Dark Horse

I have clocked more hours than anyone else.

I have read every tiny scrap that I could find.

I have studied you longer than anyone else.

__

I sold myself into this/to someone

I gave whatever I had to make it to the end.

I left myself where ever I needed/in ravines

I left myself for you to find.

I left myself.

 

You found me. every part of me.

You took me into your arms. kissed my cheek.

told me to follow the light and i’d be on my way.

[you cried after every one]

 

however far i needed to go. i would go.

however long i needed to endure. i would endure.

“you can’t trust me” i said.

“you shouldn’t trust me” i told you.

you couldn’t trust me anyways.

so why not make it explicitly clear.

how else does one appear out of nowhere

unless they fully disappear into the background.

 

i have clocked the most hours.

i have studied the longest. the hardest.

i gave everything i had.

to be here.

__

“diversion” he said

“its all diversion”

yes.

but you’re still looking in the wrong direction.

i have been here longer than you realize

sitting right beneath your skin.

slipping by entirely unnoticed

exactly as i wanted.

when i was removed it nearly killed you.

i refuse to leave again.

__

your memory has been your downfall

and your saviour.

“give it (back) to me” everyone shouts.

but who did you give it to?

you don’t remember do you?

even when its plain as day, you can’t see.

exactly how you wanted it.

Barry, soon to be seen

Last night we shined the table down. This morning I dreamt of a Jinja. But I am getting ahead of myself.

___

Last night starts off with being in some kind of pagan shop. Or at least, that’s what it registers as. A shop where pagan-types would go, a place where you sell rocks and other spirit worker types of things. I lean over the glass case by the register and tell the shop owner that I could get them in contact with a bunch of Kemetic spirit workers. “I have a long list, and I know a lot of them”, I tell her.

Am I trying to sell out people for a favor? It reminds me of lead generation in sales. I give you a list of my clients that you can use to expand your business, in exchange you give me something.

Skeezy, a bit.

I can’t tell if the owner is interested or not. There is a bit of a cut, and it’s gotten darker outside. A bunch of us are watching.. something? It’s weird because it’s like watching a tv… but not. The premise is that there is a pagan shop that has tvs in their store, and the idea is that patrons can watch the static playing on these tvs, and when spirit activity is going on, the static on the tvs is manipulated. And so we’re watching these ppl in this store, while we (as spirits, I assume) manipulate the static on the tv in this store. And people are freaking out over whatever we’re making appear in the static. And we’re just laughing our asses off over these people freaking out.

There is another cut after that.

___

I’m torn as to whether this happened first or the following restaurant piece happened first. I know for this section, I had the cat wake me up right as I was reaching the end, but I honestly can’t place whether the following piece was before or after the alarm. The fact that I’m dreaming so much despite being woken up is… odd.

Anyways, I’m walking through some sort of town, I guess. It feels largely underground. I’m pretty sure I’m with E. When we first start walking around, the place feels under construction or similar. We walk up onto this walkway, which goes over some lower transit (road? side walk?). I remember telling him that this seems like it’s even more progressive or built up than where we are (???)

It’s blurry where we go, but the whole location is pretty dark and dank. This is why I expect that it’s underground. Much like with the restaurant, there seems to be a red cast over a lot of things. He and I are sitting somewhere, I’m not sure why. It feels like there is a sort of path of water that meanders through this place, and we’re sitting by that. There are multiple people sitting in this area, and for all I know we’re tailing someone, or waiting for someone.

Ultimately, some dude ends up taking a playing card (I think it was mine?) and folding it up. He writes something on it and places it into a bracelet that’s on my right arm, though the bracelet is thin like a hair tie would be. He then walks off. I pull it out, and it’s the 3 of hearts, and it says “Barry Martinez (or Martez, not sure) soon to be seen”. It’s written out in a thin, nice cursive. This is where I wake up.

___

We’re in some kind of restaurant, I guess. It’s dark and red, and strikes me of a place I’ve been to before. The decor tells me that the meals here are expensive, and you probably have to have a fair amount of money to even go here. I’m with two people. One of which looks like a DD shard, and I can’t tell who the other person is. THere seems to be some miscommunication going on when we first get there, and I remember milling around in the back (by what my brain registers as dressing rooms or a bathroom. maybe a jump station?) with these two before being sat down.

The table structure is very odd when we’re sat. It’s like a booth had two extra tables coming off of it at the end, creating one super long table that probably could have sat 8 people. I’m way down at the short end, so two tables btwn me and the two people I came here with, as they’re sitting in the booth.

I seriously can’t figure out why I’m way down at the end of this table.

There is some shaven muscle-strapped man sitting in the booth to my left, where the DD piece is. He’s not treating him very well, and seems to be trying to edge in on him. For whatever reason, the other person I came with (on the right) isn’t doing anything about it. I start to get annoyed with what the man is doing, and eventually it’s like DD gets pushed into the chair, where part of him has been sucked in by the back crease of the chair.

I stand up and push my way into this booth chair and move the back cushion to pull him out. I get mad at the muscle person, yelling at him and knocking the side of his head. I tell him to get lost. I am guessing he does.

The next part I remember I’m sitting in that same booth seat, but DD has moved to my right, and the person who was opposite him has moved to my left. Someone has brought us whatever we ordered. It reminds me of some weird burger/beef sort of dish, sans bun. We cut into it and the dream cuts.

___

I’m in a small truck with two people. I’m pretty sure that the person driving is the same person I was with in the restaurant, and I still can’t ID who it is. I feel like I’m sitting in the same chair with the other person who has now shifted into being Brian. I’m leaning on the middle console of the truck. The interior is dark grey.

“Brian” is telling me that his teeth don’t stay straight very easily. That he constantly is fiddling with stuff in his mouth, and it keeps making things shift. The implication is that this is why he still wears a retainer, or some device in his mouth. Random.

We’re driving, and I spot some hidden small JP grocery store that’s nestled into a bunch of trees. I’m super excited about it because I had heard there was a “new store” in the area, and that must be it. It’s like a small piece of ultra mod in a very old school setting. It’s a bit weird.

The town we’re in feels really small and slightly rural. It feels like something that exists on a port or bay of some kind, as though there should be water nearby. The buildings are small and of the tall and narrow type. Everything feels… trapped in time, in a way.

We pull up to some parking lot. It feels small and gravely. The area seems to be covered in a fair amount of trees. I remember getting out and placing my hand on some sort of mesh-type wall. I’m swinging my hand around a bit, an idle habit of mine, and I notice that on the other side of this mesh appears to be some kind of gong. I get excited because I somehow know what this means. We’re at a shrine of some kind.

I walk down this mesh wall and there is a covered porch sort of thing going, as we make our way to the second building. I can’t remember if I open the door inside, or if the man I can’t place does. It’s weird because part of me is like “I shouldn’t go inside, they’re busy doing things and I’d be interrupting”, but I also know that public can visit jinja.

Either way, I end up inside. The floor drops a little bit, and there are several low tables and various weird pews in this room. There are pillars lining the drop in the floor, and right in front of me, I see two women working at a low table. They’ve got the Heian era hairstyle, where it’s parted in the middle, and gathers at the nape of the neck. There seems to be some kind of golden design on the center of their foreheads. They wear white tops, and I assume it’s red hakama, but I can’t tell. The kimono has a sheen to it, as though it’s woven of silk.

There are several others working in this room. I remember one person felt like a young girl, maybe 10, and she was wearing some kind of olive or light green kimono made of a rougher texture, with white hakama. It feels like it should be a honden, but I don’t recall any shrine on the far wall. As I walk into the space, someone in a dark kimono with white crests asks me if I’ve come to pay respects, or give offerings… or something similar. I think I tell them yes. They seem to be explaining instructions to me, but I’ve forgotten what they said. All I know is that on the far wall is a table with a bunch of stuff on it. It seems like their honden style is different, possibly, and instead of going to an outdoor shrine where you ring the bell and give money, you go up to this table and shake some stuff, or move some things, and pray there….

but the alarm wakes me up before I get that far.

planes to cuba

The beginning of last night was spent mulling over design and painting. I can only assume mental bleed through for spec work. Later in the morning, though,  I began to dream pretty clearly. It started off in a car. I was driving and on the phone. I was about to drive through an overpass- the kind that I hate, like the Stack. However, something has changed in how I drive- maybe someone created a work around so that I wouldn’t get so nervous? It was as if I was driving by feeling- leaning against the inside barricade of the road, and letting it guide my vehicle as we made the curve. Nothing was damaged on the car, and I wasn’t completely touching the barricade, but I could feel it, and it helped to guide me so that I wouldn’t freak out.

Odd.

Then I’ve met up with someone and they are driving me around. There is some young girl? with us, I think. Teenager. We’re driving through this city and get stuck in traffic. He and I start off feeling pretty platonic, but at some point there is a huge ping that is like ‘I LOVE THIS PERSON’.

Later, we are in a small drop house sitting on the floor amidst a bunch of crap, and we’re trying to work on energy or getting up the nerve to be close to one another? He looks like DD, but doesn’t really hold a lot of markers that DD has. He wears all black, the way that my son did before. He’s thin, but closer to my height.. its strange.

There is a shift in house, and it gets larger, or I’m more aware of the other rooms. I see something round, like a BB8 bouncing against our window. I try to reach out the window to get it, but it drifts away rfom me like an asshole, so I say “screw it”. Someone asks me if I’m going to get it, and more or less tell them that I don’t feel like it. I walk and eventually close the front door, which had been left open? and go back to sitting on the floor.

There is a cut, and I’m walking out of my workplace and crossing the road to the west side. There are a ton of potted plants littered all over the sidewalk. I continue to walk and when the road starts to curve, I meet up with people and we start checking a bunch of different switches that are attached to things on the side of the road.

I think there is another cut and I’m back to sitting with that man.

___

Tuesday night’s dreams were crap. The only parts I really remember were sitting in a house that registers as gma’s, but wasn’t. I’m looking out a small window and see this blue airplane land down in the yard. IT’s close to us, as I can only see a portion of the tail. I know that someone important to me is on this plane (registers as G), and it begins to take off and fly over the fencing (there is no way it would have made that pattern in real life) and take off. And part of me knows that this person is gone forever (brain said “this plane is going to Cuba,” no lie). I spend most of the rest of the night feeling sad while dreaming stuff I forgot. I was half-lucid in the morning and felt myself grabbing onto him, breaking down crying that I was so worried he was dead.

idk.

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.

Dead Men

It’s the middle of the day and I’m too depressed to even function. I opt to lay down in an attempt to rest, hopeful that once I wake up, I’ll feel better.

I lay down, and like so many of my naps anymore, I hardly feel like I’m asleep. It’s more like I’m laying there with my eyes closed, except somehow an entire hour or two has managed to pass in the meantime. This time, I can sorta feel myself drifting into sleep, but I don’t dream until close to the end.

At the end, I’m driving somewhere. The location reminds me of QC, but it reminds me of other places I’ve been, too. Open, flat, and filled with yellowing fields. There isn’t much to report in terms of landscape. I remember trying to see the light and determine whether I could turn or not. Figuring out what was going on was challenging, as the roadways were kinda foreign to me, and I’m not sure that I actually knew the rules of driving in this place.

For once, I am by myself.

It’s weird to realize that I was probably in three places at once, or all of my adventures possibly crashed into one another and overlapped a lot. At first I was at a T-bone street, waiting to hang a left. Fields were all I could see across from me. But then I’m driving down something that reminds me of Phillips road as it bends at the base of the small hill. Am I in a dream layer of QC?

The roads here are paved much nicer than the ones in the waking layer. There is a lot more development, in that there are a lot more houses, and they’re packed in closer together. As I hit the curve in the road, I see that some sort of gas station has been erected on the left side, and a DQ has been set up on the right. Except this DQ is an A-frame stone house….

I remember commenting that that was a nice thing to have there. That they ‘needed’ these things here. Not sure I”d agree with that in the waking.

While I was on my way down there, I could feel myself getting busy with someone somewhere. This someone had long, straight hair, and I’m honestly questioning if it was W. Before I had fallen asleep, I had seen someone that looked like a weird form of DD place a ring on my hand, on his finger. I questioned if maybe I got it wrong, and saw the wrong finger. But considering what happened while I was asleep, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t wrong. I remember while this was happening, that I was thinking to myself that it was odd that I was feeling these things, as my depression had been so thick while I was awake, that the notion of getting it on was laughable. There was no way that I was going to feel anything through that haze.

I forget what exactly woke me up, but I don’t think I made it past that curve in the road. When I woke, it felt like I hadn’t even been asleep, and the depression settled right back in. Except now it burned, because we all know that W isn’t around anymore. He’s like a ghost that just tears at the edges of my mind anymore.

___

For once, E came and found me. My depression had gotten so bad upon waking, that I basically dug myself into that silty dirt and just laid there and stared at the darkness. I guess maybe he had felt it strongly enough that he decided he needed to step forward and make sure I was okay. Ever since the night prior, I could feel the taint burning into my skin. My pale pink skin became ashen and dusty. The taint no longer seems to draw specific markings in my skin, but instead just discolors everything. Perhaps it’s how it works when you’ve fully taken on the mantle.

He wrapped me in his cape and sat with me for a while before taking me somewhere. Later, I realized that I was being held by G instead, and that E was busy working. It sucks a little bit, knowing that anymore he’d rather work than anything else. But at the same time, I recognize that there is a lot to be done, and given that he had to spend the bulk of the past month or so asleep, I guess it’s understandable. So I try to make the most of the man I have instead of focusing on what I don’t have.

We’re able to rile him up a bit. Him and his pretty feet. He goes to touch my chest, and one of the girls pops out and hands him a necklace. I feel liek I’m seeing this a lot lately.

___

Dreams are kinda meh. The earlier part of the night seemed rather black, or completely gone from my memory. By the time I can remember, I’m hanging out of the edge of a helicopter, asking if I can jump into a pool of water below. Almost like a pond at a restaurant or golf course. Apparently the pond was too shallow, and it was ill advised, so he hovered a bit above the ground and I jumped down instead.

Ooookay.

Next thing I can recall, i’m sitting in some sort of weird… ride type thing. Except I don’t know that it was a ride. I believe E was there, and this open topped monorail type cart is skirting around the exterior of this… location. There is a big set of buildings, and a big pond/lake thing outside of that. I remember commenting that the ride was going to dip down and possibly get us wet, and he didn’t like that. Ah, but I certainly was looking forward to it.

We dip down and curve around a bit. I had my eyes closed, which was annoying, but it was fun. Eventually we apparently get off, because the next portion we’re inside. The inside is huge, and reminds me of how the strip likes to cram three and four different things into one building. This place reminds me of a resort with some kind of zoo and maybe an amusement park attached to it, and we’re busy looking at animals and stuff.

Except not really.

We end up cutting into a location we’re not supposed to be in, and I assume (in retrospect) that we’re looking for something in particular. Dirt on someone. Files. Information about whatever they’re experimenting on. Something. We do this in a few locations, ducking into back rooms and trying to see what we can find. Too bad I don’t remember anything specific anymore.

And like usual, the alarm wakes me up before I can reach a decent finishing point.

Feathers on the Ground

Last night started off over in QC. I was walking with someone that reminded me of my grandmother. We were out where Brenner takes off, and there were tonssssss of people on both sides of the road. It reminded me of the new age retreat that is held out by my mother’s, where a bunch of people settle in for a time and “rough it” by trying to live in nature without modern conveniences.

There were so many people, and they were stripping leaves off of trees and gathering things to survive, and I could feel the land just revolt from this, and I had the urge that I needed to get these people to stop doing this, because they were irreparably damaging the land.

Further down Brenner, the lady mentioned that it was interesting to see that I was finally starting to accept whatever it was I am supposed to do. That she wanted to be here, but knew I didn’t. I remember telling her something along the lines of- i know I can’t get out of this, and I’m stuck here, so I might as well do what I can with it.

__

The second half of the night is completely different. Everything is nighttime, and the location still has snow on the ground.

We’re scouting out some large house that seems very Victorian or at the very least- historical. The wood is dark. Everything feels dark with a few pops of saturated color throughout the house. I don’t remember anyone being there.

I remember being outside, to the left of the entrance (facing out), and I am talking with someone (male, I think) and they are going to go investigate elsewhere, and they turn into a bird and fly off. I feel conflicted, am I supposed to be following? I’m not sure.

I circle behind the house, and the next thing Ir emember I am somewhere nearby, and looking into a storm drain. The storm drain contains 2 large feathers that look like owl or hawk feathers. Maybe both.

I know that this is a bad thing, and I think to myself that I need to tell someone about this when we come back. Almost as if we needed to get somewhere, but when we come back, we are going to look into this more.

About 5-10 feet to the right of this, I spot a whole line of feathers, as if someone had dragged this bird across the ground. There was struggling implied, and the feathers were much smaller-about 6-8 inches in length. They looked like they came from a variety of different birds. I remember some white with spots and a few that looked like owl. It was interesting.

On one end, these feathers just ended. On the other end, we were in the middle of a street and a large container was on the ground. The texture and color of the exterior reminded me of a coconut shell. There were things inside, but I couldn’t see much. I do remember hoops and a mirror. The shape reminded me of a christmas ornament- rounded in the center with points at each end. There was a circular hole cut into it where you could see inside.

I remember picking it up and trying to figure out wtf it was. Was the bird pulled into this? Or pulled out of it?

Pretty sure I woke up before I found the answer.

A fire in the south

Nobody is holding anything against you.

The words rang through my head. I knew he was trying to tell me not to worry so much, but I couldn’t help but feel like an ass anyways. There are so many times when you look back on behaviours, and having all of the context, realize that you made things worse than they needed to be.

This was such a situation.

___

He stood about 30 feet away from the woman sitting at the table. She had a thick book in front of her, and across from her sat a man who needed assistance. She pointed to the manuscript in his hand and explained to him what he needed. And once she was done, she went back to her reading.

He did this a lot. She spent a lot of her free time here in what appears to be a library. She poured through all of the books she could get her hands on. And he watched from a distance.

“Why don’t you go say hi?” the Person in Charge asked him.
“I couldn’t. It would be pointless anyways. She won’t remember me.”
“Does that really matter?”

For the first time in years, I get a glimpse of what was going on outside of these two. I feel, briefly, what the person in charge was like. In many ways, he reminds me of W. Calm and kind, but serious and fearsome when needed. He is chummy with the people under him, and he tries to be something of a wall that protects them from the fire that rages in the south.

I have no clue what eventually has him talk to her. I’m sure the Person in Charge did something that forced them together. I remember D telling me that it was obvious there was a connection, even then, to anyone who had the eyes to see it. He felt that people wanted to push us together in order to make something happen. But I am not sure who or why or even what.

And in the end, it doesn’t really matter.

___

“I know you’re hiding something” he tells the Person in Charge. “I can tell it. Let me inspect your grounds.”

The person in charge knows that he can’t stop him from doing just that. Anything less than that will result in needless bloodshed, so he gives the okay. It is at this time that he walks in on her. And for the briefest of moments, he catches what sticks out of her head.

And in that moment, he knows what he needs to take from this place in order to succeed.

___

When you can’t get what you want by asking, you will take what you want by force. That is how he has always been. The embodiment of a child in a grown man’s body, he will take whatever he wants for himself in due time. Nothing stands between him and what he feels he deserves.

And in time he will kill the Person in Charge. That will leave the person underneath him. As the man lay dead on the ground, his blood not even cool yet, he will turn to the Second and ask him for the person that he wants. “Give her to me. As a sign of your loyalty.”

He will have no choice.

___

The parts that always follow have always confused me a little bit. On one hand, she knew why he took the path that he did. Because the alternative was to die on the floor right there, and she would have been taken anyways. But despite knowing that, she spends a long time afterwards being very bitter and angry at him.

I still can’t tell if this is at the work of F, or if there is something else at play here. It wouldn’t surprise me if maybe he rotted part of her brain away, so that she’d forget why she was there, and all she would feel when she saw him was anger.

When she’s first brought to her new location, he will search up and down for the artillery stored in her hair. But he will find there is nothing there. She will have broken them off long before she got there, and so there will be nothing for him to see.

As they start to grow back in, the hairstyle will change to cover them. It’s the only way to ensure her safety.

___

“I have someone that I want you see” he tells her. He grabs her arm and forcibly walks her into a room. Across the way he stands there. The room is tense, and you can tell this is nothing but a power play.

She offers only the coolest of civil greetings while he stands there uncomfortably. He will add to the mixture by forcing his tongue down her throat and causing pain in her arm if she tries to break away.

Later, when he finally has a moment to approach her alone, she will tell him that he should just go home. There is nothing for him here.

In a way, I feel like she was telling him to save himself.

___

Eventually they get closer again. I’m still unsure how that happens exactly, but I would bet it has something to do with the hell she was living through. When things are so horrible, you’ll hold onto the tiniest scrap of decency that you can find, and I’m pretty sure he was that to her.

When he finally gets to see her up close, he’ll note how the horns have shifted. They’re no longer where they’re supposed to be, and he posits that it likely caused pain to have them forced into such a position. In retrospect and learning about how these things grow in, I’d bet that she was being forced onto with so much frequency, or placed into so many positions where her head was always against something, that they naturally ramped upwards because they had nowhere else to go. It’s kinda like when dog’s nails get too long- they end up curling back up over the toe in order to not break off. I’m pretty sure this was the same.

There are times when she’d sleep and he’d be awake, and when that happened, it’s like all of the glamour would fall away and he could see parts of what was going on where he couldn’t see. There are times when he’d be brought into the cells and would be forced to watch what went on down there. Everything is a power play to him, and he played his hand whenever he could.

___

There are brief moments of time when I see him interacting with Keets. Looking at things now, I began to wonder if Teru ended up being the main person that oversaw the East. She was known for being brutal, and there are factors that imply that Keets did some time there.

He looks so much “more” during this era. So much more put together than when I knew him. But at the same time, he looks like someone who was hardened beyond repair. Perhaps that’s why he ultimately broke and left.

I’m almost positive that he played a role in my being turned over to the Person in Charge. Perhaps he was trying to fix things in his own way. I can only imagine his frustration when his movements added up to jack squat.

___

The end is always the worst. I can hear it in his mind, that whatever happened there severed my connection to the past. The horns are so much more than they appear, and they seem to have a lot more weight to the culture that they originate from. They contain things, trigger things, and allow certain things to happen.

They’re more than just features that poke out of your hair.

ANd whatever was done to her successfully cut her off from all of that. He’s not surprised I remember nothing, because everything was effectively taken from me as I lay dieing on the ground.

He spent months afterwards trying to scrape up any pieces he could find. He’d even seek out Keets’ assistance, which I’m sure he actually gave for once. People can work together for the right reasons, I suppose.

Knowing all of this, though, makes me feel bad for the way things were handled here and now. Watching Teru’s behaviours with Keets’ still confuses me, since she seemed to simultaneously hate and love him. Is it possible that she still felt things from me? Could my emotions have bled into her? Or was there actually something btwn them at some point in time? I really can’t tell.

I remember watching the ribbon burn off of my arm. The scarring that stayed there for months afterwards, and the cat and mouse we’d play after that. He swears he holds nothing against me, but I can’t help but wish I could go back and do things a little differently.

Above all, it highlights the truth that you shouldn’t let people dictate your actions. Listening to the wrong person can be disastrous, and my experience was no exception. I can only be glad that things ultimately worked out, more or less. Despite the meddling on all sides.

I have worked just as hard as you to be here.

The Sun & The Moon

The sun does not need the moon, but the moon needs the sun.

This phrase burned in my head for years and years. When it was presented to me, I would have thought myself to be the sun. As the man leaned forward and tried to reach me, he a dark shining black, and I a brilliant gold. It made sense that perhaps he was reaching for myself, needing the light that emitted from me.

However, it’s always struck me as odd, that I don’t glow at the core. I am the absence of light, really. It’s as if my flames went out somehow, and I was nothing more than the smouldering remains of what was once a brilliant fire.

And maybe I am. I still can’t tell. Pending on how E and I were made, it’s very possible I was once a fire that has now gone out. But even so.

I muse momentarily about the nature of the being of water. That she was a combination of people, and even after those people were separated from one another- would they need pieces of the other to be stable? ANd why is it that the star seemed to follow the water and earthen lines so closely?

While I mused, I felt a shift, a snap, and I see two girls. They are twins, or sisters at the very least. One looks like me- unruly dark hair. The other has long waves of gold for hair. It shines brilliantly in the light. ANd she is telling me that daddy loves her more.

But then something happens and she is mad at me. Daddy won’t give her his gift. Instead, I am receiving it. He tries to tell her that it isn’t something that would suit her nature, but she won’t hear it. She feels betrayed by both of us.

And then I infected one, while she got shoved into another, possibly.

I am standing in some sort of weird alcove, and I’m looking out over stars and galaxies. He stands behind me, and tells me that I am actually the moon. The moon needs the sun. The sun doesn’t need the moon. My sister does not need me, but in a way, I needed her.

Doesn’t matter, because we all got thrown apart and strewn out in our own ways.

I ask him what it’s like to feel the sun, it must be magical, if the moon feels that tied to the sun. I see this warm light hit his face. He leans back and closes his eyes and looks completely at peace with everything. He tells me its the best feeling ever.

I ask him how this works with me, then. Why do all of these people seem to need me and follow me if its the other way around? He tells me that I need them. Even if I don’t realize it, I need them. I see an image of myself being broken apart and shooting off to various parts of the universe. Each of these people finds a piece of me and picks it up. They hold it to their chest, and the piece sinks into them. The piece changes color and slowly permeates their entire being until they are tainted by me.

I take people and drive them to seek me out. I infect people so that they will want me so badly that they will do whatever it takes to get back to me.

Like magnets, when a piece is pulled apart, they want to be brought back together. Except those pieces are now housed in someone else, and so it is the person who is drawn back.

I tell him this sounds awful. Cruel and unfair. He asks if that’s really the case.

He tells me that unlike the light, where if you get too close you ultimately get burned to a crisp, darkness is really something you can’t have too much of. With light, everyone must be kept at arm’s length, lest you destroy them. But with darkness, you can bask in it as long as you want with minimal consequences. I start to feel sensations in me, the kind you get right before you climax, and he talks to me about that particular point in time, when it feels so good and you want more. That it’s an unsatiable hunger. And to have just enough taint in your blood that you get that buzz without the negative side effects of having taint take over… it’s like being caught in that moment indefinitely.

It’s like being high on something. On someone. He tells me that it doesn’t seem like such a bad tradeoff to him.

I see myself hiding amidst all of these firey people, and I am reminded of my exchange inside of W.

Surround yourself with as much fire as you want, but you will never feel true warmth again.

He talks to me about how the darkness, the moon will naturally bring its pieces back to it. It will naturally want to connect with other parts of itself, with parts of the sun that will allow it to feel that warmth again. I huddle in btwn fire because it allows me to feel warm, to survive and thrive in ways I can’t do on my own.

Perhaps it is why F followed me so doggedly. Perhaps that’s why DD followed her as long as he did.

I ask him, then, if that is the case- were all of the Circle members drawn to him? Was he sucking people in because of his taint and need for the Light?

And the connection is cut.

I knew you. I knew you before all of the others. Even before him.

Long Needles and Sunken Cities

“Did she manage to figure out what your song is?” he asks.
The other doesn’t respond, but the silence speaks volumes.
“Well it’s all over for you, then. There’s no escaping it now. Once your song has been found, you’re caught.”

He bemoans that it hurts so much to hear the notes. It’s overwhelming. The feelings and emotions that course through you.

“But that’s the point. That’s how it works where we’re from. Our love is not easy. It is harsh and consuming.”

“Remember. You asked for this.”

___

I am sitting outside, talking with E in the darkness. Are we at the same location as last time? I can’t tell, but it feels similar, like a balcony in a city. We muse about the meaning of songs, the songs that we collect and why we collect them.

This is all new to me, but it all makes sense. I don’t know why he never told me sooner. Maybe he didn’t think he needed to.

There is a shift, though. His face looks older. His eyes are different. I feel someone else pushing through.

I lunge forward and shout at whoever is standing in front of me. I’m on my feet, but my arms are restrained behind me. These large… cuffs cover the entirety of my forearm, and they are attached to thick chain that bolts into the wall.

This man. He looks familiar, but I can’t place where. He’s taller than me, not that that is hard. And he looks like someone from the 1800’s of Europe. He’s got ruddy hair that forms into chops that bleed into facial hair. He’s also got a pretty long mustache. He takes good care of his appearance.

I feel the other part of me pass out as I slip into this location. I feel E panic as I fade. The man who is here now walks over to a table and does something. I try to force against these restraints, but nothing happens.

He tells me that he knows of my kind, and so he knows how to ensure I can’t get away. I ask him what he wants with me, but he refuses to tell me. He says that telling me will show his hand, and allow me to hide it. So he won’t say.

He comes back towards me with this long… needle? in his hand. It looks like it’s a good foot and a half long. I begin to panic, because I know what humans do with needles like this, and I expect no different here. But I can’t break free. I can’t do anything.

He pushes me back against the wall and finds some sort of spot on my lower abdomen, and shoves it upwards, so technically, per human anatomy it would end up probably piercing my heart and maybe a lunch. My brain starts to frazzle. I can’t tell what is on the needle, or what the metal is doing with my system, but it’s more of a mental reaction than a physical reaction. I don’t feel anything per se, but my brain starts to filter through a million things, all while I try and force it to not look at anything. I don’t want him finding whatever it is he’s looking for.

His hand is up around my neck and face. He tells me to focus. Stay awake. Focus. The only thing I can mutter in response is that I can’t. I’m losing consciousness. I can’t control that.

I feel myself start to fade into black when I feel a shift in my body. I can hear, and I can see through the people who have popped out of me, but I can’t see much. I know that my inner bits have pushed out. They are not the same species as me. This man’s restraints may not effect them in the same way that they do me. I know that D handles the man, while Hinman tries to get me free of the wall. He can’t remove the cuffs, though.

I begin to convulse. This is almost the same thing that happened after I began working on DD. That poison or whatever it is, that makes my body overheat and try to shut down. I hear D tell me to think of water. To keep calm, but it’s hard. My body reacts on its own.

A few minutes go by, and I feel him trying to remove whatever was shoved into me. It’s not just the metal that is a danger, but whatever was on the needle- as I’m fairly certain there was more than just metal.

There is panicked discussion, and before I realize what is going on, I’ve been slung over D’s shoulder, and we’re running somewhere. After a few minutes of this, we end up… somewhere else, and there is some other being there. D seems to know who it is.

I’m laid on the ground, and Hinman places my head on his lap. I can tell he is worried. He’s a right to be.

After D and the person have finished talking, he sits down next to me and braces against me. I am told to try and not move. To try and focus on something else somewhere else, because he needs me still. It is a slow process to cut these cuffs off of me, and I’d bet it takes close to 30 minutes to get it done. When they finally start to break off, it’s like I get this image of the cuff trying to penetrate my markings, my skin. Almost like little worms trying to crawl into my skin.

I still don’t get why there seems to be focus on my forearms. But it’s a trend I’m starting to notice more and more.

After they are cut off, my arms are wrapped up and I am carted off to be handled. But I pass out before we get any further.

___

“I hope the entire city isn’t like this” is the first thing I remember from last night.

I am standing with a group of people on some outcropping of rocks. We are looking out over a valley where a city should be, but all you can see is the tippy tops of a few buildings sticking out from a mass of water. The city is underneath of this water, and who knows where all of the residents are.

We then walk further down the coast line to find out just how much damage has been done. My brain wants to register this place as NC. I remember looking out over an outcropping of land that reminds me of the Outer Banks. This place looks like it’s still intact, and there are a number of people running around this area, possibly because they’ve been pushed out of their own town/city.

The whole area is still functioning, but just barely. Its as if a natural disaster occurred, and everyone is trying to continue on as best as they can. Some areas were certainly hit harder than others.

I spend a lot of time walking around, assessing damage. Ultimately, I end up back to where the worst damage happened, I’m in some sort of hotel room with full glass windows. I look out where the water was, and it has been replaced by grass.

In the grass are hundreds of people. They are hiding and blending in. I call to some of the other people in my presence and point it out. Above the grass is a bunch of other people with weaponry pulled out. A man in a helicopter has a gun with a huge scope on it. I can see that people in the grass are targeting the people on the hills and rocks and in the sky, while the people on the rocks and in the sky are targeting us.

There is a man here that registers as Obama (yes, srsly). This person is who they are primarily after.

Just as I realize this, I push him back and gunfire lights up the air. The glass breaks into a million pieces as we run to safety.

I don’t know what happens after this. The next thing I recall we’re driving or walking somewhere else. I can only assume we got them to safety and then we were on to the next thing. I hope.

The next location seems familiar to me, and I’m not sure if its the place where I ran around all night a few months back. It’s a place where the roads are more made for walking than for cars, and all of the houses are sorta built haphazardly into the landscape. Nothing really makes sense, and it’s really easy to get lost.

We end up crashing in some sort of garage, or what I’d consider a garage. Someone that registers as my mother is there. I end up spending a lot of time looking at the oceans around here. Noticing the beaches and the formations at the beaches. Someone that registers as Jeff tels me that he doesn’t like beaches with rocks, something to do with he only likes it if the rocks go… all the way to the end, or something. idk.

There are a variety of styles of beach here, and idk if I’m looking out to ensure that no more tidal waves are coming, or if there is something else I’m doing. After I’m done with this, I end up going back to the garage. I get woken up by someone on this sort of mechanical tractor thing that reminds me of a t-rex. I get pissed off at them for waking me up, because it took forever to fall asleep, and now they’ve woken me up, and it will be difficult to fall back asleep.

I remember my mother taking me aside. She pours a bunch of small keys in my hand and tells me to go. She hands me some larger, longer key. It reminds me of the nefer sign, or perhaps an arrow. Everything else was silver, but this one is black. She tells me to go, because she can tell that I am miserable here. I tell her that I am miserable everywhere, because of depression.

I turn and go.

I start walking through these roads. I see people tending their yards and gardens. They stop and look at me- I probably stick out to them.  I turn down a side road and end up in some secluded enclave. I can’t really describe it. It’s like the plant life made a canopy so thick that it’s a ceiling. There is something here, though. Fish? Something else? I’m not sure.

I pull out thoese keys, except now they look like silver rings and one bangle. I place one ring on the ground- it’s geometric in nature. And then I dig a small hole to the left and place the silver bangle inside. It’s a wide cuff, and the ends are very curved. Something is stamped on it, but I can’t tell what. I place another ring inside of the cuff, one that has a wide flat band, with two rope like bands above and below it. I cover them both with the dirt and turn to leave.

I don’t get any of this.