#subject 21

[jgmartin]

SUBJECT 21

I watch the sunset bleed.

Its outer edges drip like molten gold. In the distance, I hear the hiss of steam before I ever see the clouds rising from the arctic snow.

“Told you,” Raens says. He stops short of me, slings his rifle over his shoulder and folds his arms. He surveys the sunset like it’s a regular occurrence. An everyday thing. “There’s a reason this place is under lockdown.”

“So it’s true,” I say. “They haven’t let anybody leave for the past three years.”

“Not a soul.”

I look back at the sunset. A pit of unease grows in my stomach. The shape of it is all wrong. It’s pulsing, throbbing like a living thing– like a monster from science fiction. “What about the guy I replaced?”

“Lently?"

"Yeah."

"Dead and gone."

I stare at Raens waiting for him to crack a smile, to tell me he’s fucking with me, that this is all a joke. A little hazing for the new guy. But instead he sighs, looks away– wipes the back of his glove against his eyes. “Look on the bright side, kid. The isolation pay is fantastic, ain’t it?”

The pay was good. Three times my yearly salary, in fact. "Nevermind the money, three years is a long time to vanish off the face of the earth. How does the military explain that?"

“You got a sweetheart back home? Couple of rugrats, maybe?”

“Not yet.”

He nods. There's the hint of a grin on his lips. “That’s what I thought. They don’t pick people with loose ends for this kind of thing. They want shadows. People like you and me who can fade away without anybody giving a damn.”

"I mean, I got family."

"Sure, kid. We all got family. Question is, do they give a shit about you?"

The question stings. It stings because I know the answer, but I can't bring myself to say it out loud, so I change gears. "What's the deal with the bunker?"

Raens follows my gaze to the little hill of snow rising from the earth. It's about a hundred yards away, and its heavy steel doors are lit up crimson in the setting sun. "You mean why aren't we allowed inside?"

I nod.

“Official answer is it’s classified. Unofficial answer is they’re building weapons down there and don’t need you getting into things you shouldn’t be.”

I watch the sun drip molten gold and I ask the obvious question. “You’re telling me that this is us?”

“I’m telling you it’s him. Dr Thales. Head of research and engineering."

I’d heard the name before. The man was supposedly a genius, a real marvel with a resume to rival Einstein and the ego to match. “How the fuck did he manage to get our sun to bleed on Earth from all the way across the solar system?”

“Who says that’s the real sun?” He slips a pack of cigarettes from his parka and slides one between his lips. “Smoke?”

“Not for six years.”

“Suit yourself.” He lights it up and takes a drag. For the first time, I notice the dark bags beneath his eyes, the deep lines infesting his cheeks, his forehead. Raens looks like a man at the end of his rope. Exhausted.

“Never used to smoke,” he tells me, pocketing his lighter. “Bad habit with no real upsides, but then I got posted here and it was like I needed something, anything to look forward to.” He breathes out a plume, shaking his head. “Cigarettes became my breath of fresh air. Ain’t that funny?”

“So, that’s it then? You and I are stuck out here guarding some… mad scientist?”

“We’re not here to guard anybody. We’re contingencies.”

“For what?”

“Subject 21. If it escapes, we do our best to slow it down and buy time."

"Then what?"

Raens shrugs. "Reckon we just die."

I open my mouth, but the words are still trying to catch up to the conversation. “Hold on. What's Subject 21?”

“One of Thales’ experiments. We call it the Boogey Man because nobody’s seen the thing outside of Thales and his team. But we know that it’s powerful. Powerful enough that you and I, plus the rest of humanity, are nothing but ants.”

“If this thing’s that powerful, then why doesn’t it just break itself out?”

Raens takes another drag. Closes his eyes. Savours it. “Figure it doesn’t want to.”

“You're joking.”

“Best we've pieced together is that S21 is in some kind of catatonic state. Doesn’t speak. Barely moves. Mostly it just stands in its cell and stares holes in the wall, sometimes literally, if you trust the radio chatter.”

"It has to eat, doesn’t it?”

Raens looks at me like I’m four years old, like he almost envies my ignorance. “It doesn’t have to do a damn thing. That’s what makes it special, kid. It doesn’t have any rules because it makes the fucking rules, and that’s exactly why Thales is trying to kill it.”

Behind us, the pulsating sun is dipping below the horizon. A chill creeps under my skin, and it’s got nothing to do with the plummeting temperature. “Why? Why kill this thing if it’s just keeping to itself? Isn’t that kind of… Immoral?”

“Might be. Not really my place to say one way or the other, but Thales seems to think S21 is just dormant. Hibernating. That it’s liable to wake up any day now and then… well, all hell breaks loose. And I don’t mean that metaphorically.”

“What does this thing do, shit nuclear warheads?”

“That’d be nice. Easier to deal with, I’d wager.”

“What’s worse than nukes?”

“Just told you, didn’t I? Hell on earth.”

I laugh. It’s the only reaction I can think of because the implication is so absurd that nothing else makes sense. “So what, Thales has Satan locked up in his bunker?”

Raens ashes his cigarette, stomps it into the snow. “Worse.”

I keep my laughter alive, but Raens looks deadly serious. He's quiet. Pensive. He watches the shadows creep over the bunker doors, watches them creep across the entire landscape and he says, “You ever wonder what happened to God?”

“God?”

“Sure. Jesus takes one for the team, then God just ups and vanishes, doesn’t he? There’s no sequel to the Bible. Some fanfiction, maybe. But no sequel, not even after a few thousand years.”

“Haven’t given it much thought. I’m agnostic myself.”

Raens cracks a smile. “Keeping your options open, eh? Smarter than you look.”

“No. It's not that. I just… never really knew enough to make a decision one way or the other. I couldn’t be certain if there was a higher power out there.”

“Well, now you know.” Raens steps off, making his way back toward the hill for shift change. I waddle to catch up to him. I'm still getting used to moving under six layers of kit.

“You’re telling me that this thing– Subject 21, is God?”

He shrugs, his feet crunching against the snow. “That’s what the troops seem to think. And to be frank, there's been supporting evidence."

"What kind?"

"The kind that's damn near impossible to ignore." Raens pauses suddenly, raises a sleeve and checks the watch on his wrist. Then he looks up the sky. Frowns. Keeps walking. "I wouldn't worry too much, kid. This is your first day. You'll see what I mean soon enough, and by then you'll probably wish you could forget all about it."

"But I mean–"

"Trust me."

I let the question go and latch onto a new one. “So all these weapons, what's Thales using them for? I mean, if he doesn't think they'll work at killing S21?"

"That's something that–"

There's a low screech from high in the distance. I open my mouth. Raens cut me off.

"Shut it," he snaps. He pulls me down to the hill with him. Raises a finger. It's the sort of finger that tells me to keep quiet or else. We wait there for what feels like minutes while Raens scans the dark sky, as if he thinks we're about to be spotted by enemy aircraft.

“How’s your shooting, kid?” he whispers.

“Pretty good," I say, moving to unsling my rifle.

He puts a hand on mine as if to say don't you fucking dare. Then he adds, "Keep it on safe. I don't want you panicking and putting a bullet through me."

"Why?"

He chuckles. "I've lasted this long, and–" His voice is gone. My eardrums scream. A sound erupts with the low bass of infinity, and I fall to my stomach clutching my skull as pressure builds behind my ears like a kettle set to boil.

I try to say words. I try to ask if we've stumbled across another weapon and if it's going to kill us, but when I look at Raens he’s got tears in his eyes and his jaw is set. He’s got tears in his eyes and the sonuvabitch is smiling. Ear to ear. “Heads up, kid!” he shouts over the din.

I look skyward, and through the dark clouds bursts an explosion of light. Suddenly, the world is bright. I stare up in awe and horror as a battalion of winged creatures descends from the heavens, bellowing on trumpets whose sound could shatter mountains. On instinct I raise my rifle, but the creatures streak past us.

They streak toward the bunker.

“What's happening?” I holler into Raens' ear.

He thumbs over his shoulder, and I almost miss it in the creatures’ blinding light, but Thales' sun has risen again. It’s pulsing. Shuddering. It’s rising from the horizon and spinning as its molten rays tear away from it and hurtle toward the creatures.

They react, but not fast enough. Thales' weapon is gruesome in its efficiency, in its totality for destruction. The blazing arrows snap through the air like heat-seeking missiles, finding their marks and engulfing the creatures in flames. One by one they fall to the ground. One by one the trumpets that could shatter mountains are made silent.

Soon, the sky is clear. The arctic outpost at the end of the world is quiet again, and I’m left alone with Raens, trembling in a snowfall of ash. “Were those things…” The word is on my lips, but it almost feels blasphemous to say. Something floats onto my shoulder. It's white and smeared with soot, and I think it might be a feather.

“Angels,” Raens says, standing up. “At least, that’s our best guess. They’ve been making the rounds every couple weeks or so, ever since Thales got his hands on Subject 21. Tricky things. Never fall for the same weapon twice.”

Raens says the last bit as if he’s giving them some kind of begrudging respect, and all I can think about is the ringing in my ears. The fact that after this, we’re fucked. If angels are real, and if God is real, then that means Hell is real, and right now it's looking like the premiere destination for both of us. “We just murdered… " I breathe. "A hundred angels...”

“Murdered? I wouldn’t bet on it.” Almost on cue, fallen feathers begin to coalesce all across the ashen snow, vibrating violently. They hover for the space of a heartbeat, and then altogether they shoot upward, piercing the sky like gunshots and leaving glowing pillars in their wake.

The pulsating sun slows, then falls back beneath the horizon. Darkness finds us again.

"You okay, kid?"

My heart is beating so fast it hurts. My body is covered in goosebumps and I'm trying to tell myself that I'm dreaming. That this is some left-over Sunday school trauma working its way out of my system.

"This is not what I signed up," I sputter. "I mean holy shit, Raens. I’m not going to sentence myself to an eternity in damnation– because clearly that exists now–just to satisfy some government curiosity or one man’s vendetta or… or…”

I cast about for the words but there’s nothing there. I’m too scared. Too weighed down by the overwhelming immensity of the situation to properly formulate my thoughts.

“Thought you didn’t believe in God?” Raens says with a grin, pulling out a fresh smoke. "Agnostic, wasn't it?"

“That was before I saw an army of angels get picked out of the sky like birds.”

Raens lights his smoke, and then he sits down in the snow. "Look on the bright side, shift's almost over and our relief should be coming over the hill pretty quick. You hungry?"

It takes me a second to answer because I can't believe how relaxed he is. I want to grab him and scream that we're the bad guys, but before I can muster the rage he pats the ground beside him. "Take a seat, kid. I've been here a few years so there ain't much that surprises me. Not these days."

I stay where I am. My chest is heaving like a bellows, and I don't know if it’s what I just saw or the cigarette, but I feel light-headed and woozy. I'm afraid if I sit down I'll black out. "What's Thales' deal? I mean, is he like some kind of occult monster? Militant atheist?"

"Thales, an atheist?" Raens laughs, laughs hard enough that he starts coughing. "Far from it. Might be the most God-fearing Christian I've ever met, now that you mention it."

"I'm not tracking."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't be. Thales is a complicated man and not without his faults, but one thing you cannot deny is that the man is devout. Grew up in the Bible belt. Reads his book every night. Hell, rumor has it he used to moonlight as a preacher in days past."

“A preacher?" I mutter. "Why would a preacher want to murder God?"

"Same reason any good Christian does anything," Raens says, blowing smoke into the sky. "Cause' God told him to."

I open my mouth to reply but the words aren’t there. A thousand questions ricochet around my mind, but I can't seem to grab hold of a single one. Instead I stumble onto the snow next to Raens. I shake my head. Reach out a quivering hand.

“On second thought,” I tell him, “I will take that cigarette.”

[now-you-sound-like-a-jedi]

Embroidery hoop + gorgeous badge + Eras tour bracelet beads = the newest piece of Star Wars decor I'm about to subject my flatmate to:

(Pin by russianrita on Etsy, definitely a good call for awesome Star Wars pins!)

[k-ky]

yknow how couples have like a list each of like celebrities or people they want to fuck and are allowed to, like a Freebie list. I'm like 98% sure Carra's on John Terry's freebies list like that man doesn't have to smile that hard around Carra, he's not that witty.

and im sure John's boyfriend Frank Lampard would allow for a three way with Carra bc I think Carra is also on his Freebie list lol

like hELLO???

[chiropteracupola]

oldest stuffed animal and newest stuffed animals...

[101flavoursofweird]

Flora: You might have been kind of a… a… a… adopted.

Kat: I knew it.

Flora: You knew? Who told you?

Kat: No one outright confirmed it… I mean, come on, Flora. Have you seen how different Kat and her level-headed dad are

Flora: But if you knew, why didn’t you ever say anything?

Kat: Why didn’t you or Dad say anything?

Flora: I thought Al told you—

Kat: I couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not! 

[tysonfurybattlepass]

never understood the YA trope of immortal supernatural creature masquerading as a teenager bc if i were ten thousand years old and incredibly powerful i promise you high school is the absolute fucking last place i would want to be

[rochenn]

lets go with 4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person? for the violence ask game - your choice on if you name them or not

Absolutely not naming anyone but there used to be this person reblogging some of my Obi-Wan art. All the drawings they reblogged were on the horny side of things so ofc their tags were horny too (which is great, go hog wild etc) but they also ALWAYS involved fantasies featuring Anakin which. is definitely something to maybe keep to another post but go off I guess? They were clearly enjoying my work and they were just one person so who cares, right?

Anyway. Flash forward to them reblogging a drawing of TPM-era Obi-Wan and thirsting in the tags as is their God-given right to do except I wish it wasn't because the thirsting involved TPM-era Anakin this time. I have seen enough. And I think that person had also seen enough of my art lmao. Blockeéd 🗿

[weirdgirlbymommylonglegs]

there’s being a teenage girl in your 20s then there’s whatever the fuck the babyface by sorry mom experience is

[theaskew]

Pillery Teesalu (Estonian b.1984), The Mirror of Duality [From the underwater fantasy project titled Serenity], 2021. 110 x 75 cm. 

[castielsprostate]

tell me more about this Ghost That Lives In Your House™️

okay so. all my life, and dont call me crazy for this when there's the rest to call me crazy for, but all my life i have been surrounded by the super natural. like, i remember being a wee little lad, doing wee little lad things and boom there's just a random see through man next to me. or the time when i was 12 and i woke up to my grandpa standing over me and telling me it's going to be okay ✨he died 13 years before my birth✨. or the time when NO ONE was home except me and im in the supply closet and I suddenly hear footsteps INSIDE THE HOUSE. not upstairs or in the halls BUT INSIDE THE HOUSE ON TILED FLOORS. it then started to move the dishes around?!?!????? also the time i was in my room at like, 15 or so, watching porn, and my curtains FLY off the fucking wall😭😭😭 the didn't just drop. THEY FUCKING RIPPED OFF THE WALLS. uhm what else well when i moved out 2ish years ago, into an apartment, there were wet puddles <3 middle of the apartment, not near any sort of plumbing <3 they still appear sometimes by the way. also the time the washing machine got turned on by itself???????? my boyfriend doesn't do laundry, i didn't do laundry.... the ghost did do the laundry. ALSO after my GMiL died, all lamps went haywire in our apartment. they turned on off on off, wouldn't turn on and wouldn't turn off or would immediately turn on again when turned off or immediately turned off again when turned on. im 100% convinced she's in our apartment. but then again i do hoard.. urns with ashes 😭 so maybe it's that. the ghost im talking about tho, she's in the mirrors. she mirror hops. she gives off an AWFUL vibe. a mean vibe. i dont know what it is, it's not a dangerous vibe per se but she seems mad at something. she also keeps ripping things off the walls and opens windows??????? weird.

also i think i accidentally cursed myself in 2014-ish when i was really into wiccan things and decided to do this random spell on the internet and ever since then bad things kept happening to me until i did a cleansing . so. i did one of those online 'am i cursed' quizzes and i scored like an 98/100 and i think the result said something like may god have mercy on you :3

OH ALSO there was this one time i went to visit my grandpa's grave because i was feeling incredibly sad. this was just after my best friend (and only friend) had stabbed me in the back and i went there and i was being Dramatic™ and i swear to fucking god, i would swear under oath, time stopped. i swear time fucking stopped and mist filled the graveyard and i saw my grandpa look at me with sad eyes and lay a hand on my shoulder I SWEAR THIS HAPPENED. and there!!!!! were other ghosts there and they were just, floating around like ghosts. it's so weird. it started raining and the entire image slowly went away and i went home feeling quite happy <3

[arsenicflame]

good morning. read the angela comics. this is a threat

[likedbyuarmyhope]

me when i make a spreadsheet of every single bts song (from group albums) and assign each song a category based on theme/message and then calculate how many songs are in each category and what total percentage of bts songs each category makes up

[thebirdandhersong]

if I had a nickel for every time I had an interest in someone who was a) extroverted, b) very enthusiastic and passionate about very niche subjects, and c) completely and utterly clueless, I'd have two nickels.... which isn't a LOT, but it's weird, amusing, and exasperating that it happened twice

[commissionsdarian]

Sorry. I appreciate it. A lot. But don't compliment me

[yume-fanfare]

looking at my schedule for next semester like why did i think this was a good idea..............

[tboyminyard]

i need to eat ronan lynch im chewing on his skin and bones i need to be inside of him i wanna study him under a microscope i need to know him on a cellular level