Victoria, British Columbia - April 13, 2033, 4:23 PM
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Dinner’s going to be chicken nuggets, ketchup, and frozen veggies.
And probably prunes.
I’m busy sitting in Alice’s lap and ‘reading’ Green Eggs and Ham with her. She’s doing most of the reading, but I’m following her finger with my eyes and giving it my best effort. We’re both curled up on the bunk bed’s lower bunk, surrounded by stuffed animals. Miss Marvelous the Elephant Princess sits next to me in the crook of Alice’s arm. She’s reading along with us.
Dad’s in the apartment’s living room. He’s got a newspaper open, and a bottle that’s half-finished. It’s the only one I can see. His pen keeps circling parts of the paper, and he makes a phone call every so often.
And Mom…
Mom’s alive.
That’s the only sign that this isn’t real—that the last ten years of my life haven’t been a nightmare, and that I haven’t just woken up. She’s in the kitchen, cooking dinner and singing with her slightly French accent that Dad doesn’t have. She’s got her apron on like always, and there’s faint music coming in over the radio.
I wait for James to talk to me. He’s supposed to tell me that this is all part of the reality—that it’s doing exactly what Director Ramirez said it’s supposed to do. But his voice doesn’t come in over my aug. I don’t have an aug yet.
This is going to take some getting used to. On the other hand, that’s what I’m really here for. Finding the Voiceless Singers, or any of that? That’s secondary. Even powering up is secondary. What I want is something R-0 could never give me, and this world—maybe—can.
I relax back into Alice, leaning on her and pushing her slightly into the pillows. Even our apartment’s the way it’s supposed to be. I’ve got art on the fridge from pre-school—finger painting and crayons. There’s a little art on the walls; Dad wasn’t happy when I made that a couple of years ago, but it’s still not painted over. Alice’s homework is sprawled out on the metal-legged kitchen table. The place smells like lemon pepper and roses—but not the merge kind. The safe kind, from Mom’s candle.
If I go to the bathroom, I bet the shower curtain will be blue and yellow. If I go to the entryway, my rain boots will be sitting there next to my sister’s.
This isn’t home. Not really. It’s an infohazard working on my mind. I know that intellectually. But it’s the closest to home I’ve had in ten years—not just a place to live, but home.
I’m five. Alice is reading to me, and Mom’s cooking dinner. It’s a school night, so bedtime is coming up fast. She’ll tuck me in, and she’ll sing the bicycle song, and almost everything will be alright.
Almost.
But not everything.
[Skill Learned: Infohazard Resistance 10]
[Skill Merge Incomplete]
It hits me like a truck; I stiffen in Alice’s lap. Her head jerks, and she looks down at me. “Bathroom?” she asks.
I nod, trying not to pant and gasp. My throat’s tight. “Yeah.” It’s as good an excuse as any. She pushes me off her lap, and I climb down from the bed and head to the bathroom. Sure enough, the shower curtains are blue and yellow. I lock the door, kneel in front of the toilet, and try not to vomit. Two thoughts race through my mind like wind-up cars.
First, tonight is the night.
Second, I don’t know how to stop it.
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Mom serves dinner.
She’s the prettiest person I’ve ever seen. Platinum blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and a bright smile that shines all the way up to her eyes whenever she looks at me.
I know something Alice doesn’t know; she may look like Mom’s daughter, but I’m her favorite. It’s a truth I knew long before this meal. I’ve got my Coke bottle glasses on, and I tripped coming out of the bathroom when she called us for dinner, but she loves me anyway.
And she cooks a mean dino-nugget. So that’s good.
Alice won’t stop talking about school—mostly because people keep asking her about what she’s learning, about her friend Candy, and about what was for lunch. She’s better at answering those questions than I am, especially tonight. She’s always been better at being the center of attention; it’s where she’s the most comfortable.
That’s fine most nights. I’m a wallflower. And it’s especially fine tonight; I’m too busy plotting to talk.
Dad can tell I’m up to something. So can Mom. I always finish my dino-nuggets, and I always fight about the frozen carrots and peas. But tonight, I’ve cleared my plate early and without a fuss.
“Mom, can I go draw?” I ask.
Dad raises an eyebrow. “Clarice, where’d you put the carrots?”
I smile widely; he’ll see the mischief in my eyes, but I can’t help it. “I ate them.”
“Alice, did you take them?” Dad asks. She shakes her head.
“Rob, it’s fine. I saw her clear her plate. Claire, if you put your dishes in the washer, you can go draw for a little while. Just make sure you leave some crayons for Alice, okay?” Mom says. Dad grumbles for a bit but nods.
Dad hasn’t cared what I do and don’t eat in a long time.
I flee before they can see me tear up. Now’s not the time to cry about Mom being here, or about Dad not being a deadbeat—or even about Alice wanting to help me with reading instead of feeling like it’s an obligation and putting the Mom mask on.
Now is the time to make sure everything stays this way. Or at least to make sure that it could. That there was a way for everything to be okay.
The drawing is simple but—I hope—evocative.
It’s in crayon, obviously. I can’t get the watercolors out without permission, and Alice only lets me use her markers if she’s watching me after I broke her yellow one. I’m also having a hard time focusing. It’d be really easy to let myself be five again. That’s what I want. But it’s not what has to happen.
The drawing. Right.
So, it’s on a white sheet of printer paper. I’ve drawn Alice and me. We’re in bed. Miss Marvelous the Elephant Princess is sitting next to Alice. Everything’s the way it’s supposed to be for bedtime. Except the wall’s missing, and the warp’s coming in. So are a lot of yellow-white scribbles. And things. They’re tentacles and metal and flesh together, and they’re coming out of the warp. The floor’s covered in black stuff. It’s the closest I can get to oil. I can’t do smells; holding my drawing over the candle is a no-go.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Mom’s standing in between Alice and me and the monsters. Dad would be a better rock. He always was. But that’s not how things went down in R-0, and that’s not how things will happen now.
On the back, it’s the same picture. But no one’s in it.
I hand the picture to Mom. “Look!”
As she peers at it, my heart stops. Her eyebrow furrows. She flips it over and shakes her head. “Claire, I love you, but Mr. Frank is going to be furious with me if you come in overtired again. You still have to go to bed, even if you don’t think you’re tired.”
“No, Mom, it’s about…” I trail off. There’s no way she’ll believe me if I tell her everything. I try anyway. “I’m scared about tonight.”
“Nightmares again?” she asks. I don’t remember any nightmares before all this. I nod anyway. “I’m sorry, Claire. Would it help if you sleep in our bed tonight?”
I don’t miss Dad’s head jerk over to look at Mom, or the slight ‘no’ head shake he gives her. She shrugs sympathetically but keeps her eyes on me. They look tired. I shake my head more fervently than Dad did. “No. I want to go somewhere else tonight. Like a hotel.”
“A hotel?” Mom laughs. “That’s not going to happen, sweetie.”
I sigh, defeated—for now—and let her kiss my forehead. She puts the picture on the refrigerator, empty-bed-side facing the room. “I’ll tell you some stories, and then we can sing a lullaby.”
----------------------------------------
So, I have a problem.
I’m really sleepy. That’s it. That’s the problem.
If I weren’t so sleepy, I’d be able to think of a solution. But as it is, I’m struggling to stay awake, even though I know what’s coming. Mom knew I was overtired. Her lullaby was perfect. Her back rub was perfect. Even the goofy little alien night light that casts the room in a slight greenish color is perfect. I could live here forever, just like this. I’d be completely content going to bed tonight and doing the exact same thing tomorrow. And the next day.
[Skill Learned: Infohazard Resistance 11]
But that’s not an option.
I’m on a secret mission; the second Alice’s high-pitched snores fill the room, I’m up, pressing my ear against the bedroom door. If I can’t get them to listen to me and I can’t convince them to leave, then I’ll have to force the issue.
Mom loves candles. She always has, especially the flower-smelling ones. It’s too early for her balcony garden to be blooming, but she’s got a dozen big, smelly candles. I only need one.
They’re in bed, Mom and Dad. I tiptoe down the hall toward the living room; if I get caught, I’ve got a cover story. It might even be believable. I need the bathroom, and Alice was in the close one, so I had to go all the way to the living room. But that’s also past where the matches are. They’re in a drawer near the fridge. They always have been, at least.
The drawer squeaks, and I rummage through it quickly until I find a black packet of matches with silver letters. They’re from Mom and Dad’s wedding. I wasn’t there, obviously, but I found them…after tonight, and read the letters. I know what they say.
Mom keeps her candles in the living room. I grab the one she was burning tonight, the one with three wicks and a wooden lid. It’ll be sneakier if it’s the right smell. Then I hurry back to the kitchen and drag a chair from the table to the counter. The smoke detector’s up there, waaay up high. I’m five now, so it’s going to be a tough stretch.
And I don’t want to fall.
I’m not afraid of heights. But I can’t afford to thud into the ground and wake people up early. If I get caught right here, it’ll all be over, and there’s no way Mom and Dad are asleep, so quiet is the name of the game.
I grab my picture and open the candle.
The smell of roses hits me like a freight train, and I gasp for breath.
Roses and machine oil. Maroon skies. That ringing sound. It’s all here. Am I too late? Did I fail to keep this perfect world perfect? Will I ever know if everything could have been okay?
No. I can still do this. My heart won’t stop pounding; there’s no way Mom and Dad can’t hear it. It’s like a jackhammer. My hand shakes as I strike the match. I drop it, and it bounces into the sink right next to me. I light another. This time, I get it to the candle. The smell grows overpowering as I light each wick. My finger burns, and I drop this one, too, and stick my finger and thumb into my mouth.
It only hurts for a second.
Then I climb the chair, stand on the counter, and—in my sister’s hand-me-down Telletubbies pajamas—I hold the candle up to the smoke detector and my picture to the flame.
The alarm’s deafening this close. Water sprays me right in the face.
I scream. The candle hits the tile and shatters. Red chunks of wax spew across the room; so does glass. I scream again before I remember that I’m not five years old, dammit, and I’m here to do a job.
Mom bursts out of her room before I’m even off the counter. Her eyes are a mix of tired and wild. She grabs me and starts heading for the door. Dad’s staggering toward my bedroom in his undershirt and boxers. He pauses long enough to pull a pair of sweatpants most of the way up before Alice comes out. They follow us out the door.
My plan worked perfectly. We’re not home, and the merge is about to start.
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Of course, nothing’s that easy.
It’s never that easy.
Mom takes me outside. Flames dance along the kitchen floor as the door shuts behind me, and the sprinkler splashes water across the room. I close my eyes and cry; my best play is the ‘I didn’t know’ lie now. She’ll be pissed; even if I’m her favorite, she’ll want to know what I was doing on the counter, after bedtime, with a candle pressed up toward the ceiling. Luckily, I’ve already got an answer.
‘I dunno.’
The stairs bump by as Mom jogs down them. She opens the building’s front door and hurries outside. She’s wearing a nightie and slippers, so I don’t feel totally ridiculous in my Teletubbies pajamas. I bury my head in her shoulder and cry.
When I look up, my heart sinks. I take a deep breath through my nose. The roses and machine oil smell punches me in the gut, and the metallic tang’s already on my tongue. The moon’s gone. It’s replaced with a maroon orb in the sky that lights the outside far too much.
“What the fuck?” Mom says. It’s the first time I’ve heard her swear—at least, I think it is. Dad and Alice open the door behind us. She’s got Miss Marvelous. She’s always got Miss Marvelous.
There’s a white flash, and then the street’s full of things.
They’re squid-like. Kind of. And they’re a mix of metal and flesh just like the drawings. But unlike them, these ones are all real. Mom pushes me back toward Dad as the first one gallops across the cement. “It’s going to be okay, Claire,” she says.
That hits me like a slap. I step back from the sheer impact.
And that’s when I see it—the moment to make a difference and answer my Inquiry. The Revolver’s in my hand—I don’t know where it came from—but even as I fire it toward the squid monsters, I know the Truth.
The Truth is that there was nothing I could have done. I didn’t have the power to change things then. Even this perfect reality filled with infohazards for me to stumble on can’t change that—no matter how much I want to. The Truth is that Mom’s gone, and I’m alone.
I hate this Truth. I despise it. If I could reject it and try again, I would. But the other part of the Truth is that I already knew it. My heart pounds. I can feel it in my ears, in my neck. My whole head feels like it’s breaking, and I can’t stop the tears from running down my cheeks.
[Truth Learned: The Past is the Past]
[Active Skill Learned: Determination]
[Skill Learned: Infohazard Resistance 12]
I kill a half-dozen of the monsters with shots to the body. They die easily—too easily. As I switch to the reality skippers, I look over my shoulder through my tears.
The building behind me is coming apart.
Not physically. It’s falling apart on a conceptual level. I can see the math not working anymore as it disintegrates; the equation breaks as the ground ripples and breaks into a thousand thousand squares. Dad disappears, then Alice. Then, as I turn, so does Mom—just as the next monster hits her. The whole reality comes apart, and I’m standing on nothing.
A moment later, the world resets.
I’m sitting on Alice’s lap, reading Green Eggs and Ham. Her finger’s covering a word, and I can’t see what happens next. She’s not moving. When I try to move her, she won’t. The microwave’s beeping in the kitchen, but Mom’s not checking what’s cooking. The beep’s not a beep, either. It’s a wail—a constant, stuck-between-the-beeps wail mixed with something I can’t place.
I stand up. Alice’s arm doesn’t move, so it takes a minute to squirm free. That beeping’s driving me crazy; it reminds me of the fire alarm, and I can’t think about that right now. I can’t think about my failure.
And I did fail. This reality should have let me save Mom. But it didn’t. So I want to know something new.
►Inquiries (3/5)
►Why not?
Mom and Dad aren’t moving, either. I press the stop button on the microwave. It stops. I’ve got the Revolver in my hand again, but there’s nothing to use it on. At least, I don’t think there’s anything to use it on. But there’s a tickle in the back of my head.
The door to the apartment’s glowing a blue-black color. I wipe the tears from my eyes and touch the handle with my free hand. It doesn’t burn me. The Revolver’s ready to shoot. I pull it open.
There’s nothing there. And the nothing is shaped like an angel.
My first thought is to open fire. The Revolver’s ready; all I’d have to do is pull the trigger. But through my tears, the Voiceless Singer isn’t moving, either. It’s not frozen in place like my family, though. I can feel it there, a cold space, but if I shot it, it’d scream. If I ran from it, it’d pursue.
I grit my teeth, use Determination—I need every bit of it I can—and lower the Revolver.
[Determination: Stability 10/10]
I can feel the fresh Stability draining away; Determination seems to let me power through low Stability without causing a merge, but only for so long. Can I keep using it to keep myself full? I’m not sure. More experimentation will be necessary—but later. Right now, I’ve got other problems.
The Voiceless Singer sings, just like in the flesh reality. I’m thrown into the same vision as last time. But this time, my Stability’s full.