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| Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2 |
I didn’t go into work today, and I didn’t ask for anyone to fill in for me.
I just have so many lives to save, I couldn’t think about anything else.
Here’s a summary: I saved someone’s life yesterday. I don’t know who it
would have been, but I finally broke the pattern. A missing person a day,
but I stopped it. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen again, though, or my
work would be over. The pattern can easily start over again, which is why I
had to do the same thing today at the next location in the pattern.
Fortunately, now I know what must be done. I have the prior missing persons
plotted on a map, which is how I noticed that they always disappear in a
spiral formation, which means it’s relatively easy to predict where the next
disappearance will happen. It’s a not insignificantly sized radius, but I
don’t have to worry about staking out the whole thing. All I have to do is
find the epicenter. As soon as I step into it, the portal to the interversal
conduit is ripped apart. My current theory is that I’m contaminated. The
bulk doesn’t like me anymore. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve traveled to
so many worlds already, or because I used to have superpowers, or maybe
because Westfall decided that I should be here, and I’m not allowed to
leave. It doesn’t really matter, but I put a bad taste in the mouth of the
cosmos, which now gives me the power to destroy portals. I’m a pathogen, and
it’s immune to me now. This is good for this situation, because that way no
one else can accidentally fall into it.
After I did the same thing today that I did yesterday, I went back to the
neighborhood from yesterday. I started knocking on doors, showed them the
pictures of a few people who have already gone missing because of all of
this, and asked them if they knew where their loved ones were. Like I said,
there’s no way to know who it might have been taken if it turns out I
failed. A lot of people slammed the door in my face, but that’s okay. They
don’t have to tell me. Even the possibility that someone they care about has
gone missing will force them to check. If any of them had come up short on
their respective headcounts, I would have heard about it by now. Nothing has
been reported, which means that I’m succeeding. All I have to do is keep
doing what I’m doing with the portals. Even if I have to do it forever, I
won’t have to keep canvassing, because I’ll eventually be confident that I’m
successfully putting a stop to the disappearances. My boss called, but I
didn’t pick up. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to my real job.
I’ll scavenge for food in dumpsters if that’s the only way I have to
survive. This is all my fault, and I can’t take any breaks. I’m the only
hope that these innocent people have. I’m not much of a cartographer, nor
any sort of artist, but I’m working on a way to upload the future
disappearance locations, so you can share it with everyone you know in the
area. Ill keep fighting, but it would be even safer if people just stayed
away from the danger zones entirely anyway. It’s just like when the bomb
squad is called in to disarm the bomb, it’s not like they stop evacuating
the building, right? Well, this is a bomb, just like any other, except it
only ever claims one victim. I’m trying to bring that number down to zero in
the future, but I could use some help.
