The blizzard was doing little to hinder I-330’s progress across the ice covered wasteland. The wind should have frozen a human to death in minutes, but she didn’t even feel the cold. The snow came down so thick that it looked like a white wall, but I-330 didn’t care about visibility. She knew that if a Fear wanted to find her, it would.
That prediction was fulfilled soon, as the storm died down enough for I-330 to see a castle of ice in front of her. This was not the ornate palace she had seen in the Wooden Girl’s realm: it was fortress, angular and harsh. The white gate slowly opened as I-330 approached, leading into a courtyard filled with statues. Or at least, I-330’s first impression was that they were statues. As she got closer to them, she realized they were people, frozen in place. All the victims had their faces frozen in similar expressions, but it was not in fear, as I-330 had expected. Rather, they all looked terribly sad. As if being frozen alive being frozen alive had only been a continuation of whatever grief they had been experiencing.
Morbid curiosity made her examine the frozen people longer than she should have. The echo of a young boy’s laughter quickly reminded her that she was still in the domain of a Fear, and such distractions could be fatal.
The laughter had come from past the courtyard, further inside the castle. I-330 stepped through another gate, and appeared on top of one of the castle’s towers. She didn’t question the impossible change; by this point, such oddities had ceased to astound her. The laughing continued, coming from all around. I-330 tolerated it only for a few moments before annoyance triggered her into action. With a powerful swing, she brought her fist down on the tower, cracking the ice. Which she quickly realized was a very bad decision, as the floor beneath her crumbled and fell away, leaving her to plummet several stories.
Before she hit the ground, an unseen force stopped her fall. The boy’s laughter was joined by that of a girl’s, and out from the blizzard the Cold Boy and the Wooden Girl appeared.
I-330 felt the strings that had caught her tightening around her limbs, until they started to break the skin. The Wooden Girl laughed at the sight of blood, and gave the Cold Boy a hug. “Good work, Little Blue!” It said. “I was worried someone else might get to my pet before me, but you were kind enough to tell me she’d arrived!” It let go of the Cold Boy, and started to gather strings around its fingers. “Now we can start to play!”
I-330 had not spent her time since being caught idly waiting for the Girl to finish speaking. While the Girl was distracted, her shadow arm had grown into multiple tentacles that wrapped around the strings holding her. As the Girl finished talking, the tentacles simultaneously cut all the strings, dropping I-330 to the ground.
Her first instinct was to run. Run as fast as she could, and not stop until she had gained several universes of distance between her and the Girl.
No. No more running.
The thought hit her with the force of a truck, each syllable screaming for attention.
I can fight them. I can beat them.
She stopped moving, and planted her feet in the snow. Anger that had been building in her for years was boiling to the top, threatening to explode. She’d been running for so long. Sometimes it felt like the only thing she ever did. And what had she gotten for it?
Of course the Wooden Girl wasn’t letting the escape attempt go ignored. More strings came at I-330, aiming for her hands and feet. In a rush of motion, I-330’s shadow hand grabbed the strings, and tore them apart. Then she started running. Not away from the Wooden Girl. Towards it.
The Cold Boy took a step forward, but the Girl placed a hand on its shoulder to stop it. “Nuh-uh, Little Blue.” It said. “She’s my pet to play with. You can play with her when I’m done.” Strings came from the ground beneath I-330, and wrapped around her feet. She was lifted high into the air, and the strings let her go, dropping her onto the jagged ruins.
I-330 laid still where she had fallen, bleeding heavily onto the ground for some time. “Come on and get up!” The Wooden Girl said. “I know you’re still alive!”
“Yeah, yeah….” I-330 muttered as she stood up. “These sharp pieces of ice broke my fall.” She knew she should have been in pain, but such sensations seemed far away. Even as she pulled out a shard that had gone straight through her gut, the worst she felt was a mild discomfort. She felt focused, more than ever before. The enemy was in front of her. The only thing that mattered was destroying it.
One of her tentacles wrapped around a piece of frozen debris larger than she was, and lifted it up. She started spinning it around her head, gaining momentum, until she let go. The debris struck the Girl at blinding speed, crushing its body instantly. I-330 tensed in anticipation of a counterattack, but none came. The splintered remains of the Girl didn’t move at all. With growing confidence, I-330 walked toward the body. When it continued to make no motion, she picked up the debris and threw it aside. There was a moment of elation at the victory, but it soon shifted to confusion when she looked at the remains of the Girl’s head. Where there should have been a face painted on was only blank wood.
“Bad pet. Very bad.” The Wooden Girl’s voice giggled through I-330’s head. “Now I have to punish you.”
Strings appeared around I-330s right forearm, and twisted it until the bone cracked. More strings wrapped around I-330’s chest, cutting her flesh and grinding across bone. The Wooden Girl skipped out from behind I-330, completely unharmed, without even a wrinkle on its red dress.
“Making a new body is so inconvenient. I need to teach you never to do that again.”
The pain should have been unbearable. But even with part of her bone sticking out of her arm, I-330 felt numbed. She had to destroy the Fear. Killing them was all that mattered. The sensory messages of a few nerves were irrelevant. With a roar of anger, she punched through the Girl’s chest with a tentacle. The Girl initially appeared unfazed by the attack. “I thought you would have learned how pointless that is by now. I can repair any damage you do.”
“Really?” I-330 snarled. “Cause I don’t think you’ll be repairing this.”
The Girl looked down at its chest. Where I-330 had punched through was a hole of absolute nothingness, with small cracks spreading from it across the Girl’s body. “How did you-” Before the Girl could finish, I-330 punched it in the head. The left half of its face and much of the air around it shattered away into oblivion. What was left of the Wooden Girl’s face painted itself into fear as the strings holding I-330 vanished. The moment she was free she rushed the Girl and grabbed one of its arms. The Girl tried pulling away, and I-330 ripped the arm off, tearing more nothingness onto its body.
Strings lashed across I-330’s body, but she ignored the gashes. She leaned closer to the Girl and whispered, “Scream for me, little god.”
The Wooden Girl turned and fled. It didn’t make it very far before one of I-330’s tentacles struck the ground in front of it, breaking apart that stretch of reality. The Girl tried running in a different direction, but I-330 smashed that path as well, leaving another chasm of emptiness across the ground. Another tentacle hit the Girl’s legs, breaking them off. The Girl started crawling across the snow with its remaining arm, until it reached the Cold Boy.
“Little Blue! Help me!”
The Cold Boy took the Girl’s hand. The Girl smiled, but a second later fear was painted over the smile. Ice had started to spread from the Boy’s hand, growing down the Girl’s arm.
“No! Little Blue, what are you doing?” The ice completely covered the Girl’s arm, and started spreading across its body. “Stop it! Stop it, Cold Boy! I order you to stop!”
The Girl’s voice grew soft as the ice spread, until it was silenced completely. The Cold Boy poked the frozen Girl few times to see if it would move. When it didn’t, the Boy picked up the girl and walked to one of the gashes of nothing in the ground.
“Ashes, ashes….” The Boy said in a singsong voice. “We all… fall… down!” On the last word, it threw the Girl into the Quiet.
I-330 had been watching the events passively to the side. She felt some disappointment at the fall of the Girl. She’d been hoping for the chance to kill it herself. But the disappointment wasn’t strong enough to motivate her to intervene. And there was still another Fear to be dealt with. Her arm shifted into a blade, and she charged. The Cold Boy called down the full force of the blizzard, and the winds howled with a force that could have leveled mountains. It didn’t impede I-330 in the slighted. The Boy tried creating a wall of ice around him, but she cut through it.
I-330 swung the blade, cleaving a line of emptiness behind it as it cut through the air. Just before it hit, the Cold Boy exhaled. When its breath touched I-330, her vision went black, and she felt herself falling backwards into her memories.
The halls of the high school were filled with students, but Lisa did everything she could to avoid any eye contact. She held her head down, hair framing either side, with her books kept to her chest like a shield.
A group of students had stopped to talk in the middle of the hall, preventing Lisa from going forward. She looked for a way through them, but the only paths she could see involved pushing through, which she couldn’t bring herself to do. “Um….” She said, too quiet to be heard by anyone. “E-excuse me….” Her words remained unheard. Then the bell rang, and the group quickly broke apart as they rushed to their classes.
When Lisa opened the door to her class, she said, “Sorry I’m late, Mr. Robinson.” The teacher at the front of the room looked surprised by her appearance.
“Oh, Lisa!” He said. “I didn’t realize you weren’t here. Well, go ahead and take your seat.”
The class passed without Lisa saying another word. When lunch came, Lisa sat alone at a table, reading a book with one hand while mechanically eating a sandwich in the other. She was so engrossed in her book, that she was unaware someone had walked up to her table until he said, “Excuse me?”
Lisa almost jumped at the sudden voice. A boy was standing by standing by one of the table’s empty chairs, a slight smile on his face over her obvious surprise. Lisa stared at him for several seconds before remembering that she should say something. Her words rushed out in what might have been a “Hello” or maybe a “Yes?”
“Is anyone using this chair?”
What felt like a million different thoughts rushed into her head. Was he asking if he could sit with her? How does my hair look? Isn’t he in my math class? What am I supposed to say?
In the end, she managed to get out a, “No.”
“Oh, good. Thanks!” He picked up the chair, and took it with him as he walked away to another table.
The memories pulled away, and I-330 was alone again in darkness. A child’s voice began speaking, almost singing, to her from the blackness.
“So many days alone. Always so alone. There has never been anyone who you could open up to. No one who understood you.”
For some reason, I-330 suddenly felt extremely cold. Her voice shook as she tried to speak. “Th-there was Lisa….”
The voice giggled. “The only person in all time and space capable of loving you was yourself. And you lost even her. You’ll never see her again. You’ll never see anyone again. You killed them all.”
I-330 had never felt so cold before. It was like her entire body had been frozen. The voice continued to taunt her, but she didn’t have the strength to respond. Layers of emotional walls came down, tearing down the mask of the energetic, confident adventurer, leaving behind a hurt, lonely child. The memories resumed, drowning her senses in years of pain.
The Cold Boy walked around I-330’s frozen body, making sure the ice completely covered her. Her mental barriers were coming down rapidly now, letting out all the emotions she’d been suppressing through her life. Still the memories rushed past I-330. She could barely process the rush of emotions coming at her. But there was one feeling rising above the others. It had been faint at first, but it was growing brighter.
Another memory came to I-330. Lisa was holding a knife in her hand, and stabbing it down into her father. Strike back against those that hurt you. Destroy your oppressors.
Beneath the pain, past the loneliness, was only one feeling: Rage. The anger of a neglected child, combined with the fury of a vengeful god, drowning out all the loneliness.
The ice on I-330 flew off as she tore herself out of the frozen cage. The Cold Boy just managed to jump away before it was smashed by I-330’s tentacles. It started to run, barely keeping ahead of the tentacles smashing apart the ground. Then, something grabbed its leg. A string had come out of one of the empty gashes on the ground, and wrapped around the Cold Boy. It tried to pull away, but more strings came out of the Quiet, wrapping around its limbs. It kept struggling as I-330 got closer, but was held fast.
I-330 stopped less than a foot away from the Boy. It looked up at her, face covered in terror. She pulled back her left arm, and then swung down, smashing through the Cold Boy, breaking it apart until her fist hit the ground. The Boy, the strings holding it, and even the ground I-330 hit all shattered apart into nothing.
The blizzard stopped, leaving only silence. I-330 took a brief moment to look over the remains of this pocket universes. The cracks from her battle were already spreading across the snowy land. Soon everything in it would disappear. I-330 took a deep breath to collect herself, and then moved to the next universe.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Oasis
The lake wasn’t a mirage. A real oasis, amongst what had seemed an endless world of sand.
After suffering from thirst for so long, I didn’t exactly have much self-control when I saw it. I practically threw myself at the water, trying to grab as much as I could with each handful. Felt like I could drink the whole lake, and I’d still be thirsty.
But as I swallowed more water, I started noticing a metallic taste in it. Looked down at my hands in the water, and saw blood coming off them. Pulled them out, as blood continued ripping off them. There was no open wound anywhere on them, but the blood kept flowing from between my fingers. In a panic, I threw them back into the water, trying to get it off. It was a wasted effort; no matter how much I washed off, there was still more. The red spread through the lake, until the clear water had turned crimson.
At last, with the lake completely changed, the blood stopped. I wanted to recoil from the pool of blood that had replaced the oasis, but felt unable to pull my eyes away. The blood beneath my face began to whirl, and the color pulled away, creating an empty circle. The water in the circle wasn’t clear like before, but perfectly reflective, like a mirror. It was weird, seeing my face like that. Haven’t had the chance to look at it in a while. Almost didn’t recognize myself. Looked halfway like a corpse. Or maybe a skeleton held together by skin, blood, and dirt.
The water shifted again, and a new face was looking at me. For a split second, I thought it was Grendel. But no, this was a woman. I stared at it, trying to understand why it seemed so familiar. The realization struck as something of a surprise: it was me. Or, me if I was cleaned up and not starving to death. All my scars were gone on her, and she still had my suit and trench coat, but they were both completely black, with the only splash of color coming from a green tie. Her smile was filled with shark like teeth, and her two burning red eyes seemed to pierce through me. I moved my hand to where my right eye would be, and the reflection followed, but I still only felt my eye patch, and the empty socket beneath.
The reflection began to move on its own, lunging toward me. Before I could respond, its arms broke from beneath the water and grabbed around my waist, quickly pulling me under. I panicked, thinking I was going to drown, but when I fell through the lake, I wasn’t underwater. I was in a black void, without any sign of anything else around me.
Looked around for something in the emptiness, and finally a light appeared by me. Images flashed in it, showing me my life in reverse. All the things I’ve done. The mistakes I’ve made. The people I’ve killed. Every horrible decision. But when it got to the point where I became I-330, the images began to diverge from what I remember. The perspective was wrong; it wasn’t of me falling into the Quiet, but of me already inside, watching Lisa falling. Then the images went further back, into events I didn’t remember at all. I stood amongst a field of stars, and the Slender Man stood opposed to me. With a mere though, I pulled a star to me. A massive ball of fire, and I balanced it easily in the palm of my hand. With a wave, I threw the star at the Slender Man.
The images flashed further back, and I saw my worshippers flocking to the massive temples they had erected in my honor. Their numbers were uncountable, across millions of planets through the abyss of times. Humanity was barely a speck amongst them; a single species on a single planet that existed for only a heartbeat. It amused me to see all the tribute gathered for me. They believed they could avoid my wrath with such gifts. But it was my boredom, not my anger, that they should have feared. They were like flies to me, and they existed so I could pull their wings off. I raised a species of dumb animals to intelligence, then stole their sentience away at the height of their empire. Another race I granted immensely powerful weapons, then laughed as they destroyed themselves. All of reality was my toy. All existed for my amusement.
Further back. There were no starts of planets here. Nothing but the unmolded chaos of Azathoth’s dreams. I could feel the presence of Yog-Sothoth and Sub-Nigurtath, but I didn’t care about them. They were just mindless monsters. No entertainment to be gained from them. And then, the images stopped. I was back in the blackness beneath the lake. But now, someone else was there with me. A tall, proud looking man with dark skin, black eyes, and a golden crown. Recognized him as the Pharaoh I’d seen in R’lyeh.
His voice was softer this time, but it still had that sense of earth shaking authority behind every word. “I suppose it would be too much to expect you would experience a revelation from what you saw.”
“…Alright what the fuck is going on here. Didn’t I kill you or something already?”
“From a certain perspective, yes. Although a better phrase would be that you inherited me.”
Tried to remember back to what had happened. Hadn’t been in my best state of mind when I fought Grendel on R’lyeh. What with the sword through my stomach. “You’re… Nyarlathotep?”
“No.” I blinked, and his appearance changed into the same as the reflection I’d seen in the lake. It spoke again, now with my voice. “You are Nyarlathotep. You really need to stop treating me as a separate entity from yourself.”
“What? I’m not… I know I’m, well, kinda like the spawn of Nyarlathotep or something like that. I’ve had enough Fears telling it to me for it to be drilled into my head.”
“Really? Because you were very quick to accuse me of being Nyarlathotep.”
“Well, you’re, like, I don’t know, the mental incarnation of him or something? The source of those whispers I’ve been hearing or something?”
“No.” I blinked again, and she was gone. But I could still hear her voice. “There is no ‘incarnation’ of Nyarlathotep in your head. Nyarlathotep does not have some kind of separate presence in your mind. You never heard any whispers. There has only ever been one voice in your head. Yours.”
Looked around, trying to find some source of that voice. I wanted it to be coming from outside. Wanted it to be from anywhere but my own head. It wasn’t.
“You’ve gone to such amazing lengths to deny your identity, and treat everything relating to Nyarlathotep as though it was an outside force. Calling your own thoughts ‘voices’. Claiming you don’t know how you kept getting greater control over your abilities. Treating recalling memories as information being put in your head. You are so determined to portray yourself as a human who just happens to have weird things happen to her, in spite of the fact that you aren’t human at all. You never have been.”
“No, I’m… I….” Kept thinking back to the images I’d seen, of the god who toyed with the universe. Who would lead billions to their death just for a quick laugh. “I’m not that. I’m nothing like that.”
“Maybe not. But you were. And you will be again, if you want the power to defeat the Slender Man.”
“No! Stop… why are you trying so hard to convince me?”
“I’m not.” Blinked again, and a mirror was in front of me. This time, the reflection wasn’t changed; it looked exactly like me. “I am you. You’re already partially convinced. You just need to stop this pointless internal conflict, and you can finally start getting some real progress done.”
This conversation was rapidly approaching my tolerance level for smug people telling me what to do. So I smashed the mirror. The moment it shattered, the void was gone, and I was underwater. Took a few moments to get myself oriented, until I saw a light above me. Swam towards it, until I came out in the middle of the oasis.
There’d been some changes since I fell into the lake. My suit and coat are back, but they’re black, like the reflection’s had been. Don’t feel hungry or thirsty anymore, and I look much healthier. Still have all those scars.
And much to my surprise, in the time I was gone, the Slender Man’s tree had grown on the horizon. Knew I would need to run again. But not the panicked flight I’d done previously. New knowledge, or memories, or whatever they were, were bubbling to the surface of my mind. I couldn’t fight against the Slender Man. But maybe I could slow it down.
The shadows of my left arm started to shift until chaotic shapes, until it only resembled an arm in that it was a limb attached to my body. They tore through the air in front of me, and the space shattered like glass, leaving a tear of nothingness. Cracks spread from that nothingness, causing more of the space to vanish, rapidly consuming the entire desert. As this universe fell apart, I could feel others like it close by. I grabbed onto one, and pulled myself into it.
Another wasteland. But this time, a wasteland of snow.
Let’s see what I can find here.
After suffering from thirst for so long, I didn’t exactly have much self-control when I saw it. I practically threw myself at the water, trying to grab as much as I could with each handful. Felt like I could drink the whole lake, and I’d still be thirsty.
But as I swallowed more water, I started noticing a metallic taste in it. Looked down at my hands in the water, and saw blood coming off them. Pulled them out, as blood continued ripping off them. There was no open wound anywhere on them, but the blood kept flowing from between my fingers. In a panic, I threw them back into the water, trying to get it off. It was a wasted effort; no matter how much I washed off, there was still more. The red spread through the lake, until the clear water had turned crimson.
At last, with the lake completely changed, the blood stopped. I wanted to recoil from the pool of blood that had replaced the oasis, but felt unable to pull my eyes away. The blood beneath my face began to whirl, and the color pulled away, creating an empty circle. The water in the circle wasn’t clear like before, but perfectly reflective, like a mirror. It was weird, seeing my face like that. Haven’t had the chance to look at it in a while. Almost didn’t recognize myself. Looked halfway like a corpse. Or maybe a skeleton held together by skin, blood, and dirt.
The water shifted again, and a new face was looking at me. For a split second, I thought it was Grendel. But no, this was a woman. I stared at it, trying to understand why it seemed so familiar. The realization struck as something of a surprise: it was me. Or, me if I was cleaned up and not starving to death. All my scars were gone on her, and she still had my suit and trench coat, but they were both completely black, with the only splash of color coming from a green tie. Her smile was filled with shark like teeth, and her two burning red eyes seemed to pierce through me. I moved my hand to where my right eye would be, and the reflection followed, but I still only felt my eye patch, and the empty socket beneath.
The reflection began to move on its own, lunging toward me. Before I could respond, its arms broke from beneath the water and grabbed around my waist, quickly pulling me under. I panicked, thinking I was going to drown, but when I fell through the lake, I wasn’t underwater. I was in a black void, without any sign of anything else around me.
Looked around for something in the emptiness, and finally a light appeared by me. Images flashed in it, showing me my life in reverse. All the things I’ve done. The mistakes I’ve made. The people I’ve killed. Every horrible decision. But when it got to the point where I became I-330, the images began to diverge from what I remember. The perspective was wrong; it wasn’t of me falling into the Quiet, but of me already inside, watching Lisa falling. Then the images went further back, into events I didn’t remember at all. I stood amongst a field of stars, and the Slender Man stood opposed to me. With a mere though, I pulled a star to me. A massive ball of fire, and I balanced it easily in the palm of my hand. With a wave, I threw the star at the Slender Man.
The images flashed further back, and I saw my worshippers flocking to the massive temples they had erected in my honor. Their numbers were uncountable, across millions of planets through the abyss of times. Humanity was barely a speck amongst them; a single species on a single planet that existed for only a heartbeat. It amused me to see all the tribute gathered for me. They believed they could avoid my wrath with such gifts. But it was my boredom, not my anger, that they should have feared. They were like flies to me, and they existed so I could pull their wings off. I raised a species of dumb animals to intelligence, then stole their sentience away at the height of their empire. Another race I granted immensely powerful weapons, then laughed as they destroyed themselves. All of reality was my toy. All existed for my amusement.
Further back. There were no starts of planets here. Nothing but the unmolded chaos of Azathoth’s dreams. I could feel the presence of Yog-Sothoth and Sub-Nigurtath, but I didn’t care about them. They were just mindless monsters. No entertainment to be gained from them. And then, the images stopped. I was back in the blackness beneath the lake. But now, someone else was there with me. A tall, proud looking man with dark skin, black eyes, and a golden crown. Recognized him as the Pharaoh I’d seen in R’lyeh.
His voice was softer this time, but it still had that sense of earth shaking authority behind every word. “I suppose it would be too much to expect you would experience a revelation from what you saw.”
“…Alright what the fuck is going on here. Didn’t I kill you or something already?”
“From a certain perspective, yes. Although a better phrase would be that you inherited me.”
Tried to remember back to what had happened. Hadn’t been in my best state of mind when I fought Grendel on R’lyeh. What with the sword through my stomach. “You’re… Nyarlathotep?”
“No.” I blinked, and his appearance changed into the same as the reflection I’d seen in the lake. It spoke again, now with my voice. “You are Nyarlathotep. You really need to stop treating me as a separate entity from yourself.”
“What? I’m not… I know I’m, well, kinda like the spawn of Nyarlathotep or something like that. I’ve had enough Fears telling it to me for it to be drilled into my head.”
“Really? Because you were very quick to accuse me of being Nyarlathotep.”
“Well, you’re, like, I don’t know, the mental incarnation of him or something? The source of those whispers I’ve been hearing or something?”
“No.” I blinked again, and she was gone. But I could still hear her voice. “There is no ‘incarnation’ of Nyarlathotep in your head. Nyarlathotep does not have some kind of separate presence in your mind. You never heard any whispers. There has only ever been one voice in your head. Yours.”
Looked around, trying to find some source of that voice. I wanted it to be coming from outside. Wanted it to be from anywhere but my own head. It wasn’t.
“You’ve gone to such amazing lengths to deny your identity, and treat everything relating to Nyarlathotep as though it was an outside force. Calling your own thoughts ‘voices’. Claiming you don’t know how you kept getting greater control over your abilities. Treating recalling memories as information being put in your head. You are so determined to portray yourself as a human who just happens to have weird things happen to her, in spite of the fact that you aren’t human at all. You never have been.”
“No, I’m… I….” Kept thinking back to the images I’d seen, of the god who toyed with the universe. Who would lead billions to their death just for a quick laugh. “I’m not that. I’m nothing like that.”
“Maybe not. But you were. And you will be again, if you want the power to defeat the Slender Man.”
“No! Stop… why are you trying so hard to convince me?”
“I’m not.” Blinked again, and a mirror was in front of me. This time, the reflection wasn’t changed; it looked exactly like me. “I am you. You’re already partially convinced. You just need to stop this pointless internal conflict, and you can finally start getting some real progress done.”
This conversation was rapidly approaching my tolerance level for smug people telling me what to do. So I smashed the mirror. The moment it shattered, the void was gone, and I was underwater. Took a few moments to get myself oriented, until I saw a light above me. Swam towards it, until I came out in the middle of the oasis.
There’d been some changes since I fell into the lake. My suit and coat are back, but they’re black, like the reflection’s had been. Don’t feel hungry or thirsty anymore, and I look much healthier. Still have all those scars.
And much to my surprise, in the time I was gone, the Slender Man’s tree had grown on the horizon. Knew I would need to run again. But not the panicked flight I’d done previously. New knowledge, or memories, or whatever they were, were bubbling to the surface of my mind. I couldn’t fight against the Slender Man. But maybe I could slow it down.
The shadows of my left arm started to shift until chaotic shapes, until it only resembled an arm in that it was a limb attached to my body. They tore through the air in front of me, and the space shattered like glass, leaving a tear of nothingness. Cracks spread from that nothingness, causing more of the space to vanish, rapidly consuming the entire desert. As this universe fell apart, I could feel others like it close by. I grabbed onto one, and pulled myself into it.
Another wasteland. But this time, a wasteland of snow.
Let’s see what I can find here.
Friday, August 2, 2013
The Garden of Desolation
So. A desert. A really really big desert. After the freakiness of the last place, this is a little boring. You’ve seen one sand dune, you’ve seen them all.
The lack of any landmarks makes it difficult to be certain, but this place feels familiar. It reminds me of the desert I saw in my dream when I spoke with the Mother of Snakes. But now that the Mother’s dead, it would be hard to confirm if they’re the same place.
Not really sure what to do here. I suppose I could start walking, but I wouldn’t know where I’m walking to. Beats standing here and doing nothing, though.
***
I think it’s been three hours since I last wrote. Yeah, I’m gonna go with three hours.
Still no sign of anything. Walking in this place is horrible. The heat never stops beating down on me; I’ve discarded my trench coat and suit jacket, but that hasn’t helped even slightly. There’s no shade, and judging by the lack of a sun, I doubt there’ll be any night. Nothing but a lot of sand and that stupid heat.
***
I’m thirsty. I’m genuinely thirsty. I have felt this since… well, since I was… human. I’d almost forgotten what the sensation was like. But something but something about this place makes my throat feel parched, and has me craving for a drink. No chance of finding a water fountain here, though.
***
Wasn’t that long ago I thought that I wanted to get the chance to pause and reflect on what I’m doing. Now I’ve got the chance, and I wish I had something else to do instead.
What the hell was I thinking? How did we think I could beat the Slender Man? Everything I’ve done, I’ve fucked up. The only things I ever seem to succeed at is controlling the damage of my mistakes, and even that I screw up.
Maybe it’s for the best that I’m lost here. I can’t ruin anything here.
***
Now I’m hungry. That’s a feeling I definitely didn’t miss. Why the hell is this happening? What kind of place is this?
***
I’m going to fucking murder whichever Fear this desert belongs to. If it’s the Mother of Snakes I will fucking find a way to bring her back from the dead so I can stab her in the god damn face over and over until her head is nothing but a bloody mess!
Who do these Fears think I am? They think they can toy with me? I. Will. Kill them. Every last one.
***
Thought I saw Lisa in the distance. Considering I’m not an idiot, I realized it was just a mirage caused by the heat and this feeling of dehydration, and that I shouldn’t waste my time with it.
Of course, I had to be safe, so I checked anyway.
I was right. It was a mirage.
***
I fucking hate sand.
***
Yeah 330, let’s just go on a magical journey to rip the fabric of the multiverse apart! I can’t see how that could possibly backfire and end up in us being trapped forever inside a magical desert world!
I was better off back when I just focused on fighting Grendel.
Or maybe not, because his whole plan relied on me ripping apart the multiverse. So really the best course of action I could have taken would have been to stay in bed. Forever.
***
Wasn’t the Slender Man hunting me or something? I wish he’d show up. Then he could just kill me.
Or maybe I’d kill him. I wonder if he bleeds?
God I’m thirsty.
***
Okay. We can get through this, 330. We just need to… need to figure out how to extract moisture from the air. Yeah. Genius idea, 330. That’s totally something that is doable. Can’t be too hard.
Fucking hell I don’t even know what I’m writing anymore.
***
Looks like a lake up ahead. Probably another mirage. Going to go check it out, because why the hell not.
The lack of any landmarks makes it difficult to be certain, but this place feels familiar. It reminds me of the desert I saw in my dream when I spoke with the Mother of Snakes. But now that the Mother’s dead, it would be hard to confirm if they’re the same place.
Not really sure what to do here. I suppose I could start walking, but I wouldn’t know where I’m walking to. Beats standing here and doing nothing, though.
***
I think it’s been three hours since I last wrote. Yeah, I’m gonna go with three hours.
Still no sign of anything. Walking in this place is horrible. The heat never stops beating down on me; I’ve discarded my trench coat and suit jacket, but that hasn’t helped even slightly. There’s no shade, and judging by the lack of a sun, I doubt there’ll be any night. Nothing but a lot of sand and that stupid heat.
***
I’m thirsty. I’m genuinely thirsty. I have felt this since… well, since I was… human. I’d almost forgotten what the sensation was like. But something but something about this place makes my throat feel parched, and has me craving for a drink. No chance of finding a water fountain here, though.
***
Wasn’t that long ago I thought that I wanted to get the chance to pause and reflect on what I’m doing. Now I’ve got the chance, and I wish I had something else to do instead.
What the hell was I thinking? How did we think I could beat the Slender Man? Everything I’ve done, I’ve fucked up. The only things I ever seem to succeed at is controlling the damage of my mistakes, and even that I screw up.
Maybe it’s for the best that I’m lost here. I can’t ruin anything here.
***
Now I’m hungry. That’s a feeling I definitely didn’t miss. Why the hell is this happening? What kind of place is this?
***
I’m going to fucking murder whichever Fear this desert belongs to. If it’s the Mother of Snakes I will fucking find a way to bring her back from the dead so I can stab her in the god damn face over and over until her head is nothing but a bloody mess!
Who do these Fears think I am? They think they can toy with me? I. Will. Kill them. Every last one.
***
Thought I saw Lisa in the distance. Considering I’m not an idiot, I realized it was just a mirage caused by the heat and this feeling of dehydration, and that I shouldn’t waste my time with it.
Of course, I had to be safe, so I checked anyway.
I was right. It was a mirage.
***
I fucking hate sand.
***
Yeah 330, let’s just go on a magical journey to rip the fabric of the multiverse apart! I can’t see how that could possibly backfire and end up in us being trapped forever inside a magical desert world!
I was better off back when I just focused on fighting Grendel.
Or maybe not, because his whole plan relied on me ripping apart the multiverse. So really the best course of action I could have taken would have been to stay in bed. Forever.
***
Wasn’t the Slender Man hunting me or something? I wish he’d show up. Then he could just kill me.
Or maybe I’d kill him. I wonder if he bleeds?
God I’m thirsty.
***
Okay. We can get through this, 330. We just need to… need to figure out how to extract moisture from the air. Yeah. Genius idea, 330. That’s totally something that is doable. Can’t be too hard.
Fucking hell I don’t even know what I’m writing anymore.
***
Looks like a lake up ahead. Probably another mirage. Going to go check it out, because why the hell not.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
The Screaming Tower
The Wooden Girl is a bitch.
And that’s all I have to say on the matter.
***
It was only moments after writing how suspicious the open gate was that I-330 decided to enter the castle. Without hesitation, she strode forward. When her foot crossed the threshold, instead of entering the gardens which she had seen from outside the walls, she was indoors. It was a circular tower, with red and black checkered floors and a gilded spiral staircase stretching up higher than I-330 could see. When she looked back, there was no sign of any doorway or gate that she had come through. The walls of the tower were perfectly smooth stone, without any openings. Yet even without any windows or sources of light, the interior was completely illuminated.
Cautiously, I-330 went to the stairs and began to walk up them. After some time, she started to wish that she had counted steps, because there was no way to tell how far she had traveled. When she looked down, she couldn’t see the floor anymore, but when looking up there still didn’t seem to be any end.
As she came up one step, a pathway made of gilded metal extended from the stairs, reaching towards an ivory door. Once again, the invitation seemed suspicious, but I-330’s curiosity overrode any doubts. She went through the door, and found herself in the back of a grand theater. The rows were filled with audience members, all focused on the stage with grins fixed on their faces. The play being performed was a domestic comedy, featuring slapstick quarrels between the bumbling husband and his wife. I-330 watched with more than a little confusion at the performance. The acting was stiff, more like a puppet show than a theater. But in spite of the show’s poor quality, the audience laughed mechanically at each joke.
At one point in the play, the wife responded to her husband’s blunder by hitting him over the head with a rolling pin, causing the pin to snap in two. The audience burst into laughter, and continued laughing as she kept hitting him. Even as his skull started to cave in, and blood splattered across the stage, the laughter didn’t stop.
I-330 ran out of the theater, back onto the staircase. She had come to the conclusion that this was “a seriously fucked up place,” and leaving should be her first priority.
But when she tried running down the stairs, instead of descending through the tower, she continued to go higher. When she tried running the opposite direction it had the same result. No matter where she went on the stairs, she kept getting closer to the top. Until, without any indication that it was coming, the stairs stopped. At the end was another door, made of black wood. After her experience with the last door, I-330 quickly came to the decision to not go through this one. She turned to leave, only to find that the stairs had disappeared, leaving instead a massive drop that stretched all the way down to the bottom of the tower. The only path open was through that door.
Before going through, I-330 turned her shadow arm into a blade. At the very least, she could be prepared to fight. With painfully slow caution, she cracked the door open, and peeked inside. The room beyond had the same red and black checker tile as the bottom of the tower. The walls were covered in shelves of porcelain dolls, and in the center was a table, set for tea. Seeing no one inside, I-330 entered the room, and walked to the table. It had a distinctly Victorian appearance, with a lace trimmed tablecloth and elegantly crafted china.
I-330 reached for a cup, and the moment her hand touched it, deafening laughter came from the dolls on the shelves. I-330 turned to run for the door, but standing between her and the exit was the Wooden Girl. Before I-330 could fight, strings fell from above, wrapping around her limbs.
The dolls stopped laughing, and the Wooden Girl raised its arms up. “Yes! I did it!” It started skipping around I-330, giggling as it spoke. “All this time I’ve been trying so hard to get you, when I just needed to open the front door and let you walk in!” It skipped up to I-330 and grabbed her jaw. “Now, you belong to me.” The Wooden Girl forced I-330’s mouth open, then stuck a hand inside. I-330 felt strings flowing down her throat, into the rest of her body.
“This is… the heart. Let’s try stopping that.” The Wooden Girl said, and I-330 felt like her chest was about to burst. “Aaaaand start it again.” The pain vanished. “And here’s the lungs….” I-330 started choking, unable to draw in breath. “Alright, enough of that.” The Wooden Girl pulled its hand out, and I-330 could breathe again. “Oh, don’t glare at me like that.” It said. “You’re my pet now. Put on a smile.” Against her will, I-330 felt her lips turning up into a grin. “Muuuuch better.”
The Girl clapped its hands and giggled again. “I’m going to have so much fun with you! Ever since we met, I’ve been saving a special place in my plays for you! And I’ve set up a room just for you to stay in and have all kinds of games for us to play and it will be so fun! Won’t that be fun? Say ‘Yes, Mistress.’”
I-330 struggled against the command, but was unable to control her mouth. “Yes… Mistress.”
The Wooden Girl squealed with excitement and jumped up and down. “Say it again! Say it again!”
“Yes, Mistress.”
With another squeal, the Girl started to run circles around the room. “I can’t wait I’m going to tear your skin off then sow it back on and we’ll dance together and I’ll break all of your fingers and I’ll rip out your throat and then kiss it to make it better and we’ll watch the sunset and I’ll make you gouge out people’s eyeballs and eat them whole and-” The Girl stopped running, and stood straight up. “It’s tea time!”
With a twirl, the Girl sat itself down at the table. “Oh Pet, would you be a dear and pour me a cup?”
I-330 walked to the table and picked up the teapot. She began to pour it, but her grasp started to loosen on its own, until she dropped the pot on the floor, causing it to shatter. The Wooden Girl shook its head. “Oh dear. You’ll need to clean that up.”
“Yes, Mistress.” I-330 went on her hands and knees, and started licking up the tea, while the Wooden Girl laughed.
“You missed a bit.” The Wooden Girl put its foot in front of I-330. “Such a bad pet, spilling tea on its master’s foot. Clean it up as well.”
I-330 struggled for a moment, but then leaned forward and licked the wooden foot. Splinters stabbed through her tongue, and when she stopped her mouth was filled with blood.
“That will do, Pet. Now go and get me another teapot.” A cart with a new tea set had appeared in the room. I-330 began to walk toward it, but suddenly came to a stop. Her shadow arm had grabbed the edge of the table, and was refusing to let go. I-330 tugged on the arm, but it kept its hold. The Wooden Girl flicked a finger, and a string sliced the arm off.
“Get the teapot. Now.”
Unhindered by the arm, I-330 walked to the tray, and picked up the teapot with her remaining hand. But as she lifted it up, her shadow arm regrew, and smashed the pot. Before the Wooden Girl could react, the arm extended in a spike that went through the Girl’s forehead. The Girl fell, and the strings that had been controlling I-330 vanished. Her arm’s sudden attack had surprised I-330 as much as the Girl, but once she took in what had happened, she started running for the exit.
The Wooden Girl rose up, it’s face now painted in an image of rage. “No no NO!” The voice screamed through I-330’s head. “You’re ruining everything!” The dolls rose off the shelves, and flew towards I-330, who smashed them with her shadow arm.
“Stop breaking my things!” The Girl screamed as the roof was torn off, and hundreds of strings came from above. I-330 threw open the door to leave, but there was nothing on the other side but the screaming void.
“You’re going to stay….” The Girl said, slowly advancing forward as the strings followed behind it. “And we’re going to play forever.”
It didn’t take long for I-330 to decide that the screaming void was the preferable alternative there. She jumped, and fell into the darkness. For hours she fell, until space began to distort again. The next I-330 knew, she was lying in sand. And all around her was a massive, unending desert.
And that’s all I have to say on the matter.
***
It was only moments after writing how suspicious the open gate was that I-330 decided to enter the castle. Without hesitation, she strode forward. When her foot crossed the threshold, instead of entering the gardens which she had seen from outside the walls, she was indoors. It was a circular tower, with red and black checkered floors and a gilded spiral staircase stretching up higher than I-330 could see. When she looked back, there was no sign of any doorway or gate that she had come through. The walls of the tower were perfectly smooth stone, without any openings. Yet even without any windows or sources of light, the interior was completely illuminated.
Cautiously, I-330 went to the stairs and began to walk up them. After some time, she started to wish that she had counted steps, because there was no way to tell how far she had traveled. When she looked down, she couldn’t see the floor anymore, but when looking up there still didn’t seem to be any end.
As she came up one step, a pathway made of gilded metal extended from the stairs, reaching towards an ivory door. Once again, the invitation seemed suspicious, but I-330’s curiosity overrode any doubts. She went through the door, and found herself in the back of a grand theater. The rows were filled with audience members, all focused on the stage with grins fixed on their faces. The play being performed was a domestic comedy, featuring slapstick quarrels between the bumbling husband and his wife. I-330 watched with more than a little confusion at the performance. The acting was stiff, more like a puppet show than a theater. But in spite of the show’s poor quality, the audience laughed mechanically at each joke.
At one point in the play, the wife responded to her husband’s blunder by hitting him over the head with a rolling pin, causing the pin to snap in two. The audience burst into laughter, and continued laughing as she kept hitting him. Even as his skull started to cave in, and blood splattered across the stage, the laughter didn’t stop.
I-330 ran out of the theater, back onto the staircase. She had come to the conclusion that this was “a seriously fucked up place,” and leaving should be her first priority.
But when she tried running down the stairs, instead of descending through the tower, she continued to go higher. When she tried running the opposite direction it had the same result. No matter where she went on the stairs, she kept getting closer to the top. Until, without any indication that it was coming, the stairs stopped. At the end was another door, made of black wood. After her experience with the last door, I-330 quickly came to the decision to not go through this one. She turned to leave, only to find that the stairs had disappeared, leaving instead a massive drop that stretched all the way down to the bottom of the tower. The only path open was through that door.
Before going through, I-330 turned her shadow arm into a blade. At the very least, she could be prepared to fight. With painfully slow caution, she cracked the door open, and peeked inside. The room beyond had the same red and black checker tile as the bottom of the tower. The walls were covered in shelves of porcelain dolls, and in the center was a table, set for tea. Seeing no one inside, I-330 entered the room, and walked to the table. It had a distinctly Victorian appearance, with a lace trimmed tablecloth and elegantly crafted china.
I-330 reached for a cup, and the moment her hand touched it, deafening laughter came from the dolls on the shelves. I-330 turned to run for the door, but standing between her and the exit was the Wooden Girl. Before I-330 could fight, strings fell from above, wrapping around her limbs.
The dolls stopped laughing, and the Wooden Girl raised its arms up. “Yes! I did it!” It started skipping around I-330, giggling as it spoke. “All this time I’ve been trying so hard to get you, when I just needed to open the front door and let you walk in!” It skipped up to I-330 and grabbed her jaw. “Now, you belong to me.” The Wooden Girl forced I-330’s mouth open, then stuck a hand inside. I-330 felt strings flowing down her throat, into the rest of her body.
“This is… the heart. Let’s try stopping that.” The Wooden Girl said, and I-330 felt like her chest was about to burst. “Aaaaand start it again.” The pain vanished. “And here’s the lungs….” I-330 started choking, unable to draw in breath. “Alright, enough of that.” The Wooden Girl pulled its hand out, and I-330 could breathe again. “Oh, don’t glare at me like that.” It said. “You’re my pet now. Put on a smile.” Against her will, I-330 felt her lips turning up into a grin. “Muuuuch better.”
The Girl clapped its hands and giggled again. “I’m going to have so much fun with you! Ever since we met, I’ve been saving a special place in my plays for you! And I’ve set up a room just for you to stay in and have all kinds of games for us to play and it will be so fun! Won’t that be fun? Say ‘Yes, Mistress.’”
I-330 struggled against the command, but was unable to control her mouth. “Yes… Mistress.”
The Wooden Girl squealed with excitement and jumped up and down. “Say it again! Say it again!”
“Yes, Mistress.”
With another squeal, the Girl started to run circles around the room. “I can’t wait I’m going to tear your skin off then sow it back on and we’ll dance together and I’ll break all of your fingers and I’ll rip out your throat and then kiss it to make it better and we’ll watch the sunset and I’ll make you gouge out people’s eyeballs and eat them whole and-” The Girl stopped running, and stood straight up. “It’s tea time!”
With a twirl, the Girl sat itself down at the table. “Oh Pet, would you be a dear and pour me a cup?”
I-330 walked to the table and picked up the teapot. She began to pour it, but her grasp started to loosen on its own, until she dropped the pot on the floor, causing it to shatter. The Wooden Girl shook its head. “Oh dear. You’ll need to clean that up.”
“Yes, Mistress.” I-330 went on her hands and knees, and started licking up the tea, while the Wooden Girl laughed.
“You missed a bit.” The Wooden Girl put its foot in front of I-330. “Such a bad pet, spilling tea on its master’s foot. Clean it up as well.”
I-330 struggled for a moment, but then leaned forward and licked the wooden foot. Splinters stabbed through her tongue, and when she stopped her mouth was filled with blood.
“That will do, Pet. Now go and get me another teapot.” A cart with a new tea set had appeared in the room. I-330 began to walk toward it, but suddenly came to a stop. Her shadow arm had grabbed the edge of the table, and was refusing to let go. I-330 tugged on the arm, but it kept its hold. The Wooden Girl flicked a finger, and a string sliced the arm off.
“Get the teapot. Now.”
Unhindered by the arm, I-330 walked to the tray, and picked up the teapot with her remaining hand. But as she lifted it up, her shadow arm regrew, and smashed the pot. Before the Wooden Girl could react, the arm extended in a spike that went through the Girl’s forehead. The Girl fell, and the strings that had been controlling I-330 vanished. Her arm’s sudden attack had surprised I-330 as much as the Girl, but once she took in what had happened, she started running for the exit.
The Wooden Girl rose up, it’s face now painted in an image of rage. “No no NO!” The voice screamed through I-330’s head. “You’re ruining everything!” The dolls rose off the shelves, and flew towards I-330, who smashed them with her shadow arm.
“Stop breaking my things!” The Girl screamed as the roof was torn off, and hundreds of strings came from above. I-330 threw open the door to leave, but there was nothing on the other side but the screaming void.
“You’re going to stay….” The Girl said, slowly advancing forward as the strings followed behind it. “And we’re going to play forever.”
It didn’t take long for I-330 to decide that the screaming void was the preferable alternative there. She jumped, and fell into the darkness. For hours she fell, until space began to distort again. The next I-330 knew, she was lying in sand. And all around her was a massive, unending desert.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
There seems to be a constant trend of me never getting the chance to just sit down and process things. Writing in this journal seems to be the only opportunity I have to think, and even then it only comes in short bursts between disasters.
What I really wanted to do was lie down on that grey shore and stare at the burning sky. Three Fears, dead in seconds. We’d had all these plans, taking on the Slender Man’s Fears individually, trying to pick them off one by one while I regained this power I was told I should have, until we could afford a direct confrontation. But then the Slender Man just wiped them out, with barely any difficulty. How am I ever supposed to compare to that? I’ve only managed to kill one Fear so far, and that was on accident. It destroyed an entire pocket universe by creating and blowing up a fucking star!
I don’t know what I’m going to do next. Maybe if I actually got some time to sit down and try to plan a way out of this god damn mess, I’d figure something out. But I was only on that shoreline for a few minutes when I suddenly felt the ground shaking beneath me. Out in the ocean, that massive tree was appearing. Which meant the Slender Man wouldn’t be far behind.
Once, I might have tried to fight. But after seeing its power in action…. I just ran. Ran like a coward. A stupid coward, considering I had no idea where I was or where I could go. But you rarely think things through when you’re panicking.
Thing about that beach: no matter how far you run on it, you never seem to move. Every time I looked back, the tree was still the same distance from me. And its branches were growing outward, as if reaching for me. The sand beneath my feet started to give way as huge rifts opened up in the ground, and huge waves rose from the ocean. A rift appeared beneath me, and I started to fall into darkness.
And then, I felt something pulling me. An invisible force, grabbing me and ripping me away from that universe. Everything twisted around me, and I was flung through a chaos of space as the sound of a young girls’ laughter echoed in my mind.
When everything stopped, I was no longer on the beach. Instead, I was… wherever this is. It looks like I’m outside the most stereotypical Disney fairy tale palace imaginable, with gleaming white towers and vibrant gardens. Except it also happened to be floating in the middle of a howling void of darkness and screams.
The front gate is wide open. Honestly, it looks a little too inviting. Given the shrieks of terror coming from the whirling blackness all around the estate, I’m a little suspicious. Hence why I’m just sitting out here and writing instead of exploring.
But I’m going to have to go in and explore eventually. It’s just the sort of thing I do.
What I really wanted to do was lie down on that grey shore and stare at the burning sky. Three Fears, dead in seconds. We’d had all these plans, taking on the Slender Man’s Fears individually, trying to pick them off one by one while I regained this power I was told I should have, until we could afford a direct confrontation. But then the Slender Man just wiped them out, with barely any difficulty. How am I ever supposed to compare to that? I’ve only managed to kill one Fear so far, and that was on accident. It destroyed an entire pocket universe by creating and blowing up a fucking star!
I don’t know what I’m going to do next. Maybe if I actually got some time to sit down and try to plan a way out of this god damn mess, I’d figure something out. But I was only on that shoreline for a few minutes when I suddenly felt the ground shaking beneath me. Out in the ocean, that massive tree was appearing. Which meant the Slender Man wouldn’t be far behind.
Once, I might have tried to fight. But after seeing its power in action…. I just ran. Ran like a coward. A stupid coward, considering I had no idea where I was or where I could go. But you rarely think things through when you’re panicking.
Thing about that beach: no matter how far you run on it, you never seem to move. Every time I looked back, the tree was still the same distance from me. And its branches were growing outward, as if reaching for me. The sand beneath my feet started to give way as huge rifts opened up in the ground, and huge waves rose from the ocean. A rift appeared beneath me, and I started to fall into darkness.
And then, I felt something pulling me. An invisible force, grabbing me and ripping me away from that universe. Everything twisted around me, and I was flung through a chaos of space as the sound of a young girls’ laughter echoed in my mind.
When everything stopped, I was no longer on the beach. Instead, I was… wherever this is. It looks like I’m outside the most stereotypical Disney fairy tale palace imaginable, with gleaming white towers and vibrant gardens. Except it also happened to be floating in the middle of a howling void of darkness and screams.
The front gate is wide open. Honestly, it looks a little too inviting. Given the shrieks of terror coming from the whirling blackness all around the estate, I’m a little suspicious. Hence why I’m just sitting out here and writing instead of exploring.
But I’m going to have to go in and explore eventually. It’s just the sort of thing I do.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
The Beach
I’m sitting on a beach of grey sand, watching a still sea as the sky burns from the remains of a dead universe.
What happened to that optimism? We were going to attack. We were going to take the fight to the Fears. Start killing them off. Turn the tides. Win the war. Now… this.
We had been preparing to leave. The Red Cap had suggested we kick our counterattack off by attacking one of the Fears’ pocket universes. If we all attacked one together, we might have been able to kill it before the other Fears arrived to help. The first target was going to be the Black Dog, as that’s the Fear I seem to have had the most success physically fighting.
The Red Cap had started to distort spacetime around us to transport us, when a total silence fell over the temple. Like a switch controlling all the ambient noise had been suddenly switched off. The distortions the Red Cap had been creating vanished, as spacetime reverted to its usual order.
“Oh.” The Red Cap muttered. “Fuck.”
It pushed me away just as black roots broke from the marble floor where I had been standing. The roots wrapped around the Red Cap, and crushed it into a puddle of blood. More roots came out of the ground, impaling the Convocation’s birds and encircling the Brute and Bride. I scrambled across the floor as the roots tore through the tile, coming toward me. Had to stop when my head bumped against the side of the fountain. I looked up, and saw that the blood coming from the fountain had turned black. Cracks were spreading along the marble woman, which quickly reached her eyes. Black branches burst from those eyes, followed by more branches from all over the statue, tearing apart the fountain and splashing that black blood all over me. Had to wipe it away before I could see again, and when I opened my eyes, in place of the fountain was the Slender Man.
It looked down at me, and I felt frozen to that spot. Its hands reached toward me, and started to grow, slowly coming closer. I knew I had to get away from it, but my body couldn’t move. Its hands were almost at me, when a wave of blood hit it, knocking it back. The blood formed into the Red Cap, who quickly shouted at me to run before turning into liquid again and wrapping around the Slender Man.
With the Slender Man pushed back, I could start moving again. Jumped to my feet, and started running away from it. A pillar had been knocked over by one of the roots, so I jumped behind it, using it as cover so I could look at what was happening. The Red Cap was flowing through the air around the Slender Man, changing between humanoid and liquid as it tried to press the Slender Man back further. The Convocation and Brute and Bride had joined in, shooting lightning and fire at it. None of it seemed to have any effect; the Slender Man stood still, unfazed by the attacks hitting it, not once looking away from me.
A bird landed on my shoulder, and started tugging at me. I slowly followed its pull away from the fight, but kept looking back at the Slender Man. As I moved away, it followed after, slowly taking each step, without a care for the Fears trying to stop it. The Red Cap appeared in front of it, and blood poured from every nook and crack of the temple behind it. The blood came into a huge wave that towered over everyone, which thundered toward the Slender Man, shattering the roots and pillars in its way.
The wave hit the Slender Man and completely enveloped it. But when the wave had passed, it was still standing. It pointed an arm at the Red Cap, and black branches rapidly grew out of it, impaling the Red Cap. The Red Cap struggled against the branches for a few moments, and then dissolved into a pool of lifeless, inert blood.
The Convocation swarmed around the Slender Man, completely covering it in birds. Sparks flew between their wings, turning them into a mass of lightning that roared around the Slender Man. Hundreds of branches exploded outward, tearing the birds off the Slender Man and ripping them to shreds. As the blood and guts rained down, the branches retracted back into the Slender Man.
A stream of fire roared across the temple, exploding around the Slender Man as the Burning Bride appeared. The Brute appeared behind the Slender Man, swinging one of its massive fists. Branches came out of the Slender Man’s back, wrapping around the Brute before it could finish its punch. The branches brought the Brute to the ground, trapping it. The Bride unleashed another stream of fire, but as it approached, the Slender Man held out a hand. The fire stopped, then started to flow into its hand. It condensed into a small ball of fire, which vibrated and glowed with all the energy being compressed into it. It almost looked like a star was growing in its hand.
The bird that had been pulling me earlier started tugging at my sleeve again, and I let it guide me. As we got away, spacetime around us started to distort. Before we teleported, I looked back once. The Bride had been trapped to the ground by more branches, and the star in the Slender Man’s hand was violently shaking as more fire was drawn into it.
There was a burning flash of light and a roar just as we teleported, and we appeared on a grey beach that stretched on and on. The place looked like it was shrouded in twilight at first, but then a sun exploded into existence in the sky, bathing everything in burning light. Trails of flame leapt from the sun, leaving burning gashes across the sky.
The bird that had taken me there, the last of the Convocation, let go of me. It tried to fly, but fell to the ground. After a few more attempts to flap its wings, it became completely still. Leaving me all alone on this grey beach.
What happened to that optimism? We were going to attack. We were going to take the fight to the Fears. Start killing them off. Turn the tides. Win the war. Now… this.
We had been preparing to leave. The Red Cap had suggested we kick our counterattack off by attacking one of the Fears’ pocket universes. If we all attacked one together, we might have been able to kill it before the other Fears arrived to help. The first target was going to be the Black Dog, as that’s the Fear I seem to have had the most success physically fighting.
The Red Cap had started to distort spacetime around us to transport us, when a total silence fell over the temple. Like a switch controlling all the ambient noise had been suddenly switched off. The distortions the Red Cap had been creating vanished, as spacetime reverted to its usual order.
“Oh.” The Red Cap muttered. “Fuck.”
It pushed me away just as black roots broke from the marble floor where I had been standing. The roots wrapped around the Red Cap, and crushed it into a puddle of blood. More roots came out of the ground, impaling the Convocation’s birds and encircling the Brute and Bride. I scrambled across the floor as the roots tore through the tile, coming toward me. Had to stop when my head bumped against the side of the fountain. I looked up, and saw that the blood coming from the fountain had turned black. Cracks were spreading along the marble woman, which quickly reached her eyes. Black branches burst from those eyes, followed by more branches from all over the statue, tearing apart the fountain and splashing that black blood all over me. Had to wipe it away before I could see again, and when I opened my eyes, in place of the fountain was the Slender Man.
It looked down at me, and I felt frozen to that spot. Its hands reached toward me, and started to grow, slowly coming closer. I knew I had to get away from it, but my body couldn’t move. Its hands were almost at me, when a wave of blood hit it, knocking it back. The blood formed into the Red Cap, who quickly shouted at me to run before turning into liquid again and wrapping around the Slender Man.
With the Slender Man pushed back, I could start moving again. Jumped to my feet, and started running away from it. A pillar had been knocked over by one of the roots, so I jumped behind it, using it as cover so I could look at what was happening. The Red Cap was flowing through the air around the Slender Man, changing between humanoid and liquid as it tried to press the Slender Man back further. The Convocation and Brute and Bride had joined in, shooting lightning and fire at it. None of it seemed to have any effect; the Slender Man stood still, unfazed by the attacks hitting it, not once looking away from me.
A bird landed on my shoulder, and started tugging at me. I slowly followed its pull away from the fight, but kept looking back at the Slender Man. As I moved away, it followed after, slowly taking each step, without a care for the Fears trying to stop it. The Red Cap appeared in front of it, and blood poured from every nook and crack of the temple behind it. The blood came into a huge wave that towered over everyone, which thundered toward the Slender Man, shattering the roots and pillars in its way.
The wave hit the Slender Man and completely enveloped it. But when the wave had passed, it was still standing. It pointed an arm at the Red Cap, and black branches rapidly grew out of it, impaling the Red Cap. The Red Cap struggled against the branches for a few moments, and then dissolved into a pool of lifeless, inert blood.
The Convocation swarmed around the Slender Man, completely covering it in birds. Sparks flew between their wings, turning them into a mass of lightning that roared around the Slender Man. Hundreds of branches exploded outward, tearing the birds off the Slender Man and ripping them to shreds. As the blood and guts rained down, the branches retracted back into the Slender Man.
A stream of fire roared across the temple, exploding around the Slender Man as the Burning Bride appeared. The Brute appeared behind the Slender Man, swinging one of its massive fists. Branches came out of the Slender Man’s back, wrapping around the Brute before it could finish its punch. The branches brought the Brute to the ground, trapping it. The Bride unleashed another stream of fire, but as it approached, the Slender Man held out a hand. The fire stopped, then started to flow into its hand. It condensed into a small ball of fire, which vibrated and glowed with all the energy being compressed into it. It almost looked like a star was growing in its hand.
The bird that had been pulling me earlier started tugging at my sleeve again, and I let it guide me. As we got away, spacetime around us started to distort. Before we teleported, I looked back once. The Bride had been trapped to the ground by more branches, and the star in the Slender Man’s hand was violently shaking as more fire was drawn into it.
There was a burning flash of light and a roar just as we teleported, and we appeared on a grey beach that stretched on and on. The place looked like it was shrouded in twilight at first, but then a sun exploded into existence in the sky, bathing everything in burning light. Trails of flame leapt from the sun, leaving burning gashes across the sky.
The bird that had taken me there, the last of the Convocation, let go of me. It tried to fly, but fell to the ground. After a few more attempts to flap its wings, it became completely still. Leaving me all alone on this grey beach.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
What do you do when you start questioning who you are?
I’m looking at the last entry I wrote in this journal, and I’m having a hard time convincing myself I said those things, let alone wrote them down. No, I don’t want the Red Cap bowing to me, it’s fucking creepy. Why the fuck am I even working alongside these monsters? There’s no point to their rebellion thing. I already lost. Humanity’s dead.
Of course I’m still going to wipe the Fears out of existence as payback for that, but there’s no reason I should be as… eager about it as I seemed in my last entry.
I think I’ve been putting this off for too long. Whenever I’ve been in a really bad pinch, I keep being saved by shutting off any thought process and letting what can only be called instinct handle everything for me. Suddenly gaining the ability to withstand excessive physical trauma and fight with a sword during Grendel’s revolution; almost singlehandedly fighting my way out of a heavily fortified bunker when I woke up in another universe; killing a fucking Fear with one hand…. I don’t know where it’s coming from, it just happens. Like with this arm. There was no process of learning how to make it shapeshift, that knowledge just kinda gradually filtered into my brain. Never took the time to stop and think about it. Always was too busy, or just didn’t want to think about it. Kept pushing it off in favor of more direct issues. But ever since R’lyeh, it’s been getting worse. The whispers, the knowledge, these ambitions….
Thing is, I do have an idea of the why for all of it. Nyarlathotep. I just keep wishing that wasn’t the reason. I’m me. I-330. Badass time traveling monster hunter/The Doctor wannabe extraordinaire. That’s all I want to be. Not an ancient malevolent manifestation of chaos reborn. Just me. But the way things are going, I’m starting to think my opinion’s not going to matter much in the end….
I’m looking at the last entry I wrote in this journal, and I’m having a hard time convincing myself I said those things, let alone wrote them down. No, I don’t want the Red Cap bowing to me, it’s fucking creepy. Why the fuck am I even working alongside these monsters? There’s no point to their rebellion thing. I already lost. Humanity’s dead.
Of course I’m still going to wipe the Fears out of existence as payback for that, but there’s no reason I should be as… eager about it as I seemed in my last entry.
I think I’ve been putting this off for too long. Whenever I’ve been in a really bad pinch, I keep being saved by shutting off any thought process and letting what can only be called instinct handle everything for me. Suddenly gaining the ability to withstand excessive physical trauma and fight with a sword during Grendel’s revolution; almost singlehandedly fighting my way out of a heavily fortified bunker when I woke up in another universe; killing a fucking Fear with one hand…. I don’t know where it’s coming from, it just happens. Like with this arm. There was no process of learning how to make it shapeshift, that knowledge just kinda gradually filtered into my brain. Never took the time to stop and think about it. Always was too busy, or just didn’t want to think about it. Kept pushing it off in favor of more direct issues. But ever since R’lyeh, it’s been getting worse. The whispers, the knowledge, these ambitions….
Thing is, I do have an idea of the why for all of it. Nyarlathotep. I just keep wishing that wasn’t the reason. I’m me. I-330. Badass time traveling monster hunter/The Doctor wannabe extraordinaire. That’s all I want to be. Not an ancient malevolent manifestation of chaos reborn. Just me. But the way things are going, I’m starting to think my opinion’s not going to matter much in the end….
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