"You have brought light into darkness. I am King of the flock." - The Red Code
Light Into Darkness[]
DATE: JUNE 5TH 1983
Subject has deceased. We suspect that even if he had continued to operate; his words would become less coherent and less helpful very quickly. Subject’s name will remain classified. Age was one-hundred and one years, six months and thirty-five days on this date.
Because of this, “Gateway of the Mind” experiment shall end with inconclusive results. Codename: EZEKIEL-ZANDERFRUIT has put funds on hiatus as of yesterday night at seven. Me and my colleagues, I presume, will attempt to find new forms of continuing similar experiments immediately.
DATE: JULY 9TH, 1983:
All experiments similar to “Gateway of the Mind” project are given a mandatory shutdown, per order of EZEKIEL-ZANDERFRUIT. This is not necessarily permanent, but most likely will remain that way.
DATE: JANUARY 15TH, 1986:
Officially re-assigned to an assignment titled “The Transcendence Project.” Curiosity strikes me. Production begins in a few months. My services will most likely be required in two years. I must be swift in order to align this with the end of my other projects.
DATE: AUGUST 1ST, 1988:
Arrived at undisclosed address today. I was strictly spoken to, as if I possessed no power in their community. Precedent dictates that this will quickly fizzle out. My new superiors instructed me to relay all data collected from the “Gateway of the Mind” project in both verbal and physical form. I will regret this, impulse tells me, but reason dictates that whatever goal they seek to achieve will be so with or without the data they attained on this day.
DATE: AUGUST 2nd, 1988:
It is two in the morning. I have so many thoughts, and seemingly not a single English word which could be used to translate them. Impulse dictates me to do something or I should perish. Reason is telling me that there is nothing I can do, death at risk or not. As I lay awake, my eyes are playing furiously frustrating tricks on me. I theorize that sleeping on my side had me unconsciously putting extra physical strain on one eye. The one that was not crushed between my skull and my pillow is seeing normally, aside from having to adjust to the light of the room when I flick the switch in the middle of the night. The other eye is interpreting its environment with a complete lack of depth perception. The results are highly disorienting. Focusing in on the center between my eyes seems to help the problem. Bright lights as well. My neck is in pain. My mind is voluntarily losing some of its advanced function. I expect to recover by the time work beckons.
10 hours later.
I will write some things in my short break. Some of my superiors called me into a room which felt like a sauna chamber which was a sauna chamber. The air was incredibly dry and exponentially hot. If I had bathed previously these sensations might have been relaxing, but as I have not bathed since the previous night the only sensation I gathered was one that tested my endurance. There was a single dim light bulb in the room hanging from the ceiling by an old and worn string. Two men, tall and elderly, approached me in this room. They did not sit, as I had expected. Instead, out of a sand colored folder, they pulled a copy of a child’s video game. I was handed the trinket. The cover and title revealed that the focal point of the game is the fictional dinosaur Godzilla. I rose my head in query, but before I could even ask, they spoke to me as if they knew full well that they understood all of my mental patterns. I was told that the video game had not been released to the mass market as of now and would not so until December of this year.
Then they said something highly intriguing, and for a reason I do not comprehend, disheartening. Especially being that this revelation must have been obvious from the moment in which I was reassigned.
They told me that my experiments were being recreated in this child’s game.
…My experiments.
DATE: AUGUST 30TH, 1988.
I speak onto myself, yet I still find it necessary to apologize for not having written in this diary for this extended period of time. To be fair to myself, I had such a long absence from filing in this chronicle between the years 1983 and 1988, with one minor exception, that any apology seems to compensate for the injury when the murder is still being tried.
I have been highly enveloped in the goings on with this Godzilla computer game. Apparently it will be released to the mass market with a title maximally corny and innocent in order to mask the experiments continuing at this still classified location. I had mentioned earlier that they wished to “re-create my experiments” using this game cartridge. At this I was as confused as anybody who may be reading this chronicle…and if you are, I should report you to the authorities for an invasion of privacy. Anyhow, being a biology major with a minor in philosophy, I had to ask to be excused for my lack of technological knowledge. Not only did they fully brief me on the capabilities of the video cartridge, they fully briefed me on the capabilities of all computers, with information they presumed I had gathered left away. One of the most intriguing points of information went as follows: Unlike computers manufactured throughout the 40’s into the early 70’s, the computers of the modern day ran on logic rather than a series of clicks, motions and kinetic energy. Not only does this increase the capabilities of a calculator, computer, video console, television – what have you – it also reduces the size intensely. Yet the theoretical possibilities of technological advancements has now had a recently, heavily expanded horizon because of these steps forward.
It is currently thought that the computer machine of twenty or thirty years in the future will blur the line between a naturally thinking mind and a mechanically operating one. It will no longer be an artificial robotic device but a halfway living being. We must be seeing the beginnings of this on the day which I write upon.
The most important trait of computers that will not change in the foreseeable future, we presume, will be that these machines will not resist manipulation. Of course, works of fiction such as 2001: A Space Odyssey have argued against this idea, but that proposed argument in the field seems more fantastic than it does realistic.
The goal of “The Transcendence Project” is to find philosophical parallels between the human’s “five senses” and the machine’s theoretical “five senses.” If we can successfully locate these philosophical parallels, then we may repeat the process taken with the “Gateway of the Mind” project and sever connections between the cartridge and these five senses. If the machine continues to operate despite the severing, than the hope is that it will come in contact some sort of spiritual superior.
I quickly discussed the possibility that the video console might be the mind, rather than the cartridge. My superiors have assured me that this possibility has been taken into account and has not yet been disproven. They spoke optimistically.
DATE: DECEMBER 8TH 1988
I wish I had not apologized earlier in this chronicle, for the need to apologize now must be incredibly intense now in comparison. It has been something less than a third of a year since I documented events in this journal. Recent discovers have me feeling like I am treading new grounds. Yet the parallel feeling of treading grounds that which I had treaded many eons ago lingers in equal power against the former power. It is a false yet true, depressing yet exciting experience.
I am happy to report that “The Transcendence Project” has finally reached its pinnacle; one day before copies of the untouched game is released to the public for purchase. We will perform the necessary experiments tomorrow. For now I am sitting in my bed. I look back at my previous entries and realize now that the phenomenon where one of my eyes loses its depth perception is an experience far beyond me now. I have become relaxed. There is a large sense of accomplishment amongst my mood and weight lifted far above my shoulders. There are too many fears to count that are haunting behind me, yet I pass them aside to breathe this moment of accomplishment. I highly anticipate tomorrow’s exhibition. Do I expect success? No…but secretly yes. There’s no way this can fail.
DATE: OCTOBER 26TH, 1988
The most major of my superiors, simply named David, has informed me that we have formed our first complete theory in regards to the philosophical connection between a human’s five senses and a machine’s five senses, specifically in regards to the Nintendo console.
The easiest parallel, which was discovered almost premmediately, was the visionary and auditory parallels. The red, yellow and white RCA cables that one uses to connect the Nintendo machine to a television set are clearly the machine’s eyes and ears. In addition to being the easiest to discovery it was possibly the easiest to sever.
The third parallel, which was only slightly different in difficulty to discover, were the feeling sensations in regards to the Nintendo machine. We found that the controller one uses to play these television games are this parallel. The game “feels” ones finger pressure when the player presses a button on the video game controller, and thus reacts with motion of the central character.
The other two senses - taste and smell - were much harder to find parallels. The legitimacy of the connection had to be stretched in terms of theories. I doubt this version of the construction of the parallels between the human sensations and the robotic sensations will be the finalized version. According to our recent findings, the “controller port,” where one connects the controller, is theorized to be a loose connection to the nose. This may be why blowing on the controller’s end to “clear the dust” away is so commonly used to fix glitches in the performance of the Nintendo machine.
The connection to the mouth lies within the console itself. The machinery that reads and loads whichever console you insert, be it Mario or Godzilla, is theorized to be the mouth.
If any of my colleagues recall, without vocal cords, the patient of the “Gateway of the Mind” experiment would have been rendered completely useless in that original experiment five or so years ago. He would not have been able to relay any of the haunting information that we received.
There are no vocal cords inside of a Nintendo machine.
Me and my superiors at “The Transcendence Project” are hopeful that if we sever the connections internally and not externally, that the cartridge will ironically “transcend” the limitations of the surgically handicapped video console and be able to display sights and sounds using a spiritual connection; possibly even allowing us to interact with that world. If this works, it would prove even more useful than the “Gateway of the Mind” could ever be for two major reasons. A.) Interaction would be far easier B.) The subject would, most likely, not fight back.
DATE: DECEMBER 16TH, 1988
I should tell you, oh dear diary, how things have progressed.
In similar fashions as our experiments with the original human subject, we severed connections to the theorized “robotic five senses” seven days ago. We then placed the console machine in isolation and set up multiple surveillance techniques, including human and mechanical. Certain technology exhibited in this facility I am not allowed to name or specify traits. They are far beyond my expectations for humanity. In the isolation room, we left the power cord connection to a wall socket clean and firmly connected so that the Nintendo Machine could still channel electric power. We switched the console to the “on” position, and the red light signaling it was operating and functioning glared in the dark room. We connected the seemingly useless RCA cables to a television, as well as a controller rendered the same. We placed the cartridge in the mouth of the machine making sure it was secure, despite the loading “teeth” being removed. We left the robot to its own devices and waited.
The first three days, six hours, forty-two minutes and twelve seconds, the console lay completely dormant.
Afterwards – and oh how I wish I could build up the drama of this experience with the proper execution that it deserves – the console began to cause a silent rumble amongst the walls of the room enclosed in acrylic glass.* Another six hours removed, there was a turn-off static snap displayed on the televisions screen. This wasn’t one of the most common ones. This was one that was especially loud and looked like a lightning bolt. The light rumble continued after the static snap. Aside from this both the screen and the machine laid dormant for the remainder of the day.
A minute past midnight the next day…this would have been the thirteenth…the television executed the turn-off “snap” again. Repeatedly. After the fifth or sixth instance, it was clear that it was uncontrollably building in intensity towards an eventual intense storm. The thunder strikes sounded gradually natural in audible tone as they progressed in speed and volume. I attained the information in this paragraph from the interns responsible for surveillance that night.
At eight in the morning, about fifteen minutes after my own work shift begins, the thunderous, electric intimidating robotic hurricane being projected unto the television set quickly transformed into a pixilated and distorted image of colored waves. The color green was the color most primarily exhibited, seen in a multitude of shorter waves. Yellow was the base color of this image. There were plenty of red strokes as well. It looked strangely purposeful, yet I did not yet understand its purpose in English wording, nor did I have any inclination of the consequences. I did not want to leave the room for any purpose and I know I shouldn’t have, but the front of my mind was attempting to relay to my subconscious that my bodily health was at risk. The “lunch break” was an adequate enough opportunity to excuse myself and jot down some notes for a future diary entry, which I am now writing on my bedside.
Near one in the morning on the following day, the image of colored waves became a coherent exhibition. According to my superiors, it slowly morphed into what was exactly duplicating the menu screen of the untouched version of the television game that we had inserted into the Nintendo machine. Upon observation of this design, I found it somewhat comedic that the tail of the Godzilla monster blocks out the last three letters of his name on this screenshot.
And in the most anti-climactic ending to a diary entry for the last thousand millenniums, I report that the television screen has remained displaying that single image, unaltered from the original game, up to the day of today. It doesn’t help the mood of content that it’s nighttime as of my writing. For my knowledge, we have not seen a single sign of change since the events I have already documented.
It appears as if the experiment was a “success”…but one that did not yield very exciting results. The experiment is still in progress, thankfully. A lot of my superiors are satisfied, and I fear ready to finish. God is hopefully not the only one perceptible enough to know that I am not in their mood.
I refuse to be satisfied until I know how in the worlds of Heaven and Hell that ancient asshole knew Brenda’s name.
…I have this weekend off, despite my desires. On the 19th I shall report further.
DATE: DECEMBER 19TH, 1988
Six days until Christmas and Santa Claus has given me some very tantalizing hints as to what may be under my tree this year.
I arrived at “the facility” at six in the morning today, two hours earlier than I was expected by my superiors. (Note: I do wish I could refer to this massive skyscraper by its actual name. “The facility” feels so euphemized.) David, and some of my other superiors, who I am not allowed to name as of now, were surprised and slightly agitated but not angry at my early arrival. I believe they understood and still understand my importance to this experiment, even if they also wish I was not participating due to my emotional connections. It can be ostracizing and degrading at points, the way they regard me. Life throws us curveballs sometimes…yet I highly doubt this one will break my bones, or anything for that matter.
I walked with David and my superiors to the isolation room, where the Nintendo game had been operating last time I had paid a visit. At that moment it was still stuck on that godforsaken menu screen. Shortly after inspecting the television and console to make doubly sure that no external elements had interfered with the performance of the machine, David introduced me to a lady named Andrea. She was probably in her middle forties. Possibly younger. She looked slightly Arabic but mostly American, specifically of the East Coast region. I asked if she was from inside the production. I made this query expecting to receive details on what position she had in the department. Instead, David told me she had no role in the departments of the interior. I was puzzled. We began to discuss how her son, named Benjamin, had volunteered to play the game as the first human variable to enter the newest experiment. Understanding dawned upon me. I figured some sort of progression would have to be forced. After all, we were currently at a standstill that had lasted longer than a day’s hours. With a lack of knowledge of the behavior of a supernaturally operating video machine, we faced the choice of letting the dead horse lay or poking it and unleashing a four-legged wild zombie.
We discussed typical legal matters, such as whether or not it would be safe to allow a child to experiment with a video machine that was possibly communicating with The Almighty One. Typical legal material. As an alternative, I was nominated as a possibility to be used as a human variable. In a move that activated an accidental guilt trip, I was also nominated to make the decision between the two options. Whether it was out of faith in the child’s – not to mention a child’s I had not yet met - abilities to handle supernatural elements…or it be my own self[ishness]-protection…I volunteered Benjamin to play the game.
A few hours later – after a mass of paperwork, legal documents and making progress in other experiments “the facility” is currently carrying out – We began to scan for miraculous and random yet deathly and possible anomalies, such as nuclear fallout, poisonous gasses, and any other deathly anomalies. Once the clear was given on physical safety, Benjamin was granted access into the isolation room.
I’m beginning to have my suspicions about the supernatural faith and random actions that these “government scientists” seem to be exhibiting in their doings.
Benjamin was escorted into the isolation room by David, with David’s arm curled around his shoulder. Dear Lord, Ben must have been frightened the farthest he had in his entire life. His face was stone emotionless, but there’s no convincing me that a newly turned ten year old like him could harness any bravery in a place such as that which is created for purest, darkest isolation. A dark space merely ten fight in width, yet its grim appearances stretch in a person’s mentality throughout eternity. The length of the room was most likely something around twenty five to thirty feet, yet it somehow could feel more compact than a mountainous island being crushed by hands of Adonai. Between these two conflicting elements, though this room was a small room, if one would not be concentrating on reliving themselves of any optical illusions, one would feel the room stretch into the deserts of Africa, with no place to escape.
When Benjamin finished his century long walk into the isolation room, I felt a swimming chill over my front and back. In my own interior thoughts I cursed myself to man’s eternal damnation. Benjamin, when the door closed behind him, walked a slow, dead strut, towards the television screen, still visually blaring that bright menu screen. Unchanged. Normal. Tearing my mentality apart only due to the fact that the energy to display such a screen must only be coming from a Heavenly, possibly Hellish, deity of energy.
I had told of the fact that we had severed the RCA cables for eyes and ears. Although it is currently implied, I should mention that only these visual functions of the machine have been proven to be transcending to a connection supernatural in nature. The audible, sensual, nasal and oral parallels have yet to be proven to have a connection with some sort of a God.
Obviously the first thing to test, and the most eager we were to, was the sensual parallel. Due to the controller being directly connected to the controller port, we would be proving the nasal parallel supernatural in transcendence if we could prove the sensual parallel supernatural in the same fashion. Kill two birds with one stone. Once David, I and all of my superiors had regrouped inside of the observation room, we gave our first shouted instruction from the outside, which David delivered. He told Ben to merely sit or stand near the television set and pick up the controller. Simplest task. Yet Benjamin seemed to take an extended amount of time to complete this task. At this moment David impulsively desired Benjamin to be ejected from this experiment, claiming to require full concentration on the project from the test subject. I vouched for Benjamin’s continuation. Benjamin was next tasked with pressing the up arrow on the controller. Cameras were rolling. If any event occurred, it would prove a major success.
Such as it did. The marker that dictates which option you may select by pressing the “select” button moved on the screen from SINGLE PLAYER to MULTIPLAYER.
“Benjamin, we want you to move the up arrow twice.”
“Up arrow.” Lingo I have trouble understanding. He performed the previous task twice again, and the marker moved to the options EVENT and BOILER.
My eyebrows rose.
“Sir, those ‘options’ weren’t as numerous before Benjamin entered the isolation room, were they?”
David cuffed his hand against the microphone and took a deep sigh of concern. “There were no options. In the original game, you were simply to press the start button at the title screen. No single player, multiplayer…nothing. Some extra-natural force has altered the game’s coding.”
I cursed myself to the farthest layer of mankind’s damnation.
David uncuffed his hands. “Benjamin, you have done a great job enough. You are excused.” I was shocked, disappointed, and yet somewhat relieved all at the same time. I am not certain if one sentiment is malicious and one is benevolent, or if one is efficient and one is simplistic.
As I write this, I possess the emotion of relief. I get to live another day without the inevitable, theoretical doom of which I fear will fall upon Benjamin.
The Twentieth[]
DATE: DECEMBER 20TH, 1988
This is the only passage which I shall write in the morning on this day. For the first time in a half decade, I have not the most absolutely smallest desire to go to work. I dread today.
Despite what would be presumed by my earlier passage, I arrived at the facility far earlier than would be wise. Luckily the doors were not barred to my entrance. Twenty-four hours of the day, the machines are consistently running and employees are always at work in the place. Most of us who have power acknowledge the hours between midnight and five in the dawn are those that are closest to an equivalent of “being closed.”
I arrived at the facility at 4:32.
The night sky in the morning had a coat of blue paint at the area closest to the surface of the Earth. Beyond that deep, loving blue coat was an endless abyss of total blackness, sprinkled with a coalition of Luna’s children which shall never know the sensory miracle of life and love. It is only at these early hours past midnight when the blue, seemingly loving, actually deceiving coat is visible yet transparent. Sometimes it is not even visible at these hours due to a masking ocean of clouds. Any man who can strike the golden luck to see this spectacle may be as thankful as the man who sees a wild king devour the galloping antelope, gruesomely, in detailed fashion. It is an awe-striking sight, but one that reveals the darkness of reality in the most immediate way.
I faced the building that we refer to as “the facility.” It is a monster of industrial revolution, creation and destruction. This skyscraper is a metropolis behemoth that needs no other words than monstrous, polluting superempire. The doors to this structure were a mockery of the doors we hold in our warm homes. Very similar to presenting a mannequin of any creature and selling it as a living being. These non-doors, these entrance blockers, they were perfect squares, colored the blandest of bland colors, handles merely a half and hollow rectangle. Yet, in all of their fakery, they stood like Goliath above me. Gargantuan in size and brightness I was a mere dwarf against its enormous intimidation. Yet, something deep inside me found the courage to surmise that all fakery was harmless, unless it acted as a mirror and I would enact my own destruction. I pushed my way through the gates of Hell.
I made my way towards the isolation room with high velocity, ignoring all the potential darkness and emptiness that would engulf my being in this building. I was ignorant to be rushing. Upon reaching the isolation room, I sat against the exterior walls of that place. I was aware of the blazing lights emanating from the television screen that were still haunting this area, it only took me a fraction of a second for this acknowledgement to be conscious after having seen the elements of light from the corner of my eye. But I had not yet looked at it directly, and I weakly made up my mind not to. I wished to merely ignore the screen until it was time for Benjamin to continue his journey into the supernatural. Yet painfully intense curiosity strikes us all and struck me the hardest, harder than an elephant strikes the bird unfortunate to be close when the pachyderm falls to death. My heart was in the process of slowly crippling upon itself, practically begging me to observe this monstrosity of artificial life. So I made that fatal decision that my heart had urged me to. I quickly flinched to look upon the mechanical being. Nothing had changed. Nothing at all. Aside from the elements that had changed the previous day. Yet this does not soften the situation. If one were to see a lion stare them down, so that one may have the opportunity to take a leave of absence from the duel, then hide behind a large tree, only to see the lion still in that predatory stance out of the corner of their eye, one would not be less afraid because of a lack of change, but more afraid because of a long continuation of readiness in the predator. Fatal readiness.
I felt alone, engulfed in the reality of the situation. Something, something immense, something immense as the oceans, was far beyond the point of appropriate discovery. My fear rendered me no longer able to be ignorant of my senses. I was fully exposed to my own lack of heat creation. When this dawned upon me, I was rendered with dull surprise. I must’ve awoken even earlier than I thought I had. At this moment, I could not create my own body heat nearly as efficiently as I would be able to if my rest was sufficient. I slouched, leaning against the wall, creeping cold, blue chills crawling against my body, goose flesh rising from the ashes of a once physically self-controlled man. My mind was invaded by the sensations of self-contained burning blizzards, and played with by curious, alien lizards. I looked around. My eyes were acting up again. They were experiencing the phenomenon where one eye is not calculating depth, and as a result perceiving everything hundreds of times closer than they actually were in space. The other eye was functioning normally. In this crystal clear and yet heavily distorted vision, I saw all of the space around me. I did not merely perceive that there is space in front of me and attempt to calculate how much. This is the same way that one perceives areas outside of the ones he has been inside of, assuring their existence. It is a fake perception self-imposed unto the individual to reassure logic.
I saw the space as one sees the person right in front of them. I saw all of its fullest definition. I could comprehend all of the traits that the space in front of me possessed.
And it was all empty. Empty space.
Empty fucking space.
I don’t wanna fucking live because there’s so much empty space. All the people in the world are so far away in the fucking empty space. They’re all so far away in the empty space. They ran away from me. WHY THE FUCK DID YOU ALL RUN AWAY FROM ME!?!? You all hate me and you said you want to fucking leave me to die in the FUCKING EMPTY SPACE and now I’m dying in the empty space but I fucking deserve it why do I fucking deserve it why do I deserve complete and total abandonment I’ll tell you why the fuck I deserve complete and total abandonment because I let Ben die because I let Ben go to fucking Hell to go get raped by six legged goat fucks and get his ass fucked and his mouth can suck the flaming dick of Satan all because I fucking killed him because I couldn’t stay away from fucking God because Barbara because that old suicidal fuck said Barbara and if he said Barbara he knew Barbara and if he knew Barbara he FUCKING KILLED BARBARA that sick fucking pervert is going to fucking pay and if I must control the forces of nature to do it I fucking will.
And that’s why everybody all ran away from me. Because I want to kill them all.
I must admit I have absolutely zero desire to have this material published. In fact, if my desire was to be measured on a numerical scale, than it might crossover into the negative integers. On the off-chance there is any sort of publication, there are certain parts which I demand must be censored. I find it the wisest decision to permanently and exclusively use these chronicles as my personal monologues, lest they be discarded. I suspect this means that I am free to name any of my superiors, which I may do time to time, but any classified information in writing somehow frightens me.
After the unsettling rest, David and…oh should I name him?...Yes, why not? This seems appropriate to be the first piece of classified information I document in these personal loges. David’s partner in work was, and presumably is, named Joseph. David and Joseph, they are in the same family. They are brothers, in fact. They couldn’t be separated by less than five or seven years, for their appearance and age are that much noticeably different, different in a fashion that signals an age gap. The physical differences do not show when one of them manipulates their appearance as intensely as a woman would, yet for a far different purpose. David and Joseph have been in this field of work (forgive me for not being able to name is specifically, I’m not entirely certain what this field even is) for multiple decades. David is clearly the more righteous one. Smarter, taller, and more sympathetic – some intuition informs me that he is empathetic – to his companions. Yet Joseph is most likely the more able person, with many more talents, and whatever talents David possesses Joseph is more adapt at. Joseph will most likely outlive David, but David seems to be ignorant of this. Their last name, I shall keep to myself for the moment.
David and Joseph entered the building on this day through those massive, fake doors. I slugged upwards into a standing position, which was no help in impressing them from the beginning instant, as they had already observed my state of rest. David and Joseph quickened their pace towards me, possibly changing the direction their pace towards me, though it should not be said that they rushed. The brothers approached me, asked why I was present at the facility at such an early hour, and were given no legitimate answer other than my own irrational fears. I witnessed the first moment when either David or Joseph may have become suspicious of treason. Although they would never admit to this next observation in that timeframe if asked, I was already seen as lesser in their consciousness.
I began my tasks early. They were quite mundane without the presence of Andrea or Benjamin. I was highly tempted to query when and where the two would arrive at the facility for further experimentation. But patience, fear for my job, and fear for my statues as a decent human being prevented these questions from being asked.
The sun rose without my noticing, which heavily disappointed me. Witnessing the event would have lifted my depression and replaced it with a fully truthful faith in all things majestic and holy.
A few hours forward, Andrea and Benjamin were brought into the observation room, while I was observing data inside that same place. I thought it odd that they were brought into this place. I turned to observe Andrea and Benjamin…oh my, dear diary. I fear I have not yet described Benjamin.
You may be able to infer some of the more important aspects of his physical appearance just by the fact that he would nearly not fit in either the isolation room or the observation room. Despite being barely over ten years of age, Gigantism has plagued him so extremely that he has already far surpassed most healthily tall men of fully developed age. I felt as if he should be thankful that it had not affected his body-fat relationship, but I knew that benefit would not dull the pain of being this tall at this age. In fact, the “benefit” may be a detractment. He seemed almost too skinny for how elongated he was. Quite a candidate for the term “lanky.” I do not know if a mention of this next observation is necessary, but his hair was so curly it was entertaining. I also found his outwards personality highly conservative, speaking rarely if not never, head always titled downwards, so far so that I feared for his neck…
So far tilted, that I feared those that had been created by his own skull. I feared the shadows that always draped over his eyes…
I spoke. “Andrea, Benjamin. What brings you two to the observation room?”
David leaned his head downwards, clutched his fists together, and replied with colloquial speech. “To be honest with ya, we don’t really know.”
My eyebrows went up.
“Benjamin,” Andrea said before an awkward pause. “Benjamin wanted to ask you something.”
My eyebrows went up further. Or downwards, sometimes it is difficult for me to be aware of the direction. “Really?” I said, curiosity rendering me with little strong speech to offer. I then repositioned myself to sit in a more approachable pose. “Well, Benjamin, I’d be much more than pleased to hear what you want to ask me.”
Benjamin walked towards me. He did not cease his stride until his knee softly collided with mine…or, would have, if he was of the height of a healthy and full grown man. It was rather his lower leg that I felt against my knee. I was rather uncomfortable…yet somehow seeing myself benevolent, which may appear selfish or self-serving, but I feel those emotions of self-gratitude are too precious to never be experienced, even if crucially dangerous in high volume. Benjamin didn’t look directly at me, nor did he look directly at anything. Though his gaze continued to look towards his shoes, I could sense his stare gazing into the regions of this universe which man should never explore. I had wondered if anybody had ever seen this. Most likely his mother. It was in this moment that I was emotionally sure that Benjamin was the perfect candidate to lead the video machine into heavenly contact. After a few seconds, I spoke to the boy.
“Yes, Benjamin?”
“…Would you go into the room with me?”
I had to pull all of my mental strength to not unleash an emotionally unspecific screech. Between his wording of the word, all the awkwardness set previously, and his voice…a voice that sounded both intimidating as a tiger and as innocent as modern interpretations of Mickey Mouse…I do not know how to describe my reaction completely. Something remote between humor and empathy. I replied with a rather bland response. “Yes, I will.”
“Thank you.” The sentence ended abruptly. He had another thought, then realized that he had nothing to fill the thought with. Clearly, Benjamin wanted to refer to me by my name.
I cannot provide an argument as to why Benjamin might have been so set on using me as support, when both his mother and other members of the facility he had become more familiar with were present. I suspect Benjamin possesses some sort of mental or emotional power beyond the average human being.
I see myself engaged in what may become the most important portion of this entire project…It might also be one of the more awkward positions of my entire existence. Standing perfectly stiff a few feet against a television set displaying the menu for a child’s television game, while right next to me a gargantuan ten year old crouches down, holding the controller of the video machine in his massive palms, while facing diagonal to my own position so that he could clearly see the television screen while not disturbing my own perception of sight. Even in his crouching position, he was still at least a couple of inches taller than me. That is being especially generous towards the impression of shortened height.
“David…” I said in the distance, chilled and frightened, yet somehow simultaneously elevated to the level of my superior. “Do you wish for Benjamin to initiate the action of the game?”
“Go ahead, Peter.”
I cannot recall the last time either of us referred to each other by our first names.
“Benjamin, I think it’s time to start.”
Benjamin did what I recommended after an unnatural pause. God, I wish Andrea had been his comfort; I have no skill at this parenting, supervising, comforting thing.
The game began. I had to resensitize myself in order to fully comprehend the amazing qualities of a video console functioning fully without being connected to any RCA Cables, controllers or loading ports. It reminds me of living with an angel.
The actual content of the video game was, initially, quite dull compared to the expected results of intensity and abnormalities. Godzilla, and a butterfly creature named Mothra, were controlled by the player in a sort of video board game, where the goal was to reach the enemy “bosses” (as Benjamin so put it) and defeat them in short battles. (Short if not annoying.) On the quest towards these “bosses,” the player would experience intermediate levels of side-scrolling gameplay featuring destruction of natural landforms and military personnel, sometimes other animals.
The bosses included Gezora, an exaggerated squid creature who looked like a product of a seventies “hippie” high on methamphetamines. The second boss was named Moguera. He was a quite curiously designed robot – to put it lightly. These two bosses inhabited the first board on opposite position to the player’s characters, and then “respawned” for the second level. It appears as if each level, a new creature piece is added to the challenge. The second level presented me a beast named Varan…who I can only describe as a raisin dressed in the spiked skin of a dead flying squirrel.
With the odd designs of these creatures, I had to ask David if these were official trademarked designs. I asked only to reassure myself that we had not already entered the subconscious of the video machine…or any of the men in the vicinity. David assured me that these creatures were in fact created by the same company that developed the Godzilla franchise. Only one, specifically Varan, had made aan appearance in an actual Godzilla film, and this was only a brief cameo. I was curious as to why the introductory bosses for the first two levels would be comprised of more obscure and such strange creatures, but David assured us both that this was how the game was originally programed. Joseph nodded.
Before the third map of this computer game fully loaded, an interlude screen noiselessly flashed into our vision. It stood in place for an uncomfortably extended duration. I looked over my shoulder to David in the observation room. In a rash and frantic manner, he “informed” us to pay close attention to the television screen. It was in this moment when I was mostly confirmed of my suspicion. The game was acting on its own will instead of following the commandments of its code. This interlude screen was mostly comprised of a black background flat in shape and intensity. There was a one-sentence passage super-imposed onto the black background. Each letter that had the characteristic of L, F and E – in that it featured lines jutting from the major structural pillar – looked as if each extension had been tiringly stretched. I instantaneously became afraid for my own sanity when I found my own mental endurance being tested by the appearance of these characters. More so, I became afraid for Benjamin’s well-being.
With a different intention then is usually accompanied by this statement, I spoke to David and asked him for permission to continue. He ordered me to continue. I fear he may not have properly observed the emotional properties of this text. Then it occurred to me that perception may not be reality.
“David, what are you seeing on this screen?”
It took nearly a minute for him to reply.
“It says “GOODBYE”.”
It took at least three times as long as him for me to speak. Benjamin remained patient throughout this entire experience. His eyes were intent and engrossed. He seemed to be studying the picture, but not hypnotized. Not…manipulated. I feared that he might have more of a mental endurance than I possess in my older age…though, this being fear…it wasn’t real emotional fear. It was instinctual fear, the selfish fear at the core of our beings. The part that only cares for my survival was the part of my brain that feared in Benjamin’s abilities compared to mine. My advanced, emotionally capable human brain felt joy in the fact that Benjamin was not experiencing any of the gloom and grieving that I was going through. At least, that was my perception.
I looked at the letters again. The red color of these words was intense and booming, though clearly the most artificial visual flare that I had ever laid my eyes upon. In some spaces the letters were mechanically whitened. Like a fake pair of teeth. Like a cloud drawn with chalk. Mostly, though, they possessed that intense red coloring that felt as if the universe was staring at me in the face. That felt as if the universe was staring at me in the face, and the universe was programmed. Was programmed by something else. Something else so powerful…and it looked at me.
…I should confess there is an aspect of this next sentence I do not fully understand, and I’d be incredibly proud and confused if anybody ever comprehended. The letters on the screen appeared feathered. From a purely scientific standpoint these letters were blocked and the black background was flat…but some of the pixels of black that touched the pixels of red…they seemed connected in the most epileptic fashion. They may not look feathered, I guess. They…felt feathered. Some sort of sixth sense I may mr may not actually possess could feel the black feathers greeting those words. But these feathers, they were not that of a beautiful black raven, or an innocently painted robin. They were that of which would be observed if a garden bush possessed feathers instead of pines or leaves. Compact, wet to each other yet dry to the human touch, tired and worn in their own right, could cause seizures upon contact. Possibly upon sight. These garden bush feathers greeted a creature that I did not see, but feel. He was a creature with the skin tone and texture of a naked mole rat. His shape was doglike, with the exception of his head, which looked like a twisted morphing of a dolphin and a hawk. He stood upright. Ran like a horse. His size was that of an elephant. He wants to eat me. He wants to kill me.
“Go home.” Joseph said.
What? I thought.
I looked over my right shoulder again. Joseph stood, yet David was not present at all. I could hear the rattle of a million rats reproducing. The noise emerged from where David once stood. I gravely surmised that David was seizing. I internally took all of the responsibility upon my own shoulders. I did not ask any questions consciously in an attempt to hide all of my paranoia. I fear I may have let a few words slip, and I also fear that those words may never be taken back, especially with my lack of knowledge of them. Joseph then informed us that every worker had a mandatory day of rest tomorrow. My brain was outside the facility before my body was even outside of the isolation room. Before I physically left, Benjamin asked me the most innocent of favors.
“…Can I have a hug?”
This boy is approaching me as if I was his father. The even stranger, yet most incredible aspect of this newfound relationship with this boy, is that I am not hesitant to act as a father figure whatsoever. I should speak with Andrea of this matter. I granted him his wish. It was one of the only things he ever said to anybody.
The End of the World[]
Kas avate allikas?
Kui soovite katkestada oma seiklus (mäng) jälle rääkida korraga, üks, et teil on alasti tõestada oma ...
Curse permanent ink. I must have written these random words and symbols during my sleep. Seems odd how they all seem somewhat pronounceable.
…I really should not doubt the interference of an evil or holy deity at this point. Something in my inhibition just feels against it. A subconscious part of me is fully certain that this is merely an instance of sleep writing. Whenever that happens.
Though my patience to reach the end of the experiment was once nearing its end, I find great comfort in the concept of my health healing during this date of rest. I dread the moment when I wholly reconclude that my health will most likely never recover. I hope that this same long term fate does not befall Benjamin.
It is a few hours past three, and the sun burns like an impolding volcano in the sky. That sky that holds the sun is painted with the colors of the lion’s fur distorted into some sort of crawling sickness. I have taken the time to cloth myself, take all my neccessary medications and cleanse myself. Not neccessarily in that order. Heh.
When was the last time good humor entered this chronicle of my personal life? Far too long ago. I guess a reason for this profound absence of comedy is that I find comfort in expelling all my misfortunes upon the printed page. This has become a neccessary habit, not a theraputic exercize. A habit grows. Like a parasite. This could explain why yesterday’s entry comprises over 40% of all entries aside from today’s....though it is needless to explain that no reason would negate this action as excessive.
I should make it a priority of today’s activities to contact Andrea in order to discuss Benjamin’s attachment to me. I’d like to complete this objective as soon as possible, but I highly doubt the local phonebook would carry their number, and there really is no use in contacting David, Joseph or any of my superiors with the recent events occurring. So I must huntdown alternatives... and I have no idea where to start hunting.
I have doubted myself a lot since I emotionally separated myself from yesterday’s experimentation session. I doubt myself in the possibility that I allowed the game to continue to the third board without anybody present to observe its actions. I doubt myself in the ethics of the continuation of this experimentation. I fear my personal anger has allowed myself to enable far too curious scientists to conduct a deathly and emotionally scaring transformation of electronic device to demonic machine. I have, though mostly, doubted Benjamin’s safety. I have also doubted the sanity of my openness to his feelings, and the blooming obsessions we have with each other.
I don’t wanna die I don’t wanna die I don’t wanna die I don’t want Benjamin to die I don’t want Benjamin to die I don’t want Benjamin to die I don’t want our son to die he could have been our son but I let Barbara die and everybody committed suicide and I am everybody and now Benjamin Benjamin is my only source of sanity my only source of redemption I must keep him and I must imprison him in my emotions so that I feel good and I feel like I didn’t kill Barbara didn’t kill Barbara didn’t kill Barbara
Every part of me, concious, subconcious, unconcious, instinctual, emotional, logical, spiritual... etc... they all speak of retiring from the commitee and The Transcendence Project. The only thing keeping me at a continuation is Benjamin.
… And curiosity. Curiosity still strikes me intensely.
… No. Curiosity is not the only emotion striking me. Some other force is pulling me towards that facility of pure empty darkness and the isolation room of torture true coldness. Love of unknown origin for Benjamin and curiosity of very well-known origin for The Transcendence Project cannot possibly be the only factors. There is something deeper. I fear it and cannot bring myself to tell of it. It is dark. It is buried deep inside me. Yet, despite my shame I feel towards the emotion, I think it directed in a justifiable fashion to a justifiable target. But is the emotion itself justifiable...? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I never know. It may be vengeance. It may be sorrow. It may be mourning. It may be pride. It may be prejudice. It may be hatred. It may be violence. It may be perversion. Some massive mix of these things that create corruption is also a major possibility truth truth truth. Whatever portion of the mind could turn the weaker into a rapist is intensely at work at the moment, and the morally stable portions of my brain are warring out. Whatever it is… I won’t be able to fight it for longer.
I must finish the project tomorrow.
I must finish the project tonight.
By finish I mean end it. It must discontinue. It must DIE. By diplomatic or violent action, either is acceptable. I must venture to the facility tonight and put an end to this demonic creation.
I must plan my destruction.
I must gather my emotional strength.
DATE: DECEMBER 22ND, 1988
Time: sixty seconds to one. Morning. My knee is swollen in a puddle of mold and must with drops of poisoned, useless water surrounding it. My face is hot and moist, a dirty brown deprived of all intensity and moist color. It feels like a barricade of kamikaze water warriors are attacking the minimal sanity I have remaining in the name of their cultural honor. If their mission is successful I may fall from the unbearable blitzkrieg. I pray that I may finish this job. As I lean on my left knee, my hands slip onto and weakly grasp the walls not four feet away from my sides. They are completely covered in invisible moss, the feeling as if millions of diseases raged rabid war inside of my digits. Slimy, gooey, frantic and frazzled diseases. Eyelids weighing pounds from the moisture, eyes stinging from the poison infesting the air, I open those stinging orbs to look forward. The room is entirely a color of a disgusting, mushed brown. Not a brown of feces, more of a brown of once delicious chocolate now moldy and infested, disgusting, melted across the walls, some sort of piss corruption of caramel. The steam inside, despite carrying the very same chemicals, may be the purest thing if only for the fact they hold precious water. Precious, flowing water.
I lift my right knee, currently dipped in liquid dust, and push it ahead of the left knee which itself is dipped into a puddle of liquid dust. My arms squirm across the hellish invisible plant-life. I repeat this action a few times. Far too many times, actually. The vagabondage feels a travel five thousand miles before the clock even strikes half an hour past one. I crawl forwards. I vomit. The ceiling is touching my hair and I can feel ants, lice, flies, worms, and other smallish beasts find home in my scalp. I find the possibility of a newborn alligator finding its resting place on my scalp probable, yet I refuse to continue this conscious thought. I continue to struggle through the tunnels.
A gargantuan, elephantine beetle is visible a few dozen feet in front of me. His shell is hardened blackness, protecting a poisonous parasite on this planet. He crawls forward with speeds that would defeat any attempt at dodging. Dodging is rendered useless anyhow, for in such tight perimeters I could not move so swiftly. This beetle…this beetle is the size of a large dog, from a dozen feet away. He’s coming towards me now. He is on top of me now. His legs squirm across my body. They are the diseases that raged rabid war inside of my digits, now on the outside of my body and in fully fleshed, monstrously enormous form. I can feel my throat fill with a thousand poisonous spiders. His antenna strikes dry lighting against my forehead, a magnetic smell turned into radiation, compromising the privacy of my brain. His eyes are a million in number, fused into two different orange orbs, glowing in an alien intensity. I look down. I can see his…his…oh fuck. This is the moment when I must awaken from my paralysis of fear. I reach into my pocket, with whatever strength I can conjure, and pull from it a small kitchen knife. Though his shell protects his back and his legs, and most probably his head, his stomach and eyes are completely vulnerable. I strike into the lower-center of his belly, which may have punctured a little string of intestine, but most likely only caused pain and bleeding. Yet the process of egg lying is stalled for a moment, and he reels back in pain. His foot long reel discontinues once his perverted, animalistic instincts reinitiate. I stab him before he even clutches onto me out of adrenaline fueled instinct. I hit him higher in the body, but not nearly as deep. He continues his struggle, slowed. I fight. I attempt to stab him in the chest. My elbow pops out of place. The sudden pain and irritation throws me out of synch with my own fight. The beetle is slowed furthest, yet not dead. I make a move that is highly risky, suicidal if it weren’t for the beetle’s drowsiness caused by the bleeding. I back away a few feet. I see his blood. It is green acid, with a purple circular glow in the center. I dash forward and attempt to tackle his body to the ground. I am successful in what can only be described as a miracle. His body mass is much more than I guessed from my struggles. So even though I knock his body to the ground, I fall upon his crotch and then slip onto the liquid dust barely coating the brown cement floor. I put myself up immediately, rendering my heat crashing into the ceiling. My head is bleeding. I fall onto the body of the beetle and struggle with all the power that God bestowed upon me. I cling onto the beast’s shoulders. I grab my knife. I shove the sharp instrument into the cranium of the insect. His head melts into a sour mush. The rest of his body fizzles into a sparkling river of blood, guts and semen. I swim in it all. It does not rush away, but in fact migrates towards me. I stand as high as I can before I crash into the fizzling, melted puddle of liquid flesh. It is two in the morning. I am nearly worn.
Ten minutes have passed since my encounter with the massive bug. I stand in the same hallway, but it is dimmed to invisibility. My arms have slipped across the walls for ages. Forever.
They have found a point where the walls turn to the outside. There appears to be an opening. I walk through it. I can no longer feel the ceiling infest my hair. I attempt to stand. Attempt successful. My legs are stiff and weak. My eyes are resting so all other senses can be on high alert. The moisture of the previous tunnel is obliterated from the air of this room, replaced with a dry, electronic heat. The moisture on the floors is present, but highly reduced and deprived of its dust, mold and must. The beauty of water is actually visible now. The cement is warm as well, no longer as cold as the tunnel I took to get here. As my vision adjusts, I can see that the ceiling flies thousands of feet above me. I am highly surprised I am able to tell there is a ceiling at all, instead of perceiving that I am inside of a bottomless pit. I walk forward, slightly blinded. I nearly fall off the edge of a platform. I pray to all human deities that I had not died then and there. I barely balance against the edge. I move my left arm to feel, to feel anything, maybe a bar or something?...I feel something. Something unexpected but highly welcomed. It is a grated wall. I feel with the other arm. There is the same thing. I balance using these two grated walls. I look in front of me. My eyes explode with the beauty of vision. A blinding blast of heavenly light bestows itself upon my being. There is a massive cylinder spinning at ten thousand speeds, giving off the most intense vision I have ever seen in my life. It appears as if I found the factory that creates souls. I can see millions of flying, swift beings that look like ghosts trapped inside the opposite of Hades. There is no accurate way to describe the holy beauty of this life giver. I am simply breathless.
Time: three hours and thirty minutes into the day.
All of my ambitions are sucked out of my mind. I can no longer drown this place.
…But then I remember the place that is above me. What is above that ceiling thousands of feet into the night sky.
The facility is above me. The facility where they plan to unleash Satan upon Benjamin’s ten year old, persecuted being.
Therefore, I relearn my goal. All that is beautiful must parish for the only thing is that is truly beautiful to me.
I leap forward with lion like agility. I cling onto a cylindrical and grated wall that encapsulates the rotating prison of life and death. I stare into the machine. I see children. I see elders. I witness a variety of beasts and birds. Turtles, hawks, lions possibly. I lunge upwards. I see young boys playing and their fathers playing in the yard. There may be no specific game ensuing, but in the place of whatever strategy a five year old child can conjure, there is an intense, pink and purple dome of a pure innocence growing in their gathering. I climb farther up. Here is a bedroom lifted from the most silky fantasies. There is a young couple engaging in pure intercourse, showered by the rains of ultimate love and life. They are still completely unaware that their time has passed. They are still living life while there is no life to ilve. I shed a tear of many mixed emotions in the few but incredible things I have borne witness to. These things strike me with emotions all more extraordinary than the heat of our sun. I climb upwards more. Now I observe a vast, yet dense and lush African jungle, populated in incredible numbers with galloping zebras, the blind yet diligent rhinoceros, and the mischievous baboon, all feasting upon the living planet that has made herself available to them. I climb forward. A massive elephant reveals its Godlike identity to me and I fully comprehend it. I climb forward. I venture further. There are angels, in perfect content and ecstasy, strumming upon their golden harps. I climb forward. I climb forward. I climb forward. At only a few feet below the tip of the cylinder, I halt. My journey could not be over now. It could never be over. Something this intense could not be over. I look into the cylinder, gazing into what is beyond eternity. I see an elder man. He is in perfect calmness, thoughts thoroughly organized, emotions completely in control. His size is that of the empire state building. He guards over the children of Babel in their pure, joyous activity and exploration. They are red. They are a beaming, loving red. Their watcher is golden. The sight is my most incredible witnessing. I close my eyes. It is the most difficult task I have ever performed in all of my lives.
I climb forward.
I climb to the top of the everlastingly expansive prison of all life and every death.
I ignore all subconscious thought.
My body is flooded in my own tears.
Covering the top entrance to the majestic cylinder is a rather bland, artificial circle of cement, covering the afterlife. I look over the edges. I see that, wrapped around the sides of this perfectly circular cylinder are two pipes, colored with some sort of red that is neither pale nor is it incredible. It is intense in how…fake it is. It is an artificial, yet Godlike red. These pipes meet at the top of this cylinder. Their meeting place is a wheel that controls the distribution of water through this pipe.
I think I found my water main. I approach the circular opportunity at eternal destruction. The journey to this tiny palace feels as if it was a thousand years. I reach into my pocket, and from it emerges a knife, sharpened to murder. The metal was once a glimmering blue, but now coated in the black and red blood of the Ven Beetle. Around that blood crawls a hard, rough and bumpy material. The beetle’s shell forms around the black acid, now becoming a strong statement of darkness and uncensored misery. I brush the shell off of the knife, and it falls onto the ground, shattering on top of the glittering kingdom. I lunge downwards. The pipe explodes, blasting relaxing vapor into my face. I do not know what comes next.
The Gates of Blue Heaven open and crush the walls around me with their contents. Beautiful blue fluid flows in floods to fill the room where the Angels sleep in complete tranquil peace. Every flawless element of life has been unleashed in the name of corruption and rape. The room I stand inside transitions from the color of a dead boiler room to the color of a mother’s womb. It is a soft, engulfing bluish-green, carefully wrapping itself around the Earthly material that it emotionally guards. Beautiful strands of deep, soft neons swim in their own string shaped independence. I can feel the heavy moisture of a thousand rainforests wrap around me. It gives me a new soul, a new consciousness, a new life. The jungles and the savannahs and the deserts and the oceans, all of Mother Earth’s great, expansive gifts, they all come into perfect view and flawless comprehension. All corruption and evil is washed away from my consciousness. Sadness and regret is distant, incredible as it is. The entire room is now overflowing with the warmth of the bath of resurrected existence. I travel with the waves and into the world.
I am lifted from my feet so that I may swim in a perfect fluid. I stroke downwards to view the irresistible endless landscapes of the magnificent cylinder. Inside of it is everything I saw once before. The animals, the people…the children…the lions…the elephants. I notice another I had not seen before. There is a young woman, perfectly wrapped in a grass-green, torn robe. I do not recognize her immediately. More so, I feel as if I am looking at the most benevolent and familiar stranger that I could see. I desperately attempt to recognize her face, for full knowledge of her existence would fill a void in my heart. My mind flashes backwards in frames too fast to capture. It accesses a memory featuring the woman inside of the cylinder, but she has aged many decades.
I know her now. I attempt to swim to her, but the grated prison walls block me. I am mortal, and she is immortal, and the cruel reality of nature dictates that we are to be separated for what is most likely eternity. I swim father up. Emotions are being drained of their complexity through my comprehension being intensified. I lean on the tip of the cement barrier. I stand on top of it, feet firmly on the ground of the roof, even though I could float in the fluid if new birth. I stare upwards. I then stare downwards. Repeat. Repeat. I swim again to the cylinder. I lunge furiously and attempt to break open the gated walls. The city of angels put up their defenses at the sight of me, as if I was some hellish villain, attempting to commit some sort of corruption. I become angry. Infuriated. Yet it is a soothed anger. That does not mean that the honesty of my frustration is diminished, rather it means that my anger is incredibly focused. Something that has not even entered as a remote possibility in my consciousness.
I scream at God.
“Dear mother! Dear father! What is this Hell that you have put me through? I believe in you, and you deceive her. Day in day out, I lived my life for you. You have pushed onto me what’s wrong or right. You have hid from me the pinnacle of what they call life!”
They cannot hear me.
“Dear mother! Dear father! Every thought I think you’d disapprove! Curator! Dictator! Always censoring his every move! Children are seen, but are not heard! You have torn out everything inspired!”
They still cannot hear me.
“Dear mother! Dear father! Look at the world you have created! Look at the beings that have perished under your rule! Innocence! Torn from them within your shelter! You have barred yourself from reality! You are living blindly!”
God heard me.
God looked at me.
I can see God.
My head was about to implode from fear.
“F-fuf-f-f-f"
There is God. He is right there
“Time is frozen, you can cure what's left to be! Yet you hear nothing! Say nothing! Cannot face the fact I think for me? There’s no guarantee my life’s ending! But damn you for not giving Ben his chance! His chance at life!”
God’s eyes are the center of an apocalyptic volcano.
“Fuck you, Satan. You can burn in the Hell you set for your most benevolent angel.”
I spoke to God.
And he has abandoned us.
The next sensations were possibly the most violent I have ever felt. What could have been an endless flood of volts sprang to life in the new birth water. The bolts glowed in a violent strike for each. They were twisted, thin lines, thin enough to inject themselves into the soul and consciousness of a person. They carried a burning sensation that melted my intestines and inverted my eyes. My tongue fused with my throat and my ears folded inward before a large sword shaped portion of my mind exposed itself to the life water. My eyebrows melted into my inverted eyes. My digits fizzled into a salty storm of disappearing flesh. My legs cracked before burning. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Blood flew in a storm out of my chest. My heart exploded into a violent electric seizure. My teeth melded together. My ribs snapped in half. My brain was crushed under the shell of my skull. A second attempt at life was denied. I was condemned.
Happy Birthday[]
DATE: DECEMBER 25TH, 1988
My consciousness is barely existent, let alone functional. The moment when the miracle of life was bestowed upon my body has become nearly erased from existence. My senses are completely severed at the hands of The Holy King Nothing. I have been rendered completely unaware of breath, temperature, motion or…life. I cannot fathom a depiction of the position in which my body is existent. I cannot tell you my body still exists. So I’ll wait. I’ll wait for a million midnights, in the vein hope that one day my mind can continue to appreciate the fullest fulfillment that is living.
Some orange, flaming sensation is ablaze upon my being, and I am completely unfamiliar with it. Soon I will realize that it is the sense of touch. It’s return is slower than the stride of an elephantine brontosaurus. Now that the intense searing of sensation has become a reality, I can create contrast. It is no longer the unified nothingness. In all parts that do not sense that incredibly slow return, there is an intense numbing in my body. Something as if television static was ingrained into the skin of my flesh, dancing while being tightened to the size of a singularity.
I can sense where the feeling is now. A small point on my forehead is being shot with an arrow of reality. I think…oh, what is it? It has been an endless eternity since I felt a thing. It is…It is something blue. It is something blue…life…but it is wrong life…it is life somehow contained, unable to fully unleash it’s Earth engulfing potential. It is…it is cold. It is a chilling, real cold. It is ice taken into the air so that I may feel a blanket of deprivation of warmth. It is a beautiful light show of pinks and blues that sparkle and spread across landscapes and caverns. That is cold. Frozen forever, never to move again. Oh how close to the severest and purest feeling of chill I am in this moment here.
The puncture of the Siberian arrow spreads to blanket my entire forehead, before gracing my face. I dawn the mask of sensation. The omnipresent, shapeless icicle restores the pleasure in existence through the climatic return of something that is condemned to be taken for granted. It spreads over my body. I feel as if I have entered intercourse with mothernature. Once my toes are released from the imprisonment of numbness, it is as if the Gates of Heaven have opened and I have been granted the key. But it is only the first in a numerous line of trails. The cold begins to intensity. The previous sensation has now been escalated to that of Russian tundra. My only luck is in the amount that my body can withstand being increased.
I feel a powerful strobe show of feeling being pounded against my mentality. An uncensored assault of frozen love and paused sensation.
Once this is withstood for a legitimate duration, I feel something else. Well….it is exactly the same sensation, except released. That dead prison is now broken and life can explore its fullest potentials. It is water. Precious moisture. I can feel the cold around me melt into droplets of flowing life. A volcano has mated with the inner polar neverrealms to create the greatest collection of natural springs. The individual drops carry the sensation of massive savannahs storming with migrating mammals and soaring birds stampeding the landscape of Mother Earth that has taken my forehead as her current form. An entire rainforest blooms at once against my knuckle. Gorilla and leopard and parrot coexisting in perfect nature. These are the drops of water against my body.
Another sense is returning. Grace should be bestowed upon the angels. It is the greatest sense. It is the one that tells the greatest of chronicles. It is sight. I can see…I can see absolutely nothing. And inside this nothingness, there is a beautiful carving of reality. There are craters, crevices and channels that form some sort of nonexistent, vacuum landscape. It is a rather thin panorama.
The cold continues to thaw and the liquid continues to run across my body. It is now a small meteor shower of bottled existence. Another sense returns. Taste. I can taste the water, and my lord below you better believe it is the most beautiful thing my tongue has ever touched. It’s as if I tasted the most precious, private places of our mother sun while at her most intense moment of life. Water. Taste. Sight. Feeling. Jungles. Everywhere. I am blessed. I would love to tell thee that this is of no thanks to the heavenly father, but something inside of me, whether it be instinct or brainwashing, is telling me to believe in the blessed one.
Another sense is returning. Hearing. I can hear the air making some sort of humming noise. I feel surrounded by a honey hive. The ice is warm. The water is beautiful. I am Earth. I am God. I am my own father. There is perfect love coursing through my body as senses return to me. Motion occurs. I am falling. I am crying. I am falling and I am crying and these tears descend from Heaven and the thrill is the greatest sensation that has ever traveled in my veins and there are tens of thousands of feet that must be descended before I reach my final destination of death in the sandy grounds below me so I’ll keep going and going and going…my bones should shatter and my skull crushed, but it is amazing because it is all a return of my life and that is the most wonderful thing I could ever channel.
I make my impact.
…Onto a wooden floor.
I open my eyes, which is about as easy as lifting a whale off of a truck. All the colors launched in front of my eyes are storming into my mind in an epileptic seizure of recognition. After an indescribable, indestructible storm of uncontrollable bodily annihilation and resurrection, my eyesight barely begins to focus. I see the fuzzy makeup of everything. It appears as if…as if…maybe I am inside somewhere. The cold…where is the cold? Where? Where?...the cold is going away…I’ll never find it. It’s being traded with a neutral temperature. I cannot continue to comprehend these events for many more moments. There is no animalistic portion of my mind that can digest this neutral temperature. This was never supposed to happen. All nature is sensual. Only a desensitized form of mankind can create this artificial, boring neutral.
I loved falling to my death. Where did it go? I want to fall again. I want to die again. Then I can feel all the rainforests raging against my forehead again. My eyesight is no longer observing a dark, comforting landscape of nothing. Now it is bombarded by browns and yellows and whites that should not be. My ears hear not the static of the air but bright beeps of machinery….machinery…machine…
It is impossible. But I must question anyways. Am I in the isolation room?
…Focus…focus…focus for me, body…
No. I am not in the isolation room. I am in the room adjacent, and placed slightly higher. I am inside the observation room. Figures. There are large figures in front of me. I believe two of them to be David and Joseph. The others, I cannot name with even a fraction of certainty, but I could guess the roles they are playing. They seem to be watching me…no, no there goes the man who I know to be named as David. He is holding another man back. There is some sort of conflict. I definitely do not recognize the man who opposes David. David is attempting to physically reason with him, I think, I know, yeah, he is. Come on David, give me a few more hours to adjust to reality again. Let me transform to life for a little while more.
What are they saying?...
Who are they?...
“Shish, plaz, cul the plz lt em lv?”
…What? What…?
“Heh iz augh svge bst!!”
Something about savage?
I attempt to cough out some sort of wording. I want to say, “gentlemen, who are you and how did I get here?” Instead, it most likely came about to being a completely misunderstood series of coughs and voice inflexions.
I puke up a massive bowl of ice water. A flood escapes my eyes. A chill spreads across the back of my shirt that would have sprayed across the entire room if I was naked. I look. It is a shock, but my senses are fully regained expeditiously by some sort of a God machine.
“What is happening?” I speak with the cracked voice of the neverborns.
“You see those?” The man who opposes David asks.
“Sir, you must be considerate.” David retaliates.
“He’s a murderer and a mutant.”
“You can’t jump to such a blunt conviction! You must give him the opportunity to be tried as a human, not a villain!”
Joseph is silent.
The unknown men in the back are silent.
“…What did you mean by, ‘do we see those?’” David asked.
The man who opposes David pointed. He pointed to a space barely above my back.
Suddenly the finality of my senses were regained. I understood what was being pointed at. My back was no longer merely flat, or curved, or any singular shape that the human back may come to be in my age. Protruding from me were massive, oily, self-operating, reptilian tentacles.
Acceptance persevered over fear in this instance.
Or was it another fear?
“David, Joseph, whoever you other men are.” I said with water muffling each word.
“Yes?”
I heard at the same time as “What do you want?"
My ears were in shock. My heart was crushed under my flesh, tensing from the coldness of them mood in this room. Some people have been apocalyptically desensitized.
“…where is…” another burst of watery puke. “B-B-B-B-Benjamin?”
“…Peter” David said in the softest voice.
There was at least five minutes of silence.
David turned to the man he had opposed. “I need to tell him-”
“BEN DROWNED.”
…
…
Regardless the name of the man who spoke this, he shall perish for all eternity. For I have made certain of this.
I extended and snapped a tentacle quickly towards him. That smooth, slimy snake gripped him. It pushed him to my underside. He vanished in some dark, adhesive portal. I repeated the process with every person in this room who would not be identified as one of my superiors. I stood onto my feet after the process was complete. My knees nearly collapsed under the broken bones of my thighs.
“David, Joseph. Address me. I want you to tell me truthfully. Where is Benjamin? Are the blasphemous statements of that bastard truthful?”
“…I…I” David stumbled, after another seven minutes of complete silence.
“We cannot be more truthful to you than the statements that you have already heard.” Said Joseph.
I was prepared to unleash Armageddon upon these two.
“I…goddammit it fucker, memory needs to work…I…I…busted the water main at two-thirty in the morning. Why…oh fuck…why would Andrea and Benjamin be here then. That. That…early in the morning?”
“I guess…eh…I guess…”
Joseph grabbed David’s shoulder brotherly, yet firmly, and quickly. “…One of the night shifters must have allowed him in while he was sneaking around the facility.”
Joseph approached me. David didn’t seem approving of this. He shouldn’t have been.
“Look, I know how hard this can be.”
"FUCKING SHUT UP!" I roared like a tiger.
David and Joseph were on high alert, even though they knew how confused as I was.
I leaned against a table, thought about things for what was a thousand years, and then made an impulse decision.
“You won’t ever have to bear witness to my reptilian sight again. I’ll just run.” I felt the oily, serpentine, rubbery tentacles slithering by their own will, penetrating from the inside of my back. “All I request, in exchange for your life, is the proper attire. A large, expensive suit with tools that will allow me to make…adjustments…for my newly acquired body parts.” It felt like Christmas. “…Full body suit. With the fancy dance shoes and all.” I waved my hand in some sort of sarcasm, even though it was completely unnecessary. “I want a white, rubbery mask to hide my entire head and neck. That’s all I need. Now, go get it!”
My superiors followed orders.
While they were off filing my demands, I climbed out of the observation room and into the isolation room. I barely tested my tentacles. I had plans to test them in more…open environments.
The isolation room was exactly the same as it had been through this entire chronicle. Same television screen. Same video machine. Same cartridge…the same still screen from beforehand. The screen displayed an intimidating, red line of text. THANK YOU, it read. This message displayed in the same bright bold that I saw it as before. I slowly slithered into the depths of the isolation room. I powered off the video console. It delayed in sleep. It rested peacefully. Naturally. I ejected the game from the video machine. I grabbed hold of it, and then slipped it into a cardboard package. I sent it to my nephew’s address. He’ll be surprised that his uncle of many myths has actually given him any sort of trinket. I hid the package inside of my flesh.
I left clothed in the attire I requested. Nobody suspected that I had stolen the only video game currently available for transcendence into the minds of the undead residing in the holy Kingdoms of Heaven and Hell.
And so I finish this personal chronicle. I shall venture in the forests, hidden in the shadows, minding my own simplistic goals. I suspect that these proposed “scientists” will continue their experimentation on other humans. The demons that they shall create are most likely innumerable. I imagine rabid dogs that purposefully haunt one’s dreams. I imagine child murdering sea creatures. They shall poison the minds of the youthful who are already in the process of acquiring corruption. There shall be inter-dimensional beasts that haunt thee in their sleep. Portals to Hell shall open up and the most unknown person shall become that demonic servant. And the money-minded scientists will most certainly, MOST CERTAINLY, harness all of these evil beings through the world of technology. So if I find one piece of technology that has been guided to invade the forests of perfect nature, I shall obliterate the user before the parasite, and the parasite more severely. Be forewarned.
---Signed, Peter Ritter. My signature may not prove much for identification, luckiest reader. Surely they shall come up with some sort of ridiculous nickname for me, that you would have heard of by now. That would be fairly humorous. They should even popularize it. Make it a cultural sensation! The legendary myths of Peter Ritter! How... chilling.
References[]
MAJOR CREEPYPASTA REFERENCES:
MINOR CREEPYPASTA REFERENCES:
OTHER SOURCES:
"Dyers Eve" is the ninth song on Metallica's fourth studio album, entitled ...and Justice for all. The name of this song and a few lines of lyrics are used in the preceding story.
Some minor aspects of characters and other minor details of this story are drawn from my personal experiences.
Written by I, Da Cashman
The license on the wiki is CC-BY-SA 4.0.