When I came to, everything had changed.

Everything.

I was standing but brutalized— blood and wounds coursed down my skin, my fingers soggy with carnage now dried. And Felix stood before me on all fours, growling, hissing, and likewise covered in carnage. We were fighting, together? But how? The enemies had initially ignored me. What happened?

Then Felix spoke to me: you felt your attenuation. I had no idea how gunky your Frequency is, mortal . . . everything is going to change, for you.

I suddenly felt on the verge of tears. What was happening to me?! Why could I now see and be a part of this underground society of freaks?! Why was my apartment trashed and pray tell— someone, anyone— why I was now fucking killing things with, evidently, my bare fucking hands; this wasn’t me, this wasn’t my life, and this was NOT who I wanted to be! A gentle wet warmth drizzled down my face. I was crying. And moments after, the weather began to drizzle.

It is okay, Marcus. Felix said, using my name for the first time since meeting. It’s normal to be stressed, but we won. Look.

I looked and saw corpses. Donut men and zombies. Both were on the ground, prone. Slaughtered.

But we should move. You can see the zombies wiggling. Reforming. They won’t stay down forever.

“Sure . . . sure,” I said, distractedly.

I turned back toward the Waystone boulder only to see a group of people in robes . . . or was it battle armor? From my perspective and from the design of their garments, it could have been easily either. I was nervous at any rate. Whoever they were, it felt real. Endgame-y.

“Who are those?” I asked of Felix.

I guess even Felix was weirded out by their appearance since it took him a second to respond: members of the full-time organization. What are they doing here?!

“Uh, well, you did describe yourself as a guerilla fighter messing with the Waystones, right? Maybe they are getting sick of you doing shit? Maybe they are going to execute you. Or fire you?” I ventured.

Felix gave no response, indicating that he thought either option had validity. A scary idea to think about.

But Felix climbed back on my head and together, we stepped ourselves up onto the Waystone for their final confrontation.

~ ~ ~

“It is time. This conflicting agenda needs to be healed of its wounds,” one of the robed figures said.

Now much closer to the ground, I saw that their robes were basic. Medieval, even, in that each of them were a single unoffensive color tied at the waist by a simple rope. Hoods, yes, and long sleeves. I knew that these were not ordinary garments, but even so, I could tell that fundamentally, these were the robes of monastery monks.

“And what do you propose?” said Felix. “Granting me autonomy at long last?”

But the figures ignored him. Instead, they addressed me.

“Marcus. Your integration with us, must begin. Your Frequency is unusual and needs to be studied. You must re-set and become one of us,” the robed collective said at once and as one.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I felt Felix’s claws sink into my head. He was shaking. He was afraid.

“What and why?” I said, not bothering to go into a longer sentence asking specifics. I got the notion that these guys already knew a lot of what I was going to saw before I said it, so why bother with the hassle of moving my lips?

“Your life will stay the same. Same job, family, friends, concerns. Your second job will be with us, learning the artes and truth of the under-reality while we study you. We see great things for you. But the creature you know as Felix will die.”

Obviously, Felix was truly upset and he was really clawing up my head now. But I wasn’t having it.

“Not without Felix.” I replied.

Silence but only for a hot second. A cold second later and I was given an answer: “We foresee conflict if this path is undertaken. And yet, we understand that we live in a society. Some amount of give and take is needed. Give us another hot second, please,” the collective replied rather creepily, had they been reading my mind? Did they have that ability?

But Felix and I waited. As we waited, the cold wind blew and the sun emerged outright from the lonely night. My inner noise— my Frequency, maybe?— was raging, like wildly spinning the knob on the car radio and hearing a thousand different sound bites in seconds. I felt sick. But I needed to focus. I needed to save myself, my friend, and get out of this situation in one piece. No matter what it took.

Returning to the conversation, the collective replied: “Only if you and Felix forge a pact will be tolerate the existence of this rebel.”

I let the words sink in— a pact?

“What are they talking about, Felix?” I asked.

A pact is . . . unusual. Almost legendary. Few people can enter into a pact and survive. Why would they want this?

“But what IS it?”

I don’t really know. Honestly. A pact is like a mutual defensive thing . . . what happens to one happens to the other, but you can also do things that benefit one another? I don’t know how it works. It is high-level magic. And as I said, most people either think pacts are the stuff of myth or write them off as suicide. Marcus— people do not survive pacts. It goes against The Laws as We Know Them.

I began to get the same feeling as I had back in that alley when Felix was talking about the nature of the under-reality and super-normies. I was confused. Mightily.

“But we don’t really have a choice, do we?” I asked, hopeful for the answer that I wanted but prepared for what I knew would come.

No. No we do not.

“So,” I began my address to the robed group, “just to be clear: if I join you guys, and I enter into a pact with Felix, he will live, and we will be able to live our lives?”

“Yes. Correct. But things will change for you. Everyone who enters into a pact sees the world differently than before they entered. Your life will be the same, but different,” the collective of maybe-monks said.

I wish I could say that I was washed in thought, that my mental cauldron was overbubbling with ideas and furious action, but it was dormant. Completely empty save for a faint trace of sound and whispers which I suspected was from my Frequency.

“How do you know we will not die? How do we know this isn’t just some plot to get us to off ourselves so you guys don’t have to do the dirty work yourselves?” I demanded.

The robed group’s response was curt: “It is no trick. And we dirty our hands plenty, this would be no issue to us. Finally, your unique Frequency makes your chances of survival very high.”

I allowed their words to sink into my head but it was all static. It was impossible to think about an impossible situation’s outcomes when everything was impossible. And when I was so, so tired. I just wanted to sleep.

“Felix . . . do you want to do this?” I queried. “I know you’re afraid.”

We have no choice. We can’t fight these hooded freaks. If we want to live, we have to. And besides . . . there are worst people to be bonded to, I think.

“True, but you haven’t even known me for a full day,” I chuckled.

Felix chuckled as well.

I took a step forward. I was ready for the pact. I don’t remember much, but I do remember this: there was an ornately stacked pile of papers piled high into the sky and as in a trance, I signed bundle after bundle until the whole pile was gone; intrinsically, I knew this was the paperwork to join the organization, whatever they were called.

Resting my wrist for a moment, I was then presented with an old parchment scroll for the pact. Encountering this scroll, I began to shake uncontrollably. But Felix sauntered down onto my shoulders and calmed me. As if together, we seemed to say, “Okay, let’s blow this joint!”

And everything?

It did in fact change.