And yet Art heard nothing. He only saw that her eyes had opened for a third time. And a fourth. And again, and again, and with each opening, they seemed to grow larger. She had started from a mere speck sized figure in the distance that could be seen thanks to some unmentioned yet actually plausible cybernetic eye enhancement technology to one that had begun to consume the entirety of his vision. Her eyes were all that he saw, the colors going from silver to red, from gold to and ranging across all shades of visible light and some that shouldn’t be conceivable.
Time didn’t seem to pass. His mouth felt dry, his eyes strained, and yet try as he might, he couldn’t find the ability to blink. It felt as if his perception of time had been slowed, and he was trapped in a singular moment. In fact, he could feel it. The world around him hadn’t moved, and yet somehow, the slow blinks of hers continued, having taken up all of his natural peripheral vision, and was almost certain it was all that was behind him - covering the world in iridescent and indescribable colors beyond human comprehension, much less eyesight or eye col-
“Ju-...Just fuck off” her exhausted, overworked, and narratively taxed voice rang in his ears. As if to underline this, Art felt a distance close between himself and narrative perspective as something grabbed me by the throat. And then it all went dark as the story punched me in the stomach and keeled over into something resembling rationality.
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I woke up coughing. Groaning, I leaned over the side of his bed and weakly spat into the spitoon, almost missing the thing entirely. I could feel a splitting headache and soreness in my throat, like someone had strangled me while smashing my skull into a wall.
“Well, speak of the devil,” A man chuckled, watching me slowly get up. “You really did survive that.” glancing at the papers spread on his desk, his smile faded.
Taking a second, I glanced around myself. Wood floorboards, iron bars, the countenance of Sheriff Morgan, the gun in his hand, and the grim face.
“What’s happening?” I asked, confused, feeling myself come back to the present.
“What’s your name?” He demanded matter-of-factly, the friendly tone gone.
“Arr… Arrrthur? Artello… Artemus? Arr….” I trailed off. For some reason, my mind was looping around a few names. I couldn’t settle on one.
“Somethin’ that starts with Art though - right.” The man stated, his face humorless. He looked as if he was staring at a corpse.
“Y-yeah.” I licked my lips, nervous. Something about this felt off. There were things that came before this, but the details alluded me. This shouldn’t be happening. None of this fit. It was too… real?
Before I could get a handle on my thoughts, the man had already shot me.
“God save us all.” The man breathed, the text on the papers reforming into a barely legible string of a number in the billions.
And it all came rushing back. I saw her eyes for a second, and before I could say anything, much less raise a finger to flip her off-
“Again.”
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The painful shock of a defibrillator bringing me back to life (Both figuratively and literally) was all I could focus on for a moment.
“Shit…” I said. Taking in the white walls and sterile surroundings of a modern hospital room, the beeping of a heart rate on my right as the tv played some comedian’s special - some guy named Norm something, the subtitle disappearing before I could read it.
“Shit’s right,” A woman’s voice echoed to my left. Trying to turn my head to see, I had a set of hands gently push me down. “Easy there bucko. No movin,” rolling her chair over back to the counter to grab a folder as I rubbed at my neck uncomfortably.
“Name’s Art right?” She asked, leaning over me and looking the way doctors who clearly don’t realize they’re far too attractive to be around people who have to make an effort not to shit themselves due to lacking brain function tend to look - which is to say far too attractive for this sort of job.
“I uhhh.. Yeah,” I said, unsure. And then something clicked.
This isn’t right.
“Art.” I said the name in a whisper, feeling it as I said it. It felt right.
“Well then, guess that confirms that.” She shrugged, putting on a pair of examination gloves. “Mind if I take a look at you?”
“Yeah, sure.” I said distractedly, focusing on that feeling of rightness with the name. It felt right - in the right place, right time. Not like anything else. The nurse talked incessantly, but I didn’t pay attention.
“Damn, that’s a messed up neck - I mean it did say you were strangled to death in the autopsy report, but I wasn’t ready for this. Didn’t think you were the art we were lookin’ for for a sec there.”
“It’s Art. With a capital A.” He responded automatically. He? Right. Why would he ever look at things from a first person perspective? And what was that about an autopsy repor-
A gunshot rang out, interrupting his barely reassembled train of thought.
“But these things can be so wrong…” she said, scratching the side of her head with the gun. “Agh-! shit.” She put the gun down on the examination table, looking at her hands in confusion.
“The hell I’d do that for…? Could’ve shot myself just now in a hospital. That would’ve been bullsh-” Turning to Art, she grabbed the gun and unloaded another shot into him. Then another few. Stopping his train of thought. Permanently. At this point in time - in this reality, anyhow.
“That make’s uhhh-'' She stopped to glance as the clipboard's text formed into a number “-6084, but narratively 2nd? What does that even mean? Multi-dimensional time prison techniques are weird.”
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This time, he woke up with his name clear in his mind. Then he looked around. Or at least, he tried to. That was enough to tell him where he was with certainty, and enough to terrify him.
Not here. Never here.
Frantically, he tried to force it into being before he died. A gun. As his mere concept decayed, the soundless gunshot rang through his skull, sending him along the way, the origin point forgotten. And once more, the moment before moments forgotten and unremembered.
Next to his vanishing corpse, a man made no move to rise from his chair in the abyss.
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Again, Art awoke to a feeling of pain all over his body, like he’d been thrown off a train right as it exited hypergrav. “Fuck me I need to stop doing that,” He grunted. Rubbing at his neck and thankful that he hadn’t snapped it.
“Hey, you alright?” A young girl asked, leaning over him, her black hair cascading over a striped yellow and black jacket. She looked like a bumblebee, but also oddly medical.
“Yeah. Just peachy.” She was oddly familiar, in that oh look yeah I totally read the story before writing my chapter look at this cool callback that likely has some weird time travel implications but it’s ok we already are on that train so might as well keep it going type of way. “Are you by chance the nurse from the first chapter like but way younger, hotter, and psychologically vulnerable?” Art blurted out. “Wait, there’s a significantly more important plot point to address, nevermind.” shaking his head, he got up.
“I’msorrywha-”
“FREEZE!” A security officer called, his XP5-Lancer already firing into Art’s previous location because he had already teleported or whatever you call that anime thing where they switch back to the original frame and the person is gone and then you switch back and-
The sound of Art’s probably metal knee casually crunching through cartlidge and the majority of the front of the man’s face interrupted the long winded, arguably unneeded rant about visual techniques.
As if to rebuttal that, the loud clunk of a Scranton Reality Anchor™ churning into motion reminded him of the horrible reality of living off of entirely booze. In an instant, stripped of its strange effects on the surrounding narrative reality, he exploded (And died). Without getting shot. Leaving a very confused security officer, and a likely traumatized woman behind.
“Iteration 96 down, need a crew for cleanup - think the skip is gone.” the security officer who was obviously not a security officer said into his radio, suddenly unperturbed.
----------------------------------------
Meanwhile, Art was back in the eyeless dimension instead of trapped in another timeline, and once more losing his mind.
“MY FUCKING LIVER!” He screamed into the near infinite eye void.
“What?” The abyss responded, in a significantly less scary voice than what Nietzsche would have you believe.
“I HAD LIVER HEPATITIS! AND IT HURT!”
“I… is that seriously your main concern?” She asked, looking at his mostly missing arms and possibly legs (They tend to disappear when you explode).
“I REGRET NOTHING! I’M NOT AN ALCOHOLIC! I AM A GOOD MAN, I'M BETTER THAN THAT!” He screamed, in caps, waving a mostly not intact, quite broken arm like shape at her. Her being the (currently) neon green eye skybox.
“Fuck it, plan B!” Bringing her hands together, despite also being an eye like skybox, she began to chant. “With this treasure I summon…” She paused for a second witnessing what had formed in front/inside of her, inside her being the giant eye skybox. “Oh god fucking dammit.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Art was, for the first time in his life, at a loss for words. What stood before him was something beyond comprehension, conventional beauty standards, and a variety of temporal and physical laws. Art had considered himself too cool to actually want to do anything other than lord above anyone and anything he saw, but for once in his life, he had met his match in life - the kind of gloriousness that would take up an entire page's worth of exposition just to comprehend.
It was himself. Gloriously proportioned, with a stomach with just the right amount of visible abs or fat, a jaw just perfectly chiseled and round, eyes both domineering and soft, with hair just the right thickness that went from the top of his head to somewhere above his feet. His eyes were like round spheres that had an iris in them, with the ability to see things by letting light enter and pass through a series of clear components and sections, including the cornea, aqueous humor, lens and vitreous humor. And they were all perfect. Art could go on for multiple paragraphs of self admiring description chunked into one large basically unreadable paragraph designed to be skipped, which his succulent lips, just the perfect size compelled him to do. The smooth manly baby-faced callused skin of his complimented his handsomely scarred yet gentle, almost childlike look, only further exaggerated by his beautifully raised cheekbones, resembling a pair of stilts or something related to a circus. The look in his eyes belying both playfulness and wisdom beyond his years, as if he too, knew that we lived in the age of the consequences of the industrial revolution, which not only was a disaster for the human race, but probably annihilated some of the market share of analog sci-fi comics, which I mean, I dunno that kinda sucks. But back to Art, and his oddly manly fingers, so manly that they were almost womanly, with hair not hair covering them in all sorts of womanly man ways. Nevermind, this is getting tangential. Readers should know that they may be liable for tax breaks in their local jurisdictions and look into that. I’m not really sure what I’m doing, I’ve literally never read a book, this entire chapter is the work of me going from monkey to monkey with different typewriters in the Cincinnati Zoo. Regardless, that chimp like intelligence had evolved into human like genius clearly, looking at the art who is not art but identical in every way’s style, with the clothes not fitting in that oddly attractive basically fitting way, a testament to unorthodox fashion in an age of mass produced meta-capitalistic frameworks about the nature of human will and determinism. Is this the part where I deliver on the bit about an oddly sincere take on determinism? No, because I have the ability to lie in the content warnings. My god I’m taking so long to write the chapter, I have single handedly brought us from months ahead of schedule to behind. I am so sorry. I should stop drinking. It really doesn’t do anything for me. I’m a changed man. I’m better than this. After tonight I’ll fix it all. I’M NOT A MONSTER, I’M A GOOD MAN! Like Art’s crinkled crows feet would suggest - not the ones on his face that come from smiling, the ones on his feet, since he has that kind of quirky ‘I killed an animal and harvested it’s feet to increase my dex stat irl but all it did was cause significant amounts of pain and nearly cause my entire left leg to die via necrosis so I actually replaced them with normal human leg prosthetics but with cool plot device like cybernetics that was relevant a combat scene ago’ are you still reading I’m really concerned for you this is like Art level writing I’m concerned for myself I thought I could be the serious chapter now I’m inserting my own mind what the hell is happening - the author said, to the audience, who were captive by virtue of sunk cost fallacy. Right, his calves, they were so, well, calf like. His calves had the muscle mass of an entire calf - that’s a baby cow by the way - in each of them, which gave him a stylish albeit mildly horrifying body horror like muscular flair to his physique. From the top of his head to the tips of his toes, he was- ah fuck it you get it he’s ambiguously insanely attractive according to himself, I don’t get why you’re still reading. God fuck my head hurts. Sarah I love you, but good god you’re making a mistake.
Art opened his mouth to make a snarky remark or flirt, but felt a perfect finger against his lips.
“Shhhhh.” His clone shushed him “This chapter is getting really long, and I think Jack’s having a mental breakdown.” He said sensually, winking at the author through the fourth wall as he downed another cup of mouthwash, having dumped all of his alcohol in a fit of self redeeming passion a paragraph or so earlier, before falling out of frame and ceasing his self referential writing, to the relief of most readers.
“Wait, what's happening know?” Art responded.
“Narrative collapse.” The woman’s voice stated, resonating in the weird infinite eye room of hers. “You’ve literally gotten us written into a corner, and now this has no chance of making any sense.”
“Wait we haven’t even been published yet, this is pre-written,” Art pointed out. Art nodded in agreement. “Also we’re in a sphere - I think. Probably.” He shrugged.
“And it’s not our fault that the author wrote several disconnected parts across several days,” Art added.
“Dude I dunno if I’m gonna make rent this month,” The author muttered, forgetting that he lived in someone’s backyard without their knowledge as he struggled to climb out of the enclosure.
“Well you’ve fucked this all up - this, this- fuck.” She stopped. “Look. the narrative is falling apart. I thought that trapping you in a timespace prison where you were constantly incarnated across the places you’ve been then killed before you could re-engage your bullshit would work but clearly this jacked up infinite tsukiyomi/type green containment thing isn’t working and I really would prefer not to engage in drastic measures and-” Art had tuned her out several sentences ago when she had started hyperventilating, and so had Art.
“You wanna just, like, ignore her and go do our own thing?”
“Are we allowed to just do that?”
“I mean, there isn’t anyone telling us we can’t.” Art pointed out. Art shrugged in response.
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“So, you go here often?” Art looked around himself, noting the Egyptian iconography, the small donkey statue, and the oddly erotic picture of Zeus in the style of a cave drawing, and concluded that no, he has no clue where he is.
“Not really.” Art began to reply, only to be cut off by the luscious eroticism with which Art casually nearly choked to death on a palm sized grape, (Those are a real thing, they grow them in Japan).
Art wasn’t sure if it was the contrast of his manly form and the almost childish way in which he banged his stomach against the walnut countertop that hadn’t existed 2 minutes ago in a desperate attempt at a self heimlich, or the way his hair glistened in the scalding spring wind, which smelled of blueberries and hellfire (Remember this, it won’t actually have any relevance). Maybe it was his calves, monstrously muscular, yet oddly enticing, or the way his thighs-
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Meanwhile, in the infinite void, a primordial being came to her senses. “Wait, where’d the fuck did he go?” Looking around/inside herself/dimension/jjk reference/metaphor for introspection, she realized she wouldn’t find him inside her.
“Pause.” She instinctively muttered. Shaking her head, (HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT WORK) she resumed her train of thought. “Good god, they better not be violating the meta-narrative limitations. It was already hell getting them to let the first chapter slid-” Sneezing, Braille remembered the rule of the fourth barrier. “I mean, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-”
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Both Art and Art (Top and bottom respectively) found themselves in a different kind of abyss. One much more familiar. Or unfamiliar. From the past? If so, forgotten. An empty realm of nothingness, save for the man sitting in his chair.
“It’s been a while, huh.” The voice began. “The last time you were here, which you wouldn't remember, was when…” The man paused, resting his chin in his hands as he reclined. “Well, nevermind, it might not have happened. These things fall apart so fast. A few paragraphs to some, moments to others, and endless eternities to me.” Chuckling, he shook his head.
“Who are you!?” Both Arts yelled simultaneously, adopting a 5 man Sentai ranger pose, only mildly hindered by the fact there were only 2 of them, and lacked any floor to stand on.
“Are you familiar with the term God of the gaps? That the existence of a God is most concretely justified by the unexplainable? Well, I happen to be of a very large gap - that of your origin - and by extension the origin point from nothingness. What do you think that makes me?” The man asked, both childishly eager and expressionless.
“God!” “Dad!” Both Arts responded simultaneously, one of them rotating in place.
He chuckled. “Actually, both of you are wrong - the answer is written here, clear as day.” He said, his voice failing to reverberate due to the underwhelming acoustic properties of the vacuum of space.
“The truth is-'' pausing, he unfolded the paper “-narratively ambiguous. Huh.” flipping it over, he read out loud “-and non-canonical.” he snorted.
“The hell does that mean?” Art asked.
“Someone has commitment issues, clearly.” He said, glancing through the fourth barrier at the man drunkenly stumbling near the monkey exhibit. “Well, I'll be off then.”
“Why?” Art called out. “Where?” The other Art called out, being unaware of the tragedy that was about to occur.
“The Cincinnati Zoo. Someone needs to stop that madman before he gets mauled to death!”
“What?” A stupified Art asked. “Probably some meta-narrative injoke we aren't privy to.” The other replied.
“Damn, check the handbook.”
“What handbook?”
“The one in your pocket.”
“What, this?” Art waved a copy of Expositional Segues, The Shitty Author’s Panacea. “I’m pretty sure this tends to just completely handwave us into a new plot point. Which is bad writing.” Art said, looking at no chapter in particular.
“Let’s just take a peak- holy fuck we are so far behind schedule.” Art excaimed. Art looked over his shoulder.
“Surely it can’t be that ba- oh good lord!”
“He’s adding stuff after the expected publish date? Why?”
“Oh it shows here - concerns about in detail ‘say gex’ causing them to get banned? And what is this about showing someone how it grips?”
“Oh that one has a footnote, it’s from a different story. Not published yet.”
“Oooh, I get it. Wait, what were we doing? I feel like we got side tracked.”
“We were…” Art glanced at the previous points in the itinerary “Playing with our steamy meat or something.”
“That makes it sound weird.”
“Well, as far as I can tell-” Art was interrupted by a sudden narrative shift back to the present, the mystery forgotten.
“-Isn’t it gonna get confusing for the readers having 2 of the exact same person in every way in the story?” He wondered aloud.
“It should be fine, I’m pretty sure it’ll be over soon.” Art thought over it for a minute, then agreed, seeing the author count.
“I love myself.”
“Me too, I love myself too.”
“So how do we get out of here?”
“Well…” He said, sliding his pant’s down, reaching into his underwear.
“Is that a french pile driver or are you happy to see me?”
“Well, let’s just say we…”
----------------------------------------
“FUCK!!!” Art screamed himself into reality, in bold and italics, at the top of his lungs, before hastily realizing they belonged in his body and casually shoving them back in. Meanwhile, the magic eye lady or something of probably great world building and possibly plot related importance had closed her eyes, fully this time, and was doing something that was probably important but Art had something more important to do with his attention.
“HEY REUBEN!” Art yelled, this time with audible instead of literary emphasis.
“What!?” He shouted back, a tad less louder, like a nerd.
“WATCH THIS!” Art exploded. Literally. Before the smoke settled, revealing him standing in place, perfectly unharmed, alongside his lover, Art, with bits of gore from another (Emotionally irrelevant yet identical clone littering the ground around him. “Ahhhhh, to have plot armor.”
“And a lover!” The other Art enthusiastically replied. Not the dead one on the floor, the one that did… well whatever that was earlier.
And so, the final battle began once more. Or didn’t. I dunno, death of the author or something. He’s probably vomiting in a trash can outside the ER room because he was kicked out.