i’m in a boat

I’m listening to a younger part of myself imagine going out to the edges of existence, being isolated, being alone.

I am standing in a reed boat, its too small to sit in, but you can stand in it. My left hand at my chest, my right holds a papyrus staff. A box nestled into my abdomen contains a small statue of Amun, mummiform. There is a sun disc, the only thing I can see from third view, and I feel as though there are ears on my head that are not human. We are floating forward, towards the edge of existence.

I fall out and I am standing behind her. She now stands in the boat, the papyrus in her right, who knows of her left. Her garment is red, her belt is golden. She is simultaneously human and not all at once.

I don’t know what to do in this moment, but I start to walk towards her. The garment turns clover green and I pause.

Did I cause that? She is so completely unsurprised that I did, but refuses to elaborate anything beyond that. Just as it does in the duat, the way it did in the mass of void, things gather, grow, and ebb around the area where I stand.

We exchange words.

Before I’m pulled back to myself, I see that Amun is now astride, as a king destroys what plagues.

Not Present

She is massive, somewhere off in the distance. She takes up the bulk of the horizon, and she’s mostly outlined via stars, a weird mixture of 2D and 3D.

We are in the darkness, but it is bigger, lighter, and less oppressive than so many of the starfields I frequent. She is lined in gold and she looks more like Aset than herself. Her sheath dress has gathering in it, and there is a belt across the waist. Her hair hangs to her shoulders.

I ask her where we’re going ro what we’re doing, and I’m being thrown forward through darkness and space. Suddenly, there is a hard cut and everything is white and bright, but still a starfield.

I find my footing, and I’m standing at the end of a long, narrow walk way. I feel as though we are inside of a large bowl or walled area. I can’t tell what is around this walkway, but it seems like the horizon is blocked visually via a wall. At the end of this walkway seems to be a small ramada.

In my hands is a jar. It’s unglazed and has a not-flat bottom. It changes shape, sometimes its larger and I have to wrap both arms around it to carry it. But always, you require both hands to hold it. There are times when I am walking towards my destination when I look down into the jar and watch it collect my tears. Is all of the liquid tears? I don’t know.

My body is changed, though. I feel more like my physical form, but its been distorted because my internal views of my body are not healthy. I hear from above “Why are you not [present] in your form?” over and over again. I want to recoil over looking like this. My hair has been shaved, though it would have been weird to have my human hair just as well. My clothing reminds me of hers, a sheath dress with some sort of belt. There are times when it feels like there could be more or could be less, but I can’t make out the details.

All I know is that I need to take this jar to the end of the walkway and toss it into whatever’s there.

I try to grapple with why I am not present, why I’m not here. It doesn’t matter if she means there or here, the fact remains that I’ve had a hard time wanting to participate or be forward in any situation. I don’t want to be here, life is hard, I’m tired, and nothing feels worthwhile. I’m not present because I don’t feel a good reason to warrant the suffering that comes with being present.

The scenery shifts as my form retaliates. I’m back in my usual presentation, though I’m still not fixed, I still can’t be over there for very long before my body starts to shut down and fall apart. This space is dark and it feels darker than the starfield, but still less oppressive. It feels round, as though the walls are gauze. I’m on the ground, my cleave filled with rapidly cycling gold and copper. Angry and painful, I try to keep the internal screaming at bay. I writhe but try not to let it rip me apart. She stares over me a few feet away.

There is a point where everything begins to crescendo and I see the coursing gold in the first three fingers of my hand. There is a ring on the thumb I don’t recognize, but it is geometric, large and dark charcoal. She reaches down and breaks it between her fingers and my vision goes black.

I never get to toss my jar in.

___

I see my hands in his and I see the lace of his cuffs. I try to make out his current state, and I see that his silhouette invokes the Red Death, but his coloration is nothing like. Every aspect of the clothing is large and ornate and saturated. It’s a type of outfit I’ve not see on him in possibly years, if ever. He wouldn’t have had access to garments of this measure while alive, and blending into the crowd is how we’ve gotten by.

He reaches down to the finger that is his and removes what’s there. “We need to fix/update this” he says, with the implications that he’ll be back once the work is done.

I sit under the tree in a dress that is very common to what I used to wear, and yet is very much not my normal style. The fabric is more sateen than I am used to, and the sleeves mirror my normal wear. I settle into my self and wait for him to return.

___

There is someone across from me. I reach out to touch them, and through my hand I feel the shift of focus. I’m pulled out and viewing two people, presumably myself and someone that registers as Brosky.

His skin is darker and ruddy. The hair reminds me of a blend of B and E. The sides are completely shaven clean, and there is only a central strip where the hair has been formed into what reminds me of locks. These locks are coated in something that reminds me of mud or putty, and to some extent, the hair can blend into the skin because there are hints of red in both.

This reminds me of a vision I’ve had in the past, which reminded me more of Karas’ line, where reds and ashes are the most common colors. Is this tied to that?

The rest of the person’s details are lost, the only thing that really drives home to me is the outline of the jaw, the angularity of it is not what I expected, I think. The next thing I know I’m standing outside of a large building that looks like it’s made of stone. I feel like I’m standing on sand, or something loose, and the sky is dark.

I am reminded of SGI’s paper, the desert that didn’t used to be nothing but sand. I am reminded of my own desert, the one I can’t access anymore. It held remains to a place, several places, that I couldn’t access anymore. Originally, I had intended to make it more hospitable again. I know the struggle.

There is then this fire that emanates from a central location, the way a radial gradient does. This fire is two toned and more illustrative in stylistic than literal. I know who this is tied to, and I feel that mistrust leaking into me. I know who you are, and I know what is being implied.

However, I still can’t figure out what the source of the mistrust is. The vision carries baggage so heavy that I can’t even stay with it, and am forced to cut myself off before I’m overrun.

It’s possible we’ve known each other that long, but if so, what happened to cause the rift that exists. Why does an entire pantheon know a thing and yet hide it.

We all know the answer.

___

We reach for eachother in the darkness, but upon touching my form starts to dissolve. We separate and regroup, only our hands and heads able to manifest in this darkness. He goes from being alert to falling asleep in a matter of a few moments. Briefly, I can see him sitting in a chair that isn’t his, with both girls asleep on top of him. All tuning into whatever it is that cajoles people to sleep.

T works in the next room.

___

I’m running and these large blades come out of the sky and pin me down. Hitting my foot, then my legs, torso, all the way up to my head, the skin and body giving way as the knife hits the flesh has a gorey and almost fake effect to it. The blood reminds me of a neon salmon, if such a thing exists, and its shape reminds me a lot of claymation. There is the suggestion of pain from the swords, but not enough for me to actually react to it, and the swords look like nothing of mine.

A being made of nothing but the suggestion of darkness stands a few feet away. It tells me that we need to get moving, and tells me to hurry it up. I feel myself as mist or steam rising up from the death on the ground. I hover amidst the blades, trying to reform myself.

Slowly, I can hover a little bit above myself, I calmly and slowly ask it what we’re doing, why it killed me. A saddness wells in me when It tells me that it didn’t kill me, that I killed myself. The sadness is subdued, I hazily ask it why I did that.

“Because you needed to be reborn.”

I’m hovering above myself, but I’m mostly just laying there. I’m so tired, nothing will move. I tell the shadow I am trying, but it’s taking more effort than I can muster at the moment. Below the surface I can feel G there. In this moment, its as though we’re fully blended. You feel separate but one, like you could sift the parts apart if you really wanted. Like standing in a really humid and steamy room. You’re wet, but dry.

The shadow makes this hazy grey box around me, and a stick forms connecting me to him. It begins to walk forward with this box floating behind, a similarly grey bar connecting one to the other. I focus on regrouping as this being walks forward towards who knows what.

After a time, the shadow announces we’ve arrived, and when I look up, I can see this large sea of what I can only describe as lava. Just like with the blood, the coloration is not exactly what you’d expect. It’s brighter, more neon, less physical and literal than you’d expect. I tell the shadow that the lakes are larger than I expected. The shadow doesn’t seem to care. It tells me that we need to get to the other side.

I try to continue reforming myself. I shift my focus from inside of myself to outside of myself nad back again, but nothing’s really happening that allows me to see well enough to figure out how on earth we’re going to navigate this place. I ask the shadow if there were any preferred methods to get across, and it gives me nothing.

I’m trying to get my shit together when I hear “okay, well, bye then.” and the next thing I know the shadow has used the bar that connected the box to him and used it to catapult me over the edge. I hit the lava and sink deep down into it. I question if I have made enough progress for it to not eat me alive.

It is still and quiet under the surface. The consistency is hard to describe. Thick, creamy, but also gritty and giving. You don’t really float up or sink down necessarily, though through the following portion, there were times when parts of me did shift up or down, depending.

I focused mostly inward, flipping through memories regarding Teru, though a few others came to mind. Off and on, pieces would push out of my skin and float up towards the surface of the lava. Eventually, I feel as though I was wrapped in a lava cocoon, and I fell asleep.

Rites in a Row

The last time I was able to get to the snake goddess’ location, I was stopped before I could reach the shrine because I was wounded. I told her not to worry, and warded myself off from her area. I sent forth a pure form of energy towards the shrine, and basically offered her a shabti.

Whatever had happened, I was grabbing my left shoulder/chest. I reminded myself most of the weird mixed me than pure me. I was giving her an update about things, asking her if it was possible to break any sort of curses or limitations that have been placed on them, since it almost feels like they’ve been bound. She seemed hesitant at first, but then a smaller version of myself came out of me and asked her, and her attitude changed entirely.

The form was definitely marked wit me. The clothes were more mine, and to some extent, the general proportions and placements of horns really told me that it was myself. However, it was not a form I’ve really seen myself in before. My horns were shorter, my hands were defaulted to hooves. And I had hair all over, more like a cow than myself. But definitely standing upright.

She told me she’d get to it right away and left. I fell through into somewhere else.

____

I’m standing in a rectangular room that is very long. The sun is shining outside, but the room is fairly dark.

There are long, short windows running along both sides of the room. These create little pockets of diffused light throughout the room, except for the very end where a very large bar of light shines on a stone table. This is where the offerings go.

___

I’m standing in darkness in front of two very tall doors. These doors feel more energy than physical, until they don’t.

I’m holding a shallow brass basin in my arms. It’s laden with fruit. There are ornamental handles on each side of the basin.

There is something touching my leg, and its annoying me. About as fat around as my thumb and a silvery grey/blue. I don’t get why they strapped this to me.

There is some sort of percussive noise, and suddenly the doors open. As I begin to step forward, I feel all of the people around me appear in their proper places.

There are people in front of me and behind me. The room that we’ve entered is very. very long.

We make the long procession down to the other end. There are people chanting or singing? And ofc that percussiveness continues.

We stop. Someone talks. A lot of people talk. Years pass. eventually I step forward and place my basin onto the table. I bow and back up several steps.

More talking. More percussive. Something is placed in my hands.

It feels like a stand or hanger for a necklace. They place this 4 or 5 stranded necklace onto the hanger. On each end is what feels like a large golden bird face. I step forward a few times. They incense it and talk to it and other things.

I then step forward and place it onto a lower position than the basin, I think. I then lay flat on the floor, extended childs pose, and there is more talking and singing and such. I remember somewhere along the way thinking “thank gods I don’t have to say anything because I wouldn’t be able to speak it properly.”

I then shift out of the room and find myself prostrating in front of someone in a large throne. They’re seated and I can only see about the waist/knees down. They feel largely two dimensional. They are mostly gold lit up on a dark BG.

I tell them about what we’re trying to do. I tell him that if he wishes to read my heart to see if I’m lying, he can. I then lift my torso up and open up a set of small doors on/in my chest. Inside is a small vase. However, sometimes it looks like a bright light shining forth.

I forget the rest. I eventually land back in the room and we slowly do the backwards shuffle out the door.

Black Hole Sun

The hall is dark and everyone is silhouetted. I can only see a double doorway far off from where we are. The light is warm and soft and the whole setup makes me think of being in a convention center.

The affair that was occurring has since been ruined. A person coming in with a flash of green light. I know that everyone was shocked as this person postured at the front of the room, everyone inside seemingly being powerless to stop whatever was going on. But no one ever filled the dots for me.

__

I knew we were subverting Ra somehow. I knew that we were bypassing his checks and systems. I knew that O had no fucks left to give, if he ever had any fucks to begin with.

No one ever told me how we bypassed those systems. No one ever told me why O had to go “the only way I could figure out how to get you in.” No one ever told me what forced Ra’s hand, nor who was at the helm of this shift.

__

Do not let the freedom go to your head.

These words still rattle in my head every day. Words of caution expressed from first-hand experience.

You may be free, but you must still remember your responsibility.

What’s it even like to be free?

Because we all know I’m just a pawn on your board right now. I may be holding the keys, but you’re telling me which doors to open.

Do not let the freedom got o your head.

__

It started off as sheer hatred. Get away from me. I want nothing to do with you.

The morning after I dreamt about the Duat, and I could tell that I was still unliked, and I could see his fingerprints all over everything. I knew that I didn’t know enough of what was going on, but that I wanted him nowhere near me.

Somewhere, though, it shifted.

It went from “I don’t want you around” to “if you’re close, you’ll be implicated.” As sort of this gives you plausible deniability.

Where did the anger go? And why was he not allowed to participate?

__

The moment I stepped in to start giving Wpwt offerings was the moment I began to question the link. I wrote it off, ofc, but I questioned it.

The offerings passed with minimal issue. Wpwt almost never collected the offerings, or he only seemed to use a small amt of anything that I left. So I just began to fill as many spaces as I could with whatever I could think of. Going so far as to let the energy seep into the ground the way we let groundwater seep in.

The next-to-last day I asked Wpwt if he wanted anything special for day 7. He showed me an image of a candle, and so I bought one and burned it over the next few days. THe day that I threw its waxy corpse in the garbage was the day I got a notification that the person got their request.

__

HW was similar in nature. Everything slowly developed every day as I showed up. The shrine slowly became enclosed by woven grass, and everything took on a very natural look. There were red flowers that appeared and bloomed at various times along the top of this shrine.

I slowly added stuff to the room I was in, since HW took literally nothing the entire time I showed up. I started adding bags of grain, large bouquets of flowers, jugs of wine, whatever I could think of. On the final day I built up energy with A and bled it all out into the space. The ground was fully saturated.

__

During that final energy working I saw a clear image of a drawing I had made, which featured a black hole. “Drain” was the keyword. And I knew in this moment that it was tied to Ra.

I completely knew what the vision was trying to tell me.

But I wanted to refuse it.

There’s no way, right? That’d be too real. Too much. No one would believe me.

I set out to get as many readings as I could, and the most I could get from them was that the NTRW were on a track, but after realizing (through hardship and trial, it appears) that the track wasn’t working the way they wanted, they changed direction.

But no one could tell me what caused them to change direction.

So I pulled my own cards. And it built a picture. A picture where Ra/O (no distinction made) stayed in place out of fear. They didn’t want to give their bounty, their ideas, because they feared that someone would co-opt them, take them and manipulate them in a way that they didn’t want. Every Creator wants control over their creation.

But something changed, right? What changed it? The card is one associated with me on the astral, one that speaks of an up-and-coming force, a neophyte that is working to climb a ladder. Someone who capable, but lacking experience.

And the next card? A black hole. The card is literally a super nova, and apparently that’s linked to “what caused them to change direction” and is related to the card that is tied to me.

And when I asked for further confirmation that Ra could potentially be this supernova?

Nebula. The bits that circulate around after a super nova has occurred. It’s matter that is trying to reform into a star.

But there’s no way, right?

__

Don’t let the freedom go to your head.

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.

Deeper

It was late Sunday night when I got the ping of a message being delivered to the river. I opened it up and it recited its contents back to me. I was being asked to report back to the Duat for “my Lord” required me. There were, ofc, a lot of extra rules and regs in there about what I could and couldn’t do until my probationary period is over, but that didn’t matter as much as the “you need to show up within the next 24 hours”.

The next day I found myself laying in bed with G. Everything has been a mess since returning from the control room. At first I was asleep in the infirmary, but I soon found that I was being pulled out to work while asleep. For a while I stayed in bed with D, but then one day he pulled me into himself, and I lost all contact with the main house. On this day, I must have been out at a drop house with G. The room was small and the ceiling had a weird coffering to it. There were wooden slats on the windows and the entire room had a very small and cozy feel to it.

However, I was too miserable to stay there. I cut a part of myself off and went outside. I found myself sitting on the railing of a boardwalk. The sky was completely grey. The clouds blended into the horizon and the ocean was dark and slate colored. I pulled out a cigarette and smoked for a while. I walked in the surf after that, but realized that I should probably go back home. So back into bed I went.

That evening I found myself being pulled inward by GF. I have to have him with me, now, so it makes sense that he’d be the one to initiate going back. I see G run up from behind us, asking me not to leave him behind. We walk forward in the darkness, and darkness eventually gives way to a golden network of threads, which then led to a cut in the horizon. An entrance.

It’s weird because on the inside, it’s a mountain range. When you’re outside of the plane, it looks like huge pylons.

We come up on the river and GF disappears briefly. The sky is still rather dark, almost as if the sun is about to rise, but hasn’t yet. The river is so much larger than the one I frequent. Across the river is a large city. You can see lights along the edges of some of the buildings. The silhouettes really stand out in the darkness, and I’m slightly in awe of everything. This is the first time I’ve been to the more inhabited parts of the Duat. The first time I’ve seen a city of any actual scale.

My netjeri returns with a dude who seemingly is going to take me down river. We pile into this tiny ass reed boat, him in the front, G behind me, and an apprentice in the back. We make small talk on the way down- it takes probably close to two hours to get where we’re going, and by the time I’m getting out on the docks, the sun is fairly high up in the sky. He hands something to a small boy who runs into this new town we’re at. Ten minutes later, he brings back someone that maybe is of priestly status. My boatman was in a straight up kilt and wore a collar and had some kind of wig on (or he did his hair well). This new person seemed a little older, had the collar on as well as some kind of round pendant, was shaven, and wore a tunic instead.

I gave payment to the boy and the boatman and the new person led me and G back into this town. I wouldn’t have guessed it from the river, but this town is very large, and it seems to be hilly, possibly. Or at the very least, isn’t flat. The houses are tightly packed into this place, and unlike everywhere else I’ve been, these buildings still have their whitewash in place. We stop briefly on a ridge so that I can stare out over the city below. There is a downright huge complex here. It’s scale reminds me of the palace in Aladdin. It dwarfs everything around it. We continue on and I’m led to a very small building that is nestled amongst a bunch of small houses.

The building has some kind of small courtyard. We walk into the gate and the man disappears inside. The courtyard contains a bunch of small trees and a small pond type thing. We sit down for a bit and eventually the man comes back. I ask him if I need to pay attn to any purity standards, but he tells me that it’s fine. We walk under a portico or porch awning and then through a doorway where everything becomes pitch black to me. He takes my hands and leads me forward, but before I realize it, I’m walking through him and beyond him. Back into complete darkness again.

I pull out that blade that O gave me and we continue forward. GF steps in front of me and I use both to figure out where to go. We eventually end up at a very small stone doorway (sans door). We continue down the walkway, and it slopes downward how they typically do inside of a tomb. I feel like I’m repeating something from a few years ago.

The area here is warm, and the stone is almost lit up, even though I didn’t see any light sources. GF runs ahead of us, and we slowly make our way down the pathway. Eventually the pathway ends at a dark room that is likely a pillared hall. That’s where we’re met by who I can only assume is O. His voice is so much more booming and foreboding than it has been in the past. I suppose you could say that he put on his game face for this. He leads us further into this place through a set of large double doors, and we ultimately end up at some kind of… oasis, I guess you could say.

The area is filled with water. There are lily pads on the water, and there is an ambiance of frogs and other smaller critters running around. In the center of this place is a piece of land- possibly made to mimic the ben ben. And on the land there is a slab of stone or concrete or similar where he has his living quarters while he rejuvenates. I’m busy handling life at this point in time, so G holds onto me while they talk. When I come to later in the evening, things are weird and I have a hard time focusing on anything. Everything looks very weirdly 3D and transparent. Time speeds up and slows down at random. Nothing processes easily and I get bogged down by the weirdness of it all. I black out.

The next night I find myself in the water, still. In some ways this water seems to want to lead me to D, but there is more to it than that. I feel as though I am here for a reason, and O hinted as much. There is a suggestion that I was here once before, because I heard it “calling to me”. If that’s the case, its entirely likely that I left something here to pick up later, and I question if that’s why I’m back. I stare up at the nothingness and I find that there is an entity that shows up and talks to me. They are humanoid, but they lack a lot of details. They’ve got no eyes, and their mouth reminds me of Creeper’s- pointy and almost cartoonish. In a way, they’re like a spider on human legs, as it seems that they’ve got possibly 10 or 12 arms. They are form and yet formless. And they ask me why I am here.

I tell them that I am poisoned.

Course, I don’t know this. Am I? I thought that I had my lines cleaned out so that W’s toxins wouldn’t fuck with me, but the implication is that those poisons still linger and affect both me and D even now. He seems to imply to me that the whole point is to prevent us from being able to reconnect and move forward. So now we have to clear those out.

This place is likely a small pocket of Nun, created or maintained to help O regen every year. I began to mull on the nature of the Nun, and this entity that was working to help me remove or fix whatever I had contracted. We never could get W’s problems to fix or heal. The connection was so damaged that there was nothing we could expect to do, outside of remove all of the lines and hope that if he ever came back, we’d be able to start from scratch and not have poison in the mix. However, I hadn’t considered that if D took all of W’s stuff afterwards, or that if I took those things, that one or both of us might contract the very same illness W did.

D2 thought things out well.

But technically the Nun contains all possibility. One possibility out of millions is that we were able to find a cure. And so I know a cure lies within this water somewhere. Now we just need to find it and use it.

Zep Tep

I hold the ankh into my hand and try and fall into the darkness. My hope is that I can find a backdoor into see Set so that I can ask him about the arrows.

But when I get into the darkness, I find that someone else is waiting for me. He tells me that he will close all of my doors. Take all of my keys until I can’t get to where I need to anymore. And that he’ll keep doing it until I give into him and work with him. I tell him that this isn’t how the game is played, and that he’ll lose.

We banter and I find the backdoor I need. I cut the connection and fall into the water. I sink to the bottom and revert back to the top where I crawl out of a pool that is in a stone room. A man standing by the door freaks out and yells at me, asking how I got in here. I hold my right hand up, and tell him that I have permission to be here and to get the Lord of the house. I can’t tell what I held up, I only remember seeing gold of some kind.

I have Hinman pull me out of the water. I seal the pool off so that nothing can follow me through. I’ll let O do his own sealings once I’m gone. I stand around for a few minutes and wait for O to show up. He is confused as to why I am there, and pulls me in for a hug before I can finish my sentence as to why I am here.

I explain what I’m trying to accomplish, and he takes me somewhere else in the building to help me get to where I’m going. The pool-room seems to have been underground, and once you go up the small flight of stairs, you essentially come up through the floor, and it almost feels like you’re outside. AS if there is a small grouping of pillars or something around that door. And then you continue to walk until you hit a long stone hallway, and I lose track of the layout after that.

We enter into a small room that sorta reminds me of a storage room, but not entirely so. He lights some oil lamps and I stand there staring at the wall. He goes to some table in teh corner and starts to look through papers and scrolls and stuff. I talk to him a little bit about the water, trying to figure out how to help E drown. He tells me that he didn’t help me drown myself- I was already trying to do that on my own. All he did was help to open the door at the bottom, so that I could begin to actually get somewhere.

“Wpwt isn’t the only one who can open doors, you know”

He finishes doing whatever it is he’s doing (writing on linen or papyrus, I think), and he takes these strips of.. something, and places them on me and on teh ground around me. He starts to say something, and I stand there for a few moments before I feel myself shoved to one side and into a wall.

I can hear a dog barking in the distance, and eventually the distance is right in front of me. The dog seems friendly- a lot more earthlike than GF, and a hell of a lot smaller. I ask this dog to take me to someone that lives there, and it starts to run off and I follow.

This place is large and I can’t make heads or tails of where we go, but I know that we end up in this huge colonnaded room. I end up stopping half way through running after the dog and just stop and look. The whole place is calm, and it reminds me of slowly circulating water. The ground is stone, but I feel like I’m standing in shallow water. The ceiling has stars on it that slowly dot in and out. The pillars feel alive, as if there are clumps of plant life there.

I reach out to touch one of these pillars, and I see it light up when I touch it. The typical grass and flowers grow at my feet. I feel myself begin to be sucked into this calming energy when someone yells at me, and asks me wtf I’m doing touching their stuff. I try to explain to them that O sorta sent me here and I have no clue where I am (where you need to be, apparently) and that I’m just trying to figure out who to talk to so I can find Set. He gets angry at me, and grabs my left arm and starts to drag me out of the room. As we’re walking forward, I can see this large… sparkling mass of orange energy at a very far end of this hall. It reminds me of the solar disc, wrapped with the snake, riding in a boat. But he pulls me out of there too quickly to get a better look at it.

He continues to walk quickly and drag me down the hall when Hinman pulls out and removes his hand from my arm. I fall down because I’m simply out of energy. I don’t have it in me to do much anymore. They exchange words and the man continues to be angry. I forget exactly what is said, but eventually you hear that dog again, and there is a loud booming voice asking wtf is going on.

He comes forward and addresses the other man in a language I can’t understand. I tell them that I’m losing consciousness, and I feel this new person place their face in front of my forehead, and there is.. breathing? a touch? something that helps to ground me into the location. There are more words exchanged btwn the men, and I explain my situation to the newcomer, which seems tog et the other person in trouble.

This new person seems to have a shaved head, or close to it. He wears a kilt that has layers to it, and he has a broad necklace whose counterweight is a long rectangle. Above his head, I get the idea that he has some kind of headdress. Either the red crown, or something similar to what AMun wears. Either way, I telll him that I’m here to look for Set, and he tells me that he can summon him. Something manifests out of his hand, and he whispers to it, and it wooshes off to somewhere. The cranky guy was sent on his way somewhere in here, and this new person takes me back to that room so that I can look at it.

He seems interested in the reactions I get from the room. I fall into one of the pillars, and it’s very calming and easy to get lost in the light gold energy. E pulls out of me and tells me not to get too lost. Whatever I’m doing is messing with what he is doing, so I stop. By this point Set has shown up, and he tells me the arrows aren’t mine, and not quite something I can control yet. And to come back later to ask about the other questions (I haven’t yet).

And then I black out because physical life takes over.

This is My Show

I was thinking about the epag days and how I was super slacking this year. Nothing fancy for anyone. No offerings. Nothing special on the shrine. Dull as dull can be.

In the process of this, I must have triggered something, because I found myself at the river, crying into O about how everything hurt. My heart hurt, my chest hurt, my mind hurt. Everything. hurts. My hands felt like they had something in them- ribbons or hair or something like that. It’s like it bled into the water, became one with the water. So simultaneously the river and not the river. They were heavy and I struggled to really use my hands or lift them against the weight as I cried into his chest/torso.

He stood there in his usual fashion. Quiet. Eventually I found myself sinking into the water. I felt the dull thud as I hit the ground. Hands wrapping around my shoulders. I black out.

Later I come to and I feel like I’m sitting on a stone bench. At this point in time, I’m pretty sure I’m in the Duat, which likely means he sneaked me in without permission. He’s doing something behind me, and it feels like he sometimes is messing with my hair, so perhaps he’s doing something with that, I can’t tell. My senses are completely fried, and I can’t see a thing. I ask him to please come where I can see him, so he kneels down in front of me. He seems younger than he usually does, and a little bit thinner. I still struggle to see, though, and I break down again.

He tells me to pull out some runes. I pull cards and they aren’t pinging as being accurate, so eventually I do as he says and pull out my rune bag. This is all while I keep blubbering all over him. Please tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m so lost. Everything hurts. I can’t tell if I’m going to lose my job. I can’t tell if everyone hates me. Over and over and over again.

When I pull my runes, my coins fall out with them. I almost feel like the coins were more important than the runes, though. I muse on them b briefly. I consider the possibility of each coin representing a menz. I have menz for each metal- copper, silver, gold. But there seems to be some overlap btwn a few of the metals, and I have no clue what to make of it. O tells me to put them under my pillow (which hasn’t done shit afaict).

Uruz comes out in the hand with the coins. Hagal and Laguz in the other hand. When I read the meanings, I am still just as confused. And I spend most of the night crying.

Added: These poems really speak to me. I will likely be using them moving forward.

__

As I fell asleep I found myself laying on some sort of stone “table”. I put table in quotes because it was kind of like a pedestal, but not. Think of POE where the dead kid is laying in the barren room. It felt a lot like that. Including the sheet. I tripped balls for a bit and kept seeing and feeling weird stuff but never got anywhere. Eventually, I ended up talking with someone who presented as Set.

He kept asking me what I wanted. What do I want in a job? Do I really want to stay here or do I actually want to go somewhere else? Would I rather keep my perks or try my luck elsewhere? What did I enjoy about staying here? What was keeping me here? Where did I truly actually want to go? Push yourself to consider what you really want, not what is comfortable.

I was also told that I needed to learn to stay calmer. He seemed frustrated that one of his own was reacting so badly to the stress, to the chaos. How can you expect to be effective if you can’t keep your head clear? How can you stay above water like this? He pushed me to calm down, to remember my training, to act in a way that he would want me to. To remember the basics.

By the end, I was told that I needed to figure out what I wanted and write it down in his book before Friday. To what end, I don’t know, but that is what he told me before I blacked out.

“That may be, but I’m the one running this show.”

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.

Kill it with Fire

The only dream I remember from last night is being in a busy square. I look across the way and see my grandfather sitting on a bench. I run up to him and jump into the seat next to him. I simultaneously think if I should be giving away my feelings like that. I still can’t tell who he was supposed to represent, or if it was an illusion, astral, or weird brain barf.

The square reminded me of a previous dream I’ve had. And the whole scene looked very blue and desaturated.

___

I lay in the darkness. I try to find where I am or what is going on, but I fail. The connection is barely sticking this evening, and my brain is too busy churning from drama to stay focused. But suddenly, I can connect. I focus on teh darkness around me. I comment on how it feels so much more inviting than it did a few days prior. I feel hands and limbs and roots wrap around me. I then realize that this darkness is alive, and that this is invasive.

I see the smile show up behind me. The voice that talks in my right ear. I can’t tell who it is, but he strikes me as being the same man earlier in the evening. The L that owed me a drink for the hell I got. And his offer to “deal with” the illusionist.

I make a quip about him copping a feel. He tells me he’s seeing how far he can go before I get mad. I tell him it’s hard to fight back when you’re mummified.

His hand slips into my stomach and he pulls out what looks like a ball of mud, dirt, or dung. “There’s your problem” he says as he breaks the ball apart. He moves in close to my neck and pulls out a thread and breaks it. Light shines through my bonds.

He tells me that it’s interesting that I’m not trying to ascertain if I should let him do things to me. I tell him that anything he does could be fixed.

Brave words.

About this time, another part of myself checks in and I see we’re fighting K. I can only sorta keep up. We fall to the ground and my wrappings disappear and my clothing changes. I’m wearing a high collar, typical of At’s realm. We’re in shades of olive and silver. Although my hands appear free, they feel bound behind my back. He stands to my left and has pale skin and red hair. We’re walking forward, and the more I look up at him, the more he looks like her.

I stop and turn around. I’m fighting while interacting. He/she asks me what’s wrong. I tell them that they look like someone. And I can’t continue further.

I choose to settle this by killing it with fire. My connection goes completely dead as I reach into both of them and pull the trigger. A while later I’ll see that I’ve washed up at the ocean, and that Hinman has found me. But beyond that? dead silence.

___

This afternoon I laid down in bed and saw what there was to see. I realized I couldn’t really feel the rest of my body, so I tried to feel it’s various aspects. I tried to tell if I was wearing clothes or not. If my arms were crossed or side to side. While I mused, I fell halfway asleep. I found myself standing up where I leave O’s offerings, and I looked down at the river and saw a group of people standing by the water. I watched as he touched the water and turned it to ice. I see myself in my coffin, and I say that they are trying to freeze the river. Beneath me, in the darkness, I see O facing the opposite direction from me. He tells me he will stop them. There is an exchange, but I loose grip before I see the end.

Late, I saw or felt a set of blades running along the top of my lid. Part of me thought maybe I had found a way to cut the lid. Another questioned if maybe someone was cutting me out. I worried that maybe the river led them to me. Or that maybe I was cutting myself out too early, or something else. I feel the lid lift and the change of pressure in the air. I feel hands come under me before magic or something else takes play and I’m lifted out of the box. I’m laid on the ground onto what feels like a mat.

He tells his assistants to leave. It is just him and I.

He runs his fingers along different parts of my body. He touches something to parts of myself- head, shoulders, solar plexus, hips, knees, etc. He slowly cuts off and unravels my bindings. He seems overjoyed or sad or something when my face is finally free. He leans over me and kisses my forehead. It’s almost like it pained him to leave me here.

Slowly, my body is released from the wrappings. I’ve got my rings on my fingers. And the style of dress is a short pleated linen thing that looks very NK. It is baggy and loose, no sheath dresses here. There is a gold broad collar at my neck. And linen sandals on my feet. The things under my hands? silver discs. Still not sure what they represent.

I smell incense in the air. I question if this is really happening.

He tells me that they have been ejected from my body. The hunt is still on, but they are at least no longer fighting me from within.

I lay there and stare at the ceiling which is covered in stars. I can’t move. I try to collect my limbs. I try to move something, anything. But nothing happens. Slowly, tears form in my eyes. I have no clue why, but I start to cry and I don’t stop. My core aches and I can’t do anything about anything.

While this is happening, I feel an energy marker that is familiar to me. O gets up and leaves the room. I continue to cry. When he comes  back, the left and right will both be there. And the right will grab me  up and hold me to him. He’s way more emotional than he usually is, esp in mixed company, and I question again if this is real or illusion.

I lose my connection after a while. When I check in later, he’s asleep.