Road Trips Are Fun, Not With A Gun

So there I am driving in a car the owner of which so generously lent to me for a few weeks, just about enough time to reach my destination. But I am not an ungrateful sort, Timothy was so tense during our discussion on whether he would let me borrow his car or not, I felt so bad for him, he was a man in his 40's after all, pressure couldn't have been good for him, so once we came to an agreement I relieved him of his pressure and his head, Billy was a swell chap, I will remember him and his generosity forever.

I never could have realized that driving in the middle of the night on an empty road surrounded by a deep forest from both sides could be that irritating. It was a full moon that night, I would be lying if I said I wasn't cautious, the branches of the trees that would connect with each other from both sides, trying their damnedest to block out the night sky would sometimes unintentionally (Or maybe intentionally) form our Tall Friend's silhouette, making the full moon seem like it was it's faceless head. As if the Tall Bastard was towering over the entire road, looking down on us, on me, underestimating me, viewing me as nothing more than a cockroach, well let it, that type of attitude always worked in my favor.

I wasn't even fucking sure where the hell I was going, all I had were some vague directions from Ol' Jack: "Keep driving out of the city following the main road, until you reach the deepest of forests, from there on follow the deer." I was pretty sure I got to the forest part at this point, the part that eluded me was obviously the deer bit. I mean it's a forest, a deep one at that, how many deer's would I see if I were to stop and go exploring.

Then I just barely notice it, there in the distance covered in darkness where my headlights did not reach, a quick flash of light. I didn't even have a chance to ponder what it might have been, because the screeching sound that was traveling at great speed through the air in my direction quickly answered the question that I wasn't even fast enough to ask in the form of a rocket, heading directly towards me.

I swerved the car as quick and as hard as I could, managing to just about angle the car away from the oncoming torpedo, making it hit the ground next to me and my car. The force of the explosion in combination with the momentum of my driving instantly flipped my car over, flying a good distance through the air before the roof of the car smashed into the ground and the car slid across the road, smashing against one of the many trees, it's a miracle that the diesel didn't instantly catch on fire.

Hanging upside down in the car, doing fairly well all things considered thanks to my darling wrapping around me and protecting me, and of course, the seat belt. My darling grew sharp spikes out of the various parts of my jacket, cutting off the seat belt, freeing me and allowing me to crawl away to safety before the car got lit up like a Christmas Tree.

And light up it did! BOOM! A big explosion, would be very painful if my darling didn't cover my back and protect me from the fire, the glass and the metal pieces, sadly she couldn't do much about the gravity as the force of the explosion had sent me directly face first into a tree, that hurt. As I lay there, near that tree, trying to catch my breath and adjust my vision back to normal from it's blurry state, I quickly notice that flaming car + a forest = a massive forest fire, which is no good when you're smack dab in the middle of said forest fire.

As I try to balance myself and get my bearings, the fire seems to spread at increasing speed and while my darling is concentrating on the falling trees and the spreading fire, it means that I am left relying only onto my own eye, that rocket didn't just materialize into existence on it's own after all, someone had shot it in my direction and that someone could still be lurking around in the distance, waiting to finish the job.

And that's when it flies directly by my face, an arrow that is on fire and with such speed that if it had landed, it probably would have went directly through my head. Luckily for me it missed allowing me to instantly duck for cover, little good that did for me, I couldn't see past the fire in order to try and identify where the arrow was fired from, I was a sitting duck in there and I don't like being a sitting duck. So I tell my darling to do her best and cover as much of my body as she can, we were going to run through the fire, it's not a particularly fun experience it's like running through a fully heated oven, I could feel various parts of my body's skin start to bubble up but we managed to get to an opening where fire wasn't as spread out as where I was before.

Just as I am about to suck in a good breath of cold air, my darling immediately retracts from the front of my face to the back of my neck catching another arrow as it was about to pierce the back of my neck and considering that she was no longer occupied with the raging fire around us, she was able to spot the Arsonist Robin Hood.

Guess who it was, hard to guess huh? It should be, with so many targets on my back I tend to lose track myself sometimes. It was Corpsy, the green faced bastard, my darling caught a glimpse of him perched up on one of the trees away from the forest fire. I had to close the distance on him somehow and quickly, I took cover behind one of the trees as more fiery arrows began to descend on my location, slowly but surely starting yet another forest fire.

With nowhere else to go I began climbing the tree, with my darling helping me out by changing the back of my jacket into 4 sharp tendrils which acted very similarly to that of spider legs, each one stabbing into the wood and helping me ascend the tree at a far greater pace then if I were to do it on my own.

Once I found a branch thick enough to allow me to sit on top of it, I tried to get a look around, but the tree began to give out under the fire that was spreading on the ground. One of the tendrils on my back latched onto another tree and my darling managed to transport me safely onto another tree, which is when it hit me, this is how I was going to close the gap between us. Relaying the idea to my darling, I pierce the skin of my human host as his hand, stump and feet get covered in sharp edged spikes which are the extensions of myself, whilst my darling remains in the form of four tendrils and working together we very quickly begin to get our human host across the forest by jumping from one tree to the other, stabbing deep into the wood to remain above the ground, right towards Corpsy who was too busy reloading a crossbow.

As we closed in on him I shifted my body in such a way that the sharp edged spikes on my feet would impale Corpsy right in the chest, using the momentum to push him off the branch, sending him plummeting to the ground. He was a crafty fucker, right before he hit the ground he got off a shot from his crossbow, sending an arrow directly into my exposed chest, that shit hurt and caused my darling to instantly retract back into jacket form and wrap around the wound to quickly mend it, problem with that is the momentum didn't stop so now I myself was also plummeting towards the ground. Luckily for me, unlike my undead friend, my fall was roughly softened by a bunch of tree branches that I ended up breaking with my body, before hitting the ground.

Using the momentum of the fall I rolled backwards onto my feet, avoiding the end of the arrow touching the ground thus further embedding it within me. Once I regained my balance, I had to quickly deal with said arrow as it's continued presence within my chest made my darling's job of patching up the wound harder. So I yanked it out, it hurt like hell, far more painful then taking bullets out due to the design of the arrow, if you ever wondered why arrows tend to be shaped in the form of a triangle, it's so that when they are inserted in your flesh, when pulled out the sharp ends on the sides will guarantee a very painful extraction by ripping your skin, flesh and nerves to hell.

I however wasn't given the opportunity to savor the pain, because this massive hand reached out towards my face and with great strength grasped my face, and pushed me down to the ground, my darling was busy with the wound so she couldn't warn me of the attack. Corpsy didn't waste his time, as he was holding me down, he was holding a flaming arrow in his other, armored hand, his neck broken and his head hanging off, being held in place only by the rotting flesh, the results of the fall no doubt. He tried stabbing me with said arrow, unlucky for him my hand and stump were free, I caught his descending hand and aimed my stump at his chest and then I erupted a sharp edged spike out of said stump impaling Corpsy yet again and pushing him off of me, the force o the push being strong enough to completely detach his head from his body.

Finally I had the chance to catch my breath, I began to get up not letting the bastards body out of my sight, checking on my wound when suddenly I was interrupted: "How categorically barbarous." It was his detached head that was now at my feet, somehow he was still talking to me, fucking Dead Man Shards, so annoying and hard to get rid of, well if anything I had the chance to at least shut him up, so I morphed a sharp edged spike around my foot and stomped the head into the ground until nothing was left of it but a fleshy porridge.

Getting the chance to observe my wound, my darling had done an amazing job with it, the wound was closed and it's as if there was no injury to begin with, the pain lingered though. I was about to take my leave as the forest fire was spreading further towards my location, but then I noticed Corpsy's headless body begin to get up, irritation was getting the better of me, I figured this was the best opportunity to get rid of this pest for good now that he lacked a head and thus was fairly disoriented. But as fate would have it a fucking deer came running out of the bushes, probably escaping the ensuing forest fire, it ran right past Corpsy's standing body, he latched onto it and allowed it to drag him away with it further into the forest.

Not wanting to lose the opportunity to finish the undead fuck for good I gave chase, that deer must have felt really threatened because it was hauling ass, having my face smacked by a few bushes during the chase I can positively say that I had lost it, furthermore I myself was lost within the deep forest, the road that I was originally driving on long since lost to me. Trying to get my bearings I was about to start climbing one of the trees to have a look around when suddenly I heard quick footsteps of some kind very quickly approaching me from behind. If I was on my own, the attack from behind would have worked, but my darling was no longer occupied with our wound so she was able to entrap our assailant with one of her tendrils coming out of the back of my jacket.

Turning around to face what I had assumed was Corpsy's headless body I was greeted with a shocking sight. My darling had caught the headless body's hand that was wielding a knife, only the headless body was no longer headless, he had fucking removed the deer's head and attached it to his body, shit looked fucking wrong, especially when you consider that it wasn't the only thing that looked wrong, as Corpsy seemed to have borrowed not only the poor deer's head, but also it's back legs attaching them to his human torso, this fucked up sight caught me off guard, I had no idea that he could do the body part swapping trick with animals too.

Using my stupor as an opportunity, the fucker used one of the deer's legs to kick the shit out of my knee, he would have probably outright broken it if it wasn't for the fact that he had kicked it from behind. Regardless the kick packed enough power to throw me off balance and send me down on one knee, after which Corpsy was winding up for a punch with his armored hand, unfortunately for him my darling had warned of said wind up, forming a sharp edged spike around my stump I turned around and managed to lob off the fuckers armored hand right at the wrist.

That move made him not only drop the knife but also cry out in what seemed like pain and considering that ungodly noise was coming out of a decapitated deer's head, well imagine yourself how horrific it must have sounded. Corpsy backed up a bit, giving me a chance to press on the attack, but the fucker was crafty, he backed up so he could lean on his one hand and outright buck me in the chest, the force of which had sent me flying off into a small pit that was just behind the large bushes. The fucking kick had blown all the wind out of my sails so to speak, I was desperately gasping for air while also trying to prevent myself from seeing three moons, I'm pretty sure I had passed out at some point, not sure.

However, once I was able to get my shit together I was shocked to find out that Corpsy didn't jump down after me and finish the job, in fact he had outright left me entirely for some unknown reason, I wasn't complaining as my head was still ringing from the entire altercation, I'm pretty sure between the car explosion and getting bucked, my human host was now suffering from a concussion. But there was no time to worry about that, because I had found it, out here in this deep forest in the middle of fucking nowhere, in this leaf filled pit, were the remains of an ancient, crumbling tower of sorts, it's brick walls covered in all sorts of vegetation, inside the circled, fallen apart walls was an opening that clearly indicated that this bit of the tower used to be a part of a bigger building. It is from that opening that I could feel this overwhelming feeling of sickness, when the wind would blow in my direction through that opening I could instantly smell the stench of rotting, infected flesh which instantly made me want to vomit my guts out.

 "Follow the deer" he said, funny fucker.

I left that spot alone for the night, there was no way I was going inside the sick hellhole, first I had to deal with my concussion and overall just let the human body rest, plus I had you lovely readers to update. So I began making my way back to the scene of the fire where there were various fire trucks on the scene, busy handling mine and Corpsy's mess. I hid in the bushes for a while out of sight of the cops that were also there trying to figure out the mystery of the exploded car with no dead bodies inside and once the firefighters had finished their job and began to drive off, I sneakily ran up to one of the fire trucks which were already departing and hitched a ride on it to the closest town in the area. After that I stayed at a hotel and in the morning I went to the local library (Obviously without my bandages and with my hood up) to write up all of this.

Once this is posted I will be departing back to the pit in the forest, my darling remembers the way. And while I am excited, I am also under no impression that I will definitely come back, this very well might be the end of the road for me, a lot of people had ventured into this place, very few managed to come back.

But to be completely honest with you, I like my odds, I mean, if Star can pull it off then what's stopping me from getting out?

Wish me luck!

He makes a deal, he takes a cut, what a fellow, good ol' Jack.

 Hello my dear readers!

My, my, it has been a while hasn't it? My sincerest apologies, after my latest encounter with our Tall Faceless Friend, I understandably had to lay low for a while, good practice when doing so is to cut one self off from any form of communication, in my case that would be this lovely website that I update. 

However, my silence is not only due to my wish to remain hidden, it was also imposed by research, a lot of reading has been done on my end over the course of Summer. It's really hard to track certain items when they tend to bounce around from one author to another. Sadly I was not able to track down what I am looking for, however, I know where it was last spotted and this location might present a plethora of various difficulties, one of which was my method of getting there.

Since I've been cut off from the Path with Franky's absence, there is only one other way I can find my way inside of the many of Creepy Crawlie's domains (Not specifying which one, just yet) and that is to find a "hot spot" (As I lovingly refer to them) which would transport me inside. Considering how much trouble I had when finding my way inside of the Catacombs, that is not an ideal way, not to mention, the only reason I was able to find my way inside the Catacombs is because I had a lead. With this current desired destination, I have nothing...

Well, had nothing.

Que a visit from the one known to all of you as "Jack". 

How do I know? Well apart from him introducing himself by that name, it was kind of hard to believe that this was some regular ol' "Jack" from the street, regardless how hard he might have tried to blend in with the populous of that dirty alley he found me in. Quite indeed, his appearance was very fitting, dressed in a white jumper hoodie, a dark blue "NY" baseball cap peeking out from underneath the hood, dark blue joggers and sneakers. If it wasn't for the fact that he knew so much about me, I would have figured that I was about to be offered a heaping load of drugs for an undoubtedly bullshit price.

Obviously he didn't look like a simple drug dealer, no matter how hard he tried. The fact that I couldn't see his face thanks to the combination of a single light source that being a lamp under which he was standing and the hoodie along with the cap, creating a dark enough shadow for me to be unable to discern any facial features. And possibly the most damning giveaway of them all, one of his hands was red. The hand unlike his face, I could see very clearly, it appeared to be the hand of an elderly person wrinkly and veiny, and it's redness appeared to be as if a nasty rash covered the entire hand.

Indeed I was tracked down by good ol' Jack, a fact I became increasingly aware of when his voice echoed through the alleyway, calling out specifically to me. Funnily enough, none of the bums seemed to pay any attention to the strangely calm, yet loud voice that was now echoing through their living place.

"Kelevra." He called out, standing under the light of the singular alley lamp, already standing there as I turned around to face him, not moving an inch, his hands clasped together.

"That would be me." I answered and immediately realized as to why nobody payed attention to Jack, my own voice didn't have an ounce of reverberation anymore, which is ridiculous considering I was standing in an alleyway and the sound of my voice, no matter how quiet had to reverb off of the dirty, brick walls. Glancing around, I realized, time had come to a halt.

"No, that would not be you..." His voice echoed once again "You would be his offspring."

Somehow, Jack over here knew about everything, including my current goal, which is even more bizarre considering I never told anyone about my plans or hunches. This meant all sorts of bad news, if he knew, how many of the rest of the Creepy Crawlies knew what I was up to?

"Regardless, allow me to introduce myself, people here tend to refer to me as..." At this point I began to feel a slight pressure begin to build up in my ears "Jack."

Trying to come off as unfazed by his games, I had to keep him talking whilst my darling could find a way to get away from this little time loop he threw us into "I know of you, Jack the Dealer, come to try and kill me too?"

Laughter, his laughter, that weird broken noise that tried to imitate laughter erupted from the hooded entity "No, no, nothing so trivial..." The after echoes of the previously mentioned noise finally faded away "I am here to collect."

"Collect?" I'll be honest, he managed to intrigue me "Collect what?"

And then I saw it, shining at me through the shadows of the hood and cap, a red light shine towards me where his mouth would be, the silhouette of which seemed to form a smile "Collect on a debt your originator owed me."

Further intrigue, no doubt he was talking about my previous life, but what possible deal could my past self have cut with Jack? Pointless question to ask now, since I asked it in the actual confrontation, a better question to ask now would be 'What was he thinking?' but alas I doubt I'll get an answer to that one.

"I've given him a safe haven after his old master cut him off from it's domain due to his betrayal..." He was talking about my past self betraying Our Tall Faceless Friend no doubt "The safe haven allowed him to travel freely over your plain..." That would explain how my past self was able to travel around so easily without having any access to The Path, so the only question now was: What was the price? "In return he promised me his eternal servitude." And of course that didn't come through because in the end my past self ended up killing himself via Sergei's hands.

"So? What does that have to do with me?" In retrospect, a pretty dumb question to ask.

"You are practically his next of kin, so the debt transfers to you." How convenient, of course if it was 'Eternal Servitude' he was expecting, then I told him to essentially shove it. But of course, things are never so easy with Good ol' Jack.

"I do not want your servitude, the time for that has long since passed..." There it was again, the building pressure in my ears "What I want from you is a simple retrieval."

Yeah right, nothing is ever 'Simple' with Jack, ask any of the countless unfortunate saps that he fucked over with his 'Deals'. However, the bastard sure as hell knew how to entice.

"And it just so happens that the item I require is locked away in..." That's where I'm going to redact what he was about to say, basically he knew exactly where I wanted to go and he was offering me an opportunity to get there in return I bring him what he was asking me to retrieve and all the past debts are wiped clean, but there was a caveat, of course.

"And what is it you want me to bring back?" I asked sceptically.

"Don't worry, you'll know once you see it." The pressure began to build up yet again and this time it was heavier than before, to a point that I felt like my ear drums were about to burst.

Whether due to the painful pressure in my ears, whether due to seeing this as a legitimately only option I had, or some other dumb justification rattling in my head, I agreed to those terms. I know, I know 'HAHA Dumb Kelevra, didn't follow the warnings of so many before him' very funny. But the issue is, this was indeed the quickest way to get where I wanted to go. As we struck our agreement, he informed me that he had created a gateway into the domain that I was seeking passage to in a specific spot, all I had to do now was get there.

Once the deal was struck, the world began to move yet again around me, the air of the stinking alley returning to my nostrils, the sound of arguing bums hitting my ears, the pressure slowly but surely disappearing, replaced with the sudden urge to vomit out my insides, which is exactly what I did. After I was done emptying my guts on the wet ground, I looked up but Jack was nowhere to be seen, he was gone, as swiftly as he had arrived.

Jack is known to fuck over those who strike up deals with him, we'll see who fucks over who first.

At least now I know where to go next.

Things are getting exciting yet again my dear readers.

“Wait,” says the yellow light, “Go,” says the green, “Stop.” says the...

On the corner shining bright.

Heh Heh.

Sincere apologies for the long silence dear readers, but you must understand with my previous business partners now taking a pro-longed leave of absence, probably even permanent looking at this. My access to The Path has been entirely cut off and as a result my means of transportation along with it, so it was back to the good ol' fashioned way of travelling around the world, which is not an easy feat I must say, not with all the limitations imposed around the world due to a certain plague that has been roaming around, the good ol' Doctor doesn't make it easy on anyone, does it?

But never fear, for I am a crafty creature, I knew of ways to get from one country to another without raising any detection long before my rebirth, good to know that those means of transportation were left uncompromised.

That's right folks, I was on a road trip! Where you may ask? Why, the land of freedom of course! The U.S. of A! Smuggling myself across the border wasn't easy I'll tell you what, but you're not interested in the 'how' you're more interested in the 'why'. Well you see, part of Malik's final favour for me, before we took off to Martha's house, was that he would use the Proxy Web and it's pertaining connections to find an address of a very old game piece, it would have been impossible for me to track it down on my own, even with all the various details that the person in question sprawled all over their blog. And I can practically hear it echoing in the back of your head "Who!? Who, Kelevra, who!?" Heh Heh.

Well my dear reader, the subject of my visit resided in Maine, said subject was regarded as a leader of the runners at some point, a 2nd generation "Sage", a "doctor of the mind" and so many other titles, all falling under the not-so-simple username of Hakurei Ryuu, or as she was more commonly known by the people closest to her, Valerie. What can be said about Valerie? A true believer that one, always trying to encourage people to do better, to keep fighting and trying her best to give direction to those who were lost. Of course, typical human behaviour dictated that all of these attempts at guidance were not heeded by the person that was providing them to begin with, especially when shit would REALLY hit the fan. Still she was special, not just for her helpful nature but for the unique gifts that she seemed to possess, which was some kind of ability to mask her presence from our Tall Friend, not only that but to also see... "beyond" what the regular eye perceives and to access seemingly "different planes of existence" (Best way I can describe it). She was not necessarily unique with her gifts, AmalgamationSage was practically fluent in the type of stuff that Valerie was seemingly just dabbling in.

However, despite her nature of always holding onto hope, her story ended much like everyone else's did in this game, to this day Valerie is missing in action, realistically speaking, most likely dead. So why was I looking for her? Well, I wasn't. I was looking for something else and in order to find it, I needed to know her parent's home address.

You see, a certain nuisance was plaguing the Runners at this point in time, his fashion sense tended to gravitate towards the colour Red a lot. Heh, calm down Starman (If you're reading this that is), I am not trying to bring back Redlight, or Redlight 2, or make a third one, nothing like that, that game piece as far as I'm aware is dead and has been dead thanks to you, party pooper. However it was the first one's death that drew my fascination, to keep a long story short for those of you unaware (The views on my posts keep coming from somewhere, not to mention the occasional new follower appearing here and there), Redlight used to be the big bad Proxy who was gunning for one of the key members of the Runner community, Robert Sagel a man responsible for giving so many hope and then swiftly crushing it. Redlight had the ability to body hop from person to person, ensuring that nothing could really end him for sure, how he was able to do that is unknown, bottom line is he could do it. Eventually Red got tired of serving and decided to strike out on his own, but before he could do that Robert seemingly managed to kill him with a bit of the Bleeding Tree, a piece of which he managed to get after he got directions from Zero. Now of course, things are never that easy and Redlight wasn't actually dead, but he was seemingly infected with that piece of the Tree, an infection that body hopping could not cure, regardless of what body he hopped into it would carry over the infection, causing the host to slowly grow out various branches out of their body and slowly turn them into what appeared to be a tree. Desperate due to him running out of hosts, Redlight turned his attention to Valerie "The Mind Healer" in hopes that she could cure him of this illness. Suffice to say, he was wrong, as the result of Valerie's "Healing Touch" resulted in only accelerating his infection further, causing him to bolt out of her house in pain, only to end up turning into a tree in the front lawn of Valerie's house. Now he wasn't dead, he was seemingly fast enough to hop to another host, but regardless of his best efforts, it wasn't long until his ultimate demise.

By now you're probably piecing it together, I went to take a look at that tree, or rather where it once was, since the tree that was left behind was cut down by Valerie's friend Michelle and when I say cut down, I mean entirely removed. If you'll read the post, you'll understand why she did that, suffice to say the tree was exuding too much of bad voodoo and it had to go, Michelle spent the entire night removing it, every swing of the axe resulted as a blood splatter on her, all coming from the tree that was once Redlight. You'd think one would take more precautions when dealing with a tree that was born as a result of some kind of eldritch infection, but not to worry, Michelle was convinced that it was not "the same stuff", until she was proven wrong and she indeed got the same type of infection that Redlight had. It doesn't matter, unlike Valerie, Michelle was confirmed to be dead, oh the twists and turns that took place in her story, truly a worthy read.

So if the tree was cut down, why was I now standing in this neighbourhood, in the middle of the night? While I would have liked for the tree to still be there, or even just a stump, it wasn't necessary for what I came over there for. Speaking of the neighbourhood it was really quiet and empty, I mean yeah, kind of obvious, middle of the night, right? Except that as soon as arrived there, I began to feel this lingering heaviness in the air, like some invisible force was slightly trying to push me towards the ground, a feeling very similar to that of when you enter The Path. As I approached the house to which the address belonged, I began to hear this droning noise coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, it was distant, hard to make out, but endless. However, what immediately caught my attention was how the house looked, considering for how long Valerie has been missing (Since 2012) and how many crumbs of information she had left behind to tracking her address (Like her place of employment, a crumb she eventually regretted divulging), I figured I would be facing an abandoned, dilapidated building. But no, it looked in good enough condition, like a regular house would, I had no idea if anybody was living in it and I was not intent on finding out, I was here for something more important than tracking down a "Sage".

Finding the exact spot where the tree was easy, all I had to do was follow the lingering stench of burnt, rotten flesh that I began to notice the closer I got to the house's front yard, true enough the horrid stench led me to a spot in the ground, a dead spot. From a distance you would easily miss it due to it being covered by the grass, but once you get up close you will immediately notice the dead spot in the ground with bits and pieces of grass trying to grow in the dead spot, but utterly failing, it's as if Earth itself is trying to mend a wound within it. What struck me as weird is that the owners of this house, whoever they are, didn't even bother to fix this very apparent dead spot in their otherwise, clean kept yard. I mean, the vile stench alone that was coming from that spot and the distant droning noise that never disappeared, made no sense, until I remembered what Valerie specified in her blog, regular people couldn't see the Redlight Tree. Why was it that I was able to sense all of those things, after all, I never practised any of the "talents" that Valerie, or Sage were naturally gifted at, then it clicked, I really need to figure out a way to thank Morningstar for what his gas did to me, but more on that at some point later.

I asked my darling to peel back my human hosts vision and allow me to look at things through our true eyes, giving her the control of our host, she proceeded to close the hosts left eye and I was instantly enveloped in my own darkness, that was all to familiar to me. But I could see a flash of light just about ripple through the darkness, so I peered towards it, only to find the fabric of bandages blocking my way, so I ripped through them and slithered out to look around, but before I could even begin to gaze at where the source of the light was coming from, a massive flash of light erupted right next to me, lighting up the neighbourhood around me, right at the dead spot in the ground. The blinding, burning sensation was enough to knock my darling, who was currently in control of our host, down on the ground. Despite that she remained still, meaning that we weren't done here, so I proceeded to look around, extending out of our hosts right eye hole, it's weird to look at things from this... "Perspective", all the everyday things that you see: houses, roads, trees, the ground and etc. None of it is there, you are surrounded by this dark void, usually. Not this time though, not here, like I said, there was a flash of light that outright burnt me when witnessing it, so I waited, to see if it would happen again and indeed it did, however this time when it appeared, I could witness what exactly happened without any pain, because we were further away from the dead spot that the light was hitting.

Yes "hitting" as in coming down from up above and smashing into the dead spot in the ground, strongly resembling lightning. There were many thing off about this "lightning", for one it obviously didn't operate like the lightning you witness in your everyday life, when it hit the spot where the ground was, it didn't create any kind of damage, didn't burn anything and there was no sound of impact, or anything for that matter, it just came down from somewhere upwards, smashed into the area where the dead spot was, lighting up everything splitting up the darkness to a point where I could see the entire neighbourhood and then dissipating, rinse and repeat, non-stop. Second, while the seeming impact of said "lightning" didn't create any noise, it did reveal a noise and a stench, yes reveal, much like when it splits the darkness as a result of the flash, with that splitting it not only reveals the surroundings, but it also reveals this droning, constant, inhumane noise along with that awful stench that I honestly couldn't describe, even if I tried to, before all of it dissipating along with the flash of light. It's as if in those moments I could hear and smell something from a far distant beyond, that was outright inaccessible to me (Yet). The third thing about this "lightning" was that when I looked at the spot where it hit, after the flash of light dissipated, I could catch a glimpse of what looked like white, lit up roots growing deep into the dark void, before they dissipated along with the light. Looking up at where the "lightning" was coming from, though it was hard to make out at first due to the sheer distance, I was able to notice similar looking roots light up and dissipated right as the "lightning" came down on the dead spot.

I had an idea of what this meant, but I had to make sure, so I instructed my darling to pick up our host and stick our hand stump right under the "lightning" the results were instantaneously painful, as the lightning hit out stump, I instantly saw it go up in white flame, quickly enveloping our hosts arm, the pain was so indescribably tremendous that it forced me back in control of the human host, however when I opened my human hosts left eye, there was no fire, furthermore there was no pain, no trace of burning of any kind, the only thing that was weird was the fact that my darling had morphed around our stump and was bubbling up in that spot, presumably trying to heal it, however when I asked her to retract back a bit and show me the stump, it was absolutely fine, like nothing had ever happened to it. My darling does not try to fix up something in this body if it isn't damaged, that fire caused her to think that there was something damaged to such a point that she yanked me back in control of the human host, so she could deal with the damage. That gave me all the confirmation I needed to begin moving to my next stop.

Except, there was more.

Once I gathered my thoughts together at what just happened, I got up and was ready to leave, except when I turned around, there he was, right in the middle of the street, taller than I've ever seen him, towering over all the houses that were lined up in the neighbourhood, the moonlight obscuring his pale head. While the moonlight was blinding when looking directly upwards, I could tell that there were many tendrils pulsating out of him, because I could see their shadows crossing over me. And yet, despite his featureless head I could feel it, how he was looking down on me, like a fly that squashed into his windscreen, but a fly who's remains were refusing to get washed off. I wanted to lunge at him so much in this moment, the urge to prove him that I was no mere fly was... almost irresistible. But I had to play it smart, no way was I throwing away my progress for a cheap thrill, not this time, so as I stood still and stared directly at it, behind me was a manhole, so I had asked my darling to extend out of my foot and try to pry it open, to divert the Tall Fuck's attention I did the only thing that came naturally and wouldn't wake anyone up in the neighbourhood, I flipped it off with a massive smile on my face. He didn't react, however his tendrils were getting closer with every passing second, a little too close for comfort if I do say so myself, but as it was about to wrap them around me, I heard the manhole move just a bit which was enough for me, I instantly bolted in the manhole's direction away from our Tall Friend, as I did a sudden continuous ultrasound erupted through my ears, which blocked out most of the noise except for the violent sound of the tendrils instantly snapping towards me through the air. As I ran, I had my darling form a sharp edged spike around my foot and when I reached the manhole, I stomped as hard as I could on the opening Fortissimo created, causing the manhole lid to flip off entirely. I didn't even hesitate to look back, immediately jumping in and darting off through the sewers.

In retrospect I realize that it probably could have easily followed me anyway, but at the time my brain was thinking something among the lines of: "Oh, he's huge, bet he can't fit down here." Whether that was the actual reason that my getaway worked (Highly doubt it), doesn't really matter, I got away and now I'm planning on laying low for a bit, at least until I figure out a way to get to my next point of destination.

See you next time, my dear readers.

Guilt has no use, for those who refuse to Commit.

What an absolute baby! No, really, I would be cackling like a hyena if it weren't so pathetically sad.

We went through so much trouble to track her down, the amount of bullets that entered my body are numerous, we almost got blown to smithereens, all because you wanted your revenge against the person responsible for your beloved Alesa's death. This is a grudge you've held for 7 years now, 7 years you've darted all around the world looking for everyone and anyone related to her death. So when this whole thing comes to a head, when you reach the edge of that cliff you've been walking towards your entire life, all of a sudden you fucking hesitate? And for what, so that another life can live out it's useless existence none the wiser? Ridiculous and very stupid.

But let us rewind and put the pieces in the right order.

So if you've read Malik's latest post, you'd know that we found Martha's living place, a nice looking house in a pretty quiet neighbourhood. Of course finding it wasn't easy, poor Franky had to hop around several cities to get us here, but I guess that's the benefit of having access to the Path, makes work like that far easier. After that we had to make sure that it was indeed her place, since before arriving here she would abruptly stop at various warehouses and cities, spending entire weeks in there before moving on, at the same time we had to put on a façade that we were fooled by her decoy and moved on, before going radio silent.

Once Franky tracked her to the house that she proceeded to stay in for an entire month, he Pathed me over so we would be able to make sure that this was indeed her actual living place. Reason he didn't bring Malik over with us is because Malik has been a mess for quite some time at that point, drinking himself stupid and passing out in random places, all because what our Faceless Friend showed him. Suffice it to say bringing him along in a state like that could easily blow our cover, kudos to Malik himself for realizing that himself, hence why I didn't face much opposition from him on going alone with Franky, to make sure that this was indeed the place.

Reason we needed to clarify is because Franky's a mute, so he kind of needed to show us what he found in order for us to make a clear judgment. So me and him stayed a good distance away from the house, simply observing the day-to-day happenings of the neighbourhood, the leading factors that confirmed Franky's suspicions of this being her actual living place were her comfort in going out for groceries, her attendance to various chores around the house and the most damning of them all, her pleasant exchanges with the neighbours.

We had her, finally. So when we Pathed back to our hiding spot I gave Malik the low-down on what I observed and he was convinced, he was just about ready to march right on there and start killing away, but I stopped him due to one simple issue, he was still shit-faced. After some arguing, I managed to convince him that him being shit-faced could jeopardize our cover, could lead to him making dumb mistakes allowing her to escape and etc. So we prolonged the wait a week longer just so he could sober up properly.

Only when he was ready did all three of us finally Path in back to the neighbourhood. Once there we waited for an opportunity, specifically we were waiting for her to get out of the house so we could sneak right in. Eventually, that's exactly what happened, a simple grocery run would end up being her last living moments. All three of us snuck right into her house without alerting any of the neighbourhood, Malik was intent on finding her room and holing up in there until her return, hence why he beelined for her bedroom, Franky following closely behind him. I on the other hand took the time to look around the house, to my surprise it wasn't overly posh, just a simple house, something a middle class worker would live in. My sightseeing was interrupted by Malik aggressively whispering to me from upstairs to get in her room before I alerted any of the neighbours through the windows.

And that's exactly what we did for the next 5 or so hours, sat around in her room, curtains closed, in complete darkness. It was a nice room, double bed, nondescript picture of a beach hanging over it, in the corner of the room was a computer desk the shelves of which were filled with books and various photographs of Martha and various different people alongside her, Malik didn't seem to pay much attention to the room though, he was on his phone the entire time, sometimes typing something, sometimes just staring at it blankly.

Whatever he was doing, his attention quickly snapped away from it once all of us could hear the lock on the front door of the house begin to click open. She was finally back home and the mix of excitement and hatred on Malik's face grew exponentially. All three of us quietly got into place, which was right behind the door of her room, patiently waiting for her to walk through the door. We could hear her every footstep from downstairs, the rustling of plastic bags, the light switches being turned on along with a kettle, the boiling of water in said kettle, you could feel the anticipation exuding from within Malik, so much so that he kept tapping away on the hilt of his sword with his fingers. I grabbed his arm, instantly stopping his tapping so that there would be absolutely no noise what-so-ever. Then the footsteps from downstairs began to get louder, a clear result of Martha beginning to come up the stairs, I could feel Malik's arm shake, to say that he was itching to burst out would be an understatement.

So it's no wonder that he launched at her like a freight train the second she walked through her bedroom door. They both tumbled to the floor, her purse landing not far from her. She was screaming, trying her hardest to struggle away from Malik, however he was in a far better position, slamming her head against the floor by her hair trying to force her to stay quiet but to no avail, she continued to thrash and struggle, that was until Malik managed to put the tip of his sword against her throat, that's when the room went dead silent for a moment.

It lasted for a good few moments, I guess she was feeling brave enough to break said silence: "How did y-"

"Shut the fuck up." Malik interrupted, I couldn't see his face because of his long black hair obscuring it, but that order came out with a lot of pent up aggression to it. There was no doubting it, this woman was going to die tonight.

Another prolonged moment of silence, at first I was trying to figure out what this whole silent act was all about, then I realized as I listened in, he was trying to catch his breath after the tussle him and Martha had, I guess he wanted to say a few things to her before lobbing her head off.

"How does it feel you bitch?" There it was, the power play, a classic among revenge seekers if a bit formulaic, humiliate your victim, make them realize how powerless they actually are. "You feeling fucking vulnerable? Scared? Pathetic?!" It's as if he was trying to stab her with his words rather than his sword, to Martha's credit, it didn't seem to have an effect, in fact, the woman didn't seem scared at all, she was staring right back at him with an intense look.

"Liste-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Oh he was absolutely fuming, the tip of the sword went in just about deep enough to cause a trickle of blood to appear, but nothing lethal. "You killed her! You KILLED HER FOR NO FUCKING REASON!" his grip was tightening around the hilt "Why..." A new inflection in his voice, much quieter, almost broken. "Why the FUCK did you kill HER!? She NEVER did ANYTHING!" So moving was his delivery that it caused Franky to come up to him and lay his hand on his shoulder, I remained behind the door, this wasn't my show.

"ANSWER ME!"

I have to give it to this Martha, the woman was not reacting the way that he wanted, her look didn't change at all, from her look alone I knew that she was about to ruin Malik's entire excitement and steal whatever power he thought he possessed in that moment with her answer.

"Because of you." Oh that voice, strong, confident, this woman was not afraid. "If you didn't start speaking up against command, I wouldn't be forced to make an example out of her." Hah! That phrasing, very careful, I can see why she was in a position of power. 'Forced', very clever, she was planting seeds of doubt in his mind, make him think the rabbit hole goes deeper, deny him the satisfaction of the kill.

"Wha-" His façade of power slipped for a moment and he tried to very clumsily put it back on "What the fuck are you talking about!?"

"Oh you forgot did you?" And a little bit of sass, whilst I admired her determination, she had to be careful if she didn't keep her tone steady, Malik might have just prematurely lobbed her head off, but then again I guess she figured it was a safe bet to take that tone, considering she was about to blow his mind "After the Timberwolf invasion, you put on quite a show, calling out those in power." Well that made sense "Did you really think there'd be no consequences for planting seeds of doubt in our organization?"

I saw his hands begin to tremble, she got him good with that one, I might have not been able to see his face, but I could tell, the gears were clicking, repressed memories were all of a sudden coming back in force. "Why not me then? WHY HER!?"

"Because you had potential, you could still be of use." Hence why they tried to frame the Timberwolves, made sense, make him desperate enough to come back into their fold, to rely on them in order to exact his revenge against the Timberwolves, give him direction, so to speak. "She wasn't."

I could practically feel the world start to suffocate Malik in that moment, the way his shoulders slumped gave it away, until the grip on his sword tightened again and I could hear that quiet, broken laughter coming from underneath his hair "Then I guess we'll both pay, won't we?" Then he put a palm of his hand on top of the hilt of the sword, ready to push it into her throat "You first."

But not so fast, see there's a reason I mentioned her purse falling near her earlier, throughout this entire conversation she was steadily reaching into it with Malik being none the wiser. As we would find out, she had a gun stashed away in there, but she wouldn't get the chance to use it, because as she was about to pull it out, a different voice broke apart the entire scene.

"Mom?" a young boy's voice echoed from the doorway. It was enough to force Malik to turn his entire body around along with Franky to see the culprit behind the voice. Gave Martha a perfect opportunity to pull out her gun and aim it at Malik and as for me? Well, see ladies and gentlemen, there was a reason I stayed near the door, I knew our dear Martha was a mommy. During my days of surveillance of the house with Franky, I've seen the young child happily hang out with his mom on a regular basis, it was obvious how much the child missed her, a sign of her not always being there for him most likely due to her shady operations as the head of the Proxy branch. But I didn't tell Malik about her having a son, neither did Franky although his reason was most likely due to the fact that he is a mute, mine was simple, why give him the distraction? Still, he could have learned of the child's existence if he payed even a little attention to her house, but like I said, that entire time he was in his own little world. So while Franky and Malik were turning around and Martha was pulling her gun, I was already holding the child in place with a sharp edged spike formed from my sleeve put up against his throat. This made everyone freeze in place, Franky and Malik probably due to the fact that they didn't expect the child to be here, Martha most likely due to her fear for her child, that hesitation on her end cost, because when Franky looked back at her, he immediately slapped the gun out of her hand and Malik immediately forced her down putting the tip of his sword by her throat again, whilst yelling back to me "WHO THE FUCK IS THAT!?"

"Let's find out, what's your name kiddo?" The poor thing was trembling in my grasp, was it my hands, were they cold? "Jeremy! Baby are you ok!?" And just like that we had a name "Jeremy huh? Well go ahead, answer your mom." Poor Jeremy was crying, I could feel his tears hit my hand, I wonder what got him so choked up, but he was a strong boy, just like his mom, managed to choke out an answer through those tears "M-mommy?" Absolutely adorable.

"GET HIM THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"

"PLEASE DON'T HURT HIM!"

"SHUT UP!"

The cacophony of yelling was unending, the constant panic was spooking the shit out of poor little Jeremy, so I tried my best to calm the situation down "Just kill her already and let's get out of here." I could feel that Jeremy was about to start yelling himself, but my sharp edged sleeve getting closer to his little throat quickly quieted him down.

"Not until you get the kid out of here!" Now this was getting a little bit irritating, I understand him dragging out the kill before, humiliation right? Makes sense, falls perfectly in line with his goal, but now his hesitation was due to the child's presence, he was refusing to kill her, a person he hunted half of his life for, because now he had one tiny spectator, it was absurd and idiotic, it was time to give Malik a reality check. "How about no." I replied, staying right where I was, holding Jeremy firm in my grasp.

"Oh dear God, please don't hurt him, for-" Martha was begging in the background, her begging was being drowned out by Malik's own voice addressing me in an aggressive tone "I'm not fucking around here, get the kid out of here you sick fuck!" Ooooh he was threatening me, now I was curious. "Or else what, you'll let Alesa's murderer go in order to spare Jeremy the tragedy of a lifetime?"

"GET HIM OUT OF HERE!" He barked at me, Martha was still begging to let her poor boy go, although at this point I wasn't sure who she was begging considering neither of us was listening to her. A bigger issue for me was that Malik was getting cold feet all of a sudden, couldn't have that so I proposed a trade "How about this, either you kill her right now, or I kill poor, little Jeremy here." I guess Martha heard me because her wailing and crying became way louder than before.

"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS, WHAT IN THE FUCK IS WRONG WIT-" Now I was getting pissed off with his tone, so I snapped back "What's wrong with me? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" That promptly shut him up, along with Martha to my surprise. "You're telling me that the idea of leaving this kid as an orphan is enough for you to give up your vengeance fuelled crusade?!"

"NO IT'S N-"

I brought my sharp edged sleeve closer to Jeremy's throat, just enough to draw a bit of blood, enough to make him whimper, to make them hear his whimper "THEN WHAT THE FUCK IS IT!? Is it that you have a spectator now, is that it? In that case what does it matter, you already told him you will kill his mother. I DON'T THINK HE'S FUCKING DEAF!"

Between our yelling I could hear Martha trying to call out to Jeremy, telling him that it will all be ok, that once the bad men leave he will need to run out of the house to Mr. Simmons, I guess she was banking on Malik killing her before I kill Jeremy.

"You fucking RETARD! He doesn't need to see this! JUST GET HIM THE FUCK OUT! PLEASE!" He was actually tearing up, Jesus Fucking Christ, I could hear the crack in his voice, he was crumbling because of such a minute detail. "You PATHETIC piece of GARBAGE! ALL THIS TIME, ALL THIS TALK and that's IT!? An unknown, irrelevant nobody shows up and you FUCKING CRUMBLE!? No fucking wonder The Tall Fuck was able to break you so easily. You're a fucking WEAKLING!"

During my rant I could overhear Martha talking to Malik as well, telling him to kill her, she was actually encouraging him to do it, she had more fucking balls than him!

"SHUT UP!"

"COULDN'T PROTECT HER, CAN'T EVEN FUCKING AVENGE HER!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP"

"COME ON, FUCKING DO IT YOU PUSSY! FUCKING STAB ME YOU COWARD!"

"P-PLEASE SHUT UP!"

"MOMMY HE'S HURTING ME!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

And just like that, with one thrust, the room went silent.

Suspenseful am I right? Who stabbed who? So many questions! Well let me clear the suspense, sound of choking and blood gargling was not coming from Jeremy, it was coming from underneath Malik. He began to slowly stand up and move away from Martha, revealing the deep stab wound in her throat, she was laying there, small shakes going through her body, drowning in her own blood that was bubbling up out of the stab wound and her mouth. Malik began quietly walking towards the doorway where me and Jeremy were, his head down, face obscured by his hair, dragging his sword behind him. True to my word I let go of little Jeremy, who immediately ran to his dear mother, hugging her, pleading her to get up, trying his best to help her, a real trooper.

Once Malik was in the hallway, he leaned against the wall and slumped down to the floor, looking down the the floor. I walked towards him, but did not address him, there was no need, I'm not that selfish to request that he thank me for my encouragement. Franky was the last one to come out of the room, sitting down near Malik and laying a hand on his shoulder in comfort. I myself grabbed onto Franky, because I knew that he was about to Path us out of there back to our hideout.

After that we all departed to our rooms for the night, which leads me to waking up today and finding both Malik and Franky to be gone. And despite the fact that their stuff is still here, I have a feeling that they won't be coming back any time soon.

Outplayed.

So things might have gone a little wrong.

Yeah we were outplayed, which is surprising considering the ineptitude exhibited previously by Martha's goons. Malik is a tad bit pissed off right now and kind of won't stop smashing shit in our base, throwing a tantrum like a little baby. I'd smack him in order to for him to stop, but it's quite fun to behold to be honest. As a result of his current temper tantrum I guess I'll be the one posting about what exactly happened.

If you were paying attention to Malik's blog, you'd know that due to some people's ineptitude in keeping their banking accounts secure by turning off autofill, Malik was able to find an IP address from which Martha conducted her payment to the idiotic gentleman, for whatever odd jobs he did for her. With the IP Malik was able to figure out what city she was making her payments from, while this doesn't necessarily track her exact location down, it does show us what city she was operating from. Assuming that she was in a similar position that of an Oracle (This is a freebie for "Big Brother", since you were not familiar with the terminology, an "Oracle" is essentially the president of the entire Proxy system within a country.) she was most likely operating from one place and one place only in order to minimize exposing her own existence, much to the similarity of how Oracles tended to operate in general.

So we knew what City she was operating from, that's great, it still doesn't narrow down where exactly she was located. That's where Franky and his pet Denizens came in handy, we told him to Path in to the city and spread his Denizens around the entire city, Malik specifically marked a few locations to keep an eye on, apparently he had access to some kind of Proxy database, from how he explained it's essentially similar to the deep web (Whatever the fuck that is) and through there various requests and news were exchanged. I guess it also listed bases of operations in various cities, hence how he knew which locations for Franky to specifically keep an eye on.

Then came yesterday's post. While I meant what I said yesterday, the posts main purpose was to signal to Martha and her men that we were coming, in reality we weren't, we just wanted to steer up the hive and steer it up we did. I'm assuming once the post went up some movement began in the city, allowing Franky and his pets to start tracking said movement, it was probably made all easier considering that the City was in lockdown and there wasn't a lot of cars, or people outside. Eventually Franky was able to track all the supposed movement (Franky didn't exactly explain how he was able to track them down, due to him being a mute), after which he Pathed us right outside some kind of Mansion, in the forest next to it.

From our hiding spot we could see that there was a lot of vehicles parked outside, vans and all that other shit. Malik pointed out that the vehicles looked very similar to the hit-squad's vehicles he encountered a while back, when the Proxy System was collapsing, apparently these guys were sent out by the higher ups to wipe out the remainder of their subordinates, for what purpose? Fuck knows? Maybe they wanted to leave gracefully and rebuild in silence? Regardless, now we knew that there were several military grade fuckers running around in that Mansion.

Luckily we were in a forest behind the main entrance of the Mansion. From the back we got a clear view of the 3 story building, knowing how Oracles loved their top floor offices, my best guess as to where Martha was within the building, was probably on the third floor in the main office. As cliché as that may sound, when I climbed the tree in order to get a good view of the third floor, the guess seemed to have been proven to be true, because on the third floor, there was this huge balcony that was left unguarded, with big windows revealing an office, inside of which was a woman in a chair, filling out some kind of paperwork whilst talking on the phone.

So me and Malik managed to sneak our way towards the mansion and we began climbing the wall all the way to the balcony, avoiding the windows as much as we could in order to not get spotted by the heavily armed guards. The entire time that I was climbing there was this nagging feeling that wouldn't leave my head, whatever it was, it had to wait, because once we made it to the balcony, Malik seemed to have thrown all the caution to the wind and began to storm right towards the office with his sword unsheathed. Stopping him might have been a good idea, but at the time I felt no need to interfere, at the end of the day, this was his crusade and I personally wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

Yeah, I quickly realized that, that nagging feeling in my head, was my own self screaming at me that this was all way too easy. Because when Malik broke through the office windows, ranting at Martha how he was going to enjoy stabbing her corpse, the nagging became a full blown yell, as Malik turned the chair around what we were greeted with wasn't JUST Martha, but an icy stare and some kind of bomb on her lap. I quickly grabbed Malik and spun myself around, allowing my darling to morph the back of the jacket into a wall of sorts which managed to protect both of us from the detonating blast, which seemed to take out the entire third floor. Myself and Malik found ourselves on the second floor, buried under the rubble, covered in smoke and dust. Everything was spinning and my body wanted to puke it's guts out, but there was no time because I heard heavy footsteps stomping around above us and beneath us. I turned to see if Malik was even alive and to his credit, he wasn't just alive, he was already getting up, cursing to himself, not sure if from pain, the shittyness of the situation, or a combination of both.

I didn't have time to ponder, because through the smoke we could see some kind of green light flickering, I wasn't sure what it was at first. However, Malik was much faster to figure things out, considering he immediately dropped back to the floor and began to crawl under a long table of this other officer that we were now in. Dawning on me that the green light was from the soldier's gun, some kind of aim light, I fond myself in a position of not being able to really do anything other than distract. See, due to my darling defending us the way that she did, the explosion ripped her apart, she was fine because I could still hear her within me, but she needed time to regrow, meaning that she couldn't defend me at the time. So I raised my hands and yelled out "I surrender!", as smoke cleared up a bit, I could see that there was two of them, both slowly approaching me with the one closest to me aiming his gun at me and the one behind him radioing my location. Once they got close enough, that's when Malik stabbed the one with the radio in his leg from under the table, causing him to drop his gun, Malik then swung for the second one but the soldier was able to block the sword with the Kevlar that was on his arms. He was about to blow Malik's brains away, but at this point I was close enough to morph a sharp edged spike around my left hand stump and stab him through the back of his throat. Second soldier scrambled for his gun, but Malik was quick enough to punt him in the head, kick the gun away and stab him in the back of his throat as well.

There was no time to rest because of the radio man, there was probably a bunch of them running in our direction now. Going out the hallway wasn't gonna do anything since that's where they were probably coming from, only other way out was the window. So after we picked their guns up, Malik threw a chair at the window, smashing it, after which he tore off the curtain and began to tie it to the radiator that was underneath the window, whilst throwing the other end of the curtain out said window, we were gonna have to climb down to the lower floor. Whilst he was doing all of that, I was using the doorway as cover, firing off random shots into the hall to keep the soldiers at bay long enough, this was honestly the best use of me with a gun, since I never used guns before. When Malik was done, he ran up, flipped the long table against the doorway to stall them and we ran towards the window, climbing down along the curtain to the 1st floor (Which wasn't the ground floor, so jumping down was out of the question). Malik managed to get into the window of the first floor, but I wasn't quick enough and one of these soldiers was pointing a gun at me from the window that we were climbing out of, I'm thinking that I would end up with a few bullet holes by now, however that's when our friend crashed the party.

As the soldier was aiming down at me, suddenly his insides began to explode out of his stomach, partially covering me in his blood. Sticking out of him was a long, slimy, black tentacle and as it quickly retracted back into the window, it yanked the soldier after it. Shortly after that gunfire and screaming erupted in the room that we were escaping from. I was transfixed by the sound of chaos happening above, only breaking out of my trance with Malik yelling at me to get a move on. The coast seemed to be clear, so we began running out of the room that we were now in, into the hallway. As we were running through the hallway towards the entrance room of the mansion, 2 soldiers got in our way as they came running out of some door, clearly not expecting to see us (Probably were headed upstairs), to my surprise Malik took out the first one with pretty well placed shots, while I lunged at the second soldier, once again extending and morphing part of my self into a sharp edged spike around the left hand stump and stabbing him directly in the throat, the stunt earned me a bullet wound in the side. As I was removing the spike from his throat I could hear the commotion upstairs, large banging sounds of wet flesh smacking against the wooden walls, gunshots and blood curdling screaming, sounded like the squad was having fun with our guest.

Through the screams we finally made our way towards the entrance room and who was there waiting for us on top of the stairs? Of course it was our Tall Faceless Friend, casually standing there, a trail of blood and corpses behind him, with the hallway to the right of him covered in blood all the way to the ceiling, his long crooked arms in a relaxed state, black long-clawed hands dangling right by where his knees would be. His pale faceless head slowly twisting to the side, with only one tendril sticking out of his back at the end of which was hanging a thrashing soldier, who was desperately trying to at the same time get off the tendril, but also try and keep his organs within himself. I quietly told Malik to open fire, but no fire came, when I looked over at him, he was fucking trembling, eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights, I would have slapped him for his pathetic display but there was no time for that, so I reached for his gun, but was quickly interrupted as a tendril quickly wrapped around my neck, lifted me off my feet and sent me smashing against the wall above the entrance, pushing me against it, slowly crushing my windpipe. I had to extend a part of my self out of my human host's throat in order to slow down the crushing, when my true self made contact with his tendril, it burnt me, it hurt, you could hear the weird sizzling sound, but it was the best I could do to slow down it's attempts at choking the human body, whilst I tried to come up with a plan to get us out of this predicament.

Malik was no help, he just continued to stand in place, trembling like a pathetic weakling that he was. Our Tall Friend began to lift one of his arms up and as it lifted through the air, it seemed to extend, to a point where he's clawed fingers were now inches away from Malik's face. Meanwhile I noticed that the soldier's now lifeless body that was still dangling from the tendril, had a few goodies on it, mainly two grenades of some kind. My darling wasn't fully regrown yet, but there was enough of her to help out with our escape, I extended one of my legs giving her a head start of sorts and she grew out of my foot, ripping my shoe to bits in the process, reaching towards the soldier's belt, quickly reaching it, she stabbed through the pins on the grenades and pushed against them, forcing them to unpin whilst at the same time also ripping off the belt off the soldier, causing them to fall on the ground below. A mix of explosion and smoke that resulted, seemed to snap Malik out of his trance, since I saw him scrambling towards the door. While all of that was happening I yet again grew a sharp edged spike around my stump and managed to stab the tendril off of me, allowing to fall beside Malik and scramble out of the mansion myself.

Catching my breath, I could hear the sirens in the distance, looked to the side and saw Malik vomiting onto the stairs that were leading to the entrance of the mansion. I grabbed him by the arm and began to pull him after myself, running down the stairs as quickly as I could. Shoved him inside one of the parked vans and told him to start hotwiring (He told me before that he learned how to do it whilst being a proxy, I'm assuming that's also when he learned how to shoot). Once I could hear the car engine roaring to life, I shoved him to the back so he could finish his vomiting routine, whilst I drove us the fuck out of there.

So yeah, well played Martha, well played, I mean we still got what we wanted, you're dead. But not only did you almost manage to take us with you, but you also denied Malik the satisfaction of the kill and now he's raging like a baby, yes, he is still breaking shit.

I however doubt that the appearance of a Lanky Faceless Fuck was part of the plan. I wonder why he started acting up all of a sudden.

Greed never lasts.

So a bit about the haps. We are prepping to move out on Malik's latest lead, so yeah, this oughta be fun, with any luck, this will be the moment where we will nail good ol' Martha. As I find myself with some free time on my hands, I decided to make a post, just for you my darlings.

You know, just when I think that there aren't anymore pieces left in this game, I get proven otherwise. On that note, say hello to the "Bowie Commission". 

"Who are they?" you might ask.

Well my dears, they are an organization of sorts, what is their purpose? No idea, their PR Team a.k.a. "Big Brother" can feel free to clarify that one in the comments, if he so wishes to. However, their activities so far were minimal, just merely compiling information about various pieces within this game (Yours truly included) and that's pretty much it. So why do I mention them?

Well, for one, it doesn't seem as though we are going to be on the most friendliest of terms with them, so I figured that keeping an eye on them from now on would be a good idea, just in case they get any funny ideas about interfering in my business (Honestly though, part of me hopes that this happens, I do enjoy decimating corporate structures).

Another reason, is because once I stumbled upon them, I of course reached out to them, extending an olive branch in the form of helpful advice on how all of them can prolong their existence in this game: Which would be to drop all of this corporate bullshit and run for the hills.

And that's the purpose of this post, to show them (And by extension Martha, since she also leads and organization of sorts) that this Funded Organization stuff never works out. Things tend to get messy within a corporate environment rather quickly, most of the times due to greed and very rarely due to happenstance, sometimes a combination of both.

Either it be teammates who hide shit, higher ups who get a little too drunk on their own power, or an outside element that completely decimates everything around you, it just never works out. But it is always such an entertaining sight to behold, mainly because, somehow, none of them ever expect this destructive outcome.

Take Joseph and his Baker Squad for example, a group of experienced, proxy field agents, working together to take down those pesky, psychotic Runners. Oh how much disdain there was among them for the runners, how they would stand a top of their soap boxes to ruminate about how they were better than those runners in every way possible. What happened in the end? Joseph was continuously humiliated by the higher ups, sure he might have been promoted at some point, but I don't think it was an act of acknowledgment from his bosses, considering he didn't even want the position. Cue Joseph showing his own psychopathic side, exploiting his teammates as means to get back at the higher ups and overall, just becoming more miserable. And what happened in the end? For his loyal servitude, his team was dissolved, some of his friends turned on him and the cherry on top, he was branded as a traitor and was forced to run from his superiors. Today he is probably dead in a ditch somewhere.

What about Spencer Fitzgerald and his little delivery club? Now there's a mess worth reading about. They thought they had enough money and sense to run their little delivery scheme, without getting into any severe danger. Holy fucking shit were they wrong, inner lies and deceit tore that operation to smithereens and Spencer paid the most dearest prize a person can, their humanity.

How about Diana? Here she thought she'd spend the rest of her life pushing around papers in the comfort of the proxy-shared accommodation, on behalf of her bosses and what happens? One crazed lunatic returns from the dead and proceeds to royally decimate an entire structure of their organization, almost single-handedly and that wasn't even his goal. In the end, he ended up dead, everyone involved ended up dead and Diana herself? Probably fucking dead too.

But why are we talking about only Proxy Organizations? Let's talk about the Oathbreaker's little foray into the world of cut-throat corporations. There they are, in their own little cult town, raising their soldiers, expanding their territory, on occasion abducting Proxies, you know, just to show that their competition shouldn't sleep on them. And the next second they are being absolutely decimated by the likes of Nightscream and David Banks.

There's a reason any structure, that relies on any kind of central funding, always falls apart, that being greed. For all of Nightscreams amazing work, the Proxies themselves would eventually begin to lose their grasp and influence over the world, as their funding would begin to get cut off and those who deemed themselves more important, would begin to devour those beneath them. Greed ladies and gentlemen, greed is the sole reason why a financed structure can never last in this explosive game of ours.

So hopefully you'll take note "Big Brother" and get your old ass out of danger as quickly as possible, preferably whilst blogging about it, cause you know, I enjoy reading in my spare time.

Alrighty, looks like Malik is all readied up, Martha, get the dinner ready, cause we're coming over.

As I suspected!

 As I am typing this, I am shaking with excitement, because what I suspected, was true!

Let's rewind.

I finally had everything prepared in order to "read" the book. So I went into our bathroom, specifically into the shower enclosure, locked the bathroom door, all the windows and the shower enclosure. I had my darling extend from me and morph a roof over the shower enclosure, making sure that when I burnt the book, all the smoke would remain with me.

And then I began to burn it, at first nothing happened and thoughts of doubt started to creep into my mind, but there was no going back now, the book caught fire quickly. Finally, the feeling of suffocation started to settle in, moment of truth, was I just killing off the body like an idiot, or was this a trial similar to the one when I jumped into the tar like waters of the catacombs? A cough began to escape from the body's lungs, we were suffocating, the temptation to break through the glass walls was strong, but just as that temptation began to settle a new feeling emerged: heaviness. A sudden force was pushing me lower to the ground underneath my feet, so intensely that I felt the human body develop aches in various areas, with a hot sweat going down the face and then another revelation hit me, I couldn't hear her anymore.

My darling, Fortissimo, the one who I am bonded with, whom I constantly hear, she was gone. Fear and shock took over my senses for a few seconds, but didn't really have the time to settle in as I felt a warm sensation splash over my face. It was blood, crimson red and hot, I lifted my head and I saw black, small branch that was cut amongst many, from it's tiny stump the blood was spurting out. The colour of the blood standing out among the dark colours of this heavily wooded place and then I heard it, the snapping of wood in the distance, lifting my head up is when I remembered where I was. In the distance, cutting various branches out of his way with a small Axe, forcing himself forward into the great unknown, AK on his side, a Shotgun on his back, all hanging over a grey, bloodied trench coat. 

It was him, Sergei.

Where he was going, I couldn't see, another blood spurt caught me off guard and landed right in my eye, obscuring my vision. But it didn't just obscure my vision, it burned it, I could hear the sizzling sound of the liquid burning into the body's iris, furthermore I could feel it and it fucking hurt, coupled with the heavy gravity I finally caved and dropped to the ground, desperately clawing at my eye trying to clear it up. That's when I began to hear their whispers, all around me, crawling in my brain, The Denizens. Vile, pathetic little creatures who used to fear me, because they recognized the scent of their Master upon me, even after my defection they still feared me since a piece of our Tall Friend has always been with me. Then I heard it, something bursting from the ground near me, I didn't have my vision to rely on, but I knew it was a bony hand, because it grabbed me by my foot and it's claws dug deep into my flesh. After the initial grab, I could hear more of them bursting from the ground all around me, grabbing for any part of my body they could get their hands on and once they had their claws firmly imbedded into my flesh they began to pull me underneath and I could feel the ground beneath me give way, slowly burying me alive.

I couldn't breathe, couldn't hear, couldn't feel, it was all too similar to my experience during my formation, it was infuriating, the thought of going back into the darkness again, I couldn't allow it! With renewed resolve I managed to dig my way out of the ground, my sight instantly returning to me. Looking around, there was tombstone behind me, marked with symbols that I didn't recognize, I was coming out of someone's grave. Finally being able to stand up, what I did recognize was the area that I was in, he took note of this place several times he ventured into the Path, the tree graveyard. Miles upon miles of graves, some of which had very tall, grey-ish trees growing out of them, some were undug with nothing in them, some had stumps sticking out of them. I didn't really get much time to get a breather, because I could feel the ground beneath my shifting, before I could even entertain the thought of examining the disturbance, a massive tree began exploded out of the ground beneath me, if I wasn't fast enough in yanking myself backwards, there was a very high chance that it would have taken my head clean off. On the other hand, because I hastily yanked myself backwards in order to avoid a cruel fate, I tripped over the tombstone behind me and began to topple down a hill, that I was apparently on.

The descent down the hill came to a halt once I ended up in a sea of water. Finally getting some solid ground underneath me, I took the opportunity to quickly look around, I was on a beach. The hill that I rolled down was across a beach, which made no sense, because I couldn't have immediately hit the water if it was always there. The Path was still as disorienting as I remembered it to be, whilst looking around, I tried to catch a glimpse of Sergei again, but was quickly interrupted by a bandaged hand shooting up from the water that I was in and grabbing me by my throat, choking me and slowly but surely pulling me under the water.

I struggled but in vain, very quickly I found myself what felt like several miles under the sea, slowly sinking deeper into the endless darkness. This time, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't move, yet again the memories of my 4 year darkness returned, the gruelling formation of my current self, the thought processes that would inevitably turn to white noise, it was all coming back. However, the trip down memory lane was interrupted by a painful, hysterical yell, echoing through the endless abyss around me: "DIE!"; "STAY DEAD!"; "KILLED YOU!"; "KILL ME!" and etc. Were all phrases among many that were being yelled out from an unknown source, in a fit of hysteria. It was Sergei's voice, it unnerved me, I never heard him like that, it was alien to me to hear him like that. Then, among the scream, a light source began to shine in my direction and in a blink of an eye, I began to rapidly approach it, with Sergei's screams more insane and loud echoing around me.

Then I was completely engulfed by the light, my ears ringing, I could feel my hands again pushing against a cold, soft surface. With my sight finally adjusting, I saw where I was, a massive, open field, grey grass covered with thin layers of snow and in the distance, endlessly towering over everything, a massive, pitch black, oak tree. I looked up in order to see how tall it was, but it stretched so far into the sky that I couldn't, it's crooked branches seemed like they were piercing the sky itself. Looking at it, a feeling began to creep up, this feeling of being on the cusp of something grand, something important, that didn't happen yet. The feeling washed away the second I was hit with a wave of extreme pain going through my entire body, forcing me to drop back to my knees, spitting out blood and vomiting immediately afterwards. Wiping my face and being able to muster up just enough strength to lift my head up yet again, in the distance, by the massive oak tree I saw him again. His coat all torn, his guns missing, covered in more blood than before was Sergei and he was doing something, winding his arm back and quickly bringing it down towards the tree, I stood up to try and walk towards him in order to get a closer look, but I was driven to my knees yet again by another wave of pain that suddenly shot through my body. It was coming from Sergei's direction, whatever it was that he was doing, I wasn't going to be able to get a closer look, so I braced myself and tried to see as much as I possibly could from where I was.

That's when I saw an all too familiar knife in his hand, the one that I gifted to Minxie, the one that was made from the Archangel's bullet. He was stabbing the tree with it and just like that, everything seemed to click in my head, my suspicions confirmed, I was about to start laughing, but a giant shadow began to loom over me. Turning onto my back is when I saw him, our Tall and Faceless Friend, standing over me, but surprisingly, not paying any attention to me, instead "looking" off into the distance at where Sergei was. I was going to make one of my many snarky remarks towards it, but then another wave of pain forced me to completely lay down on the ground, wincing in pain. Once the pain passed, I opened my eye and our Tall Friend was gone, turning onto my stomach I saw him in the distance, right next to Sergei. 

Sergei was facing it, blood covering his face and a wild smile forming between his cheeks, I could see several appendages popping out of our Tall Friend, preparing to engage Sergei. But all Sergei did was back up against the tree and stab it yet again with the knife and I swear, for a split second, before the wave of pain had hit me yet again, I could see bits of our Tall Friend fall apart, as if a sand castle began to crumble down. But then the wave of pain hit me, it was too much, I could feel that I was about to pass out, but before I did, I managed to catch a glimpse of Sergei's mangled body, every part of his body was torn off, his torso leaning against the bloodied tree. As I passed out, I could see his blood being slowly absorbed by the tree.

Then I woke up in the bathroom, on the ground next to the shower enclosure, my hand bleeding from the shattered glass of the enclosure.

As difficult as it was, I am very glad that I made this journey, for it has confirmed my suspicions. He ventured into The Path because he believed he had found something that could potentially hurt and even kill our Tall Friend. Oh how limited his vision was, there are far greater things behind that bleeding tree than he knew and I aim to exploit every single one of them.

The year has started off fantastically for me.

New Year, New Findings, New Plans, New Revelations, New, New, New...

 SO!

First of, if you're reading this, CONGRATULATIONS! You're STILL ALIVE! Quite a feat in today's day and age, you've lived through the hauntings, through the cold nights on the street, through the immense migraines and through a lonely Christmas. Good job, you shall now continue your meaningless existence of survival, which will all ultimately lead to nothing. But hey! Cheer up, soon I'll be throwing quite the wrench into the status quo and if you stick around long enough, you'll be able to witness it, so there's your motivation to keep going, my late Christmas present to you, my dear reader.

Onto my findings, everyone already noted down what I've been doing this entire time, but in case you missed it: here, you, go. (You can honestly skip the first two, it's nothing but teenage angst, I actually love how they act as if I don't know they were corresponding by e-mails prior to this meetup, quite regularly in fact)

If you've read the third provided link, you are aware that Mr. Spooks experiment seemed to fuck my shit up, despite the fact that I was wearing protective gear and everything. So what happened exactly, well, it was my darling, when Spooks burnt the small piece of one of the pages, she apparently consumed the smoke that was emitting from it and sent it directly into my body, what followed was an instant feeling of heaviness, as if gravity had shifted dramatically in an instant, suddenly forcing my body against the ground, as I was trying to balance myself, my head began to ring as my ears began to fill with the sound of high-pitched, abnormal, distant and blood-curdling laughter and then, very abruptly, it all stopped and I am greeted with Mr. Spooks bombarding me with questions. It took me a moment but then it all clicked, I was finally aware of a way to "read" the contents held within this book, hence why I immediately grabbed the book and departed. I admit, it was a bit rude, but the anticipation was too grand, I couldn't wait, so my apologies Spooky Man, but hey, you got the water in the end, so I'd say I more than fulfilled my end of the bargain.

So what exactly "clicked" you may ask? What clicked were his last moments, think about it, he would always remark how heavy the gravity was within The Path whenever he would traverse inside of it and his very last moment, according to the recording was him laughing as I assume he was being ripped apart by our tall friend. This book contains the information that will tell me exactly what happened in there and why was Incogny so certain that he could put an end to our Tall Friend's adventures. And once I, hopefully, confirm my suspicions, I will know exactly what my next move will be from there on, it is actually the reason I asked Malik what the fuck "hotboxing" is, I needed to know of a way to inhale as much smoke from the book as I possibly could once I burn it, now I know how to do it, only thing left now is to simply do. But before I did that, I just wanted to make this post, New Year after all, do you remember what I asked the last time I made a New Year post? Probably not. So allow me to ask again: Are you ready, to go deeper with me? Think about it, you have plenty of time.

To a Happy New Year and more importantly, to New Beginnings, my silent friends.