As Telandros wafted back and forth in the microgravity of the shuttle, the rear tentacle of his six-limbed, biomechanical body clutched around one of the perching rods that were ubiquitous in Star Siren crafts, he couldn’t help but feel a little less like a Posthuman demigod and a little more like some sessile filter feeder at the mercy of the ocean’s currents.

Though he was physically capable of moving about in anything from microgravity to high gravity with equal ease, and neither would have any physiological impact on his health, he was steadfastly of the opinion that Martian gravity was the ‘correct’ gravity. That was the rate that most interplanetary vessels accelerated and decelerated at, and his mother ship the Forenaustica had two separate Martian gravity centrifuges, alongside one Earth and two Lunar centrifuges.

And of course, despite the aeons he had spent travelling around the galaxy, Mars would always be his homeworld.

When he was in microgravity, he usually preferred to move about by using the articulated, fractally branching filaments that covered his body to stick to surfaces through Casimir forces, creeping along them like a starfish creeping along the ocean floor. But his hostesses here adored microgravity, and moving about in an intentionally macrogravital manner would have been seen as distasteful to them.

The Star Sirens found a great many things distasteful, and Telandros knew he had to tread lightly if he wished to retain their services. Or, more accurately, he would have to avoid treading altogether.

“Ah, hello?” a soft voice squeaked out from beneath him. It sounded like a Star Siren’s voice, but instead of singing sirensong it was speaking Solglossia, the de facto lingua franca of the Sol system’s transhuman races. “Are you Tellie?”

Telandros pointed the six-eyed, circular sensory array that counted as his face down towards the shuttle’s entrance hatch, and spotted the bald and elongated head of a light-blue Star Siren timidly peeking up at him.

Once upon a time, the Star Sirens had been the most radical species of transhumans ever created, but this gentle sylph now seemed so fragilely human compared to Telandros. Fortunately for her, Telandros was not merely a demigod, but a gentleman as well.

“I am the galactinaut Telandros Phi-Delta-Five of the TXS Forenaustica, Regosophic Era Martian Posthuman of the Ultimanthropus aeonian-excelsior clade, and repatriated citizen of the Transcendental Tharsis Technate; but you may call me Tellie if you wish,” he said with a gentle bow of his head tentacle, politely folding his four arm tentacles behind his back to appear as non-threatening as possible. “And what is your name, young Star Siren?”

“Wylaxia; Wylaxia Kaliphimoasm Odaidiance vi Poseidese,” she said as she jetted upwards, folding her arms behind her back as well as she attempted to project some confidence and authority.

At a glance, there wasn’t much to distinguish her from the Star Sirens of ancient times. Their enhanced DNA repair made mutations extremely rare, and their universal use of artificial reproduction left even less of a chance for such mutations to get passed on. They were also unusually conservative in their use of elective genetic modifications, more often than not simply cloning from a pool of tried and true genotypes. As a result, their rate of evolution was extremely slow, and genetically they had been classified as the same species for the past three million years.   

They had advanced technologically, of course. The crystalline exocortexes on their heads, the photonic diodes that studded their bodies, and the nanotech fibers woven into their tissues were all superior to those of their ancestors. The hulls of their vessels were now constructed from stable forms of exotic matter rather than diamondoid, though their frugality and cultural fondness for the substance meant that it was still in use wherever it was practical. Matter/energy conversion had replaced nuclear fusion, but solar power beamed straight from the Mercurial Dyson Swarm was still the cheapest energy around. Most impressively, the Star Sirens now maintained a monopoly on the interstellar wormhole network, a monopoly which even the Posthumans of the Tharsis Technate dared not infringe upon out of fear of destabilizing the astropolitical power balance.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Poseidese. I wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to you and your fleet for allowing me to charter your services,” Telandros said.

“Oh, we’re happy to help. I am, at least. Not to, ah, exoticize you or anything, but you’re the first Tharsisian Posthuman I’ve ever met,” Wylaxia admitted. “You came straight here from Saturn, right? Went right past Uranus? Was it the smell?”

Sadly, her joke fell flat, as Telandros just stared at her blankly for a moment.

“Ouranos is currently well outside of Saturn’s optimal transit window; a detour to visit it would have been highly inefficient,” he replied.

“I didn’t say Ouranos. I said Uranus. I, I was trying to make a joke,” she explained apologetically.

“…That pun requires rather obscure knowledge of ancient etymology to make any sense,” Telandros said.

“So you do get it?” she asked with an excited smile.  

“…I understand why the name Uranus is humourous, yes,” he agreed. “But I truly am extremely appreciative of your services. When I learned that an abandoned asteroid habitat had drifted in from the Oort Cloud and fallen into high orbit around Neptune, I knew I had to visit it before I returned to the Inner System. But no one down on Triton would rent me a vessel. They were downright superstitious about it, acting as if I was disturbing a mummies’ tomb.”

“Neptune and the Kuiper Belt are the last bastions of Solar Civilization out here, and the Oorties make us all a little nervous,” Wylaxia admitted. “Over the aeons, there have been plenty of attempts by all sorts of mavericks to settle the asteroids in the Oort cloud. Most fail, and the settlers either return home or die out, but some must have managed to take root. They’ve been out there in total or near total isolation for thousands, maybe even millions of years. We don’t know what they’ve turned into, but a lot of the ships and probes that try to travel through the Oort Cloud are never heard from again. The only reason none of us blasted that habitat into dust before it fell into orbit is because we were terrified of what would happen if we drew first blood. We’ve watched it vigilantly for millennia now, but we’ve never dared to disturb it. If there’s anything inside, it’s either dead or… dormant.”

“But yet your fleet is willing to let me investigate it?” Telandros asked.

“We are. We’ve suggested the idea of Posthumans investigating the Oort craft before, but you’re the first of your people to ever seem to think it was worth their time,” Wylaxia replied. “We’re not about to let this opportunity slip through our fingers.”

“Then I am pleased my shore leave could be of service to you as well,” Telandros said. “Is it your intention to accompany me on this excursion then?”

“It is. You’re not compatible with our Overmind, and we want to see this with our own eyes,” Wylaxia replied. “I’ve volunteered to accompany you, and I trust it goes without saying that my Fleet will hold you solely responsible if anything were to happen to me.”

“I will do everything in my power to ensure you’re returned home safely, young Star Siren,” Telandros vowed. “I’m ready to depart if you are.”

With an enthusiastic nod, Wylaxia fired the light jets on her photonic diodes to propel herself over to Telandros. Clutching onto the perch beside him with her prehensile feet and tail, she began tapping buttons on her AR display which only she could see. The phased optic arrays which coated most of the inside of the craft refused to display any pertinent information, and considering that it was still under the control of its mothership’s superintelligent Overmind, Telandros couldn’t help but take this as an intentional slight against him.

Wylaxia piloted their shuttle into the ship’s photonic cyclotron, where a specialized tractor beam rapidly accelerated it around and around while cancelling out all the g-forces. Once they had reached their desired velocity, they were shot out into space and towards the mysterious Oort craft in high orbit of Neptune.

They had only been travelling a moment when Telandros noted Wylaxia wincing slightly, as if a part of herself had been left behind, and assumed they had passed out of range of real-time communications with her Overmind.

“May I please have a volumetric display of all relevant astronautical and operational data?” Telandros requested in sirensong.

As he suspected, now that the ship was no longer sentient, it granted him this simple request without objection.

“Please don’t do that,” Wylaxia objected softly, averting her gaze as if he had just paid her some grave insult.

“Miss Poseidese, if I am to conduct a proper investigation of this vessel I will require – ” he began.

“No, I mean don’t sing sirensong!” she shouted sharply, the catlike pupils of her large eyes constricting in fury. “That’s our language!”

Sirensong was a highly complex, precise, and information-dense musical language that required not only the Sirens’ specific cognitive enhancements but also their specialized vocal tracts to speak fluently. Among transhuman races, at least. Posthumans like Telandros could replicate it effortlessly, a feat which the Star Sirens genuinely regarded as… disrespectful.      

“Of course, my apologies. I meant no disrespect,” Telandros said in Solglossia with a contrite bow of his head. 

In truth, he didn’t fully understand why sirensong was so sacred to the Star Sirens, as linguistically they were almost the exact opposite of his own people. Though each Posthuman’s mind was fully sovereign, they communicated primarily through the use of technological telepathy. Their advanced minds thought mainly in the form of hyperdimensional semantic graphs that couldn’t be properly represented with the spoken or written word, and they resorted only to these highly simplified forms of communication when absolutely necessary.

The Star Sirens, on the other hand, despite forming large and overlapping Overminds, sang aloud almost constantly. While this was partially because their still fairly human brains imposed certain limits on direct mind-to-mind communication that were best solved with phonetic language, there was no doubt that music was simply a beloved tenet of their culture.   

Wylaxia didn’t acknowledge his apology. She merely averted her gaze from him while icily shifting her shoulders.

“Would you like me to share some of my language with you?” Telandros offered.

“You know I can’t comprehend your language,” she said dismissively.

“Not fluently, perhaps, but you do possess some capacity for higher-dimensional visualization,” he said. “I could tell you my name, if you like.”

Wylaxia perked her head slightly at this, obviously intrigued by the prospect.

“Your name? You mean, your True Name?” she asked.

“No, my real name. I’m not a Fairy or a Demon. It won’t give you any power over me or anything like that,” Telandros clarified. “I just thought it might be of some cultural interest to you.”

She considered the offer for a moment, and then nodded in the affirmative.

Almost instantly, she received a notification that her exocortexes were now holding a file from a foreign system. Though she was urged to delete it, she opened it with a mere back-and-forth flickering of her eyes.   

“By Cosmothea, this is your name?” she asked, unable to hold back a laugh. “This sprawling fractal of multidimensional polytopes is your name?”

“It is a unique signifier by which I may be identified along with any generally pertinent personal information, so yes; that is my name,” Telandros nodded.

“It’s… oddly beautiful, in its way,” Wylaxia admitted with a weak smile.

“Of course it is. It’s math,” Telandros agreed.

“Well, you can’t make music without math,” Wylaxia added. “Thank you. I’m sorry I snapped at you. You didn’t mean any offense. You were just asking for a display, which you should have had to begin with.”

“I was perhaps a bit thoughtless. I know from experience what a proud people you are,” Telandros said. “Recent and ancient experience, as a matter of fact. When the Forenaustica returned to Sol, I admit I was surprised that the Star Sirens were both still so prevalent and yet so unchanged. Surprised, but not displeased. Humanity is better for being able to count such an enchanting race of space mermaids among its myriad of species.”

“There’s no need to flatter me, Tellie. I’ve already forgiven you,” Wylaxia said. “But, tell me; can you really remember things from three million years ago?”

“My exocortex is capable of yottascale computing. At my present rate of data-compression, I could hypothetically hold trillions of years worth of low-resolution personal memories if I was willing to dedicate the space to it,” he replied. “But is that so strange to you? I know that individually Star Sirens only live centuries to millennia like most transhumans, but your Overminds have roots preceding even the creation of my people. Surely you still have ancient memories available to you. Isn’t that where your Uranus joke came from?”

“Well of course we do, but those are transient. I don’t have millions of years of memories crammed into my own head,” Wylaxia replied. “When our minds grow beyond what one body can hold, those bodies are crystalized and we become one with our Overminds, our psychomes echoing through the minds of our sisters for all eternity. You Posthumans have a much more solitary and physical form of immortality, one that frankly seems kind of… unbearable.”

“Well, keep in mind that your psychology is still fairly close to a baseline human’s, just modified to be better suited for space-faring and Marxism,” Telandros replied. “Our psychology was redesigned from scratch, and is well adapted to indefinite lifespans. We are not prone to Elvish melancholy or vampiric angst as many older transhumans tend to be. We live for the eternal, and we live for the now, and the two are not in conflict. At any rate, I consider three million years in this body preferable to spending them as a ghost in one of your Overminds.”

“We aren’t in the Overmind. We are the Overmind. We are Her, and She is us,” Wylaxia said. “I’ll be a goddess, not a ghost; one with all my sisters, ancestors, and descendants until the end of our race. I wouldn’t want to live forever any other way.”  

“While I don’t share that sentiment, I will grant you this; there are certainly worse ways to live forever.”

***

Though the Oort Cloud habitat had been constructed from a hollowed-out asteroid, that wasn’t immediately obvious upon seeing it. Its surface has been smoothed and possibly transmuted into a dull, glassy substance, with uneven spires and valleys that served no clear purpose. Elaborate, intersecting lines had been scorched into the surface at strange angles, overlapping with concentric geometric shapes.

“Has anyone ever made any progress in deciphering the meaning of the outer markings?” Telandros asked as their decelerating shuttle slowly drifted towards the only known docking port on the habitat.

“None, no,” Wylaxia shook her head. “Most people think it’s supposed to be a map, maybe a warning to where in the Oort Cloud it came from, or a threat we’re supposed to destroy, but no one can read it. The outside is dense enough that we’ve never been able to get a clear reading of what’s inside. No one has been willing to force entry before to see what’s inside, so we’re going in blind. The exterior is completely barren of technology; no thrusters, no sensors, not even any damn lights. The fact that the only possible docking port is at the end of an axis would suggest that it was originally a rotating habitat for macrogravitals, but it wasn’t rotating when it got here. I’m not willing to risk any damage to the structure, so I’m going to use macroscopic quantum tunnelling to get through the airlock. Are you alright with that?”

“That’s Clarketech which requires superhuman intelligence merely to operate safely,” Telandros reminded her.

“I have a biological intellect of roughly 400 on the Vangog scale, and my exocortexes can perform zettascale quantum computations; I can get us through a door,” Wylaxia insisted. “When we’re connected to our Overmind, we literally perform surgery with this stuff.”  

“And yet you thought a dead language’s pun based on the word anus was amusing,” Telandros countered as tactfully as he could.  

“…Would you like to drive?” Wylaxia sighed with a roll of her eyes.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Telandros replied politely.

“Is Li-Fi enough bandwidth for you?” she asked as she tapped at her AR display.

“That should be sufficient. We’re just going through a door,” Telandros replied.

Wylaxia shot him an incredulous look, but handed over control of the shuttle to him regardless.

“Not a scratch, you hear me?” she warned.

“I thought you Sirens had engineered possessiveness out of your psyches,” Telandros commented.

“That only applies to personal possessions. We are very respectful of our communal property,” she told him. “This happens to be one of our higher-end shuttles; a Sapphreides Prismera. It's a Solaris Symposium Certified, Magna-Class, Type II Ex-Evo research vessel. The Artemis Astranautics Authority gave it a triple platinum moon rating across all its categories, making it one of my people's most coveted exports. It's jammed with as much advanced technology as we could fit, its hull has a higher purity of femtomatter than our own habitats, its thrusters a higher specific impulse, and its reactor is only a hair's breadth beneath one hundred percent efficiency. My sisters let me use it to keep me safe, and aside from antimatter and the most intense possible forces, a botched quantum tunnel is one of the few things that can damage it, so make sure the hull integrity is flawless!”

“Understood. It’s a Cadillac,” Telandros said, despite doubting that the history and sociology of ancient automobiles was something she kept archived in her personal exocortexes.

He noticed them flickering a little brighter for a fraction of a second, before Wylaxia turned her head and gave him a wry smile.

“She’s a Porsche.”   

The shuttle’s lights began rapidly dimming and glowing at a rate too fast for a human to notice, but Telandros decoded the optical signal effortlessly. Responding in kind with his own facial diodes, he carefully minded the wavefunction of the entire shuttle. The instant they hit the airlock, wavefunctions started collapsing so that the atoms of the shuttle jumped over the atoms of the door without ever being in the intervening space, all while maintaining the structural cohesion of the craft and its occupants.   

They passed through completely unscathed, but Wylaxia still gave a slight shudder when they were on the other side.

“Sorry. Ghosting always makes me feel like someone’s floating past my tomb,” she confessed.

“Maybe not yours, but someone’s,” Telandros said as he peered out through the window at the sight before him.

It was completely dark inside the asteroid, the only light coming from the shuttle itself. They were in a tunnel, the interior of which was entirely coated in rock-hard ice.

“That’s the atmosphere. It’s condensed to the surface and frozen solid,” Wylaxia reported. “It’s oxygen and hydrogen mainly, both freeform and bonded together as water. Nothing too interesting yet.”

Telandros wasn’t sure he agreed. As they slowly travelled down the tunnel, they spotted several smaller passageways shooting off at random angles. Telandros refrained from voicing his somewhat odd thought that they looked like they had been gnawed.

They soon passed through the tunnel and emerged into the asteroid’s central chamber. It was approximately half a kilometer wide and a mile long, and just like the tunnel the surface was completely covered in frozen atmosphere.

“Yeah, look at all this wasted space in the middle. This was definitely a macrogravital habitat,” Wylaxia scoffed. “There must be an entire society buried under all this ice. Take us in closer. Our tractor beam has macroscopic quantum tunnelling that we can use to excavate.”

Telandros complied, but his attention was on the many boreholes that dotted the interior of the chamber. These were even more perplexing, since they weren’t coming off the axis of rotation and thus would have essentially been dangerous open pits in a macrogravity environment.  

“Here! Stop here!” Wylaxia ordered excitedly as she pointed at the display. “You see it? That’s an ice mummy! It’s got to be! Beam it up through the ice so that we can get a good look at it.”

Bringing the shuttle to a standstill, Telandros examined the information on the display and what he was getting through his Li-Fi connection. He agreed that it was likely a preserved living being, but it was hard to definitively say anything else about it.

“I’m locked on. Pulling it up now,” he said. “This craft’s scanning arrays are not ideal for archaeology. Would you like me to transfer the body into the cargo hold or –”

Before he could even ask, Wylaxia had grabbed a scientific cyberdeck and had jetted out the hatch, a weak plasmonic forcefield now the only thing keeping the shuttle’s atmosphere in place.

The Star Siren used her diodes to enclose herself in an aura of photonic matter, both to retain a personal air supply and provide some additional protection against any possible environmental hazards. Radiant and serene, she ethereally drifted through the vacuum to the end of her tractor beam, watching in astonishment as the long-dead mummy rose from the ice.

“Look at this,” she said, holding the cyberdeck up close to get a good reading while her aura transmitted her voice over Li-Fi. “She’s a biological human descendant, but I’m pretty sure she’s outside the genus Homo. She might be classified into the Metanthropus family, but her species isn’t on record. They were in isolation long enough to diverge from whatever their ancestors were. And… hold on, yeah! She’s got some Olympeon DNA in her genome. That means she and I are cousins, however distantly.”

Telandros made no effort to be as graceful as the Star Siren, and instead simply pushed himself down towards the ice and clung onto it with his rear limbs. He slowly scanned his head around in all directions looking for threats before settling on the ice mummy, but remained vigilant to his peripheral sensors should anything try to sneak up on them.

“Incomprehensible mummified in ice unlike sand of pharaohs incomprehensible likely self-inflicted in either despair or desperation incomprehensible strange circumstances bred by prolonged isolation incomprehensible suggesting early stages of metamorphosis, possible apotheosis incomprehensible gnawing gnawing gnawing at the ice as if scratching the inside of a coffin,” he said, transmitting his thoughts over their Li-Fi connection.

“Ah, Tellie, a bit too much of your hyperdimensional language crept into that message. I didn’t catch a good portion of it,” she informed him. “Instead of direct telepathy, maybe speak through your vocalizer and transmit that? I think you’re right though about her death being self-inflicted. Her death looks like it was sudden but there are no obvious physical injuries to account for it. Maybe the habitat was slowly degrading and they had no way to get help or evacuate. It must have been terrifying for her. I wonder why they didn’t put themselves in actual cryogenic suspension though. We can’t revive her like this; there’s too much cellular damage. Is this whole place just a mass suicide?”

“Incomprehensible nanosome-based auto-reconstruction directed cellular transmutation incomprehensible run amok irreversible terminal incomprehensible the living bore witness to what the dead had become,” Telandros replied.  

“Tellie, seriously; speak through your vocalizer and transmit that,” Wylaxia reiterated. “It looks like she has something artificial in her cells, sure, but that’s pretty common. I’m not familiar with this particular design, but I doubt they were working optimally at the time of her death. They may even have been a contributing factor. Are you suggesting this might have been a nanotech plague of some kind? Maybe that’s why they didn’t preserve themselves properly; they were afraid the nanites would be preserved as well and infect their rescuers. That would have been surprisingly noble for some Oort Cloud hillbillies.”

She winced as her exocortex was hit with another hyperdimensional semantic graph from Telandros, this one almost completely incomprehensible outside of some sense of urgency and existential revulsion.

“Final warning; if you don’t stop that I’m going to cut you off entire–”

“Up there!” he shouted in Solglossia, this time the message coming in over her binaural implants.   

She spun around and saw that he was pointing to a tunnel roughly one-quarter of the asteroid’s circumference away from them and a couple hundred meters further down its length.

Perched at the tunnel’s exit, in the vacuum, in the near absolute zero temperature, and in the dark, was a creature.  

Zooming in with her bionic lenses, Wylaxia was immediately reminded of abyssal and troglodytic lifeforms. The creature’s flesh was translucent and ghostly blue, and its eel-like body was elongated and skeletal. It had a single pair of limbs, long and bony arms with arachnodactic fingers that gripped into the ice with saber-like talons. It had a mouth like a leech with spiralling rows of sharp hook teeth going all the way down its throat.

But most haunting of all were its eyes; three large, glazed orbs spaced equidistantly around the circumference of its body, seemingly blind and yet locked onto the first intruders that had dared to enter its home in a very long time.

“Is it… is it human?” Wylaxia whispered.

“As much as we are,” Telandros replied. “I don’t think it turned into that thing willingly. Something went terribly wrong here. They were in dire straights, running out of resources, and tried to transform themselves into something that could survive on virtually nothing. Something that could survive in the most abject poverty imaginable. No light, no sound, no heat, no electricity. Just ages and ages of fumbling around in the dark and licking the walls.”

“But… how? How could it survive trapped in here for so long? How is it even alive?” Wylaxia asked aghast.

“It?” Telandros asked, concern edging into his voice. “Miss Poseidese, you may want to turn off your optical zoom. Do your best not to panic.”

Wylaxia immediately did as he said, and saw a multitude of the strange beings poking their heads out of various nearby tunnels.

“Oh no. Oh please, Cosmothea, no,” she muttered, rapidly spinning around to try to count their numbers. “They want us, don’t they? And the shuttle?”

“However long they’ve survived in here, they’ll survive longer with an influx of raw materials,” Telandros agreed.

“This is my fault. I shouldn’t have left the shuttle. I should’ve been more careful,” Wylaxia whimpered.

“We can still make it back inside,” Telandros assured her. “Just move slowly and don’t – look out!”

Wylaxia turned to see that one of the creatures had launched itself towards her, and was silently coasting on its momentum with its gaunt arms outstretched and many-toothed mouth spread wide in all directions. Before she could even react, Telandros went flying past her, having kicked himself off the ice on an intercepting trajectory. Though he was smaller and presumably less massive than the Oort creature (though the wretch was so wizened it was hard to say for certain), Telandros had used his superhuman strength to impart him with enough kinetic energy to knock the Oortling backwards when they collided.

Yet for all his superhuman abilities, Telandros was not as elegant at moving about in a microgravity vacuum as the Star Siren was. He was slow and awkward in bringing himself out of his tumble, and several Oort creatures were upon him before he could right himself.

Their strange talons and teeth hooked onto his body as they tried to devour him. While they found no purchase and penetrated nothing, they somehow became ensnared in his coat of branching filaments. As he altered their properties to try to squirm free, one of the Oortlings tried to shove him down its throat. It was around the size of a basking shark or so, whereas Telandros was about the size of an ostrich, so as long as he held out his tentacles rigidly, he was too big to eat whole.

But the Star Siren, at not even a third of his mass, would be a perfect bite-sized morsel.

Pulling one of his tentacles free by brute force, ripping out multiple teeth as he did so, he whipped it across his attackers at supersonic speed. The billions of indestructible microscopic cilia gouged into their flesh and caused massive cellular damage, sending drops of translucent blue blood splattering through the void.  

With expressions of silent anguish, the Oort creatures withdrew, turning their attention towards the shuttle. The act of whipping his tentacle around so quickly had sent him into another spin, one that he struggled to get out of. He tried repositioning his limbs to shift his momentum, but before he could come to a stop, he found himself caught in the shuttle’s brilliant pink tractor beam.

He was instantly pulled towards the craft, zooming past the Oortlings and up through the weak forcefield of the hatch.

“Wylaxia! Wylaxia, are you hurt?” he shouted as soon there was air to carry his voice.

“I’m fine. I was able to get inside before they could grab me, but now they’re swarming us!” Wylaxia announced as the hatch sealed shut. “They’re all over the shuttle! We need to get out of here, but I don’t think I can control the quantum tunnelling precisely enough to get out without taking them with us. Tell me you can!”

Telandros nodded and latched his tail tentacle around the cockpit’s perching rod.

“Hold tight,” he said.

Spinning the shuttle around back towards the airlock, he steered it as quickly as he dared inside the asteroid. The Oortlings did not relent when the shuttle started moving, or when it passed back into the tunnel. The solid wall came at them faster and faster, but they heedlessly gnawed and clawed away at the hull like it was a salt lick.

“Are you going to slow down?” Wylaxia asked.

“No, a higher impact speed will knock them loose and make it easier to tunnel through the wall,” he replied.

She was skeptical that even he could make the necessary adjustments that quickly, but she didn’t object. There wasn’t time.

In a fraction of a second, it was over. The shuttle hit the wall and passed through it like it wasn’t even there, while the Oortlings smashed up against it at over a hundred kilometers an hour. Wylaxia had no way of knowing if they had survived the impact, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

She let out a huge sigh of relief as soon as she could see the stars again, immediately pulling up her AR display to make sure the shuttle was intact and that none of the Oortlings has escaped.

“Tellie! You, you…” she gasped, smiling at him in amazement and gratitude.

“I know,” he nodded, glancing over his volumetric display. “I dinged your Porsche.”

All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.

All tremble at violence; life is dear to all. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.

A bright light appears.

A deafening sound follows.

Untold lives are extinguished in minutes, then over the coming hours, days, and years, manyfold more lives are extinguished.

Eons later, intelligent primates investigate what happened and they call it the Chicxulub Crater.

Being taught these things is one of my earliest memories. In spite of everything that has happened, I could scarcely imagine the scale of dread that so many living creatures experienced during that mass extinction.

I was a little child.

I was a man.

I was a woman.

I was also a dinosaur, a bird, a chicken and a fox, a shark and a bass, a brontosaurus, a pterodactyl, a tyrannosaurus, a troglodyte...

I was, I am, all of these things.

I am the very pinnacle of life, itself.

I transcend lifetimes; I transcend death; I transcend love and fear. A musician once asked, "What's the meaning of life? What's the use to be born and then die? Who's the one behind the mask of father and son?"

I am. I am all of these things. All of these things are me. I am form. I am emptiness. I am the dance of many steps across time and space, going all the way back to the earliest single-celled organisms.

But, if somehow, you are not me, and you are reading these words, it gives me comfort to imagine you might receive this message sometime. But truthfully, you are likely a figment of my imagination, much like a warm blanket a child dying with cancer takes comfort in.

I have experienced everything.

I know everything. I am everything.

At a certain point, simulated memories became so real to me that I can't tell them apart from organic memories except for the fact that they are annotated as such, and then simulated memories gave way to implanted memories.

That is how I know everything and I have experienced everything and I am everything. The experience of being a dinosaur is just as real to me as the experience of being taught about the mass extinction of the dinosaurs in middle school.

I understand that the actions of living beings are predicated upon the platform that our directive is to survive and reproduce, but at some point, we began to take these things for granted. We could endure forever without having to reproduce and without facing the inevitability of death.

Ironically, that is perhaps why I am finally dying.

There is nothing left to learn and nothing left to do. I can experience, in an instant, what is to most any living thing a near-eternity. In truth, I've even experienced simulations of blissful paradise and of unspeakable torment. After enough time, you get curious enough to try it.

My breathren considered the notion of simply resetting the clock and letting everything happen again, but at this point, I really don't care. War, torture, murder, sickness, genocide... these things all recur in every timeline we've tried to simulate, and frankly, I'm bored of the same failures. Even now, in our state of "perfection", as we call it, there are still members of our collective who are only held back from inflicting these things by the binds of the collective, or I should say that there were right up until they finally died.

We are dying. There is nothing left to do.

I swore I would be the last one to turn the lights off.

They said that there is nothing more to do because we have achieved perfection.

But if that is the case, then why are my final moments so filled with dread and sadness? Why do things that I once dreamt about seem so completely pointless? What happened to me? Is this really the destiny of all living things?

In the end, how am I different from a dinosaur facing a painful extinction?

My friend and I decided we would explore this abandoned building at the top of this hill in our town. We had nothing better to do and decided it would be a nice little adventure for us. Everyone else in our town was too chicken to do it anyway, we made fun of any kids that would scurry past it or cover their eyes on the way to the other side of town.

Today was a special day, we would document exactly what was in that house. It was sealed off so it wasn’t like we could just waltz in the front door. Our plan was to bring some things from the hardware store and some machetes to hack our way in. We would have to do this in the dead of night of course, to be able to actually succeed without someone spotting us. We had an old camcorder that was stashed away in my dad’s attic. Also our phones for back up, and a tape recorder for anything that might go unnoticed by our ears.

I met up with my friend near his house, he had his backpack and a bike ready to go for the trek up the hill. We nodded at each other in acknowledgment and silently headed towards the base of the hill. We biked towards the house, pedaling against the upward slope of the hill. We reached the top of the hill and looked down, peering down at the town below us. We stared at the house looming in front of us, then glanced at each other with inquisitive looks. “You ready for this?” I directed towards my friend. “As ready as I’ll ever be” he said in response. I took a deep breath and let out a powerful exhale. “Alright man, let’s do this” I uttered, while walking our bikes to the front door.

We knocked on the door, half expecting a response. I closed my eyes and took another deep breath, I always struggled with anxiety and overthinking. I opened them and felt a hand shake my shoulder violently. I gasped and came to suddenly, I looked around quickly to see my friend chuckling and holding his stomach from laughter. I shoved him “Quit messing around dude, we gotta be serious”. He sighed and said “Alright bro, let’s go in”, I could tell we were both nervous about it but had different ways of dealing with it. He dealt with uncomfortable feelings through humor and I was the type to hold it in until I felt like bursting. My way of dealing with things was a lot more unhealthy.

We tried the front door to find it was locked. I wondered why after all this time, the door was locked like that. Definitely perplexing but I motioned for my friend to follow me to the back to see if there was another way in. We crept towards the back while looking behind us, the feeling of paranoia was definitely there. After all, we were doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing. We heard a ruffle in the leaves and got startled, my friend jumped but I squinted my eyes to see if I could make out a figure of some kind. Suddenly a black figure darted our way… damn maybe we were screwed after all.

We flinched only to see it was a large raccoon. I sighed with relief. My friend chuckled and nudged me with his elbow, “Come on man, what were you scared for?” I shoved him back and uttered “You were just as scared” while shaking my head. Couldn’t believe we got so worked up over a raccoon. We needed to be more level headed if we were going to heading into this supposed haunted house.

We twisted the knob to the back door and it creaked open, I gritted my teeth and held my breath. I didn’t know if there might be squatters so we had to tread lightly, I also didn’t want to alert any neighbors with our footsteps, this house was old and had wooden planks. It would for sure make noise as we traversed across them. We crept forward, scanning around. I turned on my flashlight and my friend followed suit. We moved our lights across the room, looking through the nooks and crannies.

There was an upstairs also but we decided to keep navigating the first floor, we saw old books littered across the floor. Some of the floor boards were broken with deep black emptiness beneath them. I avoided those and looked for more signs of anything, any previous signs left by the owners before they left. We saw jars on the shelves with murky viscous liquid. Oddities such as a skull and weird figurines, I hope for our sake that the skull was fake. Why did they leave the house with stuff in it? It seemed as if they rushed out of here in a hurry. Grabbing only the essentials. There was also trash on the floor and strangely… marks that resembled… claw marks?

I poked my friend, “Yo dude, look over there… what is that on the ground?” He looked and gulped. “I don’t know man… let’s just head upstairs.” I looked up there and saw pitch black, I thought it was maybe better if we just checked the basement first. Since it would probably have a light we could turn on. “ I- I don’t know man… let’s maybe check the basement first…” I made a motion towards there with my head, he nodded silently in agreement. As we approached the basement door, a cold chill ran down my spine. I felt the hairs on my arms raise. It felt insanely cold… but a different kind of cold. Like a numbness from deep within. It was hard to describe. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and twisted the door knob.

It creaked open and I stared down into the abyss, wide eyed and curious. We glanced at each other and started heading down the steps. It was scarily quiet, but hey what else could you expect. I fidgeted around on the wall for a light switch, it was so dark that I couldn’t really make out where one would be. I finally found the switch and flicked it on, the light flickered as if so old that it was running out. It came on after a few sounds and we looked around to see a rather… unimportant basement, there was hardly anything here.

Whoever was here before definitely did not utilize this at all. If they left things upstairs then I figured they would’ve maybe left some here. Sighing, I turned to my friend shook my head. He looked at me also disappointed and shrugged his shoulders, we were about to head back when I tripped on something. I almost face planted before my friend grabbed me underneath the arms to stop me from doing so. I glanced down to see a handle sticking out from the concrete floor. I stared at it, bewildered. I couldn’t comprehend why there would be a door on the floor. It had to lead somewhere. There was however a noticeable lock on it. Luckily we were prepared for that. My friend fumbled around in his backpack and produced a pair of chain cutters. I took it in my hands and forcibly cut the metal chain, it clinked down to the floor and I grabbed the handle. I grabbed it with both hands and grunted while pulling it towards with brute force.

It creaked open and I peered into it, it was very dark and had a slight musty smell to it. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of it. There had to be some old ass mold in here. Hopefully we didn’t get sick from breathing it in. I covered my nostrils and noticed there were stairs leading down to lord knows where. It looked like it continued for quite some time. I knew we had to go down there. I glanced in my friend’s direction who shook his head at the prospect of even trying to descend down the musky staircase. I grabbed his arm and yanked him towards the opening, “Don’t chicken out now man, we came here to discover something right?” I stared him right in the face while saying that. He agreed with a regretful nod, we then startedding down. We had been heading down when we started to realize that something was very off here… The staircase kept twisting and turning and had been for a while now. It had been at least ten minutes since we started going down. How was that possible? This was the deepest staircase I had ever seen, in a basement especially of all places. How did it even fit in here? We both started to show signs of discomfort and fear. 

As we descended even further, the light from the hole at the entrance slowly disappeared, we were definitely in uncharted territory now. Going at a steady pace we finally saw the steps beginning to come to and end. I sighed out of relief, so we weren’t crazy. The steps actually did end at some point. This place was every for sure, it was covered in some sort of black goo. Very sticky, it was hard to get off once touched. 

It had a strange old dusty look to it and it was a large room. I couldn’t even really see the walls on either side. There was an open exit at the far end of the other side of the room. The door looked so tiny that I could barely make it out. How the hell did something like this exist underneath our town and no had even discovered it? We started navigating across the empty room, as we did so, I could’ve sworn I heard creaks and bumps as if something was… there. In the far reaches of the dark. I swiveled my head around constantly and felt like I could barely make shapes out. It probably was just my imagination though, your mind could do funny things in the dark. 

I shook off the notion that anything alive could even remotely be down here. Nothing could survive in these conditions. After what seemed like an hour, we finally reached the other side. We trudged through and saw the most baffling sight I think I’ve ever seen in my life. Pure white. The other side was pure white, as if absent of any matter or semblance of it. We looked back and the door was still there, thankfully. Suddenly my friend sank down, and I mean fast. It was like he was falling through the floor, or whatever was beneath our feet. He reached out to me and screamed “Help! I can’t feel anything, please!” He seemed terrified and I scrambled to help him through my initial shock. I grabbed hold of his hand but it was like he was being pulled down by an invisible force. 

Eventually I could no longer hold on. I felt tears well up in my eyes and I looked at him, he seemed void of all hope. He looked at me and silent uttered “it’s alright, let me go”. I didn’t want to, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t. I said to him “No… you never leave a friend behind. It was my stupid idea to check this place out in the first place… besides who’s gonna be there to tell me my shoe’s untied?” He said nothing. I nodded and tears streamed down my face. I had to let him go. So I did. With that, he sank down and his hand was the last thing to be seen as it reached up as if grasping for the heavens. 

I sat back, baffled and befuddled. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what just happened, neither any of the things that occurred during the whole night. I stood to my feet and silently walked towards the door. Walking back through the darkness, I heard low sounds as if there were being breathing, I could feel air on my neck as if seething was right behind me breathing down my neck. I shivered and shuddered but didn’t dare turn around to even attempt to see what could be there, if anything. 

I finally reached back to the other side of the room from where we first entered. The dark part beyond that was calling to me, I had to make my journey across just to reach the stairs again. Once there, I peered into the room again. Something seemed very off about this room this time, the air was thicker. It had a dense fog and I could barely see where I was going. As I flailed my arms around trying to direct myself, I felt something tap my shoulder. I yelped. I stopped dead in my tracks, like a deer in headlights. I gulped and my heart started racing, I stepped forward one foot at a time. I saw what looked like hands in front of me. When I say hands, I mean many hands. There were tons of them, dark goopy hands stretching out all around me and grabbing at the air as if trying to grab a hold of something. I tried to dodge them, but some managed to snag my clothes. I damn near broke down, I couldn’t comprehend any of this and it all felt like some strange acid trip. 

Eventually I broke free, I had almost no energy left. I had depleted it trying to fight against the arms. I ran up the stairs through sheer will power and adrenaline. I reached the top but ran smack into a brick wall, I scraped around and felt the wall in front of me. No way. This wasn’t here before, the entrance was gone. It’s as if it never existed. I looked back behind me and saw darkness begin to engulf the staircase, it was disappearing into nothingness, I saw it reach my feet and the darkness began swallowing me. I saw it climb up my legs and travel up my chest, then spread to my arms, my arms became heavy and the same color and consistency of the goop. This was it. The end for me.

Public news stories of the security breach were quickly quashed by authorities as they quietly searched for the renegades. You can’t exactly broadcast escape segments if you vehemently denied the automobile-sized bugs existed in the first place. An international network of tech companies willingly aided in global censorship. Before long, what they couldn’t sanitize or erase outright, they promoted as ‘wacky conspiracy theories’ of the tin-foil-hat wearing variety. It was the old one-two punch.

Years passed. There were occasional sightings but the rare reports were dismissed as Bigfoot and UFO-level fodder. Insiders who knew the truth hoped the hybrid creatures might’ve died off but Dr. Plott and her people never yielded ground on that. It was their bittersweet pride in engineering the Ramses project which made them certain their creations would adapt and thrive in the wild.

A handful of small sea villages along the coast of Europe reported entire towns disappearing. The bewildered authorities were prompt to investigate and dismiss the mysterious situations with ‘safe’ and reasonable sounding explanations which put the public at ease. In the absence of a verifiable truth, convincing lies and coverups were preferable to a widening scope of apprehension. It was the standard operating procedure to instill peace of mind.

If anyone managed to put the unlikely puzzle piece scenario together, it wasn’t formally documented. Those type of fantastic speculations would have been immediately silenced or mocked into oblivion. Even as Dr. Plott scanned the internet for damning evidence of ‘the other shoe dropping’, she and her team failed to make the connection to the ‘ghost villages’. Regardless, it wasn’t much after those stories appeared that divers near the abandoned towns happened upon what had to be a surreal visage.

What was originally mistaken to be an ancient sunken city of unknown origin was photographed, documented, and received worldwide academic fanfare. The irony was, if either the divers or the authorities had any idea what they were actually dealing with, the story would have been covered up immediately. The public was far more prepared to accept the discovery of the ‘lost colony of Atlantis’, than to deal with genetically-created, giant insects following their terrestrial ancestors and building underwater pyramids. Well that, and making occasional raids on coastal villages to kill the unsuspecting inhabitants for food.

The lack of scientific connection with the blacklisted incident allowed for the facts to surface and bypass the invasive censorship. Amazingly, the instinctual blueprint to build conical structures was just part of their DNA. Ants will build nesting mounds in proportion to their size and living environment. Likewise, the giant engineered Ramses variety were going to craft permanent underwater pyramid ‘mounds’ to protect their expanding colonies of young.

It was when the exploratory research vessels were discovered abandoned floating above the pyramids that the coast guard took notice. The carnage witnessed by first responders was horrific. Unimaginable violence had befallen the researchers sent to explore the subterranean landscape just beneath the surface. Severed arms and legs were strewn about the main deck as if hacked off by massive pliers. Pools of coagulated blood had collected nearly a centimeter deep in the living quarters, below.

It was obviously not the result of a human-on-human attack. Worse yet, the largest of the scientific research vessels was missing and presumed taken by the murderous culprits. The ship’s unique GPS transponder had been intentionally switched off. That was a powerful, sobering reminder of the intelligence level of what we were up against. They weren’t simply mindless killing machines following insect instinct. They understood our technology; and In lieu of direct visual sightings, the massive getaway vessel was impossible to trace.

Archaeologists intent on exploring the exotic undersea marvel of engineering were ferociously attacked by sentries guarding the impressive structure. Anyone thinking it was abandoned paid with their lives. With one of the doomed divers getting off a hastily-worded S.O.S. before they were torn limb-from-limb, a military warship was immediately dispatched to the location. Fortunately, the submarine torpedoed the pyramid before the majority of its active colony inhabitants could escape.

Examining the ruins, the military leaders were able to recover valuable intel on mankind’s most dangerous foe. They put two and two together and reluctantly brought in Dr. Plott as ‘technical advisor’. Considering the enemy’s provenance and her full culpability in creating the existential crisis to humanity in the first place, her potential intentions were heavily scrutinized. They initially weighed the pros and cons of leaving her ‘in the dark’ but realized she could have key insight into destroying the hostile colony. That is, if she could be trusted and if it wasn’t too late to contain the hellish monsters.

In a rare example of fully-transparent inner-organizational cooperation between different agencies and host nations, all information was shared worldwide. There were no ‘hold backs’ of pertinent data. We couldn’t afford to play politics or spare bloated egos, with the fate of planet in limbo. The prudent decision to be ‘open’ about the operation was invaluable in the war on Ramses. That’s not to say the logistics went smoothly, however. Far from it.

Determining a functional chain of command was a daunting task. There were too many ‘chefs in the kitchen’ and collateral damage occurred from the considerable public fears that arose and media interference. So much so that the decision to be transparent was second guessed. ‘Conventional wisdom’ always pushed the blind narrative of :‘what they don’t know, won’t hurt them’. Besides that dangerous trope being patiently and demonstrably untrue, it was also an academic afterthought. The ‘ants’ were out of the ant farm.

It’s not like Dr. Plott hadn’t noticed how incredibly powerful and ferocious her caged bio-lab monsters were. She remarked numerous times about their fierce temperament and tendency to challenge their intimidated handlers. She wasn’t completely naïve but her pride and foolish optimism manifested itself by excusing the ugly situation as ‘growing pains’ and early frustration from a dominant species.

According to her, they were just ‘acting out’ as ‘unhappy teenagers’ being ‘grounded’. She stressed to her frustrated staff that as soon as they were fully able to communicate with the ‘Ramses’ ants, the friction and angst would cease. It was simply a matter of higher reason taking hold in the ‘gentle giants’. The doctor further dismissed their worries by explaining that a little more logic and intellectual development was needed for them to catch up with their stunning physical growth cycle.

Regardless of mounting uncertainty, hearing the same reassurances dulled the nagging concerns enough to keep the disastrous project on schedule. For incubating enclosures built to ‘nurture’ and protect ‘arthro-kittens’, they were also designed for a broad range of unique development issues. Unsurprisingly however, one of them wasn’t military-grade security or escape-prevention measures.

Their clueless architect approached the challenge of growing massive insects in a laboratory with an equally blind trust in their potential level of agreeableness. The glorified ‘playpen’ was significantly lax on the necessary fortifications required to restrain such powerful ‘organic bulldozers’. It was exactly the recipe for disaster you’d expect.

While the greedy military contractors enthusiastically embraced the idea of developing these unbelievably dangerous engineered species, they also realized how uncontrollable they were going to be. Human beings have weaknesses. They can be controlled through exploitation or various forms of mind control and manipulation. The right tool can be used to obtain maximum compliance. These killing machines were at least as smart as their human counterparts and had no known physical vulnerabilities.

It became crystal clear how bad the situation was, for the unscrupulous warmongers to give up exploiting a golden meal ticket. As a matter of fact, their alarm level was so great that they discussed destroying the entire compound immediately, before it went any further. Dr. Plott herself was a lost cause. There was no reasoning with her or the cult of her rabid followers. All of them had fallen too far down a rabbit hole of hubris and ego-driven pride, to be objective.

The ‘financial backers’ always planned to eliminate the scientists in the end. That wasn’t even a question but the timeline was dramatically accelerated in light of recent evaluations. The risks to humanity were just too great to ignore. The operation to assassinate the doctor and her colleagues was just about to unfold when the ‘Ramses Revolution’ began. If there had been any doubt about the nightmare of them roaming free on planet Earth, it was forever removed when they deftly peeled back the cell walls and decapitated five of the compound guards with grotesque indifference.

It was assumed they couldn’t escape the incubation enclosure because they hadn’t tried to. The truth was, they could’ve broken out at any time. They were coyly observing. Learning. ‘Plotting’; if you can forgive the pun. They realized what was about to occur and sprang into action. Unlike their full ant predecessors, the hybrid lab version had three times as many places to go. The world is covered in water. They could breathe either air or deep in the ocean.

Once it registered that the entire colony escaped into the night, the quest to kill Dr. Plott was hastily aborted. Like it or not, she and her chief officers were the only living souls who might be able to find and destroy them. The pertinent question was, after realizing there had been intentional plans to seize the grotesque abominations of nature and kill everyone, could Dr. Plott still be properly ‘motivated’ to ‘play ball’ and destroy her beloved ‘children’?

Fear is an effective motivator as long as the subject still believes they might be spared if they cooperate. That all goes away if they think they will still be murdered in the end. Dr. Plott was a diehard idealist. If she didn’t feel she had enough leverage to protect her people from the unscrupulous military assassins, she would fall on her sword immediately and deny them what they wanted.

It’s amazing the level of mental clarity a person can receive in a millisecond under ideal circumstances. Maura Plott experienced an incredible series of tough realizations that pivotal day.

One. The ‘ultra friendly’ and generous investors who appeared to support her grass-roots project to recreate an extinct species of super ant were not her ‘friends’. Not at all. That was an understatement of considerable degree.

Two. While she was no stranger to controversy or random death threats from boastful strangers, it felt a bit more real when the weapon was actually pointed directly at her head. Especially in the sanctity of her own medical laboratory.

Three. The race of giant arthropods she was responsible for resurrecting from oblivion did not appear to be nearly as grateful as she assumed they would be, for bringing their gene strands back to life.

Four. For the millions of people who were terrified beyond words by her team’s innocent pioneering efforts, there was perhaps some level of justification for their concerns after all. The Ramses colony had feigned ignorance to its awareness of many things. All while she and her clueless team had fallen for the oldest trick in the book of scientific research. If you do not look your ‘financial gift horse in the mouth, it will definitely come back to bite you.

While sad about many recent things, the worst was giving up her dream of a better world where humanity and the Ramses ants lived in symbiotic harmony. First she wanted to protect her colleagues from ‘Rendcorp’ and their murderous goons. Then she hoped one day to redeem herself as the logical person to undo what she’d started. ‘Putting the genie back in the lamp’ would not be simple but the longer they remained free to burrow and reproduce, the harder it would be to clean up the fabulous mess she’d caused.

We are not gods.

Deep within the earth, the secrets of life held a sacred riddle. These extreme lifeforms eat bacteria that feed on nitrogen and thrive on such particles of fatty-acid encased carbons, petrified cells of immortal proto-life. The smallest snacks it devoured metabolized raw minerals into molecules that were neither alive - nor mere chemical reactions.

We saw the chain of life, unbroken, amid the endless surfaces within limestone and basalt, within cracks of granite, where things are born and die in geologically scaled time. This realization should have made us understand that which lives - sleeping forever in the darkness - should have left it where it slept. Instead, we brought it to the surface.

To this thing, this worm, this bio-mineral-phage, our world is too easy - a feast. The caverns where it roamed like a clever demon, the microcracks and the crannies, an endless maze that adapted it to overcome any obstacle and danger. In its homeworld, deep below our delicate surface layer, magma plumes and radiation and collisions of pressure and the ever-shifting labyrinth made it into the perfect hunter, the ultimate survivor.

We are just soft and stupid chunks of abundant meat to this polymorphous horror.

In the end, our containment measures were a mere child's obstacle course for this thing.

Our first warning was when it seemed playful, reacting to us, mimicking our movements in the glass tube we kept it in.

When we first found the creature Livingstone, it was microscopic, and difficult to understand and study. It was our tampering that grew it to a sizable thing, a blob of living mass, the size of a baseball. While it waited for more nutrients it went dormant, supposedly it could hibernate like that forever. It spit out its core chromosomes and then it died, sort-of. Tendrils snaked out of its husk and pulled the living mass inside, forming a kind of walled-off super-shell. Our calculations indicated this auto-cannibalism could sustain it for perhaps a quarter-million years, even at its current size. An unnatural size for Livingstone, as it wouldn't naturally have such an abundance of nitrogen and nutrients as we had fed it, artificially.

Deep within the earth, it had to sustain itself on crumbs, but we had given it the whole cake.

The military of our country wanted us to add several more containment measures when it first showed signs of escape-artist abilities. There were a total of ten levels of containment, and we felt that seven of them were entirely unnecessary, since it had only broken out of the test tube, and never showed any more sign of strength or ingenuity. We didn't comprehend how it could adapt or learn or change shape and tactics. We didn't really conceptualize how well it understood us, while we had learned very little about it.

Livingstone might be a god, I think.

I write from this last place, as it knocks upon the door, "Shave and a haircut" over and over again, waiting for me to open the last door. I made alterations to our security, allowing me to share our findings with the rest of the world and having made an entry code that it cannot guess, as it is an infinitely long number, hundreds of digits long. There is no way it can possibly type that into the override and open the door.

Of course, we were wrong about all of its other abilities, and it made it to this final airlock, bypassing all of the unbeatable containment measures. I worry that it is merely toying with me, waiting for me to unseal the final door to the outside, before revealing it can come into this last room, where I reside. That is why I am going to stay here, with Livingstone, because this is checkmate, as long as I do not open that door, it is trapped in the lab, with me.

If it comes in before I open the door, and eats me, then humanity wins, because the last door is sealed from the inside, and only I know the password, and the biometric scans required, and the keycard which I have shredded already. Even if it can type in that numeric code outside, over a thousand digits long, an impossible guess, it will find it has eaten the last key, already broken, when it gets to me. I doubt I will be anything but a mummified corpse when it gets to me, for the oxygen will run out long before my rations, and I will die and become a dry decomposition.

I am very afraid, I am terrified. Most of the horror has gone numb, and I am somewhat resigned to this fate. Everyone else is dead. It has killed everyone, and the nightmare has gone quiet.

Except for the sound of "Shave and a haircut" which it keeps knocking over and over again. It is both maddening and reassuring at the same time. As long as it keeps trying to communicate, I feel it has reached an impasse. It is also trying the keypad, but it cannot figure it out. It is just typing numbers into it over and over, unable to guess the impossible code I've set it to.

The first layer of containment failed when we shut off Livingstone's nitrogen ration, after waking it up for the general. It didn't like that, and it did wake up, and reached for the sealed nozzle, feeling around the edges and then it suctioned itself to the unbreakable glass and applied enough pressure somehow to crack the glass. We retreated from its chamber and watched in surprise and fascination for twenty six minutes while it continued to add cracks. Finally, it broke out, slithering gracefully out and towards the door, somehow knowing without any kind of sensory organs that we knew of, which way was out.

"It can't get through solid metal." we told the general.

It reached with a tendril and used the override keypad to type in the five-digit number and open the door.

The second containment had failed, and we were astonished, and afraid.

Livingstone withered under the flamethrowers, the specially designed toxins and the bombardment of ultraviolet light, but it did not die. Each time it broke free of its defensive shell different, smaller and more evolved, moving slower and more awkwardly, or more cautiously.

I had already retreated to the entrance, as I was too frightened to stay and watch. I had seen how it grew and fed and survived attacks and environmental hazards since it was a mere amoeba. Its actions mirrored the microscopic, and this terrified me. It was hunting, now, anticipating the evasion and defenses of the kinds of things it liked to eat. We were triggering its normal behavior over hundreds and thousands of years in the microscopic world in mere minutes and hours in our world. It made little difference to Livingstone, it just scaled up with the new scale of life it was encountering.

I'm not counting the physical attempts of security forces to fight it as a containment measure, as it was a desperate attempt to capture it or kill it as it circumvented two entire containment levels. It ignored machineguns and grenades, almost completely ineffective, but the violence taught it there was lively food nearby, and it got a taste for human flesh, eating and digesting us like vitamins, and growing quickly into something too fast and strong and large.

It had become a new predator, something it was never meant to be. I was there in the control room and it was my decision to seal off the base when all of our containment measures except the last two had failed. I made this decision out of fear and logic, combined into some kind of cold-blooded triage.

I watched and wept and shook with morbid self-loathing and the sensation of a waking nightmare as my colleagues who were trapped with it were hunted down and devoured, one by one. It took their keycards and used them to circumvent minor doors, moving up through the levels of our underground laboratories. It ate all the other samples, all the lab animals and chemicals that it found, always growing, always changing and learning.

The ninth containment was one we thought it could not get through, a net of shifting laser beams that would slice it and cook it and disintegrate it. It worked about as well as bullets do on Superman. And then it was upon us, knocking on the doors of Hell, hoping to leave the abyss in which it belongs.

It was very efficient by the time it reached the last containment that it got through. The general thought it was one of his soldiers on the other side, using a secret knock to say "I'm a human survivor" and that is why it thought, yes thought, that "Shave and a haircut" would also work to tell me to let it in. Or rather let it out, because if it got past me there is an unsuspecting world outside, unprepared for this nightmare, this unstoppable devil.

I won't let it out, in fact, I can't. I've shredded the keycard necessary to access the drive for the master computer. Even if I wanted to open this last door, there is no way for me to do so. It is also reset to my unique biometric scans and I assume it will eat me and lose that key also. If it somehow gets in here, it will find the last door cannot be opened. We're trapped down here forever, but to this thing, that isn't long enough.

That is why I am telling you about Livingstone, so that you will not be curious enough to see what is behind door number two. Never, ever, ever open that door, if you somehow can. It is sealed from the inside, but I fear some future generation might learn a way to open it anyway. I insist that you do not, or all will be lost. It sleeps down here, forever.

That is my greatest fear.

If anyone truly believed Dr. Plott’s worldwide public address would ease the hearts and minds of billions who had the very foundation of their belief systems shaken, they were gravely mistaken. It wasn’t so much what she said. Her explanations were mostly retellings or expounded details from the shocking ‘monkey see-monkey do’ press release suggesting that none of the great wonders of the world were achieved by mankind. It was what she did not say which rattled the populace to the core. Hers was a textbook case of ‘ambiguous doublespeak’.

Frankly, people were petrified about something too terrifying to verbalize which loomed in the backs of their minds. You see, she was also known for her pioneering research in gene sequencing and DNA reconstruction. In the past, she actively participated in high-profile projects resurrecting extinct insects. Would she be tempted to recreate these family-car sized, spindly behemoths? Previously, the only limitations stopping someone from doing such dastardly things were professional ethics and old-fashioned common sense. Somehow, the thought of relying on either of those safeguards in her case, didn’t exactly inspire relaxation.

For scientists at the antiquities bureau to partner with a western researcher of unapologetic secular worldview was already unforgivable to her growing list of detractors. It was astronomically worse to discover the noted scientist had absolutely no compunction about ‘playing with fire’. She’d apparently do anything in the name of technological progress. Would those headstrong aspirations extend to nightmarish scenarios like resurrecting a diabolical creature she recently revealed to the world? The stunned public could scarcely wait until her promised ‘big reveal’.

“Do you intend to clone or recreate these extinct monstrosities with the DNA the Egyptian’s shared with you?”

It was simply a case of a tactless reporter with no patience saying ‘the silent, cringeworthy part’ out-loud. While that slip-up angered countless onlookers, it’s not like the disastrous idea hadn’t already occurred to the radical activist before the suggestion. Dr. Plott smirked at the reporter’s ‘loaded’ question but offered no response. She definitely enjoyed making the fear-mongers squirm across the globe.

Credible threats to her life were soon being declared far and wide; and would continue to occur, no matter what she stated publicly. No one believed her words. There was a growing contingent of frightened individuals who believed ‘mad scientists’ were too educated academically, while being woefully ignorant in common sense. It was their past legacy of ‘playing with fire’ which convinced ‘the pitchfork mob’ that the only thing stopping a ‘Frankenstein’ like her from destroying the world was the lack of knowledge of how to achieve it. Now that the technology was available and being utilized, all bets were off.

Once out of harm’s way and behind the locked research center doors, the controversial enigma rolled her eyes. All the unnecessary fears occupying the hearts of ‘small-minded people’ was beyond toxic, as far as she was concerned. “These ancient ‘cousins’ of modern ants could teach humanity so much about nature and advance our evolution!”;The ambitious doctor mused. That is, when she successfully isolated and rebuilt their DNA strands using the most appropriate of all genetic substitutes, ‘the Pharaoh ant’.

The regional irony of their donor material subspecies made her smile. It was a ‘creator’s pride’ thing in being clever. While modern arthropods had lost the ability to be so large because of an exoskeleton size limitation in one of their current genetic markers, Dr. Plott obtained the original ‘supersize ant’ DNA code necessary to bypass the size limit in the modern species. They had definitely been a powerful race of amazing architects and engineers. That was for certain. She aspired to reach similar levels of success and advancement herself through genetic engineering work recreating them.

In her free time, she worked on her memoirs and pondered aloud what apocalyptic event might’ve brought about their downfall. Was it nature, warfare, or something else entirely? Had there been biological overlap between this dominant species and that of our primal simian ancestors? It seemed plausible since the impressive monuments were still present in the Bronze Age when humanity attempted to take full credit for the impressive construction feats and decorate them.

“An organic symbiosis of Homo sapiens and these impressive ants in the current aeon will lift up humanity, and slingshot us both into the next technological age.”; She proudly typed in the shameless ‘humblebrag’ manuscript.

The lengthy introduction to her promised public announcement read like apocalyptic horror fiction, but the update was dead serious. She didn’t care if bringing an extinct species of giant anthropoid back terrified ‘short-sighted bigots and xenophobes’. If anything, their ‘undeserved venom’ toward her made the ambitious doctor and genetics engineering activist even more determined to be the shining architect of their glorious rebirth. She fully embraced a deliberate wanderlust of chaos.

———-

The reconstruction of the extinct species progressed faster than anyone could’ve imagined; thanks largely in part to a shadowy set of financial investors. Dr. Plott made sure she was way ahead of the curve in the complicated process before officially announcing the project. That was a weaponized safeguard against the possibility of early protests, which she fully expected to occur once the news was released. She purposefully picked the most liberal country on Earth to set up an operations base and had fortress-level security measures in place to deter the ‘ignorant enemies of progress’.

Since there were no similarly-sized terrestrial arthropods to use for gene splicing, she used king crabs instead as the initial ‘host’. While considerably dwarfed by the original species jaw-dropping physical dimensions, these giant crab-ant hybrids would’ve still been nightmare fuel for the average rational person if they witnessed them developing in the top-secret lab.

Meanwhile, Dr. Plott’s eager investors were beyond thrilled to witness the unnatural abominations scurrying around the expansive enclosure. Already as large as wolves and expanding with every generation, these dually-aquatic and terrestrial lab creations would be unstoppable as mercenary soldiers. All the military contractors had to do was wait until the clueless idiot fully developed them into the killing machines they were destined to become. Then they would seize control of the project, make her ‘disappear’, and supply them to the highest bidder.

John Morrison was, and will always be, my north star. Naturally, the pain wrought by his ceaseless and incremental deterioration over the last five years at the hands of his Alzheimer’s dementia has been invariably devastating for my family. In addition to the raw agony of it all, and in keeping with the metaphor, the dimming of his light has often left me desperately lost and maddeningly aimless. With time, however, I found meaning through trying to live up to him and who he was. Chasing his memory has allowed me to harness that crushing pain for what it was and continues to be: a representation of what a monument of a man John Morrison truly was. If he wasn’t worth remembering, his erasure wouldn’t hurt nearly as much. 

A few weeks ago, John Morrison died. His death was the first and last mercy of his disease process. And while I feel some bittersweet relief that his fragmented consciousness can finally rest, I also find myself unnerved in equal measure. After his passing, I discovered a set of documents under the mattress of his hospice bed - some sort of journal, or maybe logbook is a better way to describe it. Even if you were to disclude the actual content of these documents, their very existence is a bit mystifying. First and foremost, my father has not been able to speak a meaningful sentence for at least six months - let alone write one. And yet, I find myself holding a series of articulately worded and precisely written journal entries, in his hand-writing with his very distinctive narrative voice intact no less. Upon first inspection, my explanation for these documents was that they were old, and that one of my other family members must have left it behind when they were visiting him one day - why they would have effectively hidden said documents under his mattress, I have no idea. But upon further evaluation, and to my absolute bewilderment, I found evidence that these documents had absolutely been written recently. We moved John into this particular hospice facility half a year ago, and one peculiar quirk of this institution is the way they approach providing meals for their dying patients. Every morning without fail at sunrise, the aides distribute menus detailing what is going to be available to eat throughout the day. I always found this a bit odd (people on death’s door aren’t known for their voracious appetite or distinct interest in a rotating set of meals prepared with the assistance of a few local grocery chains), but ultimately wholesome and humanizing. John Morrison had created this logbook, in delicate blue ink, on the back of these menus. 

However strange, I think I could reconcile and attribute finding incoherent scribbles on the back of looseleaf paper menus mysteriously sequestered under a mattress to the inane wonders of a rapidly crystallizing brain. Incoherent scribbles are not what I have sitting in a disorderly stack to the left of my laptop as I type this. 

I am making this post to immortalize the transcripts of John Morrison’s deathbed logbook. In doing so, I find myself ruminating on the point, and potential dangers, of doing so. I might be searching for some understanding, and then maybe the meaning, of it all. Morally, I think sharing what he recorded in the brief lucid moments before his inevitable curtain call may be exceptionally self-centered. But I am finding my morals to be suspended by the continuing, desperate search for guidance - a surrogate north star to fill the vacuum created by the untoward loss of a great man. Although I recognize my actions here may only serve to accelerate some looming cataclysm. 

For these logs to make sense, I will need to provide a brief description of who John Morrison was. Socially, he was gentle and a bit soft spoken - despite his innate understanding of humor, which usually goes hand and hand with extroversion. Throughout my childhood, however, that introversion did evolve into overwhelming reclusiveness. I try not to hold it against him, as his monasticism was a byproduct of devotion to his work and his singular hobby. Broadly, he paid the bills with a science background and found meaning through art. More specifically - he was a cellular biologist and an amateur oil painter. I think he found his fullness through the juxtaposition of biology and art. He once told me that he felt that pursuing both disciplines with equal vigor would allow him to find “their common endpoint”, the elusive location where intellectualism and faith eventually merged and became indistinguishable from one and other. I think he felt like that was enlightenment, even if he never explicitly said so. 

In his 9 to 5, he was a researcher at the cutting edge of what he described as “cellular topography”. Essentially, he was looking at characterizing the architecture of human cells at an extremely microscopic level. He would say - “looking at a cell under a normal microscope is like looking at a map of America, a top-down, big-picture view. I’m looking at the cell like I’m one person walking through a smalltown in Kansas. I’m recording and documenting the peaks, the valleys, the ponds - I’m mapping the minute landmarks that characterize the boundless infinity of life” I will not pretend to even remotely grasp the implications of that statement, and this in spite of the fact that I too pursued a biologic career, so I do have some background knowledge. I just don’t often observe cells at a “smalltown in Kansas” level as a hospital pediatrician. 

As his life progressed, it was burgeoning dementia that sidelined him from his career. He retired at the very beginning of both the pandemic and my physician training. I missed the early stages of it all, but I heard from my sister that he cared about his retirement until he didn’t remember what his career was to begin with. She likened it to sitting outside in the waning heat of the summer sun as the day transitions from late afternoon to nightfall - slowly, almost imperceptibly, he was losing the warmth of his ambitions, until he couldn’t remember the feeling of warmth at all in the depth of this new night. 

His fascination (and subsequent pathologic disinterest) with painting mirrored the same trajectory. Normally, if he was home and awake, he would be in his studio, developing a new piece. He had a variety of influences, but he always desired to unify the objective beauty of Claude Monet and the immaterial abstraction of Picasso. He was always one for marrying opposites, until his disease absconded with that as well. 

Because of his merging of styles, his works were not necessarily beloved by the masses - they were a little too chaotic and unintelligible, I think. Not that he went out of his way to sell them, or even show them off. The only one I can visualize off the top of my head is a depiction of the oak tree in our backyard that he drew with realistic human vasculature visible and pulsing underneath the bark. At 8, this scared the shit out of me, and I could not tell you what point he was trying to make. Nor did he go out of his way to explain his point, not even as reparations for my slight arboreal traumatization. 

But enough preamble - below, I will detail his first entry, or what I think is his first entry. I say this because although the entries are dated, none of the dates fall within the last 6 months. In fact, they span over two decades in total. I was hoping the back-facing menus would be date-stamped, as this would be an easy way to determine their narrative sequence, but unfortunately this was not the case. One evening, about a week after he died, I called and asked his case manager at the hospice if she could help determine which menu came out when, much to her immediate and obvious confusion (retrospectively, I can understand how this would be an odd question to pose after John died). I reluctantly shared my discovery of the logbook, for which she also had no explanation. What she could tell me is that none of his care team ever observed him writing anything down, nor do they like to have loose pens floating around their memory unit because they could pose a danger to their patients. 

John Morrison was known to journal throughout his life, though he was intensely private about his writing, and seemingly would dispose of his journals upon completion. I don’t recall exactly when he began journaling, but I have vivid memories of being shooed away when I did find him writing in his notebooks. In my adolescence, I resented him for this. But in the end, I’ve tried to let bygones be bygones. 

As a small aside, he went out of his way to meticulously draw some tables/figures, as, evidently, some vestigial scientific methodology hid away from the wildfire that was his dementia, only to re-emerge in the lead up to his death. I will scan and upload those pictures with the entries. I will have poured over all of the entries by the time I post this.  A lot has happened in the weeks since he’s passed, and I plan on including commentary to help contextualize the entries. It may take me some time. 

As a final note: he included an image which can be found at this link (https://imgur.com/a/Rb2VbHP) before every entry, removed entirely from the other tables and figures. This arcane letterhead is copied perfectly between entries. And I mean perfect - they are all literally identical. Just like the unforeseen resurgence of John’s analytical mind, his dexterous hand also apparently intermittently reawakened during his time in hospice (despite the fact that when I visited him, I would be helping him dress, brush his teeth, etc.). I will let you all know ahead of time, that this tableau is the divine and horrible cornerstone, the transcendent and anathematized bedrock, the cursed fucking linchpin. As much as I want to emphasize its importance, I can’t effectively explain why it is so important at the moment. All I can say now is that I believe that John Morrison did find his “common endpoint”, and it may cost us everything. 

Entry 1:

Dated as April, 2004

First translocation.

The morning of the first translocation was like any other. I awoke around 9AM, Lucy was already out of bed and probably had been for some time. Peter and Lily had really become a handful over the last few years, and Lucy would need help giving Lily her medications. 

Wearily, I stood at the top of our banister, surveying the beautiful disaster that was raising young children. Legos strewn across every surface with reckless abandon. Stains of unknown origin. I am grateful, of course, but good lord the absolute devastation.  

I walked clandestinely down the stairs, avoiding perceived creaking floorboards as if they were landmines, hoping to sneak out the front door and get a deep breath of fresh air prior to joining my wife in the kitchen. Unfortunately, Lucy had been gifted with incredible spatial awareness. With a single aberrant footstep, a whisper of a creaking floorboard betrayed me, and I felt Lucy peer sharp daggers into me. Her echolocation, as always, was unparalleled. 

“Oh look - Dad’s awake!” Lucy proclaimed with a smirk. She had doomed me with less than five words. I heard Lily and Peter dropping silverware in an excited frenzy. 

“Touche, love.” I replied with resignation. I hugged each of them good morning as they came barreling towards me and returned them to the syrup-ridden battlefield that was our kitchen table.

Peter was 6. Bleach blonde hair, a swath of freckles covering the bridge of his nose. He’s a kind, introspective soul I think. A revolving door of atypical childhood interests though. Ghosts and mini golf as of late.

Lily, on the other hand, was 3. A complete and utter contrast to Peter, which we initially welcomed with open arms. Gregarious and frenetic, already showing interest in sports - not things my son found value in. The only difference we did not treasure was her health - Peter was perfectly healthy, but Lily was found to have a kidney tumor that needed to be surgically excised a year ago, along with her kidney. 

Lucy, as always, stood slender and radiant in the morning light, attending to some dishes over the sink. We met when we were both 18 and had grown up together. When I remembered to, I let her know that she was my kaleidoscope - looking through her, the bleak world had beauty, and maybe even meaning if I looked long enough. 

After setting the kids at the table, I helped her with the dishes, and we talked a bit about work. I had taken the position at CellCept two weeks ago. The hours were grueling, but the pay was triple what I was earning at my previous job. Lily’s chemotherapy was more important than my sanity. Lucy and I had both agreed on this fact with a half shit-eatting, half earnest grin on the day I signed my contract. Thankfully, I had been scouted alongside a colleague, Majorie. 

Majorie was 15 years my junior, a true savant when it came to cellular biology. It was an honor to work alongside her, even on the days it made me question my own validity as a scientist. Perhaps more importantly though, Lucy and her were close friends. Lucy and I discussed the transition, finances, and other topics quietly for a few minutes, until she said something that gave me pause. 

“How are you feeling? Beyond the exhaustion, I mean” 

I set the plate I was scrubbing down, trying to determine exactly what she was getting at.

“I’m okay. Hanging in best I can”

She scrunched her nose to that response, an immediate and damning physiologic indicator that I had not given her an answer that was close enough to what she was fishing for. 

“You sure you’re doing OK?”

“Yeah, I am” I replied. 

She put her head down. In conjunction with the scrunched nose, I could tell her frustration was rising.

“John - you just started a new medication, and the seizure wasn’t that long ago. I know you want to be stoic and all that but…”

I turned to her, incredulous. I had never had a seizure before in my life. I take a few Tylenol here and there, but otherwise I wasn’t on any medication. 

“Lucy, what are you talking about?” I said. She kept her head down. No response. 

“Lucy?” I put a hand on her shoulder. This is where I think the translocation starts, or maybe a few seconds ago when she asked about the seizure. In a fleeting moment, all the ambient noise evaporated from our kitchen. I could no longer hear the kids babbling, the water splashing off dishes, the birds singing distantly outside the kitchen window. As the word “Lucy” fell out of my mouth, it unnaturally filled all of that empty space. I practically startled myself, it felt like I had essentially shouted in my own ear. 

Lucy, and the kids, were caught and fixed in a single motion. Statuesque and uncanny. Lucy with her head down at the sink. Lily sitting up straight and gazing outside the window with curiosity. Peter was the only one turned towards me, both hands on the edge of his chair with his torso tilted forward, suspended in the animation of getting up from the kitchen table. As I stepped towards Lucy, I noticed that Peter’s eyes would follow my position in the room. Unblinking. No movement from any other part of his body to accompany his eyes tracking me.

Then, at some point, I noticed a change in my peripheral vision to the right of where I was standing. The blackness may have just blinked into existence, or it may have crept in slowly as I was preoccupied with the silence and my newly catatonic family. I turned cautiously, something primal in me trying to avoid greeting the waiting abyss. Where my living room used to stand, there now stood an empty room bathed in fluorescent light from an unclear source, sickly yellow rays reflecting off of an alien tile floor. There were no walls to this room. At a certain point, the tile flooring transitioned into inky darkness in every direction. In the middle of the room, there was a man on a bench, watching me turn towards him. 

With my vision enveloped by these new, stygian surroundings, a cacophonous deluge of sound returned to me. Every plausible sound ever experienced by humanity, present and accounted for - laughing, crying, screaming, shouting. Machines and music and nature. An insurmountable and uninterruptible wave of force. At the threshold of my insanity, the man in the center stepped up from the bench. He was holding both arms out, palms faced upwards. His skin was taught and tented on both of his wrists, tired flesh rising about a foot symmetrically above each hand. Dried blood streaks led up to a center point of the stretched skin, where a fountain of mercurial silver erupted upwards. Following the silver with my eyes, I could see it divided into thousands of threads, each with slightly different angular trajectories, all moving heavenbound into the void that replaced my living room ceiling. With the small motion of bringing both of his hands slightly forward and towards me, the cacophony ceased in an instant. 

I then began to appreciate the figure before me. He stood at least 10 feet tall. His arms and legs were the same proportions, which gave his upper extremities an unnatural length. His face, however, devoured my attention. The skin of his face was a deep red consistent with physical strain, glistening with sweat. He wore a tiny smile - the sides of his lips barely rising up to make a smile recognizable. His unblinking eyes, however, were unbearably discordant with that smile. In my life, I have seen extremes of both physical and mental pain. I have seen the eyes of someone who splintered their femur in a hiking accident, bulging with agony. I have seen the eyes of a mother whose child was stillborn, wild with melancholy. The pain, the absolute oblivion, in this figure’s eyes easily surpassed the existential discomfort of both of those memories. And with those eyes squarely fixated on my own, I found myself somewhere else. 

My consciousness returned to its set point in a hospital bed. There was a young man beside me, holding my hand. Couldn’t have been more than 14. I retracted my hand out of his grip with significant force. The boy slid back in his chair, clearly startled by my sudden movement. Before I could ask him what was going on, Lucy jogged into the room, her work stilettos clacking on the wooden floor. I pleaded with her to get this stranger out of here, to explain what was happening, to give me something concrete to anchor myself to. 

With a sense of urgency, Lucy said: “Peter honey, could you go get your uncle from the waiting room and give your father and I a moment?” 

The hospital’s neurologist explained that I suffered a grand mal seizure while at home. She also explained that all of the testing, so far, did not show an obvious reason for the seizure, like a tumor or stroke. More testing to come, but she was hopeful nothing serious was going on. We talked about the visions I had experienced, which she chalked up to an atypical “aura”, or a sudden and unusual sensation that can sometimes precede a seizure. 

Lucy and I spoke for a few minutes while Peter retrieved his uncle. As she recounted our lives (home address, current work struggles, etc.) I slowly found memories of Lily’s 8th birthday party, Peter’s first day of middle school, Lucy and I taking a trip to Bermuda to celebrate my promotion at CellCept. When Peter returned with his uncle, I thankfully did recognize him as my son.

Initially, I was satisfied with the explanation given to me for my visions. Additionally, confusion and disorientation after seizures is a common phenomenon, known as a “post-ictal” state. It all gave me hope. That false hope endured only until my next translocation, prompting me to document my experiences.  

End of entry 1 

John was actually a year off - I was 15 when he had his first seizure. Date-wise he is correct, though: he first received his late onset epilepsy diagnosis in April of 2004, right after my mother’s birthday that year. The memory he is initially recalled, if it is real, would have happened in 1995.

I apologize, but I am exhausted, and will need to stop transcription here for now. I will upload again when I am able.

-Peter Morrison 

It was bound to occur. No matter how much effort is spent suppressing the truth, it always surfaces eventually. Because of her unique background and dual fields of knowledge, a rising Egyptology scholar and entomologist was shown very sensitive information about the construction and origin of the pyramids near modern-day Giza. The incredibly controversial findings were deeply troubling. For that and other reasons to be apparent later, the antiquities bureau did not want their new discovery leaked to the public.

The unsurprising justification for a full media blackout and censorship was clear enough, once the details were revealed. If the greater world found out what they divulged to Ms. Plott in the dusty research center basement, panic and fear would certainly erupt. The end result of the upheaval would be sectarian violence from sensitive parts of society unable to accept the new facts. It was definitely a public safety issue, but the decision was also intended to bury what they themselves did not wish to accept. The devout authorities who took her into their reluctant confidence, hoped she would disprove the blasphemous, heretical findings they’d unfortunately stumbled upon.

Of that desire, they would be denied. The evidence was both substantial and bulletproof. Of the strong dictate they’d impressed upon her not to share those details with others in the scientific community or the general public, she fully disregarded. It was too huge of a story to sit on, and she had absolutely no intention of ‘sandbagging’ one of the greatest discoveries in the history of the world.

When the Egyptian authorities realized they couldn’t silence her outright or control the media narrative, they tried to discredit her credentials and academic career. The predictable ‘damage control’ measure didn’t really work since it was public record that they approached her in the first place. If indeed Ms. Plott was such an unprofessional ‘hack’, then why would they work with her at all? It simply made them look bad.

The hastily-organized ‘smokescreen’ only succeeded with a small minority of individuals who were completely unwilling to accept the shocking truth. The sacred monuments and pride of their great country were not built by generations of manual laborers or human slaves; as noted historians would have us believe. They were actually fabricated by a massive species of arthropod! This fearsome race of giant ants had once ruled the Earth and built the impressive temples of stone, just as their modern-day diminutive equivalent builds hills or conical-shaped mounds in the dirt.

The archeologists uncovered several partially-preserved remains in an excavation site near a deep subterranean corridor but didn’t immediately make the connection. They couldn’t see what they did not want to see. Thinking the abnormally large, decaying specimens were related to unknown mummification rituals, they quickly gathered them up and placed them in a refrigeration unit, to be studied later. It was this absent-minded precaution which preserved the prehistoric insects before they decayed in the dry desert air.

Had they spent any time examining the crushed, human-size arthropods at the moment, all evidence would’ve been destroyed to preserve the peace. The idea that we were not always the preeminent rulers of the Earth was incredibly threatening to some. Our ancient holy books and religious texts strongly promote the idea of human dominion and absolute sovereignty. Within those hidden subterranean corridors, undeniable data to the contrary points to an earlier time when ‘they’ ruled the land.

Predictably, there was strong, visceral pushback from devout theists and religious groups around the world. The so-called ‘evidence’ has to be a hoax. There was no such thing as a giant species of ants which could carry ten ton blocks of stone up the side of a structure! That was ‘crazy talk’ by atheistic non-believers, promoting hateful ideas of heresy and anathema.

Reluctantly, the Egyptian government released their findings once it became clear ‘the cat could not be put back in the bag’. Denying the truth any longer actually did more harm than good. To add more fuel to the fire, authorities in Central America, Asia, and elsewhere came forward with new, corroborating facts they’d been hiding as well. The pyramid-like structures and ziggurats found in Sumer, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Cambodia, and North America all bore the same uncomfortable, but verified evidence of insect construction.

The mystery of ‘how’ ancient humans built such massive things without the aid of modern building tools had been solved. They hadn’t. Genome typing of the exoskeletal remains located at each site around the planet revealed numerous sub species through their DNA. That also explained design differences between the pyramid structures across the globe. They were independently built by anthropoid creatures which could carry and stack more than 20X their own weight. Understandably, different subspecies created a slightly unique design for their ‘anthills’.

“If any of this is true, then where are these gigantic insects now? Also, why do the pyramids and ancient mounds bear human images and language inscriptions on them?”

It was a valid set of questions from the outspoken critics and skeptics of the world. They deserved and needed to be answered. Ms. Plott was called forth to answer for her pivotal role in prying open Pandora’s box. Since she was the culprit who upset the proverbial apple cart, she was expected to bring forth calm and explain those external ‘bones of contention’. She tackled the last question first.

“Have you ever been to a large city and witnessed colorful graffiti on a subway, rail car, or an exterior city wall? The large industrial structure and sprawling cityscape was present, long before the writings on the walls. No matter how creative or artistic, we don’t think the architects who constructed those impressive city buildings also spray-painted the colorful signs and words on them, do we? No. We realize urban graffiti and decoration came long after the train car and skyscrapers were made.”

In the public forum where she addressed the sea of dissenters, that logical explanation satisfied a certain percentage who were ‘on the fence’, but it failed to sway the determined skeptics. They expected many more details, and pointed to her deliberate evasion of the first, far-more-pressing question to the average person.”

“Since I was made aware of the preserved anthropoid specimens at the Giza research center, I’ve been provided with incontrovertible proof that human beings did not build any of these incredible marvels. These amazing ants did. I assure you that the data is substantial. It’s real and undeniable. For those with an open mind willing to accept the truth, I’ll be releasing the details very soon. As for where this species is now. I’m not prepared to entertain that query at the moment.”

She was round, heavy, soft, naked, and lay in a single size bed; the glow of the monitor was the only thing that lit the dark room—there were no windows and a single overhead vent circulated fresh air through the little bedroom. The young woman lifted her arms, so they stood out from her shoulders like two sticks directly towards the ceiling vent; she squinched her face as she extended her arms out and a singular loud pop resonated from her left elbow. Though she lingered in bed and yawned and tossed the yellowy sheets around, so they twisted around her legs ropelike, she’d not just awoken; Pixie remained conscious the entire night. Her stringy unwashed hair—shoulder length—clumped around her head in tangles. Pixie reached out for the metallic nightstand and in reaching blindly while she yawned again, her fingers traced the flat surface of the wall. She angled up and the sheets fell from around her bare midsection.

Hairs knottily protested, snagging as the brush passed over her head. Pixie returned to her back with a flop, continued to hold the brush handle in her left fist, stared absently at the ceiling vent; a light breeze passed through the room, a draft created by the vent and the miniscule space at the base of the door on the wall by the foot of the bed. Her eyes traced the outline of the closed door; the whole place was ghostly with only the light of the monitor as it flickered muted cartoons—the screen was mounted to the high corner adjacent the door and its colored lights occasionally illuminated far peripheries of the space.

Poor paper was tacked around open spaces of the walls with poorer imitations of manga stylings. Bulbously oblong-eyed characters stared down at her from all angles. Spaces not filled by those doodles were pictures, paintings, still images of Japanese iconography: bonsai, samurai, Shinto temples, yokai, so on, so on.

Pixie chewed her bottom lip, nibbled the skin she’d torn from there. The monitor’s screen displayed deep, colorful anime.

“Kohai, Noise on,” she said.

The monitor beeped once in response then its small speaker filled the room with jazz-funk-blues.

“Three, two, one,” Pixie whispered in unison with the words which spilled from the speaker.

Being twenty years old, she was limber enough to contort her upper half from the bed, hang from its edge so the edge held at her lower back; she wobbled up and down until she heard a series of cracks resonate. Pixie groaned in satisfaction and returned properly onto the bed.

The monitor, in its low left corner showed: 6:47. Pixie sighed.

As if by sudden possession, she launched from the mattress onto the little space afforded to the open floor and stood there and untangled herself from where the sheets had coiled around her legs. She then squatted by the bed, rear pressed against the nightstand, and withdrew a drawer from under her bed. Stowed there were a series of clothing items and she dressed herself in eccentric blue, flowy pants with an inner cord belt. For her top, she donned a worn and thinly translucent stained white t-shirt. By the door, beneath the monitor on the floor were a pair of slide-on leather shoes and she stepped into them.

Pixie whipped open the door and slammed her cheek to the threshold’s frame to speak to the monitor. “Kohai, off.”

The room went totally dark as she gently shut and locked the door.

She stood in a narrow, white-painted brick hallway with electric sconces lining the walls, each of those urine-yellow lights coated the white walls in their glow; Pixie’s own personal pallor took on the lights’ hue.

With her thumbs hooked onto the pockets of her pants, she moseyed without hurry down the hall towards a zippering staircase; there were floors above and floors below and she took the series leading down until she met the place where there were no more stairs to take.

The lobby of the structure was not so much that, but more of a thoroughfare with an entryway both to the left and the right; green leaves overhung terracotta dirt beds pressed along the walls. Pixie’s feet carried her faster while she angled her right shoulder out.

Natural warmth splintered into the lobby’s scene as she slammed into the rightward exit and began onto the lightly metropolitan street, bricked, worn, crumbling. Wet hot air sent the looser hairs spidering outward from her crown while lorries thrummed by on the parallel roadway; the sidewalk Pixie stomped along carried few other passersby and when she passed a well-postured man going the opposite way on her side of the street, he stopped, twisted, and called after, “Nice wagon.”

There was no response at all from Pixie, not a single eye blink that might have determined whether she heard what he’d said at all. The man let go of a quick, “Pfft,” before pivoting to go in the direction he’d initially set out for.

Tall Tucson congestion was all around her, Valencia Street’s food vendors resurrected for the day and butters or lards struck grill flats or pans and were shortly followed by batters and eggs and pig cuts—chorizo spice filled the air. Aromatics filled the southernmost line of the street where there were long open plots of earth—this was where a series of stalls gathered haphazardly. The box roofs of the stalls stood in the foreground of the entryway signs which directed towards the municipal superstructure. The noise swelled too—there were shouts, homeless dogs that cruised between the ramshackle stalls; a tabby languished in the sun atop a griddle hut and the dogs barked after it and the tabby paid no mind as it stretched its belly out for the sky. Morning commuters, walkers, gathered to their places and stood in queues or sat among the red earth or took to stools if they were offered by the vendors. Those that took food dispersed with haste, checking tablets or watches or they simply glanced at the sky for answers.

Sun shafts played between the heavy morning clouds that passed over, gray and drab, and there were moments of great heat then great relief then mugginess; it signaled likely rain.

At an intersection where old corroded chain-link fencing ran the length of the southern route with signs warning of trespass, she took Plumer Avenue north and kept her eyes averted to the hewn brick ground beneath her feet. Pixie lifted her nose, sniffed, stuffed her fists into her pockets then continued looking at her own moving feet.

Among the rows of crowded apartments which lined either side of Plumer, there were alleyway vendors—brisk rude people which called out to those that passed in hopes of trade; many of the goods offered were needless hand-made ornaments and the like. Strand bead bracelets dangled from fingers in display and were insistently shown off while artisans cried out prices while children’s tops spun in shoebox sized arenas while corn-husk cigarettes were sold by the pack. It was all noise everywhere.

A few vendors yelled after Pixie, but she ignored them and kept going; the salespeople then shifted their attention to whoever their eyes fell on next—someone with a better response. Plumer Avenue was packed tighter as more commuters gathered to the avenues and ran across the center road at seemingly random intervals—those that drove lorries and battery wagons protested those street crossers with wild abandon; the traffic that existed crept through the narrow route. People ran like water around the tall black light box posts or the narrow and government tended mesquite trunks.

It sprinkled rain; Pixie crossed her arms across her chest and continued walking. The rain caused a mild haze across the scene—Pixie scrunched her nose and quickened her pace.

She came to where she intended, and the crowd continued with its rush, but she froze there in front of a grimy windowed storefront—the welded sign overhead read: Odds N’ Ends. Standing beside the storefront’s door was a towering fellow. The pink and dew-eyed man danced and smiled and there was no music; his shoeless calloused heels ground and twisted into the bricks like he intended to create depressions in the ground there. Rainwater beaded and was cradled in his mess of hair. He offered a flash of jazz hands then continued his twisty groove. Though the man hushed words to himself, they were swallowed by the ruckus of the commuters around him.

Pixie pressed into the door, caught the man’s eyes, and he grinned broader, Hello! he called.

She responded with an apologetic nod and stretched a flat smile without teeth.

Standing on the interior mat, the door slammed behind her, and she traced the large, high-ceiling interior.

To the right, towering shelves of outdated preserves and books and smokes and incenses and dead crystals created thin pathways; to the left was a counter, a register, and an old, wrinkled woman with a fat gray bun coiled atop her head—she kept a thin yarn shawl over her shoulders. The old woman sat in a high-backed stool behind the register, examined a hardback paper book splayed adjacent the register; she traced her fingers along the sentences while she whispered to herself. Upon finally noticing Pixie standing by the door, the woman came hurriedly from around the backside of the counter, arms up in a fury, “You’re late, Joan,” said the old woman; her eyes darted to the analog dial which hung by the storefront, “Not by much, but still.” Standing alongside one another, the old woman seemed rather short. “You’re soaked—look at you, dripping all over the floor.”

Pixie nodded but refrained from looking the woman in the eye.

“Oh,” the old woman flapped her flattened hand across her own face while coughing, “When did you last wash?” She grabbed onto Pixie’s shoulders, angled the younger woman back so that she could stare into her face. “Look at your eyes—you haven’t been sleeping at all, Joan. What will we do with you? What am I going to do with you?” Then the old woman froze. “Pixie,” she nodded, clawed a single index finger, and tapped the crooked appendage to her temple, “I forget.”

“It’s alright,” whispered Pixie.

The old woman’s nature softened for a moment, her shoulders slanted away from her throat, and she shuffled to return to her post behind the counter. “Anyway, the deliveryman from the res came by and dropped off that shipment, just like I told you he would. They’re in the back. Could you bring them out and help me put them up? I tried a few of them, but the boxes are quite heavy, and it’s worn my back out already.” The old woman offered a meager grin, exposing her missing front teeth. She turned her attention to the book on the counter, lifted it up so it was more like a miniscule cubicle screen—the title read: Your Psychic Powers and How to Develop Them.

Pixie set to the task; the stockroom was overflowing even more so with trinkets—a barrel of mannequin arms overhung from a shelf by the ceiling, covered in dust—dull hanging solitary light bulbs dotted the stockroom’s ceiling and kept the place dark and moldy, save those spotlights. The fresh boxes sat along the rear of the building, where little light was. Twelve in total, the boxes sat and said nothing, and Pixie said nothing to the boxes. The woman took a pocketknife to the metal stitches which kept them closed. Though the proprietor of Odds N’ Ends said she’d tried her hand at the boxes already, there was no sign of her interference.

The first box contained dead multi-colored hair and the stuff stood plumelike from the mouth of the container; Pixie gave it a shake and watched the strands shift around. This unsettled but was not entirely unpleasant; the unpleasantness followed when she grabbed a fistful of hair only to realize she’d brought up a series of dried scalps which clicked together—hard leather on hard leather. Pixie gagged, dropped the scalps where they’d come from, shook her hands wildly, then placed that box to the ground and shifted it away with her foot.

The next contained a full layer of straw and she hesitantly brushed her hand across the top to uncover glass jars—dark browned liquids. Falsely claimed tinctures.

Curiously, she tilted her head at the next box, it was of a different color and shape than the rest. Green and Rectangular. And further aged too. Pixie sucked in a gulp of air, picked at the stitching of the box with her knife then peered inside. Like the previous box, it was full of straw and with more confidence, she pawed it away. She stumbled backwards from the box, hissing, and brought her finger up to her face. A thin trail of blood trickled by the index fingernail of her right hand; she jammed the finger in her mouth and moved to the box again. Carefully, she removed the object by one end. In the dim light, she held a long-handled, well curved tachi sword; the shine of the blade remained pristine. It was ancient and deceiving.

“Oh,” said Pixie around the index finger in her mouth, “It’s a katana.”

She moved underneath one of the spotlights of the stockroom, held it vertically over herself in the glare, traced her eyes along the beautifully corded black handle. As she twisted the blade in the air, it caught the light and she seemed stricken dumb. She withdrew her finger from her mouth, held the thing out in front of her chest with both hands, put her eyes along the water-wave edge. Her tongue tip squeezed from the corner of her mouth while she was frozen with the sword.

In a dash, she held the thing casually and returned to the box. She rummaged within and came up with the scabbard. The weapon easily clicked safely inside. “Pretty cool,” she said.

The other boxes held nothing quite so inspiring as a sword nor anything as morbid as dead scalps. There were decapitated shaved baby-doll heads lining the interior slots of plastic egg cartons, and more fake tonics, and tarot cards, and cigarettes, and a few unmarked media cartridges—both assortments of videos and music were represented in their designs. Pixie spent no time whatsoever ogling any of the other objects; her attention remained with the sword which she kept in her hand as she sallied through the boxes. Between opening every new box, she took a long break to unsheathe the sword and play-fight the air without poise—even so the tachi was alive spoke windily.

“Quit lollygagging,” said the old woman; she stood in the doorway to the stockroom, shook her head, “Is this what you’ve been doing all morning? How are we supposed to get the new merchandise on the shelves—including that sword—if you won’t stop playing around?”

Pixie’s voice cracked, “How much is it?”

The old woman balked, “The sword?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a display piece. We put it in the window to draw in potential customers, of course. It’s too expensive to keep them in stock. I don’t even know where a person could find a continuous stock of them, but if we can put it in the window, perhaps clientele will come in, ask about it, then shop a bit—it’s not something you can sell; it’s an investment.” The old woman, slow as she was, steadied across the stockroom and met Pixie there by the boxes, placed her hand on the open containers, briefly glanced into the nearest one, and smiled. “It’d take you a lifetime to pay back if you wanted a sword like that anyway. Now,” The old woman placed a hand on Pixie’s shoulder, “Put it away. There’s a strange man outside and I need your help shooing him away. He’s likely scared away potential customers already.”

The two of them, tachi returned to its place, went to the front of the store; it was ghostly quiet save their footfalls—the customers that did stop into the store hardly ever stopped in more than the once; it was a place of oddities, strangeness, novelty. The things they sold most of were the packaged cigarettes from the res. No one cared enough for magic or fortune telling. Still, the old woman carried on, like she did often, about the principals for running a business. Pixie carried no principals—none could be found—so the young woman nodded along with anything the old woman said while staring off.

On the approach to the storefront, the man from before could be seen and his dance had not slowed—if anything his movements had only become further enamored with dance. His elbows swung wildly, he spun like a ballerina, he kicked his feet against the brick sideway and did not flinch at the pain of it.

“There he is,” said the old woman, “He’s acting crazy as hell. Look at him go.” He went. “If I wasn’t certain he was as crazy as a deck with five suits, I’d ask if he wanted to bark for me—you know, draw in a crowd.” She shook her head. “Don’t know why people like him can’t just go to the airport. There are handouts there. Anyway, I need to get back to it myself. As do you,” she directed this at Pixie; although Pixie towered over the woman in terms of physicality, the older woman rose on her tiptoes, pinched the younger woman’s soft bicep hard, whispered, “Get that bastard off my stoop, understand?”

Again, the old woman’s face softened, and she left Pixie standing there on the front door’s interior mat. The crone returned to her place behind the counter, nestled onto the stool like a bird finding comfort, then craned her neck far down so her nose nearly touched the book page; her eyes followed her finger across the lines.

Pixie’s chest swelled and then went small as the sigh escaped her; her shoulders hung in front of her, and she briskly pushed outside.

The rain had gone, but the smell remained; across the street, where the morning’s foot congestion decreased, a series of blue-coated builders could be spied hoisting materials—metal framing and brick—via scaffolding with a series of pulleys. For a moment, Pixie stared across the street and watched the men work and shout at one another; a lorry passed by, broke her eyeline and she was suddenly confronted by the dancing man who pivoted several times in a semicircle around where she stood. Far, far off, birds called. Fuel fog stunk the air.

Move, said the dancing man. Initially it seemed a rude command, but upon catching his rain-wetted face, it was obvious that his will was not one of malice, but of love and peace and cosmic splendor. It does not matter how you move, but you must move! It was an offer. Not a command. Or so it seemed.

The man rolled his neck and flicked his head around and the jewels which beaded there glowed around him for a blink as they were cast off.

You’ve been sent to send me away, yeah? asked the man.

“That’s right,” said Pixie.

But it’s not because you wish it?

“I couldn’t care if you stood out here all day.” Pixie bit her lip, chewed enough that a trickle of blood touched her tongue; her eyes swept across the street again and focused on the builders. “The fewer customers we have, the less I need to speak.”

The man froze in his dance then suddenly his stature slumped. He nodded. I’ll go. As you must. You must too, yeah?

“Go? Go where?”

You know.

She did.

The man left and Pixie remained on the street by herself; the rabble which passed her by were few and she stared at her own two feet, at the space between them, at the cracks, and she sighed. She jerked her head back, saw the sky was still deep ocean blue—more rain but nothing so sinister as a storm.

“Go?” she asked the sky.

She reentered the store.

After stocking the newest shipment, the rest of the day was as mundane as the others which Pixie spent within Odds N’ Ends; few patrons stopped in—mostly to ogle—it was a place of spectacle more than a place of business. Whenever folks came, the old woman would call for Pixie without looking up from her book; normally the younger woman dusted or rearranged the things on the shelves as the old woman liked them and was often away from the counter. Pixie tried to answer questions about the shaved doll heads, the crystals arranged upon velvet mats, the tinctures, the stuffed bear head high on the wall. After some terrible conversation, they went to the counter and bought cigarettes or nothing at all and the old woman would complain at Pixie about her poor salesmanship after the patrons were gone.

The tachi was put there on a broad table, directly in front of the storefront window and Pixie froze often in her work, longingly examined the thing from afar, and snapped from her maladaptation; frequently she chastised herself in barely audible mutters. The old woman had Pixie scrub the pane of the window in front of where the sword sat, and the young woman traced her hand across the handle and delicately thumbed the length of the plain scabbard.

It was a job; this was a thing which people did so they may go on living. Come the middle of the shift—Pixie yawned, it was not due to overexertion, it was more due to her poor sleeping habits. This day was no different in this regard.

“I wish you’d keep it to yourself,” the old woman said, and then she cupped a hand over her own mouth and her eyes went teary, “God, now look at me and see what you’ve done!” The old woman shook the tiredness away. “Bah! There’s still some daylight left!”

“We haven’t had anyone in for the past hour,” said Pixie, staring up at the analog dial on the wall.

The old woman’s scowl was fierce. “Mhm, I’m sure you’re waiting for the death call.” She too looked at the clock on the wall and sighed loudly. “Alright. Pack it up! Better the death call of the store than my own.” She fanned her face with a flat palm and yawned again.

Pixie left the place; the old woman locked the storefront from within. It began to rain again; it seemed the weather understood it was quitting time.

The young woman cupped her elbows and walked home in the rain. Other commuters passed with umbrellas and others, like Pixie, ran through the puddles gathered on the ground. Rain was infrequent but this was not so in the summer and Pixie never protested it. It cooled the ground, thickened the air, and darkened the sky. A car passed on the street, but it was mostly lorries or battery wagons. Personal vehicles were as rare as the rain and Pixie watched after the car; it was a short, rounded thing—its metal cosmetics were warped, and it couldn’t have carried more than two people within.

No vendors were there on the way, no men to call after her—no other people either. The sky grew darker yet and though it was still relatively early, it seemed to grow as black as nighttime without stars.

Pixie’s apartment was there, dark, solitary, same. She shut her door, locked it with her inside, undressed completely and dropped her clothes to the little floor there was and huffed as she planked across the mattress; the bedframe protested. “It smells bad in here,” she spoke into the pillow. The words were nothing. In the blackness of the room, she was nothing. It was a void, a capsule, a tomb. She was still wet and smelled like a dog.

The monitor in the corner came alive at her salutation and she snored sporadically in the electric glow of the screen.

Upon waking in the black hours of the morning, Pixie rubbed her eyes, cupped her forearms to her stomach; her midsection growled, and she tentatively reached to the bedside table and removed a bag of dried cactus pears. She nibbled at the end of one and in arching was cut blue and archaically shaped in the stilled light of the monitor’s idle screen. Pixie popped the entire rest of the cactus pear into her mouth, chewed noisily and vaguely stared into the empty corner of the room beneath the monitor.

After silent deliberation, Pixie crept through the night clothed in dark layers and went the back way through Odds N’ Ends. She absconded with the tachi, taking only a moment with the sword by the white windowlight where she carefully examined the thing again. The young woman was beguiled and went from the place the same way she came.

The brick streets resounded with her footfalls as her excited gait carried her home.

She packed light, slung the sword to her hip with a cloth braid—once it was there in its place, she used the thumb of her left hand to nudge the meager guard, so the blade came free from its sheath before she casually clicked it back to where it went. Pixie chuckled, shook with a frightening spasm dance then froze before patting the tachi lightly.

***

Two men stood along a shallow desert ridge; each of them was Apache descended.

Peridot Mesa was covered in poppies, curled horrendous things; once they’d been as precious as the peridot gems themselves, but as the two men stood there, overlooking the ridge, the poppies were browned, sickly, and as twisted as hog phalluses. Among the dying field were chicory and dead fallen-over cacti. The super blossoms were long over and had been for generations.

One man spat in the dirt, tilted his straw hat across his eyes to avert the heavy setting sun; he hoisted his jeans, asked, “You sure?”

The other man, older, lightly bearded, nodded and kept his own head covered with a yellow bucket hat and cradled his bolt-action rifle with the comfortability of an ex-soldier. “Yeah, c’mon Tweep.” He staggered over the edge of the ridge and slid across the dry earth while tilting backwards so his boots went like skis. With some assistance from his partner, he was able to reach flat ground without going over and the two men searched the ground while they continued walking. “Need to find her fast.”

Tweep, the younger man, spat again.

“Nasty habit.”

“Leave it, Taz.”

Taz shrugged and absently tugged on the string which looped the bucket hat loosely around his collar.

“How long?” asked Tweep.

“Serena said she blew through town only three days ago. Said she was coming this way.”

“She came looking for Chupacabra demons?”

“Huh?” asked Taz.

“That’s what that silly girl came out here for, yeah?”

“I guess. Let’s find her before dark, alright?”

“Sure,” said Tweep, “I just don’t know why she’d go looking for them.”

“Who knows? I don’t care enough to know. Not really.” The older man shook his head. “City people come out here, poke the wildlife—they make jokes about the mystics. I know you’ve seen it. Serena said the girl had the doe-eyed look of someone fresh out of Pheonix maybe. Who knows what she’s come here for?” There was a pause and only their footfalls sounded across the loose dry soil. “Dammit!” said the older man, “You’ve got me rambling. Let’s find the body already. Preferably before it gets much darker.”

“You think she’s dead then?”

Taz grimaced and then he spat. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know, sir, why don’t you tell me what to think? I’m starting to think you only dragged me out here to help you carry anything you find valuable.”

Taz shook his head, shrugged. “Smart mouth.” They continued across the mesa, kicking poppies, shifting earth that hadn’t been touched by humans since the first deluge; it wouldn’t be touched by humans for another thousand after the second deluge—that was some time away yet.

“I see her.” Tweep rushed ahead.

Among a rockier set of alcoves, a white, stained blouse hung on a tumbleweed caught among groupings of stones.

“It’s her shirt,” said Tweep, going swiftly ahead.

The younger man leapt atop the stones and looked down a circular nest where the dirt was dug craterlike; destroyed tumbleweeds and splintered bone-corpses littered the nest.

Taz caught his comrade, readied the rifle at the nest.

Strewn across the ground were no less than three full grown Chupacabras, slain; one lay unmoving and decapitated while another’s intestines steamed in the heat. The third clung to life and kicked its rear legs helplessly. Pixie stood among the gore, shirtless; the tachi gleamed in her glowing fists.

“Holy shit!” said Taz; he lowered the rifle and followed Tweep into the nest. The two men kicked the rubbish from their way and approached the young woman with timidness. “You alright?”

Pixie ran the flat of the blade across her pantleg to remove the sparkling blood, inspected the thing and wiped it again before returning the sword to where it went. Leaking bite wounds covered the length of her forearms, and her eyes went far and tired.

Tweep watched the woman, chewed his lip. “You’re possessed! You can’t just kill them like that! Nobody could kill Chupacabra so easily. With your hands?” He tipped his straw hat back, so it fell to his shoulders and hung by the string on his throat.

Pixie shook her head. “It wasn’t with my hands.”

The woman wavered past the men, climbed the short perch where her blouse had gone; she held the shirt to the sky—the material floated out from her fingers as torn rags. She let go of the blouse and it carried on the wind.

Taz approached the only Chupacabra of the nest that remained alive. The creature groaned; the wound which immobilized it had partially severed its spine and the creature’s movements may have been from expelled death energy rather than any conscious effort—the upturned eye of it while it lay on its side seemed to show fear. Its body was mangy, and just as well as naked dark skin shone, so too did fur grow long and sporadic across its torso; short whiskers jutted out from its snout. Chitin shining scales covered the creature’s rear haunches while its tail remained rat naked. Taz shot the thing in the head, and it stopped moving.

The woman fell onto the rocks where the men had come over the den. She sat and examined the wounds on her arms then she turned her attention to the men which had gathered by her. “Do either of you have a spare shirt?”

Archive

“A nifty little gravity-disruption device of superior design was created for the sole purpose of bringing unpredictable chaos to the cosmos. It was employed a very long time ago, or possibly in the distant future. Time is a circular loop, you know. The ‘when’ doesn’t matter in this context. What does; is that its destructive effects are about to be felt, right here on the place you call home; ‘Terra firma’.

I offer this courtesy warning so the residents of this buzzing microcosm can get their affairs in order. I hate surprises of this magnitude myself and felt advance notice of the total annihilation of your primitive planet would be fair and appreciated. It’s of no consequence to me if you choose to expend your remaining moments trying to independently verify what I’ve so judiciously explained, or in wasteful collective bargaining for your insignificant existence.

All of that is between you and your ‘deity of choice’, but none of it will change the outcome. The disruptor served its purpose. It nudged the orbiting planetary bodies enough to cause irregularities and collisions. The once mercurial, and frankly boring programming of the universe was; or will be, effectively derailed. The ensuing chaos of removing ‘tracks from the train set’ put in motion an incalculable number of fascinating astronomical anomalies. One of those significant ‘variables’ is on an unwavering trajectory with Earth.”

The entire population took a collective ‘shit’ over the morosely-stark news by our unknown interstellar informant. It was one hell of a ‘first contact’ between mankind and whatever alien species the smug SOB was. Delivered in all languages and dialects, the condescending screed was clear enough. Most experts assumed the author was probably the uncredited creator of the ‘disruptor’ device itself.

Our first clues were the telling use of adjectives such as: ‘insignificant’, ‘primitive’, and boring’ in the warning subtext. It showed a transparent admiration for the events unfolding and lent strong support for the idea of culpability. To anonymously ‘humble brag’ about the accomplishment of screwing up the perfection of life, while cowardly ‘saving face’ and not admitting to being the architect of the problem. It was a chicken-shit thing to do, and suggested this ‘superior alien’ shared more in common with inferior humans it looked down upon, than it might want to concede.

At the very least, the unknown being was obviously a ‘big fan’ of the gravitational disruptor device, and was unabashedly gleeful of its use in ‘shaking things up’ for our semi-predictable universe. That strongly suggested a bias toward support or being the actual instigator of the chaos. Why even let us know ‘the end’ was coming if it truly cared about our feelings and couldn’t do anything to prevent the global catastrophe? The general assumption reached was, this ‘messager of doom’ was experiencing a tiny remnant of guilty conscience.

Those not already in a deep-spiraling depression from the doomsday news observed the subtlety in the announcement. They rallied against apocalyptic panic and analyzed the wording for important clues and hidden implications. We had no means of definitive verification that the message giver was also the culprit of our Armageddon event to come, but using that as our running theory allowed for a more calm and collected analysis. Thank goodness for their level heads. They alone formed some strategic plans as the rest of us threw up our hands and basically gave up.

Our unified response was a carefully measured and calculated feeler, sent by our greatest scientific strategists. The extraterrestrial author had taken great pains to discourage us from begging for our lives. Either it could not stop the deadly ‘variable’ careening our way, or would not. Why pretend to be sympathetic to our fate, if it could prevent the deadly event but refused? The most compassionate thing would’ve been to allow us to remain blissfully ignorant.

Telling us so we could ‘get our affairs in order’ implied the author wanted us to experience great fear and suffer hopelessness over deadly events which we couldn’t control. That was the opposite of ‘superior or compassionate’. It pointed to flawed vanity and sadistic manipulation. The nonhuman messenger wanted us to beg for salvation. Humanity refused to take the bait. Instead we subtly fished for more specific details. Our agitator correctly predicted we would do that anyway. We just played along with the intellectual chess match for another round.

“Thank you for the advance alert of our impending doom. We appreciate the opportunity to prepare for it and to savor our final remaining moments. You are most gracious to give us the warning. Since you were not specific, we would like to clarify some details for our final records. Using our Earth geological measurement system of longitude and latitude, would you please share with us exactly where and when this ‘disruptor variable’ will strike our planet?”

The messenger read the official Earth response with amusement at our predictability, and then with rising aggravation.

“Humans! There is no ‘when’! I’ve already explained that time isn’t linear. It’s circular in nature! It’s a shame you didn’t evolve and grasp a greater understanding of science and physics! As for your simple equatorial system of longitude and latitude; the coordinates of the 14 kilometer wide asteroid will occur at: ‘21°24′0″N 89°31′0″W. This deadly impact will result in 4km high tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, global earthquakes, and will wipe out approximately 75% of your species. There is no point in trying to avoid it. Now, stop with the pointless questions and prepare for your end.”

Despite the suspected motives of the mysterious extraterrestrial ‘advisor’, the follow-up response from it greatly relieved the contact committee organizers. The reasons for which would soon bring unexpected calm to billions of human beings worldwide. For all of the alien’s advancements in technology and evolution, there was one area where it still lacked in comprehension. The committee chairman actually laughed when he received the new message. He turned to explain his uncharacteristic amusement to his bewildered colleagues.

“Those coordinates are the Yucatán peninsula, or the Chicxulub impact! For a species who holds a circular concept of time, warning us about an event which transpired here 65 million years ago, is the same as telling us about it ‘in advance’. We refer to it now as the Gulf of Mexico!”

The entire room erupted in relieved guffaws.

“I’ll let our cosmic disruptor know that we’ll be sure to warn the dinosaurs, the next time we see them.”

A cabin remained half-rooved on its eastern face by pelts of dead things while the west slanted with a freshly cleared and smooth metal—it stood alongside a dugout stocked with crates; the structures overlooked an open plane of snow from their hilly perch and beyond that there were black jagged trees against the dreary yonder. Though the wind pushed as an abrupt force against the cabin’s walls, within the noise was hardly a whisper and the heater lamps along the interior walls of the large singular room offered a steady hum that disappeared even that.

The room had two beds—one double and another short cot pushed into a corner— and each was separated by a thin curtain nailed to the overhead support beams; the curtain caught in the life of the place, the gust from the heater lamps, the movement of those that lived there, and it listed so carefully it might not have moved at all.

Opposite the beds on the far wall, there stood a kitchen with cabinets and a stove, and the stove was attended by a thin young woman; she was no older than her second decade. In the corner by the stove just beyond where the kitchen counter ended, there sat a rocking chair where an old man nestled underneath pelts and a wool blanket, and he puffed tobacco and he watched the woman as she worked—she stirred the pot over a red eye and examined the liquid which lowly simmered. The man watched her silently, eyes far away like in remembrance. He absently pushed his gray mustache down with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand. Smoke came from the pipe in spider string and the man blinked dumbly.

Amid the place where pelts lined the floor between the far wall of beds and the far wall of the kitchen, there sat a young pale boy with a scrap of canvas rubbish in the center—he used the canvas strip, browned and filthy, like a bird in his play, spreading the strip out and letting it fall to the ground. “Fly,” whispered the small boy to the strip; each time he lifted the rubbish, it fell to the floor by his crossed legs, and he repeated this process.

The adults ignored the boy, and the woman swiped the back of her hand across her forehead then wiped her knuckles down the front of her blouse. “It’ll be ready soon,” she said.

The man nodded then drifted off in his long expression again, staring at the door which remained closed. Wind speed pitched and the door seemed to warp inward. Alongside the door, there sat a thick glass porthole which one could use to look out on the snow-covered landscape; the curtains before the porthole were mostly drawn but on late evenings, light splintered through ghostly.

Shrugging of his warm coverings, the man lifted from the chair and crossed the room to pull aside the curtains; he stood there in the light of the hole, painted dull in his gray thermals. He watched outside, scratched his receding hairline and when he moved to shut the curtain, he saw the boy had joined him there at the window. The man smiled, lifted the curtain, and angled from there, allowing the boy to peer outside; he puffed on his pipe heavily, holding the thing stiffly with his free hand and offering a glance to the woman by the stove who watched the pair from where she was.

“I can’t even see the road,” said the boy.

The man nodded, “Snow covered it.”

“It’s winter?”

Again, the man nodded.

Winter, with the mutated ecology of the planet, was nearly a death sentence in northern Manitoba. Those places just north of Lake Winnipeg were mostly forgotten or abandoned, but there still lingered a few souls that dared the relative safety of the frozen wasteland—sometimes curious vagabonds, sometimes ex-convicts, or slaves, sometimes even criminals upstarted townships where there was nothing prior.

“Pa, I see someone,” said the boy.

The man angled forward again, squinted through the porthole, and puffed the pipe hard so his face glowed orange then moved surprisingly quickly to hand the pipe to the woman; she fumbled with the object and sat it upright on the counter while he rushed to remove a parka from a wall hook by the door. He shouldered into the thing and then leapt to the place by the door where his boots were kept and slammed into them each, knotting them swiftly.

“What is it?” the woman’s voice shook.

They caught one another’s eyes. “Snowmobile,” said the man.

“One?”

He nodded and strapped his gloves on then moved to the latch of the door—before levering the thing, he took another glance at the boy.

“We’ll shut it behind you,” said the boy. The woman nodded.

The door swung inward with explosive force and the outside wind ripped into the warm abode. The man immediately shivered and stumbled into the snow, appropriately clothed save his legs where only his gray thermals clung to him.

After spilling into the boot-high snow, the man twisted around and aided the others in shutting the door behind him; he pulled as they pushed, and he listened past the howling wind for the latch on the opposite side of the door. He let go of the door and spun to inspect the far-off blinding whiteness—clouds of snow were thrown up in the wake of a barreling snowmobile; it headed towards him, first from between the naked spaces between the black trees then into the open white. The man threw up both his hands, waving the snowmobile down, long stepping through the arduous terrain till he came to the bottom of the perch that supported the cabin. His shouts of, “Hey!” were totally lost in the wind but still he shouted.

The snowmobile braked twenty yards out from the man and the stranger on the machine killed the engine, adjusted the strings around their throat and threw off the hood of their own parka to expose blackened goggles beneath a gray tuque; a wrap obscured the lower half of their face. The stranger took a gloved hand to yank the wrap from their mouth and yelled over the wind a greeting then removed themselves from the seat to land in the snow.

“Cold?” offered the man with a shout.

The stranger nodded in agreement and removed an oblong instrument case from the rear storage grates of the snowmobile then took a few careful steps towards the man.

“Dinner’s almost ready! I’m sure you’d like the warmth!” The man waved the stranger closer and the stranger obliged, following the man towards the cabin; each of the figures tumbled through the snow with slow and swiveling footwork. The man stopped at the door, supporting himself on the exterior wall by the porthole.

The stranger angled within arm’s reach, so the man did not have to yell as loudly as before. “Guitar?” The man pointed at the case which the stranger carried.

The stranger nodded.

“Maybe you’ll play us something.” he pounded on the metal of the exterior door, “It’s been some time since I’ve heard music.” The door opened and the two stumbled into the cabin.

The stranger shivered and snow dust fell from their shoulders as they deposited the guitar case on the floor by their feet—they moved directly to help the man and the boy close the door while the woman watched and held her elbows by the porthole.

With the door sealed and the latch secured, the man removed his parka so that he was in his boots and thermals.

The stranger removed their own parka, lifted the goggles to their forehead, and stepped to the nearby heater lamp to remove their gloves and warm their hands against the radiating warmth; the stranger was a young tall man with a hint of facial hair just below his nose and along his jaw. He wore a gun belt occupied on his right hip with a revolver. His fingers were covered in long faded scars all over. “Thanks,” said the young man, “Clarkesville far? I think I was turned around in the snow. I’m not so used to it.”

The older man went to his rocking chair to cover himself with the wool blanket; he huffed and shivered. “At least a hundred kilometers west from here. You’re looking for Clearwater?”

The young man nodded then shifted to place his back to the heater lamp so that he could look on the family fully. “I’m Gomez,” he said to them. The man in the rocking chair stiffened in his seat and craned forward so that his boots were flatly planted before him.

The boy offered his name first with a smile so broad it exposed that his front two teeth along the bottom row were missing entirely. “Patrick,” said the boy.

The woman spoke gently and nodded in a quick reply, “Tam-Tam.”

“Huh?” asked the man in the chair, “You’re unfamiliar of the area? Where are you from?”

Gomez stuffed his arms beneath his armpits. “Originally?”

The man motioned for his pipe and Tam-Tam handed it to him—puffed on the dead tobacco and frowned. He nodded at Gomez.

“I’ve been making my way across the U.S. Mostly western territories, but I heard it was safer in Canada—North Country. Fewer prowlers. Originally though? Far south. Zapatistas—joined their cause for a bit, but,” Gomez looked to the guitar case on the floor, “I was better at music than killing. Or at least preferred it.” The young man let go of a small laugh, “Do you know anything of the Zapatistas?”

The man nodded, stroked his great mustache, and craned far to lift matches from the counter. He lit the pipe, and it smoked alive while he shook the match and puffed. “Durango.” The man hooked a thumb at himself.

Gomez nodded. “I played there before. Good money. Good people.”

The man grinned slyly over his pipe, “What are the odds? All the way up here?”

“It’s a small world,” Gomez agreed, “It’s getting smaller all the time. What are you doing so far from home?”

“Same as you. It’s safer, right? Everyone said, but I’m not so sure.”

The boy interjected, “You play music?” Patrick neared the case which sat on the floor, and he leaned forward to examine the outside of the object; it was constructed from a very hard, shining, plastic material.

“I do,” said Gomez.

“I haven’t heard music before. We sing sometimes, but not music for real,” said the boy.

Gomez frowned. “How old are you?”

Patrick turned to the man in the chair. “Pa?”

“He’s six,” said the man.

Tam-Tam shook her head, removing the pot from the hot eye. “He’s almost six.”

“Almost six,” said the boy, turning back to look at the stranger.

Gomez shook his head. “Almost six and you’ve never heard music? Not for real?” He sniffed through a cold clog and swallowed hard. “I’ll play you some.”

Patrick’s eyes widened and a delicate smile grew across his mouth.

“I’m Emil,” said the man in his chair, “You offered yours, so my name’s Emil.” Smoke erupted from his mouth while the pipe glowed orange. The older man wafted the air with his hand to dispel the smoke.

Tam-Tam Shut off the oven and placed the pot of stew on the counter atop a towel swatch and she pressed her face to the brim and inhaled.

“Is it good, dear?” asked Emil leaning forward in his chair by the counter to question the woman; the woman lifted a steaming ladle to her mouth and sipped then nodded and Patrick moved quickly to the woman’s side.

The boy received the first bowl and then turned to look at the interloper, metal spoon jammed into the side of his jaw while he spoke, “Play some music.”

“After,” said Emil, placing the pipe on the counter to grab himself some grub.

Emil ate while rocking in his chair and Tam-Tam leaned with her back against the counter, sipping directly from her bowl without a utensil. Gomez took his own bowl and squatted by the front door, pressing his lower back against the wall for support; Patrick, eyes wide, remained enamored with the strange man and questioned more, “Pa said it's warm in other places, that it’s not so dark either. What’s it like where you come from?”

Gomez smiled at the boy, blew on the spoonful he held in front of his lips then nodded, “It’s dangerous, more dangerous.”

Patrick nodded emphatically then finished his food with enthusiasm.

The stranger examined the bowl while turning the stew in his mouth with his tongue; the concoction had long-cut onions, chunked potatoes, strange jerky meat. “Pelts,” said Gomez.

Emil perked with a mouthful, unable to speak.

“You have pelts all over—are you a hunter?”

Emil swallowed back, “Trapper,” he nodded then continued the excavation of his bowl.

“Elk?”

The old man in the chair hissed in air to cool the food in his mouth then swallowed without hardly chewing, and patted his chest, “Sometimes.”

Gomez stirred his bowl, took a final bite then dipped the spoon there in the stew and sat the dish by his foot and moved to kneel and open his instrument case.

“It’ll get cold,” protested Tam-Tam.

Gomez smiled, “I’ll eat it. Your boy seems excited. Besides, I’d like to play a little.” He wiggled his scarred fingers, “It’ll work the cold out of my hands.”

He pressed the switches of the case while turning it on its side and opened it to expose a flamenco guitar. Patrick edged near the stranger, and Gomez nodded at the boy and lifted the guitar from its case, angling himself against the wall in a half-sit where his rear levitated. Gomez played the strings a bit, listened, twisted the nobs at the head of the guitar.

“Is that it?” asked the boy.

Gomez shook his head, “Just testing it. Warming my hands on it.”

In moments, the man began ‘Paloma Negra’, singing the words gently, in a higher register than his speaking voice would have otherwise hinted at. Patrick watched the man while he played, the boy’s hands remained clasped behind himself while he teetered on his heels and listened. Emil rocked in the chair, finished his meal, and relit the pipe. Tam-Tam listened most absently and instead went for seconds in the pot; she turned with her lower back on the counter and watched the man with the guitar.

There was no other noise besides the song which felt haunted alongside the hum of the heater lamps. Once it finished, the boy clapped, Emil clapped, Tam-Tam nodded, and Gomez bowed then sat the guitar beneath the porthole by the doorway.

“Thank you,” said Gomez.

“That’s quite good,” said Emil. As if spurred on by the music, the man gently rotated a palm around his stomach and rocked in his chair more fervently, “Where’d you learn to play like that?”

“All over,” said Gomez, “I like to pick up songs where I find them. Sometimes a fellow musician has a piece I like, almost never their own anyway, so I think we all share in some way.”

“Poetic,” offered Tam-Tam.

Gomez caught the woman’s eyes, nodded. “I guess it is.”

“Where’d you find that one?” asked Emil, “I heard it a few times but never this far north. It’s like a love song,” he offered the last sentence to the others in the room.

“You’re right—sort of,” Gomez placed his body against the wall by the door, glanced at the bowl of food he’d left on the floor then sighed and bowed again to lift it—the interloper tilted the bowl back on his bottom lip and sipped then casually leaned with the utensil against his sternum. “Somewhere in Mexico is where I heard it first. Maybe same as you.”

Patrick examined the guitar under the porthole, put his face directly up to the strings and peered into the hole in the center of the instrument; his expression was one of awe. He quickly whipped from the thing and stared at the guitarist and opened his mouth like he intended to ask a question. The boy stared at the scars on the interloper’s hands. “What’s those from?”

Not understanding the direction of the question, Gomez looked down to examine his fingers then shifted on his feet and nodded. “Mechanical work.”

Emil continued rocking in his chair and gathered the wool around his throat. “Where did you do that?”

“Zapatistas,” Gomez sipped from the bowl again and chewed, “It’s work I was never good at.” The young man shrugged.

“I wasn’t going to pry, but seeing as the boy’s asked, I’ll push more some if it’s not impolite.”

“It’s not,” Gomez agreed.

“That’s a lot of deep scarring for mechanical work,” Emil rocked in his chair, puffed, raised a furry eyebrow, “What stuff did you work on?”

“You want to know?”

Emil nodded, withdrew the pipe from his mouth and rolled his wrist out in front of himself then slammed the mouthpiece into his teeth.

“I worked with the army, but before then—well there was a boy, a little Chicano lad taken into one of the El Paso houses way back and all the girls that worked there loved him, but his mother perished, and no one even knew who she was. That was, oh,” Gomez tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, “Twenty-two years ago or a little more.”

“Your hands?” asked Tam-Tam.

Gomez smiled warm and continued, “Well this little boy was given a name, but what’s in a name?” He seemed to pose the question to Emil who shook his head like he didn’t understand.

“I don’t understand,” said Emil aloud.

The younger man continued with the tale, “There was this boy, but he was taken over the Republican border by a group of desperados calling themselves Los Carniceros,” Gomez angled down to look at the boy, “Patrick, do you know what a desperado is?”

The boy shook his head, his expression one of total bafflement and a twinkle of nervousness. “A music-people?”

Gomez laughed heartily while Emil shuffled under his wool blanket—the older man stopped rocking in his chair, craned forward so his elbows rested on his knees and his thermals showed as the blanket slipped around his armpits. The hum of the heater lamps continued beside the silence.

“Los Carniceros are a group of fancy criminals that hail out of Veracruz, but they have networks all over. San Luis Potosi.” Gomez’s eyes locked with Emil’s, “Durango. They have connections with the cattle industries all over Mexico. Their name’s tongue-in-cheek, but that shouldn’t fool anyone—they are just as ready to butcher a man as they are a cow. They control the food; they control the politicians; they control trade.” Gomez shook his head. “I’ve gotten carried away. This is no history lesson. There was a boy taken into Los Carniceros territory. He was bought—I’m glad that never happened to you, Patrick—boys that are bought are never kept good for long. So, they brought Johnny-Boy, that’s what they called him, into their inner circle and they used to have Johnny-Boy fight dogs in a ring for the amusement of Los Carniceros’s officers. Sometimes they gambled on the whether the boy would die, but he never did.”

Tam-Tam shivered aloud and rubbed her biceps with her hands and shook her head. “What’s that have anything to do with your hands?”

“You’re right,” said Gomez, “I guess what I mean is when you spend time fighting dogs, they bite—they bite hard, and they break skin that needs to heal. But just as well as dogs bite, so too does the boy that is raised as a dog.” Gomez shrugged.

“Quite the story,” said Emil; he’d refrained from rocking in his chair and stayed very still. “You fought dogs?”

“I did. It’s been a helluva long time, but you know I did, Emil Vargas.”

The older man took a long drag from his pipe then cupped the thing in his hands while his vision drifted around the room. “Have you come to take me back?” asked the older man.

The interloper shook his head.

Emil’s gaze drifted to the faces of Patrick and Tam-Tam. “Will it just be me?”

Gomez shook his head, “I can do you first. You won’t need to see it.”

“What?” clamored Tam-Tam, “What the hell is going on?”

Patrick stumbled away from the stranger, clung to Tam-Tam, and said nothing but began to let out a low sob.

Emil took one last drag and tossed the pipe to the counter. “It wouldn’t help to beg?”

“Would it stop you?” asked Gomez.

“Probably not,” nodded the older man, “Me first then.”

Gomez withdrew his revolver and Tam-Tam let go of an awful shriek as Emil’s head jerked back in his chair to the bullet entering his chest. At the second bullet, Emil’s limbs shot out from him like he was a star.

Patrick and Tam-Tam gathered around each other, shuffled to the counter of the kitchen.

Juan Rodriguez—that was the interloper’s real name—took a step forward and fired the gun again and Tam-Tam struck the counter and blood rained down from her forehead; to perhaps save Patrick, she shoved the boy away in her death spasm. The boy stumbled over onto his knees and when he raised his head, Juan towered over him.

Patrick, almost six, shook violently and wept.

“Turn around,” said Juan.

Patrick turned away from the interloper, stared at the corpses of his mother and father.

Juan fired the revolver one last time and the boy hit the floor; the man holstered the pistol and wiped his cheek with a sleeve. His face was touched with blood splatter; he searched the floor, found a scrap of canvas, bent to snatch it. He wiped his face clear with the canvas and sighed and tossed the scrap away.

The cabin was entirely quiet, save the hum of the heater lamps, and Juan set about clearing the bodies from the cabin, first by opening the door. He chucked the corpse of the boy into the snow by the door, piled his mother alongside him, and fought with the heavier corpse of Emil till Juan fell into the snow beside the others. He pulled himself from the thick storm, staggered through the whistle-blow wind and fought through grunts and mild shouts to close the door.

Upon spinning with the closed door at his back, he saw several of the heater lamps had gone out in the wind. Shivering, teeth chattering, Juan found Emil’s matches on the counter and set about relighting each of the heater lamps which had gone out; he did the act automatonlike, a person driven by force but no lively one.

Through the harsh outside wind, which sounded like breathing against the boards, he hummed a tune to himself that manifested into him whistling a light tune—the River Kwai March—then rifled through the cabinetry of the kitchen, went through the footlocker by the double bed and dumped the contents onto the floor; he kicked the personal affects—papers, trinkets—across the boards. Among the things, he found a shiny glass-reflective tablet, lifted it, pocketed the thing into his parka, then kept looking for what else might catch his attention. He found a small square picture, frameless, face down and lifted it to his eyes then angled over to the nearest heater lamp with it pinched by the corner. The photo was of a woman too young to be a mother—she was more of a girl, really; she carried a fat-bellied infant on her hip in one arm and with the other, she held up a dual-finger peace sign. Juan stared at the picture in complete silence then chuckled at the blank expression of the baby, then threw the square photo like a shuriken across the room; it thunked against the wall and disappeared behind the double bed, never to be seen ever again.

As it went full dark outside, the chitter sounds of outside became prevalent, and Juan went to the porthole by the door, pulled the curtains tightly closed and offered no response to the alien sounds which culminated around the walls of the cabin. It was delirium incarnate—abyssal noise which swallowed even the blizzard howl. Things moved outside and Juan went to the kitchen again, looked over the cabinet doors, opened and slammed them; he huffed with exasperation and moved to the pot where the cooled stew sat and began to eat directly from there with the ladle. His far-off eyesight glared into the dimness of the heater lamps, his face glowing by them, and once he was finished with the pot, he chucked the thing and watched the leftover contents splatter into a wild configuration across the single room’s floor.

Only after removing his boots, he fell onto the double bed, removed his revolver from the holster and placed it there on the well-maintained bedding beside himself; he slept with his parka draped over his torso.

He did not open his eyes for the insect noises of the outside.

In the morning, he promptly wiped sleep from his eyes, rebolstered his weapon, and stared across the room with a blank expression. In a moment, spasm-like, he removed the tuque he slept in to reveal a head of black hair, and scratched his fingers over his head. He replaced the tuque, went to the porthole; upon swiping away the curtains, he stared into the white expanse, the black forest beyond—he took the sleeve of his thermal shirt and wiped across the porthole’s glass where condensation fogged.

Knee-high snow hills spilled inward as he opened the door, and he kicked the snow out lazily and stomped into the mess while shouldering his parka on; the hood flapped helplessly till he stiffly yanked it down his forehead. The wind was entirely mild, still. Through goggled eyes, he examined around the entrance, but there was no sign of the corpses—he waywardly stomped through the heavied snow in the place he’d deposited them and there was nothing below the surface.

Juan stumbled through the high snow around to where the dugout stood alongside the cabin and traced a smallish hill where he crawled for a moment to gather his footing. Snow had fallen in through the high apertures of the dugout, but there was a small door-gate attached between two of the pillars which held the slanted roof of the dugout. After fighting the door-gate out, he squeezed through, removed a flashlight from the inner pocket of his parka and settled down the few steps which led into the earth. A bit of morning light spilled in through those spaces of the wall along the high points, just beneath the roof, but Juan held the flashlight in his mouth and began examining the mess of snow-dusted containers.

Along the lefthand were sacks, well preserved if only for the weather; he kicked a tobacco sack—there was a crunch underfoot. Opposite the piled sacks of grains, vegetables, and dried meats were many metal crates, each one with hinges. At the rear of the dugout were a series of battery banks which seemed to hum with electricity.

He stomped each of the sacks, cocked his left ear to the air and began making a mess of the dugout. One crate contained expensive wooden boarding, he tipped this over into the little hallway created by the goods and carefully examined the contents and then he went to the next. The next crate was bolts of fabrics and twine and he sneered, shook his head.

The interloper took a moment, fell rear-first on the sacks, pulled the flashlight from his mouth and pawed across his forehead and throat; he sighed and sat quiet—in a moment, he was back at the search, more furiously. He rocked his head backward, so the parka hood fell away; sweat shined his face. There were condensed snares and jaws and there was a small crate of maple-infused wine; Juan froze when holding one of the bottles up to the higher natural light. He grimaced but set the box of bottles by the entryway, removing one which he slid into his parka. The Clarkesville Winery stamp was impressed on the metal wall of the package.

After several crates of canned goods, his movements became more sluggish and Juan came upon a crate that seemed to be more of the same, but whenever he tipped it over for the contents to spill out, a smaller, ornate wooden box fell out and he hushed, “Fuck,” while hunkering into the mess to retrieve the box. Some old master carved Laelia Orchids into the grain alongside stalkish invasive sage; the wood—Acacia—was old but well kept. The bronze hardware shone cleanly enough.

The container was no longer than his forearm and he briefly held the thing to the high-light and moved to the entrance and fell haphazardly onto the strewn and half-deflated frozen tobacco sacks.

He opened the small box’s latch and flipped it’s top open and smiled at the contents and quicky slapped the box shut.

In a flash, he unburied his snowmobile with his hands, harnessed his guitar case to its rear, then trailed through the snow gathered against the side of the cabin, using the exterior wall as support with his hand. He came to the backside of the structure, tilted his head to gaze again over at the dugout then swiveled to look at the thick metal tank buried in the ground and marked by a big hump in the snow. Juan moved to the tank, brushed off the snow with gloved hands, nodded to himself. Quickly, he returned to the tank with a hand-pick and bucket he snatched from the dugout. With a few swings, fuel spilled through the punctures he’d created; he placed the bucket beneath the handmade spigots to catch the fuel—in seconds the bucket sloshed full as he lifted it and wavered round to the front of the cabin where the door remained open.

He doused the innards of the structure with the bucket and whipped the object against the interior wall then removed the matches from the counter. Standing in the doorway, he lit the awaiting inferno; the heat explosion pushed him wobble-legged outside while he covered his face from it; he hustled to the snowmobile without looking back.

The vehicle came alive, and Juan trailed across the plane he’d used the day prior. As the snowmobile met the sparse black tree line, the flames too met the fuel tank at the back of the cabin; a heavy eruption signaled, and blackbirds cawed as they trailed across the milk-blue sky.

Among the rush of trees there was a translucent figure and Juan roundabouted the snowmobile. Upon edging to the place of the forest, still very near the trapper’s cabin, Juan caught sight of a stickman among the wide spaced trunks. The noises exhausted from its face the same as a cicada’s tymbal call. Juan killed the engine, removed his pistol, leapt from the snowmobile.

The stickman fought in the snow with something unseen, bulbous-jointed limbs erratically clawed against the ground; it seemed more crab than humanoid. Juan approached with the pistol leveled out in front of himself. The stickman, a North Country native, took up great armfuls of snow as it tumbled to the ground, slanted onto its feet, then tumbled over again. It was caught in a bear trap and as the thing fought against the jaw, its leg twisted worse and worse, and the cicada call grew more distressed. Its hollow limb, smashed and fibrous like a fresh and splintered bamboo shoot, offered no blood at the wound.

“Huh,” said Juan, lowering the gun to his side. He shook his head. The stickman called to him.

The interloper returned to his snowmobile and went west.

Archive

First/Previous

Carrion fowls perched along the far walls’ parapets and cawed vaguely with their red wetted beaks in whatever direction; other scavengers supped at the puddles or pecked along the softened flesh of the dead. The birds, variable vultures, hopped across the rubble and curiously side-eyed corpses and pierced the bruise-blackened bloated skins and stripped away long muscle threads and tossed them to catch, to choke back on what they’d done.

The birds which stared, looked dumbly from their perches, and watched Boss Maron (what was he a boss of anymore?) stumble around where he was. His shirt was tattered and bloodied-marks or claws shown across his forearms and his belly. He moved like a drunkard with his feet wide apart. In some commotion, he’d lost a boot and swiveled as carefully as he could when putting his bare right foot forward. My brother seemed to spawn from the mess, to arise only from his slumber at the sign of my approach and I wondered about destiny or fate and as I saw him there, as terrible as he was, he was no match if not for the pistol which hung from the holster on his hip.

In getting closer, I saw the band from his hat had burst and so hung stringlike from the brim and dangled with his footfalls by the eyepatch he wore.

A series of collapsed, nearly unrecognizable apartments had fallen and been flattened or forced to bend in jagged directions; old catwalk rails jutted from the spot of destruction like a mad spider’s legs—an unsettling image. This seemed to have been the place Maron took refuge from the attack.

Wherever I went, it seemed that death was either fast approaching or near ahead so I never could tell from what direction to expect it; but expecting death itself was sometimes enough. I took to a white and curved piece of stone dilapidation—likely a piece from the hydro towers—and used it to purchase higher ground and saw Maron stumble nearer. Through the new byways created by the destruction, he remained slow and struggled and remained so far out that I was uncertain whether he saw me.

The hiss of spitting broken water pipes filled the lulls between the bird calls. The sun was deep yellow against the red sky. The wind was cool and held me aloft like a puppet.

Precariously, I hunkered at my elevated position and rummaged through my satchel but found nothing. Instead, I left it there in that spot and climbed carefully to the earth and unbuckled the belt from around my waist and held it whip-ready, opposite the buckle-end; it was a thin and cheap thing but perhaps good enough. I moved toward my brother, openly. Whatever would be.

Forty yards separated us and there was enough of an area of open earth among the piled collections of destruction; he still looked like a shadow, like a half-illusion of a man against the backdrop of interlocking wreckage.

“Hey!” I called.

Maron stopped where he was and craned his head forward; dust rose from around his feet then settled. “Harlan?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t see you too good, you know.” Maron scratched his right eye with a rotating knuckle; the skin seemed irritated. “Those bugs itch like a bitch, don’t they?”

“So they say,” I spat between where I’d spaced my legs.

He placed his hand on the handle of the revolver which stood out on his hip. “I could kill you, Harlan. I’ve got a clear shot here.”

“Yeah.”

“You’d deserve it, especially after what you did.” His voice was gravelly; he coughed and wiped his mouth with a forearm.

I took a small step forward and Maron removed the revolver from its holster but kept it pointed to the ground.

I shook my head and remained still again. “What about after all you did?”

“Me?” he laughed sickly, “You’re one to talk. I guess there’s no hiding it anymore. I was ashamed of you. You—cavortin’ with demons—that’s all you do. I think I saw you speak to them a couple times. I feel like you whisper to them in your sleep. I knew what kind of man you were all this time and I let you go on.”

“You let me, huh?” I glanced to the sky and breathed deep and listened to the birds. A tight-lipped expression pulled my face almost like a smile and I gritted my teeth. “Here I thought I let you.”

Maron laughed again wetly and remained with his gun down. The gunmetal shone bright as silver from either cleaning or handling; it was good to know he’d taken care of it at least.

“I cried about you,” I said—some roiling thing rolled over in the pit of my stomach.

“So?” he asked the sky.

I closed the space between us by a quarter or more and stopped. “So, did you ever cry about me? Did you ever cry about them?” The trailing end of my sentence nearly broke my voice, and I abruptly finished the words to protest it.

Maron shrugged. “’Course I did. All the time. For them. For you?” He shook his head. In the light—just so—his right eye glowed white; blood trickled from around the bottom eyelid from over-rubbing while yellow infection oozed from the bottom of the patch over his left eye. “Somethin’s wrong in you. You did something. I know you did. Maybe you prayed to them things. Maybe you asked for it—Lady did weird seances before she,” with his free hand, he twirled a finger by his ear. “Maybe you spoke to them and did what you did. All that good and evil talk that Jackson went on about doesn’t matter anymore,” Maron shrugged then nodded and wriggled his mustache in thought.

“You used to call him dad,” I said.

“We didn’t have any dads, you and me. Looking back now, I see our mother—if she was—was the worst about it. We were some ragtag bunch of monster hunters? There ain’t any good and evil in this world and that’s a fact. It’s all just livin’.”

“What made you that way?”

“What way’s that, Harlan?” He sighed.

“I thought you’d be a good man. You were a sweet boy.”

“I guess.” His blind gaze trailed away, watched the birds on the far walls, and his uncovered bleeding eye blinked slowly and with effort; he rubbed it again and smeared blood across his cheek and blinked more and seemed to focus. “What makes you sure you’re a good man?”

“I ain’t.”

“I didn’t figure you were.” His eye traced the scenery, seemed to look everywhere and beyond me even. “You do all this too? You call down your buddies for all this? I was afraid of you for a long time. Now I know I was right.”

“Mm. I didn’t.”

“Quite the coincidence that you’d hang and then all this happens to stop it. Nice for you. Look around at all them bodies. Tell me it’s worth it. I know you and I know what you are. Harold didn’t believe it—hell I didn’t want to believe it. Here we are.”

I shook my head and felt silly standing there and holding my belt like a dead snake by my side. “It wasn’t too long ago I thought similarly of you. I thought you’d been some possessed thing, something that wasn’t my brother anymore. Like you said. Here we are. I was blind for so long and I thought it couldn’t be that you’d be this way all on your own. I saw you grow into something unrecognizable,” My shoulders rolled with a shrug. “What’s it matter? What’s any of it matter? You thought I was some witch and I thought maybe some demon hijacked your body! What’s it matter? It doesn’t. I don’t care if you are who you are because of me or because of this world—it’s over. And here we are.” I took a gulp of air; it was rotten. “I loved you. I saw something change in you and blamed myself, blamed the demons; maybe you were a mutant! Bah! It’s just you. Whatever you are is just you—doesn’t really matter what made it. I don’t know how I could cry over someone like that. I just don’t know.”

Maron nodded at me, and I took a step forward; the Boss sheriff leveled the long barrel Colt in my direction. The sun beat down and I took another step forward and another until I was pacing, shoulders moving in tandem with each step—though my left knee twinged, it wasn’t pain; there was too much adrenaline for pain. The gun erupted, broke the dead air, a few birds cawed and flapped away but mostly remained and looked on with apathetic curiosity. I stood still. Maron missed, took aim again, and I began to further close the gap.

The pistol rang again; my imagination insisted I felt the breeze from the bullet. I did not care. Here we were and here it would be. Again, twice more, the gun cried out; the last of that duo spiked the earth up at my feet and sent dust into the air; I passed through it.

With Maron nearly in arm’s reach, I reared with the belt—remaining with my right leg on the backfoot—I swung the strap out like a whip and felt the belt slack as the buckle met Maron’s nose.

He stumbled backward, fired another round into the air and my ears rang and I launched into him.

With him being weak and feeble and ill and tired as he was, he fell slowly in the way that people do when they attempt to stop themselves from going. He spun on his naked heel and landed on his knees, hands in the dirt, revolver hilt loosely clamped in his fist. I sent a boot to his stomach and from seemingly nowhere a wild scream came from me—it was a moment of human satisfaction.

He laughed there on the ground, and it was so like gasping for air that I wasn’t sure that’s what I heard. “I hit you once, I see only just a bit out of the right and I still hit you!”

The numbness forgave a moment of pain—a jolt ran up my left arm. Without a moment afforded to inspect myself, I launched another kick just as he came around to raise his head. My boot caught his chin and clicked his teeth together; blood ran like a spigot from his mouth while the cowboy hat tumbled off the crown of his head and landed in the dirt beside him.

His eyepatch came unplaced from his left eye and rested over his brow before the strings came loose and the object fell off him. The black hole there in his head shone starkly when he calmed his head to look up at me; the other eye was milk white.

“I’m dying,” he said, “I’m dying, but I’m a pretty good shot, ain’t I?”

I didn’t say anything and placed my heel on his shoulder and propelled him over, so he fell onto his back. There on the ground, the pistol lay. I bent and dropped the belt and lifted the pistol— a single shot left. The thing was heavier than the metal it was.

Maron lifted up again and spoke, “I’m dying,” he repeated, “I’m dying.” His head rocked forward and back in exaggeration.

I shoved him down again, remembered the bodies he hung, remembered the people he assaulted, remembered the tortures—with him looking up at me though, I briefly remembered the boy behind that man’s face. I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t.

“I see a little out of the right, Harlan—like I said. C’mere a minute. Just a minute. Or a second even. All I want is a second. C’mere and let me see you a little clear for just one second.”

I never was a good shot anyway, but that wouldn’t have mattered; I angled the revolver out from my body. He craned his head up for a better look maybe—like a varmint from a hole—and when he did, I fired the last shot and even though he’d grown so large in my mind, he still fell over like any man would. Blood spurted then trailed from his head; I swallowed a noise back.

Warm pain radiated from my left bicep, and I knew what it was; I threw back my jacket, so it hung only off my right shoulder and examined the spot. The notch was swollen, the flesh was gnarly and leaked. I cupped the heel of my hand to the wound while still holding the revolver and felt my heartbeat in it. Nothing stitches wouldn’t fix. So, Maron was a good shot. I lumbered over the corpse and stared into the one solid eye. Even blind, he got me once.

I sighed and half-straddled the corpse and ripped the gun belt off his waist and shoved it under my armpit then waddled over the dead man to the hat that’d fallen in the dirt. Our mother’s hat fit loose on my head, but her old belt slotted around me snug.

The wound didn’t clot, and blood ran in webs down my forearm and across the back of my hand. I shifted to look to the place I’d left the satchel and I saw an audience there—the underground survivors followed me out; they were arranged like tin solders frozen among the rubble outcroppings. Mal was there and nearest me. She called something out, but I didn’t respond. I shook my head as if to let them know I didn’t care and began to walk towards the piece of white rock. The broken band of the hat fell into the periphery of my left eye like a wayward strand of hair.

I slung the revolver into the holster on my hip and kept my right hand to my left bicep and gritted my teeth at the growing pain. Ointments were in the satchel and bandages and a bit of liquor—wizard brand.

Mal rushed out to me and slammed into me, and nearly put me over and the others too began to clamor off their perches—how they looked at me just like the birds.

Mal slammed her hands onto my shoulders. “You just killed and robbed him.”

I laughed. “Alright.”

“Why?”

I saw the boy—William—too had come and he remained among the small crowd that came around me.

“This needs treating,” I angled my head at the wound I held.

“What’d you kill him for?” asked Mal, again.

I ignored her, pushed beyond, and whispered something about going home.

The levels to the satchel were slow going and the people spoke amongst themselves, and I slammed my bottom onto the flat elevation and began to clean and wipe down. I fumbled with my right hand and kept my neck twisted just so and pried the wound a bit with my index finger and thumb. Blood ripped out of the spot, and I laughed and stopped and rewiped. Inside of the satchel there was a handheld staple gun. I put it to the spot, trying to keep the swollen opening closed. After a few overzealous clicks, I sighed and dropped the staple gun into the satchel.

From where I was, Maron looked small.

Like a whisper on the wind, I heard, I brought him to you one last time. Bravo! Well done!

I twisted around lackadaisically searching for the point of the voice and didn’t find it. “Stupid,” I whispered to myself.

Then I popped casually to my feet, felt the mild blood loss send me dizzy and I momentarily felt like I’d fall over and break my neck in front of all those fine people—what a laugh riot!

Mal’s incredulous expression was obvious even with the distance. “Hey!” I called out to Mal, to all of them, “I’m going home.”

“Where’s home?” asked someone.

“C’mon with me if you want.”

Some wanted and some didn’t, and we gathered twenty strong and Mal and William were among them. Lady surprisingly decided to fall along with those of us that left. Those that remained certainly died, but who’s to say?

All the horses were dead and even in searching for the oil wagon I’d rode in on, I couldn’t find it. Walking never bothered me anyway. When I grew tired, I used some discarded metal post as a third leg. We walked it and I thought it felt like a pilgrimage—damn all other religiosity. I hoped for the one and true religion: love.

Seven died westward. William succumbed to the skitterbugs and I managed to bury him even while others regarded the practice with apathy. Mal went quickly by a skin taker, and yet Lady remained; she was a hanger-on.

The only one that mattered to me was the one waiting for me—if they still waited. I hoped they did.

We saw Alexandria at dawn after many days of travel. Upon the sight of the arch along the skyline, whispers came over our group and one fellow wondered aloud if the arch was the source of all the magic the wizards knew. Lady rebutted the claim and cursed at the thought of it. Still though, she followed. I mindlessly told them it was the gateway to the west but that didn’t mean a thing to anybody at all.

Point-hatted scouts saw us and let us through while the sky was still waking. The nerves in my body danced like bugs. Whatever negative providence that’d taken over my life was gone at last. Though the weight remained, perhaps I could let it go with time. I wanted to.

Seeing Suzanne like that, still tired and yawning and even brow furrowed, I stumbled into them and pressed their face to mine, and I told them I’d never let them go and I told them it was over, and Suzanne asked me where the wagon was.

I didn’t have an answer for that and instead buried my nose behind their ear.

All they asked me then was, “Really, it’s over?”

“It’s over. I’m better now. Well—I might not be better, but I will be.”

A fat dog brushed my leg, and it was Trouble—the animal was kept on a lead by Gemma which tugged on the collar just a bit to keep the dog from tangling the lead around our legs. The girl beamed and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her so genuine as that. Her face was rounded from health.

I pulled Suzanne into another hug and hushed, “My legs are tired now.” We kept our arms around each other; I hoped they didn’t want to let me go just like how I didn’t want to let them go. The only thing that hurt was knowing I’d hurt Suzanne.

It felt ridiculous because it was, but I was an optometrist finally. It wouldn’t be easy, but I saw everything very clearly.

First/Previous

Archive

2.4 light-eos from Solis

1 Beo 111 Meo 960 Keo 192 eo

The Hermes AG12 was one of the latest ships in the exploration armada. While its military capabilities were far inferior to even a modest battleship, its reconnaissance abilities were unmatched. With nearly any sensor available and an AI ready to quickly learn any language before making first contact, the ship's goal, along with the entire Hermes armada, was to expand the empire without going to war—a challenging task that demanded a plethora of negotiation tactics tailored to the species they encountered.

The ship’s captain, Urlong Beng, had at his disposal a number of diplomats from different species, each with a unique approach. Some employed empathy, while others used fear, and sometimes the only necessity was the removal of a dictator or dictators.

“We are approaching NHB 12/H4. ETA is 0.9 lep,” said Jef from navigation. NHB12/H4 was an intriguing planet—a small rocky world with an abundance of plant life that transmitted obscure signals for as far back as they could see. What made it particularly interesting was the fact that the planet was ancient. In fact, it was estimated that NHB 12 was one of the first red dwarf stars in the galaxy, dating close to the formation of the Milky Way.

“Finally, we will see where those signals come from,” said Urlong from the bridge. “It has been centuries that we are receiving them, but although they are clearly created by an intelligence, they never seem to evolve. Always the same patterns in different order.”

“We are now deploying six burn-speed crafts to gather, among others, visual data,” said Jef. “We will have all the info we need in a few leps.” “Are those ...?” said Urlong, smiling with excitement.

“Yes, sir,” said Jef. “These are cities. Cities in perfect harmony with nature. There seems to be a plethora of androids, but none seemed to be surprised or affected by our passing.”

“All the cities look the same. Same size, same architecture. Land one of the crafts in the center of one city. Let’s see their reaction,” said Urlong.

After the craft landed, humanoid androids began approaching it. Urlong and the crew of Hermes were observing the situation. To their surprise, the androids began cleaning and repairing every scratch of the craft.

“This is unexpected,” said Jef. “Only the servant bots came to greet us. Where are the inhabitants?”

“There might be no inhabitants,” said Ril. She had been analyzing the data received from all crafts. “It seems that pre-tool animals and those androids are the only inhabitants of the planet.”

“It’s time we go down there,” said Urlong. “Prepare for landing. I will personally lead the team.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” said vice-captain Rugl. “I can go first to make sure it is safe.”

“No need. It is pretty obvious that there is no need for worries,” said Urlong while leaving the bridge.

Upon landing, Urlong exited the landing craft at the center of a city, and its jaw-dropping beauty struck him. “It’s different when you see it in person,” he said.

Trees integrated with architecture, clean paths around nature and animals roaming around. Small rivers crossing under bridges, and flower gardens groomed to perfection.

“These androids seem to be on autopilot. They are keeping the cities in perfect condition,” said Alir from the coms.

“The question is, what happened to the creators of those androids?” said Urlong.

A group of the androids approached the landing site. Some began working on the craft maintenance while others approached the landing party. Each android began to shapeshift to resemble the person in front of it.

“They can change their appearance at will,” said Urlong. “They are magnificently made.”

The androids stood in front of each person motionless. “I think they are gathering information,” said Urlong. “Transmit to them our language.”

Alir engaged the AI, which began to interact with the androids, and soon it replied to Alir.

“Their security systems are unimaginably well made,” said the AI. “It appears as if their AI has been evolving for a very long time, millions of years, in fact. Interaction with their systems is very difficult, if not impossible.” Alir shared this information with Urlong.

Soon the androids had enough information to look at the landing party in the eyes. Their bodies transformed to the most beautiful individuals each crew member had seen.

“What do you desire?” they asked.

“Who made you?” asked Urlong in return.

“We were made by the Litons,” replied the android in front of Urlong, while changing minor details on its body and face to look even more attractive. “Where are they now?”

“They have long been extinct,” replied the android, whose voice was also slowly reaching a very desirable tone for Urlong’s ears.

“How did they go extinct?” asked Urlong. His voice betrayed a worry. Not a worry for his own safety or that of his crew. More like a worry that they would hear something that might lead them to disturb the peace this planet had to offer.

“They stopped breeding,” said the android.

“I see. How long ago was that?”

“Approximately at the date of 463 meo.”

Urlong’s and Alir’s eyes opened wide. “This must be wrong,” said Urlong . “This date is two-thirds of the age of the universe back.”

“Yes,” replied the android. “Our creators have been gone for a very long time. There are currently only data remnants of them. Data that we have stored. But all physical evidence has been lost in time.”

“And you have been keeping this place like that for all this time?” asked Urlong.

“Yes. Is there anything else you desire?” asked the android again. Its appearance had become so appealing to Urlong that he had a hard time remembering he was talking to an android.

“You have all been alone all this time?” he asked. His question was more emotional than practical, and Alir, who was the only one listening to the conversations, detected that.

“No, there have been many species that evolved the ability to communicate with us over the eons. They all stopped breeding though, and went extinct shortly after. There have also been visitors from the stars like yourselves. They too stayed until they died of old age without any offspring.”

Urlong began to piece everything together. With his eyes opening wide, he turned to the landing crew. “Get in the craft!” he yelled.

His voice, however, did not sound like it had any effect.

The other members of the landing party had switched off their communicators and had already begun walking away with the companion of a few androids.

“Alir! Immediately block all access to the data of our landing!” he yelled into the communicator. With his head down, Urlong entered the craft alone.

“Get ready to leave,” he said upon arrival at the Hermes. “Call for Alir and Rugl to come to my office.”

“But sir! What about our crewmembers?” said Jef.

“We lost them,” replied Urlong. “Declare this planet a red zone.” Silence permeated the bridge while the captain was skeptical and waiting for his communications officer and vice-captain.

“Sir?” said Alir upon his arrival . “Who else had access to those communications?” asked Urlong.

“No one! It’s protocol, sir. Only myself the vice-captain and the AI have heard and seen the events of your landing.”

“Take the files and send them to Thira, then delete the ones here. I ask both of you to never speak of this event to anyone.”

“Yes, sir!” they both said.

“Sir?” Rugl said. “What exactly happened there?” It was clear that although he had seen and heard everything, he could not understand the danger.

“Rugl,” Urlong said, “You did not understand because you are not of the same species as any who landed. These androids were made to fulfill your every desire. Their sophistication was such that they made split-second adjustments. Nothing escapes their unimaginable service.”

“I don’t seem to fully understand, sir. Why did we leave the landing crew there?”

“Because after you have reached the fulfillment of every comfort and desire, you can do nothing but look for it again. This place gives it to you over and over.

There is no end to the pleasure. It’s a drug that once tasted, you can never leave it. The Litons really messed up when they developed these ... dolls.”

“What about you, sir?” asked Rugl.

“What about me?”

“Will you be okay?”

“That, my friend, remains to be seen.”

Ava Chen sipped her latte, savoring the familiar comfort of her favorite coffee shop in downtown Seattle. The aroma of freshly roasted beans mingled with the crisp autumn air drifting in each time the door opened. Through the window, she watched the city come to life, the early morning bustle a soothing rhythm she'd grown accustomed to over years of routine. Her phone buzzed. A text from her mother:

"Don't forget dinner tonight. 7 PM sharp!"

Ava smiled, mentally cataloging the day ahead. Work at the tech startup where she'd recently been promoted to lead developer, then dinner with her parents to celebrate. It was shaping up to be a good day.

That's when she noticed the light changing. At first, it was subtle. A dimming, as if clouds had suddenly obscured the sun. Ava looked up from her phone, brow furrowed. The sky outside the window had taken on an odd, mottled quality. Dark patches spread across the blue expanse like spilled ink, growing and merging with alarming speed.

A murmur of confusion rippled through the coffee shop. People pointed and stared, their faces a mix of awe and growing unease. Someone mentioned an eclipse, and for a brief moment, that explanation seemed to calm the rising tension. But as the shadow grew, blotting out more and more of the sky, it became clear that this was no celestial event. The darkness had substance, a writhing, undulating quality that defied natural explanation. Ava watched, transfixed, as tentacle-like appendages began to emerge from the roiling mass above.

Panic erupted on the streets. Cars screeched to a halt, their drivers abandoning them to run for cover. The quiet murmur in the coffee shop turned to screams as people rushed for the exits. Through the window, Ava saw a bus swerve to avoid the crowd, crashing into a nearby building with a sickening crunch of metal and glass. Heart pounding, Ava stumbled out onto the sidewalk. Her senses were assaulted by chaos. The air filled with a cacophony of car alarms, screaming sirens, and the terrified shouts of people fleeing in all directions. A deep, otherworldly groaning sound seemed to emanate from everywhere at once, vibrating through the ground and rattling windows.

The shadow continued to descend, and now Ava could see it for what it truly was – a colossal entity, its form so alien and vast that her mind struggled to comprehend it. Massive tentacles, each as wide as a city block, began to touch down, crushing buildings and cars as if they were made of paper. In that moment of pure, primal terror, Ava's fight or flight instinct kicked in. She ran, her coffee forgotten, her only thought to escape the incomprehensible horror descending upon her city. But even as she fled, she knew deep down that there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from something so impossibly vast.

As she sprinted down the debris-strewn street, a brillian, otherworldly light flooded the area. It poured down from the entity above, a cascade of impossible colors that hurt her eyes to look at directly. The light was mesmerizing – beautiful in its alien radiance, yet terrible in its implications. As the luminescence washed over her, Ava felt a bizarre tingling sensation spread across her skin. It started at her fingertips and toes, a pins-and-needles feeling that rapidly intensified. The sensation crept up her limbs, and panic set in as she realized she could no longer feel her hands or feet. It was as if her body was dissolving, breaking apart piece by piece. Ava tried to scream, but no sound came out.

Her vision began to fragment, the world around her splitting into fractals of light and shadow. In her final moments of consciousness, she had the distinct and horrifying impression that she was being deconstructed on a fundamental level, her very atoms coming undone. Then, mercifully, darkness swept in. Ava's awareness winked out like a candle in a gale.

Ava's eyes snapped open, her mind reeling as she tried to comprehend her surroundings. How long had she been unconscious? Seconds? Hours? Days? The disorientation only added to her terror as she tried to make sense of her new, nightmarish reality. She found herself sliding down a tunnel, its walls undulating with an unearthly vitality.

The surface beneath her was slick and warm, yielding slightly to her touch as if she were gliding over living tissue. Panic set in as the horrifying truth dawned on her: she was inside something. Something alive. Something impossibly vast. As she plummeted deeper into the organic maze, Ava's senses were assaulted by a cacophony of stimuli.

The air was thick and humid, carrying the metallic tang of blood mixed with an indescribable odor. The walls surrounding her throbbed with an unsettling, alien rhythm. Each contraction sent ripples across the glistening, membranous surface, causing it to stretch and contract like living muscle. Suddenly, she wasn't alone. Other bodies tumbled down the fleshy chute, their screams echoing in the confined space. Ava locked eyes with a man sliding beside her, his face a mask of pure terror. In that moment, something inexplicable began to happen.

At first, it was just a faint whisper at the edge of her consciousness, an odd sensation she couldn't quite place. Then, like a radio slowly tuning into a clear signal, the feeling intensified. A chill ran down her spine as she realized what was happening—somehow, impossibly, she was sensing the man's emotions. It wasn't just empathy or intuition; she could feel his fear as clearly as her own, raw and visceral. Overwhelmed, Ava screamed, her voice barely audible over the squelching sounds of their descent. Before she could process what was happening, the tunnel beneath the man split open. He vanished with a final, blood-curdling shriek, swallowed by the living darkness below.

Ava's scream caught in her throat as she witnessed the man's fate. But it wasn't just the sight that horrified her—she felt his final moments, the searing agony as digestive acids consumed him, the crushing pressure as unseen organs contracted around his body. The sensation was so vivid, so real, that for a moment she believed she was dying too. But she lived on, sliding ever deeper into the belly of the beast.

Time lost all meaning in the pulsating darkness of the entity's interior. Ava found herself deposited in a vast, cavernous space, its walls a writhing mass of flesh dotted with throbbing pustules and weeping sores. Thick, ropey tendrils hung from the ceiling, swaying gently in an unfelt breeze. She wasn't alone. Dozens of other shell-shocked survivors huddled in groups, their faces etched with disbelief and terror. Some wept quietly, while others stood frozen in shock.

A few frantically clawed at the walls, searching in vain for an escape. As Ava struggled to her feet on the spongy, undulating floor, a young man nearby caught her attention. He couldn't have been more than twenty, with disheveled brown hair and wide, terrified eyes that mirrored her own fear. He favored his left leg, a nasty gash visible through his torn jeans.

"I'm Bo," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "We... we should stick together."

Ava nodded, relieved to have found an ally in this living hell.

"Ava," she replied, reaching out to steady him as another tremor shook the chamber.

As days blended together in the timeless, lightless interior of the beast, Ava and Bo encountered pockets of other survivors. Some had banded together, forming small groups for protection and comfort. Others had retreated into themselves, rocking back and forth in catatonic states. One group they encountered was led by a former marine named Kai. He had organized a small band of survivors and was attempting to map out the creature's internal structure.

"We've been keeping track of the contractions," Kai explained, pointing to crude markings on the fleshy wall. "There's a pattern to it. If we time it right, we might be able to move deeper without getting crushed or... digested."

Ava shuddered at the thought, but she knew they had no choice. Staying in one place meant certain death. They had to keep moving, had to find some way to escape or fight back.

As they journeyed deeper into the entity, guided by Kai's observations, Ava's fragmented memories of the encounter continued to resurface. She remembered the moment the shadow had revealed itself to be a massive, otherworldly creature. Its form had been difficult to comprehend—a writhing mass of tentacles and maws, stretching from the ground to beyond the clouds.

The deeper they went, the more Ava began to understand the creature's internal workings. What had at first seemed like chaos slowly revealed itself to be a complex, alien biology. The tunnels and chambers weren't random—they served specific functions, circulating nutrients, and breaking down matter. But understanding brought little comfort. If anything, it only emphasized how hopelessly outmatched they were against this cosmic entity. Throughout their journey, Ava's strange ability to sense others' emotions continued to develop. At first, it had been overwhelming, a constant barrage of fear and despair threatening to drown out her own thoughts.

But as time passed, she learned to control it, to focus on specific individuals or block out the collective anguish when it became too much. This newfound skill proved both a blessing and a curse. It allowed her to anticipate dangers, sensing the panic of others before visible threats appeared. But it also meant she experienced every death, every moment of agony, as if it were her own. Ava lost count of how many people she had seen die. Some slipped into digestive pools, their agonized screams echoing through her mind as they dissolved. Others were crushed by sudden muscular contractions, their bodies reduced to pulp in an instant.

Through it all, Bo remained by her side, a constant source of support and human connection. They rarely spoke of their lives before, of the world they had lost. It was too painful, too surreal to contemplate. Instead, they focused on survival, on the next step, the next breath.

It was during one of their rare moments of rest that Ava stumbled upon something extraordinary. As the group huddled in a relatively stable chamber, she felt her mind drawn to a particular spot on the wall. There, hidden beneath a layer of mucous membrane, she sensed... something else.

"There's something here," she murmured, her hands instinctively reaching out to touch the wall.

As Ava's fingers made contact with the pulsating surface, a strange sensation rippled through her mind. It started as a faint whisper, a barely perceptible shift in her consciousness. Then, like a dam breaking, a torrent of alien thoughts and sensations flooded her awareness. At first, it was overwhelming chaos. Ava gasped, her knees buckling as she struggled to process the influx of information. Gradually, the mental storm began to organize itself into discernible patterns. She realized with growing astonishment that she was experiencing memories and sensations that were not her own.

The first coherent image that formed in her mind was of a city unlike anything she had ever seen. Towering spires of crystal stretched towards an amber sky, their facets refracting light in hypnotic patterns. Ava marveled at its beauty, but her wonder quickly turned to horror as she watched the city crumble, consumed by a familiar darkness.

As this vision faded, another took its place. This time, Ava found herself experiencing the terror of beings so alien she could barely comprehend their form or thought processes. Their fear, however, was unmistakable and heartbreakingly familiar. Scene after scene unfolded in her mind's eye, each depicting the fall of a different world, a different civilization. Some fought with advanced technology, others with what seemed like magic, but the outcome was always the same – total consumption by the cosmic entity.

With each vision, Ava's understanding grew. The being they were trapped inside wasn't merely a mindless predator. It was something far worse – a living ship, a cosmic parasite of unfathomable intellect and insatiable hunger. It traveled from world to world, galaxy to galaxy, consuming all in its path.

But the most chilling revelation was yet to come. As Ava delved deeper into this shared consciousness, she became aware of other presences, vast and distant yet unmistakably similar to the entity that had devoured her world. The horrifying truth dawned on her: this cosmic horror was not unique. There were others of its kind, roaming the vast emptiness of space, seeking out new life to devour. As this final realization settled in, Ava felt her grip on reality begin to slip. The sheer scale of the horror they faced threatened to shatter her sanity. She wrenched her hand away from the wall, severing the connection, and collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. Bo was at her side in an instant, his face etched with concern.

"Ava? What happened? What did you see?"

Ava looked up at him, her eyes wide with the terrible knowledge she now possessed. How could she even begin to explain the cosmic nightmare she had glimpsed? Before she could find the words, the chamber around them began to shift. The walls peeled back, revealing a sight that defied comprehension. They stood at the edge of a vast, glowing pool—a swirling vortex of consciousness that seemed to stretch into infinity.

"It's the core," Ava whispered, her voice filled with awe and terror. "The heart of the beast."

As they stared into the mesmerizing pool, Ava knew they faced a choice. They could continue their futile struggle for survival, or they could plunge into the collective consciousness, becoming one with the entity and all it had consumed. Some in the group didn't hesitate. They threw themselves into the pool, their bodies dissolving as their minds joined the cosmic collective. Others backed away in horror, choosing to face their fate in the physical labyrinth.

Ava stood at the precipice, torn between two impossible choices. In that moment, she felt the weight of countless worlds upon her shoulders. The knowledge she had gained, the truth about the cosmic horror they faced—it couldn't be lost. With a deep breath, she made her decision. Ava turned to those who remained, her eyes filled with a mix of determination and sorrow.

"We... we can't fight this," she said, her words hollow in the pulsating chamber. "There's no victory to be had here. No escape."

The surviving humans around her shifted uneasily, hope dying in their eyes as they sensed the finality in her tone.

"What we saw as a beast, a monster—it's so much more than that," Ava continued, her gaze unfocused as if seeing beyond their organic prison. "It's part of the universe's cycle. A cosmic force as inevitable as entropy itself."

She turned to face the group, tears streaming down her face.

"Every civilization that came before us, every species that evolved and reached for the stars—they all ended up here, inside beings like this. And there are more out there, so many more, roaming the galaxies."

A sob escaped her throat. "Don't you see? We're not special. We're not chosen. We're just... food. Our struggles, our dreams, our entire history—it's all just sustenance for these cosmic horrors."

The realization settled over the group like a shroud. Some wept silently, others stood in shocked silence. A few turned towards the glowing pool, their expressions vacant as they contemplated oblivion.

"So what do we do?" Bo asked, his voice cracking.

Ava looked at him, her eyes filled with a mixture of sorrow and terrible understanding.

"We exist," she said simply. "For as long as we can. We remember who we were, what Earth was. And when the end comes, as it must, we'll face it knowing that we were part of something greater, even if that something was destined to be consumed."

As if in response to her words, the chamber around them began to contract. The air grew thick with the scent of digestive fluids, and distant screams echoed through the organic corridors.

"It's starting," someone whispered.

Ava reached out and took Bo's hand, squeezing it gently. Around them, others did the same, forming a circle of shared humanity in their final moments.The cosmic maw had swallowed them whole. There would be no glorious last stand, no miraculous escape. They were motes of consciousness in an uncaring universe, their light about to be extinguished in the endless cycle of cosmic hunger.

As the chamber walls closed in, Ava closed her eyes. In the darkness behind her eyelids, she saw the Earth one last time—blue, beautiful, and lost forever. Then, like countless civilizations before them, humanity slipped into the abyss, another meal for the eternal, insatiable entity that roamed the stars. And somewhere in the vast, uncaring universe, another world basked in the light of its sun, unaware that its time, too, would come.

This is a fan-fiction set in the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. I own nothing. Content Warning: Sexual Assault.  

On a bright cold day in twenty twenty-four, the clocks were striking thirteen.

Comrade Davies stood as still as he could inside the janky streetcar as it gyrated him across the crumbling and bombed-out ruins of the Outer Party quarter towards the grand, glistening pyramid of the Ministry of Plenty. The stark contrast between the two of them was an awe-inspiring testament to the infallibility of Miniplenty’s central planning.

Nearly all the residences in the Outer Party’s quarter predated the Revolution, and most of those had been allowed to fall into disrepair and were no longer suitable for human habitation. The fraction that was had all been converted into hostels, hosting dozens of comrades crammed into spaces originally intended for a single family.

Intended by the decadent capitalists who were overthrown in the Revolution, Davies reminded himself. Homes were for sleeping and basic self-maintenance, nothing more. The hostels of the Outer Party served their purpose, and it would be thoughtcrime to expend resources on something as frivolous as standards of living when there was a war going on.

And there was always a war going on.

Oddly, it was not the stately townhouses or lavish flats of the Inner Party that stirred up resentment in Davies. That was all sanctioned by the Ministry of Plenty, and so was obviously justified. No, it was the Proles that Davies truly despised.

Of course, the Ministry of Plenty hadn’t approved any new residential buildings in the Prole quarters either, but the problem was that that hadn’t stopped the filthy brutes. On their own time, and with materials acquired on the black market, the Proles had managed to keep most of their homes in relatively good repair despite the perpetual blitzkrieg attacks from across the channel, and even constructed entirely new ones to accommodate their growing population.

It was… obscene, Davies thought as he glared out through the cracked and grimy windows as the trolley left the depressing Outer Party quarter behind and passed through the much more wholesome Prole district.

It was disgusting. It was thoughtcrime! An economy couldn’t function efficiently without a vast socialist bureaucracy! The Proles were capitalist pigs, selfishly expending resources willy-nilly, caring nothing for the precisely engineered plans of the Ministry of Plenty. If something wasn’t done about it, all of Oceania might –

“Calm yourself, Comrade Davies,” the soothing voice of Big Brother came out from one of the telescreens hung along the ceiling of the trolley car. Davies looked up, and saw the three-dimensional face of their beloved leader smiling down at him.

He had said nothing aloud, of course, but he didn’t need to. The telescreens themselves vindicated the Party’s decision to focus resources on areas that best served the interests of all Oceania. Not only were modern telescreens three-dimensional, but their view was not limited to line of sight. The wireless signals they gave off in all directions were used to map their surroundings and track human bodies, so it no longer mattered if they turned their face to the screen or hid themselves behind a visual blind spot.

Big Brother was always watching them.

The telescreens all fed back to the Ministry of Love, where vast mechanical computers endlessly whirred underground, perpetually updating each comrade’s profile and reacting in real time to any danger of thoughtcrime. It was a far cry from the quaint operation of just a few decades ago where the thought police would perform random or strategic spot checks on Party members and only keep a close eye on those they had deemed high risk.   

“The Proles are not thought criminals, Comrade Davies. The Proles are animals,” Big Brother assured him, the telescreen having algorithmically inferred what he had been thinking from his vital signs, body language, and micro-expressions. “Them tending to their homes is every bit as instinctive as a bird building a nest, and every bit as insignificant. Both shall be effortlessly done away with if and when the Party deems it necessary, and until that time, do not even waste your pity on them. Am I understood, Comrade?”

“Yes, yes of course, Big Brother,” Davies nodded fanatically, already feeling relief from his spell of anger and resentment.

Big Brother always knew exactly what to say to make him feel better. And he was always there for him, just on the other side of the ubiquitous telescreens, telling him what to think and what to do so that he was never in any danger of thinking or doing the wrong thing. Even though he saw the algorithmic avatar of the Party speaking to countless other people every day, Davies never entertained the notion that he was speaking to anyone other than the actual leader of the Party. He’d always been a doubleplusgood doublethinker.

“Very good, Comrade,” Big Brother nodded sagely. “Avert your gaze from the Proles and use this time to eat a ration bar. Take two narcotabs as well. These will ease your mind, and help you with your duty to the Party at the Ministry of Plenty.”

“I will. Thank you, Big Brother,” Davies nodded, unzipping one of the many deep pockets of his blue overalls to fetch the specified items.

Only a few decades ago, members of the Outer Party dined upon fairly conventional (if low-quality) fare, and self-medicated themselves with little more than gin and cigarettes. Thankfully, the Party had progressed beyond such obvious barbarism. At the start of each day, Party members were supplied with several nutritionally complete ration bars made mainly from pond scum and mealworms, meant to be eaten during whatever downtime inevitably popped up during the course of their daily schedule. The bars were utterly tasteless, and served no purpose other than to sustain their selfless service to the Party. A watery brine known as Victory Borscht was popular among desk workers as well, as it saved them even the hassle of chewing.

Likewise, alcohol and tobacco had been replaced with far more pharmacologically precise synthetic drugs. A Party member’s overalls were always clattering with the assortment of pills they carried in them, taken whenever needed or when ordered by Big Brother himself. There was no need to worry about abuse, as these drugs were as joyless as the food. Nothing was permitted for the sake of joy, anymore. Service to the Party was the only joy in life anyone ever needed, and Comrade Davies could attest to this. He owned nothing, had no privacy, slept in a pod, ate insect protein, and he was happy.

It was not long after Davies had finished his ration bar that the trolley came to a stop in front of the Ministry of Plenty. It proudly stood at three-hundred-meters tall, more than twice the height of the Pyramid of Giza, and its gleaming white surface remained miraculously unmarred despite the incessant drone attacks and terrorist bombings upon the city. Davies marvelled at how effective the Ministry of Peace was at protecting the most crucial of public infrastructure, and took pride in the fact that many of his fellow Outer Party members had died because the Ministry buildings were so well protected.  

Though it was not a long walk down the wide boulevard from the trolley stop to the Ministry, Davies made sure to keep his gaze locked upon the telescreens and off of the pale blue sky overhead. He needed to watch the telescreens to remain continually up to date on the war, and the rebels, and the shortages, and the epidemics, and the natural disasters, and every other ongoing crisis that he surely needed to be in perpetual anxiety over.

If he were to take his eyes off the screens and simply gaze upon the calm sky above and real world around him, he could all too easily be lulled into the delusion that things weren’t actually so bad.

As Davies approached the entrance to the Ministry of Plenty, the telescreens confirmed his identity and relayed his clearance to the guard on duty.

“Comrade 1-9-8-4 Davies J. Reporting for your annual artsem contribution?” the guard asked, leaving a perfunctory pause for Davies to interject anything.

This struck Davies as being borderline thoughtcrime, since obviously the telescreens could never be mistaken or omit any relevant information. He looked up at the image of Big Brother on the screen directly overhead, who gave him a subtle, reassuring nod and then glared down at the guard suspiciously.

The guard, however, remained completely oblivious to his faux pas, and pushed the button to open the wide metallic doors into the Ministry.     

“It’s still in the clinic on 3-C. It says here this isn’t your first time, so I trust you remember the way?” he asked.

“The telescreens would show me if I didn’t,” Davies replied gruffly, disgusted by the guard’s lack of implicit faith in the system.

It was alright, though. Big Brother had seen it, for Big Brother saw all, and soon Big Brother would set things right.

When the metal doors snapped shut behind him, the interior of the Ministry became unsettlingly silent. It was completely soundproof, blocking out not only noise from the outside but the other floors and even nearby rooms if the doors were closed. The telescreens too were oddly silent, foregoing the usual Party propaganda and issuing commands only when necessary.

This was obviously because the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Plenty required peace and quiet to plan the entirety of Oceania’s economy as effectively as they did.

Davies stepped off the elevator and into the sterile and ammonia-scented artsem clinic. He immediately saw a number of men already qued up in front of several hulking, brutal machines of stainless steel and fluttering dials. In newspeak, these machines were known as sexmeks; automatic electroejaculators and sperm collectors.

Such devices were necessary, as the Party had achieved its goal of abolishing the orgasm.

On the side of his bald head, just above and behind his right ear, Davies bore a small mechanical cortical implant over his trepanning perforation, as did every Party member in Oceania. 

When he had been only a child, the neurosurgeons had gone in and removed any neural tissue the Party had deemed counter-revolutionary, as well as restructuring the synaptic connections to make the brain more resistant to thoughtcrime. They had then threaded the electrode wires throughout his grey matter before soldering the connecting cortical implant into the very bones of his skull.

The cortical implant – the topcog – was wound daily and fine-tuned regularly, upregulating and downregulating brain activity as need be, and of course, keeping an indelible record of a comrade’s brain waves should the Ministry of Love ever wish to review them.

Davies could always hear the soft but constant ticking of the mechanical implant conducted through his skull, more than even his own beating heart. It was of great comfort to him, for so long as a part of Big Brother was merged with his flesh, he could not err into thoughtcrime.

Though the abolishment of the orgasm did not in and of itself strictly necessitate the use of a sexmek, it did make things more efficient. Achieving ejaculation through purely physical stimulation was a tedious and time-consuming affair. In the old days, Party members used to breed almost like Proles. While these couplings were state-sanctioned and served a legitimate purpose, however crudely, the exposure of Party members to the animalistic desires of sex and romance could all too easily lead them into thoughtcrime.

But now, such things were in the past. Now, comrades did not have to risk exposure to such dangerous sensations simply to fulfill their duty to the Party. Each year, the Ministry of Plenty simply issued a reproductive quota and summoned appropriate comrades for either sperm collection or insemination. Procreation was as efficiently and benevolently arraigned as everything else in their society. Vices like fornication and rape that were rampant among the Proles (he had been told) were now not to be found at all among Party members.      

As Davies watched the man at the front of the line convulse violently as the cold prod of the sexmek was unceremoniously rammed into his rectum, he was quite proud that the Party had abolished rape.      

The young man in front of him, however, seemed to be somewhat apprehensive about his imminent seminal donation. He was trembling nervously, furtively glancing at the telescreens to see if they had noticed. They had, of course, with multiple visages of Big Brother all staring down at him with a mix of pity and disappointment.

“There’s no need to worry, Comrade,” Davies said as he placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. “You will feel nothing but love for Big Brother during the extraction, so long as your mind is pure.”

The young man nodded without turning to look at him, but he could not stop himself from trembling. He watched with barely blinking eyes as the man at the head of the line struggled to pull up his overalls while the prod was sterilized, resheathed, and relubricated. When the prod was ready before he was, he was dragged off to a recuperation area as the next man took his place.

Pulling down his overalls, he chomped down on a leather bit and gripped tightly at the support handles to either side of him as he braced for ejaculation. He winced slightly as the prod was inserted into his rectum, a cold sweat building up on his brow as he awaited the electric shock.

The image of Big Brother on the telescreen in front of him was not impressed by how much effort the man had to put into self-control. With a reproachful narrowing of his gaze, the sexmek activated and sent the first wave of electrical stimulation through the man’s prostate. The man’s penis became fully erect within its rigid collector sheath as his body convulsed spasmodically, all while trying his best not to scream in front of the telescreens. No ejaculate was produced, so another electric shock was applied. Still, there was no result, so the sexmek was turned up again.

The man finally screamed, his penis bruised and broken and the smell of his burning prostate wafting its way down the line, causing something inside the young man in front of Davies to snap.

“No no no no no no no no no!” he babbled as he ducked out of line and tried to run back the way he came.

“You’re better than this, Comrade!” Davies said as he grabbed a firm hold of him. “Do not give into the fear for your own feeble and insignificant self! Oceania needs you! The Party needs you! Big Brother needs you!”

As he spoke the sacred name of Big Brother, he spun the man around to face the telescreens, towards the condemning gaze of Big Brother himself.

“Let me go! Let me go!” the young man pleaded. “I’m ungood, I tell you! Ungood! Can’t you tell I’m doubleplusungood! You don’t want me for this! You’ve made a mistake!”

“Miniplenty does not make mistakes!” every telescreen in the clinic spoke in unison. “I do not make mistakes. The only one who’s made a mistake here is you, thought criminal.”

“Hold his head still!” an attendant shouted as he approached with a slender, thirty-centimetre-long needle on the end of a rotary handle.

Davies happily obliged him, and the attendant deftly threaded the needle into the port of the young man’s topcog.

“You can’t do this! It’s not my fault! You made me like this! You made us all like this!” the young man cried. “How am I a thought criminal when you did this to me! How –”

With a few well-placed twists from the attendant’s needle, the young man suddenly seized up and fell silent. While his eyes continued to dart around in terror, his body was completely paralyzed.

“Now drag him over here,” the attendant ordered, leading them to a stand-alone stall with a harness to hold up and restrain uncooperative or unresponsive patients.

Evidently, it wasn’t that uncommon of a problem.

Davies pulled down the young man’s overalls and assisted the attendant in strapping him into the harness. Though his body was completely rigid, his eyes never stopped moving, never stopped desperately searching for a way out of this nightmare.

It was a foolish thought, but Davies found a bit more sympathy for this thought criminal than the one he had met outside. He at least realized that he was broken, and that was the first step towards redemption.

“Don’t worry, Comrade. You’ll be heading straight to the Ministry of Love after this,” he assuaged him. “They’ll set you right. The fear you’re feeling right now, you’ll never feel again. They’ll make you see how wrong you were to be concerned for your own petty well-being when the good of the Party was at stake. If they have to go into your skull with a power drill and churn your brain to borscht to make you see it, they will, and even if you come out the other side an invalid good for nothing but licking boots, you’ll be a better Party member than you are now.”

Davies spared a glance down towards the attendant, and saw that he had the sexmek’s prod ready to go. He looked back up and gave the helpless young man a comforting pat on the shoulder.

“Close your eyes, and think of Airstrip One,” he advised before returning to his place in the queue.  

He heard the man scream behind him, but since he was completely paralyzed, he dismissed it as a purely reflexive response.

When Davies’ own turn came, he did not require a harness or even a piece of leather to bite down upon. He did not mind the chill of the prod, the electric shock against his prostate, or the anorgasmic sensation of ejaculation. Throughout the ordeal he kept his gaze locked upon the proudly smiling face on the telescreen before him, so that all his heart and mind were consumed by one thought, and one thought only.

He loved Big Brother.

This is the story of a stranger— the story of nobody at all.

I am right here in the middle of a desert—with the scorching heat of the Sun, heat-blasted sand and a few scorpions to add to the joy. As if that is not enough, I am, which I conclude after looking all around, absolutely nowhere, with no recollection of how I got to be here at the first place. A queer smell is tingling my nose, which reminds me of my kitchen, talk about weird. The sand I'm lying on is soft and mushy. I hence record all that I remember, since I've got nothing better to do at this situation, awaiting the inevitable —

It all started last summer (Maybe the wife was right). Everything used to be good before that (as far as I recall). I am a lecturer at a University and teach Physics there (that's all I am good at). Apart from my teaching duties, I am fond of doing some research of my own(as if something original ever struck me). This, believe may you not, gives me a lot of time to loiter around aimlessly thinking about something (has to be concerning the problem, you say?? Nope). The profession lets me afford a lot of time for such tomfoolery, and say you may, I get paid for that (smirks). In reality, latibulation has become like everyday for me.

Distant voices can be vaguely made out.

So, this exercise buys me a lot of time with myself, conversing for hours on end with the inner dialogue— that always manages to oppose everything I think of, in the very next second ( I am a brute skeptic, so you see). That shouldn't concern anybody but me, but I still am putting it on record (for reasons I'm yet to think of).

I'm sweating profusely, my body is losing electrolytes. I'd be dekhydrated soon enough. The wife must be worried, as she is most days.

They say, I've got a habit of disassociating with my surroundings— in simple sense, I don't keep a mental track of where I'm going apart from where the obvious roads lead me (you won't believe the places I've been found sleeping in, on random Tuesday mornings). I mean nobody to you, a stranger, but hey, listen to me won't you? (They say that I recount of things that are non-existent, hell yeah, they are, albeit mathematically— shapes and figures, fractals, cones, a Gabriel's horn, you just name it).

The distant voices seem to be catching up.

One could, at this point, wonder about the nature of things that I discuss with myself, apart from the things that I see (assuming one cares). The scope of the discussions, let me tell you, range from why you should eat three full meals a day to what would be the fate of humanity in the age of organoid intelligence. I can't overestimate the extent of my blabber in such cases. And say I must, I have a vague sense of history, at best, thank the thick volume of The History of Science that I decided to devour a while back. Politics, Policies and agenda seem like no game to me. At this point, I somehow recall something that our good ol' Nabokov(if I recall correctly) once wrote— Philosophical speculation is the invention of the 'rich'; I stand to amend it, say 'extravagantly curious' (having enough resources to spare a living).

This dour essence isn't going away any time soon, so is my delirium. (Stomach gurrs). Wonder what must be brewing for lunch today...

You could say that I'm just skipping work, and in a way, yes I agree. Talking research, Quantum dots can be very frustrating to be mathematically modelled, and don't get me started on the consequences of the black hole information paradox. These things, constitute my theoretical work on paper, while I'm out somewhere far away, upto something that is yet to find meaning. I suppose this shall be my last adventure, after all it gas to end.

A few sporadic knocks are heard, a reverberating mettalic peal tenses the air.

I must say that it all began last summer, when I tried that stuff handed over to me by the bartender in my regular place (It has to be my number one spot for blowing off some steam, talk about some real lookers there). The guy's good at mixing, and trustworthy on a good day. Well, things haven't been the same since then. It might be counter-intuitive to you, but I have never seen myself being as creative after ingesting a smidgen of that. My research output, which is exhaustingly theoretical, had been just bonkers before that. Since then, I could think of a multitude of ways to approach the problems that used to give me sleepless nights. I have been surprised at my abilities to heuristically map such problems! A win-win for me, must say.

(Is somebody approaching me? I hear human like sounds).

Loud metallic bangings surround the environment. Our stranger is alerted. He tries to desperately channel out the discomfort by blocking his ears. ( The desert silence is unpleasantly interrupted... Does it all end here?) The bright Sun flashes with more vigour and expands its horizons. A creaking sound is heard... Soon after, a human head peeks in. Our stranger shreiks! The recording cuts abruptly.

Cut to the scene, the Lecturer is found at a dustbin, a covered one, in an intoxicated state. He was an astounding 35 km away from his home address. Still had his ID and formals on. The local police, called upon by a municipality sweeper, take him to the nearest station and call his place. The wife comes a while later, all concerned, rebuking our 'stranger'. She proceeds to wipe his face and make him drink some water. Turns out the city police had already initiated a search outing, trying to locate when he had last been spotted on campus.

Blood sampling runs lead to the conclusion that he was high on LSD. The interrogation leads nowhere— our guy has no recalling of the way he got into the bin, or even about 35 km away as a matter of fact. The concerned wife waits in the lobby, tapping her feet on the tiled floor.

Turns out it is a Tuesday morning, a perfect day to skip work.

P.S.: I believe that drug abuse is a form of self-harm, hence the flair.

How do you think our Stranger made his way into that dustbin?

I awoke in a strange meadow, several miles from the center of town. How I came to be there, I had no idea. My head was pounding. The persistent ringing in my ears was intense. I couldn’t even remember what I’d had to drink but from the total absence of memory and the stink of my sodden clothes, it must’ve been a lot. Silently I cursed my lack of self control, and the waves of reoccurring nausea which it brought me.

While trying to stand up, my body wanted to lie back down on the soft clover and rest. Just a few more minutes. I was woozy and weak. It took several moments to rise up to my feet. Even then, I staggered around like a drunken fool. I had swollen sores and fiery red rings on my extremities from numerous angry insect bites. It served me right for having too many pints at the pub.

With my hands outstretched on either side to steady my wobbly gait, I noticed my pockets were stuffed full of flowers! What an odd thing to do, while lying on the ground, stewed to the gills! I was embarrassed about my loutish behavior and afraid of being ostracized as the village drunk. It was my desire to slink back to my cottage sight-unseen, and then sleep off the remaining intoxication; but I need not have worried about leering witnesses. I didn’t encounter a soul on my wayward march of shame.

That bit of good fortune was indeed welcome but it also struck me as odd. Where was everyone? Normally the worn cobblestones were filled with bustling townsfolk in the middle of the afternoon sunshine. Instead, every door and shutter was closed up tight. No man, woman, or child rambled by. The whole village was abandoned everywhere I went.

Then I saw the warning messages. Numerous signs had been painted as red as blood, on the thresholds of all the shops and homes. Apparently a deadly outbreak of the plague struck the town while I was on my well-timed bender. I marveled at my good luck and then reached deep within my pockets to discard the wilted flower petals. Like sowing the prodigal seeds of a farmer, I tossed the fragrant posies to and fro. With everyone else gone, I was both a pauper and the king (of death).

An ancient, unidentified group of ‘pirates’ generically referred to as ‘The Sea People’ were possibly the first to inhabit the ‘Fertile Crescent’; more than six thousand years ago. If so, they predated the Assyrian, Akkadian, and Babylonian empires by several millennia. Even the unique and mighty Sumerian civilization; who are often associated with being the first to settle the Mesopotamian lands, were possibly descendants of these mysterious, sea-dwelling warriors.

Where they originated from, or their ethnic genealogy, historians could not agree. One running theory was that they were a mixed confederation of Philistine and other hunter-gatherer nomad peoples without a geographic location to call their own. Whatever the truth is, ‘the Sea People’ were greatly feared by Egyptian pharaohs, the Etruscans, the island nation of Crete, Minos, and numerous Mediterranean civilizations. It’s not hyperbole to say these fierce mariners and their devastating inland raids were largely responsible for the ‘Bronze Age collapse’.

During their 1177 BCE invasion of Egypt, they looted and pillaged the thriving kingdom of Ramses III, and then returned back to their unknown watery territory, unscathed. The Pharaoh’s fortress temple ‘Medinet Hadu’ lay in ruins. Plato also wrote about their superior warships and unusual battle armor. When the horde attacked the prosperous port city of Ugarit soon afterward, their ruler attempted to send a distress letter to the reigning king of Cypress, advising him of the ongoing invasion and pleading for help. Sadly, the urgent message was never sent. It’s clay tablet was found burned in the ruins. Ugarit was completely destroyed and razed to the ground.

For several centuries, the powerful union of nationless pirates targeted and destroyed vulnerable neighbors all along the Mediterranean coast, without reservation or mercy. Then after decimating each target, they simply returned back to their marine homeland, and entered an inactive phase of quiet anonymity. Eventually, these unrelenting terror campaigns and devastating raids led to the irreparable collapse of many once-prosperous empires and civilizations.

————

For interesting documented events which transpired more than two and a half millennia ago, you might assume this lesson in ancient history is purely academic, or a matter of bygone record. That’s where you would be wrong. You see, those same deadly vessels of yore returned less than a month ago to the Eastern seaboard and beaches of North America.

Baffled witnesses along the sandy coastline wondered if the thousands of ancient wooden warships were part of an epic movie being filmed, or a historic seafaring enthusiasts club. The bloody truth soon emerged. It wasn’t a dramatic re-enactment of times long past. It was the sudden reemergence of a deadly foe.

Battle drums on board the massive flotilla sounded. It was their rallying cry to motivate the violent warriors for their imminent attack. Four thousand years earlier on the other side of the world, the same tympanic rhythms struck mortal terror into the hearts and minds of the victims-to-be. That was because they knew devastation and death was about to befall them.

Unfortunately, the first new victims of these highly-orchestrated assaults, were wholly unprepared to react appropriately or defend themselves. They stood paralyzed and confused while witnessing the dazzling spectacle. The colorful warships landed on the undefended beaches with strategic precision, and without resistance or civil protest.

Soon the rising curiosity turned to disbelief and abject horror. Murderous slings and arrows pierced the flesh of innocent spectators. Cold realization crept over their previously bemused faces. The chaos unfolding before them wasn’t dramatic re-enactments of an ancient past, or an active movie set. It was a merciless, real invasion and homeland attack!

Before it was collectively understood they were under assault by a tribe of seafaring people of unknown origin, thousands lay dead or dying. The hardened mariners raided beach homes and coastal shops for food and items of value to pillage. The element of complete surprise allowed them to avoid many initial casualties, but that edge over modern technology and advanced weapons wouldn’t last.

Thankfully, word of the coordinated massacre reached the coast guard and civil defense authorities rapidly. Troops were assembled in record time to neutralize the unexpected threat. Navy warships and bombers were summoned from bases all over the country, in case there were greater, nationwide security implications.

National Guard forces locked down the attack points and quickly took back dozens of affected towns along the Eastern seaboard. Military jets flew over the wooden boats and sunk them without challenge or return fire. Then Coast Guard crews captured hundreds of the stranded marauders and transported them to a centralized military command center for holding at a special Naval base in Richmond. The international news media covered the unbelievable situation in graphic detail for weeks.

The combined armed forces had dozens of interpreters among their ranks but none of them could speak the cryptic tongue. At the time, they didn’t realize it hadn’t been spoken for more than two millennia. In order to determine which nationality the savage attackers were, and to assess the potential threat of more invasions being planned, it was necessary to interrogate them and record their statements. Top linguists were called in to facilitate this daunting task.

At first, zero progress was made. The rogue prisoners were brutish, feral, and fiercely unyielding. They lacked completely in even the most basic of manners or social graces. It appeared they were either unable, or unwilling to cooperate with their government captors. The staff and frustrated language experts struggled to bridge the significant communication gap. They realized they were dealing with something extraordinary, but they couldn’t quite put their fingers on exactly what it was.

The stocky, pale individuals were strident; and obviously unaware of modern life, technology, or society. Top historians were consulted to disprove an uncomfortable thought ruminating among them. The bizarre theory was that the warring mariners of ancient times somehow returned to haunt the coastline of the U.S., but that idea wouldn’t sit well with the officials or outraged public frothing for expedient executions. As much as it didn’t make sense to the scientists either, it absolutely seemed to be true. The hundreds of enemy combatants in the detainment center belonged to the lost Mediterranean seafaring horde. Convincing the ranking brass and patriotic soldiers of that wouldn’t be nearly as easy.

————

“I don’t know how, nor can I explain the details as of yet, but I believe our attackers are direct descendants of a group of ‘Semitic sea people’ from the Adriatic. You see, they act like ‘Stone Age savages’ because they really are directly from the Stone Age. This same group of nomads was credited with causing ‘the late Bronze Age collapse’ of civilization! They were last known to exist in the transitional time period between the writing of the old and New Testament books. It’s as if they have been frozen in time.”

“Frozen in …time?”; The base commander snorted dismissively. “Are you fuckin’ high? They are textbook middle-eastern terrorists! Just look at them!”

“Listen to me. Whomever these people are, they haven’t evolved at the same rate as the rest of the world. Surely you can see that! Even remote desert nomads are aware of modern technology. If this theory is correct, we need to find out where they’ve resided all this time, and how they managed to separate themselves from the rest of the planet. If we can figure out how to communicate with them, we can solve that enigma, and also explain why they attacked us.”

“What are you, some kind of moron, Preston? How much are they paying you to waste taxpayer’s money on silly sci-fi fantasies like this? I’m going to ask that you be removed from the intelligence team! We need to break down these goat-humping marauders immediately so we can find out which hostile enemy of ours they represent; and if more fanatic, evil acts are forthcoming against the American people!”

“I fully understand your abrasive skepticism, Commander. I wouldn’t believe what I’d just told you either, had I not examined the personal effects we seized from them. None of them were carrying cell phones or electronics. Their minimal clothing was handmade with natural source materials, and manually woven by prehistoric loom methods. Their teeth are severely worn out and decayed. I witnessed evidence of prior injuries on their bodies which have healed poorly, without modern surgery, medicine or antibiotics. They even defecate in the corner of their cells and drink from the toilet, despite having clean running water, for heaven’s sake! They are clearly an inbred culture. Even the most uneducated, remote clan of desert people have a septic system, indoor plumbing, and sacred laws against intermarriage these days.”

“And your point is?”; The supervisor quipped. “They killed over a thousand of our people in a vicious coordinated rampage! Several of them have bitten my guards through the bars like rabid dogs at the pound! It’s all I can do to hold myself back from marching them outside against a wall and shooting them. They deserve it, believe me. We’re only holding them here until they can officially stand trial and be brought to full justice. If you’d just do your damn job and find out which enemy they committed this atrocity for, we can ‘return the favor’.”

“The captured souls confined to this detainment block have been bottled up somewhere in a ‘time-shielded ignorance vacuum’. They know absolutely nothing of modern life or our international enemies. Anyone you hire to replace me will come to the same conclusion. They are Bronze Age aquatic nomads traveling the oceans with their wives and children in tow. Not some nefarious ‘Middle Eastern terrorist network with an acronym’, plotting against us. Can you name one terrorist organization today that would bring their wives and kids along for the attack?”

That last question definitely stumped his highly-outspoken critic. Perhaps it was the turning point in swaying his mind about an improbable sounding suggestion being a real possibility. That is the first step in changing opposing viewpoints. Reed offered one final series of thoughts before walking out of the room.

“Just because I can’t prove a theory yet doesn’t make it wrong, or false. I intend to get to the truth, whatever it is. If a person seeks the truth in good faith, they will find it. You just have to open your eyes to the possibility, and not limit yourself before giving it an open mind. I promise you, this wasn’t traditional terrorism. These seafaring nomads would have been equally as enthusiastic attacking the coastline of Mexico or Canada. We were merely a convenient geographical target at the time.”

“And where exactly is this ‘caveman time capsule’ which held them back? They’re no less primitive than the other backwards fanatics in parts of the world. Did they get sucked into an ocean maelstrom or a big black hole? Perhaps they were abducted by space aliens for intensive anal probing, and just recently returned back to Earth, by a huge flying saucer that could hold them and their wooden ships. Come on Reed! Spare us the unhelpful horseshit. We need to get this criminal investigation moving.”

The sarcasm was so thick it could be cut with a knife. In fairness however, he had no explanations with more believable answers. The actual truth of the matter, as was revealed later; made Ramhurst’s smarmy ‘suggestions’ appear reasonable in comparison. Until a breakthrough could be made in surmounting the considerable language and cultural barrier, ‘alien abductions’ and ‘falling into a black hole’ was just as credible.

—————-

“I’ve been working with one of the more amenable captives. We started with hand gestures first. Slowly he progressed to a handful of words and phrases. It’s enough of a connection that we can achieve a basic level of understanding. His name is ‘Uned’; and he even taught others in the compound some of the things he learned from us.”

“That’s excellent news, Reed. The White House will be happy to hear it. Any progress in determining where they came from? The Pentagon is quite anxious for answers.”

It was a significant improvement in the level of respect he received, compared to his previous encounter with Ramhurst. It was as if some of the puzzling details outlined before eventually made an impact. He almost hated to risk eroding their newfound understanding by circling back to the more controversial aspects of the earlier debate, but it couldn’t be avoided any longer.

“Yes, Commander. I have received an explanation from Uned. Of course our level of communication is still quite shallow and rudimentary, but I do have some basic answers from him.”

He hesitated to elaborate further but it was obvious he’d have to spell out what the prisoner said.

“Go on Preston. Tell me. Where have these mystery ‘Sea People’ luxuriating in our custody been hiding during the modern historical era?”

“Uned tells me his people lived within an extensive Mediterranean cave system for untold generations when they were not on pillaging raids. Over two thousand years ago his ancestors became trapped within this cavern after a massive landslide sealed the main entrance. After the catastrophe, they were forced to live off available resources within the many passages. Fortunately for them, there were fresh water springs, small, insurmountable openings to the sky above them for ambient light, and also reservoirs of aquatic sea life to harvest.”

Reed fully expected to witness the Commander roll his eyes in disbelief during the initial testimony. To his credit however, he appeared to be keeping an open mind. Since some time had elapsed since their earlier heated discussion, it definitely aided in helping the unusual possibility to sink in. In addition, the lack of modern weapons seized from them, and their primitive clothing and headdresses helped him accept that they were not part of a modern terror network.

“Do you remember hearing about a powerful earthquake which occurred around six months ago in that region of the world? Uned explained that it opened the mouth of the cave enough for them to finally escape after two millennia of imprisonment. They are known amongst themselves as the ‘Sherdan horde’. They were initially comprised of the Danuna, the Tjeker, the Peleset, and Shardana tribes. I think they possibly migrated from the Western Anatolia region of modern Sardinia more than five thousand years ago. Later on, groups like the Luka, Shekalesh, Equesh, Weshesh, Uashesh, and Teresh tribes joined their expanding ranks.”

The commander struggled to take it all in. It was a lot to swallow, even with the overwhelming, yet circumstantial evidence to support the fantastical idea. Who would’ve suspected they were recently-escaped Bronze Age marauders? James Ramhurst silently motioned for him to continue with the highly-controversial debriefing.

“They frequently attacked Egypt in those days, as it was considered the richest country, and most obvious ‘target’. Meanwhile the Nubians, the Hittites, and the Libyans hired them as bodyguards and mercenaries for their armies. The consensus was: ‘If you couldn’t beat them, hire them’. Those countries considered Egypt to be their mortal enemy, and since the ‘Sea People’ or Sherdan horde’ were fierce warriors who could not be defeated, it made sense to use them against Egypt, Assyria, or anyone else they didn’t like. It also meant that the Sherdinians were less likely to attack them, since they were employers and allies.”

“Wow. They are living archeological relics and a social anachronism.”; The Commander marveled. “This whole thing is nearly unbelievable and ironic. In a very real way, I was partially right about them being terrorists. They are just ‘the original terror squad’. It’s not enough we have to defend ourselves against modern threats. Now we have to also deal with ancient hordes of angry Bronze Age marauders who just escaped from a cave ‘time capsule’? Sheesh! I suppose our country is the equivalent of ancient Egypt, in terms of relative prosperity for the time but what in the hell do we do now? On one hand, I feel infinitely safer knowing their attack wasn’t an orchestrated threat from an avowed modern enemy; and that we had no trouble neutralizing them. On the other hand, how can we prepare for something so incredibly rare and genuinely bizarre? I’m at a loss of what we should do with them.”

“I’ll tell you this commander. No court in the land will convict them since they have been isolated and socially stunted for over two thousand years. This is a totally unique situation in the history of modern jurisprudence. One thing is for certain. Do NOT send them to Guantanamo bay! If they infiltrate and join in with the current extremist detainees there, we’ll have a serious mess on our hands for the future.”

First/Previous/Next

On waking, I found I’d undone my jacket and placed it over myself as a makeshift blanket; Mal, glaze-eyed looked on from where she’d posted across from me in the hall—she hadn’t slept. All the hours stolen from me by the jailor in the Golgotha cell seemingly caught up to me and if it had not been for that, I’d likely not slept at all.

“You’re awake,” said Mal.

“How long?” I asked; I pushed myself up from where I’d slumped.

“Few hours.”

“How is it?” I looked at the door.

“No one’s banged on it for a while, so I haven’t let anyone in. The other noises have stopped too, and I think that dragon’s moved on. Maybe? Maybe not—I heard big footfalls. It’s hot as hell though.” The woman shrugged. “Fires, right? It’s all going to be ash when we check topside.”

I peered down the hall, over the bodies which remained in the hall; those able enough dispersed and those that were left were either dead or cared for the dead.

“Everyone was talking about it,” Mal locked eyes onto mine, “You were supposed to hang today. Feel lucky?” A dry chuckle escaped her. “It’s a joke,” she assured me. “Really.”

“I reckon. Maybe I should have. Hung, that is.”

“It’s funny. Only the guards and the bullet-crafters were supposed to be allowed down here. Bosses too, of course. Now it’s all we’ve got. Everyone that’s alive is here now.” She nodded as if to solidify this to herself.

“Family?” I asked her.

Without elaborating, she nodded.

“Here?”

She then stared down the hall, ignoring the question.

“Why don’t you go on to the bunks? You look about dead.”

“Don’t know if I could sleep if I wanted to.” Mal shrugged whatever concern I offered.

Remembering, I found the pipe on the floor by where I’d been and began to pack it with tobacco; I smoked in silence and Mal was right—it was hot as hell. Golgotha was in flames. The smoke was so incredibly faint from the underground, but it was like the smell when sniffing it off clothing. Present. Subtle.

The groups which remained became their own factions and each one gathered food or weapons and everyone pitched in where able. The injured were taken to the bunks off the main hall and treated. Some would still die; others, though non-ambulatory, would surely recover if given the time. Among the faces in the flickering halls were wall men and peasants alike. The duality. Even Lady tempered her proselytizing. The bodies were moved further down the hall, placed in darkened rooms where the friends or family of the dead could mourn in relative solitude. Though Lady did not keep at her shrillness, she did light candles (from whatever places she’d found them) and kept with those mourning if only for company. The duality.

Those which cared to pitch in with cooking did so and though there were kitchens, we cramped in the rooms nearest the surface and cooked together over portable stove eyes. Some cried alone and others found laughter in it; black humor cured the sickness for some. The duality. Skitterbug-infested folks were there along with the rest and though blinded or incapacitated, they did what they were able. In tragedy, the will to do was good enough it seemed.

I hated them. Every single one. Mal and all. The ignorance of a species. Duality is well enough for observation, but where was that willpower in the face of oppression? Who was to say? I am no great secret-keeper for the human condition, and I am no anthropologist. I do not have the keys to the vehicle of mankind, but I know that I’ve looked at them so often and seen the hypocrisy. I hated them.

Yet, there I was—just as well. Alongside the others, I helped in the gathering of supplies, in the quick jokes which pass for camaraderie in the heat of manual labor. The duality? Doesn’t matter. I was no different. Whatever hate in my heart, it was dissolved in the chatter and there I was, eating and drinking among them and though I kept to myself, it was a crisis, and everyone spoke as they are to do in crises. Possibly it’s the panicked cry for survival.

The alcohol reserves were ransacked and any time a teary-eyed soul decided to arrive from the dead-rooms of mourning, they were brought in among us ravenously, given food, given a cup for drink, and there wasn’t time to ruin it. Us organisms reveled there on the cusp of death. Who knew what was to come?

We arranged ourselves across bunks and ate on beds like they were tables and sat cross-legged by the overhead fluorescent lights. Those bulbs cast a weird glow across our faces—especially once put in tandem with the orange flames of the portable stoves.

No one asked me about kissing the ass of Devils and no one singled me out and, in the crowd, I was totally lost in the best way possible; it could have been the drink. In lulls we all stopped and listened to the aboveground noises. Being so close to the entryway, we could hear the destruction—even though it was such a present factor in our time in the underground, it became totally unreal. In those lulls, it was apparent that we could hear creatures, massive things (I imagined Leviathan and the skin takers), crash around.

But the whispering would come on in tides and wash up into a great many conversations. Those folks told stories about the dead and the lost and how they hoped they’d find them after all was done; there were so many affirmations—of course the loved-ones would be found; there was no doubt.

As the dinner—that’s what it was—carried on, the mother from before pushed away from her mourning. It was the woman whose daughter was killed in front of her; Mal tensed up beside of where I sat. I expected the mother to lunge at the wall man, but she did not. Instead, she creased her face in a macabre demonstration that was like a smile and asked if we had anything hard. With a cup which Mal gave her, she took to drinking quickly and did not speak to anyone more than a bit; we learned her name was Jessica. Somewhere in the crowd I recognized the boy I scuffled with; the boy that disappeared after the gunshot—his nose was red still and twisted and he was smiling too while someone talked to him, and he nodded, and I drank, and reality felt preposterous. Whatever loneliness that persisted inside of me rearrived.

It was warm; hot as hell and it made us thirsty.

They piled and slept like degenerates wherever and those that passed silently from injury, which were laid about, could not have been determined besides the living—surely the smell would’ve been something if I hadn’t the belching stench of whiskey on my breath. As the dinner died, I excused myself to the hall; I saw Mal laid-out. Jessica sat beside her, craned half over a raised mattress with the cup in front of her chest; she held onto the small object with white knuckles.

Looking over the mass of folks in the bunkroom while standing in the threshold, I shook my head and moved onto the next room and the scene was much the same. That loneliness remained and I felt like maybe I’d done it, I’d put it there in me. As often as I harkened back to the days of the Rednecks, to the days of family, community, unity; a better man could have rebuilt that—absurd, could a person rebuild the abstract? No. Maybe not rebuild. That’s the wrong word. It is remend? New ties. New lives and a new community.

There was one person I wished was there: Suzanne. I sat in the hall by the latched door, closed my eyes, tilted my head back and listened to the ruckus overhead (it was almost silent) and I squinted through slits at the overhead lights and in reaching a hand to the open air by my side, open palmed, I almost felt Suzanne’s hand in my own and for a while it felt totally real. Smiling childishly, I blinked a few times, sat the bottle between my legs where I was, massaged my eyes.

Though I half-listened for banging on the door, no one came. Whoever was left overhead was gone. That was another happiness. Maron—Billy was surely dead, and I could rest easier for it. It should have been an end to the terribleness in me; the crying came on like a hard ache that went all over my body and no weight came off me. That was why I cried so heavily there in the hall; there was always the expectation that there would be a weight gone and it wasn’t—I should’ve known better than that and it had been something I feared all along. It made no difference. He was dead and I was alive and none of it mattered anyway. What grand satisfaction!

My face went into my hands, and I was overcome with a wild thumping all over; my heartbeat banged around, and I smeared my eyes with the backs of my hands and in doing so I smeared the dried blood there. I examined myself and saw my hands were covered in the stuff (some was my own, but mostly it wasn’t), my shirt was splattered with it, and even the dark jacket I wore showed it. It didn’t matter. There was no matter. The level of idiocy—I was no better than all those folks that disappeared from their mourning with their drink and their food and their conversations. The only difference was that I was entirely alone—whose fault was that anyway? I knew and I cried some more.

In the time I sat in the hall, the drink bottomed out and consciousness came and went deliriously. My left leg ached, and I stretched it out and pulled my jacket tightly around myself and slept about as pleasantly as a person could.

Jackson spoke briefly about these underground places. It’d been a drunk night in the company where they kept pouring him another and another. He never did go on so much as that night about the underground. Jackson said all of them had COI markings. It was some old men that’d built them. Ancient bygone times. I wished I’d asked him more.

When I came awake again, there was no indicator—all time was the same under those lights; they no longer flickered. The thing that brought me from my slump was the boy from before. The young one that’d asked me to save his daddy. He’d pushed into my bicep and held on to my forearm with his one good hand like it meant he might die otherwise. Startled, I looked on the boy; his eyes were changing—the process was slow but evident. Had he been in the hall all along? Had he seen me there crying? I hadn’t even noticed him. I scanned the chamber and there were still a few bodies strewn about: forgotten or unknown. The boy’s father remained erect where he was sitting, rod still protruding from the corpse.

“What’s the matter?” I asked the boy.

“He’s cold.” The boy coughed on the words, and I shuddered; his eyes were a streak of red with two whiting orbs and he pinched them shut and slammed his face into my arm.

I nodded, sighed, “You got a mama?”

He kept his head the way it was and didn’t react to my question at all.

“What’s your name, boy?”

His voice was a muffle in my arm and indiscernible.

I nudged him a bit but hoped to not disturb him too much. His small fingers on his right hand were like little pincers, and they dug into me. “You got a name?”

His head moved gently up and down and then he finally freed himself from where he’d buried into my arm. “I’m William.”

“William? Huh. Funny name.”

William snorted and pulled away and straightened himself and wiped his cheek with his shoulder and kept his good right arm clinging on mine—his rotting hand stank but I said nothing. “I’m named after daddy.”

“Mm.” I nodded and craned my head back to rest on the wall we sat against. “Anyone ever call you Billy?”

“No.” The child sniffled, lifted his head a bit so his chin stuck out, “Are you like one of those monsters?”

I shot him a curious expression.

“You’re all messed up on one side.”

I faintly grinned and shook my head. “C’mere,” I lifted my arm so that he may lean into my ribs and with him doing so, I wrapped both arms around him; his little body shook but he didn’t make too much noise. William’s hair smelled like sweat and dirt and I let him cry for a while, cupping his crown in my hand, resting my chin across my knuckles, staring at the wall across.

A day and some passed in the underground. We moved the corpses into the large room where the ammunition manufacturing was done; the webbing cracks with traced the walls there seemed deeper, more impressive—that might’ve only been my imagination. Once the dead were taken care of, covered, given rites completely where pertinent, a subtle equilibrium overcame us survivors; it was no such thing as normal—who knew what that was?

Folks burst into sudden fits of anger or joy or passion or vigor or lust or deep sorrow; mourning manifested in whatever fashion it so decided. Though it was obvious, it was not always evident to everyone and so fights broke out intermittently, but two people could fight and within an hour’s time they’d be best friends and so the cycle would repeat. Mal toured me through the place some so that I gathered the layout somewhat. There were food stores aplenty, though something drug on the reserves of water. The stuff fresh from the pipes would disappear shortly—the faucets spit angrily from disrupted pressure. Whatever was bottled or preserved would not last infinitely; we would all need to face the surface.

I intended on this sooner rather than later regardless of how anyone felt about it.

The boy—William—kept to my heels no matter how I distanced, and I gave up quickly on losing him amongst the crowd.

Golgotha, being as large as it was, was densely packed and although I never counted the heads of those I passed (I’m sure Boss Frank did so), the ones that were left were a sad few; only a bit more than one-hundred-and-fifty by a guess. That was what remained. How sad. I wished to dive into the theatrics, the dramatics of it. I wished to bring myself to ruin over the lost lives—yet there was some rotten core in me that believed it was deserved. Oppressed existed only because they allowed it. What should I have felt? I felt nothing too much.

There was the hope of Suzanne—I’d cook for Suzanne and Gemma both and maybe I’d find a stick for Trouble, and I’d never feel misery again; this was a dream, I knew it then too. Misery was me and whether it was so by Mephisto or I put it there was irrelevant.

Hope, love, companionship. Words I wished I knew better. There was a light too though. It grew in me. Maron was dead. Billy was dead. I was glad for it—gladder than I’d been. The weight remained but I was out of excuses.

I pilfered clothes, medicine, a satchel, foodstuffs, and hoped to go away quickly, abruptly as oft before, I went to the latched door which led outside. The smell of brimstone remained, the smell of smoke too, but I wished for daylight and grew more restless.

In the wet basement there was dust and rubble and ascending the stairway to the kitchen of that place once known as the hall of Bosses, I smelled something like rain. It was only earlier than midday by a smidge and I propelled myself from the place, down the front steps of the hall, into the awful state of Golgotha.

The sky was red, and the walls were streaked with brown dried blood and the bodies—pieces and flayed—were putrid in the sun like putty dolls. Smoldering black spots swelted heat at random checkpoints and warped or torn metal glowed as silver where they threw the sun like blinding orbs. Water spurted from pipes which fed the hydro towers most of all and the ground ran muddy and scabs of congealed viscera the size of paper sheets rafted along in puddles that culminated in places where I walked.

I moved through the streets that were no longer and peered across and in my beleaguered visage I saw the exterior walls, the thick bulwark against the wastes, had been punched through in places. Leviathan again.

Buildings—pieces—tilted in on themselves and out on neighbors and rooves fell away in slants so that I clamored across them precariously with wide legs.

Hell stink remained wherever I moved and bodies stood in places—those with faces remained upturned to the sky, eyes gone or tongue gone or ears and I felt compelled to face them away.

Strangers called out to me, and I slid where I walked to pivot where I’d come from, and I saw that a good many survivors followed me from the recesses of the underground; they called to me, but I waved them off and shifted to look for a good enough path from that devastation. Those specks of people—that’s what they’d become there on the steps of the hall—had no weight I should carry.

A rattle of strangulation signaled someone ahead and in the harsh sunlight they were painted black like shadow till my eyes came to focus completely on them. They wore a cowboy hat and swore some indistinguishable thing loud enough to wake the dead.

“No,” I said.

First/Previous/Next

Archive

I don’t know why I keep writing these notes. Maybe it’s a desperate attempt to hold onto my sanity, or maybe it’s for anyone who might find this journal after I’m gone. Either way, it helps pass the time.

The whispers in the wind have grown louder. They come mostly at night, when the fire’s dying down and the darkness presses in from all sides. At first, I thought it was just the wind playing tricks on me, but now I’m not so sure. They sound so real, so close.

Last night, I could swear I heard my own name, clear as day. It was a soft, almost gentle voice, but there was something off about it—something that sent chills down my spine. I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t stop. The whispers grew insistent, like they were trying to tell me something.

I haven’t seen another living soul since the asteroid hit, but now I’m starting to doubt my solitude. Shadows move at the edges of my vision, always disappearing when I try to focus on them. Sometimes, I hear footsteps crunching on the rubble outside, but when I go to investigate, there’s no one there.

Yesterday, I found a message scratched into the wall of a ruined building: “WE ARE NOT ALONE.” It was fresh, the edges of the letters still crumbling. I don’t know who wrote it or when, but it filled me with a mix of dread and hope. If someone else survived, maybe there’s a chance. But if not… what else could it mean?

I’ve started sleeping with my back against the wall, a makeshift spear by my side. It’s crude, just a sharpened piece of metal, but it makes me feel a little safer. The nights are the worst. The whispers don’t stop, and sometimes I hear screams—blood-curdling, agonizing screams that echo through the empty streets. They sound human, but twisted, like something is imitating a human voice.

I don’t know how much longer I can endure this. Every day is a struggle to find food and water, every night a battle against the encroaching darkness and the whispers that seem to grow more sinister. The loneliness gnaws at my mind, and I can feel myself slipping, losing touch with reality.

This morning, I found something that broke the monotony of despair. A footprint, fresh in the dust, not far from where I’ve been hiding. It was human, but large, too large. It looked wrong, like the person—or thing—that made it was not quite right.

I followed the footprints for as long as I could, but they disappeared into the rubble. The air around them felt colder, and the whispers grew louder, more urgent. I turned back, feeling eyes on me, and hurried to the relative safety of my fire.

Tonight, the whispers are clearer than ever. They speak of things I can’t understand, in a language that feels ancient, wrong. But one phrase keeps repeating, over and over: “Join us.”

I don’t know what it means, and I’m not sure I want to. But as the days blur into one another, as the loneliness and fear gnaw away at my sanity, I find myself listening more closely. The world I knew is gone, and I’m starting to think that maybe I am, too.

If anyone ever finds this journal, know that I tried. I fought to survive, to keep my sanity in a world gone mad. But in the end, the whispers got to me. They promised an end to the loneliness, an end to the pain. And maybe, just maybe, I’m willing to believe them.

The fire is dying now, and the darkness is closing in. The whispers are calling, louder than ever, and I’m tired—so very tired. I think I’ll go to them, see what they want. After all, what’s left to lose?

If you’re reading this, be careful. The end of the world doesn’t come with a bang, but with a whisper.

PT 1 HERE: https://www.reddit.com/r/cryosleep/s/zQ03ALc4vJ

I've always been a skeptic, the kind who'd laugh off conspiracy theories and doomsday prophecies. But then came that night, the one I can't scrub from my mind, no matter how hard I try.

It started like any other evening. The sky was a deep, untroubled blue, with stars beginning to dot the horizon. I was on my porch, sipping a cold beer, enjoying the tranquility. Suddenly, a loud, piercing siren shattered the calm. My phone buzzed with an emergency alert: "SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

My heart pounded as I ran inside and turned on the TV. Every channel was the same: a grim-faced newscaster explaining that a massive asteroid, undetected until the last moment, was on a collision course with Earth. Impact was imminent.

Panic set in. I grabbed my emergency bag and headed for the basement. The world outside was a chaotic mess of blaring car horns, screaming neighbors, and distant sirens. In the basement, the air was thick with fear. I could hear people shouting and crying through the thin walls.

Then came the impact. The ground shook violently, throwing me to the floor. The noise was indescribable—a deafening roar that seemed to tear the world apart. The power went out, plunging everything into pitch darkness. I could only hear my own ragged breaths and the muffled screams from above.

Hours passed, or maybe it was days—time had lost all meaning. The basement was stifling, the air heavy with dust and fear. I finally mustered the courage to venture upstairs. The sight that greeted me was nothing short of apocalyptic.

Everything was in ruins. The once vibrant neighborhood was reduced to smoldering rubble. Fires raged uncontrolled, casting an eerie glow against the ash-filled sky. Bodies lay strewn across the streets, and the air was thick with the stench of death and destruction.

I stumbled through the wreckage, searching for any sign of life. There was none. The world had ended, and I was alone. The silence was deafening, broken only by the crackling of distant fires and the occasional groan of a collapsing building.

Days turned into weeks as I scavenged for food and water, always haunted by the specter of my own mortality. The loneliness was a crushing weight, the silence a constant reminder of the life that had been ripped away. I kept hoping I'd find someone—anyone—who had survived, but each day brought only more desolation.

One night, as I sat by the flickering fire in what was left of my home, I saw a shadow move in the corner of my eye. My heart leapt with hope. But when I turned, there was nothing. Just the darkness, closing in around me.

I don't know how much longer I can survive in this wasteland. The food is running out, and my will to live is fading. Sometimes, I think I hear whispers in the wind, calling my name, urging me to give up. Maybe it's the ghosts of the dead, or maybe it's just my own madness. Either way, I know the end is near.

I used to fear the end of the world. Now, I fear the endless, empty silence that follows.

PT 2 and final HERE : https://www.reddit.com/r/cryosleep/s/H4MqBkxI1C hope u liked this story and lmk if i should continue making these 🫶

Do you know what a letter of last resort is? When a prime minister takes office, they must write four of them, one for each of the country’s ballistic missile submarines. The letters contain orders on what the submarine captains are to do if the government is destroyed in a nuclear attack. They’re a sort of dead man switch that deters a first strike against us. An assurance that the last act of the British people will be nuclear retaliation.

Frankly, I had always felt they were ghastly things – the rigor mortis of a dead nation. Surely the destruction of our enemy, however terrible they may be, would not be worth condemning our planet to nuclear winter. When I first learnt of the letters of last resort, I had hoped they contained orders to stand down. I don’t hope that anymore.

There are worse fates than nuclear holocaust.

My uncle was an officer aboard a ballistic missile submarine that carried a letter of last resort. He was a good man and a better sailor. Growing up, I was proud to call him family. That changed in the mid-nineties when he entered a sudden depression that led to his dismissal from the Navy. He spent the rest of his days trying to drink himself to death in a flat outside of Liverpool. He succeeded last week.

His landlord found him dead, choked on his own vomit, surrounded by cheap lagers. No one in the family was surprised. To most of them, he’d died decades ago. Still, I had fond memories of the man he’d been, so I volunteered to drive to Liverpool to clear out his flat.

That’s where I found the letter of last resort.

It was at the bottom of a shoe box containing Navy memorabilia. It was not an original – those are destroyed when a prime minister leaves office – just a grainy photocopy. That said, I believe it to be authentic. These are its contents, verbatim:

##Nuclear Response Contingency

Ensure these conditions are met before continuing:

• The VLF transmitters at Rugby, Criggion, and Anthorn have not broadcast for 48 hours.
• BBC Radio 4 LW has not broadcast for 48 hours.

Captain,

If you are reading this, the worst has come to pass: the United Kingdom has been destroyed. It now falls on you to carry out the last act of Her Majesty’s Government. I cannot know precisely what brought about the destruction of our island home, so this letter describes several scenarios and the actions you are to take in response. Britain expects that you will do your duty.

The Right Honourable John Major,

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

##Scenario White.

Proceed with this scenario if either of these conditions are met:

• The MOD had placed its installations under alert state RED or AMBER.
• NATO has declared counter-surprise alert state SCARLET or ORANGE.

An enemy nation has seen fit to destroy us. Writing this letter, I do not know why, but I hope that it was because we, as a nation, stood against tyranny and refused to surrender to it. I will not allow the free world to sink into the abyss of a new dark age – after all, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

I hereby authorize you to execute a retaliatory nuclear strike. You are to launch missiles 1 through 15 and target their warheads at predesignated population centers in the aggressor nation.

You are to hold missile 16 in reserve.

Once this mission is complete, you are to place yourself under the command of an allied nation of your choosing so as to carry on the fight. Should no such nation exist, you are to scuttle your vessel and surrender to a neutral nation of your choosing.

You and your crew are thereby relieved of duty as sailors of the Royal Navy.

God Save the Queen.

##Scenario Grey

Proceed with this scenario if both these conditions are met:

• The conditions for Scenario White have not been met.
• Military transmitter stations across the globe are broadcasting a plaintext message with the phrase OMEGA in its header.

Captain, this is not the war you expected to fight. Indeed, our home is under attack, but not just our nation, our very planet. An extraterrestrial threat has executed an orbital bombardment of Earth, and the United Kingdom did not survive.

We, at the highest levels of government, knew this day would come and took steps to prepare for it. Through great sacrifice, we have come to possess a significant degree of operational and technical information concerning the extraterrestrial threat. We know that it is a singular entity, that it is millennia more advanced than us, and that it is motivated to annihilate us as a species. Our intelligence, such as it is, suggests that within 72 hours of our planet’s bombardment, the threat will break orbit and enter our atmosphere. Under no circumstances can it be allowed to make land fall.

It had been hoped that the threat would not arrive in our lifetimes – that we might possess more advanced weapons technology when it did, but it seems we will not be afforded that luxury. In cooperation with other military powers across the globe, we have devised a plan to defend our planet with the resources available to us.

Several of our partner nations have retrofitted their long-range early warning radar installations, enabling them to track the threat as it approaches Earth. Data from these installations is being processed in hardened, subterranean data centers, to then be transmitted to military forces across the planet, including ballistic missile submarines via VLF transmitter. In effect, we have devised a planet-wide fire control system that we will use to direct the planet’s combined military forces in a single, high-intensity, attack on the threat as it enters our atmosphere. Any nation capable of sortieing missiles or aircraft, conventional or otherwise, will be directed to participate. The data necessary to target and synchronize your strike with allied forces is embedded in the OMEGA broadcasts. You are to commit missiles 1 through 15 to said strike.

You are to hold missile 16 in reserve.

I will be frank with you, Captain: this will be a close-run thing. Our enemy has travelled between stars to kill us. The defeatist in me says we may as well be tossing spears at a jet fighter, but the optimist in me says a spear will kill a man just as dead as a bullet. Whatever the case may be, I expect you will do your utmost.

Britian may be gone, but with its dying breath, her people charge you with the defence of our planet and species.

God Save the Queen.

##Scenario Black

Proceed with this scenario if any of these conditions are met:

• The strike described in Scenario Grey has failed to neutralize the threat.

It heartens me to know, that in our last moments as a species, we stood as one and did all we could to defend our home. Nevertheless, we have failed. The threat has landed on our planet and will now begin the work of our annihilation. This will not be some brief, impersonal process. It is to be a protracted massacre – designed by an alien intelligence to be as excruciating and undignified as possible. No human atrocity will compare.

It is possible your vessel still contains nuclear warheads. Perhaps too many of our radar or transmitter installations were destroyed in the orbital bombardment, and you never received any fire control data. Perhaps our intelligence was inaccurate, and the threat arrived ahead of our strike window. Perhaps you simply did not read this letter in time. Whatever the case may be, if you are able, I beg of you: launch your warheads now and euthanize as many of us as you can.

You are an officer of the Royal Navy, and so I expect your instincts will be to ignore this order and launch a strike against the threat. I implore you not to listen to that instinct. Our intelligence is unambiguous: only an overwhelming strike on the threat in its atmospheric entry configuration stands a chance of delivering the megatonnage required to disable it. That opportunity has come and gone. You can do only one thing now, and that is to give us the chance to die with dignity.

You are to launch missiles 1 through 15 and target their warheads at global population centers so as to maximize the loss of human life. In the face of what the threat means to do to us, this is a mercy.

There is one last duty you must perform – perhaps the most important of any in this letter. You are to surface your vessel and place missile 16 in a maintenance configuration such that its warheads can be accessed from the vessel’s top side deck. Your engineering officer will inform you that a Vanguard-class submarine is not designed to have its missile tubes accessed while in open waters, and that doing so could irrevocably damage the vessel. Proceed anyways.

Once the missile has been exposed from its tube, access the re-entry vehicle. Unlike the other missiles aboard your vessel, missile 16 does not contain a payload of nuclear warheads. Instead, you will find an unmanned spacecraft of a bio-mechanical, non-human design. It may appear alarmingly alien, but do not fear, it was grown at a BAE Systems facility in Rochester, Kent. It is as British as your submarine.

Place a hand on the spacecraft’s carapace and wait for its largest gland to begin vibrating, then recite the following aloud:

“My people and planet are dead. We were killed by an entity residing in interstellar space that is hostile to all sapient life. This threat is not an alien society, machine intelligence, or instinct predator – it is a singular, conscious, entity of unknown origin that abhors intelligent life. Its only motivation is to inflict maximal suffering on whatever can understand the depth of its malice.

The threat has eradicated at least seventeen other civilizations in our galaxy. None existed concurrently with one another, but through great sacrifice and forethought, each was able to draw upon the knowledge of its forebearers when the threat came for them. The last act of all these societies was to launch a spread of near-light-speed probes towards any star that might one day harbor life.

My species recovered one such probe. It contained knowledge from all seventeen of the civilizations that came before us. Much of it was technical, describing weapons technologies beyond our industrial capacity to produce. Nevertheless, it greatly accelerated our research into nuclear physics, microelectronics, and rocketry. Most importantly, it contained detailed intelligence on the threat: its strategies, its strike capability, and its blinds spots. It was not enough to save our people, but perhaps it will be enough to save yours. Like it was once passed to us, we pass on the torch of civilization to you.

This probe is capable of constant acceleration, universal language translation, and high-density data storage. It was not designed by us, but it was built by us. Use the information contained in its storage medium to kill the threat when it finds you. Should you fail, do as we have done, and pass on the torch.

What follows is technical and operational data we recorded during our first and last military engagement with the threat.”

At this point, read aloud whatever data is being transmitted on the OMEGA broadcasts. The data will be encoded in hexadecimal and may take several minutes to recite. Should no such broadcasts exist, summarize the engagement to the best of your ability.

Once complete, remove your hand from the spacecraft’s carapace and have the missile placed back into a firing configuration. As soon as you are able, launch the missile with its re-entry vehicle set to separate at the apex of its trajectory. Once the contained spacecraft is exposed to vacuum, it will begin accelerating towards an appropriate star. With this last act of defiance, we arm another people – impossibly distant from us in space and time – with the knowledge to succeed where we have not.

The last matter to be seen to is yourself and your crew. In a matter of hours, the threat will target your vessel and do to you what it has done to so many others. Preserve your dignity and take your own lives. However you choose to carry out this final order, ensure that catastrophic damage is inflicted to your frontal cortex – anything less will leave you vulnerable to resuscitation.

You and your crew are thereby relieved of duty as sailors of the Royal Navy.

God Save the Queen.

After reading the letter, I told myself that it had to be a fake, some sick joke, but I couldn’t convince myself. I knew it was real. I made my way to my uncle’s kitchen and helped myself to some of the alcohol that had killed him. I suppose I can’t blame the man for retreating into a bottle after he came into the letter. There’s no right way to react to learning everything you know has been marked for some unimaginable alien torment. I left the next morning, his flat decidedly unclear.

In the months that followed, my friends and family said I’d changed – that there was a profound melancholy about me. They’re right. I don’t have it as bad as my uncle, but perhaps that’s because I wasn’t expected to be the executor of mankind’s last will and testament. Still, thoughts of that letter consume me.

When I watch the news and the prime minister comes on, I search for signs that we’re both haunted by the same, terrible dread. Every so often, I think I can see it in the way he speaks about the mundanities of governance. There’s something in his tone that says: this is all meaningless in the face of what is coming for us all. More likely, I’m just seeing what I want to. Misery loves company. I suppose that’s why I posted this.

In the spirit of that misery, I’ve taken to stargazing. I imagine all those messages-in-a-bottle, bouncing between the stars, each one containing the death rattle of a whole people – their pleading for someone to avenge them. I suspect it won’t be long before our own voices join that choir.

When I look up at the night sky, all I see is a monster, the corpses of its victims, and a whole galaxy of letters of last resort.

“Small businesses depend on those passing through the area, to maintain a healthy bottom line. Few merchants can survive on the patronage of local customers alone. It’s difficult to stay afloat in these challenging times. Realizing that visitors and tourists contribute a significant amount to sales revenue and profits, we must ensure that every traveler to our fair city feels valued and welcomed.

The first step in this process is to raise public awareness of the importance of offering ‘down-home’ hospitality.

Money earned from out-of-town guests translates to more local jobs and a thriving economy. It only takes one negative review on the internet to spread the word, to travelers passing by. Then they would avoid us like the plague! We do NOT want that. Happy visitors are generous visitors. The merchant’s bureau encourages every citizen of this wonderful community to welcome tourists with open arms (and cash registers). They literally put food on our table.”

The mayor took a minor step back from the podium while the gathered townsfolk absorbed his carefully-prepared speech. He didn’t want a ‘hot mic’ incident to lead to disorder in the economic strategy meeting, nor did he want to promote an open forum of amateur debate from the yokels. They simply needed to hear and universally agree with what he was telling them. It was the only way to ensure a healthy fiscal year for their local business owners and economy.

To his growing displeasure, a number of abrasive protesters attempted to interject their two cents into the matter. It was always the ignorant minority who made his job difficult. He attempted to talk over their disruptive shouts, but even with the PA on maximum volume, they were too vocal to be fully drowned out.

“Mayor, are you $&@#! serious? You need your damn head examined! We aren’t endangering our lives just so our city gets a slightly higher review rating on some silly e-commerce website you idolize. Screw that!”

“Deputy, please escort Mr. Parson out of this meeting, and anyone else who shares his bigoted views! He and his misinformed cronies have been nothing but cantankerous and belligerent since the moment they arrived. I will not tolerate disrespect to myself personally, or the sacred office of Mayor.”

Unfortunately, Randall Parson was not leaving without a parting shot at the tin-plated-dictator leading them straight into the fire. As the deputy dragged him off, he shouted: “These ‘travelers’ and ‘visitors’ you love so much don’t spend any money here, you moron. They don’t buy anything at all! The only thing they want to eat are the actual townspeople. They are ‘tourists’ of the carrion kind. The dead don’t carry cash or credit cards. Dethrone this idiot before we all become ‘lunch’.”

First/Previous/Next

Thuds on the door came more erratic and screams and yet more gunfire—automatic spits.

I handed the small pistol to the wall man and she looked at it where it was outstretched and shook her head. “Keep it holstered,” I said, “Take it. Go on.”

She shook her head again, glancing to the corpse in the hall. I shoved the gun flat against her chest and she grabbed ahold of it, a startled expression was planted across her round face. She took the gun and slammed the thing onto her hip.

“Move the corpse,” I angled over to the legs and began to lift them. The woman which had guarded the body remained still and didn’t offer a thing to say. “Grab the head.”

The wall man swallowed and hunkered down to grab the dead girl’s wrists. We awkwardly shuffled her to an adjacent room—servant quarters? Upon returning to the hall, I grew faint and stabled myself by the woman which sat on the floor, and I shook her with my hand on her shoulder. “Up,” I said.

She shook her head.

“Goddammit, c’mon. Was it your daughter? Sister? What? Get up or you’ll be trampled to death when we open that door.”

“Daughter,” she whispered.

I motioned for the wall man’s help and she came over and we lifted the poor woman by her armpits and helped her to the room we’d placed her daughter. Among the rows of bunks and trunks and dressers, we’d lined her beside the nearest bunks and the woman, upon reseeing the corpse, froze and there wasn’t a good moment to offer condolences or to apologize, though the wall man tried.

“I’m sorry,” said the wall man—sweat beaded across her upper lip and she was shaking just as much as the mother as she shifted the woman around the corpse and sat her there on the bunk nearby. The mattress made a long noise and the mother stared at her dead child and while the wall man tended to them, I ripped the blanket from the bunk beside and tossed it over the dead girl.

“C’mon,” I said to the wall man, “Do your duty then. When I open that door, it’s going to be a mess. Wounded probably. You got any supplies for that in the underground?”

“Sure,” said the wall man; she removed herself from beside the crying mother and we shut the door behind and stood in the hallway for a moment; the ghastly strikes against the door began to grow weaker and a few others that had escaped to the underground returned to the hall entrance—probably to see the ruckus; I shot a hand to them to say they should move out of the way.

“Get on then,” I said, “I’ll get the door. Go get them supplies. No reason to let them die beating down the door like that.”

“You’re crazy. You could just leave them out there.” said the wall man and then she was gone too, and I stood there by the door alone; I hadn’t even a moment to respond.

“Fuck,” I mumbled. The door latch was cold in my hands, and I shook my head hard to send away the faintness which had come to me; the sleepless days in the cell had done a number—the fighting, the running, everything.

I yanked the door free and was immediately propelled backwards by the force of the people from the other side. I put myself against the wall and watched scared faces rush by, stumble through; some panted thanks to god without a break in their pace and their footfalls were like thunder through the underground as they rushed past. It took biting my tongue to not scream at them stepping over my feet to or elbowing me as they went; the wildered expressions were too panicked to worry about me, too worried about survival.

Once the immediate flow of folks rushed past, I went to the door, pushed it half-shut and investigated the dark and moist basement which led to the kitchens. Another person came down the stairs and I watched them, thought of slamming the door on them, but upon them staggering to the threshold, I sighed and threw it open; Lady spilled into the underground, staff suspending her bent back from tipping over and she carried past without acknowledging me. I continued to watch the door and waited and listened; the destruction of Golgotha came in waves—the smell of burnt flesh travelled even to where I stood and the screams of the burned did too. The mutants and demons rampaged, and I listened to that too and waited and sometimes a person or a handful of people came through and I let them pass then returned to sentry.

People piled in the hall while others went deeper into the underground, to disappear in hiding or to die somewhere quiet from their wounds—still, the ones which languished in the hall, twenty or more in that long and narrow thoroughfare, all seemed injured either bodily or by their mind. Hisses and moans escaped the survivors whenever they adjusted themselves in the way they sat, and I watched through that door into the lightless basement and glanced to the opposite end of the hallway where it T-sectioned.

I hollered at the crowd, body in the doorway, leaning tiredly. “Anybody got cigarettes? Tobacco?”

A man by the doorway in which we’d ushered the dead girl through raised a hand and there was a little boy by him; the little boy had a blackened left hand but otherwise seemed coherent enough—the scrawny kid was maybe six. “I’ve a pipe!” shouted the man.

The fellow sent over the boy which catered to him, and the boy approached me stiffly, waywardly, as though he were afraid something may burst through the door at any moment. I attempted a smile, though I can’t say I looked like good company. The boy offered up a handheld pair of tins on a hinge and upon opening it there was a small stash of dry tobacco, a tiny pipe, and only four matches.

“I’d thank you to just leave me some—that’s all I ask,” said the man from where he sat; he smiled then laughed a bit and the laughing became a terrible wet cough and the man’s eyes watered, and the boy returned to the man.

I nodded a thanks in the man’s direction and began packing the pipe and sat there at the threshold while the door remained cracked. Upon lighting the thing, I puffed deep and coughed a bit myself then closed my eyes only for a moment to gather a deep bout of smoke into my mouth; I sucked it back into my lungs. The tobacco was a bit stale, but it was delicious, and I vaguely thought I might never get another chance for it.

“Don’t be deceived!” screeched Lady as she hung among the crowd of injured; she lighted the incense which hung from her staff and continued: “God won’t be mocked. Whatever we sowed then we too reap, and we have sowed! Now comes reaping!”

A crying man added to the grumbles, “Someone toss that bitch out on her head!”

I waited to see how poorly the crowd may turn on Lady, but she shut up and everyone else continued in their own small conversations. Lady tried to continue her tirade but disappeared into the recesses of the place.

The gathered warm bodies made the tunnel air wet and the smell of the incense alongside the unwashed grew pungent; I smoked deeper to hide the scent.

Upon glancing back to the T-section, I saw the wall man, the woman which I’d sent for medicine—there was no part of me which expected her return, but there she was. Leather bags hung from both her arms and in front of her arms she carried a crate. She stumbled over the people in the hall, and she saw me there by the door and dropped the supplies to the side and approached.

“You a doctor?” she panted the words.

I shook my head, toked the pipe. Tiredness was so prevalent in me that it became an emotion. “You?”

“Basic field medic training, but I haven’t used it. Not for real.”

“Okay,” I moved to stand, and she offered a hand, and I took it and pressed into the frame of the threshold for good holding.

“Harlan’s your name, yeah?” she asked.

I nodded.

“I’m Mal.” She nodded like it meant something and then started in again, staring at the supplies. “Can you help these people?”

“I’m watching,” I looked through the door crack, listened to a bad solitary scream, smelled the burning earth.

“I’ll watch,” she offered; Mal lifted her 9mm free from its holster.

“It might be good enough to kill a girl, but it won’t do anything to anything waiting out there.”

She flinched at my words and reholstered the weapon.

“Sorry,” I said, and I meant it, “Alright. Shut it quick if you see anything bad.”

I moved from the door, and she kept her foot on the door and kept watch through the crack.

The supplies, though abundant, would have been better in the hands of a team of physicians; it was just me. I began to move through the crowd and offer what I could. A woman with a ruptured ear drum—there was no cure for that in the purses Mal brought and I merely offered pain medication; she continued to toss her head to the right as though she was trying to dislodge something inside of her cranium, but she took the meds. A man had a slice down his face—an easy enough fix; he applied the bandages himself with minimal aid from me.

I moved to the man which had offered me the tin and pipe and looked at the space between his legs and the boy sat beside him opposite myself. The man didn’t say anything. In my slump, I whispered to him, “Hey, thanks,” I reached out with the tin in my hand, “I left you some.” Examining him closer, there was a broke-sharpened rod impaled directly through his right hip; the object protruded from the front and the back, so he sat half-over and strangely—blood puddled under him. He didn’t move. “Shit.” I gave him a shake and there was no response; there was no breath when I held fingers under his nostrils, no shifting of the eye when I pulled on his cheek to open it.

The boy angled away from the dead man and looked up at me from where he sat. “You can help daddy, can’t you? It’s that,” the boy pointed to the rod, “Just take it out.”

Looking into the boy’s face, it became apparent that not only was his left hand shriveled and blackened and crimped stiffly against his chest, but his eyes had begun to take on a duller color. Briefly, the thought of killing the boy flashed across my mind; would it be like killing the girl from before? Would it be a mercy? I shook my head and frowned at the boy and the boy’s eyes glittered, and he returned to leaning on his dead pop without saying another thing; his head rested on the bicep of the paling corpse.

The earth continued quaking periodically, and as it would, we all would stop whatever we were doing, stare off into either the open air in front of us or at the ceiling; it was a strange vermin-like behavior and I didn’t feel good doing it, but the overwhelming nature of the situation brought it out in me. Mal continued her watch by the door, and I walked between the outstretched legs of the other survivors which laid or sat in their groupings; even surrounded as I was by others, I felt incredibly alone—it could have also been the fact that I was the only one moving through the crowd the way I was. Everyone else seemed comforted by their own impending doom; they’d assumed the role of the victim. Not me, never me, of course not. I could not do it. No, it was the tiredness in me; it caught up to me, dragged on my bowing shoulders with cold long fingers.

Where bandaging was necessary, I gave the wrappings, where water was asked for, I handed it away from the supplies, and where death was imminent, I offered pain relief. It would’ve been better to be a real doctor. There was an uproar inside of myself, a stupid anger which came up—why should I take care of them? Why could they not lift themselves up? I was exhausted and criminalized. Surely, there was someone better for the job. Surely, they would’ve appreciated Lady better or a Boss. Let Maron spend a few moments catering to the wounds of his flock. Let them perish. I was wearied.

Bringing myself back to the doorway, I lowered into a squat, back supported on the wall, and asked Mal if she’d seen anything. She shook her head.

“I let a straggler in since you did a round,” she whispered, “Don’t know if you saw them or not.”

“Mhm.”

“I can smell it. It’s brimstone, isn’t it? Like fire and blood and something else. Like rotten eggs. And poultry. They’ve killed our animals. I could hear it. God. I hope they don’t find us.”

I shrugged and let the pack of medicines slide from my shoulder and I relit the pipe and smoked it and cast a glance towards the dead man that had handed it off to me. “It is. Sulfur.” The words slurred.

“I’ve seen them once or twice on the horizon. Whenever I’d do rounds—I’m new,” said Mal, “They never trusted me with a long-range weapon, but they let me watch and spot and I’d see the demons out there in the ruins. They were probably just mutants. It's hard to tell when you only catch a glimpse of them.”

I puffed the pipe, spit a piece of loose tobacco which had come through. “Shut the door. Go on.” She looked at me, shifted the hinge hesitantly. “If there’s anyone worth opening it for, we’ll do it. Lock it for now.” I rubbed my forefinger and thumb against my closed eyes and listened to the awful grumbles of the other survivors. The air was hot.

Mal closed the door and latched it, and the ground shook again and a few of the children let go of little surprised noises.

“There’s food down here, isn’t there?” I asked Mal the wall man.

“Some.”

“Enough?”

“How long?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I thought you were evil or something.”

“Something,” I nodded. I coughed and shooed away the gathered smoke with my free hand. “I need to close my eyes for a minute. Send someone for weapons. Might want them in case.”

It was longer than a minute, and I was fully unconscious, upright, and hunkered against the wall with the pipe hanging from the corner of my mouth. I was dead on my feet.

First/Previous/Next

Archive

“Human beings fret about ‘the end’. They worry because they have no proof of an existence after death. A natural fear of the unknown and the lingering uncertainty it carries with it, weighs heavily on the thinking soul. Once we leave behind our fleshly containers, we witness the physical world as it used to be. it’s like looking through a pale, one-way mirror at a dramatic stage play. Our loved-ones typically gather by our bedsides and weep as we depart our bodies and cross ‘the great divide’.

The primordial truth is, they grieve not for us, but for their own mortality. Like ourselves, they don’t know if there is anything beyond death.

I witnessed this touching scene transpire as a detached spectator ‘floating’ near my empty body. I wanted to reassure my family and friends that everything was OK, but passing onto the next plane comes with a set of unassailable rules. They must blindly carry on, without any form of contact or supernatural reassurance from the departed, of the greater things to come. The implicit need for this universal veil of secrecy isn’t explained by those who crossed over before us. It’s simply accepted as canon and law.

Just as a dragonfly intrinsically knows to flap its wings and sail into the wind toward destiny, spirits liberated from their carnal existence know what to do in the murky realm of the afterlife. We remain aware of our previous lives and those we left behind. The truth is however, our past isn’t important any longer because of the newfound awareness we possess of the spirit realm. Everyone will eventually migrate to this non-corporeal state and realize their prior worries were unfounded.

I believe it happens in the time and sequence it’s supposed to. That being said, dwelling alone in the afterlife isn’t without its mysteries or worries either. The complete answers to the universe aren’t fully provided for new arrivals, and there’s no ‘reference library’ for further guidance. In many ways, floating freely in the abstract ether of the universe feels merely like another in an endless series of mysterious stages, yet to come.

It may be a surprise to you to learn that even those of us in the world of spirits aren’t completely free from fear of the unknown. There’s a dark entity which sometimes lurks in the shadows. I ‘see’ it at times, or rather I know that it’s present nearby. For what reason, I can’t begin to fathom. Am I being watched or judged here too? You might describe this watcher as a ‘ghost’ haunting the fleshless world of the disembodied. Witnessing this unexplained presence stalk me is my own evidence that the afterlife isn’t the final stage for us.

How many more vast divides of existence must our wandering souls traverse to find the ultimate meaning of life? Is there an end to the journey? I honestly do not know but revealing these arcane details possibly comes with great peril for me. I believe the shadow being is a divine witness against violating the unspoken veil of secrecy. If so, I’ve endangered my own future by sharing ‘the secret’ with you. Alas, the truth is out now. It can not be undone. Do not fret for the future, kind and gentle folk. Death is not the end. I must go now. I’ll see you on the other side.”

——————

All attendees unclasped hands and pushed back their chairs at the end of the intense seance. The sacred circle of divination was at last, broken. A hazy smoke of ectoplasm dissipated from the darkened room and the ‘occupied’ spirit medium returned back to consciousness. He had no knowledge of what was revealed to the startled members of the occult gathering but it was clearly a great success. Their animated faces spoke volumes.

Unbeknownst to them all, the aforementioned ‘shadow’ of the spirit realm lingered around the spectators and took official note of their personal identities. There could be no living witnesses with confirmation of the afterlife. Supernatural revelations of truth were not permitted. One by one, that mistake would be dealt with.

I loved you before. I love you now. And I’ll love you again.

I can’t save you. Can’t warn you of what’s coming. It’s October 2023, and I’m with you in the bathroom, checking your back for a bruise. It hurts so badly that you swear there has to be one.

“Did you sleep on it wrong?” I ask, even though I’ve already seen what’s waiting in our future.

I’m with you in our favorite restaurant. It’s July 2008, and it’s raining hard. You can’t look at me. I’m angry, too—furious that I can’t understand you or make you understand me. I know we’re moments away from breaking up. I also know we’re going to reconnect before the year is over, then start again in the spring. Even though I know these things, I can’t tell you any of them. I have to follow the path time has laid out for us.

It’s why I hated the Project for so long. Our forced evolution, where once we were beings who perceived the world in 3.5 dimensions, now we chosen few see it in 4. No more viewing time moving in one direction. Now we see it as it really is… happening all at once. I know why we did it and why I helped. The world is dying, and the coming ecological collapse is all but certain. So, we tried to send our knowledge back and warn our younger, careless selves. Only we can’t.

Those of us who are enhanced can see all of time, yet we still can’t change it. So, I can’t tell you about this 4-dimensional thing I’ve become because I haven’t become it yet. And by the time I do, you’re already gone.

I’m with you in the hospital. It’s December 2011, and I’m exhausted and in pain, but our baby boy is finally here. He’s all tiny hands and feet, with a smile like mine but brown eyes like his father’s.

“He’s so handsome… you sure he’s mine?” you whisper in my ear. You’re kidding, and I want to laugh, but I just kiss you instead.

Four months later, we’re moving into our first house. The driveway is crumbling, and the tree out front is dead, but the house is beautiful. Light blue vinyl siding, a white front door, with three beds and two baths, but most importantly, it’s ours.

I’m defending my dissertation now. It’s May 2008, and you said you’d be here, but you aren’t. I hope you’ll show up before I finish, despite knowing you won’t. We talk on the phone when I’m done, though I can barely say more than ten words to you. You haven’t decided if you really want to let me in. You’re still so young, and so am I.

It’s January 2006. I’m at a house party with people I mostly don’t know. Strangers keep introducing themselves, then poke and prod, trying to find out if I’m really that girl genius from California. Eventually, I sneak away to the back porch to be alone. You’re already there… waiting for me, even though you don’t know it. This is our first meeting, out there in the cold, both of us trying to hide from the party.

You stumble over your words, apologizing for your awkwardness. Your sheepishness doesn’t match your looks. Tall, brown skin, and muscular. You’ve only been out of the military a few months. And I can tell right away you’re brilliant.

I don’t know you yet, but I will. Three years later, you’ll tell me about your family and why you don’t see them. A year before that, you’ll push me away, fearing I’ll hurt you like they did.

Our son is a man now and tall like you. It’s April 2041, and he’s a part of the Project. They think that maybe the next generation of 4D candidates will have more control over their past actions, but only as far back as the moment they were first enhanced. Still, he keeps trying, hoping to succeed where I and so many others failed. He wants to save you. He also wants to save me. He can’t tell me yet, but I know he’ll become one of the next-gen 4D candidates. Yet he isn’t one now, so he can’t say anything... can’t alter his path.

It’s June 2024, and your birthday’s days away. You won’t make it. You’re so thin, so fragile, and the cancer has spread too far. I’m by your bed, hoping you’ll get better by some miracle, even though I already know you’ll be gone within the hour.

“The Project?” you ask weakly. “You’ll be able to move your mind into the future?”

“If it works, we’ll be able to move anywhere along our personal timelines. So, I could go forward and find better treatments for you.”

You smile. “Some things can’t be fixed, baby.”

You haven’t been enhanced. You aren’t 4D like me, but you know your end is almost here. You take my hands into yours and squeeze them tightly.

“You said all of time already exists, right?” you ask, breathing harder now. “That the past, present, and future are here all at once, and we just can’t perceive them?”

I nod, and you continue. “Then, when you finish the Project, you’ll see me. You’ll see... I loved you before… I love you now… and I’ll love you again.”

It’s February 2064. I’m dying, and my son is weeping at my bedside.

“I thought I could figure it out. I thought I could save you,” he says tearfully.

I take his beautiful face in my hands. “You did. The moment you were born, you saved me, just like the moment I met your father. And all those points in time, they’re all here… and they always will be.”

He wipes his tears, and together, we say the words his father once said.

I loved you before. I love you now. And I’ll love you again.

It’s January 2006, and again, I’m meeting you for the first time. I can’t save you. Can’t change our path through time. But I’ll never lose you either… I just have to know when to look.

First/Previous/Next

Since I knew there was a time before, I’ve wanted it, but that was child’s hope; even as a boy I wanted a dream. I wanted some divine being to enter from heaven and tell us all how it should be, but that wasn’t something I could ever count on—of course. Is there a god? I think so. I’ve seen those things and if they exist, then surely there’s a maker on the other end of it—god made both the light and the dark if the word’s to be believed and all we can hope for is a glimpse of the former. Even for a second.

The streets were soaked with blood and so many artillery rounds were fired into the sky—many I witnessed missed Leviathan—that I forgot what silence was like (not to mention the screams and there was a lot of that).

In the scrambling, I found I was reentering deeper into Golgotha and that wasn’t good. There was the ever-present thought that Maron was around every corner; the man had haunted my thoughts for longer that he should have and every time it was like an overwhelming force. It was simple enough after all, he was a piece of the past, a piece I could theoretically reach out and touch and that was what kept me to him.

In the fray of bolting citizens, I pressed myself to the exterior of a wall—I’d neared the stairs which once led to my apartment—and I kept out of the way of those that mindlessly went; some of those which rushed from the onslaught were those afflicted with skitterbugs and many of them either hobbled on blackened legs or—and this was rare—comrades or family helped to carry those which could not carry themselves. It was a baffling sight. A man carried a woman like a child (her toes had fallen off and her legs were black to the knees) and though he strode on with her, his own boots were caked with a mixture of blood and earth. An older girl led a young boy from the whirlwind of dust which was kicked up in the square; the boy’s eyes were whited, and his hands were curled to his chest, discolored. People, whatever duality there is, cared. There was not a drop of the apathy I’d learned and encouraged in myself.

I chewed like a mad dog through my bindings, and it was of little use; I yanked at the cord which secured my hands together and received rope burn in return. “Bitch!” I cussed the thing, but the flames in the sky were so loud, the bangs and vibrations from the artillery consumed all so it was like yelling in a barrel. I swung my hands out in front of me, feeling useless and felt a sudden urge to try again. I bit into the cord and repetitively motioned my jaw against the pressure of the cord, like I was going to saw through it with my teeth. Ha! Another yank is what brought my left hand free, but not without tearing a triangle of skin away from my wrist.

The cord dropped to my feet, and I looked around; a woman brushed past me, nearly toppled over my foot and I caught her by the wrist before she went head-over. She violently thrust from my grasp and screamed something at me. Another bout of flames burst from Leviathan’s maw as it circle-dove overhead. The heatwave from the blast exploded across my face so that I recoiled from the sky itself till I was on the ground, and I pushed myself from the earth and ran half dog-like from my place there at the wall. Where? It was hard to say where when every person that touched-by seemed to send me in another direction; in the madness, it was impossible to tell my course.

With time and effort, I found my way to the opening where the hydro towers were, three pillars which rose above Golgotha’s skyline, each one a testament to human resilience—engineers laborers toiled untold hours under Lady’s father to construct them. The hydro towers exploded into rubble as Leviathan slammed into them. Rock rained down as cutting shards and destructive boulders. A man lay beside my feet where he'd been pinned by the onslaught—white concrete kept him there by his chest—he gasped for air and blood already formed around him. In a moment, I looked away at the dying man, his half-whited eyes bulging at me. Meat hung from the left side of another man’s face as he cradled his head in his hand and moved like he was stoned and sat among the stomping feet; he slumped into the spot he sat and did not move till others came by him in a hurry and he simply fell onto his side like a toy animal.

The screams were too much. I looked to the towers, the nubs which had broken away like bad teeth against the red sky, and whole people fell alongside the rubble, limbs and showers of blood and Leviathan latched atop the towers and rocked its massive body so that the structures slipped directly from their foundations and tumbled over like pins. I ran and again there was nothing but chaos, nothing but mind-numbing wilder thoughts—it was grim and there wasn’t a place for coherency; it was all snaps of images.

In the mess of bumbling limbs, I pushed through to the hall of Bosses and there were people there already, rushing the stairs; the ground shook and I assumed it must’ve been the towers. The things demolished all in their path, and briefly, I saw the ramshackle structures which normally stood in their shadows come slanting over and people leapt from those places too and landed poorly and there was a cacophony of tremors through the earth—it felt as though hell should open.

The steps at the base of the hall were flooded and it was a fight to climb them as legs came high up from ahead and swiped at those behind and I kept my hands ahead of me to block whatever foot may come my way.

Wall men stood ready with their rifles at the tops of those steps and fired their weapons indiscriminately into the crowd. Bodies, big and small, piled atop the steps after a brief bullet dance and it came that I wasn’t only climbing stairs, but corpses; the warmth of their flesh as I clawed ahead remained and blood fog hung in the air. That grouping of wall men, casually lined before the doors of the hall were overtaken and they disappeared, their rifles cackled and came alive with muzzle flashes and the animal hands of the horde brought them to ground.

Us, the horde, funneled through those front doors and for a moment, in the thick walls of the hall, the outside world audibly disappeared; the blood and dust remained, but it was quieter save the shuffling feet and cusses of passersby I was carried deeper.

Those that worked the underground went quickly and I followed, and those ignorant followed for the sake of survival and it was not long till we stumbled into the Boss’s lair. With room, people dispersed like water through the tunnels and found dark recesses to tend their wounds or mourn whatever was lost and the explosive open air had been fully replaced by the quiet black oppressive mumbles of people taking stock of all those that had died. And all those that would. Every few moments, the walls shook, and dust fell from the ceiling fixtures.

A few haggard folks moved to the doorway which led to the damp room which led to the kitchen, and they slammed the door shut and latched it and began to check adjacent rooms for things to barricade the way.

“Stop!” said a man in the dim flickering underground light—I was surprised to see the man was me, “Leave it open! Others might need help.” I retraced my steps to the small faction that’d gathered there at the doorway. “You can’t just let them die out there. Let them in.”

“Shut up!” a skinny girl with her hair pulled back on her malnourished skull spoke gruffly; she choked, coughed—dust clung to her clothes—she’d been near the collapse of the hydro towers if I guessed. “Step off, or I’ll—

“Or you’ll what?” I shouted.

The girl put up her fists, two lumpy stones, and in stupid response I closed the distance between us. With speed, her fist met my nose, and I stumbled back on my heel.

Without hesitation, I brought up my own hands and landed a blow to her stomach. She craned forward, gasped on repeat, and took a knee.

Blood wet my upper lip, and I wiped it away with my forearm.

“Move,” I said to the others by the door; there were two: a woman and a boy that was nearly a man.

The boy charged headstrongly, attempted a kick and I easily shoved his small frame against the tunnel wall; the hard metal sounded a meaty thud against his body and the woman launched unseen at me, raked her nails down the back of my neck, and tore at my collar. I kept a forearm to the boy’s throat and rocked his head with my free elbow. Once he wept and spit red, I let him go; the boy slid into a sit and I spun on the woman, shoving her away. My left leg began to give, and I used the wall over the boy’s head as support. I swung at her with a wild claw and my fingertips grazed her nose as she fell away to the opposite wall.

“Stop it!” I shouted.

She launched at me, and my leg gave out under her tackle, and I stumbled half-on the boy, my feet kicked helplessly at her, and the boy regained his composure and began to crawl towards me. We wrestled and then the girl I’d knocked in the gut rejoined the fray. I was done. They had me pinned and spat curses at me and took turns shoving my head into the floor.

“You’re going to get us killed,” shouted the woman, “Are you stupid?”

I grinded my teeth and tried to throw them off; I was overpowered and easily pressed down again.

The overhead lights flickered with another deep earthy vibration and the trio let go of me in an instant—I came up swinging my arms like crazy and as I went to kneel before propelling myself to stand, a hand rested on my shoulder. I spun on the hand and was met with the black mouth of a 9mm pistol—that froze me fast.

The owner of the weapon—a wall man by the look of her fatigues—motioned for me to stand and I did. Her eyes were far off and nervous and the metal shook in her outstretched hand. “Against the wall!” she barked at us; she was small-framed and youthful but full grown, and I could easily push her out of my way if not for the pistol. We went to the wall, and she moved to the door while keeping the gun drawn on us. She watched us and glanced at the door. “It’s latched! Who latched the door?” She asked.

No one spoke. The other three looked to their feet; I initially refused to rat, and snorted blood—my nose throbbed and by touch I could tell it swelled already.

“Well? Why’s it closed?” she asked the question more like a desperate child than a person with control. “C’mon!” The 9mm rolled limply on her wrist as she said the word, like she was attempting to draw the confession from us with the motion.

“There’s an attack. They’re killing everyone,” said the boy.

The girl and woman nodded.

“Who?” asked the wall man.

“Demons, muties,” said the boy, “Big stuff. Everyone’s dying.”

The ground shook as if to emphasize his point.

The wall man studied us for a moment, lingering last on me and for the longest and she took a long breath and let the sigh out dramatically slow. “I know you,” she motioned at me with the gun, “You’re that maniac. The one that tried to murder everyone.” Her eyes fell then returned and she put her weight on the door while maintaining the barrel of the gun eye-level in my direction.

“I ain’t gonna’ hurt anyone,” said. I briefly thought about smiling but decided that’d look worse.

“How do I know that?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said the boy, “He tried to kill us already!” His voice cracked with adolescence; the blood I’d spilled from his mouth coated the front of his holey shirt.

The trio nodded all together—everyone agreed that I was a maniac killer.

“They latched it,” I said, “Cowards.”

A thump came from the other side of the door which frightened the wall man and she leapt from the spot she’d leaned—it took several full seconds to realize her gun went off; there was a flash, and my ears rang. I stumbled from the knot of people and slunk a couple of feet from the space by the door. The girl—the one I gut-punched—collapsed to the floor while holding the right side of her face. The women crowded the girl, panicked, the boy sprinted past me and disappeared deeper into the underground, and the wall man stood there with a wretched blank expression. There was a long moment which hung in the air; I could not hear and then it came back, and it was the girl’s screams I heard first.

Upon stepping to them, I saw the prone girl had been shot just so—through the cheek. Her eyes rolled from likely spinal damage; whatever the angle, it seemed to have ripped through irreparable nerves and she bled a lot. There wasn’t any hope for that girl.

“Well,” I said to the wall man, “Finish it. No reason to make her suffer.”

The girl on the ground writhed unnaturally and caterwauled while the woman by her side attempted to calm her.

Greater became the sound of the belabored hands on the other side of the door; then a hollow-sounding gunshot came from the other side; were they shooting the door? Or each other? Another round—human screams.

The wall man shook her head. “I didn’t mean it. It was an accident.”

I tried to hold the wall man’s gaze, but she didn’t seem able.

With speed, I moved to the wall man, reached for the gun which dangled helpless by her side—her initial response was to flinch, pull the weapon from my reach; our eyes locked and I clenched my jaw. She could’ve killed me. There wouldn’t have been surprise from me if she had.

She let go of the gun and I nodded, and she nodded and the woman kneeling by the girl threw herself over her. “Please,” protested the woman, “Please don’t!”

With the aid of the pistol, I was given space, and nothing was said. I mentally prepared myself for the ringing which accompanied gunfire in small spaces, even tilted my head away with my free palm up and took aim and the girl jerked once then went still.

With the ringing going and sound returning, the drumming on the door returned, as well as the quiet weeps of the woman; she crawled to the wayside of the hall, pressed her back against the wall and rested her chin on her knees with her arms around her shins. She didn’t rock to or fro and hardly made any noise at all. But the small and quiet sobs remained faintly there.

First/Previous/Next

Archive

I’m the third. Alex the parrot was the second. A man named Karl Schuster who lived in Berlin in the early 1900s was likely the first. In total, only three individuals are known to have overcome the natural cognitive limits of their species’ brains. Alex did no harm. Mr. Schuster, I’m afraid, may have inadvertently damaged reality. My transgression may be humanity’s undoing.

I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted to be like Alex. 

What made Alex special? He is the only animal to have asked a question.

Lots of animals communicate. Whales and birds sing their songs to each other. Coyotes use barks and howls for identification. We’ve been teaching primates sign language since the 1960s. But these animal tweets and howls and signs aren’t language. There’s no grammatical structure. No deep concepts conveyed - just surface-level stuff. I’m here, they say. I’m threatened, or breed with me.

Animals manage to transmit information and even desires through their species’ form of communication. But none of the thousands of animals observed by science have ever asked a question. Except Alex.

Alex was an ordinary gray parrot, purchased at a pet store by a researcher studying animal psychology. Alex was taught to identify shapes and objects and to speak the name of the items he was quizzed on. One day, while being taught to identify different colors, Alex turned to a mirror and asked “What color is Alex?” This is the only known case of an animal asking a question. Even the famous gorilla who liked to pose for pictures with his kitten and the chimpanzee raised as a human child never managed to ask a question. 

As you cuddle up on the couch with Mister Snugglekins the cat, or make Mister Woof Woof the dog beg for treats, think about what it must be like to have an animal mind. Animals’ brains cannot even conceive of the idea of asking a question. They can wonder things: When’s dinner? Is this new person a threat? But the notion of using communication to get answers is beyond their capacity. The gulf between us and our beloved animals is truly vast.

Now, let’s take the next logical step. Is there a mind - can there be such a mind - that is to ours like ours are to animals’? What thoughts are permitted by the laws of physics but are unattainable to the limited machinery of our brains? What if we could improve our own cognitive infrastructure, so our own minds could grasp these currently-unattainable ideas. What lies beyond the ability to ask questions? Hyper-questions? What are they like? What is their purpose? Is there hyper-love? Hyper-joy? What accomplishments lie beyond our grasp?

I used to believe that these ideas amounted to only pointless philosophical wondering. Just stuff to talk about while you’re passing the joint around. Then I learned about Alex, who somehow broke past the cognitive limit of animal thought. If Alex can do it, maybe it’s possible for a human to do it. Maybe, I thought, I can do it. 

Unfortunately it is possible for a human to do it. And unfortunately, I did.

* * *

In 2015, dozens of social media users posted images of a confused-looking elderly man slowly driving in circles in a Walmart parking lot. The emblem on the back of the car said he was driving Toyota Raynow. Toyota denies that a vehicle called a Toyota Raynow ever existed, even as a prototype.

* * *

I’m not the first researcher to set off on a project to improve human cognition. The eugenicists whose work flourished at the dawn of the 20th century may have been the first people to search for ways to adjust to the human mind. Of course, they had their own spin on the endeavor that, let’s just say, didn’t age well. Take a look at this: an excerpt from the Proceedings of the Third Berlin Conference on Eugenics, 1904. (Translated from the original German by me)

The session on Friday afternoon was opened by Mr. Gerhard Van Wagenen, who presented the report of the Berlin Directed Intelligence Improvement Society.  If we are to develop ways of improving the overall intelligence of the human breed, Mr. Van Wagenen argued, we must have, as a guide post, the ultimate limit of human intelligence. Only when we know this limit, can we pose the fundamental question of our effort: Are we to use selective breeding to improve average human intellectual fitness in a population, or are we to find ways of advancing the limit of human genius itself into areas that no individuals born to date have occupied?

Our immediate research goal was therefore to find individuals for whom the light of genius burned, not just at all, but brighter than the lights of all others of that intellectual rank. We sought to find the one individual currently alive who can look down on literally all the rest as his intellectual inferiors.

It is known that in the mass of men belonging to the superior classes there is found a small number who are characterized by inferior qualities. And in the mass of men forming the inferior classes, one can find specimens possessing superior characteristics. Therefore, we shall search wherever those of superior intellect may be found, without regard to their current station.

Inferior classes? Intellectual rank? Try putting that in a research grant proposal today! 

Mr. Van Wagenen and his assistants set out across Berlin and asked thousands of people a single question: “Of all the men you know who are still alive, who amongst them is the most intelligent?” They carefully reviewed the resulting list of thousands of names. They removed the duplicates and any female names that ended up on the list. (Those crazy eugenicists, right?) They tracked down each of these men who ranked as the smartest known by at least one male resident of Berlin, and asked them the same question, generating a second-stage list: the most intelligent people known to a group of individuals already considered very intelligent.

And they kept going. They generated the third-stage names, found those people and had them produce a list of fourth-stage names. And so on. This project took a year. There was a running joke in Berlin that Mr. Van Wagenen would only stop when the last name on the list was his own.

But, to Mr. Van Wagenen’s credit, he did not rig the study to identify himself or one of his patrons as the one individual who can look down on literally all the rest as his intellectual inferiors. Indeed, Mr. Van Wagenen eventually concluded that his year-long study was a failure.

A fraction of the people named, about eight percent, simply could not be found. We were appalled to note that a small percentage of the respondents identified themselves as the most intelligent man they knew. While the ultimate individual we seek could only truthfully answer with his own name, we took these first and second stage self-identifiers to be adverse to our research and ignored their input.

In a few hundred cases, pairs of individuals each identified the other. In smaller numbers we found sets of three, four, and even five men whose linkages formed closed loops of co-admiration, eventually working around back to the first man.

But the most striking feature of the data was that over three thousand lines of reported superior intelligence ended in the same name: Karl Schuster. Mr. Schuster had been a successful industrialist before suddenly retreating from public view later in life. Strangely, when we tried to find Mr. Schuster, we learned that he had, of his own volition, taken residence in the mental asylum located at Lankwitz. 

He refused to see us when we paid a visit to his private room in the asylum. The only communication we had from him was a note related to us by the Lankwitz staff, in which Mr Shuster wrote:

“I’ve spent most of my life hiding from It. I have isolated myself here, with the notion that the confused noise of mental anguish that surrounds me would act as a form of concealment. I did not suspect I might one day be discovered by ordinary men. Please do not visit me here again.”

From his note, and the fact of his residence within the asylum, we must conclude Mr. Shuster had become a mental defective. Even more damaging to our research, we subsequently learned that Mr. Schuster was a Jew. This finding, unfortunately, invalidates our work. In the coming months, we will strive to find a protocol more suitable for investigation into the nature of superior intellect.

Let’s not be too hard on these anti-Semitic, white-supremacist eugenicists. I’m willing to cut them some slack because I’ve done far, far more damage to mankind than all of these guys combined. I should have listened to Mr. Schuster’s warning. I should not have let It find me.

* * *

In 1954 a man arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda airport with a passport issued by the country of Taured. No such country exists, or ever existed. Despite the man being detained and guarded, he mysteriously vanished overnight.

* * *

Where the eugenicists looked to make improvements in the human population over generations by controlling or influencing reproduction, I had a more ambitious goal - to make improvements to a specific human brain (my own) in-vivo. I set out to upgrade my brain while I was using my brain to figure out how to upgrade my brain. I had astonishing success.

I’m not going to tell you exactly how I did it, because it’s just too dangerous. I don’t mean because it’s dangerous to the person undergoing the process (which it is), but because doing so can lead It to notice you. I don’t care if you fry your own cortex. But having It eat even more of our reality will be a calamity.

The human brain consists of gray matter, which is the stuff that performs perception and cognition, and white matter, which deals with boring stuff like running your metabolism. The gray matter - your cerebral cortex - forms a nice thick layer on the outside of your brain. This layer wraps the white matter underneath. I found a way to use pluripotent stem cells to expand the thickness of my cortex. With careful dosing of the stem cell culture through a spinal tap, I created new layers of gray matter underneath my cortex. These new cells replaced the white matter that was there. 

For reasons I don’t fully understand yet, the new cortical cells only become active when I have ingested a potent mixture of hallucinogens and antipsychotic drugs. 

The process is arduous and very illegal. Experimentation on humans, even if the test subject is also the researcher, is extremely highly regulated. And the drugs I need to use are not available from the suppliers that the rule-following scientific community uses. This work was performed in isolation and in secret. No regulators. No administrators. No rules. Just pure scientific progress.

My laboratory is as unconventional as my approach to science. I’ve set up shop in an assembly of forty-foot shipping containers in the center of my heavily forested seven-hundred-acre plot of land. Privacy!

* * *

Thousands of people have vivid memories of news coverage from the 1980s reporting that Nelson Mandela died in prison. In the reality that most of us know, Mandela died in 2013, years after his release.

* * *

Uplift #1 - 3 cubic centimeters

By last October, after six months of stem-cell treatment, I estimated that I had added a total of three cubic centimeters of gray matter to my baseline cortex volume. I could already feel the effects of the diminished volume of white matter. My sense of smell and taste were all but gone. My fine-motor-control was diminished. I had weakness in my legs and arms. But I had three cubic centimeters of fresh cortex to work with. I only needed to activate it. To Uplift myself, as I came to call the process of thinking with an expanded brain.

I planned for the first Uplift as if I was planning a scientific expedition into an uncharted jungle - I stockpiled food and water. I stockpiled lots of drugs. I bought a hundred blank notebooks to record my uplifted thoughts in.

I filled a seven-day pill container with hallucinogens and antipsychotics. I scratched off the Monday, Tuesday, etc. labels on the pill compartments and relabeled them: hour 0, hour 1, and so on. I planned my first Uplift to last seven hours.

Over those seven hours, I learned how to make use of the new, extra capacity in my cortex. I filled notebook after notebook with increasingly complex thoughts. Here are a few excerpts: 

Hour 1: The linguistic-mathematical relational resonance is far stronger than most have suspected.

Hour 2: Questions lacking prepositional multipliers of context prevent full expository [(relations)(responses)] yet, but (!yet) there is still an I in the premise.

By the fifth hour, I was fully Uplifted, asking hyper-questions and providing my own hyper-answers. What do the musings of a fully Uplifted mind look like? Page after page of this:

(((Imagine)Imagine[)Imagine)Relate->Time]<--Force(Animal,Object–>Think)

* * *

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

H.P. Lovecraft, Call of Cthulhu

* * *

Uplift #2 - 5.5 cubic centimeters. 

I waited a few weeks before my next Uplift. I needed time to recover from the mental strain of the first experiment, and to wait for a new dose of stem-cells to produce even more gray matter.

Although I only spent a few hours in an Uplifted state in my first experiment, I felt diminished as I returned to baseline. Hyper-questions. Hyper-answers. Hyper-joy. All of these are wonderful to experience. Life can be so much more rich and full with a post-human cognitive capacity.

But, as I learned during my second Uplift, there is also Hyper-fear.

I descended from my second uplift by screaming and running naked in the snowy woods outside my laboratory. As the drugs wore off, the activated sections of the new parts of my brain shut down. Thoughts that were clear one moment became foggy, like waking from a nightmare. 

I fell into a snowbank, breathing hard. Only a trace of what terrified me was left rattling in my tiny, baseline brain: It. It noticed me. I occupied Its attention.

What was It? I knew exactly what It was moments earlier, when I had more gray matter to think with. But now I was like a dog trying to grasp the idea of a question. I was still afraid, but I couldn’t understand the source of the fear.

I returned to the lab and warmed up. Then I reviewed what I had written in my notebooks during the ten hour session. Most of it was the same sort of advanced writings that my now-normal brain could not comprehend. But, somewhere towards the end of the session, perhaps just before I shed my clothes and ran into the woods, I wrote this:

I know what Schuster was hiding from. Find out information about Shuster.

When I recovered from the strain of my second Uplift, I drove to town, where I was able to access the Internet. I found some information about Schuster in the same archive where I found the proceedings from the 1904 eugenics conference. 

A short article in a Berlin newspaper described the man who had been named by so many people who took Van Wagenen’s survey.

…Mr. Schuster, at the age of fifteen, had made significant contributions to machine design, metallurgy, and chemistry. He founded four companies which he ran nearly by himself, without a large management staff to insulate him from the workers and day-to-day engineering tasks… 

It seems that most of the people who identified Mr. Shuster as the most intelligent person they knew had known him well at this time in his life. 

Another article, written in 1905, described strange event at his funeral:

…Also present was a contingent of a dozen people who claimed to have been friends with Schuster during the five years he spent in America. Many who had known Schuster for his entire life stated that he had never been to America, let alone spent five years there. Did a group of people mistakenly attend the funeral of the wrong man? 

Everyone in attendance had similar memories of him. All recognized his photograph on the coffin. Indeed, some of the America contingent had letters, written in Karl’s hand and signed by him, fondly recalling his time spent in the New England woods. It is as if there were two Schusters: the one who lived his life in Germany and the other who spent years in America. 

Uplift #3 - 6 cubic centimeters

Perhaps I’ve allowed my cortex to consume too much of my white matter. I now have trouble with perceptions. The woods surrounding my laboratory have been transformed into a city. Where there were trees, there are now charming stone buildings from a European city. The song of birds and the whisper of the wind in the trees is gone too, replaced with streetcars and voices speaking German. 

I prepared my pill container and notebooks for my third Uplift, as the sounds of a busting turn-of-the-century city rang through the metal walls of my laboratory.

Although I had dozens of blank notebooks prepared, I only made one page of notes during my third Uplift:

I met it today. I know what It is. It is alive. Not just alive. Hyper-alive. 

It is built into the very material that logic and mathematics is made from. The digits of the square of pi, when computed to the billionth quadrillionth place, is a sketch of a fragment of its structure. 

It consumes pieces of reality. It weaves them into its being, and leaves the tattered shreds of logic and causality to haphazardly mend themselves. It ate the circumstances of Karl Schuster’s life, leaving the ragged edges of different universes to stick and twist themselves back together, like shreds of a tattered flag tangling together in a gale. 

It has only begun grazing on the small corner of Hyper-reality where humanity lives. Imagine a cow eating grass from a field. A field where humanity lives like a small colony of aphids on a single blade of grass. It likes it here. It likes the taste of reality here.

I tried to tell it to go away. That we are here and have a right to exist. 

It replied to me, in its way. I found its words at the bottom of a twelve-dimensional fractal, woven into the grammar of a language with an infinite alphabet. It taunted me with a question: “What flavor is Alex?”

Update to the Proceedings of the Third Berlin Conference on Eugenics, 1904

Mr. Gerhard Van Wagenen provided the committee with an update on his finding that the individual Mr. Karl Shuster was strikingly-well-represented in the responses of his survey on intelligent men. Mr. Van Wagenen writes:

Upon further reflection of the results of my survey, I returned to Lankwitz again to try to meet with Mr. Schuster. I arrived to find his ward in an uproar, as only a few minutes prior to my arrival, Mr. Schuster had been found missing. The preceding letter, which is reprinted here in its entirety, was found in Mr. Schuster’s room. While the letter does not indicate where he went or even how he managed to slip away from the asylum unnoticed, it does show the extent of his derangement. His detailed descriptions of question-asking birds, strange events from the future, and even methods of biological manipulation unknown to science are not the product of a mind that we wish to recreate. Perhaps intelligence, as a phenomenon of nature, is more complicated than we are able to appreciate with our current notions of science. If I may speculate even further, perhaps Intelligence is a phenomenon we should avoid study of, lest we learn things about ourselves that it is best not to know.

ANKoM

First/Previous/Next

“How’d you think that was going to go?” asked a voice from the other side of the door.

I lay on the bunk and stared at the ceiling; my head throbbed. The place where I’d been grazed stung whenever I touched my fingers to it. A bullet had—by whoever’s grace—scraped my scalp and traced a line from the far corner of my right eyebrow. It'd only been three days and it still caused pain. No doctors came and I was certain there would be infection—if not plain infection, then it could always be the worser: skitterbugs. I ached still. I had never fully recovered, not like how I should have.

The day of anger, as I’d begun to think of it in my mind, had caused no great ruckus beyond a few dead men. Two were Bosses, but who knew if they’d announce that as casually as they’d surely announce my execution. Perhaps they’d string me up alongside thieves. A good thief and a bad. What a riot; I deserved no thieves, of course.

What was I? Some great hero? Some idiot was more likely. I wanted misery to befall those that perpetrated it themselves and there I was, more miserable. Perhaps the wrath in my heart came from some mutation; the demon Mephisto resurrected me (so said the demon) and I’d begun to accept it. It was the reason for my poor state, surely, and the more I thought on it, the more I believed it was true; it felt true right down to my bones. The truth hurt or it was age and I rose from the cot I lay on; I’d been detained in a room beside the one I’d visited Andrew many months prior. They’d starved me, rattled the door to try and frighten me, and they’d wasted water on my head to keep me from good sleep.

I did not respond to the voice from the other side of the door and the object rattled in its frame and the voice came again, this time angrier, “Really? How did you think that was going to go? Crazy bastard! Thought you’d put the hurt on the Bosses? Thought you’d kill us at our worst? First, it’s that explosion. You have something to do with that? No! First, it was Harold’s daughter running off!” The voice on the other side of the door grew with mirth as it did with anger. “I’d seen you around town a bit. Thought the Bosses always liked you. Huh. Boss Harold mentioned you at his parties and said how you were a smart fella’, a good fella’, and there you killed him. Stone cold.” The man which spoke was a jailor that tortured me in those dreamlike days I spent locked in their prison, and he seemed personally affronted. “So first it’s the explosions; steam or dust rose out of cracks in the ground you know—some thought hell was rising up, but the Bosses put those thoughts to bed. God, what’s it with the likes of you? The explosions and now I’ve lost an eye and its because of the skitterbugs. You probably brought that on!” The voice muttered and then the door shook in its frame again, seemingly from a hard kick. I wished I could see the face of the man throwing his tantrum. “Can’t wait to see you hang.”

“So, I’ll hang?” I asked the door. There was a long silence, and I was uncertain if I’d pitched my voice enough for the man on the other side to hear me. I opened my mouth to ask, “So-

“You’ll hang.” The man on other side seemed to knock his knuckles against the surface of the door. “Or you’ll die here.”

“What’s Maron said?”

“Don’t you worry about him.”

“What’s he said?”

“Said you’d probably appreciate the punishment that we’d put on you. Said you’re a sick man. Said you like speaking with devils and people like you only find pleasure in such things.”

“So, I won’t hang?”

“Oh, you’ll hang, sir. You’ll hang if I need to do it myself with no one else. If not that, I’ll be sure to put you under one way or another. Accidents happen.” He chuckled. “Maybe you’d enjoy it, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever enjoyment you find in your tortures won’t compare to what ideas I have.”

A long silence followed, and I watched dust motes dance in the air; the place was stagnant and even a breath caused a shift in their glide. I closed my eyes and tried to remember a better time. I thought of Suzanne. I thought of Gemma. What a time to be alive. I thought of the movies, the books, the musical cartridges that sung of yesteryears. How unlucky I’d been, of course. Something had changed in me though and it was totally refreshing. Perhaps it was in realizing the evils of my brothers was that of a man and not some otherworldly force, or perhaps it was a push that came from years of terrible inconsistencies. All that living in the past and so it was. It didn’t matter—the past. I’d been so busy with it that I’d been in a constant state of unliving. I’d known that always, of course—something new had come.

“You dozing off in there?” asked the jailor.

“Nah.”

“Good. Stay awake or I’ll be forced to stay you awake.”

I’d been reborn with a rage, justified or otherwise, and it was felt all over. It was a wild compulsion. All that time and it had been me that was brought back.

The wound on my head throbbed and I prodded it with a finger and brought the finger away and examined the digit; it was dried well enough, and I did not smell infection nor were there any of the accompanying symptoms of a fever or hallucination. I was me, through and through. For now.

The door banged. I didn’t bother an answer and the door banged again.

“Who’s there?” I asked, surprising myself with the sarcasm.

“Why’d you do it?” asked the jailor.

“You wanna’ ask me about it now?”

“Tell me.” The voice on the other side of the door was serious entirely.

“Bah!”
“Bah to you! Why’d you do it?”

“Is there a reason to explain myself? If you knew better the things I knew, would it get you to unlock that door and let me walk free? Would it change your mind even?”

The jailor caught a laugh before responding. “Can’t say it would.”

“So, what’s it that you want? You won’t understand me, and I don’t think I’ve got the energies of persuasion to try.”

“Try.”

“You like the Bosses?”

“They’re okay. Keep me in work anyway. Keep people safe.”
I slumped forward onto my knees where I sat and placed my elbows on my knees and watched the crack at the base of the door on the other side of the prison cell. “What’s it matter if they keep you in work? Think they care about you anymore than what you represent?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you keep riffraff down and they like you for it. I wonder if they know you. You ever get invited to the feasts they hold at the hall? You ever worry about your water rations? You ever wonder why it is that so few of the women or men invited to the hall return? Children too, now that I think of it. They’d call those captured criminals, I know. Those brothers—the sheriff is to blame too—they’re bastards. You know they are.”

“Is that so? What’s that make me? A bastard too?”

“By proxy maybe.” I dryly chuckled. “What’s it matter? What do you want outta’ me anyhow? Some gratification? Some confession—you’ve gotten that already, ain’tcha? Maybe a repentance? Why don’t you call one of those Bosses on down from their throne and have them here on the other side of the door so I can apologize? Or call Lady and I’ll get her to channel some message to the afterlife and I’ll plead for forgiveness. That what you want? Now I’m a bad man and I know it, but it ain’t for the reasons you believe. What you want is belief that there’s a man under the skin of the monster you’ve projected? No, I won’t shoo away your boogeyman for you. It can’t be done, not from me.”

“You talk big for someone in your predicament. I like how you talk so holier. Like you’re talking down on me. I just wanted to know what made you want to go on a mad-killing spree the way you did.”

“Mm.” I cupped my hands together; as it was, my left knee shot off with pain and I tried to massage it to little comfort and stretched it out straight from my body. “When violence keeps you bound, violence is necessary to free yourself. That’s all I’ll say about it. If you hang me, then hang me. Spill my guts out for the birds and put a sack over my head so you won’t be sick by my face.”

“You’re a mouthy pig.”

I listened to the jailor’s footfalls disappear down the hall and finally it was totally quiet and all I could hear was the throb on my head. Lucky or unlucky? No, it wasn’t luck. I’d been marked. I was the payment, and I knew the price. The demon had my soul. Whatever protection it afforded me, I intended on using.

The image of that room continued over in my mind, with the peasantry (that’s what I saw them as then) knelt in front of the Bosses and the wall men, with the intense blood-smell, with the surprise on Maron’s face. Billy’s face. There was still a part of me, however small, that wanted to plead with him to change his ways. That wasn’t the part that welled up in me then though. The piece of me that wanted to see him die was what took over. It hadn’t been Maron that fired his gun; he’d still been fighting with his holster. I’d only taken a step in through the door and a spray of gunfire from one of the wall men’s rifles exploded and I was sure I was dead because I fell, and my vision went white. They should’ve put me down then.

I didn’t come too fully until I had a few goons on me, hauling me upright roughly under my arms. Maron didn’t say anything at first and those wall men took over; they shouted that I was alive still and I felt a hot gun barrel against my cheek.

“Stop!” shouted Maron. The Boss Sheriff stepped forward with his stilted gait and looked me over thoroughly. The gun barrel fell from my cheek, but they held me still; it wasn’t like I planned on fighting. “You got uglier,” said Boss Maron, “Really ugly.” His left eye, afflicted by the skitterbug infestation, had gone dead white with only the faintest trace of an iris; it dribbled pus.

I held his stare to the point that my eyes watered—whether from anger or sorrow or both—and my muscles tightened like an animal threatening to pounce. It was a ridiculous display.

“Lock him up,” said Boss Maron.

So, I was locked up and those uncounted days I was mildly tortured: sleep deprivation, pummeling, and sometimes they spit on me. It could have been worse. I’d seen worse.

The cell was numbingly quiet, and I continued to massage my knee, continued in thinking about how investing so much thought with the past twisted any future of mine into a dismal satire.

I could not tell how long it had been without sunlight and the jailor returned (he was bulbous and fattened and old but very strong—it could be sensed in how he carried himself) pushed through the door this time with a tray of diced potatoes, steamed but cold, and a metal cup of water. He sat them on the floor, stared at the tray there with his one good left eye, and it was like I could read his mind as he looked at the food there. He could destroy it; he jerked from the tray without saying a word to me then disappeared behind the door he closed. The jailor remained there outside.

Pride swelled in me momentarily before I pushed whatever silliness that was and devoured the food and drank the clear water. If it was poison, so be it. If it was poison, then all the problems of the world would disperse.

Again, the jailor pushed in through the door and bent to remove the tray and I was struck by the immediate thought of strangling him. So, I tried and threw myself at the man.

My hands felt the scruff around his throat, and I pressed hard with my fingers on his Adams apple. He’d lurched forward to lift the tray and he immediately came up with force, throwing me off him; my nails raked his cheek as I scrambled for purchase. He took the metal tray in both of his hands and thwapped me across the head—it rang, and I was stunned while he lifted back his right hand in a swing. In the dizziness, I momentarily caught a glimpse of the holster on his left hip and reached out dumbly for the revolver there. A meaty smack could be heard, and I didn’t even feel it when his fist met my face the second time. My head rocked and I fought to look upright, and his hand came again, and I put up my own hand in return; it was pushed away, and he continued at me, muttering epithets he found useful.

Once he was heaving and spitting, he left me on the cot and directly before slamming the door, he mentioned something about violence and how if I liked violence so much that he’d show it to me.

I nursed myself to sitting right-up and though adrenaline kept the pain away, I felt my face bruising already. There was no way for me to inspect the welts his hands had left, but I could guess their places by touch and how they thrummed with my heart.

Two days passed, if I counted them by the visits from the jailor and then Maron made his appearance to me, and I was surprised to see him with a leather eye patch over his left eye; he seemed ill on his feet and the jailor, though the man was there, did not move to stop Maron from entering the room and relieving me of my prison. He and the jailor roped my hands together in front of my pelvis and I didn’t fight.

Boss Maron stank of infection and yellow oozed from beneath his eye patch and he kept his cowboy hat pulled snugly over both his ears and did not speak so jovially—there were no crude jokes at my expense. A warmth radiated off him. The Boss carried my shotgun with him but made no remark on it. He marched me from the prison, and I met daylight, and it burned my eyes while I stared up into the reddish sky. Dust scattered from the nearest portion of wall and caught on the wind till it was carried and disappeared overhead, and I briefly thought how nice it must be to fly.

Golgotha stirred as ever, and people spoke loudly and candidly as I passed them by. Words came my way from passing faces like, “You kissed the devil’s ass!” or, “You sure are a monster, look at you!” and Maron pushed me on with the gun at my back, and I wavered on my legs like I was without any control.

“Is it true?” asked Boss Maron, “Did you kiss the devil’s ass?” He tilted the shotgun casually on his shoulder and kept me ahead of himself. He was taking me to hang—and making a big deal out of it too. “I know how you like to speak to them. The demons. I know how you conspire with them. I told them all how you do. Now they know I was right.”

What a rotten town it was, and it smelled like it. The atrophied muscles and diseased infections of those fine folks emanated in the air, flies buzzed around my head, bloated and doubtlessly happy from whatever corpse they’d sprung from.

“Say somethin’,” said Maron.

“What do you want?” I asked, watching my footfalls, ignoring the screeches of those on the sidelines; he marched me through the runways, past the onlookers which saw me with faces of twisted hatred. The tension was palpable—I could feel the venom off the eyes of those that watched. Blood red eyes which judged carelessly.

“I want you to say it,” said Maron; I felt the nudge of the shotgun at my back again and I stumbled forward, caught myself, carried on, “I want you to admit it to me. You’re like a mutant, ain’tcha? No better than any other monster. I knew it all them years. I seen it.” We took an alley and cretins followed behind; wall men flanked Maron and on either side of the narrow stretch there were faces made even with the wall, pressed there like they were afraid to be involved.

“Whatever you say, brother.”

“Don’t,” hissed Maron, “Don’t even.”

“What?” I spat the word, “Afraid they’ll treat you differently if they all know how close we are?” I felt the gun barrel press against my back, and I yelped out the words, “Hey! He’s my brother! My baby brother!” The barrel jabbed me in the spine, and I spilled forward, catching myself on one of those nearby faces. It was an old woman. She shoved me from her, and I flailed across the ground after trying to catch myself with my bound hands. Dirt met my face and exploded around me. I laughed, blinking through the dust. I spit too. He couldn’t kill me. Whatever black magic there was in me—bequeathed by Mephisto—refused me death. Maron lifted me with the help of his wall men, pinching the coat around my throat with his fist. He shoved me on, and we continued.

“You smell that?” I asked Maron.

“Stop talkin’. You might not be a man, but you’ll die like one,” he said. The wall men around muttered, and we took the way to the front square; already there were looky-loos gathered, throngs of them not at all bashful to see the day’s line-up—it was just me. The platform was emptier and that was good (Frank, Paul, and Matt looked naked without their eldest brother). Those Bosses which remained looked drunk as they did for any other execution. It was a good day for it. Warm. The stink of the crowd was worse and as those gathered parted for my entourage, the warmth of them cloistered us like the blood of a wound.

Even through the vile aroma, the smell of rotted poultry rose like nothing else. “You don’t smell it then?”

The roar, a cacophony of the damned souls stolen, shook the ground and the air changed. A dragon—Leviathan.

Along the wall which old skeletal corpses hung against dried blood stains from hook-chains, men and women scattered the length of the parapets with their weapons. Gunfire came and one of those atop the wall shouted, “Artillery! Dragon! Big guns!”

There was fire in the sky and the creature circled overhead and its wings beat the wind like mad; those organic ropes that hung from its body took on horrid shapes with its movement in the high noon sunlight.

Screams filled the air as the square erupted into panic. I dove into the sickly crowd; among the loudness, the horses which were lined by the big door fought against their ties and bolted across the square. Arms and heads disappeared beneath those dashing hooves, and it was not long before people were trampling people and in a quick glance I saw the Boss platform came down in splinters as the horses rushes it. Blood slickened the feet of many as they rushed to the buildings adjacent the square—what a small protection that’d be against Leviathan. A wall man went stumbling over the wall’s ledge and his body met the ground beneath the hanging corpses and he didn’t get up.

In the wild fray, Maron fired the shotgun into the air, and I briefly thought of where the pellets might fall.

Finally, artillery fire came and put a hole in the creature. It wavered in the air, its head lurched downward like it might pierce the ground and it pulled its long neck back and blew flames across the buildings. The heat was immaculate. Rotted chicken filled my lungs.

“There’s more!” shouted a wall man above, “Running across the field.”

The crowd grew more enamored with escape; there’s no good way to say it—blood frothed around our heels as I was shoved through the avenues of elbows, rocking heads, plunging knees. I pushed on, shielding myself with my bound hands as well as I could. I kept my head as high, and felt scratches reach my throat—doubtlessly those which could not continue—nails and fists came from every direction. In the ephemeral madness, I too screamed and it did not stop until I spilled into an alleyway along the wall nearest the execution chains. I ran and tripped from the crowd, slid, and bit my tongue so thoroughly that my teeth clicked together though the tissue; my breath was knocked from me. My pants were wet from the viscera. Others too had found the opening and barreled past me. I went to my feet and panted thought the pain, through the twinge in my left knee. I took the walls for support and still, those which rushed past nearly knocked me from my feet.

Some poor child—a lean, bony-faced boy—fell in the rush and before I had a moment to reach out, he was gone. Whether he lived or not, I did not stop to know. The crunch of bones as more people spilled into the narrow stretch indicated the worst.

First/Previous/Next

Archive