——[ ╠═+═══════⟥|👁|⟤═══════+═╣ ]——
| WATCHER_36//CONNECTION_ESTABLISHED \
| WATCHER_36//SCHEDULED_REPORT_21–09–1058 \SUBMIT
| WATCHER_36//ECHO/RESUMING_OPERATIONS(PRIORITY OVERRIDE:ALPHA) /CURRENT_TASK:MONITOR ENTITY(f678c98) \
| WATCHER_36//CONNECTION_TERMINATED \
| ...
| WATCHER_36//UNSCHEDULED_EVENT/ CRITICAL ERROR: ALMASTRND(origo(■)) Container/KERNEL DATA INPAGE ERROR \ERROR: UNKNOWN \Conclusion_2: attempt course correction
| WATCHER_36//ATTEMPTING FIX... \ERROR: UNKNOWN/ ATTEMPTING FIX... \ERROR: UNKNOWN/ ATTEMPTING FIX... \ERROR: UNKNOWN...
| WATCHER_36//PRIORITY_TASK1:MAINTAIN PROTOCOL INTEGRITY has failed (6) times \UNIT COMPROMISED: could not solve problem/ CONCLUSION_43: request assistance PRIORITY_SETTING(code: █ ): CONTACT HANDLER
| WATCHER_36//CONNECTION_ESTABLISHED/ PRIORITY_ALERT IDENTIFIER(ALPHA) \DISTRESS_SIGNAL
| ...
|ALPHA//PING WATCHER_36 \CONFIRMED
|ALPHA//Execute troubleshooting routine \Running…
|ALPHA//Error: ALMASTRND() UNKNOWN/ CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED \missing identifier
|ALPHA//PING ██ \
|AI-COM/ALPHA//Assigned priority target (■) This unit does not have corresponding dependencies \REQUEST: UPDATE PACKAGE
|ALPHA//RECEIVING TRANSMISSION... \INSTALLING...
|ALPHA//DEPLOYING TOOLS \ANALYZING...
|ALPHA//DIAGNOSTIC RESULTS: ENTITY(f678c98) Stabilized, Status: experiencing dimensional dissonance; Host paracausal disruption realigned with central conflux, Reality lost; Plane flexing suppressed, authority reforged within soul thresholds.\ LOGS ARCHIVED.
| ...
——[ ╠═+═══════⟥|👁|⟤═══════+═╣ ]——
▰▱▰ WARNING! ▱▰▱
▰▱▰ SENSITIVE CONTENT AHEAD ▰▱▰
。。。
Suffocating darkness, drowned wishes.
Fresh air in your lungs.
Live blood in your veins.
Sharp weight in your eyes.
Sunken strings, beached bonds.
Broken promises, slumbering prophecies.
。。。
Someone suddenly opens the door unannounced.
“Hey, do you want to go buy bread and some flour?” she says, Ignoring my glare. Because she knows I don’t like people barging into my room without knocking, moreso when the door is closed. And yet she keeps doing it anyway.
I barely pause to think. “Hmm? If I want to? No, I don’t think I do.” I know we still have a cupboard filled with other types of bread, and I am perfectly content and comfortable sitting here.
“Come on! You’ve been just sitting there the whole week. You have to go outside a little.” She whined.
I try to reason. “The bakery is so far away from here, and it’s an uphill climb just to get all the way over there…” Also, I am feeling lazy.
“I’m going to make pancakes~”
I pause.
Now that she said it. The idea won’t get out of my head. It’s in the middle of the afternoon and it has been quite a while since we ate lunch, so I’m feeling a little hungry.
I recall the appetizing smell of the batter being fried, the soft crunchiness of the golden bread, and the myriad of possible combinations of things to pour over it. I think about hot coffee, the ghost of bittersweet tastes gracing my tongue.
‘Now that’s just playing dirty…’ She knows that I know what she is doing. Enticing me so blatantly.
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“...Though if I will. Is an entirely different matter.” I say, without taking my eyes off the novel I’m reading. ‘Nope, not today, nuh-uh, I am happily flourishing in my little corner here and nothing can drag me out of here.’
“Hmm~” she gave me a Cheshire grin, still standing at the door.
“...What?” I look away.
She starts wiggling her eyebrows. – ‘How does she even do that? I can’t even lift one eyebrow without lifting the other.’ –
“*cough* …Well, if you aren’t going to, I guess there won’t be anything for you.”
”Guh!– Alright, alright… I’m going, ok?”
“Thank you!” She flips her demeanor instantly. ”Here, take this money. There’s a little extra for you to buy something you want at the store.”
“Hm? Oh, um, ok?” Since she said I can, I guess I’ll buy some potato chips too.
I prepare to leave outside, switching my pajamas for something more proper. A simple T-shirt and track pants will do, nothing fancy since it would be just a quick trip.
“I’m leaving!” I shout back, putting on my shoes.
I don’t notice the colors fading away from my surroundings, nor the pitch-black abyss behind the door.
As I am about to exit, I stop, my hand already twisting the door handle. A foreboding feeling crept through me.
⨈ 👁 ⨈
”You know… You are… W-were always a quiet person, sneaking behind us and gesturing rather than speaking.”
Suddenly, her tone was as dead as the colorless halls of limbo. Her voice, raspy and weak, wavered. Sounding like a thousand things were stuck in her throat that was clogged with permeating sadness.
“Though, when you were little you’d always run around the house, getting into all sorts of troubles. ”
Something… Something is very, very wrong.
“Every time you saw us, no matter the occasion, you’d yell ‘I love you’ and we’d be right behind you.”
Irrational panic surges in me out of nowhere. Along with concern and confusion from the unwarranted dread. ‘W-what is she talking about?’ I ask myself, confused, as my instincts and body screamed unintelligible warnings at me.
“I-I just wish I could have said ‘I love you’ more times. Now… I can’t even say goodbye.”
I quickly spin around to look at her and…
“.....Take care. We will always love you.”
> █̸̥͆́ █̷̖̖̓ █̵̨͓̰̱̉̀̅̊ █̵̺̾̊͒ █̶̢̈́̀́̊̉ █̷͎̹́̅͠ █̷̧́̋͐͂̑ █̴̦̮̫̠͑͊͒͠ █̶̖̞͌̈́̈́̓̚ ▯▯ —— – - ⫼ - – — <
Strident, grating noises caress my bones, I feel like I’m falling, a gaping black abyss of dead howls opening and harshly pulling me down. The haunting sensation comes and goes in a second, leaving me inexplicably sluggish.
I look up.
A sinking pit of ice-cold dread settles in my stomach. I try to breathe, and the feeling surges up through my throat and settles in my head, making my eyes waver and water.
I feel the blood in my veins grow hot and freezing, thick and fast, the veins in my neck pulsating and choking me. I try to gulp down my tears but my tongue won’t move.
The ache in my heart folds into itself, the twisting pain robbing me of my breath. Feeling like a ghostly hand wrapping around me and squeezing.
She looks so…
So…
Old, fragile…
Weak, feeble…
–And–And–And–And–And–And–And–A
…nd
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{⊈̸}
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Like she suddenly had aged 10 years, stress and sadness marring what once was a bright and cheerful face. Deep, dark circles under her eyes, darker than anything I had ever seen on her face before… darker than anything I would ever wish for her to look like…
For as long as I can remember, I have always held my family close to my heart, always thankful for being blessed with such caring people. Despite the circumstances of the world around us, we all lifted each other, and I especially loved my mother the most, with her being the pillar that held all of us together. Her sudden change in appearance, to this devastated and battered look, scared something deep in my soul.
…Her eyes look dry and red from crying. The small wrinkles that I was used to seeing on her face had become long and deep. Her usually smooth hair an unkempt mess, starting to get white strands.
I feel my eyes twist and burn from the amount of tears flowing through them. My tongue feels heavy in my mouth, and my throat twists, wanting to scream.
Roar in rage.
Cry out in fear.
Shout in horror.
The one sky that relinquished you. Hums in remembrance.
I struggle to speak. “W-what’s going on?!”
I finally take notice of the pulsating noise filling my head, like waves of mercury filling the blood in my brain. It’s deeply uncomfortable, but it does not cause any pain. Amidst it all, my encumbered mind tries to understand. Filling everything aside the horrifying visage of one of the people I love most in the world with illogical images and muddled thoughts.
The walls are gone, the ground is gone.
Everything is just gone.
Gone.
G o n e.
Un-empty black ink. Tendrils uninvited.
The space that isn’t occupied by her turns and twists into shapes and distances that make my eyes blur, the incomprehensible space slipping through all my senses, leaving a void that both exists and doesn’t.
Suddenly another silhouette appears beside her, my father. At one moment, there wasn’t, and in the other, it was like it had been there all along. Absent-mindedly, I’m reminded of how much I appreciated him, despite us drifting apart in the same house and never properly talking to each other.
Besides him, my friends, and other acquaintances I hadn’t gotten around knowing.
People I would never again get an opportunity to properly know…
…to be able to say goodbye one last time.
Crimson blood between the crevices.
And then another one appears, and another, and another…
I see my family, my closest friends, amidst an entourage of unknown people clad in formal wear…
…They are weeping, mourning, holding tight the leashes of an untold amount of grief that was shared between them.
The eye in the sky.
Before I can try to make sense of it all, everything…
Breaks.
They are watching.
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[ COMPARTMENTALIZING TRAUMA ]
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