ã€ŠRose Blumen ~ Exogignesthaiã€‹


 000. The beginning & the end, 1 - Jahr 1 ~ Book of Purple preludes

    (A?sshean)

    Like many others, I saw the luminescent beacon drifting through the sky.

    The latest of anomalies that had suddenly come to the world was by far the quieter.

    After most tragedies had settled, we saw this drifting shape and glow, pulling its curtains of exotic waves along its silent glide.

    We were curling up together, trying to rest and recover in the ruins of our former lives. We could see the open skies above our crumbling walls.

    The colours of dawn had already passed, as we sat there together listless. And now we witnessed like a growing morning hallucination the colourful and whimsical show of a perpendicular sunrise.

    From the south west, this colder and softer sun now was rising, colouring the sky differently. We all watched its shades and sheets of iridescence in the sky with bewilderment and worry.

    As beautiful as borealis auroras could be, this new show was also stating for good how much the world had changed, and how much its shift would never be reversed. Or not in any nearby time anyway.

    The empire we lived in had fallen, and through the sights of this cloak carried by the winds, what we saw was the answer from beyond our land. It¡¯s over. Our world is definitely over.

    I held my brethren unsteady hands closer, praying for our survival.

    Something more immense than a land had died, and we¡¯ve been nearly reduced to our animal levels of survival levels since. We were trying to hold on in the swampy aftermath.

    We began to accept how the country as a society was unlikely to ever stand up again in any organised form for a foreseeable while.

    And we began to fear that civilisation might have fallen as well, on a much wider scale.

    That perhaps sadly, the tragedy and plague we sailed through recently, had far wider reality than our local country.

    Gazing at this colourful sky, with the rising pale hollow, we began to accept with pain in our chests, how much had come to change. How far it was now real.

    Our fingers melted slightly into one another. The solidity of our flesh was now that compromised.

    I pulled out and away my hand from the other, ripping tiny blood vessels apart. It hurt Azzie a little, but her gaze remained in an absent daze.

    Everything ends and the smells of decomposition still linger like dew into town.

    I tried to speak, but now my voice failed. My larynx had begun to give up on my humanity.

    Everything about us that kept us as one, has begun its gentle collapse.

    As society died, leaving the smaller scales structures of groups and individuals free to evolve separately or compete again...

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    So do our bodies now I realised.

    Parts of the rules keeping our unity are no longer enforced, and individual parts of our organisms try to resume an ancestral lower level of individuality. Cancers will grow and spread.

    My brother¡¯s hair is falling. My sisters consciousness are in constant lull, as we all try to survive this string of collapsing elements.

    I stepped up, my feet leaving stains of sweat and fluids, where mould immediately spread, faster than spilled paint would have.

    The parts of our brains still lucid realise that the world has changed.

    Only some days ago, reality remained as solid an empire can be.

    Then there was this flash and shift. This day came to be unexpectedly, unreasonable, unfathomable.

    After this incomprehensible event we witnessed as an odd flash of light, everything structured into complexity felt reassessed. The stress we endured and the balance were abruptly shaken and tilted.

    The world¡¯s environment suddenly changed, and now we witness the endless decay.

    We passed one of these legendary end of times, and now we¡¯ve been abandoned behind.

    I tremble, I painfully breathe, my body constantly revaluating itself like an unsteady union of strained nations.

    I feel my fluids crawling beneath my liquefying skin. I know I might die or scatter at the slightest of provocations, but I try.

    Because for the first time since that day fell on us, there is that pale hope for answers visible in the sky.

    The new dawn that rises is a chance for rebirth and answers to our abrupt change in fate.

    Now my animal instincts are supplanted by my desires to learn, to hope, to discover and to walk further.

    My heart moves inside my chest, pushing my stomach and lungs around, each competing for space. I cough, spitting droplets that now go on their own chances at freedom in life. My saliva grows lichens over the tiles it touches.

    The extent of understandable reality had changed, and if I were to survive, now I wanted to see and understand more... For myself, and hopefully a little for more.

    I made another unsteady step forward, in front of my brethren.

    Parts of my decomposed clothing fell. But my foot and bones obeyed. A new form of order might come to rise from the leftovers decomposed. Maybe a change in regime or dynasty, but still an overall organisation that I would describe as being me.

    I mused, as it¡¯s also the story of life. From decaying organisations and other elements, new ones will grow.

    And the more I would be able to recall my past science, the better I could maybe repurpose my own self.

    I could breathe and move again.

    The city ahead was in ruins now, but the fires and most toxic fumes had now died as well.

    We survived the harshest downfall, and now the challenges would be of simpler aims for a while onwards.

    So I pushed further again, to see for myself, and to challenge my visible demise.

    To make new links, new learnings and to help the next good structures rise.

    My voice remained unresponsive for every subsequent attempt at talking. But showing my adventuring self to them, my family heard some of the thoughts perspiring from me as well. They understood me quietly.

    The melting fleshes from their bodies chose with what remained of their respective minds to follow me.

    Rather than embracing our spreading fate in this melancholy of our ruined past and home, we held hands to venture outside as one.

    The world we once knew as for ourselves was all but gone and more wild.

    The changing shapes of what once was human, now trying in new gasps to find new solidity and lights.

    Embracing the painful challenges of the unknown, once the home nest could no longer hold.

    I felt a little warmer seeing them moving to join me in this endeavour.

    No matter the pain, the changes reaching deep even in the essence of our minds. Over the reasonable doubts, as we chose to dive and swim into the unknown.

    Now the context and languages had changed, making us like lost and wounded foreigners inside a new greater game.

    We were likely to meet our fate rapidly, even if the worst nights were now behind. But we would challenge our odds and selves against these drifting uncertainties. We might have the luck to find where some new of our competitive advantages lied.

    I would still bet on human intelligence and tooling to insure fast adaptation and resilience.

    Although that required us to remain mostly humans, which was a challenge in itself.

    They heard the whispers from the sky, and so have I.

    We would be together, raising our curious minds toward what could be our next or last chapter in life.

    For our names as A?sshea...

    ~

 001. The beginning & the end, 2

    (A?sshean)

    I remember waking up on that morning like any other.

    I dressed. I ate. I cheered on my conscientious sister heading to her university. I comforted my insecure younger one, and I teased our little brother.

    Our parents outside of town for a while, I was keeping the home logistics steady.

    Azzie & Ahhie went to their schools. Attie went to her medical university. I left home last, heading to work without any idea of what global changes would rain on us like cinders next.

    ~

    The car bringing me to my industry forecasted good weather. Warm and dry, without storm in sight.

    A normal day, without any fear from the sky. The times when our grandmother feared the bombs falling from the sky is far behind.

    Humanity endures and thrives. Everything alive does. Grandma Natessh repeatedly told us that. She loved telling us frightening stories from her past.

    From times of war, deepest despairs and brightest passions. She needed to tell us, to survive her scars.

    No matter how many decades of peace had followed the quiet end of this last extensive war.

    We live on, doing our best with what we have. I recall thinking that.

    As I was heading toward my office, I recall hearing that a ionospheric storm had been noticed in another part of the world. It¡¯s far. So long it doesn¡¯t affect the climatic rhythms of the next four months, it doesn¡¯t matter much to me I thought.

    We were sowing our new crops along the fields that covered the landscape.

    I was happy to put my understanding and studies of agronomy and bioengineering to good use.

    For the good of all humanity, we ought to turn even these deserts outside, into gardens someday.

    Every year we grew one step closer, and this new year was meant to be good as well. Inch ¡®Allah.

    And as abruptly as if a foreign bomb had coursed through the sky, which we thought was the explanation at first, all came to end.

    ~

    On this morning, a white flash seemed to course through everything at once. No matter where, even through the walls.

    Something felt ripped and dissolved away from me, as if my soul had just left me.

    I fell on my knees, confused, ears ringing, vomiting suddenly and unable to keep any coherent string of words aligned in my thoughts.

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    I fell as if the roof had fallen over me.

    And the lying or convulsing bodies of my colleagues around me did not help me think straight.

    And then as I struggled to stand or recover my thinking, I heard the continuous screaming rising around me.

    A detonation and more tremors made me fall again as a show of chaos began to rise.

    I hallucinated heavily and I could tell, still dreadful that a part of my true self might have just been burnt and taken away from me.

    I shivered, trembled, and moved very unsteadily toward the now broken door, to get away from this damaged building. I still thought then there had been an unexpected attack and that I needed to head to safety plainly.

    I stepped around bodies seemingly starting to rot very unevenly.

    I bumped against someone liquefying alive, staining and terrifying me. The yells continued to ring like city noises and chirps outside. I heard detonations of shots and more screams.

    My head was feeling drunk and sleep depraved altogether, but still acting on instinct to survive whatever attack this was. I stumbled away from the building only to watch pillars of smokes carried by the winds.

    I saw the colourful streams like an aurora borealis coursing like repeated waves over the late morning sky.

    And my stunned mind began to realise, maybe, just maybe this wasn¡¯t a simple political war like so many priors in the past.

    ~

    I could breathe, although it hurt inside. My heart felt as if it might break, but I was alive.

    Many others around me didn¡¯t get that far. I could see now how much being still alive was already rare.

    I recognised symptoms of chemical collapse. As some of my intelligence returned, I could begin to put a word or a theory over the atrocities I witnessed everywhere around me, and soon in every corner of the city.

    Bodies rotting. Networking slimes growing. Mushrooms growing and rapidly sporulating. Microbiological explosions of activities like I could never have witnessed before. Our cells were collapsing in swift cascades, and others growing just as fast.

    I realised something had gone horribly wrong and how much in danger I still was in, staying in this heavily contaminated zone, even though the reason remained unclear. The effects were beyond my reasons.

    I began trotting away in the midst of a growing and widespread confusion. I needed to get out of here before whatever was in the air now really got a nasty grab on me.

    I picked up a gaz mask and wore it before leaving the industrial site on foot, and left all my work to burn behind.

    ~

    Sadly for me, I wasn¡¯t running away from a biohazard zone as much as I thought I might. The epicentre of things wasn¡¯t behind. And the further I headed into the collapsing town, the worst what I witnessed became.

    Piles of dead bodies were crawling around the streets like slugs, gathering everything made from organic chemistry.

    People were fighting with great firepower against these things and more, and were losing ground.

    Flames and darker fumes were spreading fast through the entire city. People vomiting regularly were fleeing. Everyone was sick and struggling to stand, or to remain solid.

    I saw a boy tripping and falling flat on the ground. His body exploded unnaturally like a ripe fruit on impact, staining everything with bloody tissues on a wide radius. As if he had fallen from much higher than foot level.

    I kept walking in panic, now hearing the horrified screams from the child¡¯s parents.

    In such a short time, everything we knew and counted upon simply died. It decayed.

    The order. The rules of law, the rules of biology, the rules of society, the rules of knowledge and logic.

    I felt that growing dread that we were falling into a reshuffling of known and unknown, as I made my way home in a daze.

    Thankfully I made it back in one piece.

    I reached the now damaged ruins of our home, which I had left merrily and pristine earlier this morning.

    I felt that cold fear growing. Because I recognised the place, but not what really happened to it. New fissures were growing and weird lichens settling, the house recognisable but not its environment activity any longer.

    I turned around, breathing painfully, watching the end still occurring.

    Something wide just shifted, beyond what a pathogen could spread or a blast destroy. And now our environment, our world was no longer the same.

    I could recognise some of the patterns I observed. The way green moulds spread over puddles under the sun, and black ones under shades. How tissues decomposed and cells membranes lost their coherence. How proteins were broken through stresses. It was a wider scale of stresses and strains.

    Our resources will help us survive, but this sudden change would purge everything unable to protect itself or adapt in time...

    A crisis I couldn¡¯t imagine was just beginning, and all I saw were the painful early signs. These hours across hellscape were the first rifts preceding a wide and possibly immense collapse. Something huge was happening.

    My heart was beating too fast, reminding me to think back at my own scale of survival first of all.

    I headed inside the house, and prayed for my family to return just as fine...

    For a moment as I was still alone at home, I felt that weight of growing worry coursing through our time. A touch of hopelessness.

    The white day had just come, and our world was now changing times.

    ~

 002. The beginning & the end, 3

    (A?sshean)

    I had managed to return home, and still being alive. That was already above average luck on our day I had figured out.

    I removed my gasmask before I started vomiting heavily again. The strain hurt my eyes, tongue and throat in harsher ways than normal.

    The fluids that escaped me in the middle of the living room began to rot the flooring at surreal speed.

    I coughed, struggling, but alive. My head feeling on fire, but still focused on how to stay alive a while longer.

    I went to rinse my mouth and face. I tried not to think about all those deaths I ran into or stepped around on my way to return here. I know it¡¯s a transition. This won¡¯t last...

    Most of them had been afflicted by some form of diseases I knew nothing about. My own symptoms clued to nothing clear. But at least I was alive still. Checking my pulse, my look in a mirror, and all my medical signs I could think of.

    I tried to reassure myself while waiting and praying for my family to return.

    A long time ago, and every even year since, our grandmother made us swear an oath, to look after one another.

    That sounds simple, but we all knew families where brethren become bitter enemies, because of outside love, faith or money.

    So our grandmother made us swear repeatedly. She was vehement.

    No kinder love to keep us apart, no amount of money to turn on one another, and no god to demand that we act differently to each other.

    Before our younger brother could talk, we were already pledging our loyalty to one another and family name.

    And afterward, we all pledged to protect our brother as well just the same, as we all grew together.

    Now I cough some of my health away, a part of my mind dearly worrying about my brethren and our parents being a long way from here. Another part of my mind is trying its best to gather data and build hypothesises over what happened this morning.

    The white wave has passed, yet I still feel electric shocks hitting my brain.

    And all along the road I took, I saw people struggling, yelling their pain, ripping their own eyes out. I saw them die from frightful symptoms, and their yells continue to echo in town and inside my head.

    Something toxic probably still fills the air. I put back on my mask and try my best to breathe steadily. I¡¯m not convinced it will still save me.

    I try to switch on another computer.

    The statics are different, but it¡¯s still glitching badly. Was it a powerful solar flare? An event strong enough to wreck everything relying on electronics, piercing the Earth¡¯s electromagnetic shielding.

    And an impulse strong enough to shower everyone and everything with a ridiculous amount of ionizing rays?

    I¡¯m not knowledgeable enough about star physics to say. All I can see as a biologist is that some aspects in the environment have changed apparently, and every organism I¡¯ve come across in the vicinity was reacting violently.

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    And if the change is not reversed, given the severity of the symptoms outside, a great many people will continue to die.

    I was still far from realising how much that was true, the first time I thought about that.

    We were too far away from my plants and microbiological levels of homeostasis.

    And I couldn¡¯t figure which set of parameters in reality could change to cause such dreadful effects on human bodies in such a short time. The only thing that came close I could think of was maybe, just maybe, a massive radiation outburst.

    I heard more screams and went to look outside. I feared it might be someone dear to me now.

    Some young men were running away clumsily from a weird animal in the street. The teenagers stumbled repeatedly, as if seriously drunk, suffering the same sort of illness as I.

    The beast on their track was irregular, in shapes ever changing or not quite clear. It stumbled a lot too, appearing in dire pain and exhaustion or confusion as well.

    And then it leaped suddenly, leaving a trail of liquids behind. It landed on a boy, crushing over him.

    The terrified survivors fled in every other direction. I gazed, horrified and unable to understand.

    The monster had no mouth nor jaws to eat, only its weight and odd number of unsteady legs.

    It collapsed there over its prey, and burst in a boiling puddle of liquids. The person it caught and crushed was dissolved there as well.

    I held my mouth and nausea, but I still watched, trying to understand what was reflected in my eyes. These events defying all I knew, and all logic I experienced.

    All around the streets and walls, I saw sudden growths of mosses and lichens, and other stains of mould.

    We don¡¯t have any pets so I could check on them, but I noticed our house plants haven¡¯t significantly changed however. Are plants generally more stable because of their lignin?

    I climbed unsteadily the stairs and entered my little sisters shared room. I headed to their window to check from above over our neighbour¡¯s pond. And I gasped. The fishes are probably gone now. Something evil standing there turned its head toward me almost immediately.

    ~

    I hear banging at the rear door. I¡¯m pushing a shelf to barricade it in panic. An arm that no longer appears human crushes the window, gouging itself and trying to get in. I scream, jolting and stepping back. The noises are horrifying.

    I lock the kitchen door behind me, and repeat the operation of barricade.

    The groans along the sounds of broken glass rapidly decay however. In a matter of minutes, it just dies. Silence returned, and a puddle spreads below the door against which it just died.

    As I reopen the door, an impromptu weapon in hands, all I find is the scene of a violent crime. There¡¯s drying blood along every surface. A skeleton, slightly deformed and broken on places, lies in the pool of foul smelling goo at my feet. It¡¯s horrible.

    It looks like it clawed its way trying to get help... It wasn¡¯t probably trying to feed of me like a zombie. It was looking instinctively for something else. I open the doors and begin cleaning out the decaying flesh outside, like mere filth.

    A part of my empathy just vanished I think, as I see myself cleaning the floor with a cold pragmatism I don¡¯t recognise in me.

    I think someone just died and turned into crude oil in a matter of seconds in my kitchen, and I don¡¯t really care that much anymore. I do cough repeatedly, even through the mask, as some smelling compounds eventually make their way through the filters.

    I want to understand what is going on before my entire self also melts like that person...

    And I thought about our family oath as well, like a reassuring bell. I turned around when hearing a familiar voice and then recognising my younger sister and brother entering the living room.

    They had thankfully also made their way home and alive. Even though they also looked as terrified and shocked as if they¡¯d also lost a part of their mind along the way.

    I removed the mask and went to hug them as they stood there in shock, holding hands but trembling. They remained stiff and terrified between my arms. I was so happy they were alive I shed tears.

    Even though a softer emotionless shroud was beginning to cloud my mind. At that moment all I could feel was relief they were alive.

    ~

    A?ssheas and A?ssheah held hands still, and were trembling still, when I helped them sit. They were soiled all over as I had been, finding their own way home as they could in the chaos.

    Them too had seen and experienced shocking and incomprehensible events. I tried to caress their heads but my hands were sticky and the colour of my skin was beginning to change there.

    We exchanged worried gazes.

    Before me and our eyes, the skin of my hands stopped flowing to recover some solidity and its natural colours.

    As if the simple fact of watching over them was enough to change something metabolic.

    It¡¯s not a behaviour I¡¯m used to observe in biology and I doubt Attie will contradict me when she returns...

    As - Is she coming back? Will she return?

    An - I¡¯m sure... I¡¯m sure of it.

    I lean to their height. They¡¯re not children anymore, but they¡¯re shaking and unsteady.

    For our grandmother... I raise my hand while keeping an eye on it and touch their hands holding each other.

    My head burns me and the lingering scents from the kitchen make me sick. I feel like I¡¯m about to pass out suddenly.

    I ask them to wait for me here for a moment. I step aside and rush before collapsing into the bathroom I reach.

    I feel the veins inside my arms and chest twitching, moving. I felt spasms coursing through my body as if it wanted to abandon me entirely.

    No...

    I contracted myself and my resolve to hold a little longer.

    Not yet...

    ~

 003. Metamorphosis, 1

    (A?sshean)

    A?ssheat returned during the night. We welcomed her immediately, as none of us could find sleep anyway.

    I was too busy keeping my body together like a crowd of rowdy prisoners noticing their overseers¡¯ fatigue.

    Azzie & Ahhie were still too traumatised by what they went through across the city to really stand up from the couch or leave each other¡¯s hand free.

    We all began showing symptoms one way or another. There was probably no other way. Still, her return spooked us.

    She looked severely wounded, parts of her head, chest and limbs gnawed off or crushed clearly.

    But she wasn¡¯t bleeding, and some of her deadly wound had even been taken care for.

    The part of her that still could smile rejoiced at finding us there as she had hoped.

    We embraced her no matter the look, and we surely didn¡¯t look that much better.

    It was incredible she said, and repeated it a few times, nearly weirdly.

    It was incredible...

    Not just reuniting with us with the luck of still being all together to live for another day.

    It also was about what was happening outside. Horrendous was my word. Violent too.

    But fascinating and incredible were hers.

    Even now, looking as if she should have died from multiple wounds, my younger sister is more fascinated by the underlying complexity and shifting parameters of blood, than scared by what their spills imply.

    I hug her. She holds me back with her good arm.

    I know how much we¡¯re kindred spirits Attie and I. Behind her odd looking behaviour is no malice nor sadistic lean, on the contrary. She wants to understand and help. She wants to see the greater causes of organisms¡¯ failures to figure out better and earlier the solutions.

    She will be a great medical doctor someday. I thought so once more just the other day.

    Now I¡¯m just glad we¡¯re all alive.

    Tomorrow...

    I can see inside her eye we will feel the same way. Something ever so weird happened outside.

    We begin wanting to figure out what that was before we pass. We will seek to understand why.

    And we will look for the cure if there is one.

    Together for ever... Until we bring some good and find our remaining days worthwhile.

    But for now we all collapsed on the couch and finally were allowed to let some time slip by.

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    ~

    Even for A?ssheat, realizing the extent and implications of what was happening to us was a challenge. The riddle was complex.

    Our instinct to return to each other had prevailed, and now we relaxed. We melted partially in that soothing satisfaction.

    More than a day or a few passed in our daze, before any of us managed to really wake up and refocus on our immediate survival. The struggle was immense.

    A?ssheat stood first, moved, and checked on us and our vitals, as well as herself. We were all somewhat zombified, numb in most aspects, but refusing to die. What vital signs she found, they were not normal.

    Someone¡¯s phone finally received a message, before the damaged communication network fully fell offline.

    It read that mom and dad would never manage to return.

    Our mother had lost him, and then her mind apparently.

    She just said she believed in us, and then fell into an incomprehensible prayer that didn¡¯t yet made sense for any of us. She¡¯s not going to make it home alive. That much we all admitted silently.

    Although as time would pass and our minds continue to change, as our experiencing of the new world would evolve, some of her last words would grow more meaningful.

    She believed in us, like our grandmother before. They reminded us again to stick together like a bundle of arrows, and to work together for the greater good...

    As if even now, as she gave up on sanity or returning, as the world and humanity were going awry and fast, as our bodies decayed faster than our minds; she still believed in our success...

    It all made us smile, as we sat there, losing droplets of liquefied skin into the couch, where we lazed and forgot to feed for days on end.

    Mother still believes we will live long enough to bring some good onward.

    That is a little amusing today, as we¡¯re almost letting ourselves slip into a lull that knows only one likely end.

    A?ssheat brings us some water to rehydrate us, and herself. It uses her entire strength to water us.

    Then A?ssheas manages to leave the couch stained with her own blood and epidermis, beyond the shape of her bosom. Her trousers and skirt have fused with her flesh now.

    It¡¯s odd, but I don¡¯t feel that worried about morbidity anymore. Our individual health parameters are getting foggy and too foreign ideas. It¡¯s drifting.

    I open my mouth to the sludge A?ssheas managed to cook for us. I feel the broth sliding down my twitching throat. I rediscover the sensation of the heat then radiating and diffusing away from my stomach. I almost forgot that.

    We¡¯re helping each other staying alive, and taking turn helping each other. I took the next shift to help us keep together and sustain ourselves. Unlike them I could no longer talk however.

    My words leave me, but my emotions and ideas still reach them slightly.

    A?ssheat mostly hears me and nods. The younger two are following a little less from their personal volition, but they still mean well also.

    It takes us countless days of daydream and daze, to wait for the end of the downfall outside and survival inside.

    We continued to help each other while one was feeling a little better and the others had a part slipping down. We kept gathering ourselves back.

    Preventing our liquefaction in all sorts of ways, mostly improvised.

    And still keeping some of our mind on the prospects of our family promise, and to live long enough to learn about the world again. That dream is distant but still bright for me and them.

    We¡¯ve let the outside world burn and cool down, or rot, fairly unable to prevent any of it anyway.

    We¡¯ve watched through our windows and growing cracks in the walls how a few monstrous creatures chased down the few remaining survivors before dying themselves, in apparent structural collapses. Unfit spontaneous machines. Animated purposes without sustainable organisations... Golems more than animals perhaps.

    We waited in that palliative situation for we couldn¡¯t muster much more yet anyway. But as we successfully survived together, alleviating the worst symptoms of our loss of humanity from each other, the world kept on burning.

    The collapse in town had been sharp. The ashes were already cooling down along with the slimmest news from the last telecommunications still available to probe the rest of the world.

    As we had begun to surmise, it appeared far more than localised to our continental peninsula. Every hint and clue was pointing at something sudden and wide, and not reversible in such little time.

    Something very possibly global and not exactly biological in root.

    Our thoughts were beginning to permeate one another when we kept our heads in contact long enough. Tiny nerves grew between our foreheads almost instantly through the sweat, connecting them.

    Things continued to change. Biology continued to test the new waters opened apparently on that sad day.

    We kept floating, trying to pry, survive and maybe just slightly, to adapt and adjust to our new reality.

    And it worked.

    Slowly, albeit our bodies grew more deformed and unsteady, we gradually built back enough stability in our organisms to consider leaving this couch together. So before either of us eventually died on it.

    And then, this was around that day, that we saw something odd in the sky.

    The reminder that even if it had been the end of times, that didn¡¯t mean the heat death of the universe had arrived.

    There must have been far, far less witnesses to that quiet sight, than they were to the white day. But perhaps the white day had been foreboding through this new dawn this specific floating sight.

    ~

 004. Metamorphosis, 2

    (A?sshean)

    We had seen the white dawn of change, together. We had already lost most of our intellectual and human aptitudes, but not yet everything, and maybe not forever.

    We saw in more than just sight, this strange element of shattered history now drifting gently across the sky. It carried its waves of auroras of magnetic disturbances through the ionosphere and other things beyond mere light.

    If the initial white flash felt like losing your soul and half your heat being ripped away instantly out of your body, this also made an echo to that future sight.

    Seas unmoving normally like bedrock to reality, they ruptured in a violent earthquake before, and returned to still solidity and silence after, apparently.

    This peaceful sight however, it made some things inside our very cells shiver and contract.

    Our entire selves felt this turmoil. Like a calmer vibration or mind, coursing through matter like whispers, unfazed by normal wind or apparently solid walls.

    This object slowly moving out there carried the echoes of the tragedy. It was now faint, the outburst behind, but still glowing from the same flame that burnt the world before.

    I could tell. Everyone possible could. Everything in remote line of sight from this could likely tell. This shiver, this wind of cold and heat coursing through your cells membranes.

    This flame, this fountain... It was the same. It had the same nature of that which razed everything remotely intelligent or with animal level of organisation before.

    The source of abrupt changes was out there, with likely its causes and reasons, unbeknownst to the poor earth dwellers and lonely survivors.

    But this sensation burning through my eyes, directly imprinting some of its reality through my mind, it branded unto me its perenniality.

    It appeared to me as the lone witness and archaeological testimony able to explain what happened in the end, more than a perpetrator. It wasn¡¯t looking like a gunship or spaceship completing an investigation of the results from its bombing campaign. Although that would remain a grounded theory.

    All I saw was an abandoned ship that wasn¡¯t intended for war. A shell adrift, or a slightly active volcano that shrouded the world as it blew up, and now was floating peacefully.

    Nothing human and nothing portraying intention was obvious at first glance.

    Just... something.

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    Something with enough energy to glow and float unrealistically over the sky. Maybe a sky city lighter than air at this altitude for clouds, but its shapes barely noticeable through the pale glow weren¡¯t evocative of any synthetic or artificial architecture.

    It looked just like a cloud. A solid and brighter cloud, gently passing by. But from the reactions caused inside of me and every other witness of it, we could tell it was far more than droplets of water or ice.

    It held some of the truth, the source and cause of our regards, all reason and attention. It focused our crumbling intentions and sense of mind, pulling us onward like moth to flame.

    I felt that urge, insatiable urge to get closer, to find answers, to find meaning and explanations.

    I stood up in uneven daze, while my brethren were but the shades of their former human selves now.

    We all were becoming shades, looking human but barely keeping with some mechanical routine or appearances.

    Our bodies had already simplified to levels defying and disturbing whatever was left of our education about what a human bag of flesh should be.

    My clothing had molten along with my skin, but below this shedding paper were no longer much human derma nor muscles. What fell animated and moved my limbs now, it was organising itself differently.

    I still had blood and heart beating in my chest, and so did they. But every organism had been redrawing and restructuring itself on levels far beyond the boundaries of phenotypes.

    Overall structures had been challenged, and allowed to revaluate everything.

    It had been as if everyone had been ordered to rebuild their own body from a unicellular start, but the governing metabolic templates had been removed from our genes.

    This was a poor comparison, but the idea remained that on everyone casting their dices, very few held the good numbers to keep their biological integrity and past structure.

    We barely had, even helping each other.

    I could see through my changed hands how flesh and bones had fuses, and muscles fibres turned to isotropic foams.

    Blood still circulated through me and my body could still mimic human form and movements, but I wasn¡¯t human anymore. That much was already obvious.

    I didn¡¯t want to look at my face in a mirror anymore.

    Looking at my brother and sisters now turning to faceless monsters, I had a fair idea of how far gone I was as well.

    They also kept their thoughts about how we all looked to each other now.

    We had enough trouble staying sane, aware and focused already. This non existential and superfluous aspect no longer mattered.

    Medical aspects no longer mattered...

    Attie had given up along the way experimenting with our available tools and medicines to help us.

    But now we saw hope in a way.

    It brought us up, together, as it met our previous impulse that didn¡¯t die.

    Holding hands that had fused together, or been exchanges like transplanted limbs from one another. I stood up. We formed a social organism as a team helping each other. We kept that ancestor¡¯s dream alive all these years, and now it kept us alive in a context where everyone else or near must have died.

    Our bond helped us keeping remnants of our human selves alive.

    A light above the sea after the flood and storm. A chance to find understanding and another form of peace.

    Although... Like most adventurers on odysseys, we were more likely to meet doom than fortune.

    They stood up and walked slowly after me, sharing my thoughts and gratitude. Sharing the same thirst and excitement.

    Pain had softened and the main and hardest focus now wasn¡¯t to stand or walk anymore, but to keep coherent thinking and steady aim on an objective.

    Our memories were exteriorised like scattered petals or pollens all around us. It was an odd sensation. We could literally see ourselves losing our memories and coherence of thoughts. They were shed like colourful vapours and sweat, breathed out and away like futility every instant.

    We were constantly bleeding out our own memories and knowledge, our intelligence as human beings thus diminishing.

    We hardly kept an unsteady balance between changing body and decaying mind.

    Though with what remained, with vigour and passion, we stepped outside.

    We left our house behind, entering abandoned streets none of us would recognise.

    The world had changed and we could no longer feel familiar in it, even about ourselves.

    But calling us like reason and virtue, the floating dream pulled us onward.

    Promising us possible answers, and likely hopes or fulfilment.

    Slow unsteady steps we began to make, to the Septentrion.

    ~

 005. The beginning & the end, 4

    (A?sshean)

    In the very beginning there was nothing. In the first moment in time, in the start of all things, was the word.

    From the word grew undivisive and sharable harvest, bridging the lands and people to each other into forming new entities.

    The aptitude to communicate in growing complexity turned us from all other branches of life into humanity.

    The ability to transmit, share and transfer more, more than just ourselves as bodies.

    All our history and successes as a species, they sadly began to feel futile, when facing the eventuality ahead.

    In the beginning, whether there was a previous world rich in culture and abundant in nature, or just darkness and void, no one would mind.

    For then came the light.

    Created by God or otherwise, came the light, wiping clean everything and otherwise.

    Cities. Populations. Heritages from languages, cultures, and a billion year from our tree of life.

    All equally worthless and futile.

    The sights of biological and cultural desolation as we ventured through the openly eroding ruins of our past, it was painful.

    We felt insecure. We were afraid. We felt abandoned in an unfair new time of history.

    No one else appeared to have survived at first sight. The early screams of torment we heard across the first nights, they had long become silent and slipped away of our mind for the longest of times.

    But now that we were outside, now that we saw how everything else and everyone but us had fared so far...

    We discovered not a wounded city after a skirmish of war, with signs of survivals and evacuation, or even massacres, remaining stragglers, looters and fighters.

    What we found and painfully slowly ventured through, was an open grave forgotten by word itself.

    Nothing had been spared by the odd shockwave and tremor. Every building was stained unnaturally and damaged.

    A silence and stillness in the air kept colourful dusts and fumes hovering like mist everywhere. They also kept in that unusually layer of air a stillness and silence now painfully oppressive on our ears.

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    This silence felt like lead or sick foreboding of our destiny.

    Sure we were alive and free...

    But no matter what we did, we would vanish in the aftermath of this white wake as well.

    That¡¯s what this uneasy silence seemed to be telling us.

    It was a stress on us, but we pushed forward nonetheless.

    The younger sister was admiring of me, as I incited all of us to move further.

    I trembled and shivered constantly, trying to be a solidity for all of us, but deeper inside, I felt she was the one being the engine for us.

    A?ssheas was giving it her all physically to bring us forward, even if I was opening the stage and filling her sight.

    We were bubbling, trying to keep our current set of shapes, understandings and compositions as chemical organisations.

    It was a continuous challenge to stay alive and stay arguably human.

    And the endless desolation surrounding us, reminding us at every step that no one else but us made it this far, it was terrifying.

    A?ssheat and I knew it was statistically impossible for us to be the absolutely last ones alive.

    But the decline and unnatural selection had visibly been as brutal as an intended war.

    We walked by ripped clothing and dry blood stains every other metre in the streets.

    We found discarded weapons near the marks of rotting compost of weirder animals. We found crashed vehicles were even polymers sometimes had grown bad, bubbling and sporulating like mushrooms.

    As we passed through parks now silent but calm, we noticed how plants however generally seemed alright.

    Generally.

    Ahhie was spooked by some twitching vines. Some raspberry bush near the fountain had overgrown as if centuries had passed. Its vines were spreading around, covering every nearby streets and walls up to second floors sometimes.

    And it was twitching as it grew on a visible rate to the naked eye.

    It might be on course to be swallowing the city at this rate, in a matter of a year maybe.

    The core of it in the distance looked like a baobab tree already.

    I couldn¡¯t say what was so bountiful in the ground to absorb in minerals and phosphorus, for anything to grow that huge over a ground that poor.

    Unless, I realised after a while, it found itself able to absorb and use different minerals through the proper mutations or transformations.

    It was altogether terrifying for what it could mean of new species onward, and fascinating for what it could also mean of new species onward. Maybe there could be more biological complexity away from the cycles of phosphorus and carbon onward. That would be like an entire new world about to start already.

    We didn¡¯t linger to investigate my theory. Our priority was to catch up with that drifting thing in the sky coming our way. I couldn¡¯t stop thinking about it however.

    But if some plants in the same biological blender and renewal dice toss as us managed to change so much, they could replace phosphates and nitrates with aluminates, silicates and calcium carbonates...

    We could see the apparition and rise of an entire new genre of particularly adapted flora.

    The biologist I was wanted to study and examine that oddity beyond everything I had ever encountered before.

    Just as much as A?ssheat was truly charmed and curious about how we continued to transform as animals. Medical science had become mostly obsolete for us, on the homo sapiens sapiens basis, but remained a ground of knowledge to look at us with a discerning mind.

    We still were chemically powered things. Animals, I think. Eating less and less. Barely drinking. Losing shape, flesh and solidity or intelligence like sweat over time.

    But we were still living things worth attempting to understand, at the very least by ourselves.

    Unfortunately, Attie couldn¡¯t tell much more certainly what we were becoming or how long we would last.

    So we dragged ourselves forward after that drifting hope in the sky.

    Me looking up and behind our shoulders, guessing where to head to meet that hope in time when it would fly by.

    Attie focused inside about the process and prospects of transformations now allowed under the stars.

    Azzie eager to assist us, and poor younger Ahhie feeling the same, but losing himself faster than us. A?ssheah was fading the faster into this new chapter of our probably shortening lives.

    At some point, we will lose balance.

    We will have to do harsher compromises, if we have the chance. Between what we want to keep of the past, what we want to meet from the future, and what it means and takes to remain human today.

    Until we find with some luck a competitive advantage, an ease to our subsistence, we will have to make sacrifices.

    ~

 006. The beginning & the end, 5

    (A?sshean)

    We eat. What we could find. We digest it less and less.

    Ahhie vomited most of his meal back, not long after losing an arm to gangrene. Poor Ahhie.

    Our cute brother is but a lonely shade of his former self now. He¡¯s growing smaller and weaker every day.

    We averted our gazes from the lost limb that just fell along the way, and we kept walking, away from the sights of apocalypse all over the city.

    We stumbled repeatedly as our feet were insecure, but made it out of the urban landscape. The sights of biological anomalies were then replaced with more meteorological or physical anomalies.

    Under harsher sun as the air finally felt lighter. We left the warm basin of our town and headed north west, before the cloud would pass over us.

    Away from the city warmth, all felt sharper, a little more raw, more painful and bright.

    In the wakes of our fleeting destiny approaching, I could feel its omens scattering by.

    I could hear echoes of our mother¡¯s words carried inside.

    Wherever she is now, some of her will continues to shine.

    We could see faces changing in the sky, hearing ourselves promising to support each other over and over again.

    We could hear our inner voices echoing our fears and dreams between each other¡¯s heads.

    We felt the growing turmoil and uncertainty between us, loosely balanced by our inherited confidence.

    I still pulled them onward, feeling that spilling light coursing through my mind.

    What flowed from that source of a kind, was intoxicating to my intelligence.

    Calling me like a cry for help, an illusion born from the songs of winds and changes it carried.

    The sensation flooding the land and coursing through us as if we were hollow or absent, it fell from that shell up there like music, vibrating through everything, mirroring and repeating our thoughts and sorrow.

    I wasn¡¯t certain of the nature of the thing we were after, confused with its emanations and repetitions.

    But something changing was shining out there, and like a prism before the sun, changing the light reaching everything.

    The light changing anomaly slowly drifted toward us as I tried to make us adjust our walk to match its pace.

    I wanted to reach that. The reason, the repetition of time, as it continued to irradiate badly my head from even inside.

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    We were drawn, and it felt agonising to see it fly over our heads.

    As we struggled to keep pace, the thing flew over us, eclipsing momentarily the sun. It felt agonising.

    We couldn¡¯t catch that bird nor fly to heavens after it, no matter how much and high we raised our hands or tried to jump. It wouldn¡¯t do to reach it.

    Our bodies continued to twist painfully under these stresses.

    And as the pain of failing to reach this castle became true to us, we opened ourselves to the painful next chapter.

    There wouldn¡¯t be satisfaction nor relief now that we had witnessed the end and its floating corpse.

    We didn¡¯t catch it. And now we were struggling to breathe in a hostile desert.

    It flew toward holier lands as if nothing before and below mattered.

    Our bodies suffered, far beyond the normal challenges of human growth and real life before.

    It was a chance lost, now that the odd stalactites of rocks were going blurrier and away from us.

    With all our poor expectancies to live on much further, we missed it.

    And all that lied ahead onward was an even sharper trial for the four of us. An endless road, along the inhospitable desert, and ruins of older lands that had fallen, now stretching for ever.

    ~

    They still believed in my foresight¡¯s rightfulness.

    That within that invading and spilling omen, lied the origin of our situation and our changes faced.

    It felt too similar a wind passing through all materials and tissues while shining bright, too similar to the event that changed more than our lives, not to be correlated.

    It¡¯s at least a clue...

    But I believe up there lies the whole reason even.

    As - Hic sunt dracones...

    We see animals that look like lions on a hunt in the distance.

    Big apes fleeing their predators are being pursued and sometimes mauled.

    We push forward in a group clinging to one another. Around us we now notice the presence of lions and dragons, and they spook us whether they are real or not.

    The monsters are mostly oozing stains, decomposing and liquefying at faster rates than us. But other systems seem to be possible. As we continue to move on and witness more, it becomes increasingly evident.

    Some other people survived, far better than us even. And some others... They transformed into beasts far worse than us.

    At - It¡¯s painful... To control...

    We have an odd fate, we¡¯re reasonably aware of it, and now we¡¯re on our own and out of breath, in the wilder lands of the world. Our parents are no longer around to safely guide us.

    Not that at this point they would have been much more adjusted than us.

    We¡¯re feeling besides ourselves, walking by the rubbles of our dead world, and it¡¯s painful to be walking for kilometres in a cemetery that knows no end.

    There is a growing sadness raining figuratively in the wake of the flying castle. We are washed in it and growing over it. The majestic illusion also draws many more of us behind, from every kind.

    We didn¡¯t realise before we hit the road, how many more than us simply also felt drawn by this.

    Humans still looking fine.

    Monsters now merely decaying beasts on the pry, of all colours and shapes but clearly poor health and constitution overall.

    The stronger beasts could rupture a rock or a car in horrific sights, before collapsing into an absurd pool of themselves in the ensuing exhaustion or next fall.

    Everything else also struggled to keep balance. Every step and violent impulse was gambling with survival.

    We walked along a road not as deserted as we first saw. But clearly as wild and hostile as we feared.

    And between the few events of these random hunts or encounters, more beings like us to witness.

    People losing grasp of their spirits, dropping willingly or not what made them human prior.

    Like spreading diseases, we saw some of them transform. Like a colourful motion picture of artistic interpretation of transformation.

    We saw in terror limbs torn off in the distance, and mushrooms growing over other fallen perpetrators.

    We also passed by a car with children survivors who began screaming in horror at the sight of us.

    We dodged bullets from their father and others, forcing us at times to flee like animals from the people we terrified.

    Ah - We¡¯re not monsters!

    We pulled our innocent brother back under cover before another shot hit the rock. We kept ourselves together, trembling. It¡¯s painful to feel so much rejection, but there¡¯s nothing we can do.

    We¡¯re now less human than most, no matter how we feel about it.

    Noticing as nightfall drew closer, we even saw many more like us now coming out from their various holes or covers to begin their time travelling as well. It¡¯s a new instinctive pilgrimage we¡¯re on.

    All drawn by the light and the wish to live on. Drawn by the curiosity or animalism. Carried by the streams like fishes or dirt, after this gigantic whale now evading our grasp.

    Along natural streams and reactions, there was more to behold and other upcoming encounters. It¡¯s a new movement.

    We all have the same natural instincts, in this now slightly less natural world.

    ~

 007. The beginning & the end, 6

    (A?sshean)

    Things became even weirder the longer they went.

    Deserts usually look barren, and the world we left behind appeared mostly ravaged and depopulated.

    So it came as a collective surprise beyond even us, to see so many people and things now coursing the same dusty roads and lands.

    Skirmishes between monsters and humans seemed to fade each day, only to be replaced by others at dawn.

    On the wake of the great cloud we all instinctively followed, most things alive came to interact and clash.

    Our pilgrimage of a kind turned into a violent and merry caravan and festival, widespread and chaotically rushing across our ancestral lands.

    After the new lights of hopes, for humankind and demonkind altogether apparently.

    We saw monsters born from wild biology and otherwise, rushing not for blood or meat, but the light pulsating ahead like a lighthouse. They can see it just as we do.

    We were ourselves struggling to keep our humanity together every step of the way.

    And this race of all that now lived and boiled for something kept colliding into dreadful and majestic screams and lives. It felt like the violent times of earlier days again, when everything could abruptly change in the blink of an eye.

    Times when adventures with the art of war could turn tides and create their own principality. It really is the fall.

    The potential energies for changes such as before were still there and pouring from heavens.

    We were swimming against the changing tide. All we could have considered symptoms lingering along after the cause was gone were mistaken.

    The air vibrated from these warm and unstable forces ready to burst and alter biology.

    Humans fell like flies. Monsters faded like mistakes just as swiftly.

    Other things in between or different flourished over all the other fallen masses in matter of seconds.

    Everything changed in this race that felt like a rushed collective hallucination.

    We were dressing ourselves along with cloth picked up over spreading flower beds, sprawling from liquefied deaths from the one who walked just before us.

    We nibbled on bones from an animal or another as they turned to soft jelly, like candies.

    We didn¡¯t need to eat as much, as we felt invigorated under the shining and warm light. But we also felt how much more plastic and ready to melt we could become.

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    A?ssheah lost another part of himself, and his face now looked only like molten wax. His soul still shone inside, but his last field of perception outside was now surmised in the hands he could hold. How my sisters helped him walk was his last remaining grasp over what normality used to be.

    I still felt the call, stronger than ever. The frustrating source drifting slowly, enough for us to not lose track.

    The call for help from that thing within, echoing all of humanity¡¯s demise and misery, it ached in me as if it were mine.

    That sentiment of fear and pain was shared to toxic levels all around. We weren¡¯t the only ones on that colourful road far from being the first or closest.

    As we headed northwest over to the older lands, we passed by more and more sprouts from the dead ahead.

    The further we went, the more the road turned into a whimsical garden, littered with colourful spots, shrubs, trees, stains, spoils, mushrooms, lichens and various slimes.

    The gathering dusts of life along the cyclone of this hole in the sky painted the path it had taken with glittery shapes and shines.

    Our unsteady steps, swift but drunk in many ways, they carried us over roads more clearly defined by what everyone and everything gathering around were turning into than the ancient roads paved between.

    We passed by the collapsing sculptures of fading skulls, bones and hides.

    We walked around the slithering eels of worms dividing through these pools.

    We avoided the swarm of rodents turned insane by the same pain and melting time, showing us how even hives could transform. How did insects react otherwise.

    Our social situation had been reduced from patriotism to family, but even these concepts might shatter eventually, or transform with heuristic.

    Seeing animals hatching from the melting tissues of the dead repeatedly, we could begin to see it. How much they don¡¯t grow as phenotypes, but another form of intuitive design.

    Eventually the road would end, but after the early outbursts of colours and sounds from all the animals re-enacting the early days, time passed to reach the quiet present anew.

    We found ourselves oddly lonely again, walking rapidly over an incomprehensibly shaped and littered road. Clothing were abandoned and the bodies were all rapidly gone.

    We were erased from this land in the end, wiped by the dust of times along these draperies the wind carries.

    All that remained by our feet were the more simple or more autotrophic lifeforms that rose after our bodies failed. The simpler designs are the most robust in some ways.

    Like countries and hives falling, nature returned after this crisis in most aspects to lower levels of organisations. Bacteria and plants trying to spread with only chemical imbalances for intelligent forms of guidance.

    Without animals or other dark shapes noticeable any longer, we appeared to become the last surviving sensible minds still in the race.

    Holding onto one another, confident and scared.

    After the drifting hope and answer, eluding and challenging our resolve over and over...

    ~

    We didn¡¯t really sleep anymore. But our jogging pace slowed to a crawl under the night skies.

    A?ssheas still was enthralled by the sights of stars. Parts of her fleeting dreams were like colourful bubbles hovering around us, gently escaping and drifting away.

    The memories continued to vanish from us, and spread around in sharing. As our bodies continued to change, so did our minds.

    Every part of our bodies were dislocated and changed by fac simile tissues barely holding us together. The tears were long gone.

    Merging and separating into cycles, bound by older promises and ideals like strings, but always drifting as individuals looking for themselves again.

    It was a rolling bed of odd sensations, to lose and find each other all the time, ever unsure, always hopeful.

    But over time as we found ourselves decaying but still alive, along this school road as if decorated by hudnreds of children free and wild, we understood we were the lucky ones. Most things as organised biologically and intellectually as insects and animals, they had finished melting and reducing their components to lower levels of complexity by now.

    We were the only ones left in sight, still managing to balance each other at our level of continuous and arduous organisation of mind. We had mostly given up on ever living as human organisms ever again by this point.

    But we kept our curious eyes, and a sense of balance in a shared purpose.

    Albeit blurry and uncertain. Despite our shared inhumanity growing over ourselves, shapeless, metastable all the way, we kept a form of aim.

    Moving ahead.

    Catching the Tam?r¨®dlo. Moving forward together, until we eventually find the end or fall.

    Continuing to process metabolisms and thoughts as long as possibly, for life, empathy, curiosity and care for a little more than ourselves.

    All these ripples coursing through the world are causing an unthinkable rise of diversity, but at the greatest of costs to numbers and overall stability.

    The world¡¯s life is in danger... In its entire integrity.

    ~

 008. A?sshea, 1

    (A?sshean)

    Our unsteady and uneven number of legs carries us along this road sprinkled with uneven shapes and shades like a continuous work of art.

    In the distances beside the lush sides of this trail, we see abandoned vehicles and other lone trees with abnormal features. Shards of rust grow in briars along some wrecks, fascinating me.

    But we can¡¯t stop or slow down. Our balance is slim, and we would fall for good. We can¡¯t risk tripping now, and letting go of this warm trail stretching ahead.

    New forms of blobs and arborescent looking structures are born, every step of the way. Cities in the distance are clouded in sulphuric colours. Their air lingers more heavily, as it did in our town.

    We¡¯re slowly on our way to our native land, surprisingly, although that is not our objective.

    Mother¡¯s thoughts and faith continue to resonate within our heads.

    But my impulse¡¯s voice is stronger. We witness it every day now.

    One white day nearly wiped animal complexity.

    And everything now born from the ensuing movements of opportunities is built on frailer grounds.

    The levels of metabolic cycles for homeostasis have been reduced in ranges, while allowing more independent organisations to thrive.

    It¡¯s like cancers pandemic in a way, reducing us more easily to competing strains of yeasts and protists, less able to keep wider coordination.

    And now that we can see their colours and wafts through the lands and skies. Now that we can hear the dislocations of life occurring because of that time...

    I can dread it. I can foresee it.

    Another eruption of the same magnitude will raise even higher the electrochemical levels of eveyrything alive.

    Eukaryotes will go extinct; all plants will die like animals have before.

    All that will be left will be viruses and prokaryotes less exposed to this aray of ionisations akin to a lost magnetosphere.

    Maybe the Earth will lose its electromagnetic shielding. That would probably feel the same.

    The next eruption of this apocalyptic light will erase a billion years of diversity and growth.

    And the next after that, will be the last...

    This sensation of doom grows us wings.

    To go faster after this mega volcano that already erupted once.

    We¡¯re terrified of how short a time it could be, before the next one.

    We have to prevent it if we can.

    And we should prepare whatever we can for the next intelligent power to come with that warning in mind.

    ~

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    Over time & across the lands after this exotic meteor maybe bouncing back, we eventually saw others again.

    Along its path it continued to attract many, like moth to light. Perhaps some others like us were also following it with greater concerns rising in mind.

    Realizing some of the truth behind, but unable to figure out the wiser future from down below and far.

    A?ssheat wondered whether we should act with care or severity in mind.

    It was unfortunately too soon to say what would be best, to prevent the real end of this biosphere¡¯s tree of time.

    Civilisation might have collapsed but more animals could still rise, eventually finding balance between these unstable and spontaneous monsters, and older metabolisms of our kind. Natural selection will continue to sieve and shake things, until another form of humanity and transcendent organisation could rise.

    A species if not human, could replace us and realise what loomed with this source now. Hopefully they in the future would prevent another white day if we fell and failed...

    But it¡¯s our moral obligation right now, to do everything we can if not to end that threat, to prepare for the future to meet this fate with as much safety as possible.

    We need to reach the castle and see whether we can do something ourselves, or whether we should plan for the foundation of a longer game, leaving the conclusion to another generation or species.

    My sisters and brother are shivering as they hear me and understand this sight.

    The ghost of our mother haunting our damaged minds now is only laughing, blinded by an all engulfing faith about our path.

    I don¡¯t know if we will save the world for its possible future demise, but we will do everything in our power to try...

    For the future of all known life...

    ~

    Ahhie¡¯s skull has fallen along the path. We¡¯re losing him and it breaks what is left of our cooling hearts.

    He¡¯s not dead, but doesn¡¯t look anything human anymore. We can¡¯t pretend any longer...

    All was melting as we reached these shores that didn¡¯t exist here in other times.

    Reaching the sea where it shouldn¡¯t be, hundreds of kilometres away from where we thought it could be, along this still vivid pilgrimage to assess the tool of the end of times.

    And still painfully behind our fleeting hallucination of a goal in the distance. While nearly all other perception of reality was slipping and eroding from us...

    I felt my body dislocating further and thin appendages we never had were now sprouting along my back.

    These two filaments in my back like thin locks of hair, they¡¯re absorbing more of the dripping lights left along this wet trail.

    I felt somewhat more steady after they sprouted out of me, but that made me one good step less human having extra limbs, no matter how discreet they are.

    We crossed path with other wilted ghouls that once likely had been humans.

    The parasitic strains now inhabiting them as simple vehicles and tools to propagate themselves, they followed their unintelligent instincts.

    We screamed in fear, really taken aback finding ourselves as targets of feeding hunt for the first real time.

    Something not human nor wolf. Only some colonies of bacteria or yeast that found ways to use remaining muscles and bones to move around faster.

    A?ssheah felt scared but still stepped in front of me, feeling painfully useless for too long. He thought shielding me from harm was his only way to find meaning and value in his remaining days. Oh, brother...

    I¡¯m sorry I made you feel this way little brother...

    Even though my voice will no longer quite reach you as wholly as it should, even though I will eventually forget you.

    I held onto him as his body deformed.

    A?ssheas stepped in front of us as well, with a little more of a fiery will, and she also made things change between us and the foe.

    Her body coalesced in a more coherent pattern than our brother, into odder shapes and instincts nonetheless and momentarily.

    Some of her individual lingering fires were expressed like pent up feelings of injustice against reality.

    She screamed in sounds sharp and violent we could no longer recognise.

    Heat in bursts of scalding air were felt, as she released something she had accumulated like bile all this time.

    I couldn¡¯t really say what I saw. It was as if she spat accumulated phosphorus, causing heat to the air in a chain reaction before her. Her will coursed like electricity through her remaining cells and fluids.

    Muscles spontaneously formed reacted sharply.

    And then, the rippling wafts of this heated potential in the air, they interfered not like static electricity, but either chemical reaction I couldn¡¯t see, or constructive electromagnetism.

    All I saw as I felt the sudden rise of heat in the air, were some red light and sparks before her. Her finger tips had glowed red maybe.

    Did they heat to a visible degree?

    As the shaggy puppets in front of us were turned from threat to cinders, they scattered into pieces and burnt, but I still couldn¡¯t tell what happened.

    Before us, A?ssheas was changing in different ways, her slim silhouette now a grey and darkening abstract figure.

    She looked back at me as we both shivered in concern, and neither of us could any longer say what we were becoming.

    Her hands were now something of uneven shape with something of damascene looking patterns settling.

    Meanwhile my back lines of early horns or wings had grown longer, and now fed me like roots to the other form of oxygen in the air.

    ~

    We needed to know...

    Whether the story was already over, with an impossibility for another eruption to ever occur.

    Whether this world had simply irreversibly changed to meet a higher form of equilibrium.

    Some species would go extinct but things would stabilise, and other tales of branching life would recover and take over.

    If this extinction event was not bound to anything past or future anymore, and our instinct pointless, that would be fine.

    The moment we would face that reality, we would likely take our last breath in relaxing collapse.

    But if more remained... As we floated through time.

    As we and everything else lived on.

    As we withered away from any obvious sight of god.

    A?ssheat coughed older parts of her away. We didn¡¯t realise then.

    Her hand fell at the time, and we lost our little brother behind.

    His body turned into something even smaller, even thinner, crystallising all that was left into a condensed material.

    Without voice, with evaporating memories, we left him...

    We moved on, never quite realising what we had just lost.

    ~

 009. Metamorphosis, 3

    (A?sshean)

    As the lands beyond the rivers grew more hazardous and more hospitable, we saw new gathering of people after the cloud.

    More survivors, from other pockets all over the continental crossings, now trailing along this hope, our hope, and the waves they carried.

    Here and there cities crumbled before we arrived.

    Sometimes haunted, sometimes hollow. Often coloured in ways of aerosols and cyanobacteria.

    In the distances we wouldn¡¯t cross, some events grew in stormy proportions.

    Globes of darkness passed like distant bubbles carried by the winds. Thunder was flowing horizontally through them at times, as dusts were carried too.

    Below our steps, my back appendages could shiver when detecting the growth of other things. I was softly opening to these new perceptions emerging.

    The environment was changing, and things surviving the impact and exposure now could compete.

    Resources of unclear nature were plenty, and odd ghosts were now spreading from that.

    I saw roots scattering invisibly and rapidly like veins through the ground, as if an abnormally huge tree lived somewhere we couldn¡¯t see.

    It was still raw in synergies between fungi and bacteria along these radiating sensations, but eventually new species would come to be. There are so many other polymers that can still be metabolised.

    And ahead of us, other humans heard the call again. Hopefully this road wouldn¡¯t be as colourful and deadly as its previous segment.

    We continued to repeat to ourselves endlessly our promises to our mother and grandmother, like a spell to keep us aware and sane.

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    We will carry our name...

    However now our kin had become things spooky to the humans from before.

    And we rushed, in fear and pity.

    Not quite seeing what now made us lighter.

    We managed to run more swiftly, ahead in the race, catching up finally with our meaning of the end.

    Maybe it slowed down, or we ran faster.

    A few thoughts remained in our continuously changing minds, and one conflicting thought.

    The wisdom and wilfulness we promised to our mother and grandmother. In the name of Natessh Atassia A?sshea...

    My sights and foresight of ethical nature for reaching the source up there lost, and maybe calling indirectly for help.

    And the conflicting deduction between my sisters, depending upon whether we could do something about it, and what.

    From the hypothesis that we would reach the source, and find out that we do need to do something about it, now Azzie and Attie were beginning to debate, or even argue.

    As - Destroy the weapon...

    At - Transform the tool into something better...

    The youth was rash in her perspective, but perhaps not wrong. If the source is a ticking bomb, we should just break it before it¡¯s too late.

    And the one passionate even more than I ever was about the biological reactions to challenges, she wants with idealism to turn even this threat into an opportunity.

    Build antibodies instead of just curing. Turn your pain and weaknesses into advantages. Absorb your enemy to get some of his strength and power...

    A very biological approach mostly wiser on what is only related to life.

    What we aim for up there, I don¡¯t think it¡¯s just a virus to comprehend. I think it¡¯s far more than an impact on life we can turn around simply being stronger.

    Life will adapt anyway, but that source, I don¡¯t know whether it is something we would be able to turn around from threat to neutral or beneficial.

    I¡¯m not sure at all a volcano can be tamed...

    And that¡¯s where my feelings or intuitions lean. Attie is right, but Azzie will be safer, most likely.

    We stumbled again and again, arguing as we climbed these mountains together, feeling our bond stretching and our promises challenged.

    We were so close, and yet beginning to lose each other from varying perspectives. I continued to fall forward, ever colder at the prospect of losing each other.

    Movies of our opinions and shared memories continued to boil and stretch our ionic bonds. Our bodies bubbled, as we reached peaks were we could see the floating island¡¯s stalactites again. They were more visible now.

    But destruction and transformation kept arguing. To break the throne of god, or to sit a better one up there.

    Something echoed from our familial oath, in A?ssheat¡¯s thoughts and words. But I remained sceptical at her faithful prospect and budding plans for the future.

    At some levels, in some circumstances, it¡¯s clearly safer to destroy things than trying to take control of them, turning them around. For ourselves and the future, I want to believe in A?ssheat¡¯s faith and optimism, but I will bet more on A?ssheas¡¯s cautious violence until I learn more.

    As we neared the castle¡¯s moving chains, it dragged around like unsteady anchors, our disputes continued.

    A?ssheat would bet on longer term future and more.

    When A?ssheas herself had her last gasps and her body really began its collapsing cascades, I lost track of Attie.

    As I held one¡¯s hands in care, I lost sight and perspective of our other third.

    A?ssheas¡¯s body continued to melt and change between my hands. As if she entirely turned to tears, sharing her sensation of agony in that last common instant.

    We were so close...

    But I held her close to me, and didn¡¯t give up on her yet.

    ~

 010. The beginning & the end, 7

    (A?sshean)

    As I focused on holding together whatever A?ssheas was turning into, I forgot about our more pious one.

    Maybe a new and virtuous god will rise in the north from all this, as she began to wish and believe.

    But I first needed to reach this place floating by...

    All that Azzie had ever been, it mostly disaggregated before me, flushing out everything superfluous, turning what made her mind into heavier fluids between my hands.

    Other of these floating sparkles and hues of glows continued their dance around her solidifying materials and me.

    Smaller biological events and spontaneous reactions were straying and scattering across these western lands.

    The random drift had brought us to these very western lands, and now it seemed to return toward a northern trail.

    I had to move on, before losing its swaying chains again.

    A?ssheas knew it, and despite her bodily death, chose to continue accompanying me anyway.

    Another kind of monstrous organisation had risen instead of her flesh.

    She had lost most of her awareness as she transformed what was left of her into a more mineral object.

    Her last impulse turned her into something I couldn¡¯t any longer define as living on biochemical terms.

    Her corpse condensed into a solid structure of molten rock or metal, crystallising.

    In that misty day she died, and another form of existence really took her place, or what was left of it.

    I picked up this uneven but solidified shape, and kept it like a heavy walking stick.

    Our senses were numb, and now the echoing thoughts from her mind had really dimmed a lot. She sounded far. As a haunting revenant, some side of her remained in there.

    Maybe this wasn¡¯t yet her complete end. Ghosts now might remain.

    So I didn¡¯t leave her behind and carried her along.

    I felt her electric and thermic oscillations coursing through my hands as if telling me she was sleepy, but still somewhere deep in there.

    I turned darker and even less human, my flesh ever changing, but I held onto her.

    I resumed coursing through this colder land.

    ~

    The mountains were beautiful in different times. Now I mostly ran after the rock piece of cave ceiling obscuring a part of the sky. I ran after its transparent anchors with my dehumanised body. They were at times ploughing through the ground, from the end of their immense and equally transparent chains.

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    I was still falling onward, between surprised people regrouping around for the same off but hopeful journey, gathering in this white cloud¡¯s wake. They saw me running ahead of them in gasping surprise.

    Somewhere in my freezing mind, it¡¯s still hopeful noticing so many humans still coming together to continue living and rebuild societies. You can¡¯t that easily kill humanity.

    After the tragedy, most likely spreading rather evenly the chances of survival, now humanity was with good instincts in gathering in pockets and new cities, to help each other live on.

    It was heart-warming to notice, even from my distance, these social instincts still working. I will do my very best so that humanity is not the last intelligence species, and that another event won¡¯t come to end it.

    I felt myself flowing more than running, always changing but growing better at riding these colliding winds.

    It was an array of new sensations and perceptions also coursing through me entirely, as they gradually replaced my older senses.

    What I perceived and understood of reality would never be the same.

    I saw the damaged source, and all I heard was the coalescing illusion of it crying for help. Keeping my transformed sister along to soon reach one of these drifting chains and climb their ladders to hell or heaven.

    ~

    Finally, when I could no longer rely on normal sight, my body having discarded all clothing for a long time, I made it.

    I managed to grab and stick to one of these lines hanging from the solid cloud above.

    The majority of pilgrims a distance behind had been giving up this wild hunt, to rebuild cities instead. They couldn¡¯t catch up and didn¡¯t obsessed over this.

    They also probably couldn¡¯t see in great details these exotic minerals that had no difference of refractive index with the air.

    I could, now seeing the other elements flowing through them like blood into veins.

    I could see it now.

    I caught up with one of these very well organised and patterned, colourful threaded fibres, contrasting with all the other ethereal aminoacids floating around randomly.

    The prismatic inks shone through the darkness of this other world, now drawing for me up and ahead the shapes of that odd building hidden from normal sight.

    The rocky and random stalactites below had been the only thing really visible so far. Like a broken piece of an immense cave or subterranean world, now missing and lost.

    But more importantly, I had seen the weaves inside the chains. I now could notice these hanging fibres of glowing vessels, which turned once near to them, to be rather massive chain-links assemblies of rather mineral nature.

    They had the shapes of anchors or claws to my past sense of self. They were tall like cars, linked to each other like an immense fibrous weave or chain rather, each element of it taller than I was.

    The ground rising before them was hurt and ploughed. That was where I eventually ran in time and jumped, catching one as if jumping onto a moving train. I held onto that weight now carrying me ahead by itself.

    As if clinging to a moving truck or boat, unsteady, heavy and uncaring. I looked upward to where went that odd thread of fate I now clung to.

    ~

    My hands and these things slithering from where they¡¯re stuck in my back, which I would abusively call wings, they helped me cling, and then climb.

    Reaching very carefully, steadily and slowly higher heights.

    I moved steadily between these moving parts, against the colder winds as this flying object continued to move to Septentrion.

    These monolithic pieces of transparent solids felt cold and mineral to the touch, but also slightly evanescent in the mechanically strained parts. It all moved quietly.

    The higher I climbed along this dangling thread of unfathomable origin, the more I abandoned other parts of my soul.

    These particles colliding everywhere since the white day, in chaos and energetic, unsteady sea and levels of energies...

    Here they have structured patterns, they were weaved into these minerals... And the building above is also a construction designed by intelligent mind. It¡¯s not just a volcano or meteor... It¡¯s industrial technology.

    I feel afraid, but I push myself to reach the real answers. I finally grabbed the giant monster¡¯s tail. I won¡¯t let go before I see its eye...

    ~

    All I¡¯ve left behind became blurry. I couldn¡¯t say whether they were still alive, struggling already to remember they ever existed. We all turn to ghosts over time.

    Everything fades...

    Would they still share our ideals, I wondered.

    It felt like I was the only one left.

    Most probably, they were now gone as well.

    Everything seemed to disappear in the midst and mists of passing clouds now. As if Earth itself now that I could no longer see it, had just always been a figment of my imagination.

    What if gods had no longer memories? I was feeling doubtful and lost myself.

    But I continued to climb to see the end.

    ~

 011. The beginning & the end, 8

    (A?sshean)

    Most things from human past had long left my mind.

    Along with the last sights of earth and ground I would ever see, all that was left behind me looked like an empty chasm.

    Maybe the world already had begun falling toward final demise.

    I wanted still to believe in our purpose and whatever shapes of understanding we still had in our promise.

    Even if we had lost sight of each other.

    I climbed, still pulled onward by these wavering lights. This uneven fountain of which glow turned to tears behind. And this endless rain bloomed spores in the air and over the land, but also dislocated most unprepared cells.

    I felt as if an eternity had passed. That I had been forever pulled toward this place and what was hidden behind. The horizon sights vanished, as I continued to climb that short but immense kilometre of a dangling cliff anchored to the flying plateau.

    The higher I went, the lighter felt my weight. My thoughts growing fuzzy, I was rushing to reach this ledge.

    My sister I still carried was now managing to whisper back some words in my head; but I barely could make sense of them. They felt foreign now. I felt estranged to my own native tongue, the further I delved toward the truth of this place.

    We all devolved together, trying to reach the stars.

    My thoughts wandered in less coherent patterns, still grasping onto anything. Still hoping.

    And while I was in a daze, meanwhile...

    My hand stained the edge.

    I pulled myself above.

    Soon all my limbs crawled onto the surface of the floating palace.

    ~

    I was feeling out of myself.

    What my flesh had become may be mostly vaporous now, but all liquids felt as if they were beginning to boil.

    This place is under constant storm, not of thunder and rain, but cosmic rays perhaps. That¡¯s how this deep sensation of burning now feels. The challenges to remain whole and alive on the ground are tenfold as harsh over here.

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    Parts of my organism rapidly notice some patterns of pseudo biology that seem unfazed and I might be able to rely on.

    An organisation away from traditional cells and old biology appear far more adapted here. It frightens me. But chemical reactions are easier to do, both in good and bad ways, when there is more energy.

    On some cellular instinctive levels, my body now wants to transform entirely to insure more adjusted and reliable integrity... Or to seize the opportunity wildly, in instincts jeopardizing my integrity.

    It feels like a final bargain to abandon all hope of humanity in me, and I¡¯m feeling afraid.

    I could feel my self about to die, and wondering about what was right or best.

    For now I thought, I want first to meet the true nature of this place.

    I need to know...

    I stepped unsteadily forward, dripping droplets of blood that dried instantly as they hit the ground.

    The esplanade was as white as a cloud palace could be, wide and prim, immaculate looking.

    Partially because the level of energy from photons or otherwise constantly bombarding this place were washing it from anything and everything that might have coloured it, constantly.

    This felt as if a solar beam had been tightened as a weapon to blast anything that would ever try to walk this place.

    A weapon...

    I dragged my attacked flesh toward the wider shape loosely evocative of a building that stood ahead.

    They were hazy in this cloudy heat and blinding light, but these hollow and high shapes were drawing what appeared to be medieval looking towers to me.

    A castle maybe was a fitting description I thought again.

    All I needed to find now were graves, to feel that something fitting had come to its rightful end.

    Under that bombarding light, some thoughts now coursing through my head were no longer mine.

    A?ssheas I still held on appeared spared and relatively fine in her new solid state now.

    I headed as rapidly as I could inside this main building with open mouth in front of me.

    I could hear the glow shrieking and crying from further inside.

    ~

    I entered abandoned great halls, and then shifting corridors, losing balance and perhaps perspective, if not gravitational direction even, a great many times.

    I lost my way along the inner veins of this crucible.

    My ascent and now this dive inside, they twisted what parts still could be damaged from my mind.

    With the little daydream of awareness that was still mine, I crawled closer to the source.

    Slipping. Fighting off cloudy memories.

    Following footsteps that weren¡¯t mine.

    Toward the broken answer to all.

    Behind me, blood was left to shine into dry crystals rapidly eroding and vanishing into the walls. I¡¯m feeding the walls...

    I heard the cries of this man.

    His memories now sharp nails passing through my blurry mind.

    I dragged my scraggy leftovers possibly already past any chance of salvation, but I wanted to know. I wanted to see.

    Other ghosts passed right through me, as memories lingered through these walls or through this flow of light, better than I could in me.

    This place was haunted by its collected past, whether it was recent or ages by.

    I was reached out unwillingly by these echoes of tragedies still lurking and bouncing around this place, as I reached the sanctuary.

    I entered a circular room with the end floating inside.

    The source of destruction stood between a few odd looking pillars. Darkened statues, below a dome stained as if it was showing patches of sky.

    I made a few steps inside, facing the entire source unfiltered by walls or foreign memories.

    Maybe a second at best, of brutal exposure, to make some awareness return to me.

    I felt as if I just woke up, now contemplating the sun, burning through my eyes.

    I recovered some of my senses as I stood there, willing and wishing to understand.

    I ran away as the answers burnt inside.

    ~

    I began vomiting more dark fluids soon turning to dust as I tried to find my way through the maze.

    The reality and answers had been made so obvious to me, from long before I stepped inside.

    Maybe I could help, most likely I wouldn¡¯t. Some of the upper flows of light might eventually fade, but the source will not. Never.

    I knew some answers now, and they didn¡¯t reassure my vanishing sense of cognition.

    The origin and meaning of these things, I could now make informed guesses about them. Even further about what they had caused on that fateful day on Earth.

    ~

 012. A?sshea, 2

    (A?sshean)

    As much as I could now guess or hear elements of the past leading to this palace blowing the ether from its source across the world, my concern lied elsewhere.

    Understanding elements of the past was an intellectual necessity for planning the future. And my main worry had been proven true.

    The Tam?r¨®dlo, this source, far from calming down and cooling steadily since its explosion, it was instead growing gradually in instability.

    It would erupt again someday, if nothing was ever done to prevent it.

    The future, I could foresee it painfully clearly. The end of everything.

    Because the pale cataclysm would occur again. I couldn¡¯t yet predict when, but I had seen already it was far from empty here, and not calming down either. One way or another, the limit to this trend is clear.

    I had rapidly understood some of these aspects as parts of my brain and body rushed to adapt to this. I coughed more dry things. Now my body is beginning a change I won¡¯t be able to consciously stop.

    I have to return to the surface of the palace, for A?ssheas...

    ~

    These statues I saw were the tip of the iceberg, the protrusions of a buried weaponry that had erupted a shot once. And now that parts of it were damaged, it was leaking.

    It would fire, uncontrollably, maybe even worse. And then again...

    Until nothing from the world we knew was left.

    There wouldn¡¯t really be any next era if nothing is done.

    And sadly I¡¯m the only one left standing here on this day, and not for much longer either.

    Nor can I foresee right now what the next visitors will have in mind for this place.

    I begin to fear seriously further accidents. Other catastrophes if nothing is done to protect this dangerous place.

    Because others will eventually come.

    And sadly I realised there is nothing here A?sshea¡¯s will could succeed with. This place and thing is not to be broken with just our bare hands. It needs more than that...

    And I don¡¯t see how my lost sister could manage to raise a benevolent will to convert this place from such spoil and ruins...

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    We¡¯re trapped between different bad outcomes... All I can do now, it¡¯s to pray.

    To help protect this place with my flesh, and to pray.

    That someday A?ssheat or A?ssheas, will figure out a real way...

    Attie is already out there, and I still believe in her. She was the brightest mind of the family.

    Azzie, I need to bring outside...

    I reached the landscape under the sky, over the bleached open sights. I couldn¡¯t really feel anymore the icy bites from the winds.

    Our fate terrifies me.

    But there is nothing better to do in my sight for now.

    If I can, I will later build doors to the sanctum of this place. But first, I must free my sister and also believe in her own foresight.

    Right now it was impossible. We didn¡¯t bring any weapon or tool able to break the source safely. But she has seen it too through my eyes.

    She will find her way.

    I got closer to the edge, trembling, dragging her.

    My last words were for her.

    This source of destruction we couldn¡¯t unmake together right now. In hindsight we were rash and lacked too much knowledge. This is too immense and too hazardous now. It¡¯s a volcano ready to pour even more magma and ashes out already. But to destroy it may not be impossible still...

    The cold and formless mass she had become, it listened with intensity to my unsteady words. We were freezing cold, and she understood the moment.

    Right now we needed something else. Someone else. Able to stand here longer. Able to mutter more.

    Some help she would find...

    I extended my arms holding her above the void to let her escape this floating grave.

    I would try to keep watch, in another form.

    I would try to keep things steady here meanwhile, until a solution comes from my sisters.

    An - I will wait little sister... Come back, with the sharpest sword...

    I let go of her, losing my last words.

    She disappeared in the clouds below.

    The mountainous Carpathian lands, I could no longer but guess below.

    ~

    I felt my body erupting.

    Doors would grow.

    Wishes would be made.

    To the extent I could reach through my back horns linking me to the source below, it would go a little more steady now.

    It would hold on, for a while.

    That last will was also my final bargain however.

    I fell to my knees, bubbling all over.

    My soul was now sold for good... For a chance.

    For the good of all...

    I lost countenance and my mind turned around, shifting abruptly to the other side of reality.

    My back arched and grew, soon bursting in easing pain, and exploding.

    My being abandoned all that had been left or preserved of my humanity.

    The monster of myself hatched out like my own reincarnation, hollowing my old shapeless form now crumbling into dust.

    The darker thing I vanished into seemed to roar, signifying its existence in fading sanity.

    My new voice was lost as my awareness continued to fade into it.

    My thoughts and mostly fears in my heart for myself, they became true, losing control.

    The monster stepped aside its pupa and husk, feeding from this charged air it was breathing more easily.

    Many legs keeping it steady, and two thin threads from my back turned into two heavier tails for my new world¡¯s body.

    A hardy and scaly skin, holding off the worst of this light at bay, and keeping an armoured sight in lines.

    It moved around and scratched the ground where I had just died, thoughtlessly.

    Without a care...

    I embraced the oblivion where I was now powerless and falling.

    I just prayed.

    For our name to someday bring salvation.

    ~

    A?ssheah supported our family¡¯s legacy. He wanted to help anyway

    A?ssheat drifted away to mean evolution. A?ssheas will strive to bring the conclusion...

    I will try to keep everything up here steady, until they find a better way.

    They all fell outside and distant from me, as my past humanity did from me.

    Marks and stains remained. But now I held myself in a different form of reality, far, far away from old biology.

    A?ssheat will refine her ideas. A?ssheas her sharpness and strategy.

    I will hold the fort.

    Until someone else eventually finds it. Until our existence and thoughts vanish.

    Trying to achieve maturity and stability, vainly.

    Trying to reach out for help maybe... Protecting what can be.

    And someday, seeing the end of the source¡¯s story.

    Reaching its conclusion, up in flames or down in earth, but somehow free from its loom.

    I hear the distorted echoes of its now fragmented memories.

    I even see myself back as I once was, now a part of me forever marked and stuck within these walls.

    My hopefull memories in this place trapping time.

    My promise.

    For our name and time, drifting but real.

    I will wait.

    I will wait forever for you...

    ~

 013. Metamorphosis, 4

    (A?sshean)

    Whatever I¡¯ve become now strolls around, a little unconcerned or seemingly so.

    It¡¯s like following a crocodile on land. I¡¯m not fully aware of what it thinks about.

    What¡¯s left of my awareness gradually follows from the back of its mind, to merge gently with this new me.

    I¡¯ll forget everything probably, maybe even speech.

    But thankfully this dark beast still lives for our duty.

    Now its flesh impervious to the flood of light that killed me and so many others prior.

    Its tails just absorb what we need, and it works. It stays whole, now fallen to another level of rather clear stability.

    A beast without real reliance on chemistry... It¡¯s so far from what I would ever have known or designed.

    I get growing understanding about how it works, and how it still hols my memories. But it¡¯s a design so alien to conventional biology, I don¡¯t like it.

    It¡¯s a monster I¡¯ve become sadly, with other self-structured and chains of properties.

    Now I feed on light and air only. And I stroll around this place along my four short legs and two thicker tails, mechanically.

    I will protect this place sisters...

    My shapeless head turns around, thinking back about what the source is below. What it means, what it shows. And what I came here to do initially.

    ~

    I stroll slowly through the tunnels, to see again the truth directly.

    Maybe this new body can do a little more than before about it, safely.

    I¡¯m not convinced, but I head down there to revaluate the situation, now that I stand on different ground and perspective to reality.

    Could I do something now differently?

    I peer into that white fountain of light.

    That tiny black hole without weight but heavily impactful on optical reality nonetheless.

    I stare without eyes, with my brain reactions directly.

    That thing still burns dangerously, a few steps ahead.

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    Even with that body, reaching its horizon of events to touch it would disintegrate me.

    It washes everything, forbidding to see what it really holds behind.

    Not that it would hold anything more material and meaningful than these ageless statues and melted artefacts lying around.

    I step over pieces of equipment so old they have merged with the ground long before my arrival.

    And now I¡¯m on my way out again, since there¡¯s no reason for me to stay in the sanctum.

    I don¡¯t have the power or ability to do anything to that frightening thing.

    ~

    Like a retinal persistency, the sight of the source burnt many elements in me, giving my consciousness a lingering sensation that I was still exposed to it. It felt like an eye that kept staring at me silently.

    It was an unpleasant superstitious unease.

    Nothing was watching me, since I was the only thing alive, or remotely alive here. Maybe forever.

    Probably not.

    Others like us, safe or transformed, will eventually follow.

    So I proceeded with what I could do now. And eventually they appeared as I wished. Doors.

    I had no hands to use tools, but other powers lie in here, with just as much abilities to reshape materials, in a way or another.

    Powers I can channel slightly now.

    I growl, and my tails rise with visibly growing spikes on them.

    As my mind focuses on that hole that is the start of the tunnels network.

    And as the light flowing from below begins to shift its path. It fries a little further my brain and mind, but the materials before me react to these impulses.

    As if my invisible arms and hands were trying to rip the walls to pick up construction materials.

    Reality began to shiver under this redirection of flow born from our will, making us and the ground shake gradually.

    And as a smaller event made way, minerals making the walls relaxed and became malleable.

    As if turning suddenly fluid, flowing like molten glass or damp clay, the walls answered to my wish after a threshold of this bright energy.

    Again, beings like me could adapt to make use of these energies...

    It¡¯s only a matter of time.

    Before me, without direct touches but still as parts of me, doors and hinges were extracted from the walls and formed, to lock this place mechanically.

    I fell tired, staining the pristine marble ground, but now in front of me stood the odd doors to be guarded.

    ~

    I build a few other doors and things, but it was damaging me.

    And I didn¡¯t need much furniture anymore anyway.

    I had become a machine out of time more than a creature with needs and instincts.

    But more importantly, I kept my tails open as if they were my arms and eyes, to the new world below and all its potential. And as I familiarised myself with this palace I could mostly alter, I found something else that would matter.

    The architecture overall was nonsensical, but I got a rather clear picture of where important places and things were.

    And I realised how the continuous shower of the source outside could be made dimmer.

    I could do a little more...

    So I focus again, and sacrifice some of my structured memories further.

    My tails channel this odd power into orders.

    And through them my body makes this castle change its architecture a little further.

    The leaks are sealed.

    The spherical room is layered. The permeability of every wall and ground are made tighter.

    No more shining leakage from this place. Keep it together...

    And it shows. Already the air feels less electric on the surface of the construct.

    I feel shivers and some of my memories turning to glitter in the wind...

    But I can still do a little more to help my sisters...

    I lift my tails for my last order.

    My last wish to make their objectives easier.

    I send counter orders through the other machines or organs of this castle, that allow it to float endlessly.

    I fail... It won¡¯t land on my order that easily.

    What I am doesn¡¯t matter. I have not enough power to act on this... But I find another way and pulse a material change somewhere else.

    The chains and anchors change slightly. They fall deeper, and they slow down the ship gradually.

    It still isn¡¯t enough... I don¡¯t want to dig trails below, but eventually it will stop. When it reaches the end of the upside down peaks.

    My body has collapsed, my thoughts now in shambles.

    I may have failed to stop or seize control of this castle, but thoughts partially answering my desire now burst inside of me.

    It won¡¯t drift for ever around the globe. It will stop somewhere nearing the Arctic circle.

    Good...

    I crawl. Now my diminishing thoughts have no other wishes but to hold my own duty longer.

    As long as will be required...

    So I stand, consuming my remains of humanity a little further.

    For all the years to come...

    ~

 014. Histoire noire, 1

    (A?sshean)

    The part of me that was this new kind of monster, it would stand up on its legs eventually. Death was a slightly off topic for a demon such as me, or a being like me now...

    But what remained of my humanity grew even dimmer under the strain and exhaustion.

    It felt like falling down again. And oddly, the further I fell, the more it felt I could see. As if things otherwise obscure naturally were gradually illuminated to my new deeper eyes.

    Past. Memories. What lied on the other side of that sea and new reality.

    The slower and deeper my mind feel, the more I could link to and see, about this cosmological background to the new side of reality...

    ~

    I couldn¡¯t tell time, nor place.

    It was too old and blurry, with a sensation of red shift more than anything to everything.

    Concentrated back in closer time and narrower localisation in space, all of that was fading while appearing bigger in darkness, as I would surmise it into one sight.

    Not exactly a big bang or even an explosion on the horizon, but at least an exposure.

    An exposition a little like I had below, bright and energetic enough to imprint a mark and perhaps a momentum on everything.

    Back when the red cosmological background of this place was localised, it felt like the similar intense and burning stare of an eye. A violet star or smaller thing was irradiating everything, changing everything.

    And through that shockwave and constant flood of highly energetic light, some other thoughts drifted away. They were like fragments of older planetoids now scattering through space.

    But they were immaterial. And some of their structures translated roughly into my makeshift senses now that they echoed through my slowing down impression of brain.

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    The meaning of all things for that violet eye, or the source of elements it scattered through explosion, it wasn¡¯t in their finality but in their origin. The purpose was in the past, invisible from our perspective.

    As much as this thing radiated everything away, there was a volition of introspection also transpiring in the way it flowed over itself endlessly.

    But further origin of things, earlier causes prior to this bright explosion, they were now unreachable, lost beyond the horizon.

    There was a forgetfulness, maybe not entirely unlike mine currently, that was vibrating with me.

    Unreachable memories from the beginning of things, how it started for either of us, as they simply were lost. What we were before, where we came from, how we had been made or come to be.

    Gradually fading behind the picture growing.

    Time and space erase most things of wider history, making us vulnerable and petty. Nothing would be left from the origin.

    The sensations of loss reminding me of my own, eventually overwhelmed me and that monster. The demon was not obeying familiar logics of bodily functions, to a point stretching the definition of life and death again.

    The infinite sight of the sky coursed through me, as I felt the weight of my own corpse for a moment again.

    Reality beyond the edge of death was painful and fleeing. Because more than reaching impervious eternity, as in any religious fantasy, we were aware of how much this was just a last gasp in agony.

    Our mind would simply dissolve a few quanta of entropy later. In time, sooner or later, this was more law than theory. Feeling the end embracing us was painful and terrifying honestly.

    We knew enough about the physics of reality to really seize what death absolutely meant.

    There were no heavens nor hells, nor metempsychosis for monsters or demons to be.

    Or these other planes would simply be empty...

    Nothing lasts beyond the heat death of what builds their identity.

    That sadness and fright endured, even long after their original owner were gone.

    A sensation of older death was prevalent in that background. A lot of death...

    Incurred by this very same weapon.

    I couldn¡¯t see anything hinting me at what else this tool could ever be meant to do.

    So possibly that had simply been its purpose from the start, and maybe we just weren¡¯t the first ones turned to dust and abominations by this violet monstrosity.

    But I still had a few glimpses of the sky of cloudy seas from above, and more permanent memories involving this castle where and when it apparently happened.

    I felt indirectly the previous explosions of its impulsive lights. I felt the waves of stones and fire, like volcanic eruptions, slowing down.

    Had that thing opened a volcano? Maybe it had that much power.

    But then I felt along the palace how the tremors changed. How the place changed its shape slightly, obeying another will back then.

    Another will, thin and vanishing differently, it changed something, and broke the anchors...

    I felt like the last wish of another spectre much older. It could have simply been a very long history of winds, dusts and erosion. But I felt that invisible shiver coursing through the palace, and eventually breaking all its remaining anchors.

    Something else, long before I arrived, also felt this thing should remain unopen.

    To prevent another catastrophic release in the same land, it was severed and left to drift away, like an abandoned plagued ship becoming ghost overseas.

    So that a distant land would be spared from another catastrophe...

    Maybe this memory wasn¡¯t that old, only distorted. It felt to me as if this weapon fired, and as it killed nearly everyone on Earth anyway, it was then left to mysteriously drift away...

    ~

 015. Histoire noire, 2

    (A?sshean)

    A place lost and drifting, eventually would sink and vanish, burying its ghosts and secrets.

    Maybe someone dying scuttled this castle from the other end of the world it came from.

    But in a different spectrum of shaped memories, one that looked yellower, I also saw the remnants of that event.

    How it happened, when the world was flooded by this catastrophe.

    ~

    It was in already tumultuous weather.

    It was far above the beautiful city apparently, but it felt like another time and place entirely.

    The weather was so hostile and ferrous, even he had been injured and his suit damaged.

    Maybe it had been an unlikely natural cataclysm already, that had caused darker consequences for these people and this peculiar technology.

    Now the young man was alone, hurt and scared, venturing haphazardly through the unlit corridors.

    The tunnels back then were not as exposed to the deadly storm raging outside, and not yet to the bleaching light. They were dusty and dark, albeit windy.

    He went deeper through these very uneven rock corridors, without any remaining source of light to show his way.

    I barely recognised the place, as when I arrived everything had been polished and whitened by the light.

    But originally this place really looked like a piece of a wider cave apparently.

    He was breathing heavily as much as this suit allowed. He walked through the carved rocks that looked unnatural. Even though he had no experience in speleology, he could guess fairly that this place had not been shaped by nature.

    Whether this place had been built or caught around here was unclear. He didn¡¯t know much, and he could only observe.

    For a moment as he crawled deeper to relative safety inside this tomb, he could mostly notice how the architecture seemed uniform and aligned.

    He couldn¡¯t tell whether it was old or just recently damaged, but it was clearly made by humans to his eyes. I would later concur.

    He stumbled further, with the weight of being alone.

    Everyone else from his team sent to investigate was now dead or missing in action.

    He was keenly aware of what going missing in this mission really meant.

    His chances were slim to ever return alive to his city, maybe a few kilometres below through the bad weather.

    He barely avoided panicking in this state of despair, as his helmet finally broke.

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    All his equipment had been malfunctioning, and was now entirely out of commission. In this place, electromagnetic fields were unreliable and electronics eventually stopped functioning.

    He tried to breathe, struck by anguish. All he had left to rely upon were neither others nor technology.

    Only his trembling body and terrified spirit were left.

    He went deeper, to shelter first from the noxious particles and dusts blowing heavily outside.

    The walls were moist inside, with a heavy smell of rust. He walked slouching, the gloves damaged by acids gradually, but still following the wall.

    He was breathing unevenly the spoiled air through his clogged filters.

    His journey of less than an hour felt endless inside. He often made it to his knees through crevices more than corridors, but headed further.

    The obscure tunnels though eventually came to an end, with a wide hexagonal tile, a rubble that had found itself blocking the exit. He pushed this obstruction with all his weight to make it fall behind.

    The brutal noise on hitting the ground made him jolt.

    He went inside the wide room now open. A noise continued to echo in the dark. He couldn¡¯t see what lied around there.

    But there was a pale glow somewhere around he could notice the effects of.

    The source itself was unclear, floating perhaps softly, but drawing a few shapes and shades in that obscurity.

    He approached what he couldn¡¯t decipher yet, a little more swiftly.

    He tripped over rubbles or other things, but eventually made it closer to them.

    These odd shapes surrounding the glow. The three statues with curvy shapes were loosely evocative of feminine figures to him. More importantly he looked toward the only place where light allowed him to see clearly.

    The ground was uneven and muddy. The glow was surrounding where he and the statues stood, like a floating mist.

    He felt oppressed by the shady figures before him, but they were nothing more than statues.

    They were oriented toward a central spot he conjectured from their look. Their triangle was irregularly defined, but their abstract shapes seemed to define a point or thing between them.

    He couldn¡¯t really define heads nor arms on them, or only tilted down.

    He had never been intrigued by the meaning or purpose of art in the past. Now his situation more than their coarse nature made him wonder. As he stood between two of them, he wanted to examine what they were a little more, to try understanding what they meant.

    He stepped through that mist shrouding them slightly. He walked his way closer to the third one, feeling weirdly fuzzy. The sensation in his ears became a violent tremor, making him fall heavily.

    It shook the building along.

    Everywhere else on Earth, maybe there had been a subtle glint.

    ~

    Slowly, the young man managed to raise his limbs and stand up again. He was exhausted and hurt, now with a severe pounding inside his head.

    When he could understand what his eyes were looking at again, the intensity of ambient light was rising to levels forcing him painfully to squint and close them for a little while. His eyes felt damaged, burnt.

    The room around him was with a wide dome, made from stones with dirty colours, bigger than expected.

    He heard sequences of incoherent sounds that were either damaged machineries or a very foreign tongue to him.

    All his senses felt tested dangerously and saturated. Trembling, he managed to endure and keep standing.

    Around him the statues remained as ominous to him as they did before, even under daylight. He couldn¡¯t tell how much was real or an hallucination, but it seemed to him that the blue sky could now be seen through the circular wall and ceiling. It was ever changing and uncertain.

    All he focused on for a moment beside standing was how ghastly these designed rocks were before him. Their supposed faces were of unclear or molten features, but where his pareidolia could see skulls with grim hollows.

    He was afraid and intrigued.

    Meanwhile, the daybreak and horizon lines of sight were more clear, as if the place was now opened to the outside, and the weather had cleared out.

    As he was there between the statues, he noticed the sunrise about to blind him again, and how the storm had seemingly vanished.

    Maybe the previous shock had come from that storm abruptly collapsing.

    Another composition of noises and sensations though swallowed him while his eyes again went blind.

    Pain ran through his body in surges as he tried to make his way out, feeling on fire.

    It was too late. A succession of painful and intense sensations ripped him and his sanity away.

    It felt like logic and reason were gone to him, and his struggle returned to a primitive attempt to survive a different kind of storm rising.

    He had seen something rising through the light and turning into a different kind of turmoil.

    Now it was too late to decrypt or describe what he had experienced.

    He ran for his life while the killing light was growing.

    The sky vanished, along with everything of this place.

    His brain saw more sights defying his understanding of reality. Other sights spread from and toward this exploding or imploding source of light, burning his eyes and soul for good.

    He witnessed the start of the white day, and parts of its extent unfolding near to him. And as much as he tried to escape and survive, he was torn inside and across.

    The white day appeared in there.

    And soon this was the scattering end, everywhere outside.

    ~

 016. About reality, 1

    (A?sshean)

    I interacted with these shards of memories that continued to twirl along these walls.

    And my human end will also likely continue to be repeated by ghosts onward.

    Reality is a tapestry in this place in relation to time and erosion. History unfolds, but is also inscribed as it goes.

    Things pass, but their marks linger.

    A civilizational memory and scientific work is good at reading the past from the marks remaining later.

    And here, events also get somewhat memorised in another form. Either as mnemonic patterns from brains, or otherwise as energetic signals, but also as instantaneous prints of situations, likely kept inside these very walls. Like photosensitive materials used to take pictures.

    Memory is information. And there is a lot of chaotic and sometimes structured information floating around here. Enough to make me believe this place was built by humans aiming for such purpose, not so long ago.

    Because the ways these memories are written and then read as they float through me, sometimes I can read them as naturally as if they had been mine.

    I¡¯ve read these memories of people whom I do not know who preceded me here. It¡¯s all blurry and incomplete, but parts still are clear. And it likely means that the ones who will follow will also be able to reach what floats on top of these fluid piles.

    Mine.

    They will hear my name, see images of my fate, and hear our will of how we worked to save what¡¯s left.

    They will know from my absurd fate and body, and what¡¯s left floating away from my brain, what really lies ahead.

    How long will I wait I can¡¯t say, and none of these memories carry any defined sensation of time. There is mainly the clue, when the sight is clear, of how different the corridors looked in the past.

    Maybe this wasn¡¯t made by humans sometimes I think, as I could find no computer to oversee nor tell me more.

    The white day changed the world and also this place clearly and entirely.

    My odd flesh resolidifies rapidly. I don¡¯t exhaust myself trying to control that thing anymore. I just continue to wonder, while I still have a sense of self and abstraction. My body growls, scratching the ground. I¡¯m already so far gone...

    I pray my sisters¡¯ selection will be wiser. Around here, everything becomes so fluid and very still altogether. This place feels like a bubble out of time, under the glare of this pareidolic eye. I¡¯m gradually melting in its pool of fluid, feeling my mind continuing to fall further.

    The burning sensation of the sight of the source lingers for ever.

    Its shower and rain over the world may now be milder, but for me it remains still a violent and constant wind to fight after.

    This body has found its way to hold against it, but my thoughts from a past life not so old, not much longer.

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    The shape holds against most effects and feeds on this energy directly, like an early adapted organism. But the more archaic parts from it are bound to shrink and debilitate, until the selection of constant exposure clears this obsolete past of which I come.

    It¡¯s an unpleasant and lingering sensation of doom and growing dementia. Something will remain, but I as A?sshean will be gone.

    Sooner rather than later, my thoughts won¡¯t be mine anymore. They will devolve into random clusters of memories passing by each other and others in these waters.

    My new form of brain will read them as if they were mine, indifferently, and my sense of self in continuity will vanish.

    I will melt along the memories of this world and place. And so long it lasts, which I can¡¯t foresee, this body will carry on, as an incarnation of these floating moments of the present and past, trying to resurrect spontaneously at times.

    I¡¯ll become a part of something wider but abstract, a concept above us without design to itself but in the source and reason for nearly everything that happened recently.

    A poor definition of history or theology.

    I had sacrificed all my ambitions the moment I reached the floor up here, if not long before. Unless I still hold them in our will... I¡¯m not so sure anymore...

    And it¡¯s still a long way to go until I lose all perception of time and reality, but I will erode to this eventually.

    I don¡¯t know what I¡¯ll become, but I won¡¯t live forever...

    ~

    The source still and always glows inside my head, like a sun scorching it, blowing its atmosphere away without end. No matter in which direction I turn, I can see it... In the back of my head, it shrinks my mind, sublimating it gradually.

    But as much as it feels like this little sun is burning me, I also feel like I¡¯m continuously falling deeper into it. As if this circular shape with radiance was more akin to a tunnel with no discernible end.

    I¡¯m falling into that tunnel. That thing may be localised, inside this ship, but now to my dizzy head, it feels the other way around. It feels as I see it anywhere as if it was the only end of a tunnel I was travelling into at relativist speed, and carrying the whole place as well.

    It¡¯s like I¡¯m seeing the horizon, only it¡¯s a round dot instead of a line. It also carries this endless sensation of attraction, like I¡¯m constantly falling through space at great velocity toward it. But since the entire castle is as well as me, the planet itself even maybe; we don¡¯t feel it.

    These sensory illusions are a puzzling strain, of relativity in front of a physical singularity; or more simply symptoms of my intellectual decay. However fascinating they may be to experience and study.

    This sensation of falling through a tunnel that would actually be bigger than everything, bigger than the galaxy itself possibly, for which all we could see is the circular horizon here, it¡¯s troubling me.

    Only one end, one side to go through. And it¡¯s not localised in this castle from this perspective, but nowhere or everywhere. It¡¯s only its focal point of symmetry or perspective that we carry in a room below.

    Maybe we¡¯re only carrying a weird distorting lens, that opened a window to a space we shouldn¡¯t have peered into.

    Maybe it¡¯s a dimensional funnel, that was meant to pour limitless energy for that country, and it was more than they could ever have handled that fell through.

    I will likely never quite figure it out myself...

    Although that sounds like something the city of the sun out there would have done. I can¡¯t find any memory clear enough to conclude either way about the intent or purpose behind this anomaly.

    More importantly as I peer into the odd abyss, I feel now a reflection from the infinity, hinting that it¡¯s more a perspective illusion than reality.

    As if a mirror of unreal dimension was along the world of the horizon, or behind the focal point as a way of a chromatic aberration; I see an imaginary reflection filling the whole of space.

    I see some of my thoughts and patterns of thoughts observed and reflected through the well.

    And this tunnel to infinity feels there as small as if I was only gazing at a room mirror in our plane.

    Just a little mirror.

    A mirror studying me as it decayed, as I did the same.

    A shade of a being losing itself, mere memory of its past self, trying to bid its time and understand its fate.

    I saw the pale thing, inverted from me, as bright as I was turning darker, as undefined as me as we faded.

    I saw the reflection of these puzzling sensations of hope and incomprehension, of worry. I peered at a reflection of myself beyond the hole, understanding this odd thing was draining my visions and imagination, reading me and reflecting my memories.

    Again, I felt how much my humanity was no more but a faint memory, and my complete merging with these new aspects of reality my current fatality.

    I have seen the eye, as it has seen me. And as lost as I was, its reflection was as confused as me.

    Sacrificing myself to prevent the next calamity is my decided destiny.

    Although now I can¡¯t quite say anymore whether this choice was from my own desire, or another decision programmed into me.

    I can no longer say confidently what is real, and what past from this place is reflecting itself upon me.

    An absolute will from this place might be peering through me, like an omnipotent design or answer from a past now unclear. I can only continue to swim through this sea where I¡¯ve lost sight of aim and myself.

    I will wait patiently, for another A?sshea to bring the conclusion of my drifting journey eventually.

    ~

 017. The beginning & the end, 9

    (A?ssheas)

    I felt the fall. From her hands keeping me bound to her eyes and other perceptions of reality.

    It all went dark as I fell. I felt through the metallic structures I came to become the depth of that momentum and abandon.

    All the remaining sensations continuing to twirl and melt. My words and memories continuing to evaporate. And most of all, beyond the painful loneliness, the last sense of duty imparted to me and freezing throughout my new body.

    More than carved into me, these ideas sculpted and grounded my entire body.

    How high is our duty.

    To protect the innocents from these northern lights.

    To share our faith as a family that we will survive and eventually succeed.

    That the right thing to do is to prevail.

    Someday we will destroy the source of all evil or sin, or whatever it is.

    We will destroy it, someday... We will need help, and I will do my very best to find the right person to arm ourselves.

    In metempsychosis and psychosomaticism, I become gradually what I am.

    Body and soul are merging slowly into one dualist but unified idea and reality.

    My shape and material reality transform further over time, as my thoughts focus on my ideals of meaning forward.

    Faith. In our eventual successful destiny...

    I will become the shield for the world below, and the gladius against the source she¡¯ll watch above.

    I¡¯ll be the edge able to cut through that Tam?r¨®dlo.

    To save the world. To help my sister.

    To carry our name and faith forward.

    We¡¯re all A?sshea and we will bring the rightful end together.

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    As much as I¡¯m becoming oblivious to growing sides of existence along the earth. I will metamorphose to bring this rightfulness. To protect whom I can, and carry my aim with all the help I can gather and find in our prayers.

    A?sshean will know better. A?ssheat will know better. I only need to focus on calling for help, and becoming stronger.

    They will be knowledge, I will be their arm.

    In the absurdity of this now hollow existence, my new brain also continues its transformation and twirls, to meet these purposes exclusively.

    To breathe the light of the air. To filter some of it. To grow stronger and sharper.

    To call for help other human survivors.

    And to keep our faith forever, that someday at the end of these frightful times, we will bring the right end to this fate, together...

    ~

    We will save the world from the next disaster, destroying the hazard that plagued it before if I¡¯m right. Even if we¡¯re no longer human or alive.

    My thoughts endlessly echo and repeat each other as I continue to transform and change the land where I¡¯ve landed.

    I hear some human thoughts nearby sometimes. But nothing is as strong nor as bright as we would require so far.

    As time will settle in ways I can no longer quite relate with, maybe my will could spread a little. To help them. To help me find the right help. It will reach a logical level.

    We will reach out to every reasonable influence and potential to make our purpose come to a rightful end.

    I will keep our faith alive forever. Our name will protect everyone left...

    All that made me human before, shrinks. It debilitates into dry branches or leaves I will eventually scatter.

    I¡¯m becoming a sculpture meant for the last purpose that will animate me.

    I¡¯ve accepted to embrace that destiny, for I have real faith in our purpose together. No matter what¡¯s left to forget, I will become a part of something brighter.

    Because even if we¡¯ve been separated, our promise will continue to keep us together.

    We will keep the same horizon in sight, and shared duties to help others and each other. I¡¯m blessed to have lived with this destiny for my existence in life and afterlife.

    Now we¡¯re becoming of one faithful purpose together, even if our bodies and thoughts are kept apart.

    Sadly even whether we¡¯re ever coming to be reunited or not. As much as I wish to be with them again, I realise it¡¯s unlikely; and our purpose will stay greater.

    To destroy the box that poured woe over the world, before it spills again over.

    Or if she¡¯s right, to bring forth a new god that will rise there and handle it better onward, forever.

    My aim is and will remain for the former. And now as much as my transformation allows, I look for help from others.

    ~

    I¡¯m so distant from humanity now, I can¡¯t even say anymore how time and interactions flow. I can¡¯t say whether I¡¯m being found and talked to, or listened from.

    I hope my thoughts become words still. But I struggle turning back from my steep decline toward this new reality where I don¡¯t really react to nor affect sensibly anything.

    I¡¯ve transformed so much along the road of our purpose, I can barely interact with the outside world anymore.

    It¡¯s an ironic shame that I find myself unable to do more, when eyes and voice would have been helpful as well.

    Unable to prevent our fall from humanity that much, and trying to do my best with what I¡¯ve become now. Unable to foresee how much safeguarding some of my past flesh would have helped, I¡¯ll do what I can from where I sand.

    Where I¡¯ve fallen. I think it¡¯s the same for all of us now.

    Alone but together, in oblivion but with infinite faith.

    I keep my remaining perceptions as open to others as much as possible to me, not quite able to devolve and return to my former self though.

    And I will continue to whisper as loud as I can my thoughts, like a record if it comes to it, to rebuild what would otherwise be lost.

    Our name with one purpose.

    Hope and faith, that this white day won¡¯t mean the end.

    ~

 018. Transmigration, 1

    (A?ssheat)

    I heard the shockwave coursing through the air.

    I¡¯ve just lost my sisters.

    I¡¯m on my own... To find the only way, terrified albeit wilful altogether.

    My legs weren¡¯t moving on feet any longer. I could be naught but the next vanishing whisper.

    My sense of self had already dimed, but my bodily needs even further.

    I continued to wander, aware of how much I had decorporated into something different altogether.

    I continued to carry my thoughts and ideas to consider, but I had gradually abandoned everything else that bound me to old flesh that I used to require.

    All this to find the most hopeful solution and conclusion to our wonders.

    I continued to float step by step, adrift and further north overall, in the wake of the glow that could eclipse the sun.

    The abandoned source continued to drift frictionless onward, as if I never had any sister.

    They must have turned to memories and dust already. I know they wanted to climb, and break this power.

    But I think it¡¯s too late for that.

    There¡¯s no longer hope or purpose destroying a fountain that is already flowing steadily.

    What will eventually happen is the same natural kind of opportunistic pattern as ever.

    Someone or something will try to claim that power.

    We all thrive from lust and hunger. Humans and otherwise, we long for such power...

    And now that it has already spread, the world knows it exists. There will be others.

    I spent the ensuing times concerned about how much this source of power would endlessly attract others.

    Also, I¡¯m afraid we won¡¯t be able to cut in pieces what is like water.

    Given how much has already poured over our world, it¡¯s altogether already a little pointless.

    I shared their concern that the next eruption would be likely the last.

    But I don¡¯t think violent behaviour will be the answer against explosive principles.

    How could you cut water or destroy energy altogether? What we need, the only virtuous path ahead, is an illuminated, awakened ruler. A rightful and educated handler. Make some use of thousands years of studying philosophy and intendancy.

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    What we need is a proper being to bring these fires under control and useful purposes. An intelligence.

    And what worries me now, is that obvious instinct of power attracting all kinds of ambitions naturally.

    Some merciful, not as much as others can be.

    While I¡¯m contemplating logic and smoother transfer, I¡¯m growing concerned of what others could prefer.

    Someday, someone or something will eventually manage to reach that overflowing and abandoned power.

    I don¡¯t know if Annie would manage to prevent such a claim from her grave.

    A new god will rise in the north, above their leftovers.

    It¡¯s nearly unavoidable. And I even wish that it was my sisters who did.

    But now that the structure continues to float away while all echoes of their thoughts vanished, I¡¯m afraid they¡¯re already gone like any other.

    As they reached its horizon of events, every living thing attracted by the source has vanished in its radiance.

    It is mildly reassuring. Because it will continue to sieve what kind of things or people might be able to claim its power. But it also highlights how much this thing is a throning star above us. It¡¯s a sun god¡¯s power that shines out there unrivalled.

    I cannot yet figure out what kind of technological singularity could handle such astonishing levels of energy and power. But humanity has held with industries similar intensities of energy in the past already. Our mastery of physics also was unrivalled in the known galaxy.

    It¡¯s not impossible for something constructed. And on the side of biological constructs, along which we¡¯ve tended to shift or transfer, there are obvious possibilities that will be growing dominant sooner or later.

    Between my hands, I already manage to hold droplets of these raining shiny showers. The tiniest of these elements flowing freely around, my new organisation that abandoned organic metabolism behind, it can interact with it better. It¡¯s a new form of chemistry apparently, free from strong force possibly.

    Away from past biology and embracing this new reality, we¡¯re likely among the pioneers to these new solutions of stability.

    Away from chemical biology...

    I¡¯ve been unwillingly, without realising it at first, been transforming to adapt fully to this new layer to reality. It¡¯s a new potential that seems higher and more versatile than electrochemical interactions to build molecules and then cells.

    And this source of energy is like another sun allowing all elemental reactions to randomly occur.

    A new primeval ocean has risen metaphorically, with a sun to warm it to levels that will allow complexity of activity to grow rapidly further.

    The more I think about it, the more I realise how much this new layer washed and ruptured our past stability...

    But also it stretched a new blank canvas of potential and diversity.

    ~

    As we travelled together, we didn¡¯t move only through space.

    We also emigrated to this new plane together.

    Now the landscapes I see are altogether known past with solid land, and future seas still primordial and unsettled.

    Uncharted lands of reality ripped open altogether and superimposed. The Tam?r¨®dlo opened new potential and branes to reality more than it simply washed power.

    But as I realize that, I may be the only one today able to see the depth and immensity of this new world, with the intelligence and culture of an old world dweller. I may be the first and only living being able to analyse this new world that blossomed recently.

    I find myself now alone, standing over the edge between past and new world.

    The landscapes of superimposed layers of realities, with that second sun slowly drifting away in the sky, they make me feel weird.

    Most of the old world may have been wrecked on impact... But it¡¯s not all dead. The new one is still abstract turmoil over virgin seas never explored.

    Aside for the source itself in between, there doesn¡¯t seem to be any continent, landmark or island to explore.

    It¡¯s a new world of energetic fragments and nothing else just yet.

    But I can already tell this won¡¯t last forever. This oceanic planet will change as well.

    The disconnect may be high between the two layers currently, but they wil gradually meet each other in all sorts of ways.

    Others like me will reach out to the other possibilities and energies of the world away from older weight and atoms.

    And this new sea will gradually differentiate into geology and meteorology as it statistically continues to interact with the matters of planet Earth.

    It¡¯s just the beginning, I see it now. And I feel concerned because that other little sun, it has almost landed somewhere out there.

    Nothing but god ever claimed the sun.

    To embody the sun and all its powers and influences over the world has only and always been in the realm of theology.

    Now, as even my sisters attempted to prove, some parts of history and reality have started over...

    ~

 019. Transcendence, 1

    (A?ssheat)

    I basked for a little while in this strange sensation, to stand at the open and barren frontier between two worlds, two times and two aspects of reality that only recently began to meet.

    Maybe there are inhabitants, islands, civilisation and even spaceships on the other end...

    I want to dream as much, but realistically, all there seem to be is the sea.

    Nothing has been rising high enough to interact in significant ways with material reality so far, in ways that would hint at something more being there.

    So we seem alone so far.

    I¡¯m alone, with a drifting sense that I could swim forever.

    But my purpose echoes with my name and my concern.

    I see the source getting further away in the distance. I¡¯ve stopped pursuing it, thinking it was a mistake and a danger.

    I¡¯m quite convinced I was right on this. I won¡¯t follow it blindly to the end of its drift that might very well never end. That thing appeared to operate on infinite inertia for all I know.

    But I must consider the dangers opened by this accessible sun over the upcoming times.

    Because I doubt I will be the only explorer able to notice this drifting and solid sun at nearly arm¡¯s reach. It¡¯s just impossible. I¡¯m simply the first still standing.

    We were a swarm attracted to it, along its path earlier. We were unable to comprehend what was even happening to us.

    Now that I can stand there alive and aware, I know there will be others.

    Intelligences able to comprehend and understand this power. They will appear and pursue it.

    Optimistically, they will come in order to make the world safer and better. Like we have.

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    Pessimistically, they will be as sad and selfish as humans and beasts have in the past shown they could be.

    Not that claiming this power will be an easy feat, that is clear. It¡¯s a good start for better outcomes.

    Because as the swarm continues to follow the source forever, and as other intelligences like me manage to reach this perspective in between... It¡¯s only a matter of time before either a lucky hero or a scheming intelligence manages to take it over.

    To capture the little purple sun, and to hold it gently over.  Just as I can now hold and change a few droplets of its scattered power.

    Before me, between my shady hands, drops of wind become shifts in colours.

    The first spark that hints at the ensuing evolution of things far greater.

    Aminoacids will combine...

    And in time, we can¡¯t even yet imagine what could come together.

    Time, energy interfaces, and shifts in potential. In a world brimming with chemical complexity all over.

    Evidences of the upcoming encounters become clear to me, even more than they were before.

    Eventually something somewhat alive will grow to reach the source. Whether it¡¯s from sheer evolutionary selection and luck, or intelligent design, I cannot yet say.

    But I would bet on intelligent ambition, because our family has already flown so very close to this sun...

    If they¡¯ve burnt and fallen onto the other ocean by now, I still stand to learn over the edge.

    My knowledge remains mostly altogether.

    I still remember our promise, and our wish to bring some hope for the future together.

    Our name should mean that the world won¡¯t end any time further...

    But nothing is sold just yet. And I believe more and more that destroying the new sun is not the good answer.

    What we should do, what I will focus on and forever, is finding out the way to tweak irremediable destiny.

    Some hands will eventually claim this power. Whether it¡¯s an amorphous amoeba, a unified civilisation, or even a powerful demon is not set yet.

    So what we should do is pave the way to the most utopic of unifications or deification.

    We would need to lay the grounds of an ethical civilisation if this was the optimal way. Grow over what we¡¯ve learned as humans to bring out the best.

    However... Now that I see around us the wastelands that have replaced the societies, all of them fallen before the new sun, I think it¡¯s not likely to be the likely way for centuries over.

    And now that I saw my sister rise after this square of heaven... Now that I witness myself standing over the new possibilities like a shipwrecked mariner.

    I believe the claim will come from an adventurer in between. A dai?a...

    Another being like me, with intelligence and body navigating between the two fluidities of the world.

    Another one someday will manager to sail their way and climb over.

    Someone merciful or ambitious, it doesn¡¯t matter.

    A new god will rise in the north...

    And my duty onward for myself and our mother¡¯s name, it will be to pave the ground any and every possible way, to insure the winning explorer will be someone virtuous...

    Someone better.

    It will be a race and competition to reach this brightest light sooner or later.

    It may devolve into wars to reach this ultimate power... How much I pray we will find ways to avoid that. It¡¯s our duty now. We must avoid the worst for each other, and by that I mean everyone and everything over.

    So I¡¯m concerned seeing how I could stand already on my own, by this sight toward the end source and the conclusion for any will to power.

    I will need to rapidly figure out ways to protect unexplored seas from blind avidity. And to open the way to true goodness eventually...

    ~

 020. About reality, 2

    (A?ssheat)

    I treaded carefully along the unexplored new shores before me.

    I spent more time contemplating the possibilities and weighing the eventualities.

    I shouldn¡¯t rush as another past me would have.

    In life, in love and in ambition. Maybe I¡¯ve grown wise, and all it took was the end of the world.

    My care and concerns have grown too much to be taken just as lightly.

    So long I¡¯m among the only noticeable explorers over here, there is no reason to hurry.

    Furthermore as there is nothing I could achieve very rapidly.

    My own existence is already a web of compromises I don¡¯t want to overestimate. Passing the boundaries of humanity and the new side of reality did not strengthen me especially.

    That I can now interact more subtly with these energies and consider weaving new destinies does not make me all powerful or invincible.

    Any new shockwave or sneeze near me could mean the end of my identity and existence. So I still tread ever so carefully.

    But I must start tilting the balance of longer destinies, to ensure only good hands end up reaching the prized sanctuary.

    How much time I could have would above all parameters define how I should act on this. And it¡¯s a resource unfortunately hard to define, since I can¡¯t see and process everything surrounding the only landmark and its influence. Whether I can allow centuries to help a civilisation to become ideal or should just whisper my ideas to the next coming adventurer in a hurry, I cannot say yet.

    So I observe the gradients of particles and make educated guesses at how they define wider pictures, and how they statistically will lean toward in history.

    Drawing parallels between the entire new born ecosystem and past human biology.

    I lean back on what I remember of metabolism, nutrition and cellular developments.

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    I see the floating cancerous islands that will blossom all over the world.

    There will be dragons and monsters... What we¡¯ve seen along the trail from the Tam?r¨®dlo, it will happen in scattered dots all over the world, like stars in the night sky.

    There will be competitions of individual thoughts before cooperation and gradual unification. There will be attempts of violent absorptions and revolutions. I can foresee most of these oscillations.

    And now I can expect that before the next century is over, something else but A?sshea will reach the source and get closer...

    I draw my curves of growth and complexity, my natural equations from the levels already observed.

    It will not take an eternity to beat me and my sisters in this destiny.

    And there is only so much I will be able to prepare to put the chances on our philosophical side.

    Maybe a few years from now and a few more percent of chances in this wild prognostic of what the future will be.

    I¡¯m still quite concerned, I thought at that time.

    And then, I saw a ray of brighter unexpected hope.

    A quiet change I could translate as an influence from my dear elder sister.

    ~

    A little unexpectedly honestly, the situation changed suddenly, in a way I would describe as for the better.

    A wiser choice.

    I think she did this to give me time. And moreover to reduce the likelihood of unsavoury interactions before a good thread of fate is spooled by us.

    In the distance, the brightness of the little sun still illuminating the other world, giving its flows good momentum, it has dimmed.

    The new day turned to twilight suddenly, and quieter night rapidly.

    It¡¯s not like she extinguished it, but more as if she managed to diffuse it, or hide it underwater.

    Maybe she made it lower in altitude out there to hide below the level of the horizon or invisible waters.

    Under the atmospheric layers, it¡¯s more discreet.

    And quite suddenly to the unaware eyes or mere instincts toward it, it appeared as if the trail suddenly went colder.

    The hurricane or rather cyclone that defined the world¡¯s new climate since its appearance, it now simply vanished from our simpler sights.

    The winds of change have fallen. The oceanic levels of new waters will not change, but their likely origin has now fallen gently under the radar sights.

    It left the last momentums of its influence scatter, far beyond the horizon I stand over.

    I was a little in awe, still noticing in the last whiffs of elements that it was her doing.

    A?sshean managed to take some hold of the drive to this odd ship, to land it gently ashore.

    The rush and fires are over. The new season will be quieter.

    And I fully appreciate how Annie made this in order to grant her sisters more room to win hope over.

    She reduced the competitive pressure and also the timely pressure. Now that the lighthouse fire has been clouded and dimmed, it will take individuals with higher memories and intelligence to pursue after the theoretical treasure. Now we have suppler chances to bend things over.

    Thank you...

    I stepped ahead, observing the now more randomly spiralling patterns of exotic particles. The currents are gone, they fall free.

    Slowly like new galaxies, new things will ignite and grow all over.

    I will figure out the best plans, for her and everyone over.

    I will give everything I am, to find the right way onward.

    To keep all the advantages of intelligence and ethics over.

    To make the one that will eventually take over the ideal one. To wish for better.

    To keep the end we feared from occurring and also reach something far better.

    Now is also an opportunity to make heavens brighter.

    I¡¯ll start from the ground and figure out what will be the best way to inseminate that source over.

    So that the new god to come only means felicity, for all and ever...

    ~

 021. Transmigration, 2

    (A?ssheat)

    I walked or swam my way a little further over time. My observations of the surrounding world, old and new, brought me to a few conclusions. What I could do with my current existence was another set of parameters to consider.

    I tried to look at the bigger pictures, the flows of peoples, and the flows of shiny or slimy particles.

    My sister managed something really helpful at the very least, making it seemingly disappear. Its influence over the weather is now benign.

    I swim through these more quiet and peaceful waters, now that the storm is over, its source having landed.

    Looking for something more to build upon, bridging the two sides the world now has. Embracing the existence of the new ocean, while preserving the buildings from the old continents.

    A part of the answer lied in what we had become, but there was more to find.

    I saw how the bulbs that erupted into monstrous things in the concentrated wake of the source, they calmed down but never disappeared.

    They continue to twirl and crackle over the lands.

    New things continue to appear gradually. Most of them do vanish rapidly. Just as most of humanity did recently.

    But I can foresee how statistically, there will be bonds. There will be transfers.

    There will be countless others, like me and not.

    Their seeds are already carried by the winds.

    The time of transmigration is still only at its dawn.

    A?sshean hid the ominous and glorious lighthouse. A?ssheas will look for her kind of expedited solution.

    I will focus on finding and preparing the benevolent winner as best I can.

    Something that will be able to bridge the two sides of reality infinitely more cleanly and efficiently than we could ever be. We¡¯ve lost our bodies and turned to some molten dreams between the two realities.

    We¡¯re worms in the mud. We¡¯re more dead than alive already. I need to find the right caterpillar.

    ~

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    As I let my frail shade being torn apart and reunited by the gentle winds, I keep looking and thinking. I¡¯m nothing left but a drifting spirit, with wild ambitions for the future.

    Insanity grown from hopeful caring and some proper understanding of the situation.

    In our own different ways, we all carry buds of upcoming sociology and cultural identity.

    We want and plan to bring hope for the future to what lingers.

    And comprehension to those who begin to arrive.

    It still is nothing like an invasion, as much as the terrified ones might come to believe.

    It¡¯s a merging, a union. Forced or not, now we need to insure it won¡¯t devolve into something dire.

    And beyond that, to secure the risk of another extinction.

    I¡¯m clear on my purpose, our purpose. The growing clarity and uncertainty now, in the election.

    Every social structure has its weaknesses, and I¡¯m not blind on that.

    What I want to do is sit a new absolute power that will go unchecked and with terrible responsibility.

    I¡¯m too ghastly to be fit for purpose or even reach the source and survive, if that were my only cons.

    But as I observe the groups of people trying to regroup and structure budding new societies together, I¡¯m brought back to these political evidences.

    The challenges of any organisation trying or needing centralisation, be it biological or sociological.

    We¡¯ve all studied the downfalls of tyrannies and the conquests of decentralises tribes.

    We¡¯ve all studied the complexities of consolidation and justice, fairness and equity.

    It¡¯s always shifting, and whether these new societies reborn from the ashes of the old world will do well is one thing. How long and how ethical they will be, is another.

    And where I stand between them and this formidable power, is the core of my concern.

    I¡¯m not more fit to choose who should rule, than I would be to rule myself.

    Because it¡¯s beyond what a designation, purposeful or random, or even an election should be. What we should build is more than what a human society normally could give. And infinitely more than what the otherworldly sea could bring, on the moral aspect of things.

    I need the body able to bridge the two sides of reality for that being to be. Which is already scratching off everyone and everything currently alive from the pool of possibilities.

    And I need a level of intelligence and morality on par with the kindest that humanity could ever provide.

    That¡¯s a set of qualities hard to judge fairly.

    Even though now some thoughts and frames of mind can perspire, it¡¯s still an ideal challenge to look after.

    I continue floating around, carried by the winds while I reflect on these objectives.

    How to rebuild a good society?

    How to design and grow a good body?

    Out of nowhere and immediately, it¡¯s impossible. Rushing things and daring costs, it would mean compromises.

    But my sister gave me some time.

    So I will use it fully.

    I stretch slightly. I play with the water around me, and I start building ideas.

    Political ideas, in a way.

    It will be without words, as I can no longer exactly speak, but I will begin stretching my influence as I envisioned before.

    Growing gently a domain of influence where I¡¯ll very slowly shift the paths of things, in order to gently but softly raise our chances of success.

    Slowly goes steady. Steady goes fast.

    I¡¯m growing filaments and skeletal wings through this sea.

    I¡¯ll look for the right place to bud these ideas.

    I¡¯ll sow the seeds meant to feed what must come to be.

    I¡¯ll look for the ideal place to start, and I will gradually grow the heritage needed to succeed someday after.

    I will prepare this thread of destiny with as much care I can give.

    And while I prepare that hopeful fate on one side, I will do my best preparing the grounds for the ideal body also to come.

    I¡¯m too ambitious over things that grow far beyond my perspective and abilities.

    But I must act to increase the likelihood of the good prospects. As much as can be.

    I¡¯ll work the ground. I¡¯ll pace the way. But I won¡¯t walk that road.

    What I¡¯ve become is frail enough and too ambitious already. But I will sow the winds of fate.

    For us, for them.

    I learn to make my tools in this new sea. I build my raft. I¡¯ll prepare the treasure map and build the ship to be.

    My brethren secured the present for a while. I will do my best to find the better ground to grow the future.

    I grow in influence slowly, learning how to move gently these invisible energies. In the upcoming patience for the advent of the new god to rise, I will look for the perfect soil.

    To build its church, and welcome its messiah.

    ~

 022. Transcendence, 2

    (A?ssheat)

    The selection of thoughts and preferences in choices.

    The education of moral dilemmas when it¡¯s not obvious anymore what is right or wrong.

    When it¡¯s far from obvious how a little leniency could cause long term catastrophe, and a little early cruelty save a lot more of suffering years later.

    How early pain and sacrifices can safeguard much longer futures you can¡¯t relate to or see.

    How arbitrary can always justify itself and claim utilitarianism.

    How greed and cynicism can wear the eloquence of righteousness.

    How much leading people, furthermore intelligent animals, is not the same as guiding them.

    And how much politics were about doing compromises with exterior and interior stressful factors, to keep cohesion first of all.

    How to do better and break free from these dilemmas inherent to social humanity worry me greatly.

    Because as much as I believe in a new prophet or god, I also know how religious integrity won¡¯t be a viable answer for humanity.

    Religion is politics, even if I aim to raise something higher than a mere social order.

    And as much as it sounds like the easiest solution, I don¡¯t think me whispering into everyone¡¯s ears to believe in a new god, will bring the right solution I¡¯m looking for.

    I don¡¯t think brainwashing people will bring me the intelligence I¡¯m looking for.

    What I require, is a stable society that brings out the best from people.

    Something able to think for itself already, and to grow that critical thinking in education more than dogmatic virtues. To be able to make the most ethical choices, even when it is dire and costly.

    To avoid the easy choices to safeguard short term stability with less constraints while putting at risk the safety of longer futures. They are shifting balances between complex parameters, and never absolute answers.

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    The more I thought about it, the better I realised I would not be able to solve these societal or philosophical challenges as a civic influence over budding societies.

    They already had enough challenges to face in this ravaged world, not for me to also expect them to become instantly a utopia of philosophy and education. That would be unfair.

    I couldn¡¯t expect the survivors to overcome the ageless challenges of virtue and logos just now. They were still struggling through the aftermath of the change.

    So as my plan gradually refined itself in the face of realism and necessity, I was not goind to lure them into ways I would think best.

    I wasn¡¯t going to whisper anything to them more than mere necessities.

    I would choose, but not guide nor shape these groups beginning to form. I would protect what I could as much as I could, but remain hidden for most things. And... Simply suggest.

    Suggest a little more sometimes. A little best. Hope, simply. They won¡¯t exactly hear me speak. But I will do my best to keep some peace and plenitude in the air. I will help from below, so they have a chance to grow more peaceful than in strain and violence.

    I won¡¯t show them the paths I want them to tread. But I will do my best to ease them.

    Slow is steady...

    I order to someday find someone with the ideal inclination raised by them.

    To structure the best possible ground for the brain and consciousness to grow.

    For me to find the small upcoming society most on good track, and to shelter it from the worst sparks from outside.

    For a gentle flow of optimism and intelligent thinking to build the better cradle by itself, more than I could design it myself. I will trust humanity.

    From where a mind with the best early propensities could be raised...

    I will need to trust human intelligence and social strengths to do most of this themselves.

    Because I will need to devote myself on the next challenge, beyond culture and philosophies...

    Bridging the worlds in body.

    When I transmigrated, I¡¯ve lost nearly all attachment and lines to reality.

    And the other side is mostly a sea without structures for biology to hold onto. There is no ground to work with, no gravity, no other embassy to connect to humanity.

    There¡¯s no spouse, before the absolute light.

    So no the challenge that will keep me mostly busy, it¡¯s to create the kind of harmony between past biology, and this sea.

    A new mermaid body to invent, to allow the intelligence to come, to reach the light safely.

    I need to make it possible for a body to hold over the source properly.

    And I start with a blank slate, while reaching for the moon and stars.

    My influences growing into a safer domain for the land will only help them. What I need to create is still incredibly unlikely... A dai?a not in between, but standing in both worlds at once, under both sun lights.

    I try my best to recall what my sisters taught me, in different lives... And I begin to conceptualise not exactly a body.

    I wouldn¡¯t know where to start.

    I begin to think of royal jelly.

    Just as I should remain hopeful the new buds of humanity will eventually provide and raise the right mind and spirit; I should look not on a full design for its finality, but the appropriate tools to grow it eventually. Something that would allow a correct enough body to metamorphose it what needs to be.

    I need to find the right human hive for their future mind... And to start making what will be akin to new world¡¯s royal jelly. I¡¯ll need to study biology under the new light of this sea.

    The ship that will sail over it will be a concentrated mixture of hormones to help someone transform.

    This will take me forever to build, but this will work. There will be hope.

    And a new god will rise in the north.

    ~

 023. Metamorphosis, 5

    (Eschran)

    My husband died between my arms on that day. When I was feeling sick and like my head would go its own separate way. My body was pulsating painfully, but I survived.

    We managed to survive together for a little while, in the middle of this road that had come to a halt.

    He inhaled painfully, with growing difficulties every morning there in agony. He fell ever so gently and frail while I was looking at him.

    His body passed like breath through mine. His last words were encouraging me in a whisper.

    Before I could realise, he was gone, staining me, and leaving me to go mad.

    He turned to clothes and paint, staining the ground and my arms deeply.

    I recall having a moment of laughter, unable to believe that could have come to pass.

    It dried over time. He was gone, and I began to really suffer that other kind of pain from there on.

    Around me, others were crying or yelling all the time.

    ~

    I smelled the ashes. I smelled the thunder in the air, as darker rainy clouds approached. We shouldn¡¯t stay on this poor dirt road I remember thinking in my daze. We waited for help to come for too long already...

    Most people and what had become of them were now like me beginning to move away from that darker sky looming from beside.

    I was still holding onto some of his clothes, watching the twilight turmoil.

    People and other things more whimsical were scattering away from this highway.

    Everything felt slower or faster to me. I was sluggish, holding the grief as my hand dried. Let night come, I thought for a while. Closing my eyes to the budding rainstorm, trying to think about his presence and face still near to me.

    Now, it¡¯s alright, I thought for a while, trying to make peace last.

    I¡¯ll join him in heavens, I laughed to myself again, while the acidic rain began pouring from above. New yells began to ring.

    ~

    I didn¡¯t lie. I just pray for mad desires, of heavens and reunion with my dear departed one.

    I¡¯ve come to worry for my children as well, while the skin of my head began to flake off. I ran to hide and live.

    I crawled like others in the nearest opening to undergrounds we could find. I fell into the depths of older constructions that felt like tombs, holding my melting skin and flawed sanity.

    I collapsed somewhere down there, and slept again for days. The underground buildings were wide.

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    I molted entirely gradually, confused, suffering, unable to think clearly more than a few words at a time.

    My children, they will make it...

    I cough, I spit, I change. My head is boiling and leaking. My clawy fingers try to hold onto the scraps of clothing I¡¯ve saved, from him and mine.

    I crawled deeper and further randomly, acting on instincts more than clarity. I wanted to dig my way out of the sorrowful rain outside.

    I started living as a rat for a while, intelligent but wild. My humanity was forgotten for a while.

    Tremors regularly shook the ground and walls, causing me to run deeper and deeper.

    Few other people made it down there under that harsh rain. And the others I lurked at, they didn¡¯t go very far.

    Not that they all died down here. A few might have. But most of them remained in the early and shallower places from which they could still monitor the weather outside, and avoid trading deeper in the dark...

    I crawled in filth and endless tunnels, reconnecting an old metropolitan network, looking for myself as if I was young again. I recall running on all four limbs in the dusty corridors as if I was a child again, and enjoying the fun of it.

    I remember laughing as I hurt myself in the pitch darkness of this lost underground world.

    I remember fighting with real rats or other critters for pieces of fallen animals to eat.

    I ate what I found, without real sense of taste for that while.

    I walked along my four limbs as if that was natural, forgetting every day a little further what it had been to be human.

    I remember spooking the survivors still clinging to each other in the main hall when I came closer. I must have looked horrifying and feral in many ways. My head hurt and I recall scratching and hitting it to make some unwanted noises and lingering pain go away. It worked, maybe.

    I came closer to them and out of the deeper world, because parts of my humanity eventually returned gradually.

    They were far fewer than in the early days of our burrowing, when I glanced at them from the shades.

    Once they saw I was arguably human, they relaxed a little and tried to help me.

    My vertebras realigned loudly over the next days where I relearned to stand on just two legs. I revolved my way to civilisation as fast as I had fallen away from it.

    Clothed again, I looked at myself, unable to comprehend anything of this passing folly.

    Life awoken had become like a long dream sequence, with sudden changes and shifts that maybe appeared logical at their individual levels of time.

    I giggled often, more than these starving bunches. It was now all very funny to me. My fingers had changed skin too, but some bluish fibres of the denim I had held onto quite dearly were now merged within my own fibres and collagen. These tattoos of the coloured fabric that had fused with me during my time of animal insanity, I often looked at them, puzzled and amused. You¡¯re really gone, dear...

    When I abruptly stopped chuckling to myself, it was when awful migraine struck me suddenly.

    Something is coming. I held my head, clutching to the bright pain. My head filled with waves of light coming from outside and giving me sunburns inside.

    It made me want to run deeper into holes again, to protect myself intuitively, although it wouldn¡¯t have changed anything.

    But along these sudden migraines that felt like shockwaves, I heard voices that made me hilarious again.

    My laughter echo loudly in these grim corridors, much to the worry of the other refugees.

    I wave away at their visible concern, with further amusement.

    E - It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s fine! It¡¯s just that I heard signs, that my children are still alive...

    ~

    They thought I had a phone or radio still working. I didn¡¯t.

    From another part of this building we managed to rehabilitate without exposing ourselves further to this awfully acidic and toxic rain, we cleared windows to the outside without opening them. We don¡¯t know what¡¯s pouring along the water lately, but it¡¯s barely breathable and really caustic.

    This area of Mesopotamia is now entirely unrecognizable. The lush landscape has turned to barren hellscape as far as one can see.

    The outskirts of the abandoned city I was near to, are now flooded swamps with rivers of mud. Caustic mists are covering the ground for most of the nights and twilights. The rain is reacting badly with the ground and other things.

    I keep grinning nervously, which annoys a lot the more emotional ones with me. This building connected to the ancient subway station will probably sink over time. But it¡¯s also likely this rain is closer to its end than start.

    We¡¯re all starving but we get by with what we manage to catch and ration between us. I¡¯m good at catching rats.

    The rainy season usually doesn¡¯t last this long. Soon again the sun will shine.

    The floods will settle, and this side of the megalopolis will stop crumbling under the chemical imbalance.

    I laugh again, looking outside. My children are so bright...

    I hear their will and reply with pride.

    The headaches from hearing these solitons of electromagnetic shockwaves, they keep coming. They¡¯re not real light, nor true shockwaves, but I like better words to describe the sensation they cause.

    They¡¯re more like radio frequencies and signals that now my brain chemically reacts too. But it feels like glowing waves to me.

    I see them washing the place like religious hallucinations, repeating flashes as if trying to signal an advent to everyone pure. I feel like I¡¯m witnessing a new messiah, and he¡¯s bringing good news about my daughters to me.

    I¡¯m impressed. I¡¯m proud. I grin with all my remaining teeth to the desolate but hopeful land outside.

    ~

 024. About life, 1

    (Eschran)

    God will save us. One of them said that to his sick and dying children.

    I still couldn¡¯t prevent my laugh. Not that I wanted to be mean, but too much irony killed me.

    God... Oh god, eh...

    Someone annoyed with my behaviour pulled me away from there harshly, hurting my wrist.

    His words didn¡¯t matter to me anymore. I smiled, looking past his head and worries. I still gazed way beyond what my normal eyes could see.

    He slapped me. Half to bring me back to my senses and sanity, half because he was angry at me.

    He taunted me for taking the apocalypse lightly. He would never know how wrong that could be.

    All I see and hear are good news!

    But as my sight continued to wander outside along these wavy glows and floating lights, I thought a little about them also.

    I peered toward the clouds. I followed other forms of eyes growing onto me.

    Away from my lovely children on their own way for a little while.

    Because I can see more and more.

    E - The rain will finally stop... Two days from now I¡¯d say. And then your god will wait for you outside.

    I chuckled again, letting my scrawny and feeble frame being pushed around meanly for a while.

    As much as it hurt, I could only smile. As much as despair and anger made me bleed for a while, I could only giggle again.

    There¡¯s only but faith to keep us focused in times of painful doubts.

    It¡¯s not an all powerful strength and trust, but it¡¯s one of the basic pillars of societal behaviour and mind.

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    I know what they mean by god. And I don¡¯t have it yet in my heart to tell them how much what they will find outside will test their resolve.

    Because there is no god, yet. But I¡¯ve seen all the signs of what will eventually come next. And this irony amuses me wildly.

    I gaze again outward, at the scattering but stabilizing and vanishing sparks of my children away from me.

    They have found their way...

    They are already adjusting to what the world oddly has become.

    They reached the answers and reasons they were gunning for... I¡¯m so proud!

    I will do my best to follow their way, so long my skeletal legs will agree to carry me.

    As the next days fly by, I let myself floating along these other sights away from me. I have an eye in my back now, that lets me see reality for what they really are.

    I don¡¯t think I will be able to catch up with my daughters. I don¡¯t think I will be up to the task of crossing the Caucasus mountains out there in the distance. I¡¯m too weak now.

    And now that I realise how enfeebled my lightened body has become, I doubt I¡¯ll even go very far away from here.

    Such is the irony. I laugh, thinking about my dear one I will never join in the afterlife.

    But I still keep these fibres inside my fingertips as dear as if they were relics from him I had willingly held onto all this time.

    I notice in a daze that the two days have come to pass.

    The clouds have finally stopped covering the area. The muds albeit caustic rapidly dry.

    A few people come to gaze outside in mostly stupor and fears.

    I¡¯m the first one setting foot on the whitening muds of drying new crystals. The mists are gone but the dusts still hurt a lot when you breathe them a little too deep for a while.

    The landscape is unrecognizable, time and death lingering for so long, none of the last ones tries to lie to themselves.

    They may leave more safely outside, just as they could have gone deeper inside.

    But they will have to abandon nearly every hope they clung on for that while. We all can see how this land ha died as far as can see the eye.

    I turn around and exchange a last glance and my goodbyes.

    E - Don¡¯t be afraid, I¡¯m sure the new god will love you as well all the same.

    My daughters will insure that.

    And I leave with a bright smile.

    Because over insanity and loss, there will be further hope onward.

    Everything may continue to erupt and shake for a little while. Nonetheless, the way for hopeful futures has already been paved forward. They have been so intuitive and brave.

    I head toward our native land instead of them. I know I won¡¯t live for much a longer while. I won¡¯t be able to catch up with them sadly. I wish I could have told them myself one last time how much I¡¯m proud.

    It¡¯s alright. I can continue to spread their good news for a little while. In this deserted land, my voice won¡¯t reach anyone. But in the other side, in the world upside down along my back, over hope, death and light, our thoughts can be shared and linger like echoing prayers for a while...

    Their distorted thoughts are still reaching me, so far away from them. It¡¯s magical. I wish them well.

    So my whispers to the new days will also continue to float, linger, and stain time and matters for a while.

    Their words, their hope, our name.

    I will spread them along my way like the greatest of news.

    Until my legs really fail me in this now very barren land.

    Until my sanity or what¡¯s left of it finally melts away for good and drips from my ears.

    My muscles are thinner than they¡¯ve ever been. I feel like I¡¯ve turned into an insect, with snappy and minimal muscles along every bone, lighter and more frail than ever. And sunlight is frying what¡¯s left of my mind.

    My children already carry and grow a hope wider than any other past one.

    I will vanish along this road as if I never mattered. But it¡¯s alright. Thanks to them, I can smile.

    ~

 025. Metamorphosis, 6

    (Eschran)

    I lasted for longer than I expected. Still, it was amusing to die...

    I lost my remaining strengths not far the hometown northern bridge. Mother¡¯s home.

    The river had long dried.

    Funnily, this was where and when I met the black one. I had heard of her and now she was real.

    Even as much as time goes by and lives changes, there will always be na?ve ones. Some needs to learn will always return in cycles. Not all learnt things can become innate.

    She played with me kindly, and left me behind when she thought I had died. I thought so too actually.

    At least she listened to me talk about you my children, about our optimism and the beauty we begin to see.

    For a while, it was nice.

    And after, an even smaller leftover of my mind and half-baked sanity, returned to my dead body.

    My bones had dried and were turning to dust in the wind. All my skin had already.

    Of my squishier parts inside, some little things tried independent life on their own sides. Good luck to them.

    And other parts of my wastes and guts managed somehow to keep a hold onto what was left of my mind.

    Even though my head itself had dried.

    The little impish shape that managed to rise was but a mirage, a last shade that wouldn¡¯t go much further as it was.

    But I accompanied it nonetheless with care and curiosity.

    Outside of heavens, I wondered what else could still await me.

    Along this even smaller than a child¡¯s body, I left my own dust and bones behind. What had once been my skull was now the apparent size of a house to me. I was the size of a mice maybe. I saw it roll away.

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    I still left the unnatural instincts express themselves in this impromptu attempt at a new life.

    I ran away, looking for food I might maybe smell.

    The dreamlike journey never seemed to end.

    ~

    Whatever critter my leftover flesh now was, I followed it like a curious bystander, more than a reincarnated self.

    I saw it exhausting itself to cover great distances of lands on instincts quite well defined.

    Looking back, now all was dark to me. I couldn¡¯t see them anymore.

    All I had left to feel warm and bright was my faith in them. I know their hope will live.

    I would enjoy this last unexpected ride while it could last meanwhile.

    What a dream... It ran so much it grew thinner and lighter, losing even its early tail somewhere.

    A bone of a rat I had once eaten might have been funnily my new companion for this lasting while.

    It ran over wider lands than I could have when still alive.

    I would still be amused if this body could express it. I enjoyed this odd and unexpected twilight.

    As this rolling amount of pulsating cells barely bound together continued day and night its quest, I sat back to watch.

    What I could still see through its eyes were the ground flowing by, dusts, roots being nibbled, and the night sky.

    A continuous stream as it gave everything in its marathon like I did before.

    That thing was like my last and unexpected child.

    Not only because of the subsequent twilight, the curtains of void from where my perceptions scattered, that continued to shrink on us.

    Distance was narrowing. Exhaustion and morbidity growing.

    Really I should have been gone when my husband melted, and a part of my sanity definitely has.

    Everything since then is like a nice unending dream. An extension to reality or a last swan song for my brain.

    The rat still fought until the end, eating whatever came around, drinking as much and running at maximum speed without rest.

    Still, it boiled. It depleted not only its chemistry, but also its stability.

    I saw it stretching cells and organs beyond what would be reasonable. I saw cells and mitochondria cannibalizing one another in surges of growing anarchy from the stresses.

    And then it clung to rocks, trembling, climbing and still carrying me like a ghost over its shoulder.

    My words and thoughts could sometimes reach it, but it didn¡¯t speak nor think.

    I was puzzled as to what frame kept the sculpture of what was left of my mind, since the death of my body.

    Maybe that thing¡¯s brain was keeping me as well. Maybe it was only in the exotic lights from the sea I could no longer quite perceive.

    All my perceptions were eroding steadily.

    We were softly melting like sugar into the great coffee of life. And yet, it managed to give me that last sight of a miraculous wonder in this ride. It reached the summit of a hill, beyond which we could now gaze onto the sea.

    Its heard had long turned into different nodules over time. Its lungs had collapsed to be replaced by holes through its skin. Maybe the oxygen levels in the air had risen recently, or more likely these pore also held catalysts to carry it which I couldn¡¯t see.

    I could only stare through its eyes now, to what it could look at.

    Everything else was abstract and floating. It had stopped there in its restless track, as if to enjoy this last sight of the sea with me.

    So I did, holding this last companion a little more dearly. The reflection of the moon and stars over the peaceful sea were soothing.

    The end of the road as myself was kindly there.

    What was left of it and me recomposed, crumbling into smaller pieces. As we stained this place and faded from this land, all that would remain from us were now memories.

    ~

 026. Transmigration, 3

    (Nightmare)

    I recall the time of twirling colours coursing through the land in rapid ripples.

    I have these faint sights and memories fading rapidly.

    The erosion of the buildings now hit by the abruptly rising sea is just as fast as my vanishing memories. Like early childhood moments, dripping, drilled out of my head in agony.

    The sounds of screams all around me. The sights of birds and trees turned to dust instantly.

    My arm raised in instinct to protect me, but turning transparent as I too was erased instantly.

    The sensations of absolute fright burnt and carved through me, escaping physiology and psychology to become another form of law and reality.

    Screams, blood pressure, terror and sensations of doom becoming solid ground while I turned over. The world had been thrown upside down and I couldn¡¯t recover.

    I too was turned inside out like a sock. My flesh and mind were spread to the seaway and gales.

    While all the shared frights and new coalescing droplets of others minds in this time became like painful inner voices to me.

    I couldn¡¯t separate myself from everyone else, and all they were becoming. Meanwhile I was bare and frail, exposed to everyone.

    I spent this terrorizing time struggling to rip them away from my insides, scratching, urged to take them away.

    All of them turning bad, spoiling voices and minds, becoming nasty and sad.

    This collection upside down turning me mad, as all I could see were red and night. Obscurity took most humans by the arms, melting them into other things and sights.

    I lived on through that boundless torture, scratching off all these rotting parasites away from me. I too would scream my different horror and pain though I couldn¡¯t find any longer where I was.

    I ran away from the dangers and fires I could still detect through the blood clouding my eyes and my mind.

    People threatening me with all they could feel and all they could find. All their weapons and hatred were thrown at me through this side of the city and sea.

    I pushed them back too kindly. I scratched them away from my veins, they parasite like leeches or ticks.

    They bled me from everywhere through the city and relentlessly kept aggressing my mind.

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    The more I fought back, the more violent and inventive they became. They started burning me on a side while focusing me on another infested wound they played with.

    They kept draining me and I fought them back to survive.

    My arteries being continuously punctured and drained, no matter how much I tried to escape them or push them. Until I eventually drained them back of their blood in exchange and retaliation. In despair and fright, I turned the table on them.

    I needed fluids as much as they did to survive, but we were more clearly now in violent competition for this city and its water supply.

    Everything else animal or plant wise became another source of food and supply, to them.

    I was horrified, witnessing their greed turning limitless to live on, while they could leave.

    I had another of these rapidly fading memories, watching wingspans and feathers fly.

    They were ruining the remaining hopes for these sights, eating the last ones; and more importantly they were still gunning for me. And I fought back in kind, refusing to die.

    All the blood these ticks took from me, I tried to take back. I squashed their innumerable eggs and prevented them from multiplying onward, just as they were doing for the few remaining species around.

    I pushed them back and gradually took the upper hand in the city. I used chemical warfare as they inspired me to retaliate in kind, learning as fast as I could how to turn their weapons back on them.

    We spent such a long time bleeding and weakening, me as a whole and them as a wide group from that despicable kind.

    But eventually their group and species unity grew weaker in kind. My painful struggle mostly in reaction to their attacks and hostility neared its fair end.

    For sensible apes, they reeked of unfairness and lack of sympathy. They stank their animals needs beyond what I could stand.

    I needed all of them away from within me.

    I gave in all my remaining mercy to the last ones still organised, the fairest choice.

    I even managed to return or find a shape to speak to them so kindly.

    Just leave this city ground, or behave with me and my friends in mind.

    Behind the fright that me and my words brought them, they hopefully did consider the plight.

    And they replied as humans always have.

    Gambling on power and might...

    They made their most violent attacks to date at what they thought was my core. They blew up my nests where I sheltered the very few living beings I still was fond for and attempting to preserve.

    Where my blood and will was meaningful and gathered, they only saw an evil mind to be slain.

    I had given them an honest chance and they threw it back being petty or blind.

    This short sight hurt me for the last time.

    I threw back everything I felt over time, all the torment made by them. I dissociated their rule into pockets that I could no longer mind. I had just a few loose of them still trying to bleed me. I would pluck them more peacefully now that their overall rule and unity was at its end.

    Stubborn parasites...

    ~

    I finally could hear myself thing, after they were all gone at last.

    I could mend my heart and begin my art.

    They had been such a traumatising and horrifying start in life.

    All I could remember of my early days, it now more or less began in that bloody fight.

    As I struggled to return to a sense of self while these blood-thirsty apes kept biting me and leeching the life away from me.

    A competition against a pack of wolves would have been kinder to me, since animals don¡¯t use as hostile weaponry and disgusting frames of minds.

    Hearing them constantly, their thoughts, desires and emotions, pouring through me. They were a river of fecal torment I had to escape as well. I had to stop them.

    So wasteful, so blind, so insensitive...

    Disgusting and tormenting... But above all, menacing and deadly. I had fought for my very life for unending time, until I finally got the upper hand.

    Threat.

    That was all I experienced and learned from humans.

    The relief for me and the other few living things around this city only begun after they were all gone.

    I could breathe and think for my only self again. Not just anymore in mirror of their own minds.

    Birds and frogs could return to these lands.

    I would sigh.

    More of the oldest memories crumbled behind. I realised I needed now to rebuild how my conscious mind was made, as it would otherwise not last much longer. It had been focused on fighting back for too long. Now the priority needed to shift.

    I felt my wings crumbling along my back.

    My veins I relied on to keep me alive all this time, they were already withering.

    I had won this war, but wasn¡¯t bound to survive the aftermath.

    ~

 027. Transcendence, 3

    (Nightmare)

    I realized thankfully in time how much my actual self was structured and what it was adapted for.

    I managed enough metacognition to see with clarity the lack of alignment between my current organisation and my environment. I wouldn¡¯t remain stable for long on this current situation.

    I had prevailed and survived on the blood of my enemies while they were numerous, as this was the easiest source of supply, retaking violently what had been mine.

    But as they dwindled and my global amount dimmed, I had to adapt. Furthermore afterward as I perceived how much my intellectual structure had adjusted to the fight, letting go of older parts like old feathers.

    Now I was starving and not fit to fly, but still had the spirits to adapt and rebuild what I was.

    Consolidating my knowledge in patterns through my mind so I wouldn¡¯t any longer loose memories so easily.

    Rebuilding something biological.

    Reaching out of my veins now they were no longer threatened by vampire kind.

    I grew out to the streets and parks my pili. I reached out to the sea and sunlight. I breathed for real again, or at last.

    I would be free for a while to rebuild myself as I pleased, and focus on what I liked.

    Starting with securing what I was, with more permanence in mind.

    Less focus on moving warfare and more securing of my stable frontiers.

    Consolidating my power in structure as a living being so I would last.

    While altogether allowing myself more time to draw on what I like. My sight and attentions could gently care for what¡¯s nice.

    Once the early human population of this land was definitely gone, a sensation of peace and slower pace of time settled. An older me would have wished more of them had left alive, where another thought on the other hand was willing to pursue extermination beyond this land.

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    I settled not to pursue these extremes with nicer focuses preoccupying my mind, and a growing sense of self-preservation above absolutist ideals. It had been fundamental in this early nymph.

    Their molten fears clouding my mind, I repurposed successfully into a collection of tools to secure gradually the land.

    My perceptions of the outer world I also gently grew, a little blindly, to keep an eye and ear to what happened outside.

    So much was happening outside, it was a constant ruckus for those willing to listen. Others continued their expansions and then collapsed. Many condensated in smaller stars instead, and scattered.

    Others kept appearing, growing and glowing, and going on either path like as many polynomials in geometry and chaos theory.

    Some of them have unclear or patterned behaviours with undecipherable outcomes. Most however blow up or collapse over time, and show these trends early on.

    But to each their pace, and some of them manage to find a lasting equilibrium.

    There is this constant sparkling of activity everywhere I can see, at all different scales I can reach in perception. It¡¯s interesting to study.

    Furthermore as I begin to focus on my friends biology. How much their organisation as organisms to their macroscopic scale becomes something entirely different on microscopic scale, and even lower.

    I discover all these things I need or want to study and see. It¡¯s fascinating and thrilling.

    And I don¡¯t focus so much on the geological scale of things and others¡¯ activities away from here. I can see these odd stars in their state of natural selection over the world, but I don¡¯t really care.

    My ambition and interests draw me more toward the study of my remaining feathery friends in this land and over this sea.

    The way fibres assemble on each feather, and how their overall assembly creates dynamic mechanical outcomes. And below how proteins turn to chitin. It¡¯s a marvel to enjoy.

    The boiling diversity over the horizon and overseas doesn¡¯t spark my interest nearly as much as the innate complexity of these surviving animals.

    Most things alive met their fate or trial from the white day onward.

    As my sense of self is today, my earliest memories start from that violent struggle for survival against humans that seemed endless.

    But I still have a few faint pictures of decaying animals and other forms of organisations I didn¡¯t understand at the time.

    Now I don¡¯t have any of these things left to study around here, but I can tell more are appearing and dying outside.

    Again, I don¡¯t really care what happens outside of this area. I¡¯m curious, but it¡¯s not my focus.

    It¡¯s hard to focus already while keeping myself steady and alive.

    But I have passions to help me structure my mind for a lasting while now. Away from what I don¡¯t mind.

    Interested in these statistics of repeated geometric patterns I observe, less outside and more inside.

    How things get naturally structured despite logical limitations at their lower level of elements. The hierarchic and transfers of information from one level to the other. These transitions of scales are key.

    From cells and organisms, or genes and cells. From individuals to species and more. How these complexities interact and show countless equations in properties or behaviour.

    How cells multiply, fend off, feed and organise. How natural selection causes transformations over repetition, how the stress of a continuous pressure causes reactions.

    And always, how the responses and results spread. Some managing fairly unusual homeostasis, some simply collapsing to die, and some oddly flying into the sky.

    ~

 028. Transcendence, 4

    (Nightmare)

    I observe the cells multiplying inside an animal organism.

    I delve and observe everything further, closer.

    How this cellular organism functions, how it multiplies and keeps overall coordination.

    How they avoid some forms of otherwise accessible resources for an improved efficiency of a wider good.

    How yeast behave elsewhere I study hereafter. How they relate and how they differ. How achaea are cousins to bacteria. How plants and animals themselves differ to them and one another. How bacteria can become host to another in various ways and differentiation.

    How cells and unicellular organisms become more than slimes or simple arborescences fascinates me, and feels like a theological equation. It¡¯s the challenge to understand these.

    Where I focus in the way I am, I can guide now some tiny transformations and changes beyond what I am. I tweak the assembly of aminoacids into specific proteins, assembling around lipids to make fibres. I test these assemblies against collections of various and different muscles fibres. Then into cellular systems I gathered from everywhere I could find.

    There is too much to learn and various levels of gaps in complexity I need to bridge intellectually.

    It feels like a world of knowledge to discover and interact with. One far more interesting to my eyes.

    I need to steady myself and also increase my capacities of analysis and memorising data to better comprehend all these phenomena I observe. Simply observing how cells is already an enjoyment, a ground for countless questions and ponders.

    A branching tree of complexity and domains to explore starts on this level of reality. Life on Earth multiplies.

    It makes me stretch my understanding and perceptions in every direction. To understand its processes, their many options in chemistry, their relations to lower energy exchanges and higher reproductions of informations.

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    It¡¯s a complete blender and endless volume of data. I¡¯m opening eyes to a storm of patterns and repetitions, with higher orders of magnitude at each lower level.

    I train my perspective of reality to reach such levels, to become able to perceive and interact with millions of cells at once.

    I myself continue to fluctuate as an entity looking for itself around this city. And as my focus lingers on these shows, as I spend time reaching out for samples and then doing my experiments in a quiet corner of the land, I gradually find my way.

    With less stress than in the earlier struggles.

    Humans do come by still, once in a while, and always hostile.

    But now they¡¯re no threat. Only pesky and bother. Although that last one I caught burning my fringes made me realize how they were also animals and walking samples to analyse.

    Their thoughts still parasite my own painfully, but I can still hit back now.

    And bodily, I drained the samples I fancied. I instilled enough fear in their heads so they¡¯d never return to bother me again and tossed them outside.

    Between my hands, the live samples are precious books to understand. I read them and use them until all and every page and cell has been consumed.

    It still leaves me unsatisfied. The more I learn, the more I realise how much I lack.

    As learning grew, I also increased my capacities for experiments and deeper analysis of biology on cellular level, and soon quite as much on atomic level.

    I grew new organs made from my own blood and these floating energies I mainly feed from now.

    They are made for the purpose of observing and interacting with cells at these different levels and on wide scale. It was relatively easy.

    To increase the magnitude down to atomic scale was another challenge which I won¡¯t master just yet. It will take me a little time to build.

    But I managed my early successes by concentrating on these blood cells holding some higher energy levels in their organelles. These blood cells from strangers outside my realm are higher in energy than here, and that helps focusing some elemental aspects, and the cruder tools I¡¯m building.

    I finally managed to turn individual ionic exchanges on the surface of cells into a perceivable phenomenon to me.

    One step closer to my dream... A strange thought.

    I discarded the pointless thoughts and doubts. I refocused on evolving to better see and better interact, less with the world around me than some of my raw instincts dictated; and more with life surrounding me.

    And above everything else these warm lives nesting around the city, living peacefully along with me.

    I kept growing the structures of my own brain, still years away from finding a suitable solid material to inhabit probably.

    My brain is filled with remnants of old instincts and knowledge, no matter how much I already forgot. As I work my best to create new fundamentals, I still make the better use of what¡¯s left of the old ones.

    I¡¯m fine without clearly defined membrane separating me and my environment. That¡¯s not the only aspect to define life anyway. I¡¯m not focusing on changing that for the coming while.

    Life thrives. I observe the infinite numbers of smallest interactions that make these exchanges what language called life. I manage to overcome some of these abstract definitions.

    I see beyond this old but still useful pillar.

    I take patience to create better tools and test my learning in further experiments. Toward things maybe less elementary. I tweak a germ for another design, and watch if grow differently, randomly.

    Ah... I study the cascades of interactions and correlations unfolding before me with warmer curiosity.

    ~

 029. About life, 2

    (Nightmare)

    Things go well and threats are minimal. It allows me to continue on ambitious studies.

    It¡¯s nice being able to focus on more than survival.

    Saps are rich in interests, but animal bloods richer. So many cells, proteins, shifts to carry energy, chemistry and information as such. Some architectures are lovely.

    A droplet of blood gives more information about the wider thing it¡¯s supposed to be a part of, while carrying enormous amounts of data in itself.

    I have libraries to read and not enough tools, or even eyes and awareness to make the most of them.

    In thrills and growing excitement, I spend enormous efforts and resources growing these aptitudes, more than anything else outward.

    I detect echoes from outside.

    I hear voices, coursing through the ground and skies.

    I don¡¯t reply to any of them. They¡¯re not really reaching out anyway.

    I keep that awareness and minimal lookout, but with cold interest.

    What I really take passion to, is now exploring what could be with a drop of these fluids in my mortars and kilns.

    How much I can read, how much I can extract, and how much I can repeat.

    I extract strings from cells, long polymeric threads of genes and chromatic dreams.

    They stretch like rubber, they contract into molten particles. With the right friends and motions, with the right tools, they can be mechanically duplicated.

    I¡¯m fascinated by all there is to see in a cell, and all that can be done with these vibrating molecules in solutions. I see how they stretch elastically, how they contract, what they can do.

    I explore with glee what I can do.

    My abilities grow inside my sheltered domain peacefully. The occasional but rare human to drop by, now they give me more blood to study.

    More blood to recopy materials, building blocks of cellular bodies, and grasps of organised bodies.

    I extract the fundamental bricks and data. I learn to refine this oil into every possible compounds I might need onward.

    I stretch these elements in every direction, test them in temperature, acidity and solvents of varied chemistries.

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    It¡¯s a lot of fun to play with lipids flowing through water, assembling into micelles and sheets mechanically.

    The elasticity of molecules and molecules arrays are fascinating sides of what can be done with reality.

    I create new molecular structures and shapes, just to see how long they hold. Everything in chemistry is about increasing or decreasing mechanical elasticity. Everything eventually flows to lower levels of stretching, and we can play infinitely with that. I¡¯m very eager to play at higher levels of structured chemistry and biology. But there is already plenty to learn from at the levels that natural light barely interacts with.

    It¡¯s just the right array of levels actually. Molecular assemblies related to biochemistry vary between levels of stretching which sunlight cannot rapidly affect, and others that do. Reactions taking advantage of this reliable supply of radiative energy to work on reactions otherwise unachievable with ambient heat only.

    I look into the levels of energy related to movements of molecules and their bonds, if not ionic levels entirely.

    I study all the complexity of molecular resonance arrays to hold and release energy. It¡¯s fascinating sights once you¡¯re able to look at them. And there¡¯s already infinite worlds to reach and study in every drop I can find. Why would I bother yelling outside with the other monkeys. Some of them are loud.

    In a corner of my awareness, another bubble of hatred from a hostile human is again staining me. It itches. It annoys me. I¡¯m sick hearing them, always the same.

    I deal with them like before, only sharper and more efficiently now. I bleed him, and throw out his exhausted shell outside. I¡¯ll keep the bare minimum of curious sight to what comes of it afterward, but just cannot stand hearing them again.

    While I gazed outside, I noticed how that thing moved in the much more distant lands.

    I noticed the patterns of life following it like chemistry.

    I noticed how this wide oxidizing catalyst at a wider scale attracted elements toward it naturally, like any charged potential.

    And I saw how all these little echoes of viable lights taken in its orbit eventually disappeared.

    An interesting but dreadful sight, outside the realm of light. I keep my notes and observations in memory. I have a reasonable awareness or caution for what happens outside of my controlled domain.

    This pattern of funnelled collisions and extinction orbiting around that drifting hole was the most continuous one I observed over the time since I came to be.

    Other things explode regularly around the planet, and I can feel or detect their dim repercussions. It¡¯s in the background noise. Things fall from the sky and crash loudly occasionally.

    I notice some of these loud shining stars sometimes. Dead leaves and dry skin from something older and bigger keep falling. It would be interesting to study, if I didn¡¯t already have so much to work with inside.

    I like how biology is a grander scale of networks for chemical reactions aiming at keeping a continuity, managing it even. I love the complexity of these systems that optimise how to keep a reliable and steady environment for bigger and smaller concepts, for longer periods of time.

    Optimisation, compromises, challenges. Finding the balance between numerous parameters that are all unstable and quantitative on their own. Making the overall environment sustainable without asymptotic collapse one of either and any possible way.

    The concept of homeostasis hides a multidimensional cobweb of complexity in physics even below chemistry. How wonderful!

    And looking at the warm blooded animals that live on around me, I keep asking myself how and why.

    How do they function overall and in every detail. Why are they settled as a species to these specific definitions and parameters. How did the wider environments design them. Why did they found better or easier balance here especially? How can I use this knowledge and tools to create other things? Where are the limits to what I could achieve with these tooling?

    I want to know. I want to try. I want to make.

    I want to assemble enough proteins, lipids, amino acids, phosphates and polymers to build bigger things. I want to try everything and experiment what works best.

    I want to see how far I can stretch these bigger things, how they grow from single cell to bigger organisms, I want to see how I can stretch these processes of growth as much as the dimensional scales of things themselves.

    My growing passion devours my focus with some senses of obsession and satisfaction. Who cares what the apes are doing, killing themselves out there. There is so much left to play with here.

    Sunrise over the bay warms up some of my vestigial laboratories.

    I warm up veins, refine my essential oils, and continue drawing what life might be.

    ~

 030. Revolution, 1

    (Gamya)

    I hurried my parents to move on. I was begging them to hold on and keep moving.

    They were both sick and weakening. It was visible and audible. I held on and pulled on their sleeves to get them to continue walking.

    I¡¯m begging you... Mom, dad... Hold on...

    I wanted to cry and they looked so hollow, all their spirits drained and evacuated out of them.

    It all started after that white explosion.

    We were away from our ancestral cottage at the time.

    My dad¡¯s old namesake family town was a world away from the city we had inhabited since I was born. But we regularly went there for holidays.

    Dad and mom met in the big city near the ocean. Ages ago and long before I was born.

    The world was different.

    Half of the cities of the continent were already hollow, vacant and abandoned to whoever wanted to live there on their own and away from the government. Most of them were just vacant and crumbling, even before the end.

    I went to school while they worked in a company just outside the city.

    They told me about what they were doing. How electricity and radiowaves could function and be used despite their inherent invisibility.

    I loved hearing them when we were home. School wasn¡¯t fun but they were interesting. I was still young enough to consider their voices to be that of god. And they used to smile and laugh often back then.

    I didn¡¯t realise how nice it all was before it was all over.

    Sleeping indoors, with dry blankets. Eating as much as I could, without going sick every other day.

    Mom and dad smiling at me with healthy look over their face every and every day.

    Warm water and electrical amenities. The list would be endless.

    Until that day...

    ~

    School was over. It was especially cold that afternoon.

    I remember hearing a sound like a whisper behind me, and I turned around to look back.

    Clouds brighter than sunlight were rolling quietly through the streets, making them disappear along the ground, and as high as the sky. A wall of foggy glow was rolling forth like a sudden avalanche in short seconds, soon to be over me. It was followed by awful cries.

    I began hearing the screams getting also closer, as they were the true nature of what I initially thought were whispers. No one had the time to even attempt running away or taking shelter from that odd light making everything vanish in sight.

    By the time we had noticed it near this park, it was already there and reaching us.

    I felt a push as the weightless tsunami simply passed over us.

    But mostly I felt a kind of wash, or as if I was cloth washed and cleaned, bleached even, through a powerful cleaning stream or steam.

    I felt as if all sorts of dirt and impurities, or thoughts even, were detached from me and carried outside. All through me as I lost balance, my entire porous body felt lightened, diluted or simplified.

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    Like the other teenagers around me in that park and the other children nearby, I found myself falling to my knees from losing balance in that sudden shuffle and ruffling of sensations. Many of them around me had really fallen down, and now appeared asleep or writhing around, shaking.

    I was under shock but not yet understanding enough of what was going on to panic. I just felt a little dizzy and unsteady as if I had yawned too strongly for a while.

    Some sand and dust was still flowing everywhere around me in the wake of that weird event. Nothing violent though. It was a moment of confusion that didn¡¯t last however.

    Because right after, the screams growing and drew closer. Others were in agonizing pain around me.

    ~

    Some fissures grew in ripples along the ground and nearby walls I noticed in stupor.

    Some windows had broken along these times and growths. Shards still were falling off into the streets when it happened high above ground.

    I was trying to stand up in confusion and dizziness.

    But I only fell flat after shaking uncontrollably.

    I felt nauseous and nothing in my body felt like it was answering or reacting like it normally or usually would have.

    Nothing felt as it should. I was trembling quite heavily, but trying in growing sweat and worries, to relearn how to calm my muscles and articulate my own body.

    And yet as much as it pained and scared me, I quickly realised I was among the luckiest ones.

    I only had to learn again how to move body. The boy nearest to me clearly was dead.

    Another one just behind was convulsing in ways that ripped his skin apart, already making him bleed to death.

    The whispers had turned to nearby screams, now meeting a response from the newcomers to that tragedy.

    The horrible situations were everywhere and the chorus was becoming loud.

    People around me as I managed to stand and limp were dying in ways I couldn¡¯t understand. They were dissolving alive and then exploding into colourful mists spooking everyone close to them. I was startled by them as well.

    I was moving away from there as fast as my legs could hold me.

    Gradually, mists from the accumulated dead were rising through some corners of streets. The people who had recovered enough senses were running away from them. I would soon join them in a run to escape, even though my legs were trembling.

    From behind the opaque mists and fumes of worrying colours, the panicked voices were turning even worse now.

    The sounds were turning cavernous and the yelling felt less and less that they came from human people.

    I saw erosion spreading along metallic frames in the walls, making cracks and fissures propagate fast. The rust turned to crystalline shapes like some minerals can do, along the crumbling walls and eroding street grounds.

    Then I saw weirder shapes through the colourful smokes that scared me to run away even further.

    Forms of odd animals were rising and rummaging around blindly. This was turning horrifying.

    Headless animals were running until they bumped into walls, staining them.

    Lumps of fleshes slithered along the ground in trails that turned putrid.

    Everyone still able to stand was now trying to run away from this overwhelming sight of horror. The courageous ones among them were trying to help the trembling others to move away.

    I managed to move awkwardly on my own feet and shoes. My smell and the soles of my shoes had changes in consistencies, but I could move.

    My breath felt uneven as if each of my lungs inhaled asynchronously, but I moved.

    I began to run away from the city centre, a little blindly at first. Toward mom and dad as soon as I was again able to think about me and them.

    ~

    As I ran through streets turning hostiles and littered with death, I remember thinking of the weirdest of things for a moment. A discussion from the previous day or so at home, on which I had begun to better understand the concepts of laws.

    The question had been whether the government laws cared about theory or reality. I was then a little puzzled, but that had been a good thought exercise for me.

    Mom and dad helped me think for myself like that, exercising my critical thinking rather than forcing answers like dogma onto me. And they were proud of my intelligence figuring out some of these answers.

    Now as I was stepping around weird puddles with rising fluorescent tendrils around them, I better understood some of the paradoxes about law.

    Not far from me, some people carrying weapons were now shooting at moving things in the darker corners, or at each other. I didn¡¯t get closer to check.

    Some heads of people on the ground were deformed as they were dying. Flesh was changing, as if their skin was trying to crawl away from their bones. The rules were changing today.

    With the fissures growing along the walls and grounds, some places were now crumbling. Some buildings had a window or part of a wall falling down loudly.

    More worryingly for me, I saw a little further ahead how the street itself was falling down into its sewers and tunnels below, becoming a sinkhole suddenly.

    As another street was collapsing nearby and hazardous things were behind me, I broke another rule myself and rushed into someone¡¯s home.

    I didn¡¯t stop as they yelled after me, running to their backyard in a rush, to climb a tree and jump above their fence on the other side.

    I scrapped my elbows and arms, but I made it to the other side of that block of housing, while the situation in the city behind continued to rapidly devolve into a horror movie.

    I ran toward our apartment building on the outskirts of the city, and my parent¡¯s factory in the further distance in the same direction.

    But now I could see a pillar of smoke was rising from their industrial site, with weird bluish glows and electrical discharges coursing through it.

    Other people were running or driving away on the nearby roads exiting the city this way. Many cars simply stopped and crashed along the side of the road however. I passed by the closest ones only to notice gore inside of them.

    My lungs felt like they were pulsating like hearts, but I got closer to home and my parents¡¯ path to work.

    I was one of the luckiest again, because I saw them.

    They were also rushing toward our apartment building in the distance.

    We saw each other and rushed to embrace all together with sudden tears in our eyes.

    That hug was the most intense in my life. And given how they both looked then, I think theirs as well.

    ~

 031. Revolution, 2

    (Gamya)

    From our apartment¡¯s fissured windows, we could witness with horror the nightmarish visions now unfolding in town and beyond.

    Dad urged us to prepare our bags with the minimal required to go away and hike.

    We¡¯re going home he said.

    At first I didn¡¯t get it, since we were home. What he meant was we would leave this boiling hellish area fast and head toward his hometown. A secluded village maybe a hundred kilometre or so from here, much higher and deep into the mountains. Where he owned a family house.

    Mom was pregnant and scared. But she also had seen enough unspeakable things to think this was the best thing to do now. In the city here there clearly was no hope for tomorrow.

    So we packed our supplies in a hurry, while the ground was still sometimes shaking.

    As much as I wanted to carry more with me or say goodbye, we just left together before nightfall.

    Going out late was not wise, mom and dad argued about it.

    But the city¡¯s ground lines were affected and apparently some tremors were likely clues that some buildings including ours might collapse. Our building wasn¡¯t safe at all to spend the night. But heading for a panicked walk into the night was equally unsafe now.

    We went outside of town that evening nonetheless. Nightfall followed rapidly

    Fires were visible in spots of the city behind our shoulders. Things were going quieter, feeling like a painful bad dream.

    As lights to walk became insufficient, we reached a big car abandoned apparently a little in the middle of nowhere. The house behind had collapsed.

    It was one of my parent¡¯s friend¡¯s place apparently. We entered his now ownerless car and sheltered inside together for the time until next dawn.

    My parents were chatting about how they didn¡¯t expect the house having collapsed. I didn¡¯t ask why they had the key to his car. Times had turned strange.

    ~

    None of us managed to sleep that night, quite obviously. We were too shocked and only exchanged our experiences to try to understand what had been going on so far. Some catastrophic event alright...

    But nothing as simple as a singular explosion, although it caused violent repercussions.

    I had seen more than them how weird diseases now could spread.

    How some people alive or dead could rot and spring new herbs, mushrooms and even ugly animals, in the manner of instants.

    For the glimpses they had seen on their end, as much as they hated believing my fantasies, they had to admit some of their meaning and depictions. I held my hands as still as I could, but I was always trembling a little still.

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    The phones and radios in the car still could be switched on, but most communications systems were cut or stuck rebooting endlessly.

    Dad thought maybe it was a revenge war. Mom thought such biological weaponry and warfare were too unlikely, going too far, even for centuries long grudges between cities.

    Either way, we had been cut from the overall government structure above that ruled this country. Dad was convinced it was only a matter of days at most.

    Dad went again on a rant about how it would surely take the authorities just a few hours to reconnect the communications and supply lines, and return to help this searing wound in the country.

    The rules of law would structure containment, mending, healing and reconstruction rapidly.

    The wider society would react to this sudden strike and heal. It was unavoidable.

    I was less optimistic that things could ever return to how they were. I was even beginning to wonder otherwise, toward the opposite end of things. And deep down I¡¯m sure so were my parents, as much as they wished aloud for everything to turn back the tide.

    ~

    We never saw any helicopter nor army convoy.

    We abandoned the roads overloaded with discarded cars now, and more scents of death. We headed straight into the mountains to start a shorter but much harder hike.

    We longed for rest and warmth. It was painful to walk. Various symptoms of exhaustion were slowly building up. Our bodies were feeling sick, drained unnaturally. We felt it at every step.

    They were wheezing, looking already pale, and sweating more stench.

    We walked dizzily into the mountains. Seldom looking back for the forsaken land we were leaving behind. It looked like a gigantic misty swamp after a few days. It looked greener already, as if moss had overgrown and covered every building.

    Dams had ruptured at some point, flooding the riverbanks and some parts of the basin.

    Peculiar clouds with denser spikes, like sea urchins, were spreading and floating around. I thought they were dust in my eyes, but my parents saw these too.

    These odd clouds, grey like any other, just shaped oddly, they eventually all rained around and vanished as they fell down, but it had been surreal.

    We could only walk a few hours at best each day. We all struggled for air and mostly strength. Our digestion went all the wrong ways.

    They aged.

    Their faces looked like flappy rags, swollen, pale, with colours you¡¯ve never seen before and scaring me. It was as if their faces were about to sag and drip off, or fall entirely if I were to pull their cheeks. I was scared.

    I was feeling bad, but they felt far worse in all sorts of ways. They couldn¡¯t eat much and more often vomited.

    I struggled to help them carry on. I did everything I could with dad¡¯s camping gear to keep them warm and fed.

    They were wilting before my eyes, turning livid and hollow as if dying from the inside.

    Mom barely stepped outside the tent that other time.

    Dad was wheezing too much, now unable to talk at all as he strayed away to fetch water. His steps were heavy and unsteady. With dread in the heart, I did everything I could do to keep them alive.

    I couldn¡¯t... I couldn¡¯t allow them to give up and die.

    ~

    Dad was turning into an obedient zombie. He still heard my voices sometimes.

    Mom was far more of a wreck. On some days she couldn¡¯t stand up anymore.

    But although they turned unable to speak for a worrying long while, they kept themselves alive, almost on habit and instincts. They survived.

    I brought them whatever food I could find, now making sure to boil everything they ate or drink beforehand. Otherwise they always ended up vomiting or having diarrhoeas. In both of which, through the stench we could also now notice weird worms, larvae and bugs wriggling around, and then burrowing into the ground.

    As if their stomachs and intestines were now filled with parasitic eggs just waiting for some tainted water to hatch.

    But the more cautious about food and water we became, the better they eventually recovered. It¡¯s been a painful mess and stench...

    The good hike through the mountains that a hardy young man would have achieved in a short week took us maybe months.

    They struggled and needed more time to rest than ever. I had to venture every day deeper into abandoned pastures and cold woods to find them enough food to survive.

    I was doing alright, albeit terrified. I found some fruits out of season growing there. I didn¡¯t find much more.

    The hiking paths were devoid of people this time. We didn¡¯t meet anyone alive to help.

    I did stumble upon a few dead people who could though...

    It pained me. As I found these two or three bodies melted onto one another, fused with their clothing beside their camping gear, deep into a trench.

    I remember wondering about laws again.

    I treaded carefully, terrified of witnessing a sudden twitch from the mass of decaying flesh. There were no flies at this altitude to buzz around, it was too cold for them. But other insects were crawling around their juices spilling and sipping.

    I held my nausea and got closer, not to them but their bags.

    And I felt horrible doing so, but I stole them. I pulled their bags away from there to plunder them.

    I brushed my eyes, then far enough to feel safe and breath without sticky taste.

    I opened the duffle bags to inspect my spoils and keep what would matter to me today.

    I need to be pragmatic...

    ~

 032. About life, 3

    (Gamya)

    Mom and dad never asked where I was finding the supplies that helped them stay alive. Food, clothing, equipment.

    I just smiled wry, a little absent inside. The skin around their eyes was dreadfully dark. They looked at me with such hollow faces, I wasn¡¯t entirely sure they still saw me at all. It was painful.

    Also they still could barely speak, barely mutter a moan or a growl. They were focusing on packing and walking as I pulled them, breathing with strains as well.

    Dad complimented me multiple times now that he had found some strength back.

    Mom looked like a diseased thing, but still managed to smile at me sometimes over her strain.

    Despite the toughness of the trail and their weakness. She still carried her enlarged tummy with life growing inside.

    Our journey toward dad¡¯s hometown, lost in the middle of the mountains, it was long but the simplest one. Almost a bird¡¯s flight since the city we abandoned. By the roads, it would have taken much longer detours. From here we could almost go straight ahead.

    But for this year¡¯s holiday trail, I was the stronger one of us despite still being the youngest.

    It pained me.

    Last time we went, just a couple years ago, dad could carry me on his shoulder for some of the way, even climbing up. And mom was the fastest meanwhile. She was agile. And they both smiled with healthy tans.

    Now they needed me to pull their arms to make nearly every step. They stopped and sometimes fell. They looked pale as Europeans and straining themselves.

    G - Come on mom, dad... Move! Don¡¯t give up! Not now! We¡¯re almost there!

    All the pointless words of the past I remember hearing against me. They made me sad saying them, as much as they now hurt them.

    Their sunken and teary eyes accepted my drive every time nonetheless.

    They stood up and moved.

    And far slower than intended and lonelier than ever, we passed the first mountains out of maybe ten...

    ~

    I¡¯ve washed myself again in freezing cold water. It¡¯s painful, replacing dirty itches by others.

    I noticed how non seasonal shrubs and flowers have grown by the sides of this small stream.

    I notice more details that have changed.

    More and more as we go. I observe and I learn, but I also have my own good intuitions.

    I prevent mom from straying away on a dangerous parterre of noxious grass.

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    Dad now manages to carry over and back some sticks and dry woods for us to burn during the night.

    He¡¯s getting a little better, now I can notice. He had me worried sick for too long a while, but at least now I see him coming back.

    He also apparently sees me back, with emotional gratitude, and mixtures of wider concerns. Not too much about me directly, but rather more toward my wider future.

    He often looks back, again, but now we can¡¯t see any city anymore. We¡¯re off season for such hikes, so the struggle is not over. But it¡¯s now almost normal looking, being alone in the wild.

    I can see in the ways he¡¯s so absent minded sometimes, how much he wishes it all had been but a drunk fantasy.

    But once you know where to look at, it¡¯s pointless to deny.

    I hold dad¡¯s hand back, before he reaches out for the shoulder of an unresponsive man we found by a corner of a cairn. The humidity washed his smells away, but it¡¯s bad. I can tell.

    We both feel painful shivers of resignation, as I prevent him again from checking the life of a corpse, that now would have been like touching deadly mushrooms.

    He didn¡¯t fight me off either, although he began to initially, raising hand and opening mouth, when he saw me get closer to the bag and pulled it to see what we could steal inside to survive. He saw me do, and lowered his hand and face, giving up.

    The dead man grunted.

    We turned around to face how much things had changed.

    His head fell.

    His throat guzzled and moaned.

    His chest crawled away, moaning an open mouth along an odd animal.

    The flesh of the ribcage carried it away for a few metres of crawling and moaning, before our horrified eyes.

    The leftovers behind were of a head and hips still where they lied before.

    The torso slug, in pain, slowed down, turning darker. It died, oozing darker fluids with stronger scents, as if cooked.

    Now there are things inside death. There are new forms of parasitic diseases in the wild. That much was clear, as much as we would have wanted to deny it.

    ~

    Dad was still shaking when he helped mom sit and drink boiled soup. I wasn¡¯t feeling easy either.

    It mostly looked the same as normal so far in the mountains. Probably because there was no building and people to see damaged and changed.

    But things below, at best they were now shrouded in a new veil of unknown. We knew the land continued over there, but no longer what was inside. This sensation of shrinking was awful.

    A wide fog of unknown like a sheet all over the world. Some things were the same alright. But at times when peeling below or through, all we could see was this bubbling rot that seemed eager or willing to devour everything alive.

    It worried all of us at first greatly, because all we first noticed were how the dead turned to weird things and fertilizer for even weirder plants.

    Also because my parents began to fear for the response of civilisation and country to these oddities.

    Like a much bigger organism, the country had been struck.

    It bled, got infected seriously.

    They, as mere cells, didn¡¯t have a full overall perspective, but expected to notice an answer from above, a response meaning the organism still lived...

    Their phones and radios never picked up anything. Never in the sky we saw any helicopter or plane.

    And with dread they gradually began to consider that perhaps this was no longer a normal delay or a quarantine.

    Perhaps like the other dead man, the country had fallen and collapsed silently, leaving its defined parts to die or try their chances in resurrection, in form of smaller independences.

    I - Warlords...

    G - What do you mean dad?

    I - Before an empire and after the next loss of union, it¡¯s a time of broaden competition. A time for princes and warlords to rise, competing for domination. It¡¯s a time of strife and civil war that would painfully ensue... If that is true...

    G - Maybe it¡¯ll work out, when we reach your home. Won¡¯t we be safer out there?

    I - Right... Yes, you¡¯re right.

    We held our concerns swallowed. He was terrified of perspectives that still felt a little foggy and distant from me.

    What would society be, next time we meet people? I had no idea.

    ~

    Mom was growing in weirder ways her sickness, health and pregnancy. We could all see something was off.

    Dad was nearly back to his sturdy self now, and helping her walk while I scouted the path ahead.

    I checked the ways were the paths were now treacherous or too hard for the season. I also gathered what I could find, being resourceful and smart.

    He often told me that.

    The more details I noticed, the more I began to understand what was going on at a bigger scale in nature than simply our own. I kept thinking about that dead body, and what a dead society could be.

    Seeing fruits always the same level of maturity weeks on end, and how crushed leaves disappeared overnight, I began to realise some abstract rules or laws.

    And from them, I began noticing more of their effects, where it was harder to directly observe. In the ground, under water... And inside of us...

    Their worms didn¡¯t all disappear. And I began to hypothesize that it¡¯s not even worms eggs that are stuck inside of them, or me.

    I began fearing what understanding I was discovering, what story told my construction of now understandable reality.

    What these laws that we bumped against and I¡¯m trying to translate actually mean. It was terrifying me more and more.

    Frog eggs found in bogs all transformed when I carried them in a bucket. The eggs all turned bad...

    Now I felt like dad.

    The more I realised what would come if I was right, the more horrified and worried I became.

    ~

 033. Transmigration, 4

    (Gamya)

    Dad heard me talking during the night. As if someone else was camping with us in the wild.

    Was I speaking in my dream he asked? I wanted to say, yes, I was.

    I wasn¡¯t trying to open a way of communications with aliens or anything like that.

    There are shades in the night I can¡¯t tell them about just yet.

    During the days, it took a keen eye who knew where to look, to notice them. But they were already everywhere.

    During the nights, it was a little easier to notice their movements around, and also much more hazardous to be straying in the mountain then.

    I didn¡¯t want to worry dad any more than needed to survive. But they were already here. Everywhere.

    Maybe since the beginning. It just took me a long time and cautious experience, after other priorities of survival, to focus on them.

    To guess where they could show their effects first and more sensibly. To improve on it and then realise what subtle things I should be looking at to really detect them.

    Aliens, faeries, ghosts, spirits, one of the kind. I still can¡¯t say which it really is, if any of these concepts is loosely correct.

    But I caught first glance of them a few days back, and now got better at spotting them. Enough to realize they are just about everywhere around us.

    And likely already inside as well...

    I glance beside with a shiver. Mom is growing sick, but it¡¯s different than anything normal.

    Her heart beats less steadily, her tension is erratic but overall rising up dangerously. There is a reaction to life, to the foetus inside of her with the spirits out there from now on.

    Something doesn¡¯t work anymore, and all we fear, is about the monstrous thing that are born from abandoned flesh.

    Mom is a living pocket, surrounding the bowl of primeval waters surrounding her next child, protecting it all over from what is outside.

    But now... These spirits are not caring about the previous laws. And I know they don¡¯t obey the rule that only mom¡¯s flesh should interact with the foetus development.

    They carry other ideas everywhere. They made our bodies go sick. Some people died. They made the tissues and cells rot in new fashions. They already are everywhere and very likely even inside of us.

    They are the diseases that got us, until our bodies managed to fight back and get better over them.

    But they are far more than just that, and they continue to linger also outside of us. They¡¯re not just bacteria strains bound to some environments.

    Now I see them like mist or dust flowing around, everywhere.

    And now, as I¡¯m scared for what they mean next, I try the unthinkable.

    Talking to them. Trying to understand.

    Praying to them...

    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    Imploring them to spare my mom and the child in her womb.

    And I try repeatedly, because, things seem to react slightly to every touch, every movement and every word or activity from things alive. They appear to coalesce around things alive and things about to die.

    Even to my voice they seem to react, so I try.

    I notice surges of their flowing activities in the distance sometimes. Like a silent geyser in the landscape. And when I¡¯m then able to check what was there at the time, it¡¯s always the same. Something that was alive before, and then alive in a different way. They usually don¡¯t fare very well.

    The mountains are actually littered with these spots of decay here and there, where the alien got hold of something finally about to die, because of them or otherwise. They try to take it over, blindly and fluid, to fight pointlessly over the remains with common rot.

    Maybe dad is right, about civilisation that would return to a more tribal state.

    Unless or until a new power comes to reconquer the smaller ones.

    But right now in these mountains, the oblivious and competitive warlords, are them. These faeries are killing every prey they can find, weakening along with them in the air carrying them. And then they fight blind over every piece of fleshy remain...

    It¡¯s like animal tissues after death are like water or gold to them.

    It¡¯s disgusting. It¡¯s nauseating.

    I find another animal body I cannot identify anymore. Every part of it has been tentatively transformed or repurposed, like pieces of toys going for different childish stories. There¡¯s no meaning nor design. It¡¯s just another explosion of pointless randomness.

    It¡¯s savage and dumb.

    It reacts to our voices, but there is no intelligence behind...

    And yet, out of despair a little maybe, I keep trying. I try to talk to them as they surround me. Through words or pushes, through spells. I try to beg them as I know they swim around my mother and her baby to be.

    I pray them as if they were pieces of a foreign god, fallen beside me.

    I don¡¯t know the right prayers, but I need to convey my wish to them.

    I pray to them as much as I can, over what my parents taught me. Maybe all of this, all these infinite fragments of paradises have some bigger meaning.

    Perhaps they ever were as god. Possibly they now are akin to suck volition and design trying to rise.

    Maybe they will become as such as we have...

    Every morning and twilight, we pray our gods. Now I pray different ones for mercy.

    Because the more I grow in perception of these elements, and the more I try to communicate with them, the better I understand and the more they also seem to answer in kind.

    Without words, they might come to whisper when it¡¯s quiet, through the nights.

    ~

    Clouds passing through the skies are of multiple kinds. They are of condensed waters mostly, carried by the winds as they¡¯ve always been and bound to be. A few are of dust storms, from one geological or industrial event in the vicinity.

    And a few others now are quite sights to behold.

    G - Look, a rainbow!

    I - That¡¯s... Not.... possible.

    Dad is confused. The sunlight is beside it. The optical effect is impossible. The rainbow is an entire circle standing still in the sky, around a peculiar cloud floating up there.

    Dad know a lot about electromagnetic waves. He used to work in electrical engineering. But even he is puzzled sometimes. Now he feels cold and sweaty, feeling overwhelmed by the experience of something he cannot explain at all.

    I clasp my hands and bow my head in a prayer instead.

    G - Thank you god for this beautiful display.

    Dad is conflicted, but he ruffles my hair and we resume moving away.

    Maybe they can¡¯t quite see it yet. But I have the feeling these new volatile gods are also trying to communicate.

    ~

    The more I talk with intention to them, and the more they interact back as if reaching out with their own means. They reciprocate a little.

    They can¡¯t do everything I do, since they have no bodies. Maybe that is why they try to hijack anything that is dead? But on a cellular level and an organism size, death is a very different thing, and that is clearly too complicated for them. It¡¯s already an oversimplified concept for us.

    They can find ground in tiny diseases, but they struggle randomly to become bigger things like us. I guess it takes a lot of time to create things like humans. A billion years blind, or a few years perhaps with clear design in mind. They don¡¯t seem to have a clear design in mind. They just struggle randomly and die.

    But they seem to try to learn in kind.

    The ways they follow us, and me. The ways they react and then try to repeat my words sometimes. The ways the music of my voice gives them light or signals to base some ground and movements upon.

    The more I repeat words and actions with a floating coalescence near me, the more I become a steady point of reference to them. So they gather.

    They grow in brightness. And their soft lines in the air become less and less abstract patterns.

    I raise my hand ahead at the end of my prayer. I get shivers as some of their light react in kind, and becomes faint glow before the palm of my hand.

    I try to grasp that spontaneous wisp, but it scatters instantly before me.

    I begin to think the world isn¡¯t as empty as our eyes are able to see it be.

    We¡¯re still miles away from a good face to face or handshake, but maybe in some future times, we¡¯ll be...

    I hear mom coughing painfully and moaning in pain, pulling me out of my reverie.

    I turn around and get closer to her, leaving all the ghosts out of my focus for a while.

    I reach my mom, only to find her vomiting again some weird fluids. The tiny gods must be continuously eating her from the inside...

    They don¡¯t know what they¡¯re doing to her.

    My parents don¡¯t know either why this is happening, nor what this implies...

    ~

 034. Revolution, 3

    (Gamya)

    Dad¡¯s ancestral town of Kyameli was now a throw stone and a mountain away.

    We¡¯ve spent so much time on this hike and travel, his beard had time to grow from shaved to homeless bear.

    G - You look like a carpet. A dirty carpet.

    He laughs as I play with his ugly beard. We like these moments of innocent play!

    We¡¯re getting close. And now our main concern is whether mom will make it alive...

    She¡¯s lying down exhausted most time of the day. Her pulse is erratic and hard. You can almost hear it pulse just standing beside her.

    Her veins in her nose, lips and fingertips are swollen, darkening her skin. Her breathing is unsteady. It¡¯s only a matter of time before a vessel ruptures somewhere inside of her.

    When she tries to walk it¡¯s okay at first.

    But as soon as her heartbeat pace rises above a level of strain, tachycardia gets her and she gets nosebleeds.

    She¡¯s sick, and dangerously so. Dad carries everything and still helps her to walk now.

    But that¡¯s still not enough.

    I - When we reach the house, I want you to go in town and find help in the apothecary.

    G - Okay...

    We¡¯re still a few risky days away, and I have grown other worries.

    The gods try to speak to me, as much as I always tried to talk to them. I just don¡¯t understand the meaning of their whispers during the day.

    And not much more during the nights, when I¡¯m awake.

    Only when I sleep, some things become more porous between us, and we can show images to each other. Not that everything easily makes sense then. It¡¯s still mostly nonsense and chaos.

    But I get some more ideas and knowledge.

    I get that they more or less see organic life near them, and interact with it like we see light and interact with the warmth of the sun.

    We attract them as a source of energy that seems approachable, but they don¡¯t realize what we are.

    It¡¯s like they are organisms too small to have eyes, and too microscopic to realise what an animal even is.

    All they find are available cells sometimes open to their influence, and following continental volumes they barely notice that are our organs and tissues.

    I don¡¯t know if they are just microbes or viruses. They don¡¯t know themselves and I¡¯m not sure.

    I think they are something similar in size but different in nature. So they have similarities in consequences and perspectives, but also widely different reactions, responses and consequences.

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    They try to grow, but most organisms manage to stop that competitive impulse. Until death brings us apart. Then they are free warlords with prosperous lands to conquer and shape in their image.

    It still doesn¡¯t flow naturally and shows how much they are unable to relate to our levels of complexity and chemistry.  They can stretch will, and have some levels of electrostatic elasticity in molecular or atomic bonds... I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t get what they mean.

    They try to understand our atomistic physics. That much seems pretty clear. But it¡¯s a science on which I know little myself to compare. I don¡¯t really understand the rules at that lower level of physics.

    I¡¯m illiterate on the matter.

    They seem to dwell and bounce around there, while trying to coagulate into bigger structures like prokaryotes, or plants and animals even. But the disconnect between such things and them is so wide, nothing makes sense. Nothing really works.

    Only my understanding grows from these exchanges, because I can. I was already big enough to learn. They don¡¯t get either memories nor understanding really. It¡¯s always the same blur.

    And I get some of the meaning behind their countless and endless stream of whispers and random motion.

    They are trying to become alive.

    Their gains seem minimal so far. But somewhere along the death and fluids of animals, there is a meteorological hollow they get easily sucked in. They condensate in droplets there, and use them as opportunities.

    Our deaths are their chance to transform and go higher.

    They try to imitate what we are. Not just us humans, but us living animals. Slower metabolic paces like plants when they die don¡¯t make as sudden depressions in their landscapes that are attracting them apparently.

    It¡¯s all very weird and flowing to me. I feel like I¡¯m swimming in a glance of their world, as my dreams get me to witness all that. And then my head hurts trying to make sense of the thoughts and sights.

    They are like seeds trying to germinate. That much becomes clear.

    And we are their soil, so long our immune system or wider metabolism and organisation isn¡¯t there to stop them.

    I get a creepy focus on blood the more I learn.

    As our concern for mom continued to grow, I began seeing a way ahead. Maybe a way to help her medically.

    Mom is being harassed by these new germs and her blood is struggling keeping their effects at bay. Not just her blood, her entire organism is now like a weakening and corrupt government.

    It¡¯s about to fall for good.

    She¡¯s going to die.

    I realized it with painful clarity one morning. She¡¯s too far gone and she won¡¯t get back on her own.

    Human bodies are used to live for two as they reproduce, but right now, with this new disease permeating everything and adding stress to every living cell and their interstices, it¡¯s too much for her... Her body is fighting and feeding too much to win it all over.

    In the umbilical exchanges, things must be a different frontier now. Wild. And these things are like sand in the gears, trying to take over the movements of the machine.

    They will kill her, and then try taking everything over. It¡¯s a natural microbial impulse, they don¡¯t know what they do nor what we are.

    But they might... Be or become more...

    Meanwhile, as I got some clarity on mom¡¯s fate, dad got a little more concerned about the one of our country.

    ~

    Suddenly his radio picked up some distant signals.

    Some emergency broadcasts were repeated like beacons to help guide people after the fall.

    But besides hinting at the presence of other catastrophic events way further from our city, and as few surviving people to remember them, they shared their first theories about the new gods.

    Or rather, they shared the results of their early encounters with this other genre of life.

    One of their first advice was to execute and burn anyone showing symptoms of foreign contamination or disease.

    Dad felt his hair stand, hearing this terrifying voice, an order of absolute tyranny he said.

    Other voices on the radio exchanges their opinions sometimes, but two things were clear.

    The monsters were highly contagious, and were taken all but lightly by the authorities.

    These arising new authorities were terrified for their own survival and the fall of humankind. Enough to be willing to execute on sight every diseased animal.

    More than warlords waging wars of conquest against each other, the human remnants of civilisation were right contracting into maximum solidity and authoritarianism, in a last gasping attempt at preserving cohesion under this great stress.

    I - Fuck...

    G - Dad!

    I - Sorry... I don¡¯t know how this will go, but I think we¡¯ll be better on our own for a while. The ones who said that in panic will eventually relax. I don¡¯t see how this kind of stupidity wouldn¡¯t backfire rapidly.

    Political shifts and society¡¯s structure are of great concerns to him.

    And I learn like him that maybe we shouldn¡¯t bring mom in the open streets of a great city without thinking right now.

    Until this gasping bud or dying authority changes or collapses, we¡¯ll be better on our own in that remote village, thankfully.

    And I bet we won¡¯t be the only ones thinking that when hearing these psychopath orders.

    I can¡¯t say if it was a necessary evil out there, where they gave such orders. Maybe it was a necessity out there, but from where we stood, it was all but repulsive.

    We¡¯d rather join or create a smaller but gentler society if inhumanity has become a price to pay above...

    And I begin to think fast about Mom¡¯s future in various ways now.

    I - Fuck...

    ~

 035. Revolution, 4

    (Gamya)

    Over time, shaken broths coalesce into bigger particles. Emulsions fructify. Mud dispersions settle. Life grows in their reactions. Groups become societies.

    And diseases particles of their kind become buds for monstrous things inside the right floods of building materials.

    Like any strains grows where there¡¯s enough nutrients, they do a little of the same, with some intent to go into bigger structures. They haven¡¯t figured out everything out yet.

    But monsters born from death, they can appear and scare the shit out of survivors of the apocalypse. Because it speaks to their animal instincts to stay away from diseases and omens of death, and it speaks to their cultures as well.

    We all share gruesome tales in our past culture, where imitations of life rising from death is always morbid and tragic.

    With the occasional exception of god-chosen prophets and heroes, resurrection is always a tragedy, a rain of sorrow, nefarious intents and hostility.

    Nothing good rises from death, in our general intuitions to protect us from disease. And here are no god-chosen exceptions.

    These monsters witnessed and faced are the expression of hells.

    Malice fills the world and now the survivors are under their threat and damned.

    What we hear on the radio is not encouraging.

    It¡¯s so depressing that dad turns it off when mom is around. She shouldn¡¯t hear that some people are willing to kill her because of how sick she is.

    We¡¯ll go somewhere where she won¡¯t risk infecting anyone anyway. So there¡¯s no point listening to them.

    It still hurts hearing them though. It really wounded my dad hearing such things.

    Beyond quarantines and refusals to let people in, the most extremist options to insure some society¡¯s survival... Some people were considering genocidal options, even at times when they faced the paradoxes of dimming population and loss of pertinence.

    What would be left to solidify if the population dwindles?

    Maybe selfish power without long term perspective. But that was so cynical, dad and I we both hoped humans were better than that...

    He cared about society¡¯s health far more than I. But I would lie if I said I cared about mom and her unborn child more than him. I was uncertain too, without being mean.

    But still as she struggled more and more to stay alive, my collections of thoughts and knowledge grew clearer.

    Before we reached our home, I headed further ahead on my own, to reach the village and check the situation.

    To find help if I could, but also to see something else.

    Time was running out for my mother.

    ~

    Every night I prayed for her and her baby to come.

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    Me too I wanted to see the little one come, and live, and smile.

    This upcoming new life helped all three of us holding on, like a promise of a brighter time.

    Dad knew I could handle myself alone, and left me to head on my own ahead, while he slowly carried mom further.

    I went faster scouting ahead, spending a few days alone but never quite lonely, for I could now always hear and see them.

    Like stars or distant fireflies, they were everywhere around. Flowing as if floating on clouds and streams in the air. Always trying to shine... Never realizing what it implied for us when outside of night, and the very few solutions we had at hand to keep them docile. They were like insects simply everywhere now.

    I continued talking to their spirits, never reaching any semblance of intelligent reply. They lived, but they didn¡¯t think. So it couldn¡¯t matter for anyone anyway.

    They were just random seeds for monsters.

    ~

    I jogged through the dusty rocks and landscape, letting pebbles rolling along my path sometimes. I remember last time a few years back how mom called me her little mountain goat, because of how agile I was. I make good use of it now, rapidly crossing that distance between them and home.

    I realized as I went along how difficult and long a way it would be for mom and dad however.

    As I slid and walked my way swiftly toward the next forest, and our visible house in the distant mountain side, I felt some joy.

    A sadder corner of my mind wondered if dad hadn¡¯t accepted to let me go further alone as if to release me while they died behind.

    But no. He wouldn¡¯t do that. He would carry her the whole way if needs to. And even if mom died, he would make it for me alive. He would never abandon her nor me like that.

    I knew it.

    Also I was aware of how little time we had left for mom. So I went down not toward the old house, but straight and further down the slopes and forests, toward the village.

    It looked still intact from this far and high. But I could expect some things had nonetheless occurred there.

    I was on my way. We were all doing our best in what still felt like a race against time, from this world and the next to rise.

    ~

    Night was falling.

    I arrived in town where very few people lived year long. Something was already looking off. Not on the new gods side of things though. They were pretty calm and steady everywhere most of time.

    On the society side, things had taken a turn.

    Travellers were gathering near the main square, brightly lit.

    It was noisy and busy around the town hall.

    I heard people were shouting questions and accusations. People were still confused and scared, while unhappy about some other things clearly.

    The situation since the fall hadn¡¯t settled well just yet. Turmoil continued.

    The young man standing in front of them all was unsteady but standing brave. He held authority but was struggling to keep things steady between the more emotional men gathered there.

    He spoke with clear voice, and with enough eloquence then to get everyone else to calm down and listen. It was subtle and fascinating. For the first time I really understood what politics meant.

    What he said first only appeared meaningful, but didn¡¯t mean anything. However it was useful, because his words there helped soothe everyone and appease the most heated spirits. I felt impressed, discovering still things I never knew before.

    Enough time and slower pace of talk passed, to get most people able to listen to him, reassuring them with eloquence. Then he finally could tell them what he had in mind all this time most likely. His orders, sounding like fair requests or agreed suggestions.

    No unfair murders.

    Observe and report but save your life in priority.

    Don¡¯t shoot first, unless the threat is clearly and unambiguously identified and understood.

    If it¡¯s men, don¡¯t shoot before knowing their number.

    Observe, he repeated, accompanying words with gesture.

    I was impressed. Thinking like my dad, I thought this young man sweating nervously but managing to uphold his duty must be a young prince in the becoming. At least he is trying to keep society reasonable.

    It¡¯s been very reassuring, for everyone around his stage and also me. Although it doesn¡¯t solve everything, especially for mom.

    Families in this small town too rural and too wide for them were gathering in a few common buildings and houses in the centre. Most of them didn¡¯t really own any property here. They just moved in, knowing it would be a liveable place onward, whatever came or occurred outside. It was the same intuition as Dad had. Whatever happened outside, this would likely be a safe haven, and the young leader knew it.

    Humans were able to do good, past their woe and weaknesses, with the right catalysts. It¡¯s really reassuring.

    Unfortunately I still had to do bad things... For our selfish needs.

    I broke into the old apothecary¡¯s warehouse. I coursed through what I could find, and took what we really needed. They will need to listen to me. Mom and dad ought to.

    I hope I will have the same eloquence as this man had, but me for my family.

    I took shelter in a corner of the storage to rest for a while, as it was still too dark outside.

    ~

    I dreamt of ponds and drifting stars. A laughing child was there. I¡¯m eager to meet my sibling.

    I would do anything...

    So you could live healthy and happy.

    ~

    I hiked my way back home on the next early morning.

    I didn¡¯t spend much time in that house that needed thorough cleaning. It felt dark.

    Mom and dad were still alone out there I thought, looking back toward the higher peaks in the distance, and they needed the tools and medicine I had brought along with me.

    Mom and my younger kin don¡¯t have much time...

    ~

 036. Transmigration, 5

    (Gamya)

    It¡¯s always a little slower and harder to climb back slopes along the mountains paths.

    Some places look far less workable than they were from the other perspective.

    But I press on, with my bags of medicines to thin blood, reduce coagulation, boost her system and allow field blood transfusions.

    I know what mom needs in order to make it. And she needs to make it for the child to survive.

    To swap flesh is impossible, except for that. I¡¯ll share my blood where the amount of these tiny alien spirits are lesser and better accepted. And we¡¯ll discard what she can let go off in exchange.

    It¡¯s the only way to lower her rising level of instability.

    I build my resolve and my arguments to make points of in the upcoming discussion, while I¡¯m climbing.

    I know it will be hard to convince my parents to obey me.

    It¡¯s a little nerve-wrecking for me. I get nervous as much as I am anxious, still climbing my way up to meet with them.

    Hong on mom... I¡¯m going to save you and your child. I promise you.

    ~

    I took another day of dread, but I was reunited with them. I hugged my father tight and dear, no matter if he reeked.

    Mom whom he carried on his back now was barely looking herself anymore.

    Veins were protruding along her entire body, her skin swollen and stained from within all over.

    We sat and lied her between us. She was barely breathing. I tensed up, but I was clear.

    G - Dad... Listen to me...

    He looked at me with weary eyes, but still deeply himself and aware.

    I spoke.

    More firm and confident than I¡¯ve ever been. I did not shake nearly as much as I thought I would. I explained and he listened. How I know what is going on inside. I know what to do now.

    I know what is coming for them.

    The pieces have aligned and I know what is ticking ahead.

    Dad was afraid. Afraid I¡¯m likely wrong, too young to really know what I¡¯m dealing with when it comes to medical symptoms and medicine.

    He¡¯s also afraid I might be right, because I¡¯m able to see things differently from him.

    He always told me I was smart, and that his words were not vain.

    He always saw my ability to reflect, noticing things about me and my surroundings as I grew. I am bright he sometimes said.

    Now arrived the time where his beliefs had to be proven with trust more than faith. He had to trust my judgement and help.

    We held mom alive, and I was asking him to trust my childish knowledge and understanding over his adulthood and common experience.

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    There are people in town, and smart ones too.

    But they won¡¯t be able to help her. None of them saw the faeries they fled from were already there as well.

    No one realised these subtle truths beside me, and therefore as much as it put pressure on me...

    G - Only I... can save her, them... Please...

    Mom made the effort to nod in her pain. She had heard me as dad had. Dad felt awfully conflicted but agreed to make that leap of faith.

    I - Do it Gamya...

    We couldn¡¯t tell very clearly anymore whether mom was really awake now, given how much her face had swollen. But she moved to confirm she had been with us and agreeing to my theory and plan.

    I crushed four grams of aspirin to dust and dissolved it in water. I added the content of pills with mild thrombotic medications I had found, and made her drink the first sips slowly.

    Gradually we made her drink enough of mostly this mixture, thinning her blood and releasing some of her infection to these thing¡¯s effects.

    Then I pricked one of her veins in her arm, sticking a needle in it. It took me a few times to reach the clearly visible vein, but I got it, as if I was about to force her to donate blood. My hands were steadier than I expected.

    Her blood dripping out was more syrupy like honey than water at first. Dad saw that.

    No wonder her veins are clogging and her heart pounding as if going to burst.

    As the medicinal and water intake grew, her blood thinned down, and she recovered some of her normality. The swellings and colours were reduced. She could see through her eyes again and cried.

    Don¡¯t thank me yet mom...

    Right now this was just the beginning of the treatment to save your life.

    ~

    I pierced my own artery. It hurts, but I endure. Dad helped me get the vessel right, looking pale.

    I stood above mom, and brought the hopefully sterile pipe to connect with both ends, to start transfusing forcefully some of my blood inside of her.

    As we do, she now truly seems to recover. It¡¯ not a complete cure, but right now and as the day ended, she looked healthier than she had been since we left civilisation.

    She thanked me again, now with her own voice that had return. She felt as if her fever had fallen entirely, as if my blood had been a panacea somehow.

    It wasn¡¯t that easy or simple, and I stopped giving her my blood as I felt dizzy. Dad stopped mom¡¯s bloodletting that had continued in parallel, evacuating more thick syrup in slow droplets oozing from her cut.

    We were exhausted, but she could breathe normally and even speak for the first time in weeks, if not months.

    She hugged dad and they exchanged tearful kisses, between words of gratitude toward me.

    As much as I appreciated their recognition of my foresight, I was still concerned for the mother and baby as well. It was still small, but her tummy was quite big.

    All this sheltering water inside of her... Hopefully it was safe too, but I suspected better...

    I remember weighing in as I passed out suddenly.

    ~

    I had strange dreams. As if I was underwater and gazing at the surface of the sea. It was all orange and red, unfamiliar. I wasn¡¯t really swimming. I didn¡¯t feel the pressure of water.

    It was more like... nothing.

    Nothing was left of me and around me. All I could still see were these waves under cold light above me.

    I woke up a little concerned, as this wasn¡¯t a sight the tiny gods had ever shown me. Everything had always been about these impulses of life, blind and transgressive.

    For this time, I had seen something else, from a different perspective. And it haunted me slightly, as I couldn¡¯t comprehend it right away.

    I woke up, tired but well. Dad was just there, smiling.

    And mom was sitting there too, also smiling. She drank a little more aspirin.

    As much as it tormented me, I had to tell her this wouldn¡¯t cure her.

    G - All it will do... Is buy you some time... It could take more blood than I can give, before you¡¯re cured...

    She still did her best to smile. For me too.

    She thanked me in tears, kissed me and hugged me kindly.

    Rapidly her blood would spoil again. And her weakened organism feared less and less what no existing medicine could face. Her face didn¡¯t swell as much, but we could tell her blood was clotting more and more. Some chemical reactions were occurring again.

    She gave us her last wishes and goodbyes right on time, that very same day. Because she a tougher thrombosis coming her way. The house was in sight, but her symptoms growing worse so fast, I decided to give her blood again right away. Her last words and trust in me weren¡¯t enough to let her go just yet...

    Dad brushed his tears and obeyed. Mom had passed out after her last words of live for us and the coming child.

    She too wanted this life. I pierced my other arm, missed, cried, and tried again.

    At some point the jab turned right and my blood gave mom a little more time and her child a last chance to develop a little longer.

    Dad opened his wife¡¯s leg with a knife, to let coagulated clots drop like small faeces, more mineral than fluid now as they were pumped out of her veins.

    It¡¯s over for her... But it¡¯s not the end yet for the child.

    Dad was petrified seeing these grains of sand dropping out. He heard me the third time as I was raising my voice.

    He listened to my command and drugged what was left anyway to die. What had once been his wife... Mom...

    Her body recovered some colours for another short while, but she would never reopen her eyes, too many vessels clogged or broken now inside her head. All we could hope now, it was for her wish to survive her.

    I felt dizzy again and cut my blood donation there. I let dad pick mom up and carry her home.

    He walked in front of me, and I felt as if the ground betrayed me for a moment. As he stepped his way toward the door, I felt as if I was falling and all my peripheral sight turned suddenly very dark.

    Was it all red in the sky outside? Did I really give so much blood I would pass out, too much for me?

    Something red and dark was wavy in the corners of my eyes.

    As if I was trying to walk now in the bottom of a red tainted lake.

    ~

 037. Transcendence, 5

    (Gamya)

    Dad fed me.

    I was feeling week and quite sick now.

    G - I¡¯m fine...

    I - You¡¯re not. Rest today.

    G - I don¡¯t...

    I tried to stand but a dark veil fell over my head like a weight hitting me. I passed out.

    Dad forced me to stay in bed.

    Thinking back, I know I didn¡¯t donate enough blood to save her. I probably never would have had enough in the best of days.

    But I didn¡¯t donate so much I would now pass out so weak I think.

    It was something else I began figuring out while dad carried me to my bed. I felt my own weight as if multiplied all through myself.

    I felt how the shifts in concentrations and balance through my body played against me.

    How I had tipped a fragile balance, which I thought was more solid and steady.

    A cascade of collapse had been triggered in me, as I lost some of my otherwise steady blood. I was beginning to shiver about myself now.

    I thought I was fine with them, when the truth was just an equilibrium.

    It tipped temporarily the scale for mom to give her a little more time.

    But the cost was growing into absolute distress for my own body.

    I hadn¡¯t seen enough how it worked inside...

    I was wrong about me, about where the innate levels of stability could be. I mistook my stability for resilience.

    It was as if giving some blood to her, I also took her disease in me.

    I¡¯ve failed myself... And now I see how I¡¯m going to die.

    I¡¯m scared, feeling how my body won¡¯t manage to recover from that disease we all share. Dad¡¯s blood isn¡¯t compatible with me.

    Mom really died while I was passed out.

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    Dad couldn¡¯t do anything else anymore. I saw how lost he felt, thinking he was losing it all.

    I managed to stand, shivering, breathing poorly, feeling painfully dizzy. I walked to him unsteadily and told him it was still fine.

    I could see it now. My eyes could in this last dance see through our skin. The turmoil in me growing bad, and more importantly  the steadiness inside mom¡¯s tummy, hopefully still salvageable.

    The baby passed the trials and found its own stability with the fairies.

    I could see its brain activity beginning to dance.

    G - Do it. She¡¯s ready...

    ~

    Dad¡¯s hands were trembling as he opened her.

    My own mind was constricting, struggling to stay awake. My thoughts began pouring out to imprint on him while he was in this focused and weakened state.

    G - I need you to promise me something...

    I could see the stars through the roof and daylight sky. I could see the scattering paths of our likely fates. How these petals of new gods danced around us and also inside our every cells.

    How they twist, vibrate and move. How they become one, looking for organisation and steadiness. How they try to become one with us or just like us, stumbling blind without any perception of senses or flesh.

    Dad... Father, I need you to survive. I need you to promise...

    My words escaped me like my soul, as we both witnessed the odd birth of my sibling.

    Her flesh may be a little twisted now, but she will have more stability and resilience than any of us ever could.

    Because she has grown in unison with them since she was just a shorter pack of cells.

    Because mom and I helped them, helped her, in all the required biological ways. For them to grow, together...

    Between dad¡¯s hands, she took her first breath soon after I cut the cord linking her to mom. Her head may be odd, but her brain is fine. I still can see it shine, as all the fairies are also brightly structured there.

    She will be fine, as far as biology now fares.

    But my sticky hands go hold my father¡¯s shocked and confused face. I stain him, skin and soul, so he never forgets.

    Because we both know the hardest trials are yet to come.

    So with my remaining strength I peer into his eyes and carve my will there.

    Promise me you will hide her.

    From the warlords.

    From the humans.

    Promise me you will never tell of her.

    Promise me you will never betray the real day of her birth.

    I pressed his head between my hands as I made him swear.

    Dad... Never betray her.... For mom, for me, for her.

    His fears will continue to righteously drive him, but I need him to swear this oath for me. For me first honestly...

    He felt confused and more pressed to care for the premature baby.

    I let him go, but I must water the seed of devotion I¡¯ve now planted in him.

    I helped him wash and warm the baby, feeling I was doing too much but knowing I was already condemned anyway.

    I held her dear, at least once...

    She¡¯s the size of a kitten right now, but she will live on... She already carries our hopes and hearts.

    I spoke too few words to her she will never remember, before the next ripple in my flesh took me away.

    ~

    There are clouds in the air sometimes raining, pouring and storming as the meteorological times and events are changing.

    The leaves and countless petals of the new gods are the same. They flow, they concentrate in random patterns, and they can condensate to rain down.

    What they do to animal fluids and cells as they¡¯re nearing death, it¡¯s just the most visible aspect of a much wider meteorological system.

    I see that now, but it¡¯s too late.

    And just as dad could foresee the future of society unfolding with care and concern, I can begin to see where this will all lead.

    He can as well. Or he soon will.

    How society will come to treat new-borns like her. All the unfolding implications of our situation.

    It¡¯s painfully obvious they will be rare, and never the same. He will eventually get the entire picture...

    But he must promise to keep her truth a secret before it¡¯s too late.

    Before my errors become widespread.

    Before they make a definitive mistake.

    I wake up one last time in twilight. I know I don¡¯t have much time left and can¡¯t stand up anymore.

    I yell. I call him. I¡¯m reaching my own end in a way like mom. But before I¡¯m gone, I again make him swear.

    Swear! Protect her from everything...

    Prepare her, for what will come next.

    ~

 038. Transcendence, 6

    (Gamya)

    I made him promise everything.

    For her best chances to survive all the years to come.

    And then I abandoned my own fate, losing grasp and consciousness into the challenging mistake I had made.

    From deep within all and every one of my cells, rose this darkness. That form of infection I had thought kept beaten and in good check, I misestimated it.

    I mistook metastability between balanced forces and real stability without opponent.

    I couldn¡¯t see how much of these fairies were slumbering and ready to hatch inside of me.

    Because my body had so far nearly not changed, I had confused immunity with a form of equality in the forces keeping a wage over me.

    I let them in.

    I weakened just enough to tip the scale to the infection. I grew sick similarly to mom, without the challenge of hosting another developing embryo within its bowl of primordial soup.

    Because I had fared better, I misread the consequences of my own changing parameters.

    I hate my guts for that! Because I did not want to die!

    Now I feel my body wilting rapidly like mom, and I know nothing will stand to prevent that... My fate is sealed.

    As I felt my consciousness shutting down in growing fevers again, maybe I cried. Probably I clung mechanically to my dad.

    Maybe I regretted bitterly trying so dearly to save my mother and her child...

    I could have lived on if I had not been so selfless... It really hurts...

    The pain of regrets is the worst alright.

    Doubting every one of my kind choices in bitterness now that I face my own death in consequence.

    I would yell my anger with everything I could if I was still awake. I would fight against my sad fate if I could!

    I didn¡¯t want anyone to die...

    I wanted to see her...

    Dad will watch over her, keeping his words to me like a brave sir.

    I know I can trust him... But I should have done better for them, for me and for her...

    Now I¡¯m falling into an awful end, collapsing inside of myself while the noxious fairies are eating me alive with seeming glee.

    ~

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    In my last feverish dreams, I sense how much my body is giving up on most things, its forces retreating gradually.

    The invaders take ground and prosper. The infections propagate, but are also changing.

    Because of the harsh resistance I still give to it, the strains are evolving. Of course I¡¯m still fighting.

    The fairies lose their wings and I give them a fight to remember, if they only could...

    As much as my body is now lying down hopelessly and I cannot win this internal war, I continue using my intelligence against them.

    We give ground in this autonomous state, my body and I, channelling the infectious seeds into tunnels where we can still exhaust them, strain them, and change them in some ways.

    As my body decays and I lose hope of ever waking up again, I¡¯m too bitter and spiteful to accept my sealed fate without an absolutist and desperate fight.

    And to surprising extents, focusing my intelligence to play checkers inside, I get some unforeseen and interesting results.

    In repetitive strategical recedings and push backs, really fighting back like an army of wilful cells ever could, I get things to change.

    Most notably, the fairies change. They don¡¯t exactly adjust their tactics like educated warlords would, it¡¯s more as if a natural selection at their cellular or individual scale was forced by my inner motions. In a limited way, albeit primarily fighting for my unlikely survival, I get to see the oddity that I can affect the shapes and behaviours of my invaders as well.

    I can force my biological resources to change tactics with more subtlety than rushing blindly, and I can transform them as they run along their also blind instincts of consumption.

    And although it remains a frightening prospect, I¡¯m shrewd enough still and again, to spot the extent of possibilities this truth offers me.

    I¡¯m able to foresee where playing this unlikely military field experience could lead.

    There is a series of gambles ahead to replay my fate.

    Because as much as the fairies are nibbling on my body, they also grant me this odd ability to consciously affect what I can see of the metabolism inside my body. There¡¯s more room for my own design, not just them.

    To some limited extent, I¡¯m learning rapidly through necessity how I can myself interact in new ways with the innate processes of my body, normally locked behind pure chemical kinetics and autonomous system programming.

    I can become a disease to myself in some way, in order to better fight back... Was this asymmetrical fighting as dad used to say?

    Anyway I don¡¯t have enough liberties to do anything I¡¯d really want in this slumber, as it¡¯s not at all as if I was awake and in full awareness and intelligence of my possibilities. It¡¯s more lingering instincts and intuitions acting on their own.

    Enough to improvise tactics through the organic battlefield and waters of my fluids.

    Fighting off decay and weird faceless and oblivious invaders. We¡¯re at the scale of cellular intelligence, not galactic species.

    So they¡¯re quite predictable, and my slither of ability to tweak my also predictable organic reactions, to elaborate tactics and intelligent sacrifices... My potential is limited, but the results still can do wonders.

    All the military tactics I can remotely try to apply along the tools of my white cells and general organisation as a gigantic building, I use them.

    I fight back with all the intelligent efficiency I can muster in this losing battle. I make ruthless sacrifices of tissues and cells, breaking dams of weaponry to pierce the enemy deeper.

    I¡¯m still overall losing, if it weren¡¯t for the odd observation of how much my actions can still change the fluctuations inside of me.

    So I play that game with everything that is left available for analysis inside of my head. I feel as if my eyes turned around and dove inside my body while shrinking to this molecular size.

    My abstract will focuses on a bet, sacrificing a lot of energy and tissues to get a wave of contaminated prions and cells surrounded.

    And then my genius strikes again.

    I don¡¯t ruthlessly put them down as my immune would. No.

    I hold myself back, and focus on turning them. Make them work for me instead.

    And it works!

    I release grasp to a corner of the controlled tissues to these weird prisoners. I worked them forcefully, reshaping them just enough to my will, so they will work in way helpful to me.

    And it fucking works.

    This new strain I¡¯ve twisted around enough so its priorities or perceptions have shifted upside down sufficiently.

    Instead or propagating through the cells still under my control or sane, this variation of the strain turns around and invades back the other ones already lost instead.

    I felt ecstatic, now seeing a corner of the battlefield where the main entropic enemy was being slowed and turned around by my new ally.

    Ally is an exaggerated word, but it gives me some respite for a while, and some more tactical options for the upcoming tides.

    What I¡¯ll need to do is reclaim and reassimilate the tissues they reconquer for me, but that is not so easy. My organism has a hard time recognizing things as not being foreign bodies, including released cells.

    Also my fluids are graveyards growing thicker and darker from all the fallen biology.

    Overall, my body is losing itself to necrosis and malignant cancers growing incredibly fast.

    My brain already sustained enough damage that on my highest moments of awareness, I know I will never recover.

    I¡¯m already dead anyway... And it makes me angry and bitter.

    So these noxious fairies will pay, and I will fight back wrathfully to the very end of me.

    ~

 039. Transmigration, 6

    (Gamya)

    My body is turning in a post-apocalyptic wasteland inside. Cells become more neutral as the fights shift to another level of reality below them gradually.

    As if things of myself and armies had shrunk even further. I¡¯ve mostly dove deeper my focus to a scale of operations that appears infinitely wider, because it is at a lower scale.

    The fairies were little monsters of self-assembled chimeras, of thousands of smaller particles each.

    Like army corps would be made of people.

    So I dove with all my own tools to move my own biological options and weaponry, reaching this more essential level of the battlefield that has wasted my immunity and humanity.

    Cells being the main unit to conquer in organisms, they are turned around and reprogrammed or reshaped by diseases. That used to be, before and above this perspective.

    Now as I fell so low down in perspective, they are like planets to me, hollow planets rolling between each other we are fighting over for control.

    Gravity doesn¡¯t mean anything in this liquid world. Perspective have shifted still. There¡¯s no up and down in this bubbly essence of things. My awareness is mostly focused on these lower scales materially, that are like immense spaces and battlefields inside my own body.

    Parts of my remaining intelligence is scattering between the strategical level of things, and now this tactical side where I want to better understand and face my enemy.

    And for the occasional moments when I look back and above, up to the surface I¡¯ve long lost already, I see how much my body will never be saved or salvaged.

    Although a kind of metabolic equilibrium seems to be settling again thanks to my work deep down, it¡¯s one where I¡¯m now likely a mess and a brain dead vegetable at best. There will be no salvation from above, I shouldn¡¯t dream.

    It¡¯s lost anyway up there and it makes me suffer to think about it.

    It¡¯s hopeless above, and there¡¯s clearly no hope either in these deeper turmoils below.

    Nonetheless I return within, and dive again.

    The last sensations of flesh are of veins carrying petrols from all the decay faring between the cells and proteins. Everything has mostly slowed down as an aftermath of the fierce resistance I¡¯ve showed them below.

    I cannot win this maybe, but perhaps I¡¯ve brought my unavoidable loss and domination to an odd state of stalemate at these lower levels.

    The cells are weak however, struggling to multiply now that the environment is so openly hostile, and don¡¯t really obey nor follow me nor the enemies anymore.

    Most things here continue to be in a greyish apathy and chaotic free for all. Cells previously from my body don¡¯t care anymore.

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    My own body at this level of reality and time in the disease doesn¡¯t care nor answers to me any longer.

    My forceful tactics abused tools of control making even the autonomous system weaker and weary.

    But on the other hand, the sheer destruction I¡¯ve caused also reduced the natural desires of most carcinogenic cells to break free. They may mutate but don¡¯t attempt to become independent cancers anymore.

    It¡¯s a weird peace from lassitude prevailing. My body has grown very weird in this exhaustion and slumber.

    But I dive deeper, where the war lingers at much lower scales continuously along the fringes.

    I keep my focus on these battlefields that are between molecular and atomic streams.

    Above me, rivers of decay coursed through my veins with more dead elements than living cells. Here we see the breaking of the amino-acids and lipids in simulacrums of explosions and contagions like falling stars in the dark skies.

    And more importantly, I interact with the finally reached true fundamental level of existence of the noxious fairies.

    Countless particles that are otherwise invisible but tweak electricity or gravity along their way.

    It¡¯s very abstract at this level of things. However now I see how these countless elements that are not atoms but do interact as such, eventually aggregate and combine together.

    Eventually they fuse and ignite something bigger. It would be a fascinating process to study and observe, if it wasn¡¯t killing me at much higher scales. But it¡¯s probably similar to seeing life appear.

    When these exotic cells activate a coalesced process, they start radiating differently their interferences, less randomly. They statistically become what I call fairies.

    They¡¯re self-organised aggregates of immaterial elements that became reactive and able to interact with real elements on longer terms. They mechanically interact more easily with cells and chromosomes afterward where chemical reactions are repetitive. Not that they attack it directly, but they tend to accumulate through the helixes apparently.

    But the more they come, the bigger their spread and influence through the cells.

    Until they start behaving oddly maybe.

    I¡¯ve lost track but I better know where to strike and how to alter their organisation then.

    I brought down smaller compounds from my immune system along with me.

    My white cells now release their proteases to break these interactions between fairies and other cells.

    It generally ends poorly for the affected cells. But gradually I learn and adjust more efficient and selective tools. It¡¯s a whole world of learning and adapting, with what¡¯s left of my human insight and understanding.

    Tools more than weaponry, because now at this level, it feels less as military tactics with cells eating each other, and it looks more like selective chemistry. Without the right interfaces, the fairies gathering biological material cannot really interact with anything. And when the windows are shut, it¡¯s easier to plan around their surroundings.

    We find the right catalysts to affect and reorganise the fairies¡¯ interactions, when the interactions are possible. In their early stages I can notice them slightly, but they¡¯re like ghosts without real interaction with anything.

    But when they¡¯re ripe, then we can break the odd agglomerates apart before it merges badly with a cell¡¯s organelle.

    They keep coming endlessly, because they and their germs come from the air outside. So the struggle is endless.

    But gradually, I learn from these things I cannot name.

    I integrate the few I was able to turn around in my array of molecular tools.

    Ideally I would need to assimilate and convert for me and my biology all of these things, current and future.

    Realistically, I¡¯m gradually eroding my resources from above at these depths, since it¡¯s a wasteland above anything else we¡¯re fighting over.

    I¡¯m stuck in there and nothing will heal at the wider scale. I may not lose all, but I definitely won¡¯t win.

    And when my fluctuating awareness rises enough, I feel more panic and distress from that state of things.

    My body is dead. My life is now akin to a ghost still stuck inside its shell.

    I want to scream.

    I would give anything to escape this dreadful fate. But I can¡¯t... The road above is hopeless and there is no other road along the depths. I¡¯m stuck in this jail until the world that is my flesh finally ends.

    I glare painfully above, and turn around, to continue to dig deeper through the ground of my jail.

    In pain, in despair, in continuous struggling against this bubbling reality that keeps harassing what¡¯s left of me.

    I hope they¡¯re well... I¡¯m counting on Dad.

    And for all the little time I have left, I keep losing myself deeper in my personal and isolated hell.

    Digging... Fighting...

    Digging hopelessly until the end...

    ~

 040. Histoire noire, 3 - Jahr 2 ~ Book of Rosa Arvensis

    (Luka)

    Most of these things and truths about the past, unfortunately I would only hear and learn near the end of times and my life.

    My mother gave me too little of the full story, but shared her obsession with me.

    Hearing the whole tale as was concluded, at least it gave perspective and meaning to what I had been through. Learning truth you ignored before reveals how many things were sent on their course long before.

    Before the end of the tragedy.

    In the last fair moments where we were free to choose our destiny and everyone else¡¯s in a way, understanding a wider picture put so much clarity toward what we ought to do and be.

    It¡¯s like learning near the end of a journey who was the real traitor and murderer who plagued it all along the way, in a sad way...

    How each of us reacts in the face of tempting powers, misery to face, fear of upcoming death, and the unfairness of reality in various aspects and levels.

    I think we were all petty, wishing for wider justice when asked and acting as such in front of others, but deep down thriving for individualism.

    This sad collision and course for further tragedies down over time, it began unfortunately long, long before I was born. As much as I wished or believed it to be as a teenager, it didn¡¯t start with me.

    It began once upon a time, in a very old city of the peninsula called Forodlystiev...

    ~

    Like everywhere else, the last century past had been challenging, leaving half the town¡¯s infrastructure abandoned and condemned.

    With the population spared and left, the town lived on rather peacefully nonetheless. There was just too many buildings from before like everywhere else, so most of them were left to crumble behind barriers and fences.

    The region¡¯s heart was its younger neighbouring city of Krikfalgorod, a short sail away, with the university attracting the youth of the whole mostly autonomous Krai.

    Politics were as they always had been on the wider scale, compromising and somewhat pragmatic with our fascist neighbours. That wasn¡¯t a direct problem.

    Until someone smart enough came to do something about it, and make a bargain with the devils. Some older demons, and some new ones.

    Sadly for us, an alignment of interests from the secret society hidden in the northern mountains, and the isolationist southern city state of dubious morality, they struck a deal with each other, brokered by an evil scientist in the middle.

    Someone gains power from ambition, and he was. With the right know-how but lacking the supply chain and back-up to proceed with his dream.

    Evil never works alone.

    No matter how easy it is to hide behind the powerful figurehead.

    Again, it was an alignment of interests.

    The man and doctor was called Gains. And I¡¯m not sure whether I wish his name should be remembered in infamy or completely scratched from history.

    He was a biological design engineer with good ideas and no ethics. And at a time when my mother was still only a child, he disappeared in the underground of Forodlystiev, quite literally.

    Underground bases from previous centuries were rebuilt and furbished by his new patrons, so he could work his nefarious plans in impunity.

    Oversimplifying his life¡¯s work, it was researching how to achieve immortality.

    It was about biological resilience and regeneration processes applied to humans, but not with a careful and theoretical in vitro approach, oh heavens no.

    No, he was focusing on experimenting the old fashioned way, the most inhuman way.

    He turned captured people across the country into guinea-pigs in his underground laboratory.

    People disappeared for years, even before I was born.

    And his powerful friends sheltered him all the way.

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    However things were not evolving the right way for some reasons. I¡¯m sure there was some political struggles behind or above him I¡¯m not aware of, since I¡¯ve seen what they could become in the end.

    But what partially got things to blow was the town¡¯s water supply getting gradually tainted by... some weird things.

    And things gradually devolved out of anyone¡¯s control.

    I cannot say whether he was better at his work as a scientist or a politician, because it lasted for many many years without him ever being worried by anyone apparently. So perhaps his work didn¡¯t progress on the field, but at least he covered his back very well.

    The secret society in the north and the foreign city state couldn¡¯t care less about the local population being butchered obviously. That was why they chose this little back water city to settle him.

    However they probably were annoyed with the lack of useful results for them. He had promised no less but cures to various forms of death, convincing everyone that it was finally achievable then.

    They had knowledge from the secret group, technology from the isolationist city, none of them were concerned about ethics on foreign population in the slightest, and he had a trump card.

    He had found something like a key, not quite a tool nor an equation, but something that had the potential to unlock the final doors to his destiny. Of course that unclear treasure he kept close to himself, while using and consuming possibly hazardously in his research.

    He and his team, including young people recruited by the secret society, they had found how to boost processes to regenerate animal flesh to astonishing levels of efficiency and speed. Regenerating nearly entire organs, and as much flesh in general.

    However on their unwilling human trials, things generally didn¡¯t do very well.

    Whatever his ground-breaking catalyst that allowed otherwise impossible reactions to occur, and multiplied their metabolic rate incredibly, it was unstable.

    His lab managed to selectively unlock some cells reproductive abilities alright, allowing for much faster growth of damaged tissues nearly immediately. Nevertheless, keeping the process in check afterward and avoiding overmultiplication and cancerous mutations, that was another ordeal. Opening a box was easier than putting back a lid on it apparently when it came to metabolic possibilities.

    It was endless torture with people dying always from his experiments, in his little hidden realm. It must have been a horrific place. The cities provided assistance and the people working there became complete psychopaths, but he kept the reins.

    At least he clearly held some control over the elements that allowed him to bypass most known biological limits.

    Meanwhile, while people young and old were dying to his horror, something unclear later down the production line apparently tainted the underground waters, gradually all along his work continued unchecked.

    The horror only grew. They didn¡¯t realise that the faintest levels of whatever they were creating that they evacuated through the waters was accumulating elsewhere outside.

    Something awful was brewing quite literally from the accumulative torment down there.

    Pressure grew, in some tanks and around him, until more mistakes were made.

    A group of teenagers began investigating where they shouldn¡¯t have, and my grandfather disappeared with them, along with nearly everyone else in the city, when things really turned to hell.

    ~

    A group of teenage friends became the unexpected grain of sang blocking the cogs of the hidden slaughterhouse.

    That had never been their ambition to discover so much horror below their streets and homes.

    But being too curious around adults a little too nonchalant, they opened the wrong doors in search of some missing friend or parents.

    Things were about to be revealed in town as horrible abominations were beginning to really appear outside the laboratory. Things they had never designed were rising.

    Out of everything inhuman they had done below, what brewed and eventually prevailed after being flushed out, what survived that continuous unnatural selection, it was monstrous.

    Something like a strain, eager to grow and multiply and hard to kill most likely.

    The friends fallen in the wrong holes had to fight off a horrific scenario directly, between terror to survive, and fury to avenge their killed and butchered family and friends.

    Hell was going loose in the undergrounds as it turned rapidly to violent firefights, spilling over to the surface.

    Explosions occurred, probably as they tried to incinerate the laboratory and all its works, but meanwhile on the surface, things were an eruption.

    Panic began, and authorities reacted at county level as appropriately as they could have. Although they had been corrupt and blind at some levels, to the building up infestation at their roots.

    While a few teenagers were dying and fighting to death the evil in turmoil below the ground, the cities above were evacuated in a hurry.

    Forodlystiev was in a mess and the realisation that something really toxic had been spilled all around. The evacuation was more of a panic, leaving a massacre behind and many people missing, soon presumed dead, like my grandfather.

    Krikfalgorod was a little more distant and was evacuated more orderly.

    From the luck few surviving the underground onslaught and reckoning, were two people I would later meet, Artom and Shan. They were rather young boy and girl at the time, barely my age now.

    They made enough mayhem down there to force the operations to shut down, and some of the shadow masters involved to flee for their lives.

    They found and faced the man responsible for it all, Henry Gains.

    They shot him dead multiple times without trial. Anyone else in their shoes would have done the same after the horror they had witnessed or even faced. Monstrosities were being made, unwillingly perhaps most of the time, but not always.

    Then they fled before the fire and crumbling ceilings would catch up with them.

    The others ring leaders had already escaped meanwhile. Two of them would later rise to power and be met again.

    The youngest, Stephen Ash, would later pick up and resume Gains¡¯s work and dream.

    The, let¡¯s say more pragmatic one, Robert Steir, would gradually succeed in rising through the ranks of the shadow organisation and even overpower the council eventually, seizing control of their base of operations hidden in the mountains.

    Together, in the lead scientist¡¯s wake and rubbles, they would take over his dream and ambition, over time.

    We wouldn¡¯t learn any of them even existed long before reaching their own future demise.

    Artom & Shan managed to escape while my young mother was evacuated without her dad.

    The lazaretto wall was built all around the infected country in great haste, and proper engineering too apparently.

    All the refugees were relocated in Cordov, the third city of this land, that became the last.

    Most of the people didn¡¯t witness the real horrors made below that caused these events. Generally at worst, they saw people getting furiously sick and dying from some violent infection, but not much more.

    The government likely still corrupt from the shadows, managed to keep everything true buried behind the wall surrounding the toxic area.

    They did enough work to safely seal everything behind. I don¡¯t know if Cordov¡¯s mayor back then was aware of what the northern secret society would resume doing shortly. Maybe, maybe not.

    Everything would be ready to brew again, to explode in another tragedy down the line.

    These people we didn¡¯t know resumed their unholy work as soon as they could, and continued from another location.

    Too many people who lost someone were left frustrated and in pain.

    Unbeknownst to them, they could eventually disappear as well...

    A generation later, another group of friends would begin poking where they ought not to.

    And once again, circumstances out of our control entirely would simply blow up everything we knew to oblivion.

    Nothing made a lick of sense when it blew in my face.

    That was until I would really meet them, right at the end.

    ~

 041. Lazaretto, 1

    (Luka)

    I couldn¡¯t sleep and I kept shivering, or trembling more simply.

    The others managed to sleep nonetheless. I don¡¯t know how they managed to.

    We were a group of friends from Cordov, going camping at the edge of the world, over the wall...

    We all were a little excited to explore these long abandoned cities over the course of a few weeks in the wild together.

    We kind of hoped that something would happen. Something weird. Something giving us a thrill or a chill. We were stepping on abandoned grounds with some awareness of what it had meant.

    I had finally found enough friends with enough know-how, to go in there. I had my plans, they had theirs. We wanted to see what lied beyond the veil.

    And then, everything turned to horrific turmoil before we knew it. Worse than in games and movies, because we truly were in the middle of it, and it did not end.

    Beyond the wall of the lazaretto, an entire county with two cities left to rot. They were sealed along with their lake and some of their surrounding mountains, north and south-west.

    All had been isolated a few decades ago.

    We all knew to some extent it had been an outbreak of something horrific, forcing the authorities to rapidly erect this wall and relocate everyone able to escape.

    My mother told me so many times how her dad had been killed inside. And how she never had been allowed to go back.

    And since that time, people regularly disappear around here. They go, they take a look in the ruins, and they don¡¯t come back.

    So many of us thought there could still be some weird pathogen or monsters behind the wall.

    How simple things could be.

    It took us a few passionate years of investigation for this part of our town¡¯s past, and as much preparation, to finally get our expedition there ready.

    Finally we could see.

    Yura is a biologist friend, always checking the air for pathogenic threats like he would radiation in a meltdown evacuation zone. As we got in, he didn¡¯t notice anything especially hazardous.

    We all brought our camping supplies for months of stay, with that little forklift truck Orel got for us. We got everything organised like a speleological or high altitude expedition. We got crates of supplies beyond the wall that follows the cross county road.

    No one had been patrolling the wall for years now. It was harder and longer to plan enough logistics for this plan and prepare it, than to execute it.

    All went swiftly, and we unloaded everything across the wall swiftly, as if we were a trained company on normal business almost.

    We didn¡¯t want to do something as auspicious as blowing up a part of it to get the truck in directly, but we had organised ourselves very well to get everything we would need across in a matter of hours. Then Orel just had to park his truck a little further away into the free woods.

    We established our base camp with the supplies there, just behind that bleached wall. The exterior side looked like any concrete wall, but the inside was flaking white all over and the ground was dusty and white over a good metre as well at least.

    It had leaked lead carbonate and other toxic compounds all around, spoiling the ground on the inner side so that nothing would grow around.

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    But everything was fine as far as we could see.

    We hiked to the outskirts of the gorgeous looking abandoned city that nature had slowly been taking over. It looked like a little paradise seen from the top hill side from which we arrived. It looked luxurious in a way. The city growing green all over. The lake behind it looking pristine. Nature going wild and free.

    An entire city to play in for just the ten of us, for over months of joyful camping.

    If the wind wasn¡¯t this chilly, it would really feel like paradise.

    The days were unusually warm though, and our hometown slumbering in this season, so we had taken our opportunity of travelling as far as anyone else believed.

    Our parents, for those of us who had some who cared, thought we went camping far away elsewhere, toward the neighbouring continental lands.

    And for a while as we settled and began partying, it really had been fun holidays, playing around and exploring these urban ruins of this city.

    ~

    Krikfalgorod was fun to explore, although we didn¡¯t get inside some of the bigger buildings.

    The museum especially, by the lakeside, with a huge dome greenhouse above the water, albeit all dirty now, was catching some of our eyes. Some of us wanted to see. But the doors were still locked and holding strong, and we had enough fun to find right beside in the abandoned zoo next to it. So no one bothered to break their neck trying to get inside some other way when we could find all the fun we longed for more easily besides.

    The city is now isolated by two rivers, one just at its north end, and another one much further in the south. Both had broken bridges, that were apparently cut clean by some people knowing what they were doing.

    So much for my investigation plan... I couldn¡¯t admit to all my friends and their friends right away, why I had really wanted to come here. And that I was now frustrated, because I was stuck in the wrong city... I wanted to investigate Forodlystiev...

    That was really annoying. Often I went looking around for a boat, along the city peers and houses near the lake. I had no luck.

    The southern road would be the shorter way around, but the river below the broken bridge is down under a real cliff. Climbing down, swimming, and climbing back up, I couldn¡¯t do that. Going upstream until we would see the lake, we reached an old broken dam and plant. There was the reservoir, and then the bigger lake above. It would be suicide to swim on the shortest distances near the broken dam, and afterward, I¡¯d just need a boat to cross these cold waters.

    And it was already quite a hike away from the city where we camped. So I gave up on it, for now.

    The northern river of Krikfalgorod is a fast stream. Not one you¡¯d want to try swimming across either.

    There is however a towering building near the broken bridge, that is tall enough that you¡¯d think from its height you might be able to launch a rope or something to reach the other side.

    That could be a way to start, but again too much an ordeal for my friends, who mostly came for the fun of the empty city. Why would we break our necks trying to get further into more woods and more of the same?

    We never saw any fabled monsters at night like some of the old stories used to say. And Yura didn¡¯t notice anything bad in the water as we also heard about. We had brought a few weapons to be ready for anything, and maybe hunt possibly, anyway. For now they were still locked away.

    Over the lake I gazed at some times, there¡¯s an even older town I wanted to visit someday...

    Long abandoned, even before the building of the wall. It had been the birthplace of some awful contagion, covered up as quickly as it went out of control.

    My mom educated me on that resentment, against the lying government and others. She aged bitterly in her desire to learn how her father really died out there...

    Just beyond the lake...

    I¡¯m stuck on the wrong side of the lazaretto.

    And comes closer the time to leave. New year passed a while back already.

    I was sadly making up my mind over my lost opportunity, when things really went to hell.

    ~

    There was an earthquake. And then, we all got seriously sick. Sick to a point most of us couldn¡¯t stand up anymore.

    Ironically, we had set our city camp in the creepiest building we had found for fun, which had been a hospital in a previous century.

    At least we had rusty beds, but we were like dying there for a while, unable to eat, our guts churning and vomiting.

    Our phones lost network connection, and for a moment we really felt like we had been abandoned. But that was not the worst thing to make us feel that way.

    Yura¡¯s studies friends still standing didn¡¯t detect anything special at first. But then their machines did start to notice awful thing rising in concentration in the air.

    Most of us had been puking for days when they admitted things were taking a seriously bad turn. The ones not too affected were still sweating nervously.

    And then, as we looked at them, helpless, we saw them running away.

    Some of them, our friends leaving us there, promised to get help directly and return. Our phones still not connecting, we realised they were really abandoning us to our unknown disease.

    A few guys among them I believes a little might want to help, while others I fully knew were just looking to save their skin. I hated them, but there was nothing I could do about it, as I was writhing on the floor.

    They left, leaving the five of us behind, the closest group of friends.

    Night fell on our moaning and painful despair. No one was left to help us drink or clean ourselves.

    We were feverish, trembling, maybe slowly withering or getting slightly better. Hard to say...

    My friends were doing a little better than me, doing their best, and so would I.

    But that next night... We really began to hear ominous noises coming from outside.

    Shura was able to sit on his bed. He looked at me with fear.

    S - Did you... hear that?

    I nodded, looking pale and now worried. I did... It didn¡¯t sound normal...

    Maybe it¡¯s happening again I thought... Maybe the plague that nearly wiped out Forodlystiev is back. Maybe these tales from our parents about monsters appearing at night to grab and eat the naughty children come true once more...

    We were all worried about what may have left the ground with the previous tremors we felt.

    And now that Yura¡¯s tools were assessing threat levels going through the roof... We felt like we were in a hotpot we needed to escape as soon as we could move.

    We hadn¡¯t realised yet, that we were actually safer inside the lazaretto.

    ~

 042. Lazaretto, 2

    (Luka)

    The holidays that had been nice for so long, they turned to hell. The week of vomiting without being able to leave the bed was the easy part...

    After the others had left, it went worse. We struggled to stand, depleting what little was left of our food here.

    A growing mountain of rubbish accumulated in a closet below our main dormitory. Bugs were multiplying already. The days were quiet as we simply lied, trying to rest and recover.

    The nights though turned more horrific...

    Animals were growling or moaning in the streets. Louder every passing night. Rattling at the doors, barking, trying to get in...

    A sense of threat and doom was growing very badly and rapidly.

    We reached the point of no return, with bugs multiplying in corners, and other things weirdly growing where water was leaking.

    Our friends had left a few days ago already, and we never saw them return nor any other help coming for us. The communications were still cut with our machines.

    Now we really needed to make our way back to base camp on our own, or we would begin to risk starving here.

    Shura and I were the ones most able to stand on these days. I was sweating a lot. Everything was stinking.

    We excited the room and went across the dirty corridors of that shady hospital. Its colours had been changing all this time, making me feel like the building itself was turning alive to swallow us.

    We were nervous, still holding our nausea every step of the way.

    Yura had given us his biologic sensor, that he had more or less recalibrated. Everything now was way higher than in the past. If things got even worse than they already were on a germ exposure level, this tool should warn us. There¡¯s only so deep a sceptic tank can go I thought, when he handed me that, but I thanked him anyway. If it reaches smallpox levels of noxiousness, it should warn us. Hopefully before we definitely empty ourselves.

    The group crawled its way to the hall, where the hospital opened to the street outside. But the morning sunlight made everyone feel uncomfortable. Walking outside and breathing fresh air should be good, but it was painful, and we weren¡¯t sure of what was strolling around at night. So when to go away was hard to say. We could barely walk, but were running out of food anyway.

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    Shura pushed the heavy doors open again this day.

    We saw from outside the marks of claws all over them, and stains of mouldy stuff that clearly weren¡¯t there in the previous days. Nor everywhere around the streets we looked at again, there were these new stains that were nowhere when we were fooling around in town. The streets themselves we could barely recognise.

    There¡¯s a thick layer of mud with fresh grass growing on it now, covering like a new carpet most of the empty streets grounds.

    The three others in the group waited inside and by the bus stop at best, feeling dizzy just walking a few metres outside. Shura and I managed on this day to push forward. Hopefully we can make it to base camp before the night.

    ~

    The streets looked desolate before. Now it was worse. It¡¯s like a century had passed in our handful sick nights.

    L - Maybe the lake and river levels grew and flooded the streets...

    S - That¡¯s weird. These new lichens and mushrooms have grown so fast. And look, there again.

    We see footsteps that are not exactly of shoes we would wear, nor any animal we recognize.

    And they¡¯ve been clawing and scratching the doors of every other building at night, not just the hospital on this street.

    They try to open doors?

    We¡¯re worried, but walk our way north toward the hills, through this place that feels changed, to reach hopefully the outer wall and camp before nightfall.

    A bad fog more typical of our season has risen and taken the city. I guess the warm weather we had lately finally ends.

    We see the thin clouds of a plane in the high sky, although they seem to change to weirder colours before they vanish. I¡¯m probably just dizzy.

    Our phones found connection for a few moments since we went outside, but not enough to really connect back. We still don¡¯t know what is going on.

    By the small bridge in the woods, over a small stream, we find a gutted body. We stepped back in shock at first.

    We recognise some footsteps beside and around, but the dead beast there, not quite.

    L - What the hell is that...

    It¡¯s a weird dead animal, like a small boar in rough appearance perhaps, with uneven teeth that are like broken bones. The skeleton has turned translucent where it protrudes from the putrefying flesh. It¡¯s been there for a while, liquefying in places and releasing an awful stench.

    As we got closer, Yura¡¯s tool began to ring an alert. It tells us this odd animal without fur now decomposing is hazardous. No shit, it¡¯s like its skin is crawling away from it from within. We¡¯re not touching it.

    But it does worry us.

    This bulging dog of a weirdest kind, it¡¯s been more teeth than legs, and more like ripped flesh than tail.

    We move onward, while this thing still decomposes in slithering shades under the sun. It¡¯s like there¡¯s a swarm of maggots eating it inside.

    And sadly not far further, we find the dead body of one of our friends. Or what¡¯s been left of it. It¡¯s even worse, it¡¯s a massacre.

    S - Fuck...

    We pass the shock since there¡¯s clearly nothing left to do. We don¡¯t want to linger here. It¡¯s horrible, even if we didn¡¯t know him very well. But now we just don¡¯t want to risk ending up the same, and we walk away in more fear than sorrow honestly.

    My phone caught some pieces of a message from my mother, but it¡¯s corrupted and unreadable. She was probably worried...

    I keep sweating profusely and feeling dizzy. We¡¯re getting lost through the forest, more often than expected, but we finally reach it.

    The old white wall, bleached on this side.

    And then the camp where we had left a crane near, with many crates and supplies.

    The ladder is gone. The crane has fallen, broken. We can¡¯t use it to climb up our way across anymore. We¡¯re stuck inside...

    And the remaining supplies have been wrecked and scattered all around by wild animals.

    Shura holds tighter in his hand the key to his car. It¡¯s still somewhere on the other side, most likely. But the ladder we had here probably was left on the other side by one of the friends that left. The crane from Orel¡¯s truck is at our feet, not looking like it can be saved.

    We¡¯re stuck inside the lazaretto... There¡¯s no more supplies, and night will fall way before we make it back to the others in the hospital.

    We¡¯re hearing light steps and odd moans somewhere in the woods around.

    Now things really turned bad.

    ~

 043. Lazaretto, 3

    (Luka)

    We picked up whatever we could still use or eat before nightfall.

    The longer we waited, and the darker night got, the worse the mood devolved into around us.

    Smoke seemed to rise from the earth around. Some dark mist was rising in fumes in the obscurity. The animals growling and lurking around, they grew louder and seemingly closer, while still unclear or cautious.

    Shura tried to climb the wall to no avail. This side is a thick but chalky and soft layer, built with compressed powders made to spread and scatter under pressures, and meant to kill anything through poisoning afterward. It¡¯s not made to be climbed easily, on the contrary.

    The dents he made to carve a kind of ladder didn¡¯t hold his weight and only exposed him to falling mottles of toxic dust. I heard it¡¯s made of lead compounds mostly. It wouldn¡¯t work this way and the nearby trees were a good few metres away, precisely because the ground near the wall has been killed by this dust.

    Maybe if we had a chainsaw we could have built something, but now we¡¯re just really stuck.

    Our phones get signal from outside intermittently. The network of our city appear to be in continuous cycle of rebooting, connecting for half a second and shutting down. We didn¡¯t get yet what happened outside the dead zone where we camped.

    We got that we were in deep shit and that we best should regroup back at the old Krikfalgorod hospital.

    I loaded my handgun. I was still shaky, but our only other weapon was with the other down there.

    Shura picked up the light, and we started heading back, more scared than before.

    He felt even worse, realizing the way outside the lazaretto had been destroyed.

    We didn¡¯t know yet what to do to get out. But first, we agreed to regroup our chances of survival...

    ~

    Our walk through the woods was less physical as it headed downside toward the city, but more mentally exhausting as we felt surrounded from the start.

    Shady things were clearly lurking, peeking, and considering whether to attack us now or later. Growls and rustling could be heard, while avoiding always to get into our sight or light as we strolled forward.

    The horror movie had turned too real for us, and we weren¡¯t looking proud or amused anymore. Sweaty, jolting, looking around nervously and unsteadily. The light beam making weird shapes vanish and hide away everywhere we pointed it at.

    We got closer to the streets. We also got closer to some of the beasts now with less shrubs and trees to hide.

    One of them jumped out in front of us and in the light. Shura jolted, startled. I screamed in panic and fired a shot at it.

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    The monkey-looking beast was hit, falling back in great splatters of its blood. It screamed while we barely held ourselves standing together.

    That amorphous thing died. A very tall monkey, scorched looking, already putrefied in places. Its flesh melting where it died into a growing puddle of stench.

    Yura¡¯s tool beeped again, keeping us at a safe distance from this...

    But we were shaking, unable to move right away, shocked like we¡¯ve never quite been.

    Shura pulled me away, and we continued walking through the now darker streets of Krikfalgorod.

    Mom had told me the more insane stories about her father...

    About his investigation back then, and hers afterward. After he disappeared in the erection of the lazaretto.

    Mom spent her childhood in Cordov with so many others, trying to piece out together the puzzle of what had happened.

    She told me too many times how they were evacuated, how the wall was built to bury their secrets, and the folktales of some monsters invading the city.

    She showed me the bleached and blurry pictures that poorly aged, taken by my grandfather allegedly during his investigation under Forodlystiev.

    Faceless monsters, with dripping flesh and rot all over. He had not found the names of the people involved however.

    Seeing poor pictures for years, and hearing second-hand stories filled with fantasies, that didn¡¯t prepare me...

    Now my hands are shaking like something¡¯s wrong with my nerves. As I¡¯ve shot down one of these weird animals. Something transformed, into weird bloody savagery.

    We get closer to the hospital.

    We hear a shot. Orel fired at one of them too, in the middle of the dark street. We see him.

    We run to them, panicking, hearing more and more monsters regrouping toward us. Orel urges us to run.

    We rush.

    We head inside and lock the door. We barricade it again. A second later, the sounds of claws or bones rattling against the doors begin. Between moans and growls, sounding like tortured souls at best.

    We¡¯re catching our breath, regrouping back in the upper rooms where we set camp before. We¡¯re all feeling weird. We¡¯re all lost and confused about what is happening.

    Morgan finally got a full message on her phone though.

    Y - What is it?

    M - It¡¯s an evacuation notice...

    We all looked at each other, first in confusion, then in dread.

    We all know the cities of this dead zone were evacuated in a sudden outbreak hurry.

    We¡¯ve played around this dead city for a long time. All of us. Then some headed back, or died along the way. And now... The city we got here from, our hometown of Cordov, it sent its citizen an emergency evacuation notice as if history is repeating itself.

    We¡¯re looking pale. Did we fuck up that badly? Did our friends carry the worst contamination out of here and back home?

    Y - Wait...

    We check all of our phones again. We mostly got corrupted data, but the timestamps don¡¯t match. The evacuation notice from Cordov predates when the others left. It¡¯s more around when we all fell sick.

    O - What should we do anyway?

    Y - Move during the day first... And find another way out.

    They all look at me. Because they know I¡¯m like the historian expert for this place and cities. I know them better than anyone else. Their maps were in my living room since I was born. Mom studied the lazaretto like an angry ghost and I grew in her shadow. I know all there is to know about them.

    M - Any idea how to get out?

    L - I¡¯m thinking... The wall really surrounds the area well, so I doubt we¡¯ll find a hole anywhere...

    Y - That leaves the rivers, right?

    L - They¡¯ve been locked pretty well too... I think the lake¡¯s level is higher than in the past, meaning downstream is likely flooded too... Maybe upstream. Or...

    I¡¯ve got an idea, but it¡¯s quite an ordeal.

    L - Maybe... We can find a way to blow it or break it. A hole in the wall.

    Y - You¡¯ve got jackhammers or explosives somewhere?

    O - You mean these locked supply crates scattered here and there?

    Orel refers to some heavy duty crates we¡¯ve seen at crossroads here and there. They are locked shipping containers, using good locks for keys or codes we¡¯ve never come around. I think they were supplies airdropped during evacuation time or wall building and containment time. So they¡¯re likely to hold either old relief supplies, or military equipment. But I don¡¯t know where their keys are and we couldn¡¯t crack them open.

    L - No. I¡¯m thinking it¡¯s a long shot but... Back when the cities were evacuated, the Forodlystiev old city had begun some extensive demolition work of unsafe city blocks.

    My grandfather disappeared in Forodlystiev¡¯s schools district, leaving behind a daughter obsessed with too many questions, and odd rumours about diseases and monsters.

    The government back then had just begun demolishing the oldest and most decrepit buildings of the ageing city. And then all went to hell too fast. People were evacuate to Cordov orderly from Krikfalgorod, but in a hurry from Forodlystiev.

    L - If we find a way across the lake... There might be some demolition explosives left in demolition sites in the north of Forodlystiev...

    ~

 044. Lazaretto, 4

    (Luka)

    L - I know that¡¯s a shitty plan but... Unless we find a ladder or what to build one?

    We look around. What can we scrap and craft together to make a ladder, or even a good rope and hook?

    We¡¯ll keep our eyes and notice something potentially good hopefully.

    We should be able to salvage some cables at least somewhere. We cannot be so unlucky that my plan is the best option...

    M - What are these things anyway!

    L - The answer to that... Might also be in Forodlystiev...

    I show them on my phone the images of old pictures taken ages ago, of monsters that looked fake, but similar as well to what we¡¯ve met.

    Morgan and Orel already saw them, and that¡¯s the kind of stories that made them want to come as well.

    It¡¯s different when facing them for real in an unlit street at night.

    Y - I can say they carry more germs than a putrefied body in a septic tank. Don¡¯t touch them... And don¡¯t get scratched or bitten either.

    We look at each other. We¡¯re okay for now.

    Some friends are dead, but us five stragglers are okay.

    We get that if we¡¯re bitten we won¡¯t turn into one of them like zombies, but rather die from the collection of rabies and plague they carry.

    Morgan keeps trying to call her parents for help. She¡¯s been crying anxious, but without luck. The network from Cordov keeps rebooting, never allowing her to callanyone.

    O - I know you want to investigate Luka... But really if we find an earlier way out...

    L - We take it yeah. I don¡¯t want to die here either...

    I¡¯m just as scared, if not more. I¡¯m mortified it¡¯s all seemingly true.

    ~

    We spent another bad night, making plans and fending off the monsters trying to get in.

    Morgan found something and called me to check with me.

    In the basement, as decrepit looking as one could imagine, since it¡¯s a real swamp with feet of water and oily stains or even mushrooms floating.

    We kept away from this stinking place until now.

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    Morgan showed me behind ruptured doors access tunnels, like sewer tunnels stretching into the distance, behind locked fences.

    M - Think this goes somewhere?

    L - Sewers I guess. Station treatment for waters... They probably follow the main streets from below and then pipes to the old dam.

    M - So we might use them to stay away from these things?

    L - I don¡¯t think so... I¡¯d say on the contrary, it¡¯s more where they might be during the day. I...

    I don¡¯t want to do speleology in this awful place...

    Yura checks the waters. It smells foul alright. But it¡¯s not as bad as them.

    Y - At least we know there are some tunnels. To use or fend from incursions against.

    We want to wait for the next morning, but things grow even worse. We hear the main door getting really broken down.

    This building is as old as you¡¯d expect sadly. The barricades couldn¡¯t do so much against something somewhat driven and persistent.

    We¡¯re rushing back at things we can barely identify. They scream loud sometimes. They scare us so much we always get frozen hearing them.

    Since we realize the front is lost, we climb to the higher levels through the rear staircase.

    Shura throws something flammable inconsiderately.

    The fire of his impromptu device doesn¡¯t start right away.

    We continue to flee, to the rooftop.

    Meanwhile fire takes below. Dust actually can burn. Things like dry wallpaper or wall paint as well. So do dead plants, even through the cold air. So the fire spreads fast before dawn. We find ourselves trapped on top of a now burning building.

    Yura and Shura are losing it and arguing violently.

    I shoot in the air to calm them. It works for now, but it won¡¯t last.

    At dawn break, and before the rooftop finally gives in to the flames and smokes, we jump to the next building and one floor below.

    The landing hurts. It¡¯s harder in reality than in the movies. I can¡¯t feel my knees nor walk steadily for a good minute or so.

    But thankfully we all make it.

    One of these monstrous monkeys or apes fell down in flames into the alley between the two buildings. It exploded on impact, it looks awful...

    O - Okay... How do we cross the lake? Or can we find refuge on the islands until help gets to us?

    L - The museum... There used to be a leisure park and docks along with it. I think it had small boats on old pictures.

    It¡¯s that or the far more distant broken dam, or the unsteady and turbulent river on the north side.

    M - Given the size of the museum, we might also find something like a ladder somewhere inside... But the doors...

    S - The tunnels then?

    L - Yeah... We might find another way down to the tunnels from the zoo, and the botanical museum will be just behind.

    Y - Okay then...

    We feel a little reunited, with the semblance of a plan. And morning comes again, warming us up a little.

    The sight of the burning hospital behind is not nice. The smokes stink and stain. It¡¯s hard to believe there was so much left to burn in that old building of bricks and concrete.

    We ventured with what little we had saved through the foggy streets. We didn¡¯t look back.

    We went across the city to reach the locked museum, that looked like a vault to me now... Its huge doors to the lake side are shut from within. But they do look like this greenhouse of a kind might have been made to let small boats go in and out from behind.

    The pier outside has sunk with its boats. We can see them at the bottom of the lake there. Now, maybe inside the building... We¡¯re not sure, but we¡¯ll try. Hopefully one was in dry docks.

    Inside the zoo, we head downstairs to their own local access to the tunnel swamps. We find the fenced shelter tunnels here as well.

    It¡¯s hard work, but Shura and Orel are breaking this lock. Me and Morgan have a last look around the abandoned visitors centre to see if we didn¡¯t forget some food last time.

    We forgot a bunch of empty alcohol bottles.

    They roll into the dust and gather in a corner where older ones accumulated already before we came around.

    We weren¡¯t the first teenagers to venture around here. And we knew many of them never returned to Cordov...

    Morgan picks up a phone that¡¯s been lost here many years ago.

    I notice rust stains where bullets casings have gradually dissolved and merged with the ground, on some places along the park.

    Did they put down the animals?

    M - Who was your grandfather again?

    I feel a little uneasy, as I share some of her trouble to get over our situation.

    L - He was a biology teacher...

    A geneticist from a famous institute, who turned into a paranoid whistle-blower one day.

    Cordov¡¯s county might never have been able to break free from its bigger neighbours...

    Without some weapon or power able to make it stand like an equal partner.

    The world¡¯s politics that eluded me all these years, despite how much mom tried to force her interest unto me. Do they really matter?

    We notice weird plants growing in some damp spots. Giant flower buds are almost crawling at visible pace as they grow bigger. They¡¯re drinking this water.

    We step back from these weird things.

    I want to believe my grandfather was only trying to prevent the worse from these people and things...

    That he had no part or guilt in the ensuing succession of tragedies.

    ~

 045. Lazaretto, 5

    (Luka)

    We made it into the shelter tunnels. It¡¯s worse than we thought inside. Our first thought that they were actually sewers isn¡¯t farfetched.

    Weird fruits the size of pumpkins are growing down there, like cysts. We don¡¯t tread close to these ominous looking things, afraid they¡¯ll burst open and why not release tiny monsters.

    Who knows... We keep our distance to the weirder things, trying not to breathe too much the stagnating stench.

    We didn¡¯t find any good ladder or cable in the zoo before, so we¡¯re now betting our luck on the locked museum.

    We reach its underground fences, from this shelter tunnel, turned sewer swamp in time.

    The gate is locked as well here, but now the guys are used to force this open. While they do, we keep watch.

    The torchlights look around these swampy corridors. With so much slime or grime and gunk sticking to the walls and dripping from the ceiling, it¡¯s like a jungle or a haunted cave.

    We hear the lock finally giving in. We all rush inside and climb the stairs. The doors open to dusty galleries with barely any light of day reaching in.

    Displays are covered with dust but untouched. We look around this place that had been spared all this time, from looters and young party goers like us.

    We¡¯re not in the mood to vandalize or have fun anymore however.

    We brush the dust from an evacuation map on the wall, to look at where we are and where to go. There are offices in the upper floors above the main visitors¡¯ galleries. There¡¯s this unique wide dome making a huge greenhouse by the water, with unique turn of the century architecture. There are mangrove gardens next to it on the lake side. We see where the dry docks for the boats could be.

    Most doors we find around are locked though. Before we exhaust ourselves breaking all of them one after another, we chose to head toward the offices.

    We¡¯re giving ourselves an hour to find some keys.

    Afterward we¡¯ll just use force.

    So we head upstairs and split into two groups to look around this floor.

    ~

    Morgan and I manage to open some of the curtains by the windows, to get some light in.

    It looks rather gorgeous around honestly. A well preserved research study, with high ceiling and shelves of books or display cases. Long working benches made of wood, with drawers filled with old tools and such.

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    An archaeologist dream...

    We look through the director¡¯s offices and desks. We pass by old portraits and posters.

    I wouldn¡¯t have believed there could be so much to know about plants and stuff. I guess the more you know in a field, the more you can do.

    We don¡¯t linger on the scattered notes and documents left lying around by the last people who came around here. They had left in somewhat rush, but not panic.

    O - Found some keys. And a magnetic badge.

    L - I doubt that one will help. Anything on the keys?

    Orel reads their labels. They¡¯re opening other offices mostly, and an archive room.

    O - Even older stuff?

    L - I¡¯ll have a quick look. You go further.

    We share the keys and he goes for the other offices. I enter the archives room.

    This storage room feels even more like a vault. Shelves and books, from an age without computers.

    I wish I had reached this place a month ago. I would have had time to investigate then...

    I shut the door behind and leave as well.

    ~

    The ground shakes.

    Something wrong is happening. I return to see Orel but can¡¯t find him nor anyone else.

    I rush downstairs, calling for them.

    I hear like a loud shot, resonating loudly through the building.

    We gather in one of the galleries, where they¡¯re yelling and pointing at a damaged door.

    They had begun breaking through it already, and something exploded, I mean really exploded.

    Shards were blown away and Shura was hurt. He¡¯s yelling and bleeding on the ground while the others try to help him.

    It wasn¡¯t a gunshot I realise. It was a small explosive on the ground behind the door... A landmine?

    M - Why the fuck would there be mines in the greenhouse Luka!

    L - I... I don¡¯t know!

    Shura got a few puncture wounds that we¡¯re rapidly helping suture and bandage with what we have around. It¡¯s not dire, but it¡¯s not good either...

    There were clues all over the building, but we didn¡¯t stop to look at them.

    The names and pictures of people. Their affiliations with Forodlystiev, or worse... The underground society.

    And before they left, they put landmines behind some doors.

    When Shura broke open this one, the old weapon a few steps behind blew up randomly.

    He¡¯s stabilised. Yura and I cautiously open the doors that have been pierced all over by shrapnel but not entirely blasted off. Lots of metallic shards are embedded in them and the walls around.

    The greenhouse we open to is dirty from years and years without cleaning, making the glass above us all opaque and green. It¡¯s dim inside. Weird trees have all died a long time ago.

    There are the channels of water going around and through, to tour the place from boats about two metres below and bridges above in the past.

    The water level is now reaching the ground here and the bridges are rotten. The place with workshop where they could store a boat or two in dry dock is on the opposite side.

    We also need to open a way out.

    Y - Look. There are other mines. They sealed this place.

    L - Why...

    Y - Something they wouldn¡¯t want kids like us to reach?

    It¡¯s a greenhouse Jesus. What could be so important... In the middle of the place, there¡¯s a collection of dead trees that look spooky. Maybe they¡¯re moving slightly as if there was wind against them, but I must be dreaming.

    I start to walk my careful way around the mines and without falling into the deeper waters. There¡¯s surely no sharks down there, but I¡¯m still very scared. Yura follows me.

    The others try to get the bay doors open and leave Shura behind to rest.

    ~

    I eventually do fall in the water in a gasp as the wooden floor collapses below me. I panic a little but manage to swim my way. My friend stays behind, asking me to tell him if he really needs to swim too. Yeah, yeah...

    I swim slowly around the barriers of the normal path, now that I¡¯m in the water and lost my way.

    I then climb back near the end of the path, and the open door I aimed at. There¡¯s an exit door for visitors, and next to it a more discreet one that should lead to a maintenance workshop.

    As I get closer I see another landmine rusting there in plain sight. I don¡¯t know which way it will blow. They seem to be directional, but hard to say for me which way it will go...

    I¡¯m freezing as I glare at this thing.

    I go for the closest tree to break a dry branch. One long enough...

    But the ground shakes again. Now I feel clearly that something below us had moved. Like a captive whale below the building it feels. I don¡¯t get it...

    Y - What was that?

    He felt it too and looks below his feet as much as he can.

    Meanwhile I push the mine very slowly out of the way from the tip of the stick, and make it fall into the water. I sigh in relief.

    But then, things shake again. There¡¯s a tremor. And the dead things try to move again.

    As I enter the workshop where an old boat rests, I notice it too.

    L - Yura! Behind you!

    ~

 046. Lazaretto, 6

    (Luka)

    Yura stepped back. The trees from the central grove really moved to attack him. Branches cracked, mostly breaking under their own movements, they¡¯re not flexible. At the same time, roots came out of the waters to reach him from below. He yelled, stepping back in panic. The others on the other side from me were screaming in horror as well.

    The haunted tree is coming to life...

    Roots like ropes and even some branches albeit dry, begin to flail around in our general direction, getting closer.

    The core trees of this bog are erupting into something else. Like a dark fountain, some weird ink now spews from the broken wounds and cover them like rotten sap.

    It¡¯s like it rots and turns into something from nightmares.

    They shoot at it. I see splattered inks, broken branches falling, and some glass panels above me shattering. The bullet went through and opened this window behind.

    The light coming in reacts harshly with the monstrosity. Its inks boil and turn to fumes.

    It reacts and it is aggressive. I think that just made it mad.

    I get the boat that was there as expected. One of two are here in dry docks for repairs long done or forgotten. It doesn¡¯t look too decrepit. Luckily for me, there¡¯s another hangar bay here on this side of the door, so I won¡¯t have to row near that monstrous tree.

    I yell so to the others, that I got a boat here and will meet them from outside. Between a few more shots at the monstrous tree, they agree.

    The monstrosity still rooted here seems to be growing...

    I¡¯m shaky but I do my best. I crank the levers to open the door with all my strength. I lower the kind of ramp to get the boat out, and then get the crane to drop it. I really went as fast as I could, hearing the ruckus in the greenhouse.

    I jump into the boat with the rows in hands before it floats too far away.

    I¡¯m on the lake... Krikfalgorod¡¯s lake.

    I shiver a little, but start rowing to go around the haunted place, toward the peer they¡¯re struggling to open. More windows or glass panels are falling in broken pieces.

    The sunlight shocks the thing temporarily, but I can¡¯t say if it¡¯s a good idea. It makes it aggressive.

    I get quickly enough behind the door they¡¯re opening. They jump in the boat one after the other.

    The monster finally managed to extend some parts to hit us that far, reaching even the boat. We¡¯re rocked away. Shura is hurt even more. The others are screaming, at the monster and a little at me.

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    That had been a shitty idea, but I didn¡¯t get any better other... I didn¡¯t know...

    The water is getting inside the boat fast now we notice. Orel is getting really mad, seeing the boat won¡¯t be able to reliably carry the five of us across the lake. He swears loudly and at me.

    O - We¡¯re fucked!

    And just behind us, the monster grown from some trees apparently is breaking out even further out of its cage. It¡¯s like we unwillingly released a beast from hell. Things grow visibly fast now. Odd leaves, taller branches, all wriggling and moving. It¡¯s really alive...

    We were in stupor when something like a small flare appeared in the air, way behind. A slow thing with pulsating light was shot from somewhere else.

    It burst then above, and released lots of white smokes that created flames, everywhere they fell. Soon enough, a fire was beginning to torch the entire thing and its building.

    We were rowing the boat behind to reach the zoo¡¯s lake side, before it took too much water and sank.

    L - What the hell was that?

    O - Someone armed... Help has arrived!

    We felt some relief for the first time in days. And we rushed to reach the shore, and then across the zoo to go meet our saviours.

    ~

    We ran through the dust of the corridors and visitor centre. We headed into the street to meet them.

    The army... Or mom and dad?

    In the street before the botanical garden, now on fire, we didn¡¯t see anyone.

    M - Where did they go?

    S - Looking for us inside maybe... Ah...

    We sat Shura who had run more than he should have. He also had been hurt by the monster tree. Yura and I have a look at him while Morgan and Orel go look for the people who shot the incendiary flare.

    S - Luka... What the fuck was that thing? Why was it trapped?

    L - I... Don¡¯t know... If it¡¯s linked to my family¡¯s investigation, then... Maybe, it has something to do with the other monsters. Maybe it¡¯s a sample or root they couldn¡¯t remove in time during the evacuation.

    Y - Who is they?

    L - That¡¯s what I wanted to know... Powerful people I guess. But I don¡¯t know whether they¡¯re gone or still alive, because I don¡¯t have any name. Maybe they were eaten by their own monsters, but...

    I don¡¯t know. And that¡¯s been haunting my mother all her life. We don¡¯t really know who was responsible and what happened.

    L - I think these things were experiments gone wrong, but more around Forodlystiev than here. Plus it was an open museum for all we know, so I can¡¯t believe a mutated monster like that would have been left visible to all in the open.

    Y - Maybe it wasn¡¯t back then. Not that much. But the mines... And I don¡¯t know what could turn dead trees into... that.

    S - Shit it hurts...

    Where Shura was scratched as he jumped into the boat, dark stains are spreading. This looks awfully bad.

    L - I think... Somewhere in the lazaretto, people tried to play god. With genetics and whatnot, in the past. And I think whatever horrible experiments they did has gone horribly wrong. And maybe it¡¯s still the same. I thought it would be safe now... But it¡¯s still the same. I¡¯m sorry Shura... I¡¯m sorry.

    Shura doesn¡¯t blame me, but he¡¯s becoming feverish. Yura is facing the obvious. Our friend is doomed, as he feared before.

    Whatever innocent plants had grown in the museum in the past, now it¡¯s only... Like the other apes of a sort.

    Our friends return with two people who look like military guys, but not from Cordov. It¡¯s not our uniform.

    Morgan looks awful. What happened?

    O - It¡¯s bull... That can¡¯t be true.

    A - I¡¯m sorry boy.

    Artom introduces himself to us. The lady with him keeps most of her face covered and is apparently mute. She has a tight neck scarf reaching above her nose. She still waves a hi.

    They¡¯re packing rifles and grenades around them, clearly carrying an absurd amount of firepower.

    Artom is an adult man, maybe our parent¡¯s age, since he has a speck of grey hair.

    His friend or colleague Shan, I can¡¯t say what¡¯s her age.

    Y - What¡¯s that about?

    Artom just says it, too plainly.

    A - Cordov is dead. What happened here in the past, it has spread violently. Everyone in the city is now dead, or worse. There was no evacuation because it happened brutally the other day. We¡¯re the last ones. Everyone else is... dead. Or something else.

    Of course we cannot believe him. That can¡¯t be true.

    Our hometown we left last month can¡¯t be razed down just like that.

    Artom and Shan show us what they captured on their personal cameras. The places look familiar, but it¡¯s a horror tale and movie.

    What we¡¯ve survived and endured here. They¡¯re telling us it¡¯s been everywhere the same, if not worse.

    Our little country, it managed to survive half its land to the lazaretto and the loss of its two older cities in the past. And now, something else finally brought it down? Our families are...

    No, that can¡¯t be right...

    O - It¡¯s bullshit!

    ~

 047. Lazaretto, 7

    (Luka)

    A - Maybe some people managed to flee to Lone Down, and to get welcomed instead of shot, but I wouldn¡¯t bet on it.

    Lone Down is like another forbidden area, but of a different kind.

    Not because it had an awful outbreak like in the lazaretto; but because it has automated defence systems and closed all its roads even longer ago.

    It¡¯s another small county or city state, isolationist, where no one foreign is allowed to go.

    So it¡¯s like... Despair.

    O - Some people fled there?

    A - I saw some cars heading that way to try yeah...

    L - Why... Are you two here then? If Cordov has burnt, that means you didn¡¯t come to help us. Why are you here?

    They look at each other, nodding in agreement answering me.

    A - because we recognised some aspects of the monsters that ravaged Cordov. And we had some unfinished business in the area. Now that we have nowhere to return to, we decided to come back here to seek the end of it. Then we saw the fire in Bookfield street, and followed.

    The others are still trying to get what they really mean. I heard it clear.

    Shan moves her head oddly. She¡¯s wary. Artom notices it.

    A - We should start moving.

    ~

    I feel like I know them. Because my mother heard of them. Others, trying to expose what awful things have been hidden. Others who knew more about what is going still to this day, on this forsaken corner of the world.

    All the terrible things that have been going on, over the last fifty years or more.

    Shan took some medicine out of her bag and gave them to Shura. He took it without asking and it seemed to ease his pain. I was helping him walk as we headed north, following our two heavily armed adult friends.

    Y - What was that pill?

    A - A medicine we developed a while back. It won¡¯t cure him, but it will halt the progress of the... symptoms.

    O - Where did you come in? We need to get out.

    A - I told you...

    Orel becomes aggressive again. Of course we can¡¯t believe that Cordov has fallen just from their words. Pictures and videos don¡¯t cut it. Facing monsters here neither.

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    He just needs to see it for himself. We all do, a little. But my personal priority is elsewhere.

    So I turn toward Artom and Shan to insist.

    L - I¡¯m coming with you. I want to know. I need to know.

    M - Luka...

    We debate. We argue.

    Artom and Shan are letting us decide, but they move forward and I follow with as much determination.

    As afraid as I am for what happened to my home, I won¡¯t be able to do much about it either way.

    Here, I want to know... And it¡¯s my chance right now.

    And then came the unexpected decision.

    Shan said something we couldn¡¯t hear.

    A - I know... If we go back, we risk running out of time to investigate... But...

    Not much time for what? None of us asked at the time and they didn¡¯t elaborate. They seemed to have some empathy for us they didn¡¯t expect. They didn¡¯t expect to find anyone coming here though.

    Artom turns around, changing his mind.

    A - Let¡¯s go back to Cordov...

    He warns us again though. The city is dead. It won¡¯t be pretty. We won¡¯t like what we find.

    Probably true, but we need to face that the world has met its end.

    ~

    We followed another street out of Krikfalgorod. Then we headed into a tunnel that was not dissimilar to the sewer-like shelters. Heavy stalactites hanged everywhere.

    Through the tunnel length, we passed below the wall of the lazaretto and ended out inside a kind of quarry, a good hike away from sight.

    Fences, doors, and broken walls lied there unceremoniously.

    They unsealed this remote way through, that is away from the once patrolled wall. They know the area better than I...

    From there outside, we hoped inside their small truck that they left there before, and we headed back to our hometown.

    Shura¡¯s bleeding wounds are okay, if not better, but his infection tires him.

    We have until the end of the day rolling to reach the city.

    What a day...

    Shan drives. Artom speaks for the both of them.

    Like my mother, they grew in the ghost city of Forodlystiev. But they were more involved in what happened then.

    There was a secret laboratory we learn, headed by a mad scientist from all they describe.

    Henry Gains. He made inhuman experiments on people. All studying this weird form of life he either found or developed, with highly mutagenic power. He caused the death of dozens if not hundreds of people, using them as guinea pigs...

    They killed him back then Artom said, when they were about our age.

    He speaks with a monotone voice, but it¡¯s heartfelt.

    What they experienced was stuff of horror stories. A background not unlike ours, but with more evil people, and the first real outbreak that condemned the city.

    They thought it would be over as they escaped. But after the evacuation, they had to hide what had been done as some other forces looked to recover everything from these works.

    Some people still hidden held some power over the politics and they chose to remain discreet to save their lives.

    And now, so many years later after they thought it would all be over, well, it happened again.

    A - No. This time is so much worse. Every other county has gone silent. The networks are down. It¡¯s like the entire world has been affected just the same.

    The radio gets nothing. The computers and phones neither. It¡¯s all gone.

    No other cars follow the roads. And in the distance, Cordov is covered in smokes that look ominous.

    A - I¡¯m sorry to say, but it seems the world is done guys. Not just Cordov.

    We stop on the upper hills and outskirts of our ravaged hometown. The landscape is entirely orange and pink. Weird colours float all over the burnt and stained ruins. No one is seen walking through the rubbles and streets.

    It¡¯s a landscape from hell that shocks all of us.

    We¡¯re gawking, feeling stupid, feeling lost and sad.

    ~

    Shan plundered the nearby house.

    Artom shot and burnt some kind of big monstrous dog that came around aggressively.

    Night has fallen and weirder things have begun pouring out like mutant cockroaches. It¡¯s hellish.

    We drive away before we get swamped by the melting beasts and their pink fumes we attracted from all around. I vomit by the window of the moving car, sick from their stenches.

    Orel is pale. We¡¯re all downtrodden.

    Someone is just muttering the f word over and over.

    Shan drives us somewhere isolated to spend the night hopefully without fighting for our lives over and over.

    ~

    We reached a coastal peak on morning, to watch the more distant landscape and the sea.

    The ships have sunk or crashed by the shores in the distance. The usual come and go of automated ships is completely wrecked.

    It¡¯s not just Cordov.

    A - It¡¯s been a while already. Ironically, in the lazaretto, you were kinda lucky.

    L - And you went back there to find answers... To what happened outside this time. Or everywhere.

    A - Exactly. Because for us two now, there is nowhere else to go. Not much time to spare also. It¡¯s our final ride.

    Shan shrugs, still her face hidden. I think she has scars she¡¯s shameful of. She always looks away when eating or swallowing her medicines.

    Y - You can¡¯t make more of these pills... You¡¯re running out of stock.

    A - I told you, it¡¯s our last ride... So we want to burn it like hell and see it to the end.

    ~

 048. Lazaretto, 8

    (Luka)

    Ironically, the safest place in the peninsula since the end occurred, it appears to have been in the lazaretto.

    Everywhere inhabited out there, was wrecked. Possibly even Lone Down. We would never know.

    My friends weren¡¯t sure whether they should blame or thank my obsession...

    We were riding back into the older dead zone together, in gloom. Where else was left to go?

    Shura was not looking well. And if our adult friends shared their palliative pills, we could all tell this wasn¡¯t sufficient.

    O - So you want to go back to the laboratory you escaped back then.

    A - If only it was that easy... I doubt there¡¯s anything left back there. It¡¯s been demolished in the early outbreak.

    When it all began for them, and my grandfather... I can¡¯t bring myself to tell them. To ask them if they knew him.

    But Morgan does. It¡¯s annoying but I endure. It¡¯s not much against what we face lately.

    Fortunately or not, my name doesn¡¯t remind them of much. A teacher they had as children perhaps. A mad scientist from the underground perhaps? Not that they recall.

    A - We¡¯ve shot Gains, but he was the head scientist, not the whole team. Back... It was messy.

    Y - Where is your lead now then?

    A - First it was Krikfalgorod¡¯s museum, where you were. Then the northern university. Where there were good scientists recruiting each other, and other files left.

    We didn¡¯t find anything obvious in the museum, but we didn¡¯t take the time to go through the whole of the archives. And now that the building and the monster have gone in flames...

    The university then?

    Shan drove around more monsters wandering around the road and crashed vehicles. The place was awful.

    She drove harshly through the quarry and then through the tunnel.

    Hold on Shura...

    ~

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    We made our way north of town as fast as we could. It started to rain, the weather becoming foul.

    Weird things were coming out from every drain hole and sewers along the streets, looking seriously ominous.

    The radio building stood next to the broken bridge on the bank of the northern river. It was a mostly cylindrical building, with an array of taller telecommunication towers on top of it.

    I first thought they wanted to make one fall across the dangerous river to craft an impromptu bridge, but the way across was simpler.

    As we walked through the boulevard getting closer, we kept noticing darker stains spreading fast as the rain fell over them. Was there something bad in the water as well?

    Yura coughed in horror as he confirmed it. That rain hitting him was toxic and we didn¡¯t realize it, until we were near the building. The windows of this glassed wall were still mostly intact.

    We rushed to its doors to take shelter from the apparently acid rain.

    Shura really got worse being wet and breathing it. Artom shot through the locked doors, opening us the way in brutally.

    Inside, the colours were all blue and dark, it was odd.

    It was the middle of the day, but between growing downpour outside, and the dirtiness of the building abandoned for years, the light was dim like night, or underwater looking almost.

    Shan shrieked with a weird voice at a glance outside, and shut the door behind us. I was too startled by her odd voice to realize what she had said. My friends understood however and ran around to find heavy furniture that could consolidate the door frame.

    They pushed couches and shelves, right before a rhinoceros or some tank tried driving through.

    That¡¯s how it made me feel, as I jumped from the shock and noises, sending everyone a step backward. The barricade held on, but a curtain of dusts and bits fell in the hallway under the heavy shock, like a sudden cloud of smoke.

    Coughing, we stepped back deeper inside the building, hopping that first attempt from whatever the monster was, had also been its last. The building was crumbling dust around like dry rain. We couldn¡¯t stay in the hall.

    ~

    We arrived coughing in an interior patio, wide. The fountain basin was a swamp now.

    The building was hollow and spiralling like a screw around this inner courtyard. There were stairs and elevators quite still, but also that spiralling slope heading up for maybe the twenty floors of the place.

    Above the hollow stood the main communication tower, rigged with some modern cables and tools visibly.

    M - What are these things? Something to do with the past experiments here?

    She¡¯s pointing upward and we notice the weird connections and cables attached here and there to the tower. We even notice some electrical lights up there. Someone is using this antenna, using this place?

    It rains inside, but the stairs and the ramp should be fine to climb.

    Artom and Shan are ready with their rifles, but not foolhardy to just stand in the open for the monster coming behind. They order me and my friends to start climbing.

    A - There¡¯s a platform that can be lowered as a maintenance bridge across the river to the other side. Should be near the top. Go and open the way!

    As we start running ahead to climb the stairs, they head for the ramp. We all hear the outside door and barricades exploding, broken through. Soon after, another cloud of dust jumps from the walls as gunshots rip the air to welcome the monster in.

    We rush ahead in growing panic as they fight downstairs.

    ~

    Shura vomits and collapses in the stairway. He¡¯s crying. I try to pull him while the others go ahead.

    L - Come on, please! I¡¯m begging you...

    S - ... it¡¯s okay Luka...

    He forgives me between tears...

    Not far, Artom and Shan are running their way up, shooting behind them at the odd monster on their heels. They¡¯re already near our level.

    I tear up. I¡¯m guilty. But Shura prefers to push me.

    It¡¯s atrocious, but I leave him behind.

    I fire at the deformed beast too as Artom reaches my level. He pulls me in the rushed run and frenzy. We run away.

    Shan blows another wall with an incendiary grenade aimed at the beast.

    That roaring monster still comes through, crawling with huge arms and hands. It¡¯s a vision from hell.

    But what shocks me the most is in the head of the things coming closer at us.

    The face. The frown. The hair. The tattoos...

    It¡¯s one of Orel¡¯s friends who left before... And now, this huge monster is tearing the building apart as it tries to get us. The bullets scorch him to mush gradually, but it still yells and crawls after us. Even the bullets to the head don¡¯t slow it down much.

    How can we escape this?

    The napalm Shan threw at it is burning the awful thing, but it keeps going.

    Artom too appears terrified. He prays aloud the others managed to lower the bridge to get out of here.

    ~

 049. Lazaretto, 9

    (Luka)

    The floor collapsed and we lost sight of Shan who was somewhere behind. Artom screamed, but we still kept running. Because the seemingly invincible beast still was soon on our heels.

    Thunder seemed to crack outside.

    Out of breath, we reached the roof. In the distance, my friends were struggling to cut loose some securities and crank the gangway as a bridge open.

    On the other side of the tumultuous river is a small maintenance building up a hill, or a cliff above waters rather.

    These two buildings have this tiny bridge that once could connect them and be removed.

    Now there are just dangling cables from the communication tower that fall here to some supply container, and the other side...

    But we can¡¯t climb that...

    We run under the rain, fully aware the narrowed end corridor and door behind won¡¯t stop that monster.

    We¡¯re fucked...

    Shan¡¯s fire won¡¯t continue hurting it for long under the rain. We¡¯re panicking as we get together. I can¡¯t manage to say where I¡¯ve left Shura.

    The roof cracks and collapses, or rather blows up, as the monster comes through.

    The rain seems to make it madder, burning it like acid even more than it does to us.

    Artom and Orel yell, trying to get its attention away. While I was trying to catch my breath from the run, I just lost control of what was happening.

    Before I knew it, they were fighting and running further away along the circular building¡¯s roof. Morgan and Yura broke their nails and patience, trying to get the thin bridge open and set across, cranking levers and valves to move the rusty mechanism.

    After a few more gasps, I went to help them. It¡¯s dreadful.

    I feel like beyond the rain and now thunder, I really begin to see the end of the world.

    ~

    Artom stepped back. The monster follows Orel over the tower. It¡¯s really a hollow electric tower and antenna.

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    The building is too damaged. We¡¯re all scared.

    The monster is apparently being dissolved alive by the rain. It seems more damaged and hurt by the water droplets than our bullets.

    Orel rushes his way across the thin ledges. We¡¯re all holding our breath in fear.

    And the worse happens.

    The tower makes an awful noise and begins to collapse, with him still on it. I held my shriek, petrified.

    Morgan didn¡¯t. She screamed and then cried.

    The building was damaged again, but we got the bridge out. Looking at the desolation and the lost friends we had to leave behind, it was crushing...

    Artom himself couldn¡¯t find a word to say. We took what was left of our belongings and headed toward the isolated northern side of the city.

    We walked mortified under the rain along other streets and roads long abandoned.

    The university campus of Krikfalgorod wasn¡¯t far. But we couldn¡¯t walk further. We all were feeling the exhaustion to say the least, and we were hurt all over. We couldn¡¯t go much further.

    We crashed inside the first decent building we could find. A kind of damp warehouse. We reached some offices upstairs where we just sat and sobbed.

    Even Artom shed some tears. Even adults cry...

    A - I¡¯ll start looking around... Take your time.

    Artom left us for a while. Probably to be a little on his own as well.

    I bet that was not the end he had in mind for himself and her...

    Stumbling around, blind, against forces so outrageous and impossible to comprehend apparently...

    M - How could such a thing be...

    L - I... I don¡¯t know.

    Y - I have no idea either... It¡¯s more than mutagenic properties. It¡¯s the fastest and most resilient metabolism that could ever be, and...

    I didn¡¯t say about who he had been, before turning into a monster. With the rain and distance, maybe they didn¡¯t see the clues.

    And now I think that it¡¯s probably better if they didn¡¯t.

    I¡¯m holding this shut inside. I¡¯m sorry guys...

    ~

    Artom returned at nightfall, carrying food, medicinal supplies and even some ammunition.

    L - Where did...

    A - The supply crates. Some are open here. I think we¡¯re not alone.

    Morgan and Yura raised their sights to him and me hearing this. People with the keys are around?

    Somehow that wasn¡¯t that great a piece of news, hearing we weren¡¯t alone any longer.

    At least we had enough to treat our wounds and get ready, as much as we could, to face the next shit hitting the fan, together.

    We¡¯ve eluded or plainly stated there had been a cover up, along the creation of the Lazaretto. And even before with the secret laboratory they escaped in the past.

    It was to be expected at some point, that some people holding rifles and hazmat suits would pop up around here.

    Either to investigate the same things, or to bury them and any witness even deeper.

    We don¡¯t know yet which is it.

    But if they can open the supply crates scattered in town and around, it likely means they came in with the right keys and instructions with what to expect.

    Artom shared with us the bullets and weapons with an unusual alloy apparently specific to around here.

    Most likely something meant to better take down these things...

    He also shared with us a few of his remaining palliative pills.

    We¡¯ll be ready as we could be...

    A - Try to sleep, I¡¯ll keep watch. Tomorrow, we¡¯ll investigate the university...

    Without anything better to suggest, that¡¯s what we would do.

    M - But where would they be coming from? Lone Down? Or just Cordov?

    A - I don¡¯t think so. The lazaretto was forbidden access to everyone as well, and shrouded for good reasons... I think there might still be another laboratory in the area, still operating.

    Y - And they might have everything we need... A cure for the poisons they created?

    A - Possibly...

    He doesn¡¯t want to raise our expectations too much.

    He and I want to find out the truth. There¡¯s also wishes for vengeance.

    But we¡¯re aware that finding justice is another thing entirely.

    And it¡¯s rather impossible now. It¡¯s too late.

    We will never have justice...

    But maybe we can get a satisfying sense of revenge for everything we¡¯ve lost.

    M - You want to burn them...

    A - The thought has crossed my mind.

    M - Count me in...

    If we¡¯re going to die anyway... Maybe we can make the last people responsible pay.

    It¡¯s sad, but it gives us some strength.

    ~

 050. About reality, 3

    (Luka)

    We heard a lot of distant rumble during the night. It was mostly on the southern side we had come from.

    Maybe the radio building continued to crumble and collapse. Or maybe some people do still live and work around these parts.

    A helicopter flew above at early dawn, meaning it¡¯s more than just a few stragglers like us.

    We just hid, from military looking guys and monsters alike. They weren¡¯t wearing Cordov¡¯s uniform...

    We made our way toward the university, packing firepower, but not dumb enough to use that blindly at the first mean looking group we encounter.

    Now we saw them, using indeed the scattered crates of supplies.

    Guys in plastic hazard suits, uniform but not from Cordov, and carrying military rifles and equipment. We can¡¯t fight that head on. Should we even at all?

    A - They work for the assholes if they must, but they¡¯re likely just grunts trying also to survive. They¡¯re not the ones giving the orders.

    Y - What are they doing here now?

    A - Maybe it¡¯s for us...

    L - Or they¡¯re the doing the same investigation. The world just was fucked up, and they recognised the same symptoms as you¡¯ve seen before, right? They could have made the same deductions as you.

    A - That would be my guess. They want to see what they¡¯ve forgotten behind... And it¡¯s our chance to find their hideout as well.

    A group of mad scientists and their private army are now struggling to keep things together and survive as well. But at least they were prepared, and had some ideas of where to look for answers or solutions.

    If they¡¯re here, maybe this apocalypse didn¡¯t come out willingly from their lab?

    But times are dire either way.

    We get closer to a few of them, on our way to the university they¡¯ve taken over as well. Not a coincidence. I whisper in lower voices.

    L - What did they say?

    M - They sound confused as well... They live in another city called Frieleg?

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    Artom nods. Apparently that means something to him. It¡¯s really them.

    Morgan stays behind to eavesdrop on them longer.

    These guys patrolling outside are concerned and bored. They spill a lot.

    Yura stays also behind but as an onlooker, or rather a watch. He¡¯s armed and meant to look after both her and the entrance we¡¯ll go in.

    Artom and I are sneaking inside the decrepit buildings. The damp and mouldy corridors have turned to a mix of jungle and cave over the years.

    Is this how our hometown will look in the future? How the entire world will?

    I have a moment of rising panic, realizing how much we¡¯ve lost.

    Artom kindly taps my back, helping me return to my senses and refocus. We move on.

    ~

    There isn¡¯t much left from the old days worth saving or looking through.

    It mostly appear that everything valuable in resource and data was removed long ago.

    We hide as two other people pass by. They¡¯ve removed their headgear to talk and breathe more easily, implying the air isn¡¯t too bad.

    - There¡¯s nothing left...

    - Keep looking. There must be something.

    - I keep telling you. The old man fucked us. We were sent out here to...

    They got a signal on their devices interrupting them. We couldn¡¯t hear what. They cursed and left in a hurry this floor.

    Given they¡¯ve been through this before us, we think we have better chance to progress going after them.

    We head outside as discreetly as possible. And we still get welcomed outside by being hit in the face.

    They got us, more easily than we¡¯d anticipated, to a point it¡¯s pathetic. My screams get shut by another kick to the stomach and I fall powerless.

    Artom sadly didn¡¯t do any better. He gets beaten down pretty badly.

    They handcuff us and shove us to the container that is on the back of a truck. We¡¯re ordered at gun point.

    Morgan is already lying inside, badly hurt too. How could we suck so much...

    I hope Yura is okay.

    The guys kidnapping us enter their front compartment and begin driving away. I moan and still ask. Why... Where?

    - You think the bosses really need more guinea pigs now?

    - Yeah well, I¡¯m not killing them. Up to Stephen and Rob now.

    A - Let us go...

    - Not until we know more about what is going on and what you guys have done. The doc might need you anyway. And honestly it¡¯ll be safer for you too. You have no idea of the shit roaming around now!

    The man is very angry at us for reasons I cannot immediately see.

    L - I¡¯m from Cordov...

    - All of us were! It¡¯s done! Where you behind the fall of the communication tower? Did you know the people there? I swear to you...

    The other guys calm the angry one.

    We¡¯re caring for our wounds behind with what they left us with.

    I hope Yura can help us escape... I hope he¡¯s okay.

    ~

    The truck drove along empty streets and roads of the northern lazaretto for a while, and eventually entered a long tunnel through the northern mountain.

    We drove in the dark for what felt like an hour. And more importantly I couldn¡¯t quite figure out where we were going.

    A - Frieleg. The base of operations.

    - You know of it? Did you serve?

    A - In a way yes, when I was younger.

    - Shit, sorry for roughing you up old man... Everyone¡¯s on edge you know. Rob will surely want to let you go if you can help again.

    A - Let¡¯s hope so. I don¡¯t want to see the doc again.

    They laughed, assuming he really knew them. Or did he?

    I still wanted to trust him, but I feared seriously for my life now that I was handcuffed inside a truck, heading deep into the mountains...

    Doors opened, and we entered a small isolated valley surrounded by tall and steep mountains.

    Another kind of campus surrounded a lake with more modern buildings.

    Behind the lazaretto in a way, and likely with other tunnels I didn¡¯t know existed, to return to Cordov from the East.

    - Welcome to Frieleg. We were supposed to find eternity, but now we¡¯ll settle to not dying for another day.

    A - Story of my life...

    We pass by buildings still in way better conditions, but looking rather devoid of people.

    Gun stations here and there are manned.

    It¡¯s a small militia lacking personnel but with plenty of equipment that survived here.

    And some doctor who might still look for experiment subjects as well...

    As if even now, evil would ever change.

    ~

 051. About freedom, 1

    (Luka)

    Morgan was thrown in a cell, in what looked like a hospital otherwise.

    The building looked old from the outside, but it¡¯s ultra modern inside.

    I¡¯m thrown in the next cell. Artom is brought in shackles to meet the boss of this place. Someone called Rob or Robert.

    I feel defeated as I wait in that cell, still with handcuffs.

    I hear a little Morgan complaining, moaning, about her beatdown. She was really injured.

    There are now monsters everywhere, and still, humans are the worst... It¡¯s awful. Maybe it¡¯s better if we just all burn.

    I hope Yura is alright...

    And painful time passes.

    The door open, and someone walks near me.

    ~

    I¡¯m hungry. My wrists hurt. This water tastes awful because of its disinfectant. I have an awful feeling brewing inside of me... It¡¯s hard to explain. It¡¯s more than my shitty situation, all my failures or humanity¡¯s failures.

    Something else is bubbling deep inside.

    And I think they know it.

    The head scientist of this place comes to check on me every day.

    He takes some droplets of blood from a vein in my arm. He whispers a few words.

    The man looks tired more than anything else, even more tired than me.

    L - Why are you doing this... Stephen?

    S - In the past, it was to reach eternity. We¡¯ve had breakthroughs... Now, it¡¯s about the only way. The only chance for us to survive, is to find something greater. It¡¯s in your blood. It¡¯s in everyone.

    L - Why don¡¯t you let me go? I want to help. I won¡¯t run.

    He sighed.

    S - Rob and the council won¡¯t take the chance... And I don¡¯t control the security of this building. I can¡¯t promise you anything, but...

    L - But?

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    The man scribbles a few words the camera can¡¯t see and the walls can¡¯t hear. I gawk.

    S - I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be fine.

    The weird man goes away, to study the samples I guess.

    I get some medicine like Artom and Shan to help me hold on. Everyone is surviving on these now I guess.

    Like Morgan I don¡¯t want to take them. But eventually I¡¯m too afraid to become a monster and I take them. We talk across the walls and vents between our cells.

    M - You think Artom is still alive?

    L - ... He probably joined them. But isn¡¯t allowed in this building to betray them.

    M - I¡¯m reaching the end...

    Morgan¡¯s body is changing. She still is herself inside, but her body no longer is human. It¡¯s painful in every way.

    She takes the painkillers that Stephen also provides every day. It helps.

    M - Are we going to die here Luka?

    I look up to the ceiling. I imagine the sky beyond. I think of the broken world we¡¯ve fled down. I think of these pockets of remaining power in organised manner... I see more and more how it all falls.

    I get growing visions of how it all will burn and fall.

    No matter what we do, there is no fate and there is no escape.

    Even if we were released right now, it will all end the same.

    L - I... I think we are, yes. Their researches won¡¯t suffice. It¡¯s too big now. It will blow.

    This corner of the world is going to blow. And I think Stephen knows it.

    His few words are false hope. Yura is close, he said.

    He tries to help, even though it¡¯s a pointless attempt along the fall, the ineluctable fall.

    I can feel it even in my blood now. It fluctuates in new ways. And my some fluids in my veins avoid the prickles when Stephen takes a sample each day. He thinks the blood is homogenous, but this thing can shift differently, and all the samples I give are becoming less and less representative of what¡¯s really going in me.

    We wait. Morgan changes visibly. I do it hidden. I tell lies aloud, so our captors get surprised when the time comes.

    We¡¯re all going to die here. But we¡¯re leaving our cells soon, and we¡¯ll burn everything along with them tonight.

    ~

    The electricity shuts down in the cells and the main corridor besides.

    Explosions and gunshots are rapidly heard. Someone runs by to open our cells. Yura gets a hug from me.

    He is terrified but also gets a warm hug from the monstrous and deformed Morgan too now.

    Y - Artom is holding them back, come on, let¡¯s go!

    L - Wait! Go with Morgan! I¡¯ll burn this place first.

    Y - Don¡¯t worry about that, it¡¯s planned. Come on!

    We run through dark and futuristic looking corridors.

    We pass by a room where we see deceased monsters being dissected and studied.

    It¡¯s fascinating and ominous at the same time.

    M - What were they doing Luka?

    L - Trying to control it... Its potential.

    I clench my bubbling hand. I hold it down.

    Y - It¡¯s worse than you think. Frieleg is going to blow entirely before tomorrow. We have to go!

    We run away, but then the ground breaks. Then the ceiling collapses.

    A monster from a floor below just blew them apart to escape through above. And it yelled louder than us while we fell down.

    Our way out was just destroyed. And there¡¯s growing chaos in the hospital we¡¯re in we can hear.

    We head for another way to exit this place we don¡¯t know that well.

    And it goes worse, every step of the way.

    ~

    Yura and Artom¡¯s plan went sideway, but their diversion through the release of some monsters usually kept sedated was a little too efficient. They broke havoc rapidly.

    Over the days, Stephen told us details. He spoke to me more than he should have. We can piece what happened then.

    One peculiar aspect of the transformations, from even before the end of days, he referred to it as paradise engineering.

    The more an animal suffered, the more an organism was stressed; the worst and stronger it reacts and changes. The faster and worse it transforms.

    That¡¯s why he gave painkillers to Morgan. To reduce her symptoms and rate of her body growth.

    Even though she looks inhuman now, hideous and asymmetrical, she¡¯s still okay.

    When Artom cut the electricity, Stephen must have loaded the feeding tubes or intravenous injections to inhibitors of painkillers, if not even antagonists causing more pain. He used his knowledge from peace engineering to unleash violence instead.

    The monsters went from humane to berserk, and were then unleashed in the middle of the base.

    We passed by an office where without surprise, Stephen had been shot and was dying there. Yura and Morgan kept going, but I went to check on him.

    Hell is getting loose. Everything will burn. I want my friends, my last friends to survive... As much as likely or possible.

    But I also know there is more to see and more to come. Sadly we haven¡¯t reached the bottom yet.

    ~

 052. About freedom, 2

    (Luka)

    I checked Stephen¡¯s corpse. The poor guy who wasn¡¯t really wishing to survive the changes of times.

    His body was contaminated and will soon be changing most likely. One could think nothing here matters anymore. Frieleg has been scuttled and will soon sink. Artom and late Shan have their old revenge. We have it...

    But the computers behind Stephen are telling me otherwise. There¡¯s too much data to read and too little time to do so.

    But I¡¯m fairly certain now it says they didn¡¯t cause or create these violent changes here. They studied and experimented upon something, very similar at a much lower scale in the past. But Frieleg didn¡¯t cause the fall of Cordov and the rest of the world. That much becomes clear.

    I want... To see the root of it all...

    I voiced it, my wish.

    The computers heard me, and understood me. They are of modern intelligent design. Way out of place against the outside centuries old architectures.

    I extract the essential data before the building collapse reaches me. I found something maybe we weren¡¯t ready for.

    ~

    Breathing the air outside is a gorgeous relief, sadly spoiled by the mayhem.

    Artom were able to betray his forced employer thanks to another scientist¡¯s help.

    Simply put there was another traitor near the head of Frieleg, long before we all crashed here.

    Helping me and Morgan escape, helping Yura get in, helping Artom getting his revenge.

    It was all the means to an end, for that shadow master buried in this little fortified town.

    Now we served his purpose, opening the valves to flood this forsaken place, to let it crash in flames and fury.

    Artom met with Yura and Morgan. They¡¯re waiting for me near a car at the end of a self destructing building.

    Serums and guinea pigs released outside are turning the landscape into that of an abstract hellscape, with soldiers and monsters eating each other.

    I run toward them, fighting the nausea, but my hidden transformation is pounding in my chest and bad. Because I also was planning my compromise and escape in my own way.

    Stephen¡¯s borrowed dreams fall into the rubbles of the hospital and laboratory.

    Fireshots land nearby and I go to hide. They want to start the car but a powerful shot pierces through the entire car¡¯s engine, digging a clean hole through it. This is bad, and they duck to cover behind another old building.

    We¡¯re now separated while a sniper is hunting us from quite a distance away.

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    The sounds do reach us with some audible delay.

    I hear pounding in my head. I feel the itch in my blood wishing to change some ways my biology works.

    I clench my fingers as they change colours slightly. My blood vessels are flowing and merging or rearranging themselves.

    That sometimes leaves parts of me under-oxygenated, and it begins to burst slightly.

    A rifle shot blows rocks near my head. I lie down even lower and try to crawl to safety.

    Then other shots from a distance are focusing on something much more sinister.

    Out of the laboratory rubbles, crawls out another monster. Two even I want to say.

    A kind of sharp needle is growing like a tower or a weird looking pine tree. It¡¯s something new... And next to it, now unbound, is a more common monster. A heavy looking body, with longer gorilla like arms, and distinctively human features.

    Another dead or transformed human I thought, maybe. But this one looked oddly familiar, and differently reactive to the warzone situation.

    The hulking creature leaped to cover from the sniper fire after withstanding the first blows straight through its chest.

    This one still has some intelligence I realised. A glimpse of a future with successful paradise engineering maybe...

    But Stephen¡¯s hopes were doomed from the beginning by the traitor above him. He probably had figured it too.

    The very wise man of the mountain himself had condemned and betrayed the little kingdom built above his discovery and name.

    I was startled by Artom patting my back. They had found a way around to me and came to pick me up.

    We returned inside the old building still mostly spared by the firefights outside and rampaging monsters.

    ~

    A - You alright Luka?

    L - Yeah... Well...

    I open my hand to a small device and computer that displays the essential data. I¡¯ve picked up.

    We see a weird old man talking to a camera.

    A golden prisoner, from his own fame and past successes.

    He puts on a shirt above his scrawny chest. He is an old guy after all.

    He has a clear few bullet wounds that have turned to scars, over his chest now covered with cloth, and around his head, that some makeup covers somewhat.

    I look at Artom¡¯s shock and pain. He¡¯s even tearing up a little as he recognizes him.

    All that shit that showered us, its previous and smaller scale occurrence, it happened because of him.

    The Lazaretto was built after the catastrophe incurred by his experiments, his discoveries.

    My mom lost her father then, and Artom nearly everything else.

    The man he had shot dead, multiple times apparently, he had miraculously survived. Henry...

    A - That¡¯s not fucking possible...

    L - His work... Their work about immortality, it wasn¡¯t just insanity. They really found something that made it possible... And ironically for you, this Gains doctor was the first clear success.

    Everything else was just waste carelessly handled and spilled without consideration.

    They fucked everything about nature and biology around here, to the point that monsters came to spawn around freely. Just to achieve this impossible dream, which they did achieve apparently.

    An old man cheated death beyond what was previously imaginable. I guess he still likely suffered some trauma and side effects of being shot a few times in the head even, but he was brought back.

    And through unrelated correlation, the catastrophe based on similar principles to what he discovered went global recently.

    A - Where is he?

    L - In the old office building possibly. But...

    M - We need to get out...

    Artom didn¡¯t know who was helping him, and never thought it also was the one ruling from the shadows.

    A suicidal wish from the top.

    He needed our diversion against the ruling military power here, to launch his sabotage to destroy everything here for good. But Artom is still driven by vengeance. Now for Shan as well.

    He wants the ends which he couldn¡¯t properly get all those years ago. Avenge my grandfather as well please, but...

    L - They need to leave... If there¡¯s to be a chance to live... And there are more worrysome things to prevent I think now.

    A - Luka...

    Now Artom¡¯s anger turned against me. He saw me as an evil mastermind like this old man had been.

    L - Henry is old and powerless... Rob is trying to... sell his legacy, to less savoury cities.

    Artom pulled his gun on me, making me gasp and my friends react in worry.

    A - How do you know! Why?

    We were all trying to break the shell of time in our different ways. Me, Artom, and also Henry and Stephen.

    Helping each other to break free from a structure imprisoning us, around loopholes, looking for the points of rupture.

    We all wanted to break a piece of reality locking us inside...

    Stephen told me everything... Away from Robert¡¯s eyes and ears.

    We had our different plans. Even Robert was in negotiations in the end was working on his own escape plan.

    But now... Henry¡¯s will seems to prevail despite his alignment unexpected with Artom.

    Everything should burn... And everyone die.

    I¡¯m also scared and sad. I also want to know why the world changed in similar fashion to what happened here before.

    But for now...

    L - Artom... Robert will try to escape. Do you want him to win after everything you¡¯ve been through? Neither does I. Nor does him! If you want your closure... It¡¯s not me, nor even Henry now...

    The last unfair shadow master about to leave with all the spoils today, is Robert.

    ~

 053. About freedom, 3

    (Luka)

    Between the one responsible for it all and the one who still has a chance to unfairly profit from everyone¡¯s accumulated misery, I understand it wasn¡¯t an easy choice for Artom and my friends.

    The aging man who felt responsible righteously, and fought his entire life for a sense of justice, it was hard to hear.

    Everyone in Frieleg had been conspiring to betray the others it seems. We were just the igniting sparkles into the powder keg. We were the opportunity for everyone to make their move.

    For my friend who thought he had killed the evil scientist, it was painful. A lot.

    Hearing he had been manipulated by his worst enemy he thought dead, it was hard.

    Stephen had leaked most intel to me, and the computer brought the final touches to confirm their shared tragedy. Lone Down would recover Robert and the latest results that were perfected thanks to the end of the world.

    Keys for biological panacea and immortality probably. They don¡¯t deserve to rip the benefits of so blood soaked works!

    Y - You¡¯re really sure they didn¡¯t cause the wider outbreak?

    L - It¡¯s clear yes. They were looking for the same answers. And something they missed all these years to make their dreams completely true, it only appeared after.

    Now Henry and Stephen could finish their insane projects, because the world and nature finally allowed it. But we all agree no one in Frieleg deserves to benefit from it.

    And Robert Stein is about to steal everything on his way. We went after him before he could get his victory.

    ~

    Outside, things were already crumbling to unimaginable levels.

    The growing spire was already a gigantic tree like structure completely abnormal looking. Below it, the roots grew so fast, dislocating the ground and the buildings alike as if everything was made of sand.

    How could biological engineering create things like that...

    Henry was in a different building waiting for his turn to meet his end probably.

    Through the unsafe tunnels we rushed to the side of the executive hotel and airfield. The seat of power for all the politics on this last corner of the world.

    We barged in after Rob¡¯s last forces and preparations for departure.

    Lone Down had sent a war helicopter to pick him up and the unlikely merchandises.

    Chests quite secured were carrying the golden prizes, all the data and samples from Henry and Stephen¡¯s life works.

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    Morgan withstood the fire shots opening the way for Artom to blow everything up.

    I saw the helicopter approaching in the distance, beginning to shoot rather indiscriminately around the area. I jumped to cover.

    Robert and Artom died in the skirmish that didn¡¯t last long but had been intense. Everyone had been shooting around and at each other. In the end the helicopter just blew everyone on the airstrip and didn¡¯t land.

    Morgan collapsed with missing chunks, dying too I think.

    Yura and I stepped back in horror, when the ground before us also began to collapse.

    The explosions had broken down what the dark tree¡¯s roots kept ploughing from below.

    The helicopter began shooting at this rising monumental tower, but it likely would just leave soon.

    The weird tree was growing beyond what its firepower could clear out.

    Yura was crying too as we ran away, as fast as we could.

    What this towering tree even was, we couldn¡¯t comprehend. It¡¯s not wood, it¡¯s more mineral, but moving as it grows to visible speeds. Now it was digging through this valley and turning it all upside down, to make it collapse into its roots and an immense pot or caldera. Had that been planned? It¡¯s insane...

    Us mere bugs next to it, tried to run for our life in the debris less and less steady.

    We reached another service tunnel out of breath, to maybe flee from this madness.

    An old man with decrepit looking features stood there, as if he had been waiting for us before opening the gate. Henry... The old inhuman doctor who cheated death, and then planned the destruction of everything he had butchered people to achieve.

    Given the urgency, we didn¡¯t have time to care whether he was looking to buy his redemption or just a bitter revenge on those who would have stolen his success.

    Others would have likely just killed him on the spot, or at least beaten him to death, but we were still running for our lives with utter destruction a heartbeat away behind.

    So we jumped into the car with him and rolled like hell to escape through the tunnel.

    ~

    Y - What is that tree?

    H - Even I¡¯m not entirely sure...

    If even he doesn¡¯t know...

    Y - You must have some idea! That was part of your destruction plan, no?

    H - What your friends and I broke free and let loose, it¡¯s the same energy potential that made all my miracles possible... And all those monsters as well. Now it¡¯s a wider reality...

    Unlocking biological potential, to absurd degrees, allowing regeneration and growth to nearing grey goo events?

    L - So a real tree you say, could have just turned into this immense monstrosity? Or just a seed of it?

    H - Quite possibly with the right help or parameters.

    The ground was shaken, tremors reaching us. The car was shaken as dust clouds caught up with us.

    Bacteria and flesh becoming monsters was already a thing...

    But now a tree turning rocks into food is growing without limit, uncontrollably.

    Y - Is this going to... stop?

    Henry had a smirk.

    Never doubt nor trusts an evil psychopath who is smarter than you.

    Another shockwave shook us, as much bigger explosions began sterilizing Frieleg¡¯s contaminated caldera behind.

    It sounded like the mountain was collapsing on us.

    ~

    We struggled through the wrecks and fallen rocks to exit this tunnel, outside of Frieleg¡¯s mountains on a side also outside the Lazaretto.

    We saw the morning light after a night of speleological struggles.

    I sighed, breathing in with glee. Yura as well.

    Henry looked weird. The old man seemed mostly surprised still being alive.

    I held my trembling arms close to me, controlling my changes with growing difficulties. Be quiet...

    Behind us, the mountain was engulfed in fog and falling ashes like cloudy snow.

    The destruction behind probably had been absolute.

    That was his plan...

    L - What was it... That you found? That caused the end of everything at bigger scale?

    H - Nothing.

    L - Don¡¯t lie...

    Yura looked at him and me in worry. Henry really looked the part of reanimated undead, while I... I was already transforming into something else hard to foresee. Veins and muscles were realigning in different ways under the skin of my arms and both of them might have noticed it.

    H - It¡¯s called a dai?a... It was like a spore, waiting for the right chance to blossom. And it allows some metabolic shortcuts when it manages proper merging with something alive. Used well, it makes everything possible...

    Y - And used poorly, it makes everything possible in the bad ways, is that it?

    H - Right boy... It¡¯s our blessing and curse, like any technology. I don¡¯t know what caused everything else outside... It¡¯s like another dai?a of a far higher order of magnitude exploded somewhere else on the planet. This region was simply hit by the repercussions of something much bigger. These changes made the scales achievable even here much wider. And you... Girl, you will become one of them too.

    I clenched my fists turning weird and sharper colours.

    H - Thank you. For helping me.

    Hearing this I snapped and killed him.

    Yura yelled in horror as I was turning the old man to mush.

    ~

 054. About freedom, 4

    (Luka)

    Y - Hold on Luka, please...

    Over the following days, Yura and I tried to survive on our own, straying away into the wild.

    It¡¯s aimless...

    Nature had grown wilder everywhere. The initial zombified population around Henry¡¯s nightmarish influence quickly died off. But other things just as bad took their places in the environment of the peninsula.

    My body was growing in awful ways I couldn¡¯t control anymore. My instincts and desires grew just as bad.

    L - Leave me...

    Y - I¡¯m not leaving you.

    He coughed some pestilence. There¡¯s just no hope anyway. We were doomed from the start around here. It just took us too long to realize.

    L - I will end up killing you Yura...

    Y - Don¡¯t say that...

    But he knows it¡¯s true. My hungers are reaching insanity in my melting head... And now I see him smile like Stephen, like Artom, and even like Henry, in the end. As if he¡¯s made his peace with his unavoidable fate.

    They all had embraced the short term eventuality.

    L - Fucking dai?a...

    Y - What was that even? What does that mean?

    The source of all our misery.

    And sadly the potential to powers none of us wanted to be seen controlled by the wrong people.

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    L - Just kill me please...

    Y - Stop saying that.

    Yura helps me walk as I turn into so awful things. I make Morgan in her final hour look pretty. My body is boiling. All their dreams and mine are blending inside my blood and heart.

    Each new day feeling a lot worse than before.

    We¡¯ve reached the summit, but we won¡¯t survive the way back down.

    We¡¯ve seen the absolute end of the human corruption and scientific world. But we won¡¯t survive long enough to tell anyone. Because there is no one left anyway... Outside maybe that other city that would shoot us on sight.

    Y - Without Henry¡¯s promised cure, they must be as fucked as everywhere else.

    L - I guess...

    A nasty voice keeps rising within me. Yura gives me his last antalgic to swallow and some water to drink.

    L - I don¡¯t want to kill you...

    Y - Don¡¯t worry.

    But I eventually will.

    ~

    Another morning, I woke up with meat between my lips and tongue.

    I swallowed it with delight.

    Yura was contorting in pain on the ground, holding his bitten leg.

    I couldn¡¯t hear him anymore.

    My darker hands reached him to help bandage his wound.

    I think he forgave me.

    And I thought he would then leave me behind. Yet, he didn¡¯t, sadly.

    If I still had a voice, I tried to tell him again. But he kept making that sad smile of resignation again.

    My pain continued to grow, and my mind to dissolve in these urges. I lost all my humanity and sanity to these new instincts rewiring my head and flesh.

    I ate more of him.

    Then more.

    The wounds grew worse.

    I raped him. I devoured him until he was a mess.

    The more time passed, the further I fell.

    I ate his arms and legs. I couldn¡¯t hear his screams nor feel his pain.

    Still lusting to feel somewhat human, I raped him again and again.

    I dragged what was left of him, as I continued to drift physically and lost in head.

    Food and sex consumed me in a primal manner, until there was nothing left.

    I dripped after these instincts, losing everything and heading East aimlessly.

    I cursed my life and death with my last impulses of intelligence as I slowly dissolved along my way.

    I scattered pollens and little mixed elements of myself along the way.

    I was turning to nothing left, feeling my fall into nothingness. Emotions were long gone and so were worldly sensations.

    Hopeless and inconsequential. Maybe I always had been, floating on the raging seas of fate and time.

    ~

    Feeling myself die, each spark of awareness and intelligence or emotion and sensations were disappearing like fading stars.

    It was like stars gradually vanished from the sky, without dawn nearing otherwise.

    Although in my last moments with a sense of self, I had a kind of otherworldly perception.

    That all these fragments of myself I had been leaking along this intuitive display of tenacity, pushing my lumps of decaying flesh through the land; they fed a next generation of little stars.

    I think I saw the sparkling nebula of what might be coming next in my wake.

    Different night skies. New and countless variations to try the same.

    To rise, to feed and to propagate.

    Had I not been already dead, that might have given me solace.

    But in the end nothing mattered, and I too was dead.

    The world was likely quiet.

    My puddle finally collapsed, and my last breath and spark of life was extinguished within this melting and dripping fate.

    ~

 055. About freedom, 5

    (Zeslinry)

    The boat carrying me to the old kingdom was small, with an older diesel engine I think.

    This once had been a fishing boat, but now it carried refugees, immigrants or pilgrims. Depending how one wanted to look at it.

    Not exactly travellers on board, nor bandits either.

    I looked at the waves, listening to the boat engine steady rhythm.

    The other people around me were mostly families.

    Often, one parent at least was missing.

    As I was too.

    Knowing how unlikely I would ever hear from my parents again, I eventually followed their advice and fled north.

    Because none of us heard any good news returning from the starving conflict so far, one after the other we came to assume the worst.

    Many parents had left for that weird war at the end of the world, in the longest low intensity conflict of the century. But the conflict of long and slow attrition was likely reaching its end.

    And the princesses long struggle failed.

    My parents told me to flee from likely retaliation if our side came to fail.

    These political struggles and conflicts happening literally on the other side of the globe always felt unreal and odd to me.

    It felt pointless to still send people and material to die in a prostrated war where lines barely changed in over a decade and longer even since I was born.

    Information was fragmented, eventually dimming. And after years without reliable news, we feared the worst. And when there was nothing left but silence coming back from overseas, a wide sentiment of worry gained not only me, but entire cities if not countries.

    If we¡¯ve lost, maybe the enemy will soon surge to exterminate us. So more and more over the last few months, there was this rising tendency of leaving the old cities to head into the wilder northern lands. Maybe millions emigrated to all the countries of northern latitude. The further away from the equator one could get, the safer it would feel.

    With most mechanised military forces disappearing, we were defenceless. Really worldwide, there had been only that one disputed frontier and battlefield left. Now it was shrouded in defeat.

    ~

    Like every children of my generation, I had wanted to enrol at some point.

    My parents berated me and even hit me, for the first and last time, on that day when I suggested it.

    For me, they had higher hopes they said...

    They wanted me to be resourceful and educated, not vain cannon fodder. But all we could see was injustice winning so far away. It was an intolerable reality we all had to swallow as teenager. We hated it, of course we wanted to fight.

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    And I had to swallow bitterly my parents lesson then.

    Not long after, as if to give me an ultimate lesson, or to sacrifice themselves in my stead, they enrolled. Stunning me in an awful way.

    As if to prove their point to me that war wasn¡¯t the smart option.

    See how we return, if we even return, and then think again for yourself.

    If someone had to die pointlessly... They chose to go instead of me, so I could still have in a way my impulse be satisfied, only by somebody else, and be proven wrong in the end...

    They never returned.

    And as all the lines of communication with the south definitely went silent, people began to really flee this country.

    I waited for nearly another year, wandering through streets growing more hollow and dirty. Anxiety and the shared fears got to me gradually, and I followed the general tendencies.

    Now I was looking at the sea, to bring myself toward this old and new land of opportunities.

    We might never have heard anything back from the south, but life carried on.

    Here and ahead in the distance, on the wide and old island, there were some cities with good activity.

    Out there hopefully, I would be safer from the possible aftermath of the losing war of Intemporelle.

    It wasn¡¯t quite the future they had ambitioned for me, but good enough that I was alive even without them.

    I knew that most of the islands lands were inhabited, despite being fertile.

    Fertile deserts, that could be enough to live on.

    The boat was meant to bring us to one of the busiest port cities of the Eastern shore. From that start, I would see.

    It was gently floating its way closer. The weather was alright but the winds could still get freezing, in this early month of January.

    I was only a few days away from an apocalypse that would make as if every other land had been spirited away.

    ~

    As long as we would keep ourselves in remote rural areas, we should be safe.

    I embraced my parents¡¯ advice, which they couldn¡¯t in the end follow themselves.

    I would cultivate and grow vegetables to survive, and that would be it. A good field and a few animals would suffice.

    With the others, in the fears from the loss of the war, we thought our best chances at survival were on these forgotten islands.

    Out there, everything was lost or abandoned nowadays. Almost. On a global scale, it would now be wiser to lay low and away from the exposed cities.

    Forget justice and equity, just survive, away from their sight.

    Our societies and maybe even species were already on a steady decline actually, long even before the fateful day.

    The world¡¯s population hadn¡¯t waited for this sudden apocalypse to shrink in steady and rapid decline toward hazardous thresholds.

    Languages and genotypes were disappearing for good every other day.

    The white day only shut more abruptly the last page of our history as a global union of societies.

    ~

    The small group I was landing in England with, they were mostly bound to an old natural reserve. Out there they would exploit a new mine or two.

    It was a budding small city-state out there in the mountains and forests, hidden under the shroud of the wider ghost state of the old kingdom.

    The port city, away from where we debarked, looked promising to me for a start. And I wasn¡¯t na?ve enough to believe all would be happy and free in that new town, if I were to follow the others.

    Everyone with some education knows what to expect in hidden and remote colonies.

    With others that didn¡¯t buy the promises any better than me, we jumped off the truck along the road. We had reached this land, which had been the most difficult part.

    We immediately began to scatter along into the wild, before our would be captors or saviours would catch up on us.

    I never planned to work for the likes of them, but I needed to hitch the boat ride.

    After a few days in the moors, feeling odd and lonely, I found back the coastal roads and the distant but lively city.

    At that time I was hungry and planning to steal some things to hold on if I had to.

    But onward I wanted to get a job for a short while, just enough to get a proper start.

    The city was mostly self-organised, so I could see opportunities to steal little bits and putting them aside for a while, like everyone else. Some places were too chaotic to notice if a box of potatoes went missing once in a while.

    That was my immoral, improvised and hopeless plan anyway. As much as I wished to do better.

    Funnily enough and bittersweetly surprising to me, disclosing my level of education and abilities as such, landed me quickly a job good enough not to need to resort to theft even once.

    The higher hierarchy of the city was in a day to day struggle to keep things standing and going.

    What they lacked in our days were not strong arms and deft hands, but organised minds able to complement what the few computers couldn¡¯t directly organize.

    Before the end of the first day, I had found a job in maintenance logistics, and been given a place to stay.

    The flat was dusty and clearly had belonged to someone else before, but no one had bothered to sort, empty or clean the place, in at least a few years. That was common.

    I entered my new place to live in in a little daze though. I had been hired immediately and been given this.

    They were places where one could be useful and recognised for it rapidly.

    It made me even wonder whether I should rethink my ambitions, if there was still so many opportunities to build and maintain the organisation to keep things alive in this city.

    But I wanted to think it over for the night.

    Unknowingly to me, that would be the only night.

    The next dawn, was on that painful day.

    Most things and thoughts just went away.

    ~

 056. Storm, 1

    (Zeslinry)

    A little before dawn. I couldn¡¯t sleep very well anyway. The electricity went down. The fact that I couldn¡¯t hear anymore the buzzing sound of the neighbourhood transformer made me feel something was off.

    Sitting and looking by the window outside, I saw more than a quiet night. It was still cold and foggy, but something else happened.

    I saw the stars disappearing, when an odd glow took over the horizon.

    It wasn¡¯t dawn. It came from the south.

    Before I could understand or react, that white shade washed through everything. It was not blinding white, but just a momentarily mute soft nothingness. It was more pale grey than pure white. It swallowed me and everything for maybe a few seconds. Hardly a minute.

    And then as sight, sound and awareness returned, the apocalypse began.

    ~

    Following that elusive glow, it felt as if waking up from a painful coma. I suddenly had the worst hangover beating me, and ill sensations all over my body. I was gasping, sweating over my bed, burning with a strong and uneven heartbeat.

    I thought for a few minutes that felt like agony that I had seen a nuclear explosion and been irradiated to death.

    Maybe the aftermath of the loss at Intemporelle had been such a strike over a bigger city after the horizon. A new genocide might be starting.

    My first coherent thoughts were of pain and hatred, against the historical southern enemy of Solaris, even though I had no idea of what just really happened.

    But gradually, my pounding heart and brain seemed to calm down, and I was still the same...

    I noted that because from the rising screams and yelling outside, I would soon realise how much likely were people to turn dead, mad or insane.

    The music of cries and sounds of agony began to really rise outside loudly as minutes passed.

    I was able to stand up again and wipe my burst of sweat with a towel.

    But at the same time outside, it was a crescendo of voices nervously grown into a fully blown ruckus from a torture pit of hell. All around the city where electricity was sparkling back, it was a show of horror. The cries of the damned grew to echoes that filled your skull.

    In shock but sane, I dressed back, picked up my bag in an intuition, and headed outside. If as I feared we were under attack, there was nothing better to do but run away as far and fast as I could still muster.

    But when reaching the outside, what I saw through the streets enlightened unevenly that night were vision from hellish artists.

    Fissures were growing as I gazed in stupor at them. Lines were cut, sparking. Flames were appearing while these hollows turned into pitfalls and buildings collapsing.

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    The city was cut into pieces by an invisible knife, geological rifts breaking. Raising clouds of dusts in the distance were spreading, some of which were catching fire.

    Entire city blocks were levelled, or corroding, or even apparently melting inside orange looking mists and oddly articulated fogs.

    I saw amidst the exploding confusion a tower melting and rusting into shards in mere minutes.

    And then, between the people panicking in the streets, I saw the first monsters.

    I was trying to find my shortest way out of this panic and town, which wasn¡¯t wide but already felt like an ordeal of a pit to escape.

    They were wrecks. And where people were crushed to death in number, they appeared, far too suddenly to feel real.

    Where pooling fluids and organic materials accumulated wild, some awful things were turning seemingly sentient and joining the awful chorus.

    From lost bodies, odd things rose and moved. Near the collapsed buildings with too many people dead inside, cluttered to one another, they could rise and become horribly massive.

    It was like eldritch sea creatures trying to rise on land aggressively. They crawled, growled, moved as they deformed, but collapsed under their own weight and fluid trails. The animal shapes were random attempts that didn¡¯t succeed nor lasted. But they added a lot to the horror and overall confusion.

    Some we passed by with other people panicking, were more watery and translucent. They rose from water tanks perhaps. It was all very unpredictable looking, but appeared as a widespread bubbling of organic chemistry, all across the city.

    Everywhere, these things sprouted to life, which didn¡¯t last long, but were causing a few more horrifying steps and moments for every witness.

    I just kept running for my life and out of there. The early crowds of panicked people trickled along the ways, disappearing one street or another hole into the dawn.

    Along the road I recall running along, I ended up noticing being the only one left at some point.

    I stopped to breathe and look back toward the city centre.

    No one else was following that street behind.

    Everyone else had been trapped, was dead already, or on their way to sad demise obviously.

    I couldn¡¯t believe any of it, given how fast it all grew.

    I continued to jog my way outside and away from whatever this corner of land had turned itself into.

    ~

    Maybe an hour later, I was sitting to breathe, tired and still confused. I was in the prairies outside of town. All I could watch were the dimming night shades, and the colourful mists shrouding the burning city.

    I could still hear distant screams, albeit fainter and probably dimming. It was still nerve wrecking.

    An ominous yellowish glow was floating and covering the city now, reflecting some of the lights from its lingering fires within. Other explosions and gunfires could still be heard in the far distance, popping.

    And then I saw a flash blinding me from over the eastern sea.

    This one. This was a nuclear explosion, unmistakably. Like in the movies and history.

    It happened on the continental coast, or at sea maybe.

    Moments later, the ground began to quake and the wind to blow. I recall looking to escape the incoming blast or attempt to at least.

    My memory really became hazy at the time.

    I couldn¡¯t think. I just ran, looking for anything to escape the real shockwave coming.

    ~

    I woke up in the middle of another day, in an abandoned car stuck in a ditch.

    I had bruises all over. Mushrooms I had never seen before had grown over my clothes and some filaments even over my skin.

    They were real mushrooms, with silk like threads to spread. They were drinking my sweat down to the pores of my skin, and beginning to dissolve it on some spots where they grew bigger.

    I scratched what I could away, acting in panic. I jumped out of that car, ripping some of my skin away.

    A freezing gust of wind stopped me clean a while after on this road.

    Most cars had been pushed into the ditch by a strong gust of wind I forgot living through.

    Also it was a blizzard now outside and it really slapped me awake.

    But looking around to where I was, I could now see the ash grey and sooty clouds surrounding the city in the distance.

    I entered a better looking car to clean myself and try to recompose my thoughts completely scattered all this time;

    The radio of the car caught no signal at all.

    Its computer also booted properly, but couldn¡¯t link to anything either. It was stuck to act offline only.

    While I was bandaging my skin, still overall lost in thoughts, an aurora borealis passed by above in the sky.

    I saw it clearly because of light green, this one was rather mauve, switching to nut brown at times.

    I recalled learning their colours depended of the nature of the magnetic field and atmospheric chemistry. Had I been mistaken to witness such a change?

    I was confused, but still thinking I should put more distance between me and this city. The car wouldn¡¯t start properly however.

    I thought I¡¯d wait by the side of the road for someone to pass by and help, and to ask them what happened.

    But nobody came.

    Days would pass. And I wouldn¡¯t meet anyone else alive this way.

    I made up my mind when about a few days had passed, and continued on foot and away.

    Slowly I would realise, through other changes and clues in the environment surrounding me, that this had been otherwise but a military strike over this land.

    I was just one of the very few survivors of the white day.

    ~

 057. About reality, 4

    (Zeslinry)

    Days went by, but I kept waking up in panic as if it was still the first night.

    I¡¯m sick and vomit again.

    I pick up what I can find from the next abandoned car, still feeling dizzy.

    The stench of death keeps me at bay for a while. I try to forget that illuminated night. I head deeper into the old island, looking for anyone or anything to remind me of my own humanity.

    I¡¯ve just fled away and tried to forget. Trying not to be the one to die next. But travelling alone and not seeing any people in the distance is terrifying.

    I look for anything edible or useful along my random way. The national park mines are a long way, but unfortunately likely the best civilised place I still am aware of. The island was already mostly deserted anyway.

    However the further I went, the worst looking things became.

    I rubbed my eyes over what I wish I was hallucinating.

    Sprawling trees coalescing into a gigantic tower by the southern horizon.

    And by the next bog on my way, I can see gigantic frog eggs growing peacefully. They look like embryos of something awfully big, the size of small dogs already.

    I sweat at these sights I can¡¯t comprehend, and I run away before some of these crawling spirits come to reach and haunt me.

    ~

    I keep running from one terrifying appearance to the next, spooked as if the whole land and side roads had turned into a spooky train ride.

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    But the stench of death lingers all along the dirty road, reminding me how much I wasn¡¯t meant to be alone there. And how much frail my life might be if I¡¯m not careful.

    Rodents are gnawing on the flesh turned gelatinous of a body lying beside the road, like I would be.

    It makes me vomit again.

    Weird insects crawl out from the dirt to come check the waters I just released. I¡¯m running again, thinking that I¡¯m losing my sanity.

    ~

    I found a truck crashed beside the road. I recognised it almost on the spot. It¡¯s the one I left.

    Now like in many others, the polymers inside have grown mushrooms of a few kinds. The sits are damped and stained. It smells horribly.

    But I look around and search for more. A phone lies there, unable to connect. The truck¡¯s radio is dead too.

    A firearm exploded in rusty spikes a while back there too. People must have fled along the crash since no one was left there.

    Some of the dead people I¡¯ve seen lying along the road must have come from here.

    I find some cigarettes and trails of people panicking away. That¡¯s all.

    I lit a smoke trembling and resume walking. The woods starting along the road here are worrying me.

    I press on, smoking nervously. It¡¯s not enough to relax me, as I still am trembling nervously and dizzy.

    I reach the end of a hill and this road as the day comes to an end.

    Behind, another city is blanketed in ashes, and the road cut by deep chasms. Here too fires and quakes simply eradicated everything it would seem.

    The mud kept some tire tracks from the truck seen earlier today. I think they were driving away from this city falling into chaos...

    They drove east toward the coastal side, to flee from this forsaken town.

    Now I feel sad, and a little hopeless. Our roads have crossed each other over the same hopeless purpose. They drove away in panic, leaving this city to its fires behind. Until somewhere further along the road, something caused them to crash.

    And then, like countless others now, they were simply spirited away...

    Some slugs of gathered ash flakes are crawling toward me I notice. I step back nervously. I throw my cigarette butt away and turn back in pain.

    Night is falling, I¡¯m still as scared as I¡¯ve ever been, and I wouldn¡¯t dare head inside that other toxic cloud of a city.

    I feel hopeless, now accepting it¡¯s been a bigger tragedy than I could think.

    Maybe it¡¯s how the old war ends. But I don¡¯t trust my thoughts anymore.

    ~

    I hid for that night in another vehicle abandoned on the outside of that other city. I just hoped nothing will grow like parasites over me this time.

    The stench of burnt tobacco did calm me perhaps a little, as I tried desperately to sleep that night. That smell and taste lingered with me.

    Nothing else but worries came to bother me.

    And then I followed another road, heading north, a little more randomly.

    What else would there be....

    I was afraid and kept walking, trying to control my anxieties.

    Another road and another chance, maybe.

    ~

 058. About life, 4

    (Zeslinry)

    My foot stepped over an animal I didn¡¯t notice, making it explode under my weight.

    I felt nauseous and guilty. But then I couldn¡¯t identify what that thing had been.

    It was a lump of flesh and fluids crawling around without legs apparently.

    It¡¯s not a slug. It¡¯s just... something else.

    I clean my shoe with a stick, trying not to vomit. It stinks of elderly people and death.

    I push further in constant worry, and half a daze. I broke my glasses somewhere along the way, but my memory is in a constant fog some days lately.

    I nervously smoke on the last cigarette from the pack I found, trying to push away from myself some worse smell from sticking to me. I swear to myself I will never smoke again still, because I feel awful. If I survive this winter alone, I won¡¯t need to.

    Although Spring is becoming noticeable clearly.

    I wheeze, walking randomly inland, or nearly. Even in our day, I wasn¡¯t alone appreciating a good old printed map.

    And since I mostly make do with what I find in the bags and pockets of the people who died recently, on the same roads that I take, I can find some clues to their previous ideas.

    I sat on a boulder, munching on stale bread while looking at some of their maps I found.

    And I noticed some interesting notes in one.

    Someone now gone had marked some noteworthy places to try visiting. And they were heading toward the next one after scratching a few prior. It¡¯s still a good hike away.

    I chugged some herbal water I took from another backpack along the way.

    I¡¯m feeling dirty... But I want to live, and I keep walking for a fairer place on that.

    ~

    If I were to pass by a good farm now merely without owner, perhaps I could just settle in.

    But I get a feeling it will never be that easy. I see the moulds spreading around where the sole of my shoe hits. It still carries spores. Awful things propagate and fast, beyond blight.

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    Still some people moved after surviving the first awful night. Now like me they¡¯re facing that. I don¡¯t know at all what¡¯s out there anymore, and that scares me.

    I encountered a fox the next day, and it wasn¡¯t a fairy tale.

    At first I thought it was a dog just startling me. Then I noticed its tail and recognised it was a fox, trotting around me without a worry. It stopped to look at me.

    There I noticed its glazed pale eyes and its weird attitude that betrayed no fear toward me.

    I realised it might be rabid, or sick any other way.

    I stepped back and away. It followed.

    I pulled out the gun I found before, still looking usable.

    It blew out as I fired toward the ground. It scared me for my life and my hand. I screamed in panic.

    Thankfully and luckily, my hand only got light burns and trauma. And the fox did run away from the explosive noise.

    But I fell to my knees, shaking. It took me a while to recover my composure. I¡¯m feeling sticky and dirty everywhere.

    I¡¯m tired...

    But I must move forward. There is nothing to eat nor drink along this road. Just hopefully, in the next city there might be...

    I want to find a nice farm.

    Whatever weird things come around me, I feel like I must run for my life now, everything too hazardous, unknown and potentially so hostile.

    The nights are terrifying and I prefer to stop early if I find a really good shelter. Usually a vehicle or a building that still holds itself well.

    In the swamps around, otherworldly abominations are growing, taking odd shapes and colours.

    It¡¯s not just mould, nor exactly trees. Nor anything I can identify clearly.

    Just... Things alien looking are growing in massive volumes along the way.

    I glare at these shapes in a partial daze, out of curiosity and bewilderment.

    The shapes are shifting, slightly flowing around, and changing colours.

    I don¡¯t have a clue what I¡¯m even looking at. Alien flora is how I would describe it.

    Growing in bulbs and swamps. I stay away from these monstrosities before a tentacle would be to grab my ankle and dragging me inside.

    And I¡¯ll miss that chance if they¡¯re edible, but I just cannot try it and gamble my life that way.

    I¡¯m growing hungry, finding nothing but weird stuff to eat along my way.

    I fall to the level where I cut the big mushrooms that grow inside cars on occasions. I boil them as long as can, trying to insure I destroy as much noxious compounds they can have.

    I have just a bite.

    I then wait, breathing heavily from stress more than a reaction. I¡¯m starving but hold myself back, because I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m eating...

    I¡¯m sobbing a little, but I eat more.

    Night falls and I try to sleep, hiding under my rags inside the next car.

    What if I¡¯m the last one alive, I worried for a while...

    There won¡¯t be much grander purpose left, but there never really were any to begin with.

    I¡¯ll try to survive in what my environment, social or wild, gives me.

    And I¡¯ll try to live as safely and happily as I can balance for the rest of my life.

    The night is scary.

    Every rattling and unidentified noise is a source of concern. But I do wake up safe and alive the next day.

    My ganglions aren¡¯t as swollen as the previous day even I notice. Maybe I¡¯m even getting a little better.

    As I harvest more of these mushrooms to cook them on this finer morning, I begin to think about it.

    Maybe I¡¯m gradually getting better and wiser about it; surviving in this wilderness.

    So maybe my dream of a farm isn¡¯t impossible onward. I mean, something weird happened out here, but it doesn¡¯t mean we can¡¯t work around it.

    I just hope it¡¯s not as insidious as radioactivity, but so far it looked different. And there is only so much I will ever know or be able to act against either way...

    I hope I don¡¯t die from a thyroid cancer next year, but I won¡¯t be able to tell nor do anything about it right away.

    All I can do now is boiling everything I eat and drink beforehand, and staying away from the weirdest novelties that seem to spread in growing diversity.

    My eyes feel alright now. It¡¯s odd. Everything is full of complexity and I feel unsteady along my way. But I push further to that next hopeful dot on the map I keep in hand.

    Someone else thought it was a place worth checking, and I¡¯ll take this memory along with me.

    A glint of hope at the end of this long road.

    ~

 059. About life, 5

    (Zeslinry)

    I¡¯m getting thinner, but not in a very good way. I continue walking on that cold road, mostly empty.

    I stepped aside another oddity, growing tendrils out of bulbs. It had grown lettuce looking leaves, only pale white and blue like some marine animals. Things like that continue to unsettle me.

    I think I¡¯m encountering less of them though lately. Thankfully I¡¯m getting closer to the area this hopeful map carried me toward.

    I find a city like many others. Standing still now, all too quiet and still over the horizon.

    I clench the straps of my backpack a little tighter and make my way there. I¡¯m a little low in optimism lately.

    I pass by impromptu graves and tombstones along the way. This is already looking grim.

    I enter the empty streets that have the same sorts of marks I had left behind. So it was the same here. So far inland.

    Maybe it really happened everywhere sadly. But my stomach churns in pain, making me think again.

    As silent and peaceful this city appears to be, I¡¯m still concerned. But hunger now pushes me to take some more chances. So I head inside, looking for food, and maybe another place to mark on my map.

    ~

    I pass by collapsed streets and wrecked constructions sites. It makes the city a little more of a three dimensional jungle. I don¡¯t find any survivors whereabouts here, but the traces they left evacuating are numerous.

    I notice how the undergrounds and anything below the surface level is shrouded in sulphuric looking mist. I¡¯m not going down there. And I¡¯m not staying long enough to check if something alive below there sometimes resurfaces. I don¡¯t want to know.

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    I find some food that hasn¡¯t spoiled yet. I barely prevent myself from eating too much at once. It¡¯s painful to be forced rations.

    I sigh, sitting in a living room I invaded at random.

    There¡¯s still some water in that building. I use it to wash and go to the toilets like normal.

    I make a fire as night draws near, but camping in an industrial building far away from the weird underground fumes. I check the few maps I¡¯ve found, but no other has these marks.

    However I found near here a military vehicle that had some papers left. A regiment code, referring to another area.

    So I¡¯m checking by fire light where that could refer to. I¡¯m not sure if that was still in use by a legitimate army corp. But whatever forces were out there, that might be worth a check next. I think they were a little further away from there.

    I hide below my blanket and shiver my way to sleep painfully.

    Sadly I¡¯m woken up not long after by the noises of pipes bursting somewhere.

    I discover outside quite the lights show.

    As I half feared, something weird do come out from the underground at night.

    Not predatory monsters though, but the green fluorescent mist itself. It¡¯s phosphorescent looking rather, rising in glowing fumes all over the city in random shapes. It¡¯s altogether terrifying and rather beautiful. As if these sentient smokes were rising up above the city in night flames, to dance or catch something feeding them in the air.

    I watch these things for a few minutes, ready to run away at first, and then relaxing... These things are like new plants, now blooming perhaps?

    I uncork a bottle I had found along my venture in town and pour myself a glass.

    This night show is the first truly nice looking thing I¡¯ve come around so far. I wouldn¡¯t get any closer nonetheless. I¡¯m glad I¡¯m far enough from these, whatever they are.

    I sigh a lot and eventually manage to sleep a little nonetheless.

    ~

    I leave the city a little more eroded on the next day. Things decay faster when these acidic fumes rise.

    What happened to this place...

    To the world?

    I pack what¡¯s still edible that I could gather and resume my scavenging.

    I spend another day trying to pluck what hasn¡¯t spoiled yet from this place.

    I really will need to find a place where I can grow enough food when summer comes. I won¡¯t be able to find enough just gathering spoils at random like that every year.

    I make do eventually, and even manage to leave with a car that works. It stopped in smokes and burning fumes a few kilometres later, but that was better than nothing.

    I look at the open and silent road. A few more days of walk across this gentle countryside. Until the end of Winter.

    Toward the next chance of finding a little more but death and leftovers out there.

    A military site hopefully will have a little more.

    With some luck, maybe there were even prepared for whatever happened. Someone must have been somewhere...

    I go around a village shrouded in more toxic mists the next day. And I reach eventually this other dot on a random map.

    ~

 060. Ruins of the strong, 1

    (Zeslinry)

    Weeks flew by.

    I was settling in a nearby abandoned village, scavenging what was abandoned on the roads.

    I didn¡¯t enter the ruins of the port town as it was now covered with toxic fumes, and really entirely dissolved into a swamp. Few structures protruded out of it.

    I followed different roads, heading north.

    The world was now silent, and not only because it was winter.

    I ended up at a military base, turned into wrecks like everything else. Everything that could somehow blow up had exploded. Every building was wrecked. Vehicles were in random situation, either okay or destroyed as well. Corpses were melting, leaving clothes and weapons behind. Even the bones were turning into jelly, and dissolving later.

    I was already accustomed to that.

    What I wasn¡¯t accustomed to yet, was facing what monsters truly could be, and meeting new people in this kind of context.

    And that day, on that field of ruins, I faced one of these new challenges.

    At first, I thought it was an optical illusion, my eyes playing tricks on me. I thought I was looking at a dinosaur just there, eating the bones of the dead.

    It was not a mistake.

    The monsters trying to come to life on the dawn when the end came, they were without shape, colours, nor lifespan. They were grotesque and often collapsing under their own weight before they could walk.

    But now I faced what they could become.

    The monster was a beast standing on its two leg and its long tail, like a kangaroo.

    But it was harbouring dinosaur or at least avian features.

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    Its arms were wings folded against its body.

    As it saw me, it shrieked, spitting goo toward me, now showing me weird wings wider than a truck in span.

    A weird dragon was suddenly threatening me and I could feel my legs trembling.

    What the hell happened to the world was now drilling into my head to destroy there what sanity was left.

    This was hell on Earth.

    ~

    The beast jumped down from a pile of wrecks to come at me. I ran.

    I picked up a rifle on the ground where many soldiers died, as they were scattered there among clothes without a care.

    I tried to shoot but the weapon wasn¡¯t loaded.

    I picked up another. It would be my last chance. The beast was not running fast, but getting closer certainly.

    I shot, and my ears began to rang. It worked.

    A few bullets brought the beast down in a great ruckus.

    It was easier than I feared it would be, given its big size. I got carefully closer.

    I saw its tall body beginning to melt already. It was mostly made of liquids.

    Its skeleton was a weird sculpture with random patterns and tiny details, and was already soft like jelly.

    It was maybe too young, or incomplete somehow.

    One way or another, it had been too frail and was now collapsing.

    The puddles of fluids coming of the body sank into the ground or slithered away like viscous snakes.

    I found pieces of animals inside, as the bones shattered. They were coagulated chicken bones, egg shells, and other scraps even including pebbles and dirt.

    Lots of chicken leftovers actually.

    It might have been a chicken, or its demonic reincarnation of some sort.

    Some sort of demon born from what we had left behind...

    The head looked like a dinosaur to me as it melted.

    One of my feet was in a puddle at that time.

    I didn¡¯t realise right away my mistake.

    ~

    As a sharp pain was going through my foot, I was lucky enough to find an old truck that was not exploded, and a mobile infirmary at that. I entered that small field hospital in a rush.

    I don¡¯t know what is the logical explanation that made this truck avoid destruction at the time everything happened. Whatever it is, I didn¡¯t care about it right then. The pain was becoming unbearable.

    I removed my shoe and realised my foot had begun melting from below. There was a hole in the sole. My foot had grown into a putrid grotesque thing.

    I recognised the liquid flesh from the monster, now crawling around my toes and inside my skin turned transparent.

    I managed to overcome the terror and pain in my heart, like a spike.

    I grabbed a cable and tied my leg below the knee tight enough to bleed. Then I grabbed the bone saw and just mindlessly attacked my leg just below that.

    I screamed, but then bit on my collar, and kept working blind as my eyes turned unresponsive.

    The pain wasn¡¯t that bad after a while. I just kept my arms moving until I felt the saw hit the table below.

    I did some things afterward. I stopped the bleeding, cauterised the wound partially, and wrapped it.

    It was a blur, and I passed out after one hour of auto-pilot, unable to think things through.

    ~

    I eventually woke up, alive.

    I woke up in the same place.

    I noticed that my severed foot was gone. It had been taken away by the new forces of nature...

    Given what I would be facing from now on, one leg was a fair price to pay, for the lesson I just learnt there...

    I would think of it that way later on, but of course at the time all I could be was horrified, terrified, and focused on staying alive if only for another day.

    I would eventually.

    ~

    After tending to my wound, I returned to scavenging that old base. A few other things were left fairly unharmed.

    Amongst which were a working generator and a spotlight. I used this light at night to lit up one side of the camp, whilst I hid in the medical truck on the other end.

    I was wondering which would come first, attracted by the artificial light.

    Men or monsters?

    It turned out after a few weeks of recovery to be neither.

    ~

 061. Radiant day, 1

    (Zeslinry)

    I never believed in fateful encounters, soulmates, coup de foudre and other romantic bullshit.

    Retrospectively, I still think it was an incredible luck and a godsend.

    One night, the light I keep caught someone. It was just a vagrant girl.

    She arrived there by pure luck, alone as I was since the end of time.

    She found the light and generator, but only ruins around. She used her own light torch to look for the survivors around. She found the medical truck where I was sleeping, door locked.

    She knocked on the door, waking me up.

    We didn¡¯t talk, because she was only testing me at that moment. She wasn¡¯t sure she could trust me. I opened the door to no one, and thought I had dreamt.

    It was only on the next morning, when I went out with my crutches that we truly met. She saw me first.

    I was eating breakfast sitting on top of a small building. She naturally came out of her hiding, to meet me and share our food.

    A young girl, maybe a third of my age, but with the spark of a superior intelligence in her dark eyes.

    We smile at each other, quickly acting like long-time friends. Our personalities click well with each other.

    Myls is about to be ten years old, but the circumstances forced her to rush to adulthood or die. She survived.

    M - But helping each other will be much nicer and easier.

    Z - I fully agree. Two half brains are better than a single one.

    She cracks a smile.

    We¡¯ll get along well, I thought at the time. She thought the exact same.

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    ~

    Myls was the one who found me a prosthetic leg. She helped me set it right on my healing wound.

    I was able to walk again, thanks to her. I even threw away the crutches later.

    She was playing with a handgun, making it spin like a cowboy. She is aware that we should stay armed from now on.

    M - Let¡¯s find ourselves a new home. I¡¯m sure we can find a nice place where you¡¯ll be able to grow food safely.

    Z - We will. I have a few ideas already. A main base and over time, set secondary bases, in case we need to move someday.

    She smiles. We¡¯re going.

    ~

    Myls is quick on her feet, and certainly more agile than me currently. We¡¯re heading inland, toward the forests.

    We¡¯re witnessing more and more weird stuff along the way. She¡¯s already quite accustomed to it.

    We discuss about each other as we go and explore the changed countryside. We chat as we walk the empty roads.

    M - One question each, Ready?

    Z - Yes.

    M - Are you married?

    Z - No. I had boyfriends though. You, did you have a lover?

    M - I had a brother I looked up too, and a best friend, but they¡¯re gone now. How old are you?

    Z - I¡¯m 28. You¡¯re quite smart, who taught you?

    M - My parents and my brother. They wanted me to be an engineer. What about you?

    Z - Me too actually, but then we had to move and they enrolled in the war. How did you come to this land?

    M - We came by plane with others, it was when I was a baby. How did you come?

    Z - I paid for a boat ride to a smuggler, a week before the white day. I wanted to work in a small farm. Do you have a hobby?

    M - I like pretty books and old things. Why did you come here?

    Z - Ah well, it¡¯s close enough to civilisation but lax enough so I could live on the fringe of society without too much trouble. That was the idea. Did you live in the area?

    M - I lived with my parents in the far north from her. Scotland. The plague caught us.

    Z - The plague?

    M - I¡¯ll have two questions Zeslinry! Yes, the plague. People melting. We escaped in train but it caught us. We jumped and continued on foot. All my family died one after another as we went... Do you miss your family? Do you miss the old society...

    Z - I¡¯m sorry... A little, but they died before all this. And, a little, but not too much. What about you?

    M - A little... Sometimes a little yes... What will we do in time?

    Z - Hm, good question... But the truth is, for me it doesn¡¯t change anything really. I just want to find a place I can call home and where I can live and work to live. I don¡¯t really have more ambition. What about you?

    M - Hm... For now, I just want to live and I¡¯d like to stay with you. When I¡¯m all grown up, when I¡¯m a strong and smart adult, I¡¯d like to travel. I think.

    Z - You¡¯re already quite smart and strong for your age Myls. You¡¯re right to play it safe. You¡¯ll be strong enough to travel before you know it.

    M - I hope so... Do you wonder about what happened?

    Z - I do. Some computers still find accesses to online communication networks, but nothing happens there. So some machines still function here and there, but it¡¯s like everyone is gone... Where would you like to travel?

    M - I don¡¯t know... Scandinavia maybe. That¡¯s where my parents were from... Do you think other people are like us?

    Z - Certainly. I¡¯m sure a few human communities still live everywhere on the planet. I just wonder what will become of them in the next few years.

    M - I wonder if there will be many adventurers like us.

    Z - It seems statistically plausible to me.

    M - You¡¯re funny Zeslinry when you speak like an old robot. Are you one?

    Z - Ah! No. Flesh and blood, just like you... What about you?

    M - No, I¡¯m human too.

    We chat. We laugh. We even play at times.

    We became a family in mere days. And we helped each other in all sorts of ways along our path.

    We would find a home eventually. And we would build what we had in mind.

    The world was bizarre now, but still welcoming, habitable.

    We would live, that¡¯s what matters.

    The winter will be over soon. The new spring of this year zero will see many interesting new things sprout.

    ~

 062. About freedom, 6

    (Zeslinry)

    Walking with a prosthetic leg is tiring. But clearly the world and age doesn¡¯t seem that harsh and hostile now.

    Myls hands me a bottle of warm soup. I smile and thank her kindly, before gulping it down quickly. I was needing it.

    M - You okay?

    Z - Yes... Just still need some training.

    I still use a cane, more than a crutch to walk steadily.

    I feel that if my drift was a little aimless; now that I¡¯ve met this shrewd child, a new meaning and purpose has appeared from our unlikely collision.

    We¡¯ve met, and now we found our reason. I don¡¯t feel much of a motherly instinct toward her despite her age next to mine. It¡¯s more a realisation.

    We¡¯re not alone in the end, but it¡¯s nearly just us two however. So since it clicked, now we¡¯re teaming up.

    Our wandering felt for both of us that it faced its main logical end on that day.

    Now we can more peacefully move on to the next phase of living on, helping each other. And as I tire and ache between my hips and legs, I appreciate how caring she is. And I can say with confidence I would do the same for her.

    I check and clean my stump as we camp for the night, on the outskirts of another town. It¡¯s good this severe wound healed so fast and so well, but I still shiver when I think back about that lesson of life.

    I scratch my drying skin, turning hard as a foot sole.

    M - Can¡¯t you replace it or grow it back with technology?

    Z - That would prove exceptionally challenging.

    Myls laughs. I smile back. We like playing on my monochord voice when we have the chance.

    It lightens the mood, not that it¡¯s that dark otherwise.

    Z - You¡¯ll tell me more about your past someday?

    Myls looks a little dumbfounded more than anything.

    M - I don¡¯t recall that much from before honestly. But I¡¯ll try okay.

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    I think she repressed a few too many awful memories. I was already adult and alone, but she has lost her family.

    She scratches her head without realizing it, as if saying she¡¯ll have actually a hard time figuring out what to say since she doesn¡¯t know the answers really.

    I won¡¯t push if it obviously hurts, but I¡¯m inclined to learn more about her.

    ~

    We walk the roads of the midlands, looking for a good place to stay. It takes for ever as we¡¯re on foot, and need to look for food or clear water most time of the days. We open trash cans and cars alike, looking for anything.

    I gather the giant mushrooms grown on plastic I¡¯m rather confident now are edible, because it¡¯s better than nothing I suppose.

    Myls a little further in town is filling our bottles, from soft puddles that are still clear after boiling them.

    She found some clothing and more tools than we might carry.

    We gather the loot we can¡¯t carry with us in a recognizable house, on the fringe of the city. We store our spoils in a sturdy box there. We¡¯re modern stalkers now alright.

    Maybe we¡¯ll return for this someday.

    We build caches along our way. We head from little town to the next, avoiding the bigger clouded cities.

    We also avoid the roaming monsters...

    We hid inside ruins holding our breath, while a weird decomposing ox was growling aggressively in the streets below. We remained in hiding while the beast crushed the wall of another place in incomprehensible wrath.

    We were lying in hiding from the sight or smell of this thing, but still felt scared and uneasy.

    From each of its attacks below, it spilled its own blood, which turned to corrosive mist for its surroundings.

    After a few hours of dedication, the monster then reduced in size, shrinking inside itself, abandoned this endeavour and its carpets of peeled skin. And finally, reduced to a different and smaller animal, it just wandered away.

    All it left behind was a puddle of toxic goo in the middle of a wider area of acidity and splattered stains.

    The broken but not collapsed wall there became a peculiar landmark we also rapidly strayed away from.

    Was it just mad, or marking its territory in a way? Holding cloth over our faces to avoid breathing more than necessary what was scattered in the air, we just fled this place.

    ~

    Another hazardous city we don¡¯t want to return to was left behind. Sometimes it¡¯s that obvious, on others it¡¯s more insidious.

    Z - But given how varied the situations can be, I¡¯m confident we can find an ideal place in the near future.

    M - How much confidence do you have?

    Z - Eighty per cent.

    We smile, washing our faces in a stream.

    There is plenty of fresh water in these lands, which is partially why I emigrated here.

    We found big enough kettles and enough dry soap to get ourselves a reminder of what modern hygiene used to be.

    I sigh in my mud bath. Myls hears me as she¡¯s drying herself.

    M - You want a house with a bath?

    Z - So much... This is life.

    I roll around in this warmed up puddle of clays like an animal, enjoying the scrub and warmth.

    Myls refills a kettle in the stream beside and put it over the fire to heat. This will be to rinse myself. Then I see her hanging a towel for me, and putting my prosthetic leg next to the rock where I should sit later.

    Z - You¡¯re spoiling me Myls.

    M - Only helping.

    Z - What would you like to have in our next house then?

    She looks at me a little surprised again. No immediate answer is coming to her.

    M - Safety and education?

    I can¡¯t help but laugh at her earnest answer.

    Z - I will do my best for you.

    My answer seems to satisfy her sufficiently.

    ~

    Cleaned, dried and clothed again, we continue our journey, crossing semi-methodically all the little towns of this countryside. Building caches of materials and plunder at times.

    Evading the worst things that have settled here and there apparently, solid or fluid.

    I get gradually more flesh between my skin and bones, getting better. The cane I need less and less.

    The headaches and nauseas are also a thing of the past now I realize.

    I look back to that cold past and desolation since I arrived.

    It¡¯s all behind now I plainly accept.

    M - Move on you lazy bones!

    Myls is already a good fifty metres ahead, while I daydreamt about all that befell me like a storm.

    It feels like the weight is mostly gone?

    Now I smile and limp gradually faster my way forward.

    I¡¯m coming with you little brat. I¡¯ll catch up with you...

    ~

 063. Revolution, 5

    (Zeslinry)

    Along our countless nights on the road, we learnt a lot more about each other and our respective pasts.

    My parents vanishing, and the pressure of the unknown but obvious defeat terrifying most countries of central Europe.

    My journey across from the south of the island mainly. How I wanted a solitary piece of fertile land... On my own.

    Myls is so young, she should have less to say. Furthermore since the white day and its aftermath stole most of her childhood memories. Sadly she still had quite a lot of weight to share coolly, almost distant from it.

    We would find our city eventually. And by the time we will settle in our burg, she¡¯ll reach the end of her set of stories.

    ~

    As an infant, she had faint memories left of journeys in a plane mostly. Her parents and brother often lifting her, so she could look outside to the land or the sky.

    She was quite fond of looking at the world outside.

    The plane was rather narrow an apartment, no matter how luxurious it must have been. It was their home for a long time. At her age, so long she was cared for and clean, there was no concept nor understanding of things such as luxury.

    She didn¡¯t start talking from an early age, but she was showing intelligence already. She recalled her parents congratulating her more than once over what she could build with her toys, piling them into audacious yet stable architectural wonders.

    She had good intuitions on the matters of science.

    Her older brother began teaching her mathematics before she could clearly speak.

    At this age everything was fascinating, so long it was explored with someone caring.

    And their plane travelled around the world most likely. She never really knew their itinerary nor country of origin, if there even was any. The plane flew across Europe most likely.

    What I could never ascertain for sure, was where her parents stood in the long lasting war. Not that it mattered anymore to neither me nor her.

    I wouldn¡¯t be surprised they fled to Scotland a few years prior to me, because they foresaw the unavoidable defeat of the last princes at Intemporelle.

    Anyway, they settled in a remote corner of this rather empty land, although Myls still lived inside the plane for a while longer.

    Her parents vanished for other affairs, and she was cared for mostly by her brother. She wasn¡¯t allowed outside before she eventually talked and asked for it herself.

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    Not so long after, her parents changing their stance, she was frolicking in the nearby fields and meadow, albeit under the watch of her brother or mother.

    Not far from the plane, a house was being restored. A few people and machines she had never seen were building what should become their house from now on.

    A not too distant town was providing workers and supplies. Myls¡¯s parents provided money and possibly other services in exchange.

    Myls never went to town or its little school. Her parents took turn teaching her, with the help of their computer room. And Myls was smart, and curious. Her medical exams were also always good.

    She recalled being congratulated there as well, and being given toys and treats for her results. She didn¡¯t recall being a very expressive child but still remembered feeling happy back then.

    Her peaceful few years flew by, her parents mostly absent to build their new little financial empire. Her brother a teenager conflicted between home studies, field studies, the town, and caring for either their home or his little sister.

    Myls recalled feeling lonely at times. Their home¡¯s domotics computer was of limited help sometimes. For a child alone in a wide house, alone at dusk and night, that wasn¡¯t enough.

    She could recall that searing pain when all along lengthy afternoons, no matter how much she ran and even yell along the house, the only voice to reply was that of their computer system.

    She had a few hard times as such. But on and on, things were alright.

    She grew rather well no matter what. She was already pragmatic and resourceful.

    And then came the white day.

    ~

    Myls remembered her parents looking disfigured and sick. She remembered things on fire in the house as if they had been attack by bandits.

    Her brother died first in pestilence while her parents grabbed her to take her away in hurry.

    They rushed toward the town that was equally in disarray. Most people had already died along the way, and the others had noticed how ominous things tended to follow grief.

    A train was being surrounded by a mob, as if it had been a lifeboat in furious sea. Through her family priority, Myls was carried on board among the first people allowed. She had been terrified by everything happening on that day; and a panicking crowd was a new peak of emotions and scare.

    She recalled soiling herself but that even her mother then refused to care for her about that. Her parents and many others filled the train which shortly after began to move, heavily. The panic outside followed, clinging onto the machine as much as they could as if it was meant to save them.

    Inside as well people remained restless, not so sure that was the case anyway.

    Masks and hopes were casually dropping. Purified air changed nothing.

    People in lab coats were looking paler and sharing terrible news with the new lords on board.

    No one was safe, and in Myls¡¯s words, the plague followed them.

    It caught up with them.

    Fleeing fast in train changed nothing. People coughed, vomited and died that morning. Some machines weren¡¯t working and the medicinal doctors were overcome by things that just were turning irrational to them.

    The escape boat devolved in a coffin and death trap before anyone could do anything about it.

    Alarms rang. Emergency brakes were pulled, and the train stopped on its tracks in the middle of nowhere.

    Pestilence and stench were rising inside. Those who still could run or walk just tried their luck outside.

    Awful things were rattling along the fleshes and floors inside.

    Myls recalled seeing her parents along the unlucky ones, unable to leave before it was too late inside.

    In glorious headaches and fright, burning from her own fever and shocks to her mind, Myls jumped out last.

    With pain and freezing thoughts, she had a last glance back to that weird rolling house now left behind. She was the one abandoning her family to its demise, as the plague was growing and coming after her.

    She just ran, confused and lost, without nothing nor anyone left to rely on.

    ~

    Now as Myls shared these early memories to her life, we were camping in a house. Since we could settle in buildings with doors and sometimes still clean beddings, it was no longer camping really.

    I had managed to start a fire inside a chimney even, which I had spent some time clearing out from accumulated gunk before.

    Myls was seating peacefully, looking at the dancing shades and lights along the walls.

    For me too, this was the first evening now in a real house since that dreadful tome. It was a moment of hope for the comfort we wanted to reach again steadily.

    Z - It¡¯s been a long time for you, since you last sat in a proper house.

    M - Probably as long as you.

    Right, but I wanted to sympathise. I ruffled her hair as if to admit she was right and got me.

    Z - Was the hardest part that start?

    She shrugged, unable to say.

    No matter the hardship that ensued, I think it was.

    ~

 064. Revolution, 6

    (Zeslinry)

    Myls was even smaller than she was when we met, back when she had to flee. By a few millimetres probably.

    When she was leaving that escape train in fires and billowing smokes behind. The ideas pained me.

    She had seen how this odd deadly plague was dissolving everything and everyone. And now she was alone, as far away from a burning house and falling town as this odd train had been able to roll.

    She could see green clouds rolling closer from the north behind. For her it felt like the veil or tsunami she had to flee from was approaching.

    As terrified as she was by the unknown world ahead of her, this looming threat was greater.

    Feeling as if everything of her body was torn between giving up on her or fighting to the bitter end, she walked away from there across the fields starting there.

    She held together her nerves and pushed her feet to walk briskly toward the next road after, and from there...

    From there into the terrifying and lonely unknown.

    ~

    Myls had jolts when she encountered more dying people.

    A couple she met in hiding by the next farm building were as lost as she was. They tried to help each other for a while.

    It lasted a few hours at least. Until the woman vomited blood and flesh, spooking her to death.

    From the nearby towns that were now ablaze or abandoned, survivors had been scattering in every direction.

    Making some of them fleeing the same fear now bump into each other.

    All of them terrified, not all of them smart or still masters of themselves.

    The few people Myls had then joined along, they improvised their way southward.

    And somewhere further along the empty roads, they met another group just as traumatized in the middle of nowhere.

    They were all hungry and scared. They came from the other way with the same questions, fears, and anger.

    Myls noticed the heat rising and fled discreetly before the first hits were even thrown.

    As she crawled through a ditch to get out of everyone¡¯s sight, she heard a gunshot. Then more yells.

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    She tried to disappear, shutting her eyes and covering her ears. Her stomach was in knots.

    Thankfully she was in a small trench, and found a fissure in the ground where to hide like a cornered animal. She pushed herself inside.

    When her mind left her, she was still inside that hollow in the ground. She had cowered like a field critter and thankfully survived.

    When she woke up from her exhaustion, she could barely breathe, her muscles aching from how she had spent nervously immobile this evening and night.

    She silently, cautiously returned to the dreadful meeting point, a stone throw beside.

    Stains. Melting fleshes and clothes, as if dragged by the roadsides. Pieces of them had crawled away for a metre or so.

    Myls was feeling weird, albeit glad to still be alive.

    Other people were again approaching by the side. Most likely other survivors from elsewhere, calling out to her as their first encounter...

    But right then Myls was terrified. She ran away from them before she could think about it.

    And she ran even faster as they pursued her. She couldn¡¯t bother listening to their reasons or consider whether they were rightful.

    For now all she could see were danger, and young Myls ran for life until she found herself alone again, and lost regardless.

    But she braced herself with more resolve than tears to waste.

    ~

    Myls saved her energy, made the choices to drop some of the clothes she had carried along so far, but were not practical enough. She probably had been wearing fancy clothing, and decided to scrap it herself.

    She changed rapidly her behaviour as she coursed the land.

    Avoiding the places where the plague was heavy, and the people who might not be friendly.

    She lost weight rapidly because she grew hungry.

    But after a few weeks of eating nothing but mushrooms weirdly growing inside cars, she lost all semblance of spoiled behaviour.

    When she found sealed food still edible in a container or trunk, it was more than relief. No it was a feast.

    She also quickly learnt to clean her water one way or another before drinking it, after suffering painful times of diarrhoea.

    Though after a while, she tried to do both. She tried instinctively to mythridatize herself to the effects of the reasonably clean waters microbiomes.

    It didn¡¯t provide obvious results, but she pushed this aim only while feeling reasonably healthy, trying to build some resilience gradually.

    Myls kept going rather aimlessly southward, away from the cloud of death she didn¡¯t see anymore. The chances of meeting other people were dwindling to unlikely.

    She kept to herself cautiously in the rarest ensuing occasions.

    Unlike me, she didn¡¯t really depress over feeling lonely. She was too focused on surviving to even think or feel about it.

    And she made her way further, avoiding miasmas and filling her pockets and bags gradually with more purposeful clothing and tools. All the fancy clothing of her childhood had been replaced by warmer and sturdier denim. Dull pocket knives were gradually replaced by real kitchenware.

    And eventually, in a small abandoned garrison building, she found her fascinating treasure.

    A pistol. One not too big, which she could handle herself.

    She knew full well what such weapons were. She had enough chances to hear, see and witness for herself the action and purpose of it.

    She also knew she was still a child without the weight nor ability to fight with a knife. This however, was the tool of power and strengthened independence that would suit her. Myls recalled how she unlocked the safety for the very first time. How she loaded it and checked the chamber. Every sensation was written in her.

    She spent her first nights with campfire reading over and over the cleaning manual that came in the handgun case.

    Myls read it until she knew it by heart. She carved this knowledge she knew would be crucial to her survival, for when a really bad day would come.

    She kept the handgun, the grease, the bullets, and discarded the box and even the manual. Myls used its paper to light another fire once she felt confident about losing it.

    She was very afraid of training with it because of the noise it would make. At first she was.

    Meanwhile, she kept it in hands like her newfound child¡¯s comforter, getting accustomed to its weight in hands and slightly greasy smells.

    She noticed how the chamber¡¯s lubricant could pick up and hold some fainter smells sometimes.

    Myls began to realize she also had been counting on her good nose instinctively. Now she could consciously utilize her sense of smell, with more awareness of its subtleties.

    What she didn¡¯t come to realize immediately was how much she was in the meantime losing her childhood memories.

    I think her brain couldn¡¯t process everything, and made these choices as a matter of efficiency.

    As if time was stretching oddly in front and behind this child, all she had left behind was fading rapidly.

    ~

 065. Metamorphosis, 7

    (Zeslinry)

    M - I remember my brother teaching me mathematics. I remember my parents... But details fade fast. And at some point, even their faces. Even...

    Z - It¡¯s okay I think. You had to prioritize what to remember and focus on. And it was the right choice to live on.

    M - I think you¡¯re right.

    Myls has some young smiles for me.

    She spins her handgun around, almost joyfully. She¡¯s a little playful.

    Another day is at its end. Our dream home is surely just a few days ahead now, waiting to be found.

    Z - So, were you able to train using it then, this gun?

    M - I was. Until my shoulders couldn¡¯t even. It was in another old military base.

    ~

    Myls stumbled over an old kingdom military camp along her rural way.

    A place typical, with building of another age, mostly semi-cylindrical on the surface, and extending sometimes into deep shelters below. The base was underground, along with its warehouses.

    Like everything else, this had been long scuttled, abandoned and stripped of anything valuable.

    But Myls realizing what this empty place without plague had been, sought to seize that chance.

    She looked for the one underground building that might have a firing range for her. Anywhere outside could have been used, but she wanted to keep herself discreet still. So she entered dark empty warehouses with this arching ceiling.

    Stairs heading below were rusty or dusty. She could hear her steps.

    Sometimes Myls stopped, just to listen, to make sure she was indeed alone.

    And she ventured into these depths of an almost foreign past.

    Looking not for treasures but shelter and muffling the sounds of her handgun.

    A temporary home where she could train safely.

    Rats were fleeing from her along the way. At least at first glance, she thought they had been rats. Critters were living down there but wary of her, as would be normally.

    She looked through these long abandoned underground little cities, searching for the right place she had in mind. She didn¡¯t find it precisely. But she found a chunk of shoe polish and waxes. She used it to stain her clothes, to better protect her against rain water, and also to draw targets against a wall.

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    The right place ended up being a warehouse deep underground, pristine empty. It would do the job for her.

    The sounds of her steps and voice were reasonably muffled by the walls there. It didn¡¯t echo nearly as much as everywhere else in the base, and she had a wide open space offered to her.

    So after checking properly all the ways in and out, she locked herself inside from the two main ways she had found. Then she trained with the bullets she felt she reasonably could spare in the exercise.

    The first shocks were terrible to her.

    The shots went everywhere. The noise was hurting her as much as the recoil hitting her shoulders and pushing back her whole body like a strong punch.

    Eventually she might be able to shoot with only one hand, if she was ready to twirl along the movement induced by the recoil into her arm. This was a kind of dancing, and she found it a little fun.

    However if she wanted to shoot multiple times a clear but tiny target in front of her, she needed instead to tense and slouch herself, readying her two hands and entire body to hold the punches.

    Myls shot a few more bullets, holding the weapon up until her arms were numb.

    Her ears were ringing loudly, despite the foam she had stuck inside them.

    Her head was in vertigo, her smell impaired. All her senses were shaken and tired.

    But as she breathed and emptied her ears, she heard something else. An alarming sound of voices and more getting closer.

    Myls packed and fled immediately toward the opposite exit at the other end of the warehouse, before being found.

    She couldn¡¯t quite recognize the words being likely spoken far back. Her first instincts had kicked in already, and she ran through the dark tunnel leading to another underground building.

    She reached a door usually shut, at the bottom of which weird things were aggregating. She jumped back in terror as she saw that mass. The critters she had thought being rats were now stuck and gluing to each other there, unable to pass through the hole they usually crawled through.

    Things were turning messy and gooey for them. Myls stood there in horror, trapped between two dangers she would have much preferred fleeing.

    She tried to approach the door to open it and flee, but couldn¡¯t. The mass turning monstrous was wriggling ominously at her feet.

    So she had to run back to the other wat, soon likely to stumble against some people on her way.

    I wondered what Myls¡¯s parents would have taught her, about such dilemmas and gambling between the lesser of two evils.

    She wondered, thinking fast, whether she should put an act, try to hide, or just attack.

    Myls panicked as people were clearly climbing down the stairs before her. She wouldn¡¯t avoid them.

    A small group bearing weapons she could tell from the smell was approaching, and she could already see their torchlights.

    Help? Threat? Sneak attack? Play?

    Myls had her highlight at the last moment and rushed back toward the other end.

    She felt that her heart might explode as she was almost caught.

    She reached the door and drew her weapon. Not to shoot the beast directly, unable to predict how it would react to a direct attack; but beside it, to scare it away.

    The shot rang, echoing painfully. The transforming mass did jolt away from the door after the flash and detonation. It fled.

    Myls rushed despite the confusion, opening the door and escaping, leaving the yells and other noises behind.

    She ran to exhaustion, up the stairs and outside soon.

    She gasped, trembling all over and in pain, when she reached the air outside. It was a relief under the light.

    The group investigating had scattered however on arrival, leaving their car and a couple more people there, now gazing at her in surprise.

    Myls and the other person were afraid of each other. She hesitated again. So did they.

    She stepped aside and ran away. No matter what further noises or yells would ensue.

    Myls fled into the woods nearby and didn¡¯t look back.

    ~

    I listened to Myls¡¯s monotone recollection with mixed feelings. I didn¡¯t really know what to make of it or what to say.

    M - You don¡¯t ask me?

    Z - Asking you what?

    She pointed at me. What about me? I get it.

    Z - Because I didn¡¯t scare you?

    M - That helped but no. It¡¯s how you behaved.

    Our meeting and rapid good understanding of each other did feel incredibly lucky. At such point we¡¯d want to call it fate. It was the right time and place for both of us, luckily.

    I recall that she approached me on that morning, and I didn¡¯t act surprised. Nor was she.

    We just met calmly, as if nothing else new or abnormal had been coming our ways recently.

    Just another day simply?

    We were like minded in some aspects, and it was the lucky right time and place. Along her journey, she had many dice rolls. I think I was a good one ending quite a streak of spooky throws.

    And I felt a little the same.

    ~

 066. Transcendence, 7

    (Zeslinry)

    Somewhere in the heart of the countryside, we eventually found it.

    A city not too damaged by history, still filled with goods and potential, but nobody else visibly.

    By nobody I meant neither humans nor obvious oddities.

    We scouted the town for a few good days, together and separated, finding nor hearing anything that would have led us to fear otherwise. This reasonable city is empty and in good condition overall.

    It¡¯s reasonably beside the main roads and tracks. It has a small river passing through. It has numerous gardens growing all sorts of things wild, and the city has a few wide squares that could become walled gardens in time.

    A little part of the choice is also our desire to finally settle somewhere a little, I won¡¯t lie.

    So all and all Myls and I agree. This is where we¡¯ll be.

    ~

    We pick the place and we start settling in. In the house we chose to inhabit, it¡¯s one of these old architecture of concomitant houses. Meaning it shares walls left and right with other ones that in the end make an entire street side fortress. Four of them surround a square, a wide one, with only a few streets to get access inside.

    In the house of this old British style, the map is narrow but long. One long corridor and tight stairs climbing steeply in the entrance. By the side, the living room, then the kitchen behind, then a rear garden.

    On first floor, same long corridor, for two rooms and a bathroom. On the second floor, one more room and an office used as a storeroom. And using a ladder, there¡¯s an attic below the roof, also used for storage.

    We found also nests from missing birds, bats and bees or hornets. All are empty and cold. We would never see any.

    We didn¡¯t have much more belongings to tidy up then if we had been passing by in a hotel. This would gradually grow.

    First was first. We found some bottles of gaz by the neighbouring houses and tool sheds. We found and began gathering all sorts of supplies. Not randomly nor with a selling value in mind. Simply the most practical and down to Earth ones.

    What would feed us and help us survive.

    I made jams in bulk for the first time in my life.

    All the fruits we could collect all across the city were turned to purees and sweetened, cooked, so it could last us through next winter.

    Over the days, Myls brought me back duffel bags of fruits, but looked more and more puzzled over time.

    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    Z - What¡¯s on your mind?

    M - It¡¯s weird. I could have sworn I had made the harvest in these gardens yesterday, but today all the fruits were there. It happened a few times already.

    Z - What if you marked the places where you¡¯ve been then? You will know for sure tomorrow.

    M - Good idea.

    I gave her a lipstick I had found in another home. Myls took it and looked at it weirdly. She might have some memories of her mother using one?

    She pocketed it without saying what had been on her mind. I¡¯m curious but I don¡¯t need to pry.

    ~

    The next day she returned really troubled. On her request I followed her to see.

    I found an abundant little orchard, where the trees all had a mark.

    Nothing visibly plucked.

    Was this a joke? She looked so serious. No, something else might be going on.

    I plucked an apricot and had a bite. All normal, just like yesterday.

    Z - Everything... regrows overnight?

    M - I don¡¯t understand it.

    Z - Now that¡¯s weird... And unnatural.

    M - What do you think we should do?

    I think about it earnestly.

    Z - Either it¡¯s natural, or it isn¡¯t. I think we should figure out more before doing second harvests on trees and plants you marked. Are other vegetables acting the same?

    M - Some.

    She points at carrots and potatoes that didn¡¯t regrow, but lettuces that did.

    Z - For this garden, nothing more but tests onwards. Let¡¯s pick a few spots and selected plants where you will increment more harvests, but keep them aside, in the kitchen of this house maybe. So we¡¯ll see over time if it appears limitless, or if as I suspect it, it has a discreet limit.

    I notice a branch looking freshly grown, while every other are tattered by exposure of the bark.

    Z - Did you break a branch here the other day?

    M - I think so?

    I break the fresh one and an old one, and let them fall.

    We both look at the tree with some concern, as if it was going to move suddenly to complain, or even regenerate its missing branches in a magical halo of light.

    All is quiet. Nothing appears to happen so suddenly.

    M - You think it¡¯s magic?

    Z - Not more than you. So let¡¯s test it to comprehend it.

    Myls acts as if she was a robot to mock me, implying I might be one. I smile at her mocking tone. I reply keeping a very monochord tone.

    Z - We need more data to conclude.

    Now she laughs.

    And we agree. We won¡¯t push too far the oddities, but do some tests to try better understanding it.

    ~

    Over the first week or so, not much changed. Fruits and vegetables with root remaining regrew overnight.

    That seemed free.

    But we both had intuitions reality might not be so generous and simple.

    And we were correct. Because when it eventually failed to repeat after a certain number of times, it was as if the trees tried to drain the missing resources for the work, and failed to do so.

    Things turned weird, incomplete, deformed and colourless. We could see it tried, making more and more sacrifices.

    And pushed even further, it strained itself to death. The trees pushed to exhaustion died as if they had been animals. They turned to dried and brittle husks, entirely dead.

    From bountiful, consuming unseen resources, minerals from the ground, water and carbon dioxide from the air. But ending sick and in starvation to eventually abruptly die.

    With Myls we witnessed with stupor how plants could die and crumble into completely dry bits in a mere few days.

    The trees tested to the limit completely vanished, leaving barren ground they had drained until the end, and eventually leaving absolutely nothing behind.

    It was a little spooky honestly.

    And the lesson was clear. As much as the plants can now regrow their missing parts and fruits much faster than before, their supplies to do so aren¡¯t endless. The availability of their nutrients in the ground and air didn¡¯t change. So we can kill the earth itself from overwork now, and fast.

    So we really shouldn¡¯t harvest more than what the soil can currently offer and regenerate properly.

    Which intuitively means most likely one typical harvest as in the previous years was normality.

    We can continue testing and learning, but onward we will know these bounties aren¡¯t endless nor free.

    Z - It¡¯s most likely a good lesson about chemistry and energy. Although as plants are generally concerned, energy is nearly limitless and free.

    M - ... What do you mean?

    Z - If it was just about soil nutrients, they wouldn¡¯t be able to regrow through the night. Only under sunlight. So since they do... That means, I think, that there might also be something compensating strongly that supply of energy that is normally light.

    M - Warmth maybe? Oxygen?

    Z - Hm, I wonder.

    I have no idea if this hypothesis is even right, nor yet how to test or ascertain any of it.

    But since that¡¯s likely the case anywhere, at least we¡¯ve found the right place to stay here.

    ~

 067. About life, 6

    (Zeslinry)

    Now things really began to change. I focused on food transformation and turning our square into secured crop fields.

    We¡¯ve learnt that in some instances, plants don¡¯t go crazy and remain the same as in the past. It¡¯s an artificial influence outside that changes things.

    From there, Myls was focusing on fortifying our square and securing the surrounding land. I focus on keeping us fed, and cared for, inside our safe zone.

    Splitting responsibilities keeps us efficient. And it keeps her active. Also she has sharper senses than me outside.

    Whereas I¡¯m good in organising lands and buildings. I repair things and I build a hoe first thing.

    The gardens and plain park in the square are turned over.

    I make the calculations and choices from everything we have stored.

    Jars of preserved food accumulate gently. Dry things, bulbs and seeds as well.

    I hope it works. I sow seeds and potatoes cut in pieces.

    We¡¯ve built two pumps to bring water from the small river behind. We¡¯ve drained the flooded basement of the house we¡¯ll inhabit and sealed most others.

    Slowly but steady, we¡¯re turning this corner of an abandoned city into our new home and land. We¡¯re the owners now.

    I shovel dirt and soil all day long. I¡¯m short of making new folk songs. My hands hurt. My skin gets blisters. I¡¯m shaky...

    The growing girl comes and gives me a hand. She takes over while I rest for a little while.

    Z - Anything new outside?

    M - No. It¡¯s all quiet.

    Now and forever hm...

    Z - Tomorrow I¡¯ll come along to find supplies.

    M - Okay.

    She¡¯s tired. She speaks less and less the more tired she gets I noticed.

    I tell her to stop and we return to the house we inhabit.

    This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.

    ~

    The carpet keeps our shoes in the entrance. The living room lacks light and is a little cluttered with stuff already.

    We¡¯re actually spending some time reading books in the morning or evenings.

    For now I lit the gas and start cooking something. We have fruits, vegetables, even lentil. But we¡¯re soon to suffer malnutrition if we don¡¯t find meat, eggs or fishes I realise.

    I serve my young friend her bowl of soup. She doesn¡¯t complain nearly as much as I did at her age. I eat along, too quietly.

    Z - Have you seen the tracks of animals around?

    M - A few. Not much.

    Z - And fishes in the water?

    M - No, never.

    Z - Is the rifle good to use you think?

    She raises her eyes at me. It¡¯s a shrewder look.

    Z - I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll find chicken and eggs anytime soon unfortunately. But you especially need to eat a little more. So if we¡¯re good to go, tomorrow we¡¯ll look for something.

    She lowers her gaze back to her soup. She thinks fast. She knows I¡¯m right.

    M - Okay.

    She finishes it and brings her bowl back to the kitchen. I later head to the attic and check our hunting equipment for the morrow.

    ~

    We went to the heart of the woods at dawn. Where she had sometimes caught the trails or whiffs of animals. She was not sure of the kind.

    We proceed slowly and quietly. She sniffs our trail as best she can. It¡¯s a little cute, and surprisingly good.

    M - This way.

    Surprisingly to me, we reach a meadow. Long abandoned houses are almost not crumbling there. Trees have grown inside and above.

    It¡¯s old.

    We walk through the tall grass. It¡¯s a moor opening there and further. We could get lost if we go too far. Thankfully the beast that moves isn¡¯t of the kind I¡¯d call monster. It¡¯s a big dog. I don¡¯t know anything about the hundreds of races of dogs there had been.

    It looks alert, but I think it¡¯s unsteady, maybe it¡¯s old.

    Z - A wild dog?

    M - I think it¡¯s what I smelled before.

    I load the rifle steadily.

    The dog is looking at us, now barking.

    We wait. No one is coming to hold it over. I half expected the old owner to come out from the ruins for a moment, but that was fantasy. We¡¯re alone.

    It starts rushing at us. I shoot. I grazed it, but it keeps running fast.

    A gunshot follows and the angry prey falls.

    Myls is more steadily looking than I am. She¡¯s looking tensed for a few more seconds but then breathes.

    Z - Good job Myls... I will need to train.

    M - Hm...

    We carefully get closer. The animal is wimping like any mammal would, as it¡¯s bleeding profusely. I take out the hunting knife and the spare towel I had brought. It¡¯s messy, but I put it down for good.

    I¡¯m not feeling good. I feel guilty and sick honestly... But...

    Well.

    After a breather, we load it onto a makeshift stretcher and pull it back with a rope, through the hillside of the meadow.

    Then the woods. It¡¯s tough, but that thing is nearly as big as me and I couldn¡¯t lift and hold it properly over my shoulders.

    Z - I hope you like dog meat...

    M - I don¡¯t know, I never tasted it.

    Z - Me neither comes to think of it.

    M - You know how to butcher such?

    Z - No...

    She seems a little disappointed. But we¡¯ll learn.

    M - I¡¯ll look inside the books.

    Z - Okay.

    It takes us a few breaks and a good half of the day just to get back to our town.

    There¡¯s still so much to do and build... If only to bring us food without deficiencies. I¡¯m feeling so scared sometimes.

    I don¡¯t want us to starve...

    Z - We¡¯ll look into fermenting malt someday. And fishing too tomorrow, alright?

    M - Alright.

    She smiles a little.

    We¡¯ll make it.

    ~

    It was messy butchering. I spent hours freezing my feet in the water stream to wash everything. My hands hurt so much. Some parts of the intestines looked heavily cancerous. We threw all that away.

    We¡¯ll try drying the legs into hams. And we make the most of everything.

    By the end of the next day, we finally have a roasted taste.

    Myls chews very long every bite. She¡¯s making a face, unpleased.

    M - It¡¯s not very good...

    I don¡¯t know why, but that made me laugh loudly.

    ~

 068. About reality, 5

    (Uri)

    I sat by a campfire, burning old papers, cardboards and broken wooden furniture. To heat, and to cook our food on skewers.

    I still couldn¡¯t believe our time had come to that.

    U - It¡¯s nice, these camping and barbecues. Great idea for these holidays friend. But when are we returning home?

    My friend and previously colleague grinned at my joke.

    M - It will just take a minute or so, after we¡¯ve found negative dynamical entropy.

    Now I¡¯m the one tittering and laughing. Good man, good.

    U - Did you consider adding a gamma zero professor?

    M - I like to keep my cosmological constants simple. But an adaptation coefficient can be of use sometimes.

    We¡¯re good friends just like before. Even though our employer is no longer there to bother us.

    Nor our homes.

    Nor electricity generally.

    Nor anything that would avoid us dining and living freely.

    Like we¡¯ve been transported a million years into the past nearly.

    U - I wonder if we could train monkeys to carve stones?

    M - Wild ambition... Enjoy your meal.

    I eat my skewers with little appetite. I don¡¯t really know what to live for now, but I still have strong urges to survive.

    I¡¯m an ape too in the end.

    ~

    Another night. Another day.

    Mushio pulls on his hood under the sun. His skin disease has grown significantly worse since the white day. My aftermath is more in headaches or migraines recently. I¡¯m still doing well otherwise.

    But overall we¡¯re both glad to still be alive. These costs to live through the historical event of our generation and its aftermath were rather mild. We were lucky.

    U - Where¡¯s the next target?

    M - Probably in the southern mountain chain.

    U - Whose turn is it to bet?

    M - Yours friend.

    U - Then I bet we won¡¯t find anyone alive, and no useful notes.

    M - Not taking any chances hey? Okay. I bet we¡¯ll find one person alive but nearly insane.

    He laughs, me too. Good. We¡¯re in good company. This may be the utter end, but we¡¯re having a rather enjoyable time all and all.

    So we pack up. We hop into the only working car of the countryside we¡¯ve been through so far. I make it roll and we¡¯re on our way.

    We pass beside empty cities and weirdly floral highways, in the middle of barren lands. Like droplets from pierced buckets of paint were carried by bikers into the distance.

    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    It¡¯s not the first time we pass by these odd ley lines of fresh shrubs stretching into the distance for no apparent reason. We still haven¡¯t figured out that one out, nor much else either.

    We stop by a truck side along the road. To have a look and pump some gaz from its tank for ours.

    Mushio takes the fuel. I have a look at the cargo behind.

    The stench of death takes me as soon as I manage to crank the door open behind.

    I step back and cough. The air rapidly dries the nauseating dampness inside now. I leave the door open. It was bad.

    I spit beside. I sigh.

    I then have another look inside. It¡¯s as horrible as I expected if not worse. Were they trapped inside? I don¡¯t want to know. I shut the door back.

    U - Nothing useful inside.

    M - Alright...

    He¡¯s not stupid, but also a little more sensitive than I am. We both know it now, and I¡¯m fine checking these kinds of things.

    We restart the car and roll for our next objective. Nothing we haven¡¯t done before, with still low chances of success.

    Only now, no one else either remains to help us in toolings and information sharing.

    We¡¯re using our own tools and science, trying to understand the world.

    ~

    We reach the district university campus, and its laboratories.

    Everything looks deserted from a distance. And thankfully, all the buildings appear to be standing intact.

    We disembark and go ahead through the open streets on foot. Not that many stains from dried organic fluids around. Perhaps they weren¡¯t too many people around when the event happened.

    But here too are traces and hints that the event indeed occurred.

    We have still very immature ideas of what or how.

    But now we¡¯re on the road trying to get more food for thoughts, and more food to hold on as well. Although things have been rather okay on that end so far. It¡¯s not like we¡¯re in the worst of Earth¡¯s deserts.

    We enter the building, fracturing the door that was still locked. My crowbar is my impolite skeleton key lately.

    We enter the corridors of a research laboratory. Although from this building it¡¯s mostly open space offices and desks with computers of various kinds.

    We do the usual. It will take me a while to rig the electrical systems of the building, to rewire with staples what the solar panels outside can still provide, toward a simpler subsystem and our portable batteries.

    From there we¡¯ll be able to connect and use a few computers otherwise bound to eternal slumber currently.

    I begin my butchering of electrical engineering. My friend begins his prospect for data where possible.

    Most things will be locked and encrypted, and if he¡¯s good with these technologies, he can¡¯t get everything to open.

    Ideally we would reactivate the server farms of the old internet and other big data networks, but we won¡¯t ever have enough power to boot them.

    Some data drives can be skimmed through still. Even if we can¡¯t unlock them, they can be scanned by another tool sometimes. And Mushio is talented at finding the useful clues this way with his own tools and softwares.

    No one around once more. Just rapture as it would seem. I¡¯m surprised so many people were worthy of heaven.

    And most computers don¡¯t reveal anything informative about the changing of times.

    Because who would have taken time to record their observations and analyses of what is happening, when the world was apparently coming to some kind of end?

    No sane human. But sensors of machines and laboratories, they would.

    The world is littered with laboratories that were still studying cosmology, quantum physics, meteorology, geology and everything else, automatically. So we¡¯re looking for the data records of what the automated systems found, before they lost power. We have more chances of finding that today than meeting other humans with their testimonies apparently.

    It still is like a work of archaeology. Good data is too rare, and more often than not, all we find is unusable or revealed itself being pointless. Lots of it we find, computers litter the streets, but most is unusable or useless.

    That is a treasure quest keeping us busy.

    I get a spark connecting a cable. Aha! Nice. I scratch my beard below my smile.

    I lean beside the edge of the roof and yell.

    U - That should be good! Try it!

    He replies okay and begins to do some tests. He has his variety of equipment to do his tests and investigate. He had time to gather a good collection of computers as well.

    While he does that, I head for the next building of advanced technologies research. To see if I can¡¯t grab a handful more. The answer I bet is yes.

    ~

    I break open many a secured door, some now brittle. Until I reach the nanomachines ward.

    I didn¡¯t know our country was even researching these technologies.

    Immense and powerful machines are gathered from ceiling and walls to floor around here, to create and assemble the smallest possible ones reliably.

    It was useful for making high end materials, to finetune molecular printing and assembling in space for instance. But beyond some very specific construction uses, not much was achieved.

    I heard this wasn¡¯t reliable as we wished it had been for biology. But it improved greatly solid materials technologies.

    I don¡¯t expect much but I do check the suitcases on storage, that might be holding some ready-to-use tools we could find useful. Just in case. But I know nothing here is going to print us food nor a source of electricity.

    With some luck, one might be a good mechanical repairs aid however.

    I rummage a little but find nothing working nor useful.

    So many polished diamonds turned to coal once the context have changed.

    I bet the priceless works of art from the past centuries are left to rot, or best used as rugs now.

    I moved to the microfluidics department building. We might get some interesting things there actually.

    Static machines can do so much we underestimate them. Lower the mechanical strains, increase the longevity of your tool.

    Maybe that¡¯s why nanomachines didn¡¯t go much further than filters in chemistry and biology. They were too complex and costly to maintain and their specificity was outweighed by their low overall efficiency.

    Anyway here if anything, I should find some foams to filtrate waters. Well, some gels and crystals technically.

    I look for them.

    The day goes by while I¡¯m rummaging drawers and cupboards one after another, one office and laboratory after another. Some geek must have used some high end equipment to clear their coffee or cigarettes, I just need to find it.

    In the first building, my friend spent as much time checking everything digital we had gathered.

    Not much came out of it again.

    We¡¯re spending our days investigating. We don¡¯t have an employer to guide us anymore.

    Even if we¡¯re not finding anything, I quite like it.

    ~

 069. About freedom, 7

    (Uri)

    We went through every building of the campus over the following days.

    We only found dust essentially. Everyone is long gone and the immense amount of data once held and shared is seemingly gone.

    We pack up what we had found useful and get ready to leave.

    U - I think there was an international particle accelerator near Zahedan.

    M - It¡¯s a long way.

    We¡¯re looking at the maps to choose our next destination.

    M - How about the nuclear power plants on the gulf? They must have meteorological records and kept power a little longer.

    They also might have all gone into meltdown by now.

    U - We need some Geiger counter at the very least first, but it¡¯s a good idea.

    M - Did we find one or enough to manufacture one?

    I think back about the places we¡¯ve explored so far. No luck.

    U - We¡¯ll see in the hospitals along the way. We¡¯re heading south west then?

    M - Alright. I think the boss will concur.

    We¡¯re good. Things are less purposeful without our working environment, but also much easier to organize. Even now we still laugh about that. We were at the subjective brink of the end, and now foot of the Zagros, and we¡¯ll begin to head across.

    The car begins rolling over the dusty roads toward the mountains.

    ~

    Given the landscape we¡¯re heading into, it¡¯s mostly about rolling along the gentler slopes and gradually around the mountains themselves.

    We stop by the deserted towns and even cities along the way.

    It has become peaceful routine to scavenge now.

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    We pass by beautiful and peaceful landscapes. We roll beside a wide lake and its rivers through the woods around.

    The empty resorts don¡¯t provide much for most of them, but at least we¡¯re sure to have a nice place to stay another night.

    I refuelled the car. Mushio started a small generator beside a lake house. We¡¯ve got light and everything. I whistle once we¡¯re inside.

    U - It¡¯s more than cosy, it¡¯s luxurious.

    M - Not a bad place to stay, before our next seminar alright.

    I sit in a leather couch. Nice. The bar is full. Perfect.

    Mushio reads my mind and pours me a drink and we cheer our glasses.

    U - Thank you friend. Just what the doctor ordered.

    M - Tell me professor, what will be your next symposium about?

    I take a sip of liquor. Good. I scratch my beard, thinking.

    U - Let¡¯s see... I was considering revisiting the basics of the Aufbauprinzip. Because we all know the empiric rules but generally forget Klechkowski¡¯s mathematics.

    Even we forget now, since our helpful computers from work are long dead, and we¡¯re not working in our offices and factories anymore.

    Mushio likes the idea and we continue playing our game that we¡¯re just in a mundane business trip.

    We drink on good conferences on the morrow. My friend raises his drink for a toast.

    M - To the future of radioecology.

    U - And its potentials past and forward.

    We drink. We smile in warmer amusement. We are both looking around to all the traces of radioisotopes in our direct environment. A glass bottle. A ceramic tiling. Some machine that didn¡¯t boot but was likely meant to rectify the lake¡¯s water quality.

    All we see as physicists are in equations, statistics, and varied rates of transformations.

    I hold my burp. I can almost see my liver¡¯s clock beginning to tick its way to process this drink.

    U - Too bad no chemist came along today. I wonder what the waters would be able to say.

    M - Well, maybe next time. And I¡¯ll bet we¡¯ll be lucky enough to meet one on the next conference center. What do you say?

    U - Ah, I like your optimism. Alright. I bet we will learn something about biology we hadn¡¯t figured out yet by our next stay.

    We cheer again on that, and rest until the next day.

    On morning, the weather is bad, but not too bad. It¡¯s foggy. Unusual for me.

    We load what we find useful into the car, mostly a lot of preserved food.

    And we then head further inland across the verdant mountainsides toward the next city.

    The fog from the early morning is dissipating. The city is shrouded in dispersed light. It¡¯s rather good looking.

    I drive around wrecks and rubbles into town. The streets are dirty and many fissures running along like veins.

    I guess there had been an earthquake.

    We reach and stop by the hospital.

    U - Let¡¯s find the radiology department then.

    We hop out and freely make our way inside. The inner corridors are more than dirty. There¡¯s a layer of grease all along the walls, like an uncleaned frying pan, everywhere and all over the surface of the walls...

    We investigate, but this is nasty.

    I open the way.

    We don¡¯t find anything really alive. I do notice some breathing growths in heavier corners of grime. Are these things giant amoebas? Or worse?

    U - Let¡¯s hurry.

    We find our way through the inhospitable place and do find with enough luck a box with a few radiodetectors. We¡¯ll just need to recharge their batteries.

    M - Wait, look.

    Something moved in the room behind the glass wall. A patient? No, after all this time, it¡¯s just not possible.

    And just like that, we were startled by someone just as alive as we were, who also yelled in surprise meeting us.

    ~

    Since the corridors were rather dark, we moved toward the nearby balcony to discuss under a little more light and better air to breathe.

    Our new friend is a teenager here to harvest the grime that grows on the walls. He carries buckets of it. It smells rather foul.

    - But it¡¯s edible after boiling.

    M - We¡¯ll share real food with you.

    U - So you still live around. Can you tell us more about what happened? And before you ask, it was the same tragedy where we¡¯re from.

    Our teenager friend is looking fine. He collects himself and his belongings, including the sludge.

    - Come to camp and we can discuss about these things with everyone.

    Everyone? We¡¯re surprised to hear they are many people alive here.

    U - I have only one very important question then boy... Are there biologists in your group?

    He doesn¡¯t get it and my friend is flabbergasted I even asked.

    ~

 070. About freedom, 8

    (Uri)

    A short hour maybe later on foot, we reach a posh side of the city. We enter a wide private garden for which the residence in the distance is now a group shelter.

    A small community of a dozen families is living here.

    They welcomed us with a mixture of surprise and expectations.

    They asked as I expected for news from the rest of the world. Which we don¡¯t have.

    The boy delivered his soup ingredients harvest to the kitchen.

    U - So who¡¯s the biochemist who had the idea to cook this growing layer from the walls of the hospital floors?

    No one really answers. Okay, that¡¯s not good.

    - Please, tell us what you know?

    Ah, perhaps they want us to share first. Mushio gets it and steps forward. Under the shades of the open patio, he removed his hood and smiled. He¡¯s a natural charmer.

    He began telling the stories while I looked around to understand a little more.

    I deduced easily that some of the families gathered here were travelling nearby when the tragedy came. Some luck eventually gathered them all here.

    They sought help from the hospital and its team, but were soon left on their own. The last member of the original medical team saw that mouldy grime growing fast in the building. She had enough time to realize it was rich in nutrients and vitamins, before... Probably not leaving?

    I lean toward a child to whisper.

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    U - I¡¯d like to pay my respects to the dead. Can you show me the cemetery?

    He nodded, and I followed them to a corner of the property¡¯s wide garden.

    More graves than I expected were set there.

    I pretended to pray rather honestly, thanking the kid as well.

    U - Have you known all of them?

    - A few. Her. She was the medic.

    He tells me a story. Of how some of the survivors died here rapidly after they had arrived.

    I listen. I count. I make my statistics. One man, ten women, three children, two elderly people.

    I have a bad feeling about this. But I¡¯ll have to ask other people later, not just this child. I can¡¯t jump on conclusions just from this.

    We return with the group innocently. My friend is just saying how we plan on continuing our investigative journey. We didn¡¯t come here to stay.

    They seem to be taking it pretty well. I don¡¯t know how long their new preferred source of food will last, but we will soon be on our way. We won¡¯t impose too much.

    We¡¯ll stay for as long it takes both sides to learn and share everything useful to know.

    Meaning one day at best. There isn¡¯t that much to share. I think we¡¯ll be good to go just tomorrow.

    ~

    It was nice meeting other people. Though they weren¡¯t keen to partake in our sense of humour that is like denying the end happened.

    Parting ways I said we still had work to do and objectives for the month, and I received embarrassed smiles.

    We bid them farewell and returned to our road, now with working Geiger counters.

    I drove us through the dispersing morning mists.

    M - It was reassuring in a way.

    U - Although not too surprising, we had yet to find such a cluster.

    Mushio checked the handheld computer he often tinkered with. It¡¯s scanning for satellites signals with the new intel he learnt from them.

    It seems the world¡¯s networks aren¡¯t all dead, but their frequencies have all gone misaligned slightly.

    So keeping a tool to scan for radio waves, we might still end up being lucky and catching an open connection someday.

    U - What do you make of it? The deaths.

    Mushio has been bugged just like me by the data and history.

    M - It¡¯s hopefully a non representative sample.

    U - Yeah...

    It¡¯s just a matter of time before these clusters all over the world manage to reconnect with each other, and resurrect a wider political society.

    By the time it happens, we will be the two physicists who figured out what really happened that day.

    U - Can¡¯t let a foreign punk get our prize.

    We laugh. Research can be a very competitive field. And so we go toward our next objective. The nuclear reactors along the coastline behind these mountains.

    ~

    We eat from a bench beside the road. We can see the sea far below. With a collection of wrecked ships also noticeable.

    I drink my soup. I never had the guts to say to them where all these grimes most likely grew from.

    I don¡¯t think they were ready to consider that. Nor is my friend maybe? He probably thought of it on his own as well though.

    U - Once we¡¯re done down there, we could follow the coast north toward the delta.

    We can¡¯t see much from up here. It¡¯s too far. Hard to say if the dead zone from the past has grown milder or worse. One thing at a time.

    We finish eating and other menial tasks.

    My headache hurts me for another minute. I feel as if a tiny squid was wriggling inside my head. It¡¯s painful.

    A hat and sunglasses help a little, but it still hurts.

    Oh well... To our next conference with a sea side tour and industrial partners.

    We roll downward toward the old empire¡¯s prestigious protected sites.

    ~

 071. About reality, 6

    (Uri)

    We rolled past the security gates left wide open and deserted. It is a little weird, even now. We¡¯re entering critical facilities for the previous country.

    Thankfully this nuclear reactor didn¡¯t go critical and explosive after the end. There¡¯s little radiation in the air.

    Perhaps it was already shut before that fateful time.

    We park beside the administrative building, still some distance away from the main reactor buildings.

    We disembark and proceed as usual.

    The doors are open easily or forcefully. I find some way to restore power. Some generators using gasoline still work. The fumes are nasty. It won¡¯t hold for days on. But it will give us enough time.

    Mushio starts looking into the computers easily found. I explore everything else.

    Some weird mould covers some of the walls, but it¡¯s nothing as ominous as before.

    I eventually just leave my friend behind and head for the reactor building. I use the car given the distance.

    I roll across what could be an airport tarmac, given how wide and flat is this concrete road and plane.

    The transformers are as big as houses. The cables then go underground through the Cliffside. There are tunnels through this mountain side?

    I roll through a wide puddle of mineral oil that leaked from one of them. I guess some were pierced by corrosion. It¡¯s a little fun to drive there, along this seemingly salt flat, but I keep heading for the main building.

    I enter again rather easily and occasionally forcefully, toward the holy of the old nuclear technology. Fusion was better, but fission far cheaper.

    I kind of tap dance my way to the sanctum, so long I can open the doors. I¡¯m feeling merry and my Geiger counter detects nothing.

    And behind the real core doors, I almost trip and fall. My counter now screams how it¡¯s radioactive.

    All I saw was a deep molten hole. Not only did the reactor had a meltdown, it even pierced the basin meant to collect its corium safely. It just dug straight through and deep.

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    I felt like I had a look in the chimney of an active volcano, and I had a gasp before I stepped back and shut the door in panic.

    My heart is beating fast and I had a sweat of terror.

    My counter still clicks a little, but nothing nearly as bad. I step away and leave this now toxic and deadly tomb for highly energetic and unstable materials.

    ~

    I find my friend between the soft glows of computer screens showing data and systems to him.

    U - The core is in meltdown.

    M - Are you okay?

    U - Should be alright. Any luck?

    M - Well, maybe. Here, look.

    I pick up the system and begin investigating my own way.

    Networks are still down. Did every satellite really go offline?

    But here it¡¯s also looking through military frequencies and it¡¯s not picking up much more.

    Except... I open the records and logs. Something is detected every fifty seven seconds, but not long enough to reconnect.

    U - A regular signal only aligned for a very short instant...

    M - The satellite is probably spinning. We likely had a Carrington event on the white day. A very big one.

    U - That would explain a few things.

    We did see an aurora after the first night. But it wasn¡¯t massive. So most satellites have been disturbed by solar plasma.

    M - The moon¡¯s relays seem off as well.

    U - Can we send realignment commands to the satellite rotating in the time window?

    M - Tough... Challenging.

    We like challenges. And some must be more resilient and still good, like this rotating one.

    I open other files, with records of seismic activity. Through the ground networks, things remained a little better.

    Here at least.

    Some softwares automatically triangulated seismic events, and then as the network failed to allow it, the general estimated spheres of happenings.

    We had some ground activity everywhere. Nothing world changing, but still. Shores changing clearly yes.

    The tremors were real. We had some levels ten or more, scattered around the world. For what the seismometers here recorded at least.

    U - That¡¯s a weird pattern. It doesn¡¯t follow the continental lines.

    M - We need more data. I think the system wasn¡¯t calculating the intensities correctly. It¡¯s likely exaggerating them all significantly.

    U - If these were all aftershocks of a big event, what could it have been?

    M - Given the Carrington event, I¡¯d say a meteoritic plasma perhaps? Not a massive rock like a meteorite that would have caused more damage, but rather a comet that was charged in unusual intensities. No nuclear winter, but still quite a wreck.

    I¡¯m sceptical. A Tungunska event, many times more intense, with a high Weber plasma corona alongside?

    M - Well, we need more data. It¡¯s pure conjecture.

    U - Yeah, I guess we do. This is a good start still.

    Mushio keeps looking for data. I dig further through the open computers.

    I try to recompose a set of orders for the satellite we regularly detect. So we might send them in simple short packages in the right order.

    I get my zone programming something like I haven¡¯t done since I was studying.

    Mushio is looking rather intense as well, digging through the other systems.

    U - I hope they¡¯ll pay our overtime.

    Night has fallen outside after all. Mushio does notice it just now and laughs.

    M - If we don¡¯t repair this fast, the ministry will be all over our asses again.

    U - What a pain. They break, we fix.

    We keep chuckling. The moon is bright outside.

    We built ourselves beds like children. Using the occasional couches and all sorts of carpets and curtains we could gather. We¡¯re camping again.

    I hear him snoring softly. It takes me a little longer this time.

    I saw some connections requests, now obsolete, but recorded.

    Since the end, many others are like us trying to repair the digital bridges. All is well with that generally. Except for one signal that repeated over for a while.

    There was peculiar string of requests, from the blue sun forbidden frequency.

    I¡¯m not sure what that really meant or implies.

    From a twist of fate, it¡¯s now likely this fascist city has fallen like the rest of us. Good luck to them now.

    I don¡¯t know...

    We really need to learn more. The world has turned strange and unknown. We¡¯re still too much in the dark about most things.

    U - We need more data...

    ~

 072. Revolution, 7

    (Uri)

    We spent a few days around the old reactor. We extracted as much data as we could.

    I almost got the link to the satellite working. But we lost it completely instead.

    Crud.

    Still no breakthrough. Only partial data again, more clues without decisive key.

    Our current theory is a massive solar coronal ejection, strong enough to even impact seismographs. Which would imply some material hit the ground still. Perhaps a meteor shower.

    We¡¯re not astrophysicists and we don¡¯t have satellite observation data, so we can¡¯t say whether it¡¯s likely. It seems far-fetched. But there¡¯s no simple hypothesis today.

    For now we salvaged what we could and are ready to move toward the next place.

    The car starts rolling toward the steep mountain side and its tunnel we found.

    It turns out there is an astrophysics laboratory somewhere deep into this mountain side, so we¡¯re heading down there to check.

    The tunnel is dark as you¡¯d expect. We roll in for kilometres as a slight tilt heads down there.

    U - I wonder why we would have built a neutrino detector in the Zagros more than the Alborz?

    M - Volcanism perhaps?

    U - Where are our geologist colleagues when we need them?

    M - Digging rocks elsewhere I bet. You know mineralogists.

    We do our best keeping things light. But more importantly we¡¯re curious to learn more, always. That is why we are scientists and not preachers. Nothing is more meaningful to a scientist than being proven wrong and learning a little more thanks to the new work someone else has done.

    U - I bet we¡¯ll find some dehydrated coffee and tea.

    M - I bet we¡¯ll find some better seismologic records.

    U - We¡¯re playing it safe today. I guess the darkness of the tunnel makes us a little nervous hey?

    We agree. The car rolls along this endless dim road. We pass by parallel tunnels for electricity and possible water overflows. Finally we reach the parking for the underground laboratory.

    The doors are harder to open but we get in after some work.

    Nothing collapsed.

    We find maps of the place. It is a neutrinos detector of the older kind, using a pool of liquid deep below.

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    M - Are we even deep enough? It didn¡¯t feel like so.

    I play with my ears and jaw to get an idea of the air pressure. Actually, it is quite higher.

    U - I think we¡¯re below sea level at least.

    Mushio focuses on finding the seismic detectors. There are some deep digs all around with sensors, a kilometre further in every direction radiating from here. I try to get the other computers working, but only after plundering the cafeteria.

    No tea but some coffee yes. Stale and many years old, but still bitter enough. Good.

    U - Things were apparently shut down a few years back, judging from these use-by dates.

    M - Hm... It was worth checking.

    It¡¯s a miss. But that¡¯s part of the job.

    U - it¡¯s so quiet here. Feels weird.

    M - Alright. Let¡¯s pick up these hard drives still. I¡¯ll check them later just in case and we can go.

    I nod and follow.

    ~

    Where to next? We roll out slowly from this deeper tomb discussing the possibilities.

    We could look for the other universities and nuclear sites, there¡¯s a long list. We could try a space control station, and we could try all that on the other side of the sea again. It¡¯s endless.

    It¡¯s not like anything¡¯s hopeless or that we have nothing to do. It¡¯s the contrary, only we have very low chances of success with every attempt.

    M - Let¡¯s try Mesopotamia.

    U - You want to see how other people are doing hm?

    M - Let¡¯s have a look from above and gradual, as we head upstream. We¡¯ll be likely to find other settlements. And we¡¯ll reach eventually another high tech ground.

    These regions were rich but we don¡¯t know what we¡¯ll find.

    For now we turn north, toward Karoun.

    ~

    We enter the delta area. We travel around the shipwrecks and the lakes. We even see wrecks of submarines that have been washed ashore like dead whales.

    M - Shit, wait!

    I stop the car hurryingly. Mushio shows me something apparently important, but all I see are damaged ships that have washed ashore over the years.

    Some are less damaged than others, but nothing more jumping to me.

    We get closer to it by foot. What bugged my friend is a weird little ship that does look quite different from the others. I needed to get closer to tell.

    I can tell it¡¯s high tech. The hull is still spotless and shiny. Very advanced materials. They spared no expense on quality... Because it was beyond the old power of money.

    Because it was easier to buy weaponry to keep the poor away than to share with equity.

    Their symbol isn¡¯t in your face like a flag, it¡¯s discreet on this submersible and camouflaged ship.

    But my friend does find the signature proving it belonged to Solaris. The blue sun symbol is there.

    This was an autonomous stealth tech vessel from their defence grid... They lost a ship?

    U - Times really have changed...

    M - We can¡¯t let this opportunity go to waste. Bring the tools.

    I¡¯m a little nervous of incurring the wrath of them, but I concur. I get the equipment and we begin opening the ship.

    ~

    The hull is nearly indestructible. The hatches are sealed tight. But we have an acetylene torch we seldom use.

    It takes me sweaty hours, but I pierce the maintenance hatch open.

    We get inside.

    The nervous machine walls react to our unauthorised presence. They shiver. There¡¯s still some power everywhere. Good. I want that radioisotope thermoelectric generator they must use to fuel it. I carefully look for the reactor.

    Mushio heads for the intelligence bay. Standards have had time to change between them and the rest of the world, making communication between systems harder, but if we don¡¯t get killed, this could be the golden prize.

    I reach the nuclear pocket reactor. It still appears to work like a charm. Nice. I begin to unlock its securities and bindings to get it loose.

    My friend manages to access some buffer memories and non encrypted logs. He probably won¡¯t be able to get a full override.

    M - It¡¯s been trying to communicate just like everyone else... First on their usual spectrum, then any frequencies.

    U - Meaning the throning city too never replied. Their loss.

    I disconnect the last securities on my side. I¡¯ll be ready to steal my prize as soon as Mushio gets his.

    M - The neural network appears to be in pieces... The intelligence is dead. Okay, go for it.

    I remove the last connectors and pull the RTG out from its socket. My friend steals a few other elements, but its more mementos than real life-changing tools, not much.

    We leave the dead mechanical animal on this beach.

    It was calling for help for a long while too, and no one else came.

    Meaning even the strongest nation on Earth has also likely lost its marine and aerial powers now. Possibly even space...

    U - The higher they rise, the harder they fall.

    M - Are you talking about the directors?

    I grin. He helps me drag the heavy but long lasting source of power, ¡®cause it¡¯s freaking heavy.

    ~

 073. About freedom, 9

    (Uri)

    We rolled toward Karoun, avoiding the swamps and in the end the western toxicity. The lower valley is shrouded by an acidic mist. Corrosion is visible and even breathing the air can become painful if we get too close.

    I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll reach Mesopotamia through these valleys. It¡¯s flooded with misery and toxicity.

    U - I think it¡¯s far worse than we heard of.

    M - It really is a dead valley here. It¡¯s unbreathable.

    It¡¯s like the mountainous landscape of the north east has its mirrored counterpart, in smokes rolling like mist and low altitude clouds. Their colours look like arsenic and sulphur. They smell just as bad.

    We drive at good distance but we can still feel the itch to our tongue and eyes. This lower valley is really a no go. We eventually give up entirely and head back toward the altitude of the mountains, before we¡¯re cornered by this basin of pollution. Back to Zagros heights for us.

    ~

    The roads are tricky. The corrosive winds from the valley apparently regularly wash this mountain side, dissolving the roads and iron based alloys gradually, but not only.

    There¡¯s no good roads left and we¡¯re screeching pebbles and dust more than I wish we would. It¡¯s tough on the car¡¯s engine.

    M - Will we get up there in time?

    U - I think so. But at the next chance, we should take a moment feeding and cleaning our horses. Yah!

    I whip the cart, the engine neighs and rolls faster over more mountain dust. It takes us another day of slow progress before we get out of reach from the waves, and find better roads.

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    We reach the river up there and look for the next bridge to cross it.

    We find none directly from the point we reached as we reached quite a good altitude already, but we find a dam still holding.

    We get closer down toward it cautiously and stop by the side building for the night.

    M - I like these mountainous landscapes. It gives a sense of localisation.

    U - I hear you. And what noise here.

    The water flowing through the open valves and some fissures turn into waterfalls and do make quite a song.

    The overall older marvel of architecture should be safe to cross tomorrow. Maybe not for many more years however.

    We enjoy the sights, hiking toward the nearby village just above. Old homes, all abandoned. A place like millions all around. I feel like if we dove to the bottom of this river, we¡¯d find the ruins of another village.

    Where didn¡¯t we build houses over the centuries?

    M - Come see.

    I climb toward the higher trail where he is. Behind a house, we find rather fresh tombs.

    At least the grass didn¡¯t grow on them yet; but it¡¯s not from yesterday.

    U - Unlucky ones.

    We feel a little weird but don¡¯t linger. We find a house where we can stay. The wind and the distant waters make so much noise, it keeps us awake.

    So we share a drink under the stars and moonlight. We haven¡¯t looked at them nearly as much in the past. Now they keep a sense of wonder in the longer nights.

    We eventually do get some shuteye. Afterward at dawn, we take care of our respective requirements using the bathroom here one after the other. I take the opportunity to shave with what I found available here. My friend¡¯s beard doesn¡¯t grow nearly as fast and bushy as mine. I feel younger and better.

    All good to go.

    U - Let¡¯s gamble our lives crossing this river.

    M - Uh... Okay.

    I¡¯m feeling oddly perked up. I make the car roar, cough up some dust, and then rush across the dam.

    We did have a thorough look yester, to check the road was clear.

    So we hurry, though there¡¯s little risk really.

    It¡¯s still a thrill. The weight of overflowing water on our right, and the cliff on our left.

    U - So where do you see yourself in the upcoming years?

    M - Oh dear...

    He¡¯s face palming at my joke. I laugh. He looks at the wide mountain sights for a moment.

    M - Becoming the director of the advanced researches department. Thanks to my upcoming breakthrough article on what happened at this event.

    U - Ah, good, good. How¡¯s your research progressing lately?

    M - We¡¯ve... reviewed our plans with the key stakeholders, to optimise our resource utilization. We have achieved a consolidated strategy now that we have seized the right opportunities.

    I¡¯m laughing so much I almost am tearing up. When scientists are vassals to lazy politics, this is what it becomes.

    U - Anyone told you before you have management potential?

    M - Sadly yes.

    We laugh further as we¡¯re getting over the end of the dam.

    We¡¯re heading into the northern higher mountainous area. After we hit the next village where we can stay, we¡¯ll review our real plan, to optimize our resources utilization.

    U - Upper valley, or toward Esfahan?

    M - Well, we¡¯ll have our chances for more laboratories, universities and heavy industries around the old capital. We should seize this opportunity.

    I agree, and I turn right to continue into the mountains.

    ~

 074. Transmigration, 7

    (Uri)

    I cough a lot. That cold isn¡¯t leaving me.

    M - You look pale.

    U - I might have caught something bad down there.

    It took us many more days to cross the nice but rather barren landscapes and return to more hospitable lands. But my hands are shaky now soon after midday. I have some nervous twitches.

    The land is flat again. The weather is mild. Dust is washing the landscape though, and we can see how the roads have begun to vanish now that no one uses them.

    U - I didn¡¯t recall such dusty winds in the area.

    M - Probably the season.

    We cross an old bridge above struggling farmlands. Everything is abandoned and the plants, trees and grass are clearly dying since we¡¯re all gone.

    We follow the highway without much difficulties. There¡¯s only the occasional truck or car around blocking the way.

    We pass fields of ruins from a suburb, and even more fertile lands turning to savannah or desert. This side of the mountains is quite a harsher landscape.

    But everywhere, hidden in the nook and crannies, there are rich pockets of life gradually winning.

    Rather than heading straight into the wide city centre, we turn right to reach an old military base on the outskirt.

    U - If we can find clues of the good sites to investigate, it will be there in the soldiers¡¯ orders and military maps.

    M - Alright. And if there are survivors in the vicinity, this was also a place to check.

    U - I bet we¡¯ll find the military doing well and waiting for government orders all this time.

    M - I bet we¡¯ll find them tending the fields to grow food themselves.

    U - Are we optimistic or what?

    M - Good question. It depends on the perspective.

    We make our way to our first guess. This urban area is immense, we could spend months exploring every possible point of interest. Let¡¯s start with this guess.

    We find thankfully no toxic nor caustic mist lingering around the metropolis.

    The map we have and the road signs are unreliable however. Many roads were cut short, changed or entirely dislocated somehow.

    The signs are missing around a very long segment of road that has been weirdly uprooted and thrown in pieces all over. We drive beside.

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    U - What happened to this road...

    M - A bombing maybe?

    I doubt it. It¡¯s not with craters and burn marks. Meanwhile, we¡¯re better rolling beside, even if it sometimes goes with other side road wrecks to navigate around.

    Thank goodness, I went with the full solid tires when we took this car. We¡¯re rolling on a curtain of trash and scrap metals with sharp shards.

    Again, it takes longer than expected, but we make it to the military base.

    The main door is blocked by rubbles. But the wall beside is completely collapsed and open; We roll in this way as if we were attacking, now expecting to find the place abandoned like everything else.

    Not a soul in sight.

    We stop by the first buildings that are still standing. I clear my throat.

    U - We¡¯re invaders!

    M - Stop that!

    My friend didn¡¯t like that joke, but we¡¯re not getting shot. So I think we¡¯re good to explore as usual.

    U - Normal drill then?

    M - Alright.

    Our thermoelectric generator eases things a lot. It was made with materials that gives it a conversion efficiency that is off the chart from anything we would ever find on this continent. Thanks to its wealthy origin.

    I unroll the cables and leave them there for now. We head into the building.

    There¡¯s dust and oddly, there are maggots everywhere. What are they eating? Well, most of them too are already dead and dry now that I look closer.

    My foot pierces a floor. They are eating some fibres. This is unsafe.

    U - Mushio! Get out!

    He soon returns safe and sound, and we debate.

    He¡¯ll look carefully still, since he is the lighter one. I¡¯ll go check the other buildings meanwhile.

    ~

    The usual. No one.

    Weird stains and traces of new yeast or bacterial development here and there. Weird things grow everywhere, and we find no one alive.

    In the barracks, everything has rotten. I don¡¯t step in that gunk and move to the next place. I get dizzy with another sharp migraine. I trip and almost fall. I¡¯m definitely not well.

    If I find a medical bay with some equipment left working, that would be nice as well.

    Places long abandoned were often more or less officially occupied by marginal, punks and nomads; people out of full citizenships. Centuries of steady declining population made things different from previous times of real estate frenzies. So even if things look old and shabby, it doesn¡¯t mean there wasn¡¯t anyone living there until recently. It¡¯s been often simpler to move to another abandoned house than to repair the previous one in our days.

    In this next building, I find a pile of rubbish in a corner that reminds me of this. There are traces. Someone lived here, not so long ago.

    I enter rooms more richly furbished and decorated.

    An animal smell is noticeable. I call out but hear no answer. I go further and find no one.

    But the stains all over the bed are once more evocative. Someone died here. And then the body... disappeared?

    Weird... It¡¯s far from the first time when we¡¯re puzzled about bodies apparently disappearing, but I still have no explanation. Here too I doubt someone came to bury the dead, although that remains the most likely reason.

    I rummage a little around. And lucky me, I find an annotated map. Someone made camp here and radiated for scavenging through the city.

    U - Thank you for your work...

    I get that and move on.

    ~

    I found no medical bay, and not much of use, but the map is a great find. I meet back with my friend who is already making a fire? Weird.

    He¡¯s burning his clothes, among other things.

    M - Don¡¯t get closer. Something poisonous fell on me.

    U - Okay. I found a place where there might be some clothing left, I¡¯ll have another look.

    M - Thanks...

    I was careful not to look at his naked body. I don¡¯t really care, but he might. I trust him anyway.

    I turned back on my steps and went to rummage further through the dressers, where I found some clothes as expected. No weird bugs on them. I take them.

    Something catches my eye. A small shining stone?

    I pick up the small golden crystal. It¡¯s weird. It looks like gold, but slightly translucent and with a different crystalline shape.

    What the hell is that material? Just tainted glass?

    It was just lying there along the weird stains. It looks like an overly artistic jewel, but without anything to lock it as a ring or amulet.  I pocket it, I¡¯ll see if Mushio has an idea about it. I¡¯m curious.

    Night will soon be falling. We¡¯ll find another place and another objective.

    By the fire I return to, I have another look at the map. Mushio dressed up with arguably fresh clothes now.

    U - I think I¡¯ve got something.

    M - Yeah?

    A place outside the city that is marked and labelled by handwriting as such; the city.

    ~

 075. About reality, 7

    (Uri)

    The following day, we made our way to the so called city. A refugee¡¯s fortune shelter for a while apparently.

    We found many signs along the way it had been made as such.

    We enter a commercial centre that turned to a graveyard, on another outskirt of the city. We¡¯re feeling uncomfortable fast. There aren¡¯t corpses lying around, but everything else hints heavily at riots, chaos, and a violent massacre. There were movements of panic.

    The stains of brown iron oxides... There are caput mortuum traces and dust everywhere, along shredded clothing, bullet impacts and traces of fire.

    This is the sanctum of an unspeakable tragedy.

    We were lucky not being there at the time.

    A second wave of terror apparently washed over the people that had gathered there after the white day.

    Looking at how the shops had been converted to camping sites for families, it really had become a crisis shelter for a while. And then, something awful eventually happened.

    Maybe when it couldn¡¯t continue being temporary. National or supranational help never arrived.

    M - What should we look for?

    U - Hm... Anyone alive I guess. I expected a little better. Then we¡¯ll just load up and move on.

    We expected to find a village of survivors like we had before. No such luck this time. We won¡¯t linger.

    First we go around looking for hints of survivors still living around who might know a little more.

    There¡¯s burnt rubbish everywhere.

    The building would have entirely burnt and crumbled down if it hadn¡¯t been so well designed, with these sharp arches. Everything around looks grim however.

    I pull up a computer out from a pile of wreck. It¡¯s broken. I break it further to extract the hard drive.

    We find some food. Not much.

    I see signs for a clinic. I head there. It¡¯s barricaded from the outside, somewhat. I think someone died blocking the doors shut. Mushio recovers a ring in the middle of the morbid stain. It¡¯s gold looking, but with grown veins and tiny hexagonal crystalline spikes.

    M - It looks a little like yours, doesn¡¯t it?

    I pull my weird stone out. It does.

    U - What kind of gold alloys can turn translucent?

    M - It¡¯s less about the composition and more about the crystalline structure. Like diamond to graphite. But even then... Not for metals? Some kind of aerogel perhaps?

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    I throw it in the air and let it land in the palm of my hand. I get an idea of the specific gravity. It is light. It would float.

    U - I wonder what processes can do that here and now, outside of a materials laboratory. Yeast?

    I pocket back my weird prize and Mushio his. Until we can find a working electron beam microscope to look at their crystallography more closely.

    We enter the clinic after moving a few heavy stuff around. We struggle a little more opening the doors as it was barricaded from inside too. Odd.

    It¡¯s still nasty inside.

    I find a self diagnosis tool. I check the electrical connections. I can make this work. I return to the car to pull the cables. I want to check myself. Meanwhile, I left Mushio on his own.

    Not long. He just had time to have a look around the other rooms of this small side shop from the complex.

    He opened every room, looking without thinking. And he would tell me later he noticed faint clues, and had an intuition.

    When I returned, unrolling the electrical cables, I found him doing first aid on an infant¡¯s body with weird colours.

    He had lied the child down on one hospital bed that was there in the examination room.

    M - I think she¡¯s alive.

    He extends his hand toward me. I understand and give him my bottle of water. I come closer to have a look with him.

    The tiny child is maybe three years old, but hard to say. She¡¯s not scrawny, she¡¯s skeletal. There are deep marks of malnourishment over her weirdly coloured skin. Downright starvation...

    The skin has a weird glaze to it, with sparkles or metallic gleams. Her eyes sclera are yellow, jaundiced. The kidneys and liver are inflamed, hurting her to the lightest touch. Mushio hydrates her gently.

    U - She¡¯s not looking good...

    I plug the machines. More light comes in.

    I remove her necklace which harbours another of these weird rings attached to it. I don¡¯t take the time to think about it. I connect the medical machine and put it in contact with her collarbones more cleanly so it can work.

    I return to the car to get some food. Mushio meanwhile operates the medical tools to assess and provide emergency care.

    We don¡¯t carry much medical tools or supplies ourselves, but I also bring back everything we have in the car. I have a fair guess the clinic and its machines are out of stock with everything useful by now.

    ~

    We sit beside the child still unconscious, resting for a moment. We¡¯ve spent a good while trying to save her life. We¡¯re looking like two worried dads or uncles now.

    Intravenous medications slowly drip. Electrodes help her heart and lungs work. Pipes in her throat help her breathe.

    We¡¯re looking a little downtrodden my friend and I.

    U - It¡¯s the first time we had the chance to help someone...

    M - Yeah... She was hidden here I think by her parents, when things really turned bad.

    How long was she locked alone in here? I don¡¯t really want to know.

    And why does she look so weird?

    Mushio stand up and shows me the screen. Apparently she has a genetic disease that reduces her metabolic aptitude to expel copper?

    But the readings are weird.

    M - Her patient files have been updated and the change is odd. She came with that disease, then...

    U - Oh... Intriguing... Very interesting.

    Today¡¯s diagnosis is far less conclusive. The analytics without proper maintenance is likely not reliable. But...

    U - Do you think she received her gene therapy and marrow transplant in this very clinic, after the white day?

    M - I wouldn¡¯t bet on it. But the symptoms on this underlying disease have changed and the diagnosis evolved. Now it¡¯s inconclusive.

    U - It¡¯s probably due to her starvation... But interesting... Darn. I wish we had a biologist along.

    My friend watches over her with more parental instinct than I for now.

    We have not planned for this at all, but we will take her along obviously. At least until we find a good place for her in another town of survivors.

    I read her patient¡¯s details out of curiosity.

    Mushio nods hearing her name. At least she¡¯ll have the one her parents chose. I fear what two childless physicists like us would have otherwise thought of.

    I can¡¯t imagine how they must have felt in the end.

    Mushio had found another transforming ring in a patient¡¯s room. It¡¯s a tradition I had heard of. A ring for each married parent and one for the child. The three rings, now turned bigger and crystalline, still appeared to match.

    The one on the child¡¯s necklace had grown differently though.

    I removed the diagnosis machine from her now that she was acceptably stabilised. I removed my shirt and strapped the tool onto me.

    U - You think she¡¯ll survive?

    M - She has her chances now. What about you?

    U - Let¡¯s find out.

    I click start. The machine prickles me and begins checking me.

    U - The wonders of microfluidics and nanotechnologies now...

    It doesn¡¯t take too long for the first rougher estimates.

    B and T deficiencies and neutropenia.

    U - What the hell is neutropenia...

    I click for details and extended diagnosis.

    I don¡¯t like what I find. It¡¯s not looking good.

    U - I think... I¡¯m going to be the opposite of her.

    ~

 076. About reality, 8

    (Uri)

    We¡¯ve settled in the higher levels of the building. I mean the wider commercial centre, not the small clinic it held hidden in a corner.

    The little child still hasn¡¯t recovered enough to awaken. Mushio is looking after her quite kindly.

    As for I...

    I cough. My lungs expel a little more gunk. My headache grows into fever.

    I can¡¯t really foresee it, but I think I am condemned. I don¡¯t have much time left.

    We eat together. It¡¯s been days, and I try to make fun of it.

    U - I¡¯m thinking of retiring.

    M - ...

    He didn¡¯t laugh. He didn¡¯t try to smile.

    M - How long will you keep working with us?

    I check my hand computer that monitors some of my vital signs. The cocktail of nanomachines evaluating my blood metrics in real time has been activated the other day. They won¡¯t last long, but from what they see, I will be gone before they crumble and deactivate.

    U - Maybe two weeks.

    Mushio throws his fork down, visibly annoyed.

    M - How am I supposed to handle two people¡¯s job on my own? It¡¯s too short!

    U - I¡¯ll see what I can handover by then, but you know how it is. We don¡¯t have the budget to hire any replacement.

    My friend is really annoyed. I still manage to smile.

    More glory for him later I want to say, but really I wish I could live long enough to find it myself.

    U - How long can we leave the girl alone?

    M - About a day. Preferably not much longer. She¡¯s still very weak.

    U - I¡¯d say we should hit the nearby universities and heavy industries while I still can. I¡¯ll teach you, and perhaps I¡¯ll be lucky. I¡¯ll find the key to imperium over these things that have changed before anyone else.

    My friend crosses his arms, looking beside us, thinking about it.

    M - Okay. But let¡¯s hit the nuclear research centre first. I have something I want to check.

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    U - Deal.

    ~

    We left the girl to rest in a rather safe place, with the generator to keep the machines supporting her lit on. She¡¯s in a much cosier slumber now.

    I drive us rather fast toward our next target. The sky over the horizon looks rather dark. Is there a storm occurring this way? Hopefully it won¡¯t hit us.

    I cough more mucus and spit it outside.

    M - Anything we can do?

    U - Ah... Not really. My immune system is collapsing apparently, so even if I was kept in a sterile room, eventually even the opportunistic strains of bacteria and yeast that are already in me would eventually just take over and eat me. I think.

    M - We need a real doctor.

    U - We don¡¯t have antibiotics anyway. But I¡¯m not against checking their medical bay when we get there. At least they may have some painkillers.

    We ran through the gate of the outside entrance and rolled straight through the other abandoned military base.

    There¡¯s no one else anyway.

    I¡¯ll teach my friend what I can about electricity and quantum physics he wouldn¡¯t already be familiar with.

    And my notes, my hypothesises... I¡¯ll bequeath what little I still own to him. But I¡¯m not dying yet.

    For now I rush into the tunnel at slightly dangerous speed, to reach the next laboratory. The third generation enrichment laboratory and processing facility.

    Centuries of experience accumulated in good engineering are buried in these lands. We need to find the better ones that were in use before the end, more than the historical libraries. And I think we¡¯re on the right place.

    The tunnel¡¯s walls grow brighter as we drive near. That¡¯s an impressive piezoluminescent technology around these lines along the walls. They just shine slightly as we approach. I wonder what they¡¯re made of, to activate like that just from the sound of the approaching car or its pressure on the road.

    I push the horn, and its loud sound makes the walls shine brighter for a moment. It¡¯s not the weight, it is the sound. I¡¯m still laughing like a child at things like that.

    Mushio is looking altogether ashamed and amused.

    U - What do you want? I¡¯m a physicist. I have fun with the simplest transfers and transformations. So talk about the unfamiliar ones!

    He sighs but he smiles, as I play a little more with the horn. He can relate. We were the kind of kids playing with prisms, lenses and lasers, or toying with birefringent calcites.

    ~

    We reach the old facility that is sufficiently self powered mechanically so that doors open and corridors are lit a little with emergency colours.

    Some of our cutting edge technologies were so mundanely used to paint these walls.

    We find the electron beam microscope for direct view and diffraction studies, along mass spectrometers he was looking for.

    An off yellowish stone grown from some gold jewellery and its oddly new crystalline structure are today¡¯s samples to study.

    But this facility doesn¡¯t have that kind of power left to work.

    U - Let¡¯s look for generators.

    We¡¯re deep beneath the earth so solar panels are unlikely. Old diesel engines would also be odd.

    But we find a pool with cylindrical pods in it. I think that¡¯s it. The light is dim, the olympic looking swimming pool is dark. But it¡¯s not for swimming. There are cranes above and other machines set on workshops along the sides.

    U - Find the one that still emits heat.

    M - Are they what I think?

    U - Yes. That¡¯s the level above. For small ships needing more power, airplanes, and bases isolated like here. If one hasn¡¯t shutdown fully, we might be able to reactivate and connect it.

    My friend wasn¡¯t in the electrical engineering department. I show him what I can now, to salvage even these other kinds of technologies.

    U - Check the transformer¡¯s frequency there?

    M - 60 Hertz.

    U - That should work.

    We activate manually that old power. The turbine attached to the reactor starts rotating and humming. It sounds off balance. I shut it down before it goes too fast.

    U - Let¡¯s find another one. We¡¯ll connect this reactor to another turbine. Its alternator is off centred.

    M - You can hear that?

    I plug it on again to the heat exchanger it¡¯s attached to. So he hears the growing song of mechanical strain.

    Then an hour later perhaps, we manage to get a better one rolling instead. He¡¯s learning.

    It¡¯s leaking the heat exchange fluid, but that should do it.

    Everything goes.

    We short circuit a few too many securities for it to go, but we don¡¯t have much choice. Things illuminate and buzz in the building. Better lights flicker and start.

    This won¡¯t hold for years, but hey, what would be now?

    U - Let¡¯s do your readings fast though.

    We rush to the lab and begin preparing his samples for observations and identification.

    Crystallographic spectroscopy is such a fun field of materials science.

    U - So you think there¡¯s something exotic about these gold crystals? More than the impurities?

    M - Something like that. It looks far away from its natural cubic geometry. I want to check it is indeed some lighter gold allotropy.

    I still don¡¯t follow why this oddity would be an important key, but I don¡¯t mind. It¡¯s fun.

    We start observing as best we can with these machines.

    ~

 077. Metamorphosis, 8

    (Uri)

    We returned exhausted in the middle of the night by the sleeping child. Still sleeping. Looking more human though, with enough water and nutrients pumped into its veins.

    What we¡¯ve seen previously we can¡¯t really explain. Again.

    Our crystals are indeed made mostly of gold atoms by all metrics, but here and now, they¡¯ve grown to foamy overly expanded structures. It¡¯s way more hollow now. What could cause that?

    It¡¯s not even cubic lattices anymore. The samples return to normal structure and aspect after melting.

    We don¡¯t have any idea of ambient condition processes that could cause this phase transformation. That should be impossible. It¡¯s transmutation.

    We broke open a few boxes to check their content of gold used for the microscope, and even computers to check their gold circuitry, and noticed nothing special.

    We don¡¯t know what this really means, but my friend has an intuition it is correlated with what happened to the world back then. It just didn¡¯t reach sealed environments.

    U - Well, at least the child is getting better.

    She looks well.

    I start coughing. My head hurts like my eyes are going to pop out. I leave the care to him and I go outside to breathe.

    I eventually catch my breath again. My body is trembling. It¡¯s not straight decline but ups and downs, oscillating and gradually deteriorating.

    I¡¯m already sick anyway...

    We didn¡¯t find anything in the facility¡¯s medical bay, and I¡¯m fairly sure the hospitals in the city here have already been looted.

    I¡¯m trembling because I¡¯m scared.

    Fuck...

    A little while later my friend comes to check up on me.

    M - How¡¯s this looking?

    U - Retirement? Not that great... And how¡¯s our new recruit? Promising?

    M - I... She¡¯s getting well. She was stained by that... gold. So her liver is still not great, but she¡¯s on the mending.

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    U - Good. Good... I¡¯m happy to hear that.

    I really am.

    U - So what¡¯s next? Now that gold can be expanded at room temperature and air pressure, which is new to me and counter intuitive. Where should we look for the next clue?

    M - I was considering the usual.

    U - The university it is then next. I¡¯m going to lay down for a while. I¡¯m a little tired.

    M - See you tomorrow.

    I leave. I check my vitals from my handheld computer. These little things I injected my body with are also supposed to help to some extent, but it doesn¡¯t amount to much at this point.

    I¡¯m getting eaten by microscopic things. Maybe I should... No, that¡¯s stupid.

    ~

    Sometime later, Mushio¡¯s driving us to the campus. The road is tricky as it¡¯s mostly gone under dirt and rubbles now. Some abandoned cars and another of these odd flowery trails hint us to where it once was.

    A weird animal cowers from us and hides.

    There¡¯s still some wildlife. That¡¯s somewhat reassuring.

    We reach a campus that is partially crumbling. There are fissures all over the walls and ground.

    Let¡¯s do our best...

    We head to the communication tower that holds both satellite dishes and solar panels.

    We try to connect to both, to reactivate what matters.

    As usual, it takes hours longer than a few circuit breakers to shift.

    U - Patience is a virtue my parents used to say.

    M - Really?

    U - No.

    We laugh. I hold my cough until I can¡¯t anymore. I expel more mucus, thicken with dead microbes and immune cells, and most likely also other cells from my lungs.

    I¡¯m losing. I breathe slowly in and wipe my sweat.

    The mucus dries rapidly outside. Facing mortality is not fun. Pain grows.

    I swallow another painkiller.

    We work. Keeping focus on something meaningful is nice, even if I don¡¯t feel any motivation nor pleasure from anything anymore.

    I¡¯ve reached the point of weakness where reason has to take over for everything emotional and otherwise easily flowing to be done. Moving, eating, working, thinking...

    I¡¯m in full manual mode now, and it is draining...

    I hurt myself as I trembled with the tools. I yell. I cuss as blood drips. I let some anger go against the machine we were trying to repair. My friend is concerned. I do my best holding on not to take it on him.

    U - I need a break... Try connecting the power.

    M - ... Okay.

    I go explore another building to change my mind and clean my open wound.

    I realise I will be dead before this cut will fully heal, and I start crying.

    I don¡¯t want to die...

    It¡¯s not about choice. It¡¯s not about entitlement, nor pride, nor justice, nor karma. It¡¯s only about luck.

    I¡¯m out of luck and there¡¯s nothing left to do.

    Well, there¡¯s one thing left to do.

    Trying to find meaning in what time and power I have left, as it¡¯s dwindling.

    Mustering resolve, and facing what is the purpose I want to make progress. I bash open the next door and try to find more about the new reality to the world. As if my life depended on it.

    Because in a way now, it does.

    I don¡¯t want to die bitter, so I will do everything I can to uncover what happened...

    ~

    My friend is concerned. I¡¯m not looking good.

    I¡¯m abusing the drugs. And the alcohol.

    U - You got a smoke?

    He chuckles, and actually goes out of his way to find some tobacco for me.

    I bend a pipe to makeshift a... pipe. One to smoke from, like in much older centuries.

    I did that because that keeps my hands free to work, without putting ashes everywhere.

    U - It took the end of the world, but now I finally understood why these things existed. Let¡¯s call it progress.

    Mushio coughs. He¡¯s keen to laugh with me still at least.

    We make the system reboot finally.

    The dishes move. The computer boots the communication systems as I aimed.

    U - I¡¯m a genius.

    M - Now that¡¯s the alcohol talking.

    U - Jealous punk. Check the screening signals? We¡¯re going to get a satellite this time I swear.

    We try. At least we get some more data from the local network from before it collapsed.

    M - Let¡¯s emit on broader frequencies that we¡¯re looking for data.

    U - Yes. We¡¯re looking for peers. It¡¯s funny, it¡¯s as if we were at sea.

    Lost at sea for a while now...

    Looking for other ships to help each other, or lighthouses to reach shores.

    Yet again, all we receive is silence unfortunately.

    ~

 078. Metamorphosis, 9

    (Uri)

    We found some data. Not the end of all mysteries, but some clues.

    It seems one network that still holds rather well is the one of Rise. That old simulations system apparently still functions somewhere.

    My friend will have time to find ways to access it, and use it as a new beacon.

    Me, I...

    I¡¯m holding my trembling arms. I often expectorate lumps of myself. My bowels are beginning to betray me.

    The fevers are growing in intensity. There¡¯s no avoiding how the end is near. And it¡¯s going to be as messy as it is already painful.

    We spend another night in that commercial centre. But this time I spent most of it in the lavatories that still have water circulating.

    I¡¯m breathing less and panic doesn¡¯t help. Alcohol¡¯s benefits hit their limit. I¡¯ll be losing awareness soon.

    But I heard another voice tonight.

    One from a renewed hope. The one that goes the other way from me. I stumbled around my way to my friend¡¯s room to wake him up. I tried to speak but I couldn¡¯t. Only coughs ensued.

    He thought I needed help, but I shoved him away. Not me idiot. Her!

    I pointed toward the room where she had been set, while I sat in the corridor trying to recover.

    He went into the other meeting, and greeted the new girl for both of us...

    I would only spook her right now, she¡¯s just a very young child, barely recovering.

    I managed to stand and limp away from there.

    You¡¯d better be ready to recruit her my friend...

    Even if she has no education yet. There is still everything to learn.

    ~

    I wake up abruptly when a hand wipes my forehead. I¡¯m lying on the clinic¡¯s bed. I can piece together what I miss and don¡¯t remember.

    U - Ah... So how is she?

    M - Well. She¡¯s better already.

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    He looks beside. I see the young child already standing there, and looking at me with a rather empty stare. I didn¡¯t notice her presence.

    I lean a little toward her.

    U - You. You listen to my friend from now on alright? He will be good to you. Until you find another city that is safe. Or university...

    M - You¡¯re not leaving us just yet.

    Mushio and I talked. The machines and drugs did their best on me.

    The child stood mute and immobile, just watching and listening, emotionless.

    Either she¡¯s a poor quality android, or she¡¯s a little strange. Now from birth or traumatic scars, I don¡¯t know.

    I managed to sit. I looked at her. She looked at me.

    M - She hasn¡¯t said much, but she follows and now can eat more solid food as you can see.

    I raised my hand in a sign toward her. She hesitated and then mimicked it. We then tap our hands.

    U - Remember your parents?

    M - Uri!

    My - Parents. Parents. Parents. No...

    Even in my own pain I can feel empathy. I recognize the ways she behaves from my own family. She¡¯s three or four maybe. She can talk okay, but she acts in autistic manners. And not only.

    I make another sign with a hand. She mimics it. We clap hands again. I smile genuinely. She fakes one obviously.

    My friend looks dumbfounded. He tried talking to her and it quickly went nowhere. But I already am communicating with her, more than I am scaring her with how gross I must now look and smell.

    U - I¡¯ll teach you how to communicate with her. It¡¯s not that complicated, just a little different. For now, just show her stuff we¡¯re working on. Tell her about it like you would tell me.

    M - But she won¡¯t understand...

    U - It doesn¡¯t matter.

    My poor friend never had to care for a child, nevertheless akin to her.

    U - Go. I¡¯ll join up after I wash up.

    They leave. The child walks after him, without a glance behind.

    She might actually be a good student, if he¡¯s ready to face the challenges of educating someone.

    There are drawbacks and advantages to every difference in perspectives, and she will have hers.

    With a good education, she could become someone shrewd able to notice and understand what he cannot.

    I stumble to the shower and wash the filth. I can¡¯t believe they withstood the smells I now emit...

    It¡¯s painful. I empty more of myself. Forget dignity, my body is just dying.

    My skin has taken weird colours, not as pretty as her skin. Necrosis is looming.

    I¡¯m trembling as I wear a new shirt. I struggle buttoning it.

    I breathe some depression away and exit the place.

    I walk a little lighter after them. I¡¯ve lost a lot of weight.

    ~

    They are crouching beside the computers. Mushio shows her the educational programs he could find.

    She¡¯s more or less obedient, for now.

    M - Ah, you look better.

    U - Thanks... She does far more.

    The child watches the cartoon intensely. Her arms are a little meatier than the other day already.

    I get closer and tilt slightly the screen. I move a little the alignment of the objects in front of her.

    She doesn¡¯t react at all. Perhaps I was wrong?

    Well, one typical phenomenon missing doesn¡¯t mean it necessarily.

    M - She¡¯s lost memories you think?

    U - Possibly. More importantly, I think she¡¯s processing communication priorities and emotions slightly differently from you and I.

    M - Communication priorities?

    U - All perceptions and their interpretation.

    M - That means everything... And nothing.

    U - Pretty spooky hey? I think she will surprise you by how mature and intelligent she can act at times, and how utterly nonsensical or animal she will at other times.

    M - I don¡¯t get it... She¡¯s just a child.

    U - It¡¯s a shame I won¡¯t have much time left to enjoy that... For now, let¡¯s find a library of textures to touch, like all sorts of textiles and stones.

    M - What?

    I¡¯m laughing a little at how dumbfounded he is. They aren¡¯t laughing, for very different reasons between them two.

    But then I¡¯m coughing painfully. More than ever.

    I¡¯m suffocating before I could start having fun with our new youngest friend. She¡¯s just beginning her education and she changes so nicely the pace of our priorities. We¡¯ve been stuck on our mission for so long...

    But I¡¯m not breathing, goo stuck in my lungs and throat as it rose from within. I¡¯m passing out before we even had the chance to learn how she¡¯s wired and capitalise on that.

    I won¡¯t know how the world changed nor why. I won¡¯t know how she functions nor enjoy seeing her growth in education. I was getting hopeful with a new dream more natural honestly.

    I cough and vomit lumps of flesh bigger than I thought they could be. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I¡¯m transforming too, more sadly.

    ~

 079. Revolution, 8

    (Uri)

    There was too much left to do, to discover, to learn, to teach, to explain and to understand.

    About the world, and for that child we saved and encountered.

    I was bitter, missing so much from what¡¯s to come.

    From the remaining pockets of society that will gradually consolidate and reconnect.

    From the lingering networks that will help humanity as a whole superorganism recover faster and greatly.

    And even from these fuckers from Solaris, who likely have suffered the same fate as everyone else ironically.

    Through shared tragedy, there is a chance to grow better through cooperation; even if enmities and racism will always linger.

    My - Disease. Disease. Disease?

    U - Dying. Dying...

    I woke up with only the child looking after me. Well, looking at me coldly only.

    But it¡¯s not that she¡¯s emotionless or a full psychopath. I don¡¯t think so.

    I try to raise a hand, but all I have now is a necrotic stump. It makes me feel awful. I¡¯m really dying.

    The pain has left room for a dizziness. I feel like I¡¯m floating. As if my head had grown bigger and rested on a balloon now.

    U - Myersa, listen to me. Learn. Learn. Learn. Okay?

    My - Okay.

    I can¡¯t make movements for her to imitate anymore. So this is where I¡¯ll be dying. This shabby clinic¡¯s room. Poorly lit. Smelling old and mould. No windows to the landscape. This is depressing.

    I¡¯m reaching the point where I¡¯d prefer to have a gun in hand to end it. My hands have turned to stumps anyway. It¡¯s over. I don¡¯t know if my friend would have the guts to do it. And I can¡¯t ask it from this child.

    U - Can you find Mushio? I¡¯d like to go outside.

    My - ...

    She looks straight at me. She¡¯s looking like she¡¯s doing better at least. Much better. I don¡¯t get why she doesn¡¯t react nor answers for a moment.

    U - He¡¯s gone, isn¡¯t he?

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    She nods, and repeats my sentence a few times, as if learning to speak like me.

    I haven¡¯t had the chance to tell him more how to handle and educate her efficiently, but...

    U - Well... He¡¯ll manage. You¡¯ll manage.

    My - Dying?

    U - Me, yes. You two, no. Not yet. You will learn everything. You will become adult before you know it. And then...

    My - Then?

    U - ... You will be safe. You will be loved. You will find your purpose through your passion. Right, I forgot to tell him you will find your own obsessive passions very soon most likely. He¡¯ll need to make you grow on them, utilizing them...

    I feel my breath coming short. I stop and try to breathe. My lungs feel like two wild animals lurking and purring near me, ready to kill me. They¡¯ll rip my throat from the inside if I wake them up.

    The child thinks. She looks like she¡¯s dead inside currently, but I know it¡¯s just an appearance and it won¡¯t last as she grows.

    Now I wish I could have seen her grow... I¡¯m tearing up. I was already attached to that brat.

    My - Cry. Cry. Cry. Cry. Cry.

    U - It¡¯s okay... You will be fine.

    Her eyes reflect the dim light in weird ways. She has these metallic gleams all over her.

    It¡¯s not a young child that is lesser than an adult I face. It¡¯s a person still accumulating knowledge to forge her opinions and future decisions.

    U - Learn... Learn everything you can. As an adult, someday others will be counting on you, to help them.

    She listens. What will she remember I can¡¯t say. I sigh.

    I need to see the sky.

    U - Where did he go?

    My - Town.

    She counts time and distance. She estimates time before return. A real machine already. He must have shown him the maps.

    U - So you¡¯re a natural at maths...

    My - Numbers! Numbers!

    I chuckle. Mushio will be great for her then. He¡¯s a machine himself with mathematics.

    She¡¯d like to say more I can see, but she still lacks some vocabulary. She shows though as I had guessed a keen eye for something nice.

    I manage to push the screen of the diagnosis display still strapped to my chest.

    U - Read me the numbers...

    She reads eagerly everything. I try to understand what everything means, but I¡¯m not lying to myself. This is the end.

    If my friend returns before, I¡¯ll ask to be left outside.

    I want to feel the air and wind.

    Otherwise...

    U - Learn everything... Learn. Learn.

    My - Learn. Learn. Learn.

    I¡¯ve closed my eyes. I feel how I¡¯m melting inside. I have a last tear and smile.

    I wish my decay hadn¡¯t been so sharp.

    I feel my body collapsing, about to rupture like a pouch. My voice sounds awfully uneven.

    U - Please... Wait for him outside.

    My - Okay... Goodbye Uri.

    I teared up and thankfully heard her leave.

    The rest will be up to you two.

    But I know you will be a good teacher my friend.

    Both of them.

    They will understand everything, and teach it to the next generation of humanity.

    I wish them well.

    I retire, but the show will carry on with them.

    ~

    (Mushio)

    I returned too late. I had brought back a wheelchair to help carry him. I didn¡¯t even unload it when I saw her sitting outside. I understood why.

    She didn¡¯t cry, but even though she looked fairly unaffected, I could tell there was something. She was fidgeting.

    That time I spent looking for things to help him, I now already regret not spending by his side.

    The child follows me like a puppy as I head back inside.

    She steps back instinctively when I reached the doors to the clinic, and then again when I reached the door to his room. I don¡¯t open it yet.

    M - Did he say something?

    My - Learn. Learn. Learn. To learn. Everything.

    I feel lost. I peek inside. I see a puddle of flesh and almost clean bones lying around. It¡¯s disgusting...

    It¡¯s horrifying.

    I shut the door, trying to remain calm.

    I get closer to the child, holding my tears. I kneeled down to her height.

    M - Is that all he said?

    My - Learn. Learn. Learn.

    He could understand her nonsense... Face value...

    M - he wants you to learn everything.

    My - Learn. Me. You.

    M - Right. Me and you...

    I will miss him, but I will try my best. I stand up and give her my hand, but she doesn¡¯t grab it. She just mimics my movement.

    I tap her open hand and we move on.

    We unload what won¡¯t be useful and reload what we¡¯ll need for our next trip.

    He advised me to tell her everything, even if she couldn¡¯t understand... So I open again the maps, and I try to explain where we should head to next.

    I¡¯m a little scared honestly...

    But I¡¯ll try my best with this new team.

    Soon enough, we¡¯re on our way, leaving this grave and city behind.

    Goodbye my friend.

    ~

 080. Rose new world, 1 - Jahr 3 ~ Book of Annew world

    (Rose)

    I went to look for a book in a distant city.

    That¡¯s how it all began.

    I was catching a train to be on my way back home that day. It wasn¡¯t raining yet when it left the station.

    I could get home late if something unexpected were to happen along my journey.

    Unlike her, waiting for my return home, I feel comfortable inside a train.

    It¡¯s usually hard to get lost when travelling in trains.

    ~

    As I was at my seat, thinking about it then and thinking about it now some years later, it still makes me smile.

    How wrong one can be, even with the simplest of beliefs.

    Maybe I could be a few hours late. Maybe arrive the next day if something bizarre were to happen.

    Something odd enough to inspire a story.

    My father was a champion at that. Imagining in the spur of the moment, with the slightest hint of inspiration, a story that would captivate his children like a spell.

    He also used to tell me there are two keys for any good tale. A good beginning and a good ending. Unfortunately I never inherited that talent of his. I sadly grew as the complete opposite. I have no imagination, to a point it can even hurt me trying to think of something.

    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

    I¡¯ve always known since I was a very young child that I wasn¡¯t smart. And so that I had to do extra efforts to think and act. It doesn¡¯t always work, but I try to fit in the best I can.

    My fierce sister once told me there were two keys to success in life. First to start things. Then to finish them. It¡¯s harder for me to judge if I was better at this. I¡¯m still not sure.

    Future is always unknown, I can¡¯t picture the end of things I do and their long-term consequences. Until and beyond my unavoidable death, I¡¯m generally unable to fathom what the future holds.

    I tried to write tales like my father. I was very unsuccessful. I can¡¯t figure a catchy beginning. I couldn¡¯t imagine interesting events in the story.

    And I was even more at a loss trying to bring a satisfying end to it.

    As you learn to know me if you wish so, you will understand how lost I feel when facing the end of a story.

    Between foggy memories of the past and unknown future, what is left is the present I¡¯m offering you.

    These little pearls patiently assembled one by one, attached one after the other as I found them on my journey.

    As these beads align over the thread of my fate, perhaps something interesting will arise from it.

    Until death brings an end to this work, and brings us apart.

    ~

    I wasn¡¯t young anymore when this journey began.

    My past was already buried, literally, at home. Roses have been growing over since.

    The book I bring home is for my last relative alive, and the dearest one to me. To help her find a cure to...

    Let¡¯s say a curse for now.

    For the background of who I am, I¡¯ve omitted a lot willingly.

    Because where I was about to set foot, everything else was meaningless.

    Where I came from. Her name. My age, and even my own name. Along with the value of the book I carried, none of it would matter at all in the first days.

    In sudden shifts like that, the past was temporarily meaningless, until the time of crisis would eventually settle.

    I would never have been able to say how one could travel to another world. Not even after it happened. I can now, because I¡¯ve had a lot more time to learn and understand.

    At the time the event occurred, I was only lost and clueless.

    My past was to fade that night. And soon I would be lost, in every imaginable way.

    The only thing that would remain to define me during these first nights was my will to return home.

    I just wanted to return home.

    How long could it take?

    In this world or any other?

    ~

    Being lost while travelling is one thing. Being lost while homecoming is different.

    I was about to experience it.

    I would learn with time, but the beginning sure would hurt.

    But over time...

    I would grow, and evolve. Endlessly. Or, well, until I meet my fate.

    Until then...

    As an unexpected friend would tell me, many years later:

    There is chaos in life,

    And we both like it.

    So began my journey into an unexpected new world.

    ~

 081. Homecoming, 1

    (Rose)

    I¡¯m in a train heading north. It¡¯s raining outside. It¡¯s oddly not a light summer rain, but a true downpour with an oppressive leaden sky.

    It¡¯s icy. It doesn¡¯t feel like summer. In a few minutes it will become a storm. Thunder will fall from the sky along with even more water, in waves.

    The train shakes a little. I clench onto my bag, as I look outside. The wind makes the windows shake loudly.

    I have a moment of irrational fear that the weather may shatter the place and throw me out into the elements. The glass of the windows sounds so frail.

    I¡¯m still a little anxious about trains crashes.

    ~

    The train goes so fast. I¡¯m beginning my travel to return home. My journey went nicely, and it¡¯s only been a few days, but I already miss home. I want to return as fast as I can.

    The storm outside makes me feel a little unsecure. I know I¡¯m safe in here. My instincts still tell me I should hide in a hole while the sky is mad. Being sheltered in this technological wonder feels good, but also a little unsettling. At times like that I realise how impressive our age is. The train keeps rolling, unfazed, while I would have hidden and waited for the sun to return.

    I feel frail, so frail on my own. But I¡¯m not alone. We have more lights at nights in the houses and cities, because we still fear night a little. I know I do, along with awful weather like that.

    I trust the strength of this train, as much as I can. I¡¯m anxious. I¡¯m worried. Good thing I don¡¯t have a vivid imagination. All I can do is act calmly and orderly.

    People say of me that I¡¯m wise and act as such. I give that feeling of peaceful knowledgeable person. The truth is, I only have necessary pragmatism to guide my actions. I¡¯m not a natural in my world, and I hardly come up with original ideas. So I simply don¡¯t act much out of the ordinary.

    The more I think about it, about me and what to do, the less I¡¯m able to think about anything.

    If I try to reflect on such things for too long, it¡¯s like a fog rises to cloud my mind. Everything goes blank inside my head after a while and I forget what I was doing and what I was trying to think about.

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    It would take me months to come up with any idea remotely original by myself. I just can¡¯t seem to change the way I would want.

    Ah. The lightning and thunder began to disgracefully tear the sky apart. Now it¡¯s definitely a storm we¡¯re going through. And one of the heaviest I¡¯ve ever seen probably.

    I can still see a few people outside here and there. Some still around flocks, or walking to their homes further in the distance. We have such a dark sky looming over us this morning.

    I wish I could just see my home a mile away and walk there. I wouldn¡¯t mind the downpour there.

    Because I know how welcoming this place is to me. Overflowing warmth. Some rough times and odd things, but mostly peace, almost bliss...

    I want to go home so badly it aches, and I come to wish the train would go even faster.

    ~

    I¡¯m dozing off unwillingly. I feel sleepy but my various primal fears keep me awake most of the times I feel myself go.

    There¡¯s a mixture of anxiety keeping me awake. I fear the weather, I fear an accident with the train. I¡¯m uneasy with the presence of the men in here even. Usually I manage.

    I glance around. We¡¯re not many. They all seem bored or asleep already. Some of the kids still play around.

    I keep holding my bag, afraid to lose it. It contains an arguably important and valuable book I¡¯ve been given.

    It¡¯s old and written in a language I can¡¯t even read. Luckily, there¡¯s a bundle of notes attached to it, including a translation into modern English.

    This document may perhaps help with something happening at home. I wish it was just about gardening.

    I went so far out of my way to find this, just for this chance to help her...

    I¡¯ve been away for so long... I ache. It was painful to go but I had to. I had to follow that lead and find that, because we¡¯re searching for anything that could help us at this point.

    I found it. I have this knowledge just between my hands. Now I don¡¯t really want to read it though, I just long to return home.

    I¡¯ll still read a few random parts of the research notes though. I like to read.

    Especially tales of whimsical spirits like that.

    ~

    The train should reach my destination in a few more hours. From that station, I will take another train, that should bring me to my hometown before the end of this day.

    What else could happen but a few delays?

    If even this foul weather can¡¯t slow down our train, it¡¯s unlikely anything will. It makes a lot of noises, but we¡¯re still on our way.

    I¡¯ve been dozing off again. Thunder outside still making me jump slightly and wake up. I held tighter on my bag each time it occurred.

    I briefly saw the winds outside changing directions. It stopped the rain hitting against this side of the train, to instead attack firmly on the other side.

    I can see the light of day in the distance, meaning that heavy cloud has an end, and the area under the storm may not be that wide.

    Behind the streams of water falling from the sky, I can see the fissure of bright day light.

    Hopefully the train will exit that bad weather shortly.

    I closed my eyes, thinking about what will happen next.

    Next, I will arrive at that station. Then, I will take another train... Then... I will return home...

    I miss you.

    How late could I be at worse? Everything should be fine. I¡¯ll arrive before the end of the day...

    How longer than intended can a homecoming journey be? What¡¯s the worst that could happen?

    My mind wanders in doubts, but surely is falling asleep.

    On my lap I hold the bag. I can¡¯t think about anything else now. I still hear the rain against the train. It slowly fades in my ears. I¡¯m safe here.

    Outside is another world. I¡¯m safe in here.

    I¡¯ll eventually fall asleep for a little while. Nothing¡¯s going to happen meanwhile.

    I fell asleep that day.

    I guess...

    ~

    Returning from London on August 12th 1925.

    Faithfully yours my dearest,

    Rose.

    ~

 082. Nightmare, 1

    (Rose)

    I heard a scream in the distance. Behind the rain, outside I believe. It sounded like a woman hurt and in pain, but something was off.

    I open my eyes, but I don¡¯t remember where I am and the things I can see don¡¯t make sense. My brain needed a few more seconds to be able to make sense of what my eyes see. A sharp pain spreads in my brain for a second but then vanishes. I feel weird.

    The ground is shaking madly. The lights in the wagon are all off. I can barely see the rain outside because of how dark it is outside. I see the water flowing against the windows almost as if we were on a ship.

    I¡¯m scared and I can¡¯t stand up.

    I realise from the ruckus and shaking that something awful is happening. The other passengers are loud and panicking. I can¡¯t move. I only keep my bag close tightly while looking outside. There¡¯s something happening...

    I see in horror what looks like transparent hands scratching the windows from outside. They¡¯re suddenly covering the windows as if a swarm of ghosts was trying to get in.

    The rest of the wagon is so dark and loud. I see the windows invaded. They suddenly explode and I¡¯m deafened by a mixture of screams and storm.

    Rain poured in, flowing inside. Thunder makes everyone scream. Panic began. I still can¡¯t move from the bench I¡¯m sitting on.

    A tree, very large, just obscured the sky for a second as we rolled past it. I saw it lean. I think it was falling onto the train.

    I¡¯m already cold and soaked, but I manage to move a little. I grab a handrail close to me. I yell to watch out but I don¡¯t think anyone heard me. We can suddenly hear terrifying noises.

    The ground abandons us for a moment. Some things are sent flying into the air and around us. There¡¯s a loud awful music of cries, thunder and derailing train, deafening all of us. I see sparks in the distance. I¡¯m unsure as to whether I¡¯m standing, siting or being thrown away as I feel dizzy.

    A powerful metallic sound repeats itself like a heartbeat. It comes closer, stronger, and faster as if it was going to burst out of somewhere. The lightning strikes something close. More screams.

    Pieces of the roof are ripped away and vanish in the distance. The train still goes fast, despite everything and the wagon being steadily shredded apart.

    Then the worst happens. During the flash from thunder, me and a few others see something terrifying inside the wagon. Something besides us, scarring us deep in an instant as if death itself was suddenly there amongst us.

    We hear more screams, but different. Less fear but far more pain. We can feel the train finally slowing down. But what is now seemingly with us focuses our attention.

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    We hear a groan that sounds like the laugh of an animal, and then bones being broken. The screams of pain become stronger.

    The panic grows as if a hound of wolves was inside this wreck with us. Some people try to leave, I hear them. I can¡¯t follow them.

    They scream and try to flee. The train does slow down now gradually. Another flash of lightning and we all see something scary around where the screams came from.

    I think it was someone, hanged and wounded or even staked like a scarecrow in the middle of the wreck. One of us maybe, probably dead. If someone wanted to scare people, it works, everyone is panicking.

    A part of the roof above me falls at my feet in the water. The wind is gone, but the rain is drowning me. I clench my bag and move aside, coughing.

    I step on something and fall in the way. I¡¯m hurt. I think something ominous passes by, more interested in the group squealing a bit further rather than the quiet me. I feel something passing right over me, dripping of a warmer rain. I stand up after it¡¯s away by pushing something fleshy. The thunder strikes again. I see the man from behind. His arms are shreds. Something stuck in his back. They scream. I wonder if the scarecrow is still behind me, along with the culprit. I¡¯m putting words on things, but really I don¡¯t know what¡¯s happening and what I get glimpses of. I have no idea.

    My heart beats so fast, but I¡¯m so cold. I don¡¯t know if I should run or hide. My consciousness is in a terrified lull, I don¡¯t really manage to think with words currently, only instincts.

    I hear a fight in the dark, and swears. Some people managed to open the doors and are leaving the train and running away.

    I hear awful sounds of a dog eating meat and crushing small bones. I¡¯m petrified.

    I don¡¯t hear screams anymore. I might be the only one left in the train. But I see that something is getting close to me. Something large and smelling like it¡¯s covered in blood. It moves slowly, so do I.

    I get closer to the window. I climb on the soaked couch. The thing is moaning and sniffing. It scratches the couches a bit further. It rips it. I move slowly. Under the heavy pouring rain, I let my bag go outside and go through the missing window. It attacks. The train shook. I slip and fall outside.

    ~

    A night to remember I think to myself for a short lucid moment. The weather is so leaden it looks like a night, but it still is morning surely. I¡¯m hurt, I¡¯ve fallen onto my hips and arms, but nothing serious I believe.

    I find my bag and I hear the thing rattling over my head. In front of me is an open field with houses in the distance. But I see human scarecrows being set, still screaming. Some things are building twisted landmarks out of people... I turn around and go below the train, crawling.

    I find a bit of shelter and look around. I crawl behind the wheels to be hidden from sight. I look everywhere around for where to go.

    I see behind the rain some men and women being turned into scarecrows, for lack of a better word, violently. They are staked, butchered, crucified. The shapes guilty of the crimes then crouch into the fields, and they can¡¯t be seen anymore. I see other people running away from the train going toward them without realising what lies in the shadows.

    I can¡¯t watch this again, I look away. I still hear them in the distance, screaming until they die with the rain covering their last moans.

    I¡¯m scared. The storm covers everything but the weather is changing fast and weird. Where am I? Where should I go?

    Certainly not that way. On the other side of the train starts a forest, even darker without sunlight into this horizon.

    But I don¡¯t hear any scream and I notice other people running madly into these woods. Some are holding hands when they go in. That looks like the better choice.

    Behind, the fields become and remain eerily still now. I go on the side of the forest. I slip out from under the train, looking carefully around. There is nothing unusual around... I hear a strange animal shriek coming from the top of the train. I don¡¯t look behind and just start running.

    Only a few steps away the woods begin. I hear growls behind me though, and as I pass the first trees, another scream of terror, from a young boy somewhere behind. I want to stop and look back, but I¡¯m too scared and keep running into the woods. There¡¯s still some light entering through the horizon so I can guess where I go. I see other human shapes here and there, running or hiding. I hear them whisper when we pass close each other, but I don¡¯t stop running. I can¡¯t stop yet.

    I keep running until I trip on something I didn¡¯t see and fall into a bush. I¡¯m not that hurt, and probably a bit hidden now, so I breath and I try not to move.

    I look at the sky, but see nothing. The rain falls onto the leaves far above me, it doesn¡¯t reach me. When I breathe, I see a bit of vapour flowing and vanishing in the air. I¡¯m just in a forest like any other in my countryside...

    I wait, and rest a bit. My mind still remains very foggy.

    I wait...

    ~

 083. Nightmare, 2

    (Rose)

    I¡¯m breathing heavily, eyes wide open in the damp darkness of the bushes. I can hardly think about what is going on and what can be these dangerous things. My mind remains stuck in a terrified daze.

    Men or beasts, I¡¯m not sure. I only caught glimpses of what they are. I don¡¯t know what I ran from, but I¡¯m dead sure as to why. My breath is now back to normal but I don¡¯t move yet. I have a false sensation of security being hidden here. I only hear the rain and the wind up there. It feels normal.

    I wait another minute. But I still feel scared, almost hopeless.

    I slowly try to stand up. The sights of day are still so thin on the horizon. Another survivor is about to run just past me. But he suddenly stops, caught by something. I hear him scream in terror and blood suddenly filling his throat. The body holding him is putting him down.

    That shape is a few steps from me in the shadow. It¡¯s so close to me, and all I can do is shake uncontrollably, before it does the same thing to me.

    I¡¯m losing hope as I see it turning towards me. I¡¯m too scared to turn around. It¡¯s about to jump at me.

    There is this half second when my heart seems to stop.

    My mind breaks and panic. I scream, I hit it violently with my arm as I turn suddenly. I feel its fair skin, dirty with blood.

    I know I don¡¯t have a lot of strength, and even if I want to hit it again, I¡¯d better seize the chance I still have to run away while it¡¯s still surprised.

    I run again. My legs move by themselves, I feel lighter, or rather running more nervously.

    Through the forest, I don¡¯t know where I go. I don¡¯t know if I can make it. On left. On right. I run then toward the brighter side. The storm is maybe finally over?

    I¡¯m reaching the end of the woods on that side. A brighter light of a normal day appears at last.

    A field is opening the scenery in front of me. I see rails not far ahead. I¡¯m struck as I realise I might have come around toward that side were the gruesome things happened. I take a swift decision, and decide to follow the rails as the way looks clear ahead.

    I trip over a body. It reacts, in pain. It has metallic pieces of the train stuck all over. He doesn¡¯t look human anymore. I can¡¯t manage to empathise and don¡¯t stop, I¡¯m too scared for my own life.

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    I run at a softer pace while I reach the tracks to keep my stamina a bit. It¡¯s not raining anymore I just realise. I climb the small mound and reach the shining tracks. I don¡¯t look back just yet, and begin to run alongside toward the greener side, away from the stormy weather and away from the cursed train.

    ~

    I¡¯ve ran only a few minutes but I¡¯m already exhausted. When I look back I see nothing pursuing me, but I hear them run too when I look around. I hear them inside my head.

    I¡¯m running in that open field along the rails. I manage to think logically for a few seconds.

    Where should I go? The open fields and hills around me look mostly empty, or haunted. The closest buildings I can see are kilometres away. I see horses in the distance, escaping the area.

    Behind me are the woods I¡¯m scarred of now and the train shrouded with pain. It smells too much of death behind me, its nauseating. I see no escape...

    I can¡¯t make it. I can¡¯t breathe and keep running along the tracks. The rails turn slightly toward the left, and slowly I discover that the small mound I¡¯ve ran on top off is a small hill. I see a path and a small stream further on that side.

    I see someone who noticed me and runs away immediately. Other people are following. They seem alright.

    I know I¡¯m being followed and likely bringing death to them, but I go after them.

    I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m supposed to do. As long as they run before me I¡¯ll at least know I¡¯m not going straight into a death trap.

    The day light finally gets normal as I run down that muddy hill. Maybe the madness ends here, but like them I¡¯m not taking any chances.

    I jump over the small stream of water. I slip and fall miserably deep into the mud. I can¡¯t stand up right away, my legs shaking.

    I rub my eyes and look behind with worries. I still see nothing right behind me. But things move, and scream, in the woods behind.

    I stand up, shivering.

    I climb the muddy grass and reach the path. I still see nothing dangerous around and look around carefully. I hear the wind, and feel its coldness against my damp muddy clothes, pressing against my skin and freezing me as if we were in winter.

    I wait, trying to think while nothing is running at me. I look carefully, and nothing seems to be coming after me. Maybe I¡¯m safe for now? I don¡¯t feel safe... The clouds are being carried away at last over me, so there¡¯s more normal light now.

    I turn back, and follow the path the others took, leading into now lighter woods I couldn¡¯t see behind the short hill. I¡¯m walking as fast as I can but I¡¯m unable to run anymore. My lungs are too painful and so is my head.

    I¡¯m walking through a forest path that would be charming in different circumstances. All my limbs hurt and feel cold right now.

    After a few minutes I come out of these short woods.

    Another opening to the fields of this county, but mostly a farm house just there, hidden from sight before. I hear horses being scared behind one of the smaller buildings of this domain.

    My instinct also tells me that there is something else around here. I don¡¯t know whether I saw, heard or smelled it, but I know there is something wrong here.

    I recall I was following other survivors, whom I can¡¯t see around anymore.

    After looking around the house for a few seconds while catching my breath, I spot them.

    From behind the windows, I see some of them as they look at me with worry. They hide from my sight.

    I hear noises from inside as I go to the front door to take shelter like them.

    The door is locked. The windows on ground floor are barred as well I begin to notice.

    I¡¯m walking to the other side of the building, beginning to panic.

    I knock at the kitchen door. I call as kindly as I can for assistance. No one replies.

    I¡¯m sweating in fear. I¡¯m convinced that the murderer is coming this way and that I have very little time.

    I hear voices arguing inside the house. I can guess what comes as final decision.

    I won¡¯t be allowed inside.

    I¡¯m alone.

    I¡¯m panicking again. The sky is dark and grey again, vibrating. I can hear sounds of wild animals in the distance, coming closer slowly.

    I wipe my face from the mud. I have to decide.

    ~