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.

The Book is Quiet, but The Quiet is Ineffective

So now that I got that little filler post out of the way, let me tell you about what I have been wrecking my brain over this entire time.

I thought that my visit to the Catacombs was a success and maybe it was, but I'm finding the real task only now, deciphering this book that I'm not even sure is what I was originally looking for. I can't even call it "deciphering" simply because there is no cipher of any kind in this book, simply put, there's nothing in this book, the pages are blank and I can't help but think that I was tricked.

But I know that I wasn't, because there is something in this book, I just can't see it, or even comprehend it, but I can feel that there's something... on those pages? In them? To them? Like I said, mind wrecking. So I've tried everything, I asked my darling to look at it and there is definitely something there, she can see it, understand it, but can not relay it to me, not without completely merging with me and as I've said before, when we're closer to our goal, we'll do it, now is not the time. I stained one page with my blood, in hopes that maybe that would do something, but no, all I did was just cover a page in my blood. I'm running out of ideas here, if only Med was still around, I'm sure she would jump at the opportunity to analyse one of the Blind Man's books, guess I'm going to have to seek out help on this one.

So since I can't exactly talk about the findings, let's talk about what I'm hoping to find and it's simple really, I want to find out exactly what happened to Sergei when he traversed into the Path for the final time. I want to know what he found out prior to his trip that made him believe that he was able to kill Slendy, simply put, I want to compare notes. As I've said before, at some point in his journey, he stumbled into the Blind Man's domain, something happened there, he found out something, something crucial, something critical, something definite to a point that he executed his adopted brother, thinking that he wouldn't require his help anymore and I have a suspicion as to what it was, but I need confirmation.

This book, given to me by the Blind Man's little messenger, the book that I dove into the tarlike waters of the catacombs for, it holds that answer, it will tell me what happened to Sergei, it will show me his last moments, I will understand the knowledge he learnt that made him so certain of Slendy's mortality.

And then, if my suspicions are confirmed then my plans will begin to finally move forward with the removal of existence itself, all of it, in one go, unlike The Quiet that slowly eats through reality, leaving behind bits and pieces, allowing them to grow and eventually mend what was erased, create anew. That's why I don't serve The Quiet, or try to cause it, it simply doesn't cut it, sure it consumes existence, leaving nothing but non-existence in it's wake, but while it does that, somewhere, at some point, new existence is born and it just doesn't stop, the pointless circle continues.

I find the fools that serve The Quiet to be complete idiots, sure, their desires might align with mine, but their views are so limited as to the potential of their desire that it is absolutely foolish to serve The Quiet, look how slowly it works: https://thenearnessofyou.blogspot.com/

It took it several days to plummet the whole world into non-existence, that's too slow, because during those days, as it was devouring the world, reality was quickly, automatically fixing itself, The Veils did their magic and kept everything together with ease, or have you not noticed, we're still around. The Fear of The Quiet is foolish, the only reason people fear it is because their limited mind won't allow them to see the limitations of The Quiet itself.

But I do and if my hunch is correct, then those of you who serve Quiet, should swiftly start serving me instead, because my plan will achieve that, which the Quiet causes, without giving Reality the opportunity to mend.

Heh.

The Eloquent Undead are Annoying

I'm liking this two-part posting system we got going on with Malik, leaves the readers in suspense when the story is unfinished.

We finally paid a visit to Malik's lead at the hospital. Malik told me that it'd be a good idea to leave me on one of the hospitals neighbouring rooftops to keep watch, little did I know that he brought me along as a distraction, I almost forgot why I saw value in that little rat, this incident served as a nice reminder.

As soon as I lifted them onto the hospital's balcony with my darlings help, we departed back to the agreed upon rooftop, from which I would be able to see what was going on in the hospital room through the balcony windows. I was about to interfere when the guy pulled out a gun on Malik and ordered Franky to go outside, but seeing as Franky didn't seem all that worried and was just standing outside the room on the balcony, I figured that maybe this is all according to some kind of plan, little did I know that Franky was standing outside not only because of the threat of the gun, but also because he was keeping an eye on me.

That's when it happened, a lot of people wonder why I request my darling to assume the appearance of a leather jacket, well, because my back is always covered by her, meaning that there are always her "eyes" literally watching my back and because she is already hanging outside of our body, that gives her a much faster response time, then if I were to house her within our body. So when she spotted a Molotov Cocktail soaring through the air, right towards us, she reacted immediately covering my entire back side with herself, preventing the fire from making any contact with my skin/bandages, I could still feel the heat on my back, but she was actively trying to suppress the fire to herself and put it out, meaning that she was busy and couldn't help me get the upper hand on whoever decided to throw the Molotov at us from behind. I began to quickly turn around, planning to form a sharp spike around my stump, but I was quickly interrupted by something hard and heavy, suddenly smashing into my arm around which I was going to form the spike, the force almost sending me to the ground. It was a metal spear, it had pierced my arm, right below the shoulder, barely missing the bone, hooking into me, the pain was immense and because my darling was busy putting out the fire on our back, she couldn't help me get it out and start the healing process. 

Looking up at where the spear came from, is when I saw him, Corpsy, standing on the ledge of the building we were on, spear gun in his hand which was attached to the spear in my arm by some kind of wire rope. He was waiting for us, in retrospect, not surprising, I was about to start charging him because my darling was just about finished with the fire on our back, but this decaying shit was ready, I saw him light up a lighter with his other hand after which he brought the flame to the wire rope, which instantly got caught on fire and the fire began to quickly extend in my direction, he laced the Wire Rope with gasoline or something, my darling quickly morphed around the body's entire arm, forcing the fire to spread onto her instead of the body's arm, rendering her to be busy putting out the fire that was now trying to engulf our arm, but I couldn't wait anymore, this fuck was tricky, another second of hesitation and he'd pull some other shit, couldn't let him, so I morphed a sharp edged spike around my left arm, where my left hand used to be and began charging at him, I can't help but imagine what it must have looked like from the side, some flaming dude charging at a guy in a green trench coat and a fedora who was standing on the ledge of the building, shit must have looked like an album cover or something. Regardless, either he didn't expect the charge, or didn't care, regardless, my spike connected with his chest and we both began to fall off the 5 story building, as we toppled over I saw him pulling out a knife in the air, planning to stab me in the head, in order to avoid it, I twisted my body in such a way where his back was now facing the several fire escapes that we were falling past, after which I extended the spike that was in his chest away from me, sending him into the fire escapes. I saw him hit his waist against the railing, must have hit it pretty hard, since I saw his legs stay on the fire escape and his torso proceeded to fall right behind me, although my enjoyment of the view was cut short, because apparently, his spear gun must have got stuck between the railings as well, because my fall was suddenly interrupted by a harsh yank from the metal spear in my arm, ending up tearing a good chuck of my arm's flesh off and twisting me up, forcing me to hit the ground with my back.

I must have blacked out for a few minutes, because I was woken up by someone's screams, when I opened my eye, my vision all blurred, I could see Corpsy without any legs, ripping some homeless guy apart, poor sap must have been napping in this alley. I began to slowly get to my feet, not taking my gaze off of Corpsy, who was now attaching the homeless guy's legs to himself, whilst the homeless guy bled out with his guts sprawled all over the ground, still trying to crawl away in horror, desperately trying to push his insides back inside of him. As I balanced myself, still holding my head, trying to make my vision go back to normal, so did Corpsy, at first, very clumsily getting to his newly acquired feet, with every move, his new legs crackled, but looking at his face, he did not seem to care.

"You're one persistent fucker, I'll give you credit." That's when I felt my darling patching up the wounds in my arm, meaning that there was no longer any fire on us that was hindering her. "But I'm afraid you've wasted all of your tricks." I morphed two sharp edged spikes around my hand and stump, my vision was still slightly fuzzy, but it would pass.

He in turn began to adjust his tie, the lamp above him lighting up his grotesque, sickly green, lipless face. "As eloquent as ever Mr. Oleg." that's when his left hand, that was encased in some sort of metal armour, reached into his trench coat and pulled out a shotgun "But you will find that I have more ways to conclude my undertaking."

That's when I rushed at him, had to avoid giving him enough time to aim that thing, he released a shot in my direction, but my darling, as ever vigilant, managed to prevent most of the shot from connecting, except for my right leg, but it was nothing serious, didn't slow me down at all. I closed the gap between us fairly quickly, however, when I lunged at him with the two spikes, ready to stab his face off, he blocked them by flipping his shotgun sideways and using it as a shield, redirecting my hand-spikes upwards, after which he quickly twisted, smacking me directly in the face with the butt of the gun. Hit was strong enough to send me back away onto one knee, I heard him pump his shotgun, that's when my darling acted and extended from the back of the jacket, which was facing him now, a giant tentacle which pierced him through the chest and sent him flying away from me, right against a dumpster, after which she immediately retracted the tentacle back into our body. Despite being stabbed through the chest and flung a few meters into steel, it was only enough to make him drop to one knee, however, I guess the impalement was too sudden for him, since he ended up dropping his shotgun after he was flung.

I laughed "Man you have such a boring job! I can't even imagine how long you had to sit around this dump." I got to my feet yet again.

As did he. "To be completely honest with you Mr. Oleg." The bones in his legs cracking with every move. "I'm bewildered that you even surfaced. I estimated that Mr. Kyle would have the proper decorum to caution you of my presence here."

Now this was getting interesting. "Who?"

He dusted his trench coat off "Your associate, the one's who's current presence is within the hospice."

I didn't offer a response, just a smile, I was too busy trying to calculate when he would make contact with this freak.

"It seems this revelation has gotten you to cogitate." His non-metal encased hand jerked to the side and out from under the sleeve shot out a handgun right into his hand. He immediately aimed it at me and was ready to open fire and I was more than ready to engage, but to both of our surprises, his aim was thrown off, with Franky seeming to Path in right into him, as if he was flung out of the Path, knocking Corpsy back onto the ground. Franky began to immediately run towards me, as Corpsy started aiming his gun at Franky from the ground, the only way Franky was going to avoid getting shot, is if I ran towards him myself, so I did. I grabbed Franky under my arm, heard the gunshot ring out, but we were no longer there for it to connect with anything, now we were in the middle of a black forest, right in the middle of soaring heat, white flames engulfing everything around us. But even among all the fire, all the trees, Slendy still stood tallest, why wouldn't he? It was his domain after all, the Path of Black Leaves and he was about to entrap his newest victim within it, I saw Malik, eyes darting around like a lost puppy. That's when I made a run for him, through the flames, my darling doing her best to combat the fire yet again, running past Slendy, I could feel him, hear his whispers, they were not pleasant, imagine the feeling of spiders crawling around your brain, yeah, not pleasant at all, but I blocked it out, grabbed Malik's face with my right hand and from there on Franky did the rest, Pathing us back to our home base.

I did not stop my momentum though, I let go of Franky, making him smack the floor and I proceeded to slam Malik's head into the ground. After which I picked him up by the collar with my right hand and pushed him against the nearest wall "Why did you contact Corpsy?" Malik was still reeling from what he went through in the Path, he had a sickly look about him, that's when I let him go fully anticipating that he was about to throw up, which he did, luckily not on me, otherwise, I would have killed him then and there. After a few deep breathes, he wiped his mouth and proceeded to address me, not looking at me, but instead at the ground where he vomited, probably anticipating another round of vomit to come through at any moment "I didn't contact him, while you were fucking around in the Catacombs, me and Franky decided to scout out the area." He paused, swallowing, desperately trying to keep his stomach together "He was already there, got the drop on us, told us that if we didn't take him here, he'd kill us." This is when he finally looked up at me, that annoyed/angry look that he always gives me "I told him that killing us would do him no good and that we wouldn't take him here, but I did tell him that we were planning on coming back there, he knew why, that's how he managed to find the hospital before us, I also told him that we were going to bring you with us."

"You little fucking ra-" Rat, is what I was about to call him, before he rudely cut me off.

"Spare me, you fucked me over with Fell, so the least you could do was act as a distraction for that living corpse, while me and Franky could get our answers." He began to walk away from me, to help Franky out, who was struggling to stand up.

I scratched my chin, thinking over what he was saying. "Ok, that makes sense, but why didn't you tell me that he would be there?"

He began walking towards his room with Franky hanging off his shoulder "Because I don't owe you shit and if you knew, you'd complicate the whole visit with some bullshit plan." he turned towards me "We done here?"

I happy smile took me over and I replied "Yup, all done."

As I said, I guess I forgot why I teamed up with this kid. Sure, he's a rat, but I can't exactly blame him for his reasoning and in the end, his plan seems to have worked out, he got what he needed and all of us are still here, I mean, that's exactly the results I expected from him when I came to an agreement with him, I'm not about to shit on his methods if they work. However, next time we're heading out together, I'll be sure to be a bit more vigilant, hehehehe.