neversayneverly

[jgmartin]

Subject 21

In light of Spooky Season, I thought I'd share the updated draft of Subject 21: a horror story about a bunker at the end of the world, and the terrifying entity contained within it.

I watch the sunset bleed.

Its outer edges drip like molten gold, and 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, my voice barely a whisper. “No one’s left for three years.”

“Not a soul.”

I look back at the sun and a pit of unease grows in my stomach. The shape of it is all wrong. It’s pulsing, throbbing like a living thing, like some monster born of science fiction. “What about the guy I replaced?” I ask. “They let him leave, didn’t they?”

“Lentley?” Raens scratches the stubble along his jaw. “Suppose so. Flew him out last week, airlifted the kid home in a body bag.”

I wait for the punchline, for Raens to crack a smile and slap me on the back, maybe chide me for being so gullible, but instead he sighs, gazes out across the white expanse. “Got a wife?” he asks me.

“Not yet.”

He nods to himself, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

“You’re cut from the same cloth as him,” Raens says, words sharp as the arctic wind. “You’re an extra in your own story. No loose ends. No one to raise hell if you vanish. Same as Lentley. Same as the rest of us.”

“I mean, I’ve got family,” I protest.

“Sure,” he chuckles. “We all got family. The question is, do they give a damn about you?”

The question stings. It stings because I know the answer, but I can’t bring myself to put it into words. It’s enough to strangle our conversation before it ever gets a chance to breathe, and we spend the next hour standing silent in the fading glare of the sunset.

This is my life now, I realize. Watching over a compound at the end of the world, trading small talk with a sergeant twice my age.

“So,” Raens says, clearing his throat. “How much did they tell you about the bunker?”

I swivel my gaze, squinting through the gathering dusk toward a concrete sarcophagus rising from the snow. There’s a door in the center of it. Its blackened steel is covered in thick gashes painted in shades of rust.

“Not much,” I admit. “Just that it was off limits, and that I'd get court-martialed if I so much as stepped within a hundred yards.”

He smirks. “Figures.”

“Guess I'll go ahead and ask the obvious – any idea what's down there?”

Raens scrunches his brow, lips parting as if he’s about to speak but can’t quite find the words. It takes him a moment. When he finally finds his voice, it’s distant, hollow – somehow even emptier than the gray of his eyes. “Nightmares,” he murmurs. “That’s what they’re hiding down there. Weapons more terrible than you can imagine.”

My stomach twists as Raens’ looks to the bleeding, molten sunset. The implication is clear.

“Jesus,” I breathe. “Is this… Are we doing this to the sun, then?”

He shakes his head, thumbing toward the bunker. “No. Not us. That’ll be Dr. Cornel Thales, Chief of Research and Engineering on this frigid rock.”

I know the name. I'd heard it mentioned by the pilots when they shipped me out to this winter paradise. Thales was a genius apparently. Not your garden-variety savant, but the kind old comic books warned us about.

“I don’t get it. How'd he manage to weaponize the sun?”

"That ain't the real sun," Raens explains, looking toward the darkening sky. "The real one’s somewhere beyond those clouds. It’s later than you think.”

I tilt my head, studying the pulsating weapon on the horizon. “How's he build something like this, though? It’s incredible.”

“Theories float around. They always do. Some of the troops think Thales made a deal with the devil, others think he ain’t properly human.”

“Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

Raens slips a pack of smokes from his parka, slides one between his lips. “I don’t get paid to think. You smoke?”

“Not lately.”

“Smarter than you look.”

He lights up, and for the first time, I’m realizing how ancient the man looks. His eyes are bloodshot, his face lined like a roadmap to exhaustion. I figure the last time he got a decent sleep was somewhere between the invention of the wheel and the fall of Rome.

“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, sucks it back through his nostrils. “Cigarettes became my breath of fresh air. Ain’t that funny?”

My mouth dips into a frown, unsure if any of this is funny.

We stand like that for a while longer, gazing across a white glacier shimmering beneath a molten sky.

“So, this is it,” I say, breath fogging the air in front of me. “You and I are just what – guarding some mad scientist until they ship us out in our own body bags, then?”

Raens’ lips twist into a smile. “Nah. We ain’t bodyguards. We’re tripwires for what Thales has down in that bunker.”

“Another weapon?”

He shakes his head, a haunted expression creeping onto his face. “Weapons are tools. You point ‘em at bad guys and the bad guys disappear, but what Thales has is different. You can’t aim it. Can’t control it. It doesn’t answer to us, and I doubt it ever will.”

A shiver crawls up my neck. “You’re talking about this thing like it’s alive.”

He shrugs. “Maybe it is. I’m not sure concepts like life or death even apply to it, though. What I can say is that it’s powerful. Powerful in a way that’s damn near impossible to describe.”

“If it’s so great, then why doesn’t it just break itself out?”

“Figure it doesn’t want to.”

“Huh.” The wind howls past us, carrying a haze of snowflakes toward the bunker. “This thing got a name?” I ask.

“Subject 21,” he says simply. “Word is, it’s practically catatonic. Never makes a fuss about anything. Barely even moves. Just stands in its cell and stares holes in the wall – sometimes literally, if you trust the radio chatter.”

What he’s describing sounds so absurd, like something out of a sci-fi novel. "Does it even breathe?” I say, half-joking. “Or is it beyond that, too?”

The sergeant ashes his cigarette with a tap of his finger. “If it feels like breathing, I suppose it could manage it. That’s the thing about S21 – what makes it so terrifying. It doesn’t have to do anything. It has no rules because it makes the rules, and all of us are just toys in its sandbox, ready to be played with whenever it pleases.”

I swallow. “The hell is Thales doing with this thing?”

“Killing it,” Raens tells me. “Or at least, trying to. He figures S21 is just sleeping, but he’s convinced it’ll wake up one day, and when that happens, we’ll all be royally fucked.”

Ice slithers through my veins.

“Imagine the Big Bang in reverse," Raens continues grimly. "Everything that ever was, wiped clean, with not even ashes left to mark our graves. That's what Thales believes is waiting for us on the other side of S21’s catnap.”

My chest tightens. The thought of this unfathomable creature being less than a mile away, locked up in a bunker beneath the ice feels surreal. Incomprehensible.

“So let me get this straight,” I say, thinking aloud. “This thing is powerful beyond all measure, liable to wipe out humanity the second it wakes up, and we don’t have the first idea how to stop it. What the hell is it? The damn devil?”

Raens grins. “If only. Probably be easier to deal with I’d wager.”

“You’re kidding. What’s worse than the devil?”

Raens squints toward the horizon, a far-away glint in his eyes. “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, not even after a few thousand years. Strange, ain’t it?”

“Haven’t given it much thought,” I admit. “Always saw religion as more of a metaphor than literal history.”

“Well,” Raens says, his voice heavy with finality. “Now you know better.”

He steps off, trudging over the hill.

It takes a second for my mind to catch up, and then I’m scrambling after him, moving as gracefully as a newborn giraffe under my six layers of winter kit. “Hold up – are you saying Subject 21 is fucking God?”

The old man gives a noncommittal grunt. “That’s the troops’ theory, but they’d tell you the moon was made of cheese if it made for decent conversation. Anything to pass the time.”

“And what do you—” I catch myself, the words freezing on my tongue. “Right. You don’t get paid to think.”

Raens taps his temple, a wry smirk playing on his lips. "Quick study. And I might not get paid to think, but I still sneak in a little here and there – off the clock, of course." He winks, and it might be the most human he’s ever looked. “There have been... incidents. Might lend some credence to the gossip around the barracks. It all started when—”

A clarion cry rings out, stealing Raens’ attention. He scowls, pulling back the sleeve of his parka to check the watch on his wrist.

“Something wrong?” I ask, peering warily across the snowdrifts.

“Not yet,” he says through gritted teeth.

“That’s not exactly reassuring.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.”

Raens catches the worry in my face, and he sighs. Claps a hand on my shoulder. "Listen, kid. This is your first day on the job, so I won’t rush things. Not like I did with Lentley. Just try to enjoy the ignorance while it lasts."

I open my mouth to protest but he cuts me off.

"Trust me,” he says, and the words fall from his lips like a judge's gavel.

We keep moving. Our boots crunch through the snow as we make our way toward the watch-turnover location: a crooked radio tower a mile out, its steel frame glinting in the glare of the false sun.

“So, these weapons,” I press, still hungry for answers. “Have any of them of so much as put a dent in S21?”

“They aren’t for S21.”

“Then who—”

A bone-rattling screech tears through the air. Before I can wheel around, Raens is already tackling me to the snow, shoving my head to the powdery cold. “Shh!” he hisses. “They’re coming …” He scans the darkening sky as if searching for enemy aircraft. “How’s your shooting?” he whispers.

"Damn good.”

I reach for my rifle, but he grabs my wrist.

"Keep it on safe. Last thing I need is you punching me full of holes. Still got half a pack of smokes to finish.”

“I’m a marksman, Raens. I ain’t gonna panic.”

He chortles. “Yeah, you and every other asshole here. Shooting a bullseye through a dick hair doesn’t mean squat though, not when you’re—”

His words drown in a cacophony of noise. It crashes down from above us, roaring with the fury of creation itself. I roll over, hands clamped to my ears as pressure builds in my skull like a kettle ready to shriek.

Raens staggers to his knees next to me, tears streaking his wrinkled face. He’s pale. Trembling. Yet despite it all, he's grinning in a rictus of ecstasy – the sonuvabitch is laughing. “Heads up!” he bellows.

Light explodes through the clouds.

All at once, the world ignites, burning brighter than a solar flare. A host of winged creatures descend from above, wreathed in emerald starfire, blowing trumpets that could shatter mountains. I raise my rifle on instinct.

Too slow.

They blitz past us like avenging comets, hellbent for the bunker.

“What’s our play?” I shout over the din.

Raens holds his tongue. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, and my heart seizes. Thales’ false sun has risen high, pulsing with cosmic rage. Molten rays tear away from its surface, hurtling toward the winged host like the spears of wrathful gods.

The creatures try to evade.

They dip and weave faster than lightning, but it’s no use. The arrows snap through the air like guided missiles, finding their marks and engulfing them in screaming flames.

One by one, the creatures fall.

It's like watching a meteor shower, and I can't help but marvel at Thales' brutal brilliance. It only takes the weapon a handful of minutes to clear the sky; to render the invaders little more than cinders in the wind.

As the last of them dies, I’m left shaking in a snowfall of ash.

“Those things …” I choke out, my voice strangled by awe and horror.

“Looked familiar, didn't they?" Raens answers, and somehow, it's like he's discussing the weather. “The one’s with all the eyes tend to throw folks for a loop, but they’re all part of the same host.”

I swallow hard, tasting char and infinity. “Are you saying they were …” The word sticks in my throat, feeling almost too blasphemous, too dizzying to speak.

“Angels,” Raens confirms, joints popping like gunshots as he gets to his feet. “That’s our best guess, at any rate. They’ve been making the rounds every couple weeks, back 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.

“Angels …” My voice creaks like timber. “We just slaughtered a hundred angels?”

Raens snorts. “Wouldn’t bet on it.”

He nods at the field before us, covered in white feathers stained black with soot. To my shock, the feathers begin to quiver, pulsing with inner light. They rise slowly as one, hanging for a heartbeat before rocketing skyward, piercing the clouds and leaving pillars of radiance in their wake.

As the last of them vanish, Thales’ bleeding sun shrinks back beneath the horizon, blanketing us in the shroud of night.

Raens helps me to my feet. "You alright?”

“… I’m alive.”

"Not what I asked. Lentley was alive too, right up 'til he wasn't.” The old sergeant pats snow and soot from my sleeves. “Look, this job's a mindfuck, I know that – we all do, but it's still the job. You okay or not?”

My pulse is rushing so fast it hurts, goosebumps the size of dimes are peppering my skin, I'm drowning in existential dread, baptized in cosmic horror, and my ears are ringing like church bells, and …

“I’m fine,” I tell him.

He claps my shoulders, squeezing with rough compassion. “Kid, I might not be the brightest of the bunch, but I know my troops. And you? You're a long way from fine.”

I take a breath, and it feels like my first in years. “This just a nightmare, right, Raens? Some Sunday School trauma clawing its way out of my system?”

He pays me a mournful smile, and it tells me everything I need to know.

“Christ,” I breathe, anxiety seizing me. “We just cremated half of heaven back there …”

“Told you already, those angels ain’t dead.”

“Does it matter?” I sputter. “We’ve probably got front row seats in hell thanks to that shitshow. I mean, you can’t just torch angels, Raens. There’s gotta be rules about that and … and …”

I trail off. Fear’s got me by the throat, the weight of what we’ve done crushing my last coherent thought.

We’re damned. All of us, irredeemably damned.

But Raens doesn’t seem to care.

He pulls a fresh cigarette from his pack, lights it on fire. “Thought you didn't buy into all that religious stuff?”

“Guess I’ve just had a spiritual awakening.”

Raens looks me over: at my mess of hair, my desperate eyes and my shaking knees. He looks at all of this and he laughs. It’s the first time I’ve seen him do it – throw back his head, crinkle his eyes and howl with amusement. Showcase genuine joy.

Somehow, I hate it. It’s like this whole thing is a joke to him, some cosmic hazing ritual for the new guy.

“What’s so funny?” I demand.

“You are,” he says, giving me a light punch on the arm. “Spiritual awakening? Fuck me. Lentley fed me the same line, and it killed me then, too. You two really are cut from the same cloth.”

The way he’s beaming at me, I wonder if this is the first time he’s felt happy in ages, and it seems wrong to derail all that – to take it from him, but I need to know.

“I never asked… but how was it that Lentley died?”

The sergeant’s smile fades. He turns away from me, wipes something from the edge of his eye and starts carving a path toward the radio tower. “Same as any of us do,” he says with a rattling breath. “Slowly over the years, then all at once and far too soon.”

“That ain’t much of an answer,” I say, following after him.

“Maybe not, but it’s all you’re getting.”

Moonlight seeps through the clouds, stretching our shadows as we trudge through the snow. When we make it to the tower, Raens unslings his rifle with an exhausted sigh before sparking a fresh stick of nicotine. I slump down next to him.

“I got one more question,” I tell him.

“Shoot.”

“Thales. What’s his angle on hating God? He some kind of militant atheist or something?”

Raens grins, amused. “That’s funny. Thales might be the most God-fearing Christian you’ll ever meet, now that you mention it.”

“How’s that work?” I say with a frown.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what’s a Christian doing trying to murder God?”

“Ah.” Raens takes a moment to consider the question, his wrinkled face lit up red beneath the tower, cigarette smoldering between his calloused fingertips. “Guess he’s doing it for the same reason any true believer does anything,” he says, lifting the smoke to his lips. “…Cause God told him to.”

The arctic wind kisses my cheeks, ruffles my hair, but all I can feel is the machine-gun rhythm of my heart pounding against my ribs.

I watch Raens tap ash onto the snow, watch him take another drag and I’m stunned by how calm he is. How relaxed. A thousand questions are pinballing around my skull, but for him this is just another Tuesday.

My eyes find my gloves, still blackened with soot, still stained with the cremains of heaven itself, and all I can think about is how much I wish I could stop thinking.

“Something on your mind, kid?”

I glance up at the sergeant, throat dry. “Yeah,” I croak. “I think… I think maybe I’ll take you up on that cigarette after all, Raens.”

He gives me a knowing smile, weary eyes twinkling beneath the starlit sky. “Figured you would,” he says, reaching into his parka with a sigh. “Folks typically do.”

[captainrufflebanger]

Every day I inch closer to changing my DNI rule from 18 to 21 istg

I realize the 2nd Twitter exodus is happening but I do not have time to block every account promoting re8, a MATURE RATED GAME, to minors.

This is also just my blog for everything and I'm a 30-year old woman who likes hitting reblog on posts about sex AND filing taxes. Easy enough not to hit the follow button if that's not for you.

[stuckinapril]

Ooh yeah that list. I have definitely learned the truth of "it ends how it starts" and just like someone telling on themself. Seeing patterns in someone's behaviour once you know where to look...

No like it’s a sound list and I agree w most of it but like……. Someone humble this 21 year old girl why is she talking ab things so definitively

[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 🗿

[art--harridan]

[Image description: A digital drawing of Thymian Henning from the film Diary of a Lost Girl. She takes up the right side of the piece, which captures her from her head to her waist. She is sitting with her arms in her lap. Her face is solemn, with mournful eyes staring off into the distance. She is coloured in with white, a flatly shaded with one tone of grey. The shadows are sectioned off by the lineart, which is a stark black. To the left of her shoulder, there's three white flowers. They also resemble crumples up paper. Above them, the name "Thymian" is written in cursive. The background is greying purple.]

Inktober - Day 17 (Journal)

Film - Diary of a Lost Girl (G. W. Pabst, 1929)

[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.”

[chaoticacademicrubberduck]

It is 5:45 A.M and you will already not believe the morning I've been having

[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