ATTEMPT PLAYBACK

SCENARIO CONCEIT: No Death.

There's a dream I often have, or perhaps the better term would be a sprouted memory; like a potato left too long in the sack. Something that's both rotting and evolving at once, striking and revolting in equal measure.

I'm walking upon a frozen lake. It's very dark - so dark that I barely make out anything except the stars and the distant outline of fir trees at the far terminus. My only source of light is a candle, which serves to illuminate little more than my own clothing - a set of thick wool trousers and a heavy coat - and the ice below.

It's very, very cold, too. The kind of cold that makes you tired, where every step you take feels like that first one out of bed in the morning. Have you ever felt tired in a dream? You wouldn't think it possible, but I assure you, it is. I often feel like I'm working harder while I'm dreaming than during my waking hours, personally.

As I walk forward, I hear something cry out. I can't discern if it's a human or an animal... perhaps it even differs depending on the instance in which I'm having the dream. Still, there's always something of a feral quality to it. It howls, pleading, desperate, but also with a note of anger and indignance, like an overly-coddled babe left too long unattended. The ground seems to tremble slightly in tandem with its screaming.

I don't like the idea of following the sound. I feel spent, frightened, and apathetic about whatever is out there in the first place.. But suddenly I feel as though I'm being watched - judged, perhaps, by some unseen observer - and to simply walk away would not be permitted, or even met with punishment. Every so often, I'll have a version of the dream where I do find the courage to flee, and usually it ends with strange, noir-cloaked persons emerging from the shadows to molest me. Though there are (even more seldom) times where the logic of the dream breaks and it simply ends then and there, which is, I suppose, the golden ending.

That's not how it happened on that morning, however.

I proceed towards the noise, my whole body starting to tremble feebly from some combination of the cold and fear. As I do, I start to hear another sound on top of the cries. That of sloshing and splashing water.

Ssrrssh.

Srrsh, plck, plck.

Ssrrrssh.

It's familiar, somehow... but in the moment I can never place it.

Nightmares are always like that, aren't they? Or any delusion, really. One must assume the human mind is simply riven with little black holes by nature. Once you're beyond their event horizon, you can't see them any more, and you're simply forced to play by the new set of rules. Like it or lump it.

I get closer, until the shouts are such bedlam they make my ears ache. Finally, I'm close enough for the edge of my candlelight to dance on my destination. There is a hole, it turns out, in the frozen lake, not of the rounded nature you'd normally picture but rather thin and ragged, like someone had stabbed the waters with a giant dagger. The source of the sound turns out to be a figure inside, but I'm not yet close enough to make out their face. Strangely, despite the sound of the thrashing on the approach, they appear perfectly still once I'm able to make them out. They're situated at the edge of the ice, clinging to it tightly, but otherwise appearing to be making no attempt to escape by their own strength. They simply wait for me, howling more and more ferociously, demandingly. Like every moment I do not help them is the foulest betrayal.

So I step closer to them.

And I see their face looking up at me expectantly. And suddenly I'm overcome with a strange emotion.

Because this person... man or woman, it's not of any particular consequence... I can instantly tell what they are.

They're a human being. A normal human being. They have eyes, and a nose, a forehead and a chin. They have skin all across their body and hair growing from their scalp. And they have a mouth through which they're letting out those cries, with red lips and a red tongue - red like strawberries and roses and blood.

And suddenly - through some queer bound of subconscious acumen - I come to a horrifying inference: I'm not like them. Their humanity, or rather their personhood, is so undeniable that it exposes the farce which is my own by comparison. They fit into the world, a piece of a machine performing its proper function with bespoke, self-evident grace, while I persist as a defective component at best, and at worst, a clog of some altogether alien matter. They have countless things I will never possess, can never possess, simply in being.

There is no disputing this notion. It's simply a self-evident fact, written in our respective flesh. And the question is thrust upon me: What am I, then? A doll? A homunculus? Something baser still, conjured of this person's imagining?

And suddenly the tone of their screams and the expectant look makes all too much sense. Despite being in this precarious position, that is only a fleeting product of circumstance. The fact of the matter is, they're simply a higher being than me. I can only hope to exist at their service. That's all I'm fit for.

Shame fills me at first. Smallness, weakness. Yawning despair that I can never be like them. Not even were I to live until the Tower of Asphodel failed and the world turned to dust.

And then, something else. Anger. Bitterness. Seething, overflowing resentment. What right did the world have to place me in such a position? Don't I deserve what this person has?

It was unfair. Ridiculous, even. Absurd. I had accomplished so much. What had they done that made them so deserving? A mediocre individual amidst an ocean 20 billion strong, an irrelevant little fleck whose contribution to the world could probably be measured in the carrots they picked for some local aristocrat's prestige traditional farm?

It's just... not fair.

The coldness of the air reaches into me, and something within me turns cold, in turn. I look down at their fingers on the ice. Turning red from the cold, like their howling maw.

And I step on them.

When they don't let go, I step again. And again, and again. But it's just no good. Some rule of the dream protects them from harm. Their flesh won't split, their bones won't crack. And they just keep on screaming. Louder and louder, with ever greater judgement.

Sometimes - more often, as time has gone on - the scenario ends here, cutting off or distorting into something altogether different. But on occasion it goes further. Sometimes the ice beneath my feet starts to crack, and I find myself running to escape the expanding breach. My candle falls to the water, and in the light I see countless figures beneath. My family, the friends of my youth. I recoil in horror, and they cry out, grabbing at my clothes, pulling me down with them into the dreadful, icy deep.

I struggle, but I can't even reach the surface. I sink, and I sink, until all I can see is their faces, staring at me from every angle. Filling me. Suffocating me.

...

Well. That's the little interpretation I've constructed, suffice it to say.

After all, dreams don't really work that way in practice, do they?

They're nothing but spasms of false cognition where the detached conscious mind meets the unconscious process of memory preservation. The idea that they form coherent narratives at all is something we merely construct in retrospect.

Yes. Contrary to popular perception, one might even put it that the dreams we recount say far less about some deep-seated, repressed side ourselves, and more about our rather banal, everyday thoughts.

I awoke to the sound of the water-clock by my bedside sounding its obnoxious alarm. The dream, which in at least my impression was reaching its usual 'conclusion', quickly dissolved. I shot out an arm to silence the thing-- I'd grown used to not needing one, the sound of the city coming to life still enough of a novelty to my mind to stir it, yet on this occasion I'd been up late enough with work and anticipation of the weekend to follow that this had not happened.

...well, that, or perhaps I was finally getting used to living here.

I liked that thought. The idea that I'd finally become accustomed to the ambient rumble of horse hooves, carriage wheels and golem marching, and the omnipresent mechanical systems that maintained the city. That it was all as natural to me as the howl of the mountain wind, or the cry of robins and wrens.

And that perhaps, in time, those sounds would be overwritten outright. Like a coat of paint over an ugly set of wallpaper.

My eyes were bleary and unwilling, but I forced them open, my gaze greeting the dorm room in which I resided. It wasn't much, to be quite frank. Other than the wooden dresser, single bed, somewhat run-down bronze desk which had come with the place, almost every square inch was occupied with my things, stored in - shall we say - a manner that prioritized floorspace economics over aesthetics. The best of my clothing and makeup colonized the dresser and my favorite and most pivotal books the desk, but the lion's share was in chests and trunks lining the periphery.

It felt somewhat suffocating, but I didn't want to get rid of it. Not out of sentimentality; that is one vice I very much don't suffer from, mercifully. But rather, if you paid close enough attention, there was simply a use for too many things. When I threw things away, I too often found myself in want of the perfect outfit to cultivate a desired impression, the right book to illuminate knowledge I could only half-recall, the right ­document to put the lie to something glossed-over.

I'm sure that sounds rather neurotic. But spend long enough in an active mindset, an enterprising mindset, and it's impossible not to see the world as a series of systems and means of manipulation.

What I'm saying is that hoarding is simply the logical end-point of empiricism.

...don't give me that look. I'm quite serious, thank you very much.

I stared up at the ceiling. The dream had left me out of sorts, as usual. My heart thumped with a piercing, overwhelming anxiety, and I felt a sense of awful fragility that was quite unlike me. That made the idea of even getting out of bed feel overwhelming, as I might collapse under my own weight.

But I had a process for dealing with this sort of thing. A mantra, if you like.

I'm no evolutionary biologist (nor an anthropologist, heavens forfend) but like anyone else, I know this much: At the advent, humans lived as any other beast. One with the Earth, roaming about its body and eating its skin, until they expired and sunk back into that skin themselves. An ouroboros circling without end, going nowhere, yet unable to meaningfully perceive - and so, in a sense, free from - their own suffering.

Does that sound nice? People have always imagined so, of course. Primitivism is hardly a novel social phenomenon. Even the ancients spoke fondly of the reign of Kronos, however many infants he was recalled to have consumed. (Good people, primitivists-- Quite bonkers, of course, but often generous and pleasant on the personal level... at least the ones who've given the thought to consciously adopt the philosophy. It's the ones who buy into the same beliefs but don't use the label that you have to watch out for.)

Once the Old Kingdom's Era first blossomed in the fertile crescent and the Andean Mountains, it took a while for the other shoe to drop regarding this change in relationship. Setting aside religious scripture, perhaps the earliest point you could say it was 'observed', or rather taken as a given, was in the writings of the philosopher Protagoras. You probably know him by his famous paraphrased aphorism, 'man is the measure of all things'.

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

Protagoras is generally viewed as the father of subjectivism and sophism-- The idea that there is no inherent truth, only truths subjective to each individual based on their own life experience. For reasons I'm sure I don't need to explain, this idea has come to be viewed unfavorably; there's a reason we use 'sophist' as a pejorative.

But he was also making a broader observation, that the world only has meaning at all in reference to the self. The full quote goes, 'of all things the measure is man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not.' In other words, the quality of all things can only be defined through the human perspective.

The individual is not of the Earth, but rather above and beyond it. And its pieces are, by necessity, judged in terms of their relationship to them. Flowers are 'good' because they are pretty and smell nice... to the individual. Mosquitos are 'bad' because they bite the individual and cause them harm. Water is good because it nourishes. Poison is bad because it kills.

Absurd as it may seem, this most elementary of ideas is what I made an effort to carve into my own psyche every morning.

I will let nothing bind me, because I am not a part of this world.

I am an outsider. It is one entity, and I am another. Myself, and everything else.

And we are opposed. It is my enemy.

And I will overcome it.

I will overcome it.

I will overcome it.

As I think those words - which I am not even sure I believe on all levels, but that I told to in some primal, essential chamber of my spirit - it starts to fill me, swelling from my chest.

Strength. Resolve.

I will win.

I took a breath sharp enough to cut bone, slapped my cheeks firmly with both hands, and rose from my bed with conviction. I showered, made myself decent, and spent a little over a half hour making sure my appearance is in order; I'm feeling doubtful the event will be recorded and it's not as if subtle circles under ones eyes are like to be discerned at several meters remove, but it's always prudent to leave nothing to chance with this manner of affair. After battling my hair into subservience, I quickly reviewed my notes for the press conference, double-checked the luggage I'd got in order the night prior, grabbed my bag and logic engine, put on my veil, and left.

This will go well, I reassured myself, as I opened the door.

And if by chance it doesn't, I'll simply murder everyone in the auditorium.

Forcing myself to smile confidently, I stepped forward, and descended the stairs to the rumbling streets.

𒊹

Old Yru Academy of Medicine and Healing, Auditorium | 10:17 AM | First Day

As it turned out, things were not going particularly well, though on the upside it couldn't be blamed on me. The crowd - a rather scant gathering of press and VIP's from the academy and the city council - looked bored half to tears, and I couldn't exactly blame them. We'd started fifteen minutes late on account of the headmaster not bothering to show up until the last possible moment, and half the class aside from myself looked as though they were attending a bloody execution. Su and Theodoros especially looked like they were about to break down in tears.

Worse yet, we were missing what was - much as I might have been loath to admit it - our most famous member. I'd known there was a chance they might not actually go to the event, but I'd at least expected them to make a token showing for this!

And that's without even getting to the speech itself. The headmaster had elected to open with an attempt to talk up the academy and its accomplishments. and had even brought up the civil dispute for some inscrutable reason. It was the same opener he used for every speech. Did you know that the mean lifespan went up in the city this year? Why yes, I did-- It's almost as if it went up across the entire Mimikos. Did I know the academy published more bioregeneration papers than any other institution? Why yes-- It's almost like it's the largest and most overfunded academy in the world, likely on account of the fact you can see the Grand Alliance's capitol building from the rear gardens.

Honestly. There's sensible self-promotion, and then there's giving the impression you're some manner of public relations automaton. I knew all these faces from the press by this point; they'd heard this spiel countless times before. Did he really think there was a snowball's chance in hell of this fluff making it into publication?

I suppose I should have been happy the man spent a little time talking us up, at the very least.

"....as I'm sure many of you already know," the headmaster spoke, "this year, in light of its consistently outstanding performance, the class was extended the unprecedented privilege of an invitation to participate in the Conclave of the Universal Panacea, a convention of the greatest minds within the entire sphere of arcane healing that, fifteen years ago, finally revealed itself and the identities of its membership to the world after centuries of unjust prohibition under the fundamentalist interpretation of the Biological Continuity Oath. Whose ranks include such esteemed figures as Zeno of Apocyrion, the father of Neuromancy, and Hamilcar of Kane, creator of the artificial heart. And many more of equal esteem."

That last point wasn't even correct. Ampuli of Chaluk invented the first wholly artificial heart of the post-collapse era-- Hamilcar wasn't even the first to iterate on her design, just to incorporate a mechanical pacemaker that ran on biological power as a fallback measure.

And why was he even bringing him up, and not one of the truly prestigious members of the council, like Amtu-hedu-anna or Neferuaten of Amat? Hamilcar of Kane was more known for his administrative role in the Order and his, well, extensive body modification than his academic accomplishments.

It was just such a waste! There were so many ways you could play this all up to generate press if you just knew you were doing. A secret organization, opening its doors for the first time in centuries! There was so much romance in that it was practically bursting. It could be front page news!

And it deserved to be, not only for the sake of my career, but the research, too. We had ourselves a real chance to boost interest in longevity scholarship, and it was being squandered.

I clicked my tongue behind my lips, though made sure to keep my smile as wide and genuine as I could.

"It is - unquestionably - a landmark event," he proceeded, "from seeing such an institution of arcane study as a titan towering on the horizon, to our academy producing students they believe fit to become their peers." He paused for several moments, eventually guilt-tripping the crowd into a brief round of lazy applause. "Today, for the first time, the members of the class are not here as mere students, but as ambassadors for our great institution, and indeed, for all members of the 14th generation."

Wait, is this my lead-in?

Finally.

I straightened my back, inhaling deeply. I'm sure I needn't tell you this, but good posture - and breathing, by extension - is pivotal with public speaking. It's the mammal nature, you understand.

"And so, rather than speaking for them, I will allow them to give voice to their feelings about this auspicious day themselves, through their class representative-- miss Kamrusepa of Tuon." He looked towards me, holding out a hand. "Kam, please come forward."

I smiled to him, then rose from my chair smoothly (little too stiff; need to practice standing up from chairs) and, as the crowd clapped a little once more, stepped up to the podium.

I looked out at them, feeling their gazes pierce me viscerally just a moment as I gathered myself. Remember: These people are insects. Their enthusiasm was probably unsalvageable at this stage, so all that really could be done was to make myself come across as a little less of a philosophical zombie relative to the headmaster in front of the council officials. And if that were lucky, I could at least implant the journalists with some actually novel information during the Q&A. At least that might save the articles from being snipped by their editor to make room for more militarist drivel related to the bicentennial.

"Thank you, headmaster," I declared, with a deferential gesture. "And thank you all who have come here today in recognition of the humble efforts of our class. I cannot express how much of an honor it is to both myself and the others. I don’t want to take up too much time, but all of us are immensely proud to be representing the academy and its values today for this unprecedented meeting with the Order of the Universal Panacea. We are looking forward to not only this incredible opportunity to expand our knowledge of the arcane with the help of some of its greatest practitioners, but also to demonstrate the extent of the skills we have refined here over the course of the past two years."

My palms and armpits began to sweat almost as soon as I began speaking. It was a little pathetic, for my body to respond this way even in the face of such a paltry crowd, but it was ephemeral. The spirit is willing; the flesh will shut up and be compliant.

“For the sake of future classes, and... well, a little bit for my own sake, too,” I said with a playful shrug, "I hope this is the beginning of a long-term relationship of cooperation. As we depart the era of law-enforced acceptance of a half-millennium as the upper limit in achievable human longevity, it is imperative that institutions like ours form strong bonds with those who have, in the past, been forced to confine their efforts in overcoming mortality to the shadows. Though much has been lost, death is at least an enemy that we can hope to overcome. But only if all arcanists and scholars of medicine unite in the labor together."

I briefly glanced towards the headmaster. To my irritation, he was giving me a bit of a funny look.

I blinked. I didn't understand-- I was following the insipid talking points he'd given me for this part. We're hoping to cooperate with the Order in the longer term, the ban has been lifted and so their knowledge and historic approach was vital, etc. What was his damn problem? Was my language too flowery for him?

I cleared my throat. "This afternoon at two o’clock, we will be setting out on our journey to their private sanctuary, and tomorrow, beginning at twelve noon, we shall be presenting our achievements to the inner circle of the Order. If all goes as planned, this will also be viewable via logic bridge. I hope that all of you shall be observing, and that we manage to make our instructors, to whom we owe a tremendous debt, proud. ...Or, failing that, we at least manage not to make complete fools of ourselves."

The crowd chuckled. See, it really wasn't so hard to act like enough of a human being. Show a little selfishness, a little vulnerability. It was so simple it was practically like playing a musical instrument.

"I hope you'll look forward to it!" I concluded. "Thank you."

The crowd once again applauded - this time with a tad bit more enthusiasm - and the headmaster stepped forward, moving things on to the question taking phase. Hopefully the headmaster would at least have the sense to pick out the non-hacks this time, and we'd get a few decent ones. Now that I was at the front of the stage, I could make out their faces a little better--

I flinched. Oh, shit. Is that Alexandros of Myrh? He invited that prick to one of these, again?

For god's sake.

𒊹

At the rear of the auditorium but separate from the backstage proper was a little enclave that functioned as a sort of storage area. The whole place - the backstage, I mean - was rather cramped; this wasn't a theater, after all, so there'd been no incentive to erect a substantial space for changing and organization. So on my first visit, I'd been surprised to even find this little nook existed at all. It split off strangely at the far left terminus, and if it had possessed a door, one might have even called it a large closet, but in the absence of one it felt more like an architectural oversight than anything. Like in the rush to rebuild following the destruction of the academy in the civil dispute, the builders had accidentally wrought a little appendix, to the otherwise oval-shaped hall, then erected some walls to pretend it had been on purpose.

I was glad it was here, though, whenever we had one of these events that went imperfectly. You might find it eccentric, but I find small spaces comforting. When I was a very young child, I used to crawl into the doghouse and spend whole afternoons. The world felt simpler, somehow, in that manner of contraction.

I sat on one of the crates, sipping from my canteen in the half-light and feeling strangely weary. I'd felt alright at the time of leaving the dorms, but perhaps I hadn't had enough sleep after all. Of all the days to not be at my best, this was a bad one. The wine on my lips tasted altogether sweeter than it ought to have, and I wondered what cracks would show in me by the time the day was done.

A shadowed figure approached at the threshold. They were notably taller than me, but only somewhat - Su? No, their hair was short, and they were wearing a cloak. That could only mean...

"It's unwholesome to drink at such an early hour, Rhunbardi," Ezekiel spoke in his usual monotone of subtle disgust. "You'll end up like your countryman."

"It's just water, Ezekiel," I said coldly, betraying nothing. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Whatever you say," he spoke with a snort.

I sneered in his direction, even though the darkness meant we could barely meet one another's eyes. "What do you want, pray tell?" I asked. "Come to whine at me for taking your rightful spot as the class spokesperson, again?" I forced a chuckle. "Like I always say, you have the higher rank. I'm sure you could simply take it, were you to manage to act like a normal person in front of Professor Nindar for a mere fortnight or so."

"I'm surprised you can sound so proud of yourself after giving that creepy rant to question about associative collapse," he said, humorless. "Ishkibal is likely pissed about that."

Who gives a toss. "I'm sure he has more important matters to concern himself with," I spoke casually, putting the cap back on my canteen. "Need I repeat my question?"

"I've got a message from the outreach head for you," he stated.

I sat up a little, smirking at the idea of Ezekiel being forced into playing messenger. He usually did everything in his power to avoid that sort of thing. "Miss Ombrit, you mean?"

"Yeah," he said. "She wants you to come by her office at some point before you leave. Apparently she has some sort of gift the academy wants brought to the Order."

I raised an eyebrow. "A gift? I hadn't heard about this."

"It's probably nothing beyond a courtesy offering," he stated. "Just some wine or old books from the archive."

I sighed to myself. "I'd ask why she couldn't have given it to you, but I suppose that's somewhat self-evident, isn't it?" I shook my head. "I'll make sure to stop by. Thank you, Ezekiel."

He nodded, but didn't move to leave. His posture seemed to shift subtly, the glimmer of his eyes averting.

"...Kamrusepa," he said.

I hesitated, tensing slightly at the use of my actual name.

"What?" I asked.

"You are... going to do this properly, aren't you? Even considering?"

I stared at him impassively, saying nothing. The silence dragged out for several long moments.

I heard him exhale, then click his tongue. "...never mind. We'll discuss this later."

He turned to leave, his cloak sweeping as he went.

I let out a long sigh, then lingered for another few moments. Against my better judgement, I withdrew and unhooked the canteen again, taking another swig. My eyes wandered.

How irritating, I thought.

But I would prevail. Of that much, I was certain.

There was little point in sulking about like this. I could hear that Su and the others were still chatting away quietly in the backstage proper, and a little conversation would do me some good.

I hopped off the crate, stepping forward.