Chapter Five: Realms Underfoot (Ongoing)

It's really good to read something from this story again! Still Don't get what happened but I enjoyed the part and I'm excited to see more! Sorry it took me so long to get around to reading it.

05-02

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Rachel, Returned

I was back, I guessed.

I was back.

Fucking back.

It was all I could think. Of all the things worthy of thought, of lives, that was what kept cycling through my head. Me. Back. In the world. At Dad’s last house. In Silicon County. On Planet fucking Earth. Not that I could help it, but I wished that it wasn’t so. I wished I could think something else. I wished that my legs hadn’t gone out from underneath me the moment that I had stepped out of the tomb—no, out of the doorway situated on the tomb. The pyramid-shaped crypt, I mean. I wished that I could have done more than cry as they carried me. Mom and Dad, or... Melissa and Clive. The mom that lived in my memory, and only in my memory. A mom that looked a decade older than the person I’d known. I wished that I could manage a coherent sentence. I wished that it could all come gushing out: everything I had ever wanted to say to her or whisper or scream at her. But I couldn’t. Just like my legs, my mouth wasn’t working.
So much time spent rehearsing, and I didn’t even know what I would say if I could speak.

As they carried out of the car, up the sidewalk, up the porch steps, and through the front door, I was confronted with a living room that looked like none I’d ever seen. You could tell by how straight-edged and pretty every object was that this room had never hosted a child, or even a pet. I had to chase a thought away: that these weren’t the people I’d known. It was uncomfortably true. They weren’t strangers. They’d never be. But… question: what happens when people—even parents and their children—are separated for a really big, just giant, just goddamn ridiculously large amount of time? Answer: they grow apart, and they have to get to know each other again if they wanna cross that gulf.

Olson and I…

Tommy Olson. My boyfriend. Olson.

Oh my god.

I was laid on the couch, and worried over by my parents, but I was too weak, too distracted to pay attention. It hit me like a fist. Olson. Alive. Melissa was alive, so Olson had to be alive, too. Because if Melissa was back… other people could be, too.

I couldn’t believe that I’d forgotten. What a fucked thing that relationship had been.

It was Olson who taught me that bit. About growing apart, growing together, ad nauseam. Like weeds cut down but always springing back up, too close. Bad for each other.

We’d had to get to know each other time and again. On so many occasions. So many break ups and make ups. So many “I’m sorry”s and “Will you come back to me”s? that you’d think we’d get sick of it but we never did. And the last time… Fuck. He’d killed himself. But now he could be alive again, like Melissa. Jesus. Anyway, a mere week of separation didn’t pose much of a catch-up. It was mostly spent making up. But the longer periods, the days of anger at each other that turned into weeks that turned into months… and then one of us would come around, and we would spend just as long fumbling to get back into each other’s grove. And maybe we never did. Those were so hard.

I wished I could go back to just thinking, I was back.

This… This gulf between me and my parents wouldn’t be easily crossed.

Time, flowing like a river (on and on)/To the sea.

The Rachel Carson Project.

I made a mental note to check on Olson. Not to call him. Not a good idea, that. But all the same, I could search him up. Just to know. Just to know if my absence saved him. Which would mean… my presence was what had killed him... wouldn’t it?

They had put me on the couch. I brought my mind back to the room. This weird reunion I’d been pulled into. It was funny, really. I could see the humor in it: a cosmic, domestic comedy. Your adult daughter you didn’t conceive, crashing on your couch with a inter-chronological hangover and cross-dimensional jetlag. Imma real bitch.

Melissa and Clive both looked at me funny.

Oops.

Back from un-existence and the first thing I do is call myself a bitch. Well, at least my mouth was working… and I’d stopped drooling.

I tried to smile, and it probably looked drunken. “Hi. I’m Rachel. I’m your daughter. Uh.”

Now they didn’t know what to say.

But I sounded thirsty or something, because Clive jumped up from where he’d sat on the coffee table, still heaving from exertion. “I’m gonna get you something to drink,” he managed between breaths. He started toward the kitchen, but Melissa caught his arm and sat his ass down.

“Take it easy,” she said. “Talk to her. I’ll be right back.”

She walked away in a hurry. Clive met my eyes, his forehead shiny with sweat, his cheeks flushed. Maybe it had been a race of some sort to get me, but they’d rushed me back home needlessly, which ticked me off. Another fault on my conscience. I thought about his heart, and if the heart of this man was any bit like the one I knew, it was entirely too big and stupid and… and flawed, physically speaking.

For the first time, I wondered if I could tell him everything.

The things I knew, they could crush stronger minds, break healthier hearts.

Yet at the same… I knew I couldn’t keep this to myself. It would be irresponsible. A single tidbit of information withheld… could cost us everything.

“I’m sorry,” I said. It was all I could think to say, really. “This must be an inconvenience.”

He looked almost offended. He shook his head. He was too quick with his movements, too quick with his response. I wanted him to slow down. Breath. “Don’t be sorry. I—” He stopped before his voice could crack, stood, and paced away so that his back was to me. “I’ve never been happier. I don’t I’ve ever had such a… a fantastic occasion to be happy. I’m happy.”

I, meanwhile, felt mad all of a sudden. He was the same man I’d knew in this aspect, at the very least: the man I’d known had never let me see him cry.
Not on the day Mom had died. Not even then. I remembered all too well, him coming into the house all stoic and wooden, his puffy eyes and runny nose like stress fractures that hinted at what he wouldn’t show. Looking like that, acting like that, he had dropped the news on my eight-year-old self’s head. Like it hadn’t been much to him. Of course, I didn’t believe this to be true, not now, not really even when I was young, but it had stuck with me. It had hurt.

And it was also a hurt this Clive had not inflicted on me. I had to remember that.

Regardless, his caginess still pissed me off. I felt mad, seeing him turn away. I felt bad for feeling mad. I anger that the urgency of events marred my joy at being back. Here. On Earth. But most of all, I felt worried. For his health. Worried about all the ways this rediscovery could go wrong. “Come over here. To me. You need to sit. Slow down.”

After a few moment’s hesitation, he came and sat next to me. “This is unreal.”

“I know.” I also knew I wasn’t here to comfort him any more than he was here to comfort me. We were both adults in extraordinary circumstances. We had to help each other.

Melissa came back with a glass of water. “What did she say?”

“Uh, nothing yet, really, but she’s giving me doctor’s orders,” Clive said, rubbing his chin and mouth absentmindedly, taking in the sight of me like I was something more than what I was.

I almost dropped the glass when it was handed to me. My arms were too weak, my grip loose. Melissa hadn’t completely let go of it, so she caught it and helped me drink. “Is that better?” she asked.

“So much better.” It occurred to me: I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for an immeasurable amount of time. Where I’d been, it hadn’t been necessary to consume anything to survive, and typical sensation in general hadn’t been a thing. But now that I was back, my body and mind were reacclimating to the laws of the world. That was what this fading numbness was. This thirst and hunger. I drank. I found it impossible to stop. The bottom of the glass greeted me too soon. “More, please,” I mumbled.

“Slow down,” Clive said. My own words, echoed back at me. Oh, that was something that he’d done often that I had hated. Though it still grated me, I couldn’t deny that it was good to recognize some familiar things. Maybe the gulf wasn’t so big after all. Maybe some things didn’t change.

I wanted to hug the fucker. “Okay,” I said. “We need to… catch up. Where exactly… do you want to start?”

I waited on them. And they waited on each other and on me. And no one knew were to begin.

“Okay,” I repeated. They had never known how to start. That was fine.

I would go first.

Shit.

Deep breath.

Time for the bombshell.

“We’re stuck,” I said. “In a time loop.”

I could tell from the shock on their faces, and the look that passed between them before they looked at me again, that they didn’t believe me. “Really? A time loop?” Clive said. “Like… fucking Groundhog Day?”

“No,” I replied. “Not like that. Well, kinda. But Groundhog Day is just a day. I’m talking about… years. Decades, really. On loop. Repeating. Dozens of times.”

“How do you know this?” Melissa asked, a note of concern in her voice. Maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t the reunion they were expecting.

“Because I was removed from the cycle. Not erased, exactly. Not killed. Just taken out of events. Removed.”

“How?” Clive asked.

I clicked my tongue, not knowing what to say. Any talk about your parents love life deserved some discretion. “Mom, you— Shit. Gotta ask. Is it okay to call you…?”

“Always,” she said.

“Same here,” Clive said. “Go on.”

“Okay. Okay.” Steeling myself, I eyed Dad and Mom. “Mom, you died. In my timeline. In most of my timelines. I remember more than one, you see. But they’re… fuzzy, kinda. Blurred in my memory.”

“I died,” she repeated.

“Yeah.”

“But I’m very much alive now. How’s that?” She reached out and took my hand, probably comparing and contrasting. And I realized something tragic: the Melissa I’d known had never seen me grown, had never seen her and Clive’s features flourish on my face. “I’m not doubting you, mind you,” she went on, “as tough of a pill it is to swallow that I have died… in a past life, or past time line. Just help me understand.”

“Well,” I mumbled, approaching the uncomfortable part. “You see. Well. Things changed. You died in a few timelines”—a few was a understatement—”then you lived in one, and you kept living in the pursuing iterations, right on to the current one.”

“What changed then?” she asked.

“Ah.” The question of the hour. “Emotions… really strong emotions… somehow carried over to subsequent timelines.”

“What emotions?” Clive asked. “Whose?”

“Grief. Yours.”

“Mine?” Clive asked.

“Both of yours.” I scratched my head, thinking of how to best explain it. “Mom, you died in childbirth. And it happened again, and again, and again, until, I guess, the sadness bled through whatever starts us off fresh on new iterations and… and stained it. The sadness you two associated with… reproduction. And that made you both a bit, well, sex-repulsed. And so you didn’t have kids. And Melissa didn’t have a birth to die during. And Alex and I were just… removed.”

“Alex?” they both asked. “Alex who?”

Fuck. Shit. “I’d assumed… since you knew about me, to a degree… you knew.”

“We only knew about you,” Clive said, looking worried. “You’re the only person I had visions about. Who the hell is Alex?”

“Alex.” My throat had dried again, like it couldn’t bear to break this news. I took a sip a water to make this easier, but the glass was empty. I sat it down. “Alexander Carson. Your son. My younger brother.”

It must have been an intangible thing to consider, maybe only made more real by my return. “We have a son,” Melissa said aloud, as if to convince herself. “A boy.”

“A young man,” I corrected. “Almost an adult, if our ages are synced. If not, I don’t know. I don’t know how any of this works.”

“Alex,” Clive said. “Alexander Carson.” This was different than Melissa’s attempt to grapple with the revelation. It had ring of an incantation, a summoning. As if he could say the name a few times and bring the kid back, or at least a memory of him. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“That you have a son named Alex? Yes. Yes, I’m sure. None of my memories are fake—I know that much.” I picked up the glass again, just to do something with my hands. I ran my finger along the rim and it didn’t make a sound. “If you haven’t had any visions about him, if you don’t start having them soon—”

“If,” Clive said, always so conditional, always so stubborn. This man and the man I knew were one and the same, I was relieved, if annoyed, to learn.

“—then maybe it’s my turn.”

“To… what?”

“Find a missing family member. Like you did with me. Because I’ve had visions.”

Clive nearly rose from his seat. “Of Alex? Where?” He’d known about my brother for all of a minute and he was already invested.

“I think… on a beach.” I leaned forward and shut my eyes, bringing the thing to mind. “It glowed like the sun. Blindingly bright. I think, maybe it was the sunset, reflecting off the water. He was only a silhouette but I knew it was him. He was sitting with another person. Just, just watching the sun go down, I guess. And he looked over his shoulder, right at me. I think, I think maybe he saw me, even though I was never really there.”

“Can’t have been the ocean. I mean, we’re in Wisconsin.” Of course he began to pace. “But maybe it was a lake. Lake Superior? Lake Michigan? They’re big enough to look like an ocean from the shore. Lake—”

“An encyclopedic knowledge of local lakes isn’t going to bring Alex back to us,” Melissa said. “Sit the fuck down and listen to our daughter.”
I had opened my eyes but I couldn’t look at them. Clive had returned to his seat. I could feel their eyes on me. And strangely, I bet they were smiling, excited. We were surrounded by so many unknowns, but they’d done the impossible, brought a daughter they’d never had back into the world. Beating impossibles… that could put a smile on your face. Every other shitfest be damned, sure as shit.

I didn’t want to see their love, for some reason. Our daughter. To be claimed so quickly and fully… I wanted to cry and hug her, too, but I resisted, held the joyful tears in, channeled my need for affection into the glass that I was gripping tight. I felt it was too soon for affection. They were proving me wrong, but I couldn’t help the feeling, the hesitance. Maybe—and it was hard to consider—maybe I was the only one who wasn’t ready. Me, who’d pictured this reunion time and again as anything but it was: and what it was was sitting, and talking. “I don’t know if it was an ocean or a lake, or what,” I said, pushing my mind, forcing myself to think and rethink, dimly aware that I needed rest, that what I’d been through, where I’d been… hell, what I’d been, because it wasn’t exactly physical or human… that it had all taken a toll on me inside and out. A toll I didn’t know the consequences of. I felt a bit lightheaded, and still very thirsty. “I couldn’t seen the shore on the other side, but maybe it was there, maybe it was just too bright to see. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure it’s a place. I was somewhere… unreal… while I was gone. Maybe Alex is, too. Somewhere… made of light.”

“Rachel? Rachel!”

Next thing I knew, I found Melissa holding me, and Clive hanging over the two of us. “What happened?” I asked.

“You started to fall, and I caught you,” Melissa said.

“I’m sorry,” I said, not begrudging their closeness, but frightened a little by the suddenness of it. “Nothing’s wrong with me,” I tried to assure them, though I guess I couldn’t be sure. “I’m just… really tired. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you…” I yawned. “...Didn’t tell you how tired I am.”

“That’s not it,” Clive said matter-of-factly, but quietly. He yawned, too. “It’s hitting me, too. I guess it’s hitting all of us, if Thomas was right…”

“Thomas who? Tommy?” I asked dumbly. Most things said half-awake sounded a bit dumb.

“Thomas Callahan. I don’t think you know him. His so-called Dreamers are what I’m thinking of,” he said. A slight twinkle came into his half-shut eyes, as if he was aware that what he was saying was bizarre.

“His so-called Dreamers?” I echoed back.

“It’s not like dreaming, is what I mean. It’s a lot of walking, and thinking, and worrying. The Divine fucking Dream. I don’t how your time loop fits into it, but fuck, a time loop would be less montontous. Fucking unholy boredom simulator, if you ask me. Just ice, everywhere. Ice. I’m… sorry to say I don’t know you well enough to… say if you’d like it or not. What am I saying…? Who... in their right mind would like it?”

I was staring over Melissa’s shoulder at him, and he was leaning on her, almost falling on her. Their faces were very close to mine. I’d become fixated on his eyes, or one of them, and that twinkle, like a single star, hazy. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know if either of you appreciate,” Melissa chimed in, busy holding me up on the couch and now supporting Clive’s deadening weight on her back, “how horrifying this is to watch. And physically taxing.”

“We’ll be under in a minute,” Clive said, as if that was supposed sooth my mother’s horror. “Usually I’m in bed when this happens,” Clive said to me, as if it explained things.

“Find a final resting place, Cliff,” Melissa muttered, “or I’m gonna shrug you off and find one for you.”

The threat, which came off as legitimate to me, seemed to make its way past his stupor. “Fine, fine, okay, alright,” he mumbled, all the way to the floor. He sat there with his back propped against the front of the couch, his head slightly slumped, dipping and rising, dipping and rising, slowly getting lower. “There’s glass down here,” he said, almost like an afterthought. “Broken glass.”

I couldn’t even manage a “Sorry” or “Whoops” amidst all this weirdness.

“Did you cut yourself?” Melissa asked.

“No, but… it’s poking my ass.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Who’s Cliff?” I asked as Melissa laid me to rest on couch.

“Nevermind that,” she said. “Are you comfortable?”

“More than… I can ever remember being. Like, it’s worryingly comfortable.”

“Hmm. Let me get you a pillow. And a blanket. It’s too cold to just lie there, even with the heater. I could start the fireplace.”

“No fire,” I said. Though sleep robbed my voice of urgency, a dozen fires flashed through my mind. Great walls of flame, perched frozen in the sky above treelines and a town, like a fiery tidal wave about to crash. I hadn’t returned to earth with this in my memory. Had I… forgotten? Somehow? “Please don’t go,” I said. “No Fires.”

“Are you Frankenstein, all of a sudden? Ah, no, sorry, that’s rude of me. Listen, I’ll wait till after you’ve fallen asleep to—”

“Don’t go.” I didn’t mean to interrupt her. I didn’t mean to sound desperate. “I’m… I’m scared.”

“Okay. I won’t go. Do you want me to hold your hand, too?” she asked.

I didn’t say anything in reply.

Clive spoke up. “I wouldn’t mind it if you held my hand.”

“Shut up, love,” Melissa said. To me, she said, “I wasn’t being sarcastic. You can hold my hand.”

I nodded. I wasn’t awake enough to do anything besides fumble in the dark, but she did the work for me and took my hand. She held it tight.

“It’s okay,” she said. I’d ever quite wrapped my head around it. The wonder would never fade. The mother I’d lost. Alive, and right beside me. I cried, then, maybe, finally, but I couldn’t be sure. “It’s okay,” she said again, maybe at the sight of my tears. “It’s not so bad.”

“Beg to differ,” came a sluggish voice.

This time, she ignored Clive. “The Divine Dream is... just another place,” she explained. “It’s not quite a dream, not quite reality, but… you’ll both be back here by morning. Don’t worry.”

Another place. This—more than anything in the whole fucky, weird world—made perfect sense to me. I’d been places. I’d traveled. Out of state, to visit Dad in his new house. Out of state again... to a funeral. That tomb was familiar… And, and I’d traveled with Alex, too. When it had been, I wasn’t sure. Not before Dad’s death. He wouldn’t have allowed it. So, after. A state-of-California-confined road trip after Alex had come to live with me. This was just one memory, or several, maybe stitched together less by logic and more by randomness, anyway; I had other memories, memories that contradicted almost their every aspect. Of course, now I had traveled from existence to the opposite and back again. So, another place was just another place to me. I could go to another place easily enough. And with Mom’s hand holding mine—something that had only ever been possible in my dreams—maybe I could even go at ease.

Clive got a question out before it was too late. “You said… Alex might be… somewhere made of light. Is that… where you were?”

I was gone, under, and away before I could tell him, No, the place I’d been was made of color.

To be continued...

“Salinas” by Laura Marling

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Note 1: As I write more of this chapter, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that I don’t know how to convey when each part is taking place, so I’ll explain it real quickly. For the first half of the chapter, each part takes place more or less simultaneously: most starting a few hours after the shooting at the diner, most concluding near midnight. The second half of the chapter is likely to follow a similar formula. I’ll be sure to point out when the second half begins for the sake of clarity.

Note 2: Just to be transparent, this part was mostly written a few months ago. I’m not fully back into the swing of writing yet (though I did just complete a little one-off piece for Daniel Gavins that will probably come out in this chapter’s fifth update!!!) I think what tripped me up and kept me from posting it was that I was waiting until I wrote a one-off part for Morina, so that I could pair her and Rachel’s parts in the same update, but I never got around to writing it. Morina’s part is still happening, though! I just pushed it back into the next update, so now it’s paired with a part for Tyler, which is more fitting tbh. Also, I just wrote the opening line to Morina’s part, so I’ve taken the first step!!!

Note 3: I’m pretty much gonna embed Laura Marling’s whole album “A Creature I Don’t Know” throughout this chapter cuz fuck it, let’s go ham with the tunes!

05-03

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Morina, Coming to Grips

Morina woke up, and no one in the hospital room noticed until she started yelling. “What—What the FUCK. Jesus CHRIST.”

Mark jumped, startled. Dave stood up from the chair in the corner. But Kate was the first to her side. “Hey! Hey, Morina. It’s Kate. Shit, quit screaming and listen to me. The nurse might kick us out if you have a fit.”

“Fuck,” Morina muttered, pulling away from Kate when the woman tried to touch her. “What nurse?”

“You’re in a hospital,” Kate explained. “That makes sense, right? After what happened to you... Do you remember?”

“Fuck.” Her last obscenity. “I don’t. I don’t remember. Everything before the… the vision… is hazy.”

Kate grinned. “A vision?” She had to hold in her enthusiasm. “You can tell us in a second. Let me walk you through recent events first. Get you up to speed.” She walked away from Morina’s hospital bed, peaked into the hall, then closed the door. “No one seems to be coming. The four of us have some privacy. Good. So, a month, ago a kid named Tyler Gavins encountered a giant creature in the woods. It was publicized locally, but we didn’t hear about it until a stranger called us and tipped us off. We came to film an episode, but we got here a little late. A nasty, small town scandal had come out. Years ago, Tyler’s father had killed his brother, the man was jailed, Tyler’s life was disrupted. With the news so fresh, it wasn’t tasteful for us to film the episode. But we stayed. The original tipster, a girl named Samantha, reached out to us and arranged a meeting with Tyler and you and Mark. Do you remember? It was at the diner. Dave and I weren’t there. Mark, do you wanna take over?”

“Sure,” Mark said. “So we went to the diner. Now Tyler, he’s kind of a little shit.”

“Can’t blame him,” Dave chimed in, coming to Tyler’s defense. “He’s young. He’s been through some difficult shit. It’s natural for him to be guarded. The jabs he made at you… just defense mechanism.”

“Fair, but his friend called me an ‘alien humper,” Mark grumped. “What’s her excuse?”

“Childishness.” Dave smiled. “I have a twelve-year-old son. That’s like, the shittiest they get.”

“We’re off topic,” Kate pointed out, getting them back in line. “Mark, get on with it.”

“Fine,” Mark said. “So, Tyler decided to trust us and gave the us the whole story. He told us bits that weren’t published in the Pyramid. Like the fact that the creature had marked him on his back. We went around the back of the diner, and he showed us. Do you remember?”

Morina shuddered. “Yes. They looked like tattoos. Pure red. Two flaming eyes. I touched one of them, very briefly.”

Kate leaned in close and put a hand on Morina’s shoulder. This time, the woman didn’t pull away. The touch was comforting. “Do you remember what happened after you touched the marking?”

“All I remember is the vision. Did I do anything weird?”

“You threw up all over Tyler,” Mark said, severely. “It was really gross. Then you started muttering about ‘teeth’.”

“I’ll… I’ll have to tell Tyler I’m sorry,” Morina said. “Have you seen him since my reading went bad? I didn’t traumatize him, did I?”

“About that,” Dave said.

“We’re getting off topic again,” Kate interrupted.

“She should know,” Mark said. Kate was their leader, more or less, and the host of their show, but she wasn’t their boss, really. They interrupted each other a lot. It was part of their style. It was how they worked, and how they got along. “Morina, there was a shooting at the diner, not long after we left. Some nut with a rifle. I found out from a nurse that two people were brought in with injuries; not gunshot wounds, though. We don’t know what’s happened to Tyler. We don’t know if he was even there.”

“We need to check up on him,” Morina said. “That’s priority number one.”

“Priority number one is you telling us what you saw,” Kate said. “We’re a team. We’ve known each other for two years, two seasons of our show. I can tell when you’re deflecting, Morina. So, please. Fill us in. If it’s bad and big, we’ll bare the weight together.”

If she kept it to herself, Morina realized, she would be crushed by the enormity of it. She had been deflecting. It was... so, so awful. “Okay. Okay. I’ll tell you. No more deflection.” She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and clutched a pillow tightly. She was sick again. Her team was gathered around her, waiting; their expectation only made her sicker. “I saw something hard to describe. It wasn’t one thing. It was… a series of things. With no order. With no sense.”

“A series of what, Morina?” Kate asked, gently.

“Meals.”

The team exchanged puzzled looks. “What… were the meals, Morina?” Kate asked, now a bit confused and hestient. “And what was doing the eating?”

“That’s… That’s the tricky that’s hard to explain.” Morina wiped tears from her eyes. “I saw MOUTHS.” She didn’t mean to shout it, but that was how the word came out: it wasn’t something she could say softly, because it was not a soft image. “I saw TEETH. And FLESH. A whole lot of MASHING and GASHING. Flesh rendered into mush. Bones, splinters. I saw angels, I think… winged, intelligent creatures… tangled up in tongues and reduced to simple fodder. I saw a world die. I saw a whole other world from ours get eaten alive by something monstrous.”

They were all shocked to silence.

Morina kept speaking: “Like I said, it wasn’t a single event. It was… a handful of large scale devourments; large scale, in this case, is planterty to continent-sized. Hundreds of medium ones; cities, towns. Thousands of small ones; individual devourments, households. And more. All of it was crammed into my head the moment I touched the marking on Tyler’s back.” She shuddered with her whole body as the images laced through her again. If she shut her eyes, she saw it all. So she kept her eyes wide and open. “I don’t know what the visions mean. I don’t when, where, or if what the visions depict actually happened, vivid and terrible as they are. I don’t know if it’s something yet to happen… something that is going to happen. All I know is, Tyler is somehow connected to this monstrous, hungry thing. We need to help him.”

The silence persisted until Mark broke it. “You said… angels?”

Morina blinked and swallowed hard. “That’s just the word that popped into my head. They didn’t seem… biblical or holy. And they were just a fraction of the life forms I saw get eaten.”

“Were they… aliens?” Mark proposed, cautiously optimistic. “Life from a different dimension?”

Morina shook her head, drying her tears. “I couldn’t even guess. The forms… the creatures themselves… the diversity of life… it couldn’t have been one single place, one single planet or continent… one single dimension.”

“Did you ever see—” Kate broke off. “Oh, shit. I hate to ask it. But did you even see people? Humans? Or just… earth life in general?”

Morina looked away from them. When she saw them—her friends and coworkers—she saw how the human body could be dismantled and consumed. “Yeah,” she said softly.

“So,” Kate spit balled, “this monstrous, hungry thing is already here.”

“Or it’s come and gone,” Mark suggested.

“Or it’s coming here soon.” Kate started to bite her nails and then stopped herself. “Ah, shit.”

“So we’re accepting the fact,” Dave put forward, looking tired and scared, “that Morina not only had an extraordinary, multi-layered, nonlinear vision, but that she also saw into the future?”

“Have you got a problem, Dave?” Kate said. “You sound like you’ve got a problem.”

“It’s just—” He stumbled over his words. “It’s a ton to swallow.”

“Dave, we trust each other,” Kate said. “We trust each other’s experiences. It’s how we keep ourselves sane when everyone around us… our family, our friends, even complete strangers… try to gaslight us into believing we didn’t see such and such. I know you haven’t had, like… your known big experience, your known encounter, but you know what it’s like to have your field, Cryptozoology, just completely dismissed outright for being a bit outside the norm. It’s the same when people tell us what we saw with our own eyes didn’t happen it, when they tell us we didn’t see it, it was something else, it was… our heads messing with us. In this team, we don’t throw doubt around lightly.”

Dave bristled. “You calling me… a skeptic?”

“Now that you mention it,” Mark said, unable to resist stirring the pot a little, “Kate and I are trying to figure out Morina’s vision, and so far all you’ve brought to the table is skepticism, so…”

“Well!” Dave said, casting an angry look from Mark, to Kate, and finally to Morina. Reaching her, his expression softened at the sight of her distress, but then he bristled again, this time tinged with fear. He looked from Kate to Mark again, then strode between them, toward the door. “Just fucking well!”

Kate went after him. Morina, confined to the bed by her IV, waited in the room with Mark. The two of them could hear the others conversing loudly in the hall.

“She’s always given me the creeps.”

“Dave, you’re taking this too far.”

“No. No, Kate. I don’t think that I’ve taken this far enough. The tipster came to me, ‘cause they wanted a cryptid expert, ‘cause they thought that they were dealing with some kind of cryptid. But apocalyptic visions? That’s not any of our elements. We’re out of our zone. And frankly, if you took your belief in Morina to its logical conclusions, maybe…” He paused.

“Fucking say it already.”

He was softer now, clearly frightened. “Maybe it would be wise to get out of Silicon County.”

“You believe her. You wouldn’t be scared if you didn’t believe.”

“Whatever. I won’t discuss it further. I am—fuck it, I am leaving. I have a wife and child to think about. Call me when you get our head out of your ass. Call me when there’s work. We aren’t working at the moment, and while we aren’t working, we aren’t getting paid. I’d rather spend my time off with my family than causing… whatever the hell this is.” Dave paused again, then resumed: “And call me regardless, every once in a while. Tell me the three of you are okay.”

“I will,” Kate said, the fight gone from her. “See you around.”

“Call,” Dave reminded her. “Bye.”

Morina could Dave’s footsteps on the hospital floor, diminishing, leaving them. After a moment, Kate returned to the room, looking tired. “I supposed you two heard that.”

“Yeah,” Mark said, awkward.

“So we’re down a member of ISMI. No big deal. We can solve this thing still. Morina?”

“Huh?” She looked up, startled. She kept losing herself. Her place. Even though she was following the conversations around her. The vision rearing up to haunt her. Teeth.

“Any ideas?”

Morina rubbed her head and thought about it. “We need to overhaul our goals here. We aren’t here for an episode. We aren’t here for a monster. We’re here for Tyler. I don’t know if the kid’s is in danger, but he’s connected to something awful. If we don’t help him navigate this situation, he could be in the deep end of trouble.”

“Mark,” Kate said, always one to hear everyone out before coming to a decision, “any objections?”

“The kid’s a little shit.”

“I don’t think that’s an objection.”

Mark smiled. “It’s an observation. I’ve got no objections.”

“I guess that settles it.” Kate sat down in the seat Dave had so recently occupied. She immediately stood up, unable to sit still or be inactive. “Morina, we can’t get your discharged from the hospital until tomorrow morning, but I don’t want to wait that long to get started. I should go find Tyler. Make sure nothing happened to him at the diner. Mark?”

“I’ll stay with Morina,” Mark offered. He gave Kate a hug. “Stay safe.”

The women hugged, too. “I’ll try to rest,” Morina said, hoping to give her coworker some reassurance. “And stay safe. But Kate…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be ready for anything. I may not be a sorta psychic medium, but I’ve read enough Stephen King novels to know when a town is perched on the shitter.” Kate went to the door, but she hesitated there. “The same goes to you two. Stay safe.” Then she left.

Morina listened to her footsteps until they were gone. They were like a flame, extinguished. A comfort, vanished.

She could still see teeth.

And she could hear them, too.

---

Claire, Telling It How It Is

Father O’Malley was dead. His ward, Charity, was missing. His two other wards, young exchange students Eli and Melissa, were safe; currently, they were staying with a friend, no doubt traumatized by the violence that had occurred in the big house. Claire, caretaker of the children and the old priest, was injured but alive. The devil hadn’t taken her yet.

Though the devil had tried.

Claire was sitting up in her hospital bed, a police officer taking her statement.

Claire could hardly keep herself together. “He said he was a social worker and needed Father O’Malley’s signature. It was odd because... he seemed familiar. I didn’t realize he was the cannibal until it was too late! Theodore Deerman. That’s his name. He— He took the priest’s pistol and shot me in the arm! He sprayed bullets all over the room. Then... Oh, god in heaven.” Her voice broke in a sob. “That horrible, horrible man. He took a letter opener and stabbed the priest through the heart! After I was injured, unable to stop him, he kidnapped Charity, the poor girl! Please, officer, tell me he’ll catch him, tell me you’ll save Charity from the company of that devil!”

The police officer put down his pencil, reached out, and took the old woman’s hand to comfort her. “Don’t worry, miss. Our boys in blue and Silicon County’s finest sheriffs are securing a warrant for Theodore Deerman’s arrest. They’ll be at his diary before the night’s over. They’ll take him in. But—” the police officer grinned, patting Claire’s hand “—if he resists arrest…” He let the sentence hang.

“You’ll make the bastard pay,” Claire finished, a fiery, self righteous glow in her eyes. “You’ll make him suffer, I hope. For what he did to the poor O’Malley and me. For kidnapping poor young Charity.”

“You said it, miss.” The police officer was being coy, but Claire saw through to the truth contained in his words. Charity would be saved. Justice would be served. Claire had seen this sort of justice ladled out, and it was always a savory thing: pedophilles, removed from their homes and left beaten within an itch of their lives at the edge of town; criminals hung; rapists castrated. Justice, Claire believed, was an unstoppable machine. You didn’t need a jury, you didn’t need some liberal human rights activist throwing wrenches in the cogs. You just needed to deliver it, nevermind fineness, nevermind evidence—those were just more wrenches, trying to halt the machinery. At least this county had some sense—the wheels here never stopped turning—which meant Theodore Deerman was as good as dead. Sure, it had been O’Malley who shot her, but they didn’t know that, and anyway, Theodore had killed the priest, so his imminent demise pleased Claire greatly. “Now,” the police officer said, getting back on subject, “I have a few questions regarding your statement…”

Claire smiled like she hadn’t told a lie in her whole long life. Just a sweet, old woman. “Of course, officer.”

---

Tyler, Making New Friends

Tyler had done his best to follow along, but he was lost. The woods were dark, towering, and circular. His beast, Clifford, had eluded him once again.

The young man had been in the diner’s bathroom when the shooting started. When it stopped, he emerged to find Clifford standing at the edge of the woods, the playground equipment wrecked and bloodied, a woman with blonde, almost white hair, who Tyler had seen around town but didn’t know, was watching, awestruck and terrified. The shattered diner, which looked every bit like a shooting gallery. The people injured. The people scared. It was all too much to process, let alone cope with. But the beast’s presence… that made a sick sort of sense to Tyler. When he saw it, giant and lumbering away, he saw his only chance of getting rid of his curse… going away, perhaps for good this time. He simply could not allow that to happen. He would go mad. So he did what anyway in his position would have done. He gave a shout, then he gave chase. The woman yelled something at him just as he was entering the woods. She might have been saying his name, but it sounded more like “Thomas.” It didn’t matter. He wasn’t gonna stop.

That was half an hour ago, at least. Now, he was lost. He wasn’t sure where Clifford had gone, but he was too deep now to turn back. Sure, he’d collided with more trees in the dark than he’d like to admit, and the cold was getting into his toes and fingers, and if he stopped moving, the sweat on his body turned chilling, but for the first time in months… a decade… he felt fucking good. The good faded, though, and hopelessness reared its ugly head. His chance, so close, now gone. Lost. He stopped, and the moisture he’d worked up turned to ice. Where was he going? What was that? A darkness slightly darker than the surrounding woods. If he squinted, he saw...

It was a burrow.

No.

Fucking no.

He turned away, then turned back. The moon lit his breath as it appeared in front of him in fast, tiny bursts. He could hear something… someone little. A scared, little kid. In the burrow. “Hey,” he called at the burrow, pushing toward it. He fell on his knees just outside. “It’s okay! I won’t let him—”

It was empty. No kid.

“—hurt you,” he finished, defeated. It wasn’t the burrow that he had hidden in the night of his brother’s murder. It was just a random burrow. But he rose with a new sense of purpose. “Dad can’t keep hurting us. I won’t let him. He doesn’t own my thoughts. He doesn’t own me. Michael, I—” He sighed, shivering. “I’m going crazy.” To no one, to his dead brother, to no one at all, he said: “I wish you were here. If I had my big brother, you’d just bop Clifford on the nose until the fucker uncursed me. Dad’s in jail and out of my life, but Michael, he stills owns me. I wish you here to set me free.”

No answers. But he saw something. A broken branch, just barely visible. He ran to it, and below it, in a patch of mud, he saw monstrous tracks leading further into the woods. Tyler rose. He stomped his feet. He slapped warmth into his hands. Then he did something uncharacteristic. He laid his ambitions down, clear and simple. “Michael,” he said, “I’m gonna kick a giant monster dog’s ass or die trying for the chance at a night’s rest. Fuck it, actually, I’ll sleep for a week, a month. And I won’t think about you, Dad, or sis, or anyone. Then I’ll wake up and think about all of you.”

He would confront his trauma. He would set himself free, goddamnit. Not alone—he had a support system… Sam, Kayla, to name a few—but he would owe credit to himself all the same. Freedom lay at the end of his road. Freedom from the night that had fucked his life.

He would unfuck it.

For now, though, he had a monster to catch.

The night grew colder, older, but he was sure the trail was growing hotter, fresher. Finally, the woods came to an end. He nearly walked into a barbed wire. It seemed Clifford had jumped it. He followed the beast mutt’s example, and to his surprise, he found himself somewhere familiar. It was sheriff Mitch’s run-down farmhouse, where Tyler was currently staying until he got his life on track. Right now, Tyler stood at the far end of one of the fields that had been left to run wild, and which had frozen with the first cold front that had moved through. The windows of the house were dark; the sheriff was probably busy, what with the shooting and all. The barn door, which had been closed when he left this morning, was open. Something, however, struck Tyler as terribly wrong. He felt unsure of himself again, but he bit it down and steamed onward. Grass crunched under his feet, too loud. He hopped another barbed wire fence, and he was on the gravel driveway. The gravel crunched, too loud, too. He didn’t like this. He had no element of surprise. Standing in front of the barn door, looking into the dark, he felt like he was seconds from stepping into an ambush.

He stepped inside.

He pulled the barn door shut behind him. Fumbling around, he found a latch. He latched it. In their condition, it wouldn’t even be hard for him to bust the doors down, but it was all he had to keep the beast contained long enough to… what? reason with it? He could only hoped. Now, he edged deeper into the barn, squinting. He was certain that it was in here. He could feel its heat. And even though his nose was frozen and stuffy, he could smell a ton of blood.

Eyelids of darkness split up right in front of his face, and glowing, slitted green eyes stared at him. The darkness leered at him, its grin wide and toothy. Tyler could see Clifford’s nose, black, wet, and shiny. Despite waiting weeks for this moment, his bravado buckled, and his overwhelming terror during his first encounter came crashing back over him. But this time, he was determined not to let himself or his dead brother down. Before he could think, he drew back, put his entire body into his fist, and bopped Clifford right on the schnoz.

The monster dog made a sound that was half surprise, half pain. Its eyes narrowed, angered. It glowered at him. Then it muttered a curse. “Fool, you punched me.”

“I-I’m the fool?” Tyler, who was in a fighting stance now—fists raised against a creature that could obliterate him with a swipe of a paw—blinked away tears. Hearing it speak was terrible, but not any worse than what he had endured up until now. “Y-You owe me so much. I have DEMANDS, bitch.”

Clifford laughed at him. It didn’t scare Tyler, though; it pissed him off.

He threw another punch, but this time, Clifford was ready. The monster dog effortlessly drew back, out of range. Tyler’s fist swung through darkness, and he lost his balance. He landed painfully on his side on the cold, hard ground of the barn. He quickly got to his feet, before Clifford could strike him while he was down. Now he couldn’t find Clifford. He spun, scanning the darkness. His eyes had adjusted as much as they were going to. He had to calm down and take a moment to discern what was hunkering in the darkness. He did so. A tractor to his left. Above was the loft. Toward the back of the barn, there was a black shape hunkering low, but despite its efforts, Clifford could not diminish his massive size. Tyler stomped toward the creature, and as he got closer, he could see it looking at him through eyes open to mere slits, which emitted barely any light. On his approach, Clifford gave up the ruse of hiding. It eyes all the way and rose to its full height. Four legs, each big as Tyler himself. Its back brushed the loft, and its head loomed over him, a few meters out of reach.

“Enough of this,” it boomed. Its maw was expressive, flinging drool, flashing teeth, lolling tongue. “You should know you’re place, boy. I am the Prince of Wolves, god of hunger. I serve Ahlukin, the queen of all, whose rightful, stolen inheritance is no less than the universe. If you were smart, you would bend your knee and pray I do not execute you for your insolence.”

“I don’t recognize the authority of regents,” Tyler shouted back. It was a shit battle cry, but when he would play Castles with Sam, she would yell that, and it would ruin the whole game.

“You don’t—?” It did the trick, throwing Clifford off its game. Then it came back stronger. “What authority do you recognize, boy? The authority afforded by large teeth? Claws? I have plenty of those. Or perhaps age? I have an eternity over you. Well? Speak.”

“None,” he shot back.

“As I suspected,” it said, like Tyler was a book read through and shut closed. “A fool.”

“None,” he repeated, growing angier. “None that I can’t call a friend. None that call me ‘boy.’ Now, you’ll give me what I want, or you’ll—you’ll regret it, bitch. I didn’t chase you through the cold and the dark just so you could throw your weight around and dismiss me.”

Clifford said nothing. It seemed to reconsider him. But then it grinned again. “I could not have suspected,” it said, clearly humored… no, fascinated, “that this meeting would mean so much to you. I admit, you’ve confused me. I would wonder, Is your vision so limited by the dark that you can’t assess the threat standing before you? the sheer might of muscle and claw? but it’s obvious to me now that something else is at play. Have I wronged you, somehow? Have I made you suffer? You hate me. You hate me so much. I have a nose for hate, like I have a nose for hunger. Hate… erodes the stomach… similarly. Creates a void, but a void... full of substance, full of image. I am that image.” It sniffed the air loudly. “But I am not alone, am I? Your father occupies it. Your sister. You.” It sniffed again. “And your brother, Michael.”

By nature, Tyler was not a mean person. He could be a cheeky little shit, especially when he felt justified. But it took some seriously button pushing to get him over the edge. To make him mean. To make him lash out with mean-spirited violence. That was exactly what Clifford did when it implied that a part of him hated his brother.

Clifford was right about one thing: Tyler could see the threat in front of him well enough to assess it. What he saw was a large bullet wound on one of the monster dog’s forelegs.

Clifford was a bully. Tyler knew bullies. Parents, fellow students, cops—even gods, it seemed, followed the same principles. When bullies were self-assured and cocky, they were at their most vulnerable. And Tyler could be fast. By the time Clifford realized the fight was still on, it was too late. Tyler rushed forward and threw a punch at the wound. His stomach turned sickeningly, because, to his surprise, his fist went inside the wound and struck bone and tendon. The monster dog howled while Tyler stumbled back, his fist exiting the wound with a horrible wet sound, holding his hand at a distance because it was covered in blood and hurting he’d hit a wall.

The monster dog fell forward. The ground shook under Tyler. The barn groaned like it was gonna fall.

Tyler got back on his feet. He took a hesitant step forward, afraid of retaliation, but mostly shocked by what he had done. “I—I’m sorry,” he said.

Clifford lay there, defeated. A bloody, inert mass, too weak to rise. Tyler could see one eye facing him, revaulating him. “You topple a god,” it said, quiet, “and you apologize. As I said, you’re a fool. If you were smart, you would rip my throat out while I’m down. Behead me. Sever my spine.”

“Would that kill you?”

“No.” Its head moved to look at him with both eyes. “But I admit, it was wrong of me to dismiss you. And it was cruel of me to… poor salt into an open wound.” It seemed somewhat disturbed by the concept of what it said next: “I’m… sorry.”

“Okay.” Tyler held its gaze. “How do you know so much about me?”

“Don’t act so surprised. I’ve peered into deeper wells than the human soul.”

“I don’t know what the hell that means. You’ve seen into my soul?”

“‘Soul’ is a subjective word choice, but yes. I’ve looked thoroughly into the fabric of your being. Well, I might have skimmed it. In any case, there are clearly developments that I am unaware of.” It finally pushed itself up, whimpering a bit as it did so. Tyler was jumpy and nervous, but he held his ground and watched as it laid its head between its paws. It blinked at him. “We’ve argued, we’ve fought. It all grows tiresome. Didn’t you say that you had demands? Right before you called me a bitch? Go on then, spit out your demands.”

“You marked me,” Tyler said. “During our first encounter.”

“That I did,” Clifford admitted forthright, like it meant nothing.

Tyler kept his anger in check. He regretted letting it out, even though it had gotten the monster dog’s attention. “I want you to remove.”

“What? Why would you want it removed? That mark is a blessing.”

“No, it’s curse!” Tyler threw back.

“You dare impose that the magic of Ahlukin is corrupt—” Clifford stopped. “Oh, fool, you aren’t blasphemous. You’re ignorant. You misunderstand the utility of the mark. It isn’t a curse. Trust, it is a blessing. A gift, really. Bestowed upon you and none else.”

“Why should I trust you?” Tyler asked.

“Fool, with all your questions. I care entirely too much for your species.” The monster dog sighed, softened. “I owe you, it seems. But also, you owe me—if not trust, if not thanks, you owe me consideration. I orchestrated the call that sent your father to jail and got you out of his household. You see, we’re entangled. This is our second encounter, but our connections go deeper. I held your ‘soul,’ and thus, learned the details of your brother’s murder. I used this information to get your father reported to another authority your don’t recognize.”

Tyler did not want to thank it. He didn’t want to trust it. But it was true, consideration was overdue. “So it was you,” he said quietly, looking at the ground. “You’re responsible.”

“Responsible?” it echoed.

Tyler had trouble looking some people in the eye. He made an effort to look at it as he spoke. “You’re right. You’ve wronged me. You’ve made me suffer. Displacement. Dug up trauma. Even it was—” he hissed, frustrated to admit it “—for my own good.”

It waited intently, seeming to sense that Tyler wasn’t finished.

“I’ve been awake,” he went on, failing to his eyes dry. “For way, way too long. With…. With nothing to hold my attention but all these… nasty feelings you’ve made me feel. These memories.” Tears fell, going cold and chilling his face. “Remove the mark. Let me sleep.”

Clifford was silent. Was it touched by his plight? He thought so. “I’m sorry,” it said. The sincerity of the apology pulled a string in Tyler’s heart that he didn’t think a monster dog was capable of pulling. His tears doubled, knowing his quest was futile before it spoke. It went on: “Even if I remove the mark, you won’t sleep. You’ll fall asleep, sure, but you will quickly enter the Divine Dream, and it be like being awake, but more lonesome, more desolate. More danger. You are a Dreamer. A human selected by Ahlukin to free the universe from the King of Lions’s tyranny.”

“I don’t know who of those people are. I don’t know what the fuck a Dreamer is. I don’t know what the Divine Dream is.” Tyler was close to breaking down. This was all too much. Much too much. All he knew was, everything he had been working toward was impossible. “So, I’m supposed to choose between my waking reality, which is shit, or a dreamed reality, which is also shit. Just tell me, will there be a time when I can finally sleep?”

“When we are done,” the monster dog answered. “When the Divine Dream is destroyed and the Lion is overthrown. Then… Then you can sleep. But only if we succeed.”

The fight had gone out of Tyler. He reached out, touched Clifford’s snout like he would a dog’s, trying to apologize for beating the shit out of it. Clifford jerked away, clearly put off.

“You keep thinking of me as a dog,” Clifford muttered. “Quit that. I am no dog. Dogs are the sorry product of domestication and breeding, a wild creature diminished, tarnished, transformed into a pet. It is pathetic. I’d prefer you think of me as a bitch before you think of me as—” it spat up a glob of spit or blood “—a dog. Bitches are... scrappy and admirable, even as genetically imbreed as some are. Dogs… wag their tails.”

“You said you were the Prince of Wolves.”

“A title you discarded. And disrespected. In any case, it is… one might say… self-appointed.”

It had stopped calling him ‘boy,’ so Tyler was willing to return the kindness. “What do I call you, then? Cuz I don’t think we’re parting ways after this. I think we’re in this shit together. So, do you have a name?”

The beast grew cagey. “Names are for pets.”

“I have a name. Almost everyone on Earth has a name.”

“Logic dictates, then, that you are all pets.”

“Okay, but… speaking as someone with a name, it’s not so bad.”

“Said the pet. Anyway, if I'm not mistaken, you’ve already named me. Clifford, isn’t? What is a ‘Clifford’?”

A dog, a pet, albeit a very big red one, but Tyler knew describing it like that would instantly sour the beast on the name. “A Clifford is, uh… big and strong. Capable of… like, demolishing whole ass towns like God-fucking-zila, but the thought to do something so destructive doesn’t even cross a Clifford’s mind because a Clifford is also, uh, good natured.”

“In that case, I have no objections. You may refer to me as ‘Clifford,’ or even as ‘The Prince of Cliffords.’ However, you should know that to say I am ‘not good natured’ is an understatement. Also, I think about destroying this blasted town every day.” It sounded joyful, and its eyes perked up. “To stomp through the town square… to topple the courthouse… that monument to hubris… with its shiny little badger weathervane. To devour all these petty, pathetic people, only to regurgitate their gore as a meal unfit for a god. Maybe the whole country. The world. Yes. Yes, it would be wonderful. Alas, it is my duty to guard you and the other Dreamers, and wanton mayhem on such a scale could perhaps endanger you.”

“I don’t blame you, to be honest. This town’s full of shitheads.” Tyler looked at the ground again, not out of deference. He was lost. He didn’t how to proceed. This whole confrontation was not what he had pictured. A mostly pleasant discussion about names? Never. He also hadn’t expected Clifford to express a longing for world destruction. This whole situation probably had even more tricks up its sleeve, shifty angles, things to thrown at him. He got back to the matter at hand. “If I asked, would you still remove the markings?”

Clifford didn’t say anything.

“It should be my choice, shouldn’t it?” Tyler pressed. “It’s only fair.”

“Fairness,” Clifford repeated. From its mouth, the word sounded like a curse. “Is a concept you’d do well to unlearn. However, I am willing to… let you choose. But first, here me out. Understand that there will be consequences that even I cannot foresee. As I have mentioned, you will be subject to greater danger within the Dream, and fewer protections. The Dream is large. Thomas, who I guess you could call my counterpart, is stretched thin guarding the Dreamers while they traverse the Dream. You may be captured by the enemy. You may even be killed, which would be something new and interesting. You might wake up. You’re sleeping body may die, too. There is no evidence to say what will happen. No one knows, not me, not Ahlukin, perhaps not even the Lion. It is hitherto untested.”

“So, known dangers and unknown dangers.” Tyler shook his head, then shrugged. “The alternative, though? Staying awake? Tell me the truth: is it any safer here in Silicon?”

“No, but the dangers are known. And the protector here is skilled and unwilling to let harm come to you or the Dreamers who are asleep. If it isn’t clear, the protector is me; I am skilled.” The beast snarled silently, angry with itself. “I have only one failure to my name. The original plan, devised by Ahlukin, was to mark half of the Dreamers like I marked you. Think of yourself as… the reserve, backup, or if necessary, an agent of Ahlukin to perform duties in this world. I only had time to mark you, however. The Dreamers… began to dream. Once a Dreamer enters the Divine Dream, severing the connection is… well, another untested project. If I marked them, pulled them out of the Dream, I risked hurting them. What I am saying is…” Clifford was reluctant. “I’m saying, I need you to keep the mark because I need you.”

“Me.” Tyler found it difficult to believe.

“While you are marked, you are a unique agent. At night, the others are forced to fall asleep, and so they become as vulnerable as defenseless babies. You, however, remain awake, alert. To be frank, I need you. Without you…. I am loath to admit it… I am alone during the night cycle of this war. Rest assured, I am powerful, but...” It sighed. “The lion has agents for this world, agents for the Divine Dream. We have plenty of agents in the Dream. In Silicon County, though, it’s just you and me. And if we remove the mark, it’s... just me.”

Tyler could hear the plea in its guttural voice. It wouldn’t say it out loud, but it was scared. Scared to be alone. “You’d let me choose still, though. You’d let me choose get rid of the mark and abandon you.”

“I would,” Clifford answered, regretfully. “You did not choose to fight this war, but it’s only right that you choose how how you fight in it. Perhaps the marks were a failed venture, better off discarded.”

“I… have to think.” Tyler finally put aside his fear of retaliation and sat down. He was physically and mentally exhausted. As always, he terribly awake. His head hurt. There were so many angles, so many questions. It was like being on a cloud; nothing was solid, and if he thought too hard, he fell through and plummeted. It did not help that his goal, his quest, the thing he had been fixating on for weeks to keep himself sane… getting rid of the marks… would not have the effect that he wanted. Like or it, and frankly he hated it, he would be able to sleep until this was all over. “I can’t,” he decided. “I can’t make a choice until I know what this whole war is about. Maybe the Lion isn’t such a bad guy. Maybe you and this Ahlukin person are.”

“I miss Thomas,” the beast muttered. “He didn’t ask so many questions.”

“Well, Thomas sounds like a dumbass.” Tyler remembered the woman yelling the name Thomas, so dumbass or not, he and Thomas were probably more connected than he realized. He pulled his coat tighter. He was cold, and his shirt front hadn’t dried since he’d washed Morina’s vomit off. He scooted closer to Clifford, since the beast radiated warmth. Also, the closer he was, the harder he was to ignore. “If you want me to keep the marks, to stay and help you, then you’ll tell me who the major players are and what they want out of this war.”

“It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I have time. In fact, I don’t have a bedtime, thanks to you. Do you have somewhere to be?”

“I actually do. Right now, the Dreamers are nodding off and beginning their treks in the Divine Dream. In this world, they’re bodies lie sleeping, vulnerable to attacks from the Lion’s agents. I should be out there protecting them, gathering them together, serving Ahlukin’s mission. Instead I am forced to converse with a petulant child who, so far, has bullied me, called me names, and attempted to harm me with his useless little child fists.”

“Don’t forget,” he reminded the beast, “this useless little child mixed your shit. Well?”

“Fine,” Clifford hissed. “But bare with me, it’s confusing.”

“I’m waiting.”

“The Lion, Sa’Sue, is an quasi-immortal being who has built a machine capable of reversing time.”

“Uh, what? A time machine? Time travel?”

“Shut up. For fuck’s sake, if you interrupt me every time I say something mildly strange to you, I’ll be forced to kill you in anger. Yes, a time machine. Yes, time travel. Sort of. Sa’Sue, curse his name, has… well… destroyed the world. Many times. He keeps undoing it, because he is never satisfied with the results. You see, the universe dies, eventually, regardless of intervention. The Lion’s ultimate goal is to… freeze time. To stop the universe from naturally coming to an end. Thus far, he was been unsuccessful, but the damage he has caused is great. The Divine Dream is an unintended consequence of his meddling with time and death. Above all, he’s a coward, afraid to die.”

“What will he do now? During this cycle?” Tyler was struggling to follow along, but to his credit, he felt he was doing a pretty good job. Sa’Sue, the Lion, was a literal scaredy cat who couldn’t face death. So he fucked shit up, and fucked people up, trying to avoid it.

Clifford allowed the interruption. “He’s going to destroy the world again. With fire. Again. He’s going to fail. Again. And the human race will be made to suffer again. And again. Time and again. Until something breaks, and he fails, and the universe comes to a premature end. This time, with no do-over.” The beast raised its head and looked up into the rafters, as if it to look at the stars, or simply heavenward. “Ahlukin opposes his meddlings. She wishes for the universe to reach its natural conclusion. That may sound callous, but it doesn’t end for billions of years to come. The human race… all life on earth… will die long before that time. You, Tyler, will be dead long before that time. So, those are the major players. This is what they want. This… this cycle… could be our last chance.”

“Is that all?” Tyler asked.

Clifford looked him dead in the eye and nodded, yes.

Tyler felt overwhelmed, to say the least. “God. Shit. So what’s at stake is… existence?”

“More or less,” Clifford agreed. “Well, are you with me, or do you wish to defect?”

Tyler found it difficult to condemn the Lion’s motives. Death was scary, after all. Tyler himself was terrified of it. But he did not agree with the Lion’s actions. Destroying the world over and over? Making people suffering death over and over? The actions, the results—he felt safe condemning that. If he thought about, he was aligned with Ahlukin’s goals. Just… let things play out as they would, without intervention, like a documentary crews did when they documented wildlife. However, he couldn’t escape the fact that, maybe, if he heard the Lion’s side of things, he would agree with the Lion more. Did Tyler doubt Clifford’s words? Not really. But there had to be more.

“This is bigger than me,” Tyler said at last. His tears from earlier had dried, but he felt like crying again, and he felt small. “If this is a war, then I’m a soldier. A child soldier. That’s fucked up. I’m a teenager. I’m a dumbass and an edgy little shit. I’m... emotionally unstable, to be honest. I should be worrying about girls, and escaping a dead end town. I should be picking up the pieces of my life. Rebuilding.” He took a shaky breath. “Not even an adult should be making these choices.”

Clifford watched.

Tyler sniffled and wiped his nose. “I’m in this whether I like it or not. I get that. But why? Why me?”

“You and the other Dreamers were selected arbitrarily by a machine,” the beast answered. That hurt Tyler to hear. “A smart machine,” it corrected, maybe trying to make Tyler feel better. “An automata.”

“That doesn’t make it any better,” Tyler countered. The beast didn’t try to argue the point. “You know, it’s a war crime to use child soldiers. I learned about it in school. I’ll technically be an adult in a year, but that doesn’t mean I can handle this. So, even if Ahlukin’s trying to do the right thing, her hands aren’t clean, just for that fact alone. I’m sorry to suggest it… but I can’t even say for certain I’m on your side.”

“Is that so?” the beast asked curtly. When it wasn’t talking for long periods of time, it seemed to be thinking quite intently, which was worrying.

“No. I mean.” He stood up and paced away. He cursed. He stomped his cold feet. “If you’ve been honest with me, I’m on Ahlukin’s side.”

“I’ve been honest.”

“I only have your word.”

“True. But has the Lion made you a better offer? Has the Lion helped you?”

“You’re right,” Tyler admitted. “The Lion had my friend’s diner shot up. The Lion put people I care about at risk. I’m with you. I’m with Ahlukin and the other Dreamers. As far as I can tell, I agree with her goals.” And surely, Clifford could have killed him for disobedience, or for just being an annoyance, but the beast had not. It was actually being patient with him, which, if he thought about it, was kind of impressive. His father was never patient with him. His father had never let him choose anything for himself. Even Sam’s mom, Marsha, who was something of a surrogate mother to Tyler, didn’t put trust in him. “I’m with you,” he said again, more sure of himself.

“This is good hear,” the beast said. “Now, the matter of the markings…”

Yes. Would he remove the marks and enter the Divine Dream, leaving Clifford alone to guard the Dreamers at night? Or would he leave the marks and maintain his unique status, playing his part in Silicon County, where Clifford claimed he would be needed most?

[Remove the markings.]

[Leave the markings.]

---

Note 1: Woof. This confrontation—Tyler finally finding his monster—has been a long time coming. There was a lot to cover. Several emotional and logical stages to go through before I could let the part end. I finally had to pull back the curtain, too! So the cat's out of the bag: so-called time machines and the end of the world and shit. I say it again: Woof. But complications aside, if it isn't obvious, I had a lot of fun writing this pivotal meeting! I'm not sure if anyone else finds it funny, but I slipped in a lot of humor that i find goddamn hilarious :3 Even if I don't accomplish my goal of finishing this chapter (and Monument's chapter) before the end of the year, I'm proud of the progress I've made here. I'm fond of the dynamic that Tyler and Clifford have—it's kinda little shit vs bigger shit. As for the choice, this might be the biggest choice I've put in yet. The options present very different outcomes, and it can't be said that either option is better or worse, right or wrong.

Note 2: Wow Claire suuuucks, and she is dead set on ruining Theodore's whole career, huh. Her PoV was a one-off, though one-offs will always have chance of cropping up again if it's necessary, whether it's to illustrate a plot-beat or just for fun. With Claire, though, it's unlikely. This won't be her last appearance, though.

Note 3: I love Morina and co., but they are in way over their heads. Dave's decision to step away might not be such a bad one (he's not gone for good, fyi). It'll be interesting to see where they go. They're kinda ancillary to Tyler's story, but nonetheless important. Re: one-off PoVs. Morina is a likely contender for more smaller PoVs, as are Kate and Mark.

Tyler's one of my favorite characters to write tbh. The heavy, complicated emotions, the assholery, the conflicts, the good-natureness—he's a tangled ball, and untangling him is a lot of fun (though some times the fun is replaced by serious, hard-to-write-about topics, which are pose their own sort of challenge). Rest assured, with either choice, his character is going to some very interesting and different places, and so is his family, as I admit I've neglected his sister's character (and on that note, his father will return very soon, too).

WOW! That was an amazing part! I'm glad to finally see Morina's part. I wonder how they are going to effect Tyler's parts going forward. Morina's vision was interesting and gives some insight into what the Prince of Wolves was explaining to Tyler, about the Apocalypse. Perhaps, this vision was regarding the Lion's past experiments destroying the world. It could also indicate a possible future of it occurring again. Speaking of Tyler's part the explanation of the conflict was amazing and not what I expected. Although, given Rachel's part it makes sense. She came from a different past in which the world was destroyed, and she wishes to prevent it from occurring again. The motivations of these mysterious beings were also quite interesting. I find it interesting that these beings apparently use advance technology instead of some otherworldly power. I did not expect the Lion to have built a time machine, or for the Crane to have a machine to pick the dreamers. Maybe, Mark is onto something with them being some kind of aliens! Anyways, for the choice, I think I'll go with..... [Remove the markings.] I'm not entirely convinced with this choice, but it can't be good for Tyler's health or mental well being to be constantly awake. However, he might not get a lot of rest in the divine dream, but some is better than none. 


By the way, this part has given me some ideas of possible new characters to submit. 

05-04

---

Lana, Confused as Fuck

Lana did not like cops on a normal day. She didn’t like them when they were formal. She didn’t like them when they pretended to play. She also didn’t like cops when the day had been anything but normal.

And jee golly, she especially didn’t like cops when they were asking her questions like, “What attacked Wade Pittman?” “What happened to Thomas Callahan?” “Was it Thomas Callahan that dispatched Wade Pittman?” “People in small towns talk big and fast, and they’ve been making big talk about you and Thomas—were you fraternizing with him? Dating? Fucking?” “Do you know where Thomas Callahan is currently?” “We know that a few weeks ago, Wade Pittman, attempting to drug you, accidentally drugged Thomas Callahan—are there any other reasons Wade Pittman would want to attack the two of you? Any incidents we don’t know about?” “Do you think Wade Pittman was trying to kill you when he shoot up the diner, or do you think he was trying to kill Thomas Callahan, or both of you?” Not only were some of the questions nosy, most she just couldn’t answer. You can only say “I don’t know” so many times before you and the asker become frustrated. And if cops aren’t fun on a normal basis, they especially aren’t fun when they’re clueless and frustrated. With those conditions, even the unicorn-like good cop can become a meanie. Lana wanted to cry. After everything that had happened today, she wanted to cry herself to sleep. Her bad half was better company than this.

Henry Parker, the sheriff’s deputy, had his mean face on when he entered the station. There was a bandaged taped to his head, and his expression went even more sour when he laid eyes on Lana, like he bit into a lemon. He called out to her. “Dawkings. Lana Dawkings.”

He already had her attention, but now the officers who had been questioning her turned around in their chairs to face the man.

“Parker, we have this handled,” one officer said. The look he gave Henry wasn’t fond, which Lana didn’t understand. Internal rivalry? Personal strife? She kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt; every second they spent at each other’s throats was a second spared from interrogation. She watched.

The other officer pointed at Henry’s bandage, and with a jeering tone, said, “You were hospitalized, remember? Or was the memory knocked out of you? Head trauma from blunt force. Three minutes unconscious. Overnight observation. How’d you get released early?”

“Sweet talk,” the first officer guessed. “Fondled a nurse, I bet.”

The second officer laughed. Henry, meanwhile, looked directly at Lana. Something in his gaze was unhinged, like the door of normalcy had been knocked down by brute force. Lana suspected, if she looked in a mirror, her visage would match. Maybe he was thinking the same thing about her. “Is Miss Dawkings under arrest?” he asked. When the officers shook their heads reluctantly, Henry continued full-force, “In that case, I’m escorting her home.”

“Parker,” the first started, instantly angry.

“You got her statement two hours ago, I assume. It’s getting very late. You’ve exhausted a witness, and now you’re just being cruel.” Henry was calm and angry: a volatile combination, not a stable one. He motioned Lana to stand from her seat at the desk, and she did so cautiously, but neither of the officers stopped her. “I’ll give Miss Dawkings the spiel,” Henry assured them with thin sincerity. “Make yourselves useful and do some fucking paperwork. Assholes.”

They grumbled and cursed, but for once, they left well enough alone. Lana followed Henry and didn’t ask a question until she thought she was out of earshot of the officers, then, “What’s the spiel?”

“You’re a key witness to a crime,” Henry explained as they walked. “Don’t leave the state of Wisconsin. If you leave Silicon County, you have to notify us and provide contact info: phone, address, plans, dates, etc. There’s also the possibly you will be forced to comply with the court, make an appearance, give an additional statement or clarification to a previous statement, etc., etc. I don’t expect you to have any plans like that, though. What with your boyfriend and all.”

She glowered at him.

“Am I wrong?” he asked.

She ignored him. Cop or no: never bite bait. “Isn’t this case, like, open and close?” she asked, trying to change the subject. “A shooter. A shot-up diner. A dead shooter. Open and close, all tidy like.”

Henry actually laughed out loud.

It was in that moment—listening to his laughter in a quieter part of the courthouse, away from the business going on the sheriff’s office—that Lana realized they weren’t heading to the hall. This was her first visit to courthouse and the sheriff’s office alike. “Where are we going?” she asked, getting nervous.

“I’m breaking procedure,” Henry replied.

Lana’s nerves jumped at that, and she felt in danger. Something in her gut coiled, and something in her head surfaced, summoned by the quickening of her heart. For now, it was content to observe. Henry led her past jail cells. Just two of cells for the whole county. The most use they got was probably for holding the drunk and drugged up residents for a night or two. But one was occupied. Sitting on a cot in the shadows was a man, and his wide, watery eyes reflected the dim light as he stared between the bars, not seeming to notice the two of them. Lana vaguely knew who this was. Some guy who’d killed his own son years ago. They kept walking, and she lost sight of the man.

They came to a door, which Henry unlocked. He flipped on a light switch and motioned her to step inside ahead of him. She did so, mindful of how he closed the door behind her, but when he didn’t lock it again, she felt a bit a relief. She was still on her toes, though. Ready for anything. So was her bad half, which would be Henry’s undoing if it took control and he wasn’t fast with the gun on his hip. She could her it thinking, because she thought the same things. The room was lined with shelves and labeled carboard boxes, and if it attacked and killed Henry for making it feel threatened, no one would hear, except maybe the man in the cell.

“You remember the incident with Wade Pittman,” Henry said, moving to the back of the evidence room—at least, that was what Lana thought it was, though it was more of a closet. “Of course you remember,” he went on. “It involved you and your boy.”

“He wasn’t boy then,” Lana corrected, still cautious, but mad at his tone or how he referred to Thomas. “We had just met that night. ”

“Yeah. It says it. Somewhere.” He had taken a folder out of a box and was flipping through it. “It was suspected that Pittman attempted to drug you and got Thomas instead, but we never got the bastard’s statement or a chance to put him under oath, first because he was missing, then because he was fucked up and hospitalized and sedated, then because—” He stopped, clicked his tongue. “But I’m here to tell you about Thomas. After he was drugged, he crashed his car. He woke up naked in the woods the next morning. A man Clive Caron took him in from the rain, warmed him up, and brought him to the hospital. After that, Sheriff Mitch returned with him to the scene of the crash, where I was waiting. And do you know what we found?”

Lana held her silence. Thomas had already told her.

“Thomas’s car, wrapped found a tree. A head on collision. Your boy should have died, but he didn’t. He woke up in the woods, nowhere near the crash.” Henry paused, freeing a picture from under a paperclip. He showed Lana the crash, and her guts twisted. It was her first time seeing the vehicular carnage. Above where the car and tree were melded by the violence of physics, there was a bloody spot on the trunk where the bark had been broken away. Henry put the picture back and then returned the folder to the box. “It had been raining all day, but there was still enough blood and tissue to collect a sample. We sent it to the lab along with a sample that we collect directly from Thomas, just to prove it was his. I guess you know that, but there’s more. Do you know what else happened the night Thomas crashed?”

Lana began to shake her head, but then she remembered. After talking with Thomas in the bar, she had rode her bike back to her apartment, feeling tired but euphoric, she’d stopped half way there. She’d killed something. She didn’t recall what. Her bad half had taken over while she was distracted by her joy and it had joyfully killed an animal before finally taking her to her own bed. But she realized quickly that Henry wasn’t talking about this.

When she didn’t answer, Henry went on. “After hanging out at the Jones’ Diner, a teenager named Tyler Gavins went into the woods late that night. He crashed his bike, and then came face to face with what he described as a giant black dog, and then he passed out.”

“Now I remember,” Lana said, and she tried to stop herself from shaking, the revelation was so horrible and so goddamn late. The diner wasn’t the first time the big black dog had shown its face. “I—I read about Tyler in the paper after the incident,” she said, trying to keep calm. If Henry noticed her unease and terror, he’d asked questions. “The kid woke up back at—” She paused, a inane piece falling into place. “Tyler Gavins woke up back at the diner. The same one that would get shot up weeks later.”

“Pure coincidence, or maybe not,” Henry said, sounding like the most tired conspiracy theorist in existence. “But there’s more. There’s stuff that was left out of the story in the paper. Stuff only Tyler, his friends, and a few members of the Sheriffs department knew about. Including me.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “There was evidence to—to suggest that Tyler was carried by the monster dog out of the woods and back to the diner. It’s ridiculous, and we wondered if it was faked, but it was there. Teeth holes in Tyler’s hoodie. Blood, not Tyler’s, soaking the hoodie. And it would explain how he ended up but at the diner. So, we sent three blood samples to be analyzed. Blood from the crash, Thomas’s blood, and blood from Tyler’s hoodie as a kind of side project to sate our curiosity, just to see if it was human or animal. The analysis came in this afternoon, and no one got around to opening it before everything went to shit this evening. I’m the only one who’s read it. I’m the only one who even knows it came in.”

Lana knew now what was coming, but she hoped that she was wrong for Thomas’s sake.

“This is the blood analysis report,” Henry said, holding up a few papers littered with spreadsheets and markers and jargoon that Lana couldn’t begin to pierce. “Here’s the short of it: all the blood is the same. It’s all human. It’s all Thomas’s. Thomas suffered what should have been fatal injury at the crash, and somehow, Thomas bled all over Tyler’s hoodie that same night. Then Thomas woke up in the morning, more or less fine. Do you know what that means?”

“No,” Lana lied.

“No,” Henry repeated. “It means there’s some bullshit mystery going on in Silicon County that defies logic. And Thomas is at the center of it. Help me make sense of it. Please, tell me. Do you know what happened to Thomas at the diner earlier this evening? Because Sheriff Mitch found a witness. Some guy on a late evening stroll who ran toward the sound of gunfire, and he says he saw a monstrously huge, dog-like creature run up to the playground and destroy it and the shooter before it disappeared into the woods. The monster just, disappeared. And so did Thomas. The witness also says a woman, fitting your description, ran out of the diner after it, then stopped after the violence and watched it go. He says he saw a kid, too, who actually ran into the woods after it. That kid fits the description of Tyler Gavins. Now fucking tell me: What. Happened.”

Lana doubled down. “I don’t know. It was chaos.”

“That’s what everyone’s fucking saying,” Henry said, either seeing right through her lies or wanting so bad for there to be more that it didn’t matter.

“It’s all I’ve been saying,” Lana countered hopelessly. “You think I have answers, but I’ve got more questions than you do.”

“The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know,” Henry muttered. He was getting frustrated with her.

That, Lana realized, would strangely be her salvation: his frustration. She was reeling still from learning Thomas’s connection to Tyler, from seeing that picture… hell, from the pure body horror and violence that had happened at the diner just hours ago, from seeing Thomas… transform. The door of normalcy had been knocked in, yeah. Her slim amount of sanity had been plucked and strummed to play a discordant tune by hands unknown. Deputy Henry Shit Heel Parker couldn’t coerce her. “I’m ready to go home,” she said matter-of-factly, which clearly rackled the man. “You said you would take me. Or was that a lie for your fellow officers so that you could break procedure, as you put it, and speak to me in private? Alone? In a room a civilian probably isn’t allowed into?”

Henry threw the blood analysis back into the box and then pushed the box back onto the shelf, hard. Lana stayed cool, watching. The man sighed and his anger was surprisingly gone, just abandoned like something dropped. “You’ve had a long night,” he said, sympathetic to her situation. “Well, let’s go. I’ll take you home. I’m not done, though.”

They left the evidence room. Henry turned the light off and locked the door behind them. The man in the cell was still staring dead ahead at nothing. Lana cringed when she put it together that this was Daniel Gavins, father to the teen who she had see run into the woods after what Thomas had become. Tyler, Thomas had told her, was connect to Dreamers as well. She hardly remembered seeing the kid, everything was so… jumbled. And in the moment, she had been distracted by the realization that the intelligence behind the monster’s eyes did not belong to Thomas. That something else was piloting.

Earlier this very day, in the lakehouse of Thomas’s childhood, Thomas had told her most of the weird shit that he was dealing with. He hadn’t mentioned being some sort of werewolf, only dreamers and dreamscapes and a mission to protect and unite them. But he’d told her something else. He’d had two dreams about a church.

A funeral for his father, who looked every bit like the wolfman. Also, in the first dream, he’d met an entity calling itself the Prince of Wolves that gave Thomas his mission.

It all fit together almost too neatly. Wolves. But who was the prince? Thomas had only described it as an entity. That could mean demon, or spirit, or anything.

She should have told him her side of things. She should have told him about her own entity, very different from his. Even if she lost him and of his love because of the truth. And she’d been having dreams, too. If they had collaborated… maybe she wouldn’t be so confused now.

Her entity often possessed her. Maybe his did, too. Maybe that was the intelligence lurking in those eyes. The Prince of Wolves.

If this fucking prince hurt Thomas, she was gonna kick its ass. Teeth or no teeth.

Maybe Thomas would hate her and be disturbed by the things she’d done, maybe she’d loose his love, but she regretted her secrecy. She would made it right. Tell the truth. She promised herself.

In the parking lot outside, Henry opened the passenger’s side door for her. She climbed in and buckled up, thinking deeply and hard. Henry got in the driver’s seat and started the car, but his hand lingered on the keys.

“More has happened tonight than you know,” he said, like he was trying to tempt her. Knowledge for knowledge.

Her first clear, uninhibited thought had been putting a name to the entity possessing Thomas’s body. She didn’t need Henry babbling, interrupting her process of thought. “More than I care to know,” she replied.

“I ran into the shooter first hand,” he continued.

Now he had her interest. “Your head injury.”

“I was the one guarding Wade Pittman’s hospital room as he recovered in sedation.” Henry put the car in reverse.

“I live—” Lana tried to tell him, but he interrupted her.

“I know where you live. Apartment complex, northish Hawley. I know where Thomas was staying. I know were Wade Pittman lived. He’s dead, you know. Deader than dead. Craved up by the monster. They had to bring out special handsaws because the material of the playground and his rifle was ebbed in his body by the big claws that swiped through everything like it was paint. They had to saw away metal and plastic to retrieve his corpse. Hell, the playground equipment was so crumpled and entangled, they had to crave a path just to get to his corpse. Wade Pittman, he lived in a nice neighborhood. Worked a nice job as a couch for Silicon’s high school. By all accounts, and in my own experience, he was a nice guy.”

“A nice guy,” Lana said incredulously. She wished the deputy would shut up.

“He had charm pouring out of his ass like diarrhea,” Henry said. “No, he wasn’t nice. He projected niceness. Facades. Faces. He was twisted, really. The attempted drugging… was the tip of the iceberg. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I saw a report… a former student said they’d had an affair with Pittman while they were a student.”

“High school students don’t have affairs with teachers,” Lana said. “That’s stagatory rape. Why the fuck didn’t he lose his job?”

“The report went missing,” Henry said. “My guess is it was buried or thrown out. I asked everyone in the office I could. No one knew about it but me, not even the Sheriff. If you can believe that. I didn’t.”

“So you’re telling me that your sheriff’s office enabled a predator.” Lana made the accusation coldly.

“I should have done something,” Henry admitted.

“But you didn’t.” Maybe Pittman wouldn’t have ended up in jail, but there was the possibility that he would not have felt comfortable enough to attempt to drug Lana. Then Thomas wouldn’t have crashed. He would have had his Prince of Wolves still, but so much might have been different. She hated to hear it: the chances lost; the lives hurt. Hers, almost. And Henry, sitting there, spilling his department’s misdeeds. “Why are you telling me this?”

“It’s all I could think about as Pittman laid there in his hospital bed, fed an IV.” Henry looked gloomy, full of guilt; as far as Lana was concerned, he could choke on it. “When Mitch found him in the woods, Pittman was half mad and frost-bitten. I think he’d seen something. Tyler’s monster, maybe. He had to be restrained for his own safety and the safety of the hospital safe. He was sedated. I thought about… what I knew, what I didn’t know. I found out a sliver of information when I read that report, and it changed how I looked at everyone around me, including myself. I realized I knew no one.” Henry coughed. “I wished that Pittman wouldn’t wake up. I hoped that he’d never return to his job. It occurred to me that I was in a position to ensure that.”

“You thought about killing him?” Lana asked.

Henry clearly wanted to avoid the question, but he powered through. “It’s moot. He’s dead now, anyway. But… yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Something happened, though…”

“What?”

“It’s stupid.”

Lana had had enough of him. “Well, I can’t say I care if you tell me or not. You’re a bastard for playing secret-keeper.”

“I am. But something impossible happened,” Henry said softly. “Pittman, he’s being fed a steady lunch of fluids and sedatives through his IV. He’s restrained. When I come back from getting food for myself, he knocks me out, places me on the bed, and takes my clothes. When I wake up, my head’s killing me and I’m alone. I’m lying on top of ash. The restraints have been turned into ash. How? How does that happen? And how does a sedated man, weak from spending a week in the cold woods, wake up and overpower me? Pittman went to the sheriff’s office, you know. He used my keys. That’s where he got the rifle that he used in the shooting.”

Lana was silent, soaking in the fact that much of her pain had been unwittingly—and somewhat wittingly—co-authored by Henry. His failure to expose Pittman, his failure to guard Pittman. The violence in Lana was mumbling in her head: sweet fancies; Pittman may be dead, but guilty blood could still be spilled.

“While I’m in the business of telling you everything,” Henry went on, “you should know that there was a killing tonight unrelated to Pittman’s shooting or death. A priest, murdered by a man named Theodore Deerman. You might have heard of him. When he was a teen, he suffered a mental breakdown, then committed a murder and partially ate the remains. Fucked up guy, but that was years ago and now he was rehabilitated and a free man. Cured, I guess. Or not. He killed a priest and then kidnapped a young girl. I heard it all from the officer who interviewed the priest’s caretaker, right before I left the hospital to find you. After I drop you off, I’m gonna join the manhunt for Theodore.”

This was a weird thing to just be hearing about. Lana made a mental note of it. Maybe this Theodore was wrapped up in the same shit as her, Thomas, and Tyler. Or some different, tangentially related shit. Either way, best to remember. Iceberg of knowledge. An unseen, upside down mountain under your feet. Dark waters. Shit show. Sick show. Lana just wanted to save Thomas and tell the truth to him. Maybe she’d paint the seats with Henry’s blood. But that wasn’t her thinking. Her demon was rising. She could give in. If she wanted.

“Please, Lana,” Henry said. “I can’t be any help to any one—or you—if I’m in the dark.”

“From everything you told me,” Lana countered, frustrated, “you haven’t been much help to anyone in your sorry life.”

“I wanna start.” Henry was almost begging now. He pulled up in her apartment’s parking lot and put the car in park. “I fucked up. Many times. But I wanna to do good, and I don’t think the authority is gonna manage that. You’re knee-deep in something dangerous. I know it. And I could help you.” He paused. “I’m a failure. I’ve failed family and duty.” He stopped. He tapped the wheel with his fist. “But you’re lacking in allies. Am I wrong? I’ve told you everything I know. I’ve been honest about my failings. Tell me what you know. Please. So I can do some good.”

It was a mistake for Henry to park the car. Self-preservation was a powerful deterrent for Lana’s demon; it wouldn’t endanger itself by attacking the driver as he drove. But now that the deterrent was gone, it was actively trying to take control. Lana was a little too busy keeping it at bay to give Henry’s offer much attention, but she parsed what she could. She could tell him everything, about the conflict Thomas had described, the Dreamers, the Prince. Maybe then Henry would have a shot at doing some good. His past actions were beyond redemption. Pittman may have been dead, but Henry couldn’t just erase the enabling he and the authorities had committed. However, Henry was right about one thing. Lana was short on allies... though the writer, who Thomas had mentioned, seemed like a good bet; as did the teenager, Tyler. Anyway, like Henry, she’d done wrong in the world, too.

Ah… Could she be blamed, though? At least she was trying to hold the badness in. But…

She didn’t know what she was doing. She’d done wrong. She accepted the blame whether it was hers or not. Maybe, in giving Henry a chance, she’d be giving herself one, too.

She could let her demon take control. It would be as easy as breathing a sign. Unclenching a fist. Relax, let the demon do to Henry whatever it wanted. She hated to admit it, but it would satisfy the demon for a while, and maybe having control for a while would save her in the future. God fucking shit, what was she thinking? Killing a deputy of the law would be stupid. But it was there. An option her demon was more than happy to take. It wouldn’t let her get caught. It was as smart as it was cruel.

Or she could hold on to control, and tell him everything; gain an ally, maybe. There was always the possibility he’d think she was crazy, but she didn’t think that would be the case after what he’d told her had happened at the hospital with Pittman. If he believed her, maybe she’d be endangering him. At the very least, she could repay him for the wealth of information that he had shared.

Or hold on to control, and insist again that she knew nothing else. No new allies, but maybe he’d survived. Or maybe his ignorance would kill him as well. It was hard to say what would happen if, ignorant, he continued to pursue the mysteries at play in the area.

[Tell Henry everything.]

[Keep Henry ignorant.]

[Let Lana’s demon take control and kill Henry.]

---

Ted is Birthed

In Sa’Sue’s castle, many machines turned and whined.

Sa’Sue, the King of Lions himself, watched one particular machine patiently, his tail flicking back and forth, his expression one of child-like wonder. Theodore’s “soul”—an orb that, if looked into, would show the world through Theodore’s eyes—sat in a dish on top of the machine like an expensive delicacy. The whining kicked up a notch as the turning slowed, reaching its loudest volume as the machine came to a full stop. Then, silence. Then, a hiss. A panel in the machile extended outward and steam poured into the air. Sa’Sue fanned away the steam with a paw as a table emerged, like what would be found in an earthly morgue. It wasn’t a cadaver on the table, however; it was a living human being. It was, in all ways, a perfect replica of Theodore Deerman. From a scar that Theodore had received from his first foster parents, to his ungroomed pubic hair, to his so recently ruined hand, it was Theodore Deerman, in the flesh. An clone, technically. But Sa’Sue preferred to think of it as an aspect.

The orb began to blink faintly. Now that the process was complete, it was safe to remove. Sa’Sue plucked it from the dish and peered into it, seeing a warped scene: a steering wheel, the road ahead, and occasionally, whenever Theodore glanced to his left, the girl named Charity. Sa’Sue could hear what was being said. He was being addressed by Theodore.

“Lion! Lion, are you there? What the fuck was that?”

“What was what, Theo?” Sa’Sue whispered to the orb, exactly as one would speak to a mouse.

“I felt something… weird.”

“Specify.”

There was a pause. “Weird,” Theodore repeated finally, unable to explain the sensation that had come over him during the cloning.

“Then you are fine,” Sa’Sue assured him. If something wrong had occurred during the cloning, the sensation would not have been inexplicable weirdness; it would have been painful death. Lucky for Theodore, Sa’Sue would not have attempted to create an aspect of the man if he thought it could end in Theodore’s demise. Seeing that the aspect was stirring on the table, Sa’Sue cleared his throat and wrapped things up: “I must end our conversation, Theodore. Remember: protect Charity and help her complete her mission.”

“Yes, sir,” Theodore muttered. And Sa’Sue saw the man’s grip on the steering wheel tighten in frustration. Fucker, Theodore thought, and Sa’Sue heard that, too, which made the Lion smile wickedly. The fact that Theodore cursed him—even though he knew Sa’Sue was listening in on his thoughts occasionally—made the man a fun one. Wade Pittman was a bore and a creep. Theodore, though. Fun.

“We’ll speak again,” Sa’Sue finished, then he dropped the orb into one of his robe’s pockets. Just then, the aspect of Theodore opened his eyes and began to look around the chamber, eyes settling onto the King of Lions. “Hello, Ted,” Sa’Sue said, almost lovingly. “Welcome to the Realm of Realms, the Divine Dream. Specifically, welcome to Castle Hope.”

“My head hurts,” was all the man said in reply. Ted, as well as Theo, was a nickname of Theodore’s. Calling his aspect such was a simple, if creatively bankrupt, solution to any potential confusion. Plus, Ted wouldn’t think it weird. So, Theo was Sa’Sue’s agent in the world; Ted would be his agent in the dream. Simple. “How did I get here?” Ted asked, coming around. He sat up suddenly. “I was driving, wasn’t? Charity was… in the passenger’s seat. Is she okay? I didn’t crash, did I?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Sa’Sue told him. “Charity is fine. Her mission continues. You, however, have been reassigned. You have a new mission.”

Sa’Sue offered Ted a paw to help the man to his feet, but Ted only stared at it.

“Is something wrong?” Sa’Sue asked gently.

Ted shook his head. “This is all so strange. You’re not what I expected. You’re more or less an actual lion, standing upright in a robe.”

“What were you expecting? Be honest.”

“A.. A nightmare,” Ted answered hesitantly. “You terrorized me, remember? You trapped me in a dream until I agreed to accept your mission. Yet now you’re all… civil.”

“This is a pleasant act,” Sa’Sue explained with a smile. “I am still quite my terrible old self, but circumstances are different currently. You’re a guest in my home. I can be quite the host. Would you follow me? We’ll see to it that you are clothed and that the injuries that the priest and caretaker inflicted are properly seen to.”

Sa’Sue turned and began to walk, and in a moment, he heard Ted’s bare footfalls catching up to him, no choice but to follow. Sa’Sue chuckled softly, making no attempt to conceal it from Ted, who kept pace several steps behind the Lion. They left the chamber of the cloning machine and the whispered shut behind them. This was a vaulted hallway of polished brass, engraved with fine art: scene upon scene of strange happenings, abstract representations of things that had happened and would, mixed with fiction of the Lion’s fancy. There were planets and people and animals. There were apocalyptic scenes, and scenes of new genesis, interwoven with entirely illustrated biographies of people who had lived and died. Mostly, since this was a recently constructed wing of the castle, these were biographies of human hunters, but also full length biographies of the prey and predators that had been hunted. From life to death, every exploit and crime of survival. All had been engraved by the Sa’Sue personally over time immemorial. He secretly created eyes in the back of his head to watch Ted marvel at the art as they walked. Sa’Sue was pleased to see awe, confusion, and horror cross the man’s expression. Sa’Sue could imagine the man’s thoughts: straining comprehension of the engravings that crawled all the way up to the arched ceiling, and the grim, grim hope that this new mission would be somewhat less terrible than the old one.

Ted would be surprised, maybe even a bit relieved, when he found out that it was actually less terrible than the old mission. Poor Theo, still stuck with his lot. The truth of the matter was, Ted was as real and genuine as the original Theodore. They would diverge, of course; as time went on, they would become different but similar people, which would be interesting to witness. Sa’Sue knew one thing: Ted’s loyalty, like Theo’s, was shaky and unreliable, insured via intimidation rather than trust in the Lion’s cause. It was unfortunate. While trapped in the dream, Sa’Sue had told Theodore everything, and the man had balked, frightened. Thus, intimidation had been necessary to make Theodore obey. Perhaps Sa’Sue could have lied and convinced the man that the mission was entirely unsordid; loyalty insued via dishonesty. Sa’Sue had scruples, however: no lies. He would rather bully than lie any day. Unlike Ahlukin and her cur, the so-called prince.

Well, Sa’Sue amended to himself: some lies. But only if it was necessary. He had lead Ted to believe he was every bit Theodore, which was true but in no way the full truth. However, if Ted were made aware of the fact that he was a copy, born merely ten minutes ago, it would inflict an existential crisis on the man that would undo him, perhaps permanently. He’d seen it happen before, and it was awful. The information somehow unhinged aspects, making them weepy and pitiful. Lies were cheap and evil, but when the alternatives were suffering, the waste of an asset, and—it couldn’t be denied—a life, Sa’Sue saw no choice in the matter. But Sa’Sue drew the line when it came to lying about his cause. If he felt the need to lie about that, he would need to feel remorse. In a way, maybe this made him worse than remorseful, lying Ahlukin, but he thought it made him better. She lied about her cause, airing its faults. He told the truth about his, maintaining its integrity.

He believed in his cause fully. Ahlukin on other hand? She was full of doubts. This fact, above all, assured Sa’Sue that her resistance would end in failure. He chuckled sadly, and through his backward-facing eyes, he saw Ted tear his gaze from the engravings to regard whatever had caused the Lion’s amusement; the man was left further confused.

The hallway terminated at a dead end, an apparent wall that bore the same engravings as the rest of the place. As the two of them drew closer, seams appeared and the wall slid out of the way, allowing them ingress to an even larger room before closing behind them. They found themselves in Castle Hope’s central chamber. The engravings here some of the oldest: Ahlukin could be found on these walls, back when she was just a footnote; the grim little cur, too. Here, many doors lead to many different rooms, each with its own function. To their right were stairs, which dominated the architecture like a small vista. The stairs lead to the throne room, which overlooked the great machine, the Lion’s finest work.

They ignored the stairs, though Ted stared at them, awestruck. Sa’Sue lead the man all the way across the room to an archway like all the others. The walk took two minutes in all. Once again, a door appeared as they approached the arch, and they entered another hall.

“What are these?” Ted finally asked, eying the walls, which also bore the engravings.

“History,” Sa’Sue replied curtly. “Craved by my own hand.”

“They’re beautiful.”

Sa’Sue looked at the aspect, wondering if he’d misjudged the fright. “Thank you. And—Ah, we’ve arrived.”

This final door opened, and the two of them joined a group of odd creatures. There were four, varying in size from the average person to massive, the two that were human-like weren’t completely human, and the two that were animal-like weren’t quite animal. They were aspects, like Ted—but unlike Ted, they didn’t have human allegories wandering around the real world; they’d been cloned before the science was perfected, and the originals had been destroyed in the process. Their interior psyches had been turned inside out, bringing monstrous and beautiful features to the surface. They didn’t know they were aspects, copies of destroyed originals. “This is the Pride,” Sa’Sue said, giving Ted the explanation that wouldn’t break his head. “They are my agents in the Divine Dream. Their mission is your new mission. Lieutenant Gutter, step forward and fill Ted here in on the details. Fix him up, introduce him to everyone, and get him ready to disembark with you.”

The saddest looking creature in the room answered the summons, while one of the others giggled at the new recruit or the remaining two stared silently. Gutter’s face was a cat’s, which clashed with the blond, chopped military-style hair cut. His body was seemingly that of a man, dressed all in plainly colored soldier’s garb. He had on practical boots and gloves. His brass shoulder guards were his person’s only ornamentation, which had chain tassels that swayed as he approached. “Yes, sir,” he said, and then to Ted: “I am Lieutenant Gutter, your supervisor and commanding officer. You are… Ted?”

“Yeah,” the bewildered man replied.

“I must leave,” Sa’Sue said, drawing everyone’s attention. As much as he would have liked to see Ted get to know the Pride, he had business to attend to. “Gutter, I trust you to ensure that Ted is neither disemboweled or eaten by any of your subordinates.”

“Of course, sir,” Gutter said.

“Nor by your own hand.”

“I shudder to think it, sir.”

“Goodluck, Ted,” Sa’Sue told the aspect of Theodore, delighting in the man’s renewed fright. With a lion’s unnerving smile, he turned and left the creatures to their new addition. When the door had closed again behind him and he was alone, Sa’Sue reached a paw into the pocket of his robe and retrieved an orb. It wasn’t Theodore’s. As he walked back to Castle Hope’s central chamber, he dropped the silly guise and slipped into a more comfortable form. He moved quickly towards his great machine, for he hated when it turned and turned and turned without him watching, observing. On his way, he held the orb to an eye.

When he looked through, he saw the iron bars of a jail cell.

This soul, like most, had a name.

Its name was Daniel Gavins.

To be continued...

---

Notes: Oof, this is gonna be a long chapter. It's already to 20,000 words, which is about as long as Chapter Four, the longest chapter so far. This one isn't even a third of the way through! Which makes sense, as there's a lot of PoVs and a ton of necessary recapping and exposition being done as things move forward (and some of the fumbling is, no doubt, due to me familiarizing myself with the story and characters; tho i'm a bit impressed with my retention so far, given how long its run has been :3). Chapter Six is gonna be a lot more snappy. I really, really can't wait to write it. I'm hoping my energy lasts long enough to get there/close. I want 2020 to be the year that I finish my shit. This includes Silicon and Monument, a bunch of short stories, and three partial first drafts of novels/novellas. That's a hefty order for me personally, I know, but I'd be satisfied as long as I finish at least some shit. Right now, the forum stories have the priority. It would be wonderful to start a new interactive story next year or the year after next—I have two that I've been kicking around for some time: one a weird, horror western; the other a superhero story—but those will only begin once the current stories conclude. In the mean time, my goals this month still stand: finish chapters 5 of SC and 16 of MttWD, then begin their next chapters by Jan 1st. So far so good. If I starts to look like I'm gonna fail those goals, I'm not gonna sweat it! Progress—any progress—is what counts for me. More important, tho, is having fun! Which I'm having! It's nice to be back!

You're correct. Forces are gathering this chapter, in both worlds. As we'll soon see, it's not just the Lion that's getting their cards together. Anyway, I'm glad to hear you find the sci-fi stuff interesting! Those elements are only just now cropping up in the story, but they've been a long time coming. It's kind of a departure from earlier elements, which were more portrayed as supernatural, so it's a relief to know they're being received well!