LAYER 04: A DAY (PART II)

In retrospect, it was one of those days that probably changed everything. In the fact of its existence, it shattered my perception that change takes time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it burned in one. In that sense, backtracking and falling can happen in a single instant, and that’s all it took for the Superbeast to lay eyes on me. That’s all the time it took to swallow Pleroma.

If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, how does falling off a cliff start?

It starts—and ends— with a single misstep.

If you’re lucky, you can stop the fall before you hit the bottom.

But at that moment, I didn’t know I was in freefall.

I simply walked through and absorbed humanity through its unrefined, purest extract of inane expression. I eventually saw the lines that connect X to Y to Z. It made me feel… enlightened, I suppose.

It was like reading sheet music as a record plays, because your knees lock up at the thought of dancing; you still feel the music, but in a much more codified and disconnected way. Cold, even. Not that I’d know. Music was never my forte, especially not playing it. I could discuss it well enough, in writing of course, and actually that’s how I think the Man In Red reached me first.

From out of the connected cranial soup, I began to notice the connecting lines making patterns. But once I was that far, the images faded away like starry static leaving my vision after standing up too fast. The street was lined with buildings in a semi-regular grid, and those buildings were irregularly studded with brown doors, carefully ornamented with glimmering silver. This city popped into being like it had been there the whole time.

Had it been?

I wake up, truly awaken, for the second time today. But this time, there’s a reason why I feel accomplished in leaving sleep.

The city around me is equally aflame in pale yellow and soaked in dense blue. Gargoyles are split down the middle between the sun’s rays and their own deepest shadow. Bronze and gold embellishments glimmer off the dull stone brick walls they inhabit. A slight breeze sends thick chains somewhere in the sky clanging into each other— but otherwise, all is silent.

And then I hear it.

“Hey.”

Cool as you like despite the blistering heat. He stands there in a deep crimson robe, shot through with gold thread. There’s an aura about his sleek black hair and sunken eyes that feels like realizing you’ve given up on a childhood wish, like having the money for an expensive toy only to realize you have no desire for it but buying it out of obligation to your past self. Seeing him fills me with nostalgia for a version of myself that never was or, probably, should have been, but that could now be.

And ordinarily, acknowledging the futility of living for yesterday would mean I would take my own advice. I wouldn’t interact with this crimson pillar of lost comfort.

But today of all days, the day when I took a strange pill and proceeded to see everything I was an outsider for not seeing before? On this day, I feel empty. I could go watch a movie, but it wouldn’t measure up to the scope of what I just saw. I could try, futilely stimulating that fragment of my psyche with the biggest-budget blockbusters, but their noisey chimes would ring hollow. With all the effort into scale, the detail would be nothing like the world of ideas I just saw.

I’m loath to admit it, but in my powerless state, I see an opportunity to use another human being’s companionship solely selfishly.

I croak out a “Hello.”

He cocks his head. “How’s it…. going?”

“Well, I suppose. You?”

“I’m fine.” I can feel the impatience in his words. So—

“You like dogs?” A curveball, but it’s one I know is common enough that I won’t look inept at conversation.

“Of course I do. Don’t you already know that?”

What’s that supposed to mean?

“Well—” I pull out a photo from my wallet— “look at this.”

I don’t know how I know a relevant picture would be there, but there it is. Two dogs with fur like wool and eyes like the black marbles in a teddy bear. Gazing into the camera with a look of completely earnest trust, they’re adorable.

“They’re cute. I can tell they like you.”

“Thanks, yeah, they’re pretty well trained.”

“So are mine.”

“Lemme see?”

“You don’t want to see them right now, it’s OK. Later, though.”

I’m confused. Of course I want to see them. That’s why I asked. But all I say is, “OK.”

It’s not worth fighting over, especially not when I’m dancing such a delicate dance with someone who fascinates me this much. The pressure is on. I don’t want to choke here.

“Are you sure?”

“Huh?” I’m legitimately off guard now.

“Never mind. I’m just making sure you’re paying attention.”

“You’re weird, you know. But not in a bad way. You’re actually pretty interesting.” It’s a risk I have to take. There’s no reason for it, but I want to know this person more.

Actually, there’s plenty of reasons.

That feeling of awakening enlightenment is beginning to fade again. It’s hit me that I don’t actually understand anything. I just think I saw a bunch of vaguely applicable symbols, like some cosmic Rorschach test or visual horoscope. Maybe my red-thread-corkboard reading says more about me than it does the world. That’s actually pretty likely.

With that theory in mind, maybe getting out of my own head would provide a more complete understanding.

And besides all that, I’m lonely. There’s some kind of vacuum in me, a cold void searching for something and all-consuming in its search. My head is like a hole, and maybe this Man In Red could fill it in.

“Well… thank you. You’re quite interesting yourself.”

Several seconds pass.

I think I just made a mistake.

“Well, I’ll see you around,” he says, kicking at the ground as he shuffles off.

“Ah, wait…” I call out to his back. “I don’t think I caught your name?”

“Augustus,” he calls back.

“I’m Alistair.”

“It’s been a pleasure, Alistair.” The “r” Dopplers off as he spins, almost giddily on his heel.

I don’t blame him. I’m ecstatic as well. Joyful, maybe even for the first time. This part of the world, or this new life I’ve stepped into holds more beauty than I thought I was meant to see. These streets are dingy, but oddly complete. They’re an aesthetic whole. In the same way, my conversation was choppy and awkward, but it was balanced in that state. I was talking to someone truly like me.

LAYER 05: CAUSTIC DISCO

Thunder shook the dry earth. Heat lightning rained down in place of water. Somewhere, a lonely pipe organ squeaked out a haunting, wailing melody. The notes caught on the pounding roars of the sky, and the two sounds amplified each other in their dissonance.

I walk down the empty street, my boots (since when did I own boots?) hitting the asphalt with muffled rhythmic clacks. But everything is muffled, from the electric buzzing from wires unseen to the chatter from voices disembodied.

Only one sound pervades the dampening bubble around my head. I don’t even know if it’s particularly loud, or if it just sounds that way against the auditory blur.

Nonetheless, a papery flapping noise wriggles into my ears and catches fast, like some kind of parasitic worm. It’s the kind of sound you’d hear in a movie, when a moth or a bat takes off at the camera. You don’t hear things like that in real life, though. Any animal that lived in the dark would have adapted such superfluous sounds out of its movements long ago.

Things like that only spring to mind later, though. In the moment, my chin jerks up like it’s on a string and my eyes slip about in their sockets, all in a mad dash to locate the source of the sound.

I can’t see anything, though. If this crepuscular blood-orange sky has secrets, it hides them well. Maybe along the clotted purple horizon, where night has already fallen.

I kept walking, paying the incident no mind and instead mulling over my meeting with Augustus. The air about him seemed steeped with a certain allure, something I couldn’t quite put words to without sounding like some kooky mystic. I guess it’s just what people call “charisma” that seemed to surround him, yes, charisma glowing like a fog of gnats in the radiance of a lightbulb. Kept from burning in the would-be flame by a single impenetrable pane of glass, that swarm could lend even the most clearly mechanical sun an ethereality that no celestial body could scratch.

I’m probably off my meds again. I’m being illogical. Ethereality, luster, things like that are for romantics and believers, which I’m not supposed to be.

In retrospect, that was the first time that “something” clicked in my back. Clicked, like a switch flipping, in my back, in a space between my skin and the spine that dug out into it. In a space that should not have been.

Dr. Vepar stumbled, toe meeting heel meeting pavement, and went down flapping his arms in a whirlwind of papers. It was such a nice night before this, too, he thought. Just the right kind for a walk home from the office. He’d even gotten out early enough that the sun was still up, so he could have finally taken all those records home to be shredded. Even with Pleroma money, he thought, we can’t get a shredder for the office. Most of that went back into promotional materials for Pleroma and other SIDHE products, as the contract demanded. Ballpoint pens and pamphlets couldn’t possibly cost as much as SIDHE took, but thinking like that was depressing. Especially on such a nice evening, it’s best to stay positive. That was Dr. Vepar’s motto in life, and one he frequently passed on to his patients.

So, he’d stay calm and collect these important records, before any blew away. As he reaches for a spilled file—

“Can I help you with that?” A voice, from above.

Dr. Vepar looks up. There’s a tall man in a suit and shiny sunglasses looking down at him. It’s a nice suit, but it doesn’t fit very well, Dr. Vepar noted to himself. It’s too loose.

“Sir? Are you ok?” The stranger asks, a note of concern worming into his voice. “Do you need help with those?”

Yes it’s too loose and his eyes are sunken and he moves just a little too jerkily and he’s too polite for someone who’s just met me and and and and this just isn’t right.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

LAYER 06: PAPERMOON

I close my eyes and take flight. Below me, some shadowy flame burns itself to a glowing ember, and I use the remains of leaking heat to gain altitude.

I’m told I’m a hero, the kind with a secret identity who fights in the name of the moon. Some ultimate ally of justice. Really, I’m just a person like anyone else with the opportunity to do good on a larger scale.

Sometimes, I don’t even manage that, though. More often than not, it’s all I can do to minimize harm.

—12 hours earlier—

Luna Elise Lavenza takes flight with a vertical leap, just as a wall of bullets punch dusty holes into the brick wall she was just crouching in front of. There’s not much I can do from up here, she thinks, except keep moving. I’ve got to find an opening. A chorus of explosive bursts ring out from somewhere in front of me. But—as a twitch of my feathery antennae tell me— they’re not headed for me.

I tear through the air, around a corner—

But the sight that awaits me freezes me in my tracks, so sharply it’s like it’s pulling me backwards.

The pink mist hasn’t even settled.

There’s a pile of bodies, piled up in a vignette of panic. None of them were fighting back; all these people were trying to escape. Evacuate. They were trying to evacuate this scene my existence caused.

Couched over them is a lone surviving figure, clad in a red high-collared cape and olive body armor. Its head is covered in a silver helmet, the bucket-shaped kind a crusader would have worn. In its hand, a still-smoking gun. From its mouth, words I cannot individually make out, but which amount to apologetic promises to cleanse.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the ritual is complete, and the Hunter turns to face me. This time, I can hear its words all too clearly.

“Their blood is on your hands, Instance Of Gremory. You may choose between sanctified flame in the Crimson Court, or thirty silver stakes here and now. What will it be?”

Give me a break. There’s no reason for me to have killed these people. Hell, that’s putting it lightly. I’m supposed to protect them, and in the past I suppose I would have broken down at this sight. Flown into a rage at the Hunter who did it, too, but I already know how that ends. With me getting hurt and with it telling me something like, “I’m the only other witness,” or “No one will believe you didn’t kill them.”

I should be outraged and disgusted; even if I’m not, from an optics perspective it would be better to feign some kind of reaction. But like the Hunters are so used to reminding me, no one is watching. So, there’s no reason to get upset, not when I could speak with my actions.

Because these people must be avenged, if they could not be protected.

“Listen,” I begin—

But it seems the hostility in my voice was too much.

“SILVER STAKES IT IS, THEN.” Its voice is like a computer’s attempt at anger— loud, metallic, and tinged with a hollow ring.

Shots pour forth, ringing out with an ascendant cacophony. I shoot skyward myself, with a frenzied papery flap. Echoes behind me paint a vivid image of sun-bleached asphalt exploding into ashen powder, and I don’t dare look back, not when that deadly metallic spread nips at my toes even now.

But that only lasts a second, before the Church Hunter’s magazine runs dry.

I can only counter while he reloads, so I have to move quickly. Tucking myself into a dive— a maneuver my mothlike form isn’t well suited for— I shoot towards the ground. I am my only bullet.

My mouth opens in a silent scream. From its depths, my tongue uncoils into a fleshy needle, and tenses into a spear hard enough to scratch metal. With the force of my sudden descent, though, it does more than just scratch the Hunter’s helmet. It shoots straight through the back of its cranium and bursts through the red glass visor. I relax my proboscis just in time for the armor to crumple.

From the gaps in the plasticy plates, a rotten black goo oozes out and collects itself in a puddle of pure midnight, before pulling itself down the street and shambling out of sight. As the last remnants of the “body”—the parts of goo shot through with fibrous tendons— seep out, the uniform clatters to the ground. The gun is still held tight by black-gloved fingers.

I feel eyes from behind me.

Turning, still crouched over the husk of a Hunter I have just vanquished, I lock eyes with a young girl in a blue dress. She clutches what was once a teddy bear, I think, but its once-plump body has bled all its stuffing. Now, it’s more like a small blanket with a stuffed head.

“You ok?” I ask. Stupid question, really. I’m not, and I see these kinds of things all the time. But she just nods, slowly at first, then enthusiastically.

“You saved me!” she says. “Thank you!”

—12 hours later—

I suppose I really did.

From the moment I failed to protect those other people, I had a choice.

I could have performed self destructive rage, or I could have kept anyone else from getting hurt. I’m glad I chose the latter, but I’m disturbed that I even felt a pull to rage. It feels like a failure to measure up to being a “hero”. A real hero wouldn’t have had to think about it. They would have instantly, instinctually, acted correctly.

If I acted instantly, on instinct, that little girl would never laugh again, cry again, nor have another chance to hug a little more stuffing out of that bear. Her story would have ended, and I would have burned myself up for it.

I did save her, though.

How many of her did I fail to save?

Thoughts like that never leave. I don’t think they ever will. But every time they force their way into my head, it only strengthens my resolve. To live, if my existence is a sin in the eyes of the Church Of The Sun. To fight, if their Hunters would harm innocents.

Because I’m supposed to be a hero. I was made to be a hero.

LAYER 07: MEET THE CREEPER

The figure in purple stumbled out onto the street. Into my domain.

But I am one of the few worthy of holding power in this world. My dolls, my dogs, my followers, would all agree. Some of them have the opportunity to disagree, and the rest gave away that ability willingly.

Either way, it’s not my fault. I deserve my meager success.

I’m not 100% right all the time, but I do always have the best intent. I think that justifies my failings, don’t you?

Anyway, the purple-clad figure.

He was beautiful, beyond compare. Statuesque, in every sense of the word. Literally, he stood a good head-and-a-half above me. But also, like a classical statue, he stood with poise and elegance, seemingly on instinct. Hands sharply pointed down, shoulders pinched back, like an angular bat beneath regal wings.

Despite his confident stance, he stumbled about madly. His eyes twitched like he was in a frothing cloud of birds only he could see.

That combination of madness and beauty was an equation for the perfect doll. The kind of person who would flail his eyes about in public, while also taking care to stand regally, has just enough ego and madness to be wiped blank, made a tool of the Leecher Collective.

He approaches me. But it is imperative that I make the first move.

“Hey.” I try not to make it sound too flirtatious, lest I startle this sacred deer; but some cloistered cavity in my chest twitches as the word leaves my lips.

Their voice is soft, croaky, yet not as deep as I expected. High enough to call my initial clocking into question, yet not so high as to boomerang around. It’s a fledgling raven’s cry, the first timid hops a creature of darkness takes towards self-assertion. More than anything, though—

their vocal chords sound unused.

I stifle another shiver.

I must play things cooler, better than this. It’s only fun while I have the upper hand, and I only keep that position while I keep my partner jumping for the prize. Taunt with an out-of-grasp reward, and you risk inciting despair. Crafting slivers of hope keeps the act of collecting fun.

So; I feign slight shyness. “How’s it… going?” I ask with a slight tilt of my head.

The tiny dash of demurity I threw in there should be incentive enough to pursue me further. I just have to be careful not to roll over too much.

“Well, I suppose. You?”

“Oh, I’m fine.”

Hm. How boring.

“You like dogs?”

To anyone else, this would seem an insignificant remark. But to someone such as I, who had staked an empire on, and flown a crest of, canine appreciation, this held more weight. It was a sign of complete acquiescence, an eagerness to please, an eagerness to roll over and empty one’s thoracic cavity if I wilt it on a whim. This is better than I thought.

“Of course I do. Don’t you already know that?”

However, for the briefest of moments, as I silently rejoiced in my acquisition, something terrible shot through me. A bolt of terror. One tiny thought of unplanned instability. Why ask after dogs, specifically? So innocently, too; which could be rationalized away as a similar strategy to my own, albeit executed with the tact of a sledgehammer. But I was spiralling, now. Do they know?

Do they know why my crest bears a hound? Or just the surface level associations, that my flag does bear their image? This may have been a critical error.

Thankfully, I am dealing with a young fool. At least a year my junior, and that year being a crucial one in mental development I hold the upper hand. For they just smile, purely, and dig around for a photograph briefly. “Then… Take a look at this!” An image is thrust at me.

It’s heinous. Poisoned with poise, but completely lacking any of the elegance its owner displayed. It’s tacky. Saccharine. The subject is a pair of creatures so stripped from their lupine roots that they can hardly be called dogs at all. They’re wooly and lanky, more sheep than wolves, lazing about the floor with eyes like dull marbles. But their relaxed poses aren’t even natural, I can tell that much. I can see them looking past the camera at the photographer, thirsting for the treat inevitably behind the lens.

They’re pure creatures, so I can’t stand to see them manipulated like this; by transactionality to be shown off at their artificial best.

If you truly loved dogs, you’d seek out more intelligent ones.

“Cute,” I nonetheless manage. “I can tell they like you.” Of course they do. How badly would you have to fuck up to get a dog to hate you?

They mutter “They’re well trained,” and swallow a scoff. They love you for being a human who gives them food. Don’t get it twisted, you did nothing to earn this.

I can’t say that, not now anyway. “So are mine.”

Their eyes glimmer at this, glimmer like obsidian shattering beneath a hammer. Catching the light out of obligation. There is nothing for a stone to do then but break. Likewise, this person can only be fascinated (or convincingly pretend to). “Can I see them?”

“You don’t want to see them now. It’s OK.” This is true. You cannot see them now, even if you wanted to. It would be difficult. At this point, you are, in fact, better off not seeing them.

Of course, they settle for that non-explanation. I have two concurrent theories about what kind of person this is; either someone who does not rock the boat, or someone who has been taught not to. Either I can teach them how to rebel, or I can push them back to their sealed-away instinct.

Either way, I am a hero, by the closest thing to an absolute this world has.

“Huh?” They’re confused. I must have said something strange.

“... Just making sure you’re paying attention.”

“You’re weird, you know. But not in a bad way. You’re actually pretty interesting.” Where did that come from?

Although, I’m not displeased to hear it. I think this is a sign that some wires have been crossed, no, that I have crossed the wires I needed to cross in order to build the Perfect Circle.

But of course I’m weird. For me to be a hero, I need to stand above. And to stand above, one must necessarily stand out from the crowd. It’s good, though, that I’m dealing with the kind of person who sees that. They might actually be smarter than I gave them credit for.

“Well, thank you,” I reply. “You’re quite interesting yourself.” My voice is saturated with a pastiche of humble acceptance, and then, obligation to return the compliment. “...I think I’d better get going.” I may be laying on the falso discomfort a little thick, but I really should get back to the Tower.

As I turn, something truly gross catches my eye. Between the cracks in the asphalt, a fleshy node has sprouted, supported by a messy web of stiff veiny stalks. It’s like a spider carrying a sac of eggs the size of a tennis ball, all carved from organ meat. I kick it, and watch it floppily bounce over the cracked pavement.

“Ah… wait,” comes the croaky voice to my back. I spin on my heel, following through the momentum of the kick. “I don’t think I got your name?”

“Augustus!” I call out as I walk backwards.

“I’m Allistair!” comes the reply.

“Nice to meet you, Allistair!” I complete the turn and continue walking away normally without missing a step.

The walk back home passes in the blink of an eye. It’s boring, so boring, as most things are these days. Nothing stands out to me anymore, nothing except new dolls. New minds pledging allegiance to me, well, that’s nothing special. But when I come into possession of a new, gorgeous form to behold, to call my very own, something I can reach out and touch; that’s cause for celebration. Maybe it’s the physicality of some new thing, or maybe I’ve grown too used to more complex treasures.

Is my collection really such a simple treasure, though?

Maybe “simple” is the wrong word. But the appeal is simple; it doesn’t take any thought to appreciate absolute power over another’s entire being. It’s the basest human desire, to tear down and rebuild one’s surroundings in one’s own image. Identity is all I stake claim to. My own self, spreading from person to person not like a wildfire or disease, but like a new idea. My self touching, growing, putting down roots, feeling out the cavities and extremities alike, all in order to never—

“Die.” The single word escapes my lips. It surprises me that this is the conclusion I’ve come to.

I don’t think I want immortality. If anything, I’d rather die before my influence loses hold. I just want to live in this hostile world, and I’m willing to do anything to do that.