Once Cici has recovered, you head to the locked door near the stairs.

"There should be some old keys in the toolbox," you tell Cici.

She spends a moment trying to get the toolbox open with her... uh... talons, before you eventually help her get it open. You take one of the keys you picked up at the junkyard, and try it on the locked door.

. . .

It does not unlock.

"Damn," you mutter under your helmet. "I was really hoping that would work."

You toss the key back into the toolbox, and Cici shuts it.

You take the house key from your pocket and try it on the locked door.

. . .

Ta-da. It opens.

"So it HAS to be my house key," you conclude.

"Would a copy work?," Cici asks. "You know like, getting another house key made!"

"Maybe," you reply. It's clearly something to do with the symbolism of it being your house key in your dungeon, but you feel like if just any key won't work then just getting duplicate keys made also sounds too easy.

Who knows, though? Maybe this whole system was designed before you could get keys copied for a couple of bucks.

You push the door open; behind it is a staircase, leading down into a dark... maintenance tunnel?

The tunnel is flooded, the water rushing forward and into the dark at a very intimidating speed. You're not sure how deep the water goes, or where the tunnel leads off to. The stairs here don't go down as far as the stairs between floors did... which means the tunnel is, itself, basically wedged between B1 and the first floor.

Unlock the door near the stairs [http://mda.thecomicseries.com/images/comics/193/43704a1591851217b3654f744531690.png]

You watch the sewagey sludge carry on for a while before remembering you have a cell phone now, and you have no idea how that works in the dream.

You take out your phone.

You press the little button to wake it up, and--

you are greeted with... white.

A bright and not completely consistent white stares out of your phone. It shifts and flows, like snow or... paint. The screen puts off a soft hum, not quite like TV static. Sometimes it sounds like the noise is trying to say something, but you can never really make out any words. Sometimes you see shapes in the changing light of the screen, but they too never quite coalesce into anything tangible.

You try tapping and dragging your fingertip across the screen, but alas, the phone does not respond. It seems like the Weird Snow app is the only thing your phone does in here.

"...Huh," you comment. "Well that sucks."

Switching your phone off and putting it back in your pocket, you turn to Cici.

"Think you can scout ahead...?"

"Hell yeah I can!," Cici exclaims.

She puts the toolbox down and flutters off down the stairs, floating above the rushing water. Her single eye seems to shine brighter as Cici enters the darkness; it makes you smile a little. She's gotten a pretty good hang of flying already, though to be fair she seems to have less... mobility? Than Kate? Cici's flight is steadier, but slower, and you can't picture Cici swooping around and rolling like Kate can.

Send Cici to scout ahead [http://mda.thecomicseries.com/images/comics/193/43704a1591940324b3654f1299686952.png]

Cici, for her small size, looks sturdy. Even when she's drifting through the air, you feel like kicking her would fuck your foot up.

You can still hear her, farther and farther into the tunnel. "Scout the HELL outta this tunnel! ... Scout its face off."

You head down the stairs yourself, poking your broom handle polearm into the water. It feels... less goopy than the sludge that filled your starting room. More fluid. Still gross. That probably means this tunnel won't just take you back to the beginning--it likely leads somewhere else.

Also, the polearm goes deep.

You're pretty sure the water would reach at least your abdomen if you went down to the floor. As fast as it's going, the current would definitely sweep you away. There's still quite a bit of clearance from the roof, though--

you shake your head at the thought.

It's very silly

but

a lot of old sidescrolling games, in an effort to both add variety to the gameplay AND to showcase how fast the console could go, would have little racing segments where you had to dodge obstacles and fight bad guys while soaring across the screen. A lot of different games had them--sequences on hoverbikes, or in mine carts, or in little airplanes, or whatever.

But more specifically, you have surfed through a sewer in at least two different beat 'em ups.

The difference between making a pixelated turtle surf, and actually, physically surfing, is vast.

You know this.

Even with whatever janky physics your dream dungeon has, you are not capable of surfing through a flooded maintenance tunnel.

This is fact.

You have an ominous countdown literally written in blood. You cannot afford to get yourself killed and lose an entire night trying an incredibly stupid stunt.

And that's fine

...But at the same time--

"Plaire!," Cici yells on her way back. "It curves after a while, but it just keeps going! This is a long dang tunnel!"

"Talk me out of trying to surf this tunnel," you insist.

"What?" Cici stops where the dry part of the stairs begins. "Why would I do that?! That would be AWESOME!"

"Dammit Cici," you laugh, "one of us has to be the responsible one."

"Screw that!," she counters, "we can't die! You can't do this in real life, Plaire, kick its ass. Wait, no!" She pauses, like the realization is still coming through. "This'd take us away from the boss, wouldn't it? We got a plan, we should definitely stick to it."

You nod, and she nods. You both nod.

...Before she adds, "It would be really cool, though!"

"It would be the fucking coolest."

"What would you even surf on?," she asks.

"I don't know!," you reply with a shrug and another hidden smile, "I have NO idea."

You think about it.

You really think about it.

...But in the end, you decide the maintenance tunnel will have to wait. It's been nearly a week and you ARE going to find out what the deal with the god damn barrels is.

You head back upstairs and down the hall, Cici following with the toolbox.

You open the door to the room with all the barrels in it.

"Shoot one of those barrels?"

"Sure!" Cici flutters forward, and launches an arrow.

...Which misses.

Followed by another, which also misses.

Followed by a third, which misses the top of the barrel Cici was aiming at but manages to hit the middle of a barrel toward the back. You note that (aside from firing in a wide, inaccurate spray) Cici's arrows don't seem to burn or phase through objects as much as they pierce--they pretty much act solid, like a heated hard light construct rather than a laser beam.

The arrow pierces through the barrel; what comes rushing out is...

"Is that piss?," you immediately ask.

"If your pee looks like that," Cici replies, "you need to see a doctor."

The liquid is very yellow. Like faintly luminescent gold, slightly dirty.

It really doesn't look like urine, but it's yellow liquid and you are a child and it's all you can think of. It's closer to like... mac and cheese sauce, though. Like if someone made mac and cheese flavored water, an idea almost as gross as a barrel full of piss would be. It even has that kind of surreal shimmering quality that macaroni and cheese has in the commercials but never in real life.

You use the knife end of your polearm to pry the lid off another barrel.

Open some barrels [http://mda.thecomicseries.com/images/comics/193/43704a1592026886b3654f638441470.png]

Hooray! You discovered more of that sweet murky gold.

"Maybe it's..." you're just spitballing here, "some kind of potion...?"

"Please don't drink the pee potion," Cici demands.

You laugh, just a little. "What happened to you can't do this in real life, Plaire, kick its ass?"

"That was about surfing, which is cool and good," Cici informs you. "This is about drinking yellow liquids you found in a barrel, which is just nasty."

. . .

"...It is stocked right in front of the boss room," you point out.

"Plaire."

"And I still think there has to be a way to regain mana--"

"Plaire."

You remove your helmet and lean in to smell the yellow liquid.

It smells... like an old barrel. You can't really make out the scent of the contents over the smell of aged wood. It's almost... fruity? Maybe?

You dip the end of your polearm into the open barrel, then take it out.

Nothing spectacular seems to happen.

The yellow stuff has the viscosity of, like... water. Or a juice, or a soda or something. Combined with the scent, you're really leaning toward fruit juice--but the only yellow fruits you can remember off the top of your head are bananas and lemons, and this smells like neither. ...Also too thick and too dark to be lemon juice. ...Probably. You've never seen a barrel full of lemon juice.

You grab a torch from out in the hall and expose it to the mystery juice. Nothing. It puts the fire out. Not combustible or flammable at all.

You dip a finger in.

It doesn't burn or corrode or melt your finger off. It's just... lukewarm yellow.

You take a deep breath.

Cici seems to anticipate where this is going. "Plaire, do not--"

"I have to know what it does. These barrels have been pissing me off since night one." You scoop up two handfuls of the yellow chemical.

"Plaire, no!"

"Plaire yes." You drink deep of the yellow.

It tastes...

a bit like grape juice...?

Wait, it's wine. You're in a church (/prison/dungeon). It's communion wine.

Why is it yellow, though...?

As soon as you swallow, you discover that it is not just wine.

The sensation is immediate--a sort of sour burning that only grows stronger and more nauseating as it spreads, feeling like it's tearing its way out of your stomach and into your... nervous system? Like a circuit system of needles forcing their way up your chest and down your arms and into your legs. By the time the horrid, burning body-wide discomfort hits your face, you've stumbled out into the hall and are struggling not to throw up.

Dare to enter magical realm [http://mda.thecomicseries.com/images/comics/193/43704a1592280233b3654f853490601.png]

"I told you!," Cici yells, trying to keep your hair out of your face with her limited bird extremities. "Are you alright?! Don't die on me, Plaire!"

Eventually, the pain passes, though it takes a little longer for the dizziness and nausea to wear off.

...And to your absolute horror,

your mana feels completely replenished.

"God... dammit," you mutter. "I was right. Th... uggghhhh. The yellow shit works like a mana potion."

"So you have to drink THAT if you don't wanna fade out?!"

You nod. "Unfortunately yeah, it looks that way. I don't... recommend it. ...Wait. Do you feel drained at all? I don't know if you've been in here enough to feel the difference in mana, or if accomplices even have mana--"

"I feel a little... lighter?," Cici confirms. "But I dunno if I could drink if I wanted to. I'm... not real sure I have a mouth in here. I think I still got a lot left in the tank, though!"

You head back into the barrel room to retrieve your polearm, and you put your helmet back on. "Your arrows might not cost much mana. Maybe accomplices get more mana than... uh... whatever my role is. Leader? Abettor? ...Facilitator?"

"The word accomplice suggests you're doin' crimes," Cici points out. "Kingpin? Mastermind?"

You have a small chuckle to yourself. "I only learned the official term was accomplice because I fucked up. ...I guess I need to prompt another error to tell me what the hell I am."

You watch Cici easily pick up the toolbox, and the two of you head back out into the hall. You're still thinking about the fact that she can carry that weight at all--it's a lot for you, even in here, which means the strength of her small egg form has to be at least up with yours, if not equal to her real life waking strength.

The difference might not matter--or it could absolutely matter. Kate swore she could kick some of these doors in if she only had her regular leg strength--but it's possible that she does, and just didn't realize it.

"...Cici." You stop. She puts the toolbox down.

You try to think of a better way to phrase it, but failing that you just spit it out. "Can you lift me?"

The problem actually ends up being one of logistics. Cici can get one foot on each of your shoulders, but has difficulty finding a place to grip with the middle foot, and there's no easy place on your fightball pads to hold onto; she's better equipped to rip your armor off than she is to lift you up. Trying to lift you by the head is a terrible idea, as is sinking her talons into your lower back.

You finally figure out that, if she grabs onto your forearm from the right angle she can get all three feet holding you without shredding you to pieces. Lifting you into the air by one arm proves doable, but also not especially comfortable for either party.

Conclusion?

"If I'm NOT as strong as I am when I'm NOT an egg," Cici begins, "then the difference is so small I can't tell. I'm a pretty dang strong egg, I just don't have the same leverage because... egg!"

You nod, and smile. Yes. Because egg.

Check the cracked (?) door and fight the boss [http://mda.thecomicseries.com/images/comics/194/43704a1592375866b3654f985436671.png]

"Alright." You look back down the hall. "There's... one more door I haven't opened, then we can fight the boss."

"I'm a pretty big fan of being thorough," Cici states.

You smile a little. She follows you toward the cracked door. "I hesitated to open it last time, because it looks like something was trying to break out--"

You had not noticed until now,

but the cracked door is no longer cracked.

It is without damage.

It is a whole, intact, normal looking door.

You double check.

Third door on the left. Yuuup this should be the one.

Something is different from last time. Last time the door was visibly damaged. Upon the most recent reset... it is not. Nothing's happened to it on this run with Cici. You're not sure what happened to it last time, let alone what's not happening to it this time.

You ready your polearm... and nudge the door open.

Inside is a large floor vent (similar to the one downstairs that was spewing poison), but with nothing coming out of it.

Atop the vent sits a single treasure chest.

You don't have a key and also, fuck ALL of that. You can second guess your mimic instincts after the boss fight.

You close the door and continue on toward the boss room without comment. Cici seems to understand.

She helps you shove open the big double doors, and the two of you make your way into the sanctuary. You stop just outside of the entrance--looking up toward the ceiling, and more specifically, at the huge seam that runs across that ceiling.

"So here's my thought process," you begin. "If we walk far into the room, that section of the ceiling falls down and is the boss. THAT'S the wall with my dad's face on it, just... before the fight's officially 'begun.' ...I'm thinking we may be able to sneak in a cheap shot, but we need to be careful about it."

You explain: Cici can fly up and shoot at the underside of the wall before it drops. However, there's a chance the wall will immediately drop in response to damage, kicking the boss fight off early. If that's the case and Cici's right underneath it, she (and the toolbox she's carrying) could be crushed. If Cici's not under the wall enough, though, then her short ranged arrows won't be able to reach--so she needs to get close, and shoot from a particular angle to minimize the risk of being counter-smashed.

FURTHER, if attacking the wall DOES prompt it to drop early, then you'll be at ground zero instead of halfway across the room--which puts you in a perfect position to immediately go after the bottom two chains.

[http://mda.thecomicseries.com/files/page_112-2.png]

"...Huh," Cici finally remarks. "That's pretty damn clever, Plaire!"

Luckily your helmet hides how much you're grinning. "I mean... it's not that big of a deal. A lot of games feature easter eggs where you can attack a boss early, or even avoid a fight entirely by sneak attacking the boss before they can start their sequence up. I just figured we could give it a shot."

"Yeah," replies Cici thoughtfully, before adding "Heck yeah! Let's do it!"

You stand roughly where you remember the chains attaching to the skin, and out from underneath the wall. Cici flutters up toward the ceiling, cautiously positioning herself from roughly the angle you suggested.

She fires a burst of glowing arrows; the first couple miss, but as soon as the third connects, the sanctuary rumbles. Father Warden plummets, slamming into the floor with authority; the air pressure alone is enough to send Cici tumbling back and away. The chains lash out from the giant face of your dad, hooking into the railing along the wall and beginning to drag him forward.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

You are, however, already in position. You lunge forward, and with a huge swing from your broom handle halberd, you sever the flesh from the leftmost bottom chain.

You turn and shout to Cici. "Get clear and stable! We'll regroup in a sec!"

"Got it!," she yells back, still fumbling to regain steady flight with the toolbox in tow.

You take off in a dead sprint for the rightside lowest chain.

[http://mda.thecomicseries.com/files/page_112-3.png]

You slice through the skin holding the righthand bottom chain. That's both bottom chains disconnected, four more chains to go, and the wall has barely reached its first row of pews. You could probably reach the middle chains, as well, but there's no need to push it and risk losing control of the fight--you have the timing down, you can give yourself a little breathing room.

"Plaire!," Cici shouts, hovering more confidently now above the pews (and still a safe distance from the steadily approaching boss). "I'm ready! Where do you need me?"

You clear away from the wall, getting to a safe distance and behind the cover of a pew. Cici floats down to join you.

You take a breath. "Alright," you begin, "when I give the signal, I want you to drop the toolbox and go for the left highest chain. I'll go for the right middle chain. We double back to safety, wait for the boss to do its electrical thing, and then we switch--you take right highest, I take middle left. Got it?"

"Damn, Plaire, you have got this down." Cici obliges, gently setting the toolbox down on the floor.

You smile. "A lot of video games but especially Crush Souls are big on patience and learning the timing of huge bosses. ...I've basically fought this battle a hundred times already, just not physically."

The steadily approaching wall finishes collecting its two massive piles of pews; electricity surges down its four remaining chains, prompting those stacks of debris to explode. Wooden shrapnel goes flying all around you.

"NOW!," you yell. You bolt out from behind the pews, as does Cici--with you headed to the right, and her headed to the left. She flutters up to deal with the highest chain on her side, while you take a running leap, slashing straight through your side's middle chain with ease. You glance over to see how Cici's doing--

it takes her a few tries. Her arrows are not especially accurate, nor can they slice straight up and down to clear through the extended flesh like your halberd can. You can see a little frustration in her body language as she sprays arrows for a few seconds, finally fully severing the skin from the top left chain.

You and Cici rush back to the safety of the pews, and wait for the next explosion to go off. You sort of anticipate it taking longer, given that the face only has two chains to draw power from--but when the moment comes, the electrical flash from those two chains is substantially brighter. It appears Father Warden is pulling more power to compensate; the wall's speed stays consistent, at least.

The third explosion of the fight. Debris goes flying everywhere.

"Go!"

You run to the left, Cici soars high to the right.

Once again, with a good jump, your polearm has more than enough reach to cut through the face's skin. You cut off the last of the middle chains.

You turn to check on Cici, who is...

once more having a great deal of difficulty.

Arrow after arrow, either missing the final stretch of flesh entirely or barely nicking the edges of it, never quite cutting clean through the middle.

"Come! On! You stupid! Arrows!," she growls. "I don't have time for this! I don't have the ENERGY for this! ...Why won'T YOU WORK?!"

You then watch

with widened eyes beneath your helmet

as she conjures not an arrow,

but a motherfucking axe.

[http://mda.thecomicseries.com/files/page_113-2.png]

"AGGGH!" With a mighty battle cry, Cici slashes straight through the skin holding the last chain in place.

"Holy shit," you mutter. That's... a thing to note.

Her axe vanishes just as promptly as it appeared.

The chains, as though taking a life of their own, begin to crackle and flail. Though no longer attached to your dad's face, they're still hooked into the side rails that run along the (non-hostile) walls, and are still traveling alongside the boss proper.

Your dad's face, no longer hooked to anything,

does not come peeling off.

Instead,

it is suddenly sucked inwards.

Into the gaping hole that lies beneath.

"Cici, run!" You book ass, back to the pews, yanking Cici right out of the air and hauling her with you--you don't think she can fly as fast as you can run, and now is not the time to gamble on it.

"Gah!," she yelps, stuffed under your arm.

Lightning shoots past you in jagged bolts--in the heat of the moment, they seem to be coming from the corners behind you. The chains?

You narrowly avoid getting blasted as you duck behind a pew (many rows from the oncoming boss) with Cici in tow.

You peek out just long enough to see what you're dealing with.

[http://mda.thecomicseries.com/files/page_113-3.png]

"Fucking called it," you mumble. "Second phase." A void that consumes everything in its path, and a shriveled black heart dangling in its depths. You watch as whole pews are physically dragged toward the wall, then lifted into the air and sucked into the god damn nowhere. The wall continues to move forward, no longer resembling your dad, but the empty, miserable hollow fucking nothing that is his soul. There is no secret lesson to be learned, no hidden layers to your relationship with your dad. To know him, to understand him, is to be swallowed up by the bitterness and judgement that defines him.

He may wear a human face, but beneath it, there is no humanity. There is no compassion, no love, not even a genuine devotion to God--just a higher authority justifying his urge to see people unlike him be crushed and consumed. Everything and everyone is a resource or an enemy and he destroys both as casually as he exists. The more you push to get close to him, to find something else there, the faster the truth kills you. It never gets better. He only gets worse. The deeper you go, the blacker it becomes. It's nothing but a violent hate all the way down to a place nothing with empathy could survive.

The chains are no longer hooked to him--they've switched tactics from supplying him with ammunition to providing cover fire. They flail wildly, lashing out in random directions, sometimes firing a stray bolt of electricity. They mostly seem to focus on breaking up the pews, shattering them into thousands of pieces as they're flying toward the endlessly deep mouth of Father Warden Part II.

One whips straight at your direction; you pull yourself back behind the pew as it flashes its charge up, and narrowly avoid getting beamed right in the face.

"So, things I've learned," you tell Cici. "The wall is speeding up, the chains are shooting lightning now, and if we get too close to that hole we are not getting back out of it. It's sucking up whole fucking pews."

"I'm stronger than a pew," Cici points out.

"But you're not heavier than a pew," you comment. "If you could hold onto something sturdy enough you could get in range of that heart, but if you just go flying up to it I don't think you can flap fast enough to make it back out. I could hit with a fireball--"

You start to stand, and immediately duck back down to avoid another string of lightning.

"--But THAT'S happening. ...Did you make a fucking axe a minute ago?"

"Yeah!," Cici answers excitedly. "I thought it was just arrows, too! I guess I can make arrows OR axes!"

...Hmm.

Hmmmmm.

Still hiding behind a pew, you can hear the wall coming. You cleared the first part of the fight pretty damn effectively, so you still have about half the length of the sanctuary to work with. To repeat, you personally do not want to be within... oh, say, maybe 20 feet of the giant wall black hole entity that previously resembled your father. The little black heart in its "throat" is obviously a weak point, but it's located in what is ostensibly the throat, and those chains are running interference so nothing too solid gets that far into the Dad Hole.

"God," you mutter under your breath, "phase 2 is straight up garbo."

Cici laughs, barely audible over the sound of lightning bolts and exploding pews and the giant sliding vacuum wall. "I'm not too big of a fan myself," she says, "if we're bein' honest!"

Okay.

Deep breath.

You turn to Cici. "Can you make spears? ...Javelins?"

Cici aims away from you, and fires off a spear made of light. It doesn't go much farther than her arrows do. ...Really, it only reaches farther because it's longer, but its actual travel distance appears identical.

"Maybe if you manifested something to launch it," you suggest, "you can get more range! Can you make a ballista?"

Cici blinks. "Plaire, I work in a library. Not a museum! No I don't know how to make a dang ballista. I feel like YOU need to be the one that does the deed, anyway."

It's not something that's occurred to you, but you're willing to hear her out. "...Really?"

Cici nods. She has to sort of nod her entire body, but she still nods. "Your brain, your dad... it's symbolic or whatever! You NEED this. You clearly got a lotta shit you need to work through, this could be a good start!"

You chuckle dryly under your helmet. You nod back. "You know what--that's fair. What are you gonna do? I can't get a clean shot with all that lightning."

...And the wall is approaching quickly. It's getting faster by the second.

Cici thinks about it for a second--

and manifests a shield to hover just in front of her.

You grin. "THAT'S why your range is shit! You're a melee fighter, like a... a holy knight or something."

"Plaire," she says flatly, "I'm an egg."

Uncomfortably close now, you hear the chains firing their electrical blasts at a fresh row of pews--shattering them into smaller chunks to be sucked in and consumed by the nightmare version of your dad. As soon as you hear the surges, Cici shoots skyward and away from you, shield positioned between her and the wall; you pause for her to get the attention of whatever chains aren't still firing at pews, and then you dive out into the middle aisle.

"Come on you old piece of crap!," Cici yells, "I'm black AND gay! I know you gotta hate that!"

As you run out into the open, you're surprised that none of the chains are shooting at you--like... zero. You physically stop, staring down the giant hate filled hole in the oncoming wall, for the moment standing in absolutely no danger whatsoever.

You look back, and realize that all six chains are firing at Cici. Not just firing, but concentrating their blasts, shooting electricity directly at her as frequently as they can manage to charge up. She is, nonetheless, still holding her place in the sky--shield steady, fully formed. They can't touch her. She's fucking invincible.

God damn that is a bad ass egg.

"I'm startin' to feel that drain, Plaire!"

Oh, shit, right.

You hold your hand out, aiming directly at the boss's heart. You're pretty sure you could aim off to the side and have the vacuum suck the fireball in, but there's no point in gambling the mana.

Kill your dad [http://mda.thecomicseries.com/images/comics/194/43704a1592548465b3654f156792525.png]

You let loose an enormous green fireball, blasting yourself back down the aisle and landing firmly on your shoulder blades. You skid momentarily across the carpet, the air forced from your lungs. You manage to tilt your head up in time to see the shriveled black heart in the Dad Wall's gaping mouth be consumed and incinerated in a bright emerald blaze.

And then

the sanctuary, and everything in it, disappears in a wave of white light.

For a moment, you wonder if the boss just fucking exploded and took you out with it.

...But after a few seconds, the glow fades.

You are laying on the floor in a long sanctuary. About three fifths of the pews are missing or broken. The stained glass windows still present gross caricatures of you being tortured and murdered in various ways, the carpet is still a nasty, soiled green color, and the air is still oppressive as hell.

But, there is no longer a giant wall threatening to crush and/or rip you into the aether, so at least there's that. All that remains where Father Warden once stood is a bigger than average key sitting on the floor.

"Plaire!," Cici yells, flapping her way over to you. "We did it! We beat the boss!" She lands on the carpet beside you, finally getting to rest. "Man, you really hate your dad, huh?"

You sit up, and take your helmet off. You smile wearily, taking a moment to catch your own breath. "When I was young, I thought everyone was... complicated. You know, like--people are flawed, but everybody's doing their best, right? People who do terrible shit have their own reasons, their own logic, that makes sense to them. ...And I figured Dad was just old fashioned. He grew up in a different time. He's racist, sexist, homophobic prick but that's how he learned and he didn't know better."

You heave a small sigh, staring down the aisle at the large key.

You hesitate, but continue. "I got older, though. Dad got older, and while I tried to teach him, tried to make him realize how god DAMN ignorant he is about EVERYTHING, he only became more entrenched in his beliefs. ...Religious and otherwise. Gay people weren't just gross to him, my dad felt like he had a moral imperative to oppose the gay agenda. He didn't just DISLIKE immigrants, he started eating up all the conspiracies about them invading in caravans and spreading diseases and shit.

...And the more I tried to follow his train of thought, the more I tried to understand where he was coming from, the more I tried to actually fucking talk to him about it the more contradictory his logic became and the more he shut me the fuck out. The more I tried to meet him halfway, the more I tried to find a fucking human being under all his N bombs and queer this and faggot that the more he REFUSED. He refused to question his own outlook, he refused to analyze his own inconsistencies--like, if you have absolute faith that God will protect you, why do you carry a fucking gun?! God can cure cancer but he can't stop a burglar?

But mostly, he refused to god damn try.

"Plaire," Dad said, "You can't change me. You can't change other people."

...And that says everything, doesn't it? I wasn't trying to change him, I was asking him to fucking change. I was asking him to think about changing. I was asking him to try to be FUCKING BETTER!"

Your voice echoes off the walls of the sanctuary.

You're starting to break down into tears, but you don't care. Fuck it. You're already here and Cici's still listening. You keep going. "That's what cleared it up for me. That. Him. Villains are complex in fiction. Villains in movies are morally gray, doing bad for good reasons or visa versa. I used to think that pure evil, zero regret one dimensional assholes that just looove being pieces of shit were only fit for cartoons, but my dad...

he fucking proved me wrong. He changed my whole fucking outlook. He's evil and he's comfortable there. He's fucking vile, he's a god damn monster of a motherfucker and he... that's what he wants. That's where he enjoys being. He lives for the hate. He doesn't WANT to find out that, that everyone that's not JUST THE FUCK LIKE HIM are people, too. He WANTS the imaginary enemies, the hordes of mutant trans brown people grown in vats by the liberal media beating down the door in his head so he can wage God's war and be a holy fucking piece of shit hero. He doesn't want to understand, he doesn't want to meet halfway and call it a draw.

He has his opponents and he wants to fucking win.

He doesn't just want gays to become straight, he wants them to suffer. He wants them to be punished. They're the enemy.

I'm his enemy, now, and when he realized that... nothing changed. He offered to get me therapy, in lieu of moving out. Therapy. For being gay. Me, knowing full fucking well what his idea of therapy for THE GAY involves. He didn't even..."

You choke on the words.

The tears.

You curl into a ball. Cici hugs you, as best she can with wings for arms.

"He didn't even think about it.

He was ready to make that pitch. He was in a hurry to fix me, or throw me out on the fucking street. He didn't know I had been saving money. He didn't know I'd scouted out a cheap house, that I was fully prepared to move away and never look back. He thought I'd have nothing else to fall back on. ...He gave me an ultimatum, get tortured until I stop being a faggot or disappear and probably die. He didn't... he didn't even think. It was instant. It was easy. The words just... rolled out of his mouth."

You reach down, and sort of hug Cici back.

"So wait," she says, looking up at you. "He said YOU can't change people, buuut..."

"Yeah," you reply. "Like I said, he was contradictory as fuck. He'd tie himself into knots arguing against his own reasoning. My dad's the fucking... posterboy for cognitive dissonance. Logic didn't get him where he is, and he refuses to let it get him out. Immigrants are both lazy AND stealing all our jobs. Free speech is good, burning a flag is bad. Etcetera, etcetera. He just... he's committed. He's passionate about being a regressive bigot."

You heave a huge sigh, and look down at your helmet.

...And then at Cici.

"You were right," you finally admit. "I did need this."