>> Within The Within

## Polybius neuroNode [44-B] set to mode :: [Dream Observer]

## Auto Interrupt Trigger :: [Activated] by [Nightmare]

## Memory Injection Sequence :: [Primed]

## Loading Extracted Memory :: [Badger 3a]

## ….

## Location :: [UNKNOWN]

## Memory Integrity :: [74%]

## Memory Degradation Profile (MDP) rating :: [8.32k]

## Memory Estimated Age :: [6.5] Years

## Estimated Date :: Between [December] [26th] and [January] [4th]

Dark, polished, oak gleams in the dim emberlight of the fire. Every flicker shining on the old, old, wood of my father’s office as its flames slowly sinking into ash. Real oak panels glimmering against real stone walls. An old velvet sofa smushed against a great stone pillar, fatter than me.

It gleams in the shining mahogany lacquer of the roll-top writing desk, pressed against one corner. Jammed open by piles of old tomes bound in fabric and cow-leather, thick as slabs. Real paper, from real trees, all pressed between covers of red and green and blue. With my father’s 'big desk' sat across the space beside it. Framed by a cluttered old bookcase, littered with papers and novels and little wooden model animals…..

Perfectly beautiful. Perfectly illegal.

I jump as the holo in the fireplace resets with a WOOSH of new life. Burnt logs reforming from ash and glowing coal. Yellow light spilling to wash across the ancient room.

We could hardly burn real wood, after all. They're not making any more of it.....

But still it warms me, with its electric heat and synthetic scents of smoky wood. Curling me up in my fuzzy red Christmas Sack - like a plush, warm, sleeping bag. My hidden hands clutched around my two real presents.

My precious new toys.

One is deep gold, lit by sparkles of festive light that shift between my fingers. So deeply polished you can see the whole world in it. A hilt, with a folding blade, that gleams as I peek at it once more. Cut with fine traces and patterns.

It’s very, very, sharp! And I gotta be super careful!

But I earnt it, Joan says, for finding my new little friend.....

And the blade itself so special. Not because it's made of special strong metal from the 'old world'.... though it is! But because it was made by my old father Joan, with his old weathered hands. I snip it open, and shut - not having much to do with it just yet.

Sharpen my pencils?

No! That would ruin it!

So I put it back down, very carefully, and start to draw with my other toy. My new brass pen, twinkling with gold. Why do I love drawing circles, all perfect and exact? Colouring them in, and dreaming up all sorts of nonsense names. Like ‘Saturn’, and ‘Pluto’. ‘Venus’, and ‘Ai’adün’…. Connecting them up with neat curving lines….

I have so many pictures, each one different….

Giggles and pattering feets behind me, and a little black boy tumbles onto my lap! Crawling up my leg to pat at my face with two grubby lil hands. He really seems to love me!

“POOOK! POOK!!”

I pet his fuzzy lil’ head, and he tries to grab the pen. “Awww, someone wants to draw?” I purr so gently - so careful not to say bad words as I pick him up. “Look! Look! Your crayons!”

I put him next to me on the ‘baby sheet’ with his waxy colours, and use one to draw him some circles. Lovely circles. The boy is super happy just to join in, attacking the paper with fists full of bright green crayon. I touch his hand with careful claws, and guide it in a circle like mine. “See! That’s how!” I smile at him, and he beams back! His whole face lighting up! I already know I’ll call him my little brother - if anyone asks!

Oh! I hope they do!

Baby Badger pats his left hand on the paper, and it burns with sudden shadow. Flickering. Warping in and out of existence. Withering off into a stump, and growing a rough metal cyber-connector.

But that’s wrong. It’s WRONG! It’s…..

That's not what happened! Badger didn’t get that until…. No. I didn’t even call him Badger then! I called him Toby! I named him that too! After I found him all mucky at-

## WARNING :: [Memory] [Synchronisation Error]

## Auto Interrupt Trigger :: [Activated] by [Memory Cross Contamination], [Banned Memories], [Nightmares]

## Synchronisation :: 23%

## Recalibrating…..

The memory rips open into darkness. Into running, and screaming, and Badger's desperate cries. A sobbing that echoes through walls and windows.

Burning through The City to snatch at my ears. To twist them toward him.

My small hand reaches out as I run - toward the sobbing. Hearing him over the crowd that slams in around me, blocking my path. I leap onto all fours, and the world shifts into a forest of mile-high ankles. Kicking shoes. Clawed toes. Heavy tails. I blast through it all, and-

-suddenly-

-I break free.

Tumbling out, onto a circle of ruby red carpet. A field of blood that pours endlessly from between my fingers. My feet. Reddening my skin.

## WARNING :: [Wakefulness Imminent]

## Synchronisation :: 28%

## Memory Injection Sequence :: [Primed]

## Loading Extracted Memory :: [Badger 3a]

## WARNING :: [Memory] [Rejected By Host]

## Stimulating Hormone Mix :: [Nostalgia], [Peace], [Joy]

## Recalibrating…..

Blood. So much blood. Pouring around my legs. Images flashing and-

“Badger! Badger!” I scream as the ground crumbles into starry dark beneath my feet. His wails turning shrill as The lights of The City form in the void beneath me. Dragging my body with terrible gravity, as I leap from crumbling stone to stone. The ground vanishing. My claws ripping trails in the blood as I try to swim my way towards….

The market. That market….

The market with the red, red carpet….

## WARNING :: [Dreamspace] undergoing [Total Structure Collapse]

## WARNING :: [Heartbeat Elevated] at [73.5bps]

## Synchronisation :: 20.2%

## Attempting :: [Reversion Protocols]

“BADGER!! BADGER!!!” I plead with the dark as his pitiful, babyish, wails rip through my heart. Hands of ink tearing my legs from under me. Though I feel weirdly calm. Strangely happy. Even as the nightmare drags me down, and down, to fall and fall and fall......

I never make it.

I never do.

The pale hallway collapses beneath me, and I tumble.

Badger screaming.

I see him. I see him….

But I cannot reach him. He falls, upwards, and-

## Reversion Protocols :: [Success]

## Synchronisation :: 68%

## Memory Injection Sequence :: [Primed]

## Loading Extracted Memory :: [Badger 3a]

My art supplies crash back into existence, and there’s a wiggly Badger in my arms! No, Toby! His name is Toby! And he flails all ten of his titchy lil fingers as his new father swoops to pick him up!

I smile up at Joan. Big as a building. Father to us all. The bearded old man, in the dark robes, who saved us! Who raised us!

I’m mad we gotta share him with so many kids…..! Too many! But he’s mine most of all!

Or that’s what it feels like…..

I hug his leg, and Toby giggles as he’s dangled upside-down! Like that’s The Funniest Thing Ever! “Oh my, now have you been playing with Spook?” He chuckles so gently.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“POOK!!!” Toby yells, flailing happily.

“Ahaha yes, that’s right!” Joan bounces and tickles baby Toby with his beard - a dozen memories shifting and blurring together. I’m blowing raspberries on Tob’s belly, and he’s laughing like he’ll explode from giggles! Then I’m chasing him down the hall! Then we’re building blocks, and knocking them down!

Oh it’s wonderful!

## Detecting :: [Subconscious Event Linkage]

## Event Rating :: [Positive]

## Natural Memory Transition :: [Accepted]

Time shifts again, and Christmas wreaths melt from the walls. The room twitching around us, as Joan lays a slightly bigger Toby out on the baby changer.

“Pwooor!!! What a stinky nappy! Stinky!” I tease to keep the toddler happy and giggly as Joan cleans him up. Putting on a new one, and buttoning him up. “YEAH!! There we go! All done!” I cheer as Joan disposes of the bio-hazard, and washes his hands. “No more stinky! Off it goes to nappy Heaven!”

“Much happier now, aren’t you little bit?” Joan twinkles over the little kid, squishing his lil nosie to make him laugh. “And oh look! What’s under your elbow? Right here? Can you see?” He points as the curious little boy lifts his arm, and I giggle. “Look, look! Can you see what’s under there?” Toby, of course, lifts it higher….

And Joan tickles his armpit!

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” Toby squeaks, and I laugh so hard. Tickling Toby myself and swooping him up into a hug.

“Best little brother! Best little brother! Even if you’re super stinky!!!”

“POO!!” Toby makes a face.

“That’s right! Big stinky POO!!!!”

“YAH!! Yucky yucky!!!” A little tongue peeks.

“Yeah!!!” I hug him tighter, and-

I’m crying? Why am I-

## Detecting :: [Memory Cross Contamination]

## Detecting :: [Subconscious Event Linkage]

## Event Rating :: [Traumatic], [Extremely Negative]

## Auto Interrupt Trigger :: [Activated] by [Nightmare], [Corrupted Memory]

## Stimulating Hormone Mix :: [Nostalgia], [Comfort]

## …..

## Detecting :: [Subconscious Event Linkage]

## WARNING :: [Unknown Memory]

## Event Rating :: [Positive], [New]

## Natural Memory Transition :: [Accepted]

## Memory Capture Systems :: [Activated]

## Capturing :: [New Memory 0001]

The office swirls again….. and….. suddenly…..

“IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!” And Toby is four! He’s wrapped in my arms, and I hug him real tight! Joan is going to show us something special! Just for us! And it’s really cool! Something in the huge clunky ~ mysterious ~ safe behind his desk! I bounce on the pads of my clicking clawed toes, dancing all about - this way and that! Toby all big eyes and wide mouth as father brings out….

….a mysterious thing!

Under a mysterious sheet!

A present! A present!?

He whips the cloth away to reveal…..

Burnished darkness - deeper than black, deeper than void. A midnight cube, all slithering with strange golden sigils. With gleaming traces of cryptic old writing. Shining and sucking the light, like nothing I’ve seen….

I step back.

“Wha? What’s that?” I frown, a little unsettled.

## Assessing :: [Unknown Artefact]

With great reverence, Joan places the eerie cube upon the desk. Pressing his palm to its surface, like the relic of a twisted saint. And then, his fingers flicker. Pulling…. from nothing at all…. a darkly golden key.

Like a little magic trick.

“Why don’t you count the locks for me, as we go?” He smiles, encouragingly, and slots it into the hole. Turning it three whole times.

Gears and clockwork tick and click.

“One!” I breathe, in a deeply hushed little voice, as Joan splits the cube open on a hinge too fine to see. Revealing another little keyhole - right on the join, where no keyhole should be. “Two.” I breathe as it clatters and clacks. The box unfolding to reveal…. More box. “Three….” ….and more box! And more! And more! “Four…. Five…. Six….” Joan unfolds, and unfolds, the strange - strange - cube….. and there's no limit to it. It grows, and it grows - shifting with gears of gold, and crystal, and pure swirling light. With mazes of clockwork, miles deep into the machine. Deeper than anything should be…..

Tick, tick, tick…..

## Artefact Identity :: [Unknown]

## Artefact Tier :: [Anomalous], [originTek]

## Polybius neuroNode [44-B] :: Spook, this memory is not in our dataBank. Are you attempting to show me something? You never mentioned this device. What is it?

Shining strands of rainbow light unfold from the machine, twisting and humming with faint little tones. With smells I don’t know, sweet and honeyed. I stutter, nervously, swinging my tail as the cube keeps unfolding. And unfolding. And unfolding….. Into an obsidian door, woven with clockwork and strange little letters. Gleaming. Dark. And filled with unknowable reflections. With images I can’t quite grasp…..

…. as if they don’t really want to be seen….

“HECKIN’ WOAH!!!” I gush as motes of light leap from its pitch-dark core. Thrumming around us, and darting here and thro. My hands slapped to my mouth - coz I said a Bad Word in front of Toby! My father barely notices, reaching out to press that key - flat - into the surface of the stone…..

Click.

Key and holder drop, backwards, into the surface…. and split. Cleanly in two. Sections of clockwork door unfurling, and unweaving, in a complex dance of cogs and tiny parts. Each so perfect they fit without join or mark or rattle.

“WOAH! But it’s magic! It’s magic!” I jitter with glee - getting right up close, to almost touching.

“Magic, might be the word.” Joan chuckles in a tone as soft as glugs of Christmas rum over fat plummy pudding. “The new folks like to call it ‘originTek’, but that's not what it is. And it’s not I want to show you…..” He waves me over, and I carry a rather stunned Badger up to the table - his lil brown eyes all huge and goggling!! “Look….” Joan breathes, as the final sections of the door fall away. “Look inside….”

## Polybius neuroNode [44-B] :: Spook, I am detecting unknown brain activity.

It’s a magical gateway to another world….

A shining archway, ringed with colours and light. With shadows and swilling dark. With ticking gears and pulsing crystals. Right there in front of me…..

Stood tall and proud on Joan’s old desk.

And inside…..

…..is a midnight forest….

A forest twisted with roots and dusty little paths. With trees bigger than towers. Bigger than…. anything. With little blue flames, flickering in the dark above. And bowers filled with books and scrolls. With pages and papers, wrapped up in ribbons. And all tiny bottles, filled with bubbling light….. All tucked away on shelves grown into the trunks and roots themselves. Dry and papery confetti from the trees spilling over them in waves….

A Library Forest…..

Motes of shining light dip from scroll to book to bottle, as if they’re searching. As if they’re all alive. Dancing between pillars of wood as thick as towers…..

All of it contained within in that single, strange, wonderful, amazing, impossible, arch…..

## Assessing :: [Unknown Artefact]

## Possible Identity :: [The World Key], [The Nowhere Portal], [The Gatestone], [The Shaterlight Door],

## Artefact Tier :: [Anomalous]

## Artefact Type :: [Spacial] [Dimensional] [Temporal]

## Artefact Threat Rating :: [Unknown]

## Estimated Threat Rating :: [Extreme]

## …..

## Assessing Entity :: [Joan]

## Age :: [Unknown]

## Aliases :: [Unknown]

## Location :: [Unknown]

## Threat Rating :: [Unknown]

## Estimated Threat Rating :: [High]

## Accessing Local Databanks….

I reach out, into the portal, and touch the dusty ground that merges with the wood of the desk. Digging in with curious claws, and letting it spill between my fingers. “Woah……” I reach in deeper. Deeper. Feeling the strange ‘carpet’ of papery shapes that flows about everywhere, like lost pages of lost books. All yellow and red and brittle with age…..

They crackle in my fingers, and turn to dust.

“Those are called ‘leaves’, I think.” Joan smiles behind me, wrinkles creasing his old face until it could be paper too! “Go on! It’s safe!”

## Target Entity :: [Joan] is [not found]

## Widening search parameters….

## WARNING :: [Anomalous Energy Signature] detected from [entity] [Spook]!

## Polybius neuroNode [44-B] :: Your mind is reacting very strangely. We will need to end this dream, for safety reasons.

## Attempting :: [Full Override]

## ….

## Override Failed :: [Unknown Error]

## Requesting Intervention :: [Polybius Core Mind]

## Attempting :: [Wakeup]

## ….

## Override Failed :: [Unknown Error]

## Polybius Core :: This is not a normal memory.

‘Leaves’ crack and crackle between my hands, as I crouch on the edge of the shadow-twisted Forest. Eyes wide, and ears pricked high as my tail slips back and forth. The ground is soft as dust between my fingers and toes. Toby struggling to climb up the desk get inside! Joan picks him up, and sets him behind me. Shushing him gently, and calming him down.

But I hardly hear.

Before I know it, I’m climbing inside. Soft dust on my knees, and papery things crunching between my fingers. I take three steps - soles sinking into soft, papery, folds….. Another step, and I still I haven’t fallen through whatever holo is hiding the edge of the table….

Which can only mean…..

….it’s real……

I pick up one of the leaf-things, and twiddle it by the stem. Eyes so wide and full of curiosity. It’s like something alive….. With all little veins and…….

Toby scurries up, and hugs my leg from behind!

“POOK!” He squeaks.

“Now watch this….!” Joan chuckles through the open poral behind us, and for a second I panic that he’s gonna shut us in! But then he does something totes amazing!

He picks up the WHOLE BOX with ME inside it!

The whole outside whirling and rotating around Joan, while he stays still!! I giggle and gasp as he puts the doorway on the floor.

Leaping back out, I squeal and jump!

“It’s moved! Really really moved! With us inside! And I didn’t even feel it!!! It’s really real!!!” I cheer as Toby patters after me! Giggling an hugging at my legs! But we don’t waste a second in running back in! And out! And in again, as Joan turns the portal all around! “It’s so amazing! So amazing!!!”

With an old man’s chuckle, Joan shakes his head. “Oh, you’ve hardly seen the beginning - never mind the end.” He smiles at us fondly, and takes up my hand. “Come on, lets take a look!”

We don’t wait a second more creeping deep into Joan’s world-in-a-box, the way little kids do. I gasp, and giggle - thinking it’s a dream. Such a dream! With every-colour lights that slip away, between the trees. Behind the leaves. Shy as can be, but curious too. Hovering right on the edges of the dark. Never close enough to really see, or touch. But humming their gentle spun-glass tones, as Toby explores the crackly things on the ground. Picking up great handfuls, and throwing them about.

“Those are leaves!” I tell him, like I’m suddenly the expert.

He tries to eat one, of course! Silly cub!

Wait, do hoomans say ‘cub’?

I’m not worried about that though - I’m busy staring up into the velvet dark, all softly lit with colour. With tones and lights and strange little curves. With soft, narrow, paths that wind between the roots of trees. Past arches stuffed with books and stranger things. With skulls, and branching horns, and curios that shine with inner light…..

Secrets in the warm and cosy dark.

So many secrets…. Secrets upon secrets…..

And above….

“They once called that the sky.” Joan whispers, pointing between the thick-wound branches. “Though you can hardly see it from here. And it….”

“Circles…..” I whisper, pointing up at a great sphere of coloured light. So distant, and nestled between the leaves. As if you could reach up and touch it. “They look like my circles!” They’re so beautiful….. like gems. They glow, warm and alive.

I wonder what they are…..

Toby climbs up into my arms, though he’s getting really heavy for that now! A Joan takes my shoulder, as we whisper away on our own REAL adventure! Treading softest moss on deep-bored roots, as all the excitement brews and bubbles inside. Though I never dare let out any more than a murmur. A whisper. Or ask the many questions burning in my heart.

Not here. Not now.

The silence is sacred, in this place. I can feel it.

The air itself whispering of unknowable things. Of magic in lost books, hidden on those strange wooden shelves. Of runic bones, wrapped up in ivy. Of potions buried in the dusty soil….

Where are we? What is this?

And what will happen next…?

“Look upon them, Spook.” Joan whispers in my twitching ears. “Breath in the sap and woody smells. And horde the memories tight to your chest. Tighter than your own heart…..”

And so I do, as we wend our way down uncertain paths. Along dusty ledges, cut into the bows of trees, the sides of logs, and in and under their roots. Along cliffs lined with strange, still, plants, and so many doors and hidden cupboards. Touching the edges of yellowed vellum scrolls I would never dare to open…. At bottles, and tinctures, and leathery old tomes…. All bundles of bones, and great big horns…. Bags of rough gems, cut and polished to glittering…..

Am I a wizard - like in that old story?

Oh! I hope that I am!

Polybius Core :: Spook. I need you to wake up.

Polybius Core :: Something has gone extremely wrong.

> > >< < <