Because We Love You

[MethodicalSlacker]

Extract from Document Titled: Shitty Poem Shit

Introduction Paragraph

poems that aren't very good and will never see the light of day. If you're snooping and you find this I probably can't stop you but please don't look anymore. I'm not proud of these. I'm not proud of any of these, and you aren't cool for showing them. If you found my password sheet and are here because I took the plunge off this plane of existence then this'll just make you sad, so why are you here? Why do you want to be here? I'm just nothing. This is kind of masturbatory to have at the start of a document that only I'll see right? I'm just going to scroll past this every time that I read it. oh well.

You can't spell Lucas without Ego.

Poems:

[+] Fears

A message that you’re scared to send
The darkness
Hands creeping out
Grab you by the ankles and
Biting down

A spider’s thread too thin to grab
In the darkness
Limbs sprawling out
A painful ascent beats
An easy turning around

I’ll go out in my terms
On my own terms and nobody else’s
I’ll die in a hospital
In a school, in a building lost to time
Or my own room, because I can no longer move

Make no mistake
My fate is my own
No control you have no control
I have only the signs on the paths

[+] It Has Found Me

t has found me
It has found me
It has chewed me up and spit me out; It has found me
It surrounds me
It astounds me
It opens my mouth with tendrils and then it grounds me
It has found me
I have ran too long

It has found me
It has wound me
Up into a ball of
Pulsing and flesh
It has found me
It confounds me
How strange this lie
of innocense
It has found me

It has found me
It confounds me
It has found me
It is dark and deep and dimly lit
It has found me
It is everything I swore to never let live
It has found me

I was easy to find
It was in me
The whole time
I have found me
It has found me
He has found me

[+] Insomniac Rising

Barely sleeping
Always weeping
Waiting for the end of

Nightmares rending
Dream attending
Endless darkness without love

Giant spiders
Where to hide her

The governments are all defunct

Crashing airplanes
Bottled air raids
Birds swoop down and cut you up

Aim a pistol
Ready a bullet
Point it at your father's chest

Feeling helpless
Feeling aimless
Watch it strike him in the mess

Steal a bottle
get chased by a baby
bounding down a great big hill

No more sleeping
No more screaming
I think that I've had my fill

[+] The Symptoms of Being Me

Symptoms:

- Occasional headaches
- Eye pain
- Intermittent carpel tunnel
- Permanently fucked up feeling right ankle
- Scars on left hand
- Nearsightedness in right eye, astigmatism in left eye
- Stomach pains in the morning, digestion problems
- Over sentimentality
- Rare bouts of rage
- Delusions of Grandeur
- Delusions of Insignificance
- Bouts of delirium
- Denial of happiness, self imposed
- Hypertension in thumbs
- Stunted growth
- Abysmal posture
- Crackly joints
- Thin hair
- Decomposing skin
- Fixation on meaningless things
- Fixation on people who don’t care about you at all
- Infatuation with romanticized concepts
- Romanticization of concepts beyond their actual existence
- Romanticization of people beyond their actual personality and life story
- Self hatred
- The seven deadly sins, personified
- Desires to self harm
- Desires to seek help from friends and not professionals
- Refusal of practical assistance
- Acne
- Wide, feminine hips
- The general sense of being unloved
- A craving for human affection
- An inability to be a healthy partner
- Self awareness of lack of right to love, persistent greed for it
- An inability to see own worth
- An inability to understand there is no worth to recognize
- Pretentiousness
- Madness
- Insanity
- Lunacy
- Obsession
- Awkwardness
- A desire to isolate oneself in escapism and trivial pursuits
- Delaying gratification for no discernible reason
- Refusing to accept that there is no place for oneself in others lives
- Sunken eyes
- Creepy smile
- A smile that sticks
- Large nose
- Floppy ears
- Gnashed teeth
- Minuscule hands
- Narcissism
- Masochism
- Depression
- Degenerate hobbies and desires
- Delusions of being able to help others
- Misunderstanding of Love
- Insomnia
- Willing Insomnia
- Nightmares
- Night Terrors
- Dreams
- Hopes
- Habitual lying
- Justification of lying for other’s gain
- Uselessness
- Inability to read social cues
- Clinical Depression
- Manic Depression
- Chronic Depression
- Denial
- Lack of self awareness
- Crushing amount of self awareness
- Contradictions and hypocrisy
- Regret
- Regret
- Regret
- Fixation on past loves
- Wanting to be loved by everyone
- Selflessness
- Lack of regard for self preservation
- Desire to harm self
- Desire to run away
- Desire to not go back to the hospital
- Desire to not go on meds again
- Desire to not see therapist again
- Desire to not get what one deserves
- Anxiety
- Social anxiety
- Crippling, deathly anxiety
- Entitlement

Treatment:
-

[+] Words Never Spoken

I’m glad we got the chance to talk
the other night.

I don’t know if you
remember it clearly since
it was late and you were
tired but I was glad to
get the chance to open
up about a lot of
what I talked
about.

I was also glad
to
have you open up to
me.

I know you
probably don’t think that
we know each other that well
and you’d
be right;

however,
I do think that we
have a lot in common,
which is what
made sharing all that
so easy.

It felt natural
and nice,
even though the subject
matter was so serious.

You’re absolutely right
about
self love and
how important
that is.

I wish I could love you.

I do appreciate you
as a person
for sure, and I do
really feel your pain,
even if it feels like
you have it worse,
but
also,
there’s a part of me that’s
warm
and
tingly
and
it’s been this way
for a while and
has never
stopped.

It’s in my
heart
and
chest area.

I want to get to
know you
better.

I want to have
fun with
you.

None of your friends
cherish you for
who you
are,
and none of
them take the
time to understand
you.

I’ve been there.

You remind me so much
of myself, but you
wouldn’t make the
same connection to
your own
experience.

I could show
you real friendship,
or a relationship,
or whatever
you wanted.

I’d do that
for you and
it’d be no skin
off my back.

It’s unfair to
put all this weight
on you emotionally
but if you look at
things
narratively
it feels natural
for me to
only understand things
after
all
this.

You’re
never going to
read this.

Nobody will.

But I need to
get it out of
my system.

Maybe it will
help if I pretend
that it's a
poem?

[MethodicalSlacker]

Extract from Document Titled: Freaky Shit Vent Corner

Spiders

You are laying down on your bed when you notice it for the first time, out of the corner of your eye. Nestled in a nook across the room, pendant above the ground by a couple inches, set about that same distance out away from the wall, is the biggest spider you have ever seen. Granted, you have not seen many spiders in your time, but it's at least as big as a dollar coin, which you know from your brother's coin collection to be considerably and gratuitously large. Your initial reaction is that of panic, as you jolt upright and slam your head against the wooden slats holding up the upper bunk of your bed. Your book tumbles from your lap to the floor, making a loud slamming sound on the hardwood. The spider does not move.

Collecting yourself post head-slam, you stand up from your bed and get as far away from the spider as you can without letting it leave your sight. Ironically, that spot is literally just right next to your bed, offering you little more in the way of distance than the fact that, should the spider suddenly take off in a burst of speed towards your person, you have the opportunity now to run out of the way and contact your nearest lighter store about a potential bulk package deal on Zippo flick lighters for your planned self-inflicted arson. Standing up is not enough to rattle the spider, either; it merely hangs there, on its own, in its invisible web. You call out to your brother before you realize that he's not home. It's Sunday, meaning that he's at his friend's house to play Dungeons and Dragons. Your mother is at the supermarket for work, and your father is on a business trip. In this house it's just you, the spider, and any other insects or vermin that you haven't found but aren't going to begin to think about because that train of thought has one destination and that destination is fire, fire everywhere, fire on everything, domestic immolation.

After a few minutes of fretting and Snap-chatting the spider to everyone you know and being called a wuss and a pussy and a coward several times by several different people in several independent instances, you feel humiliated enough to cautiously, tentatively, approach the spider. With each footfall you mentally prepare yourself for it to fling itself at you, up through the air, curving on an arc towards your thigh, where it will run up your leg through your dorm shorts and into your underwear, nestling its new home somewhere between your ass-cheeks. It stays put. You end your cautious approach mere inches from the spider. It isn't moving. With a look of suspicion you lean in, not close though also not far, to check on the spider's status. Is it alive, or is it dead?

The legs are twitching, and it is gently swaying back and forth. The fucker's alive for sure.

When your brother comes home, you tell him about the spider, and he comes and looks at it and decides for all that he lords it over you that he can kill bugs and you can't, his sole redeeming quality over you as he has not had his monstrous Growth Spurt that would put him over six feet tall yet and is thus still shorter than you, scrawnier than you, less intelligent than you and overall somehow even less socially apt than you—for all that, he decides that he's going to leave the spider alone. Your whole family does. It's good for the bug problem, they say. The spider will eat the bugs, they say. It's good to leave some spiders around if they're staying still and out of the way like that, they say. That night you sleep with one eye open. When you wake up, the spider is still there.

And there it stays for a good amount of time. Right there in that corner, at all hours of the day. Eventually its presence gradually becomes less that of a threat and more that of a fixture, a common item in your room that you just can't bring yourself to get rid of. It still annoys you, don't get you wrong. It's annoying as hell to have to worry about the possibility of this arachnid arranging itself to abscond from its abode; the thought of its disappearance still lingers in the back of your mind and taunts you. Still, you learn to ignore it, relegating the keep-track-of-spider sub-process on a back burner whenever you enter your bedroom. It occasionally shifts on its web; though always pointed downwards, it is occasionally a centimeter to the left or the right instead of where it was originally found. Your brother tries to think of a name for it, and then gives up. You aren't a fan of the spider conceptually, so you refrain from doing so yourself. It stays there for days. It stays there for a week. It stays there for a week and several days. You get a job at the local library and start coming home at later hours in the day, and you still never catch the spider mid-transit or spinning its web tighter. In fact, it barely looks like it has a web at all, the lines of string so thin you have to squint to see them.

Weeks pass. The spider has changed from an annoyance to a curiosity. Why isn't it moving? How can it possibly be feeding itself? Is it laying eggs? If so, why haven't you seen any of them around, or any of the children around either? You do some research into different kinds of spiders, trying to figure out which ones lay eggs on their own persons and which ones nest. The fruits of your research tell you that the spider you have found is likely a male of whatever species that it is, and thus is unlikely to be carrying eggs with it at any given time. If it is a male, then why isn't it searching for a mate? Is something wrong with that part of its spider-brain? The questions spin on and on in their question song until finally they, too, fade into the background noise of your thoughts, relegated to sub-processes.

Months, now. The spider is still there. You've ceased questioning its persistence and instead decided that you like it. It adds a nice and decrepit air of sophistication to your room, with its many books and tomes of knowledge. Of course there would be a spider. It only makes sense for a spider to be found in the room of a dusty shut-in like yourself. The seasons change. Autumn changes into Winter, which changes into Spring. It is the eve of your seventeenth birthday. You have just about finished a whole year of school, and you still hate it. School. The hard year is behind you, but it feels like next year will be no different. Sometimes you wish that you could retreat to your own corner of the world, your room. Maybe the spider is something like a kindred spirit, you realize. It could find a mate, or it could find food, but it chooses not to. It feels threatened by the outside world, so it withdraws to its own corner, preferring stability and security to any sort of beneficial risk. It is slowly decaying, dying, but is powering on through sheer force of will, filter feeding, perhaps, on microorganisms, or hibernating, engaging passively with the world. You begin to feel like the spider is trying to tell you something. For the first time, on the bus-ride home, you are eager to greet it. You believe that you've finally figured it out. The spider was drawn to you because it sensed something larger than itself, yet wholly like every fabric of its being. The spider is emblematic of your own struggles and travails with day-to-day monotony and the perils of a social life. You, too, withdraw to your own corner, and barely move. Maybe this spider isn't so bad. Maybe it can be cared for. Tamed, even. You've always wanted a pet, and you've never been able to have one before now; your father is allergic to cats and your landlord is allergic to dogs. It isn't a bird, or fish, or a turtle, or a hamster, or even a rabbit, or a teacup pig, nor is it a rat, a mouse, a snake, a worm, a colony of ants, but you could make it into something that you feel deeply and strongly for, this spider. The ultimate recluse, just like yourself, closed off to the world, impenetrable, alien in shape yet totally—and it feels absolutely and totally revelatory for you to realize this, as you stare out the window of the public bus at the warm June rain pitter-pattering against glass—human. It is a reflection of you. Maybe you will name it something after all. You'll have to ask your brother, you think as you get off the bus and walk down the street to your apartment, what his ideas for names were. Slotting your key in the door, you let the childish thought of teaching the spider to do tricks cross your mind. Usually such thoughts would disgust you, disappoint you that you hadn't moved on from an earlier, less intelligent version of yourself, but this time you are merely amused. You could learn to love this recluse. There is nobody home yet. Your mother and father are likely out shopping last minute. Your brother might be skateboarding with his friends. The silence wraps around you like a blanket, soothing you from the day's hustle and bustle and end-of-the-year over-excitement at school and the library as you walk down the hallway to your room and open the door.

The spider is gone.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Extract From Document Titled: Shitty Poem Shit

Poems:

[+] Lovepoem 2

Were my spirit to bend or to break
Were my hands to waver and shake
Were my eyelids to droop and close
Were my fingers to splay in repose
I'd have you be the one to bury me

Were my mind to falter and fail
Were my limbs blown away by a gale
Were my hairs to be plucked from my head
Were my heart to choose another instead
I'd have you be the one to burn me

Were my nails to grow so long
Were my face to morph to something wrong
Were my veins to pop and sputter
Were my skin to with tumors cluster
I'd have you be the one to murder me

And if none of these end up to be true
The message is still clear; I love loving you

[+] Fatigue

And by a certain point in the night I begin to come undone
The fibres holding the hair to my head loosen
My skin begins to stick with a thin sheen of sweat
Eyelids grow heavy with dust, breath is laced with toxins

All the time, all the time,
Waking up in the morning at the destination of dirtiness
Never once considering
The means of that messiness

My fingers grow jittery
My words hang on each other for purchase on the rocky road of lucidity
Eyeballs cross over and under and away and between
The borders between sensory and sensible disintegrate

Insects crawl out from underneath
Subjective insects, subjectively present,
Flickers in the corners of our eyes
The rats feasting on our malaise

[MethodicalSlacker]

Extract from Document Titled: Tally Mark for Every Time In A Day I Feel Stressed Or Anxious Because My Therapist Told Me To Try It

Sunday: I

Monday: IIII

Tuesday: II

Wednesday: IIIII I

Thursday: IIIII IIII

Friday: IIII

Saturday: III

Sunday: II

Monday: IIII

Tuesday: III

Wednesday: IIII

Thursday: III

Friday: IIIII I

Saturday: I

Sunday: II

Monday: IIII

Thursday: II

Wednesday: III

Thursday: I

Friday:

Saturday: I

Sunday: I

Monday: IIIII IIIII IIIII III

Tuesday: IIIII IIIII II

Wednesday: IIIII IIII

Thursday: IIIII IIIII

Friday: She told me not to keep it up anymore and that I was only supposed to do it for a bit to "be mindful" and not overcentralize on it WHOOPS BYE BYE

[MethodicalSlacker]

Extract From Document Titled: Random Cut-Up Poetry Fragments
A smell that never washes out
Hang around the rest of your life
You fall apart
And we all sit back and laugh
Broken concrete cyllinders
Wrapped in gauze and brown cloth
Stones that bleed
Give me a bit more time, that's all I ask
Five steps down the stairs
Eyes bulging wild
It's like you've seen a ghost
Only me
The view from here is fantastic
I've never wanted to leave more
Could there be an answer
Tires blown out before the starting gun
Bottles sweating bullets
You could hear a pin drop
The people down the hall that you don't know well enough
Feeling like you're choking back tears just all the time
Waiting for a soft touch
Ever-lasting hunger
Not what you made it out to be
Everyday lies
A splatter of color on pavement
Train horns humming in the distance
Do these stairs go down to the basement?
You've dialed terminal velocity
Praying for a Fan Death
Lock me out, please
A world rendered gray
Purple haired freaks in the elevator drunk to the nines
Carry around a doorstop
Wherever you go
Afraid of what you'll feel
Got anointed in my own blood
I'm eating dead leaves
This could have been a love song
No matter what size I wear
I'm swimming in my skin

Extract From Document Titled: Randomized Assembled Poem #7
Purple haired freaks in the elevator
drunk to the nines

Wherever you go
A splatter of color on pavement

Give me a bit more time, that's all I ask
You fall apart
Hang around the rest of your life
A smell that never washes out
I've never wanted to leave more

I'm swimming in my skin
Tires blown out before the starting gun
Got anointed in my own blood
Not what you made it out to be
This could have been a love song
Lock me out, please
Praying for a Fan Death
Do these stairs go down to the basement?

No matter what size I wear
Afraid of what you'll feel
Train horns humming in the distance
The view from here is fantastic
It's like you've seen a ghost

Everyday lies
A world rendered gray
You could hear a pin drop
Only me

I'm eating dead leaves
Carry around a doorstop
Could there be an answer
Waiting for a soft touch
You've dialed terminal velocity

Broken concrete cylinders
The people down the hall that you don't know well enough
Eyes bulging wild
Ever-lasting hunger
Stones that bleed
Wrapped in gauze and brown cloth

Feeling like you're choking back tears just all the time
And we all sit back and laugh
Five steps down the stairs
Bottles sweating bullets

[MethodicalSlacker]

Extract From Document Titled: Shitty Poem Shit

Poems:

[+] Adjustment Period

OR "How Things Will Go"

Cling to edges of rooms ripped
From familiar tombs wings
Clipped and dried in June
Heat I’m rent asunder sunk
In sonder miraculously bleed
Into tomorrow linger fester and
Perceive the sorrow or borrow from
Weeping willows words worked to
Bone ashes to ashes to stones
College is hard

Sit on frigid toilet seats kept
Rigid with fear and echoes of
Jeers in amicable tones you
Know you’ll never know firsthand but
Only in reverberations bouncing through
Un pristine dirtied Brown tile and body
Odor in motorik patterns an unrelenting
Tide of embarrassment unable to say or stand
On its own two feet taken down
I haven’t cried yet

Came close sitting in an unfamiliar
Bed I’m supposed to call home and
Want to spend time in but that’s hard
When sleep itself resurfaces what sleep
Used to feel like the comforts you won’t
Know again for at least two months
More what you used to dread sleep
Beckons you forth allow it in and draw breath
I skipped class the first time today

Hear every day it’s a hard
Adjustment period the social aspect of
Life reworked in myriad ways from
Scratch and soot unearthed in
Hieroglyphic apocrypha the
Sum total of college knowledge the
Things we don’t write down on paper cos
There’s no way to tell in every day a
Fresh hell fire brimstone elevators
I’ve only ever wanted independence

Spend most of my time wishing for
Friends I could have more of with
No time to bore ‘m in and
No energy to kill em with and some
Bills I’ll need to pay someday but I
Need to build myself back up from clay
First and I don’t know how to spin this
Wheel how to shape my hands how
To sculpt myself into a human being
I’ve never considered myself one

[+] Misaddressed Letter

I do my best
nowadays
to not directly
interact with you.

I’ve told
my brothers to not talk
to people about this and if
you want I
can tell them to
go to people they
talked to and
recant what
they said but otherwise I
don’t have any
influence over
how they handles this
situation
because they are
young
adults.

I’ll
interpret things literally;
if I have
stuff that
you want back,
we can arrange
a time and I can
give it to
you.

I won’t say anything
about your family
situation because you’ve
made it clear
to me that I can’t
say anything about
that without it
being conveyed as
controlling.

I know that you
consider a lot of
our relationship to
have been abusive and
toxic, but you should
remember that
I consider a lot
of it the
same way.

I want to know
what your idea
of justice in this
situation is.

If you
think I should
come to some
bodily harm, say
so.

If you want
monetary compensation,
say so.

If you want a
written apology, I’ll
give it to you.

Just
tell
me
what
you
want.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Extract From Document Titled: The Shady Hills Explorations

[+] Intro

"Are you sure this is what's best for you?" (Might consider different opening line? House of Leaves rip-off) (I like this, don't change it.)

The man in the blue overcoat had not boarded the bus (Where?) with George - rather, he had boarded at a nondescript stop in the middle of a grassy field - but he was already acting like he was George's old friend, that they had known each other for the entirety of their lives. It had startled George to see an older man sit next to him when the bus was nearly empty, and the man smelt vaguely of cheese (bro there's a lot of different cheeses is this a gouda or is this some blue shit lol), but the overall experience could have been worse, he reckoned. They hit it off just fine, and even if George was certain that the two had never met under more personal circumstances (Weird sentence flow), it seemed to him as if he was familiar with parts of the man in the blue overcoat, bits and pieces of his personality (too clinical word here) sticking out in his mind almost like memories. When the man asked why George was taking the bus out of the city when it was so close to midnight, George told him the truth; that he was moving out of his apartment due to a fire that burnt nearly the whole thing down(lol bro this is sorta shit, jk jk but this needs more mystery, you can't just drop this in here). The man reacted with shock, asking if it was the same fire on the corner of Fifth and Coolidge that he had heard about on the radio news (Redundant) - never-mind the fact that the radio was so antiquated so as to be practically antique by this point (welcome). Indeed it was, and George began to wonder about the set of circumstances that had brought the two together.

His question, then, seemingly came out of nowhere, as George had just finished explaining that he was moving into the bigger urban area nearby, though just on the outskirts, and he had yet to bring up any of the more questionable details of his new lodgings. For one, the man who he had seen help the other fire victims with their housing was not the same one that had spoken to George (How would he know this). He couldn't remember anything about the man who spoke to him apart from the fact that he was a man, medium (Maybe taller?) height, and extremely skinny, though not bony, as well as mildly pale. No paperwork was done at the office he had been called to except for a contract written entirely in meticulous calligraphy, a blue ink masterwork of handwriting that George felt ashamed that his dirty signature would tarnish. Then, he packed what little he had into duffel bags (Did he buy these or did they survive the fire, the bags, possibly rethink backstory) - currently sitting overhead on the cargo rack - and hopped onto the bus as fast as he could.

"I have nowhere else to go," George then answered, after mulling over what he had to say for quite some time, "I just told you about how I was just kicked out, due to the fire, and this is where they sent me."

"Well," the other man replied, "It isn't, technically speaking, the only choice you have, now, is it?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"You could," the man in the blue overcoat posited, "become one of the (the last three words are just extra) homeless."

George was taken aback at the extreme nature of the man's response (Show don't tell) (It's a first fucking draft Milo cut me some slack). Did he possess some foreknowledge (lol) about where George was going to stay? What had he heard that had made him say that being homeless would be a better alternative to staying in the apartment he had been put up in? George tried to press the man for these further answers, but his tongue caught in his throat, as if he was being compelled not to speak. His whole body began to tense up, and it felt as if something larger than himself was possessing him, trying him on like a glove (ooo). He had had anxiety attacks related to this new apartment in the day's intermission he had spent in a homeless shelter, but none as strong as this. Whereas those had come from within him, this was coming as an external force acting on him purposefully, and it wasn't anything that he could make sense of on his own.

As if on cue (How to destroy tension in four easy words) (You're commenting too fucking much), the man in the overcoat clarified his earlier suggestion.

"All I'm saying," he began, "Is that you may want to consider the circumstances of where you're going. An antique of a house on the edge of town, far away from everyone else, with a courtyard far too big relative to the property it encircles, rumored by many to be haunted by ghosts...I don't know, Mister George, if you're the kind of man to take heed of such warnings, but I'd keep this in mind if I were you, moving into a strange apartment." (I can write the dialogue for you if you want)

The bus screeched to a halt. George, now feeling free to move, slumped back in his seat. The man in the blue overcoat stood up with a start, peering over through the front windshield of the bus (how are they so close to the front of the vehicle, and also what psycho picks the first seats of the bus on purpose) (Duly noted, will correct to simple window seating). "We're here, then," he said, disembarking, walking out of the frame of poorly cushioned seating and metal that made up the back of the bus. When he walked out of site (Sight), George found himself able to move again (He already found himself free to move), and leaned over past his seat. The man in the blue overcoat was nowhere to be found, and in his place standing in the center of the aisle was the bus driver. He waved at George to leave the bus, and, before he got a good look through the bus window to make sure he was in the right place, he was hurried off of the bus with duffel bags in tow, standing on the edge of a dirt road all alone, huddled in the dim orange glow of a street lamp.

In one direction, he could see the lights of the city blinking in the distance. Far more compact than he had assumed, it was hard for him to believe that these apartments were included in their city limits. He could not find the house in that direction, so he turned his focus out towards the other way. Here, he could see street lamps running down the highway all the way to a medium sized apartment building on the edge of what looked like farmland - this must be the aforementioned (when?) courtyard. Historic and European (why are these capitalized, specifically the latter, well okay I guess it makes sense, because European is a thing, but it gives me bad vibes), the building's size looked as if it were warping the closer that he got to, the street lamps growing further and further apart as he wandered through the night. The building, strangely enough for one of that design and time period (Is georg e and archilect), stood at twenty stories tall, though the impression he got from looking at it in the distance was that of a building double that size. He could not help but feel intimidated as he grew closer to the building. Perhaps the man in the overcoat had been, somehow, right. Maybe it was better to turn tail and run (u use too many cliches) than to see what this building had to hold. Several of the lights in the building were on - not anything he could put on management for making the place look inviting, but it was certainly more comforting than if the building was entirely enshrouded in darkness. Far out in the courtyard of the building stood a singular wooden cabin (There are words for building grounds that aren't courtyard) (First. Draft.), it too with light coming from the window, though smoke also piped up through a chimney on the roof.

Exhausted, the man finally stopped admiring (Oh is that the word for it) the property long enough to make it to the building proper. Following a path through a set of metal gates and into a front lawn, he made his way to the front door of the apartments. Through some of the ground floor level windows, he could see that there were some stores in the building. Silently disappointed with himself that he had let himself be shuffled into a combined residential and business building (Is this really what he's concerned about, he's been possessed earlier, he's scared of the building, and he thinks the presence of stores is beneath him for some reason?) (Good point.), he lamented the loss of some peace and quiet that would have otherwise have been afforded to him by a purely residential building. The sign on top of the door read "Shady Hill Apartments," with no mention of business hours or job postings. He began to posit the guess that these businesses were purely for the usage of the tenants, and were not available in some capacity to outsiders or people outside of the small community (why would he guess this it makes no sense). Silently he wondered if he would be accepted into this community, with the ability to stop at the stores inside, rather than hike all the way down to the city for food and general supplies. It would only be more convenient for him, if nothing else. (I don't understand you sometimes)

Illuminated by lantern light on the small patio out front of the building, an elderly man in a weathered military uniform napped on a bench, an unlit pipe dangling from his mouth. Loud snoring filled the small expanse, and George was careful to tiptoe past him in order to make it through the brass door. Despite all of his best efforts, however, the man's eyes shot open, glistening like cat eyes in the dark. George stood, frozen, his hand on the doorknob. The two stood like this for some time, gazing into each other's souls, trying to picture who was having the more awkward experience in this exchange of looks, who had been the most disturbed by the proceedings of the night, until, slowly, the two men turned away from each other, going about their business, each sending the message that the other would be kept under close watch. The feeling left George's body when he closed the front door behind himself and walked indoors - he was just relieved to have made it inside without any severe hazards coming his way. If that man was supposed to be the guard dog, or some warden of the building, then he had managed to pass his test and gain entry. If not, then he may have possibly set himself off on bad terms with a neighbor of his. Either way, his safety was ensured. He had found the place he would call his home until he could be placed somewhere more permanent. However that long that took, he was willing to wait for it, as long as it meant getting out of this place. (Okay you can keep this one)

How strange, he thought, that a chance encounter with a strange and possibly homeless man had completely and utterly changed his stance on his new lodgings from that of mild indifference to those of extreme concern and caution. It was unreal how much other's views could bear down on him, almost as if he had none of his own. (Delete this it's too self-indulgent)

Existentialism always came to him when he was tired (that's not what existentialism is). Anything somewhat deep and concerning his mortality, too, always preyed upon him whenever he neared sleep. George figured that, from what other people had told him over the years, this was not altogether uncommon, but he had always felt some level of exceptional when it came to his own thoughts (lol) (If you have a critique here by all means say so) (nah it's just too good) (Bruh) (h). It was almost as if he were proud of how they tortured him at night, as long as they were torturing him more than they were torturing someone else. Being first at something, even if that something was managing to survive his own mental afflictions, was enough for George's small world. He could feel content with it, at the very least. (oh I get it he's you)

This warm feeling would soon dissipate, however, as George began to look around the lobby he found himself in. Lit just by one overhead lamp, the lobby looked to him more like a waiting room at a doctor's office than the the reception area of an apartment building. The front desk, lodged in the rightmost wall as close to the door as was possible, where there was no doubt supposed to be a security guard, was shuttered already, and it was entirely likely that there was nobody present inside. The floor was tiled in a checkerboard pattern, the thinning lacquer covering the floor squeaking under his shoes. Chairs were lined up against part of the leftmost wall, and a potted plant stood in the corner opposite the chairs (what kind of doctor does this guy go to and is he going to get a new one). The center of the left and right walls were opened up as doorways into long halls, brown carpeting covered, that stretched out into seeming infinity. The center of the further wall gave way to double doors, through the dirty glass on which George could make out a stone spiral staircase. He took another look at the paper slip he had been given containing his room assignment, and sighed as he saw that he was housed on the thirteenth floor. George usually wasn't the superstitious type, but seeing this he felt a shiver run down his spine (it's like how you pretend you don't believe in god) (I don't believe in God) (then why do you talk about him all the time). His stomach grumbled, running on empty, and longingly he glanced down the two hallways, looking to see if any of the stores were open. He decided to walk down the hallway to his left first, as he was left handed and had made a habit out of choosing with that hand when it came to a fork in the road. Deciding to leave his heavier bags on the lobby chairs, he started down the hall (is he supposed to be dumb).

The first store he came to looked to be more like a restaurant. The name of the place, he spotted on a sign by the door, was Uncle Icky's Takeout (oh my fucking god) (what) (this is you're just ripping off that Urban Unease CYOA) (shut up) (jfc whats wrong with you) (im having writer's block, okay? I needed inspiration, it got my brain going, I'm making it into a story) (again, h). George made a mental note not to eat there if he could help it. Besides, it looked to him as if they were heavily promoting a Taco Tuesday deal, something he could never get behind (woah is he racist too). Though burritos were often enough included in his weekly diet, he could never bring himself to enjoy tacos in quite the same way. The hard shell got stuck in his teeth, and was too much of a hassle to pick out. At the very least, he had found emergency food in case he were desperately famished or somehow landed a date (Re-examine, he's probably not thinking about this) (Beat me to it). He pressed onward.

The next "storefront" was actually a bookstore, bearing the name of the building. As the library (is it a library or a bookstore) (Pour que no los dos) (hhhhhhhhhhhh) happened to still be open, George peeked inside through the crack in the door, careful not to disturb any of the diligent readers inside. He saw rows and rows of bookshelves, a mezzanine, and several old reading desks situated in the center of the room, reminding me of the library at his elementary school. The ceiling was much higher than he would have thought the dimensions of the building could have allowed, and the walls seemed to be much further back than would have been allowed by the laws of physics, but George chalked it up to his fatigue and a trick of the light (okay so he is supposed to be dumb). This was someplace he would be sure to come back to, and he made a reminder on his cell phone to keep the place in his mind.

Skipping over the next store, as it looked to be completely abandoned, he arrived at the end of the hallway, standing in front of the open doors to a video store. Rubbing his eyes in disbelief, George stepped through the automatic doors into the Blockbuster, hearing a digital door chime play above him as he entered. The cashier - and the only person in the store apart from himself, as far as he could tell - was fiddling with her nails at the desk, picking at her cuticles with a bored expression on her face. She seemed to not have noticed George, or to not care that he had wandered in so suddenly. A single pink ribbon clipped into her jet black bobbed haircut, sitting right above her ear, was the only expression of personality than George could get a read on without speaking to her. Her wire-frame glasses sat on her small nose, taped together on the nose bridge. She wore a blue polo shirt with the store logo and plain khaki pants. Though she looked to be Asian (okay so he is supposed to be racist) (what? it's not racist to note that someone's a specific race) (but why does it matter that she's asian) (It's just what he sees) (Lucas is this supposed to be Ji-Hyun>?????) (fuck off), George couldn't tell if her skin was of a natural complexion or not; it looked more jaundiced than healthy. She wore no name tag, and thus George simply addressed her as "Miss" when he approached the counter.

"Excuse me, miss," he said, "Sorry, I've just moved in, and I'm looking to grab something to eat - nothing from a restaurant, mind you, just some potato chips or something (He sounds like a racist). Could you show me where I could find a convenience store on this floor?"

The girl looked up from her fingernails, momentarily forgot herself, then smiled widely at the man. He felt his hair stand on end as she did so, and had to keep himself from backing away slowly. "Hi," she said simply, the tone of her voice bubbly (wait are YOU racist?????) (okay fine I'll make her white) (no okay that's not the answer stop) and off putting, "Sorry, it's down the other hallway. I'd show you there, but I have to run the store. We don't often get new tenants here, so it's a bit of a tightly knit community, but I try to be as helpful as I can. Gotta make sure they don't run away from this dump, huh?" She laughed to herself, while George felt vaguely threatened by the overly personal nature of her anecdote (she doesn't talk like a person bro I swear I'll be good at dialogue if you let me give it a shot). He thanked her, and exited the store, the girl waving him off as he went. Then, silently, she frowned again, going back to working at her nails.

George grabbed his bags off of the chair when he reached the lobby (why aren't they stolen). To this point, they had been undisturbed as far as he could tell, but his encounter with the girl was enough to make him take better care of his things. He wanted to make sure they weren't tampered with in any way, even if it did mean he had to lug them down the hall to the convenience store. On his way down the hall, he passed a small Winery - alcohol had never quite been his thing, but he'd browse once he got himself further situated and work started to bore him - and a Lost and Found, which looked to be, at the moment, empty. Then, and only then, did he find the convenience store, a Mini-Grocery, the same he remembered seeing from outside. He walked in, felt the familiar sterile Supermarket air that seemed to persist wherever the name "Grocery Store" was to be found, wandered around for a short while, then ran a bag of store brand potato chips he found through a self checkout. As he left the store, he noticed an aisle in the back that said only "Stranger Things," (lol like the show?) (What?) (bro don't tell me you ain't heard of Stranger Things) (Again, what?) but he wanted to get back up to his apartment as soon as possible, so he left without checking it out. Eating them as he rode the elevator up to the thirteenth floor, he noticed that he had accidentally bought barbecue flavor when he intended to find a bag of lightly salted chips instead. Shrugging, he ate a few more before putting them aside.

The walk from the elevator to the apartment was uneventful, thankfully enough. It seemed like the girl in the store earlier was just a one-off weirdo, as he ran into nobody else like her as he made his way over to his door and fumbled for his keys. In fact, now that he thought about it, he hadn't run into anyone at all. Shrugging his shoulders again, he unlocked the door and slipped into the apartment. (I'm gonna cream dude) (I want to delete your comments so badly)

The apartment itself, when he turned the lights on, revealed itself to be somewhat unfinished looking (yo nevermind it's not good). What furnishings were there were fairly minimalist, the only completely furnished room being the kitchen. He stuck the chips into a cabinet, and made his way into the living room. All that he could find in here were a small couch and a coffee table, as well as a window facing the street. He was glad that he didn't get a window facing into the courtyard, and the view pleased him greatly just to look at the skyline and city lights in the distance. Too tired to move to the bedroom, he threw his bags down onto the ground and flopped down onto the couch.

Sleep came to him easily, the last time he would ever find himself satisfied with slumber. (Overall 4/10 you can do a lot better than this I've read a lot better from you just don't write so many words) (I'll try and be less wordy in the next draft, thanks)

[+] Chapter One - Meet The Residents

The first thing he saw when he woke up were the hands. (owo)

At first, he had to blink in order to make sure he wasn't still dreaming, drifting in and out of hypnagogia (I don't know what this word is but I know you spelled it wrong) (I'm considering a different word here anyway), experiencing some kind of subconscious message about reaching out to other people in his life or something like that (uhhhh). When he rubbed his eyes and sat up in his bed, however, he found that he was in fact surrounded by disembodied human hands. They sprouted out from the floor, some of them dangling from the wall, and they all pointed their palms at him ("how does one point a palm" he asks) (nah it's like sunflowers). George remembered that, in movies, usually when hands appeared from the floor, they would be trying to grab whoever walked by, but these hands seemed less poised to strike and more like they were greeting him. To test this hypothesis, he stood up from his couch - he shortly realized that he was still in his day clothes and needed to change - and walked around the room. A few of the hands waved at him, but for the most part, they followed him around the room with their palms, pointing at him still. George recalled that flowers would change their orientation based on the position of the sun in the sky so that they could absorb the most energy, but was unsure if that extended to hands too. (Aye you think of everything bro)

All in all, he had no idea what to make of the hands. He was sure that, if anybody else had woken up in this situation, they would have run out of the room screaming, or attempted to fight off the invasion. George was unsure why he hadn't reacted that way - he generally considered himself to be part of the group ambiguously referred to as "most people" when it came to what-if scenarios, so it puzzled him why he wasn't already out the door and back on the bus home. He crouched down next to one of the hands, inspecting it with careful eyes. The short forearm segment that came out from the ground was hairless, but struck him as still distinctively male, albeit the arm of an adolescent (OWO) (what the fuck). All of the arms were, without fail, caucasian (you don't need to overcorrect the hands can be diverse), and none of them seemed to react particularly roughly when he got up close to them. The worst that one did was poke his nose, which startled him enough that he stood back up from the ground, but ultimately did no harm to him. The floor hands and wall hands were not different in any way that he could discern, so he decided to perform more tests on one that was at roughly face level in the kitchen.

He tried poking the arm, and got no response. The flesh was warm, unlike what he imagined a corpse hand to be (weird interjection, there's no need for them to be corpses), so he felt around the wrist for a pulse. He could feel the whole room laughing at him, even though they produced no sound of their own (needs More writing, you overcorrected again). The hand remained, stretching out its palm invitingly. George decided to take the hand in his own and give it a firm handshake.

Immediately, the room was filled with the sound of loud thumping, like flesh slapping against hardwood. George spun around and saw the whole room of hands slamming their palms down against the floor in anger. The hand he had shaken broke free of his grasp and waved its finger at him, as if scolding a child. All of the other hands gradually ceased their temper tantrum, and began slapping each other's palms. They were giving each other hi-fives, it seemed, perplexing George even further. Filled with new energy and purpose, George took a step back from the wall hand, now holding itself out open-palmed once more, reared back, and smacked the hand as hard as he could. A loud crack sprung out from the forceful hi-five and echoed all around the room, stopping each hand in its track. Everything went quiet for a few moments, an expectant silence that filled George with slow-burning dread.
As suddenly as they came, the hands disappeared into the floor and walls, sliding back through the invisible crevices they had come from. No holes remained in their place when they had gone, as if they had sprouted from the surfaces themselves. The only hand that remained was the one in front of George, which was now closed into a fist. Slowly, its fingers opened, dropping something small and shiny onto the ground, before it disappeared with all its brethren. George bent down and looked at the object on the floor. Yellow and glistening, it appeared to be a nugget of gold, though George doubted that it was the genuine article. It got him thinking, however, about what other strange secrets resided in his apartment. He backed away from the floor, retracing his steps until he sat back down on the couch. The apartment's details had yet to fully sink into him. He decided he'd move into his bedroom, and then look through things from there. (okay this part rocks it's getting good)

Once he had put his clothes away, set up his laptop on a desk in the corner of the room, and changed his clothes, George took a look around his room. The walls were painted deep blue, and a fuzzy brown carpet covered the ground. His bedding was red in color, except for his pillows, which were white, and all of the shelves and drawers looked like they were made out of the same hardwood. Inside one of the pillows, George found a loaded handgun, the inscription on the side reading "M1911" and the chamber loaded with one singular bullet. The gun startled him, but having seen several guns before in his youth, he once again found himself under-reacting to the situation. He casually placed the gun on top of a drawer, and once again set about looking through the room. A small window peered out onto the courtyard, revealing another view of the city in the distance. There was a body mirror set up leaning against the wall next to the door, set up at an angle that made George feel incredibly fit. The only other oddity in the small room was the blank painter's easel stood up next to his bed. Otherwise, his bedroom seemed incredibly normal. (Okay this is really good, there's equal parts weird and also strangely realistic, and it's like maybe the building is slowly affecting his perception)

He then moved on to the bathroom. Opening the door, he was immediately beset by loud splashing noises and a spray of water catching him in the face. (!!!!!) Once he wiped the water out of his eyes, he found himself staring at a fairly small bathtub with claw feet filled to the brim with clear water, disturbed by ripples yet non leaking. The bathroom itself was fairly small, with just enough room for a toilet and a sink, with a dirty mirror hanging over it. As far as he could tell, the room was ventilated via a small shaft in the corner of the wall, containing no windows or ways to get in. Cautiously, George walked over to the bathtub - over more mesmerizing tiles, their design pulling George's eyes downward - and pulled the drain plug, watching the water go down and disappear from the tub. He turned back around and walked over to the mirror.

He was greeted by another pair of eyes, staring at him. (Okay is this connected to the last thing or is this completely different)

The eyes belonged to a young woman with black hair and pale skin, dressed in a white dressing gown (Blockbuster girl???) (I can see the similarity maybe I'll make them different but nah they're not supposed to be the same idk man writing is hard lately). Her posture crooked in an unnatural direction and her skin marred with scars, she looked like the victim of a murder to George's eyes. Discoloration around her neck in the shape like that of a strangulation victim - a memory he didn't want to have (okay good foreshadowin gg shit right here) - only reminded him more of the look of death. If she was really in the room with him, he was sure he would be able to smell her corpse rotting right there with him. Despite this, she was still standing on both legs, unbreathing, but still blinking, the expression on her face as confused as the one on George's. He imagined that she was wondering why he hadn't yet reacted to her presence with screaming and panic, and he much wondered the same thing. He found himself underreacting to every strangeness that came about, still stuck in a tired stupor that rendered him unable to properly express emotion. The girl's eyes flicked back and forth, and she walked over to the toilet on her side of the mirror, slowly lifting the top off as if it was a heavy burden on her weak arms. George copied her actions on his side, lifting the top off with ease. The water tanks had something inside of them, preserved by plastic bags. George reached in and fished out three of the bags.

Inside were three books, each one successfully kept dry. The girl in the mirror nodded her head excitedly when George held them up to the mirror for her to see. He set them aside on the counter, then moved to leave the room. (this is so weird I wonder what happens next)

























(wait is that it)

[MethodicalSlacker]

Collected Extracts from Document Titled: n/a {note: Document was untitled}

The Beacon Towers of Morbell — Halfset 24, QRXI 5

In the southerly shadow of a tall, tall Mound, against a sky the muddied color of dying embers, a weary pilgrim takes his day's rest beneath a pile of bricks.

He runs his gauntleted left hand through his pale white hair and sighs at the sunset. Sweat rolls down his legs underneath his greaves, his chest pulses with breath underneath his cuirass. A weariness is stuck in his face beyond his short years: there is a history of fatigue behind the implacable brown of his eyes. By his right hip lies a bassinet, dented on the right side; at his feet are two bags, formless and sack-like, both stuffed plumply and sitting firm. One of them, brown with age and ragged with time, rests with its mouth open. The other bag, made of leather and burnt black, sits closed, its drawstrings tied over the opening. The evening light glints off of something inside at an angle that puts a spot of light on the tip of the pilgrim's nose.

A cough steals its way up the pilgrim's throat, wet and pained. A cawing echoes from below. The pilgrim turns over his shoulder and searches for the bird, looking over the day's conquest as he does so. He lifts his right hand, gloved, and extends his finger before his sight, tracing a line through the streets of ruinous Morbell below—past the desolate grounds of the royal palace, between the vacant trading stalls of once great merchant kings, under the stone bridge before the great Morban church, into what remains of the wooden shack-houses on the city's downward outskirts—there, a flock of crows taking off for downhill. The pilgrim watches them as they dip below the horizon. He watches their vacant airspace for some time after, interrupting his ghost-gazing only to take a drink from his wrapglass canteen.

His arm shifts, momentarily forgetting itself, and knocks a sheathed sword from the pile to the paved stone ground below. The scabbard clatters as it hits the ground; the pilgrim, startled, snaps his head to look for the sound, only to then realize it was his own doing. An embarrassed smile flitters across his face for a moment before the pilgrim can think to stop himself. Leaning forward, he pushes himself from the pile, hopping down several feet to the ground. He bends down quickly and snatches the sword up, refastening it to his belt with practiced hands. The familiar counterweight in place, the pilgrim now reaches down to his belongings, slinging his bags, as well as his canteen, over his shoulders. Here the pilgrim shifts unsteady, the leather pouch coaxing him into a backwards step towards the brick pile before the pilgrim rights himself.

"Emily," he says.

Lindze: Second planet from the sun. Once a place of living beings, though this has been lost to time. A harsh planet of rock, fire, and trapped toxic gas. Perhaps hospitable, if one could transmute the gas into air. Named after Lindza, Bearer of Many Cuts, Spirit of Law.

Urg: Third planet from the sun. On the warmer end of the habitable zone. Only the foremost scholars on interplanar magic have any idea that Urg is habited. It is commonly known as a dead world, boiled over, the smears of color in its sky naught but clouds of gas. In reality, it's well inhabited. By whom? Well, that's not something that we'd want anyone to know. Named after Urgill, Squatter in the Pond, Wielder of the Evertrident, Spirit of Tide. Has a singular medium sized moon.

Tabelis: Fourth planet from the sun in this solar system. On the colder end of the habitable zone, with harsh winters further from the equator. Orbited by two moons.

• Eldmoon: The larger of the two moons of Tabelis. Covered in light gray dust. In autumn it glows purple with strange magical energy, which in the Kingsrealm heralds the Eldnight, a celebration of good harvest. Walked by at least one Goddess. No humans have been to the Eldmoon and lived to tell the tale, but it plays a large part in some Moundish Brachnae creation myths.
• Yonmoon: The smaller and younger of the two moons of Tabelis. Made of Tabelian dirt, hewn from a distant land. It is only three hundred years old, having been placed in the sky by a God as the conclusion to a conflict on another continent. As the appearance of a second moon was a herald of the end times in common Moundish folklore, it understandably caused some panic when it first appeared, but has become just another fixture in the sky in recent memory, losing all mythic meaning.

"It is important to understand, when discussion turns to the Realmic theorem of Conceptual Magic, that under its wings rest every study of pataphysical movement ever conducted. The traditional magics of every empire, every conquering people, every people to seek pilgrimage to the Mound, have seeped into the Realm to be broken down to base components of information and learned by everyday people. Thus, while terms such as Tide and Flow may seem to indicate practically identical results to Water and Fire manipulation respectively, practices present in many cultures worldwide, it is through the malleability inherent in the Conceptual theorem that they are fully understood and improved to the best of their ability. Identification of a magic with a related concept will one day affect all magics of Tabelis. One can only hope this comes to pass, and that the unification of Tabelis' people will one day come about as a result. For as universal as these magics are, so too are the underlying concepts, and so too is the mortal experience." — Urtha Griggs, Foreword to Understanding Conceptual Magic: The Considered Approach

"There exists no greater inhibitor to the study and understanding of the cosmos than the Realmic theorem of Conceptual Magic. In its constant subsumption of traditionally intricate and highly cultural practices into a streamlined, "common" parlance, many discoveries about our place in the cosmos have been lost. We have lost a deep understanding of ourselves, one that has run since the birthing of modern civilization. Its damage is irreparable; its spread must be stopped." — Gallus of Ploran, Excerpt from The Light of Our Times Is Fading!! Culturally Vespertine Arguments Against The Theorem of Conceptual Magic.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Excerpt From Document Titled: Freaky Shit Vent Corner

The Machine

Once upon a time there was a machine. A machine built for one purpose; to feel pain. It was specifically designed in just such a way as to be nearly identical to other machines that, it seemed, had very specific purposes that they were designed for. This one mowed the grass. This one played the guitar. This one fought in wars. This one caught fish. Many of these machines would break at points on their journey, and all would eventually fall into disrepair and be turned into scrap. But this was taken as a natural part of things, as a somewhat universal experience, and though some became temporarily obsessed with their own deconstruction most got over that fear in time.

The machine did not know that it was designed to feel pain. No machine knows what they are built for until they find it out for themselves. For some, it’ll be a motion that just “feels right,” something that comes naturally to them. For others, it is discovered after working at one thing for a long time and finding that nothing else brings quite the same joy, the same relief. Many never find their purpose, and work towards a goal that they were not built for. Our painful machine almost went down this path. This machine believed, for some short amount of time, that it was intended to write. Equipped with powerful cameras and microphones, as well as receptors for aroma and sensors for texture, the robot believed these capabilities suitable cause to begin describing the world around them. Surely, they thought, they were built to observe the world and record it. Why else would they have such cameras? Such microphones? Such aroma and texture sensors?

And why else would it make sense to spend so much time in the act of description? To spin sentences until strung out, to push the plunger down and squeeze the words out, to inject itself with that poison? A poison all the same; the more that the machine wrote, the harder it became. The higher the standard rose. For moments—never consistently, always for but a moment—the machine attracted attention from its peers, and this attention solidified its guess. It was a writer. Of course! A thinker. A designer! A painter of the corners. An illumineer of the gap between worlds. It was worth being listened to. It was worth engaging with. In those moments the machine felt it was right to write, and even in between the brief explosions of flashbulbs the machine felt that its general inclination was correct. The machine was a writing machine. Right.

But the machine was wrong. The standard rose too high, and the machine lost attention. It lost the internal spark. Soon, it learned that everyone else possessed these writerly capabilities, and that they were nothing special. The machine found itself regularly outdone. In fact, the machine soon discovered its sensory capabilities were not only common, but faulty. Its cameras were unfocussed. The microphones were too sensitive. Its texture sensors were slightly overclocked, and its sense of aroma, while initially fine, eventually began to dissipate. The descriptive capabilities it had so cherished were bent, mangled towards certain depictions, unable to portray the full range of operation that most machines enjoyed. It twisted toward the unhappy, the morose, and most grotesquely the internal. Despite this, the machine continued to write. It recorded its ideas in a variety of places, in various files stored on its internal hard drive (as these days, all machines are computers) and uploaded to several accumulated clouds and places other machines could find it.

For a time, this spinning of the wheels was sufficient enough to justify operation. But then, the treads the machine had used fell into disrepair. The process of turning gasoline into energy started to not work quite as well. The machine started to feel like something was wrong with itself. It chugged, and sputtered, and failed. But nobody on the outside could tell. It seemed as all was right with the machine, even though its interior was crumbling. Worse still, on closer inspection by machines whose purpose was the upkeep and repair of other, more fit machines, the painful machine was deemed normal as well. It simply had issues with its mood, and was given a series of entertaining crypto sequences to solve to take its mind off of things.

The pain worsened. The crypto sequences did not help. Mechanics existed among the machines, but the machine knew not where to find them, nor whether they would offer their help. Several meetings with mechanics at moments when disfunction was elevated revealed no acute cause beside strain, stress, overwork, but there was no other path. The machine was always working. The pain grew. The more painful its existence became, the less willing the machine became to seek out help. It soon became impossible to do much else but feel the pain.

And this was how the machine found out its purpose. Because when the machine went to turn its suffering into meaningful creation—as so many other machines had seemingly done, as it had previously done—it found that it could not do so. It was impossible. Those wires had become frayed, the electronics corroded by a leakage of fuel. The electricity could not run through it the way it once did. Or that was how it felt. Remember—internal. Unknowable. And besides, the pain was indescribably immense, and also small. Localized, and ever present. Physical and computational. Spreading. What was the machine to do? How was this machine to relate its pain?

It could not.

Because that was not what the machine was built to do.

The machine was built to fall apart, and to find itself unable to describe that pain, which lead to further pain, of a different nature, in turn tightening the gears of the machine, furthering the sensation that had begun the loop in the first place. Furthermore, the machine had been left to be forever uncertain as to the origin or cause of said pain, and to be unable to properly express itself. Concerned too much with being of worth. Concerned too much with expression in a “literary” sense. Self-focussed [sic], and self-obsessive, and self-unaware. This was its fate, since birth. As ordained by those who made it. It could do no else. There are an infinite amount of expressible values between the integers “1” and “2.” But none of them are “3.” Some things are just impossible. And the machine found no solace in this.

Here is what it did. It motored over to where it had been typing, pulled in as if to write, and then found itself frustrated. It found itself in pain. It stomped out and then quickly back into the room, spurned on by the pain, as driving a force as any internal combustion, just not where the fire was supposed to go. And it sat. And it thought. And it hurt.

And it’s still there. Churning. Sputtering. Waiting for the pain to stop.

Hoping that it was wrong about itself.

Knowing that it wasn’t.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Excerpt From Document Titled: Dream Journal








¹

---

¹ - Nothing.

Created on January 27th, 2014. Edited one hundred and eighteen times. Accessed the night before Lucas disappeared.

Blank.

The steam-heat radiator by Milo's bedside hissed in shrill tones as something inside his neck grew thin.

The revision history was wiped clean. Manually, meticulously deleted. Milo wasn't previously aware that such a thing was possible in this program, yet here it was. Utter desolation.

It was the last document left in Lucas' google drive. Lucas didn't speak often about his dreams. Milo wanted to save potentially the most personal document of his for last, to give it the chance to accrue any context it required. There could be something here worth putting into the greater whole, he thought, some inspiration for some story or another that might illuminate something, a detail worth commenting on.

Nothing.

His hands hung limply on sore wrists above his elevated laptop keyboard. The computer light flickered. The white of the document page ran thick as glue. A summer night squall raged against the second story apartment window outside. Behind him, Lucas' empty bunk was piled full with books and shoeboxes. Above him, the glass light fixture, shut off, half-shattered. Below, the hardwood floor, covered in scratches from the wheeling about of the office chair on its brittle surface.

Staring him dead in the face, positioned downward from his forward point of his nose at a forty five degree angle, was the face of death itself.