slivers

I’m trying to fall asleep when I feel G nearby. In the process of trying to lean into him, I find myself tracking down my own inner crying. I find a part of myself that’s curled up and distraught. The eyes are taint ridden. Is this the part of me that needs healing?

__

It’s a corner in a room with white walls, and D is sitting in a chair looking at me. He looks oddly normal, oddly human, and I believe his shirt is white. There is black water running down both walls, as though a window high up on the wall is open, and flood water is pouring in.

“You need to deal with this,” he says, his black eyes flatly stare at me.

“I know.”

__

It’s right before bed, and I can feel my intrusive thoughts fighting to be heard. Suddenly on my right, he is standing there, his arm reaching above me. “There is no point in thinking about this right now, shouldn’t we put it up on the shelf?”

I am beyond surprised, scared almost. The overwhelming emotions cut the connection.

Why was I so surprised to see him?

__

“I need to know if this is real. What’s the point if all of this is just something I’ve made up.”

“The distinction doesn’t matter,” he asserts.

No matter how many ways I present my wariness to him, he continues to repeat

that the distinction doesn’t matter.

Planes

You need to become with letting me go. I promise whatever happens, I’ll find my way back.

He feels the same and yet so much different. I mull on the Black Bag and I resolve to handle it sometime this week.

___

I dream of airports and planes, which is something I haven’t had in a long time. This airline seems like it’s got two options for people. One involving going to the gate like normal, but another allowing people to get off the plane straight onto the tarmac if they’re in a hurry????

I’m standing almost the entire time we’re on this plane, and I vaguely remember talking to another person. I feel like we were stuck on a short layover while the airline got more ppl on board, but I really don’t remember details about much of anything.

___

There is a slum that is made of pallets and scrap everything where most of the city lives. I’m working on someone’s property that lives just beyond the edge of this slum, and they’ve got animals.

I suspect part of this is bleed through from life. The whole working with animals every day bit is suspect.

The guy I work for is never shown in my dream, but he and his team watch my every move through cameras set up throughout the property.

There seems to be some sort of discrepancy btwn us. A situation where I know I”m going to get in trouble, and that they’re going to come after me, but I care too much about these animals. So I remember carrying feed while I pass one of the cameras, flipping it off. A sort of “I see you watching me. If you hate it so bad, some out here and make me stop.”

Eventually they do. It wasn’t a matter of if, only when. I scurry into the mix of pallets and scrap wood and disappear into the slum where they can’t find me. Not that they didn’t get close. I feel a mild panic as I’m running, but ultimately I don’t think they got ahold of me.

___

“You need to find a way to deal with this sadness” he tells me. “anything you can think of is worth trying.”

But how do you get over losing yourself.

Its been years and I’ve barely made any headway.

How tf do I move on.

Drifting

It’s been eons and I know I should have been updating all along the way, but life happened and everything happened and I quit caring somewhere along the way. I think when your memory is so bad that there is barely remembering anything more than a few weeks old, you kinda lie to yourself, telling yourself that it doesn’t matter anyways. You’re going to write it down only to forget, and you’re so busy, so just. Don’t bother. Do it tomorrow, and then tomorrow never comes.

I quit dreaming after gma died and therapy dried up. I’ve only had 3 or 4 dreams of any clarity since then, and I have no clue how to fix it with my brain being as it is. Therapy did something that I can’t seem to replicate at that level and now that I”m no longer doing it, it doesn’t seem to matter what I do — very few dreams actually ever happen.

I’ve noticed in what few dreams I can sorta remember that I’ve lost some of my fear of things. The other night I was riding in some sort of water vessel, almost like a speed boat or similar, and I was at the front, riding these really rocky waves and not fearing for my life. I’ve had a few instances of being on freeways and not being as scared as well.

It almost leads me to question if the fear was rooted in the Game specifically. Did someone implement a rule where I would panic whenever I came across certain things while sleeping? Or is it that my human brain just caught on and freaked out every time it happened?

I can’t tell, but it’s slowly gotten easier for me to approach these issues in dream state and not instantly fall into a panic.

__

Another dream that I had a few months back was with Karas. We were both laying on our side, in a room that felt like a large social area. We were down in an area that was sunk in, and in this area it seemed that most of the ppl were laying down or sleeping, though I can’t tell if this is a sleeping-exclusive place. There were people that were awake off to the side, it registered almost as a small eating/dining area. The floor seemed hard, like it was wood, but it wasn’t as shiny as you’d expect.

I remember leaning into him and placing my hand on his neck. I could feel our bonds connect together and I could hear and feel the inhale on his end. We wanted to do more, but knew we couldn’t due to the situation and we both leaned back and laid back on our mats, frustrated.

__

Shortly after deciding to move back into the religious community, I had another dream where I was working somewhere. I have no clue if I have access to the Duat, and I can’t tell entirely if that’s where I was, but for the first time in a long ass time, I had another dream where people were mocking me, berating me, and making me feel generally like shit.

It just reinforces that I don’t know that I want to bother with the Duat anymore.

__

I am getting you in the only way I know how, he told me.

The tribunal may have said no, but since when did that stop anyone.

Least of all you.

__

With the final pieces of how we got into this slowly moving into place, it’s become a lot easier to move forward, and yet the problems are all still there. I still have no idea how to get over what happened, and I have yet to figure out how much merging needs to happen before I can even begin to start living again over there.

How many years can you lose through the process of rebirth. No one ever emphasizes how long it takes.

It takes.

so long.

so very very long.

without the very people who kept me alive in my worst of times.

What will it be like to return and see my children so many years older than when I saw them last.

I can barely remember things over here. How will i even manage to balance here and there again.

Is there even a point in going back.

__

After Brosky put the final pieces in motion, things happened fairly quickly, and my ability to pick up on the details has been hit and miss.

I’m fairly certain that I had a final interaction with BMITS or similar. I vaguely remember having an interaction with E, though I can’t remember if that was tied to Brosky’s hand forcing E or if there was another one.

E and A slowly began to show up more frequently during my waking life. They feel as E did during my break, where I can’t really see them over there, but can sense them as an Over on my physical form. That makes it hard to feel out what they look like, but it does allow me to focus on what they feel like as entities and let the physical details not be as important. Which helps with overcoming some of the issues I’ve had with E.

There have been a few times recently where I’ve had someone that I think is E in dreams, and he’s not looked like J and he’s not set things off. I consider that progress.

A focuses on helping me in my daily life, similarly to what G used to do back in Phx. He helps me to prioritize eating and talks me out of bad decisions. E shows up less frequently, probably leaving to work on things in btwn stints here.

Usually in bouts as I’m falling asleep, I’ll find myself wading into the emotions of what happened to me, to us. I find that the pain is still there, lurking beneath. It continues to feel like it’s not changed or reduced at all in all these years. Sometimes it leads me to worry that things won’t improve.

It has allowed me to unlock some of the inner workings and motivations for those who have been with me, though. Which has its uses.

__

More and more I’m fairly certain that we’re going to take the Hinman approach. Merging down to split apart later. Some part of me hopes that that means that Brosky will show up in time, but I honestly don’t think so. I expect that to be Happy’s roll, and I acknowledge that some part of me has to let him go.

One evening I’m having a bit of a meltdown and I get shifted from E over to G, and then get placed into a small location, similar to what G was in, except this feels like a tiny ass little cave that is mostly just a bed of furs. I remember this place back before gma died, though I can’t remember the details of when. I know who it’s always reminded me of. It gave me comfort then, but now the feeling is mixed and I can’t help but be so fucking sad.

When I shift back over to more my form, I find that I’m holding a sphere that is a mixture of browns and creams, like muddy waters with froth or maybe coffee and foam. A place, a part, a tiny tiny tiny part.

But it hurts too much. Do I even want it if it hurts so badly?

Would you give up the only piece that you have left of him?

__

That reminds me that I was carrying around two red pieces. I gave them to the Left and Right. I felt like it was the right thing to do. In turn, I got… the sphere.

And I guess the pain, too.

Black

I’m too sad to stay in the tent anymore. I get up and walk outside to find that no one is really around. I know that I could stick around and wait for someone to show up, but I’d rather sulk by myself. So I cut out and follow a bunch of light stairs down to this large vat of goop and stars. I watch it ebb and flow. The lights twinkle and bend as the goop around them shifts slowly. It’s mesmerizing.

I notice two people start to walk down where I am at. I drop into the floor and watch from there to see what they’re going to do. It doesn’t take them long before they leave, and I follow. I leave a notice for whoever will come and investigate the ping that I’ve sent out, but I don’t want to wait.

I feel myself filled with a mixture of emotions. Chasing people always seems to get some part of me riled up, and it seems like these people are important somehow. It takes a bit, but when I finally do catch up to them, I can tell that I’m out for blood. I use sound to shut down their systems, and it wouldn’t have taken me very long at all to rip them limb from limb, but E cuts me off before I can.

I’m enraged and so upset. Its as if these people did something horrendous to me, and that I feel like it’s genuinely not fair that I can’t kill them. That they deserve to be killed for what they did, and my people won’t let me. I’m thrown to D and he sucks me into some dark space while I cry and claw at the floor. I have no clue what this is over, but it’s very draining on me- the amount of crying I’m doing.

Eventually I pass out without any information as to what is going on.

___

That night I dream about meeting up with ML. She’s in this weird setup where you live in your car, dock it to the larger building structure, and then can sorta come and go from there. You can move your car if you want to live in a different part of the building… other things? It’s odd. I sit down in her car at first and talk to her about how I won’t be staying long- I’m going to be kicked out soon (likely brain override from human things). There is another section where we’re walking around and there are three kids, but I’m not sure whose they are. Two girls and one boy- all closer to 5-8 in age, i think. And another section where we’re walking by a big windowed section of the building. I look out at it and complain about the building for some reason.

ANd at the end I see her back to her car. All of the details of discussion are lost to me now.

___

I wake up the next morning and I find myself back home. I open the door and fall into A’s room. It’ll take a little bit, but he shows up and looks me over. He takes me to the infirmary to run some diagnostics, because I’m in pretty bad shape.

When I get there, I am given all of the kids and I cuddle with them. He gives me something to drink and I slowly muck through it. He ports through me to where we are located in the control room, and uses my body to send message to G. From there, I suspect they’ll have him look at Beefcake and try to see if he can do the healing work there.

Being around my kids helps immensely. I feel less fried and less torn apart. The moon needs the sun, I guess.

I black out and haven’t woken up since.

Salt.

We only hold on to let go.

Earlier in the week E had bled through my physical form and gotten upset during closeness with Kara. I urged him to go find E after the fact, to see if he could see if E was okay. He did, and we ended up in a pile together. The next night we were close again, and E swayed back and forth btwn happiness and downright sadness. Songs kept playing in my head, and they all hinted at drinking and drowning sorrow. I found G to talk to him about it. When I went to open the door to his place, I was sucked out into who knows where. I nearly fell when he opened the door to see why I hadn’t entered and blacked out.

Later, I found that G had found E at a bar, drowning himself into a stupor. But he was not sold that E was there to drink, but instead wondered if his drink had been tampered with, causing him to lose track of time and self-control. We dragged him home where he passed out in bed.

I’m sitting with G while E is passed out in bed. We’re talking a bit about things that are going on. I talk to him about A, I ask if A is even still around. He tells me that he is, but that it’s still a work in progress. I find myself uttering that I hope that A comes out on top, and I am a little taken aback by it. I never expected to wish for any one of them to “come out on top”, but here I was. The whole situation is conflicting for me. I care for each of them, but I know that only one of them can actually be around. That’s what happens, though. Limited number of slots.

I hear something fall out of E’s hand, and I get up to go look at it. I don’t make it all the way over to him, though. Something rushes me and I black out on the floor. All I can recollect is feeling myself leveraging my staff against someone, likkely one of E’s brothers. Someone seems to have tried to get the 5 into the fold, more wills to battle ours. Too bad the youngest would never, and I’m pretty sure at least one of the other brothers is no longer around.

I shove my staff into him and light him up. We struggle briefly before I finish the job, his sparkles creating patterns in teh air around me. Everything hurts and I’m tired of all of this bullshit. His brothers are particularly bad because they don’t ever really step forward. They like to come after you from below, like grabbing your ankles from under the bed. Their interactions are short, and purposefully so. It’s hard to battle what you can’t get a grip on.

I wake up in the darkness in a bed with someone else. I could feel my arms laying out in front of me, my bed mate’s hair interwoven in my fingers. A trait I passed onto my children- an affinity for hair. I couldn’t tell who it was who was with me, but I could fathom a guess. The hair texture wasn’t quite what his normally is, but the energy markers denoted that it was A.

We were in a small hut of some kind. The walls were coated in mud or plaster. A woven roof and door, a very small window of light above the door. This hut is only large enough for our bed, really. But it’s in much better condition than BM’s was.

Why are we here?

I try to get up but find that it’s a pointless venture. I fall into memories or other things that don’t allow me to progress forward. I really never left my bed, despite trying to several times. False starts tell me that I’m not in a position to move or leave, so I lay there in the darkness. I find myself being pulled inwards by none other than the man who has been dogging me for months.

I learn that A has done what needed to be done. It won’t be long before everything is finalized and things settle into their final placements. He tells me not to be sad. That it won’t be entirely different from Hinman. I can still visit on the inside, and maybe one day, it’ll be on the outside, too. Provided the Game ends how we want it to. He holds me against him, I feel his hair through my fingers. I tell him that I can’t let go. It’s hard for me to let go. He tells me that he knows when and how to make sure it happens and happens properly.

I try to grapple with why. I probe him for why he has chosen the course of action that he has. For the briefest moment, I believe I understand it. That A is the better choice, simply because we need his skills more than we need W’s. While W is important and we want him to be here, he knows that A is more what is needed to win this.

But I feel like it’s more than that. It makes sense, it’s logical, but I know that there is more to it than that.

All I can see while we’re talking about this is that big burst of yellow into the sky. The man that I knew gone. My team coming up behind me to drag me away. “We have to go”. Reaching out. The pain that consumes. How many times.

How many?

“You can’t rely on me to” the end of the sentence is lost to me now. Rely on you to what? Stick around? Choose emotions over logic? Not change your mind? I can’t remember.

It burns into my head. You can’t rely on me.

We talk briefly about Teru, about how half of the reason things went to hell is that she couldn’t handle the pain that I still carried with me. The pain of W disappearing was partially sated by running into E. Old bonds revitalizing in a different time, a different place. And they were furthered by Kara in 2PP. But when Teru consumed me, she cut me off from all of that. And it ate at her. In a way, she became infected by the taint because of me. W stayed close to her because it kept him sane. E had KAra and W, and those are the only reasons he kept his wits about him. We already can see what happens when you don’t have the other half there. Briefly, I wonder if that’s why F went after her. Could he sense what lay inside? Was he driven mad not by W, but by me being cut off? The sun doesn’t need the moon, but once you’re infeected with the taint, you’ll see it out to get your fix.

But when he pushed Teru about it, things got out of hand. W had to do what he had to do. But even if W hadn’t done anything at all, it would have continued to go out of balance in its own time. It was out of balance from day one. Teru wasn’t supposed to be at the front. She couldn’t handle being merged with me.

It’s no wonder DD killed her.

W continues to hold onto me. Everything hurts. He tells me that it’ll get better once things are finished settling in. It’ll improve. I have a hard time believing him, though. I worry that this will continue to burn for the rest of forever. How will I handle this? He tells me it’ll be like it always has been. I’ll manage as I’ve always managed.

You can’t rely on me.

He’s told me several times that one day we’ll be able to be together again. My biggest concern is that one day is more like 89586 years from now. Out of both of our existences, I’ve only had a handful of lives with him, and they almost always end up with him dieing before me, in front of me, and blowing a hole in my existence.

I can’t handle that anymore.
You don’t have a choice.

He leaves suddenly and I find myself back in the room with the sleeping person. I try to get up again, but I fail. I pass into sleep which is only semi-restful. I spent most of the night traveling around and talking with people. I only remember a few sections clearly. One is where I am in some kind of fast food looking restaurant. It looks like a Mexican food restaurant (don’t ask me how I discerned that). I am following someone who is showing me where their restaurant ends, and there is this wood lined room at that point. On the other side of the wall there is something that registers as a dark grey casino. It looks familiar to me. I ask them if they are going to put a doorway there, so that people can access the restaurant from both sides, but apparently they want to keep this room intact for some reason. Right next to the room is a window and pillar set where you can see out into the casino. So the room must be important somehow.

What’s odd is that outside is really not mod, it’s not what you’d expect for a casino looking place inside. It reminds me of oldschool Europe. A lot of narrow winding alleyways and walkways. Lots of plastered houses with tiled roofs, and it reminds me of parts of the Med. It also reminds me of where I was living before I got kicked out.

There is a cut and the next part I remember I’m walking into this small German restaurant (don’t ask me how I know that, either). It’s tiny- smaller than my living room tiny. I sit down at this table, and I see this man with two young kids- like 5 or 6 years old kids. The man is sitting with the boy next to him, and his daughter is sitting at a table to the left of them (from my perspective). I don’t know why the kids are at different tables.

The kids apparently thought I was old. And they made a comment about it. The father freaks out, thinking I will get upset at them for saying such a thing. I get up from my table and lean over the boy. There is something on my head, and I can feel it leaning against the top of my head when I lean over the boy. I pull out my best old lady voice and joke with him. Asking how he knew I Was old. I forget the conversation, but I know it ended with me telling them that they were smart. The father looks relieved that I didn’t get mad at them.

I wake up and find I’m still in that hut with the person. I roll into them, and we intertwine a bit. He wraps his arms around me and my hand snakes down his back under the robes.

The robes. They remind me of Heathen-ville a little bit. I’ve been playing with the idea that BM is a part of W that existed in that plane with Chi. I’ve played with the idea that maybe both W and E were there, or a part of DD or someone else. I see myself standing on a ridge, my bow drawn. My eyes super focus in to my target which is hiding amongst a bunch of mud buildings. I release my arrow and someone to my right tells me that we’ve been spotted. We head back to prevent a skirmish.

There are flashes of what I assume is a sort of village we live in. It’s largely integrated into the trees, and there isn’t a lot of cleared area in the location. The buildings are small and blend into the landscape. In some cases the buildings are on the ground. Others are not.

He doesn’t want me to go. I remember that. He leans over me. I have this thing with him, where I reach behind his head and grab the horn and pull myself closer to him. His horns have some amount of twist to them, I think. They’re not completely straight like mine, at least. His hair seems longer, and his clothing seems more billowy than what I normally wear. I can’t tell if it’s symbolism or actual clothing. Things fell apart, though. And I’m pretty sure when I got hit at Mershid’s he felt it. The visceral snap of “something is wrong”.

Maybe the only piece to out live me. Maybe that’s why A needed to seek it out.

Later in the day I try to get up yet again. I sit up in bed and put my head in btwn my knees. I feel like shit, and everything burns. I feel him pull my shoulder and pulling me back down to him. “come back. rest.” He wraps himself even closer around me and I am stuck. I can’t move away.

It hurts. It’s like salt. And there is nothing to be done about it.

Phase 2

“I don’t get what this has to do with you.”
“Everything.”

I’m pretty sure the reason he pulled away from me is because he couldn’t cope with the idea of loss. Perhaps as he stood there and watched over us in the infirmary during the Storm, he realized what he was getting into. It’s one thing to know in a sort of removed sense, it’s another to have it splattered all over your face day in and day out.

How long did you stand there and watch us laying in bed? Or are you more like E, where you purposefully avoid being around all together?

It was storming outside, and I was talking with Set about things when I suddenly got an influx of crack. I saw them talking back in the apt, where W tells A that he wants A to take the lead. I still don’t get why. A didn’t want to be permanent, and yet he chose to stay. E warned him not to waffle, otherwise he’d find himself on the wrong side of the table. But at the same time, he has been resistant to completely taking the plunge. Is it all because of the fear?

And why is it that W refuses to stick around? Does he feel inept? Unstable? Did he know that illness would take him out of the picture? Is there something else at play?

I see them talking, and A tells him again that he’s not down with this. W tells him again that his mind is made up. They are at an impasse. The same way that E and W were before. I don’t necessarily understand W’s methods, but I wonder if that’s because he knows things that I don’t?

But then I am laying in bed, dieing after coming out of W. I forget why I was sent in there, as I’m fairly sure these visions revealed something in particular about that. Was I trying to clear out the illness? Was I trying to fetch something? I can’t remember. Maybe I was trying to bind pieces together or something else. I honestly don’t know.

What I do recall, though, is G talking to W. “have you told her yet?” “no.” “are you going to?”

Ah. The thing I didn’t know is likely that W had a very limited shelf-life. As far as I can tell, he had known way back in the house that he was not going to stick around. He was working on getting his shit together, and once a certain thing had happened, he would be out of the picture for an unknown period of time. Perhaps this is why A and I had a cooling trend, too. He also knew what was coming, and was unable to cope with it. Now that I had paid a price for him with my body, he couldn’t even bear to be around me. Neither of them could, and it irked G off to no end.

If there is someone who will always give me a straight answer.

The visions start to fade off, and I can feel Set nearby. “Welcome to phase 2”.

__

In a way, what is going on with A is not much different than what happened with me and Hinman. Instead, of merging him and D down into me, I perhaps am working to merge down a light source and W into A. Along with whatever port piece BM may be. Is that what phase two is? Helping these three merge down? If so, the starting point has been herky.

The initial thing that I Saw was me and someone else in a box. It was the next morning when it came to my mind, and it felt like we were in a wagon or on some kind of moving vehicle of some kind. After a point, it was like we were dumped off somewhere, and while I wanted to look int, I was too busy with work to do so. Later, it was like we were being pulled across the ground, but by that point I was too medicated to reall do anything with it. Any time I pushed into the space, I got illusions and brain vomit, so I stopped.

There are times when I feel like A was with me in the dark space, holding onto me. Other times I felt like it was E. There was another event sometime last week where I found myself in the dark with Hinman. D stood across from me and talked about.. something. I remember Hinman turning into E at one point, and D telling him that he was tired of waiting.

Visions entered into my mind, I could see Teru beating the piss out of me. There is one section that keeps repeating in my head, even  now. And it involves my face being smashed into the ground or stairs, and having a chipped tooth from it. While I’m on the ground half-dead, I see this form hovering over me. It reminds me of some of the baddies from KH- they are angular and almost jester-like in appearance. In the back of my mind, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a mix of E and W. Was she trying to get them to harm me to damage the lines? Possibly.

There are moments from E where it feels like this could be accurate. He takes this personally, ofc. That he would dare to kill someone that he is supposed to be bound with. But when you’re not in control, there is very little you can do. Pending on what era this may have been in, Teru would have held everything in her hands, and everyone was at her mercy. It’s not like I would have blamed him, but that doesn’t stop him from blaming himself.

Real? Not real? Not sure.

__

I noticed that when I got into the new FOB album, E claimed songs like he normally does. But there were songs I’d completely avoid. Songs I didn’t like or didn’t want to listen to, I can’t tell now. But shortly after I began receiving random visions from W, I felt like he had claimed those songs. Except those songs don’t point entirely directly to him, they also go to A. Because now those two are technically one and the same.

The whole album has become filled with baggage btwn the lot of them, and I can’t really puzzle wtf anyone is trying to say anymore. On top of this, I began to receive Japanese songs from him, also indicating his overlap with A.

It’s all so confusing.

Shortly after the incident with Set, Kara sent the children over with A to see me. A wouldn’t ever show up, instead he’d get whisked into that box with me. Eventually, I would wake up in an office with G where the girls were kept safely. When I held the newborn, I had a violent reaction that caused everything to hurt. I could see myself, all taint ridden in the middle of the darkness, screaming. It was more beast than anything else, and my horns were rather long and pointed. My horns also fell out in the room, and my eyes began to look like cat’s eyes when they’re full- so mirrored. I could feel the marking pulling out on my cheeks, and on the outside of my eyes I could feel this burning and cracking like something is trying to get out.

I’m pretty sure that’s been a consistent thing- lines forming into my face, something trying to escape. But what is this tied to exactly?

Later that night I would see myself laying on the ground in the darkness while someone stood over me. My right arm is out to my side and bolted to the ground. I can see my tattoos spanning up the entirety of my arm, and a red bow tied around the wrist.

What are they intending on doing?

A few days later, it’s like they went to chop it off, but failed. I pass out before I can ascertain anything, though.

___

Everything from there is a blur. I try to probe into where A is, to see if I can find out anything about “phase 2”. If I base it off of O’s typical month, we’re looking at two weeks past WR for being the final end date, but when I went into the Duat all those years ago, it didn’t take a full month to get shit done. If anything, handling the first piece triggered the ability to deal with the Hive, which then began the final descent for the Storm.

Is this initiating the final round? I can’t tell anymore.

Two weeks past WR ends up with Wag fest, which is kinda like an akhu festival, but also could be tied back to O if I wanted it to. In many ways this could be legit, but in other ways, I can’t help but feel like I am reaching. Any attempt to make it through to A usually ends up with a dead end. Is he blocking me out? Perhaps these methods are meant to be different? Why the hell won’t anyone tell me anything?

I begin to push this afternoon, and I find myself hovering out over an ocean, the sun off in the distance. The colors are like soft morning colors meets a hazy daytime. The sun hangs out just above the water. I flash out into the water where something rises above me. I can’t see what it is, only that it is large and a dark grey color. I’m standing there in more “heathen” clothing, and something grabs my feet and drags me under. I don’t fight it, I go with the flow as I can breath down here.

There are cuts. Sometimes I see A, sometimes I see the past. There are times when I see him and I walking in the desert, where I thought that maybe our box had been dropped of. I had questioned if maybe we were out where old lady was, but I couldn’t find out either way. I have no access to the Duat, so I imagine that they sent me elsewhere to deal with this.

He’s got that hat of his on, and his hair is completely tied up in the top knot instead of just half. I’m in my heathen clothing and picking at the ground while sitting. I’m trying to figure out why I’m there, what’s going on. What he has to do with all of this.

A is a box. A receptacle. Isn’t that what we said? He keeps my things safe. In a way, he is still being a box by taking in these pieces and incorporating them. I think.

There are flashes back to that desert. The man who stood there and told me I didn’t belong “there” that I belonged where they were. He disliked what the old woman told me, he didn’t like that I left. He was even angrier that I went back a second time.

I try to place these things. Everything is symbolic. What if this is no different?

The old woman had access to Az’s location. What if Chi had ended up there herself? Maybe before even making it to atashen, she ended up out there in the woods where you could live kinda in peace looking like a freak. In a way, that vision would make sense- showing up there sorta young (again) and running through all of the raising process. Coming of age in a way. And then perhaps being sent to the city for some reason or another. It’s possible that she ran back and forth, maybe she wanted to go to the city to learn.

if that dream is of that location, then it’s possible that she was there to learn, and lost her partner. It could be that she lost her partner, and then got taken out herself. And when she was taken out, she reverted back to being smaller and lost her memory. The original vision sequence had me coming into the city after being dicked over. Getting swept up by the rich family, who knew something about me. Losing my protection, being kicked out and left for dead. Taken in, taught, sent back, going back home because I realized it was fruitless, going back to the city anyways, and eventually getting the piece back.

Kinda, indirectly, I could argue parallels. End up in that location, live with the heathens. Go into the city for further training or watching. Who knows, maybe I even got closer to that family, learned some shit, rubbed some elbows. Get dicked over, lose my memory and right back up in that city. End up going back home-sorta. And then in teh end becoming dicked over again, but I leave with at least a piece.

But if that’s the case, was A the boy that told me I didn’t belong there? Is it possible that a part of W came with me? And was living out there in the forests with us? Is it possible that he knew bad things would happen? Could he have been my initial partner that died? Is this where those horns come into play? And how exactly will this fit into the larger picture of Circle, given that I was dead and not a part of the process?

“You don’t belong there. You belong here.”

How do you fit into this?

We continue to walk through the desert as the sun beats down on us from above. The ground is cracked and dry. Nothing is around for miles. Meanwhile, I continue to hang out in the darkness of the ocean.

Why do you continue to haunt me? Why are the pieces so jumbled and why did no one bother to give me context sooner?

wtf. is going on.

Left

Dreams have been so dense, and yet I forget all of them.

LAst nigh when I was woken up around 3:30, i didn’t feel like I woke from sleep, it felt like I went from one kind of awake to another kind of awake.

The biggest thing that stuck in my mind all night is this image of W. Or maybe A.

We were doing something together. It reminded me of a date, or somethig like business meets pleasure. We’re in this building that has long halls, something kinda like a mall, but not quite. It’s nighttime, and there are people around. We walk into something that reminds me of a night club.

Its dark and loud, and we are jam packed into this short hallway. Maybe we were waiting to get inside? Maybe this was something else? I’m not sure. I remember looking up at him. He was dress in dark clothing that was baggy. Around his neck was this sort of… necklace. It made me think of squares of fabric that were sewn together corner to corner. I had the same thing on myself. His was red, mine was yellow.

I don’t remember having these when we first got in there. It’s like they gave them to us when we entered. I can’t tell if it means we won something, or something important or what.

However, when I look at him later in the night, trying to remember this dream, he looks down at me and his hair is yellow. It’s like bad bottle blond where it looks more like yellow than blond. Which is why I aim for that color. A type of warm gold would be another accurate word.

The hair is short and curly and reminds me of some of DD’s styles. I can’t remember if I say anything or quite how I feel, but later I feel like he stands me up. Disappears on me, and I’m left in a strange place by myself. I remember feeling hurt.

___

Saturday morning was almost entirely black. The only time I dreamt was right before waking up.

Its as if I am some other person, or I’m stuck inside of another person, and it reminds me of watching someone play a video game. We’re in some underground chamber, and the person is trying to figure out where to go. There are pressure plates and other things that need to be figured out, and I remember getting frustrated, wondering why he was doing extra stuff he didn’t need to do in order to get the door to open.

When the door opens into this large room, we break apart and start fighting. There were these creatures that were rather tall, and their hands reminded me more of claws, the way my hands can get when in other forms.

THeir hands were completely black, though. Almost as if they were being eaten by taint.

They were hella tall, too, and slightly hunched over. In a way, they reminded me of darkspawn in some DA games.

Next thing I know, some man in Egyptian-esque clothing is coming after me with some short sword. I remember getting knocked down, and for some reason my ability to fight with anything non-human is just not working. There were desks or tables where we were, and I started kicking them, trying to trip up his line of moving towards me. I’m not sure where the tables came from, though.

I remember shouting out to him “why”. “Tell me why, Ramesses”. He stands over me, contemplating if he’s going to actually kill me or not. His blade is super shiny, and doesn’t look like any earthen metal I’ve seen. It’s too reflective, too translucent.

His kilt is very white, and there is some kind of girdle or belt. His upper body seems pretty bare, though I think there is some necklace on him. He’s rather gaunt, and his hair is short and ruddy.

In the end, I guess he decides not to go after me. I don’t know why.

I have no clue why we were there or wtf was going on.

Infection

For the first few days we are both dead to the world. I see his mound that is covered in blankets. I watch A move around the house, making medications, playing with the girls, reading. He seems used to being by himself, and being the only adult that is awake in the room doesn’t seem to even phase him. He passes the time idly and waits for us to get our shit together.

During this time, whenever I try to connect, I am promptly taught a lesson. My body convulses from the pain. My mind is all over the place. I reach out to him only to pass out. I have no clue if this is what he has been dealing with the whole time, but if it is, props to him for being able to function. It’s more than I can currently muster.

Any length of connection usually results in me being dragged somewhere else. I find myself laying on the ground, being slammed against things. It never fails. I can’t tell who the perpetrator is, but they want to look like DD. However, the energy signature is not correct, so I don’t trust the visual.

Days go by like this. There are times when I am more lucid than others. Times when I can muster a few minutes of discussion before the pain kicks in too much. My core rails against the separation. Against whatever is running through my veins.

He sits and watches. That is all there is to be done.

At one point I find myself wrapped around a piece of you. My feathers are jutting out of my arms. There is taint in the air. It is protecting us. Protecting you until I can retrieve you properly. E steps in and helps to locate the piece on my person. He and A rip it out of me, and I have no clue what they do with it. I pass out from the situation, and E disappears without a trace. He and I are so far apart right now. It’s wearing on both of us, but it is the necessity of the situation.

You can’t have all of your eggs in one basket.

A few days later I find myself floating in the darkness, and you are there. The eyes are green, so you are not mine, but his. You seem healthy for once, and there is something about your person that I can’t place. You are similar, but foreign. You are him, but not.

There is something about you.

We float in that gravity defying fabric that you are known for. You are across from me and you pull something out of your robes when I am rocketed somewhere else. Someone else has beef with me and wants to step in and throw me around.

However, this time I am able to get the upper hand. I punch the floor with sensors, and I eventually get a ping back from someone. They step in and help me destroy this person, and destroy the location I am in.

Have  I finally beat the infection? I don’t know. I still can’t tell if these interactions are happening inside of me, or somewher else. Part of me believes that I am running around searching for pieces, and getting caught. And part of me things this is a manifestation of illness inside of me.

Part of me thinks its both and neither. I still can’t tell.

I flash into the room, falling into myself with a sudden jolt. A checks on me, and a small dagger falls into my hand. It is the same dark metal that he is known for. He tells me to hide it for now.

And then I am back hovering across from you. You pull out some sort of non-physical flower. The style you’re known for. You hold it out to me, and I tell you I can’t take it. Not now. You’re not you, and things are not right. I have no clue what it is, whether a piece of himself, or the random child I”ve heard him muse over.

But this is not the right time.

But before I realize what is going on, your lips are on mine and your hands are pressed against my stomach and I couldn’t fetch that thing out of me if I tried.

I still have no clue what it is, and you’re nowhere to be found. ofc. I can only hope that it’s not something that I will regret later. Spirits never listen. They always do what they want.

___

Last night is the first night that I feel good enough that I can sit up and move around a little bit. I’m noticing that with each day, he is becoming more and more mobile. I watch A feed him cups of tea. I see them sitting and talking from time to time. And I spy him meditating off and on.

He is not how he was last time. He is calmer. He is more respectful, and his defenses are more or less gone. I can’t tell if it’s the BM that is showing through, or if they have finally merged, or if something else happened. But I can tell a difference.

Last night I opt to go out to the lake. I wanted to see what the water would do. Ideally, I’d like to do a healing session on myself, but not in the river. I want something removed from myself.

I convince A to let me try it. And he eventually complies. We all file out to the lake, and they stand on the sidelines. I wade into the water, and I am reminded of the lake that Chi fell into. There is a rush of emotions and blurred images that wash over me. I push them aside and move into the water.

Unlike the river, which has a steep dropoff, the lake is very slow to get deep. I probably have to go 50 or so feet out into the water to be up to my chest. I eventually dunk under the water, and I instantly feel resistance, like the water wants to push me up, or that I can only float.

I am pushed against the surface of the water, and it feels as though I am being pushed against glass. Truthfully, the entire surface of the lake reminds me of glass. I rest against this glass, and eventually push against it down into the water. This water is deep royal blue, like pure lapis.

I see this woven thread in the water. It reminds me of a lead rope, and I grab it. It wraps around my left hand, and I follow it down into the water. There is a spirit here. Something that looks like a male, or a bit like DD, tbh. Its coloration is as deep of a blue as the water.

When I get far enough down, it stops and faces me. It gets close to my face, and there are mixed feelings and impressions I am given, but nothing concrete. However, before I can get much further, I am pulled back to the surface by A.

He takes me back inside where I rest. While there, I am overrun with strong pangs from him, and I’m confused by him. Out of everyone in my household, he is not one to usually house desires for sex or anything of that nature. He tells me to meet him at his place later.

___

And so I do.

I’m probably only awake for the first few minutes before I pass out. There are weird overlays on this, and for a bit, I’m pretty sure I’m in illusion or a mind construct instead of the real deal. We’ve spent a fair amount of time in here recently. This place leaves me a bit calmer, and my body has more control. So I think he’s left me here to help ease some of the pain and separation I’m dealing with out there.

At one point, I do remember a necklace falling into my hands. A small tablet of lapis, with two metal brackets at hte top and bottom. They are both made of the dark metal. I have a feeling I know what this symbolizes, but I am not positive.

All I know is. When I wake up this morning and check in, all I can see is him and I getting it on. I watch my fingers drive into his collar line. I can’t tell what is going on, but it makes me feel like he’s finally submitted to whatever. It almost makes me feel like its a rite of passage, though I can’t really explain why or how.

And I still can’t get an answer from him as to wtf is up.

Because who wants to explain why things are happening.

All I can really say is- if its my brain making stuff up, I don’t get why I would. If its an illusion, its one potent illusion. And if its legit, holy hell what were we doing.

Why does no one ever explain anything.

stuff

THe past two nights have gone back to being a blur. I walk around a bunch of places. I watch things. I take notes. I talk with people. I meander and look and travel. But I don’t remember anything solidly enough to document what it is I’m doing.

On Monday night I remember being inside a lot. IT reminds me of a hotel in some regards, but not entirely. At the very end, I walked into a room that ended up being far larger than I expected. It was big and open, and dimly lit. It reminded me of a warehouse in some ways, but it was not so industrial looking. There was a lot of stuff sitting around in various corners, and a number of people were sitting around, as if we were waiting to have a large meeting. I remember sitting down on the arm of a chair, and I Had baggy pants on. I remember that because when I sat down, the way the arm of hte chair hit these pants made me look like I had a hard on. And I guess this bugged me, because I shifted how I was sitting so that I wouldn’t look that way anymore.

I also remember distinctly thinking “So this is where I live. This is actually real”. Okay. I guess.

Last night started off in a flooded area. I was running around some location that looked like it had been hit really hard, and everyone’s stuff was soooo torn up. I remember finding refuge from the rain under some orange blanket thing. I remember thinking to myself that I could at least stay here for a few hours and rest, and I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone finding me. I’d be able to just sleep and not have to sleep with an eye open.

Okay.

And then it shifts into some other location. I can’t tell if i Was asleep, and this is after the rain stopped, or if I left that piece to sleep, and moved to another part that was up and running. This place was near a large city that had tall buildings and stuff. However, the city felt largely abandoned. It wasn’t overgrown or decaying, but it didn’t seem very populated, either. This is where things get hazy, and I Spend a lot of time running around, flying over this location looking at stuff, looking for stuff. But none of it is concrete enough for me to write down.

___

He settles into the body and anytime I try to touch him, he writhes in pain. No words to be spoken, the walls have too many ears. He realizes that there is no other option but to seek me out.

However, the walls have ears and legs as well. It only takes moments of stepping out into the open before they are hot on his trail. His arrival at my location renders us into a lockdown that lasts nearly two days. When the dust settles, I find that we’re in a small single room house with A. Any attempt to get up and work on him, however, results in me being told to go back to sleep.

We are both sedated, and we both lay until the timing is better. He sits and reads and stares off at random. I find myself wandering his interior at different intervals. Ever since he made up his mind I have been there in some capacity or another. I’m not entirely sure why.

I sit up in bed yesterday and try to talk with A. However, in the process of doing this, I find that I am elsewhere, and I am in my horned form. There is someone there, but I can’t tell entirely who it is. They chide me and I still don’t really know what they wanted. I find that I’m getting the shit beat out of me, but I don’t know what exactly they want. Or if I did know, I’ve forgotten it now.

Movement is challenging. Pushing against this person is way harder than it should be, and I question if something is wrong with me. If perhaps my illnesses are still not entirely gone or healed. A implies that there was a situation or occurrence during our lock down, but he doesn’t give me any specifics.

Eventually, I am able to shove a knife in his side and explode it to make him go away. Simultaneously, A works on my body out in the room, and he ends up joining me in this location at the very end. I get the idea that perhaps this is all tied to the man sleeping in the room. Or maybe tied to the marks on my shoulder, which is practically the same thing.

Its all too hazy right now. I feel like there is something here amidst all of this. BUt I lack the words or capacity to piece it all together.

I can only hope that I’ll be able to work on him soon, and I’ll be able to make some headway.

 

Shards

After returning from inside of the mountain, I find that i can move again. I find that I can feel things again- other people in my group, the bed that I lay in, etc. At first it is like a huge breath of fresh air, and it’s a lot to take in.

But slowly, the cracks begin to appear.

The largest is the vision. He had given me his eyes, or so I am told, and I can’t tell if that is why my vision is gone, or if its simply sheer exhaustion. Either are plausible.

I spend time in bed with G and the girls. Other people come and go, BM being another common person to wake up to. Ever since the shift last month, the opening of the markings, he has been around more. I don’t know if its because the wind is gone that he hangs around, if its due to being concerned about the situation I’m in, or if its the bond or something else. I always told him he could stay, but it seems that he’s really only decided to recently.

I try to bother A to see if I can push him in some direction or another. As each day passes, I get more and more frustrated because I’m trying to figure out who exactly he is. I can’t shake that he is something else or something more than what he has always portrayed. However, any attempts to dig either result in a dead end, or more confusion.

In an attempt to push A, G leaves me in the infirmary with him and heads out to “work” on who knows what. However, this doesn’t result in much. Any time we had left gets blown away by a shift in plans.

Shifting plans. That’s how it always is over there. Always. Nothing is static, and nothing ever stays static. You think you see where it’s going, but there is always that possibility of a curve ball, and its rare that the pitcher doesn’t provide.

___

This shift is brought on by a thorn in my side. A group that fails to learn the meaning of go away. And I worry I will be dogged by them for the rest of eternity.

The night that I saw the woman at the party was another downfall point for me. No different than being caught in that cave and having some weird electrical shard shoved through my chest. Whenever I try to get ahead, there is always someone who shows up to wreck the party.

I awake to darkness and silence. But it’s not the same kind as floating in black nothingness. This is more like being stuck in a black vacu-sealed bag that sticks to every available surface of your skin. Its thick and the texture reminds me of weird plastic or leather. I can’t move and all I can really do is sit there and stare at the blank blackness that surrounds me. I notify my menz and they begin the hunt to figure out where I am.

Problem is. There is more than one me now. More than one location.

No one is surprised by this. There are multiple heads looking for us, and these people have a vendetta, so it’s really not shocking that they’d break me apart and sell parts of me to whoever was willing to pay. Hell they dislike me so much they may give parts of me away for free just because they can.

So now begins the hunt. The hunt for the various parts of myself that got thrown to wherever. I wake up in strange places again with weird men hovering over me. I feel like I’m back to when I first started over there- and its a crap shoot as to where I will come to.

When I do finally wake up (the first time), I’m stuck in some weird large…. circle spherical place. I can’t really describe it because it’s damned hard to see or really figure out any details on. Wherever it is, it’s not easily pulled and it requires assistance to extract myself out of it. However, in the process of extraction, E gets pulled instead. I remember it pretty clearly, too (unlike so much of everything else recently). He pulled me out of there, and we landed back in bed where I was laying. And then all of a sudden, he gets pulled out of thin air, and its just me sitting there.

We work to hunt him down. I mean, we know where he is. But no one can figure out how to get to him. The only one with any capacity to really see him worth a damn is me, and that doesn’t work well because everything I’m seeing is symbolic, not literal.

He sits on the ground, arms bound behind him, wrapped around what I view to be a long knife or sword. Pinned down so that he can’t move. Pinned down so that I can’t move. The ideal end for whoever this is is to have me show up, and then they’d have both of us. So I know that I can’t just walk in there and pull him. It’d only result in what happened the night prior.

So I begin to dig. Ultimately, I pull out the black bag. Something I haven’t used in years. Me and G begin to fall through planes to figure out where E is. Simultaneously, I wake up elsewhere, in some other room. Because it’s more fun if you can multi task.

G pulls someone to assist him when we do finally track down where E is. Its during this time that I focus on the other part of me. Starts out in a small room with some guy talking to me. He is pissy that his boss has spent so much time and resources looking for me. He can’t stand me, whoever I am and whoever he is. I lay on the ground and stare at the ceiling. I try to get information out of him, but it is useless.

I forget how it goes down, but he ends up dead. His boss doesn’t even seem to care. I am carted out of this room and taken into some other room. When I first showed up in this place, I Was wearing BM’s hat. And they left it on the ground when they took me. And I’m pretty sure its from that that he manifested, because he ended up in the room with me.

We fight here. I remember blowing a hole in the wall. Everything was really fast and I couldn’t really keep up. It was during this time that I managed to hack into E’s situation and the three of us busted him out. E and I were working on destroying this place while I was fighting in the other area. I remember little beings living in the walls. They wanted this place gone. They were tired of being stuck in the walls, and removing the structure would apparently give them freedom.

We obliged.

When I come to on the other side, I’m pinned against a wall, and the man is going batshit. We’re trying to pull him off when he runs his hand through my stomach. It’s at this point that BM ends up destroying him. I hit the ground and curl up and can’t move. Whatever he hit, it was significant enough to render me stupid.

I am grabbed, and now begins the rush. I am forced into the part of me I left in bed. The hope is that my pieces won’t merge, and that the wound will stick to only one piece of me. I try my best to focus on G, and not to drift to the other place. It’s really hard, because I can hear the panicked voices. I can hear the requests for supplies. “move here. give me that. lift this.”

In the end, that piece passes. I feel myself drift out of that body and into darkness before I fall straight into the part of me in bed. The wound doesn’t follow, but the pain does. I am left to rest after they do another check.

___

The next piece I find is at Harvey Birdman’s place. I wake up in that bed and find myself without clothes and with half of my markings out. The room is fairly close to what it used to be, except that it is lacking furniture of any kind. I suppose he got tired of me trying to get out.

When I open the door and look outside, I see nothing but star fields, darkness, and other doors floating in the nothingness. I know there isn’t anywhere to go, so I lay back down in bed. The piece is locked up and shut down to be handled at another time.

___

I remember being strung out in bed, and looking up and seeing him there looking down at me.

“What if I told you that the timelines are all mixed up?” He asked me. That’s what bugs me about all of these people. They know things, but they never tell you straight up what the hell is going on or what went on. They try to tell me that it’s due to communication being a pain, or things being buggy, but I don’t really buy it. I feel like they could tell me more.

I look at him and tell him that it wouldn’t surprise me. I ask him to tell me more. He doesn’t.

More and more he comes to hang around me. More and more I get frustrated because I can’t make heads or tails of anything. What are you, exactly?

___

More shifts appear and our priorities must shift with them. More and more I begin to wake up in pain for no particular reason. My entire body feels like it’s contracting, and my energy lines feel like they are burning up. I writhe in bed and try to keep calm. None of our sedatives are working.

If A was to hold the wind, then I suppose the illness with the wind came in as well. We all knew that I had been infected with it, but I guess we all supposed that I had fought it off. It’s hard to say why the illness is hitting both of us as it is, but that is how things stand.

I feel the shift btwn them. This is less of a “I will hold this for you” and more of a changing of the guard. I can tell that one is disappearing inside of the other. I can’t tell how permanent it is. I can’t tell whether he’s happy about it or not.

You can’t fight it until you are certain you can handle what comes after. Those are the rules. There is more than one way to skin this cat, and if we go this method, you must prepare for what comes after.

In time he agrees to it. He consumes the other and casts out the illness. My body takes a beating for it, but eventually the dust settles and things get better. When I ask him if this makes us a thing. He ponders it for a moment and says “I guess it does.”

The ruckus must have driven me to seek safety inside of myself. I wake up in a hallway inside of my desert. Hinman shows up and takes me to the surface. When we get there, the wind is blowing for the first time ever.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. For every answer I find, more questions always turn up.