It's rather pointless to ponder the exact etiology of Aggregates and Echoes alike.
Line 6 has tasked me with a thorough autopsy of the manifestations upon which we build our extermination business, something he thought I would be glad to undertake. While I do not exactly protest his decision, I wish he would come to a more reasonable understanding that I am not, in fact, a mind reader. He is asking me to understand something which the brightest minds barely seem to penetrate, a sort of self-referential introspection pointed outward at the epistemological composition of human nature.
If this is the part of a story where you're hoping for an epic battle, a sudden turning point, a triumphant revenge, you will find yourself sorely disappointed. Gorging on instant-gratification from digital pen-tips like a parched man with his gaping maw under a dripping beer barrel might be the reason why we're dealing with a plague of "dramatic" manifestations. I have yet to read the field report from Line 3, but it seems a mental contamination is slowly overtaking the city one self-insert at a time.
I've been getting too many calls from multiple "Chosen Ones" that either ask me to hide them from the evil king's gendarme, or to fess up where I've been hiding the sacred staff of St. Who-Cares. One girl insisted she is a fae living in a family of fae-hunters.
It's not just the young people either. A wife called on behalf of her husband, who is apparently a hardworking blue-collar foreman out there doing some mafioso shit in his suit and tie now - spilling chianti, chain-smoking expensive cigars, quoting Marlon Brando in every conversation. He did sound like he was having the time of his life when he threatened to ice me over the phone.
Some are more entrenched in their delusions than others. Symptoms range anywhere from having talking animal companions to having full-on demon-angel-succubus-vampire-werewolf-sorcerer heritage, children are convinced their parents died in a horrific dragon attack when they were five while the parents are out there wandering in a leather trench coat on a quest to avenge their dead kids. One estranged father revving down the highway in his new Harley-Davidson as a lone samurai got into an imaginary gun fight with his 13-year-old son who is currently the leader of the Resistance fighting the evil government drones, neither of them had weapons but they were both dodging a lot of bullets.
image [https://i.imgur.com/YzlwoIV.jpeg[/img]]
Line 2 is looking out the window of the staff breakroom as I'm typing. He makes the fifth noise of disdain he has made since this morning and shuts the blinds.
"Does it bother you?" I ask.
"It's pathetic." He hisses in his usual tone, "escapism is a fungal blotch upon the mind. It only serves to anesthetize."
"Maybe they're just having fun." I chuckle a little. It is kind of funny to hear how the fae girl has been hiding from the horses on her family farm since they're all equipped with iron horseshoes.
"We're the ones that have to stay behind in this festering reality and inoculate them against their delusions. Counterfeit exorcists calling me for holy water recipes, false alchemists with no grasp of transmutation attempting to summon golems, all manners of 'elemental mages' discovering their 'unique' approach to prima materia..."
image [https://i.imgur.com/NunUtBL.jpeg[/img]]
He peers down with disgust at the disoriented city streets - most of the morning traffic is setting sail for the lich king's lair, it appears.
"They want a break from their daily lives, Magnus. That's why so many people are affected by this...plague. It's a welcome change, if nothing else."
He doesn't flinch this time - he usually does when people unexpectedly call him by his real name instead of Line 2. I do it intentionally because I think he needs a reminder that he's more than just a job title. Besides, it's one of the few bits of his personal information I am privy to.
"Your phone is ringing." He finally says.
"Hello?"
"Hi, I was told you can teach me how to ride a flying sword?"
Oh, it's the wuxia kid again.
"Do you have a sword with you at the moment?"
"I'm waiting for the Forgemaster to make one, then I'll imbue it with the spiritual energy of the sages when I level up. Can you teach me the incantation to make it fly?"
Magnus, who is currently overhearing this conversation despite it not being on speakerphone, huffs derisively before stepping away.
"You're not ready for the trial of the sword yet." I give my gentle suggestion. "You must focus on meditating and finding your inner safe place. I want you to practice noticing your feelings and staying in the moment, because what you seek requires unwavering concentration and a strong spirit. Only through this path of enlightenment can you master the blade."
The kid mumbles something and hangs up. I hope I've at least bought her some tranquility before this plague clears. If nothing else she will spend her cultivation process in her bedroom listening to rain sounds and staying out of trouble, which means less work for us.
"She's going to jump off a balcony trying to fly." Magnus grumbles from the other end of the breakroom where the coffee machine is quietly whirring away. "You ought to cleave her delusion with that selfsame sword."
"They're not that different from my regular patients who have delusions. They deserve empathy, not a forceful hand that wrests them away."
"You serve to poison them."
The tone irks me. "Magnus, what is it with you and your allergy to life's little joys?"
He puts the mug of coffee down with the typical glare he uses to regard those he considers beneath him. Everyone at Aemeth Co. is subject to this glare, even Line 6. Even me.
"This is a shallow, mechanical reproduction of art and its aura upon which the mesolimbic reward pathway gorges itself, binging on satisfaction until the afflicted mind bloats within its utopia." He scoffs matter-of-factly, "but why would you understand that? Shall I explain 'The Conquest of Ubiquity' to you?"
"You're not special for reading Valéry."
"The first to fall in turmoil is always the pen." He spits out, then sulks off with his cold coffee to his lonely little office. In this way, he may be uniquely immune to this mental plague, bitter and jaded as he is. There's no fantasy that can fulfill his self-pitying needs, and turning him into a Chosen One would probably torment him further, which, ironically, makes him uniquely suited to combating the plague.
Everyone dreams of becoming someone, whether it's a mage with super special secret powers that make them extra-extra unique, or a mafia boss with enough wealth and authority to buy a whole casino. Magnus, however, seems to want nothing and covet nothing more than his desire to be alone, even if he constantly complains about his solitude as well. I think on what he says about the first to fall in turmoil - perhaps he's lamenting the perceived fall of literature, the same way he laments the loss of "cult of beauty" and "organ of technology", whatever those may mean.
"Are you upset to see others happy just because you won't allow yourself to be happy?" I call out after him.
He pauses in his steps, almost turns back, but disappears down the corridor without saying another word.
----------------------------------------
Mara calls me not long after to tell me she's stuck in traffic. Judging by the sound of it, she's been having a hell of a morning too.
"I'm really sorry. My mom thinks she has amnesia from a car accident, the kind you see in K-drama..." She stops to shut the bus window so the deafening car horns won't puncture both of our eardrums, "she's plotting revenge against her mother-in-law right now, you know, for disapproving of her marriage..."
"Does her mother-in-law disapprove of her marriage?"
A pause from Mara, then, "well, she passed away 5 years ago, so..."
Is Mara also immune to the plague? Perhaps the plague only affects those with an active imagination, and that would explain why there are far more children afflicted than adults. But shouldn't she be more susceptible to it than the rest of us miserable cogs in the Aemeth Co. machine?
"I'll talk to you later, Aruna. The Thieves' Guild is catching up to me."
(And there it is.)
"Mara, hold on. Where are you going?"
The call ends just as the imaginary rogues pursuing her are gaining ground. Things will become more difficult if our receptionist isn't present to route calls: no Mara means Line 6 will have to take charge again, which means an unhappy Line 6, which means overtime for all of us...
Someone has to go find her.
----------------------------------------
"I don't see how this calls for my attention."
As always, Magnus is determined to make things as difficult for me as possible. Not that he does it intentionally, but he does value his own time a lot more than other people's time, the egotistical asshole that he is. Or perhaps he's already so swarmed with work he refuses to spare a thought for our front desk receptionist off gallivanting on some mystical adventure.
"I need your help to find her, otherwise we'll be overrun with clueless customers."
"Ask Line 3."
I already tried, actually. Samiel has been called in to dispel the nonexistent dragon threat, which will undoubtedly put her in a sour mood - she was so excited to bring out the PTRS-41. Last we spoke she was caught up in some magical school entrance exam run by the high elves at the downtown giftshop.
image [https://i.imgur.com/wIlZ9p6.jpeg[/img]]
He falls quiet. We both know we can't rely on Line 4 or Line 5 for this sort of issue, and nobody at Aemeth likes to talk about the times we've had to employ their services. Not even Samiel, in all her chaos and indiscretion, compares to those two. I count it as a blessing I never had to deal with them directly, only through bureaucratic means have I had the chance to gauge their importance to Line 6 and our operations. Without Samiel's help, the task of finding Mara falls to us, and Magnus knows this too.
"Say we find her, Aruna, then what?"
"I'm thinking between the two of us, we have enough tricks to bring her back to reality. Then we'll go from there."
It's clearly not a satisfactory answer judging by the way he casts a side glance at me. I turn to leave without waiting for him. A few seconds later, I hear the quietest curses about working overtime as he runs out the door after me.
Outside, the city is embroiled in a daydream, from the construction workers-turned vampire hunters to two water pistol cowboys having a duel in a deli shop. The collective psychic paralysis makes transport almost impossible. The roads are overrun with action movie heroes reenacting chase scenes, and we can scarcely drive through an intersection without being stopped by some blockbuster stunt. Even the jaded elders that I thought would certainly be left out are, in a fit of supernatural vigor, reliving their best years and spending their time in the arms of departed lovers.
"Don't be ensnared by false hope." Magnus pulls me along the silent pavement, "lucidity is a mercy. This is a torture."
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Where are we going?"
"Gentle Springs Primary Care."
"Did you track the call, Magnus?"
He looks disgusted with me. His face always collapses inward whenever I ask him to "track the call", "enhance the image", or "hack the mainframe". It's one of my small pleasures to make him mentally bleed.
"It's the clinic closest to Mara's listed address that is still operational." He grumbles, "I will do away with the cognitive burden and spare you my analysis. But I am certain she's headed that way."
...Where her amnesiac mother is presumably living out her K-drama fantasies in the in-patient ward, being all vengeful with a dead mother-in-law. We have a good chance of running into Mara there, given that she hasn't ditched her initial mission to hide from the Thieves' Guild. I don't know what kind of adventure Mara is going through right now, but I hope it's at least a nice break from reality. She doesn't seem to dream much anymore these days.
"Doesn't this remind you of that one town in Dobrinja?" I ask Magnus, he just mutters something under his breath and carries on with the striding pace.
I know he feels it too, the pressure, he wants to outpace it. It's been on us since we left the building - dark dreams, pathological. If I have to define it as a sensation, it is akin to falling. In more professional terms: a breakdown of the mind's connection with its inputs and interpretations. Glimpses here and there of misperceived, but tempting phantoms swirl about; their lingering eyes, their sweet voices, their unwavering devotion. The road ahead dissociates itself from the city's concrete skeleton in fragments, decaying mental representation of visual gnosis dashed upon the rocks. I see myself sleepwalking.
"Dobrinja was much worse than this." Magnus's reply shoves me back into reality, "at least here, the people dwell on daydreams, not nightmares."
"So you do acknowledge the merit of daydreams over nightmares."
"I acknowledge the merit of wakefulness over daydreams." He cuts me off, and strides on as if hoping to leave this conversation behind.
I can’t help but slow. Something is peering at me through the gaps of this world, through between the lips of an unseen poet writing my lullaby. Words swim away from me out of reach. Is this what aphasia feels like?
Then, in the reflection of a closed-down boutique window, I see it again. The real Aruna.
image [https://i.imgur.com/H4s1g3I.jpeg[/img]] Vast as the ocean it embodies even in that brief glimpse within the shop window. Trick of the light and shifting shapes come together to piece the broken form of a dead god. "Digested", in Line 6's words. And now, just a reflection of the cold below, wreathed in kelp and nematocysts; it changes between an anthropomorphic personification made for temple worship, and an unrecognizable mass of bioluminescence. I've seen it in dreams and blurry selfies, but never closely enough to discern the details. The plague, the dutiful artist that it is, has recreated it through lights and shadows.
"You can be loved again." It calls out in the voice of whales and tides, "come back to me, and we'll be gods once more."
It always promises the same things, always speaking of a time when the sea comes back to claim everything, how we will have a kingdom where the glory of the old cities once stood. It promises a great cult thriving once more as it did in the days of Šuppiluliuma and Ḫattušili; endless ships shall sail in, hull weighed low in humility with offerings; smoke and music climbing high during the festivities in our name. But above all it promises unfailing sympathy, undying love.
"...ₐᵣᵤₙₐ..."
"Huh?"
A hand shakes my shoulder. "Aruna!"
I turn around to see Magnus, for once not frowning with impatience but with concern. I don't know how long I stood in front of that window before he snapped me back to reality.
"Sorry, I got distracted." I blink away the illusion, "false hope and all that. I know, I know..."
He just shakes his head and motions for me to keep following. I half-expected a lecture, but it never came from him.
A fog slowly begins setting in.
image [https://i.imgur.com/Yne1oXw.jpeg[/img]]
We pass by an old man lost in his rockstar days, strumming his unplugged electric guitar to a phantom audience. Only a withered rose and a few coins lie in his beat-up leather hat. I don't recognize the tune he's playing, but it must be something old and nostalgic, maybe Beatles?
Magnus tilts his head to listen for a brief moment, but soon moves on without sparing another glance at the old man.
"Do you know the song?" I ask him.
He hesitates. "No, never heard of it."
I don't press him for answers. I've heard him play it on the grand piano in the breakroom before, on late night shifts when he thinks everyone else went home for the day. He'll tell me when he's ready.
More dreamers and wizards, even a few ninjas. The pressure is building, digging into our skulls, scrounging up what few fantasies are left in the sober people and manifesting them. I lose time between steps, like my present self is a trail constantly being erased: I'm here, I'm gone, I'm in Izziya, I'm sinking in the waves. I'm forgotten, I'm loved, I'm hungrier than I have ever been. I hope Magnus doesn't catch me stalling behind to look into my reflections again, it would be embarrassing to admit that the glimpses this plague affords me are becoming...appetizing.
I have to think about something else, talk about anything else. "What do you think is behind this? The mæres? The Sandman?"
"Can't tell from just the symptoms." Magnus scans the people around us, "back in Dobrinja it was just one creature, But here..."
Too many people are affected, too many minds clouded. No matter what is causing this plague, its reach is beyond our reckoning. But the fact that Line 6 has not deployed any form of emergency countermeasure makes me believe it's hardly lethal. As if to confirm, the bright neon red of the hospital name pierces through the grey fog at us from just up ahead, an oasis of sanity in this storm. Unfortunately, a few of the ER technicians on call are busy casting spells at each other on the front lawn. Given the circumstances, I can't really judge them for it.
----------------------------------------
"How are we going to find her mother's room?"
Magnus is already heading for the in-patient ward's front desk computer. Lucky for us, their receptionist is also gone. A quick search with the last name Cypher tells us she is checked in at room B304.
There is a lone janitor sweeping the corridors at the entrance to ward B. She watches us go by without saying a word, then returns to focus on the square meter of floor in front of her. It feels worse to have seen her working here, for some reason, than for her to be out there instead.
Magnus looks back at her before moving on, his eyes lingering between her and their reflections in hallway windows.
We find room B304 with very little issue. Through the half-drawn curtains I can see Mara asleep by her mother's bedside, the latter's head dressed up in ridiculous amounts of bandages. I'm sure that if we gave the pre-round notes a cursory scan we would find very little in the way of an actual amnesia diagnosis, but it is still a relief to find our heroine and her mother both well - as well as can be said for them in this state.
image [https://i.imgur.com/32n3oRt.jpeg[/img]]
"There, that's your quarry. I'll leave you to it, Mesmer."
Magnus takes a step back to observe through the window, evidently not interested in trying. Inside, Mara is fast asleep in her chair, completely unharmed save for the few blades of grass sticking out of her hair. She shifts when she hears me push the door open.
"Where is..."
"Hello, Mara. How are you feeling?"
She lifts her head up from the bed and rubs at her sore neck, blinking away the sleep with the lost confusion of a small child abandoned at the mall. As recognition sets in, so do her tears.
"Where...is everyone?" She glances around the room, frowning, "We were in a tavern..."
I walk up to her and put a hand on her shoulder carefully. It doesn't seem to help.
"Jigsaw, Mav, Petra and...Mossy. We were travelling together...our party..."
The realization must hurt her quite a lot, the poor girl, her eyes are getting watery as she searches the blank room for her imaginary companions.
"We were going to Grauhafen to find a relic for my mother, it was supposed to be our adventure together...Jigsaw was our healer, a sun priestess. Mav was the biggest guy, our fighter. Petra was the scholar, and Mossy..."
"...Mossy?"
A sniffle, her voice chokes up a bit. "She was my best friend - we were all friends, the whole journey..."
The sniffling inevitably breaks down into quiet little sobs. I can do little else but sit with her and hope my presence offers some comfort, but I know it wouldn't compare to the days, months, or even a lifetime of adventure she's had in that imaginary world with her companions. Whoever Jigsaw, Mav, Petra and Mossy were, their companionship was most certainly real to her. At least the dream has ended without much work on my part.
"We spent so much time together...do you believe me? I know they weren't real, but...does it sound dumb? To miss people that never existed? Because they were my friends? Or at least, they made me feel like I have friends again..."
image [https://i.imgur.com/tSLJ0BB.jpeg[/img]]
"...Like going back to a home that you never lived in, or looking for a face in a crowd that you used to recognize?"
"It's not dumb. It makes sense."
Her arms jolt for a moment before she tentatively hugs me. I feel her warm tears soaking through my dress. Mara awkwardly breaks away from the hug just as quickly a few seconds later.
That's when I see it.
The colossal thing in the sky that I didn't see before, when we were busy hurrying through the city streets. Now I can see its silhouette clearly through the second-story window. Magnus must see it too, because he's leaning against the entrance doorframe, eyes fixed on that shadow beyond the panes of misted glass.
image [https://i.imgur.com/7j6100o.jpeg[/img]]
It looms, shifting with the clouds, that incorporeal head fading in and out of view with the rising gloom. Its ethereal body is painted in eldritch patterns like ripples beneath a frozen lake, along the upside-down head that resembles a heavily distorted jester. The fog and city smoke finally coalesce into rain, blurring out the rest of its body. The rain is a mercy - it's acidic to look at, burning the retina, turning the very light reflecting off it hostile. Thin tendrils scattered like split strands of hair leak into every corner of the city, siphoning the dreams up out of the sleepwalking dreamers. Had the sun been brighter, I'm certain we would see the rest of its body stretching up into the sky for miles and miles.
"It's an oneirophage." Magnus remarks, "haven't seen one of those since 1917."
(A familiar date marked in our archives, one that Line 6 has mentioned to me in passing. What was its significance again?)
"Wait, that's around the time of the-"
"The encephalitis lethargica pandemic? Correct." He brushes past me and Mara to peer out the window. "That one was a matured adult. This is only a juvenile."
But the sheer size of that thing, the vastness of its tendrils...
"This one isn't fully grown?"
"It's a good thing. It gives us time to prepare for when it does return."
Mara glances between the two of us with burning questions, but she doesn't ask. One by one, the tendrils outside begin to withdraw from the city, as if the thing has fed enough. The strange mist and rain begin to lift alongside it, unraveling this curse upon us. The pressure, the hooks, the digging all vanish slowly into the pale sunlight.
Magnus leaves the room without a word.
Mara wipes her face clean, puts on the customer service smile she always wears. "I just...need a minute to get my mom home, is that okay? I'll come back to work as soon as she's discharged..."
"Take your time." I give her a quick pat on the shoulder for good measure. "We'll be outside."
----------------------------------------
Magnus is waiting in the hallway, staring into the window with his arms folded. Outside, we hear the city waking up - we have our work cut out for us for the next few days.
"Maybe it's not such a bad thing for them to dream once in a while." I approach him, to which he regards with his characteristic scowl. "Without the presence of an extra-dimensional psychic thoughtform, of course. Is that why you were so opposed to their fantasies?"
Quiet contemplation. "No, but nonetheless it hurts to wake up."
"We all have to wake up at some point, Magnus. Dreaming is what makes us human."
He sighs in resignation., the same kind of sigh that signals he's going to isolate himself in his lab for the next week. Except this time, I notice that look on his face before he turns away from the glass window - he must've caught something in its reflections too. Because that look, which I've never seen on Magnus before, wasn't a look of rapture or elation. It was...haunted.
image [https://i.imgur.com/GplzL43.jpeg[/img]]Nothing is more dangerous than a man devoid of dreams or fantasies.
My report to Line 6 won't be a pressing concern; both the oneirophage and its consequences upon the city have no long-term bearing on our operations. While the biology of this creature - if it even possesses a structure that can be understood through our primitive foray into biology, cannot be directly researched, its etiology as a mental phenomenon is far less complex. I am confident in my preliminary assessment that the oneirophage isn't drawn to those idling in imagination, despite its name and all the implication that carries. No, it is drawn to the solitude of longing, those with unrequited, unfulfilled yearnings. Dissatisfaction, not the mind's wandering fancy, is the lure which they chase after.
(In what sulci of my mind has the oneirophage peered into, in order to unearth the chronic wanting that cloths the other Aruna? In what hell did Magnus see himself, with his wishes all fulfilled and his life complete? Are we still us if we obtain what we've wanted all this time?)
These are questions that must be answered before the oneirophage returns. But for now my pen is tired, I must rest, and our dear receptionist is waiting for a friendly face at her work desk.