christ, forgive these bones i've been hiding, and the bones i'm about to leave

The clones are threatening our grand nephew a lot more than warlock the proof is NCIS Miami and there's a hose that was used in a race and he had some inflammatory substances all over him and he was very badly burned the ignited when his engine blew and he actually died from inhaling it and it caught on fire and it's probably cocaine and if they place that on them too and here's a few things for thought when he was riding around today wasting time he was heading towards Walmart and he was at Jones loop there was a spray nozzle there with an odd thing attached to it or something and a piece of metal that's been there for the whole time like a year and nobody touched it and they're next to each other. And it's kind of like they want to remove him because of a fire and they're saying John rhema Lord will set the place on fire and people should be able to pieces together. And they did murder someone temporarily and that's someone might be here and it is proof and he's looking into it and other people investigating it and I do know which one it was and he does get hurt very badly from this and yes the clones are fooling around with you with Terminator and other things Conan and more and us and it's becoming very obvious it's them and the stupid fight club thing is there stuff and they want you to get blown up and other stuff happens because we have to fight them and you are fighting some of them in fight club so it is on tonight and it's a basement fight and it used to happen a lot and it's going to happen and we're going to kick your ass clothes clips and announcements

Mac daddy

Us too I'm going to kick your ass clothes return of the threats you blabbing and directing us against everybody you're horrible people and you're not very good at it most people face you

Thor Freya

We're facing you now and we do see he's not a clone and he has some power and that you people are bothering him all the time like your little kids and you're retarded and you don't understand what you're doing that's what he's saying he said you left Mac floundering and you did it on purpose to have a make stuff and he's he's got plenty of stuff but you can't see it so you could be probably dead and you won't know they need you out of the way they need us out of the way and we're not budgeting and you're not budging so

Bja

This sucks I'm scanning things and they're huge and they could be monsters insane what would you do and I figured out something it's not a friend holding off and he says we're running around bothering him and he's been telling us and we're not changing it and I see what we're saying to him and anybody would react that way what he's doing if it's real is very severe and I can't figure it out and I'm not really that bright no I'm not stupid but this stuff could be very very advanced and everybody thinks I'm pulling their leg it's because I'm not sure and I have hunches I don't have any proof and he says that the proof is all over the place and you've lost battles and you don't know who it is and that's proof and you should be backing off me when we and he said that and we decide not to so we're going to fail so we can't back off someone who is very aggressive

Tommy f

You can't? Or you won't! What we know is it's both and that you're an imbecile and you were kind of that way when you were born and you're just aggressive person and all your clones are like that and your ruination for these people bja can't hardly control himself and he had it right and you ruin it and you will not be a match for us at all you are not a match you are definitely a lot weaker and yeah ghwb had secret programs because you are so aggressive and he had our son doing it and our daughter and these things kick ass and you're going to see them soon in movies and all sorts of things even hating you and others clones because of you being massively aggressive and I'll tell you what the max understand it because nobody can sit back and listen to your stuff it's horrendous you are these guys turned all the way up and you won't stop and you want to blame them and use them as cover they're all turned up now too and it's going to be too late when you figure it out. And he tells you about it and you're still stupid his Giants underneath your black chips and I need the Black ships we're going to take them it's us too we're going to take them and we have a lot and he has his lot and there's not much you can do about it just run your plan is in an absolute ignorance

Thor Freya

I started all this s*** and it caused me a 5 year old I understand something I'm sitting here pissing him off now so he's going to stand up and whack us I know he's going to never know

Tommy f

You're a f****** dimwit I agree you're stupid screwing around with people's brains of stupid your influence the HWP to do it it did it to you you f****** moron they're all stupid and you can't figure it out God damn it you're a dumb a****** now things are changing rapidly and there's going to be a problem tonight I'm going to pull you in and see what's going on and these idiots between the both of you I don't think that any of you understand what the f*** you're doing wrong you openly admit it and you should be slowing down backing off or doing something different instead you're invading these assholes are invading wholesale that's wrong but you're going to ruin things and he definitely needs to fuel you would be very sick it's in the song and bjA sings it, but ghwp wanted super soldiers and you do not understand it this is going to be hell I'm so sick of you putrid retards we had plans like it but not this intense he's got regions and generals and all sorts of stuff and father and mother you're a bunch of assholes he does whatever he wants cuz you're pestering him like your little kids

Mac

Don't take it wrong too easy we step on you and scrape you off our shoe when necessary

Broken bones and all and yeah that's part is me Hera

Zues

Part 3 of ?

(part 1 here)

(part 2 here)

They fall into a pattern after that. Sid works in the labs during the day, going over previously gathered data and doing just enough to keep Bettman thinking that all is well. Natalia teaches him the staff rotations and camera locations to allow him to reach the observation room without being caught, and they meet up there in the middle of the night to discuss their plans.

Natalia just calls the being “malysh” most of the time, but Sid had wanted to call him with his name. The being had only laughed in a riot of color and explained that Sid had no hope of replicating it with human vocal cords. Much of the being’s communication, aside from color and telepathy, he explained, was subsonic, at frequencies too low for human ears. 

“Evgeni,” Natalia says firmly, in order to move the conversation along. “Good Russian name. Can call you Zhenya for small.” 

I like it the being--Zhenya-- had replied, radiating mental warmth in response. 

 “Zhenya,” Sidney had said, testing the sound of it in his mouth. The lights on Zhenya’s body had all flickered in response. 

Now, they have the rudiments of a plan. Zhenya needs some of the equipment on his ship, badly. 

My kind, he explains. We….adapt, easily. I can stop your gravity and atmosphere... from killing me. But I need my ship. 

Their communication comes so much easier now. Sid wonders if there’s some kind of link or connection that grows stronger with use. He knows that it still takes effort and that Zhenya has to rest after long sentences, but the gaps are becoming shorter. Zhenya’s personality, vibrant from the first, comes through even more clearly now. Sid can see why Natalia is so fiercely protective of him, and he aches thinking about the suffering he’s had to endure until now. 

I will be able to assume an almost human biological form he tells Sid one night. Tell me...what is considered good, to your species? In a person’s form. 

His lights are all soft yellow and his eyes are wide and innocent-looking. Suspiciously so. When he imitates a human facial expression it’s deliberately done. 

Sid flushes. “You mean, like, what is aesthetically pleasing? Or um.” 

Lights pulse, a rainbow of other colors flickering through the yellow. Your species is very focused on...reproductive availability, correct? 

“Oh god,” Sid says, feeling his face heat up even further. “Uh. Well, height is considered pretty important, for guys? And, um.” 

Reproductive organ size? Zhenya says, still wide-eyed and butter-yellow with what Sid is beginning to think is faux-innocence. 

“Such a dick,” Sid blurts. His face feels like it’s on fire. 

Not yet Zhenya sends, smugness radiating from the words like bad cologne. 

“You told me last night that your people have monitored our radio and television signals for decades,” Sid accuses. It had floored him to learn, but it explained Zhenya’s ability to speak human languages, albeit telepathically. “You know exactly what is considered attractive to humans.” 

I only want to program the DNA successfully, Zhenya claims.

“Uh huh.” Sidney rolls his eyes, but has to smile as Zhenya’s lights edge toward pink. “Sure you do.” 

***

Sid has more than a few overwhelming fears about their plans. 

“If I disappear at the same time you do,” he says, one night about two weeks in. “They might come after me once I return home. They’ll be watching my place, probably.” He feels terrible even bringing this up. Zhenya and Natalia are both risking so much. 

Once I have adapted Zhenya tells him, lights flowing down his skin in a way that seems intended to comfort and reassure. I will still have some of my abilities, and my technology. I will be able to protect you. 

“You’ll be staying with me?” Sid asks. “After this?” 

Zhenya goes very still. If. If you consent. 

“Of course,” Sid says. He feels a strange sense of relief. The scientist in him, of course, wants every opportunity to continue to learn about extraterrestrial life, and the rest of him has begun to grow...fond of Zhenya. His curiosity, his surprising playfulness. His affection for Natalia. 

Sid leans his forehead against the glass. He’s exhausted from weeks of fractured sleep and strung out nerves. They’re alone tonight- Natalia’s husband has a cold and she stayed home from work to care for him. 

Zhenya leans his forehead against the glass as well, making one of his low, rumbling hums. 

It was my dream, he thinks wistfully. All my life. To come and study this planet. I’m not ready to leave it. I just need to be free of this place. 

“I know,” Sid says softly, and tries something new. Just like the times he sends thought Zhenya’s way, he tries to send the complicated bundle of emotions lodged in his chest. Fear, affection, resolve. 

Sid is all Zhenya sends back, and the glass between them trembles with sound that Sid mostly feels, rather than hears. 

He has the strangest sense that there’s more that Zhenya would like to say, but he holds his peace, moving instead to the less emotionally fraught topic of the facility’s containment breach protocols. 

***

After a while, there isn’t anything more to discuss. There is only the execution of their plan. 

Their saving grace is that due to the paranoia of those running the facility, nothing so much as a laptop camera is allowed in the observation room. They decide then, that getting through the window is their best bet, as they will have at least two hours between guards making security checks of the room. 

Sid has access to the equipment storage area for the research department. He manages to steal a reciprocating saw and an acetylene torch easily enough, hiding them in one of the equipment lockers close to the observation room. He packs a backpack with only the absolute essentials, and makes his way to where Zhenya is waiting for him, tense and pacing as they wait for Natalia to arrive. 

When she arrives, she wastes no time. She presses a wrapped package of food into Sid’s hands and kisses him on both cheeks. Sid has to swallow and clear his throat before he can ask her how preparations went. 

“Pipe is blocked in office block. All cleaning staff go there, big mess.” 

Sid nods. They have to get Zhenya out, then time their race to reach the hanger just right to avoid security patrols. 

Natalia pauses, then presses something heavy into Sid’s hands, wrapped up in what appears to be a flowered tea towel. 

He goes cold all over when he realizes that it’s a handgun. 

“I’m take from guard’s room,” Natalia says. Her expression is worried but her gaze is flinty. Whatever it takes, her eyes say. 

Sid’s hands shake a little, but he checks the safety, and tucks the weapon in the waistband of his jeans. The reality of it is, he doesn’t know how to use a gun properly, and the guards here are most likely going to bring him down and ask questions never. Some of the tension leaves Natalia’s shoulders though, and that is enough. 

The plexiglass of the viewing window proves insanely difficult to deal with. It emits billows of noxious-smelling smoke as it melts, and when Sid has to alternate between the torch and the saw. His shoulders and arms are burning and sweat is running off him in rivers as he grits his teeth and shears through the window centimeter by hardwon centimeter. They’re cutting a diagonal across one of the corners, hoping for the sealant to fail and make for fewer cuts. 

His brain is just an endless loop of come on come on come on come on as beside him Natalia starts to murmur what sound like prayers. 

A glance into Zhenya’s enclosure shows smoke collecting at an alarming rate. His lights are flickering a sick green-yellow that turns Sid’s stomach with worry. 

Finally. He hits the edge of the window and starts in on the massive bolts on the frame, working his way down from the top as Natalia starts in on the ones on the bottom. 

They’re not going to have enough time. There’s no way. Sid wedges a crowbar under the edge of the frame and heaves on it, with a strangled grunt. Natalia grabs on as well and they both haul on it as Zhenya pushes on the opposite side. 

There’s a horrible squeal of metal on metal, and, miraculously, the frame gives. The plexiglass falls out of it with a thud.

“Go, go!” Natalia cries. She pushes Sid’s bag at him and he throws it over his shoulder. He turns and holds out his arm to support Zhenya as he folds himself through the gap. He’s lighter than he looks, as if he’s hollow-boned as a bird. 

Quick.

He extends a tendril to Natalia and she holds out her hand. Sid watches in puzzlement as Zhenya’s lights flare. 

It is an honor, Natalia  he says. 

Natalia’s eyes are wet as she hurries them out of the room and down the long corridor to Zhenya’s ship. Sid can hear an alarm start to blare in another part of the complex. 

“Be safe,” Sid tells her with a final kiss to her cheek. She nods, and takes off. She has to make it to an electrical panel that will allow her to throw the fuses for the hanger bay. 

Come, Zhenya tells him, and they take off down the endless hall, sirens and flashing lights now blaring around them. Zhenya stumbles, and Sid has to haul him upright. 

As if in a slow motion nightmare, just as they turn a corner and the hanger doors come into view, Sid registers a guard standing there, raising a radio to his lips. 

Sid reaches for the gun before he can think. Sweat-slick palms, nothing but the drum of his heart in his ears. 

He fires. The shot goes wide, the guard swivels, bringing up his own weapon. 

Sid fires again. The guard goes down, clutching at his leg. Before he can reach his dropped weapon Sid kicks it away. He wants to lean over and vomit. 

Later.

The guard’s key card opens the doors for them, at least, and as they run inside, the lights all go down, save the faint glowing ones on the ship itself. 

Past the electric barrier erected around it, up into the gaping entryway that opens at Zhenya’s touch. 

Hold on Zhenya thinks tersely at him, as Sid half collapses against a bulkhead, lungs burning. 

The ship hums to life, and Sid sways on his feet as it rises into the air. Zhenya is standing inside a curved, organic looking arch, a web of light rising around him as the ship turns, screeching and throwing sparks as it brushes the hanger walls. 

The doors are corrugated steel, and Zhenya had told them that his ship can break through. Sid still closes his eyes as he hears the thrum of the engines increase in pitch. Nothing around him had looked anything like an identifiable jumpseat or safety harness, so he just braces himself against the bulkhead. 

Then the ship’s sudden acceleration presses him back into the wall like an enormous hand, there’s a jolt, an awful shearing sound of metal on metal, and the floor beneath Sid tilts. 

The ship is shuddering, G forces pushing on Sid until the edges of his vision start to go dark. He might be screaming. Everything is sound, and roaring, and pressure. Time itself seems to stretch.

Then, easy as a sigh, the pressure lets him go. The floor rights itself, the engines calm. 

Sid is on the floor on his hands and knees, panting for breath. When he can raise his head again, he looks up, out of the cockpit window.

Beyond it is deep, velvety black- too deep and dark to comprehend, spangled with a billion points of light. 

The stars.

***

Sid is lightheaded with residual adrenaline and his hands shake with fine tremors. His eyes greedily devour the sight outside as he stands in front of the main viewing-window- the blue of the sky going cold and deep at the very edge of space, the infinite blackness beyond the fragile curve of the earth.

“Zhenya,” he breathes, and turns to look at him.

Zhenya is manipulating the web of light that must make up the controls, but he seems unwell. He’s hunched over a little, and his breathing seems rasping and labored.

Sid realizes, with a flood of guilt, that he’s able to breath perfectly, and that the gravity of the ship, after the press of rapid acceleration had ceased, feels normal to him.

“Zhenya,” he says urgently. “The life support systems. You’ve set them to human parameters, haven’t you?”

Zhenya blinks at him, slow. You would suffer ill effects from my species’s ideal parameters.

“Maybe of atmospheric composition,” Sid says. “What about gravity? Does your species need higher or lower gravity than humans?

Lower.

Sid sighs in relief. “That’s fine then, my species has done great in zero-g, even, without too many ill effects. Go ahead and change it.

Zhenya does something, and Sid grins like a child as his feet slowly leave the floor. Zhenya sighs, taking a deep, rattling breath that sounds, to Sid, relieved.

“This,” Sid assures him,”Is so fucking cool. I’ve dreamt of stuff like this, space and weightlessness, my whole life.”

Zhenya’s lights pulse, and Sid feels a swell of wordless affection wash up against his thoughts.

Zhenya just feels so fond when he looks at Sid. Sid doesn’t know quite what to do with that so he turns to look out of the window again, just in time to see the Baltic Sea slide by underneath them.

Something occurs to him. In all this planning, they hadn’t considered-

“Uh, where are we going,” Sidney asks.

I need time for the adaptation  Zhenya replies. I still want to conduct my research. I could take you anywhere. I have earth resources we can use.

Sid has to stare out the window at that a little. Instead of northern Norway, he watches the reflection of Zhenya’s lights, gone gently blue and pink.

He’s sitting in a spaceship. He’s sitting in a spaceship with an extraterrestrial and he’s on the run from a shadowy government organization. He shakes his head.

“I don’t even know,” he says softly, and for some reason, he thinks, “I shot someone today,” and his hands start to shake.

Sidney. Zhenya moves to stand behind him, and he rests one of his long-fingered hands on Sid’s shoulders.

He can feel...regret, he thinks, bleeding across the connection of their minds. He turns to face Zhenya.

“I’m so glad we got you out,” he says decisively. “I am.”

You are… Zhenya pauses. Extraordinary. You and Natalia. You have both risked so much for me.

His eyes are fathomless, his face as unreadable as it ever is. But the pulse of his lights and the warmth in his mind tells Sid everything that his expression won’t.

Sid, for some reason, feels his own face heat. “It was the right thing to do.The humane thing.”

Humane, from the word for your species Zhenya thinks, and his mind does something that feels a lot like the equivalent of a smile. You humans are creatures of such staggering contrast and potential.

Sid can’t meet that steady gaze anymore. He looks out of the window again. Are they over the North Atlantic?

“So this adaptation,” he asks. “What is that going to entail?”

Natalia brought me a hair of her husband’s and one of her own. I will be very nearly as if I had been their son.

Sid shakes his head in amazement and feels a curious sense of loss. All that Zhenya is, all of his otherworldly beauty, compressed into a human shell. Necessary to live on earth and fulfill his dream, perhaps, but still.

I look forward to a mostly human body Zhenya goes on. I will only hold up to the most rudimentary medical scrutiny, but I will definitely stop being killed by your environment—at least not any faster than you. He flickers his lights wryly.

I will need to spend about an earth month in a nutrient bath as my DNA is re-programmed and my body restructures itself. The DNA from Natalia was the final piece, the rest of the scaffolding was already completed as part of the preparation for this expedition.

“You guys really can just rewrite DNA, huh,” Sid says, shaking his head.

Our technology for genome manipulation arose out of necessity, Zhenya explains. My people were dying out. After we discovered space travel, we discovered that almost everything foreign to our planet caused our DNA to mutate. We were fragile. Luckily, we developed the technology before it was too late.

Sid cannot help but think,for a moment, of children dying of cancer. Of his grandfather losing his mind to Alzheimer’s.

I’m sorry, Zhenya says, having probably ascertained some of that from Sid’s thoughts. The ability to accept radical gene therapies and be effectively re-written is a particular trait of my people’s DNA. Our technology would not be of any use to humans, to my regret. You are noble to think of it.

“Ah, well,” Sid says. “We’ll have to muddle through on our own, then.”

Zhenya flickers at him, then tilts his head to one side.

You grow tired, he says. The extensive telepathic communication is hurting you.

Oh. Now that he’s paying attention, Sid can feel the beginnings of a headache throbbing at his temples.

“We never decided where we were going.” He has to laugh a little.

We will stop at your abode, and then-- Zhenya doesn’t finish the thought, but Sid gets a quickly stifled mental flicker of... palm trees?

Wherever you would like, Zhenya defers politely.

“It’s your research trip.” Sid smiles at him. “What was your plan?”

Zhenya’s lights glow excitedly. In my research I encountered several cultural artifacts of popular entertainment set in Miami. One in particular seemed to imply it would make an excellent hiding location for those involved in espionage and covert operations.

“Are you….talking about Burn Notice?”  Sid says, and laughs. Why is that so cute? “Face it, you just want to go to the beach, eh?”

Maybe so Zhenya replies, and his mental tone is a warm as a smile, even if his slit of a mouth doesn’t move.

“Sure, let’s go.” Sid winces as a bolt of pain stabs his temples.

Rest, Zhenya tells him both in word and in a soothing ripple of light. I shall take you to your home and we will then travel to our next hiding place after you have gathered your belongings. Please. He motions to an entryway in the rear of the cockpit.

When Sid goes where he’s bidden, he finds a handful of compact rooms. One is dimly lit, with soothing colors playing over the walls and a white, squashy blob the size of a king mattress on the floor.

Just to be sure, Sid hollers up the hall. He doesn’t want to end up sleeping in the equivalent of an alien toilet. When he receives the affirmative that it is, in fact, a bed, he puts down his pack and takes his shoes off, studying the weird, organic shapes of the room’s mysterious furnishings.

He snorts out a laugh when he notices, enshrined in a wall niche, a little collection of earthly looking doodads including, of all the fucking things, a Funko Pop figurine. He goes over to look and the objects make him smile. There’s a pine cone, a dented tin can of baked beans, and a postcard from Seattle. He knew Zhenya was fascinated with Earth but this tenderly displayed cluster of random artifacts just drives it home.

The bed is strange. The surface feels like silicone rubber and velvet had an oddly comfortable lovechild, but it’s pillowy and soft and he drops immediately off to sleep as soon as he lays his head down.

***

Sid.

Sid jolts awake as though his name had been spoken aloud, not just into his mind.

Zhenya is leaning over him.

How is your head?

Sid’s head feels a little like it usually does after a big headache- sort of like it’s a fishbowl made of brittle glass that he needs to be careful with. But it’s manageable.

He rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “Where are we?”

The roof of your apartment building.

That wakes him up. “Okay, nice. Are you coming in with me?”

Zhenya’s lights flicker excitedly. I would love to finally visit a private human domicile.

Sid smiles. The thought was accompanied by the same feeling of giddiness he imagines you’d get from a kid walking into a toy store.

***

Sid’s apartment is thankfully on the top floor, and they get Zhenya inside without incident. Zhenya does something with some sort of scanning device and his thoughts pulse with concern.

We should not linger. This building is being surveilled.

Fuck.

Go Zhenya tells him. I will keep watch.

Sid’s place is dim with all the shades drawn, and the still air with its closed-for-weeks smell adding to the surreality of it all as Sid makes his way through his rooms with a pounding heart.

What do you bring with you when you might be leaving life as you knew it behind for good? He grabs a duffle bag, then decides he doesn’t have time to be tidy and finds a garbage bag in the kitchen. He can organize later.

A couple changes of clothes, his backup hard drive, a photo of his parents. Does he take a bottle of shower gel? It’s not like he’s leaving the planet (ha). There’s going to be a CVS or something in Florida.

In goes his favorite quilt that his grandmother made him. A coffee mug he’s fond of from his sister. A stack of research materials and books that he’d hate to lose. There’s no reason he can’t keep working. A few more things get shoved haphazardly into the duffle and the garbage bag.

Just in time he realizes that he should probably grab his birth certificate and social security card. Just in case he really never comes back. Shit, what about rent? If he keeps paying rent, can the Russian organization that held Zhenya hack in and find out, tracking his credit card usage?

Too much to think about now. He’ll have time. He’s supposed to be in Russia for another month, in any case, and it’s paid in full.

He has everything he can’t do without. He takes a last look around. He has the strangest feeling that he’s never going to see the place again.

He shoulders the duffle and nods at Zhenya.

“Let’s go.”

***

retirement-home

Cludstrum is a computer program that is attached to the conciousness of astryl wylde, a journalist for the realm of astokahn It keeps whispering to astryl trying to get him back online, who is full of bitterness and captive to sin and this is evident because of astryl being attached and fused within a succubus and a incubus The retirement village is surrounded by a a wall sandbags and a bunch of other things and they are ready to go at any moment Small lake dripping with blood Undergrowth seeking to capture humans minds making them want to drown themselves and die in this underworld Lightpoles illuminating the areas Construction vehicles making building improvements and Sam Lowers, the chief construction worker controlling everything in front of him painted with tribal tattoos from their machinemaids Green-skinned bodyguards Yellow eye observing everything covering a surgery scar on your stomach Bandages attached to every person in creation observing their heart rate, brain waves etc Monitors Vaccine dispensers watching for when new ideas begin spreading Naked ladies dancing and buttah dispensers injecting dog food into unrealistic dreams Shocktroops training there skills and cornering the ichneumonid market for human hearts Pharmaceuticals testing their medical supplies on orphans High-roller gamers paying for good rolls The smell of leather cleaning out of the automatic carwashes Stock traders looting the fallen cities Lizards breeding on the words of Zaren's sermons, indoctrinating them into sacrificing themselves to build his dreams Gorazel pondering a growth formula A religious pamphlet, telling the whole story of Zaren's speeches Barmaids feeling arousal for the first time Cyber-surgeon bots cutting your brain out and using it for there bidding Sculptures made from the ground-up bones of heretics Agent walking on a catwalk above you, guns in hand, planning a raid on the underworld Borders closing, secrets not holding Random people floundering helplessly in the borderzone of the underworld where the walls have fallen Agent stretching your hands on a cross, taunting you that this could be you if you don't choose their after-life Blood raining from the ceiling Counting money from selling drugs to humans Agent caregiving you, explaining everything you see to you Magnetic poetry, spelling out secrets that the creatures fear Dog -faced individuals fighting for survival above the ground hoping one day they might live above the clouds in normal civilization Agent cheese-making creating inhuman recipes with goat or milk Orcs wrestling Agent roving stealing crops and running away with ichneumonid girl Smell of fresh coffee brewing slowly, filling the night with craving Cyclone fencing keeping humans in reservations Derro discussing over forge Blood falling from ceilings, put there by zealots of other religions Agent well-being check, judging if you need anything else Religious ichneumonid trading slaves Agent coping with solitude by caring for the unimportant humans with kindness Gas lamp illuminating a tax bill demanding 10% of salary Agent catalyzing an emotion within you by killing a rat --- It was about here, that our records ended Agent landscaping the road, trying to make sure the unimportant humans had a good view of the pretty lights Orc looting crypts for Godless magic items Agent mistreating you to keep you poor Orcs called the "runt" by other orcs Agent diagnosing your religious problems at a luxury hotel Goblin alchemist peddling drugs on the street Agent stroking your head Goblin pushing stolen supplies, trying to escape Agent killing you and covering up the incident as nothing more than a sick joke Agent portraying a king, knighting his close friends Goblins playing Goatsinging Agent evoking the dark arts of sorcery to make his living Yelling as you stop breathing Painting pictures and selling them online innocently Agent photographing topless angels of beauty and grace, fresh from the sky For days we tried to decipher these entries But failed Agent joking around, telling similar-looking people they look like someone he was looking for Agent brushing your teeth Sundowning seeing unexplainable figures, feeling irrational guilt Ending we had been looking for lay around the next entry Sanitation Orcs, with slave-pigs controlled with what appeared to be an excessively large dog-collar, dragging a dead hog Colossus presumes the Dead Orc served to lead them But who were "They? The incursions before had been done collectively by both Adventures and Zealots Community-dwelling humans Muckety-mucks would be killed by the heavy-handed human weapon wearers filled with self-righteousness We quietly finish reading Ribbon-cutting with a stone-like dagger, the books ends We presume that by this point, things had gotten too Disneyworld-esque to be organized Balloons pop, falling to earth, and die shortly thereafter It's no longer air-filled, but filled with decay The adventure was over for us Grooming the slaves into the main caste, as it were How did they all get here to begin with? We hold our lantern up Skinnys in cages, stripped of all meaning, poked with symbols and genetic information mixed and matched There's nothing but metal and meat here Counseling in mass to boost the self-esteem of the less fortunate Could OUR ancestors or friends have been part of this? Bartenders mixing fresh drinks for those-who-shuffle-letters The heavy metal doors take forever to open But finally, they do Eating breakfast with friends, in a not quite so uncommon rest stop bathroom The room is massive Large as any hotel we've been to Whisky-joint s with hookers offering extra curricular activities A bird sits, perched on the only wall in this giant room Dwelling on sadness or happiness Slowly, we walk toward the figure Is someone else alive? Have they been here the entire time? Sodbuster breaking the enchantments on his pieces of property The once proud orc has become a homeless person Sleeping in a coffin-like compartment, lights dimmed to an eerie red A heavy thud hits the ground beside us Mini-chainsaw sesaming wood, steam rising as it cuts through an oak Oh dear God, the horrors that we will see later on in the storage facility Astryl holds his temples, looking quite ill Thoughts stirring in his head, though you can't be sure of what they all are Toothpaste squirted onto a cold metal rod, teeth gnashing it in frenzy as it is pushed against gums Four candles sit in a circle Shambles grabbling forward on decaying legs of bone and flesh Silver necklaces shine on his withered skin, settled around rotten flesh Wet-nurse taking care for orphans not capable of taking care of themselves The moment we step inside the door, you feel a horrible feeling darken your mood Chatters of tiny voices bounce off the walls, making you feverishly uncomfortable Several dainty sofas of different colors sit in a conversational area Passageways leading to other parts of the building Running down dark corridors, trying to find your friends in the middle of the night Admission booth, with a wheelchair-bound woman sitting at a desk Weakness-magnets pulling the desperate into their havens We've reached the master of this house Homelike dungeon cells full of vagabonds caught up in the tornado You've seen enough horrors to last you a lifetime Cafffeine psychosis getting into its last drops You could've sworn you heard tiny screams Gerontologist sitting in a leather armchair with leads connecting to a large machine Yes, yes, I am insane and proud of it Tumblebleeds forming in her eyes The desperate attempts, of the lame, to communicate He giggles, pulling a lever on his chair Gusts of wind blowing through broken windows Pro-fusion pamphlets, covering the chair and the floor A cold sweat soaks into your clothes Life-prolonging machinery turned up to the highest notch We're barraged by two dozen tiny fists, as security our taken quite severely Sports drink pourers distracted by the on-goings of the surgeries Pile after pile of bones making you re-think vegetarianism Mousehole your only opportunity to escape this madness Thighs melted from the friction an everlasting nightmare Resurrection men attempting to bring life, back into the dead Terrified employees hold each-other for warmth as the cold wind pours through broken windows Harmonica notes punctuating the silence None of us can sleep, due to the horrors that stalk our nightmares Mattresses caked with blood stained sheets Sporting more than a few scars, the three of us decide sleep is no longer for us Booty running out of fresh corpses Rougarou sightings, angry voices buzzing in your mind We made it through the night, but only barely Rusted-out guillotines standing by, in case High Society is truly ungrateful The gibbering voices continue, just out of your perception Phosphorus consumed by the gallons The walls are soaked in blood, with bits of rotten flesh caked into it Strung-out on Organic Love Megalomaniac obsessed with the submissive pleasures of the flesh Another scraping noise, the insides of your mind threaten to burst out of your ears Dust -covered vases bursting with roses the first token of what is to come Patriots tripping on peyote, sparks bursting from snapping electricity The walls dripping with condensation and blood, an obvious sign of infection among the staff Adrenaline pumping through your veins Time seems to almost stop, a life of unending torment Conquistadors bursting through the doors, encrusted blades in hand Prayers to gods you don't believe in, offered as a last ditch effort for salvation Gangrenous pus oozes from the ceiling, your only companion in this house of horrors All around you, dark shadows flit from wall to wall Faucet water turned red with blood, mutilated bodies fill the hallway At least you're not on the menu Prophecy -fulfillment, that all depends on your definition of the term You lay alone, gurgling out a plea for help Triangulation of terror coordinate your deaths! Zombies clawing at the interior, scratching at the blood-caked windows Preachings of hell's fire and brimstone recorded onto endless looping tapes Teddy bears sewn together, a symbol of your "creation Corrosion eats away at the metals that make up the structure You lie still, contemplating your squalid existence so far Soapbox soliloquies abnormalities abound here "Your last twenty-four hours Moisture from the walls eats away at the wood planks Your heart thuds in your chest, survival instinct kicking in Sermons from your school days echo through the walls do those memories still hold true? Lobotomize yourself! Boggles the mind what one will do to survive the supernatural at work You grow longer ripping through your skin Delivery men dropping off the ingredients to your death Herds of undead knock incessantly at the door can this door hold? Toothbrushes The weight of the package all too familiar buried beneath where you lay, where only remnants remain of those who came before Diamonds the traditional gift for your 20th anniversary Dozens of zombies clawing at the flesh, ripping it from your bones Talisman blessed by your mother, a gift holding sacred energy The beam creaks, agonizingly slowly bending in your favor Stinky unwashed cannibal hermits who inevitably feast upon one another The demons come to visit, your mind now their playground Insecticide seeps through the fabric, keeping the infected at bay A living hell, this wandering in the wilderness only death awaits Oozes burst from your stomach, you can feel them writhing under your skin Your mind capsizing from this dreadful operation Newspapers thumbed-through one too many times, decades old dust sets in Desperate scratching at boarded up windows Diplomats of a war-torn nation arrive, out for blood You grow short of breath, the internal collapsing of your organs Jocks from your high school, well-deserved carnage will ensue Why does this fruit taste off? Will the end come from septic shock? Eskiminzins with their knives at the ready A writhing horde of epiglOTTis, about to overwhelm you Physique reduced to a withered husk, your primal brain will take over Calculus exams, endless retakes to pass your classes Endless suffering Garden-variety viruses kill half the world's population The screaming as everyone slowly goes mad can you drown it all out? Chemicals streaming through your blood to wake you from this nightmare Shapeshifters bursting through the walls, solid facade fading away Zombie demon Designers mad scientist surgeon paparazzi Parasites, multi-legged creatures, wrigglies myriapods! Anatomy has by no means been set in stone Teeth embedded in your skin, how long can you resist? Populations of masculine entities grow discontent Nuclear families of the 20th century, nonexistent Blood-thirsty demonic Coffee -addicted octogenarians born in the wrong decade The Vietnam War spurs a new art movement Hoppers creep upon you, offspring of the devil himself These voices trapped in your head, incessantly screaming at you Livers pulled out through your nose, tormented by gory smatterings Do you have what it takes to survive? Nobility on the run from the red terror, experience horrors beyond your wildest nightmares The roaaar of DøDT please if you love horror Vicinity of the university, good thing you decided to major in the liberal arts You hunger but fear not! insatiable hunger Vitamins a bit of an urban legend, read on to find out why Scorpions the arch-enemies of campers everywhere Pull the hairs on their back and Watermelons green salads and kebabs to stop your belly from churning Just saw a beautiful girl on the side of the road Dumpster diving, scoffing the leftover's's of the fast food industry Out of gas help! What does the future hold? Bravado meet ruthless desperation Thank the heavens you sold your Geometry textbook back in September The roads are yours, free from the confines of cars Dune buggies, ATVs and dirt bikes take to the desolate highways Spindly mutants pour from the woods, a hefty price on your head Apocalypse-weave tunics protect you from the hungry stares of cannibals The rusted hulk of a 18-wheeler lurks in the distance Spit-and-polish Metalworking books in tow, you start to seek out the local garages soldiers with a stark disregard for human life Super-soldiers bred for war, they now scavenge the barren land Nobody can hear you scream over the sound of gunfire Teetotaler beer in hand, you slaughter every abusive ceo of a multi-million dollar company Zoologist escaping the destruction of the Superdome, OAPs the new insurgent swear word Lizard-on-a-stick for a roadside snack, quite underwhelming to be honest Truck stops, meeting grounds for the nondescript American Endoskeleton ensnared by trees, the Halloween haunted house you always wanted Dangerous fauna abound, eat or be eaten Phenotype Trees are on the verge of sentience Phenotype: Leave this world behind, ascend to a higher plain Moreauvian nightmares the byproduct of 20th century brought cry back to life Was this fate pre-ordained? You choose your friends with great care When it comes to entering the earth on must do it very precisly Testosterone-laden world, lower IQs and higher walls the other side looked very appealing You need to enter the air at a precise speed and angle If a bad odor arises, move 30 feet away and find a new spot If you return too fast or too steeply bad things will happen Murky liquids are solid in these gloves, can't feel anything If impact is to shallow then back you go back into space to be frozen once more The three requirements deceleration heating accuracy of landing or impact Tell that to the family of the now brain-dead father and soon-to-be motherless children You will need to float the egg in some liquid so you will need to find some liquid that is the same as egg whites The container will need to be rigid to make sure that the walls do not flex or the egg could bang on the walls of the container and crack An egg can withstand between 20 to 30 gs before cracking so you will need to come up with something that slow allows the passengers to travel at 30gs ; (good protection) A vehicle that is carrying loads from New York Throttle, brake, clutch and will be needing a 20-tonne rated winch wait, is that 5th gear? starting jumping up and down in front of the tracks until I climb a tree brush-clearing machinery and many feet of chain careening down at twice the speed of the gazelle in front

The Dark Door

    I do not think there is going to be a more pivotal moment in the collapse of the American Golden Era than the rejection of Bernie Sanders. The american people, but maybe more accurately the Democratic Party, rejected the view of the world that Bernie Sanders campaigned on. At the center of the campaign was the push for Medicare for All, meaning a single-payer healthcare system that covered everyone (not the bastardized version of part public, part private that every other candidate was running on). We heard stories from people who had lost loved ones due to rationing of their insulin supply, because of the insanely high price Americans pay for the medicine. We heard tales of people losing loved ones only to be saddled with the insurmountable medical debt. There were so many tales of suffering, and the idea of people profiting off it was always at the center. It was the cornerstone policy of the Bernie campaign that if he was elected they would create a single-payer system that stopped the profiteering off the sick, and covered everyone despite their financial situation. Along with Medicare for All was the proposal to eliminate student debt and provide free tuition to public colleges, better wages for our most vulnerable people in the workforce, a serious step back from foreign intervention, and rolling back the influence of corporate money in politics just to name a few. I believe in all of those things, and I believe that a Bernie Sanders administration would have fought for that full heartedly. If you look at Bernie’s voting record, it is hard not to see anything but a political outsider who has fought his whole career for what he believes in, and has been on the right side of every disastrous American policy. Something none of his opponents can claim for themselves. The Bernie camp knew that enacting these policies would be an uphill battle, but the strategy of the campaign was to create a mass movement of people who believed in these policies that could continue to apply political pressure to achieve them. The idea was to finally create a base of people that could fight the class war on behalf of the working class. Bernie's slogan "not me, us" was a perfect example of the strategy.

    That view of the world was rejected though. Single payer was never possible, education is a privilege not a right, labor is not an issue the Democratic party cares about, the American Empire must always play world police, and billionaires work hard to buy our politicians. We had won so many people over to the Bernie movement since it began in 2016, but in the end the Democratic Party decided to go with business as usual. Just as they were putting the finishing touches on derailing that movement, the United States of America fell into the corona virus pit. The market was already stuttering before the virus hit mainland USA. Capital very quickly abandoned their leading role of the ‘perfect’ system. They massively laid off and fired workers, pulled mass amounts of money out of the market, and liquified as many assets as possible to have hard cash in case this was really the end. Capital abandoned us and left the state to step in (while also asking the governemnt for a bailout, which they so generously received). The state has been hollowed out by capital over the past 40 years, and is nowhere close to being able to handle this type of crisis. Now hospitals are understaffed, overfull, under prepared, and hardly holding on. Hospital staff are begging for more help and proper resources. Imagine living and working through that horrific reality, and the only thing we are willing to do for our healthcare system is to clap during the shift change. When capital dumped their workers without a second thought, there were only fragments of a social security net to catch people. Now state governments and the federal government are trying to scrounge together something that will try and patch up a workforce that currently sits around 20% unemployment. All the critiques of the current state apparatus and capital that came from the Bernie campaign are now ringing true in the most horrific and terrifying way. 

    That is not something to gloat over to make a political point. Although, you would be ignorant to not look at the rejection of the Sanders campaign as a massive turning point for the United States. Finally there was an offer on the table for the Democratic Party to offer real change, a politics that unites us over common goals to provide a better quality of life for all our fellow citizens, to offer something finally good from the party who doesn’t have much to hang their hat on other than not being the Republicans. They did not want to offer it though. A single payer system in the United States would never work. How would we pay for it? The eternally ringing question. Always asked in relation to a social program that helps people. One that will not be uttered once about the federal bailout money going to corporations who pay their CEOs millions and their workers minimum wage. A massive bailout that will make sure the CEOs can keep those extravagant salaries and shareholders can still receive massive payouts. I find it hard to swallow that any movement making an attempt for a better world meets so much scrutiny, and the most obvious, craven corruption is met with a smile and a thumbs up. 

    We treated this fight as do or die, as it was our only good chance at making a positive change in the world. It was not about winning for the sake of being triumphant, it was about fighting the material realities the vast majority of people face. We knew that a lot of people’s lives depended on a single payer healthcare system. We fought hard, and we failed. This seemed like our last chance, because of all the failures of leftist politics we have had in the last 4 years. Since 2016 leftist politics has been resurgent, and we were riding a wave of new found popularity for a bit afterwards. Yet, Corbyn was rejected in the United Kingdom. The NDP had an absolutely abysmal result in Canada’s 2019 election. Both offered a radically different politics from the status quo, both could have given their governments the much needed shot in the arm, but both were heavily rejected by voters despite having their policies be widely approved. Bernie was our last chance, and we failed. We have no choice but to wear that failure, and as much as I am sickened by people’s adverse reaction to these campaigns, I know the failure is also our own. I do not know what needed to be done differently in any of these cases, but I accept that we failed in our mission. 

    The Bernie movement was an attempt by the left wing of the party to take control of the Democratic Party. We came extremely close, we won the first three primaries, and looked to be the strongest among the split field. The Party got smart though; after Biden’s South Carolina win they cleared the deck    so Joe was the only centrist candidate running. Candidates who had been viable and popular up until Super Tuesday dropped out suddenly. Oddly enough Elizabeth Warren, who apparently held a base that somewhat overlapped with Bernie’s, stayed in the race despite not being a viable candidate at all. From there, the movement lost its momentum, corona virus basically made campaigning impossible, and eventually we had to concede that we lost. 

    So the Democrats successfully fought off our insurgency, and the establishment is still very much in charge of the party’s direction. They rejected our vision of politics, so what will they be offering come November’s election? Well, that is why I think this is a pivotal moment in the collapse of the American Golden Age; because they really are not offering a change at all. 

   Obama was elected on the platform of change, his slogan was hope. The only change that came from the Obama years was Obamacare, a doomed policy that was always more of a capitulation to the medical insurance companies and the Republican party than a truly radical policy. Trump has somewhat dismantled it, but the horrible failures I listed above about the American medical system are just as much failures of Obamacare. Obama’s legacy is simply the continuation of the status quo. That is what Hillary ran on in 2016, she was the establishment candidate. She offered no real change at all but a steady hand on the wheel that could keep the country in the same direction. The idea being that she would pick up all the disgusted Republican voters Trump turned away. Wrong. Part of the reason she lost so badly was because people did not like that she embodied the establishment (she also embodied the worst part of the establishment, and could be tied to way too many shady events). Trump successfully pitched himself as a political outsider, someone who was going to bring change to the White House. You can argue about the reality of his pitch, but you can not argue that it helped him cobble together a base that won 2016 and is going to be hard to beat in 2020. 

    Currently the Democratic Party controls the House of Representatives. It was considered a big moment, as now the party had a position to negotiate from with the Trump administration. They have not been able to do much negotiating though, the list of capitulations they have made with no pushback far outweighs anything they have done with their control of the House. Nothing shows the impotence of the Democratic party like their handling of the Trump Corona virus Bailout. Democratic party leaders did nothing to stop the worst parts of the bailout. They did not push back against the massive tax cut that is buried in the bailout. They did not push back against corporations being able to layoff their employees, receive a corporate bailout, and still pay dividends to their shareholders (meaning those who actually do the labor and provide the profit are dumped, while shareholders continue to get paid and receive a bailout). Nancy Pelosi did push back on something though, remote voting for the House of Representatives, which allowed the Republican controlled Senate to be really the only effective body in Congress. Let us be honest though, the Democratic establishment did not want to push back on these things, they were also pushing these measures themselves. 

    After Bernie suspended his campaign, the narrative immediately shifted to whether the Bernie movement would rally behind Biden. Bernie endorsed Biden quickly, and he will do what he can to campaign for him and convince his base to jump over. Whether it will work, or whether we should, is a very long and arduous argument in itself that I am not taking up here. I think the important choice has already been made; there is no real option for change on the table. There may be a difference between Trump and Biden, and a Biden administration would have tangible differences over the next four years undoubtedly. In the long run though I do not think either party is able to execute the radical change that is needed to heed off what seems like the now inevitable downfall of the American state. The legacy of the Democratic party over the last 30 years has been nothing but failure, broken promises, and complete subservience to capital. At every opportunity the Democratic party has had to institute change for the positive, they have not just balked, but continued to protect the interest of global capital at the expense of the most vulnerable. I do not think we have time to give them another chance, there has never been a more crucial time for left-wing radical change than right now. The corona virus has shown the frailty of our current system and its inability to properly handle the crisis, but let us remember we seem to be balancing on the edge of a few crises. Our environment continues to become more and more hostile to human habitation, and natural disasters are not just more common now but fully expected. People have been predicting an economic downturn for some time now, and the markets were limping into the pandemic already. People continue to lose more faith in their public institutions, and that only leads down a dark hole. These are not just boogeymen, they are real existential threats. I know the Democratic party is not offering anything substantial to combat these issues, look at the party establishment’s complete disdain for the Green New Deal.  So when it comes time, how am I supposed to believe that the Democratic establishment won’t throw people to the wolves to save those who they are truly beholden to? 

    The Bernie movement offered something more than just material improvement to people’s lives, it offered social cohesion. Another slogan of the Bernie campaign was “Are you willing to fight for someone you don’t know?”. Bernie’s platform was one of serious material change, but it was also a serious pitch to those outside of the Democratic party as well. Capital and the neoliberal policies it puts forward have been hollowing out social cohesion for the last 40 years, and anyone looking at the state of the world’s politics would see an extremely divided political landscape. Neoliberalism has not only put the emphasis on the individual, but it has turned every interaction into a transaction. Friendships, careers, even family are all looked at as something to get the most out of for your investment. There are a million books detailing how to optimize your life, and get the most production out of your day. Capital has successfully convinced us that turning yourself into a robot soley possessed by maximum production is a noble pursuit. Bernie’s movement offered something counter to that; the idea that you would fight to improve someone’s life you didn’t know, not because you would get something in return, but that it was the ethical way to treat people. The foundation of socialism is building a tight knit social cohesion that looks to provide for all. The right is offering the exact opposite of that. The Democratic Party says they are offering that, but if you look at the policies on the table, their voting record over the past 40 years, and who they really have gone to bat for over and over again, it is apparent they do not have the ability to create a movement that offers a greater idea of social connectivity. 

    I am not saying the failure of the Bernie campaign now means that a movement like his couldn’t be on the table again in the future. What I am saying is that it very well may be a serious turning point in American history. The crises that continue to plague the world only seem to grow worse, social cohesion only seems to diminish, and the liberal left continues to fail to stop our political rightward drift. How much time is left to offer a viable alternative and solution before it is too late? Ask a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley if they think the American Golden Era will ever end, and they will probably laugh at you for thinking such a thing. Ask someone in Flint, Michigan the same question and they will tell you it already has.