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Date Unknown.
Everything changed.
Burning, surging forth, the wave blasted outwards as fast as it could under its own laws; the fastest speed, the speed of light. A new energy – a force, unrivalled – washed through the strings of spacetime, strumming a cacophonous melody as it set about its work.
Enforcing its laws, the new laws; the laws of logic, becoming laws of reality.
In the grand epicentre of the scene, sat the cause of it all. In the centre, sat the origin of the force. In the centre, the absolute centre of the universe, around which the new world revolved, sat the architect, the prison, the keep and the keeper;
In the centre of it all, sat the small, ellipsoidal lock.
With every moment that lapsed, the wave of the new world rewrote existence as it confined the emperor of the old to their new, eternal home. Every atom in the sky above and every molecule in the bricks below were scrubbed, purified and cleansed of the tainting aura of the old one; every second, joule and ounce of it were captured and imprisoned, replaced with the laws of the new one. Even now, at its smallest size, the sky of the new world blazed with the insignia of the architect. Even now, the new banner – of hope, freedom from chaos, imprisonment of Apakht – flew proudly above, heralding the end of the darkest times.
And of all the beings, there were four to see it first.
As the wave washed over them, the four bathed in the glory of the new world. Though they would forever be anchored to the old, serving as the guardians of hell's gate, they still felt the impact of their labours. Spaced evenly around the gemstone, arms outstretched towards their creation, they watched the new world come together with new eyes; heard the fury of the old world's screams with new ears; tasted and smelled the new air; felt, with new, logical bodies, the heat of the wave as it passed.
Then it was gone. Within a second, the new world had grown to hundreds of thousands of kilometres in size; with each second that passed, it grew ever more. Before the four – or the thousands behind them, standing at the base of the ziggurat – had even blinked, their home had attained a magnitude so stupendously large, the units of its measurement would not be conceived for several thousand more years.
Stunned by the weight of what they had attained, the multitudes stood. Nobody spoke, nobody moved, nobody dared to shatter the newfound sensation that pervaded around them. Minutes passed as the congregation revelled in the feelings the new world afforded them, feelings that, despite the infinite possibilities of the world before, had always been impossible; the feeling of constancy, and silence.
For the first time, nothing changed.
The thud marked the completion of the gemstone's labours – even within its prison, Apakht strove to cause change. But this was its final independent act, its final change, the final, futile resistance it could muster. Cautious to not undo their work, the four lifted the obsidian from the brickwork of the ziggurat's peak. The key within its northern pole slid out without resistance; the wielder turned, showing it to those below.
There was but another moment's silence before their cries filled the night, as joyful tears rained upon Mesopotamic sands.

‘How go the fields?'
The man's younger brother, seated beside him on the ziggurat steps, shielded his eyes from the emerging sunlight. For the sixty-seventh time, the city sprawled around the construct was illuminated by the light of the new world.
‘Many of the crops are wilting. Nothing can be done to stop them.'
‘Unadjusted, do you think?'
‘I assume so. Whatever survives, thrives; even the weeds, which are many in number now. Fortunately, some seem to be edible.'
‘I must try them myself.'
‘You know you cannot. You must keep away from the fields.'
The man clenched his fist. He yearned to return to the practices of his youth, to feel the crops and soil within his hands once again – but Apakht, ever spiteful of its jailors, had cursed him from it, and continued to curse the land he walked. Now, he could only till barren, useless soil – if, in his malnourished state, he could till at all.
‘Even if for a moment, I wish to see one.'
‘I'll retrieve you a popular one. Bulbous thing, juices that sting when you bite it. Sharp taste.'
‘Interesting. Has it been named?'
‘Called “onions”, but I believe my name fits better.'
‘What, call them “Eabani” because they're “sharp”?'
‘I meant the name I came up with. Name them after their taste.'
‘Which is?'
‘Awful.'
The man grinned, watching as his brother juggled a pure-black dagger in his hand. Eabani had never been concerned with fieldwork; he left those tasks to Arakur. Instead he focused on livestock – herding, feeding, nurturing… slaughtering. Ample to say, each brother fulfilled what the other could not.
The duality of their capabilities translated to their military positions, too; though Eabani could never stand the atmosphere nor size of a tactician's tent, Arakur much preferred it – the front lines of a battle field were no place for a man such as him, but Eabani was a perfect fit in his stead.
But with each recount he heard, Arakur couldn't help dreading the day when the veil of justification, silk-thin and dangerously taut, finally tore apart before Eabani. Just as it almost had in their childhood.
Eabani's shrill whistle whipped Arakur back to reality. His eyes followed the dagger's edge down the steps of the ziggurat to the unmistakeable figure approaching them. It was impossible to mistake them for anyone else – ignoring her unique, solidly muscular build, she was the only woman in all of Sumer that refused to wear clothing appropriate for her gender; rather than cover everything below her neck, she proudly wore nothing but the knee-length skirt that men wore.
‘How is she, Ninkigal?' Arakur asked, sitting up.
‘How do you think, fool?' Ninkigal spat. ‘Everything pains her. All the water she drinks comes straight back out, one way or another. She's moved her hand though, so the worst must be passing.'
‘That is good. The others?'
‘Dead.' She idly scratched her breast.
‘… all of them?'
‘If they could, they did.'
Arakur covered his face with his hand. One would say they were lucky, being the only ones still linked to Apakht – the only four immortals in the new world. One would be wrong.
‘Eabani, Arakur,' said a woman, emerging from the temple atop the ziggurat.
Ninkigal cleared her throat.
‘And you,' the woman continued. ‘The council waits.'
Arakur couldn't stand by himself; by the time he and Eabani had begun their ascent, Ninkigal had stomped beyond view.
The temple was far from majestic, but sufficed for its purpose; carved into the walls was the story of Sumer, tales of Apakht's yoke, and soon the story of the guardians would be added. In the centre of the room was an engraved altar, around which the seven councilmen sat. Ninkigal, being the de facto leader of the guardians (Arakur was the official one), stood the closest to the altar; Arakur and Eabani stood behind her, to either side.
‘What,' she snapped.
‘Do not speak to us like that,' one of the councilmen said.
‘I will speak however I please.'
‘There are concerns,' another councilman interrupted, ‘that Giringeme is not improving.'
‘I was with her. She is recovering.'
‘That is not what I meant.'
Arakur shifted.
‘She will tame her abilities once again, just as Arakur will.'
‘They are taking too long,' snapped the man seated at the far left. ‘Do you know how long it has been?'
‘Sixty-seven days,' Arakur responded; he was silence by the councilman's glare.
‘Too long. Sixty-seven days of pestilence and death. And how many more days will it take, hmm? Another sixty-seven? Perhaps a hundred, or a thousand?'
The three councilmen seated beside him nodded.
‘And Arakur too? Shall it take him another hundred days to stop cursing the ground he walks upon?'
‘Careful with your words.'
‘“I will speak however I please,”' he parroted. ‘The fields he visited have yet to recover; for all we know, they never will.'
‘And your solution?'
‘Sumer has endured them long enough.'
Slowly and methodically, Ninkigal cracked each and every joint in her beefy hands; the councilmen flinched at each noise. When she was done, she leaned over the altar, glaring at the man.
‘You would banish us, after what we have done? You would give us no choice but to leave our home?'
‘You already made your choice when you vol-'
The pristine surface of the altar gave way beneath Ninkigal's might; large fissures branched out from where her fist, now embedded in a crater, had struck it. Like her fist, Ninkigal's roaring voice shattered the man's confidence.
‘That accursed prophecy chose us – it chose me, by name, before I was even born, and you dare – you, dare, to say I had a choice in it, before banishing me?'
The man, shrinking in his seat, shook his head.
‘N-not you. J-just Arakur and Giringeme. Y-'
Ninkigal's fist rocketed forward, striking the councilman's nose and breaking it. Had Arakur been any slower in restraining her arm, it would have gone much further. Satisfied, Ninkigal returned her bloodied hand to her side; Arakur turned away from the bleeding councilman, covering his mouth.
‘You all disgust me. I would rather be exiled than live under filth without gratitude nor honour.'
Eabani – who had remained wholly motionless during Ninkigal's attack – grinned at the injured councilman.
‘My loyalty is to my kin; I will go with my brother.'
The council made no attempt to stop the three from leaving.

By the time the sixty-eighth dawn washed down the eastern face of the ziggurat, the four guardians were prepared to enter exile. They had no plans for where they would travel, nor which direction they would go; their departure through the now-open west city gate was arbitrary, chosen only to escape the fortified walls surrounding the city.
The only empathy they had been afforded was time to collect their belongings, and a donation of a donkey for each to ride – save for the council, watching from afar, none of the city's inhabitants dared to emerge. They were too fearful of Giringeme's pestilence, or Ninkigal's wrath.
Eabani, however, was worried about neither. Already fully prepared, his donkey awaited as he assisted Giringeme to do the same. She was still far from healthy; even beneath her full-body sheepskin dress, she shivered, coughed and winced. The fact she could walk was all the council needed to justify sending her off with the others, stating she was fit and well enough to travel – the same went for Arakur.
Seated beside his donkey, he struggled to eat his specially-prepared steak. Despite the unbearable hunger and Eabani's best efforts to cook the stake to Arakur's preference – overcooked and charred, assuring a total lack of juices – he still retched after each swallow. He hoped to eventually adjust to his new diet, but suspected it would be an impossibility.
As he watched, a different impossibility became real; retrieving a loaf of bread from her pack, Arakur watched as Ninkigal approached the senator she had punched the day prior. He expected her to hit him with the loaf, but instead, she offered it to him. They briefly shook hands, then Ninkigal returned to the group.
‘Are we ready?' she asked Eabani.
‘We are,' Eabani responded. ‘I have the lock, and Arakur has the key.'
‘Good. We leave immediately.'
Arakur discarded the steak and used his donkey to stand before mounting it. He herded it to Giringeme's left; with Eabani on the right, they could both catch her if she fell. Ninkigal wasted no time on the others, immediately steering her ride towards and through the gate.
The four who had heralded this new age, the ones who had finally banished Apakht from the universe and brought about the new world, passed through the town gates without fanfare nor joy. The air was silent, and none of the townspeople dared disturb it; they kept within their homes until the west gates were once again closed.
The four horsemen departed from the city, heading beyond the boundaries of Sumer, knowing they would never again return.

It wasn't until night had fallen, and the first camp of their endless journey was complete, did they exchange their first words since departing.
‘Ninkigal,' Giringeme croaked, shivering on a blanket beside the fire.
‘Yes?'
‘Of everything… you did… today…'
‘Yes, what?
‘… why did you… rub bread… on my face?'
Arakur turned to Ninkigal; she grinned.
‘No reason in particular.'

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«« Charon (Part 1: Nekyia)


Date. Creator. Materials. Results. Anomalous Properties.
Pages of data and words suqeezed into single entries, the most eye-pleasing image selected out of numberous photos, and then finally all of these slapped onto a electronic form, to be saved and and filed. And then the process was repeated again, until she exhausted the whole list of items.
Researcher Jennifer Mendez sighed. After yet another round of proofreading and checking, she pushed the submit button, sending the files to her superior. Information on the anomalous artworks created in the tests had now been compiled properly, ready to be received by field agents. She still remembered looking in slight awe as the items were displayed in the temporary containment chamber. But as interesting as those items first appeared to be, pages of their specific dimensions and materials only took all the fun out of it.
Mendez stretched a bit, yawned, and stood up from the chair. Checking her watch, she decided to grab a coffee, knowing that she had some more tests to run with Agent Cobalt this afternoon.
Ten or so minutes later, she was in front of her computer screen again, sipping coffee and treating herself with some small snacks, while half-mindedly browsing through the poorly maintained social network of the Foundation's intranet.
Her thoughts wandered about, and Mendez wondered how she, someone with literature and history degrees, came to help run tests that track someone's brain activity. Of course, she had picked up skills and knowledge here and there – one thing the Foundation did right was that education was effectively free, with proper application, you could even get very decent online courses – history of the world behind the veil, anart history, anomalous literature. She even dabbled in memetics. But still, this was a stretch.
Then again, it was just operating the machine. After being forced to go through several sessions, she got the hang of it. (Dr. Samuels was certainly not a terrible boss, but she had to wonder how come he didn't have to sit through those as well, being the head of the project.) Furthermore, readings from the tests were all filed for the professionals to analyze, along with the footage, so she didn't need to be concerned with that. As someone with a legit doctorate, Samuels was able to assemble a small team of medical and neurological professionals, conducting proper experiments on the D-Classes. Her work with Alex was just a bonus, if not something less.
But she couldn't tell Alex that, suspecting the agent would go from being stressed to utter defeat, finding her work largely useless to their effort to crack the workings of anart. At least for the time being. She did hear Dr. Samuels mention that the undercover job's importance would only show in the long run.
As the coffee ran dry and with her snacks into her stomach, Mendez checked her watch again. There was still some time, and she decided to move to the testing chamber, and maybe read a few papers there on her tablet. There were nothing better to do, and she suspected that Samuels' overenthusiasm over the whole matter was affecting her as well.
Then again, she did wish to get a proper doctorate, and with that, maybe a better position than being an assistant.

Two hours later, as Mendez sat in the testing chamber, half way through one of the papers, it was Dr. Samuels that walked in, not the agent she was expecting.
"Jennifer," Samuels stepped into the room, interrupting Medez's study plans. "Testing's cancelled, but I have a new job for you."
"Cancelled?" Mendez burst out in surprise, before quickly correcting herself. "Anything wrong, Dr. Samuels?"
"Oh no, nothing to worry about. Just that Agent Cobalt won't be able to participate in tests for the foreseeable future. Schedule changes."
Mendez couldn't help but become slightly worried with the information; didn't seem like good news if there were "schedule changes" in an undercover job. But Dr. Sameuls' face showed nothing but excitment.
"No need to be concerned, the testing with her is not essential anyways." Samuels added, having obviously mistaken the source of Mendez' worry. "Cheer up, we are going to work on something much more exciting."
"Is it the 'Project Fountain' you were planning, doctor?" Mendez had already put her tablet aside, and started to pack things up.
Samuels seemed to be in a really good mood today, as he joined the researcher in putting things back to their intended places. "Just got approved by the Site Command." He said smugly.
"Congratulations, doctor." Mendez smiled politely.
"Let me tell you this, Jennifer," Samuels grinned back. "What we had was just a warm-up, and this is going to be the real deal. No more fake anart and limited testing; closer to the source of it all than ever!"
That does sound exciting, Mendez thought as she followed Samuels out of the testing chamber, door shutting behind them.
"But first, I need you to make some preprations," Samuels said as he led Mendez back to the office building. "I need up to five D-Classes with art backgrounds. Well, at least two, that should suffice. I'll send the other requirements to you later."
"Of course." She answered.
An hour later, Mendez sat once again in her side office in front the computer screen, another cup of coffee in hand and a hastily assembled meal on the table. As she picked through the seemingly endless D-Class bios (still quite a lot even with keyword searches), she sighed again. And Dr. Samuels wonders why she is not as excited for this as he is.

« Bring It Back | HUB | »


"You all got the unfinished or failed works I asked you to bring?" Legler said, looking around the studio. "Don't tell me otherwise because I'm positive that each of us here has our own share of failures stashed somewhere."
A small wave of noise burst out as students all moved to fetch their respective "failures". Taman, looking down at her small pile of pastel art, picked through them one by one. These were indeed some easy picks considering her multiple failed attempts at the art magic. She had been more successful recently, but the mistakes were still abundant. There was this one depicting the some trees on campus where the color was just so slightly off and she didn't realize it until the last minute; there was a crude drawing of the warehouses she went to, and she messed up the perspective entirely with attempts to just "go with the flow"; and finally, a few pieces that were no more than some loose patches of colors and weak lines.
Taman looked around, and saw that her classmates all produced something equally unfinished or unimpressive. Some may even be called horrible, as she saw Delacroix pulled out a piece of cloth that seemed to have once been caught in a broken sewing machine. She saw Cobalt staring down at her own pile of terribleness with a bitter expression, and one glance at Laufer made her wonder how a wooden statue come to resemble more of a piece of charcoal.
Seeing that everyone had more or less gotten something, Legler continued. "Great. Here's what we're doing today. I know with the Flow, it sometimes gives you the feeling that you can do anything. It's this drive that makes you keep going and going and it feels right and amazing."
He started to pace around the studio, taking a brief look at each student's work. "But a lot of the times that won't work because as human beings, you need to eat and sleep, and sometimes large projects can stretch on for days and even months. Years, maybe. You can't just rely on the strong urge to make it through."
"And I'm telling you now, DO NOT do that," Legler suddenly raised his voice, causing a few students to turn their attention. "I've seen people exhausted to death because they were on a creative high and didn't know when and how to stop. As amazing as Flow is, it doesn't help shit with that."
Taman shifted a bit nervously in her seat as she remembered staying up for a few nights, in fact a lot of nights, trying to get the hang of anart.
"So today, I'm going to teach you how to pause. How to continue working on something afterwards, or how to bring the Flow back. This also applies to failed works, because you can pick up from where you left off, and you can also rework something entirely," Legler paced back to the front of the room again, and leaned on the lecture desk. "Mainly just how to bring it back, because if you have no self-control, that's really not my problem."
He paused briefly, and then added: "That said, if you do have trouble stopping, go to Yang after class."
Legler turned to address his assistant lecturer, who was leaning against the wall and typing furiously on her phone.
Legler frowned. But then a smirk appeared on his face: "Now, Yang, would you care to do some demonstrations?"
Yang was obviously startled by the request. "Wait. You didn't say anything about that."
"I just figure that you won't need any preparations at all, with all these half-baked works of yours around." Legler snapped his fingers and a painting fell off the wall, which landed on the floor with a loud thud. Taman noted that it was a large painting of a lake.
"Fine," Yang said, stuffing her phone back into her pocket. She picked up the painting and positioned it onto an easel in the front of the room. Sitting down on a stool, she proceeded to stare at it.
"Great," Legler, with the smirk still on his face, turned to address the class once more. "The first step is observation, taking what you have here in. The second step is usually recalling—"
His speech was interrupted by a few loud gashing sounds. The professor turned to find that Yang had already slashed the piece up with a pocket knife. Where the slashes met the painted lake, thick black fumes rose up, before disappearing completely into the air a few centimeters apart from the canvas. The water in the picture began to boil, and in a matter of seconds, it left behind only the dried up lakebed and large cracks matching where the slashes were.
"—what you felt and thought then." Legler's gaze had shifted to stare at his co-leturer.
"…sorry," Yang said, smiling at the professor unapologetically. "This one just had to go this way."
Taman had began to chuckle, along with a few others in the room.
"Deconstruction and reworking," Legler squeezed the words out, obviously not pleased. "That does work, but it is the second way I was going to talk about, Yang."
"I can try again?"
Legler sighed in defeat, and another painting slowly moved downwards with a part of the wall until it was reachable. It was obviously a painting, as Yang had gotten it off the wall, put the previous one aside, and started to work on it; and it seemed that she meant it this time. Taman only blinked in surprise as for the longest time, she thought it was just a large mirror.
Legler nodded and began to lecture once more, explaining how to slip back into the mindset when the work was first created. But the words slipped Taman's ear as she watched Yang's process in awe.
The deputy professor only considered briefly before starting to apply paint to the work. The moment her brush touched the mirror, the smooth surface was gone, replaced with colors upon colors on the canvas, divided into tiny units. She couldn't quite explain what she saw, only that there were multiple colors occupying the same space. Taman felt dizzy just looking at it, but she couldn't help but look more closely.
"Sometimes just getting the Flow running would be enough, but if you can connect with it, it's always better. So, consider, what were you thinking back then?" Legler's voice echoed. "Or more accurately, what were you feeling? Because often, we don't think when we create; hell, a lot of us would have no idea what we were creating before we finish. Thoughts and intentions are important and helpful, but a lot of the times you have to rely on an urge. To recall and access that again, you need to seek out the emotions."
And Taman felt it, just by looking at Yang's quick waving of the brush and the splashing colors. It was not Taman's work, and she was just looking at someone else painting, but the emotions were there. She almost felt like they were surging out from Yang's canvas, radiating towards its viewers.
What the feeling was, what Yang felt and hoped to convey, she couldn't quite grasp or put into words. But she hung onto it, struggling to understand. Trying to memorize how she felt it, how she came to resonate with it.
"Don't make a fuss if it feels slightly off. You can never pick up exactly where you left off. Sometimes it will be better, sometimes it's worse, but more often than not, it's just different. What's the saying again? You can't step into the same river twice. Quite the case here: Flow is ever changing, and so are you."
It was almost disorienting, how the colors layered onto one another but also penetrating through the layers. She couldn't pull her eyes away as both the colors from moments ago and the colors newly added shone, past and present merging into one. The air intensified, and for a moment, she felt like it was the Flow, the convergence of emotions and colors. Briefly, the wall of colors from the warehouse came back to her. The vision rushed over and suddenly Taman had the distinct feeling that something was open to her, that she could reach out, and the Flow was a touch away.
But it was not her Flow.
Taman snapped out of it as the air shifted suddenly. The intense emotions changed into something else following a clear cracking sound. All the colors disappeared from the canvas Yang was working on, leaving a translucent surface, and then, the canvas itself collapsed.
Cracks enlarged on the glass-like painting, dividing it into pieces. But instead of falling, they spread out and suspended themselves in the air. A thousand smaller mirrors disjointed, yet as if linked and supported by invisible lines, they formed a crude eye shape. The painting — the glass sculpture looked back at Taman.
Taman blinked in surprise as she saw herself walking into the studio from one of the pieces. It was like staring into a camera playback; she could even make out the moss on the old bench, and the gentle brush of wind through the grass. But when she opened her eyes again, the eye was replaced with a glass butterfly, and the image of herself picking through her work earlier in the class greeted her.
"How…?" Someone gasped in surprise.
Legler looked at the finished work, and nodded approvingly. "Changing depending on the viewer?" He asked.
Yang answered with a slightly smug smile.
But the rest of the class ignored this exchange, only staring intently at the artwork.
Taman soon found that in each piece, there was a moving reflection of her from a previous point today. She watched in fascination as her past selves engaged in their various activities behind the shiny surfaces, with clearer detailed than she could recall. It was as if the mirrors were in front of her throughout the past moments, reflecting whatever happened faithfully. Upon closer examination, Taman also noted that the pieces rearranged positions ever so slightly, even making dramatic changes when she shifted attention away.
"But it was a painting a moment ago…" Someone whispered under their breath, but still caught the attention of the anart professor.
"Oh don't be fooled, it's still a painting, not a sculpture," Legler grabbed onto the remade artwork, and for a moment, the pieces reunited. The illusion was broken and the clear, reflecting glass pieces were forced back into a frame. The past scenes still played out but it was the shape of a painting again.
And then, Legler let go. Instantaneously, the glass shattered, before quickly floating up to form shapes once more.
"When it comes to anart, it is very easy to transcend media," He added. "But back to the topic; when it's not deconstructing, you still generally follow your old theme. What Yang had was a painting functioning as a mirror, and now it is several reflections of the viewer's past."
"And that's what I'm expecting of you. Not only continuing your work, but also making it better." With several loud claps, the studio suddenly expanded upon Legler's command, tiles moving to reveal hidden space, walls growing taller and wider, until the small room became a great hall in mere minutes.
"Splendid! Now get to work." Legler concluded as several small gasps rang throughout the room, along with several eye rolls from those who had seen it before.

Taman barely knew what happened. One moment she was staring at her pastel impression of the warehouse, and the next thing she noticed was that somehow, liquid paint was dripping from her desk and she got up instinctively. A second later, as she calmed down and took the view of colorful paint streaming out of her art in, she felt the pastel stick in her hand, and realized that she had been working on the piece for the past hour or so.
As she stared at the now three-dimensional yet still pastel-looking warehouses standing from the piece of paper, the realization solidified and she was hit with the feeling again. She remembered the exact moment it clicked, and recalled herself drawing, without thinking or considering. The memory was hazy, but at the same time, everything was also so clear, as she understood where exactly to set the next line or the next patch of color. It all went so smoothly.
And that was it, that was the Flow and she did it. It wasn't like the first time when she didn't even realized what she did until afterwards. This time, it was comfortable, a missing piece she finally found. There was a connection and now, she felt like if she tried, she could be there again.
"For a newbie, well done."
She turned to find Legler standing next to the table, studying the interior of the miniature warehouses. Taman felt slightly embarrassed as many of her classmates – including several from the small group – had also turned their attention to her. It didn't help that the paint surging from the warehouses had now made a small puddle on the floor.
Fortunately for her, Legler decided to shoo the students back into working on their respective art, and Yang later dropped by to help her contain the flowing liquid largely within the piece itself, as well as clean up the floor afterwards. She also earned a few compliments from her as a bonus, and she couldn't help but squeaked a bit internally. But unfortunately, all the other works she had brought were utterly ruined, as she had unwisely stashed them nearby, and they were avoidably consumed by the paint river she created.
With nothing better to do, Taman focused her effort on examining the changes Yang made, and how they managed to cease the stream of colors. She didn't really get much result aside from some very vague feelings, but she now had the confidence to work it out eventually.
At the end of the class, she saw that two students did go to Yang, but none of them she was familiar with. Other than that, Legler had decided to call Cobalt aside for some reason; Taman could see Cobalt went visibly pale for a moment, before putting on a worried expression. As she stepped out of the studio door and landed herself back in the campus again, she wondered briefly what was the problem.

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Hub

Year 1,600,000

Talloran immolates. For every month they burn, they get to watch two loved ones die.
It's okay; they're still there with them.

Year 1,659,455

Talloran drowns. The ocean brittles their body, the sea-life spits them out, and they become part of the life cycle.
It's okay; they become essence.

Year 1,736,442

Talloran crashes. Their heart races a hundred beats in a month, then a week, then a day, then an hour, then 30 minutes, then one minute, then 30 seconds, then one, then a half, then a quarter, then an eighth, then —
It's okay; their heart's always been beating too fast anyway.

Year 1,777,777

Talloran experiences divination. Awaken, my love, he cried out.
It's okay; I've awakened.

Year 1,786,108

Talloran snaps. They lose their will again.
It's okay; we'll meet again.

Year 1,786,109

Talloran revives. They regain their will again.
See? It all worked out.

Year 1,831,537

Talloran suffers. It starts to get boring.

Year 1,840,622

Real boring.

Year 1,892,777

That's the problem with suffering. There are only so many bastard-filled ways to die, so many righteous punishments to undergo, so much limit to abuse, that it soon becomes nothing more than a fleeting blip. Only the one in charge of Hell can keep up with that kind of track record, and the One overseeing it now has lost Its touch.
Because the only one who can keep that luster alive is the self, and Talloran has better ways to spend their time.

Because who would want to keep waxing on about torture? Certainly nobody with a healthy conscience.

January 3, 2017

Two people curled up to each other in bed. They were more than lovers; they were cosmological bastions of safety for each other. Researcher James Talloran and Agent Draven Kondraki have a moment's worth of peace in between their hectic schedules. Half-asleep, and the only things of interest are the snow outside illuminated by the balcony lights, and each other.
Talloran feels Draven's heart rise and fall. It's obvious what this means, having been together for this long now.
"The transition to Site-118 won't be that bad for me. I'll be focusing almost exclusively on Keter objects, but staff know what they'll be assigning me to. I won't be at risk."
"You just won't be around here any longer." Draven kisses Talloran's neck, a reaffirmation of grounding.
"Yeah. I'll video call every day."
"What if your schedule is too different?"
"Site-17 isn't that far away from where I'm going, you know. Even if it is, it's not like either of us sleep much anymore."
"It's only been a month since we moved into this apartment anyway. I'll miss you."
"I'll miss it too, Draven, hon."
"Mmhmm. Who's going with you?" He was curious to know; he knew there were some reassignments, but to Site-118 in particular was odd. It seemed well-staffed enough.
"You remember Dr. Yamada, right? She's coming with me… I guess to look over me. Glass won't see me anymore, but I'll be seeing someone there. I can stay sane enough."
"Sure." Neck kiss.
They stayed quiet for another half-hour. The songs snow made when it fell rivaled that of any musician, and its existence made the season more colorful for them. Lingering silence never bothered either one of them in each other's presence, nor any of their characteristics and mental traits that made others such a pain in the ass to deal with. They weren't pure, but all they needed to be was transparent.
Talloran turned around, facing Draven now. The both of them were exhausted, but Talloran… they were borderline asleep. Even through half-opened eyes, Draven… he was cute. There's so much love to give and so much space for that love and so little time to love and it kind of hurt to not be able to keep giving that love as much as they wanted to. In the grand scheme of things though, 95km would ultimately not be as devastating as it otherwise could be. The Foundation, as draining as it was, at least made sure to give some consideration to Draven's family.
"I'm still not sure about a first name, hon. James doesn't quite fit me, I think." Mumble mumble.
"Too attached to your old self, or something or other." Mumble.
"What do you think about Jasper?" they questioned.
"Joyce."
"Jaden."
"James. No wait, that's already your name." In response to Draven's mistake, Talloran tried opening their eyes and exaggerating a disappointed look. giggle, then they both shared in the laughter. "Jules? Why stick to J anyhow. Go big, go bold. Avery."
"Alex."
"Erin, with an E."
"Jules, Aiden, Blake, Ari, Devin, E… Eli, Kai. Gr…ey… S… ky……lar……… J…………" Talloran drifted off to sleep.
snore
Draven smiled and got out of bed. Tired as he was, there was still some stuff he had to take care of before his boyfriend transferred sites in a couple days. He could no longer afford to be put off by the minutiae of day-to-day work. There was business to take care of.
He wandered the apartment, one inherited from his deceased father, stumbling in the dark. Being tired and still unfamiliar with a new place wasn't the best option. When every step forward was also for confronting a trauma still being processed, things were even harder. Luckily for him, he had the tenacity of an angry, hungry dog, so minor issues like "adjusting to dark rooms" and "avoiding bumping into objects" were no problem in any capacity.
That is, until he stubbed his toe with full force onto a metal plate.
"G-gah, fu—" He slapped his hand over his mouth, trying not to yell and wake up Talloran. It hurt like a motherfucker. Though once he turned the corner in an attempt to find the bathroom, he managed to stumble across it. The door had a single nameplate on it.

Doctor Benjamin Kondraki

Calling him a doctor was always overstating it, and maybe he didn't fully deserve the honor of being a Foundation employee at times. But he did. He absolutely did. He was as good of a father as any, and more importantly, he was his father.
Draven entered the room, and his heart stopped for a brief second. In a way, it almost resembled his father's old office. It was still being unpacked, and shit was strewn all over the floor. That was fine. The desk was positioned in front of the window, the way his father typically liked working. The moonlight was potent tonight, and shone right onto the dilapidated chair. For a brief moment, he could have sworn he saw his father there, looking down at some documents with bourbon on the desk, before looking back up at his son and smiling.
He blinked.
His father left. Only the bourbon remained.
Draven knew where he could find the thing he needed to give to Talloran the most in the mess of a room. He needed to keep it a secret, after all. His father's desk had a drawer, which contained a manila envelope. And there it was, same location as he put it in. No tampering either. At least his boyfriend didn't find it.
It was still weird to Draven that his father left this behind for them. It wasn't even found until the move to the new apartment. His father was mysterious in ways that don't befit the adjective, but this was maybe the most strange. Talloran thought a lot of his dad despite his issues, because the two of them got along together well (or rather, well enough), because Ben was his dad and even because there was some level of understanding underneath it all. But the fact that he thought of Talloran in the same way at all, enough to leave this behind, was odd. At least he was considerate.
Closing the door and choking down sobs again, Draven made his way back to the bedroom with one less toe stub this time. It'd be sort of pathetic to wake his boyfriend up crying over recent events again, but they would understand, surely.
"Night, bun." Draven kisses their forehead and holds onto them, falling into sleep soon after.
At least they'll always have each other.

Year 1,996,437

"Why is it that you keep pushing on?"
I'm still not sure myself.
"Tell me. Do you fear being paranoid?"
I think so.
"Do you fear being pursued?"
I… yeah.
"Do you fear what life brings to crush you?"
…yes.
I step away from the sharp claws of Its hatred, and see the gallery of lives that once could have been. Were it another time, another place, another universe, I could have once lived another life. Whether they're just my desires and imaginations, or actual realities, I'm no longer sure, but to someone, they are real.

I see a girl and her grandfather, existing in happiness as he defies Heaven.
I see a family stick together, as tight-knight as they'll ever be.
I see a writer, attempting to fill their stories with love.
I see a girl escaping from the abuse her father continues to bring.
I see technology becoming critical, becoming knowledgeable about minor topics.
I see a robotics company stake their claim on their products.
I see disillusionment, self-doubt, and frustration take hold in a personal world where online has just as much frustration as offline.
I see someone transcending body and spirit to become happy and affable.
I see a teenager, wishing to be a princess, stuck in her own head.
I see aliens as pets.
I see the Foundation turn to nothing from head cannons.

I see reality distorting itself, until it's simply fiction.
I see a woman taken by fear and hatred to exist only in dreams from the in-between.
I see an artist striving to prove himself.
I see meandering born from a broken relationship.
I see those forgotten becoming remembered in other ways.
I see many deaths at the hands of anomalies, were they not in the hands of the Foundation.
I see Nero burn Rome to the ground.
I see people, the world turned against them, unsure of how to deal with it all, try to cheer each other up.
I see an evil man kill for his own gratification.
I see artists as activists.
I see Nobody looking for her lineage.

I see a writer struggle with holding onto the world in more than one way, her resolve challenged in many aspects.
I see a news editor, compiling last month's latest for those interested.
And many more.

My situation is absurd. I'll accept that. I smile, and let myself go. The background shatters.

Year 2,500,000

Court is in session.

All rise! Get ready.

We're hitting the gas on this one, hun.

« Only God Can Judge Me and More | The Moon Is a Dead World | Only Once Away My Son »
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The parking lot of the Chipotle Mexican Grill was false, and held many secrets.

« Slow Animals ||

The parking lot of the Chipotle Mexican Grill was false, and held many secrets.
Once Vera K. Garcia had reported to Taco Bell and found a false bottom in her bag of one Burrito Supreme and one Crispy Chicken Quesadilla, she knew that her plan had been approved by the Rotisserie Outfitters Bureau.
Inside the secret compartment, she found three objects of note.

A picture of a young man with cropped black hair, tan skin, and a strained smile. He was wearing a button-down shirt. Vera supposed it was likely taken for some official purpose, perhaps an ID card. On the back of the photograph, a phone number was written in blue sharpie. Beneath that a name: Casey Malik.
A small object shaped like a pocket pistol but with a wide, flat barrel. Where the hammer would typically be there was an LED light. Brief experimentation showed that the LED flashed when the gun was pointed a specific direction. A compass, of a sort.
A note. It informed her that her subsequent actions would be of the utmost importance, and that she would be alone. It was reassuring.

Once she had enjoyed her meal, she made haste across the street, past the Chipotle and into its parking lot. The gun in her hands made a pleasant buzz as she waved it about in the dark. The pulse of its light intensified when she brought it to face the back of the lot — a thin strip of trees and bushes separating the concrete from rows of compact housing.
She closed the distance, eyes alert for threats. As she stepped carefully over the curb and into the grass, the gun chirped. A small blue button had appeared just above her thumb, on the side of the grip. She took one more look around before she pressed it and the ground beneath her vanished.
She didn't have time to grab anything for support. She was falling now through a tube, or a tunnel — surrounded by a substance like vinyl that pressed up against her uncomfortably, but with enough friction to keep her speed low.
Seconds later the constriction gave way. She braced for impact, landing feet-first on a hard brick surface.
For such a long fall, this didn't look like it was underground. The sky was a dark, deep blue, and her surroundings were lit by strings of lights supported by the air itself, weaving about in the sky. She was in a town square, nearly empty, and in each direction she could see roads travelling out, flanked by buildings in eclectic styles, a mosaic of vibrant shades.
She could hardly believe her eyes, but she'd have time for disbelief later. For now, she had a job to do.

An ancient necromancer in a bathrobe stood on the threshold of his front door.
In front of him was his son's boyfriend, wearing scuffed slacks and a wrinkled button-down shirt spattered with some dark spots. He was carrying a file folder under his arm.
"Hi, Mr. Rowe!"
Eustace Rowe squinted. "Adam's not here."
Casey shook his head, "Oh, no, I'm not-" He cleared his throat. "Can I come in?"
"To hide from the police? Or to clean the blood off your clothes?"
"How did you know that I—"
"It's called 'the news.' And 'the police' who showed up at my door asking about you, Casey."
"What did you tell them?"
"That I didn't know where you were. Which is true."
"Oh. So, can I…"
Eustace sighed. "Yes. Get in here."
Casey muttered repeated thanks as he slid into the entryway. He could see the dimly-lit hallway proceed into the house, flanked by stairs into darkness and leading to a shady kitchen. Behind him, Eustace shut and locked the door. "Move," he muttered. Casey shuffled out of the way and down the hall.
The kitchen was clearly in use recently, arrayed with what was either a very exotic dinner or a terrifying arrangement of viscera. It smelled of formaldehyde, and Casey's nose wrinkled. "Sorry about the mess," Eustace grunted, "wasn't expecting to be interrupted." He motioned to a chair, situated at a dinky dining table prepared for four.
Casey sat down, his legs silently thanking him for the relief, and set the stolen file on the tabletop. "Right. Sorry. Thank you."
The elder stayed standing, leaning back on the kitchen counter. He was silent for a moment, surveying Casey's ragged figure. "You need to get cleaned up. Quickly."
"Oh. Why?"
"Because a child wearing a magician costume could track down your thaumic imprint, and Adam would be upset with me if you died in my house."
Casey nodded slowly. "Right. That makes sense."
"And then you'll get out of my house."
"What? They'll find me. You just said you couldn't let me die."
"In my house. You're the one who killed a man. Far as I can tell, I'm being perfectly charitable by not turning you in right now."
"No, it- it wasn't like that. I didn't have control over my actions. There's a memetic worm. Or something."
"Ah, the mind control defense. That'll make your trial more interesting, at least until the Mayor decides to execute you by soul amputation."
"That may be, but can you at least help me contact Adam?"
Eustace sighed. And then he sighed again. "Fine." He turned walked out of the kitchen, vanishing into the darkness of the hallway beyond.
Casey fidgeted in place for a moment. Eustace returned, bringing a large, blocky phone with what seemed to be an over-sized tape recorder attached to it. He sighed once more, for good measure, and began entering some code into a number pad on its front.
"From last I checked, Adam should be in Backdoor SoHo. Got some shitty medium gig."
"So, um, how can we even call him, between enclaves?"
"A good question. This looks like a phone, but it's actually a psionic link to a carrier pigeon selectively bred to survive in the void between universes. It flies through the Outside, the formless space relentlessly crushing it as it carries messages at the speed of light."
"Oh. Really?"
"No."
He finished whatever calibration he was doing, and a droning beep began to play. Eustace held it to his head, and the droning stopped. "Wake up, Adam. Your boyfriend killed a man."
Casey's eyes went wide.
Eustace covered the receiving end of the phone while confused protestations spilled out of the speaker. "Don't have the time or the patience to coddle here. Better to just rip the band-aid off." In this metaphor, Casey assumed, the band-aid was his relationship.
"Just. Give it to me." Casey stood up and reached out for it, and Eustace reluctantly handed it over.
He held it up to the side of his head and tried to sound as calm as possible. "Honey?"
The speaker crackled, and a tinny facsimile of Adam's voice spilled out. "Casey? What's going on? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Sort of. Things have gone a bit lopsided."
"I can tell. What happened?"
"There was something that infected me. Something memetic. It took control of me. Made me-" Casey's breath shortened as what he'd done hit him like a slap to the face.
"Shh, shh. I understand. You don't need to talk about it right now. I'll be in Three Portlands as soon as I possibly can."
"No, please, I don't think that's the best idea. Whatever's happening, it's still going on. And it's probably not going to get better for a bit."
"I can't let you do it alone. Look, my clients are a wash, and their dead relatives aren't going anywhere. I hope. I can pack up and—"
"Please? Just stay safe for now. I've got more than enough to worry about right now." Casey knew that Adam would only sit idly by for so long. Hopefully things would be safer by the time Adam foolishly rushed in.
"Fine," Adam pouted. "But there must be something I can do out here."
Casey stopped to think for a moment. As he did, Eustace came up behind him with a device like a handheld metal detector and started waving it along Casey's arms. He guessed Eustace had taken the thaumic scrubbing into his own hands.
"Oh, there's one thing, maybe. Before what happened, I was in Bristol meeting with a business partner. Maybe you could go there, see if there's anything magical you can find?" Casey searched his pockets for Mr. Erwan's card, and recited the address into the phone.
"Roger. Lemme just- I guess I can go through the Library? Yeah, probably." He was working through the logistics in his head, Casey could tell. He was nothing if not resourceful.
"Thank you. Stay safe."
"You need that more than I do. Please be careful. I love you."
"Love you too." He clicked the phone off.
He turned, and Eustace was staring at him. "What?"
Eustace shrugged. "Didn't say anything." His wrinkled face had a surprising capacity for passive aggression. "You're scrubbed of any identifying links, now. You're welcome for that. But you should go change your clothes. Take some of Adam's, from the hall closet upstairs."
"Right, right." Casey rather pointlessly tried to smooth himself out, and went upstairs to change into something that wasn't covered in dirt and blood.

He walked back down wearing slightly too-tight jeans and one of Adam's nice tan jackets. For the first time since what had happened, he felt somewhat refreshed.
This positive feeling quickly evaporated when he reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Eustace pointing a gun at some woman in the kitchen.
Eustace motioned to Casey with his free hand, beckoning for him to come closer. "Took you long enough."
Casey inched towards Eustace, eyes wide as he struggled to take in what he was seeing. A black woman, wearing a tan suit, her hair tied in a neat bun. She was sitting at the kitchen table, and seemed unperturbed in spite of the elderly man waving a pistol in her face.
"Found her in the lot out back. She was trying to snoop through the window." He shook the pistol at her. "Now, why don't you tell him what you told me?"
"Well," she said. Her voice was calm, rehearsed. She'd clearly been looking forward to the chance to speak. "The first thing you need to know is that I'm on your side."
She paused for a moment, feeling the room for a reaction, and then continued. "My name is Vera K. Garcia. I've been sent by an organization that knows of what is going on here, and wants me to help you prevent it from getting worse."
Eustace nodded. "You buying any of this, Casey?"
He had, in fact, heard this story before. "What organization?"
"We're devoted to keeping the world safe, and preserving the things that matter most."
Casey raised an eyebrow. "Okay, but what's it called?"
"Directorate K."
Eustace suddenly bent over, laughing hoarsely. The gun in his hand evaporated into smoke. "No shit? This night just gets better and better."
Casey did not know whether he should take offence to that. "You know them?"
Eustace ratcheted himself up to a standing position again, still smiling. "You could say that." He turned back to the woman. "What was your last assignment, infiltrating the leadership of a Chuck E. Cheese's?"
She smiled earnestly. "That's funny. It's important maintain some levity, especially in the face of bomb threats."
Eustace's gaze narrowed. "What?"
Vera nodded to the file folder, stolen from the Chaos Insurgency, still splayed on the kitchen table. Indeed, a paper was poking out — some notes about potential locations for an unspecified device that could be planted on one of Three Portlands' many side streets. "Sounds like there's a real conspiracy shaping up. It sure would be convenient if a skilled infiltrator were to offer a hand."
Casey looked down. "Point taken."
Eustace squinted at her for a good while. Like his view was piercing her and examining the insides. Which could literally be happening.
After another moment, he spoke. "Fine. You can stay here. But you take a single hostile action, the house will eat your flesh and I will not treat your bones with dignity."
Vera smiled. "Noted."

The sun rose, pulling shadows taut across the stone and brick landscape of Three Portlands. Casey watched it with suspicion.
Behind him Vera pored over the contents of the ill-gotten dossier. She flipped through pages of equations, numbers she couldn't make sense of. Details of people she didn't know, working for corporations she didn't recognize, in cities she hadn't known existed. She pulled free two pages in particular and set them down on the table, towards Casey.
"These," she stated, "are the only people in the file who aren't marked deceased."
Casey turned from the window, scanning the documents. Sidney and Timothy Way, two brothers. There were no pictures, no biographies, and no justifications for being included in the dossier. Just basic identification information and a Three Portlands Address. "That's not much to go on."
She shrugged. "There's an address. That's all we need to pay them a visit."
Casey's face hardened. "Is that a good idea?"
"If they're like you, they're allies. And even if they're not, we'll get more information on what's going on."
Casey pursed his lips. "What about the police? Everyone thinks I'm, well, a murderer."
"Well, you got away the first time, didn't you? How'd you manage that?"
"I was picked up by a strange man and then lost most of my memory of what happened after."
"We've all been there. But for now, you're wearing someone else's clothes, and a strange woman is going to be giving you instructions. Now, where is this address?"
Casey gulped.

The day was cool and clear. Perfect weather for taking a walk.
Many others felt the same way. The streets were saturated with milling crowds, pastel swarms wandering about to get to work, to school, to shopping. Living their normal lives, or as close to normal as Three Portlands permitted.
Casey watched with envy until Vera grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back into the alleyway.
"Staring is weird. Criminals stare," she whispered.
"I'm pretty sure regular people stare too."
"Not from alleyways. Usually." Vera cast a glance behind her. "Let's keep going."
They'd been trekking through the alleys for a bit — the zig-zagged gashes in the urban jungle, stretch marks of a city constantly making space for the new and shuffling the old to the outskirts. Most of these voids between buildings were empty, though some were marked by signs of habitation: clotheslines, plywood shacks, or bundles of blankets on the muddied stone. Some people huddled by the walls, sleeping off their hangovers or searching for scraps.
Walk at a constant pace, she had said. Every day, you walk by hundreds of people, each with plenty of their own thoughts on their mind. Take every precaution to not disturb their daydreams, and stand out as little as possible. The vagrants Casey passed certainly didn't pay him much mind. Casey wondered if they would care even if they did recognize him. He doubted they felt much of a personal debt toward the faceless police golems.
As he neared an intersection in the path he took a turn onto an empty side street. The brothers, it seemed, lived in a particularly dense area of the residential district, where teetering tenements were stacked against each other. It was quite a ways from Eustace's home on the outskirts.
Vera peeked into the displays of stores advertising fashion, art, or gluttonous indulgence, boundaries artificially removed with the help of regenerative exploits, anomalies typically reserved for the ultra-rich. Casey turned back to her, as she was eyeing the posted menu for a restaurant that specialized in food that was the opposite of Italian food. "What's the matter? Have you not been in Three Portlands before?"
She shook her head, snapping her gaze away from the store and quickening her pace to keep up with him. "I have no idea what this place is or how it works."
"Oh. Wait. You haven't seen behind the Veil before now?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "From what I understand, it seems like most of the things I thought were impossible are in fact possible, and that there is some kind of secret underworld of people who know this and can utilize these impossibilities freely."
"Yeah, that's basically it. You're taking this a lot better than I did." Casey had spent more than a few days locked in his room after Adam had showed him some magic years ago.
Again, she shrugged. "What I'm learning is that my preconceptions were getting in my way. There's no need to dwell on the lies others tell to us."
"That's the best way to look at it, I guess." He led her into a right turn into another jagged alleyway where bricks gave way to sandblasted stucco. They kept a healthy pace.
"It's the benefit of my work. Clarity of purpose means that sometimes you don't need to think. You can just be and do."
Casey nodded. "I guess that makes sense. What does 'doing' entail, anyhow?"
"The way I see it, we have firefighters and doctors to preserve the things we need to survive. Directorate K is concerned with preserving the reasons we have to keep living."
"Reasons to live?"
"Things that make life worthwhile. The things previously unknown. The tastes that change each time you sample them. Disorder is an order all its own, and it's what human life is built around. It's about finding that combination, the repetition of something that changes every time. The appreciation of a thing just for what it is and how it feels. That's how I see it, at least."
"And that requires spy shit?"
"I appreciate secrets. I'm skilled at finding them, cataloguing them, patterning them. Where the information goes is irrelevant."
"And you're here now."
"I'm here because it's where I'm best applied. My superiors knew there were secrets here worth sharing. Or maybe they felt something was at stake. Or both. It makes no difference to me."
"That's a relaxed attitude you have towards the crimes you are currently committing."
She cast a sideways glance at him. "I have faith in what I do. I'm good at what I do. I'm confident that this is where I'm supposed to be. You could do it too, you know. You could've run, but you didn't. You're overwhelmed, but you're still moving forward. You're more adaptable than you think."
"I mean, I couldn't-"
Vera grabbed the sleeve of his borrowed jacket and dragged him to a stop at the outlet of the alley. She pushed him back against a rough plaster wall. A few people kept walking past them and Casey turned to hide his face. "What? What is it?" he whispered.
Vera pointed down the street and across, to a dinky apartment building among rows of others. "That's it, isn't it?"
Casey turned over the address in his head. "Yeah, that's probably it. Why did we stop?"
She stopped pointing but kept looking in that direction. "There's a man out front."
She was right. A bearded man wearing basketball shorts was leaning against one side of the building's entrance, peering into a small mesh backpack. She continued, "I've seen him before. In Portland just a few days ago. Portland, Oregon. I saw him and another man and they were talking about doing something big and vague."
Casey peered at him. "Big and vague, huh?"
"He's the taller one. Sidney Way, probably," Vera concluded.
The two of them stood in the alley for a moment longer.
Casey started. "So, what do we do?"
"Ideally we approach in a non-threatening manner and begin a dialogue."
"Wasn't that what got you held hostage back at the house?"
"I did say ideally."
Casey leaned out of the passage they were discourteously blocking. "He's leaving."
The man had zipped up his backpack and turned to walk with purpose down the street.
"So should we-" Casey hoped she'd interrupt him with a plan, but she was already walking down the street. Casey nodded to no-one in particular and followed. He gulped, grasping at an air of nonchalance. No big deal, just stalking someone in broad daylight while wanted by the police. Just a hobby.
Vera exuded effortlessness. She weaved through the other walkers, eagle-eyes trained on the mark. Casey struggled to keep up, the pedestrian traffic gradually rising to a dense crowd as they moved along.
Casey strained to see over the commotion in front of him. Where the street led around a run-down community garden, the paths were blocked by concrete dividers. Blue tape and sawhorses. They were heading straight for a checkpoint, manned by half a dozen police golems. Oh no.
His breath started to pick up. It's okay, he thought. He can just turn around and walk away. They can come back for Sidney some other day. He tugged at Vera's sleeve. She was undeterred. He stopped in place, surrounded by strangers.
It was at this moment that Casey was tackled.
Arms flung around his neck, the weight of a lanky man toppling him. A gaggle of gasping civilians moved out of the way to let him fall back-first on the asphalt. A man he had never seen before was on top of him. He was shouting, "Why are you following us?" Casey gasped for air.
"Hi, Timothy," Vera said. She swung her leg into the man's side, sinking her foot into his stomach. He wheezed, loosening his grip. Casey pressed his foot against his sternum, and Timothy Way landed on his back.
A siren rang. The crowd was fanning out like air bubbles leaving water. A mechanical voice chittered, "This is an active crime scene. Please lay on the ground and place your hands behind your back for processing."
Vera gripped Casey's forearms and hoisted him to his feet in one fluid motion. Timothy was clambering to his knees. Vera glanced down the side street. Sidney was running. The golems were still blaring. One of them looked right at Casey, synthetic eyes flashing with recognition.
She started to run, and pulled Casey with her.

After they had burst through the crowd, the streets rapidly became empty. A crazed murderer on the loose tends to clear out public spaces.
Sidney was getting away, his backpack jostling back and forth with each of his strides. He fiddled with something in his grip.
Casey's legs burned. He ran track in high school, but that was the better part of a decade ago. Now not only was Casey confronted with the physical pain of his burning muscles, but the simultaneous emotional pain of being acutely aware exactly how much he had let himself go. To make matters worse, Vera hadn't broken a sweat.
The police golems must have alerted the UIU headquarters. They'll set up a cordon any minute, a ring of armed men lassoing every exit. No escape. Casey banished the thought from his mind. Sometimes you just need to let go of the controls and allow yourself to do what will be done.
Sidney spun on a dime, straight into a tight alley. As he did, he dropped what he'd been carrying, something like a blue pipe. Casey slapped the brick turned into the alley, leaping over the pipe and paying little mind.
Behind him, it burst into a cyan cloud of fluttering wings, thousands of blue bats spiralling in the entryway. Vera hadn't come through. Best she didn't chance it.
Casey was gaining on him, dodging littered mush, their feet splashing through iridescent puddles of contaminated water. His muscles screamed, but he'd never listened to himself and didn't plan to start now.
They were close now. Casey stretched his arms out to grab onto something, anything of Sidney's, but his fingertips only brushed the backpack. Sidney dodged to the side and slowed, fluidly kicking back at Casey's leg as he passed. Casey tumbled head over heels. He caught on his hands in a pile of sludge, skinning his palms and dirtying his face. Sidney's foot splashed the puddle into his eyes as he ran out of the alleyway.
He tried to curse, but his breath was too short, and it just came out as a squeal. He hoped no-one heard that. Scrambling to his feet once more, he rounded the corner.
Sidney Way was there, stopped in the centre of the street. They were in Three Portland's tourism district, flanked on both sides by pastel hotels, vacant vacation homes, luxury spots for affluent folks who, having conquered the material world, sought a more challenging locale to gentrify.
Sidney was holding a gun. Casey skidded to a stop.
His voice was even and precise. "Gonna tell me why you're following us?"
Casey heaved for another moment. The body felt like it was still moving, pulsing in time with the pounding in his ears. "I think," he wheezed, "we're both at risk. Weird things are happening. I think you might be a target."
He narrowed his eyes at Casey. "Is that so?"
"I don't know what you're planning, but you don't have to. It's not you, it's something in your head! It's making you do things."
He cocked his head to one side. "I might be wrong, but I don't think you have the slightest idea what you're talking about."
Casey couldn't really argue with that. He cleared his throat. "Then I guess we're in a Mexican standoff."
"What? You're unarmed. It'd only be a Mexican standoff if you had a gun."
"Can I-"
"Not a chance."
Well, Casey was out of ideas. There was nothing he could do. He raised his hands behind his head-
It was at this moment that Sidney was tackled.
Vera flung her weight at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He lost his balance and fell backwards, on top of Vera. He jabbed blindly at her face. An elbow smacked into her nose with an ugly thwack.
Casey charged at the entangled duo. He grabbed Sidney's gun arm, propping it up into the sky. Sidney fired once, then twice, blasts of sound ringing through Casey's skull as he lost his grip. Vera drove her knee into Sidney's back, and his fingers loosened, letting the gun come clattering to the pavement.
Behind them, another voice rang out. "Sidney! It's done!" Casey swivelled his head over his shoulder. The other brother was there, waving some small object in the air.
Sidney could hardly breathe beneath the duo, but he sputtered, "Do it! Now!"
Two words flashed through Casey's mind. Bomb threats.
"GET DOWN," he screamed, falling to his knees and covering his ears, squeezing his eyes as tight as he could before-

-the world erupted, a fist of air and displaced earth slamming Casey in the chest with such power that the air in his body was forcibly expelled, and he was lifted off the ground.
Instinctively his body curled, and Casey briefly became a human cannonball, tumbling end over end until his shoulders smacked into the curb.
He desperately gasped for air, but his lungs filled with obliterated stone, and he was wrenched into fitful coughing. He scrambled over, onto his back. He was suffocating.
With shaking hands he grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled it over his nose, trying to filter the air. He inhaled slowly. That was better.
He regained some control. The air stung his squinted eyes. All he could see was tawny debris in the air, and flecks of metal floating down.
"Vera," he gasped, as strongly as he could muster. "Vera!" No response.
His eyes refocused, gradually sifting through the shades of brown. A darkened shape surfaced to his left, a person clambering to their feet.
Across the street he saw what had been a building moments before. A teal and green display of garishness assembled into the shape of a holiday home. The facade was ripped clean down now, splinters littering the street.
The silhouette started to walk towards the wreck, holding something in front of them with both hands. The gun.
Casey propped himself on his elbows, then his stinging palms, and pushed his body to his feet, joints popping with discomfort. He followed the figure. They didn't seem to notice.
They stepped over the threshold and Casey trailed behind, limping into the house.
The building was in tatters. A living room was covered in shreds of what was either destroyed modern art, or fully intact modern art appearing as intended. A shriek came from a doorway, and both Casey and the figure turned to look. The silhouette moved in.
It was an ornate bedroom, or it used to be. Half the wall along with the remains of an antique dresser was caved out into the street, and the ceiling had fallen in. On the bed, an old man was trapped, pinned beneath the rafters.
The silhouette turned, revealing the profile of Sidney's face as he raised the gun.
This reveal was very convenient to Casey, who then knew exactly where to aim.
His suckerpunch smacked into Sidney's ear, sending the already wobbly man down against the wall, the gun leaving his grip once more.
Casey leaned over the bed. He could just make out the man's features. He looked familiar.
Cillian Erwan. The man he had seen just days ago. The man who had put a gun in Casey's bag without him noticing.
Evidently, he recognized Casey in kind. He coughed and choked, but managed to sound indignant regardless. "What're you doing here? What's going on?"
Casey heard shouting outside. A blasting voice. "FBI, everyone get on the ground!" He didn't move.
Casey tried to keep his voice low. "What did you do to me? You made me kill him. Why? What did you have to gain?"
Erwan's face shifted. He moved back. "What're you on about?"
His breath sped up. "Your android. She gave me a gift for Regent. It turned into a gun in my backpack, and I- and I-"
Erwan interrupted him with a sick laugh. "The robot?" His laugh sputtered into coughing as he inhaled dust. "Kid, you're asking the wrong guy. This is them getting me too, isn't it?"
Casey furrowed his brow. "No, look, we'll- we'll get you out. I just need to find-"
Someone was at the doorway. Someone that any troublemaker in Three Portlands knew very well. Special Agent Kenneth Spencer. He was holding a gun, too.
Casey scrambled away, towards the hole in the wall.
Erwan coughed again. "About time you got here. I've been-"
Spencer's bullet ended his thought. Casey's eyes widened. Outside, he heard another, identical voice. "FBI, everyone get on the ground!"
The thing that looked like Spencer turned to Sidney, the man still cradling his head against the wall. Another gunshot.
Casey vaulted over the debris, his foot catching as he fell face-first back into the street. He shuffled onto his hands and knees and back up again. He limped for a few steps, but the dizziness in his head was overpowering. He stumbled to his knees once more. In the corner of his eye there was another Spencer, flanked by uniformed agents and visibly confused.
"Identify yourself," Spencer said.
"Special Agent Kenneth Spencer," said Spencer.
"No," Spencer said. "You're not. Drop your weapon and exit the building with your hands up."
"No," said Spencer. He was at the collapsed wall of the bedroom now. "You're not." He levelled his gun at Casey.
Casey squeezed his eyes shut. A gunshot filled his ears. And then another. And another gunshot.
But no pain came. He opened his eyes again, and saw only red. He blinked.
There was nothing wrong with his eyes. Standing above him was a fair-haired man, arms held out in front of him. One hand drew a thin knife straight down the other forearm, and from the wound wine-dark sparks spilled, flowing around the both of them in a hollow shell. The bullets had bounced harmlessly off the buffer.
Casey stared up at him.
Adam Rowe stared back down.
"We're gonna be fine," he said, with a weak smile.
Adam knelt down. With the hand that wasn't shooting energy, he gripped Casey's shaking hand tightly.
And then the world around them became a blur.

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After what seemed like years, Mark woke up.
It hadn't been for lack of trying. Several times, he had felt light pound against his eyelids, desperate to get in. The piercing, searing sensation running through his head only served to make his sleep that much more confusing as he rose to his feet, disoriented and stumbling. The room was a blur, but he could make out cracked concrete, patches of mold, and an aged, decaying musk that burrowed itself into his nostrils.
Mark had no way of knowing how long he was unconscious for. Everything that had transpired before waking up in a small, locked concrete room faded away like smoke into the air. Only gradually did thoughts and senses return to him, most of them doing so suddenly and without warning. The pressure in his head ratcheted up, causing him to lurch forward a few feet, palm a nearby wall, and vomit. He smelled what he thought was breakfast in a puddle on the floor.
With the few seconds of reprieve throwing up had bought him, Mark snapped his head around the room, his gaze eventually falling on a rusted metal door with no handle or keyhole. A small pane of glass, no bigger than a textbook, rested in the middle of it. He approached it and tried to look at the exterior hallway, but the lack of light made it too difficult to discern anything useful. A shadow quickly moved across one of the walls, coming into view as a particularly large, healthy rat. Exasperated, Mark fell to his knees, his back hugging the door.
The only thought that broke through his piercing migraine was that he had been kidnapped.
How? He asked himself silently, eyes still circling around in search of anything notable. Why would anyone do this to me? I don't know anyone that would -
Images flashed in front of him. Ted, his wife's boss. Always looking for ways to dig his nails into their marriage. Always seeing how far he could push himself onto her before Mark stepped in. Always asking her to coffee, or lunch.
But is he capable of…this? Mark continued to question himself, running through every scenario and eventuality his mind could conjure up. When things began to finally make sense - when a logical, plausible theory came to him - a mechanical hum bounced around the room before evolving into a high-pitched screech, then finally radio static. A man, or what he thought was a man, started to speak.
"Stand up."
Mark didn't reply. He didn't know who this person was, or what they were planning to do. For all he knew, they were making sure he was still alive so they could kill him themselves. He carefully rose to his feet and approached the source of the noise, uncovering a small speaker fixed to one of the walls.
"Stand up now."
The inflection grew more intense. Given that he saw no other realistic ways to escape the room, Mark decided to bite. He cleared his throat and spoke in a shaking, strained tone.
"Who is this? Why am I here?" Mark inquired, allowing a little too much anger to seep into the words.
"All of those questions will be answered in time." He thought he heard the voice chuckle at the end of that sentence, but attributed it to his deliriousness. "For now, I need you to listen to me very carefully, and do exactly what I tell you to do. If you don't, there will be…consequences." The venom dripping from that last word was audible, and succeeded in shutting Mark up.
"In ten seconds, the door to your cell will open. You are to step outside. On the floor in front of this room will be a camera, several batteries, and a microphone. You are to insert the batteries into the camera, turn it on, and turn on the microphone. Do you understand?"
He felt bewildered. Lost. "Why? What is -"
"Stop." The voice interjected. "Don't ask questions. Just do what I say."
Almost on cue, the metal door swung open. Mark took several steps outside of the room. Sure enough, all of the items the voice had described were there, resting on the floor. A dried, red liquid coated the handle of the camera. Mark did his best to not run through the possibilities of what it was.
"Insert the batteries into the camera and turn it on. I will let you know if your feed is coming through."
He obliged. The camera flickered to life and began recording.
"Good, we see your feed. Now attach the microphone to your shirt."
Once again, Mark complied. He spoke into it several times as a test.
"Reading you loud and clear." The voice paused; Mark heard somebody rifle through what sounded like a stack of papers. "Okay, now before we begin the game, I'm obligated by law to read a legal statement on behalf of my company."
Frustration bled into Mark's mind. "Game? What the fuck are you talking about?"
"We'll get to that. First, I need to -"
"No, fuck this." Mark dropped the camera onto the floor and approached one of the speakers. "Tell me where the fuck I am, right now!"
At first, he heard nothing. An eerie, almost unsettling silence washed over the hallway. Then, one voice, followed by several others. They talked something over, some of them speaking in a language Mark didn't recognize, before he heard one of them - the voice that had spoken to him already - clear its throat.
"I'll keep it simple." The irritation was palpable. "You're competing for your life. Do what I tell you to do, and you might go home. Or don't. In fact, I honestly want you to ignore me and fuck yourself over. Confusion is like…salting the meat."
Mark's migraine returned to him as he attempted to process what had just been said. Reluctantly, but swiftly, he picked up the camera, refusing to address his new observer.
"Good." The voice picked up a sheet of paper. "Now, the legal statement."
Minutes passed as terms he had never heard before were repeated in a cold, clinical tone. Death and dismemberment, loss of time, and prizes were terms that stood out to him. He took it in stride, pleading for the end of a nightmare that seemed endless. The voice finally finished and asked him something - it took a few seconds for Mark to process it, partially out of fear and partially due to the severe pain still rocking his head.
"Once again, I'm asking if you understand."
Mark nodded. "Yes."
"Excellent, then we can begin." The voice chuckled. "For what it's worth, I admire your tenacity. I hope you make it through this. But, well…stronger men have failed."
Mark jumped at the sounds of hundreds of metal doors opening simultaneously. The thunderous applause of a crowd filled the building through the speakers attached to each corner. For a final time, the voice spoke. It licked its lips, as if relishing a taste only it knew of.
"Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, all the way from Pennsylvania, it's Mark Hawkins!" Loud cheering continued for what seemed like hours. "I could give a big old speech, but you've heard it all before. Without further adieu, let's get thing started! I think this one will be especially entertaining."
Before Mark could pin down what exactly seemed off about that last line, an unnatural, feral crying met his eardrums. He could hear footsteps from around the corners. Something, something close, was running.
The audience cheered. Something unspeakable, something awful ran at him from across the hallway. And, for the final few hours of what he knew to be his existence, Mark never stopped running.


"What the fuck is this flow shit."
He sat atop his wood pile in the copse, looking at the photocopied flier, absentmindedly pulling splinters out of his legs. He'd built a log cabin near the edge of the clearing - there wasn't much better to do, and he got annoyed with shivering in the rain. The cabin was plain. Stark. Utilitarian. It was all made of wood. He lived off amaranth and whatever animals were stupid enough to be in a tree when he started chopping. Nobody came looking for him but the search was fruitless - he was proper off the grid. He had hairs irregularly sprouting from his chin - if any got long enough to annoy him or get matted together, he tore them out.
He wasn't sure where the flier had come from, but it turned up nonetheless, and its wrongness was more abrasive than the splinters and the poison ivy.
"This is absolutely no way to be going about things. You can't be, like, focusing on this stuff. Think about art too much and you'll believe in it. Art's a thing to fester and fucking rot."
He got up off his copse pile, half-heartedly grabbing the axe that laid beside it, and walked over to the trees.
"I teach you the Antiflow. Flow is something that is to be suppressed. What have ye done to suppress flow, beyond the FUCKING TAMPONS?"
He looked at a tree and the tree looked back at him the wrong way.
"WHAT!"
He swung the axe and lopped off a branch.
"IS THE APE!"
Another branch.
"TO MAN!"
A harsh thud into the side of the tree. He pulled back unsuccessfully; he pushed against the tree with his foot, pulled the axe out, staggered backwards, and took another swing. Swing after swing after swing.
"Flow is the creative 'process', if there is such a thing. Antiflow is the creative epiphany, and that's the real fucking majjicks. Consistent output is for those who munch fibre and puke out shit. Antiflow is a compressive furnace that churns out diamonds. Flow is going steady. Antiflow is that singular instantaneous moment of conceptual release. Flow is redirecting a river and Antiflow is bursting a dam open with high explosives. Antiflow is the little death of art."
He'd sliced far enough - if he left it like this, a strong wind would finish the job for him. He threw the axe to the side, grabbed the tree, and pushed it hard. It began to fall.
"The mind is a pressure cooker and it blows when the art is done."
If a tree falls in the forest and Nobody hears it, does it make a sound?
"Ugh. Too many believers here."
He stuck his finger into a seeping wound from the dead thing, dragged it around inside, and licked up the sap. He walked over and examined the branches. Free eggs, cushioned by the nest - he picked them up and started walking back to his house.
"I have a kind of zen, here. I'm dangerously lucid."
He stopped, suddenly, forgetting what he was doing, until he looked down at the eggs in his hands and kept walking back to the house.
"The question isn't how the flier got here. These things don't matter. The question is why it got here. Perhaps they knew this was the inverse of the better manifesto."
He looked down at the eggs.
"Am I being played?"
He ran into the house to cook the eggs before he forgot what he was doing. He lit the fire and nestled the eggs into the coals. They rattled a bit before the unborn half-formed things inside were dead. He looked at his reflection and made faces in the mirror while he waited for the things to go hardboiled. He needed to remind himself that he looked like something. He needed to talk to himself so if he needed to talk, at some point, in the future, he wouldn't stumble.
"And so the internal monologue flows outside a bit for a moment."
And then back in again. The fire's going. He put it out. Free eggs. He cracked one against the wall and peeled the shell and looked at himself in the mirror while he bit the thing in half.
"Wait."
The mirror had not been there before. How would he have gotten a mirror - he was in the woods. What. What. He glanced around, to his sides, to the ceiling, to the pamphlet, to the - wait.
"Fuck, I am being played and I don't like it."
He grabbed the mirror and looked straight into his eyes.
"Why are you looking at me. What are you doing? Stop staring, you fucking freak!"
He went to punch the mirror but when his fist hit the wooden wall there was no mirror to be seen. But he'd seen it. It was there, it was real, something was fucking with him, someone was fucking with him, this is not okay. Was he doing this? Or was he doing this? Or, much worse, was He doing this, to fuck with him?
"How did I get to the woods?"
He looked around the log cabin and realised it had been put together with iron nails, and his noticing of the fact of the matter made the thing fall on top of him, collapsing inwards violently.
"FUCK!"
No. No. Calm. This is frustrating. Just go over, claw your way out of the wreck, just go grab your axe from the - and it was gone, of course, he was here alone, where would he have gotten an axe from? That left the question of how the trees had been falling down, but the noticing of that didn't seem to resurrect them from the dead and reassemble them atop the stumps. And this stupid flier too, he thought, as he looked straight at the thing and was moderately confused when it was persistent.
"It's… persistent."
It's persistent, he thought, as he picked it up off the ground. So was it… real? Or just a particularly hardy construct? Or was it something that somebody else left? Anyone could have littered in the forest. He looked around again.
"I'm degrading. Okay. Be calm. This is… manageable. You can put the thing up, just… don't notice you're doing it, don't think about it, let it be a thing, just reach for the thing you need, just take it, pull it out from that majjick fucking HAMMERSPACE-"
He shoved his hands into his pockets and pulled them out empty.
"Not good. Not good. Breakthrough, breakthrough, fuck, FUCK just BREAK THROUGH!"
He closed his eyes and opened his eyes and expected not to be in the woods any more but the woods, too, at least, were persistent. Something was happening, this wasn't okay, this isn't fine. What were you doing? What was the objective? What was the purpose, what were you working towards? Surely you weren't just… going with the flow?

fuck.

And the frustration and hate and fire of the thing spewed forth from the abject denial of everything that was, the parabolic whimsy spraying out and burning up the tangled house, charring to ashes the uneaten egg, flaying to cinders the squirrels in the trees nearby, the copse pile aflame and the fire inside escaping inexorably.
He blinked and was still surrounded by fire. The fire, then, was real.
"Purpose then. Purpose. Something to do, something to break…"
He fiddled in circles while home burned.
"That's what makes the things real. The breakthroughs, the moments, the momentary lapses in madness. Pop the cork and my bottle overfloweth with hatred and motherfucking anger. This direction, then."
He started wandering in the direction of a footprint trail.

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Year 1,499,999

Here's a joke I remembered liking at some point.
A Foundation employee goes to ask the Records Department to change their name and gender. After filling out many forms and having to carefully explain to the staff what they are doing and why they are doing it for hours on end, the process is finished.
‘See, that wasn't so bad!' And the clerk was right! It was a lot easier than expected, even if bureaucracy will still make the paperwork take ages to go through. ‘There's just one last part of the process on your end, however. Please put on these laboratory gloves.'
‘Anything to get this done and over with, sir,' the Foundation employee states. After they put on the gloves, they then are handed SCP-113.
‘Once you get back to your living quarters, you are instructed to use this once every other week for two months until your forms are processed and approved. Then you may bring it back, and you are officially all done.'
As reluctant as the employee is, they know they just need to get through it. So they comply. For four months, they use 113, "switching" between genders constantly, undergoing what is now classified as a "Class-Diogenes" phenomenon, appearing visibly more androgynous. After four months, they are notified that all their forms have been approved! Now they can bring 113 back to the Records Department. With haste, they make their way back and approach the clerk!
'Thank you very much for your patience, your name and gender changes have all gone through. One final question we need to ask before you are free to leave; have you noticed any changes with using SCP-113?'
'No sir, I can't say I have,' the employee replies. 'Why is this mandatory to use, again?'
'So you can see what living as both a male and female is like,' the clerk replies in a stuffy, bored voice. The employee is stunned!
'With all due respect, that sounds crazy. I've already spent my life trying to live as both; it's a real garbage fire.'
Cue my nervous laugh, my stomach sinking.

I'm pinned on the conveyor belt of a grand machine, overlooking the entirety of my existence. Its mouth is a howling beast with the skull of a human, full of insecurities and paranoia. "I'm struggling, I don't know what comes next, I'm doing my best, please like it, please like me," it cries out in a tinny gasp. Still it churns on, and still I get ever closer to it. Any second now, it'll pierce me, and that will be it.
When its jaws come hurtling into my body, I don't end up dead. Instead, it stops at my neck, slowly dragging its way down my body. Breathing becomes harder. Its jaws stop at my torso, snapping it off; I feel no pain.
"Talloran, why do you feel no pain?" the Voyeur questions. "Have you gotten used to your pain? Do you look forward to it now?"
"I thought you were the one inflicting the pain on me!" The Voyeur circled around, burrowing itself into my corneas.
"No, I'm merely the arbiter. I only bring what was already there. Hmm… there's just no physical pain here to bring." The jaws' claws work its way up to my head now. "In much the same way as a writer is the one bringing out its' characters present in the story, so am I for your hatred to yourself. It's simply…" The jaws break off the front portion of my head. "…simply just the messenger."
The machine scoops up my brain, and though my body is limp, I still feel and sense everything around me. With its hand, it splits me apart, gently guiding both halves into its skeletal form; one for its head, and one for its crotch.
'Talloran, do you understand now, who you are?'
I am… Researcher Talloran.
'Do you know what you are?'
Human, in the loose sense of that word.
'How would you describe yourself?'
I can't.
'Why do you avoid referring to yourself in here as anything other than yourself, or Talloran?'
I guess… it's because…
'Are you a guy?'
I'm unsure. I don't know.
'Are you a girl?'
I'm unsure. I don't know.
'Do you remember how you were before you sentenced yourself?'
Yes.
Then why the lack of responses?
I'm unsure. I don't know.
I've never known, I suppose.
Have I always never really known? Or is this just a recent thing? What if it's all fake and in my head?
Wouldn't be the first thing to doubt in here, that's for sure.
"Gender's that much of a worry for me, huh." The words came out from somewhere I could recognize as being me, but I wasn't sure. They transformed into neon colors resembling a Rorschach test.
"What's my biggest fear?" The fear of not knowing. "What's my biggest concern?" That I am simply faking. "Is it so important to entrust myself and my safety to everyone around me?" Yes. "Even in a place like the Foundation?" Yes. Especially in the Foundation. "To be neither a man nor woman, huh, nor truly either or." Yes. "Do you think not being yourself any moment of the day is an actual problem?" Yes, because I am the root of this problem. "And not your environment?"
I don't think so… it's just easier to blame myself and be a sad-sack, isn't it?
But if that were true… it'd be a sad story. There's more for me out there than a sad story, isn't there?
"The machine isn't interested with feasting on you… what do you feel right now, that you can truly feel nothing in your situation here, but contemplation?" the Voyeur asked. Irritation seeped in for the first time.
"I feel… like I want to be alone and think." And so It left me alone. I spent every second contemplating, feeling myself out.
I got stronger.

2016

Talloran heads to the Records Department.

Year 1,500,000

I'm one step closer to surviving.

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