Heartfelt reunions Pt. 2

So once me and the pseudo scientist went our separate ways, I began to make my way towards the underground entrance doors, which were located at the center of the ground floor hall, being guarded by two similar looking to the ones on the second floor, soldiers. There was no time to think, the hall way was populated by panicking scientists and other soldiers trying to direct them towards the underground doors in an orderly fashion. Kind of hard to do with all of those red tree branches growing through the holes we've made in the building, snatching people left and right, stabbing them, ripping them apart, panic, screaming, violent pushing, my type of party.

The only reason that me and Ghost weren't noticed when we exited the room we landed in, is because we were being separated from the hallway by a small corridor connecting the door to the hallway and the door to the room, which housed a toilet in between the hallway and the room. Ghost went first, quietly disappearing in the crowd, in the opposite direction, guess his white outfit would let him sneak through perfectly.

I gave him a few minutes, couldn't give him too much time, I had to work fast while the panic was still going on, I looked at the room we landed in and saw it was already crawling with the branches of the red trees from the outside, however they were not coming anywhere close to the closed door of the room, I figured out a while ago that they seem to only break into the building if there's some sort of opening, otherwise there's something preventing them from invading the building, so I thought it'd be a great idea to let them into the hallway.

Which is exactly what I did, I burst through the door hard enough for it to tear off it's hinges and fall on top of the panicking crowd, creating a ramp of sorts, whilst I pull the door to the room behind me open, with one of the tendrils I wrapped around it from the back of my jacket. I run on top of the little ramp I made, creating sharp edges around my feet, allowing me to stab into the people's heads and shoulders below me, to use as relatively solid footing, as I ran towards the center doors. I guess in that moment, I gave a completely new meaning to the phrase "Going over someone's head".

I heard some gun shots from below me as I ran, but none of them really connected, not even close, I imagine it was really hard to aim those big guns in a big, panicking crowd like that, it didn't help matters any that the tree branches behind me, began to seep into the hall and attack the people inside.

Eventually, I began to reach the underground access doors, the red light on the card machine blinking brightly. The two guards positioned near the doors, pushing away the panicking scientists noticed me and took aim at me, had to use momentum to my advantage, I leaped through the air towards them, making my jacket surround parts of my body and my entire head, leaving my arms and legs exposed. They opened fire and the bullets bounced off of my solidified jacket, they did manage to catch me in the arm though, but it didn't matter, since I ended up crashing against one of them, the force of my solid jacket that was covering my body, knocking one of them on the floor. The other one tried to take aim, but I immediately made my jacket wrap around my arm and extend as far as possible, impaling the second soldier through the throat, the other one began to try and stand up, while I was retracting my Azoth back into myself, I had no time to shape anything so I just kicked him in the head as hard as I could, knocking him out.

Once I finished forming the Azoth within me into my jacket, I reached into the pocket to get out the card, the red light flashed green and I was able to get in. The automatic doors opened and the stairs which led down into the underground were leading so deep down, I couldn't see the end of them from the ground floor, ominous, but I had no time to be cautious, the red branches were running out of panicking victims behind me, so I ran down, so fast, I was skipping through several steps.

Eventually I reached the underground floor, it was yet another corridor filled with different rooms, only it stood out from the upstairs corridors. The corridors upstairs looked neat, clean, taken care of, that is, before I came for a visit, this one? A bit more dirtier, the walls were filled with wet stains, most of which were eating away at the white paint on them, the doors were all made of metal and reinforced, there were pipes sticking out everywhere, so unsanitary and yet, this was arguably their most important section of this entire facility, because this is where they conducted experiments on living creatures.

Those reinforced doors? Almost all housed some manner of ugly looking creature behind them. A man who was hanging from the ceiling, attached to it, by what seemed like his own pus that was leaking from his bloated, red feet, as his rotting teeth were constantly showing due to the lack of lips on his face, eyes completely blood shot. A Denizen, strapped down against the wall, still alive, but clearly, heavily sedated, with metal strings holding it's chest wide open, housing inside several of it's black, dead, organs, all of which had several syringes stuck inside of it, filled with some sort of blue liquid. A cell filled with flowers and other types of vegetations growing out of it's walls (But not breaking through them).

But not all rooms were holding cells, some were experimentation rooms. One of such rooms was a big one, with a big window spreading through the wall, revealing that it was, in fact, a nursery of sorts, housing over 10 babies inside, all of which were hooked up to an IV Drip, inside of which was black liquid, they were infecting these babies with Azoth. All of the babies had black veins, visibly pulsing through their tiny bodies, it was pretty fucked, "For what purpose?" I asked myself, I shouldn't have, because shortly I would get an answer.

As my head went through the giant window, one of the soldiers from above, followed me, snuck up on me and with an unexpected force, smashed my head through the large window of the room, it hurt like a motherfucker, good thing my head was covered in bandages already, it prevented the glass from going too far deep into my skin. He wasn't done though, he tried to force my head down on top of the sharp shards sticking out of the edges of the broken window, thinking fast, I formed a sharp edged end around my elbow and stabbed him through the stomach, that loosened his grip, allowing me to break free, grab his head instead and rub his throat against the sharp shards he was trying to use to his advantage earlier.

Black blood came pouring down from his neck, not even a gasp would escape from his mouth as I murdered him slowly. I was curious at this point, so once he slanted down on the floor, dead, I took off his mask and I saw nothingness. Pale white skin, bald, black veins pulsing all through his head, eyes constantly rolled back, this man was hallowed and he was serving the wrong party and then I noticed another thing, it was quiet, that's right, none of the struggle or window breaking disturbed the babies' sleep, which, if I remember my hospitals correctly, is not normal, at least one of them should have woken up and started crying, but nope, not a sound, just like the soldiers. They were farming their own personal army that obeyed their every word without hesitation, I don't know how, but somehow they managed to use Azoth as means to control other people.

At this point I was getting a bit more worried for my darling, these people clearly held some sort of knowledge about Azoth, which means they must have had all sorts of insane ideas when it came to experimenting on it. As I slowly descended into inner panic, a sound snapped me out of my trance, a sound of a closing door, somebody else was down here with me apart from the monsters within the cells.

Wasn't hard to track the sound to it's source, I busted through the door, ready for a fight, but all I was met with, was this red-headed scientist woman, whimpering underneath a table inside the room, pleading me to not hurt her. I however, wasn't paying any attention to her, she was a speck of dust to me in that instance, because all of my attention was glued to the giant glass tank within the room, wired up through the ceiling and the floor, all connecting to several computers and inside the tank... it was her.

My God, what had they done to her, when I left her, she was little, herself, pure. But when I saw her in that tank, there was so much of her, enough to constantly try and imitate a human shape, like some liquid shadow, stretching and swirling, trying to maintain the human shape, but to no avail, as she would immediately begin to drip down back into the bottom of the tank. I approached the tank, I felt her, felt her pain, her confusion and as I came closer, she flinched away from me, she was afraid of me, they alienated her from me and then I heard it, the click of a door, the scientist bitch was trying to sneak out, bad move. I immediately sent one of my tendrils, stabbing her through the shoulder and pulling her back, grabbed her by the neck and began to squeeze, anger took over, I was ready to squeeze the life out of the bitch, however, I needed her, needed her to open the tank, I guess pissed off me is a very convincing me, because she immediately obeyed.

Click clacking away on one of the computers, the tank began to open, my darling tried to use the human form she was attempting to imitate so hard in order to step out, but as soon as she would take a step, her crooked attempt at a human leg would begin to drip back into a puddle.

"Darling..." I said with all the concern in the world, at which, she lashed out at me, sending one of her tendrils towards me, but missing me and immediately dripping back clumsily to the source. After which she was trying to scatter backwards as soon as I tried to walk closer, her attempt at a human form dripping down into a puddle with each movement she would attempt, she was scared of me, my heart broke in two after seeing her like that, fucking savages.

I extended one of my tendrils towards her "It's me..." I said in the softest voice I could muster, shaking away the human body seemed to warm her up a little, as she would reach out with one of her tendrils towards mine, as the two tendrils wrapped around each other, she seemed to be able to "stand up" in her clumsily attempted human form, that was slowly dripping away back into a puddle on the floor. I began to slowly walk towards her, our tendrils still connected to each other, she didn't back down this time "That's right, it's me..." I kept telling her, hoping that she understood, that she remembered what I sounded like, until finally I was right in front of her, she was unpredictable in that state, I didn't know what she was about to do, could scatter away, or attack me, but I did it anyway, I kissed her dripping away, attempt at a human head and she began to enter me, all of her, there was so much of her, but it wasn't just her.

It was overwhelming, almost like the first time she entered me back when I first met Slendy. The feeling of you drowning in all of your inner dread and horror, as your body would reflexively try to gag out the alien substance, but only not be able to, it's not great. But this time, it was worse, everything burned, there was too much, it felt like my inner organs were stuck in a washing machine and the voices, so many, screaming, yelling, overwhelming my own mind, these voices were not hers, she was buried deep underneath them.

That's when I realized what they had been doing to her all this time, how she grew so much, they were injecting her with Azoths taken from other people they would hunt down, whether those be Runners, Proxies, Oracles and any other creatures, and each time they forcefully joined her with any of them, her own "mind" would get drowned out a bit more and more, as she grew in size, stuck in an inner loop of constant chaos, a chaos that was now brewing within me. I had to drown them out, find her in all of this nonsensical noise, this chaos, it was the opposite of the nothingness I experienced in my death, it was lively, constantly evolving, going and going and yet the result was the same, I could feel myself slipping, I was getting lost, so I did the only thing to oppose this chaotic onslaught of insanity of the others, I concentrated on nothingness, I remembered what that felt like and all of a sudden I heard her, yes, it was our mutual goal that we've heard and so we went for each other.

And then we began to merge and I must tell you, boys and girls, it felt SO NICE. Having these insignificant others disappear into nothingness, because of our overwhelming power and determination, all of them leaving behind their past connections and dissipating into nothingness, leaving only their substance behind, granting us complete control over it, making them become us, it was great, it was AMAZING!

My body on the other hand, wasn't having such a good time, it collapsed on it's knees almost instantly after her entrance, don't blame it, trying to adjust to so much Azoth at once is hard. However, once I began to "wake up" I saw blood dripping on top of my head, with someone's shadow looming over me. I slowly turned around and I saw the scientist wench, the bitch tried to swing a pipe at me while I was having a heartfelt reunion with my darling, she would have succeeded too, if my darling didn't step in. Retracting from my back, instead of my long jacket, was a black, poor attempt at a human torso, complete with a crooked shape of a head, shoulders and arms that were currently lodged deep within the stomach of the scientist bitch. I have never seen Fortissimo do something like that, we simply never had that much of her inside of me, to pull something like that off, now though, she could come out to play whenever she wanted to.

The red haired bitch was in shock, her eyes, of terror, tears running down her face as she realizes, that everything she had ever done, amounted to this, to nothing, I started laughing, laughing as hard as I could, because through her face, my mission only solidified. And as I laughed, I lunged towards her, forming a sharp edge around my hand and delivering a cutting blow so hard, that I knocked her head off. Blood covered me, like rain on a cloudy day as me and my darling, still retracting from my back, hugged as hard as we could and kissed, it was beautiful, cathartic and scenic all at the same time.

As we kissed, she began to re-enter back into my body, ripping through it, leaving burn marks with each cut, what remained of this body's hair began to fall off, as she would stab through the skin on my skull from within, poking one of my eyes out, just like the old day, she was getting comfortable and as she was busy re-decorating our new living space, I began walking out of the dreaded room.

However, her renovations ceased as soon as we walked by the nursery I mentioned before, I felt it, the deep seethed anger pulsing through her, at what they did to her, alienating her from me, oh I heard her anger loud and clear and so for the first time ever, I let her behind the steering wheel. My azoth jacket, would begin to melt to my body, slowly disappearing, as it instead began to wrap around my body, covering my body in Azoth, like a latex suit, being covered completely, including my head. As I "Sat back" and watched her work her way through the building, ripping through all the soldiers that were coming at us, I felt her vindication, her happiness protruding through each brutal dispatch method. At some point she set off a fire, everything was set a blaze, including the nursery, oh man Star would love it, babies on fire, the only thing that was missing was a baseball bat to make it a full set.

And through that chaos, caused by her, we pretty much burned the building to the ground, with some help from the red tree branches that were still invading the building and were also, now on fire. As we high tailed it out of there and out of the loop.

Finally, we're back together.

Heartfelt reunions Pt. 1

4 years, it's been 4 years since I last felt her warm presence within me, I've missed it, I've missed her, the bond we shared was unlike anything, anyone will ever experience, a relationship vined together by a singular vision. I shed tears today, tears of happiness, for we are together, once again and the bastards who took her from me, who did horrendous things to her, have all paid the price.

But let's rewind.

So I entered the loop, as soon as I felt it opening up, how do you feel when a loop is about to open, if so many stumble into those without even noticing? One part is experience, a first timer will never notice the subtle and sudden change in temperature, they will think that the momentary deafness of one of their ears is one of the natural, every day occurrences, the fact that the wind is blowing in a completely different direction, but travel through enough of those and you learn to pick up on these subtle occurrences. The other part is, I myself, after my death, changed, drastically, I notice things these days far better than in my previous life, let's just put it like that.

Once inside, as natural for a loop, it's fucks-ville all over the place, nothing makes sense, everything is out of order, it's impossible to explain in any human language, because if I do describe what I saw, you guys will immediately start picturing it in your imagination and start making it fathomable, when in reality it isn't, the shit in these loops, it breaks ones imagination, I simply can't do it justice, just remember the most fucked up music you've ever heard and visualize it in your brain, without attaching any meaning to it in the process, good luck with that little exercise.

So I stumble through the lands of whatever and where-the-fuck, a lot of people get hung up about the shit they see in here, that's the biggest mistake you could do and I would probably make it, being the curious bastard that I am, but I had a goal set in my mind, that made everything else, insignificant and not worthy of my attention. I traversed the lands of hallucinogenics for a while, until something in the air changed, no longer was I smelling the smell of burning rubber and rotting eggs, all of a sudden the air changed, it was more, sterile, I was getting closer, indeed I was.

A few more steps and lo and behold, a two story building, the white walls seemed as if they were shining, probably because they were surrounded by dark red trees which were dripping some sort of dark-ish liquid from their branches, they actually set up shop within a loop, I can't tell if it's the dumbest thing anyone could ever do, or the smartest, I guess it's smart considering for how long these guys stayed off the radar, but not THAT smart, since I eventually found them.

This is where caution went out the window, I was here to save my darling and I was going to cut through every god damn shit head that would get in my way. This was going to be a very vengeful and bloody rescue mission and so it began. Using the opportunity of having the high ground (It's over Anakin!), I launched myself from the hill I was on (Courtesy of the two tendrils from my jacket, propelling me from the ground), right through the second story window, pompous dumb-asses didn't bulletproof their windows, cause they thought nobody would ever find them here. The second I landed, I hear screaming, people start scrambling out of the room, I'm pretty sure somebody pressed the alarm button since I could hear sirens going off the second I smashed in. As for me, the second I was able to look around, I realized that I landed in the middle of some sort of laboratory, tubes and probes everywhere, people in lab coats and shit, good, that means the stains of blood would stand out so much more, I was Picasso, caught right in the middle of my own element. Oh it was glorious, the time it took for their security to respond and start scrambling to the location of my insertion, was enough for me to maim and murder every single one of these brainy bastards, stabbing their limbs off, pouring the random chemicals in the tubes all over them, they were screaming as their skin would start melting away, some fucker's skin melted away and then immediately his blood would begin to congeal, after which it would burst off into a purple flame, it was fucking weird shit, I have no idea what the fuck they were studying, but studying some shit they were.

What was once a clean and perfectly white room, was now a room filled with giant spots of red all over it, with dead bodies and their respective body parts strewn about all over the place, the stench of burning flesh filling the air, it was beautiful, however, as much as I love decorating, company was on it's way.

The footsteps of several men could be heard down the hallway outside, if I went out the door, I'd get lit up like a Christmas tree, my darling wasn't with me to protect me, her reflexes were always far better than mine, so I had to seek assistance from someone else, body #5 happily volunteered, mainly because it was the only one that was still mostly intact. So I stab him through the chest with 4 tendrils extending from the back of my jacket and I perch the body up against my back, a human back pack of sorts, right on schedule too, because the loud footsteps had just stopped, they were in position.

Not wanting to make them wait for too long, because that would be extremely impolite, I burst through the door with my trusty companion and started running away from them, a squad of soldiers, all holed up on the opposite side of the hallway, ready to open fire as soon as they saw me. These guys didn't look like ordinary soldiers, instead of helmets and the traditional garb of a soldier, these guys were decked out in black uniforms, suited with kevlar vests, black pants with knee pads and shit, you know standard military gear, but the most striking thing, were their black masks over their balaclavas. The masks had nothing on them, except the two eye holes, these guys looked like they were marching on behalf of death itself, pretty fucking cool looking. At a quick glance, I saw one of them give a simple hand gesture and that's when the noise of gun fire filled and bounced around the hallway. My trusty companion was doing a good job of absorbing most of the bullets while I ran away, trying desperately to find us cover, before my companion was reduced to nothing but red jelly.

Then I saw it, one of the many room's door closing, somebody was still on this floor, truth is, I needed information because I had no idea on where I should be going in this facility + I needed to restock on trusty companions, so I burst through the door without hesitation, out of the line of fire and what do I see? A white coat, trying to get out the window, fat chance, so I quickly extend my tendrils, wrap just above the person's elbow and yank them right back, making them hit the floor hard, I was about to start politely asking questions, as I dropped my shot up companion on the floor and then I realized, this guy wasn't one of the scientists.

The white coat wasn't a lab coat, it was a white trench coat, the guy was wearing a white fedora and  what seemed like a black balaclava mask, only without the mouth hole and instead of the eye holes, he had two white circles. Whoever the fuck this weirdo was, I was about to get some answers, some that I wanted to hear and some that I wouldn't expect.

I immediately grabbed  him by the collar of his trench coat and yanked him to my face's level.

"And who the fuck might you be, spooky man?"

As I yanked him upwards, he dropped a pretty big metal container, that seemed to have cold steam coming through it's seal.

"I guess, this is the part where my plan goes a little bit sideways, it's alright, I came prepared for this."

He mumbled to himself, great, a crazy loon that I didn't have time for.

"Mr. Kelevra, I understand that you're looking for your Azothic companion, I'll keep this brief..."

I was flattered that this guy knew me, was even more appreciative of the fact that he wasn't going to waste my time.

"This company was on my tail for months now, because I stole something valuable from them for research purposes. It wasn't enough and I needed something else from them to continue my research, as luck would have it, you came back and planned to attack them in order to re-unite with your companion, I planned around that and used your attack as a distraction to extract the materials that I needed" 

He pointed at the metal container on the floor.

"And what if what you're trying to steal, is also my companion, for your own experiments?"

"The type of experiments they conducted on your companion, I have already done myself, only on a smaller scale, if you wish to waste your time interrogating me, you can, but I promise you, that I will not tell you anything different, since I am already telling the truth..."

This guy's voice irritated me, it was emotionless, distant and calculated and yet he gave off the vibe of someone who loves listening to himself. The foot steps in the hallway were getting louder, I guess they got tired of sitting around.

"However, I did prepare for a scenario where we would have an encounter, so I spent a little extra time staking out the place before sneaking in, the only location in this building that is restricted to specific people, seems like the underground floor, since that is the only door that can be accessed with a key card, that I saw in this entire building. If I were to make a wager, I would say that your companion was down there, with all the other important experiments.

He handed me the key card that he had in his hand this entire time apparently, or maybe he hid in inside his sleeve.

"And I've got the access card, thanks to your little diversion before entering the loop, security was scarce and it was pretty easy to nick this from one of the employees here."

No way was I believing anything he said, his plan sounded too perfect for a complete stranger, I was about to stab him in the gut, maybe pain would give him some incentive to stop jerking me around. Alas the soldiers ended up kicking the door in, I immediately turned around, dropping the Spook and forming two sharp edges around both of my hands, from the sleeves, while the Spook scrambled towards his container.

It was a Mexican stand off, I honestly didn't have much of a chance, a dozen guns were pointed at me, no way I had the type of reflexes my darling had, to manipulate the Azoth around me quick enough to protect myself long enough from the gunfire, to get close to them.

Few minutes of the silent stand off and then it happened, some sort of force seemed to suddenly push me from the back, it was so sudden it made me lose balance and begin falling to the floor, it was the Spook, he was the one who pushed, in fact, he pushed me so hard that he, himself fell down right beside me, I was about to stab him, simply based on instinct, until I saw a giant, red branch shoot above us, through the window that the Spook had left open.

The branch ripped right into one of the soldiers, lifting him up a little bit into the air, what followed was a bunch of tree branches growing out of the poor bastard, there was black liquid flowing through the eye holes of his mask, the countless tree branches that grew within him, ended up ripping the poor bastards body apart, however there was no blood, just the black liquid, erupting all over the soldiers that were standing behind him, bizarre part? None of the soldiers, not even the one that got ripped to shreds, let out even the slightest of a sound, they stayed quiet, all of them, however, they did start opening fire on the several branches that were teetering closer towards them now.

"Come on!"

I heard the spook yelling behind me, near the other set of windows that were closed, I immediately got up and ran towards him, wrapping a tendril around his waist and jumping out the window, pulling him along with me. We were now falling into the pitch darkness of the loop, only point of orientation was the light coming from the windows of the ground floor, trying to time this correctly, I stabbed the wall of the building with one of my sharp edged sleeves, halting our momentum and using my body as a pendulum to launch The Spook into the ground floor window. Then using the tendril that was wrapped around him, I simply climbed down through the same window, we were indoors yet again. Looking above, to the second floor, I saw another set of tree branches launch into the other window we jumped through as well.

We had to move out of the room we were in, since the branches would start invading the, yet another, freshly made hole we've created within this building. So we dashed out into the corridor, closing the door behind us, stopping for a few seconds to catch out breath.

"Well, as much as I enjoy being used as a battering ram, I believe I do must depart now, this is getting a little bit too confrontational to my liking."

He handed me the access card.

"I believe you were about to take this?"

No, I believe I was about to stab you, before, but now, I kind of owed this bastard for knocking me out of the way of that tree branch upstairs. So I accepted the card, but I had to know.

"You still didn't answer my question as to who the hell you are."

"It's a pity that you wouldn't recognize my disposition but then again, I am not that active on social media and for good reason. But I did read into your blog and even comment on it at some points before, my handle was 'Ghost'"

For those of you wondering, it was this Ghost and I did read through his blog for a bit, I must say I admire people who try their hardest to research shit we deal with, despite how illogical it all is, their desire to connect some sort of logic to it all, is hilarious to witness for sure, because in the end, all of their theories usually end up in bits and pieces, it is however admirable, because no matter how hopeless it is, they still push on.

After that, we went our separate ways. The post is getting a bit too long now, so I'll carry on with what I found in the underground level at some point later, right now, me and my darling are going to go out celebrating.

An Upbeat Voice

After the Dry Voice spoke to me, I was left on my own yet again, surrounded by nothingness yet again, in fact, I began questioning was there really ever an "I"? I was dead, killed by the man I respected and admired, what happened afterwards? Did my soul just get stuck in limbo, awaiting to be shoved into another new born body? Was it even my soul that allowed me to latch onto the feeling of nothingness within this empty space? What was I at the end of the day, after I was stripped of my body, was this nothingness that surrounded me, the "I" that I was pondering about? Was the voice that I spoke to an "I" from the past? Stuck here just like me?

Questions is a dangerous thing my friend, ask too many of them and you begin to slowly strip away your own humanity, its no wonder that when people try to manipulate each other, the biggest trick they resort to is asking their victim questions. Questions confuse us, questions plant doubt and uncertainty within our souls, which result in us making rash decisions, do you know how many world conflicts started, just because, someone, somewhere, asked someone a question? It's crazy, insane really.

And as I pondered further within that void, I began to lose myself, soon my collection of questions turned into nothing but jibber jabber, all populating my thoughts, making my thoughts all jumbled up, I was going crazy, until I heard it.

"NAME YOUR QUERY, O DOOMED ONE!"

The Upbeat Voice suddenly yelled out, so loudly that it created echoes around the nothingness, only, it didn't feel like an echo, I just use "echo" as the closest description. See, Echo eventually disappears, his voice never disappeared after the initial words, it just seemed to repeat itself, until he said something new.

"Pardon, but you don't sound like the wise-advice giving type."

"Nor should I! For in truth I am no such lowly yeoman, but a being whose calling is of an infinitely higher kind! Yea, do I exist to inspire insurrection, to encourage combat. To drive your paltry race to its brutal and bloody self-extermination!"

His repeating voice was frustrating, partner that up with how loud he was being, I'd almost prefer the eternal silence I was surrounded with. However, one thing that did amuse me about his voice, is how much pride and joy it had, when talking about it's own purpose.

"You interest me. You are of the goodly age, you carry yourself with vigor and confidence, are you, mayhap, a warrior?"

I was confused at the question, was he asking me if I thought of myself as a warrior of sorts, or was he wondering, if in my previous life, my occupation was that of a warrior? Because I do consider myself a warrior, I think anybody who fights for their goals tooth and nail are a warrior, no matter what ways they use to do so.

"I had hoped to find but one warrior yet flourishing in this craven realm."

This time, the arrogance made me laugh out loud, he was looking in the wrong place.

"Good luck, Bucky. No such animal these days. Not unless you go to some septic backwater shit-hole and even then, you could hardly deem those as warriors, since the majority of that ilk, gets off to mainly bayoneting babies."

"But surely this is not to be true! Who protects the livelihood and the community, in the absence of a warrior class? Who marches against its enemies? Who are your men?"

Now this was getting interesting, the voice went from confidence, into confusion, it was clearly lost, no, heart broken at the revelation that I just presented in front of itself.

"Oh, they're all middle-aged assholes in thousand-dollar suits. Sit up in sterile rooms and press buttons that ejaculate missiles into the sky because they can't get it up themselves, anymore. No one actually fights anymore, not the way you mean."

"NO! THIS IS PERVERSE"

"Anyone tries, the old farts just shell them until they stop."

A feeling of entertainment began to creep back up into my nothingness, even his voice stopped repeating itself as much, it's as if his pride was getting crushed the further the conversation went along.

"But without arms, without battle, how do men of rank enforce their will? How do those who rule, vanquish their enemies?"

And this is where we really got down to the nitty-gritty of things, poor bastard was about to get hit with a giant, stinky whiff of reality.

"You know, I'm really glad you asked! Listen, let you in on a little secret. It's not weapons that win the battles these days, see, it's the money."

"How does this work? Is not money but a medium of exchange?"

Oh this was rich, this poor bastard.

"Where the fuck you been living? Listen, money is currency, in every sense of the word."

Long pause of silence, so long in fact that I began to think that nothingness took over again, but no, it seems like the voice was just pondering,

"Tell me please how I may revive the spirit of rapacious, all-consuming conquest in this world."

 Now that is something I did not expect, a question of that magnitude, even though I strived to achieve destruction all of my previous life, truth be told, I never came close to my goal, not even a little bit, all I did, was delude myself by my false ideals, why false? Because at that time, I truly did not see the full picture of destruction, I only saw bits and pieces, the nothingness demonstrated that to me, by showing me, how in the end, insignificant everything that I did, was.

But I did have a thought to share, I thought I didn't even know I had.

"Hell, there's still conquest in the world, it's just done in a different way these days. You want to conquer someone, you don't send an army out and take them by force. You buy them out, if they don't want to sell, you run them out of business, it's neater, cleaner... Nastier too, I think. And you don't have to worry about them coming back at you later, with an army of their own, they're ruined."

I can't believe what I was elaborating, it's true that I understand how war these days worked, I just always refused to submit to the corporate view, as I said, it's nasty, boring and cowardly, it also serves a purpose of personal gain, which is why I would always actively denounce this view and yet, here I was, suggesting to this confused voice, that it was the only way that true war works. No matter how much you want to deny it, nor accept it, in the end, the truth will always win, I guess.

"There is something about these methods that seems ...CRAVEN!"

I couldn't agree more, but you can't face away from facts, however...

"Look, I understand, it's disgusting, I couldn't agree more, I'm with you, I miss the days when people would let their animalistic side take over and invoke centuries, upon centuries of bloodshed upon each other over the pettiest crap: Be that religion, tax evasion, or simple provocation, in the end, none of it mattered. But times change and views broaden, people begin to see the bigger picture and those with enough brains, begin to capitalize on it, hell, the strategy of buying out your enemy and bleeding them dry of their resources was present even in the early days of bloodshed, it just wasn't as corporate as it is today. Napoleon's invasion of Russia comes to mind, oh sure, he was able to plow through a good amount of Russia with brute force, but Russians were playing the long game, they invested in their country's shitty weather conditions to slow Napoleon down in his invasion, let nature do it's job and starve, and freeze the bruting Frenchmen to death. Meanwhile, they took their own capital and burned it to the fucking ground, so Napoleon couldn't restock, so that their investment wasn't bought out and then, only then, once he was left with barely anything, they drove him out with brute force."

Silence, either the voice was listening, or I was talking to myself at that point, it didn't matter to me, because for some reason, it was far more important for me to finish my thought correctly, it felt crucial at the time.

"The type of fighting you long for is still present, but it makes such a minuscule dent, if any in the grand scheme of things, that nobody really cares about it anymore. I mean, is it any mystery that the majority of modern wars are being fought on the lands of butt-fuck-nowhere and fuck-knows-where-the-fuck, funded from behind the curtain by much larger players within this game, because they themselves don't want to get their hands dirty. Hence, why you can't determine a warrior by how much kills they have under their belt, or how brave they are, you determine a warrior by how much they are willing to sacrifice for their goals. This man I respect, who killed me, he had a simple world view, kill the guilty, protect the innocent, no gray area what-so-ever and man, did he commit to his world view, when he got to work, I tell you, it was like watching a force of nature mow down an entire city, however, as beautiful as it was to behold, at the end of the day, he made barely any difference in the world, the fuckers he killed got promptly replaced by other fuckers, crime did not stop and he himself was forgotten, it was pointless and he knew it, but he didn't care, all he cared about was making his own war, for without war, a warrior is just a human with a weapon in the middle of an empty field, and yet he still kept FUCKING GOING, the absolute mad man! That's a warrior, now imagine if that warrior adopts and understands the modern, corporate views of war and exploits them, that's how you get your conquest, a conquest to end all conquests, the big bang, fuck yeah!"

I think I rambled on for a while longer, not realizing that the upbeat voice has, more than likely, long since disappeared, but it didn't matter to me, for the first time in a long time, within that emptiness, I was filled with a fiery passion, I haven't felt in a while, it's as if someone was breathing life back into me.

The Trick is to stay Quiet

A lot of people in this little blog world, in our predicament will tell you: "What are you, stupid? Why are you posting for everybody to see where you're going, what you're feeling and etc. Don't you know that those who hunt you, can and will use that against you!?"

And they're not wrong, but what can you do? Human nature requires socialization, even those of us who are utterly convinced that we have stumped all the unnecessary human desires within us, will eventually require the need to reach out and just spew our guts out, I've learned that in my previous life by getting attached to all of you curious commenter's, with whom I formed rivalries and friendships. Human nature's a bitch.

However, that doesn't mean that the blogs can't be used for strategic purposes, because they sure as hell can be. Take the organization that I've been hunting for two months now for example, yup, you heard me right, two months. That lead I got from Mendella? That interaction between me and him happened two months ago, since then I was hunting them down quietly, being extremely careful to cover my tracks, I didn't attack anyone, or invade any buildings, what I was doing is good old fashioned surveillance work, slowly but surely eliminating each target on the list that Mendella provided me with.

And since they couldn't track me, thanks to my little detour into the Wolf's den, the only way they could know where I was and what I was doing, was this little blog here. So of course when I published my latest post, they immediately deployed a lot of their soldiers to go and scout out the fellow companies that were on that list, but they also deployed them to guard the entrance to their base of operations.

You might say: "But Kelevra, didn't the fact that you published the latest post work against you? Because now they are actively hunting you, as opposed to when you had the element of surprise on your side?"

True, you are not wrong, it would be nice to have the element of surprise on my side, but there's two reasons why I needed to publish that post:

1. They deployed a good chunk of their people to the locations of these other companies on this list, which means a good chunk of their soldiers is gone away from home.

2. Their base of operations is not here, sure I tracked down the address of where their company supposedly works, the thing is, the address led to a warehouse, an empty one at that, no workers, no equipment, nothing inside. I mean, obviously, their actual company workplace building must be somewhere else, after all, why would a veterinary clinic need a warehouse? To store something in it, right? So why is it empty? Because the warehouse, just like the Veterinary Clinic, is a front, in fact, it's something more, it's an entrance, an entrance that I needed to see how it works.

So when the post was published, I payed close attention to the warehouse from the top of it, perched neatly on it's roof. Lo and behold, what was once a quiet and empty warehouse, was suddenly brimming with the sounds of chatter and footsteps and immediately after the noise of footsteps and chatter began, the doors of the warehouse would open up and I was looking at a bunch of guys with guns running out, planning their patrol plans and how much they hate this job, the usual chatter of a hired gun, only this chatter wasn't as useless as I thought it would be.

Listening to my instincts, I decided to stay perched up on top for a bit longer and listen to what they would talk to each other about, it made no sense for me to attack them and then question them, since they could easily have those kill switches inside their brains as well, all I would be doing is giving away my position. Luckily, listening yielded an important bit of info that would allow me to venture inside their base of operations, one of them was complaining about how traveling through the loop makes him dizzy.

These fuckers were working within a loop, which absolutely makes sense, nobody can track you, nobody can get to you, you're outside of the world and you can set up as many unethical experiments as you want, until now. After that I quickly dispatched of the soldiers, it was easy, they were standing close to each other, so when I dropped from the top, I just made sure to spread my Azoth around enough, to stab all of them in any way possible, some died immediately due to a lucky stab through the skull, some I had to quickly finish off while they were still recoiling from the shock of the sudden injury.

And since then, I've been sitting in this warehouse for several hours now, waiting for the loop to open up, as it always eventually does. They might reside within a loop, I highly doubt they can control when it opens up and closes, hence why they isolated it from the outside world via the Warehouse.

I can feel it coming now, I had this post written up for a while now, I want to post it right before I go inside, I want them to see it at the very last second as I strike at them, it's going to be so much fun!

Justice is Blissfully Blind

Farms.

Why do people, whenever they want to lay low depart to farms, seems like a very ridiculous decision, considering the situation they're currently in, regarding the Faceless Terror himself. Nowhere to run for miles, there's no civilization, just a big empty field. And yet, here they are, living in their little farm, herding sheep, growing plants for 4 years, in peace and nobody's touching them. Well I guess it isn't as mind boggling considering the fact that they are always in the presence of a Fear that is constantly watching them, is it protecting them then? I don't think so, they'd be less tense with my presence on the farm then. I guess even The Eye's own creation doesn't know the true purpose of The Eye, just like any other Fear of course.

Yup, I was tracking down Mendella, a Justice, The Eye's servant constructed perfectly in ...his image. I used to dislike Mendella, not only was he a carbon copy of the man he was ordered to hunt down, but he also adopted his philosophies and understandings, rebelling against his creator, only to submit to someone else's ideals and goals, it was disgusting, this creature was the embodiment of everything I despise in humanity.

I say was, because, eventually, somehow, he was able to separate himself from someone else's ideals and somewhere down the road, he developed his own ideas and goals. Specifically after he met Cassia, a woman who was seeking revenge for the murder of her father, by Incognito's hand. Shortly after Incognito's passing, Mendella along with Cassia disappeared off the face of the earth, it wasn't easy to find them, but at the end, Cassia's online history was what gave it away, it's amazing how easy it is to find people's information these days, mainly because everyone is so willing to post away their information on all of these social media websites, not to say that she was posting anything on those during the time that they were hiding, that would be counter productive. However, she used to post on such websites long before she got into this mess, that led to a few other key words which would lead to other websites and eventually, I found old photos of her and her family on a farm, which would then lead to the location of said farm and etc.

Que in months of traveling, renting cars, life is a lot more difficult without The Path at my disposal, that's for sure. The entire time I was traveling through the country, he was following me, whenever I pulled over to get some refreshments or fuel, I would always see him, standing far away, just enough so I could see him, to my surprise, he was just passively observing the entire time, I assumed that The Slenderman, once finding out about my return, would waste no time in thrashing me back to the world of the dead, but no, the game must have gotten REALLY boring if he is willing to let me run around.

Regardless, eventually I got to their little farm and the only interesting aspect of that place, was the fact that it was the only place during my travel, where I couldn't see Slendy anymore. Then again, I didn't really have much of a chance to look around, since the second I stepped foot on their land, I was shot in the leg, the pain was sudden and overwhelming, made me collapse immediately, I haven't felt such pain in years. As I look up from my wound, I am greeted by a barrel of a sniper rifle being pointed directly in my face, behind the gun, standing against the sun was Mendella, it was eerie how similar he looked and sounded to Incognito.

"He's dead, who are you?" As firm a tone as ever, just like the man he was sculpted after.

"I'm him, come on Mendella, you know that death isn't a certainty for some in this game." I tried to reason with him, after all, I wasn't trying to find him all this time, just to have a violent confrontation.

He pulled his gun down for a second, clearly thinking over what I just said, I could have attacked him, tried to knock the gun out of his hand, get some space between us, but I didn't I just sat there patiently, as I said, I wasn't there for a confrontation.

He didn't think for too long anyway to give me enough time to do something, since he pointed the gun right back at me again "Fair enough, good bye."

And just like that, he was ready to blow my brains out, stubborn and to the point, The Eye did a good job replicating Incognito, I will give it that.

"You shoot me and your little safe haven will be posted all over the internet, for all to see." I said as quickly as I could before he could take the shot, but it worked, because it made him hesitate.

After a few minutes of just sitting on my knees, my leg bleeding out, was trying my hardest to use the Azoth inside of me to prevent the blood from escaping my body, I was never good with patch up work, usually Fortissimo was the one that did all of it, came natural to her, like protecting and fixing her house.

He finally lowered his gun "What do you want."

"Finally willing to talk shop, took you long enough." I tried to stand up, I was met with an immediate barrel of the gun to my face.

"Don't move." He ordered me, smart, he's cautious that I might try something under handed, which usually I would, but in this instance it was just my fucking leg hurting "Talk." he continued to order me, which is fine with me, I don't let pride cloud my judgment, I just complied.

"Listen, I don't want any trouble, I just want help, I'm tracking some assholes who kidnapped the love of my life and are now probably doing some horrid shit to her. My only lead is this little device that was implanted into one of their underling's brain. I needed someone with government-type of access to see what this device is and how can I use it to track down the people who kidnapped my darling and I know you have that access, because you worked with Incognito before, I'm sure he would share with you any kind of strategic advantage you could use to help him out in his mission."

Long pause of silence, clearly he was thinking on what he should do, I was getting kind of impatient due to the pain in my leg, so I decided to push his buttons a bit into deciding faster, the leg was hurting bad.

"I understand that you don't trust me, hell I would love to just outright kill you for being a carbon copy of Sergei, but put yourself in my position, what if Cassia was taken away from you and the only person who could help you was me, would you not put aside your urges, in order to find her?"

And silence again, this was getting tiresome.

"Alright." He lowered his gun, finally! I could finally stand up and ease the pressure on my leg, he reached his hand out "The device." Asking for the little device that I mentioned before, without any hesitation, I gave him the burnt up device.

He took it and began to walk towards his farm house, I started to follow but was immediately met with a warning shot into the ground right in front of me, this time, he wasn't the one shooting.

He turned to me and said "You stay here, come any closer and she will blow your head off." Nice to see that he was also as smart as Incognito, he told Cassia to stay behind in the farm house and keep the gun on me from a distance, in case I would try something funny.

I shrugged "No problem, as long as you provide me with a lead, I'm happy."

He would depart into the farm house and I would end up spending a few hours outside, just waiting for him to come back, gave me the time to try and properly patch up my bullet wound with my Azoth. It was kind of hard, but I think I got the hang of it. Sitting there, in the field, waiting for some answers, I finally recognized the air around the farm, it's hard to explain it, I'm sure we've all experienced the feeling of being watched, but not knowing where it was coming from, or who was watching us. Well imagine that, only you know who is watching you, what's more is that you can actually feel how insignificant you are in their view, it's like the source of the feeling is letting you partially read their mind, just so you know, how little you are to them. The Eye is a mysterious Fear, little is known about it's ability or goals, it just seems like an observer, rarely interfering in anybody's business, it was watching over that farm, no doubt keeping an eye on it's creation, it let me know what it thinks of me, how little I am in it's view, it was overwhelming, as if The Eye is just a part of a much more devious being behind it, however, it didn't account for one thing, I always expect people to underestimate me, after all, I'm just a hopelessly insane lunatic who thinks he can end existence, nothing new, nice to see that even Fears can underestimate the people they keep an eye on.

Finally, I saw Mendella come out of the Farm house, walking towards me with sheets of paper, my lead to finding my darling, in his hands.

"Here." He handed me the sheets of paper with a bunch of addresses and various company names attached to those addresses.

"What are those?" I asked, I was kind of hoping for something final, rather than a hit list.

"All of the addresses of various companies that placed an order one these brain implant microchips, which were and still are being developed in California."

"Well, then why should I go jumping from company to company, why can't I just go to the source?" I admit, I was thinking a bit small there, was too excited.

"Because, the original creators of these Brain Implants did not intend to create a kill switch, they created these Implants in order to treat mental disease, some other party purchases them and modifies them." Conspiracies never get old, even when they stop being conspiracies, somewhere out there, any company could be purchasing those and undercover, developing kill switch devices, unethical and illegal, good thing most Internet dwellers perceive these blogs as foolish fiction.

"Now, leave." he order me one final time, don't blame him, it was getting dark, it was time to turn in.

"Alright Mendella, thank you for your assistance, you'll be glad to know that I will not be posting your location, even more, I did you the favor of purging any online postings that Cassia may have made in her old life, which could potentially lead to your farm." I turned and walked away.

No final words from him, he just stood there, watching me walk to my car, waiting until I left.

I've got my leads now, it's time to start the hunt.