying the same tiny size, incandescent decay in reverse... They blinked. All five thousand and one blinked, cyclopean; and awakened from their second-long sleep as cloaked towers. In reds and yellows and blues... flower-stained madness followed with. Smeared petals on fabric seas, thousandfold unfolded sheets, hanging deadflesh, dancing about, hunched backs to my purple hands... I saw it as a worm would have; the rebel gala. The bloodied chessboard, the place I should have fit and never was, scarlet needled by filaments like glassy eyes.


    I''ve made a terrible mistake, a tiny warble self-gnawed out from within. The kind of mistake that can''t be outrun or outthought, it can only be accepted, laid upon the sprawling sea of a sofa, face to the fabric... you never notice how rough velvet is until it''s up against your eye...


    Sweating from the smothering candles, choking on guttersmoke poetry, I would have wept but for the Sulphur crystals growing in my brain. Flowering. That was the word. Bloom. Decay in reverse, still spiraling and tragic but growingly so, within. My soul was not atrophied, it was smothered; smothered by a yellow flower planted to compliment scarlet, and I just let it happen...


    Fever chills crawled icewater trails down from my brainstem, spread roots deeper and deeper, echoing the veins. Sickened, I rejected something up from my guts... a twisting display, serpentine blooming into a puddle eggshellish.


    A lizard arose from flat depths awash in crystal milk; looked at me and spoke: "Your own words will be forever smothered by othersouls my small violet orchid contradiction (it spoke this way, spittingly; despondent spurts of cobra venom, but from a harmless lizard tongue) smothered by shame at the guttering motif and the repeated words world turns not for humans but for the verminous such as yourself" and then died spreading into a rosy pink cloud. Mirrored the pillows of scraping velvet. No time to cudchew the arcane intonations¡ª


    The beetle-helmed man and Augustus looked at me, with selfsame aphid flame in their eyes and mirroring pheromone stink and pulsating vase collections in their wallet-pockets and... I shouldn''t have seen it; Augustus taught me as much. He was righteous and the Healing Church was lying; but as it stood both had timebomb buds in me and I saw no difference. Nightshadely, I wept. Belladonna tears. Bulletpoints. Burningly despondent at the revelation I''d known all along.


    Layer 29: Swan Eyed


    Alistair slumped; Beloved and nowmine and unwanted, wilted orchidly against their sinister chains... Didn''t matter so much. Lesser player out of the way freed me to debate matters of the questing and medicinal with the Archdoctor. If I''d had my way of course I''d have halfsnapped him, chitinly about the joints, and I don''t doubt he''d have done the same to me... my recollections of the chamber are all like this. Run-together and hellishly metaconscious. I don''t doubt that it got to me as much as it did sweet Alistair.


    Still, I kept my own, that''s what really matters, right? Beat back the urge to unholy Lunacy?


    "Take for an example my pretty little Alistair. Passed out there in the corner. Would you really be any different, if you found out your whole cause were just... some auric shimmer? No, proximal heat... Mirage! A mirage. If you gave yourself to a mirage and knew it, how would you..." I grasped the air, dramatically, strawsearching. "Cope, I suppose." There''s that old king-recalling charm.


    That very same charm that chained Alistair to me, from the moment I offered them power, not just magick but a position in my dream. Tactician. Give me a break. Maybe it was before that, even¡ªdumb little dolly stumbled in my path, alone, and followed me in all but physicality. Either way I''d had them chained since long before that night on the roof. How long ago was that? Hours? Weeks? How long had it been since I first knocked them out, planted metal dragonsteeth in veinlined fields; the forearm? How many times had they bit the bottom of the gardenbath, and then blue perfection, the velvet sea of the loveseat... How many times did they even remember? How many would they remember?


    Consciously, that is. The links in your arm are circuits, Alistair Macabre. You are wired to my every whim.


    Fight like the demon you are in their eyes.


    Alistair unfurled suddenly, flew like a phantom to their feet; those goddamn troopers materialized from stillness to hold them down. I saw a metal glint in their left hand, as the self-defense guide decreed. Good, I thought. Their fist, lined with dull tin masquerading as brass, crashed into the fleshy interzone between metal helm and plasticky platemail . Right on the squishy neck gap... bit the Adam''s apple...


    They fought like I ordered, fought like a demon. Or a man possessed. Mustn''t think like that; such sank faint snakefangs. Lookpast like the ghost in a photograph; added postfactum. Right? Past. Left. Shakingyourhead like I''m wrong. I''ll live, the sunset behind your head and hid it; I''ll remember this as a nod...


    A second Trooper fell, then a third, and three converged vulturely upon the purple whirlwind, swinging guns as clubs. A violet-cloaked forearm; a failing shield. A crunch that turned my stomach. Alistair never quite recovered from that one. One brisk whack behind the knees and my hopes for them, and by extension their purpose, were stilled.


    I couldn''t believe it. I couldn''t believe after all I had given them, Alistair still failed me so. I wasn''t even angry, nor beyond it, though I should have been, they had sworn me fealty and submission and failed even that... some hot ringing in my ears threatened to drown my thoughts and I wondered, a good many things, mostly if this is how they felt on the roof and in the Golden Room while they were passed out and I drowned them.


    "I confess it. I drowned Alistair. Again and again. They may not remember; such is the way of things. I was stupid and desperate and I took them to a bath and washed out their soul and drowned them and took the cleaned body-copy to keep me company on that blue couch of perfect velvet... and they''ll never remember it, right? But even if I grow past this moment and that urge I''ll never forget. Even if I intend to repent, I''ll remember, only I will remember, forever..."


    Archdoctor Vepar smiled down at me. "My child. They too will remember. Even if they don''t know, they will remember."


    Hot static ate me, wolfed me down like the tail of a snake... the eternal worm recurrence...


    This is how it always is, for me. Thus spoke a voice dyetinged in radioesque distance.


    How can a consciousness stand up to this?


    Our good friend... Sorry. I am the host for his Evening Majesty''s August Horror Show. You may not call me, but if you must; Eye shall do... nicely. (I stole that from the sun. Story for another time, though. [A mariner yelps.]) So our good friend and sponsor and emperor here is or was¡ªpardon, nacheinander, neccese est in this form¡ªsee also the dogshore chapter... Eitheror, byside. Some muggy serpent bugged him beneath the skin, in the most cliche of waking dreams, but too liquid to be an insect. Some giant hot amoeba, not sunhot but lifehot. Bloodhot. "The blood is the life!" Sorry. Been a while. Since I''ve thought of that I mean. Augustus is sick and wrong and I have, now, little enough care for his ascent (as narrative) to say so. Can we get a collection going for our sick good sponsor? [Monkeys sprout wings and third eyes and fifth limbs and screech in asheneyed ears.] I guess none of you can spare a hat or penny for the despised thinker. Shame, that.


    He took a hit from a flask of golden poetry; spat it on the broad glass back of a camel. Shuddered, but unshattered; still it stands today. Lazily runningoff, drops of nectar, children are starving for time you know and here you are, oh! Self-indulging. Whotoldmethat?


    I or rather a body of mine made some comment beyond thought; the old hated cliche. "We are the same."


    "We are the same in all but aim, and so we are complete opposites," Augustus parried.


    "Then prove it." My avatar drew a golden blade, short, square, gladius one might call it or else just a boxy dagger; and made himself apparent to the augurs. I mean he spilled his guts. I mean he cut his stomach. I mean the king died; killed himself. (Most kings do but not so directly.)


    The redrobed commander wept; tears of ceremony for the death of a king. Behind the mask, confusion, cold and motionless as an unseen spring. In a scarlet palm; hollow throne. On a flamefilled head, a hollow crown... Augustus became holy that day. Cleaned by the same psychic fire that tempered quaking revolutionaries. Ascension to plasma, consumed by the light of the moon. There are no words¡ªhe took the throne.


    The poor huddled¡ªchild, still? Clumped as ashy lavender under nightpurple robes, looked past the dead king, and the scarlet-armed prince taking the throne; the dramatic picture before them fell hollow. The drama of life, the play, the picture show, the story, it all just slid right by as noise bereft any meaning. But I saw the meaning and I think you did too and I think. Did Augustus? Did he know he was onstage?


    My eyes were ash, I couldn''t think stable, my eyes were wet, my thoughts shook, my eyes stung dry, full of dry sand, and hot, and my thoughts were tropical. My brain and gut as one a swamp. Citruscolored and tigerskinned. Lioneyed watching from the sun; too ashamed to look back or say it¡ªthat the eyes were there. They''re not there you know. But they feel like they are at the worst of times like now. At the best of times I can ignore the eternal worm. At the worst it becomes me...


    A voice. It''s getting worse, I knew. A voice and eye in the sky were and still are not good signs.


    "Rattle your saber at the great blue, lightly and raspingly, blade a branch of dead leaves and stolen flames... feeling the hilt clatter about shoots aches up and down the arm like tendrils of feverchill ivy about the bone but it¡¯s fine... just don¡¯t kick at the roots too much..."


    None of that was or is me. Or anything I wanted or needed or want or need to hear. Not ever not never; I still listened. Fight for me and die for me if you must. Fornot your own sake but for the better world. But it will still end... Fatalistic I know but perhaps, fatalis est. It must be. "It can''t be helped," would come the voice from my future. Everything rattled and I was so tired...


    Layer 30: Disintegration/The Trial


    The same voice. It had never stopped from the throne the dais whendidthatgetthere? Ever since the strange call-to-arms but it, then, called me forward.


    "Despite being under no obligation to do so, we shall continue with your case for today."


    So generous, to hold me further, and yet¡ªthere I sat, painfully silent. Shameful really. Guilty before any proclamation. Still, and still, not punishment enough... [Interjection from Oberon. This thought is what we call a fragment, and there is but one master of them. We dare not draw comparison. But sometimes wretched Alistair cannot help it. We shall see where that gets them.]


    Chanted Romanly, invoking medicine and holy law, set fire to brimstone-colored veins in my head, stank like a less transcendental hallucinogen, not mushrooms but spores themselves... instigate a runny ayahuasca rot... Craven decay. A perfect spiral circling in lazy danger, lovesong, the warped record shows. I shuddered and opened my eyes and found myself in a lecture hall awash with noise... Latin babbling, and words I could pick out besides.


    And so we see, objectively, the sad fact of the trap gravitational; the spilling of orchidwater upon a filthy sweater. The Addictrag. Teacher! Teacher! My Lord! Yes, frontrow. What might one intone about the orchid''s. Well The fact of its shape. I''m so glad you asked [The king of the room morphs and folds.] The petals represent the phallus and the shears, the desire to return to the womb. [The teacher returns] Very insightful. [A chorus follows with.] Insightful, insightful! [They repeat these words in a pair five times, for a total of ten insights.] Perfect. Now for the balancepoint [The king morphs into a doctor holding a stack of various unread scriptures. Most major religion''s texts are sandwiched between strange manifestos typewritten and scrolls of deerhide. They (the currently relevant sacred texts) smell like bubblegum that smells like strawberries; several pages are glued shut with shame.] So you see. So you see the flower is the orchidself allowed to bloom and the shears are the shadow. [A line of cocaine is produced and passed around the room in a cloud. It does not make it far before scattering to the windless air.] Indeed, the shadow. Indeed [Twentytimes repeated.]


    I cried out. "Ah, das isch der shadowplay!" I''m not sure why, it just felt right on the tongue; wrong in the air, though... Earned me a thousand glares and an African Gray repetition and a cockatiel cackle and¡ªpeanuts, by way of bird reward.


    Alistair never laughs. Not now and not again and not for a hundred seconds that feel... Centurion.


    Bur what did Alistair know they were thinking?


    Nuppebo Dogskull Orchidbloom; empty shell, graysanded corpse of sazae-oni searches for own meaning in the motif. The only work is in the papers. [Or so spoke Saturn. And Vesta; only her Bacchanalia. Vino recalls out confessionals in plentydoses.] In long and short they thought of acid (citric) in large doses and venom (serpentine) in smaller but still noticeable doses; unknown they noticed the leaky adrenal gland. Filling Allthoracia with sour smallmarsh. A tiger whined; a dying whine with burningeyes.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    I have no idea where I am or what is happening or what any of it means; only that it can mean nothing. All good people are asleep and dreaming; I am awake. Again awake, next to them, smelling hair (accidentally) and staring at the ceiling (with intent) and hiding precious botanical effects (in parentheses). I jolted awake; again, awake.


    A litany of literary cursenames were screamed at me. Caliban Kali-Ma Medusa! Call Me Lilith! Serpented Iscariot! Blighted Byron. Sick skin-wearer. They came to a consensus climax; yowled a livid scarlet-fever pitch. Phantom Operatic.


    Lucretia, I reflected. A flaming red apple slid into my throat; I was screamed down.


    Poison! Poison! jeered the court.


    Belladonna, I retorted blasphemously. Your Guy, your god, a Demon Emperor, he filthied me, declared my newborn spine. Thus Belladonna.


    Belladonna. The chorus concurred; rubberstamped me euphoric in resonance. Thud, quoth the oncepounded reverie. Letters to release, on good behavior.


    The wailsong booms from a single scarlet voice. Cast thee out with allpower in deified I. Thus yowled the God-emperor of computer chips and dumpsters unspoken in polite company. King in Scarlet, Lord of the Sane. He looked and acted and for all intents was hysterical, selfsame as me, but they all wordclung; rapturously adrift. All but I, newborn into exile from his domain.


    Spoken in dreamy reverse:


    slide into these somatic depths of little death, lose yourself to the gentle tug. be swept off your feet; laid down by the current, sluggish and milky white as a dead man¡¯s eyes.


    Link by foul link, the chain slithered into my left arm, first from within the skin and then pressing deeper; within the thin slit between Radia and ulna. Anti-birthed into being bit by bit, scraping on bone, pushing past gristly tendon and trailing white hairs. Nerves, churned asunder in the impromptu entrance. They burned.


    I chose this and the blue sofa and the night on the roof, I thought, or someone thought from within me. Even despite the pressure and the starved-out emptiness, and the need to be needed, at the end of the day I still let this continue...


    "You still let this continue," someone told myself.


    The thought of another consciousness within my own head made me physically ill, at my own fall, at what that says about me, at notvoices but just something rushing to fill the hollowness. Turbulence churned itself out, dirt settled, I realized that everyone was constantly under this sort of societal psychic effect, I could feel normal. We are all alike under the sun and moon and stars, alike and judged in pallid illustrious eyes. It''s ok. Take it easy. Settle down there. We''re allwitched, make no scene. I think that was one of mine my thoughts I mean or else someone so like me as to be functionally indistinguishable...


    The overwhelming tide rushed hot then, baking heat, and roaring like blood in the thin ears of the tiger who slumbers above. Tracing gently as a finger along the recalled-out scar, all other signs pointed to ritual relief that I shouldn''t know about (according to again the overwhelming light-eye.)


    Regardless; psychically or aurically really I began the chant; echoed off the cathedral-recalling skullceiling, the chant I knew but was never taught.


    resplendent as I wilt it at the interstice/cast to frost kissed fingertips... Over and over and over again...


    Purple shadows puddled in probable contradiction to the pale green glow... from behind... some softness come to set me free from the indoor sun...


    The moon rained down, green and spaceflaming, the flame of rings in midfall, angelic and terrible and soothingly wicked.


    Luna Elise Lavenza looked upon me, silent, but with truest pity in her eyes, the eyes once full of rain now less icy and more chilling. Fog. She had fog in her eyes.


    Luna, do you remember the day they gave you wings?


    Those halls full of shuddering homunculi. Yes, I remember.


    Do you remember the day?


    The lights inside were the stars. The sun specifically. Illustrious. I remember.


    How old were you?


    I had just started using the Necronomicon forums.


    How old were you?


    Somewhere between nine and fifteen years old.


    Where is your family?


    I don''t have one.


    Who requested you be given wings?


    My family.


    Tell me about them.


    Why?


    Tell yourself about them.


    After they gave me wings, I said I wanted to die. After my back opened up and out and I flew so sorely, and I said I wanted to die, and they called me beautiful. I said something stupid to my mother. "I''ll go up to my room and be alone forever and you''ll never see me again and then I''ll go to sleep." She didn''t understand; maybe it was the drifting sickness in me or something gumming up her ears but I really hoped she would hear me, I asked her for help in such silver ways and she didn''t even listen. This actually happened.


    And how did that make you feel?


    Like I was going to swell and burst.


    What do you mean?


    You''re just like her. You can''t listen.


    What did you do next?


    I swelled up and burst.


    What did you do next?


    I ran away.


    From?


    That house.


    You ran away from home.


    No. It wasn''t home. It was a closed circle.


    Like a magic circle?


    Now you''re listening.


    No. I need to call someone.


    Nonononononono they''ll give me wings again and I can''t have that pleasepleaseplease not again not again not again not one more time; I couldn''t take it. Please I''m barely hanging on as it is if you scrape me open one more time will I actually swell and burst and die?


    Fine. What did you do after you ran away?


    I kept running.


    What did you do?


    I threw myself into hero work. That''s what I thought of it as. I think it''s a little foul now. To save lives for my own sake? The sake of escape I mean. Terribly unempathetic to the psychopomps doing the same, the Troopers too but they don''t deserve mercy anymore. Taking lives into their own hands, I mean. How disgusting. I feel sick. Is that what you want to hear? I know if I hadn''t been given wings I would have been melted down and put into one of those Trooper suits and made into a wall of flesh. Maybe there was no functional difference, or maybe that''s just what they want me to think.


    So there was no difference?


    I became the same. Not really. I was cool as the moon; and soothing. The Troopers were a single hot swamp of rage and sour acid. But we were the same.


    In the end, there was really no difference?


    The end?


    The end.


    Are you... finally listening?


    No. But you told me anyway.


    I was vaguely aware I''d been muttering to myself, I couldn''t do that anymore though. Now it was all I could do to keep a smallslight smile, to keep my jaw from falling off. Mandibles and muscles felt like pale strings. I am going to become a butterfly. I am going to swell and burst. I don''t want to but I will.


    You haven''t been talking to yourself, Luna. You''ve been talking to the moon. There is a slight difference.


    "Ah... I can''t take it anymore," I realized, and swelled, and burst.


    A giant thumb bust forth, smeared center mass into messy bloom...


    Luna was gone, her Papillion resplendence cannibalized to ragged strings of powdered silk. Moth-eaten, and fluttering still, preserved in a tiny box with a false bottom, smuggled out of time.


    Trembling fingertips tenderly pick up fuzzy remains; drop them in a soft spiral to the ground, to the trash, mercy by force...


    Misty eyes could hold the crumpled husk of a hero in honored exile. Treasure hidden amidst mundane possessions; another pretty bit of nature shed and collected. A feather or the leathery corpse of a frog, hairline bones in a box.


    My brain was, then, aflame, with flickering tongues alight at the recitation. And could you blame me? My hero had died, in front of my eyes, and all because I met her. I pinched my eyes shut, handlessly and sore, but still the light danced on, still wormingly pulsated a yellow-green slimetrail. A dull talon dug into my temple, squeezed a Fibonaccian beat, psychically intoning... I have nothing in my head but other people''s petals, I protested silently; the eagle still picked at the liverless plaque gleaming in my brain''s gray crevices. What did I do?


    A voice called out deep to me, forcibly resonant with my bones; it may have been beetlehelmed or it may have been crimsonrobed, solar or wicked alight; it still made me sick to my head. Made my brain so fevered that my eyes might burst into white fire, were I to open them... Recalled suppressed velvet and the smothering sunlight...


    When again I opened my eyes, the skies were dominated by a celestial body I can only call chimeric. Gleamed like the moon, screamed like the sun, red and hollow like nothing I have a name for. It was a loosely illuminated ring, a hypnotist¡¯s instrument liberated from its string. My mind raced to put a name to this face, void of splendor and too deprived to be plentiful; but all that came to mind were still tied to that solar and lunar duality. Hollow sun. Blackened moon. New moon, burning brightest. Sun shot through with its opposite. The sky, which to this point had hung low, clouds aglow in crimson resplendence, opened up; and from the solar-parched depths poured forth a rain deep gold and sweeter than any nectar. Not the obscure and seductive flow of the milky Lethe, nor the glassy scarlet torrent called Phlegethon, but at the same time not a fenceperched mist between them. This ambrosia from out of the sky¡­ it was resplendent in and of itself.


    My hero was dead, in body and ego. The moon went away before the sun, and the sun went away for the sake of this rain.


    From my hollow home amidst the gargoyles and hallucinations, I drank of the sizzling bullets, shooting me mad... Yellow crazy raindrops, kingsrobe gold, livid nest of ants... Aether began taking hold on my mind and form alike...


    Spreading cloak into wings foul and feathered as a Bathory raptor¡¯s; and gigantic... like the Roc of Arabia, said to lift elephants into the depths of the sky if you only turn your back long enough... Eerie in frosted onyx, crying oily iridescence, opium smoke of a fevered brain¡¯s dream; and indeed, the minds of those who beheld this vast and wretched bird were burdened by its sickly weight (greater than any albatross). I was, this, in truest form, a Raven; trickster known at crossroads the world over, harbinger of plague and doom and all such things shapeless and impending; and of mind wickedly sharp as its almost hooked beak. If beast or bird should ever utter in human tongues, it ought to be the honor of this flying malice; to boldly croak forth that single word which drove Poe to madness.


    And yet before my opponent Apis Titania The Fae Queen Bee and her tearing counterpart the tearless Saturn unconsumptive coldshouldered worm; Oberon, Nameless Father, Saturn¡ªstill. That great bird was food to them. The fox and the wolf, the vulturepair, picking the ragged flesh. A once divine avatar, chained, drowned, torn apart, grown fur, not in that order. Killed fourfold. Numbing scarletink punch from the King clad in the same, that was number five. Feline lives ticked by... I''m only human or should be... What''s happening to me? Some node prophecybound for thoracia was assigned its own judgement. A different sentence to the toxic flower of the mountain I claimed myself to be at best. It¡ªthe egg¡ªwas named Demiurge, the failed god, the failed child, the disaster synthesis, and I was to carry its guilt vicariously.


    Thus always to tricksters.


    Just like on that perfect sofa, the velvet ocean, surrounded by comrades and will-less of my own, the kernel slid into me. Through skin and ribs, and choked-down objections, propelled onwards by pinpoint sentences, and notsayinganything but asking for this purpose... It was recorded all fuzzy, I think; the memories were. Once upon a baking summerday I''d placed my hand firmly and toally and completely¡ªpalmwrapped, about a metal railing. All the sweat just wicked away. My hand felt like it lost all moisture, and with it all feeling; it was hotly numb and perfect. I was an automaton in that moment. Thermally perfect. But you have to take your hand off the railing at some point. You have to break the equilibrium. I had to, it would seem, realize what I had let happen...


    The hot metal wicked flametongues to my flesh.


    I should have died from the pain. If there was a speck of mercy in the world, it would have severed my consciousness then and there and permanently... The world is a spiraling tragedy, though. Worse and worse and worse every time we complete the cycle. It, then, would stand to reason that something like this wouldn¡¯t kill me. (The mind wanders to impractical philosophy when overwhelmed. Or at least mine did. Maybe just to justify it all.)


    Pain alone, even so acute, would never kill. The node (wishitereanegg) lazily slid leftwards, towards the heart, the heart that despite all my attempts at stoicism and aloofness and cultivation of a naive appeal, needed someone. Either Luna or Augustus or some version of them that wouldn''t get killed or turn on me... My left shoulder should have bubbled and melted away; in a more merciful world perhaps. The seed planted itself in my left hand. Augustus''s chains rooted it in place, and it still burned¡ªwith numb prominence of the solar railing. For the rest of my days, my left arm would hang heavy and clean, cauterized by this cleansing space-flame. Even if no one else could see it, I would always know. I would always look at my left arm and see that desecration-in-the-name-of-purity, that glisten. Fresh fruit flayed open, glistens about a solid pit.


    I drifted back into a waking harbor holding a bleary vision; vision of fervent yellow-orange highway lines (bug-gut colored) ticking by Geigerly, counting the half-life to home. Where home? Is. Dammit. I''m not some goddamn test subject. (Don''t need to be so acrid angry either but my mouth is sour.) Eventually I came to, came to the door, or else visions of the door came to me. The door. Thedoorthedoorthedoorthedoorthedoor. With its little lightpeek eye at the bottom and the papery glow that it cast, darkly as anylight, as argentlight lining a witch. But it just traced the door.


    Home was the same room it always was but softer. Less anthill antechamber and more human. I couldn''t help but feel¡ªiin some psychotically egotistical mind-cranny¡ªthat the room had changed to reflect me in some way. I still felt the chains in my left arm, but that''s just it, I felt them, pressed heavy into the spareyouthegorydetails scraping the (recalled out) hurts to think about. Well; better hurt than cold, shelled off, and the room was warm for the (possible first?) time. Felt like a first at least... One wall was lined with books, of all sorts, not just dry tomes (excluding them, actually). These shelves were full of shameless fantasies and kaleidoscope visions; occultic tomes and fairy tales (several, and several more sold as "myth") and comic books from the world over, and pulpy genre fiction, and books that once I brushed aside as a trite sort of rebellion. Once was told to... Recalls the ache of internal chains, to correct myself there.


    My shadow rippled; at first I played it off as trick of the (low fuzzy paintingish) light but I couldn''t forever stifle the visions breaking. Not an expert but shadows don''t move when their caster is still and sane. But up up up from out of the bronzecast depths she swam; blackdressed, witch-hatted, mess of lace, speck against a tannin sea at first but then into a platinum focus.


    "I''m Alice. Alice Persephone Nightshade."


    Nightshade recalled some hellish visions. "May I call you Alice?"


    "What can I call you?"


    I smiled for some odd reason. "Alistair. Macabre, is my last name, if anyone asks¡ª" cool mask fracturing here but I must truthtell I stumbled arthropodish, centipede thinking about steps¡ª"not that I expect they will, but..." Trailed off; snake bit its own tongue for that, better to cut my losses there... I never used to be so guttersmoky but wow have I gotten worse...


    Hours passed, apparently. Alice fell asleep smally on my lone mattress and I wasn''t going to what kick her out? So, I dreamt in my chair. I might have been awake.


    "I feel like I''m going to die," I groaned, croakingly, and to no one in particular.


    "You are, but not now." Alice intoned darkest. Thought you were asleep. But I liked the cut of her jib as they say, and I still do.


    "Then when, O Prophetess?" Thus spoke Delirium; not I. But it sounded nice and felt nicer in my mouth.


    "Come here for a second," she said, so I did, lowered my head between her offered hands till they gripped my temples. Foul bodies, bloodied churches, horning things on my head... She held me all the same. And looked at me, pierced my eyeside really, two-pronged Lance occultic looking back through my pupils and up my optic nerve and into my brain.


    She said something but I just couldn''t focus not with her hands in my hair like that and before I knew it Alice''s again adreaming and I was Blooming ("yes") nightshade in soliloquy like the whole thing was a dream with the aching no lingering transience of a nightmare a flowercolored nightmare orchidly no sleep for the wickedest alive. And did I ever feel like that, then, dead images of myself spilling onto the velvet, perfectly blue "is its color"... Blooming into white flame a synapse firework behind the ear in the hair the hair feels like straw and shot through with treasuring fingers. It is. Fingers at least. They felt treasuring. Possessive in a way Augustus never was as He made me some goddamn Alraunic watering can.


    She had said, "Not for a long time, if I can help it." Alice had I turned to thank her because like yes in the soliloquy I felt loved but she was already asleep again. Remember? I chided myself if my runny gray matter could be considered, still, myself. I don''t feel like myself... So simple and not even my own words. I feel gutted and guttersmoke. My own and so meaningless without streaming consciousness. Or the shores of the selfsame stream. I mean I cannot¡ªthere is just no way this is, I cannot be fully awake.


    Days passed, and hours passed, Alice woke and slept and we talked in between. I even slept some, in my chair, with my boots on so to speak, and dreams recalled so many terrible revelations. I felt more like a poison flower day by day. Cruel joke it was that Alice was last-named Nightshade when I was and still am so Belladonnic. 50ccs of shimmering dragonsblood to make me immortal. Ironic that Augustus wanted me as his dead thing so bad he made me immortal. I felt like I could come back from anything now, even coldhollow as I was, evacuated by an airlock (Thus Felt) I could survive thanks to his spitting folly. Though I was the cobra here. And the nightshade. Sorry, Alice. I claim the nightshade, and the cobra, and the chimera for my banner. Heraldry meaningless to all but the most romantic and emptiest (the selfsame; sorry, the word echoes in my head far far more than it does in this... this which feels like a log of the end of days; days mine. But I''m not dying and it''s not the end of the world. It''s not even the worst thing to happen in this fucked-up city. It''s not the end of the world.)


    Serial experiments killed me and made me immortal. For science first and then for pleasure even if I don''t recall all the everylast details; it''s all been a series of experiments up until now.

 Chapter 13.5: Day Of The Lords

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

 Chapter 14: Angel Offal

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

 I have come to make an announcement

    I gotta reboot this thing. The weight of the lore that once interested me is just too much. I can''t write my best work with these self-imposed constraints and trying has severely limited my output. Thank you for sticking with me as I learn how to be an artist. Grimoires: Side!Re:Write will be starting shortly and I hope to see you there.


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    This is all staying up. Consider it an unfinished alternate universe if you want. It won''t cross over with the reboot any, so don''t worry about that.