And so I did.
The idea came to my mind after I re-read Sergei's own
venture into The Blind Man's domain, unbeknownst to him at the time, of course. Now, I don't exactly know whether our beloved Creepy Crawlies choose to sprinkle around their little hot-spots that allow regular mortals to just randomly wander into their domains, on purpose, but if they do, then I find it very weird for The Blind Man, to place a hot-spot inside of what was at the time, a cave, dedicated to worshipping Splendy.
But dearie me, there's a possibility the newer generation might not keep up with my terminology, so I'll keep it brief. If you're wondering what those "hot-spots" are, they are essentially places on your beloved planet, that once wandered into, can transfer you into the domain of any Creepy Crawlie out there, for example, the Black Forest in Germany served as such a "hot-spot" allowing mortals to enter into the Path of Black Leaves. These hot-spots are sprinkled all over the realm, leading to various mortals stumbling into them on accident and having a very bad day as a result of that.
Now, I needed to get to The Blind Man's catacombs in order to get some information, to make sure my thought process was on the right track, however, the problem was, that since my death and Sergei's visit into the Catacombs through the Devil Mountain Cave, the cave since has been cleaned up, erasing any trace of it being a worshipping ground that a bunch of cultists used in order to worship Splendy, I know of this, because there are videos on
youtube of explorers going into the mountain and finding nothing but shitty graffiti, no trace of anything Incognito had described in his post. I'm assuming the clean up was due to the fall of the various Proxy organisations all over the world and due to that, it is safe to assume that the hot-spot is no longer there anymore.
So how do you locate a potential hot-spot into a Creepy Crawlies domain, with absolutely no leads what-so-ever? Well, you start reading the information that is available to you, specifically the information that was left behind by the older generation of survivalists and hunters. And I must say, as delusional as miss
Number Nine was, believing that she was an agent of The Quiet, she did leave behind some very interesting titbits about her various encounters during her false servitude.
A little bit of a history lesson, shall we? The Quiet, for those of you who don't know, is considered to be one of the Creepy Crawlies, but in reality, it isn't, in actuality, it is nothing. An enveloping, encompassing nothing, that consumes everything and leaves nothing, a lot of people actually wondered at the time, considering my ultimate goal to bring upon the lack of existence, why am I not serving it? Well... you know what? Let's leave that for later, after my next visit, that is, of course, if I survive. Anyways, and then you have Number Nine, a woman that would be after my own heart, if she didn't think in such limited parameters, a serial killer long before her exposure to the Creepy Crawlies, finding The Quiet's purpose to be intriguing, she proclaimed herself it's servant and would proceed to sow discord wherever she went, in order to attract the attention of other Crawlies which in turn would cause The Quiets consumptive nature to come forth faster. Sadly for her, her mission did not last, after she was summoned to an abandoned
radio station, it was
revealed to her that she wasn't serving The Quiet, for The Quiet has no purpose for having servants, it is not a creature that feeds on fears of others, it's not a creature at all, it is literally an encompassing void of nothingness that just happens naturally. She was informed of this knowledge by an elderly gentleman who called himself: "The Intermediary" the so-called proprietor of truth, since he had various files that documented Number Nine's life and her next, intended targets that she was going to go after. The targets were a couple,
Frank and Carol, that were travelling across country at the time, interviewing various victims, of various Creepy Crawlies, sending off their interviews to their benefactor who called himself - "Mr. Boots". Throughout their journey, they never seemed to ask who Mr. Boots was, why he was privy to these interviews and etc. Until Carol's
father tracked them down and revealed to her, that her name isn't Carol, it was Suzie and that all of her memories of how she met up with Frank, of her past life, were false, they were implanted memories, done so for the purpose of collecting these interviews and sending them off to Mr. Boots, who as it turns out, was working for the Archive, The Blind Man's servants.
All of that information was
revealed to Carol/Suzie by Number Nine, who acquired such detailed information by
stealing it from The Intermediary's base of operations at the time, The Katabasis Station. Now, you tell me, who on earth could possibly assemble such detailed amount of information about a person? Either the Blind Man, or his servants, I didn't exactly know what piece in that story fell where exactly, whether the Intermediary was his servant, or not, but what I did know, is that this Katabasis Station was my way into the Catacombs. So it's lucky for me, that Number Nine so kindly specified where it was on her blog - Baja, California was my next stop.
Travelling to California without the use of the Path took me about a week, but I made it. Locating the abandoned radio station was even harder, mainly because no locals seemed to know what I was talking about when mentioning the name of the radio station, but eventually, once I climbed to the highest point in the city at night, I was able to spot a red light blinking on occasion from a tower, that was just barely peaking over the forest trees, located on top of the mountains. Soon enough, I was standing at the entrance of Katabasis Station, which was this short, little building that was practically buried underneath various tree branches, the tower looming over, just barely peaking out from above the trees that were so desperately trying to consume the tower itself. Once I entered the building, the smell of wet, rotting wood hit me first, eyes trying desperately to adapt to the darkness within the building, but to no avail. I understood immediately that there were barely any floorboards, as my first step immediately began to sink into the wet, soft ground, the only feeling of solidity that my feet could feel as I walked forward blindly, was only when I stepped on the various wires that were strewn about all over the ground, so I followed them. Until, eventually, the sudden flicker of a red light allowed me to see the various amounts of equipment positioned in front of a window of some sort, the equipment was in poor condition, with various wires sticking out, dirt all over the various panels and missing buttons. There was a chair positioned in the middle of the room, it was knocked over, half buried underneath the dirt and above was hanging, a microphone with its exposed wiring. Something tells me, this was the room from where The Intermediary was sending out his little encoded messages, if so, it has definitely seen better days, I would explore further but it was pointless, I was not here to dig up potential roles of long forgotten pieces, I was here for knowledge. The only way forward was through a door that led inside the recording studio which I could see through the window positioned above all the broken apart equipment, once I opened it, the scenery immediately changed, I was greeted by deeper darkness, the only source of light was coming from somewhere down below, the way the light danced around the rocky walls I was greeted with once opening the door, indicated that somewhere below, the light source was reflecting off of water. As I let go of the door, the sudden, strong wave of wind immediately slammed the door behind me, making me jump backwards away from the door, which in result made me stumble over the rocks and forced me to start plummeting down into the water below, as I fell backwards I could see that the door was no longer there and the only sign of the radio station that I came from, was the studio window.
Quick thoughts flew by in my head, mainly potential plans on how will I possibly get out of here, but those didn't linger for too long as I found myself submerged in the Catacomb's waters. Only, this water wasn't like any kind of water I've been in before, this water was more relentless than the waters of any sea you've ever known, because this water was actively trying to flow inside of me, not allowing me the opportunity to hold my breath, drowning me, I had to get out and fast. My darling wrapped around the entirety of my head, preventing the water from entering through my mouth and nostrils, as I did my best to swim upwards, which was a difficult task on it's own, because the water was actively working against me, as if trying to push me further down into it's depths. But I managed to power through and get to the surface, emerging right next to some sort of wooden pier, immediately grabbing onto it, I pulled myself up as quickly as possible, as I felt the water begin to try and pull me back down again. I was now on solid surface, laying there, catching my breath, staring up at the rocky ceiling of this cave I was in, stalactites hanging ominously above this weird, deep pond. Not wanting to be caught off guard once again, I got up and looked around to see from where the pier was jutting out, all I saw was a human-sized corridor, leading deep inside the walls of the cave, being the only option of where I was able to go, I headed exactly there. To say that the corridor felt claustrophobic would be an understatement, the further I went, the smaller the gap between the walls became, at some point forcing me to walk sideways, because my shoulders could no longer fit, the only source of comfort were the torches that were lighting the path. As I squeezed on further, the gap between the walls finally began to broaden, but with it, the strength of wind increased as well, meaning that the further I went, the darker the corridor got, because there was no way the torches could stay lit in this kind of wind. With the strong wind blowing in my back, I could also hear the ominous sounds of pitter patter from every direction, which made no sense considering there was only two direction the sound could have came from, the front and the back. That is when I looked up and realised, there was no ceiling above me, or if there was, it was so high up, the light of the torches couldn't reach that far to illuminate it. Then I heard another sound of the pitter patter, this one was uncomfortably close, coming specifically from behind me, considering that the only area in this stone corridor that was submerged in shadows, was the ceiling, I formed two sharp ends around my hands and stabbed them against the walls around me, in order to climb up to the ceiling, granted, I didn't actually reach it, but I went high enough that I was now entirely covered within the shadows, outside of the torch's light. As the volume of the pitter patter increased, I tried my best to steady myself and not make a single sound, that's when this thing, crawled by where I was standing a minute ago, with such incredible speed, that I nearly missed it. How do I even begin to describe it? Well for one, it looked like a giant spider, at first glance at least, but the more I processed what I saw, the more I came to realise that the only reason I made the spider association is because of it's three, pointy back legs, all of which connected to the centre body, from which, forward protruded what looked like a torso. it looked like it lacked a head though, it didn't lack shoulders and arms though, arms that were so long, they reached the floor with absolute ease, one of the arms ended as sharp as one of it's back legs, the other arm ended in a 3 clawed hand. I couldn't discern the colour of this thing, considering the torches made everything look orange, but I can safely assume that it was most likely of a fleshy colour. Also, the centre body where the three back legs and the torso connected? It had some sort of hole at the top of it and from underneath the centre body, was hanging some sort of fleshy sack, I didn't even want to think about what any of that was for. Considering that the pitter patter noises were coming from all over the place, it was safe to assume that there was more of these things in there with me, a thought that didn't comfort me at all. Once the thing was fully out of my sight, I climbed down as quietly as possible and carried on along the corridor.
At least, for maybe 15 minutes, after that I was interrupted in my venture forward by a gap in the ground. The gap wasn't caused due to the crumbled ground or anything like that, no, the ground was perfectly intact, it just started to go directly downwards. The gap itself wasn't too big, it was shaped very similarly to that of the entryway, through which I got into this long corridor. I could easily jump over it and carry on, but I was curious, grabbed one of the torches from the wall and threw it down, didn't hear it hit the ground, meaning the gap was deep, that wasn't what I was curious about though, just before the torch was put out, I was able to catch a glimpse of it lighting up several, similarly shaped entryways within the walls of the gap. This confirmed my suspicion, this was no random hole in the ground, this was an entryway to the deeper parts of this place, designed in such a way specifically for its spider-like inhabitants, meaning I was in the middle of a massive labyrinth that had entryways going up and down, and who knows where they led. I wasn't really given a chance to ponder on that further, because the sound of something flapping in the air, speeding towards me from behind caught me off guard, mainly due to it being drowned out by the constant noise of echoing pitter patters, until the last second. Once I turned around, I was blasted in the face by some sort of black smoke, after which some kind of black cloth covered my entire body and pushed me backwards into the gap. As I fell down, black smoke dissipated and the cloth would pull itself off, leaving me to quickly plummet to my presumed death. Thinking quickly, I morphed sharp edges around my hands and drove them into the wall, stone was flying everywhere as my sharp edges dug into the wall, slowing my descent, the trick was to not put too much pressure, otherwise I could end up with broken arms. Luckily for me, I slid down past one of those embedded entryways, thinking quickly, I barely managed to grab onto its ledge, wincing in pain, because the arm I used to pull that off, was the one that just recently had its shoulder dislocated. Hanging there for a few second, letting the pain settle down and the sparks in my eyes clear out, I noticed a glow emanating from the entryway that I was holding onto. Grabbing on with my second arm, I managed to pull myself up enough for me to get a clear view, it was her, the glowing Pale Woman, her crystal blue eyes staring down at me, with what seemed like an expression of disgust on her face. Before we could exchange pleasantries, she reached out for me with her pale hand and just like plenty of times before, my sight was engulfed by a flash of light and the sensation of falling resumed, but was quickly interrupted by my back smacking against something, flipping me over and making me fall face first into what felt like the ground.
Dust exploded everywhere as my body hit the floor, forcing me to sit up against a wall and let the newly acquired sparks in my eyes clear out and the dust to settle. Once I could see, I realised that what I hit on the way down and what I was sitting against was a tall bookshelf, in front of me was another bookshelf, yet again the Pale Bitch had transported me somewhere by just touching me and at first, I was getting annoyed, as the possibility of her transporting me somewhere random, outside of the Catacombs, would linger in my mind until I walked out of aisle of bookshelves I landed in. This is when the thought of me no longer being inside the catacombs evaporated, as I was greeted with a massive, circular room, filled with bookshelves throughout, some parts of the walls even broke off into aisles of bookshelves, like the one I landed in. I'm sure I'd make further observations of this room, but I couldn't due to how dark it was in there, the only source of light being this sickly yellow light that was flowing in through the room's windows, which were positioned far out of my reach. I seem to have landed on the second floor of this room, as I could see the sickly light falling further down, landing on the ground of the first floor, revealing several tables positioned around the ground floor, with various books and tomes placed on top of them, some open and some closed. But most curiously would have to be the pitch black tree that was growing from the ground in the middle of the room, I wouldn't even have noticed it if it weren't for the sickly yellow light falling on it. I had to start somewhere to find the lead that I was looking for and the presence of this tree, was a promising start, so I lowered myself down as quietly as possible and began looking through the books that were on the table, majority of them were untitled, most of them were filled with random scribblings, unknown symbols, some just had blank, dirty pages. Curiously, a copy of "Heart of a Dog" was on one of the tables and I don't mean a re-print, the cover wasn't artsy as you would see today if you were to google the novel, the pages are hardened, as if it was thrown into water, yet the letters are not smudged and everything is perfectly readable, it's as if this book was plucked directly from samizdat. However, any further exploration was interrupted by a weird sound that was now emitting quietly, from behind me, this sound of weird, high-pitched, mumbling, bordering on sounding like human voices, but constantly changing, shifting, never sounding the same, never stopping. Once I turned around, I was greeted by a cloaked figure, covered entirely by black robes, no body part was visible, this cloaked figure was just standing there, emitting that noise, until the noise intensified and became louder, the cloaked figure didn't move, instead 4 other cloaked figures stepped out of the darkness surrounding me, all four emitting the same sound. I began to form sharp edged spikes around my hands in case these figures were thinking of attacking, they continued to stand there and emit their weird noise, as we stood there, the noise began to change, somewhere along the line I was able to discern the occasional chanting: "Unum tantum plumbedeprofundum kodeflumen etenonest inventus nihilest" Or something among those lines, best I could transcribe, considering the chanting was being drowned out with the before mentioned noise they were making. Whether they were trying to cast a spell on me, or summon something, or whatever, I came to the conclusion that allowing them to do so would not be in my best interest, so I charged at one of them, the one right in front of me, to which the chanting suddenly stopped and the one I was charging at, quickly lifted his head in a snapping motion, as if he was just shaken awake. You'd think that now I would be able to describe what they looked like, since there was nothing preventing me from getting a look at one of their faces, but I couldn't, because as this cloaked figure snapped it's head up to look at me, black smoke from underneath their hood instantly blasted me in the face, despite the fact that I couldn't see where I was going, my momentum didn't stop and I still made a slashing move in an attempt to at least try and injure one of them, but to no avail, my attempt didn't connect with anything.
As I continue to move, flailing around, trying to get the black smoke out of my face, I came to a realisation that I wasn't being blinded by it, it was surrounding me, creating pitch darkness around me, completely drowning out any light sources that were present before. Tried running through it, but to no avail, I know I was moving forward somewhere, but it didn't seem like it, then I started to catch glimpses of things through the smoke, the first thing I could clearly see is someone's silhouette in the distance, walking away from me along some sort of Path in the middle of a forest, before I could attempt to step towards the path, the image instantly disappeared. Looking around, I saw another image, yet again from a distance, in the middle of a dead field, a huge black tree and right beside it Slendy, ripping someone limb from limb... Sergei, it was Sergei, they were showing me his last moments, I saw no point in reaching out, knowing full well that what they were showing me, was in the past, as I began to look away I got blasted with more dark smoke in my face. Coughing through it, I was greeted with Sergei, kneeling down in the middle of this smoke right next to me, he was right there, his head down, tears running down his face, kneeling in front of Slendy, what the fuck was this!? That's not how his story ended! They were fucking with me! I was so angry, that I charged at the figure that looked like Incognito, forgetting that it wasn't real, as soon as I hit him, he broke off into more smoke, yet again obscuring my vision. I stumbled back a bit, trying to swat away at the smoke on my face, clearing my vision, only to be greeted with my old self looking back at me, with a wicked smile on its face, gotta say, it was a faithful recreation of the old body, I probably would be able to point out a few inconsistencies, but my old self didn't stick around too long to fully admire the replica as his flesh began to rot away, with his eye falling out, followed by his head ripping off, his body falling towards me, squirting blood in my face, yet again obscuring my vision. I flailed around, moving forward, whilst trying to wipe my eye clean, this is when I began to fall, I was approaching the ground extremely fast, I braced myself for impact, but it didn't come, or at least I felt no impact, despite the fact that I do remember my body crashing through the ground, coming out the other end covered in black liquid I continued to fall. In the distance I could see a flash of light for a few seconds, after which suddenly, white fire ignited right in front of me, as I flew through it, experiencing the burning sensation at it's fullest, but not burning, the black liquid now hardening around me. Suddenly, the feeling of falling turned into the feeling of being flung in a specific direction, at such speed that I barely managed to notice the giant, wooden, black wall, that looked like tree bark, smashing right into it. As I lay within it, every part of my body started getting ripped apart limb from limb on it's own, as if some sort of invisible force was tugging away at me and succeeded, as my limbs began to liquidise upon their detachment and began to dry into the soft bark of this tree-like wall, I began to lose feeling of anything and was on the verge of losing consciousness, until I could feel my hand again.
I still couldn't see where I was anymore, but I could feel my legs shaking beneath me, struggling to stand, I could feel my shoulder leaning against the wall, trying it's hardest to assist my body and I could feel my own hand on my face, trying it's hardest to suppress the migraine that was now shooting through my head. Finally my vision began to blur through and I began to see that I was leaning right outside of the corridor I stepped into in the beginning of this journey, looking directly at the pier from which I originally came, but I wasn't alone this time, on the edge of the pier, in his fancy robes, with some sort of book behind his back, was standing my
personal messenger. I started stumbling towards him, a sharp spike forming from my sleeve, I was tired and I wanted answers:
"Should have figured that the pale bitch was working with your lot..."
As I approached, he turned away from me, staring off into the cave's walls, his Jamaican accent ringing through the cave: "I have no time for your nonsense, thing..." Well, that answered the question about the Pale Bitch, she wasn't with them, or at least, he wasn't even aware that she was also in there with me "You've come seeking knowledge..." he turned to face me, taking the book he was holding from behind him, waving it in front of me "I have it."
This is where I stopped and gave out a puzzled laugh: "First you warn me not to pursue my goals, now you're helping me along?"
He smiled in response, a very cocky smile, his golden teeth shining brightly: "You assume that the knowledge you seek here will help you, thing?" he put the book under his shoulder "Indeed, I warned you, not of my own volition, just like I am giving you this knowledge, not of my own desire."
At this point, my migraine had almost passed and I could stand on my feet a lot more confidently: "Well, what a good little puppy you are then."
This is where he laughed grandiosely:
"And what does that make you, thing? A fidgeting mess, which doesn't know which way to head, like a deer caught in the headlights." After that, his smile was a lot more sinister
"Besides, who said I am giving away knowledge for free?" There it was, the catch
"We work hard here to record and acquire the knowledge we possess and if you want said knowledge..." He turned to face the pitch dark water that tried to consume me earlier
"You'll work for it." After which he threw the book into the water below the pier. I don't know why, but for some reason I began running after it, he could have been lying to me, maybe that book had nothing in it, I guess it was the realisation that there was not much of a choice, considering there was no way I was going to locate the information I was looking for in that labyrinth back there, this was my only chance, so I jumped past him and dove right into the water, this time willingly drowning myself by going deep within the depths after the book. The deeper I went, the more futile it became to hold my breath, as the water began to intrude my body much like before, my darling tried to fend it off to the best of her ability, but it was simply too much. I kept on swimming deeper, until all feeling in my body was lost yet again and I was consumed by darkness, all over again. Just like that, I was back where I started, no, not the Katabasis Station, I was back in the nothingness, in the dark void that I was in when Kelevra and Fortissimo separated me from themselves and put me into a vial, the void where my self was being shaped, the void where I heard the voices, first the
dry voice, then the
loud voice and after that... I believe it was the sickly voice.
I began to hear the voice through it's coughs, as it droned on closer to me, as if coming from a distance, recounting: "Measles in the Aztec empire... Bubonic plague in Europe... Botulism in Africa..." the voice interrupted itself breaking off into a coughing fit, at this point, sounding as if it was right next to me "Those were times to tell of!" It suddenly exclaimed joyously. I stayed quiet, it didn't address me, so there was no point for me to interfere in it's musings and so it carried on: "Typhoid!... Malaria!... Syphilis!... Parotitis!... Pneumonia!... Piptheria!... Listeriosis!... Cholera!... Influenza!... Rubella!... Chlamydia!... Leprosy!... Salmonella!... Tetanus!... Scarlet Fever!..." Finally the voice paused, I must say, it's knowledge of various diseases was quite impressive, but again, I was not being addressed, so I said nothing, that would change when my silence was noted: "Ah, forgive me if I've been boring you." the voice broke off into a cough "Yet, why should I not bore you? In these sour times, all of the epidemics are being brought to heel. Herpes, aids, ebola... oh, the little apes and their test tubes!" It released a disappointing sigh "It's a sad thing when a basic flesh-eating virus can't manage to wipe out even ONE population."
At this point in time, I was beginning to catch on within my void, the thought entertained me back then, but I would proceed to humour it, 'playing along' if you may. "True, the funniest thing is that none of those viruses disappeared, they're still around, but as you said, they were all brought to heel..." I pondered before proceeding "And the main reason is the growth in technology."
"Verily, there is no place for intrusive diseases any longer, they are simply ineffective..." The voice noted through its coughing.
"Intrusive..." That word caught my attention, bringing a thought into my mind, after which I proceeded to voice my opinion with satisfaction "So we're in agreement that diseases simply don't cut it anymore, hell, even if another plague broke out today..." (This thought was originally conveyed by me somewhere between 2014-2017, talk about being ahead of my time!) "A few months/year later it would become ineffective and a treatment plan would minimise any risks that it would originally present." The voices only response was a disgusted cough "But my dear friend, with the advent of technology, a different form of 'intrusion' is presented!" I exclaimed with excitement "Don't you see? People today are concerned with their privacy more than anything else, to a point of obsession! The technological growth presented many corporations with an opportunity to spy on their consumers! Why do you think so many people are obsessed with VPN's? Complex passwords? Why do you think most of them deny the 'cookies' that many websites suggest to them? And how many of them have their adblocker's installed?" I couldn't sustain my laugh here "And that's only within the supposed 'privacy' of their own home, step outside and you are greeted with surveillance cameras everywhere! Naturally the paranoia levels are going off the charts today, people are less concerned with contracting some kind of disease, majority of them are concerned with hiding their dirty little secrets." I paused to hear if the voice was still there, listening, after I heard a suppressed cough, done so as if to not interrupt me, I carried on "Go on any popular media website right now and see for yourself, I guarantee to you, the main headline, or the most trending video, is somebody ousting somebody else's dirty laundry, resulting in screeching and threats, and more paranoia!" I start laughing to myself "And these fools continue to try their hardest to hide everything, by using corporate sponsored VPN's! They are so desperate to protect their privacy, that they begin to trust corporate backed products and even promote them to each other!" HAHAhAHAHA "NordVPN!... ExpressVPN!... Surfshark!... Cyberghost!... UltraVPN...!" And so on, until the memory of that conversation within the void, droned off into the distance.
So crystal clear was the memory that I completely forgot that I was within a different type of void right now and the sensation of suffocation was not a mere illusion. However, just as I began to remember where I was, a bright light began to appear in the distance amongst the murky darkness I was in. I began trying to swim towards it, putting all of my strength behind my legs, what started as a slow approach towards the light, transformed into an increasingly fast plummet towards it. As I was pulled closer to it, the light blinded me and the only thing I could feel was the sound of breaking glass and my body hitting a metallic object of some sort, landing on the wet ground of the recording studio through which I had entered into the Catacombs. Looking behind me, the glass shatter was caused by me being flung through the recording studio window, on the other side of which there were no signs of the previous cave-like walls which descended into the murky waters of the catacombs, it was just a plain, old, tore down recording studio. Looking back in front of me was the book that my 'Messenger' threw into the water. I quickly picked it up and was about to take my leave, when the recording studios red light flickered on yet again, I don't know what took over me, maybe I needed some kind of closure due to the amount of unanswered questions that were hanging over me after my trip into the Catacombs? Maybe it was something to do with my running theme of bringing closure to different 'chess pieces' tangled in this game? Whatever it was, I walked over to the microphone and pressed the button on it, room was suddenly filled with static, coming from the damaged speakers and assuming that the mic was still working, I spoke: "Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Four. Nine. Fifteen. Nine. Twenty-One. Three. Twelve. Fifteen. Nineteen. Five. Four." After that I let go of the button on the mic and the red light went out, satisfied, I finally took my leave of that rotten place and commenced my long travel back home.
This has become quite the long-winded post, so I will stop here, I have to prepare for my next trip, so I will cover the contents of the book, sometime later.
