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#49: Final Farewell

03/27/17

I’m making this log to inform you all that I will no longer be continuing my investigation. After the last time I stopped posting it only felt fair to let you know this.

#48: HOLY HELL I FORGOT BEN HAD A YOUTUBE

03/19/17

Please refer to the title for the opening line. I am a moron. My mind’s been pulled in so many directions I forgot about the YouTube links in entry #24 completely. I don’t even blame Darek for that; it was my own oversight.

Ben has been quite active, shall we say, in my ignorance… what follows is an analysis of every video uploaded to the Ben Fiinix YouTube channel.

First Video: There is a distinct cut during the video in which Ben loses his alcohol and glasses. I suspect Mark may have done something here. Forest imagery is heavily present in all videos and may imply significance to that forest path in Ben’s neighborhood.

Additionally, several numbers are present in the title. Some refer to the filming date (and possibly time?) but there are certainly extra numbers in the string that have no apparent value. If Darek has taught me anything it is that accidents are rare when dealing with the Figments. Those numbers must mean something.

Second video: The numbers in the title recur here. I think the person writing the titles and descriptions is Mark. It makes the most sense. Chameleon and Zanark have a distinct communication style so that rules them out. Mark can control Ben like Darek controls me. Therefore he is most likely responsible for uploading the vlogs.

This entry details some irrelevant things like Ben taking up smoking again. I don’t blame him; he clearly is heavily stressed even over a year ago. He brings up a security app as a method of catching his hacker. It obviously is never brought up again as he can not technically call Mark a typical hacker. There is also an image of Veronika with a hooded figure cut into the entry. Could it be Mark?

Monaco: This is a video of Ben claiming he does not want to bad-mouth me and then proceeding to talk shit. I mean, he isn’t dishonest in a lot of what he says, just subjective. Despite the schism between us I still see the old friend I grew to trust like a brother. I hope one day we can reconcile our differences.

Here is another interesting tidbit about this video. The song that starts playing at the end is called Anna. Did Mark do that for me to see specifically?

GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY PHONE YOU COCKBITES: Here we see Ben’s outraged side in its natural habitat. There is a lot going on in this video that deeply troubles me and I wish I had seen it sooner. It was uploaded on Alice’s birthday. It was precluded by a video shown in between cuts that directly involves Alice. Most of the videos contain messages hidden within them for Ben to find, it seems, but I am also seeing things that clearly involve me. I do not know if Mark is the one leaving those clues, like the song in the last video and the message in this one. At this point in time(late March), it seems Chameleon had influence over Mark and used Ben to fuck with my head. I don’t like it. I’m even more uneasy about the future now.

There’s also a reference made here to Mammoth being victimized by ADDICT. I made some notes back in entry #11 about how I suspected based on Facebook evidence that ADDICT may have long ago completely coinhabited Mammoth’s mind. The two really are indistinguishable personality-wise.

Envelope: This video contains footage of a hooded figure, obviously Mark, placing the envelope for Ben to find. This presumably occurred during the strange camera cut before Ben was panicked running down the street. It reinforces the theory that the hooded figure beside Casey/Veronika was Mark in the second video.

There’s a lot going on with the coded messages in this video. As far as the ¾ code, I will save my in-depth thoughts for a later video. I have a pretty strong lead with evidence gathered and want to pursue it more before commenting on my thoughts. I will however say that the party in the pictures occurred when Casey and I were together, but the pictures show her with Ben specifically. This may strengthen the Mark-Veronika relationship hypothesis.

I also do not think the capitalization code was necessarily deciphered correctly. It could be “Ben, remember what was” or it could be “remember what was, Ben.” Semantics, I know, but there is one more possibility. “Remember what Ben was.” Could Mark be a version of Ben akin to a former self? It is a thought-provoking possibility regarding the general relationship between Figments and hosts.

Rememberance[sic]: Casey’s death really seemed to hurt Ben like it hurt the rest of us. I guess this is what made him hate me so much. He blames me for her death, and I can’t fault him for that. I blame myself as well. Actually I blame Darek, but Ben doesn’t believe in him.

Anyway, most of this is a drunken reminiscence and Ben dancing around the fact that he had feelings for Casey. That’s about as honest as I was concerning Ali in the early entries. While it shows the same social politics, that does not give me any clues about the circumstances surrounding us. One key puzzle piece(pun intended) this video introduced is the blue Mega Blok which has been present in past vlogs. According to Ben’s testimony, it is an object he cannot seem to get rid of. I’ll speak about it more in later video summaries.

A final note for this one: it contains footage from the last video that makes no sense. In the Alice video, it shows Ben saying “she’s really gone”. This was in late March. Casey died on May 14th. Rememberance features a clip of Ben saying this same line in the same context about Casey. How could this footage possibly have existed before he filmed it? The implications here make me scared to consider. This could only be possible if time were being manipulated… right? If that isn’t the answer, it’s something scarier. No rational explanation can justify this. Just how powerful are these entities we have been dealing with?

Forest Video: Third in the series of videos containing numbers in their titles, this video is the first to really heavily represent the previously mentioned forest motif found in the videos. As far as I can discern, Ben was taken here by Mark for some unknown reason. Ben seems to be very confused regarding his general situation in the video. He will bring this up himself in a later video which is blatantly related to events in this video. For now I do not have any special comments I feel need to be added.

Music Video: This one was interesting. It was posted in September but I suspect it took place at an earlier date given the next video. I have done my best to recreate the message in this video for you to read.

"Is there anybody out there? My name is Mark Graves. Is there anybody out there? Hello, my name is Mark. I’m your mind sending out an SOS. Tell the mad Chameleon I’m not afraid of [???a voice without a?] face anymore. I found [??? Likely 'a friend’] on the other side [???] kill Chameleon. [???] words unspoken. Soul of the night, I bring you a message. Listen to me. Two worlds are warring. In your mind's eye you'll see reality falling apart again. [???] Starting over again…”

After this everything becomes slowed down including Castle of Glass, the song Ben was originally playing. A lot of the punctuation in this is theoretical as punctuation is largely inflection which is hard to convey using broken up song lyrics. I’m still toying with a comma or two deciding whether or not I’m getting the correct message. For the most part it is refreshingly blatant.

Mark, Ben’s own version of Darek, is sending the message to reach out to Ben. Because of the assistance of someone on the other side(Zanark) plans are being made to kill Chameleon. A tiny piece of audio is too distorted to make out here, so this is largely speculation on my part as go the specific meaning of the phrase “kill Chameleon” and the previous line. The line about reality falling apart likely refers to the recent events shown in Ben’s last video and how he is clearly still being targeted.

There is nothing to infer apart from what the video itself reveals. This message will also be mentioned by Ben later so any detective work is already taken care of for it. It does show off a unique and previously unused method of communication by Mark that I will have to look out for. Perhaps music plays a bigger part in past videos than I suspected. For example, does this mean Mark played the song Anna in the third video? What about the songs in Rememberance?

Vacation Footage: In September, Ben went to visit Mammoth in California for a week. The video record of it was filmed entirely from Mammoth’s phone. It contained several candid moments which implied the entities were making his phone record. Part of the footage was of a short hiking trip at Lake Tahoe and the majority of it is the two getting drunk for Mammoth’s birthday.

The blue Mega Blok showed up around 2:48 in. It is an easy thing to miss but it proves Ben’s point in Rememberance that he can’t seem to be rid of it. If Mark didn’t subtly place it there off-camera, some random kid left it there and this is a huge coincidence. But as I mentioned in the analysis of the first video, I don’t believe in coincidences when it comes to the Figments.

I’ve mentioned before a connection between Ben and Zanark as well as Chameleon and Mammoth. This theory is evidenced as early as entry #11 and was reinforced in the last video. Proof on Mammoth’s end shines through with a clip of him just laughing insanely. In the same clip is the sound of television static, mimicking a moment in entry #43 inside the black cloud. At this point I believe Chameleon has not lost influence over Mark. However, he seems to be more interested in using ADDICT as his pawn as Mark clearly harbors deep resentment for Chameleon, choosing to ally with Zanark instead. There are some undertones in the second half of the video in which you could tell it was not Ben talking to Mammoth but Mark talking to ADDICT. All the while Zanark and Chameleon’s hold over them paints their motivations. For example, Ben mentioned that his fingerprints were the ones on the envelope, obviously trying to work out that this is because he himself put it together. Mammoth goes so far as to suggest someone stole his fingerprints with silly putty. It was a scare tactic that probably made Chameleon smile. Keep the victim thinking the threat is on the outside. Keep them paranoid and vulnerable from within.

There is some extra possible leads to note in here. The last excerpt of Ben singing the song Shepard of Fire by Avenged Sevenfold may contain pertinent lyrics given how music is obviously a chosen communication method by Mark. Several of the earlier lyrics may contain hints as well if that is the case.

Investigating: At twenty two minutes and nineteen seconds long, there is a lot to garner from this video. It contains a lot to support what I’ve already observed. Ben even flat out suggests on his own that the videos were put up for him to see personally.

He has been silent on social media for half a year at this point. He says this is because the hackers delete his posts so he gave up on even trying at a point. As the video goes on it splices in footage from different recordings. One of those recordings is an early theorizing session that leads to the woods again. It is in this video that Ben brings up the inconsistencies with his statements in the earlier video. It is possible that the forest for him acts as the dark cloud did for me, corroding the neural network and breaking the occupant’s sanity. Another clip contains the 4/4 code on Ben’s literal wall. As well, there is the main video which is Ben’s own analysis of the entities, and a few isolated clips with some interesting occurrences.

The filtered video of the forest recurs here. Is Ben wandering the same forest as I did in entry #43, only his own darker perception of it? He encounters a doppelganger of himself at the end which I can only assume is Mark Graves. In the opening clip, Ben reveals that the blue Mega Blok has been replaced by a red one, and at the end we see exactly how the switch occurred. Mark gave him the red block, and every time it appears in the video, Ben becomes noticeably agitated. Mark says in the woods that Zanark’s protection is running thin. This suggests that the blue block was a sort of talisman provided by Zanark. It’s disappearance also seems to mean that Chameleon has power over Mark again, given the corrupted music and the decline in Ben’s mental health. This brings me to a big theory I’ve been crafting this entire investigation.

I think Chameleon can possess the Figments like Figments possess the host. It makes a lot of sense given the evidence presented. The attacks on all of us seem highly coordinated despite Madrik claiming each Figment has an individual will. If we assume Chameleon can use the Figments to act on his behalf while controlling their host, a lot adds up. In the forest portion of the blog audio clearly shows Mark is no fan of Chameleon’s, just like the music message implied. Mark seems to want to help Ben. So why would he cut Ben off from the outside world completely? He didn’t. He is being forced by a presence beyond the Outer Layer which can move between the Figments at will. It may even account for Darek’s habit of helping me one day and hurting me the next. Chameleon and Zanark might exist on an entirely different level than previously assumed. They are so deep in all of our minds they can appear to be an outside presence. It is almost conclusive based on what I have observed.

Between the code in this video, the envelope video, and my twitter account, I am piecing together a key phrase that may lead to important revelations. As stated previously, I’ll save this for my next update. In Ben’s analysis, he finally admits he is just as crazy as the rest of us. The videos always prominently displayed it, but in person Ben is experienced at keeping his inner madness hidden. Seeing him confess the truth is a pretty big deal to someone who knew him in another life.

He also discusses something interesting which links him to Zanark. The name comes from his past. I actually knew of this character from Richee, who created the RPG and referenced Zane occasionally. I just never put two and two together as the character was always referred to as simply Zane. A potential decoding of one of the envelope codes could be relevant here. “Remember what Ben was”. Zanark just might be a past version of Ben when he was younger and more compassionate, before Mark’s obsession with vengeance overtook that part of him. I’m unsure if this is an accurate theory as it is based partly on speculation, but there is a definite connection between the two.

That concludes the video analysis. I have one more thing to bring up relating to Ali that happened while I was looking into the videos. I had been gearing up to question her regarding Kendra and all I had learned. I fully intended to reveal the truth to her about my renewed investigation. The cat’s out of the bag already, though. She caught me watching Ben’s videos.

It was the video containing Alice’s birthday video. I remember it well because it is the reason things went so poorly. I was researching it after giving it a bit of a wide berth for a while. I wasn’t really in the best frame of mind.

“What are you watching?” She asked. The tone if voice implied it wasn’t a question.

“I’m sorry, but,” I stammered, “I can’t hide from this anymore. This isn’t just about me. It’s happening to our friends too. Don’t you care about them?”

“Of course I do!” She said. “This isn’t something I can’t help them with though. Ben never answers my calls anymore. The last time I talked to Jake he seemed really out of it and he wouldn’t respond with more than one or two words. What do you expect to do?”

“Get to the bottom of this illness.” I said simply, my eyes glued to the computer screen, doing their best to ignore her. There was a sinking in my chest as the conversation progressed. “If I can figure out what is causing this, I can help somehow! I’m so close to a lead…”

“Mat, you always say that. You were saying that when we first had this conversation. You’re never going to find answers. Every answer is another question and you know that. So why are you even bothering to play into Darek’s games?”

“Are you seriously asking me that? Thats a little hypocritical if you ask me.” I laughed bitterly. “This coming from the girl who talked to that psycho? Who fell in love with him and let him tell you what you could tell me?”

She pouted at me. “Don’t make it about that.”

“But that IS all it’s about! You and Darek. Are you even really Ali right now?” I searched desperately for the truth, for the arguments I’d crafted from my entries. “Because if you are, you’re being played. We both are! They’re making these things happen against our will!”

“But it is our will.” Ali said calmly. I could sense a demeanor shift. “They’re extensions of us, and they’re defense mechanisms used to help us survive. Their games are harmless to us, Mat. If anything, you should just trust yourself more to be able to handle whatever comes. This obsession is not beneficial to you.”

“But it isn’t harmless! They can clearly be influenced to perform malicious actions! And what about the doorway, and that dark cloud? You read entry #43 too; I know you did!”

“… they were just dreams, Mat. It wasn’t real.”

Something about that, about the way she said it, struck me like a knife in the back. A white hot flame leapt into my eyes and everything got real fuzzy. I’m pretty sure I broke her precious bong at some point in my unawareness. That sobered me up real quick and I realized I was letting Darek get to me. Something about what she said had set him off on a rampage. Ali teared up and ran from the room without another word.

Sullenly, I set about the task of restoring order to Ali’s room. I think she knew about what I was doing. She was one of the ten early followers to my blog. I don’t doubt she saw me update and just decided not to say anything about it until now. I did my best to quote the exact conversation. Looking back I wonder how much Kendra and Darek had to do with this little argument.

So at least I am mostly free to stop sneaking around now. Ali may not want to talk about the investigation but at least she won’t stop me from making my own choices. I’ll update as soon as I have anything new to share.

#47: Back to the Present

03/12/17

So that’s basically it. After seeing Ali, I moved in with her and her cousin Jae about an hour away from Wellington. I got settled in and started looking for work. Eventually I got a part-time gig as a corner store attendant. That started to take up more of my time and the entries fell to the back of my mind as weeks turned into months.

Ali and I had a long talk when I first got there about the investigation and everything I’d learned. Her insistence that I stop the entries was a big factor in me discontinuing updates via Twitter and Tumblr. The risks of trying to get beyond the doorway again, the stress of constantly obsessing over these written records, all of it was venomous to my health. She helped me see that. As someone who lived with her own demons and someone who helped me identify mine, I deferred to her wisdom in dealing with the situation.

But I’m back, obviously. I had to sneak around her, use her laptop when I was home and she wasn’t. It started on a quiet afternoon when I was home alone, surfing the web. Darek called out to me. He uttered a single word: Figment. It’s the term that came from entries I’d read; it’s Darek’s little jab at everyone who called him a “Figment of my imagination”. I did my best to ignore it, but the next day, while at work, he said a new word: Twitter. He wanted me to check the account he made for me. We played this little game for a bit, him intermittently repeating those two words and me trying not to lose it in public places. He has this impeccable ability to make me feel perfectly insane. His little one-word gambit had the effect on me he desired. I spent so long after hearing him whisper Twitter with naught for a response that even I started to convince myself the voice had been all imagined and that the real Darek had not said a thing.

He was back for real, though, and likely had never left. He was just waiting for me to build up a few blankets of safety around me before striking again. Obviously I caved. That is when I discovered the images:

https://twitter.com/CYHTCBR/status/840705714679087104/photo/1

https://twitter.com/CYHTCBR/status/836023998542721024/photo/1

https://twitter.com/CYHTCBR/status/825487213555281920/photo/1

https://twitter.com/CYHTCBR/status/820495754401906689/photo/1

https://twitter.com/CYHTCBR/status/820495726211895297/photo/1

https://twitter.com/CYHTCBR/status/808843714496004098/photo/1

He started laughing when I inspected the images. I noticed the letters in all of them, as well as the fraction ¼ in the profile picture. Something about this gives off a very alien vibe. I’m beginning to think Darek is not the only entity with access to my twitter. I can’t explain exactly why; it is more of a gut feeling than anything. The images with text as a form of communication has always been utilized by Zanark and Chameleon. I don’t doubt that Darek made the account for me himself, but he might not be the only one with access to it.

At any rate, after the bouts of laughter, Darek finally said something more than a single word. I still remember it word for word: Try your old Tumblr password again. You can’t stay still any longer.

I don’t need to tell you, reading this on my blog, that it worked on the first try. Have you ever felt like you were being used and manipulated but lacked the courage or resources to resist? That is how getting into the blog made me feel. I knew it was what he wanted but it was also the only reasonable remedy to that darkness in the back of my head.

I started reviewing and editing the past five entries when I could use Ali’s laptop privately. It is a bitch and a half keeping this secret from her but I’ve managed so far. In addition to new entries I have done some editing and rereading on entries up to #20 or so in the archives. If you scroll back you can see some of the leads I gathered. There appears to be some circumstantial evidence linking Chameleon to Mammoth and Zanark to Ben. I also have definite evidence in conjunction with #43 that Anna and Gwen spoke the truth when they implied I had been there before. Entry #15 referenced the same shrine detailed in that log.

Something else became apparent after revisiting entry #13 and the dream entries early on that gave me a frightening thought. Darek and Ali are linked in some ways. This should be more obvious given they were dating on Facebook and how, in #46, Ali gives my brain the nudge it needed to grant Darek autonomy. If Kendra and Darek are connected this strongly, how much danger does that put me and Ali in for being this physically close at all times? I don’t know if I’ve driven home the frightening levels of intelligence the two possess. They wanted this. It is not even a theory in my mind; it is a fact. Something big is coming. Kendra and Darek moved us along a set path to end us up here, to be able to collude in person. My hands are shaking as I type this.

I think I need to talk to Ali. I think we might already be in the endgame of whatever this all is. I make no update promises but I will try my damn hardest to keep this blog consistently updating for as long as possible.

#46: Ali

03/05/17

FTP: So, here we are at the final entry. From awakening in the motel room to now exactly a month had passed, and I was no closer to comprehending the riddles Darek had left behind for me. I still had half a set of coordinates on a notecard. Entry #43, which you have read by now, solved some puzzles but created so many more. The motel room was mine for a few more days and then I would be homeless, living on the streets. Luckily I had an angel watching over me and I’ not necessarily referring to Alice here.

I didn’t get a chance to include it in the earlier entries, but sometime between learning Casey had died and meeting Madrik I had a conversation with Ali in my grief. The end result of it was her asking to come visit me. This entry is the events of her visit. It also includes a little bonus story I think is beneficial to post which reveals the origin of Darek. This is the final entry I had worked on before being convinced to let the investigastion go, so the next entry I post will be in the present. I’m so sick of all these logs bouncing from the past to the present constantly. With luck, this will be the last log that takes place in the past. Then again, I’ve said that before.

09/24/16

I couldn’t quite tell you what it was, maybe Darek’s gaze behind my eyes, but Ali looked beautiful to me. I swear there was a golden aura glowing off her bright hair like a halo.

I’ve been lying most of these entries, shrouding the truth in social status and false appeals. Now I want to tell the truth. Now I want all to be known.

I first dated Ali after my senior year went to hell. My so-called friend Grant had a lot of lies to tell about me and it pretty much ruined my life, everything I felt I was. She was there for me, emotionally… and physically. I told her from the start that our relationship would not work out. Yet I longed for the caresses Casey introduced me to, the feel of someone against my body. Even then I think I may have still harbored a deep yet unrevealed love for Casey. But Casey wasn’t the one there for me. It was always from that moment on me and Ali.

Despite my lack of feelings for her I gave my all to the relationship. I tried to shower her with my affection, and there was a lot of it. I can still grasp that time in fleeting memories. Once we climbed the chain link fence to the elementary school and explored in the dead of night. Ali was no good at fence climbing; back when we dated she was overweight and exercise challenged She ended up losing a lot of weight because her dad pretty much starved her. On the way out of the school she got caught at the top of the fence, too scared to jump down. I encouraged her and cheered her on until she finally made the plunge to safety. As we walked away from that place a cop rolled up to the gate. We lucked out. He didn’t even notice us. When we went to retrieve our bikes we found out that someone had set off one of the silent alarms in the school. Who would have guessed elementary schools were so well-guarded?

That wasn’t the first school we had broken into that night. We had also visited the high school. That memory stuck out in my head. It was the reason we were so confident going into our adventure in the elementary school. We had snuck in through a hole under the fence. I climbed the inner gates and let her through from the other side. We circled round to the football stadium where we had sat through so many dreadful pep rallies and where countless students had displayed their school spirit in support of their team. We climbed to the highest point, over the commentator box, overlooking the whole school. The rain was falling from the heavens, drenching us, and we stripped off all our clothes and made out a bit. If she hadn’t been on her period, God knows I would have lost my virginity that night.

Here she was in front of me, a girl I thought was dead, a girl I considered my best friend, a girl I’d shared many an intimate moment with, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I just broke down crying in her arms, my ear pressed against her chest, listening to her heartbeat.

“She’s dead. Oh God, Ali, she’s dead and I killed her.”

She shushed me and stroked my hair. I felt guarded in her embrace, hidden from Darek and Madrik and Mark and Veronika and all the darkness that dwelt within and without. I let the tears flow like a faucet for my anguish. I knew if anyone could understand my suffering it was Ali.

“It’s all right, sweetie.” She whispered. “God, I haven’t seen you cry like this in ages….”

“I’ll bet.” I whispered into her bosom and laughed. “I missed you, y'know.”

“I know.” She answered quietly. “I missed you, too.”

A silence passed between us, not uncomfortable at all. We had ended up sitting on the edge of my bed in each others’ arms. In the turbulent war my life had become, this was the safest I felt I could be. Maybe that was all I wanted. Someone who understood to hold me and soothe my raging emotions. I guess God has a funny way of answering your prayers.

I looked up at her, deep into her eyes, into her soul. “Do you miss it? Being with Darek?”

She shook her head. “I missed you more.”

I remembered after we broke up, how I couldn’t talk to her without losing my temper, how I chased her away and made her feel worthless. I remembered meeting her again, nearly a year later, around the time I met Jake and started hanging out with Ben and Casey more. I remembered what she told me, how many times she’d tried to commit suicide after it was clear she could never speak to me again. We ended up reaching a sort of homeostasis, her satisfied having me as a friend, me relieved to find someone I could confide in. Even then, though, I remembered all the times she told me she was in love with me, starting before I even asked her out and not ending while she was with Rob. Sure, she never professed any feelings for me flat out, but I still knew. In fact, now that I considered it, she had said it out loud at one point. That was a night I tried not to dwell on, though. That was the night Darek was named. “I never…” I began, tearfully. “I never meant, y'know? For it all to play out like this.”

“Mat, I know.” She pressed her finger to my lips to quiet me. The tears still broke free despite it. “Nobody wanted it like this. It just is.”

I nodded, still at odds with my guilt and longing and insecurity. Life was really something else, putting me in a place like this, a place where I longed for a girl six feet underground and the girl who longed only for me was forced to hold the bronze medal happily. I didn’t even consider Alice in the ironies. Alice was above the hormone-fueled feelings I had for Casey and Ali. In fact, that whole night I spent with Ali, Alice Rachelle Langdon never crossed my mind.

I don’t know why. I certainly didn’t expect it of myself, and I didn’t think it was Darek motivating my actions. Its root changed nothing. I still did what I did. I leaned in closer to her and kissed her on the lips, gently, so gently, but desperately, longingly.

I needed Alice. And I longed for Casey. I didn’t feel either of those things for Ali, but by God I wanted her. I wanted her and in that moment I knew she was all mine.

She returned my kiss with more intensity. She subtly controlled the energy level between us in a way that time seemed to float unhindered and we moved seamlessly from affectionate pecks to enthused deep kissing. I felt my mind slide away to somewhere distant, somewhere sacred.

Something exploded in the center of my mind’s eye. I was in two places then, one engorged with pleasure and abusing the moment for all it was worth, the other trapped in a memory of misery, a night my life changed forever, a night I could remember with ease despite the effort I put into forgetting it.

It was the first time I’d gotten kicked out. Used to be thought of as the only time, but, so far from home, I suspected this was not the case anymore. I met Ali and Rob at the McDonalds we always hung out at, my situation laid bare. Rob promised me if nothing else worked out, he could offer me a place to stay with him and Ali. I should have known better than to get in the middle of their turbulent relationship. But nothing else worked out, and so I was swept far away from my home with two people I loved whose feelings for each other would only grow blacker by the night’s end.

It was a long night in a place next door to Rob’s second mom. It was explained in depth to me before I went there that if I made any commotion it would get them all kicked out. She had brain cancer and her family was very protective of her privacy. Plus he and Ali had had their share of arguments already and were on thin ice. I swore to be on my best behavior and even had Ali promise, if I was getting out of hand, that she would slap me to bring me to my senses. One thing led to another. There were two beds but one was hard as a rock. Rob wanted the comfy bed for himself, but there was no room for Ali. She didn’t mind; she said she’d sleep on the floor. After hearing of the other bed’s infamy, I made the innocent comment: “Well geez, if it’s that bad I might just sleep on the floor with Ali.”

Now I know it wasn’t so innocent. Now I know it was a part of Darek’s messed-up plan to make himself exist. Suffice it to say, Rob took it entirely the wrong way. The two of them got into a very heated debate. Voices were raised, feelings were hurt, and I got to watch up until the startling conclusion, where Ali ended up in a corner, sobbing and saying, “I’m in love with two people. How can that be? What do I do?”

The next confrontation happened in the front of the two houses. She was running. He was chasing. I tried to stop him, I knew it was for his own good, but he only saw me as an obstacle. He shoved me down and caught up to her, grabbing her by the wrist and spinning her around roughly. I wasn’t even aware of getting back on my feet. I only knew I was pissed.

“Hey asshole! Just leave her alone!”

Both of their eyes locked on mine and they were striding purposefully toward me.

“Mat, lower your voice.” Rob said.

“Oh, now you’re suddenly calm!? Bullshit! You were just pissed as shit and now that I am it’s not okay?”

I swear I don’t even remember what happened next. I didn’t see Ali’s hand coming at me but I guess Darek did. Next thing I knew I was in a dream state, watching from my eyes, speaking with my mouth, but only passively observing the phenomena

“Get away from me! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”

I ripped up clumps of grass and dirt and hurled them at her. Somehow I had ended up back on the ground. I felt a massive presence within me, something dominating my senses and creating a sort of radio interference. It overrode my disposition with a single command. Destroy… destroy… destroy…

Ali and Rob shared a look, their earlier argument forgotten. They wordlessly left me behind and strode back to the house. I sat in a daze, too stupefied by what had just happened to think. Finally I regained control of my legs. I stumbled like a zombie back to the door, only to find it locked. Though I seemed to have control of my body, my mind was still reeling with violent thoughts, homicide and suicide and everything in between. Apparently I wasn’t as in control of my body as I thought because my attempt at knocking on the door turned into a relentless hammering.

The door creaked open. “Come in. Just be quiet, please.”

I went in and fell to my knees, my fists clenched, my mind working in reverse. “Help me…”

“What do you want, Mat?” Ali asked, concerned.

“To destroy.” I answered shakily. “To hurt. To maim. To wreck. To kill.”

“Not to this house, you’re not.” Rob answered authoritatively.

I shook my head. “No.” I stuttered. “No. Not this place. Not you. Only me. Give me a knife.”

Rob pulled a switchblade from his pocket. “Casey taught me the importance of bleeding.” He assured me, offering the blade.

I took it like a beggar would snatch up food. Hungrily, without looking, I dragged the blade across my forearm. The blood leaked from the wound, staining the knife with my life’s fuel. It was like a pressure release. All I could do was break down in tears, leaving the knife beside me on the floor.

“Come on.” Ali whispered, leading me to the good bed in the next room to rest. I wrapped my shirt around the wound, savoring the dull pain.

“That… that wasn’t me….” I whispered, terrified. She let me down and smiled. She smiled at me.

“See? I knew you had one in you.”

That gave him his breath of life. That made me believe in him.

“Why…. ?” I couldn’t articulate quite yet. “Why didn’t you slap me like I asked?”

“Mat, I did.” She said. “You swatted my hand away and started freaking out worse.”

I cursed under my breath. Those words still came to me effortlessly. “S- sorry…”

“Just rest.” She whispered, kissing me on the cheek and leaving.

I believed her when she said Darek was real. I believed her because, before Ben and Mark, before Jake and Madrik, before Casey and Veronika, there was Ali and Kendra. Kendra was Ali’s Darek.

As I moved in and out of her that night in the motel, lost in passion’s embrace, it was Kendra on my mind. Kendra and her eerie calm, as if she were always in control of everything. Kendra and her beautiful words, the way she made me feel like I was the most important person in the world. Kendra who was so totally different from Ali. Kendra who I probably fell in love with without even intending to.

With a moan of pleasure she brought me to climax. Time ceased to hold meaning. Everything stopped and became immortalized in my mind. Every sensation, every perception, magnified a hundredfold. Something awoke in me in that moment, something grander, more powerful, more frightening than Darek could hope to be. I rolled over in the bed, both of us naked under the covers, a thin sheen of sweat reflected in the faint glow of light coming through the sheet over the window. I saw it in my mind. The doorway. I knew I could get back. I knew that, no matter what memory he took from me, I could always get back if I only remembered the doorway.

After I’d stopped trembling the night of Darek’s birth, I texted Casey. I told her there was something inside me, something psychopathic, sociopathic, homicidal, suicidal, a paradox walking a contradictory path inside my pacifistic mind. I asked her what to name him. Derek. She answered. Then, an afterthought. Or Darek if you want to spell it different. So it went. The girl I was in love with supplied the name for the presence the girl in love with me solidified in my mind. That’s how I was infected. That’s how the darkness planted years ago flowered into the demon I now lived with every day. Maybe it wasn’t another being controlling me. Maybe it was adrenaline and nothing more affecting me that night. The tulpa theory claims if you believe something strongly enough, it becomes real. Well I certainly believe in Darek enough for him to have a hold on me.

“What am I to you?” Ali asked beside me. I was staring up at the patterns in the ceiling.

“Right now? You’re everything I have. The only good thing in a world Darek brought crashing down around me.”

Silence.

“Ali?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m scared.” I confessed. “In a week or so I won’t be able to stay here anymore. I can’t bring myself to contact my family. They certainly haven’t tried contacting me. I don’t know where to go. So… I’m scared.”

She shifted beside me to face me. I didn’t look at her, only played games with the ceiling. “Mat, I’ve been working these past few months. You probably didn’t know that since…. you know. But. After me and Rob broke up… he kicked me, out and I got in touch with my cousin. My job is with Google Enterprises so I can do it all from a laptop wherever I am. Anyway the two of us have been splitting rent on a place a couple hours away from here. If you want…”

“Really?” I cried, surprised by the offer.

“Really.”

“Oh Ali.” I said quietly, a whisper full of desire. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

I scoffed. It was a beautiful, brilliant night.

#45: MADRIK

02/27/17 FTP: In this entry, I have a run-in with the voice inside Jake’s head. I didn't learn much from him. All it really did was underline just how warped my world has become. Never in a million years did I expect happy-go-lucky Jake to transform into such a hollow shell. I guess Madrik used his loss against him. I wonder if the pain of loss has anything to do with the sickness we suffer from. Jake losing Casey seems to have put him in the same situation as losing Alice put me in. It was perhaps even worse because he depended on her physically as well as emotionally. I hope he can overcome this trauma, but hope is all I have because he seems to have been irreparably damaged… Oh, I did learn one thing. I’m not surprised to find this out, but it does explain a few things. Ben has his own entity by the name of Mark. This was something he confided in Casey which she in turn revealed to Jake. Perhaps it was Mark I encountered outside the mall that day and not Ben. At least, I’d like to believe that. It dulls the pain of the decimated friendship. 08/20/16 I learned Jake had no memory of the accident at all. It was still more memory than Darek saw fit to gift me. He keeps whispering into my ear, a voice no one but I can hear, about how she's waiting on the other side of the door. All I have to do is end it and she could be all mine again. Like before. I keep ignoring him, keep trying to stay afloat, for Ali's sake if not my own, for Jake's sake who was struggling like I struggled when I lost Alice. I took a deep breath and stepped off the bus. I knew exactly where her gravest one lie. I saw it last night in a dream. It started with the blinding flash of light. Casey was always shorter than everyone else in our group. She wasn't tiny, she'd always say. She was fun-size. Well a fun-size body, a cracked tree, and an airbag forced into her left the sides of the bag dripping with her blood. I didn't hear her neck snap, but I knew as soon as I saw her it had. Jake was unconscious in the driver’s seat, bloodied and bruised. Even though the vision brought only sadness, laughter escaped my lips. In my core being I felt a familiar sensation. I caused this. It was all my fault. But if I played it right, I could seem innocent, just another victim. The hood was smoking. I had only a little time. I slid out of my side door, the one behind Jake, and opened his door. I unbuckled him. Despite the fact that I felt intense pain across my chest with every movement, I moved as if I were fit and well. I dragged Jake from the car, away to the roadside as I waited for the flames to burn everything. Just before they sprouted up over the hood, I had a morbid thought. She's still alive, Darek! I cried silently. Save her! He only stood and watched as the car was swallowed by fire. There was no climax, no explosion. The flames engulfed my vision until I was following the funeral procession through a graveyard rather close to where I lived now. I made a note of the exact location as the dream persisted. I wanted to wake up, but no. I had to sit somberly through the entire god-damned funeral, unable to let my grief out by shedding even a single tear. My heart broke witnessing it. That more than anything drove the point of her death home to me as I slept. In the morning I remembered enough to know where to go. That's how I ended up strolling lead-hearted to Casey's grave. I ran my fingers along the etching of her name, the date of her life and her death. June 8th, 1994 to May 14th, 2017. I wept there, finally and freely. I wept so intensely, I did not know anyone else was there until he spoke. "Do you know what Ben told her, maybe a month before she died?" Jake asked. I spun around, my solitude shattered. "What?" I asked warily, wiping my wet eyes. "He told her about Mark." Jake answered. "About how since he'd met her Mark had been taking his life from him and denying him release from his own petty anger, how it'd always been that way for him. She just made him realize it." I nodded. Jake continued. "There was something going among us between every interaction, Mat. A germ. An infection." Darek's words echoed in my ears. "It spread between us, all of us. Who knows where it begins, but it has to end. We have to contain it." "Jake... ?" I looked into his eyes. They were alive, sorrowful but alive. "What are you thinking of doing?" "It's not what I'm thinking that matters. They have their own thoughts, their own plans. What they think dominates the chess game of our lives, Mat. We can't do anything but suffer through it." "Who is Madrik?" Jake took a deep breath. "He came to me out of the blue, in the place we're standing over right now. He told me he would bring madness to me and that's what he did. There are thousands of them now, all inside my head, all screaming out for release. I try to sketch each one as it presents itself but there are so many! I live no life of my own but the lives of the dead that whisper to me. My only break is when the bells ring and I attend her funeral again." "Are they ringing right now?" I asked gently. "Have been for hours..." "Jake..." I mustered the courage to speak. "I hear them too. I have for a long time now. I know what it's like." "No, you don't!" He snapped. "All I want is to live my own life for her, to honor her, but in spite of my dreams he's always calling me back to the dark place, to torture me and slit my throat again, whereupon I return to this bitter realm and await his next summons. This is no life, Mat! This is hell! We're all in hell and we can't even see it we're so blind! Well I'm not blind. Not anymore. And God I wish I was." His words left me silent and contemplative. "There's no cure." I said at last. "What is learned cannot be unlearned." "I know," He moaned. "I know and I hate it! I hate this, I hate me!! I hate everything!!" His eyes glossed over and he smiled at me, as if just noticing me. “Well well well. If it isn't Mr. Monaco himself.” The voice was still Jake’s, but the distinctive southern drawl made him sound completely different. Even his posture had changed from hunched and defensive to limber and confident. Neither of those poses were reminiscent of the Jake I had known. I remembered him as mellow and easygoing, carefree and light as air. “Who are you?” I asked. “Now now, you already know the answer to that.” Madrik said. “What d’you really wanna ask me?” “You're right.” I confessed. “Here's a better question: what do you want?” “Every Figment has their own desires and drives, Mr. Monaco. Mark wants vengeance. Veronika wanted peace. Myself?” He pressed his palm to his chest. “Well I don't really want anything. I’m mostly just along for the ride.” “Then why are you torturing Jake?” I cried. “If there's nothing in it for you what is the point?” “Well you see, it is not necessarily my fault that young Jacob suffers so. He tortures himself, friend, and uses my face as the means to do it. The brain is a complicated beast. But you must already know that.” “I… I don't…” “Oh but you do.” Madrik drew closer to me, his hollow eyes locking with mine. “You know better than anyone the diseased undercurrents of the mind that afflicts both worlds equally. You just don't remember everything yet. One day you will wake up and see what hides in the shadows. Then you'll know we ain't so different after all.” The life shifted back into Jake's eyes just then, as Darek's laughter coursed through my veins. Wherever Madrik had come from, he had returned. "Another day. My lady lets me live another day." Jake mumbled, wandering off with a lost expression. The wind blew through the graveyard, inviting spirits of all color and creed to dance with me. I wondered if there was any chance Alice's spirit was nearby. I felt in my fragile heart she was watching over me from this place. I felt as if this were another shrine for me to pray to. I was on my knees lost in my own mind in moments. Alice, protect me from the wicked forces swirling around me. Protect me from Darek and Madrik and Jake and myself. And... look after Jake. I know he's suffering right now. Ben, too, I guess. My hand went to my healing bruise. Ben indeed. I wanted to run screaming from the graveyard, wanted to cry my eyes out until my body shriveled up and died like a raisin. I wanted to level a gun to my head and blot out this bitter world. Surely only death could stop this infection of evil among us all. Surely my death would be sweeter than a life without Casey. But I had no gun, and the sensations of Death's hands all over me passed. I feared for myself. I feared for my family and my friends and everyone. A storm was coming, one Darek had set in motion, one I was powerless to stop or resist. Steel in my blood, I strolled away from the grave more hollow than when I arrived.

#44:

02/27/17

FTP:This wasn’t supposed to be uploaded. I wasn’t ready.

Honestly one of the real reasons behind my hesitance to upload #43 stemmed from knowing the contents of this entry. I didn’t want to relive the events written about below. I put it off until today only to check the blog and see it already posted. I feel like my privacy has been heavily violated. Sure, Darek has done sneaky shit like this before, but for such a sensitive subject, for it to be thrown out for you all to see, it really drives in that lack of control and security I felt working on the entries at first.

Anyway, this is what I was referring to about things being reversed. One person brought back from the dead, the other taken away. The duality of my life is eerily consistent. The death of Casey drowns out any joy at finding out Ali never died. In fact it’s about as bad as losing Ali all over again.

As for Jake, I’ll talk more about that in the next entry, which I may as well try to post as soon as possible. I intended to put something new up today so I may as well just go to the next one.

09/04/16

I don’t know what to do. I can’t even breathe right now. All I could think to do was write. I’m in the damn Apple store again. Silent tears are streaming down my cheeks. Thank God for a society that would rather ignore me than ask me what was wrong. If someone tried to understand what was on my mind, I’d have to tell them everything. I’d have to tell them an idea in my head walked around under my skin for six or seven months while I slept unaware. I’d have to tell them how I came to after to find my life in complete shambles, how the bruise on my cheek came from an old friend of mine and the tears sliding across the wound came from something that stung much more.

Something that broke my heart.

I still remember the day I met her. My first thought was How the hell could Danny be dating someone so pretty? and the first time she paid attention to me was when I insulted Danny and she punched me square in the stomach. The blow brought me right to my knees before her. I’m trying to remember her face. I’m trying to remember her smile. I can’t. Darek took it from me.

Darek killed Casey.

What Ben said to me confused the living hell out of me. I had to look into it. I took another bus and then a long walk, remembering her voice, her scent, the way she felt when she kissed me. I could feel it all, but… I couldn’t see her. Her face, her smile, her features, I was blind to it all. About a week after I met her she came close to me and stared into my eyes longingly, but I told her she couldn’t kiss me unless she broke up with Danny. I know this for a fact! I can write these words! But I don’t for the life of me remember what her eyes looked like!

I wound up at a house I’d only been to at a party once. It was a terrible party. I knocked on the door timidly. A middle-aged woman with too much makeup on answered the door.

“Hi, um, is Jake home?” I asked.

His mother stepped aside to let me in. She motioned to a hallway on her left. “He’s in his room.”

I walked warily down the winding corridor, poiking my head into each doorway. Near the end I found Jake knelt on the ground hovering over a notebook. For a frightening moment an image of Darek crouched in the corner overlaid the scene. When I blinked it was gone, only Jake and his room. He looked to be drawing a picture. The room was dark save for sunlight filtering through half-closed blinds.

“… Jake?”

His head snapped around and I saw blankness in his eyes I remembered well from the night he put his hand around my throat. Casey was the whole reason I knew Jake but I could remember his eyes. I could remember his eyes.

“What do you want?”

An uncomfortable silence passed. I couldn’t break his gaze. “To say sorry.” I finally answered.

“You said it already.” He went back to his drawing.

“What happened to her, Jake?” I asked somberly.

“I told you,” he snapped, “I keep telling you all I don’t remember! I don’t remember!”

“Jake…” I said quietly. “I don’t, either. I think I remember even less than you. Did you know I got kicked out of my house?”

“I got kicked out once.” Jake said, laughing softly. He stared down at his drawing. “Back when Casey was living here. My parents got into a huge argument with us and kicked her out. So I said I was going with her. We lived in my car for a week before my parents caved and begged me to come home. I said I’d never come home without her. And now… the first thing I remember, the first thing I really remember, is coming home from the funeral, thinking I can’t go home without her. I did, though. I did.”

“What do you remember before the funeral?” I asked softly.

“Driving. In the car. With Casey.” He rose to stare coldly at me. “And you.”

Darek’s laughter filled my world. I felt a million miles away. A bright flash of white light enveloped me. I felt exactly as I did when I remembered the other car accident, with Darek’s shadow man. Jake’s voice, far away, drew me back to reality.

“Can you hear the church bells ringing?” He asked.

“What?”

“I can hear them.” He whispered. “Every day. Every day in my head.”

I edged closer to his drawing. It was in his likeness, with a background of flames, bodies falling from the sky into them. His own eyes were nothing but the whites and his mouth was sewn shut. I shuddered.

Remind you of anything, Mat?

Darek’s cheery attitude was making me sick. I had to get out of there. “Why?” Jake cried. “Why did she die and I lived? Why us and not her?”

I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know.”

He turned and flipped his book shut with his foot when he saw me watching it. There was a word scratched onto the cover with what looked like a rusty nail: MADRIK.

He stared down at the ground for a long while as I observed the cover with morbid curiosity. “They’re ringing again.”

Darek began laughing. I looked up at him quizzically. “What do you do now?”

“I go to the far away place.” He said. “And pay my respects.”

I thought of the shrine to Alice, the one I had written about in the account of my own far away place. I felt such sympathy for Jake. Nobody deserved to lose the person they loved most, not in a life so full of terrifying things in dark corners of our minds and worse things outside it, like death and sickness and disaster.

“Good bye, Jake.”

“Good bye, Mat.”

“Thank you very much.” I told his mother quietly as I made my way from the house as quickly as I could.

Hahaha. Darek had not stopped laughing. Did you feel him in there? I did. From a mile away. There’s nothing so beautiful as the spread of infection.

I felt sick. I had to stop at the corner and keel over, fearing the oncoming vomit. The feeling passed, luckily. Sickly, I trekked on, each step harder than the last.

#43: Beyond the Doorway

02/19/17

FTP: This is one that I could have posted right after #42 if I wanted. I chose to not post it because, revisiting it after months of my recovery, it sounded completely insane. Then I remembered I lost six months of time and had tense relations with my subconscious. It was already crazy. Even still, this is something I don’t remember writing or experiencing. Darek could have made this all himself to throw me off the trail or to confuse me even further.

It’s all I have to go on for the past six months. I guess I got through the doorway. And when I did, it left a vacancy on my side that Darek happily filled. Additionally, if I accept the premise that this is an honest recollection I no longer recall, it has some valuable answers. Part of me wants to go back there… but looking at the consequences, part of me does not.

Assuming this entry is my own words, it begs the question of when I wrote it, of how I wrote it. It’s not impossible that Darek granted me the chance to write then erased the memories. What else during those six months did I forget experiencing? Do other logs exist somewhere recounting the time I lost? It seems no matter how many answers I find, I know less and less the more I dig…

(No date given)

I first became lucid by accident, actually, in a dream of a memory from the third grade. I was shuffling off the bus after school behind a kid named Justin who was a year ahead of me. As we passed by another kid in his year, Greg, the latter made some smart remark about the former. In a blur of motion Justin spun intent on decking Greg, but I was standing too close and took the blow straight to the face.

My nose felt numb and tingly. It seemed to be runny but when I put my fingers to my face they came back dripping red. It was about then that my perspective shifted to a third person overhead view. I remembered the words as Darek uttered them.

Just let go. Let me in.

This was one of the first times I had heard Darek’s voice whispering in the back of my head to just let my emotions go freely, to give himself a little hold over me. I didn’t have to cry. It didn’t really hurt that bad. But I let it go and I let him in and I did anyway. I made myself look like a victim, look weak, when that little nagging voice in my subconscious knew it was not weak. It was a little foothold on its way to full control.

As I watched myself burst into tears, I looked out the window to my childhood home. I gave the building an initial cursory glance; even knowing this was only a dream, it all appeared natural to my disconnected eyes. Then I did a double take. The front door to the house had been a flimsy, dirty, white contraption that clung loosely to the frame. Here I saw the doorway, the same innate pressure pounding behind it. It’s solid finished wood set it apart from the rest of the house.

My heart rate went up and everything but the doorway fell out of focus. The raucous jeering of the school kids became a distant buzz, distorted to near-demonic proportions. The walls of my old house fell away; the very earth fell away, leaving only that void of ethereal mist and that doorway. This was my only chance. I had to make a break for it.

As I ran in that place, threads of colorful light danced around me. Any moment I was certain one of them would errupt into an explosion and consume me, or jump out and pull me away, or call out my name and freeze me in my tracks. The closer I drew to the doorway, the stronger that certainty became. I cheered myself on despite my growing paranoia. As soon as it was close enough to make out the little details(cracks in the wood that had been repaired, scuff marks to show its age), I put on an extra burst of speed.

In the moment my hand made contact with the knob, my fears became absolute certainties. Darek would stop me right this second, was in fact right behind me with a cocky expression and ready to grab me by the throat. That moment never came though. It took me a minute to register that. What was the blinding white light I was seeing? Finally it clicked. I had opened the door successfully. This was my first glimpse at what lay beyond.

As the buzzing faded from my ears, the light receded as well, revealing a vast, rolling field with a tree line on the horizon. I turned three hundred and sixty degrees to take in the entirety of my surroundings. The doorway stood behind me, alone, surrounded by grass and sky. On the horizon opposite the trees, the consistency of the earth shifted from lush grass to what appeared to be sand. This didn’t feel like a dream anymore. Even while lucid, my dreams always had a bit of a hazy feeling about them that persistently reminded me of their illusory quality. When my vision adjusted beyond the doorway, it felt exactly like I was wide awake. This was distinctly different from dreaming.

Something about the forest called to me, invoking memories of walks through forest paths taken in my troubled youth. As I crossed the field, a gentle breeze blew across it, lifting my hair from my face. A calm serenity fell across me. Something about being here felt right, as if I belonged in this realm.

I stepped across the border between the two environments and a wave of zen fell over me. The sunlight filtered through the tree tops. Birds chirped in the distance. There was a strong sense of life emanating from this place that I could not explain. Should not this world within a dream feel vague and hollow? Wasn’t this a creation of my mind?

Going deeper into the forest, moving branches from my way and skirting between tree trunks, I seemed to follow a preset path absentmindedly. I walked like I knew exactly where I was going. I was certain that I had been here before and Darek had merely stolen my memory of it. The pervasive feeling of familiarity had no other explanation.

“So this is the Outer Layer…” I mumbled to myself. I brushed my hand against one of the many tree trunks around me. It felt rough and sturdy and real. As a slight shudder broke out through me, a stronger breeze followed; it seemed to be summoned by my body’s involuntary action. Looking ahead, I could make out a small clearing. Something told me this was the destination my subconscious sought.

When I stepped through the shrubbery into the clearing, the nagging familiarity of this place finally made sense. It was something from entry 15, a vague reference of the Outer Layer that made no sense to me at the time. I had been here before, quite often in fact, and every time Darek stole the memories away to keep me out.

The clearing was perfectly encircled by the forest. Clouds had briefly covered the sun, blanketing it in shadow. There, in the center of the circle, stood a stone statue, undamaged by time. It depicted a woman in a robe, her face solemn, hands clasped in prayer, head slightly bowed. I approached it slowly, a strange anxiety building inside me. Above, the clouds parted to cast sunlight on the statue; its shadow stretched out over me. I crept closer to it. At the base words were engraved on a plaque.

“In loving memory of a fallen angel.” I read, my voice breaking with emotions. Tears welled in my eyes. The clouds returned to hide the sun.

This was Alice’s shrine.

I fell to my knees before the memorial. My arm extended to brush the writing. As my hand crept closer, I heard church bells ringing in the back of my head. The sound seemed to vibrate through the ground. Visions danced through my head: a sorrowfully smiling figure standing at a distance in the woods; a girl with angel wings plummeting from the sky; a young woman with tears running down her face, knelt on the ground by a lake’s edge.

“Welcome back, Mathew.”

My hand jerked away from the statue. I spun around and stood up to face the one who had addressed me. She stood at the edge of the clearing, her hand resting on one of the tree trunks. Her hair was the deep blue of spring water, her eyes the lighter shade of the sky. She was clad in a dress of earthy green, lined with snow white. On her back, neatly folded against her, I could make out a pair of wings like that of an angel’s. I could already recognize her as one of the three figures from the strange visions. Numbness rolled through me. Could it be…?

“I’m sure you must be confused.” She began making her way towards me. “I can see the questions behind your eyes.”

“Are you… Alice?”

She smiled knowingly and nodded. “You’ve forgotten again.”

“Where am I?” I spluttered. “Is this real?” My heart was racing and the sun was beating down on the scene. A thousand things were running through my head in that moment. I wanted to believe. I really wanted to, but I also did not know where I was besides somewhere in my mind, or where Darek was and what he was planning. Besides that, there was an undefinable tingling in the world around me of which I had slowly become aware. It had been there since touching the statue, probably when she first appeared. The sun was so hot and bright all of a sudden. I felt a little dizzy.

“Your consciousness has been living and dreaming inside… a chamber, in a manner of speaking.” She told me. “In a sense this place is as real as the one you came from. Maybe even more real, at least to you.”

“I… don’t really follow…” I said, trying too hard not to think too hard.

“It’s your soul, a place you created to escape that other, cursed place. And I am the personification of Alice, the ghost of her that lives on inside your head. I’m the part of her she left you.”

“And… and I’ve been here before?” I whispered, gears turning in my head and entries popping up one by one. Darek had said investigation would open doors and invite in things I didn’t want. If everything he was worried about came down to this place, this manifested realm, could there be any darkness in it so great I would not brave it to be with Alice again? “Why would Darek take this from me?”

Alice looked up to the sky, like she was expecting something. “It is never a simple answer when it comes to him. In his head, he had his reasons. He thinks in a greater magnitude than any other I know when it comes to his actions. He is very…”

“…complicated.” I finished. The strange feeling in me had grown to be impossible to ignore. Maybe it had nothing to do with Alice. Maybe it was something else, something approaching.

“We have to go. Now!”

Alice’s eyes locked onto mine for a moment before she darted off into the forest. Of course I was right. A shadow slowly spread itself across my vision, prompting me to look behind me.

A dark, billowing cloud of smoke crept across the sky from the distance. All the other clouds had been swallowed by it. It spread across the sky like oil, blotting the sun out and threatening to engulf me. All that tension in my body seemed to explode. The whole world lost its color. I didn’t even have time to consciously register my body turning and running. That dark cloud was sentient; somehow I was certain of this, and I was convinced it was coming after me.

Suddenly the forest was not so serene. Running and darting through a wood characterized by shades of grey left a foreboding fear festering in my chest. The trees seemed to shift and twist within my vision, inducing a claustrophobic panic that only worsened as the fauna thickened around me. I had seen Alice’s shadowy form in the distance at first, but now she was nowhere to be found. She might have been mere feet from me but I could not see even that far ahead.

It definitely wasn’t just in my head. The trees were moving. Twisted, leafless limbs dropped down into my field of view like gnarled hands. As I tried to duck between them, the hands snatched at me viciously. One caught me roughly around my shin. I cried out in terror, shaking my leg free. In response, the trees in the immediate vicinity seemed to turn to face me. Though I freed myself, I could not stay standing. As I scrambled to regain my footing, I caught a glimpse of the horror behind me. The dark cloud had descended like a grim fog upon the forest, rolling along between the trees with great ease.

Now I was jumping and ducking between tree limbs all vying for my capture. Overhead, leaves were withering and turning to ash as they drifted to the ground. I didn’t even make it ten feet before a root snaked up and snared my ankle. I tumbled face-first into the dirt and foliage. The leaves lining the forest floor crumbled to dust on impact. Dark tendrils of smoky blackness snuck along the ground to surround me. Unable to free myself despite desperately struggling against the imprisoning root, a black fog fell around me as ashes rained from the sky. I had been caught.

An emptiness fell over me like a blanket. I wasn’t calm or at peace like earlier. I was numb. The feeling could best be described as a coldness snaking through my veins. I shut my eyes and held my breath to avoid taking in any of the smoke that had engulfed me.

Time passed. The apathy I had become faded into the background, not quite gone but not imposing on my psyche. I opened my eyes to something unexpected.

I was no longer on the floor of the forest. The place I was in was comparable to that ethereal mist that I had run across to reach the doorway, except all the color had been completely taken from it. I appeared to be on a solid surface invisible to my eyes. All that surrounded me were tendrils of smoke in various shades of grey. With no other choice, I started walking.

I didn’t walk for all that long. Despite it, I felt time flowing around me at an exponential rate. I experienced days of torturous monotony in what must have been the span of moments. Surely it hasn’t been that long. I didn’t have a phone to check and wouldn’t trust one to tell time properly here, but the fatigue that set itself through my body reflected intense lengths of time. By the time I finally fell back in exhaustion, an intense disorientation had clouded my senses.

How many weeks had passed? How many months? I will never be able to quantify the time I spent wandering that surreal landscape, devoid of stimuli, just myself trapped with my increasingly maddening thoughts. I started to lose pieces of myself there. Before I got out I started to feel like I had never lived a real life, never been anywhere except this void of apathy and monotony.

I did escape, though. It started when I spied that doorway again, still but a tiny speck in the distance. I felt compelled to approach it. After eons of unchanging grey ether, anything was a welcome distraction to me. I can’t grasp the specifics of what ran through my mind as that doorway slowly grew larger. I think I probably went insane in that span of time. I can remember general impressions; the things I was thinking were running like blood from a wound, splattered onto my mind with violent lunacy.

Going through that doorway lifted the crimson haze that had temporarily blotted my sanity, but it did not invite release from my prisonic spirit world. I found myself occupying a space with a single source of light, a television set displaying static. It illuminated a wooden chair with a figure sitting in it. I stepped forward tentatively, calling out over the television’s hum.

“Hello?”

The figure turned in its seat to face me. I gasped when I recognized the face. It was Ben, but the hair was much longer than when I’d last seen him. Something was off about his eyes, too. The way he stared at me felt hollow. Ben was always hard to read, but I’d never looked into his eyes and seen nothing before. Alarm bells were going off in my head. This wasn’t Ben. This person wasn’t safe.

So I turned and ran back through the doorway. Instead of returning me to my familiar ethereal eternity, I was running down a twisting, winding corridor lined with framed images. I recognized all of them as things Chameleon had hidden in my entries. As I raced down that passage, insane roaring laughter echoed out all around me. I threw my hands to my ears to try and maintain my focus. I needed to get the hell out of this dark twisted place!

Images started repeating on the walls. Cracks formed in the pictures and they started crashing to the ground in front of me. Desperate, terrified, I cried out for help hoping my mind would answer me. Instead, the floor started to collapse from beneath me. All I could do was scream as I fell forever, down into oblivion, not even the monochrome ether to keep me company. I was surrounded by nothing in all directions. Eventually even the corridor above me vanished from view entirely.

I didn’t fall as long as I walked, but time stretched on until my body started to acclimate to the constant downward motion. When my voice grew hoarse from the screams, I accepted my new fate in silence.

It started as a pinprick of white light below me. Then, slowly, second by second, it grew, until I realized I was plummeting towards it at terminal velocity and it engulfed my vision. For one blissful moment I thought I had finally died.  Then feeling slowly returned to my body and I felt the coarse forest floor against my face. I was back. After what must have been months I was back.

Slowly, sorely, I got to my feet. The forest had changed. Where once mighty trees had obscured my view of the sky, withered deal limbs now gave a clear view of the surroundings. The grass had died as well. Where once new life had bustled now rested the chilly glaze of winter.

I rose shakily, the horrors I had just experienced fading like a dream. The sensations still lingered strongly. I had just lived lifetimes and experienced horrors that were not easy to shake off. What the hell had I just been through? The strangest thing was that even though I remembered feeling so empty inside, now that I was back I felt like I was missing something. Somewhere in my raving thoughts near the end of my long walk, I had come to some conclusions that had given me some sort of higher understanding. I couldn’t remember anymore what had triggered this, but I was certain I had solved the puzzle of my life and forgotten. This left a small piece of me yearning to return despite the costs.

I had no wish to suffer that dystopian fate again, though. I cast a wary eye to the overcast skies and walked through my new world. This forest had definitely reacted to my fear before. It made sense, given this was inside my head. My perceptions affected the environment directly. As confirmation, the sun peeked out behind the heavy clouds to cast twisted shadows across the woods.

There was no snow on the ground but there was a chill in the air. This frigid coldness likely stemmed from the change in my mental demeanor. At first I had been filled with the wonders of new discovery. Now I was dulled from the torture I had received inside that dark cloud.

Something caught my eye through the trees that juxtaposed the wintry woods. It was another clearing, much larger than the first, and a perfect circumference of lush green summer grass marked it plain as day for me. Curiously, I meandered towards it.

The clearing contained a small lake. I had seen this lake before. It was the same one I had been dreaming about the night before I entered the doorway. I’d seen it other times in my dreams, too. It seemed to be a recurring constant and solidified my certainty that I was meant to find this place.

At the lake’s edge, a figure knelt. I recognized her as well, though I couldn’t quite place where from. She seemed unaware of me entirely as I stepped into the green circle. Her face was entirely obscured, but her sky-blue hair cascaded down her shoulders visibly. She was clad in tattered articles with an earthy red shade to them. Her feet were bare but not very dirty.

“Um…” I paused awkwardly, unsure of how to get her attention. However I had no need to.

“Mat…” it sounded like she was crying.”I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.”

“Why?” I asked hesitantly.

“You came here looking for Alice, right? You always do. But you won’t find her here. I’m so sorry, Mat. Alice is dead.”

Dead? I stared at this girl in stunned silence. She lifted her head upright and turned to face me, knees still on the ground, eyes misty and watery and green. She looked like she might be sixteen. Her face was covered in little freckles. She kept talking to fill the silence.

“I’m sorry. Every time you vanish for a long time and come back you always forget and I have to tell you again. I can’t hide it from you; you’ll eventually find out either way. I just hate to see the hurt it causes you over and over every time and I’m just so sorry.”

“But… Alice… I saw her in the forest. There must be some mistake.”

“No.” Her expression darkened and her words took on a bitter sharpness. “That is not Alice. She’s an imposter, a pretender.”

“Then who-”

“It’s her sister, Mat. It’s Gwen.” The girl explained, pleading up at me to make her stop telling me these things but continuing to speak anyway. “She wanted to be Alice to make you happy. She wanted me to help her convince you, too, but I can’t do that to you. It’s false, false happiness, and you deserve the truth. I tried to warn you that she was a fraud but I guess you really didn’t remember either of us so-”

“Okay, okay.” I cut her off. “So, then, if that wasn’t Alice but Gwen, and she sent that message in the capitalization errors claimimg to be Alice, then you sent the other message… but who are you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Her cheeks flushed bright pink. “My name is Anna. I’m… sort of… Alice’s daughter, I guess…”

“Her what?”

“Not literally, I mean. Just…” She hiccuped softly. “When you were younger and you came here, she was like a parent to me. We were sort of like a makeshift family, you know?”

I nodded, my heart yearning to remember the days she spoke of but my mind unable to conjure anything. “So… what is this place?” I asked her.

“It is where all of us Figments live.” She explained. “The way Alice explained it, we are born as extensions of your heart, to help you. This lake is my home. I’ve been here since you created me, but the Outer Layer is not just my home. All your friends’ Figments live in this realm where your souls intersect. Except for Darek, that is. He comes from… somewhere else.”

I recalled my meeting with the Ben-like figure inside the dark cloud. “And… that cloud thing… is it also part of this world?”

“The dark cloud exists in the Outer Layer as a manifestation of the disease that afflicts you all. It’s a mark of chaos in your created safe place.” Fresh tears came to Anna’s eyes and she blinked them away. “It only appeared after Alice left. I’m so sorry. It must have terrified you, and-”

I put my hand reassuringly on Anna’s shoulder. She looked up into my eyes with a guilty glimmer of sorrow. “If you knew Alice, if you thought of yourself as her daughter…” I said carefully. “Then you have a piece of her with you. Maybe it was you I’ve wanted to find all along. So stop apologizing to me please? It isn’t your fault she’s gone.”

“You don’t understand,” Anna whispered, breaking eye contact. “Alice… I… she…” suddenly the scene around me started to fade, becoming translucent. “What’s happening?” I asked urgently.

“I think you’re being called back to the other plane.” She said. “I hope you can find your way back soon. I hope you finally remember.”

I wanted to thank her, but the world around me faded like a shimmering ghost, leaving only darkness behind. At first I feared I had fallen back into that cloud’s little torture realm, but I quickly figured out that the black was from the inside of my eyelids. I opened my heavy lids to the real world once more.

#42: Adventures at the Mall

02/04/17

FTP: This entry occurs on the same day I checked my blog to find the password had been changed by Darek. As you can imagine, it was a bit maddening to have all these new leads to chase and be denied my investigatory outlet. In addition to accessing the log involving the Outer Layer, I received some information from Ben that would lead to one of the cruelest blows Darek had dealt, crueller than ejecting me from my home even. If it weren’t for Ali being there for me, I might have just given up entirely.

There’s more than enough time to discuss all that, though. For now join me as I visit the Wellington Mall.

08/30/16

My utter failure to acquire the enigmatic documents left me pretty dejected. There wasn’t really much else to do except sit in my room and stew in my thoughts. I I species my room, my belongings, again and again in a daze trying to cope with my circumstance. It gave me a lot of free time to think. Eventually I came to an acceptable solution for my eMail issue. I needed to try and find stability in my new world. I needed to find a job to be able to survive. The mall was full of business opportunities. I also knew one of those businesses was an Apple store, complete with display PCs that could almost certainly open gMail.

Freshly showered, I set off for the nearest bus stop immediately. I already knew the bus route along this road from my college days. It would take me straight to the mall. While I would be forced to forego cigarettes, this felt like a much more appropriate use of the money in my wallet.

The bus ride was one of silence. Before when I’d taken the bus I’d been filled with idle chatter, speakers dully blasting music, and the exchange of information between the bus driver and his passengers. Now I was numbed by the marked void of noise. The oppressive air hung on me like a stench I could not shake. I shuddered only once and wrapped myself in a blanket of loneliness to buffer the barrage of apathy on my way to the mall.

The letting out at the final stop, the Wellington Mall, was a gunshot into the heart of the silence. The bus seemed to come alive at the end. As I departed, the dark-skinned youth ahead of me met two of his peers and launched into a deep discussion about the dangers of carrying marijuana on a public bus. It was of no concern to me. I headed off on my own into the den of the mall itself.

Its architecture seemed more grand than I remembered, its sun roof shining brilliantly upon my lanky features. I had a few stops in mind: Subway, to beg for work; the Apple store, to check the internet; the bench behind the food court, to bum smokes and seek opportunity; and Zen Garden, to clear my mind and relax. My trek brought me right to the food court. As I made the steady walk past Sbarro’s, Wokaholic, and Taco Bell, I felt nothing but confidence pouring through my broken psyche. I was certain I could charm my way back into my old job. Time had passed, surely old scars were healed.

Subway loomed before me. The people working were different from those I remembered. I had hoped my best friend Richee was there. He was a guy as light as air. He loved anyone who played video games and got along with anyone at all, even if they didn’t play. They just had to put up with his incessant gaming references, spewing them out like he’d rather live in those worlds than our own. He was the whole reason I got that Subway job. I visited him and got to know the boss, Winn. The night I got the job was a night early into my introduction to weed. I literally got the call from Richee as I was sealing my fate and smoking my third bowl that night. It was a record for me, who had hit his first blunt and sworn to smoke only once a week or so. Still, at least it was the worst problem I had, not so different from an alcohol addict. About $100 every week went into my habit, and even that was only good enough for the weekends. I needed to moderate, for gas and food and trivialities like CDs.

Sometimes I felt as if I was a disappointment in the eyes of a man like him. Many men have claimed to be great, superior, holier. Richee was the only one I would consider actually able to live up to those words. He fought the evils of life with a sharpened mind and a cloak of childish innocence. He refused tobacco, marijuana, hard drugs, even alcohol. Once, he told me on the phone, “There is darkness in every drug.” Smoking weed was what made Darek come to life in my vulnerable mind in the first place. His wisdom, behind his corny jokes and carefree attitude, that was what humbled me most before him. If a man like him ever raised a vigil in protection of something he loved, I would be among those protectors, fighting for his ideas until my dying breath. A man like him was fit to be a king, yet this man sought nothing more than a life free of worries, something his attitude deflected, and a way to make some money for his gaming addiction, something Subway helped with tremendously. He was now akin to a manager, supervising the closing at night and enjoying a pay raise he didn’t earn through the online Subway courses offered as trade. He just got lucky. He wasn’t cursed with my burden, a burden my mind had wandered to in solitary fear of loneliness. With Darek, I was never alone. Not anymore.

Winn was at the register when I approached.  He was legendary among the food court, outright called a dick. I liked him though. His humor was wrapped in sarcasm, so it was hard to tell when he was being serious and when he was joking around. His wisdom was welcomed. I felt I had learned from him as a son from a father. Now I approached him as a desperate with no other options.

“Mathew, I see you got your hair cut.” he remarked as if it were a grand event. “Good for you.”

I was conscious of how the short hair revealed my pimples and scabbed acne wounds. I tried to brush my hair into my face but it was nowhere to be found.

“I’m in some trouble, Winn.” I confessed. I let the statement hang alone, waiting for a reaction of some sort. I got the usual.

“Did you make a mistake, Mathew? Get some girl pregnant?”

I laughed and smiled, my only defense. For some reason I thought of Casey, the type of girl who liked sex so much she had Jake pay for a shot to keep her infertile while she screwed guys to her heart’s content. Then I wondered if Alice had been that type of girl, just like that. Such a blasphemous thought. Alice Rachelle Langdon was perfect. She had to be, or no one was.

“Not with a girl.” I answered, feeling as if it were a lie. “With my family. I got kicked out of my house.” Surely that was all that could have happened. Perhaps I feared calling my family to get that very confirmation.

“Oh, do you need to sleep in the back? I don’t think the customers would like that.“ He answered. His expression only betrayed entertainment, something that could mean a lot of things.

“I’ve got a place to sleep. For now. What I really need is a source of income.”

“Oh, I see how it is!” He replied. “You have trouble, you come crawling back with your tail between your legs.” He was still taking this casually. I had seen firsthand how such an attitude could quickly turn sharp and dangerous, cutting off any advance.

“No free samples yet?” I managed to jest. I felt like my heart was going a mile a minute, but my grin was a s real as it had ever been.

“So, tell me,” he said after cracking a gracious smile, “what were you on when you were working here?”

A moment of truth question. I had sometimes brought my purchases with me to smoke after work. I kept it all in a tin for Pokemon cards, an ingenious engineering breakthrough among it. It was a toilet paper roll with fabric softener held to the front by a hair tie. The blasted thing eliminated all odor of the beautiful but dank hits. So sometimes I went to the bathroom after work to change, use the facilities, and smoke a good bowl. Whoever sniffed in a bathroom anyway? Those haunted memories came to me as I decided how to answer.

“Weed.” I said without hesitation. “That and cigarettes.”

“Really? Are you sure it wasn’t anything more?” He asked. His tone remained consistent as throughout the conversation. But I felt something different in that, a loaded gun of a question. I remembered from it whispers of rumors Richee passed on. I was losing weight, using the bathroom a lot. From his mouth I heard they suspected I may be on drugs. I guess pot wasn’t enough to assuage Winn. I guess he thought I was lying. Perhaps that’s why it went as it did. Perhaps that’s why I felt an icy coldness on me when I answered.

“Nothing else. Never anything else.”

“All right.“ He said. "Well, I will get in touch if anything comes up.”

“Okay.” I answered gratefully, the dread urging me to escape with a smile intact.

“Don’t cross your fingers though.”

There. Just like that my hopes for this place were smashed. Maybe Richee had risen in the ranks here, but it was likely due to the disparities between us, the perfection of his demeanor versus the chaos of mine. I was meant to be in his spot. We were both meant for it. But something about me versus something about him gave him an advantage that paid off well. I could not deny that the only difference between us was the thin veil of sanity and the thick decision to pursue a life less pure.

“Okay… ” I muttered, already striding away, talking to no one. I needed a cigarette.I could see the bench now,  riddled with workers on break and managers working hard at poisoning their lungs. Alas, as I approached from the food court entrance, I saw only a solitary figure in a McDonald’s uniform, smoking a Marlboro black. “Hey, can you spare a cigarette?” I called out hopefully.

When the face flashed up at me from under the hat, eyes alight with raw anger, I recognized Ben. He used to work there before he surrendered the job for a position closer to home. I guess in my hiatus, he managed to reclaim his old shackles. This, of course, was a complete surprise to me, and all I could think about as I drew closer to him. “You got your job back?” I asked quietly.

He waited stoically until I was near enough to him. I didn’t even have a chance to register what was happening before my vision turned to stars and I was on my ass in front of him, the right side of my jaw screaming in pain. I looked up at Ben’s steel eyes as he towered over me. His stance made it clear he was no friend of mine.

“I warned you to stay away and I meant it.” He growled. He watched me with a stony unreadable glare that made me think of Winn and his unreadable humor. Ben was unreadable in a way too, but in a way entirely different from that. It unsettled me deeply.

“Ben, please,” I managed as I scuttled away from him, getting back on my feet, “I don’t remember anything, I don’t know what I…”

He cut me off with a flick of his wrist. “Oh, of course, convenient, you don’t remember either. My whole world changed and you don’t even remember how exactly it happened. You already know what I think. You can’t tell me you don’t remember that.”

“I don’t!” I cried. “Months and months, not in my memory banks, Ben! This is serious!”

“Wow.” He applauded starkly. “That’s impressive. Of course you and Jake forget while I get stuck remembering everything. I wonder why that is, Mat?” He spat and extinguished his cigarette on the bench arm. “Stay the fuck away from me Monaco.”

Just like that he was gone. I felt numb and afraid. What had he meant by that? Jake and I forgot? Forgot what? My mind reeled with questions and fears, tracing the common link between me and Jake and Ben right to Casey. Had her image not been called to my mind only a number of feet away from the place I stood now? Now I felt a gripping fear when she floated into my mind. A girl I loved, a girl I respected, a girl I feared. A girl I feared for. I still needed a cigarette, but I needed to clean up first. The wound felt deep even though the blood flow was shallow. Numb to all around me, I stumbled to the back entrance to seek out the bathroom beyond.

There were two doors leading to two private bathrooms. One was locked but I lucked out and found the other one unoccupied.  I took care to close the door completely. It automatically locked from the outside but if I wasn’t careful the lock would catch and the door could be opened. I’d had people walk in on my after-work smoke sessions once or twice. This time I wanted to be alone.

The place was a haven to me. That’s all life seemed the couple years past, a journey with no end in which I sought only brief safe places to uncurl my tense emotions. This was one such place I had grown comfortable in.

I inspected my jawline tenderly. It stung like hell and the place I’d been hit was reddened and puffy. It would leave a hell of a bruise. Shame-ridden and hopelessly confused, I made a mental note to stay away from McDonald’s.

I passed there on my way out, looking openly for Ben out front. He was not present. I also passed by Subway, keeping my fresh cut well hidden and I strode past. Once free of the food court I rushed to the only place I could think to go, Zen Garden, the place of peace and anime.

The store had moved since I had last visited it (since I last remembered visiting anyway), so I spent a good time wandering in a dazed confusion. Darek took this moment to laugh at me.

I had enough on my mind to ignore him, and I persevered. Eventually I discovered it nestled in a corner behind a stairwell. It looked similar to how I remembered it, a relief. Aromas of incense and the gentle rush of a tiny Buddha fountain soothed my nerves as I entered the store. I could see every section clearly, the various plushies and figures side by side, the wallets, keychains, and memorabilia, the candy neatly in front of the register. My eyes were drawn to the back, where swords, both game and TV replicas and real strong-forged steel, were displayed proudly. The old sign was still up in front of them. Functional sword takes 20% off. I giggled at the accidental joke, imagining a sword cutting 10% off a person and the buyer demanding their money back for a non-functioning weapon. My hand flew unconsciously to my cheek.

“Geez, what happened, get into a bar fight?” The manager asked me. I knew him because of Richee and I was thankful to see a friendly face still at the store. I didn’t recognize the cashier at all, some young Asian woman paying more attention to her nails than the customers.

“I guess I’ve just managed to make some enemies over the years.” I answered.

“Well does the other guy look worse?”

“Yeah, but I never touched him.”

He smiled. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Yeah…” I said thoughtfully. “I want to look at your knives. I might need some protection.”

He strolled over to the display case in the middle of the store. “Do you know how to use a knife? Do you even know how to hold one?”

No. Darek chimed in. I shoved him back into my subconscious. “Well I can pick it up I’m sure.”

“Here.” He freed a blade from the glass case. It was a simple weapon, the hilt thick and pitch-black, the blade wide but short. I figured an analytical approach to a weapon I had never even held before would serve to show I was able to think in combat terms effectively. I grabbed it and held it with the blade extending out of my pinky side, blade out and away. “Well you could hold it like this, or…”

“No.” He grabbed it back from me and held it in a similar grip, pressing the dull end of the blade along his forearm. He slashed at air a few times to show me the quick, flitting manner in which a knife fighter attacked. “If you can’t hold it right, you shouldn’t get it. People cut themselves really bad when they don’t know what they’re doing. No point getting into a fight and slitting your own throat.”

“How will I learn if I have no knife though?” I queried. He ignored me and moved over one display case. Unlocking it, he retrieved a standard issue police baton. “You want something like this. Less lethal, but still effective, and you only have to shell out $30. Take it.”

I accepted the weapon, not daring to make more a fool of myself by swinging it. He rattled on about the features while I contemplated the price. Here I was, broke and without a solid place, already spending a paycheck I may never have.

“Mat, what happened? Attack from enemy ninja?”

I glanced behind me, surprised to see Richee even though I recognized the voice. He towered over me as always. I hadn’t grown much in the past few months, or, if I had, he had matched me inch for inch. He looked as black as ever, but I wasn’t confused, I knew he was an Asian in disguise. He had his trademark pick in his hair even though it was still short enough for Subway to approve of it. His figure was unsettlingly skinny, his hands, I knew from experience, much larger than my own, his neck long and craning to observe my cut better.

“It was Ben.” I answered coldly. Inside, I was happy as hell to see one of my best friends. Richee didn’t have any ill will aimed toward me. If he had, I truly would have been scared of what Darek might have done.

My statement didn’t seem to take him by surprise. “Yeah, he got his old job back, so he’s around a lot.” I felt my trip to the mall might be my last one, regrettably.

I shrugged. “So this is his territory. How dare I walk around this public place.”

“You better be careful, dood. He really has it out for you.”

“How can you tell?” I asked sarcastically.

“He never talks about you anymore. If anyone brings you up he leaves the room.”

“What did I do to deserve this Richee?” I moaned.

“I don’t know. He won’t tell anyone. You know how he is.” He shrugged and snatched the baton from my hand, inspecting it. “How much is this? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”

“Thirty even.” The manager answered.

“You trying to buy this, Mat?” He asked, giving it a good swing.

“I have no money now. I can’t even afford it.” I answered self-consciously.

“I’ll take it.” Richee said in response, pulling out his wallet. “You might need it, dood.”

Awed by his generosity, I smiled and nodded in thanks. “I wanted a knife, but this asshole thought I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“Richee, tell him it’s too dangerous.”

Richee shrugged, maintaining neutrality. “At least with this there’s no risk of accidentally killing anyone.”

“If he tried to pull a knife on me, he’d be the one accidentally killed.” The manager joked. He liked his martial arts master facade. Personally, I never wanted to know if it was all talk or not.

Richee had on his beloved Zelda shirt and a pair of black jeans. “Working soon?” I asked.

“Yeah, in a few minutes. I just came to check out the store, but it’s good to see you, dood. It’s been a few months.”

I nodded, wondering among other things how Darek had fared with Richee. In my experience, Richee was the type of guy who played well even with the angry and disillusioned, so I imagined their interactions as smooth as any of Richee’s.

After the baton was paid for and safely tucked away in my backpack, I trailed behind him as he headed to work.

“I’ve been playing the latest Disgaea game. I’ve got all my troops up past level 100. It’s so easy now though. I have to do all the optional content for a challenge.”

I nodded along, not even sure which game he was talking about. For all I knew, Disgaea 10 came out while I was in my unawareness.

“Hey Richee?”

“Yeah?”

I didn’t know how to do this so I started with honesty. “I, um, kind of have no memory of the past several months. I’m living out of a motel and I have no clue why, or where to go from here. Do you know what I’ve been up to?”

He contemplated it a moment. “Hmm… no clue, actually. You never really said much to me about your personal life, y'know?”

“Like you never do with me?” One time I found out he had just gotten a little sister about a month after she was born, only because he mentioned her casually in conversation.

“Yep.”

Darek suddenly burst through my mind with gusto. He was halfway through an insane laugh. He’s lying you know. I told him everything you need to know but he won’t tell you.

I clutched my brain fearfully. I stopped and Richee halted a few paces away from me. “You okay, dood?”

“Yeah.” I managed, terror and confusion threatening my stability. “Have I… ever told you about Darek?”

He shook his head. “Friend of yours?”

“Not exactly.” I sighed heavily. I could feel his full attention on me now, waiting to hear my synopsis of him. “He’s… my dark side. A part of me that’s suicidal, homicidal, constantly terrified but completely in control, psychopathic, sociopathic, a paradox wrapped in an anomaly. He shouldn’t exist. But he does. Inside me. And I think he’s the reason that time is lost to me. I’m scared of what he’s done to my life.”

Richee nodded. “Sounds like one of the major arcana. Have you ever played the game Persona?”

I shook my head.

“It’s all about that sort of thing. Basically it’s about these characters and their personas, who aid them in combat. Maybe Darek is just your persona.”

I laughed. “That’s an awfully convenient thing, that he fits so well into a video game.”

“I have a bunch of persona.” He declared boldly. “As the fool, I can use any type of persona.”

We had reached the doorway to the back of the food court, where those private bathrooms lay. He likely intended to change into his work shirt there. I intended to give him the privacy of that place I found so much peace.

“All right, well… back to the confusing mystery of my life.”

“It sounds like it would make a good game.” Richee answered. “You have a persona, you have enemies. What more do you need?”

“A happy ending.”

“Well. Later, dood.”

I smiled bleakly.

There was only one destination I had left before I caught the bus home. I had limited time before the last bus left but I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I hustled up the steps to the second floor and around the corner, past the shoe shops and clothing stores, to the Apple store. The latest Macs were on display for use. As usual, the store was packed. I slid up to the first available computer and opened Safari internet explorer. My heart was beating in my chest faster than it had all day.

Are you sure you want to do this? Darek asked lightly. I promise it won’t make things any better.

My eMail was already loading. “Shut up, Darek.” I whispered under my breath. I scrolled through days worth of spam until I came upon a message from an eMail address I recognized. I clicked, holding my breath as it loaded. There was no message, just a single file attached. It was a word document.

I opened it up and began reading.

#41: As Close to the Truth About Ali as I'm Going to Get

01/28/17

     FTP: I was actually just rereading entry #7 again before I sat down to upload this one. As I have repeatedly expressed from the start, the original entries do not accurately depict the events they portrayed. Honestly I’m more embarassed I let myself fall into the trap Darek set for me. It seems things have been… reversed, in a sense, now… but you’ll understand once it is all up.

08/28/16

           I’m typing this up at the library and saving it to a flash drive I’ll be carrying with me. It’s a half-hour walk here in the hot Florida sun, so I don’t know how often I can work on it, but at least I’ll have the records again. And if I can’t easily write, Darek can’t easily edit. Unfortunately that hasn’t stopped him from screwing with my head. If nothing else, I will be able to record the basics of what I go through as I struggle to discover what has happened these past few months. Once I’m more situated with better web access, I can proceed to flesh out the notes I’ve taken into complete entries. Writing has always been a helpful tool to sort out my mind, especially in times of duress like this where I desperately need to focus on priorities.

08/24/16           

           I remembered the doorway.

           The memories were not malleable. They existed in the peripheral, and vanished when put into focus. Still, its significance acted as a magnetic attraction of sorts, such that it filled me with desire. Secrets, answers, rationalizations for the reason I was so crazy, things inside my mind hidden from itself, all existed beyond the doorway. I’d been there, maybe, but I just couldn’t remember anything behind that damn door.

           Then hands reached down and yanked me from my slumber. I jerked into my body haphazardly, in a state of nothing but sensations. Darkness veiled my eyes, a blanket smothered my body, and a distant hum tickled my ears, suggesting electrical appliances. For a moment I felt as though this was the Outer Layer and I was finally beyond the door. First impressions are everything, and let’s just say this one felt to me like another one of Darek’s nightmares-constricted, deprived of sight and sound in a hellish, pressing heat.

           I groaned, surprised at how raspy my voice sounded. At least it broke the trance of the whirring appliances; I could hear just fine. I could also feel my body, reassuring me that this was not a dream. I felt liquid pouring from my pores en masse. I wasn’t just sweaty; I was soaked. I tried to uncurl my body from the cocoon of blankets that weighed me down mightily. The effort was in vain. They denied me freedom, all tied and twisted in one another. I reconsidered my suspicion that this was a lucid nightmare, but something in me whispered the idea away. It wasn’t Darek’s voice. It could have been. He can imitate anyone’s voice where he is, be anything my mind can perceive. And as I’m thinking all this and growing paranoid, I’m hyper-aware of the bead of sweat trickling down my left cheek. I let out an exasperated exhale and found it bounced back into my chin. I groaned.

           I focused on myself meditatively. I took stock of each of my arms’ positions, bent at the elbow, across my chest. I tried sliding an arm upwards toward my head. It met no resistance. I smiled to myself in the dark. It was a human-sized Chinese finger trap. My hand slid up my throat, over my shoulder, and came fully free, snaking up the right side of my head.

           From there it was a simple matter of freeing myself from the trap, feeling along the seams and separating the ungodly amount of blankets carefully and calmly. By that time, of course, my panic had fled and my eyes had adjusted to the dark a bit. I seemed to be in a small room with a bed and some decorative furniture. On my left was an A/C unit which had been the source of the electrical buzzing. I immediately lowered the temperature several degrees. On my right I discovered a bedside table with a lamp on it. Illuminating the room, I saw for the first time a TV across from the bed and a small kitchen area in the back. I was a long way from home.

           This is where things got interesting. Beside this lamp I found an index card with writing on it. WELCOME TO YOUR NEW HOUSE. On the lined side, a second message: PREPARE TO HEAR FROM AN OLD FRIEND HAHAHAHAHAHA. In the center of that he had added half a set of coordinates.

WEST 80 16  11.4954

           The illusion of the nightmare fell upon me again, harder, as my grasp on reality unraveled. Harder and harder it became to fight off the cloying certainty that this was nothing but a dream, another hallucinatory delusion where I made my home, but it was too visceral. The canonity of it stood stalwart against my hopeful barrage.

           I didn’t know what happened in the past few months, wasn’t sure ho much time had been taken from me, but I was able to grasp that I had been yanked out of my home and removed from everything familiar by an ambiguous, intimidating being living in a realm beyond imagination. I stepped out of the motel room. It was no paradise but at least it had cable. Looking down on the street below, I gathered myself. Occasionally, a car would drive by, breaking the silence of the night. My mind latched onto the sound of the cars passing, seeking peace in disorder.

           I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t know what was going to come. I knew I needed to do anything I could, talk to everyone I knew, to figure out what Darek did in the past six or so months. However, it looked like it was the dead of night at the moment, and I did not want to start this journey at three in the morning. Aside from that, I was strangely drained in spite of the bizarre circumstances I found myself in. It felt like I had been awake for a couple days. For all I knew my body had been. I reentered my room after a short period and delved into a dreamless sleep.

           The first thing I did upon waking, finding the sun fully risen, was take an inventory of what I had. There were suitcases full of clothes in the corner. The fridge was stocked with plenty of food. There were even a few fantasy novels stacked on the toilet. Darek’s little note sat mocking me on the table. Beside it I had placed the contents of my pocket. This amounted to a wallet and a phone, both of which I did not recognize, as well as thirty six cents (one quarter, one dime, and one penny).

           The wallet contained my driver’s license, my college ID (long-since unused and ripe with the scuffs of age), an EBT food stamps card (explaining the stocked fridge), a library card, and six one-dollar bills. I checked the license and it listed my parents’ old address despite looking brand-new. It was replaced during my fugue but held no pertinent info on where I had been or what Darek had done.The wallet looked ratty and worn out. There were a few tears along the edges; nothing else about it struck me as relevant or unusual.

           The phone was one of those cheap-looking Verizon phones. It had 266.04 minutes on it and 368 service days left on it. The background was a plain black screen After unlocking the screen I immediately checked my contacts list. I recognized Casey’s number right away nder the name “Stupid Fucking Bitch”; Darek clearly wasn’t fond of her. I tried calling but the number was out of service. There were several names and numbers I did not recognize, such as “J” and “Mike Herb”. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say they were drug connects. The only other numbers in the phone that drew my attention were one marked “Baby” (Darek had a girlfriend?) and a weird string of numbers that couldn’t be a local phone number saved under “K” (2622946016). Aside from the contacts, the storage on the device contained default images and ringtones. I also discovered an installed Twitter app. Darek had apparently made an account in my name on July 27th. I made a few posts but I suspect he has his own plans for it, so I don’t intend to use it for conventional social interaction. The phone didn’t have any of my family members’ numbers or any others I recognized. I was wary about using any of the contacts I didn’t personally know to hunt down information. I would save it as a last resort. From the calendar I learned it was the twenty-fourth of August. A solid half a year had gone by in the blink of an eye.

           I had to take a walk after learning that to clear my head. The whole time Darek was humming a song I recognized from the radio by Bob Seger. Maybe just because it was Darek it really unsettled me. Maybe it was everything else on top of it. Whatever the root of my jumpiness, I nearly leapt out of my skin when my phone started ringing in my pocket. Of course the ringtone was the same song. I pulled it out of my pocket. The caller ID said “Baby.” Warily, I pressed the green button.

           "Hello?“

           "Hey babe. How are you?”

           A couple of things happened simultaneously. Shocked by the voice on the other end, I let the phone slip right out of my hand. As that was going on, Darek started laughing. I guess he found some humor in my reaction. I honestly did not expect to hear the voice of a dead girl on the line.

           Distantly, in the background, her voice echoed from the phone. “Hello? Are you okay?” Numbly, I groped for the device, my universe turned upside down.

           "This can’t be real.“ I whispered. “You can’t be real.”

           Confused herself, she responded. “What are you talking about Darek?” Hearing that, his laughter only grew in intensity. I was stunned into silence for a moment. Finally, my mouth remembered how to form syllables and I spoke.

           "What did you just call me?“

           Cautious and confused, she responded. "Darek? Oh…. oh. Oh God. Mat, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know—”

           "What?“ I snapped. "Didn’t know I wasn’t your boyfriend? Well I didn’t know you were even alive, so whatever!”

           "What are you talking about?“

           The memory rose, vague and fuzzy. It seemed everything from before that lengthy slumber was hazy and unclear. Still, the rush of wind, the blaring horn, the stark cold terror came as easily as an old friend. "My logs?” I managed weakly. “The third or fourth one where I pushed you in front of a moving vehicle…”

           Darek’s laughter had subsided, but that comment brought it back on in the distant recesses of my head, a light snicker at some humor I couldn’t perceive through my grand confusion.

           "You mean Halloween?“ Ali said, understanding dawning in her tone. "When we had that huge fight and stopped talking… I thought you’d never want to see me again… then Darek started talking to me online, and it was kind of like having my best friend back.”

           "Sounded to me like the two of you were a little more than best friends.“

           Vividly, clearly, I relived that fateful night again. This time, as I screamed at Ali, I saw her burst into tears, turn, and run off down the sidewalk. The truck passed by, the wind picking up my hair. Nobody died. Nothing else happened. Memory troubles? Darek cooed from my subconscious. Ain’t that a pain?

           "Look,” Ali began unsteadily, “I was really lonely and he was there for me. It just sort of… happened. It was as natural as breathing.”

           Silence followed. A gnawing question beat at my mental processes as I tried to digest the situation. “Were you in love with him?” I finally asked.

           She paused, considering her answer. “Mat… I am in love with him. And you. I love every part of you.” The hot Florida sun beat down overhead as I walked down the street. It all seemed unreal. Here was a girl I thought was dead telling me she was in love with someone who didn’t technically exist. Here was a girl I thought was dead who was now my only hint as to what happened over the past several months. It was too much to take.

           "No.“ I managed numbly. "Do not do this to me. No, not you, please. Ali, anyone but you.”

           "I’m sorry!“ She cried. "I’m so sorry!”

           "That doesn’t change a thing. Everyone’s sorry.“ And it was true. In fact it was something Darek was fond of saying. If human beings were any one thing, it was certainly sorry. The whole lot of them were a sorry excuse for living things.

           "So…” she paused, searching for the right words. “Is our relationship over now?”

           "As far as I’m concerned,“ I answered coldly, "it never started.” Part of me was happy to know she was alive. But mostly I just knew that I didn’t want her to have any misconceptions about my feelings. I had to be cold and direct. Her silence still made me feel guilty and wicked. I could sense Darek basking in the dark emotions dancing around my head.

           "Look, I just—” I began.

           She cut me off before I could explain. “It’s okay! He told me from day one that it was only a temporary arrangement.”

           The defeated way she said that made me feel like, despite it, she hoped it would have been permanent. “I just… I’m sorry.” There. I said it. “A chunk of my life is missing and I’m desperate to fill it. To understand. Why am I in some random motel? How?”

           "I can help you.“ She answered. “But only in the ways he permitted.”

           "Oh God.“ I couldn’t help it. "The psycho you fell in love with gave you rules?”

           "… don’t make it sound like that.“

           I sighed. Any information was better than none. "What CAN you tell me?”

           "I have logs.“ She said. "They’re on a flash drive. He told me to send them to you when you… woke up. Supposedly they’re accounts of your time on the Outer Layer.”

           The Outer Layer again. Of course. I wasn’t nowhere while Darek was wreaking havoc with my body. I must have been spending my time in the place beyond the doorway. This was the first bit of good news I’d had since waking up and I was eager to pursue it.

           "When can you get them to me?“

           "Someone’s excited.”

           I almost laughed at that. Almost. “Try desperate and confused.”

           That elicited a giggle from her end of the line.  Between the burning sun and the warm phone against my ear, I was starting to feel pretty hot. Noticing a clump of trees, I proceeded to stop and sit in the shade to cool off a bit.

           "Okay, look,“ she said, "I’ll send you what I have ASAP. I’ll send it via eMail. You still have that gMail account, right? Just… sit tight.”

           I was already doing that, so it didn’t seem like an impossible request. On a whim, I decided to ask another question. “I don’t suppose you know anything else about my life in the past several months, do you?”

           "Sorry,“ she answered lamely. "When I saw you, I had, um… other things on my mind…”

           I shuddered to think what she could be referring to. “It’s… okay.”

           "You sure?“

           I wasn’t. "As okay as it’s going to get. Thanks, Ali.”

           "If you need anything…“

           "I know.” I hung up and lay back in the grass as cars zoomed by and the world continued to turn. I had a sneaking suspicion this was not the last of Darek’s little surprises. I did not look forward to finding more startling truths out, but I knew I couldn’t just let time waste away. I had a lot of work to do if I wanted any semblance of a normal life back.

           I began my trek again in time. Thoughts tumbled around discordantly between Darek and Ali and myself. He played the voices that weren’t my own.

           I am in love with him. And you. I love every part of you.

           No, Ali, please, don’t do this to me. Anyone but you.

           It’s okay! He told me from day one it was only a temporary arrangement…

           A few incessant loops of that and I found myself at the library. I already had a card so it was a simple matter to make a computer reservation. Immediately upon accessing a library computer, I looked up gMail.

           I tried to open gMail up, but, for whatever reason, the library internet insisted it was inapporriate for a public setting. That just pissed me off. I left the library angry and sick, not looking forward to a long and thought-laden walk home.

#40: Eleven Months Later

01/22/17

FTP: I haven’t updated this blog in almost a year at this point. To be honest, I think I would have been happier leaving it alone and just going on with my life. I did not get the answers I needed, about the doorway, about Darek, or about Alice. But I didn’t need to get answers. I’ve been living ignorantly, drinking and smoking until the issues were sedated, for months now. I was okay. It wasn’t perfect, but I wasn’t losing any sleep over the glaring dysfunctions of my scarred mind. It was all just a waking nightmare from another life.

Of course it wasn’t really over. Of course Darek came back to haunt me.

This is going to be a brief summary of what I’ve gone through since waking up in that cursed motel on August 24th. I have six entries detailing events for the month I stayed there that I will be uploading soon. A lot went down in that first month. I have no memory of the six months between my last entry and waking up, but in that time Darek managed to tear my whole world apart. I lost one person who meant a lot to me, and another came back from the dead. One old friend wants to kill me, and another has been afflicted with the same curse I have. I’ve been given information about my time spent beyond the door, but it only leaves me with more questions than answers.

After a long-lost friend rescued me from homelessness, she talked me into letting my little investigation go. As days turned to weeks and weeks to months, it got easier and easier to live in the moment and let it lie. Darek stopped interfering in my life for the most part. That didn’t last, though. About a week ago he popped back up with his incessant whispers, urging me to check the Twitter he made for me in July. So, mostly to shut him up, I did. I probably should not have.

It seemed to bring him back full force. I struggled to ignore it but he flooded me with images, sounds, memories, and all the unanswered questions I had. On a whim, I tried my old password for my Tumblr account. Lo and behold, it let me in.

So I had a chance to update. I didn’t want to at first. He wouldn’t let it go. Even if I drank, I couldn’t sleep. He kept me up with doubts and fears I thought I had gotten over. Suddenly the months crumbled away. Suddenly I was in 2015 again. So I’m back now; I haven’t spoken a word to anyone about it. Ali would probably not want me updating this blog. But Darek is forcing my hand. He knows I still held onto the few entries I wrote about the month I spent in the motel. He obviously wants this. I’m sick of hiding in ignorance.

I need time, time to finish the entries I have now. During my month at the motel, I had limited internet access, so even though I was documenting various events, I did not quite complete the entries. They’re too disjointed in their present state, marred by fresh emotion. Looking at them now, they do not capture the full scope of what I went through. I will update this blog at the best pace I can manage. These next entries will detail my journey through September. It is basically just me adjusting to my upturned world. Once they’re all up, I will return to real-time updates like this one. So bear with me as I sort through my broken brain. I also will be going through the earlier entries and adding some notes from my current perspective, notes FTF(from the future).

I feel like a coward for letting him drag me back into this so easily. At the same time I feel like this is a decision I needed to make. I have to confront this. It clearly isn’t going away.

Oh God, he’s laughing at me. The motherfucker is laughing at me.

are you there?

https://mobile.twitter.com/CYHTCBR

#39: Live Update

21:16

This is going to be a live updated blog entry, as the title suggests. I’ll post additional information as I get it. Part of the reason I’m doing this is to have a real-time post rather than writing up logs and posting them days later like I have been. Another reason is that, since creating this tumblr, someone has been editing it and including hidden image links without my permission. I want to see if I can catch them off-guard by directly posting rather than writing and waiting to upload.

In the week since I fearfully abandoned my lucid dreaming approach to investigating my personal demons, I haven’t had a single full night’s sleep. What I get is more like a series of short naps at arbitrary times, which has impacted me poorly. I am irritated easily. I snap at my family. I have no drive. I don’t even try to be social. I’m a fucking mess and I have reasonable suspicion Darek is the root cause of it all.

The lines are so blurred. How much of my mentality did Darek influence? Where does he end and I begin? I believe he is the source of my recent insomnia. Yet simultaneously I suspect he is the excuse perpetuating this abhorrent lifestyle. At this point, I question if he is even really separate from my identity. My mind’s a tattered mess.

My dreams are always vivid, surreal, and they seem less like dreams and more like messages. For example, I woke up this afternoon from this one. It was set in a grassy field. There was a dense forest nearby. The sky was dark and cloudy. It felt wrong, somehow. It felt like it was the middle of the day but it was so dark. The cloud was a single uniform entity, but it blanketed the entire sky. I kept thinking that it was just in my head but somehow I knew that it was a living breathing thing. That cloud was as alive as I was and it made me feel hollow and dark just looking at it. I stared at it for a good minute or two, trying to understand what it was to me. I think it finally dawned on me at the last moment that the thick billowing tendrils of darkness were not a cloud but a blanket of smoke. Then it dropped down from the sky, rapidly, intending to smother me. I woke up immediately after.

In entry #33, the dream log from 2015, I mentioned a growing anxiety. I feel that again now. Something is going to happen soon, maybe tonight. It is as if all of the tension of the past months is coming to a boil. I do not know if it will bring answers, but I’m going to edit this post as events transpire. Due to my unnatural sleep schedule, I will likely be updating you guys well into the night.

So grab some popcorn and keep me company. Because here we go.

22:06

Not ten minutes and we have a special guest appearance! Check out the word “boil” above. The “i” is a link to an image from the hackers that have been fucking with me and my friends.

I have to thank you, though, mystery infiltrator. You reminded me about the unauthorized YouTube account creates for Ben. It so happens another video was added earlier this month.

Video

Ben has been avoiding me as of late it seems. I haven’t questioned him on his experiences and I have resolved not to involve him any more than he already is. However, it seems these hackers somehow have access to files on his phone. It is a similar case with me. I’ve changed my account password twice but the image posters are not deterred in the slightest.

Sure, I can easily explain away the voice in my head knowing my changed passwords, but the fact that they can do the same to Ben implies to me that they are an outside entity. The images, links, and YouTube videos are being orchestrated by people connected to us. I have been referring to them as a group because I have noticed differences in the images. Some are filtered heavily but still in color, often images of landscapes or related to the topic they appear in. The others… well, they’re more like direct taunts and mind games. Those are the black and white outline images with the faded text. The juxtaposition of the two are so stark I can no longer see them as coming from a single person.

It is the same predicament as the capitalization codes repeated. These could be two people with different motives, or one lunatic, or a group effort to keep me guessing. And which of them made the YouTube account? Or was it someone else entirely? I know they’re reading this now. They know I have no leads on them, no grasp on their motivation, no comprehension of their intention. As I struggle to understand the powers within myself that torment me, they stand even further in the shadow of mystery.

Here’s a convoluted theory: what if it is Ben hacking me, and he set himself up as a victim to throw me off the trail? It is baseless hypothesizing. He has no motive. Though, there really is no motive justifying this except pure insanity.

Here is what it comes down to. Either they are harmless and hacking me for fun, or they are malicious and may cause me harm. If that is so, the hidden images are irrelevant. They could just as easily have assaulted me without posting a single one. So, I conclude that it doesn’t matter and I can do nothing either way.

I started these posts to help deal with my mental battle. I would prefer to keep this blog about that than give these hackers more attention. They’re just too much to handle when I don’t even know so much else. Who put the messages in the capitalization errors? Why did Darek send three different messages in entries #16 to #18? What is so important about that door in my dreams?

I don’t even know who I am. How can I be expected to figure out who they are?

My eyes are drooping. I think sleep is coming. I’m sure I’ll be updating in a few hours.

23:43

I saw the fire, burning brightly, the only light for miles. The smoke rose from it, joining with the rolling thicket already blotting out the sun. There was a figure cloaked in shadows standing in front of the flame. It stepped forward with feminine grace, unfurling a pair of wings and lifting into the sky. For some reason, I was reminded of Shadow, who I hadn’t communicated with since I was thirteen or fourteen, six to seven years ago. The figure rose into the sky and was swallowed by the smog.

These dreams don’t feel like dreams. They feel like memories. It isn’t like they induce deja vu; I don’t recognize anything about them. However, experiencing these dreams is a lot like reading my original entries. I do not remember yet I can see it with such clarity. I think their unique nature lends heavily to my high anxiety levels.

I was taught an interesting trick by my good friend Rob, who has been a major support for me the past few months. If you take the image URL and retype it a certain way, you end up seeing the image as it displays on the imgur site. For example, entry #18 had links that displayed the direct imgur link.

I had dismissed it as more mind games at the time, but that may have been an oversight on my part. My speculation was accurate from earlier. There are two individual imgur accounts that host all the images hidden in my logs.

http://m.imgur.com/account/CHAMELEON000/images

http://m.imgur.com/account/ZanarkAlZander/images

I’m kind of disappointed. This is a huge breakthrough. I have aliases for these enigmas. All of their hidden pictures are at my fingertips. I should be stoked, but… I had just resolved to take the focus of these logs off them. So this victory feels pyrrhic in nature.

Regardless, thank you so much Rob. I am honored by your aid in my struggle. At least someone is paying attention to this convoluted mystery.

As far as the next step goes, I have a lot to digest before I update again. The night is still young though. This revelation has only spiked my anxious tension.

00:03

So, in entry #15, there was a mention of something called the Outer Layer. With that stupid door on my mind, I think I finally made the connection.

I’d assumed previously that it led into somewhere Darek did not want me going. Maybe, just maybe, it is not that he wants to keep me out of the doorway, but he wants to keep me in his twisted simulation room. There, he has control over every dream, everything I experience while asleep. If I go through the door, though, I’ll be in the Outer Layer, free from his grasp.

I have no clue what this Outer Layer even is, but he clearly wants me to forget about it. And he is adamant about keeping me from that door. I could be wrong about all this, but I have this feeling I’m not…

01:01

Not sure how, but I slept briefly just now. I feel more tired than before though. You ever wake up at the wrong moment and you’re trying to do stuff but your chest is constricted and you’re in intense discomfort? That is me right now. Anyway, here’s the latest dream.

This time I was walking through the forest. The rustling of leaves and the snapping of twigs reverberated, seeming to come from every direction. I ducked between two trees growing side by side. The tops of the trees blanketed the forest in shade, but slivers of sunlight broke through in some places. I felt a soothing serenity from this place.

Deeper and deeper I went, wondering where I was headed. I’m not sure if my paranoia stirred before or after the trees blotted out the sun entirely. I found myself surrounded by barren branches and ashy soil. Claustrophobia overtook the inner peace. The tree limbs snatched at my clothes greedily. Death seemed to writhe all around me. Suffocating, I sprinted blindly as hellish voices cried out behind me.

After an eternity in that state, I found a lake that provided open space. Collapsing at its edge, I looked across the length of it, seeing a figure knelt over the water on the other side. The weeping was faintly audible. As I approached shakily, it became more distinct. My chest tightened. I felt sympathy for the kneeling figure. All I could make out from where I was along the shore of the lake was a beautiful shade of blue hair. It was darker than the water which the figure knelt over. I wanted to call out but my voice was stuck in my throat. I could only watch helplessly, hand outstretched, as she tumbled forward head first into the water. She sank beneath the surface and finally my scream rippled out across the water. As fast as it raced, it would not reach her in time.

Again, something about the girl and the lake felt so familiar. I think… perhaps these strange dreams are lost memories of the place beyond the door. I know that unless I am lucid, even if I see the door, I will not be able to pass through it. Not as long as Darek is in control.

I can’t. It is a dead end. If I lucid dream again… I am scared the next time it won’t be a mattress I cut up. It could be one of my siblings. It is out of the question, simple as that.

And yes, I saw Chameleon’s newest image. The past few have had numbers involved. It’s a countdown. I do not think I want to know what happens at zero.

01:22

This is impossible.

The last image uploaded by ZanarkAlZander? That’s ripped straight from my dream. This just doesn’t compute. I mean, they’re not personalities of mine. They can’t be. Even if they fucking were, how could they possibly have had the specific image from my dreams minutes after I had it!? No theory can reconcile this.

I feel like I’ve lost control. Completely. I have been sipping on my dad’s vodka. Illegal, I know, but I need to dilute this insanity somehow.

I don’t have a choice anymore. I’m going to try lucid dreaming again. I thought I was on the verge of answers but now I don’t even know what the questions are. That damn door is all I have left. If I’m lucid, I can make a break for it as soon as I see it.

I’m scared. But I won’t back down now. Whatever happens when I dream next, I’ll have some sort of report tomorrow or later tonight. Wish me luck.

#38: A Door

02/19/16

The memory came to me completely at random while I was playing a video game. It washed over me with such strength that the controller fell from my hands and tears came to my eyes.

The memory was of a door. It was not ornate or special in any way, just your average wooden doorway. It came to me in a fleeting distant way that memories of dreamed things always do. I grasped out desperately, sure this was important. What I didn’t yet know was why it mattered. I could remember myself taking a step toward the door, but the memory cut off after that. If I tried to push myself to remember more, it all slipped away into black and I threatened myself with the loss of the entire thing.

I grew frustrated with the consistency of the memory. Holding onto it was like holding on to a slimy, wriggling creature desperate to escape its fate. My head began to throb with the effort I expended trying to reach the doorway. My heart pounded a bass line through my ribcage. My hands grew cold and clammy. I must have sat motionless, distantly aware of the game’s audio, for at least half an hour. The doorway waxed and waned in and out of existence. The moments I was certain I could finally reach out and grab the knob, my thoughts became a blank void of fear. The moments I felt an invasive hopelessness, the image returned to me, fiercer than ever. The frame of the door stretched in the peripherals of my vision.

The wood was dark and in pristine condition. The knob was made of tarnished metal and gave off an old-fashioned vibe. As hard as I tried, I could not seem to place the image. My eyes were clenched shut in focus. I could feel the cranial pressure building up. With how strong my focus was, I would not have been surprised to open my eyes to a nosebleed.

I surrendered eventually. I let the doorway slip back into the monochrome greys of my mind. All the effort I was expending left me fatigued and weary. I resolved to make myself a nice meal and simply let the vision slip away from me.

As I closed my eyes to sleep, of course it returned, like a punch to the gut. I was suddenly wide awake and staring at the corners of my room. Shadow seemed to cling threateningly despite the quiet lights. I was petrified of being pulled into another lucid nightmare.

Several cups of Sleepytime tea later I drifted into a weary sleep. As I dreamed I saw the door again.

I don’t really remember most of the dream but I remember the door. I was in the middle of an air force base when I saw it. It was attached to the side of one of the massive hangars. It looked so jarring and out of place. Suddenly a plane crashed into the ground behind me. As soon as my attention was pulled away, I glanced back and found the door had vanished.

I woke up and used the bathroom shortly after. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was thrust into another dream. I was walking through the woods with my old friend Grant. I actually heard earlier this month that he’d killed himself so the dream had melancholic qualities to it. I saw it again, out in the woods, attached to a pair of old tree trunks. Almost as if in response to my spotting it, Grant violently yanked me around and growled something at me I didn’t understand. It sounded like it was Latin, but it felt oddly reminiscent of something familiar. As with last time, I looked for the door and it was nowhere to be found. Grant just kept walking like nothing had ever happened, like he was fine. I soon fell back into the beat of the dream and followed him.

I’m growing increasingly certain Darek has a hold of my dreams in some way. Twice now I’ve seen the door that jarred it’s way into my focus. Twice now the dream around me has responded to distract me from it visually. And twice it has vanished or been relocated in those distracted moments.

Sleep’s been a lot lighter. I’m tenser since this started up. The door keeps coming to mind, all the time. It is almost like it is calling to me, promising answers. I just have no idea what will be behind it. It keeps me awake, because better to not be exposed to it than risk the chance to open it again.

I’m starting to think I see the door other times, too; it’s in my dreams, or rather my memories of dreams, especially the ones described in entry #33. I don’t even know if they’re real, though. I mean, it could all just be intended to break me further.

I just hope this fucking anxiety let’s up soon. I really do not care for it.