Extremus: Year 102

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There is a very old, and very sad, tradition on Ansutah, which gratefully, no one has had to practice in a very long time. Life was hard on the human continent. It was perfectly designed to be a protective haven from the white monsters, but that was pretty much it. They were limited technologically, because they still had to keep hidden from any Maramon who might stray too close. They couldn’t develop aeroplanes, fireworks, or even tall buildings. They made do, and their population eventually numbered in the billions, but that was thanks to the knowledge that they retained from their ancestors, who lived on post-industrial Earth. Had they been starting entirely from scratch, many experts posit that they would have gone extinct. Unfortunately, while they survived as a people, it did not come without loss.

Dead babies were once a fact of life, on Earth, as it was on Ansutah. Though they don’t receive much news from the stellar neighborhood all the way out here, the Extremusians believe that it’s still going on. There are holdouts, who refuse to adopt certain advances, including those which might save their own children’s lives. Such choices come with consequences. This did not happen in the Gatewood Collective. The refugees embraced modern technology, grateful to finally achieve a way of living that was safer, healthier, and less restrictive. No more dead babies, what more could they want? To not forget their past. History is a profoundly important subject to teach each subsequent generation. Not every kid likes it, nor do they grow up to change their minds, but they do recognize its value. There was a time when the bed of mourning ritual was a common practice, and they’re getting a practical history lesson on the subject today.

When someone died on Ansutah, a funeral or memorial service would start off the mourning process. They were superstitious that the scent of the decaying corpse would attract the white monsters, alerting them to their location. The body was buried deep to hide them, and they were buried quickly. For many years, there was a debate about whether they should start performing autopsies on their deceased when the circumstances called for it. Many murders went unsolved because this belief was so ingrained in the culture that medical examiners had very little time to perform proper inquiries. This technique of a quick burial was also used when it was a child who died, but this created a secondary problem. Especially in the case of infants, there were few—or even no—images of their loved one. There was little to remember them by. Often, the only thing they had that remained was their bed. Often, not even that existed yet, and there was an entire industry that specialized in single-use cribs.

With the body of the child gone too soon, their bed was left temporarily empty, and the Ansutahan humans believed that the angels would not be able to find their soul so deep underground. The belief did not extend to adults, for their soul should be strong enough to seek the angel’s gate on its own. To help the angels find her child’s soul, the mother was expected to drag the child’s little bed out into the cemetery, lie in it the best they could...and cry. Her wails of pain would bring the ferrying angel to her, where they would find the child’s soul below, and rescue it. She would not be alone, at least not at first. Friends and family would attend the ritual, just as they had the funeral. They would not stay forever, though. While the mother continued to mourn, and the father or partner continued to try to comfort her, little by little, the visitors would leave. The first to go were anyone who just wanted to be there for the family for a fleeting moment, who did not know them at all. The next ones were passing acquaintances. And the dance continued until only the mother and father remained. And then...the father would leave as well. That is the most depressing part. The lessons in this are that you are ultimately alone, and that everyone leaves eventually. When that angel comes to retrieve your soul, it comes only for you. No one can be there with you. No one can see you. Not even your mother. For once she has been alone in that bed of mourning for some time, she too will leave. The bed, the body, and the place in their hearts where the child once lived, will finally be empty forever.

Audrey is in her bed of mourning right now, and Tinaya is standing nearby, in irony. It feels like five minutes ago when she was scolding the medical team, and the other conspirators who betrayed the public with their secret plan to impregnate however many women on this ship without their consent. Now it is she who is lying to their people. Audrey’s baby is not dead. She is being kept in a secure location while they put on this little charade. It is not entirely a lie, however. Audrey will never see her daughter again. That is called an ambiguous loss, and it can be just as impactful and saddening as an unambiguous one. Once this is over, she will give the child a name, say her goodbyes, then watch her disappear into the mini-Nexus that they have in the Admiral office. Audrey, Tinaya, Silveon, Arqut, Thistle, and one other person are the only ones who will know what truly happened to the girl. Everyone else is in the dark, including the baby’s father. That sixth person is presently caring for the baby until it’s time to leave. It’s someone they can trust, but whose absence will not be noticed at the ritual.

Waldemar is hovering over the crib. He is incapable of feeling certain emotions, but he has become better at pretending. Tinaya can tell that he’s faking it. She even caught a glimpse of the nanopuffer that he used to induce tearing in his eyes. He still doesn’t quite have the facial expression right. It’s overexaggerated, like what they show in cartoons, so young viewers can tell with certainty which emotion is being displayed. Arqut is gifted at reading people. He’s scanning the crowd for any indications that anyone is clocking Waldemar’s performance. He hasn’t seen any skeptics so far, but they may be exceptionally emotionally intelligent too, and pretending not to notice. One day, everyone will know what Waldemar truly is. That day is unavoidable, but they hope to put it off until there are no longer any innocent people in his orbit. That may be an impossible task too, especially now that Audrey is in so much more of a vulnerable position than she was before the baby.

People are really starting to leave now. They’re in Attic Forest. It’s not expansive enough to fit everyone on the ship comfortably, but they’re not all trying anyway. Some strangers want to be there, but some are just living their lives, or have to be at work. This is the first dead child in a very long time, so it is absolutely noteworthy, but that doesn’t mean everyone has to be involved somehow. Even so, there were a lot of people before, and now, it’s mostly empty. Even Lataran is walking away now. A few random visitors are here because they want to walk around the forest, but the Captain’s people are asking them to leave, because that’s not really appropriate at the moment, even if they are clear on the other side. Tinaya wants to be the last one to stay with the sad couple, but she’s only the mother of a friend of the mother. The families need to go through the final steps alone. Captain Jennings will stick around until it’s time for Waldemar and Audrey to be there alone, though. Waldemar’s mother is still a hot mess, and kind of needs supervision, and he’s perfect for this role because he can go anywhere he wants, and he always carries a good excuse with him.

Tinaya and her family are currently standing outside while Audrey’s parents depart. Audrey overwrote her younger self’s consciousness at an older age than Silveon did, so she was able to hide her maturity from them. They have no idea that she’s from the future. She thinks that Waldemar took advantage of her, and they are pursuing legal action in this regard, which is a whole other thing that they’re going to have to deal with, one way or another. They’re not exactly right, but they’re not wholly wrong either. Waldemar is not a good guy, but it’s unclear what happens to the future if he goes to hock. Will he still become a leader, and if he does, will he be worse than he was in the previous timeline? Will all of Silveon and Audrey’s efforts be for naught?

Immediately after Audrey’s parents round the corner, Waldemar steps out too. He’s supposed to stay in there with his baby’s mother for longer than that, but he’s not feeling anything but annoyed with what this might do to his ambitious plans. He nods politely at the three of them, then walks away. Audrey is now alone in there. Waldemar was right about one thing, there is no need to drag this out. “Meet us in my office.” Tinaya teleports back to the crib, helps Audrey climb out of it, and then waits patiently as Audrey tries to wipe the tears out of her eyes.

“Did I do okay?” Audrey asks.

“That was perfect,” Tinaya answers.

“Believable?” Audrey presses.

“You are in mourning, Audrey. You weren’t faking anything.”

“No, it’s fine. She’s fine. She’s gonna grow up on a planet. That’s everyone’s dream. That’s why we’re here.” She’s smiling, but her tear ducts continue to leak.

“Aud. You’re sad. I would be very concerned if you weren’t. I wouldn’t let you see her again.”

“I know,” Audrey admits. “I’m just trying to be strong, because it’s going to be hard to watch her leave.”

“I can only imagine what you’re going through,” Tinaya responds with a nod. “But you are right. She’s going to be happy there. The only thing that she’ll be missing is you. I know that sounds like I’m trivializing you, or your contribution, but you’re gonna need to make a clean break, and being optimistic about her future is vital to that, for your own sake.”

“I agree.”

“Are you ready?”

She wipes more moisture from her cheeks. “Yes.”

They take hands, and Tinaya attempts to teleport to the entrance to Admiral Hall, but they end up somewhere else. “Thistle? Where the hell are we?”

“This is a sealed chamber in a currently vacant sector of the ship. You can only enter through a teleportation frequency of my own devising. I built a clone lab here.”

Tinaya is confused and apprehensive. “...why...?”

“It’s a gift,” Thistle replies. “Turn to your left.”

They both turn to find a gestational pod. It lights up. A copy of Audrey is floating inside. “What did you do?”

“I understand that one Audrey Husk must stay behind on the ship to fulfill her mission, but that does not mean that a different Audrey can’t travel to Verdemus, and raise her child. I know that it’s not the same thing, but my own consciousness has been copied countless times, split across multiple universes, injected into countless systems and devices. You will get used to the knowledge that there is another you out there.”

“We did not discuss this at all,” Tinaya begins to scold. “You had no right to build this, let alone that clone. It is a violation, on par with what the medical team did with the faulty birth control.” She keeps going on with her admonishment against the superintelligence.

Meanwhile, Audrey has slowly been approaching the pod. She’s looking at herself in there, tilting her head in thought. “Thank you.” She says it quietly, but Tinaya can hear it.

“What was that? You’re thanking him?”

Audrey ignores the question. “Have you already copied my consciousness?”

A light flickers on over a casting pod on the other side of the room. “Not yet.”

Audrey nods as she’s slowly walking towards the second pod. “Sedate me. Copy me. Do not reawaken either of us until one Audrey and the baby are on the other side of the Nexus. It doesn’t matter which one you send away. There is a fifty percent chance that I will simply awaken in my cabin, and an equal chance that I will awaken on the planet.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Tinaya says. “Others would say that there’s a hundred percent chance that you’re the copy, and a hundred percent chance that you’re not. Both of you will think that you’re the original, and one of you will be just as disappointed as the other would have been.”

Audrey spins back around. “I am a consciousness traveler already, Admiral Leithe. I understand the philosophical ramifications of the process, better than you ever could. This is my choice. One of us is gonna stay here as Space-Beth, and the other...will be happy.”

“Audrey...”

“She will be happy planetside...with Silvia.”

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Microstory 2427: Great Depression Dome

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Not everything on this planet has to be fun. Some of it should be a somber reflection of real life, and in this case, the inspiration is depressing. I don’t use that as a pun, but it’s a really good word to describe the nature of the source for the dome’s theme. The Great Depression was a period of worldwide economic turmoil that began in October of 1929, and continued on into the 1940s for some regions. It is defined by a global high of unemployment, institutional financial failure, and trade conflicts, among other things. I’m not here to give you a history lesson, though; that’s the dome’s job. This is a recreation of the conditions that a lot of people lived in during this time. There’s a swath of land representing the dust bowl, there’s a seemingly endless unemployment line, situated not too far from the soup kitchen line. They make excellent use of the entire area of the dome, exhibiting the various negative impacts of life on Earth in this time period. I’m glad that they put this dome here, because it happened 550 years ago. So many people alive today don’t even know what you’re talking about. There is so much to learn in your education that things fall through the cracks, and one of the biggest sacrifices we make is history. Science and math is always changing, and while it might be interesting to know how things used to be, it’s not vital. It’s more important to understand the present day concepts. History, on the other hand, never stops coming. Students today have more background to draw from than the students of yesterday, and the students of tomorrow will have even more. That is why it is so important to keep building places like this. People need to see how things were like in the past, especially in times before they were born. No one still alive right now was around to witness the Great Depression. The oldest in our population wasn’t even born yet, and that’s really sad. I don’t even know how many people can’t even grasp the very concept of a monetary-based economy. That’s where you have to start. You have to know what money is before you can comprehend what it meant to not have any of it. To not have everything you need just to survive as a living organism. Water, food, shelter. These are fundamental rights that we take for granted, but for most of human history, none of these things was guaranteed. The people who lived during the Depression understood that. I won’t lie to you, if you come here, you’re not going to “enjoy” it, but unless you’ve been studying this stuff in particular already, you are going to learn something. They do a really great job of framing the curriculum through the present-day lens, recognizing the shortcomings of conventional contemporary education, which again, must prioritize more “relevant” topics. I implore you to give it a try. Even though it’s not an adventure, and it may not be your cup of tea, it will be good for you. It would be good for everyone.

Microstory 2327: Earth, November 25, 2178

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Dear Corinthia,

Yeah, I think it would be a great idea to be able to send quick acknowledgements to each other after each message. It does need to be more than just an automated read receipt. My friend is a coder, and he’s written us a quick program for that, if you’re interested. It’s nothing crazy. It just integrates with the messaging application, and lets you pull from a list of canned responses. You can have one that says, got it, I’ll get back to you soon, and another that says, it will be a few days before I can respond. You can even write one that goes, I’m being attacked by a horde of sad zombie aliens from the future of a parallel dimension. I can’t believe this isn’t already a feature, but we have it now. The file is attached for you to download, or tell me no, if that’s the case. In other news, my dad is coming home soon. My next letter to you should be a recap of what we end up discussing. He’s been fumfering when I’ve managed to get him on a call, so I know that he wasn’t innocent. We’ll finally get some answers, Corinthia. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say in that letter, so I’ll cut this one short here.

Sharpening my zombie alien weapons,

Condor

Microstory 2311: Nice to Be Back

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Hello readers, this is Jasmine again. I asked Nick if I could write another guest post for his blog. This was obviously before he died, and it never ended up happening. I was having tea with Kelly this weekend, though, and mentioned it, so she asked me to finally follow through with it. I was gonna say a whole bunch of stuff back then that’s no longer relevant nor appropriate, but it’s nice to be back here. This website feels like home. When I was his assistant, I helped a lot with managing it, and making it look better than it did before. I rearranged some of the auxiliary elements, and reformatted some old posts. He had to use a number of different word processors over time when his life was all about staying in motion, so things were just a little messy in the beginning, but he had always wanted everything to be more consistent. Anyway, I’m still working at the jail, and things are going very well. He did a great job formulating this team, so if anyone asks whether he made a positive impact on the world, there can be no doubt. I’ve run into a surprising number of people who assumed the whole project fell apart when he was forced to leave, but that’s not how he set it up. Nothing was ever balanced on the shoulders of one person, not even him. We’re still working our butts off. We hope to see real changes in the system by the end of next year. For those of you who watched the memorials, I was present at both. I even spoke at both, so now you know what I look and sound like. It was my honor to relate my experiences with such a great friend. I’ll never forget what it was like to meet him and know him. I appreciate that he’s being kept alive, not only through the work he did, but through this site, and all of his friends, followers, and fans. It’s sad, but it’s sweet too. I’ll miss him, but at least I knew him at all. Thanks.

Microstory 2210: It Broke Him

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Hello, everyone. My name is Kelly Serna, and I am Nick Fisherman IV’s lifecare assistant. If you follow him on social, you’ll already know that. What you don’t know yet is that he’s having more trouble with this than he has let on. When I took over for his update this morning, I didn’t want to say anything, but after rereading some key full posts from days past, I’ve decided to maintain his spirit of honesty. Nick has reportedly always been fascinated with immortality. He’s come up with a number of different ways for the characters he creates to subvert death. He told me yesterday that it kind of got so out of hand that in one universe, it’s virtually impossible for anyone to die, which effectively lowered the stakes for the stories, forcing his other self—the one who is still a writer—to come up with major loopholes to the backup protocols. At this point, I believe that Nick would salute, and respectively repeat the words “Major Loopholes”. Anyway, the way he tells it, the ability to avoid death was his favorite superpower out of all of them, which was why he felt such relief when he managed to procure it for himself. When he realized that he lost this power, he felt hopeless and frustrated, and apparently fell back into his old habits, which he had exhibited when he was just a normal guy, before the multiverse opened up to him. And yes, to be clear, I one hundred percent believe that he comes from a different version of Earth, and that he is telling the truth about everything that would sound outlandish coming from anyone else. I’ve read every installment on his site, and we’ve been talking a lot about it lately, because I didn’t pay all too much attention when we worked together at the plant nursery. Nick had never warmed up to the idea of dying, for any reason. He had been planning to live forever since he was eight years old when his older sister made a casual comment that they didn’t know it was impossible just because it hadn’t happened before. Traveling to a world where he was no longer immortal was one thing. He could have still held out hope for science. But to come to realize that he was so sick, not even the most optimistic of longevity advances could save his life in time? It broke him. He doesn’t want to do this site anymore, but I have faith that he will want to return to it one day, and when he does, he will not want his daily streak to have been broken. I have his passwords, so I will continue to update you in his stead. And when he does come back, I’m sure he’ll have a lot to say about how I handled things. I hope not to disappoint him.

Microstory 2209: We’re in the Endgame Now

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Might wanna skip this one if you have depression or anxiety issues, because they may be triggered by my words. The doctors have no clue what’s wrong with me, but the signs and symptoms are clear. Long before I started traveling the bulk, I watched my maternal grandfather slowly die of Parkinson’s disease. I don’t actually know if that’s what killed him, but it certainly contributed to it. I’m exhibiting a lot of the same problems that I remember him having. Stiffness, numbing, tremors. You don’t use the same term for it here, but after some conversation, the doctors were able to assure me that their idea of this same disease could be ruled out. It’s something else. That’s neither good nor bad, because it can’t be cured on either world. Neither can whatever it actually is...probably. Based on my rate of decline, and their lack of understanding, they don’t see any reason why I would improve. It’s likely going to keep getting worse until I become nothing more than a shell of my former self. Death is almost certain to follow. It will be slow, painful, and extremely frustrating. So far, the mental component hasn’t been too bad, but it has still been an issue. I’ve forgotten things, and I’ve been snapping at people, even before I went into the hospital. I’ve asked them to keep me alive at just about all costs, but at some point—probably rather soon—you won’t be hearing from me anymore. I won’t be able to think, let alone type or talk. We’re in the endgame now.

Microstory 2208: Steep Physical Decline

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Weird and unexpected news today. Do you remember that high school student that I worked with at the nursery? Well, after she graduated, she went straight into an intensive program to become a lifecare assistant. It’s a lot more socially acceptable on your world to forgo a college degree, instead focusing on training for more specific fields of study or work. The reason it works here is because of how careful and methodical you are with your children’s skills, and learning schedule. You see, where I’m from, every student from before first grade to when they become an adult is expected to learn pretty much all the same things. You do that too, but you don’t take it quite as far. By the time a kid is fourteen years old, you should have a pretty decent idea of where their strengths lie, and instead of forcing them to struggle and struggle through the topics that they have a harder time with, you encourage them to concentrate on what they’re probably going to do with the rest of your life. Sure, you hear a few stories here and there on my planet of someone ultimately becoming a brilliant scientist after failing chemistry class, but really, how often does that happen? Anyway, I don’t have to tell you people this, you obviously already understand. My former co-worker has now become my lifecare assistant. It wasn’t even planned that way, it’s just a coincidence. I’m her first patient since she aced the final exam. She’s going to live with me in my extra bedroom. Due to my steep physical decline, while I don’t need a whole lot of help yet, the doctors believe that it’s only a matter of time. By the end of this, she’s going to be doing pretty much everything for me, including the gross and awkward stuff that no one wants to need help with. It’s a little embarrassing, yes, but I can handle it. She’s a highly trained professional, and I still prefer to be treated by a woman. I’ve always been like that. Sexist or not, it’s the way I am. I see no reason to request a new assistant either way. Be prepared for the next installment in which things get incredibly depressing and sad.

Microstory 2160: Trust the Wizard

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I don’t have anything to say today. Stuff did happen, but I can’t tell you about it. I’m pretty honest with this blog, but I don’t reveal everything to you. For instance, I’ve never gotten graphic with all of my many illnesses. I don’t talk about what kind of porn I watch either. Lol, I’m kidding, I don’t watch porn, I’m celibate. Sexuality has no place in any universe. Gross, stop thinking about that, you heathens. Anyway, I’m still depressed, but I’m working on it, with my therapist, and my parole officer, and by occupying my time with work and community service. I still don’t think that I’ll ever be happy, but things have been much worse for me in the past, and are presently worse for others in the world. The point is that I have little to complain about. I still miss Cricket and Claire, but when you add it up, it hasn’t been that long. Anniversaries are significant in the bulkverse. I’m sure something good will happen exactly one year after my arrival. Oo, if this were a fictional story, we would call that foreshadowing, but this is all real, so what could I possibly know about the future? I’m not a wizard. Well, I do know some things about the future. I know that I’m going to go to jail tonight. That’s the future, maybe I am a wizard. Trust the wizard. Ugh, I need a break from this site. I’ll be back to you Monday. In the meantime, enjoy a couple of daily social media posts, and whatever else you have going on in your life besides me. I’m assuming that you have other interests, but I guess it’s possible that your entire existence revolves around me, and my life. There is a theory that only one person exists in the universe, and everyone else is just a figment of their imagination, or some kind of extension of their subconscious. I shudder to think. If that were true, every time I picked my nose in private, or watched porn, all of you have been aware of it. I guess in that case, you wouldn’t be real anyway, but it would still be weird. Stay out of my private life!

Microstory 2159: Can’t Ever Be Happy

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Yesterday evening, I had my usual meeting with my therapist. We talked about the storm a little, but it was mostly about the volunteer work I’ve been doing. It was no big secret that I got an early jump on my community service due to the traumatizing meat-eating incident the other day. She was able to piece together that I’ve been pretty depressed about it, and I think I knew that; I just didn’t want to think about it. I’ve been filling my days with tons of stuff to do so that my brain doesn’t get a chance to stop and ponder my life choices. It’s been really hard on me. I feel like I’m an addict, and I just had a relapse. It’s super not the same thing as a real addiction, like drugs, or sex, or even food in general. I made a decision to become a vegetarian for several reasons, none of which was that it was harming my life, or causing issues with others. Even so, I made a commitment to stop, and I broke that promise to myself. It can’t be reversed. It will always mark a new beginning, but in a bad way. The streak cannot be repaired, no matter how long I live without ever doing it again. And that sucks. It’s gonna take a lot, and a lot of time, for me to be able to move past it, especially since depression always reinforces itself with dark thoughts on other things. I start to think about every bad thing that has happened to me in my life, and all the mistakes that I’ve made. I dwell on it, and everything negative. My therapist tried to figure out what brings me out of my funks, but I don’t know that anything ever really has. It just kind of stays with me. It subsides after things regress towards the mean, but I can’t ever be happy. Happiness is a concept that I only understand through the lens of relativity. I’ve been happier at times than at other times, but true contentment sounds impossible, and if you tell me that you’ve experienced it, I may not believe it. If you tell me that you’re in the middle of experiencing it, I can’t promise that I won’t punch you in the face, so just don’t give me that BS. Sorry, didn’t mean to become so violent, but it’s impossible to delete my words, so I won’t. I just don’t care for braggers. We get it, you love life, now shut up about it, and leave me to brood in the shadows.

Microstory 2138: Death More Than Anything

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My therapist read my story yesterday, and became concerned, so she insisted that we have our appointment in person. I wore a mask to protect her from my infection, and we stayed three meters from each other at all times. She came to my apartment, so I wouldn’t have to go out and expose my illness to a bunch of other people on the way. We scheduled it in such a way that the nurse who came by to take my blood at the end of the day was able to take hers as well. I didn’t think that they would be able to test for a pathogen that early after receiving it, but that’s why I’m not a doctor. To be honest, my therapist was a little worried about what I may do to myself. I know, I was saying a lot of dark and sad things yesterday, but I’m not suicidal. I gave up the ability to borrow infinite abilities in order to hold onto one, and it was immortality. I have no desire to die; now, or at any point in the future. If you only learn one thing about me, let it be the fact that I hate death more than anything in the worlds. That is why I hate smokers so much too, because I see them as an extension of death. Whoa, that’s dark, Self. Maybe I’ll work on that with my therapist next week. I don’t wanna talk about it anymore, though. I’ll be all right. I’ll feel better when I get back to jail in a couple days, lol.

Microstory 2137: A Specific Person

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I’ve been experiencing a lot of depression lately, which is understandable, and also not at all surprising. I’ve suffered from depression and anxiety my whole life, and sought professional help for it on a number of occasions. It’s never really helped, and I’ve not been able to speak with my current therapist recently, because of my physical medical issues. We try to talk on the phone, but I’m absolutely terrible at that. I have trouble interpreting how other people are receiving what I’m saying in person, but it’s even worse when I can’t see them at all. Plus, in therapy, there need to be moments of quiet that can be filled with nonverbal cues, or even the lack thereof cues, so the therapist can gain insights into one’s condition by that silence. When you’re on the phone, well maybe, you actually are talking, but it’s a bad connection, or the call has been dropped entirely. I’ve had varying qualities of success when it comes to therapy, so even if I could talk to someone in the way that I need, it probably wouldn’t work anyway. I have too many character flaws that I don’t want to get rid of, because doing so might make me more like other people. Normal people eat fecal matter, murder each other, and vote against the greater good. As hard as it is for me to live with who I am, I wouldn’t wanna be much like you either, because at least I can look in the mirror and see a specific person, instead of just a facsimile of everyone else in the world. I’m not special, but I’m not typical. I know, I’m rambling, and not saying anything of any value or meaning, but that’s what happens when I’m struggling with my mental health. Like I was saying, I’ve always been depressed and anxious. It’s my resting state. I think I stopped trying to get help with it because I got so used to these feelings, and never thought they could be fixed. I’m still not sure about it. I’ll go back to therapy when I’m literally fit to go do so again, but I don’t expect any semblance of progress. If it’s happened before, it was so gradual that I didn’t notice. I don’t like things that can’t be measured, and I don’t know what happiness looks like. My guess is that it doesn’t exist beyond the abstract, like dark matter, or a man who’s eaten his own head.

Microstory 2049: Oklahoma

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Back in August, my papa was sitting in his wheelchair in the dining room. He was looking up at the map where he and my dad had placed stickers to show which states they had gone to. My papa was only missing two states. He had never gone to Oklahoma or Minnesota. It was hard for him to pick up objects, but he asked me to hand him a quarter. When he let go of it, it fell to the floor. It landed on tails, which he had decided meant that he would be going to Oklahoma. I think he knew that he didn’t have very much time left, because that is where he died. He was sitting in a blue camping chair, watching the sunset with his favorite people. My dad was sitting on his right, and I was sitting on his left. Grandma Daphne, Aunt Cooper, Uncle Currian, and my cousins, Nash, Osmond, and Thatcher were all there too. Even though we knew that it was going to happen, it was sad, especially since I was there to see it. Still, I’m glad that he was looking at something so beautiful when it happened, instead of just staring up at the ceiling, or something.

Microstory 2048: South Carolina

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My papa didn’t want any more sadness once he knew that he was going to have to leave his family soon. He wanted to have one last really happy memory with us. He decided that we should go down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A lot of people like to go there to party, but they mostly do it in the spring and summer. This was in the winter, around Christmastime. It was the last Christmas that my papa ever saw. According to people who lived there, it was pretty cold at the time, but it wasn’t anywhere near as could as it gets up here in Massachusetts, so we didn’t mind. We couldn’t go into the ocean, but we sat on the beach, and enjoyed spending time together. We didn’t do a lot of activities, but it was nice and quiet, since the party-goers were living their regular lives in other places. We spent a lot of time in the hotel, playing board games, and just talking. I skipped a lot of school in the fifth grade. That’s okay, because I made up all of my assignments, and I wanted to be with my family. Papa was really tired all the time, but he still smiled, and he could still make me laugh. We were lucky for that too. Most people with the disease who were that far along in their journey have trouble speaking. He was sometimes hard to understand, but he could still talk well enough.

Microstory 2025: Mississippi

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After working at the Auxiliary Support Branch shelter for hurricane Katrina survivors for three weeks, my papa was required to take a day off. He and the other volunteers would usually only get five or six hours of sleep every night, and the people in charge were worried about it becoming unsafe. He had made some friends there, but they had already taken their required time off. He was part of a group of holdouts, which means he resisted doing this, but the bosses weren’t going to allow him to stay any longer. He got into a car with four other people who decided to drive along the coast. They couldn’t think of anything better to do. The hurricane had destroyed so much, companies weren’t showing movies, or doing county fairs, or anything like that. Driving was the only activity. They ended up driving so much that they crossed into two other states. The first stop they made was in Mississippi, where they had lunch outside. He couldn’t remember where they ate, but I remember him telling me that he thought he had a burrito sandwich, which I guess would be a little burrito between two slices of bread? He laughed when he told me this story, like maybe he just made that part up. Once they were done, they were going to just drive back to drive back to Slidell, Louisiana, but they decided to keep going. It was kind of cool that he got to see Alabama. Remember that he was born there, but his family lived in Montana at the time, so he didn’t have any real memories of it. They saw a lot of destruction during this part of the trip; more than they had in the shelter, and it really saddened them. It does sound very sad.

Microstory 1727: Northern Crown

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I am responsible for the safety of everyone who falls under the protection of the Northern Crown. Throughout all of history, we have experienced much peace. There are some wars in some regions, but they have not spread beyond their borders. Now we face a threat that threatens us all, and the only way we’ll survive is if we come together. But we can only come together spiritually, for it is the closeness that kills us. We may have lost some of the knowledge and technology that our ancestors once used, but we still have a basic understanding of how the world works. There is no such thing as the coldness of an object. Its coldness is simply a measurement of its warmness, or lack thereof, as it were. You cannot make something cold, you can only take away its heat. Someone should tell that to the insidious enemy that has made its way to every corner of our planet; even The Southern Crown. It is true, they have fared better with this problem than we, but nothing can destroy the evil. We can combat it, but it’s going to take a lot of work if we want to get rid of it altogether. We call it The Shudder. It is a darkness, and a coldness that is more than merely the absence of warmth. We have all been touched by it, and though it brings more harm to some than to others, we are all capable of sharing it, and we are all at risk. Much has been done to prevent the Shudder from winning, but it is not enough. Many doubt that it exists at all, and even when they admit that it must be real, they do not want to inconvenience themselves, for they believe they can survive its wrath.

We have built walls to keep the Shudder at bay, but these barriers have created a sense of loneliness amongst our people, the likes of which they have never seen before. They cannot see their neighbors over the walls, and cannot feel the comfort of closeness. It has been so long, and they just want it to magically disappear. Unfortunately, it can’t end soon, because the closer two people get to each other, the more concentrated the Shudder becomes, and the stronger it is. This compression gives it power. Whereas once the touch of a loved one brought comfort and joy, it now only takes the warmth away, and sends it to oblivion. As explained, not everyone is affected by the Shudder as badly as others. It mostly attacks the weak, leaving the strong to go on thinking that they are invincible. But they are not without fault. The strong can still compress the Shudder, and place their neighbors in terrible danger. They can make it deadlier. If they just remained behind the walls, they would be safe. They would be isolated, scared, and sad, but they would be alive, and so would their neighbors. I have been trying to convince people of the risk that they take when they don’t take the Shudder seriously. I have tried to show them how well the South is doing with their walls. They will not hear me. They are tired of following rules that they didn’t have to follow before. They believe the past and the future should be the same thing, but if we allow that to happen, what will become of our world? What would have become of our world if we had held onto this unproductive attitude? What I’ve realized is that it all comes down to fear, even if the detractors would deny that they feel fear at all. They’re afraid of setting a precedent, and of us coming up with even more rules for them to live by. They no longer trust the royal court, and I am not sure they ever will again. We must restore their faith in us, and prove to them that we have their best interests at heart, and we’re trying to help.

Microstory 1598: The Suicide Crowd

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Prompt

Thousands are gathered before me, awaiting my instructions, and this is what I will tell them.

Botner

Thousands of potential suicides are presented to me, and I will tell them that it doesn’t matter what I feel about it, that they have to kill themselves, that there is no other way. I tell them I have no intention of feeling differently. I am moving around the crowd, feeling each one of their burdens. Many of them are traumatized, tortured by memories of events from their lives—of others they’ve hurt, of tragedies they’ve experienced. They know I have no empathy, and I can feel their anger rising. I can feel their anger for me, as I do with everyone else. I don’t feel any more anger than I have ever felt. I make a circle around the crowd, seeing every face, judging every manner of aggression and hatred I can see. The faces move, turning, shifting into one another. They turn like a revolving door. I make a new circle, and they move into it. I count the changes as they go around. There are 598, and they move around 8 times. I make another circle and they have moved 17.

Conclusion

They continue to turn and shift into each other, until more than 81,000 people have become only one person. This is the one. He is the embodiment of all of their pain, and depression, and self-doubt, and fear of the future. Thousands were ready to die, but I have removed that sentiment from them with my circles, and channeled it into this one amalgamated person. Only he will die, and all others will live, free from the burden of their pasts, from the torture of their mistakes, from the hatred they’ve been feeling for themselves. I have freed them from this, as I have done many times before, and will continue to do for all who need it. I only wish I could save them all, but I can only do this a few times a year, and those who do not truly wish to die must come to me. I force this gift on no one, and judge not those who deny it. The amalgam stands there in a stupor. He is feeling all the pain of everyone in the crowd, and it’s made him numb to the world. I open the palm of my hand, and leave it waiting at my side. My assistant carefully and slowly removes the case from the bag. He knows I am patient, and this is a ceremonial gesture. He sets the case on the table, and admires it for a moment, my hand still waiting. He opens the case, and removes the syringe, which he finally hands to me. I cannot use this myself. The amalgam must do it, and he must choose it, and only he can choose it. This is the burden of being the amalgam, and no one can take his place.

He begs me to kill him, for he is afraid. He wants to die, but he does not want to do it himself. There is no other way. To free these people’s souls, he must sacrifice himself. He sobs, and continues to beg me to put him out of his misery, but I cannot. Once he’s sure I won’t help him, he accepts the syringe, and I see a spark of light in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. No amalgam has had this. It’s almost...it almost looks like hope. There is something different about this crowd...something interfering with the process. I look deeper into his eyes as he contemplates ending it all, and realize what’s happened. The people who come to me to be freed of their suicidal thoughts have all left satisfied, but they came into it with such skepticism. My reputation has long since been acknowledged, though. This latest crowd knows that it works, and they arrived with something few of them have ever had. They arrived...with hope. And that hope was channeled into the amalgam man, along with all the pain. Now this hope grows inside him, and every second that passes, the chances he’ll ever use the needle decrease. He looks at me, and he shakes his head. “These people are already free. They had within them the power to change their minds...their hearts. They do not need you anymore. They never did. Most importantly, they do not need someone like me, accepting the burden of their suicidal thoughts. All they need is hope, and we can’t give that to them anymore.” He grins, and looks down at the syringe again, like it’s nothing more profound than a pathetic broken pencil. Then he reaches up, and stabs me in the chest, driving the poison into my body. I die.

Microstory 1057: Earl

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My name is Earl, and I don’t like to talk about what happened to me last year, but I’ll do it, because you’re somehow making me feel like I need to. Edgar was a bad person back then, and I still don’t quite understand what happened to him, but that’s not really important, is it? What we really want to know is why he was ever so horrible? What made him that way? Only he could truly answer that, but the original Edgar is dead, and so is Viola, so I’m going to have to do my best. The way she explained it to me, there are those in this world who are born with a corrupted sense empathy, but not no empathy at all. Most people can experience, to some extent, other people’s emotions. Someone with reverse empathy, however, will feel the opposite emotion. Happy people make them angry. Sad people make them feel joyful. Do not mistake this for schadenfreude. A sufferer of this affliction will actively seek out the misery, and if they can’t find it, they’ll create it. It’s not that Edgar derived pleasure out other people’s misfortune, but his brain was literally processing the information the wrong way. When the original Edgar was hurting our friend, he wasn’t actually trying to kill him. He was just trying to undo his own physical pain. I don’t really remember what had hurt him in that case, but it certainly wasn’t the first time. He first told me about what he was when we were in middle school. That’s a really trying time for kids, so there was plenty of anguish and angst to satisfy Edgar’s needs, and he didn’t even have to do anything to get it. He just had to walk the halls, amongst all those growing boys and girls, who were so self-conscious about their lives. But then he got into high school, and things started changing for him. Our classmates were figuring out what they were good at, and what they wanted to do with their lives. They were making a point of having fun, and rebelling against their parents. Worst of all, they were discovering sex. Sex was the worst for Edgar. The ultimate pleasure, to translate to the ultimate torture. I spent years helping him get through his affliction, even going so far as to harm myself, but it stopped being enough, and I couldn’t do it on my own. He started trying to recruit others, and when I tried to stop him, he persuaded me otherwise, using a hypnotic power that I did not yet know he even had. I’m not sad he’s dead, because it really is the best for everyone, including him. I’m only sad about Viola, because how many others are there out there with reverse empathy, whom she could have helped? Perhaps now...falls to me.

Missy’s Mission: Still Small Voice (Part XII)

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Nine months later, everyone’s time powers were removed, all at once, whether they wanted that or not. Upon learning that the Maramon were in pursuit of them on Eden Island, the humans decided the safest location for them was Nod Plateau. There was an oasis of vegetation on the top of the plateau, which allowed them to live self-sustaining lives without ever leaving. It was a defensible position in the center of a desert no Maramon had any desire to visit. It wasn’t as much of a paradise as their original home, but it was good and safe, which was all that mattered. Unfortunately, nothing could have prepared them for, or protected them from, what would come of Savitri and Avidan’s child.

Newt Clemens was never born. Without medical equipment from a developed world, they were unable to determine exactly when he died, but Savitri reported lively kicking just days before going into labor, so it had to have been recent. The mother’s body still pushed the baby out of her body as if it were any normal birth. They knew something was wrong even before he was all the way out. Once his last toe passed into the open air, his body began to glow a deep red, like the passionate embers of a once-blazing fire. The glow soon turned orange, and expanded. Within minutes, the entire plateau was bathed in a cool yellow light. It changed to green as it covered the whole desert, blue for the continent, indigo for the whole world, and finally violet for the rest of the universe. The light slowly began to dissipate, and with it, all time powers.

Nobody could be grateful for what had happened to them. Nor could anyone who didn’t ask for this be upset. All focus was on Avidan, Savitri, and their sadness. The experience had depressed everyone. They woke up, did their chores, ate in silence, and went to bed. No longer did they dance, nor sing, nor play games. They didn’t try to get the parents through this terrible time, or tell them that everything was going to be okay. There were those who Savitri or Avidan didn’t like all that much, and those people kept their distances. Those closest to them, however, stayed close, and supported them. Everyone in between did what they could to help, and didn’t do anything they weren’t supposed to.

A month after the tragedy, Dubravka crawled into Missy and Dar’cy’s shelter, holding the map of the planet. It was created before the original artificial dimension that became this universe was separated from its parent universe. Adamina, the girl whose special time power allowed for the expansion of their once miniscule world, had an innate sense of its geography, and had relayed this information to amateur cartographers. Precisely how accurate the map was, was up for debate, but according Dubra’s calculations, they were running out of time.

“Running out of time for what?” Missy asked solemnly.

“Serif is coming back to the timestream,” she answered.

“Yes.”

“Serif? My mother, who is not yet my mother? We have to get her back.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible without any teleporters,” Dar’cy pointed out. “It could take weeks to cross the ocean.”

“Two months,” Dubra corrected. “Which is why we have to go now.”

“What would be the point?”

“Jesus,” Dubra said. “She has the Wrench of Creation. It can take us back to the future.”

“No, it can’t. Dar’cy was the one who could do that,” Missy said. “But she can’t anymore.”

“But the wrench wasn’t in the timestream when Newt erased everyone’s powers,” Dubra tried to explain.

“That’s irrelevant,” Dar’cy argued. “Again, I’m the one who had the powers. The wrench was just a tool.”

“It’s not just a tool,” Dubra said. “It’s been primed.”

“What does that mean?”

Dubravka looked at them like they should have known what that meant. “Primed. Your father didn’t tell you about priming an object?”

“Uhh...no.”

Dar’cy’s father was also an object threader; the only other one known to history. He taught her how to do it, but never said anything about priming. Dubra sighed. “Like you said, most objects don’t have special temporal properties. You have to imbue any given one with the properties you want. The Weaver can do this—she’s the most famous for it—but others have done it as well, in certain circumstances. I mean, all salmon and choosers are capable of it, which is why a normal human can adopt someone’s powers with an organ transplant.”

“Okay,” Dar’cy said, trying to follow, “maybe that’s true, but I didn’t imbue the wrench with my powers.”

“Yes, you did,” Dubravka said condescendingly. “Every time you thread an object, it maintains elements of your power. Not enough to let any random person do what you do, but your brain has muscle memory for threading. Have you ever threaded an object more than once?”

“I have,” Dar’cy answered.

“It was easier the second time around, wasn’t it?”

“I guess.”

That’s because it was primed. It was like the object itself remembered you using it before, so didn’t take take as much energy.

“That makes no sense. I’ve still lost my powers,” Dar’cy nearly shouted.

“I think you can still take one last ride. Whether it works or not, we have to go get my mom back, or she’ll die on that island, and I’ll never be born.”

“She’s right,” Missy said to Dar’cy. “We have to go back to the island either way.”

“Who does?” Dar’cy asked, not without intention to go herself, but covertly asking whether anyone else should go with them.

“Anyone who wants to,” Missy figured.

“If I can only thread an object one more time, we can’t take everyone,” Dar’cy said with worry.

“Unless Savitri can do what she does one more time,” Dubra hoped.

“That’s pushing it,” Missy said. “Besides, I don’t want either of those two going. They’ve been through too much.”

“It might be good for them to get off the plateau,” Dar’cy suggested.

“It’s too dangerous.”

“I want to go,” Savitri said. There was no telling how much she had heard of the conversation.

Avidan was behind her. “Me too.” The loss of a child can create a chasm between a couple, but the two of them relied on each other more than anyone else to help them survive. Apart, they wouldn’t have made it out of the first week since Newt’s passing. “If there’s any chance of getting out of this universe, I want to take it.”

No one argued with them on their position, so the matter was brought to rest of the plateauvians after dinner. Somebody brought up the possibility that their powers would return as soon as they left, and most others agreed that it was too much of a risk. Theirs wasn’t the best place to live, but it wasn’t the worst, especially not compared to other conditions they’d experienced. Some people considered the possibility of trying to go to the future, but ultimately gave in. Only a few people ended up wanting to make the long journey across the land, and over the ocean. Lucius and Curtis wanted to come, because they never wanted to lose their powers in the first place, just like Savitri, Avidan, and Dubra. Dar’cy never showed any resentment for having been caught in the blast, but if her powers came back as the result of this trip, she would probably be happier. Lincoln might have wanted to come, had he not randomly disappeared shortly after Newt’s stillbirth. So Missy was the only one in danger of reverting to her original state. She had to, though, because Serif was her friend, and all her other friends were either going, or back in her home universe. More than likely, this plan wouldn’t work anyway, and the trying was pointless.

It would seem that Dubravka’s calculations were a bit off, or rather they were too far on the optimistic side. She failed to account for the amount of time people would need to rest in order to keep going. You can’t just measure how long it takes you to walk a mile, and multiply by the number of total miles, because walkers can’t maintain the same pace perpetually. Still, they rallied towards their goal, and ended up reaching the water only one day behind schedule. Things got worse when it took them a bit longer to steal a boat than they thought it would, and once they did, they found themselves being chased by angry Maramon. On the bright side, they had all the more reason to make up time on the water. There was no room to relax, but as long as they remained steady, and navigated properly, they would reach the island before their pursuers. The only questions to answer now were whether they would make it before Serif disappeared again, and would any Maramon be waiting for them? The answers to those questions were no, and yes.

One of the monsters was indeed waiting for them on the beach as they pulled up in their dinghy. It was alone, and wasn’t standing in a threatening position. It stood patiently, and then waded into the water to help pull the boat on shore once they were close enough. It almost seemed familiar, and spoke in a distinctly feminine voice. “You must frightened. Do not worry. Not every Maramon has it out for you. There are three camps. The majority of us believe that your are gods, while the majority of those believe that, as secondary gods, you must die. Some believe, however, that you are either just as important as the primary gods—i.e. primary gods as well—or that all gods matter.” Yeah, she definitely sounded and looked familiar, but it was hard to tell these creatures apart, so maybe Missy was just being racist.

“Please tell me that you fall into that last camp,” Missy hoped.

“No,” she replied, then snickered. “I’m in the third camp.” She turned towards the treeline, and gestured for them to follow. “A very select few of us know that you’re not gods at all.”

“Were we lucky that you happened to be on beach when we arrived, or are all the Maramon here like you?” Dar’cy asked once they were out of sight of the enemy vessel, still on approach.

“You were lucky, sort of. Your friend, Serif appeared yesterday.” Missed her by that much. “She left you this.” The monster took the Wrench of Creation out of her pocket and handed it to Dar’cy. “She says to go without her; that this is exactly where she wants to be. And I’m saying that I will protect her. Not everyone on the island right now feels the way that I do, and now we have those newcomers on the boat to deal with, but I’ll spend all year correcting that issue. Eden Island will become a place of refuge for humans. No Maramon shall set foot on it.”

“How will you do that?” Savitri asked.

“I’ll turn it into a sacred spot...a holy place. I’ll use their religion against them.”

“What’s your name?” Missy asked, wanting to be cordial and respectful, and without letting on that she thought they might have met before.

“Khuweka,” she answered. That was the Maramon they met supposedly thousands of years in the future, who helped them find the Wrench of Creation in the first place. Upon remembering that, Missy knew for sure that it wasn’t just a shared name, but the same individual having lived an impossibly long life.

“Oh, you’re the—” Curtis started to say, but was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Dar’cy’s elbow against his side.

Dar’cy cleared her throat. “You’re the best,” she finished. Nice save.

“Where can we hide for the next year?” Missy asked. “Because we’re not leaving without Serif.”

“She was clear that she needed to stay,” Khuweka said.

“That’s my mother!” Dubra shouted.

“Keep your voice down,” Khuweka urged. “I understand that you care for her, but she didn’t want you to leave just because it would be too dangerous for you to wait here for an entire year. She wanted you to leave her behind, because she wants to be here.”

“I don’t, and if she stays, I’m born in this wretched universe all over again, and we never break the cycle!”

“I brought you deep into the woods so that no one would see you disappear.” She pointed to the toy in Missy’s hand. “We’re deep enough. You should go.” She took a bucket-tubey sort of thing from her bag and held it up. “Who wants their powers ba—oh, shit!” She dropped the bucket onto the ground. The lid slipped off, spilling a silvery orange, powdery liquid. Fumes drifted up from it, and headed for everyone. Missy tried to run away from it, but she could already feel it working on her. A bubble formed from the Wrench of Creation, still in Dar’cy’s hand, and began heading for Missy. She continued to run, but only out of instinct, because she did still want to leave this time period. Fortunately, she wasn’t fast enough anyway. Dar’cy’s bubble overcame her, and spirited them all away.

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