--==Chapter 9: I Can't Hold Your Ignorance Against You--==

The punchline came a minute later when someone actually punched me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I didn't find it particularly funny, but maybe I'm a buzz kill. I doubled over in surprise, and the sack was ripped off my head leaving me blinking against the hospital lights.

I found myself standing in a room with a pool. With the hood and gas removed, my thoughts immediately began to clear. The effect of the gas was as short-lived as it was intense, but I wasn't sure I was anywhere near sober. For one, an albino dolphin was swimming in a pool.

It might be generous to call it swimming. The pool wasn't large, far from Olympic-sized, just large enough to allow the dolphin to swim in choppy circles. The dolphin didn't quite look full-grown—not that I was an expert on such things. My escorts left me to take places in front of the pool, standing a few yards apart, each with a hand resting on the hilt of a gun. They were strangely pedestrian-looking for people willing to kidnap a large monster. Both wore khaki slacks and pastel polos, looking like they were about to play golf.

The air between them rippled, and I felt a pulse go through my body like the low thrum of a bass drop. Inexplicably and without warning, a man wearing a suit blinked into existence a few body lengths in front of me. I stumbled back at the man's unexpected manifestation, suddenly sober. I reared back and threw up my blue-furred arms as though I was going to karate chop somebody. Realizing I'd dropped my bat at some point. I looked around wildly for an exit, but there wasn't one on my side of the pool.

Neither of the bodyguards reacted to the man's sudden appearance, instead keeping their eyes on me. It grounded me enough to allow me to breathe and accept this new strange thing, at least for a moment. I lowered my hands and crouched slightly, ready to try and run through them if necessary.

The new man smiled. He was broad-shouldered and built like a triangle. His smile was effortless, every bit as tailored as his suit, but it nonetheless reached his dark eyes. His face and head were shaved clean, and his scalp shone as though waxed. Something about him reminded me of the glowing webs from the beginning of all this.

"Hello, Oberon," the man said, signaling the silent man to his left. The fact that I had no idea why people kept calling me Oberon didn't stop chills from going down my spine at his familiarity with me. The man he signaled pulled something from his pocket and lobbed it gently in my direction.

It was a glowing stone, and my eyes snapped to follow its path. Time seemed to slow as it soared through the air, and I wasn't sure I had the patience to wait for it to reach me. I was hyper-aware of it and wanted it; I had no idea why. It was like a big red button, a mosquito bite, and a pratfall all rolled into one; which is to say, it had my attention. It made the allure of Slender Hopper's crystal seem weak.

As the crystal finally reached my outstretched hand, my chest tightened with an acute spike of inexplicable grief. It faded the next moment as the crystal gave off a snap that echoed across the tiled room. Looking down at the crystal, the allure was gone, and the green gem had cracks spider-webbing it. I looked between the cracked crystal in my palm and the magically appearing man and cocked my head in confusion. I was fine, but I had no idea what had just happened.

"You don't remember this?" the man asked. "Then your memories really are gone. I'd heard a rumor. Well then, I suppose I had better reintroduce myself. By those who speak, I am called Hands. The reasons are terribly morbid and not for friendly conversation; I find it's one of those names best explained with a demonstration, but I don't think that will be necessary today. Then again, maybe this is just another of your games."

I just shrugged, not capable of more. Sadly, this was the best conversation I'd had yet; I even felt pleased I had shrugged intentionally.

"Oberon, you can't begin to understand the real game at which you're playing. I told you before and tell you again: You are in over your head. You should give me your shadow and leave this hospital. There's nothing for you here. You can't change a person's nature. Your friend is lost to you. You can do nothing about the Pastor Lady or that crow monstrosity. Go, and take the girl with you. There is nothing but an endless cycle of death here for either of you."

My skin crawled at the utter surrealness of the moment and the way he spoke as if he knew me. I didn't know what he meant about my shadow, and he was obviously wrong about my name, so I wouldn't put too much stock in his words. Still, he was awfully confident, just calmly standing there making threats to a hulking werewolf. I squared my shoulders, unwilling to let him provoke me without a response. I pulled back my lips to show my teeth and leaned forward as though ready to spring into motion.

The man didn't seem too impressed, but his goons drew their guns. "Don't give me that. You can take my words as a threat if you wish, so long as you heed them. But, keep in mind, the crystal you just caught was trapped—I'm sure you felt that trap close—your spawn point is now set to that exact spot, where these fine gentlemen will be waiting for you, day after day. If that's what you want, by all means, show us your power."

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Behind the man, the pool churned as the pale dolphin circled. My head was still trying to clear out the laughing gas, but it didn't feel like a hallucination. If anything, it reminded me of Slender Hopper. Maybe that wasn't a dolphin in there at all, but instead, some sort of dolphin-like monster. The whole scene felt right out of a bad movie. Next Hands would feed it the leg of a goat or something as an intimidation tactic. Instead, he gestured, and his goons reholstered their guns.

"Oberon, there's no reason for bad blood between us. You have something I need, but I'm only a thief when it's necessary. I'm just as happy to trade. These crystals have more uses than you likely recall. Now, the good doctor may know how to do this as well, but she doesn't know how to use them to create shareable thoughts. I do, and more besides."

He signaled his goon again, and the man tossed a second crystal to me. It was about the same size as the first, but this one didn't have the same attention-grabbing pull to it, and cracks covered its surface. The trapped crystal felt heavier, or maybe it just resisted being moved. The force was easy to overcome but felt odd. It reminded me of spinning gyroscopes resisting rotation or spacial-locked superconductors levitating above magnets. The crystal trap almost felt like it would hang in empty space for a moment if I dropped it.

By contrast, the new crystal seemed pretty ordinary. I still felt an unexplainable interest in the stone, but nothing like the lure of the trapped crystal, and it didn't resist being moved at all.

"Press it to your forehead," Hands said.

Admittedly I was curious, and something about the crystal made me want to bring it close. To taste it, to feel it with my eyelashes, or to press its cool surface to my forehead or temple. But mostly, I listened to him because he had goons and guns. The world around me changed as I pressed the crystal to my head. It didn't change much; it was the same room but simpler, flat-looking. It lacked detail and shadow but was also crisp. It was almost like a cartoon, with smooth surfaces and only enough detail to create texture and focus. The goons were gone, but Hands still stood there, holding up the green crystal I'd just pressed to my forehead. Unlike the rest of the room, he was just as real-looking.

"The process is straightforward," Hands said. "Visualize in your mind's eye the scene you want to encapsulate. Then imagine that scene being drawn into the crystal. Focus on pushing the scene through the center of your brow toward the crystal."

Nothing felt real. It was like I'd realized I was dreaming and was just waiting to wake up.

The man gazed at the crystal intently, and the air started to thrum and shimmer around the gem. "Push past the resistance..." the man said as the crystal glowed a brighter green. "So long as it remains intact, the visualization will be stored on the crystal. It will last the duration of a loop or until it's witnessed. Be aware anyone can access it, so be careful what you share." A soft thrum burst from the crystal I held, sending out a wave of green fog that quickly dispersed and returned me to the real world. Or at least the goons were back, and the room had lost its matte look.

With the vision over, I lowered my hand and looked at the crystal. I could be imagining it, but it seemed to me there were more cracks in the crystal now.

"Crystals can only be used so many times. That one only has a couple uses left before it crumbles." Hands said. "Which is fine because you can still use it to tell me where I can find your shadow. That's the carrot, my gift to you for not causing more trouble. It's easily done."

He pulled a gun and pointed it at me; his two silent henchmen followed suit. "This is the stick. Where's your shadow."

It seemed wise to listen to the magic man with a gun, but looking down, my shadow was precisely where I'd expected. Maybe it was a warm-up question, like asking someone's age on a polygraph. I considered what I'd witnessed in the crystal.

Visualize a scene and focus on the crystal. I drew comics for a living; I could do that.

Visualize a scene. I didn't know what Hands was after. I assumed it was a metaphorical shadow, but I was feeling a bit obstinant by that point, so I decided to picture myself in a flat desert with the sun circling me and casting my shadow out like I was a sundial.

My thoughts slowed as I focused on the crystal, and I could embed the image in the crystal by concentrating. I was making impressions in the clay of my mind. Once it took, I could alter and detail those impressions, but the visualization was otherwise set and unchanging. The desert expanded into an infinite plane, and the sun became a sourceless light that cast a rotating shadow around 'me.'

My mental self-image was never closely tied to my physical appearance, so it took me a second to realize that Hands would have no idea that the wirey-looking man standing there was how I saw myself. Grudgingly, I altered the projection to my werewolf form. Instead, as my shadow circled me, I had it shift shapes. It stretched from human-person to hulking werewolf, and finally, to werewolf in a cape. My shadow cycled through these forms on a loop as it slowly circled me.

I wanted to add "What shadow?" as a voice-over. However, when I tried to make the visualization speak, my thoughts got confused. It was as though each word was on the tip of my tongue but thoroughly out of reach. In the end, I was left with a scene of shifting shadows circling my werewolf body in an endless sandy plane. It would have to be good enough, the image was getting harder to adjust, and I didn't think I could add much more.

I didn't understand what Hands was after, but I'd at least learned something new, something that should help me in the future, no matter how Hands reacted.

The crystal buzzed as I 'pushed' the scene into it. I felt a pressure building behind my forehead but pressed on. Finally, my crystal popped as more cracks grew across it, and green fog burst from it in a ring. Now it emanated a soft thrum of sound that was barely audible. It seemed like it had worked.

I tossed the crystal to Hands without being prompted, but one of his goons stepped up, caught it, and pressed it to his forehead. After a second, he shook his head at his boss.

"I see. So you really have forgotten, and about your shadow, too," Hands noted. "I had hoped for a different outcome, but it is what it is." He shrugged, a mix of disappointment and acceptance on his face. "Still, I suppose I can't hold your ignorance against you, so if you'd kindly toss your spawn-point crystal to Mr. Franklin on my right, we'll get you on your way."

I remembered waking up in the lobby after I died holding the strange crystal. It was good to know the crystal really had changed where I spawned. Somehow, a lot of people seemed to know more about what was happening than I did, and it was getting annoying.

Hoping I wasn't making a mistake, I tossed the crystal to Hands's goon. After catching it, he placed it on the ground and smashed it with the butt of his gun. There was a sharp pop, and the crystal shattered, releasing something in my chest.

"Sorry about this next part," Hands said. "It's just easier this way. Remember, just go home. The girl trusts you, and frankly, you need each other. Go enjoy life. There is nothing for you inside the hospital; nothing but more of this."

The man signaled, and the two goons began to fire their guns. The noise hit me before the pain, but I suddenly found myself on the ground, choking on my own blood. My ears were still ringing when I heard the man say, "There aren't many of us rememberers Oberon. We all do what we must; I won't let this world cage me again. You'll understand one day, I'm sure. Try not to forget again; it's bad for your health."

And with that, I died. I guess he was right.