#rot and decay has so many symbols and forms i feel like you could really have fun with it :) it doesn’t all have to be tentacle yk?

[simcardiac-arrested]

ATTENTION: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS TREE? IF YOU HAVE, YOU MIGHT HAVE FALLEN INTO SOME SORT OF RIP IN THE FABRIC OF TIME

alt version because i also liek it :)

[thelordofdarkreunion]

The Great Game

This is kind of a sequel to ��Man Behind the Curtain” and prequel to “The Misty Planet.”  I decided to write a bit of an explanation story for some of the things that are going on, and some of the things that are about to happen.  Be aware, that I have not written every player of the Great Game into this story, and I probably forgot a couple that I’ll add if I ever write another story like this.  None of these characters are mine.  Enjoy!

“There is no death.  There is nothing to keep us in check… except each other.  We are what you would call gods, and this is the eternal game for absolute dominion over all.  Now, there are new players to be dealt in.  Welcome to the Great Game, my enemy.  Our journey has just begun.”

It was empty blackness.  Nothingness.  But yet, it was something.  Something different… something that mortals could not comprehend.  It was utterly anathema to all normal senses, to Euclidean geometry, to the laws of time, space, and reality themselves.  It was completely indescribable, except to the players themselves.  But, to a mortal, it might be described as something like this:

Beings, sitting around a massive table.  

There were a lot of newcomers this time.  They were attracted by this… the Great Game.  The game of gods, all vying for power over each other.  Originally, there had been three players.  The three original Dark Gods of Chaos, all battling for cosmic supremacy between each other.  Then, a fourth was born.  But with the fourth came someone else: the Anathema.  The End of Chaos.  The Supreme Ruler of Mankind.  The King of all Human Kings.  

It was then that the Great Game got a lot more interesting.  At last, the Dark Gods had an opponent different from themselves.  The Emperor of Mankind wished for His species to thrive, and wanted to impose His order throughout the stars.  The Dark Gods disagreed.  The Primarchs, genetically crafted sons of the Emperor, were corrupted.  The Emperor was mortally wounded, and his physical form confined to the Golden Throne of Terra.  But He still fought ever onwards against Chaos for the protection of His race.  The game continued, uninterrupted, for ten thousand years since then.  

Then, through a series of completely random circumstances that none of them saw coming, eight other universes were thrown in with theirs.  Some of them did not have gods in any sense, but many did, which brings us to the present setting.  

If it could be described, the table would have been utterly massive to accommodate the bulk of many of the players.  They were gods, after all, and most liked to make their forms as big as possible.  On the table were layers upon layers of… things.  Layers upon layers of images of planets, galaxies, people and creatures all flashed past.  Each individual god had their own “color” if it could be described as such.  Each of the holdings, or pieces in the Game, were tinged with the color of the god they belonged to.  Gods moved individuals as they saw fit, for the lives of mortals were simply pieces on their chessboard. 

The figure of the Shadow Broker, tinged with the cerulean blue of Tzeentch, died as his broken figure was gunned down by his own guards.  The ever-changing, utterly unknowable form of Tzeentch flashed a thousand different emotions at once.  

“Well then.  There goes one strand of fate.  A pity he did not succeed.”  Tzeentch leered at its fellow players.  “It does not matter in the end, though.  Or does it?  One really can never tell.”  A bird-like face formed on the mass the was Tzeentch, followed by a tentacle-like arm that scratched it thoughtfully in a very mortal fashion.  “I’m still wondering whether to leave this strand alone, or continue to spread my… taint to this galaxy.”  Tzeentch grinned over to the Emperor of Man.  “Is that not what your followers call it?”  The figure opposite Tzeentch scowled.  

“Because that’s what it is.  You Dark Gods have meddled in the affairs of mortals for far too long.”  The Emperor was clad in ornamented golden armor, with the symbols of His rein etched into the surface.  His features were those of a man born in the wilds of ancient eurasia, in the very first human civilization.  His skin was a blend of bronze and burnt umber, and glowed with the golden radiance that seemed to swirl around His person.  His hair was shoulder length and solid black, held in place by a golden laurel wreath.  But it was the eyes that betrayed his true power.  They glowed solid gold, with endless depths promising eternal vengeance against the enemies of humanity.  Golden electricity crackled around His eyes and face as he stroked his chin, considering His moves.  He turned to his left and right.  “What do you think?”  

The slim figure to the Emperor’s right shrugged.  

“I’m not really sure.”  This figure had short cut black hair, and took the form of a human man wearing the uniform of the United Federation of Planets’ Starfleet.  He gave a quick grin.  “Although, this group that unknowingly defeated Tzeentch’s opening move shows a lot of promise.”    The enigmatic figure of Q gave a mischievous smile once again.  “Yes… they show promise.”

“The balance of fate may hang on their shoulders,” replied the figure to the Emperor’s right.  He took the form of a human man, a very familiar one to many people.  He had a shock of blond hair beneath a pale face.  An eyepatch covered one eye, while the other glowed green.  Deus, or the one who had been tasked to play the Game, wore the form of Admiral Adam Vir.  

“Be a shame if they were… corrupted.”  The voice that spoke was so completely, utterly perfect in every regard that mortals quite literally would have died at its sound.  Another figure, glowing with pink and white light, sat opposite the human gods and next to Tzeentch.  Its form, just like its voice, was entirely perfect, combining the best features of a thousand different races into one.  However, there was something wrong, deep down, with it.  Many of the less powerful gods, and certainly any mortal, would feel the urge to vomit at its sight.  To look upon it was to die.  This was Slaanesh, Dark God of pain, pleasure, and unimaginable excess of the senses.  

“Yessssss.  Corruption, though, exists in many forms.”  This voice was a deep baritone, filled with phlegm and rasping coughs.  The form of the god was massive and bloated with oozing boils and rotting skin.  Organs spilled out from the bulk, and necrotic flaps of flesh covered it.  Nurgle, Lord of Pestilence and Decay considered the board.  “And if they are to be corrupted, then it will be my corruption to take ahold of them.  Not yours, Slaanesh.”  

“And how do you know it will be any of your corruption to reach them?” asked another voice.  This one was deep, growly, and distinctly human.  It had the sort of dark edge to it that made one instantly wary around it’s user.  The user himself was wearing heavy black hooded robes and gloves, and considered his moves carefully from behind his dark hood.  

“You’re not even a god, Tenebrae,” boomed another voice.  This one swirled with untamed power, and hissed with darkness.  A shifting mass of darkness, convoluted into a humanoid head, stared with glowing purple eyes.  

“Yes, and no,” replied Tenebrae.  “I am not a god, though I should have been.  But it matters little.  In the end, I, and I alone, am the Dark Side of the Force.”  Tenebrae paused for a moment.  “Plus, you, Dormammu, lost to a mortal.  Stephen Strange, if I remember correctly.”  This was said with a malicious grin.  

“So did you!” raged back Dormammu.  “Revan and the Hero of Tython.”  Tenebrae scoffed.

“I defeated Revan and bound him to my will.  I controlled him once, and tricked him twice.  He is nothing by a piece under my possession.  And in the end, my defeat did not matter.  I am still at this table, am I not?”  Out of the corner of his eye, the Emperor watched Tzeentch discretely move another pawn.

“Enough of this bickering.  No one will be corrupting them,” He announced.  

“Indeed,” remarked Deus.  “Now, my move.”  A misty red planet came in front of him, and he moved a white orb from one place to another.  “This shall ensure that.”  Deus smiled.  “No corruption today, I’m afraid.  They are already earmarked as our champions.”  He looked over to Q.  

“Shall I touch yours?  Just in case?”  

“Eh.  Why not.  Can’t hurt,” replied Q.  

“And yours, Revelation?” Deus asked of the Emperor. 

“No,” replied the Emperor.  “He is already marked by me.  No other power shall touch him.”  The gods of humanity made their move.  

I will be out with the direct sequel to “The Misty Planet” ASAP.  As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, or requests, feel free to ask!

[belladxne]

i will see you where the shadow ends | chapter 1

[see notes for ao3 and ff links]

part of the put your faith in the light that you cannot see series AU: Breath of the Wild pairing: KiriBaku word count: 4,568 Description:

(cross the badlands to rise again, i will see you where the shadow ends)

Eijiro wakes with nothing. No supplies, no memory, no idea of what the strange, ancient chamber he awakens in is. All he has to guide him are a mysterious ancient piece of technology called a Sheikah Slate, a kind old woman who lives near to where he awakes, and above all—the voice, gruff and reassuring, that calls out to him from somewhere far off and bathes him in golden light.

Tasked with recovering his memories and left with the entire future of Hyrule—a kingdom which fell a century before—in his hands, Eijiro has a monumental responsibility laid before him. It will be worth it, he thinks, to finally see the voice that's been calling to him from Hyrule Castle, and to finally know once more who the voice belongs to.

There’s a light behind his eyelids; a vivid, warm yellow that he can’t ignore. It’s an explosion of color—small at first, but then all-encompassing and undeniable. For the moment, he knows only these two things: that there’s a brilliant blast of golden light even with his eyes closed, and that waking up is hard.

His mind comes around slowly, in sluggish fits and starts. His thoughts are quiet in a way that almost feels peaceful and he feels sort of exhausted, like if he really tried he could drift off and sleep a while longer, and it’s tempting. Waking up is hard, yeah, but he thinks it’d be harder if not for the stony, uncomfortable surface he’s laid on and the cold, thick feeling of some sort of liquid lapping at his sides ruining what could otherwise have been a great nap.

That, and the rough voice that almost seems to grate at the edges of his mind, more than his ears. He associates it with the gold, somehow.

Oi. Come on, up. Get up already.

The voice—it tugs at something, he thinks, in the back of his mind. That near-peaceful feeling is gone, but the exhaustion isn’t, and he fights through the lethargy blanketing his thoughts to try and do what the voice asks, but it’s—it’s not easy. Not even when the explosion of light flares so bright it hurts.

Fuck. Fuck, can’t you just open your eyes? This time, when the voice presses on, it sounds… it’s hard to describe. Maybe sad, maybe lonely—but both words seem too small and simple to encompass all of the weight behind the words. Gods, you’re a lazy bastard. Haven’t you slept long enough?

And finally, he manages it; a fluttering of his eyelids, a furrowing of his brow, and then—his eyes open for real.

He’s rewarded with an immediate, There you are, so quick and colored with relief that it almost seems like the words had come unbidden, before their source had even realized they were escaping. He manages to lift his head, craning his neck to find some sign of who’s been watching him—but he’s alone. That golden glow is gone.

And now that the hard part of battling his way to consciousness is over, he’s surprised with how quickly and easily his body responds when he props himself up on his elbows, searching the dim space more fully and squinting against what few lights there are. But there really is no one else here. How?

He clambers out of the strange stone basin he’s been laid in as the last of some strange, vividly glowing blue substance drains out of it, and as he pulls himself to his full height, he’s—he’s at a loss.

This room, it’s so oppressively silent but for the sound of droplets falling from his shorts and hair to hit the floor at his feet, and some strange constant humming sound, and it’s so oppressively dim but for the blue glow of the basin behind him and the orange, constellation-like markings lit up on the walls. He has no idea what in the hell is going on.

He feels… alert, on edge as he tries to puzzle out any sort of detail that would make his surroundings make sense, but curious, too. There’s something across the way that… might be an entrance? But it’s sealed over with what seem to be several thick stone pillars or panels, pressed so tightly that not even light can seep through the cracks. Is he trapped?

He starts towards the door, not sure what he’ll do if he is sealed in, but he knows he’s not about to just sit here and rot in this chamber. There has to be a way out, and he’s not going to give up before trying to find it.

There’s a pedestal a few steps from the entryway, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. He’s a little more concerned with the obvious point of exit than with staying in this odd, dust-filled space to poke at random details. He’d have walked right past the weird plinth entirely, without another thought, if an odd chime and flash of light off of the strange glowing patterns on its face didn’t startle him as soon as he got close.

With a click and a whirr, part of the pedestal starts moving—lifting and rotating, before levering some sort of small, detailed slab out of its face and presenting it upright. Is… he supposed to take that?

He only takes half a step closer, examining the glowing markings and detailed carving of the Sheikah symbol on this strange tablet that—that he suddenly knows, with all his heart, is familiar to him somehow. It’s a relief, and a comfort, when nothing else has been remotely recognizable so far. He jumps when his moment of recognition is suddenly interrupted.

We don’t have all day, Shitty Hair. That’s my Sheikah Slate. You’re gonna need it to get around.

A pout comes unbidden to his lips, brow furrowing as his hand moves to his hair self-consciously. “It’s shitty?” he mumbles, honestly more to himself than anything, his voice hoarse from disuse.

There’s a pause in which he’s left to ponder it, before the voice is back, giving off almost embarrassed tones. Fuck. Sorry. Just—just hurry up and grab the damn thing, Eijiro.

It doesn’t even come to mind to question the demand; there’s just something about the voice that he trusts, and wants to listen to without hesitation. His hand is already halfway to the slate when he pauses, a small pang of alarm and confusion registering when he fully processes.

Eijiro. The voice had called him that, right? So, was it his name? Why did he not know his own name?

Shaken, he—Eijiro?—grabs the Sheikah Slate, weighing it in his hands and looking it over distractedly. He’s too preoccupied with not knowing—well, anything, the more he thinks about it. But the device does feel right, even more familiar now that he’s seeing it up close, and that’s some small comfort as he looks up, eyes searching even though he knows he’ll find no trace of the voice.

“Hey… what’s going on? Who—...” He trails off before he can even form a sentence, because—because there’s too many questions to ask. Who am I? Who are you? Who put me here? Where is this place? What is this place? Why am I here? What the hell is going on?

Eijiro doesn’t get any time to pull his thoughts together enough to ask any of those questions, because almost immediately there’s a subdued, mechanical grinding noise. Head snapping up, he registers with relief that the patterned stone panels that blocked the entryway start to slide upwards, not making half so much noise as he’d expect as they grate past each other.

He can’t help but be a little relieved—he’s not trapped, after all.

There’s no more input from the voice, though. Eijiro feels… antsy about it. In part because it hasn’t answered what little he has managed to ask, but also largely just because… he wants to hear more of it. He doesn’t really understand why; there’s no quality to the voice that’s especially appealing or comforting, if anything it’s coming off kind of gruff and rude, but there’s something about hearing it that settles his nerves. That makes him feel like things are okay, maybe.

Not about to waste time—Eijiro has no idea if the entrance opening is a temporary thing, or not, and he’s not looking forward to finding out until he’s on the other side of that door—he hurries out, eyes scanning the next chamber.

He’s… disappointed, he thinks, to find it empty. Nearly as barren as the room before, with just as little light, and no inhabitants. No one to explain things to him. And no sign of the voice here, either. He didn’t even realize he was specifically looking for the voice before the pang of disappointment, honestly. And it persists when there’s no further commentary from him, either.

Still, this room’s only nearly as empty as the previous room—there are, at least, a few things lying around that are much more familiar than the alien architecture of this place. Two chests haphazardly placed in front of the door, and several old-looking crates and barrels—the latter of which all seem to be splintered and rotted.

So Eijiro does what any self-respecting person trapped with no belongings, supplies, or apparent clothing would do when confronted with these seemingly long-abandoned surroundings.

He starts looting like crazy.

The chests, to his relief, hold pants, socks, boots, a belt, and a shirt. He wonders if the items were placed there for him, specifically? But it’s hard to remain enthusiastic about them as he tugs them all on, discovering the socks and pants are threadbare and spotted with holes—and the pants don’t even come close to reaching his ankles. The boots and belt both seem fine, if a little dubious; he kind of feels like the leather might just disintegrate out of the blue, but they’re workable. The shirt’s so itchy and moth-bitten and ill-fitted that he tugs it off immediately, making a face as he decides, really, he may as well go without.

The barrels and crates are, honestly, much less helpful. The barrels have already caved in on themselves and smell very faintly of rot, like whatever was in them had decayed away so long ago that even the smell had had time to fade; and he’s disappointed to discover after tearing the crates apart with single minded zeal that… just about anything of use in them has long-decayed, as well. He scores an empty satchel, quiver, and sheath—all of their previous contents unusably decrepit—and a few more belts to secure them all. And an absurd amount of empty bottles, all dusty but usable. There’s also some strange hooked clip for his belt that he realizes pretty quickly is made for him to link the Sheikah Slate’s handle into.

Surveying the wreckage of the crates and barrels he’d just torn through, he finds himself pouting again. All that property damage, and for nothing that useful.

Looking around again, he takes note, down a ramp from where he’d emerged, of the only other doorway out of this room—this one much larger and more intricate, though it also seems to be made of interlocking pillars. The Sheikah symbol sits at the center of this grand door as well. And just like the last room, there’s a pedestal to the side of this door—though it doesn’t have an indentation for the Sheikah Slate to fit into, like the last one did.

He jogs down the ramp, stopping in front of the pedestal to examine it curiously. In the last room, taking the slate from the similar plinth had been what caused the door to open—he thinks, at least? Probably? It’s the thing that makes the most sense, anyway. So is there something he can do with this one, to open the way? He hardly gets any time to wonder, before the voice is back and he feels a line of tension he hadn’t even realized was there bleed out of his shoulders.

This isn’t complicated, Sh—Eijiro. Just hold the Sheikah Slate to the pedestal.

He knows he’s not in the position right now—he has no idea what he’s doing and this voice, coarse at it is, is helping him—but Eijiro can’t help but roll his eyes as he reaches for the slate. He wonders if the voice would hear him if he teased, Bossy, much?, or commented on his haughty, judgmental tone.

Unhooking the slate from its new carrier on his belt, Eijiro only wavers for a moment as he wonders which side he’s meant to hold to the pedestal—it’d be pretty embarrassing to roll his eyes at this voice for giving him shit, only to fuck it up immediately. But he settles quickly on pressing the smooth side, with the flat panel that lights up, to the face of the pedestal.

Something about that looks right, even if he’s pretty sure he’s never done it before. And he's rewarded for his guess with a flash of light and an almost musical chime as the glowing orange curved lines atop the plinth turn blue.

Well, hey, the voice was right. This wasn't complicated at all. He doesn’t really get time to bask in his success before he's jumping as a bizarre, inhuman-sounding feminine voice sounds from the pedestal.

"Authenticating…"

The pedestal and the slate both seem to be making some repetitive, again near-musical beeping sound in sync with each other, before the unsettling new voice says, "Sheikah Slate confirmed."

The symbol in the center of the huge, sealed doorway lights up blue with a hum, and then with a loud rumble parts of the door that Eijiro didn't even realize previously were there begin to rotate and unlatch and slide away, before the panels of this gate lift away to let him out as well.

This time, the difference is starkly and immediately noticeable—bright, unmistakable daylight and a rush of clean, fresh air begin pouring in when the door has only barely begun to open. The sight is so reassuring, so sorely missed even if he hadn't realized it before, that he honestly almost throws himself to the ground to try to cram his way out into the freedom of the outdoors that much faster.

He doesn’t, of course, because he's not an animal (the thorough wreckage of the crates and barrels behind him aside), but he moves to stand directly in front of the door with eager, curious eyes.

Where is he, exactly? Will he know, once he can see?

It's when the door is only around halfway lifted away that the consequences of his earlier surroundings catch up with a vengeance—the sunlight so obligingly radiant that he’s forced to lift a hand to shield himself from the light, one eye squinted against the painful relief. Goddess, but he’s so glad to feel the sunlight on his skin again.

He finds himself unnerved to realize he can’t remember the last time he’d been out in the daylight. Not in the sense that it’s been a long time—though for all he knows, it has been—but in the sense that he genuinely doesn’t know.

He keeps realizing it, over and over again—when the name he assumes is his own was so unfamiliar to him, when he didn’t remember how he’d come to be in this place in the first place, when he’d had so many questions he couldn’t even figure out where to start—but as the failure to remember persists through everything, no matter how inane and everyday the memory might be, he finds himself growing increasingly alarmed. Why can’t he remember? Why can’t he remember anything?

Before panic can fully get its claws into him, the voice is back. And in spite of its rough tone, he somehow knows this voice well enough to know there’s more to it. Below the brusque surface it’s earnest, beseeching… and above all, encouraging.

Eijiro... Hyrule needs someone unbreakable, someone who’s not gonna waver. Hyrule needs you. I—

The voice cuts out, and by some means he can’t describe, he can sense something frustrated in the silence that follows for the next beat or two.

I’m fucking waiting. So get off your ass and help me fix this mess, already.

Somehow, he doesn’t think that’s what the voice was going to say, originally.

Either his eyes finally adjust to the light, or it somehow lessens—he wonders, suddenly, if that first blast of light hadn’t been the sun’s rays at all, but more of that explosive golden glow that had pierced his slumber?—because he can see, now, and his eyes no longer ache for trying. In front of him is a passageway, short enough to easily see up the stairs in front of him, to the opening that leads to the sky.

Gods, he can’t wait to see the sky again.

He can’t help it—he runs. He’s up the first set of dust-covered stairs in a flash, and doesn’t waver for more than a split-second when he’s confronted with a wide puddle that reaches halfway up his calves, or the uneven, eroded face of rock where there had clearly once been another set of stairs. As if he’s going to let something like that slow him down.

With a wild and eager whoop, he launches himself up out of the water he’d just soaked his pants splashing through, fingers easily finding grip on the rugged surface. It’s not so easy to tug himself up as he’d expected, even accounting for how slippery his old boots are from the water—but he’s still up the surface in a matter of seconds. He levers himself up over the ledge to sprawl at the foot of another set of stairs with only a little wheezing. Which is more than he expected, honestly? It was such a short climb.

He doesn’t give himself time to dwell on it, though, as he clambers to his feet to jog once more up the final stretch of the passageway, and out into the fresh air.

It’s… well, it’s breathtaking, out there. Even just from the mouth of the carefully-constructed cave—the overgrown grass at the foot of the entrance even looks vivid in the daylight, the sky a clear and welcome view, the foliage hanging over the entrance and the pines that dot the ground in a few places just outside all so full of life and color. There’s a volcano directly ahead in the distance—Death Mountain, his mind chimes helpfully, and he’s relieved to know something. The more of the world he sees opening around the entrance to the cave, the more beautiful it is.

Eijiro lets his feet carry him forward unthinkingly, moving slowly at first and then with more purpose, until he’s all-out running. Past grass and bushes and rocks that jut from the ground, until he’s standing at the edge of a cliff face out in front of the cavern he’d emerged from, and the sensation is all at once overwhelming, as he looks out over forests and plains and mountains and most of Hyrule in the distance.

Eyes wide in wonder, he feels like he has the entire world at his feet. It takes a bit for Eijiro to adjust to how good this all feels.

The colors are so bright, the wind and sunlight on his skin feel downright heavenly, and even just the smell of the fresh air around him is overwhelmingly exhilarating after the stifling chambers he’d just left. He looks around, again searching—if not for some sign of the voice that’s been guiding and beckoning him, then at least for something else to prompt him to speak to Eijiro. He’s the only thing Eijiro really, really knows right now—he feels a little adrift without the voice, wants to hear more.

When he turns his head, though, the wind blows his hair into his face, and he’s—startled, honestly, by how red it is. He doesn’t know why he wasn’t expecting that—doesn’t know if he should have been expecting it? Was it always red? No… he’s fairly certain it used to be black, at some point.

Little victories—he’s increasingly relieved to at least know some things. Aside from that, though, the red doesn’t bother him. He kind of likes it. A lot, actually. He wonders how long it’s been red.

His moment of distraction over, Eijiro finally catches sight of something of note—a figure off to the right, farther down the incline of the cliff he stands on. It’s a woman, he thinks? But it’s hard to tell between the distance and the hooded cloak she wears. She’s hunched over a campfire under a stone overhang some eighty feet away, maybe, tending to the flames by prodding with a stick. She looks up at him, then, and he thinks he makes out her head tilting inquisitively.

Finally—finally! Another person! Maybe she knows him, or can at least give him some context for where he is and what’s going on.

He barely takes half a step in her direction before realizing, flustered, that he should probably put on the shirt he’d discarded in the shrine. Gods, he doesn’t want to be rude. He drops to a crouch and pulls the old satchel off his shoulder, opening it and digging through the few supplies he’d managed to accumulate to try and gingerly extricate the ratty old shirt from the mess without tearing or damaging it further on anything else he’s stuffed in there.

He tugs the shirt on quickly, sighing in resignation as the scratchy, too-small shirt slides over his skin. This sucks. Is it so much to ask that he have some clothes that fit? Or that are, you know, comfortable, maybe?

But he pulls the satchel back over his shoulder anyways, hoping it won't be long before he can find something that suits him better. Standing once more, he starts down the gentle slope that the top of the cliff follows, towards the woman and her cozy fire. It's not far—he keeps up a quick pace and closes the distance quickly, only slowing when he gets nearer so as not to alarm her.

He can make out, now, more details as soon as she lifts her head—like the grey hair that spills from her deep navy hood, and the laughter lines that crinkle at the corner of her eyes when she smiles warmly at him. He’s not sure how old he’d guess she is—very, maybe?—but he can see some strands of dark green hair mixed in with the grey that hint at what her hair used to look like, and everything about her posture and expression screams welcoming.

“Well, hello!” she calls as he approaches, and her eyes sparkle kindly. There’s something about the color—a bright, lively green—that feels… important, somehow? He doesn’t think she’s familiar to him, but he’s not sure if how comforted he is by her demeanor is just how she is, or because he does know her. “What a pleasant surprise; it’s not often that I see travelers hereabouts.”

Eijiro hesitates. She doesn’t seem to recognize him, or, at least, hasn’t addressed him as someone she knows. Is she a traveler? If she’s not, then she has to live around here—so—so she should know something about how he got here, right? Maybe she’d seen something? She’s the only person he’s seen in a position to answer any questions, and it all depends on how long she’s been here.

His mouth, unfortunately, moves far faster than he can think of what to say, so abruptly he blurts, “Who’re you?”

He flushes immediately at how rude of a response that is, but before he has a chance to start stammering out apologies at having completely brushed off her greeting, she cuts him off with a forgiving laugh. She seems surprised by his blunder, but not upset—if anything, she looks downright delighted at his lack of manners.

“Straight to business, I see. Sorry to say it, but I’m not really anyone of note.” She pauses, and though her approachable demeanor doesn’t shift at all, Eijiro swears that for just a moment, there’s something sharper to her expression, like she’s gauging something about him—and then, almost as quick as it came, it’s gone, and she’s smiling a little wider. “But my name is Inko, if that’s what you mean. What brings a bright-eyed young man like you to such an odd place?”

See, he’d answer that, if he knew. Blinking, he looks around as he asks, “Uh, where are we?”

“Question for a question, hm?” She sits back a little, still with that warm and comforting expression, and gestures to the fire. “Why don’t you at least sit down, sweetie? Then I’ll gladly answer any questions you have.”

He hesitates. Everything out here is so—so open and bright and tangible, it almost makes the waking up seem fake. Like that bizarre underground structure he’d come from, the odd way it functioned, the air of disuse, and the voice, most of all the strange and inexplicable voice—like all of it was some weird fantasy, because it doesn’t make any sense. Out here, he’s still confused, but it all feels so much less surreal. If it weren’t for the slate still hooked to his belt, and how very real the feeling the voice evoked in him was, he might have dismissed it all. But he can’t.

And if it was all real—the last thing the voice had said to him. That Hyrule needs him, and the voice is waiting. And that Eijiro has to fix... something. Does he really have time for this?

Meeting her eyes, hopeful and kindhearted and—and there’s still something about that green that seems significant to him, though he can’t say what or why—he realizes he doesn’t have the heart to say no. She’s just a sweet little old lady! He can’t tell her he doesn’t want to sit and talk, especially when she’d seemed so happy for company she’d implied was so rare, surely the voice wouldn’t expect that of him. It might as well start asking him to kick puppies at that rate.

“Um, sure.” He figures—as long as the voice doesn’t emerge from its silence to start yelling at him, this can’t be that much of a delay. And if he does start yelling at him, Eijiro can always tell him to chill out. Eijiro takes the final few steps forwards, and starts to crouch by the fire when the wind shifts and he catches a scent so mouth-watering he thinks he’s going to die. His eyes zero in for the first time on its source—a small basket Inko has next to the fire, full of baked apples—and, by the Goddesses, he suddenly realizes he’s more starving than he’s ever been in his life.

His stomach rumbles absurdly loud and he’s grabbed one of the apples faster than he can so much as think—it’s already halfway to his mouth by the time he remembers himself, eyes flicking to Inko sheepishly.

Her only reaction is to throw her head back and laugh, and the sound’s too comforting and motherly for him to get embarrassed. “By all means, help yourself.”

“No, I—that was really rude, sorry, you can—” He starts to offer it back to her but she leans towards him and reaches forward to secure her hands around his, keeping his fingers curled around the still-toasty apple. She gives a firm shake of her head, the kind he doesn’t think it's even possible to argue against.

“I’m just one old woman, sweetie; I can’t eat all of these by myself. Have one. You sound awfully hungry.” Oh, no, she’s got a Mom Tone, too; she really can’t be argued with. As soon as she seems satisfied that he’s going to take the apple—which he does, and immediately takes a huge bite—she sits back once more. “Now, then. What’s your name, dear?”

Oh. Uh... “...Eijiro?” He really, really tries not to make it sound like a question, but he doesn’t think he succeeded. She doesn’t seem to find it amiss, however, smiling brighter and giving a nod.

“Eijiro. Let’s get started on those questions of yours, hm? Now, you asked where we are...”

[emergentanimism]

Deadwater

In my last post, I said something that should have given you pause. When describing spirits of the dead, I said, “They can even be exploited if a magus is so inclined. If they can't learn to chill even after they're dead, fuck 'em.”

No one told you that being a magus makes you a nice person, right? There are reasons why necromancy is reviled by many cultures. Most of those reasons are bullshit based on fear and control. But being a necromancer does sometimes mean blurring some lines. If you as a magus decide you may need a weapon at your disposal, even just for self-defense… well weapons come at a price. A weapon is not an innocent thing, despite what the NRA wants you to believe. A weapon always requires you to compromise your innocence. A weapon symbolizes you are willing to do harm. A spiritual weapon can be a costly thing indeed.

The most powerful weapon in my spiritual arsenal? Without a doubt – Deadwater. What is Deadwater you ask? Lucky for you folks I know the leading expert. The number one source. I turn you over to the words of my beloved brother, Frater Yaramarud, the man who provided me with this amazing substance.

“My first encounter with Deadwater came nearly a decade ago. At the time, I saw it purely as a novelty and not something with the nearly boundless potential that I know today. Traveling down the road with my good friend Frater Dreadnaught, and an ex-partner of mine, the three of us had made a late night decision to stop at the next cemetery we found in order to waste time in a way that people in their early twenties are wont to do. When we finally found one and had parked the car, a light in the center of the cemetery had drawn our attention to a pump well gently illuminated beneath it. My initial thought was one of curiosity and bewilderment. What reason could there possibly be for there to be a well here? With this question unanswered, it dawned on me that the corpses surrounding us had, beyond any doubt, decayed and seeped into the table from which this well drew.

After jokes and general fucking around, we left the cemetery without even noting its general location. Though I had lost contact with my ex-partner, Fr. Dreadnaught and I remained close friends. During this time, he had enlisted in the military and left our home state for roughly 7-8 years. Though we often discussed the possible location of the Deadwater, the only thing that either of us could remember was the highway that it was most likely located on. With him gone for years and me being the only person that could feasibly find this place, I did all I could do in order to locate it. Driving up and down the highway proved fruitless, as did looking at maps of cemeteries along the route and cross-referencing them with Google. My last effort was to post an inquiry on a local genealogy group under the guise of searching for the grave of a relative. This too led to nothing. I was forced to give up, and so it was for about six years.

Last year, however, things changed. Fr. D had moved back from California and had spent some time living with my wife and I. It was during this time that we had become determined to find this Deadwater once again. As we had both evolved in our magickal practice, it had become less of a curiosity and more of a holy grail; here was a tool that had so much latent potential, and yet it was completely out of my reach. One night in September of 2017, we had decided that, since it was once again physically possible for us to find it together, we would do exactly that.

I'll spare you the details of the ritual itself suffice to say that Fr. D and myself had performed a Goetic invocation for executing our will. In hindsight, we had made a mistake. For our statement of intent, I had simply said, “It is our will to invoke XX to lead us to the Deadwater located along Highway XX.” It was during the ritual that I was mentally given a map of the county through which the highway ran, with a marker placed by the demon. With the image still firmly visualized, we pulled up a map of cemeteries in the county that this marker could possibly represent. After making a list with their corresponding addresses, we left in search of the Deadwater.

It was the middle of nowhere; we were surrounded by corn fields in every direction. After taking the final turn, still flanked by corn on either side, the GPS indicated that we had arrived at our destination: the first cemetery on the list. There was nothing. Just corn. As Fr. D was rechecking the address, I slowed the truck to a stop. Just before we had become entirely motionless, the field opened up to reveal the stones we were looking for, but they weren't familiar at all. There was no light in the center. It was just darkness. Despite this, we decided to look around anyway. After all, we had the entire night to look, and maybe the light had burned out, or our memory of the place was faulty.

We spent roughly 30 minutes wandering between the gravestones, splitting up to cover more ground. As we both began to lose hope and had called out that we should go to the next address on the list, I noticed a dim light in the distance. I called to Fr. D to meet me and we could explore this light together. Once we had reconvened, we started walking together towards the light. Not even ten steps from when we started, our headlamps simultaneously crossed, revealing before us a pump well.

This was not the same well. We both knew that, and yet a shiver ran down both of our spines. We tested it. It worked. The demon had shown us the way, though due to our lack of precise wording, it was not the same well we had seen all those years ago. We had prepared for this moment and filled several bottles with the water, water that contained the decayed remains of hundreds of bodies, water that was the distilled essence of the dead.

Since that night, I have utilized the Deadwater in multiple ways. The first ritual that we had done with it was a joint effort between Fr. D and myself. He had volunteered to drink a small portion of the water, and a ritual was formed around this primary action. Performed twice, we discovered through Fr. D's gnosis that he was able to visualize and speak to his own ancestors. Thus, not only did this water stand as an essence of the dead that I had discovered through my own later experimentation, it was able to form a link between their realm and our own.

Its apparent linkage to death and focal point of death have proven invaluable. Apart from the aforementioned use of contacting one's ancestors, I have used it as a method of simplifying my altar. Rather than having dozens of pictures of my ancestors for veneration, I find it just as effective to place a bottle of the water with an image of my family crest as a sort of condensed fetish. Another similar use I have found is mixing the water with the gravedirt of my grandmother in order to form an anointing solution that has a direct link to my lineage and those that came before. In using it as a kind of “essential oil of death”, I have found that it works with great success in “jinx” or “hex” work as a medium for freezer spells and the like. It has also worked equally well as an intensifier for other gravedirt workings and as a component for spirit work. Though these cover only my own current experiments with the Deadwater, I know that its potential has exceeded every expectation that I have had for it. As I continue to find new uses, it continually astounds and amazes me.”

 What’s the first lesson to be learned from this amazing story? Have a tribe! There are other awesome magi out there. You can find them. It will take hard work and dedication to actually work together. I travel thousands of miles a year just to be with my tribe. But it’s so damn worth it when you experience that love and are gifted with magical knowledge, and receive gifts like 750 ml of Deadwater.

Lucky you, you can buy it online from Frater Yaramarud at his most excellent store, Welcome to Tarotdise, where he and his wife sell some amazing hand-crafted occult products.

Back to the original point and my experiences with Deadwater. As far as I know I am only the second person dumb enough to drink some of it. I immediately tasted the earth and rot of the grave. My vision dimmed, and I felt myself slipping between the land of the living and the realm of the dead. All from one sip. BTW, I in NO WAY endorse drinking the Deadwater. It is not sold for consumption. If you get intestinal parasites or a fungal infection, that’s your problem.

Meditating on the bottle sitting on my altar has produced some interesting visions. You can literally see the angry spirits swirling around in the bottle. No, they are not happy to be there. And I get the feeling the Deadwater captured some of the most malicious spirits of that particular cemetery. Is it wrong to use them for my own devices? Probably. But a magus gotta do what a magus gotta do. I’ll talk some more about the nuances of such necromantic work in a later post.

In my opinion, Deadwater is essentially spiritual toxic waste. No other spirit I know likes to go near the stuff. I really don’t want to meet the spirits that would enjoy it. For example, I recently had an altercation with a certain Red Goddess who has been fucking with my love life hard. Of course, she laughed at my admonitions of her cruel little games. Until I threatened to pour some Deadwater over her statue. She shut the fuck up real quick after that. Is it truly a threat to a goddess? I don’t know, but I certainly got the impression she wouldn’t enjoy the experience.

As noted, Frater Yaramarud had somewhat different experiences. Maybe it’s the batch I got. Maybe it’s his intent when using it, or how he mixes it with other substances. Maybe those spirits just don’t like me for whatever reason. You don’t have to use it as a weapon.

Yeah, I know a lot of this sounds a bit crazy. But part of being a magus is learning to frame your experiences in a mythic context. As my hero Miguel says, “Write your own story. Live your own myth.” Be hardcore. Get yourself some Deadwater. Better yet, harvest some of your own. Be prepared to do a lot of banishing before and after you do something like that.

[sunset-wishes-upon-hill]

Name (Kuroshitsuji - Sebastian x Yuri) (Christmas one-shot)

Spin-off to The Liars and The Soothsayer: FF I Wattpad

The whole London was cloaked in pure white, excitement tangible in the air as the Christmas bell rang throughout the bustling, crowded city street. The smell of the turkey, trimmings and sweet desserts lingered in the air. Eager children accompanied their parents, wrapped presents held under their arms. London thrived in festive mood; the usually dark, grey city has never been livelier and more colourful.

He’s unnerved, Yuri noted scrutinising his stiff, mechanical movements shifting through the company documents that needed to be approved and signed. She wanted to believe he was simply stressed and exhausted by the sheer workload he had to inspect and review – after all, no company will be more busier than a toy company during Christmas. Despite her own logical speculation, certain part of her nagging mind was prompting otherwise. Even with the lavishly decorated Christmas tree, umpteen wrapped gifts of all size and shapes, and the ménage’s anticipation of year’s end and start of brand new beginning, the air he carried was awful, tense and full of resentment.

21st century London never snowed. The wintery scenes was breathtakingly beautiful; she imagined filling the frozen pond with skating woodland creatures, a magical winter ball with dancing mice and a sleigh ride with polar bears. Everything that made Christmas the magical day people made it out to be seemed to be there. It was the first time Christmas day felt like Christmas rather than just a 25th December on the calendar. Had she been back in her time, she wouldn’t have been able to spend it the way she would have liked. Christmas weeks paid double the amount than she received and it was money she couldn’t afford to pass her and that went for her mum too. Christmas was never a special day for her. There was no gift exchanged, no putting up Christmas tree, no Christmas dinner except for maybe a nice dessert she might splash out on – it was always a 25th December.

“You’ll catch a cold.” A voice said beside her.

Yuri jumped, startled by Sebastian’s sudden appearance. She hadn’t heard him approach. His eyes remained on her bare feet, part submerged in the snow.

“I always wanted to do this.” She sheepishly admitted. How comical it must be for a nearly adult woman wanting to do something as childish as going bare foot in snow.

“Is this…beautiful to you?” He suddenly asked to her surprise.

“Yes. I don’t see snow often.” She said, “You don’t think so?”

“I’ve seen countless snows in my lifetime. In the end, it will melt and change into dirty mud; what’s so beautiful about it?” Sebastian stated, watching the tiny snowflakes fall and seep into the mass on the ground.

That was then she decided to turn her gaze to him. Her reflection held in his dark, pitless eyes yet she wondered if he truly were looking at her. He breathed, moved, bled and his heart beat in his chest like her and many would, without suspicion, accept him as anything but a man. His character as a butler was flawless – perfect, deserving of standing ovation, although his façade as a man was horribly inept and forced. His speech, truly appropriate in any given situations; gestures that would label him as ideal gentleman of the era turned into a fiasco by his mismatching expressions and stoic tone as though an actor impeccably reciting a script and simply believing it was good enough without understanding the power of words weren’t a straightforward notion of conveying those words in the right time and place and the people.

He reminded her of a child. A baby. A tabula rasa*. Experienced and inexperienced. Knew and not understood. Alive but not lived.

“For someone who’s been alive for a long time, experienced and witnessed things beyond what anyone could imagine – none of it was ever reflected in your eyes.” Yuri summed. A semi chastise and semi disappointment.

She didn’t know what to feel for this..man. This demon. It was likely he won’t see her reason for sadness, this empathetic pity. He won’t understand why she spoke of it as if he was missing something as vital as his life and he was blind to it. He won’t know why the snow should be beautiful. Why his privation was something to be so heart-rending. But that’s why it was so tragic, wasn’t it? A man could have a taste of something blissful and lose it and be equally tragic. What soothed it was the fact he knew it was tragic and would probably try to gain it back somehow whether it was through revenge or forgiveness. The man who never had it and could not see his own tragic existence, would always feel empty, she supposed. Always thirsty and hungry for something they could not fill with tedious things like money.  

“Dirty things can be beautiful.” Yuri told him.

“…Then do you think I’m beautiful?” He cautiously asked her. The question surprised her. Surprised him. An impromptu. He was rarely so impulsive. More so on seeking out others’ sentiment of him. He has never once cared for such trivial sort.

“You think you’re ugly?” Yuri blinked, unable to understand how someone who could clearly distinguish and know – at least – physical aesthetic would consider himself unsightly.

“My original form is hideous.” He revealed blatantly, his voice flat as though he was reading out a list on the menu.

“I think you’re alright.” Yuri said after a thoughtful pause.

Darkness. The white world defiled in suffocating, icy darkness. She could feel something crawling on her skin. Underneath it. The spine chilling sound vibrated in the air; sound of million insects chewing at her skin, bones and flesh and quivering their wings. There was no pain yet she couldn’t help but scratch and claw her body to thwart it off her. Her mouth gaped in silent scream. She could imagine beetles and maggots chewing down her body, magnified chittery background grinding, merging into a drone that rose and fell.

A footstep. The staccato beat of heel echoing in the darkness to the rhythm of insects buzz. It was accompanied by a foul, rotting smell that made her want to retch. Something was decomposing. She couldn’t quite describe what she saw of Sebastian’s true form.

Black feathers. Nails like eagles talons. Glowing red eyes. Cold. So cold. So so cold. A living decay.

She was not so naïve to believe in the romanticised vision of demons as some tragically beautiful fallen angels – if Sebastian were even an angel in the first place. After all, the belief fall from grace could be, even at slightest, merciful as to spare angelic beauty was almost laughable; the fall signified shame and perversion of something so sacred and holy, one could only imagine how hideous to see it tainted.

White returned with her voice. Numbing coldness crept up from her bare feet, purple patches forming. She could breathe again. He smelled sweet again. He was beautiful. The only colour in the colourless.

He had given her a glimpse of his true self. The grotesque freak in a circus show behind the glitzy glamorous mask he donned. But just as he intended, this had been a scant coup d'œil. He wanted her to know, if he was dreadfully abhorrent even from this short brief moment, how disgusting would he be wholly bared to the world.

But at least…at least..at the very least, you don’t do what he does. She couldn’t help but ponder. To her, the true demon in her life was her father. He had stolen from her. Her money. Her life. A loving family. Her chance of being a normal teenage girl. Fucked her up.

“..I’ve seen worse.”

Sebastian face remained vacant, emotionless. Her word didn’t seem to have any impact on his belief. He wouldn’t know. Wouldn’t understand the working of her thought. It didn’t matter anyway.

Sebastian, unmoving for a minute then strode across, closing the distance she had made between them before swooping her up to his body. One arm on her back, another underneath the crook of her knees.

“You’re feet are blue.” He commented, nodding toward her exposed legs that had now turned cyanotic from cold. His body radiated usual warmth she didn’t expect.

“You’re really warm for a demon, well at least when you look human.” She noted. His body temperature was higher than an average human, almost feverish to touch, while she was always cold. She liked that about him – the ironic warmth that emitted from the demon.

Something shuffled in her chest, the abrupt movement startling the pair from the serene silence stretched between them. It bopped up and down, slinking up her body before the mystery mound popped out from her décolletage and made itself known to the curious demon.

Its large, sharp eyes blinked up to Sebastian’s stunned gaze and let out a piping meow.

“Oh, seems like she’s not cold anymore.” Yuri smiled, stroking its small head.

Looking up to see his response, she was pleasantly surprised by the red hues in his cheeks as he regarded the tiny little kitten. Who knew a demon had a soft spot for a cat?

“I found her shivering in the snow without its mother around so I think she was abandoned.” Yuri said sadly, “Do you like cats?”

“Yes, I think they are the most beautiful creatures on Earth.” He said with adoration.

“Does Hell have…well animals?”

“We have creatures kept as pets but..” Sebastian hummed, “They are not as..pleasant.”

“How do they look like?” Yuri asked and the more she listened to Sebastian’s in-depth description of the so-called pets, she couldn’t help but imagine the very alien from the movie. She reckoned it was equivalent to a dangerous exotic pet people kept either as living exhibition or status symbol.

They arrived inside the manor and he gently released her from his hold. Yuri quickly caught the kitten before it slipped down her dress.

Stretching out her kitten held arms to him, she offered, “..Do you want to name her?”

Her little trifling suggestion thrown off his guard, while the kitten’s innocent, twinkling eyes stared, waiting.

“You’ve not named her.”

She nodded, “I’ve only just found her. Besides, I’m terrible with names.”

“I’ve never named anything before.” He muttered, perplexed.

“How come?” Yuri frowned, puzzled as to why someone, who lived as long as he did, never came across an opportunity to name anything.

And even he, rare as it may be, seemed at lost in moment such as this. How laughable it was to be dumbstruck to such petty question yet it seemed more baffling than any questions or tasks he had been given in his years of servitude.

“They were the ones who have named me.” He revealed, “And neither of us cared little for other things than what they desired.”

“Ah…” Yuri realised. He was just like a baby. “Then…think of it as a Christmas gift from me. I wasn’t sure what a demon would want for Christmas present seeing you lived for a long time but I guess this is perfect – something you never had.”

He was silent, eyes darting back and forth between the kitten and her, all the while his face never betraying his thought.

“Yuri.”

“Yeah?”

“The kitten’s name is Yuri.”

She stared at him, agape, bewildered by his choice of name. “Are you serious?! Should I bring out a name dictionary? Does the library even have that kind of book?”

“I think it’s a beautiful name.”

Yuri bit down her lip to hold a grin from spreading, albeit horribly and instead forming a crooked smile.

“It’s an alright name,” She shrugged, “But really? Out of all names in the world, you choose that?”

He took the kitten into his arm, holding it close to his chest and cooed, “You like that name, don’t you?”

The kitten meowed in response, receiving a tickle under the chin as reward.

“Gee..and I thought I was terrible with names.”

“Unfortunately, so am I.”

“I can see that.” Yuri grinned, “Merry Christmas, Sebastian.”

“Merry Christmas.” He returned then added, “Yuri.”

The kitten purred, snuggling into Sebastian’s warmth.

*tabula rasa- an absence of preconceived ideas or predetermined goals; a clean slate.

[creativitytoexplore]

The Canister By James Rumpel https://ift.tt/31YrahY Desperate scientists risk the Earth to send a message of warning back through time; by James Rumpel.

2063: The canister sat in the middle of the elaborate mechanism. Its metallic surface sparkled as it reflected the device's myriad of lights which constantly flickered on and off. Two individuals, each dressed in a lab coat, stood silently staring at a control panel. Eventually, one of the men broke the silence. "You are sure there is no one else out there?" "I am," replied his cohort. "Since the last round of mega-storms, every known base and individual contact has been silent. It has been two weeks. If there was anyone out there, they would have answered our transmissions." "Are we absolutely certain we want to do this?" asked the first. "Creating a wormhole on the planet's surface will destroy it. It will rip the Earth to pieces." "The Earth is already dead. If there's any chance of us getting a warning back far enough to stop this, we have to take it." Both men heard a thunderous roar. A klaxon began to blare, sounding a warning. "That's another super-sized tornado. We can't wait any longer." "But what will happen at the other end of the wormhole? We have no idea where or when the other end will open. It could cause the same damage there that it will here. Could we be destroying history?" "Our ancestors have already lived their lives, and look where that got us. I'm initiating the program. Maybe someone will get the message and we can avoid all of this." He entered a code into a keypad adjacent to the monstrous machine. He shrugged his shoulders and hit ENTER. "Here goes nothing."

1407: Ottucke crouched to examine the dew-covered grass. The Wampanoag tribe's most experienced hunter easily located two small drops of blood. The deer, an arrow stuck in its left flank, had passed this way. It would have made its way into the deep woods in search of a hiding place. Many of his tribe were fishermen. They harvested the gifts of the great water. Ottucke preferred the woods. He enjoyed every aspect of a hunt. Ottucke slowly rose to his feet and silently walked towards the edge of the forest. His eyes searched the ground for any other indicators of his prey's trail. As he moved gracefully through the clearing, he noticed a strange flash of color in the deep grass and flowers to his left. He carefully approached the area from which the glimmer had appeared. Resisting the urge to notch an arrow, he parted the grass with his hand. What he found was something that he could not begin to understand. An object, the size of a small wolf, lay amongst the yellow goldenrods. It was the shape of a tree trunk, round at both ends. He found the courage to reach out and feel the mysterious item; it was cool to his touch. Ottucke could not identify the material of which it was made. It was hard as stone but smooth like the pebbles found by the shore of the great water. He noticed strange, unfamiliar, symbols on the surface of the object. Ottucke was happy with the simple life he lived. He considered the many questions he would be asked if he returned to the tribe carrying this strange thing. Others would be curious and want to know more about its origin. He did not need or want to know. Instead, he left his discovery right where he found it. He had a deer to track. He quickly relocated the trail and continued his pursuit. The canister remained mostly hidden in the weeds and flowers. There it stayed for a long long time.

1695: George Masters and his son, John, had made great progress in clearing the underbrush and stumps from what was soon to be their new field. This particular piece of land was a significant distance from the settlement and their home, but was not as overgrown with large trees as most of the woods. George steered the oxen and plow along the left side of the cleared area. John swung his ax downward into a large stump. The dark soil, along with many roots and stones, folded away from the blade of the plow in waves of brown and green. As George neared completion of the third furrow an unusual clanging sound drew his attention. On top of the upturned soil was a cylindrical shaped object. Its silver hue gave the appearance of a valuable item. George stopped the oxen and moved to examine his discovery. He bent down to pick up the item but stopped, frozen by fear. There, etched into the side of the object was a message. "John, come see this," he shouted. George's teenage son immediately obeyed. He rushed to the side of his father. "What is it, Father?" "Look at what has been turned up by the plow. Do you have any idea what it is or how it got there?" "It looks like a small barrel, but made of iron or some other metal. Maybe someone from the town was storing something in it." The young man was just as confused by the appearance of the object as his father. "But, look at the writing on its side." John bent down to inspect the canister. He read the words engraved on the silver surface.

PLEASE GIVE THIS CANISTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BETWEEN 1960 AND 2020. THE EARLIER THE BETTER. IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT YOU DO SO. THE FATE OF THE EARTH IS AT STAKE.

The message was followed by a list of names.

JOHN KENNEDY, LYNDON JOHNSON, RICHARD NIXON, GERALD FORD, JIMMY CARTER, RONALD REAGAN, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, BILL CLINTON, GEORGE W. BUSH, BARACK OBAMA, DONALD TRUMP.

"Some of those words do not mean anything to me," proclaimed John. "And I do not recognize any of the men listed." "It is some form of witchcraft," decided George. "What should we do with it, Father?" "We cannot take it to the village. We would be accused of sorcery. Go back to the cabin and get a quilt. Do not tell anyone why you need it. Do not tell anyone about what we have found. We will wrap the quilt around it and add rocks for weight. We will then throw this aberration into the river." "Yes, Father," The younger man took off running towards the family home. George knelt and began to pray.

1891: Finally, one of the nets seemed to be offering a tiny bit more resistance. The morning had not been productive for Aaron Keefer. His first three attempts at catching fish off the New England shore had only produced a few undersized cod. This cast, however, seemed to promise more success. Sure enough, as Aaron pulled the net into his fishing boat, he spied a fairly large number of the brown and white colored fish. The fisherman dumped the contents of the net into the hold and was surprised to hear a distinct metallic clunking sound. Upon closer inspection, he noticed the glint of silver amongst the flapping fish. He pushed the fish aside and scooped a cylindrical canister from the hold. The object was about two feet long and less than a foot across. It was much lighter than he expected it to be. Aaron placed the strange item on the deck. It was tightly sealed. Whatever its contents were, they appeared to have been protected from the ocean for however long they had been hidden in the water. He was about to begin to attempt to open the container when he noticed some writing on the side. After pushing some mud and scum aside, Aaron read the message. "Now, that is very strange," Aaron announced to no one. He had a habit of talking to himself: an understandable consequence of many long hours alone on the boat. "I should take this home and see if it is worth anything." For about a week, the mysterious canister was worth a couple of drinks and a few hours of conversation. No one in the small fishing village knew anything about it or cared much beyond initial curiosity. The trip to Washington DC would have been too time consuming and expensive. Eventually, Aaron went on with his life, forgetting about the strange object. The canister found its way into a crate in a crowded corner of the basement of Aaron's cottage.

1954: Thomas Keefer dropped another load of junk onto the tiny lawn of his great-grandfather's home. How had the old man collected so much garbage? It was bad enough that Thomas had been forced to attend the amazingly boring funeral and wake of his great-grandfather, but the fact that he had been coerced into helping clean out the musty old house was torturous to the nine-year-old boy. He had never been that close to Grandpa Aaron. In fact, Thomas had always been a bit spooked by the old man. He always smelled weird. "Can I be done now, Dad?" asked Thomas. He hoped there was just enough whininess to his tone that his father might feel sorry for him. "Go get one more crate, then you can take a break," responded his father as he sorted through the previous load of junk. Nearly everything that had been brought up from the basement of the dilapidated old cottage had gone directly into the waiting dumpster. Thomas sighed heavily and slowly began descending the stairs into the hell that was the old man's basement. He glanced around, looking for the lightest remaining box. "What's that?" he asked himself as he noticed a shiny silver canister tucked behind a pile of rotted and decayed fishing nets. The boy pushed the useless equipment to the side and grabbed the container. Using the dim light that seeped through the warped glass of the lone window located high on the wall, Thomas examined his discovery. He was amazed at how light the large cylinder was. He was even more interested in the strange message carved into it. "This could be really important," he thought. "I better keep this and give it to the president in 1960. I'll be a hero." Thomas grabbed a small box of jars and proceeded to take them to his father. After being granted a short rest period, the boy quickly snuck back into the basement and grabbed his discovery. He raced back to his own home which was only a few blocks distant and found a hiding place for the canister in the storage room above the garage. Thomas had no desire to share his find with anyone else. He alone was going to deliver the cylinder to the president when the time came.

1963: Thomas Keefer had the canister concealed inside of a large burlap sack as he approached the White House security guard. He had completely forgotten about the mysterious object until he rediscovered it while packing for college earlier that fall. When he had found it and once again read the first name of the list engraved on its side, he knew he had to deliver it to Washington. He still wanted to be the sole person credited with the discovery. He had been waiting for the first opportunity to take a road trip and make the delivery. With fall break and Thanksgiving coming the following week, he had found a way to get out of Friday classes and made the trek from Boston that morning. The guard looked confused as he examined the canister Thomas showed him. "I'm not sure what I am supposed to do with something like this," said the guard when he finally spoke. "Let me go get someone who might know how to handle this. You just stay here." A second guard remained with Thomas as the first walked away. The canister remained in Thomas' bag. It was nearly an hour later when Thomas finally took a seat across a desk from a chief security officer. "You know," said the middle-aged, balding man. "We get all sorts of things delivered here, most of it we just toss or put into storage somewhere. What you brought, however, is very strange. It is so odd that we're pretty curious about it. We're going to have some experts from the Smithsonian have a look at it. If they think it's worth it and safe, they'll give it to the president." He clipped a tag onto the cylinder. "Where did you say you got it? "I found it in my great-grandfather's house about nine years ago. I noticed..." The phone rang, interrupting Thomas' answer. "Just one minute," the security officer raised his hand toward Thomas as he answered the phone. "What?" The officer uttered only a single word but the horror and shock it portrayed were unmistakable. The man was already rising from his chair as he hung up the telephone. "I'm sorry, you're going to have to leave. We have a much bigger emergency to deal with. The President has just been shot." The guard took the canister from Thomas, haphazardly tossed it into a bin with some other packages and immediately escorted Thomas out the door. Thomas, shocked by the announcement and his hasty removal, did not put up any resistance. He had done his duty. He had delivered the canister. Maybe when it was opened, if it contained anything important, he would be contacted.

2048: President Susan Cheung was sitting in the main office of the temporary capital in Springfield, Illinois when her chief assistant entered the room with a stack of papers and an odd-looking canister of some sort. "Do you have the death tolls from the Colorado flooding?" asked the President without any pleasantries. This was not the time and the President was not in the mood for pleasantries. "Yes, Madam, the destruction is far worse than we thought." The aid handed over a packet of papers. "I've also got estimates on the food shortage in the upper Midwest and the latest on the three hurricanes approaching Florida." "There aren't still people living down there, are there?" "A few stragglers, but most were permanently evacuated last year." The President took a deep breath. She noticed the silver canister that the assistant had set down near the desk. "What is that thing?" "The people at the science institute asked me to show it to you. It was found by one of the divers exploring the remnants of DC after the most recent tidal wave. As near as we can figure it was found in the 1960s and was supposed to be investigated by the Smithsonian but it appears to have never gotten there for some reason. It was found in an old warehouse..." "You still haven't told me what it is," interrupted the President, a slight hint of frustration made its way into her voice. "Sorry, Madam President. Here's the interesting thing, they think it was sent from the future. It contained all sorts of warnings about the greenhouse effect and climate change. It even had blueprints and computer files on how to produce clean renewable energy. You know, stuff that was discovered in the late 2030s." "Well, a lot of good that does us," scoffed the President. "If it was too late to reverse the damage fifteen years ago, it is clearly too late to help us now." "The scientists are guessing that they used a wormhole to send it back in time, hoping to get the message to the past early enough to prevent the global damage. If someone would have opened the canister in the 60s maybe everything could have been prevented." The President paused, biting her pinky fingertip. "Well, it doesn't do us much good now. Send it off to one of the research bases. Maybe they can find something useful, something that might help delay the inevitable." The aide nodded his head. "Yes, Madam." The aide quickly left the office. President Cheung glanced out the window. A black wall of clouds approached from the west. Multiple bolts of lightning flashed in the sky and thunder shook the building.

[puttingfingerstokeys]

the shambling deceased

Nanowrimo day 23 Featuring an unnamed narrator Post-apocalyptic setting, zombies Zombies, death, body horror Finished and unedited

Human olfactory senses are not meant to become accustomed to the sweet stink of death. I don’t care how many television programs you have consumed over the years, where the heroes don’t notice the shambling threat until it is far too late. If the noises these revenants make are not enough to alert the characters in the show, surely the stench of rot and decay would catch their attention, right? Depending on the dramatic needs of the program, it may or it may not. But I am here to tell you, point blank, that the dead—they stink. They stink bad. They stink worse than the ugliest most odious smell you have ever experienced, bar none. A skunk cannot compare to the smell of death, though it certainly tries. The smell permeates, sticks, clings, and drags on you until you are well away from it.

And if the dead are the pursuing kind, rather than the sort who lays on the ground like a corpse really ought to do? Well, you do the math. They are not what anyone might call “quick”, but if the wind is right, the smell will do you in but good. It is rot, decay, and wrong. The smell is actually alarming, if you can believe that. Trust me when I say this: you never want to experience it if it is at all avoidable. Most people, in their lifetimes, smell death once or twice, usually when an animal has gotten itself up under their home and done the indecent thing, dying there to stink up the house and the surrounding area. They always seem to do this on hot days, too—it’s in rather poor form. Regardless, this stench only mimics what the shambling dead bring with them when they rove through an area.

That they move in herds is something the old shows used to get right, at least. I genuinely have no idea what, precisely, attracts them, though I think it might be sound. The dead, you see, don’t have lung capacity; their vocal flaps are generally decayed beyond use as it is soft tissue and, as a result, are unable to produce sounds like the groans you might think they would make.

I guess that might be one thing the television would have had right, about not being able to hear them, except those ambulating corpses would always moan and snarl and make all kinds of animalistic sounds. It was as if they were begging to be discovered. Real ones are hardly apex predators, but at the very least, they do not alert their prey of an incoming attack via audible means. It would really be embarrassing to be killed by a loud, stinky corpse.

It is still incredibly unclear what exactly animates these things. They do not appear to have normal blood flow or brain function; nothing beats or moves and they are decidedly lukewarm. Something is still firing up in their rotten noggins, but it certainly is not what you would call “proper” function. It seems to drive them toward the base urge to feed. I don’t think their bodies process the flesh they consume, however. The stuff probably sits in their guts and ferments—that’s where you get the explosive ones. We haven’t really bothered naming them anything fancy or cutesy. They’re shambling, bloated corpses and honestly, flippant as this commentary has been, there is absolutely jack shit all that’s funny about seeing once-living humans reduced to … that.

They cannot help it. There is no malice in them. There is nothing in them. They are husks, which is as good a name as any. Zombie has always sounded kind of silly to me, even if the implications are always fairly dark and dire. Husks better describes the hollowness of them, I think. So “the undead” or “the infected” work, but “husk” is a better term, given that we do not actually know if they are infected with anything or how they got that way and when you call something undead, it makes the thing somehow spookier than it has to be, lending it some sort of power. We should not fear these things. We need to dispose of them quickly; it is the absolute least we can do.

As far as corpses go, they are just as brittle and easily-perforated as what you might expect a half-decayed corpse to be. The hardest part, to be perfectly honest, is the clothing. Most people did not turn whilst also happening to be nude, unfortunately. Piercing clothes with a stick or any other blunt instrument is a lot tougher than the television shows always made it seem. You are best off with a machete or even a bat. Cutting off brain function stops ambulation. I… do not know if it stops brain function entirely unless the brain is vaporized. No one seems inclined to hang around husk-infested areas long enough to find out.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I was (partially) wrong about the events of a so-called “zombie apocalypse”. I had always theorized (during slow times at my job, mostly) that no society with known zombie-based media could fall victim to the idiotic happenings of your average zombie show, that the zombies could not last much longer than a few months, at most in, for example, a densely populated city, but that in the country, the problem would be solved within a week. There is simply more space way out in the boonies to see things like that coming—people are more armed, too, and not necessarily even with firearms. I am referring, of course, to basic farm implements: pitchforks, shovels, a literal tractor, splitting mauls, axes, actual logs—I could go on.

I was foolish, thinking it would be easy to simply go out and strike down things which had formerly been human, because I would know that they were not. What they don’t usually show in zombie shows—or didn’t; I doubt anyone will ever produce another, assuming we get to that point—is that when someone is freshly dead, they still look… human. Not just humanoid, mind you, but like a sick human being.

Okay, so remember when I said the husks don’t make noise? The old ones don’t, that’s true. But the fresh ones… sometimes it feels as if they are trying to communicate in some way. It definitely is not the growling-hissing sound you get from a movie or whatever. It feels like speaking to a person with a severe speech impediment, who is also deaf, and has some combination of Alzheimer’s and dementia. That is to say, you are not speaking with them, so much as listening. I have no idea what they are trying to say and I have only seen a fresh one a few times; thankfully, by the time they reach our home base, they have deteriorated thoroughly enough that there isn’t any more of that half-talking thing. It gives me the shivers even considering it. Do they consider what they are doing? Can they feel it? What part of them is left—if any?

I am one of those people who hopes that whatever they feel is rudimentary, pure instinct, that there is nothing of the soul who was once occupying the body—yet another decent reason to call them “husks”, rather than zombies.

They are chilling to behold, more than any George Romero film could attempt to portray. As a matter of course, anyone who has ever owned a zombie film or series has tossed it summarily out into the gutter, so to speak—though in some cases, literally. I have genuinely witnessed people with whole collections, tossing them out into our now-defunct trash bins. The gesture seems more symbolic than anything else; the only garbage truck I have seen in the area is the one the former “rogue garbage man” (a story for another time) had used to make his living, except this thing was ass-over-teakettle in a swamp. Whether it was a group of husks or just some of the run-to-riot wildlife in the area that drove him off the road, I guess I’ll never know.

The village I call home is a small place, a five-by-five mile square with probably five hundred people, total. The cop shop doubles as the library and town hall, if that gives you any idea of the scale of things. We have a four-way which is the biggest attraction in town and isn’t even a stop—traffic on the old highway zooms right on through. We have the essentials, a bar, a hardware, a convenience store and two churches, one Catholic, the other non-denominational, the church equivalent of “Original” and “Spicy”. I’m not entirely sure which one is which, but since the Catholics serve wine, I’m going with Original Recipe—they’re the ones who own the one graveyard in town, which I am pleased to say has expelled none of its residents. It probably isn’t feasible to rise from your grave when you are encased in cement and filled with formaldehyde. Who knew that our uncomfortably Egyptian burial practices would come in handy? There are a few cross streets here and there, but they either lead to dead-ends or a twisted mass of nonsense roads that curve and twist and transform into other roads as they hit county lines.

Everything that is not a house or trailer is a field, woods, a swamp, or some combination of the two.

For having so much farmland, however, there are very few farms. In recent years, times have been tough on anything that is not a massive, factory farm and, needless to say, anything called a “village” does not have the consumer base or, likely, the location to support such a thing. The government has been doing what it does best: making it hard on the little guy. I wish I could tell you it was because of this regime or that, red or blue, but to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure the agenda changes much across the aisle—not where regulatory licensure is concerned, anyway. Farmers just cannot keep up with government subsidization if they aren’t an approved recipient and then they lose their farms, plain and simple. It isn’t the best explanation, nor is it a terribly sympathetic one; don’t think me cold for this, but I recognize that there is plenty about the world I cannot change and, when the dead are walking, you quickly learn which battles to fight, which passions to chase, and which issues to leave behind in the dust of a previous age. I’ve shaken that particular blend of mud from my shoes.

My family is one of the fortunate few who had a “hobby” farm before this whole thing went down. I don’t know who decided to call it that, but this thing is no hobby. It is absolutely, without question, a full-time job taking care of the animals. We have the staples, chickens and hogs, like you would expect in the rural Midwest, but rather than cows, my family long ago elected to raise, breed, milk, and butcher goats. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, my friend; goat is good eating. The milk is creamy, the cheese is exquisite, and they are friendly, mid-sized beasts who can be pushed and pulled where you need them to go. Sometimes, we lament not having at least one cow, but upon reflection, the sheer size of any bovine is enough to stop that thought quickly; they eat a ton and if they do not want to cooperate, they simply won’t. There is little a human can do without a cattle prod (or dogs) and we’re fresh out.

We are fresh out of cattle prods, that is, not dogs. We have dogs. Everyone around here has at least one dog. It’s just something you do in the country. You have dogs. We have four, actually, and right now, they make for excellent guards, alerting us to the presence of the undead with quiet barks—we call them “low-commitment”, because it isn’t a full-on bark, but it’s loud enough to let us know something is up. It’s as if the dogs understand that the dead are attracted to sounds. Now, if a human being wanders by the fence, the dogs go all out. They’re really the epitome of “a bark worse than their bite”, but nobody else knows that, so they keep the riff-raff out. By riff-raff, I mean drifters, thieves, those who are not committed to survival by hard work, but by capitalizing on the work of others. Around here, there are plenty—or there were. Needless to say, that behavior does not win you many friends during a crisis like this one. My family is generous, but we are not soft, nor stupid. Telling the good from the bad has never been difficult for us… or the dogs, actually.

So there you have it��� “hobby” farm with doggy security system. We have ham, goat, and chicken a-plenty; we have eggs, milk, and cheese. We are very well-outfitted for this “apocalypse”, if you want to call it that. I think it might be a bit overblown, but nobody asked me, did they? There are plenty of people and families out there who were not so fortunate. It did not take long to realize how well-positioned we were (and still are) to survive and even to thrive in these new dark ages. Oh, but I guess I got ahead of myself again—or maybe behind… again. You probably aren’t here for logistics or whatever. You probably saw the opening monologue and thought “shit, she’s going to spill it all; we’re going to get a real juicy story”. You want to know how it started, or at the very least, how it started for me, don’t you? Well, strap in. This is a long one.