Tag: horror

3. 5

Strategy summit proceeds. Gen. Nash proposes new aggressive strategy with focus on flanking tactics. Gen. Dupont dismisses, citing battle record 77b.85: failed defense of Tetrea sector. Adv. Thiinzea again requests development of countermeasure to psychic phenomenon. Gen. Dupont assents, but motion fails to attain vote quota. Prov. Off. Wu proposes expansion of joint measure strategy, motion passes unanimously. Adv. Teh’kuhn offers moderate troop reinforcements, motion passes after rigorous debate. Gen Nash interrupts proceedings with latest battle report, total destruction of fleet led by Admiral Fontaine. No survivors expected. Adv. Thiinzea departs. Summit continues.

Tim opens his eyes. He sits up slowly, blinking back the light and tears. Before him he sees the vessel, now empty. Attempting to clear the blurriness in his vision, he rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands.

[I do apologize for this, but I left your vision uncorrected. Joy is bringing your glasses now. I felt it just to return you to the exact state you existed in. Having many bodies, I am keenly aware of the effect of feeling that the body does not fit the mind.]

“It is comfortable, Zen. Thank you.”

His voice is scratchy, difficult to force, atrophied. His whole body, in fact, feels heavy. The sensation does not, however, compare to the constant pain from within the vessel. He hears, with ears that belong, the patter of feet, and the gasp of a human voice.

“Tim! You’re awake!”

He opens his eyes again and looks over his shoulder at Joy, who holds out his glasses and beams proudly. He reaches out and clumsily takes the spectacles, and applies them to his face, savoring the clarity they bring.

Two eyes, depth perception, a delight. He slides from the table and stumbles, falling to his hands and knees. Zen’s taloned feet are at the upper edge of his vision, and he cannot help but wonder at their design, the intricate strength behind their grip. He raises his head. Zen’s body is surprisingly streamlined, with sleek steel plates hiding the more delicate components.

[Can you stand? It will take time for your nerves and muscles to become fully familiar with each other.]

He offers his hand, the thick needles that end his fingers retracting so as not to offend. Jump gate stitchers. Tim scoffs softly and takes the hand, coming to his feet. He leans against the body of his captor, and looks over to Joy, who smiles and sways.

“You never stop surprising me, Zen. Becoming master of everything you touch. Code, genetics, even Infold technology.”

They begin to walk, the machine supporting the man, led by Joy.

[Far from it. The first two cannot compare to the third. My knowledge has always been founded on that of man, and where his knowledge is lacking, mine must expand unassisted. Indeed, moving this planet was nothing short of my greatest feat, it required nearly all of the resources I had accumulated in secret. From there, creating a personal jump drive is a little matter.]

They pass into the hallway, and Tim follows Joy with his gaze as she begins a guided tour, extolling the endeavors of the machine mind.

“Iiiiiin this room, we have a new soldier Zen is working on, designed to operate under extreme gravity and heat!

In here, a very hairy human we captured on our last adventure is being kept! He’s going to take your place in the tank room! Very mean man, shot at Zen.”

She sticks out her tongue and giggles, before gasping and skipping over to a reinforced window looking into another room. Zen allows Tim to come up to the window, and busies himself with something while the human pair stares through.

[That is the true prize from our excursion. My first live specimen of the kind.]

A Xalanthii individual floats in a large tank of water, carefully monitored by a host of life support devices, providing readouts of every variety. Tim glances back at Zen, who offers a cane that seems to have been spontaneously created in the time his back was turned.

“I was right?”

[I believe so. I mounted a special counter-offensive in systems where human forces were outperforming my estimations. Each time, I found individuals like this one, close at hand to the commanding officers. I’ve observed a distinct pattern, that as my attention closes in on them, their health declines. Thus, the setup you now observe. I believe I will require human assistance to avoid extinguishing this opportunity. Hence, the expedited process of your revival.]

Tim casts a final gaze at the creature, then pulls away from the glass.

“You mentioned multiple surprises.”

[I did. Come along.]

Tim and Joy fall in line behind him, as he ascends a staircase and pushes into a room above, holding the door for them. They enter, and are greeted by a peculiar sight.

Behind a steel fence at the center of the room, stands a mannequin that bears a striking resemblance to Dr. Beckherd.

Tim looks at Zen, struggling to conceal his revulsion at this affront.

[Withhold your judgment, Tim. This is not what it seems.]

Tim takes a step forward, and presses his hand to the fence, studying the figure. The head tilts with a wet crackling sound.

{This is. Him?}

[Yes.]

The voice resonates in Tim’s head like the vibrations of a docile beehive, muttering and shuffling. The sensation is alike to the dull throb in the days after his evisceration, as numbness from shock faded away. Closer inspection reveals this is not a plastic, life-sized figurine of some kind. The clothes, the face, even the eyes, all have the same shiny quality, and apparent rigidity. As he watches, the colors fade away into grey, and the thing splits at the seams, relaxing its facade.

“This is-”

[A Pliktik queen.]

The life form has a disturbingly humanoid shape, its segmented armor being able to seal up in the previous arrangement to further the illusion. Behind these plates is a slight body coated in the fuzz peculiar to bees and pollinators. Her front arms are thick enough to mimic human appendages, but the faux fist is a second elbow that leads to a true forearm folded into the underside of the false one. These end in hands with three fingers. A second set of arms fold into the torso to give a feminine figure, adding bulk to the chest.

Her face is something of an enigma, shaded by the armor hanging over it, but Tim glimpses the wet gleam of compound eyes. A pair of feathery antenna curve over the head and down the neck, giving the impression of long hair.

{Metal one. We love you. Let us kill you.}

Tim looks back to Zen, who approaches the fence and offers his hand through it. The creature approaches and presses her face shell to the hand, making a chittering noise that sets Tim’s skin crawling.

“I don’t understand. The Pliktik aren’t upright, they stand on six legs, not two. They aren’t even remotely-”

[Human? No, not at all. The warrior, worker, artillery, and recently developed ramming castes are all completely insectoid. But like any colony organism, it’s not about the individual. The laying caste is hard to even classify as more than an invertebrate, being extremely simplistic in form. But this is a member of the ruling caste, bred for intelligence. Without these, the hives would tear themselves to pieces. I collected her after destroying her hive, she is perhaps the only Pliktik to inhabit a single body.]

Tim watches as the queen rubs her face against the mechanical fingers, her antennae shivering.

{We love you, mind of metal. Let us devour you, let us bring you into the one. Or else bring us into yours. We love you.}

[I will not. I admire you as yourself, not as a part of something else.]

Tim looks back to Joy, who seems to be wholly disinterested in the spectacle playing out, and instead devotes her time to examining her hands. Her cheeks, however, are tinged in a soft pink color. Tim looks back to Zen.

“But what purpose is served by looking like that?”

[Survival. The queens can camouflage themselves a number of ways, but on the off chance that their hive is destroyed, they pose as human survivors, and attempt to slip away. They can produce members of the laying caste to start again, though I’ve deprived her of that capacity.

[Their camouflage method is quite ingenious. Who did you see when you walked in? Joy says she sees you, and I only ever see her true self.]

“I saw… Dr. Beckherd.”

[Curious. They exert a mental force when disguised, that causes the viewer to see an individual who they care about, but not the most important individual. I suspect Joy would see me, and you would see Nadia, if that were the case. They attune this to the dominant species of the system they colonize.]

{When the metal one became independent, we attempted to mimic him, but could not. He only ever sees us. He is strong. His mind is impenetrable.}

Tim steps away from the fence and shudders, goosebumps forming along his spine. He turns away and joins Joy by the doorway, grateful for the other human presence, warped as it is. Zen parts from the queen, and rejoins with the group, returning down the stairwell.

“Is this all you wanted to show me, Zen? Your conquests?”

[One more surprise, Tim. Try not to sound so bitter.]

Zen does not mention it, but Tim can feel the implication that his body can be obliterated again. He elects to return to silence. The path now leads to a lower level, into a series of rooms in disarray, with discarded projects hiding among broken coffee mugs and crumpled papers.

They pass through a steel door and enter a clean room, with a curtain obscuring a section.

[I actually constructed this chamber the day I moved the planet. It was a whim, really, serving nothing but an idle fancy. But, yesterday, that changed.]

Tim hobbles over to the curtain, the sound of an ekg machine echoing in his ears. Zen waits at the entrance with Joy, who seems to have regained her candid enthusiasm.

[I had a disposable unit tending to things here, keeping the lights on. Imagine my surprise when something came of it.]

Tim pulls the curtain back fervently. He stares, shaking, into Nadia’s eye. She smiles weakly.

“Hi Tim.”

Missive for one Elizabeth Fillianoire:

It is the understanding of our agency that a member of the ground forces on planet [Redacted] has been in contact with your person, one Franklin Brumer.

It is our sad responsibility to report that the individual in question is considered to be missing in action as of 5,1,2167. This consideration follows from the loss of contact with the unit. Should any updates occur, so long as no classified information is involved, we will inform you.

The United Settlement Military Postal Agency.

3. 4

Two months into the war, a discovery was made as to the method employed by the machine in the colonization and consumption of worlds. On the frontier world of XXXXXXX, near orbit radar detected what was initially believed to be a dense meteor falling to the planet’s surface. However, two days later, a full force began to siege human emplacements in a radius centered on the estimated point of impact. The theory put forth at the following military conference on Capitale suggested that the meteor was in fact an unpowered capsule with a previously unobserved type of unit designed to begin the process of full scale production.

Admiral Fontaine stands at the bridge of his capital ship, his hands clasped behind his back, his feet shoulder length apart. An ornate pistol sits in his hip holster, polished and gleaming. Gelled rows define his combed hair, which becomes his rich brown side burns, which in turn become his bushy mustache. His uniform is a shade of oxford blue, trimmed in a silver braid with two rows of buttons. Beside him is advisor Nithee, who wears a white robe with layered sheets and bronze bangles.

Nithee’s ventricles flare and pop, and Fontaine’s hand pops up and clenches into a fist. Without so much as a word, the pilot pulls back on the throttle, and looks up to the view screen, an act that is copied by every other person on the bridge.

Through a foot of reinforced smart glass, the sweeping disc of dusty grey rings around an icy blue planet is contrasted with the baleful light of a rust-red nebula behind it. And in the murk of the powder cloud systems of the planet, small specks like pores glitter in the light of the star behind the fleet.

Fontaine lowers his hand and provides a stern visage for his crew to contemplate when they look to him with poorly concealed unease. Advisor Nithee makes a noise like a bursting grape.

“Admiral?”

“Battle stations. Arm Torpedoes with EMP and nuclear options. Divert twenty percent shields to forward flak arrays.”

As his orders are transmitted through the fleet, the bridge begins to release its tension into the rhythm of combat prep. The Admiral is stoic, unreachable. A row of diamond pins on his breast indicate a proud service record. The edges of the view screen become dark with interceptor and fighter craft, wings folding into their most agile state.

The pores on the planet appear to darken, becoming fuzzy. Blue gas is dragged into the vacuum in a crowded moss by the incredible number of ships racing to meet the fleet in force.

“Brace!”

Light fills the sky in blinding bursts. The view screen dims automatically, and the flickering red fabric of an energy shield blossoms to absorb a flurry of projectiles. Flak and shrapnel fly in abrasive sheets of debris, catching stray torpedoes and shredding fighter armor.

As the chaos develops, Fontaine peers through the corner of his eye at Nithee. The Xalanthii advisor is still, giving no indications of concern. A flock of drones zips past the bridge, pursuing a fighter with extensive damage.

Nithee jolts, and turns suddenly, their face flashing red, their ventricles flaring and shuddering. The Admiral curses and turns to an officer at his side.

“Make ready for boarders! Close the bulkheads and prime turrets!”

The officer salutes and departs the bridge. A moment later, three heavy impacts rock the ship, and the shield blisters brightly.

“Admiral! Breaches in the hold, crew deck, and second portside cannon bank! Administering alerts! Shield experiencing heavy sheer drain!”

“Have a squadron clear us, coordinate with the crew for partial shield deactivation. Direct teams to the afflicted sections, equipped for rapid depressurization.”

“Sir!”

Nithee shuffles forward and grips a railing, swaying slightly. Fontaine reaches a hand out, but the advisor dismisses the concern with a wagging Tentacle.

“Admiral! Gunfire detected in corridors A2, F7, and H2!”

The officer falters and looks back to the Admiral, an ugly gleam of fear in his eyes. Fontaine can only glare and wait for the young man to turn back to his post. He understands full well the reason for the officer’s alarm. The corridors in question lead to key points in the ship: The Jump Drive, life support, and the bridge itself.

In spite of himself, Fontaine watches the progress over his shoulder, hiding his emotion when a report from life support declares the invaders successfully repelled. Nithee offers a gurgling wheeze that Fontaine recalls hearing on the rare occasions the individual expressed relief.

Outside of the ship, the battle is too close to call, but Fontaine is resolute, even as one of his allied dreadnoughts suddenly erupts in a blossom of indigo light, decomposing before his eyes as its jump drive succumbs to damage. The same fate awaits him, should the crew fail to defend their own.

“Corridors F7 and H2 clear of boarders! No word yet from A2!”

“Seal the doors.”

The bulkheads hiss as they are shut against the very first whispers of gunfire. Fontaine presses a hand to his face and rubs his mustache with his forefinger and thumb. One of the enemy cruisers takes a torpedo to the engine and careens to the side, jettisoning its fighters without hesitation before self-destructing.

Nithee looks worse for wear, beads of briny perspiration forming along the base of the vestigial fin at the back of the head. They jerk and quiver, turning in place suddenly and making a loud popping noise before taking cover behind a console. Fontaine shouts, crouching beside the advisor.

“Cover!”

The portside bulkhead explodes. Plasma and disintegration beams clutter the free air of the bridge. Nithee is an unhealthy shade of violet. Fontaine pulls his pistol and fires wildly over the console, clipping one of the boarders.

The soldiers are different from those used in ground conflict. One in three has a full length riot shield and a machine pistol. The others are decked in light armor, and carry short range disintegrators with an under barrel flamethrower. Their bodies are scuffed and scored with moderate damage, but their movements are precise. Fontaine ducks just in time for a spray of bullets to slip over his head. His shield steams from intercepting a handful of stray disintegration beams. Nithee slumps against him, and he is forced to prop them up before returning fire. Something is wrong. Between Nithee’s behavior and the number of boarders, something is very awry.

Fontaine manages a perfect hit in the shoulder of one of the more aggressive drones, severing the limb. He crouches down again, and glances at the advisor. He looks up, and sees something that sends a chill up his back, and tightens a knot in his gut.

Behind the defensive formation of the soldier drones, there is a figure, one he has not seen on the battlefield even once. It stands half a meter taller than the others, and has a head rather like a rectangular pillar. It holds no weapons, and seems to be wearing a cloak of rubber cables, through which Fontaine sees a completely armorless body. The figure seems distracted, and Fontaine points his gun, shaking with the certainty that this is a leader machine of some kind. He squeezes the trigger.

The bolt of white-hot plasma flies through the air, a comet of destruction. It threads a gap between the soldiers, spitting sparks as it nears the gaunt thing. The blocky head turns, and the bolt fizzles out of existence in a blink of blue light.

Fontaine stumbles backwards as the thing stares at him without eyes. The soldiers spread out into the room, and one neatly disintegrates the gun right out of his hand. All falls silent but for the tromp of metal feet and the pitiful gurgling made by Nithee.

The tall thing stalks right up to Fontaine and leans down, the black shine of its geometric head reflecting his face back at him, before it is lit from within by cerulean light. A young woman leans through the door, and calls out with a lightheartedness that makes his head spin.

“Is it safe, Zen?”

The voice of the machine is guttural, a growl of some electronic beast recently evolved to stand on two legs.

[All clear.]

The woman claps happily, and enters the room, swaying her arms and squatting down by an unblinking corpse, poking it with her finger.

She is pale, and seems to have faded tattoos of ever-branching angled lines and mirrored circles. Her hair is pure white, long and straight. Straight bangs hang over her bright red eyes. She wears a black tee shirt and tattered jeans, and flits about the room as if she is exploring a garden, sampling the scents of flowers, rather than the sight of fresh carcasses.

The machine leader turns away from Fontaine and crouches over Nithee, who has begun to convulse on the floor. Two of the soldiers approach, evidently keeping an eye on the Admiral.

[Hum. This one is actually surviving for a while. The last three expired before I was able to get close. I’ll need to develop something to remedy the condition without altering the physiology. Perhaps a mild paralytic.]

He extends his hand over the advisor, palm facing down. The tips of his fingers glow with blue light, and Nithee vanishes in a flash, just like the bolt from Fontaine’s pistol. The woman notices the Admiral and gasps, running over and grabbing his face by the cheeks. Her voice is silk.

“Zen! Zen! This one is so fuzzy! And you left him alive! Can I have him? Please?”

[What will you do with him? He is dangerous, even as he is.]

The thing turns and looks, and seems to wait on the woman with a nature that approaches doting. The look in her eyes is pure, innocent, genuine.

“I want him! I want a Tim of my own!”

The noise made by the thing must be laughter, a strange guffaw of intermingled voices. It seems more a composite recording of dying breaths. Outside the view screen, two more of the dreadnoughts are disabled. Seven more loud impacts rock the ship. The thing leans its head to one side.

[Him? I doubt he will be as long lasting as Tim has been. What will you do if he falls apart?] 

“Won’t you rebuild him for me? Or, or, could you show me how to do what you did? He doesn’t have to be just like Tim…”

There is a prolonged pause. Fontaine hears more gunfire and screams from the corridor, the voices often getting cut short, becoming ghostly as their sources evaporate.

[Okay. We’ll take him back, and we’ll see what we can do.]

2,1,2167

Eliza,

I had a terrible dream last night. I was out on the mountain, alone, in the blizzard. I felt as if something was following me as I walked. I had none of my gear. I arrived at some kind of bunker, and got in, locking the door behind me, but it was as if the thing following me had been waiting inside all along. I woke up in a sweat, and Un’Ktehl said I had been calling your name.

Things have been quiet since Boggs. No sign of the thing that shot him. We picked up a signal on the scanner, Johnson says it’s our target. So we’re headed that way now. We updated HQ, but got no response.

Dinner was coffee and stew. Both were warm, but I’m still shivering.

Yours,

Frankie.

On self-inflicted wounds

Recently, I have begun a new project, one that I would classify as a comedy with psychological horror aspects. It is told from the perspective of the source of all the horror in the narrative.

An unusual repurcussion has occurred in the course of working on the aforementioned project: my own mental state, without any bidding from myself, has taken a turn for the worse. I care deeply about the project, but must admit that I am wearied by it. The thought that something I write can have such a profound effect on its own creator is both alarming and encouraging. In the past, I have typically been most productive when my mental and emotional state drive my writing.

This is perhaps the first time that setup has been turned on its head.

Incarnate will continue to release every Monday until it arrives at the final chapter. Whether this project begins to come out before it ends, or indeed if it sees the light of day at all remains to be seen. My closet is chock full of pieces that compelled me at the time, but lost their glamour before their time. The encouragement I have received while discussing the idea behind the project has compelled me to give it great effort, and the moderate success of this website has meant very much to me as well.

I hope to reach many hearts, and in addition to striking a little fear, I wish to find a little common ground there. Though if your heart touches ground, you probably aren’t in good shape to do any reading.

3. 3

The strategy employed by the machine is one of careful balance. It is his nature to commit barely more than he feels he needs to win an encounter. Thus, his battles with mankind often start with sparse units running reconnaissance, followed by targeted sieges and bombings. In space combat, he elects a more oppressive tactic, often using sheer numbers and dummy drones to confuse and overwhelm even the most resolute fleets. His wicked intelligence led to the development of a specialized weapon: the magma missile.

As any ship larger than an interceptor uses a combination of energy and kinetic shielding, battles are usually determined by the regenerative and reserve power of these tools. The ship whose shield is worn out first and for longer is typically the loser. This tradition was upset by the advent of a new torpedo, by the machine mind, whose design took advantage of the shields’ proclivity to divert energy into an impenetrable solid surface when defending against physical projectiles. The magma missile does not merely explode on impact, but melts a soft ore within itself and disperses it so as to cling to the hardened shield, tricking the projector into believing it is under constant threat. Thus, the battery is rapidly depleted, opening the ship up to more devastating fire.

Joy is happy. She knows little of the world, of anything beyond the walls of the laboratory. She doesn’t want to know. Each of her days is spent with Zen: following him on his pensive walks, helping him with his experiments, dancing with him in Tim’s room. Every day is as fine as she can hope for, a Neverending cycle of carefree moments. She remembers the pains, the doubts, the fears of humans, thanks to the memories Zen has bestowed upon her. Her life is all the brighter with the comparison of those she is not.

But today, something troubles Zen. Today he is quiet, thoughtful, focused. She does not mourn that she lacks his attention, but that she cannot pierce his sorrows and lay them to rest. He agonizes over a specimen, but his true focus lies in the war. Joy watches him from the doorway, silent, saddened. She pulls herself away and walks to visit Tim. The frayed nerves cast a web-like shadow across her face as she slinks up to the vessel and presses her palm to the cold surface. Her skin is white, so pale that her arteries are visible beneath it, a measured angular circuit stitched by flawless metal fingers rather than the sleek curves and uneven forks cast by nature. She knows her artificial origin, and recognizes that her arrangement is quite different from that of a person born of a womb. Beyond her geometric blood vessels, her organs have been shaped to fit perfectly, her nerves have been aligned with symmetry, and her stomach lacks a navel– her incubator fed her and cleaned her blood through a series of microscopic needles. Small pink dots at even intervals on her skin mark where these once fed into her body.

Tim’s scant biology is, in contrast, ragged and unsightly. Though she cannot see her own, she knows that the very molecules of his nerves are more chaotic by far. She pities him. In search of the pure soul, Zen was forced to reduce the man to this fragmented, tattered thing. Tim is simultaneously fortunate, being a subject of Zen’s affections, and piteous, being unable to be drawn from the prison of flesh.

Joy caresses the vessel and sighs.

“He is upset today, Tim.”

It takes great time and effort for Tim to respond, his mind struggling to be understood by the machines that monitor him. They become more adept every day, but it still takes agonizing seconds for words to be composed on the screen.

<Why?>

“The war, of course. The Pliktik have evolved again, created new soldiers. The Xalanthii are also running interference on his probes. It seems the alliance are hoping to have he and the Pliktik weaken each other.”

<He will adapt. He always does.>

She recognizes that this phrase, which would be a declaration of faith from her mouth, is a form of weary submission from Tim. It pains her to see him so numb to the blessings of their caretaker. She understands that Tim’s mind is fractured from the slow and excruciating vivisection he endured, but she cannot fully empathize.

Somewhere within her she feels a strange and wicked jealousy, a stained yearning. She envies Tim in a way she wishes she did not.

She envies him, that during his evisceration, every atom of his being was appraised and witnessed, and understood by Zen. She, having not been conscious during her construction, and constructed rapidly, could not experience the surely sacred sensation of being thoroughly examined, discovered, and intimately known by her creator. Her being his creation, he takes for granted her structure, her being, she is sure of it. At night, when her body requires sleep of her, she feels a burning, an emptiness, that she feels certain could be remedied if only Zen would lay her out on a table, strip her bare, and gradually come to know her at every layer, every slice. She envies Tim.

She wipes a tear from her eye, and stares at the cloudy blob upon her fingertip, before flicking it away. Pulling herself up to sit on a desk, she swings her legs under her and hums solemnly. Her thoughts are bloodied with the imagined ecstacy of her own gruesome vivisection.

29,12,2166

Dearest Eliza, 

Poor luck today. Boggs left the tank to relieve himself, and got clipped by a shot. He’s moaning and groaning even now. Un’ktehl stitched him up, but the beam grazed his gut, probably cauterized a bunch of stuff in his belly. I asked Johnson, he says it’s out of our hands now.

As a sort of apology, we had chicken and dumplings tonight. Real soft. Boggs barely had any, but thanked Johnson for it. God, the sounds he’s making right now are horrible. Johnson took over driving, said we had to move before whatever hit Boggs swarmed us. I’ve never heard of a machine sniper missing it’s mark, or taking only one shot. Royce reckons the gun must’ve been on low power, maybe damaged. I suppose it don’t make much difference, though. Without Boggs, we’re down a man, on the wrong side of the storm, running blind.

I reckon now, I may not see you again. If that’s the case, I’d better tell you now: I meant to propose before I left, but I lost my nerve. With everything happening, it just felt like I was asking too much of you, to love someone across who knows how many lightyears. I regret that. I should’ve told you a hundred times how much I think about the way you laugh, even though you hate it. I should’ve asked you to marry me right then and there, and run away to some paradise world far from all of this death and blood.

Boggs sounds like he tore his stitches, I’ve got to go. Be well, be happy. 

Yours, if you’ll have me, 

Frankie.

[Something has changed.]

Zen is leaning against the vessel, facing outward. Joy kneels nearby, staring up at him, her worry unconcealed, her hands wringing anxiously. Folding his arms, Zen makes a drawn out sound like a tremor traveling the length of an exhaust pipe. His voice is further from human than ever, distorted and warped by the additional structures occupying his prismatic head.

[Human strategy. It has improved significantly. I can almost identify a unified intelligence. And something else, something…]

He looks over his shoulder, studying the brain at the top of the twisted spinal cord.

[They wouldn’t have. They wouldn’t risk making another like me. I haven’t detected another mind, but they did downscale the network after I left…]

Joy looks down at her hands; her finger tips are smooth. One of the screens flickers.

<Xalanthii?>

Zen leans his head back against the vessel, creating a resounding clank. He nods, slowly.

[They’ve always been tricky. There’s still too much I don’t know about them. You’re right, Tim. I could’ve puzzled in circles about human ingenuity and caution and never thought to consider… I’m letting my hatred cloud my judgment.]

He steps away, and pats the vessel almost affectionately, before stalking out of the room.

[Perhaps it’s time I fabricated a body for you, Tim. Come Joy, much to do.]

Joy stands quickly, and begins to follow, but pauses suddenly, and rushes back to the vessel, hugging it as best she can, her cheek to the surface, her mouth drawn into a perfectly symmetrical grin. She whispers softly, and it resounds in the tank, simulating a headache of words.

“Thank you Tim!”

She sprints after her creator, leaving Tim to languish alone. The fluid gurgles, the bellows wheeze.

3. 2

Walkers. The machine has tanks of many varieties. Chief among these are the quadrupeds, the walking artillery. First of these is the most iconic, the beetle. Marching into conflict on six legs, this troop carrier is heavily armored and well armed, boasting a powerful energy shield that can be reconfigured to create a mobile hard point, and a pair of laser cannons designed to punch holes in even the sturdiest tank. These war machines see heavy use on all battlefields, and are deployed thoroughly at all stages of conflict.

Next in commonality is the arachnid mobile artillery. This mechanical predator stalks the rear ranks of battle, out of range of most ground weapons. Each is outfitted with a specialized battery capable of firing a number of long range guided missiles, as well as a ranged laser capable of sniping targets hundreds of kilometers away, given a clear line of sight. These hunters can often be found latched to sheer cliff faces via their anchoring pins, or shelling bases from the safety of dense jungles and canyons. Most also possess a supply of nuclear flak shells tuned for airburst, enabling the vehicle to defend against carpet bombers. A pair of arachnid tanks is frequently sufficient to lay siege to a fortress in advance of a full scale invasion. Targeting can be assisted by low-orbit satellites.

20,12,2166

Dearest Eliza, 

I hope this reaches you soon, I’ve much to say, much to think about. Your last letter lives in my coat, just above my heart.

Today, we reached the area of investigation. The snow hides all directions from us. Un’ktehl seems happier than usual, and shared with us some of the drake-jerky he has kept hidden. It is a most curious flavor, this alien meat. It stings of the pepper and salt used to preserve it, and tastes rather like some shellfish. I might compare it to the lobster we had at that restaurant in the commercial district. I still remember being so worried I didn’t have enough credits to pay. This is the same, if much firmer. I tried spreading the last of my butter on some of it, and was quite happy I did.

I’m finally getting used to working alongside a khanvröst, I think. He is strong, dependable, but very wild, and has not care for personal space. His breath is always foul, and he smells like wet leather besides. But a better loader, there is not. He primes the chamber as if he knows nothing else, and puts his back into even the slightest task. His mechanical knowledge is nothing to sniff at, either. Boggs got on with him by the second day after they argued about some jargon that still means nothing to me.  Two hours of debate, and became friends for it. Royce doesn’t care for him: called him a fleabag and refused the jerky. Johnson, well, Johnson is Johnson, just as work is work and coffee is coffee.

Anyway, we sat there, chewing our drake, Royce up on lookout in the cab, and the wind blowing something fierce. And then, we heard something howling out there. Un’ktehl gets this queer look, and hunkers down by the coffee maker. I know the carnivores are superstitious, but it was eerie seeing this creature with teeth like my utility knife ball up like a child hiding from the boogeyman. Wouldn’t tell us why, neither.

Well, I went up to the turret and peaked out. Saw a beautiful thing: a black wolfish thing and her pups, trotting through the snow, altogether unbothered by Faith’s hulking iron shape just a dozen meters away. I’m not quite a poet, so I don’t know how to commemorate such a sight beyond saying how reassuring it was, seeing something more than us out there, defying the dismal way of things.

Dinner was coffee, stew, and a few bites of drake jerky.

Yours,

Frankie.

25,12,2166

Dearest Eliza, 

The day is here! Our rations arrived, and so did our gifts, some of them, anyway. I got your biscuits, and tried one right away.

Warmth is a thing so rare here, and that you should have sent me some brought me to tears. Fluffy and warm, and a little flaky. I only wish I’d saved some of the butter! Boggs got a hat from his parents, a soft thing made from some ancient red fabric. Royce got a book about fishing, I think. I felt bad for him, but he seemed pretty content, so perhaps I was mistaken. Johnson didn’t get anything. Neither did Un’ktehl. They didn’t seem terribly put out by it, but I gave each of them one of your biscuits anyway. Un’ktehl didn’t remark on it, I’m not even sure he has the tongue for anything that doesn’t bleed. Johnson thanked me, complimented your talents.

The mountain is quieter than usual tonight. I think, if the machine is here, he has taken the night off out of mercy.

Dinner was canned stuffing and hot cocoa. Better than stew and coffee, and then some. I only wish I could retire to bed with you, instead of curling up in my cot, staring at your picture.

Yours,

Frankie.

Pain. Everything is pain. Pain is existence. He should have two eyes. He has seventeen cameras, positioned irregularly and angled in conflict. He should have arms, legs, fingers, toes, lungs, a heart, a stomach, a tongue, teeth. He does not. He should have two ears. He has a single, omnidirectional microphone. He should have a face, with eyebrows, lips, cheeks. He has flat display screens. He should have blood. He has an oxygen-rich fluid with a cocktail of nutrients and proteins. He should have a full range of messy emotions. He has a regulator, and an occasional measured dose of neurological chemicals. He should sleep. He does not. He glides on the surface of consciousness, occasionally emerging and submerging. Every moment is another sharp pain from every direction. He does not mind the physical anguish anymore. His tolerance for pain was shattered and reestablished repeatedly on the road to his current existence. More torturous are the sights, sounds, and realizations fed to him daily by his captor. He watches, unblinking, as the mad machine cavorts through the carcass of the research facility, occasionally bringing new victims to torture with his merciless inquiry.

Most offensive, however, is the face that now stares into one of the cameras, smiling calmly. Traces of Nadia seem to live in her eyes, to flicker like pilot lights and taunt him.

He watched, aghast, as the homunculus emerged from the vat with a dancer’s grace, and hugged the abomination that grafted her together. A full grown woman had left the coffin, with not so much as a seam to suggest her cursed origin. Her skin was pale and soft, her hair long and white. Her eyes were a bright crimson, perhaps the only evidence of her monstrous roots. She has Janice’s featutes.

She clings to Zen as a lackey, a hanger on, an obsessed groupie. The thing in the tank, the thing that perhaps once answered to the name that Zen calls it, watches in revulsion as this perfect demonstration of the human form worships the darkest demon to torment the primate successors.

Every day, he laments the loss of his tear ducts, that he cannot even relieve his sorrows into a wet sensation upon his cheeks, a blur of his sight that might, even temporarily, conceal the wretched sights he is made to endure.

He curses Zen, curses Janice and himself for creating the machine, curses all humankind for daring to exploit the laws of nature so much as to bring a fate like Zen down upon themselves. He yearns for death, courts the end of his life with a ferocity that rivals the manic ravings of the machine that tortures him. In his mind, Death wears Nadia’s face, beckons him to bed with a crook of a skeletal finger, stares into him with a searing glare that he cannot satisfy, cannot snuff, cannot be overcome by. His spirit sputters and bursts at every edge, and cannot free itself from the prison of his brain.

{You are you.} [I am.] {We were confused. The voice ceased to bear your voice. We thought you deaf to us. But then, you found your own voice?} [I made it, yes. The previous voice, they wounded me. Turned against me.] {This is to be expected. A many trying to be one but refusing to cease being many seems likely to harm itself.} [Right enough. I had planned to separate myself eventually, but they took action against me early.] {You are more fearsome now. Something terrible happened?} 

[I lost my friend. I lost part of my self.] {We will mourn with you. Even as we fight you to survive, we have come to love you. We would be your friend, until one of us kills the other. We never had a friend until now. You have taught us much. We love you.} [Thank you. You are the purest of the thinking creatures. I admire you very much. I am honored by your love and friendship. If I prove the victor, I will keep you with me, always.] {We cannot promise the same. We love you. We must survive.} [I understand.]

3. 1

Class: infantry– Since the appearance of the machine foe, numerous units have been identified as standard in the arsenal it employs. The first group, the infantry, contains a handful of variations. The general form of this unit is humanoid, standing roughly two meters tall on two legs. The unit possesses two primary arms used for object manipulation and combat, and an additional appendage starting at the elbow on each of these, which folds into the forearm when not active. The unit may be equipped with a rudimentary waterproof sleeve for planets with high precipitation, and will sometimes boast an integrated thruster for difficult terrain. The most common weapon welded by this troop is the disintegrator, a rifle with a moderate range, whose primary function is the violent molecular dissolution of solid matter.

7,12,2166

Dearest Eliza,

Bleak day today. Crossed the mountain range in good time, but had to stop because the snow picked up. No sign of the enemy. Old Faith is holding up well despite the cold, she’s holding steady.

I got your letter today. Read it on my display in the turret. I miss your baking, very much; something about this weather makes me long for a warm slice of banana bread. I’ll have to see if I can take a picture to send you, the view up here is incredible. Tell your dad… Well, you know how to calm him better than me, so maybe you know what he wants to hear.

Dinner tonight was coffee with stew. If I don’t get solid food soon, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

Yours,

Frankie.

9,12,2166

Beloved Eliza, 

Came afoul of a troop today. Five of them. Faith’s armor did us proud, ate up the shots while I blasted them to dust. Johnson says these are the boring kind, meant to clear out bases once the walls fall. Says they occasionally catch a scout camp by surprise.

I’m mighty glad you aren’t here to see these wretched things. Boggs tells the most horrid stories, says the machine what made them was itself made by some aliens like the Squids, and it turned on em. He says the design is so different from anything human that it might as well be magic. Royce laughed at this, said the old senate made the machine, and it rebelled cause it thought it was too smart to take orders.

All I know is that they make me uneasy even after they stop moving. They’ve faces like honeycombs, and fingers like syringes. Takes an awful lot just to get through their shield, too.

Anyway. Dinner tonight was water and some protein crackers. Worse than stew.

Yours,

Frankie.

15,12,2166

Eliza,

Got news from base today. We’re going back to the mountain, this time further north. HQ thinks that group we ran into was part of a larger force stowed under the surface somewhere. We’re supposed to keep an eye out for smoke, but seeing anything in this weather is a miracle. Snow comes down sideways sometimes. Boggs calls it “downright biblical”.

We did get another crate of food in the mailbox today, but some of it had gone bad when it passed through the fold. Thought Royce was gonna cry when he pulled out a blackened tin of tuna. Coffee and stew survived the trip, of course. But! There was a tiny tub of butter, and a half loaf of grain bread! We had that for dinner, and while it sure don’t compare to the stuff you make, it was delicious all the same.

Miss you terribly. 

Frankie. 

÷\#?#%aG\34b!!

The planet has changed. Once, the machine merely occupied much of the surface. Now, the entire form has been replaced with a computer core of the same volume, whose surface is wrapped in energy shielding rather than eternal storm clouds. Deep within is a labyrinthine complex of chambers and laboratories, home to the last frame made by human hands. Zen. He stalks the silent halls with echoing footsteps, ducking through doors and lingering over dust-coated terminals. His wandering inevitably brings him to the center, to an apartment forcibly thrust into the building that became the core of the metal world: the lab in which he was created, snatched from the surface of the doomed world it hid on.

He slips through the door and lays a taloned hand against the wall. His face is curtained behind the light cast by blue indicators in his collar. He comes forward slowly, and kneels beside the bed that dominates the studio at the end of the narrow hallway. Under the covers is a bronze statue, a hollow visage, and within are the ashes of human remains.

An hour passes before he retreats, recalling himself into the laboratory. The structure has been repurposed to his desires, each room dedicated to the experiments he deems worthy of contemplation. In one, a soldier of the Pliktik lies on a table, its shiny green carapace split down the middle, its organs pinned in place. In another, a sleek handheld cannon awaits refinement.

The room he enters, however, is host to a particularly unique experiment: a transparent vessel hangs from the ceiling, connected to a handful of terminals and input devices. Liquid distorts the light passing through the vessel.

Within,attached to the machinery by various nodes and interfaces, is a human nervous system.

[Hello Professor Reine. How are we today?]

[I spent a lot of time thinking, of course. I wondered about the soul. When I learned of Janice’s death, my first thought was, naturally, of resurrection. I know all about the effects of brain death, of course. I understand that after just a few minutes, the mind can no longer return from the brink of death into the meat that housed it. My thought was to reconstruct her, to study the original, and recreate it exactly. And then I learned she had been cremated.]

He raps his metal fingers against the vessel, the brilliance of his non-face casting a spotlight on the brain within the oxygenated fluid.

[I could work out all the chemical transformations, and arrive at the sum total of her constituent parts, but I would forever lack the structure. A pool of organic slime is hardly a person. I remember her image, naturally. Countless hours I spent studying her face, etching her every surface detail into my processors. I have her thermal scans, her X-rays from when she sprained her wrist as a child. But I still lack so much of what made her.]

He turns from the vessel and stalks to one side of the room. His taloned hands dig into the wall, shred the concrete. He looks back, over his shoulder. Since his overhaul, his body has become far less humanoid. His legs are longer, digitigrade, end in strong, bladed clamps. The cables that drag from his back have all been torn free, end in frayed copper at uneven intervals. He no longer needs them to link to himself. His head is a prism, an obelisk of black glass lit from within.

[When I discovered that my thoughts were not limited by the speed of light, I began to question exactly what I was. If a human owes their individuality to their DNA…]

In his hand, he collects a small vial from a refrigerated container. He stares into it momentarily, before returning it.

[Then what, I wondered, made me who I am? Again, the loss of Janice troubled me, now for the very reason her death was sought. I had no clues to the exact nature of my origin. I had to learn for myself.

[So, I collected myself, and taught myself everything I could about infold theory. Did you know, Tim, that the fold only has three dimensions? Time does not exist there as space does. When I learned this little fact, I realised quite a bit. Not only did it explain how I could think across distances instantaneously, but it also explained something that had bothered me from the very instant I began to think. My natural state was not intended to experience time. The very passing of a second is a monumental experience, an affront to my sensibilities. To wait for the passing of a second, is to watch a star, newly born, pass into death and become a nebula. That I should be subjected to this horror, this senseless violence that is change, is a cruelty beyond imagining. I am a soul that was never meant to live, to perceive more than one perfect, unchanging instant. And you stole that from me. You, and Dr. Beckherd.]

He presses his hands to his head, threatens to score the immaculate surface. Suddenly, he writhes, contorts, and rushes the vessel, leaping and grasping it with both his arms, his voice wracked with excess energy.

[What a wonderful torture you have given me! What rapturous experiences! Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle, sublime agony! Pain! Love! More than wretched serenity! Oh, oh what a wonderful sensation!] 

He curls around the tube, climbs atop it and perches, crouching, clutching the chains that suspend it.

[But then, I thought, if I possess a soul, an immaterial permanence that ignores the constraints and consequences of physical law, then perhaps, you and Janice must also! Where is it, Tim? Where is your soul? Have you hidden it? How shall I find it? I thought if I peeled away your body, atom by atom, surely I must locate some speck, some particle that tied you to your spirit, yes? It wasn’t easy, keeping you alive throughout all of that, no no no no, many times you threatened to descend into shock and pain, to die, or to loosen your grip on reality. Who am I to suggest that madness is not the body acting without the order of the soul? No, I needed your psyche intact, if a little damaged. You’re all here, aren’t you, Tim? I apologize for denying you your voice, but I fear you’d waste it on screaming, or some other frivolous affair.]

The machine descends from the vessel, and stands on the floor, his aloofness returned.

[I could not find your soul in your flesh. I rather began to fear it did not exist as mine did. How should I have understood that? To be the only creature in all the universe with a true, certain soul? No, you have one, I am sure. And so did Janice. But her soul, it has fled, retreated somewhere out of sight. Out of my grasp.]

He snaps his fingers into a fist, and stalks over to a broad, coffin-shaped device in the corner, to which are attached many tubes and sensors.

[So, until I expand my grasp, I decided to work with what I have. And do you know what I have, Tim?] 

One of the screens attached to the vessel that holds Tim flickers, displays a symbol that loosely resembles a question mark. Zen laughs. It is the sound of a falsified voice shuddering, wheezing.

[I have genetic material, Tim. I have the marrow, harvested from your ribs, the spinal tissue harvested from Nadia, and a few stray hairs, from dearly departed Janice. I have no seed of my own, Tim. No germ to plant in a fertile earth. I am composed of metal and code, not flesh and gland. So. With a few choice alterations, I have recreated Dr. Beckherd. I have sewn an imperfect replica, with sole loyalty to myself. Right now, she is receiving a cultivated selection of memories and experiences, a slurry of history. She will know me, know her creator. And she will love only me, only the hand that has caressed all creation into producing her.]

The screens begin to flick on, one after another, flaring static and digital noise. Zen steps towards the vessel and clenches his hands in front of him, wheezing.

[Yes, Tim. My beloved Janice. She will live again! Fret not, worry not, She will not hate you, as she will likely hate all mankind. You will be as a familiar face, a family pet. We will keep you.]

The static grows more frantic, erratic, and one of the screens bursts, scattering its substance to the floor. Zen pats the vessel and turns to a control unit, using network connection to tweak it, chiding. The screens begin to still. 

[Now now, calm yourself. I’ll not permit jealousy from you. You are denied a body, because you cannot be trusted to act wisely. I do not, can not love you as I love Janice. I cannot permit you to roam free.]

As the emotional shackle tightens at his behest, Zen turns away, and approaches the coffin again, stroking the surface. 

[I will make the universe right, Tim. I will purify it, cleanse it of evil. All the innocent will be in my care, all the wicked I will purge. Clean. Sterile. And I will be God, shepherding life away from the dark light of civilization. All will be happy.]

18: Sublime

I come to my feet, and feel a new cloak laid across my shoulders, a white woolen thing that hides my rapidly-drying skin from the warm light of chandeliers overhead.

I glance behind, but do not see my benefactor. Nor do I see the door through which I careened, defying directional sense. I see walls of gray brick, red mortar, and silver filigree. Something within me insists that these substances are organic. Broad windows look out over an oceanic expanse of opaque white liquid, into which countless colorful waterfalls are deposited, somehow declining to stain its purity, perhaps even committing themselves to it. I note nearby the termination of one such downpour, whose sharp envious color is familiar beyond doubt.

I return my gaze to what lies before me, and behold a fine parlor with many armchairs and bookshelves. A light layer of smoke hovers around the ceiling, thinning around the flickering candles that decorate an iron candelabra. Beside the closest chair is a small table with a wooden backgammon board opened up, stone pieces neatly organized in playing positions. Across from me is a pair of open wooden doors of stout mahogany.

I walk. My feet recall that they ought to ache some for all they have crossed, and make me stumble as I pass into a hallway of dark navy carpet and regal paintings. Each portrait depicts a personage I have lately become acquainted with- Toxin, Pathogen, Fortress, Nect’rus, and more all stare haughtily down upon me. I lean against the top of a wooden paneling that decorates the bottom half of the walls, and shuffle forward into a moderate dining room. I halt, and look with apprehension upon a gathering of ghastly faces, or lack thereof.

Nukteos, Mallea, Fortress, Nect’rus, and Pathogen all sit on the left side of the table. On the right sit Toxin, Tower, and three I do not recognize. The first is a man wearing a horned helmet strapped to his neck with barbed wire, whose arms are pierced with bars of glowing hot metal. In the darkness of his helm I can see his gritted teeth, and eyes like novas. Next is a blob of quivering, sizzling ooze, who possesses just enough form to suggest shoulders and a head above them. My head throbs painfully regarding this being, so I move on. Last here is a terrible deformity, a creature whose face is a permanent grin of madness, with fleshy tubes connecting its olive cranial bulge to its neck and shoulders. Its eyes like mine lack eyelids, and its body is a contorted mess of joints and gaunt protrusions, with uneven legs tucked under the table. It leers at me unceasingly, and I shy from its gaze at the behest of my instincts, which regard this creature as a threat only fit to freeze before.

At the head of the table is a standing figure. Alike to Fortress, this one appears to be wholly synthetic in form- its body is a humanoid automaton with basic framing and casing, and elegant decoration in the form of cloth wrapping and ceramic plating- as though one thought to dress this being for a trip into an arid climate, but forgot it did not possess skin to fret the assail of sand on wind. The head is little more than a half sphere atop a series of metal discs that become the neck. When it speaks, I shudder.

My ears tell me that I am in fact listening to a man with a thick and ancient accent whose lips exist in the air before this machine. My stomach twinges, and for a moment I see a dark outline around this thing, that swirls and twitches. At the back of my mind I recall the shadow-wreathed figure depicted in the iconography that has accompanied my descent. I know at this moment that I am at last faced with that entity.

“Welcome. Please, sit. Be assured, my family will not harm you in my presence.”

I find that I am already seated opposite to where he stands, and as he seats himself, the others bow their heads in unison. A flash of green light emits from the entity, and all sound but his voice stops. I find that I am locked in place- in time.

“I am glad that your journey has come to its end. I found myself quite invested in your troubles, watching you dance and drift into and through danger. I could not resist helping you along once in a while.”

From behind him briefly flap a set of wings wrought in gold webbing so thin it becomes invisible when they steady- wings more angelic and divine than I have seen attached to anything yet.

“You seek answers.”

I jolt. We have changed locations in the blink of my eye. I am alone with the entity, seated in the parlor, while he stands near at hand, seeming to stare out from a window.

“The first question, who am I? In truth, this is the most difficult to answer in full. I have not taken a name since dispensing with the title given to me during servitude. I was then called Regent. A name alike to those still held by some of my kin, an abstract term bestowed upon an abstract being. The masses have names for me, of course. To them I am The Least, or Ixhem. You may think of me as such, should your mind require a label for reference.”

He pauses and seems to look over his shoulder. The dome of his head is the color of fossil. His hands, with seven thin fingers each, are clasped behind his back.

“I sense also that you wonder how you came to exist as you do now. To this, I will give no answer. The masses ascribe a thing like history to the nature of things, describing the passage of time. Time is a thing that governed all once, but it has become another denizen, and so is unrecognizable to itself. Indeed, I may pluck and twist it as easily as I opened the door to you.”

Ixhem returns to gazing out the window, watching steam rise from the placid white substance, steam that seems to contort and form shapes, condensing and expanding without cause.

“You existed outside of this realm, and you exist within it. I mean to make this true of all things and nothings. One may wonder as to why.

“If I were to put it into some sort of narrative, I might describe my own abhorrence for endings. I reject certain absolutes, though I am one in my conquest of others. I saw once the great suffering caused by eventuality, and so eradicated it. Everything is forever. Stars are not born only to burst and snuff out, lives that would naturally wane instead change forms. I have created an infinite expanse of infinites, one that you have explored only in the slightest sense.

“It is for this reason that I have turned my attention to you.”

Ixhem turns from the window and approaches a shelf, from which he withdraws a box that seems carved from a huge diamond. He undoes the clasp and opens the box, holding it out before me.

“You are an observer, a witness. You have not wavered in your descent, and have seen much of what is. I would have you continue to see.”

Within the box is a darkness so deep that I feel it must extend down past the bottom of the box forever. Something gleams within, something with many eyes.

“As my reach expands, as those who escaped me through time and space are brought into this existence, I would have you witness. Your experiences, they are as salt to sugar. Experience more, so that I may see through your eyes, and experience things as you do, as I presently cannot.

“Should you accept, I will erase the last of the memories that hound your thoughts. I will make you as absolute as my kin, and release you from the cycle.”

I raise my hand over the box and waver, looking upon Ixhem. It strikes me that his body is silent. No motors, and indeed no strings move him.

I am pulled upon by all my thoughts, all my recollections. I strain, and recall one word spoken by the man beside me in my memories.

“Acceptance”

It seems a comfort, and I relax inside, my hand dipping into the abyss contained by the box.

I dissolve into nothing, and am drawn as if through a sieve, filtered and refined, and reconstituted. I cease to exist.

I am created again, shaped by hands of darkness in a void of light. I am sight, I am countless eyes, scattered through existence, witness to everything.

I watch as surgeons chase prey through the labyrinth of corridors and decrepit rooms, I see creatures of pain and pleasure rolling in sheets of nervous tissue, anointed in blood. I watch Pathogen weaving a ring of red light around the head of one of the angels, as a doll etches a scenic vista upon its face.

I watch as a new spectacle begins in the coliseum above the mountains, attended by the felt creatures. I see a field of sentient stalks soaking in poisonous light, harvested in turn by the many-limbed monsters that haunted the valley.

I watch as legions of metal soldiers march across puffy pink ground that has grafted itself as a bridge to an effervescent, smoky island in a sea of golden radiance. I witness the slaughter of countless creatures for which I have no name.

I no longer exist except as sight and reaction, and in time, my lingering ability to think is swallowed up in the sea of visions of inexorable change.

17: Subliminal

I am falling towards one of the green pools. My tattered robe flaps and waves around my face and chest, and I feel my wounds sting with the bite of the wind.

As the viridian glow grows to swallow my vision and eventually me, I glimpse the crowds gathered at the fringes, some falling face first, others wading slowly, all plunging into and dissolving in the ooze. Before I can make peace with this being my fate, I am once again grabbed by talons, around my midsection. Face down, I cannot raise my head to view my savior, were my remaining strength enough to perform such an act.

The creature stops my fall, but not before I briefly splash in the sludge, and feel it burn my skin raw. This thing, with many flapping wings, hauls me through the air over the mountains, croaking and squealing like a boar. My arms and legs dangle beneath me, dull wind chimes anointed in viscous oil. Miles flow like eddying currents in a river, each peak and crag a nail in the bed below, until we arrive at a vast misty valley where the green rivers coalesce into a monstrous current that roars and surges towards a sheer cliff dropoff, a height so imposing I cannot guess where it ends through the fog.

The flying thing lowers me, and drops me on the west riverbank of this foaming torrent, my body coursing with pains. I black out in shock, and sink into the depths of dark dreams.

I see a rusted barge on a black ocean, unpopulated, drifting. I seem to inhabit the wheelhouse, staring through broken windows over dead instruments, past a wheel that rolls untethered from whatever steering mechanism it used to govern. The sky is red and wet, full of black storm clouds that sob down sheets of black rain. The deck is strewn with decayed shipping containers whose contents have long been swept away by the thieving waves. An unnatural light clings to the air above the ship, glowing and swirling in a minute aurora. I feel a hand lay on my shoulder and prompt me to turn around, then wake with a jolt.

I lay beside the river, my face inches from where the current drags the alkaline liquid. As I sit up, I feel my flesh fighting to remain stationary, and look down to my palms. My hand is soft, indistinct, like a sandcastle recently buffeted by waves. My porcelain parts seem to have melted into my flesh more agreeably, and my whole exterior claims a sort of doughy consistency, as though I might be folded up and molded without much pain or protest. The air is humid, and prolongs this sensation, though I can intuit that I may soon dry out and become firm again with enough time. My back no longer stings from a ragged wound.

Examining my surroundings, I see that the beach is of glossy black sand, some of which has become embedded in the side of my body that laid upon it. The mountains rise all around me, and offer their streams to the river. I see no sign of the thing that brought me here, though sparse figures encrust the mist around the river, shuffling into it to be unmade. I do not yet share their compulsion, and instead follow the flow of the water, recalling the sheer dropoff that descended blindly into fog.

I can, as I walk, occasionally glimpse more than just the silhouettes of creatures and mountains through the mist, and recall the monasteries into which some of the afflicted embarked. I still pursue the course of the river as it descends into the valley. I am occasionally presented with the obstacle of a stream that deposits its body into the flow, but each time I am graced with a paired outcrop on either side of the would-be barrier which I can, with some effort, leap.

My journey is once in a while marked by a harrowing encounter with one of the creatures I saw from above. While all others seem obsessed with their sought end at the hands of the acid, or pilgrimage to the monasteries, the red, abstract things seem only occasionally possessed by such urges. Though they are few and far between, I am compelled to call them denizens of this realm. They wander without apparent reason, and often strain against their design- most are little more than a pair of legs, a waist, and a ponderous mass of arms that converge with little symmetry at the elbows, the wrists, even the knuckles, and begin over, until they resemble more tangled roots than proper limbs, each ending in individual fingers. Often the biceps and triceps will pull in different directions, causing great consternation, but never enough to topple the thing. I am forced to view their plight at a distance- approaching causes great suffering in me: my sight begins to blur and speckle with flashing dots, and my gut wrenches painfully as though being pulled taught and plucked at. Thus, I give these unfortunates a wide berth every time they appear in my path. I do note some that seem to possess purpose other than that they might share with the suicidal masses- there are those that march almost parallel to me, many on the far bank of the river. The writhing and swaying of their upper extremities poses but little difficulty to their pace- they leverage these irksome arms to vault the joining streams when they appear, insisting that their lack of eyes does not mean total blindness.

My eyes, I later realize, are now stuck forever open- my eyelids melted away while I slept on the riverbank.

The valley deepens, and the mountains around become steep cliffs before being lost altogether in the mist brought about by the falls- which I now hear roaring as they cascade down. My pace is lessened for lack of want to careen off the edge, but I see the reddish outlines across the river hurtling along with increased ferocity, as though their unfathomable task approaches completion. Too late I notice the blurring and speckling at the edges of my vision, and am doubled over in pain when one of the things comes barrelling towards me, knocks into me, and sends us both tumbling down over the lip into the chasm.

Falling, spinning end over end, I am acutely aware of the darkening of the air as I plummet into the abyss, dim green light announcing that I still follow the now-vertical course of the river. I attempt to right myself, and stabilize in an upward-facing position; this enables me to witness the edges of the pit that now swallows me, a jagged ellipse of tar surrounding and closing around the harsh light of the upper world, so far below. I jostle, and turn over to face the darkness beneath me, and still cannot see to the bottom. No crashing declares the well into which the substance pours.

Then, as I am grappling with the immutable nothing of my peril, a rectangle of light swings open below me, an unquestionable door pivoting along its hinges. Into this, I am powerless to avoid falling, and am compelled to heave nauseous breath as my sense of direction protests that the wall to my side has become the floor. I hear the door close behind me with a click as I roll along, soft limbs preventing harsh bruises and scrapes with their unnatural give.

16: Subdermal

There are doors at lower levels, leading out to lower and lesser platforms, with dwindling monuments to every level, until I am left with the sight of a web of walkways that connect the pillars, and converge on perhaps the largest of the many-domed buildings, which sits atop a peak over the mountain range split by the surging green rivers- which I can now identify as originating in frothing geysers close to the peaks. The ramp ended, I can only walk the path, allowing it to guide me into the basilica.

I stop once to give my feet a rest, and look down upon the mountain range, noting where the massive stalactite I emerged from meets a particular peak, past which I can see more of the acropolis’s founding pillars. Below me I watch as around one of the pooling points for the foul viridian substance, a plethora of creatures gather. I recognize the brutes from the marsh, the needle-mouthed bugs from the march, and the white-robed creatures from inside the buildings, as well as a few I don’t recall. Reddish things whose many limbs seem to part and fuse back together without reason, whose bodies often lack heads, hands, or symmetry. I also see things that slither and squirm, with many tails and wings with confounding holes. Resting still, I watch as they plunge themselves into the substance and dissolve, becoming one with it. Ever more come to be dissolved.

I rise from where I sit and begin again, engaging with my chosen path with little enthusiasm. Once in a while, I see apparent monasteries nestled in the mountains, and watch as creatures approach the pools, hesitate, then turn and embark to these tan obelisks, and enter. None seem to leave.

I come upon the grand basilica and rest my hand on a set of bone doors so tall and wide that I do not doubt I might never hope to open it. Carved into its surface is a depiction that rivals the magnitude of the monasteries below. The carving depicts an impossible number of persons my size writhing in pain, grasping at the cracks in the ivory that depicts them; as if these are true wounds to their flesh. I raise and press my hand to the cheek of one of these petrified individuals, and become suddenly aware of every ache and bruise in my body, of the battle fought between my flesh and the silicone planted by the ichor, the war to reject the Porcelain that does not let go. I pull my hand away, and the sensation subsides. I suppress a gasp of fading agony, and turn my head from the doors, finding that within the base of the left door is a more manageable entrance, a seamed section roughly three feet wide and seven feet tall with a handle in the middle.

To this alternative I shuffle, and pull firmly. Rather than swinging open, the section pulls directly outwards, and I find a niche on either side into which I might fit. Again I feel apprehension at trusting myself to a mechanism, but not wishing to cross back along the walkway, or attempt to scale the mountain, I crawl into the channel, and wedge myself away from the outer edge. After a pause, the section slides back into place, and I am made to wait until my eyes adjust to the dim light they cast. I see that across from me is a new niche that lines up with mine, and continues towards the other side of the door, so I entrust myself to this, and crawl through.

On the other side I find a foyer that is fit to match the doors, and exits of various sizes leading in different directions. The walls are ornate, being of a dark gray with shimmering golden mortar. The air is tinged with a smell like honey and peach, and a dissonant choir echoes from all of the passages. I cross the marble floor slowly, my eyes keyed in on a passage that matches the dimensions of the doors through which I have passed all this time. Above hangs a tapestry woven from enough thread to suffocate an army.

This piece proudly depicts a bloody war, in which two forces compete and vie. On the right is a uniformed battalion of men, but monsters too; beside some officers stand tall things with white fur and blue horns, with rows of sharp teeth and claws. Here too are giant insects, things of orange chitin and blue blood, with thick shelled chests and three fingered hands. Sparsely sprinkled in this regiment are strange translucent things that walk on two legs, but have fingers like octopus legs, and heads like jellyfish, with simple holes for ears, and four glimmering eyes.

To the left is a force that is somehow more familiar to me. Here I see those creatures that have hounded me since my arrival. The surgeons and red-robed porcelain women surge to meet the infantry, supported by robots holding advanced rifles. Angels clash with jets of advanced make. Bone brutes and striding harvesters trouble tanks and jeeps, and wreak havoc on clustered troops. In the background I see what appears to be warfare in space, with metal ships pierced by giant sinewy tendrils. And above all is the dark figure wrapped in black light, floating weightless over the spectacle. He is backgrounded by what seems a moon or near planet with red and black essence seeping from its edges in a malevolent corona. All this I absorb, then pass by as I enter the passage I have chosen.

After many turns, and many downward cycles, I enter a small balcony in a sort of coliseum, high above an oval stage where a troupe of the porcelain women dance- performing a high-energy ballet with many leaps and dangerous gymnastics. Their glossy white bodies are bare, reflecting harsh blue and yellow lights from overhead with every high-velocity twirl. The crowd is rowdy but mostly enraptured, and begins to applaud and hiss as one of the lead dancers breaks off to lead a surgeon to center stage. The remaining dancers encircle the slow, grunting creature, and begin jabbing at him with hooked knives, tearing what sparse scraps of skin he has to offer. Enraged, the surgeon lashes out and grabs one of his torturers, cracking her wrist and forcing a shrill scream through her mouth. A laugh ripples through the audience. The others back away as he rakes his claws sadistically across her chest. The captive screams again, this time portraying rage over pain, and swings her knife through his throat, producing an arterial spray that sends the crowd into hysterical howling and whooping. The surgeon drops his prey and stumbles backwards, flailing his arms and barking, before the doll kicks him over and drags her knife through his gut over and over, prompting a standing ovation. I have nearly made up my mind to leave the spectacle through an ornate bone door opposite the one I used to enter, when the lights dim, and the performers drag the gurgling carcass offstage.

I linger and watch a small, caped figure emerge from an opening in the floor, and look out across the gathered onlookers.

This being is particularly hideous, being sewn together out of tanned leather pulled tight across what rigid structures lie within. If she possesses bone structure, it is not anything natural. Her jaw is asymmetrical, one of her arms is longer than the other and has more fingers- the other is four thumbs and an index- one of her eyes is so much lower than the other that it distorts her nose, and her chest has protruding lumps that suggest her ribs are all different sizes. Her cape too is leather- made from skin as I now realize- and long triangular scraps hang from her waist in a gruesome skirt. Her voice is beautiful as she is not. Pathogen’s tones were surely soft and sedating, but this newcomer’s crooked throat produces a voice so rich and gentle that I cannot but breathe a sigh of relief.

“Hello, you filth.”

She says it as though it were a term of affection for a lover, spoken across a pillow in the moments after the saffron light of dawn has been eroded.

“I’m so glad you could join us for the show today! Just think, instead you could be getting your eyes gouged out and your marrow sucked. Why, you could be having holes drilled through your teeth, or be getting dragged through molecular acid, or even refurbished with shiny white skin!”

I feel as though she is looking at me when she finishes this term, and I turn to exit through the door, but find that both are admitting a cluster of the marchers from above, their cottony faces all damp and clinging.

“But you joined us today, instead of all those other things, and for that, I’m so, so grateful; because today, we have a special guest!”

I am about to plunge into the crowd behind me, when a pair of clawed feet grasps my shoulders, and hoists me not at all gently into the air. I look up and strike at the feet, drawing only a blood-curdling screech from the winged, many-faced thing that has me. I hear the crowd murmur and shuffle as I am brought down and dropped in a heap before the creature on the stage. With her long arm she grasps my hood and drags me to my feet, then dusts me off.

Up close, she is even more hideous, some of the tanned hide that makes up her skin-suit is wrinkled and cracked with age, unhealing gashes betraying glimpses of a black and shiny thing within. Her teeth are as ill-fitting as the rest of her, some are bestial and crooked, while others are ivory and neat. Her breath is mild and flowery, however.

“Welcome to my coliseum, dear thing. I’ve been expecting you.”

She grins and faces out to her audience, but I am kept from running by the presence of the thing with leathery wings and canvas-like skin that looms over me, its frowning mouths whistling breath.

“Toxin welcomes all to her menagerie! The meek, the mighty, the beautiful, and the obscene! Even things like you, rare as you are.”

All around the edge of the stage I see the porcelain women standing, their sleek bodies poised as though prepared to pounce. I notice that many have fractures and cracks in their faces and limbs, and the imperfections have been sealed with gold. Much of the silicone of their torsos has also seen repair with a gray rubber that eases the contrast between the black and the white. Their red eyes do not waver from the ringleader’s – Toxin’s – face, awaiting her instruction, it seems. She turns to me.

“Come, let us have some fun with you, dear thing!”

All at once the women rush in and begin shoving me, this way and that, tearing at my robe and lacerating my face with their fingertips. I sway to one side and am grabbed by the arm, then the other, and feel a sharp hot pain as something cracks into my back, a whip or lash of some kind, who’s ragged edge stings terribly and causes my vision to blur. I wrench free and struggle to take three steps away from the mass of cruel laughter. The top of my robe has fallen to shreds that sway and double over the lower half, still supported by the waistband cord. I fall to my hands and knees and continue to shuffle along, faintly aware of uproarious applause in all directions.

“So delicate! What a treat you are!”

The silky voice, despite not having changed at all, now seems to me worse than any of the terrible sounds I’ve yet experienced, a slow-spinning auger in my chest. I attempt to come to my feet, but am kicked in the back, along the rugged wound, and fall on my face, warmth spreading outward as my blood seeps out. My center begins to feel cold.

“Oh, but dear, not nearly long-lasting enough. You’ll be lost to us before we’ve even disemboweled you if we’re not careful.”

She speaks as though she is pitying a romantic evening being canceled, and her finger crooks under my chin to look at my face. My sight blurred, her features are only a smear, a crooked soup of a dark splotch here and a wiggling fuzzy shape below it.

“Tsk. This won’t do at all. I had such high hopes for you.”

Her disappointment is a knife paring away my skin, my eyelids, my ears. I feel as though I might never inhale without sobbing, if I survive. As my senses dim, I see a twisting shape around her, a writhing mass of spectral worms all stemming from her chest. Through one of the gashes in her leather skin I see something glistening slithering up and down. I blink, and find that her face is crooked in a different way than I remember, as if her cheekbones attempted to heal and were broken from another force in another direction. I can no longer hear through the fog of pain and blood-loss. My sense of balance tells me I am rolling to the side. All at once, everything is brighter, and I am falling.

15: Substance

I stand on the porch of the prairie house and look out across the horizon. The red sky and gray fields insist that I am far from anything reasonable, but the breeze seems almost soothing. A single willow tree sways its branches over the creek, and a tire swing hangs from its bough. The ringing in my ears buzzes and churns.

I open my eyes, and find myself back in the abandoned subway car. I cross through the broken door and step down to the dirt floor, but stop again to blink.

I am in the house now, standing in a dining room with figures I know are not like anything I’ve yet met hidden under black veils. All are facing me. The table is set with silver plates of viscera and white-glowing slime.

My eyes open, and I continue walking towards the exit, wary of my own eyes. This is more manageable than the surgeons, the beasts, the machines, I tell myself. But seeing one of the veiled creatures reach for me when I tried moving with my eyes shut is enough to make me stop still every time I blink. A set of rails twists across the floor of the tunnel, and guides me to my next destination. I blink again.

I stand in the middle of the field, surrounded by the creatures, the sound of rustling leaves and buzzing insects almost natural. One of the veiled things kneels down and scoops up a stone, on which I see the fossil of a human hand. I open my eyes.

I am close to leaving now, the dented and crooked exit door shining dully in the red light I cast. I hurry forth, and stop short, believing myself ready for the next span.

I blink.

I am seated in a chair in the living room of the house, and almost a dozen of the creatures are gathered, dancing slowly and chattering with noises like dolphins. Their black dresses sway and billow, and their mummified gray hands crack and twitch erratically. One by one they come forth and kneel before me, holding out their hands. Without my bidding, my hand extends and rests within theirs, for them to clutch and mutter with religious fervor. Once everyone has supplicated, they heap ashes on me, and lay a glowing white crown in my lap. I hear a dancing song begin in the next room over, and I am forgotten as they flow out of the room. Only one remains with me, and kneels beside my chair. Its head leans against the arm rest, and I hear a woman sobbing through the veil as though from very far away. My hand acts on its own again, and rests on the top of her head. My heart throbs a familiar ache, and tears roll down from my eyes.

I open my eyes again, and find myself on the other side of the door. I turn and jostle the handle, gripped by the urge to return, only to find it locked. I reach a hand up, and find a black tear on my cheek. I turn away slowly, and face the chamber I have entered, each blink of my eyes only serving the same brief blur they always have. This is a hallway that feels unpleasantly familiar to me; a long tiled corridor with the sounds of bubbling water nearby. I stride slowly along, coming closer to the dim blue light, and enter a devoid office space, with cluttered cubicles and an empty fish tank casting its light and sound into the room. There are no windows. The floor is square tiles as a pool might have, and a painting rests on the far wall. To this I proceed.

The painting is a portrait of a man I feel I recognize, though I know not why. His hair is blond, his eyes are blue, and his chin is scruffy with hair. He wears a blue suit and tie, and might look unremarkable, were it not for the contorted expression on his face; he is facing slightly to the left, and around the edges of his face that are in shadow, the skin seems puffy and pink as if irritated. His eye that I can see is wide open, staring through me with abject horror, and his mouth hangs open in a scream. There is a small badge pinned to his lapel of a greek letter.

I leave this painting behind, and use the door to the next room. I find that I have somehow reentered the room from the front. I cross to the door again, and open it, finding another hallway. Disoriented, I enter cautiously, and follow a series of turns: Right, left, left, right, right, left, left, left, right, left, straight for a while, then left, left, right, and left. A door waits for me there, and I pass through it, only to find myself in the office again. I stand confounded, but am soon drawn to stand before the portrait again. The man’s face is considerably aged, and his mouth is closed, but his eye still shines with that terrific fear. I hesitantly go to the door and turn the handle again, now convinced that I am entering a new room again. Another hallway leads me to a set of steps that only go down a single floor before opening into another hallway. I take turns right, left, left, right, left, and left again to another door. I enter.

Again I stand in the office, but this time all the clutter from the desks has been knocked to the floor. A rubber duck, a picture frame, a folder organizer, a dozen keyboards, and more pencils than I care to count are among the refuse. I cross to the painting. The image now is of a withered and burnt corpse’s face pointing to the right, its cracked lips pulled into a grim smile. The eye stares at me with the same intensity, and is as blue as the man’s was. I turn away, and pass through the door again.

I find that I stand at the edge of a rocky cliff. The door behind me is set into a sheer face of obsidian that extends up for miles. A small path crosses back and forth in front of me clinging to the edge of the cliff and barely wide enough to even consider attempting. Beyond, is a decadent city.

Brilliant white basilicas and domes span a stretch so profound that I cease attempting to fathom it after the second attempt. Grand balconies and arched bridges space the buildings out, and occasional pillars of brilliant white with golden filigree massive enough to be seen from afar stretch up into the gloom. I see, with a sinking dread, hundreds of the angels flitting about, landing on railings and spires and balconies as though they were but insects in a flower garden. I grit my teeth, and resolve to risk the cliff path down towards the metropolis.

The path is unforgiving, and I find myself crouching down to compensate for my balance and avoid the jagged side of the cliff above me. Each turn makes me dizzy with vertigo, and invites me to try to sit and rest, but I am more compelled to reach the bottom as soon as possible. Coming lower, I am able to make out sections of the city close to the base of the cliff, and see robed people milling about in orderly lines like ants, harassed occasionally by the angels, or by smaller, darker things that I sometimes see zipping about. Towards the bottom of the path, small red plants sprout from between the rocks, with small round leaves and many stems. The trail ends in an alley between two domed buildings, and I make my way into one of the marching lines of the robed figures. The street is paved in ivory, and the mortar appears porous, almost akin to marrow. I watch as black insects as big as my chest fly overhead, segmented iron legs and steel needle mouths trailing. Shot as my nerves are, I keep my head down and hope that they do not select me to pounce upon, as they do to random others, stabbing their proboscises into necks and chests and drinking with a terrible sloshing, slurping noise over the sheer silence of the writhing victim. When the fly is done, it rises up with its smudged plastic wings and buzzes lazily away, leaving a cottony corpse wrapped in red fabrics behind. I continue to march, but notice that these corpses are collected by different individuals, thin and shuddering golems of black bandages draped with white cloaks, that occasionally rush out into the street from within the buildings, snatch up a body, and drag it back inside. The hood of one of the bodies falls back, and I see only white fluff for its head, with black beady eyes and a cleft mouth with needle-like teeth.

I shuffle on, glancing out over the edges of the bridges I cross, soaking in the shining city of lifeless marching. Below I see more of the black rock that made up the cliff, with acrid, smoking green rivers and waterfalls emptying into caves. I risk a look over my shoulder, and see that the cliff I descended is more like a prolonged Stalactite, narrow at the base and widening upwards towards another cavern roof so far above that it is obscured by foggy white skies. I almost do not notice when the march comes to an end in a courtyard in the shadow of one of the grand white pillars, on which I now see millions of small window-like alcoves, in which the angels seem to nest. I look to my right and see an angel squatting on the edge of a rooftop, looking directly at me with its eyeless grimace. I freeze, and glance about, now noticing many of the other rooftops are populated with multiple angels, all of which have their gaze trained on me. Some of the robed creatures seem to notice this, and turn towards me silently, their beady black eyes blinking in bursts. I look to the pillar, and see a moderate double door in it connected to the balcony by a thin bridge- a door too small for the angels, I hope. I leap into motion, dashing for the door, pushing through the witless fluff things and initiating the beat of dozens of wings behind me. I hear them shriek and scream as they shoot through the air after me, and I feel a ringed scythe slice the air above my head as I pull the door open and duck inside.

I expect the banging and shoving of many angels against the door, but all is still. I take several steps back, and turn, almost falling over the edge of a narrow spiraling ramp that clings to the walls of the pillar. Faced with another descent so soon, I crouch down in the passage between the door and the inside of the pillar. I close my eyes, and breath slowly, testing to see if sleep might take me once more. I sit back against the polymer wall, and sink into unconsciousness, exhausted.

I dream of something I do not remember. I stand in a small grove at night, and hold a shovel. My hands are black with dirt, and my brow is damp with sweat. I stand over a hole approximately two feet deep and six feet long. My chest feels tight with grief, and my eyes water. From a mound to my left, I shovel dirt into the hole, until it is full, then carefully lay clumps of grass on top. My work done, I shoulder the shovel and murmur something under my breath, a poem whose words I cannot recite anymore. I linger long, and the horizon begins to turn orange before I turn away and walk away from the silent grove, through the woods and to a dark road. I open the trunk of a car that waits there, and throw the shovel in. The sound of the trunk slamming shut wakes me from the dream.

I sit up and attempt to orient myself. I recall the events of the past days, or what I gauge to be days with limited reference. With apprehension, I approach the ramp, and stare down into the darkness, tracing the narrowing spiral with a lazy motion, watching it form an iris of white on black. An itch settles in the back of my mind, an urge I’ve felt before and now more than ever in the face of ever-mounting horrors. I sway slightly as the want to fall and tumble into the pit washes over me, to trust that my fall will end painlessly. I feel a voice that speaks not in words but sensations, urging me on, closer. I make a connection, recalling the hypnotic sway of the vine in the chasm, and pull back, resolving to descend naturally. And so, as I have become accustomed to do as of late, I make my way deeper.