[Log 3.12]
[Equitable Bereavement Guidelines]
The spider exploded into a shower of bright blue sparks that hung in the air. Before they could even twitch toward the other spider, I flung my arms to each side and inhaled as hard as I could. A stream of blue rushed into me.
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I coughed because I’d gotten a lung full of smoke and ash. The other spider detected my weakness and shot a stream of something sticky at my free hand, then pulled. I stumbled and fell, barely managing to roll to absorb the momentum. I’m out of shape. That never would have happened in a battle in real life.
The web attached to my hand crackled with energy, and pain lanced up my arm, breaking through muscles and bones with relentless savagery until it found my heart.
Then it changed from mere pain to agony.
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I screamed.
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My very being was ground from my soul with a belt sander.
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It wasn’t just physical pain.
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I watched memories I had cherished for decades simply disappear.
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I wanted it to stop. I think I even begged.
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The pain swelled. Dominated every thought.
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I was ready to do anything to just make it stop when finally, the pain faded like a circuit breaker firing. The world materialized as my vision went from stark white back to normal. I blinked, everything was blurry. My face felt wet, too. I rubbed at it, and my hand came away red and slimy.
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“Fuck,” I whispered. What just happened?
A spider hissed in response.
I screamed again, anguished and terrified, and rolled to my feet. Zephyro was in front of me, swinging wildly to keep the last spider back. The other one, the one who had attached itself to my hand, lay dead before him. It was enveloped by hundreds of Logic sparks, but its size made it easy to spot nonetheless. It was easily five times as big as before, and hideously misshapen. I counted 26 eyes and additional legs sticking out in every direction. A massive wound leaking green ichor was left where Zephyro had struck it. It seemed it had literally grown until Zephyro couldn’t miss it anymore.
As I watched, the cloud of sparks began hovering toward the remaining spider. It skittered closer, eager to feast on… on my memories. Oh god, it would take them and—
“Like fuck you will,” I screamed. I missed a step, startled by the force of the words, pulsing with anguish. My throat hurt. Everything hurt, everything was just too much. The beast had taken my fucking memories. They were mine. Mine! It was my Wish! My Soul! Get away from it! Get away from me. Oh god, get away from me, please…
My insides churned with barely contained emotions. The feelings thickened until I could no longer breathe. The sounds, the smells, the sight of another spider, hissing and spitting, Zephyro swinging at the Feral and yelling at me, the high-pitched sound in my ears, the heat on my skin as another building exploded, there was so much going on and I couldn’t watch everything and I had no idea how to—
I was choking on air. Frantically, I reached for something, anything to help me keep it together.
So when the rage came, so very familiar, offering the promise of security, I begged it to take over.
My jaw set, my shoulders tensed, my vision cleared. I faced the Logic and willed it to come to me. When I spread my arms, the cloud of blue came rushing in.
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The missing memories itched, like scabbed-over skin. A quiet part in the back of my mind couldn't stop picking at them, trying to remember what exactly I had lost. My main focus however kept on target with white-hot fury. I was going to make them pay. Make them all pay.
With a scream, I shouldered past Zephyro. The spider tensed, ready to jump. I didn’t give it the chance. I abandoned everything I had ever learned and pounced on it with reckless fury. Its hairy carapace dug into my flesh where my armor did not protect me, and fuck, the hair MOVED, and it was disgusting and vile and I just kept slamming the mace onto its form, torch trailing streaks of blue flame that flared into puffs of teal fire whenever I hit the damn thing and someone grabbed me by the shoulder, pulling me back. I spun, snarling, raised my torch and—
“Peace, Sultana. Peace! It is dead!”
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Frantically, I turned back to face the spider, but it was no longer there. Just a blackened mass of crumpled chitin and ruptured organs. My entire body tingled with unspent rage. I screamed an amalgamation of sounds that didn’t even make sense to me, fell to my knees and just kept pounding on the charred mass until I could no longer lift the scepter. It clattered to the floor beside me. Panting, I watched as teal flames licked the stone.
{Core Temp: 83° C}
My breath came raggedly and sweat dripped from my forehead. I tried to wipe it away, but a bead formed on my nose and fell, mixing with the blood and guts.
“FUCK!” I yelled. It echoed over the rooftops and the alleys and out into the dissolving desert. It was all happening again. Everything was happening again exactly like before, after the plane crash and the fucking Angel and the goddamn Wish.
Who knew how much time had passed in the real world? Who cared? It had been enough for nothing I had built to remain. Everything was lost and I had to do everything again. All the loss and pain and anguish, all the learning and experiences, the time shared with friends, the laughter and the tears, it was all for nothing.
I’d have to do it all again.
I didn’t know if I could.
“Fuck,” I said.
“I have failed you, Sultana,” a voice said next to me.
I didn’t reply.
“Do you know what my name means, Sultana?” he asked. I noticed he still had his hand on my shoulder. It was annoyingly comforting.
“I don’t know, Chris made up some random bullshit with numbers they had learned from some history book I gavethem.”
“It is a twist on the number zero, yes. In the language of my people, it is safira, or sifir. But it does not just mean zero, it also means null, and void. In the language of the ancients, it meant “nothingness”, darkness so vast and empty nothing can exist in it.”
“You don’t have ancients, Zephyro,” I said, too exhausted for niceties. “You’re a computer program that I pumped some divine energy into.”
He laughed. He actually laughed. I turned, taken off-guard. I had never even seen the man smile before, and now he was laughing?
Laughing. While I was slogging through the dirt, trying to reclaim scraps of my former life so I could start over. Was he insane? What was he thinking?
Yes, Sam. What is he thinking? What do you not yet understand? What would you do if you understood?
Fuck! I tried gritting my teeth, but the gesture felt empty, the rage forced and stale. Fuck that nagging little voice and the person behind it. It made staying angry so fucking hard all the time.
Zephyro’s laughter ended eventually, but the smile stayed on his lips. “Indeed, Sultana, I am a program! We all are. Which is why my name is so fitting. We all came from nothing, and to nothing, we will return. It is Kismet. We know that only one thing matters, one thing we exist, live and die for, and that is to keep you safe.”
“Sounds fatalistic,” I said. “If everybody in this city just exists for me, that’s just more responsibility that I don’t need.” I felt so tired. Zephyro gently squeezed my shoulder.
“Do not misunderstand me, Sultana. We are not your responsibility, not your subjects. We are a free and proud people. What we do, we do not for you, but for what you represent.” With a tilt of his head, he indicated the torch lying next to me. The handle and cage were covered in ichor and giblets and it still burned, charring the bright stone rooftop. Instinctively, I flexed my fingers towards it, but unlike its early real-life counterpart, it didn’t react.
“That’s what I represent?” I scoffed. “Blood, fire, and pain?”
“Progress,” was Zephyro’s answer.
Below us, the city was burning to ash. I watched a blazing minaret tumble across a street, smashing a beautiful house. Bright flames erupted from the wreckage, spreading onto neighboring buildings in a manner of seconds.
“Not seeing it,” I said.
As Zephyro followed my gaze, a sad smile crept over his lips. “This isn’t about this city, Sultana. Progress is more than stacking bricks and smelting steel. Consider progress as an idea, not as a material thing, and it becomes a promise.
“Progress is the idea that while the-darkness-that-ends-all-things is inevitable for us, it might not be for someone else, sometime later. The idea that if we push and toil, those who come after us might be just a little better off than before. It means our sacrifice today might mean a chance for your tomorrow.”
Hot winds buffeted us, filling the silence with embers and the low roar of fire.
“That isn’t the only definition of progress,” I said.
“Indeed, Sultana. But it is the one we chose, and I am proud of my people that we did. We are protectors, stewards, guardians. All we do, we do to shepherd the ability for someone else to move on. So we hold on, no matter how much pain it causes us.”
“Pain…” I started, and Zephyro finished with me, nodding: “…is the price of progress.”
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I was still exhausted, didn’t know what to do about any of my problems, and the conversation was still running circles in my head, but I got up and dusted off my knees. Bending at the waist and grabbing the torch, I flicked a switch on the hilt, quenching the fire. As I looked for a good place to sheathe my torch, I absentmindedly rubbed at my hand.
“What happened there, with the spider?” I asked. “Felt like it was pulling my flesh through my skin.” Eventually, I gave up on trying to wrap the bulky weapon in my robes and slipped the handle through my belt. The spiked iron cage dug uncomfortably into my side.
Zephyro got to his feet as well, chainmail clinking. “The Feral feasted on your Essence, drew it out of you to assimilate it, Sultana. Fortunately, it was weak and had a bad wireless controller, so not much harm was done and you could recover most of it. Still, I propose you check your firewall. It shouldn’t have been able to bypass it with such ease.
“Firewall?” I asked, and Zephyro looked like he was close to a heart attack.
Chris? Forget about the turrets, we need a firewall, NOW!