the house

(click: ?page)[== ... (click: ?page)[== ....... (click: ?page)[== ........... (click: ?page)[== //Click....click....click... // (click: ?page)[== //[[...?]]// (click: ?page)[== //[[Skip Intro -> password]]//

''LOLA: ''It’s running! Talk methodology. ''JUNE:'' Shared dreaming experiment. ''LOLA:'' Collaborative journalism. Shared memories. ''JUNE:'' Hidden better than the others, because we were stupider then and people can’t know. ''LOLA: ''“They were stupider then and people can’t know.” ''JUNE: ''Written in third person, in the interest of time and clarity. ''LOLA: ''That’s all then. This was the worst of it. ''JUNE:'' So far. ''LOLA: ''At the time of writing. [[...]]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[Lola and June present…. (click: ?page)[== (text-style:"blur")[кабина] (click: ?page)[== or (click: ?page)[== (text-style:"outline")[前途三千里の思ひ胸にふさがり ] (click: ?page)[== or (click: ?page)[== ''(text-style:"shadow")[THE HOUSE] '' (click: ?page)[== [[...->blake]] ]

//Cruelty has a human heart, And Jealousy a human face; Terror the human form divine, And Secresy the human dress. The human dress is forged iron, The human form a fiery forge, The human face a furnace sealed, The human heart its ''hungry'' gorge. William Blake// [[...-> password]]

(set: $password to (prompt: [password?], "???", "Don't care", "Confirm")) (if: $password is "hungry") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Hunger]]] (if: $password is "hunger") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Hunger]]] (if: $password is "heat") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Heat]]] (if: $password is "cold") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Cold]]] (if: $password is "elements") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Elements]]] (if: $password is "animal") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Animals]]] (if: $password is "human") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Human Enemies]]] (if: $password is "barren") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Barrenness]]] (if: $password is "obstacles") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Obstacles]]] (if: $password is "illusion") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Illusion]]] (if: $password is "darkness") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Darkness]]] (if: $password is "illness") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Illness]]] (if: $password is "death") [(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[[Death]]]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(1/12) Hunger''] There had been provisions within the cabin, having endured several seasons of frostbite since last use. No food had been carried to the cabin on the drive and the closest civilization was some three hours away. Still it was not distance or energy that kept them from it, but a new and special breed of agoraphobia. That had been the brilliance of the First Sword. Neither of the girls would ever look at a human again without looking for loose skin or grit around their eyes. They were now keenly trained to spot the signs of inhumanity. In fear, they saw husks and shells where there were none. They would not enter town. When the provisions ran out, they were grateful for the lush forest in which the cabin was situated. Around them were miles of hunting ground. From the cabin windows alone, you might often see deer and rabbit walking unafraid through the underbrush. In that part of the country, there was even the occasional moose. June was the first to venture out through the forest that summer, though she had the least idea of how to navigate it. She had slipped out for some air and found it wanting. She had said she needed air but she meant she needed space. The distance between the cabin and herself drew itself wider. She walked among the trees a great while, losing track of the time for as long as it was daylight. She walked until she had found a stream deep in the forest. It was a large stream - and deep. The distance across it was too large to forge without floating and it carried along its path from as far as she could see. June thought this was remarkable. The water was clear. Within, she saw sculpin and trout swimming between the smooth rocks of the streambed. The rocks and the fish alike all glistened in the sunlight that fell in pinpricks through the tree canopy. They were decorated in earthy and warm tones, which had always been her favorite. June thought briefly of trying to catch some of them, though all she carried was her knife. The challenge did not deter her, but the fish biomass did. They were all bones and spikes. She’d burn more energy on the hunt than she would gain through consumption. It was a dull hunger bearing down on her. The sky was darkening. She turned her back to the river, looking to return down the same path she had carved out. She tracked her own steps in the dirt, following a past self through the woodland. She found herself listening intently to the sounds of the forest, as if to hear signs of herself spread thin through time. She pretended she was a hunter - and the play worked. June noticed then there was another pair of footprints. The tracks crossed her own perpendicularly. She recognized their shape as bear tracks, but because she had never seen bear tracks in person, she found nothing unusual about their size. She could have fit both her sneakers inside of them with room left to spare. Finally, June broke through the treeline and back to the cabin. Lola was standing by the edge of the clearing, her fists balled up in the fabric of her dress. The last rays of sun were disappearing, casting her in a ghosty blue light. Fireflies were rising up out of the grass. One landed on June’s shoulder, blinking idly. She walked towards Lola, hooking an arm around her waist and guiding her back to the house. Lola stopped short about fifteen feet from the entrance, frowning. She wanted a moat and was mapping its circumference in her head. She had wanted food, too, but that pain had gradually turned to nausea and an inability to eat at all. They both thought sleep sounded nice. Micah had volunteered to take the first shift. He was at the kitchen counter, having apparently cooled down after the earlier argument. They hadn’t discussed the need for shifts, though June and Micah looked at each other wearily whenever Lola asked to take one. Tonight, Micah didn’t look up at all. The fumes from his tea fogged up his glasses. It was unclear whether he was ignoring them or simply lost in thought - each was equally likely. Lola fell asleep on the floor of the den, in front of the fireplace. Oftentimes, June had tried to hold her for how badly she shivered. But at night Lola’s skin would grow hot to the touch. June would have to pull away, watching from a distance while the fire within her raged. That night, they both slept on top of the rug and beneath a patchwork quilt passed down by Lola’s grandmother. The only light came from the fire and - much smaller and cooler - the light of Micah’s phone as it reflected in his glasses. The clock struck three just as Lola woke up, her face buried in June’s chest. Her entire body was freezing. She saw her own breath as she exhaled. Somehow, June sensed she was awake. She looked down at Lola and found two dark circles where her eyes should have been. Lola’s lip trembled like she might cry. “I’m hungry,” she whispered. In that instant, Micah shot up from his spot at the table. Lola sprang up just as quickly, crawling towards the door. Her white nightgown halted much of her movement, making the bending of her limbs harsh and unrhythmic. At the sliding glass door, she stumbled to her feet, forcing it open and disappearing into the night. Micah was first after, flashlight at the ready. But once June was up, she quickly overtook him with no light at all. He had called out to her, cursed at her, almost turned around and went home. June was tracking purely by sound and Lola was making a lot of it - more than she should’ve been able to. Lola was tracking by touch. The poor thing had been sleeping. Lola, of course, reached it first. June came second, heard the horrible crunching of bone and the soft wet sounds that followed. But it was only when Micah appeared with that burning light that she saw what lay before her. A dark flower had sprouted from Lola’s spine, taking up most of her back. Five large petals had sprouted from it and had become her main tendrils. Dozens more emerged from in-between them, thin and whiplike. They all moved through the air like they were in water, graceful and strong. They extended in many directions, largely blocking the view of both bodies they touched. Lola was bent over, her hands deep in the body of the moose. There was a soft crying heard faintly in between the sounds of ripping flesh. At least it had been quick. Mostly painless. Lola’s hands still moved in the body as if she were searching for something. The tendrils that came from her ripped whole pieces of the moose off - bones, antlers, and organs all disappearing in their clutches, being absorbed. Lola found what she was looking for, ripping the heart out with her bare hands. She ate it like an apple. Micah turned the light off. They stood in the dark for a long time, listening. Nobody wanted to speak. It was only when June called out for Lola that Micah brought the light back on, perhaps fearing her safety. When it came, the tendrils had retreated back into her body, but the exit wound remained - a flower shaped scar against her back. The dress was mostly torn in the chaos and what remained was now stained red. Her hands too were covered in the blood - all the way up her forearms and splattered in her hair. She’d stopped crying. She looked embarrassed. She turned to them and her eyes were still black all the way through. Blood across her mouth. “Sorry,” she said weakly. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” “It’s okay,” June answered. She was thinking about times her sister had come home drunk and thrown up in the hallway. How she would clean it up and get her to bed before their uncle ever found out. Without hesitation, she offered Lola an arm for support. It was appreciated - no longer hungry but fully exhausted, Lola’s body nearly crumpled when she asked it to walk. June looked at the carcass and then at Micah, a bit pleadingly. He shook his head, noticing the black ichor that now dripped from the jagged ribs. It was clear that what was safe for Lola was not safe for them. He steadied the light and began home, only occasionally glancing back to see if they were still with him. When they brought Lola back to the house, she tried for several days afterwards to recount the experience. More still when it was asked of her. What it had felt like to Lola was at first an unwaking sensation - a pressure in her chest she felt even in sleep. These were unclear and untrained dreams, mostly of storm and of sea. The pressure roused her and she had felt unwell. It was a medical anxiety. Something was loose within her body, moving around beneath her skin. The pressure turned to pain and she became aware of the exact placement of her spine, each disc within it. The fluid in her veins and in her stomach. The churning. The fear was so great she blacked out multiple times, but never for long. She began to place the fear as both nausea and hunger. Lola didn’t remember saying this to June. She didn’t remember leaving the house. The next time she opened her eyes, she was already sprinting. In the dark, she thought she was dreaming again because she was carried more than she was running. Lola was flying. She had grown wings(?). The pain in her back grew sharper. Something was poking at the back of her mind. She had forgotten something awful and knew that if it were to resurface, the dread feeling would return to her. Ursula spoke in her lovely, starving voice. The shock of the alien presence was so great it had to be blunted. Lola blacked out once again. Feeding was amazing and strange. Nothing had ever tasted so good to her. To do so, she needed to use parts of her(?) body that had never been used. Entanglement, absorption, dissolution, and digestion were all new to her. To the other, what was noble about the experience was to do it through another’s body, on such a small creature. The body was amazingly resilient to the changes she forced upon it, though much of it had to be knitted back together and resealed before it came apart. After her stomach had been filled, the high began to wear off. She did not realize her friends had followed her; she had forgotten where she was. Only when the tentacles retreated back into her body did she remember whose life she was living. She felt the wetness on her hands and mouth and was ashamed. She did not remember apologizing, nor did she remember walking home. What she remembered was June’s hand in her own and the smell of blood mingling with sweat.

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(2/12) Heat''] On the brightest day of the year, June was the first to wake. Lola was next to her, asleep, newly clean and bandaged. One of her hands rested on June’s shoulder. Her long hair was still wet from the shower, though it retained the copper scent of blood. June slinked off into the kitchen. She was alone, still starving, still warm. The pantry was now fully empty and they had few options left. The gun that had once been over the mantlepiece was now propped up by the front door. The hunt had suffered. It would be too hot today, anyway. She startled when Micah pulled up beside her, soundless. The heavy sunlight reflected off his glasses, obscuring his eyes. He had the car keys wrapped up in his fingers. They rattled as he pressed his palms against the kitchen counter. He said something about starving to death, which sounded better than leaving the woods. He asked her about splitting up duties. June realized very quickly that she did not want him taking the car alone, nor did she really want him alone with Lola. And leaving Lola by herself was out of the question. They would have to travel together. Lola woke from a dream about a shipwreck, remembering very little. In spite of the heat, she dressed herself in a long sweater and pulled up red stockings over her legs, covering up the bandages and any additional blood that might’ve seeped through. When she got to the kitchen, she raised her own concerns about leaving the house unattended - a sentiment that neither of her companions seemed to understand. She did not agree that it was unsafe for her to be alone, but her terse restlessness prevented her from arguing the point. She wanted out. They loaded into Micah’s car; it groaned in protest. It had been a Chevy Citation once, but passed through hands and lawns so many times it now bore only a slight resemblance. The interior burned from the direct sunlight overhead; only Lola’s covered skin did not burn against the seats. June snuck the gun into the backseat as a precaution. They noticed but did not object. As they pulled out of the driveway, Lola set out to establish code words: A call-and-response to verify they were who they said they were, a hand signal for danger, and a rendezvous point in the event they were separated. Micah said it was unlikely for lightning to strike the same place twice, so to speak. That it was unlikely for them to encounter other dead ringers or for any of them to be imitated. He was of the mindset that when you kill something in one form, you can expect it not to come back. June disagreed. June replied that there was no reason to think that and wondered why he expected novelty from their enemies. She turned to Lola to ask whether they should expect a threat at all. There was no answer. They were in their dark age then. Lola was mostly animal instinct, knowing only that something in her blood needed to feed. In the back of her skull, a small fire still burned too darkly for her to look at - the conviction flickered in and out without her comprehending it. June understood the least, which made her uniquely uncompromised and a horrible enemy. It was Micah who was beginning to grasp at some glittering understanding of the pathway and who was able to retain this understanding past the blood and injury. Even that was incomplete. They agreed on the signals. The road led out of the mountains, down miles of forests. In spite of all that had happened and how many times she had been down this road, Lola still found the view breathtaking. It seemed silly to her now to be driving for food - the woods were so vast, it would only take patience to pry its fruits from them. But that would be asking too much, from her own body and from her friends. There was already so much work to be done. They pulled into the parking lot of a discount store. The air was invigorating after so many weeks spent in isolation. Lola wandered off alone, viewing her reflection in the shop windows. A fraction of it was vanity, admiring the stockings and how her hair looked after only washing it with castile and olive oil. The larger and more urgent part of it was an anxiety about any blood or tendrils becoming visible through her clothes. Micah lit up a cigarette and hung back while the girls went inside. June kept tight to Lola, eyeing up practically every other person in the store. Lola said that June’s fear was contagious and recursive. She had not meant it as a criticism, but it had stung her. June tried to maintain vigilance without anxiety for the first time, on the brightest hour of the brightest day of the year. It was a start. The benefit was that the store was emptying, her strain relaxed. Micah joined them inside. They laughed about the off-brand cereal mascots, the sugary and several seasons out-of-date promotional items, the hubris of the executives. It was cool and refreshing inside of the store; everything was tinted slightly yellow. They opted mostly for easy proteins and pantry staples. Micah - the only one who cooked for his family - insisted on getting spices, saying they’d only need to buy them once and they’d thank him later. June picked some of the novelty cookies off the shelf, despite herself. (They were spring-themed.) Lola spent a long time in the meat section. She still wanted blood, but didn’t think anything dead would do. Micah picked up a few cuts for her anyway. They’d taken efforts not to bankrupt themselves, mostly in the event they would need to flee. They were all out in the world now and somewhat reluctant to get home, worried that whatever they did not claim now would not be available to them for a long time afterwards. June wanted weapons. Lola wanted seeds and substrate. Their reasons for each turned out to be identical. Lola’s request was much easier - they found a small garden stand on the ride back up the mountain. Lola picked out seeds for rosemary and lavender, even some mugwort seeds. She was talked into buying some vegetable seeds, though she didn’t expect them to grow so late in the season, nor did she hedge her hopes on being around to reap them. Finally, she took mushroom substrate from a bin it had been lying in. June purchased a live strawberry plant and an old, discounted chainsaw from the man running the stand. It was a fine compromise. When they got back into the car, Lola rode in the passenger seat with the bags between her legs. June had the chainsaw on her lap with the blades removed for the time being. By the time they reached the mountains, the sun was setting. It lit up golden clouds against a purple sky; it shone outrageously through the trees. The sunbeams pierced through the sky and down onto the forest. It burnt so bright and hot that the whole mountain began to look as though it were on fire. Micah straightened up in the driver’s seat. The image of a forest fire flickered in and out as they drove. Lola’s brow furrowed slightly. “Do you see it too?” She finally asked. June let out a nervous laugh. Micah was silent, used to seeing impossible things with only Lola as a witness. “June, can you see it?” He asked her. She nodded in response, peering through the middle. The fire, when it was visible, was now smoldering, blocking out the sky. It would disappear in the next instance and reappear when a cloud shifted. It went on like this for about ten minutes. “Fuckin’ weird,” June said. She drummed her nails against the chainsaw, “Should we go home? Is it a kind of threat?” The fire began to burn blue. “I don’t think so,” Lola said. She pulled her seatbelt tighter. “I don’t think we were even supposed to see it.” “It’s malicious,” Micah said, “You can tell.” Lola only shrugged. The fire felt familiar, like a feeling she couldn’t place, from a time she couldn’t remember. Gradually, the vision faded out and only the forest remained.

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(3/12) Cold''] Lola was curled up on the cool tile of the bathroom floor. The chamber was flooded with golden light. It broke out of the small translucent window and out into the forest. It was the only light for miles and stood out like a beacon against the dark night. Her forehead was pressed firm against the surface, sweat sticking to her skin. Chills shook her entire body; she was in the midst of a fever’s delirium. In her mind, she was back home. It was a forgivable mistake. Her parents’ had the same taste in architecture for as long as she had been alive. The cabin she now camped in was not unlike the one she had spent most of her childhood in. In the dark, with no one else around, the resemblance was even stronger. She walked through the house the same way she would have as a child, with silent steps, listening for others. Really, she was listening for him. She slid open the glass door and the cold night air washed over her. She walked down, down, onto the blue grass, onto her knees at the edge of the fairy ring. It was her own work, only days old, but she did not recognize it. The white caps sprouted up like bubbles from the dark dirt. They circled the house as a protective barrier. She got up and walked past them, her eyes trained on the forest. “Baikal!” She called out into the darkness, in mother tongue. “Where have you gone?” No response. She shivered. The cold air was daggers against her damp skin. Again, she cried out. There was only shadow. She began to feel confused, her memories catching up with her fever. She reached a hand behind her back, brushed against the scar that now marked it. Time floated. Even as she moved and her mind whirred, her eyes stayed trained on the treeline. She squinted as her eyes adjusted, and through the haze of her fever, thought she saw someone crouched over in the bushes, staring at her. She took a tentative step forward and her vision destabilized. In that half-second, the figure had disappeared and Lola felt as lost as ever. She thought of names she could call, things she might recognize. She thought of her favorite lakes and beaches, how long it would take to walk to them from home. Lola fell down on the grass. It was cold and wet. The fever was tightening. She looked up to the night sky and the scattered stars it held. She was reminded of snow falling against a dark sky. One of her earliest memories. That was when she had been the only child, her parent’s firstborn. She couldn’t remember what she was doing out in the plains, in the dead of winter, in the snow. She just knew the coolness of the snow brought something out of her. The freezing was familiar. Her first memory was the recollection of another earlier and forgotten memory. She wondered how far back it went. She stared at the stars, thinking they were snow, and hoped to see Baikal walking out of the blackness of space. Her heart ached. She felt the scar pulsing, an uneasy feeling in the veins of her wrists. She thought to call for Baikal again, but something strange happened instead. She whispered out for Ursula. The sky seemed to flicker, though it might have been fever. She noticed the moon, though it was easy to miss, and mostly dark. She heard a small buzzing in the back of her brain, small and nimble tentacles slipping down the back of her brain. She listened for the whispering. She was as accepting as she had been as a child, when Baikal had first picked her up from the water and warmed her face in his fur. She listened and Ursula began to speak. There are no human words for the things she spoke of. When Lola would eventually exit her fever, she did not bother to write them down. She remembered like she would any bedtime story. Ursula was telling her a story about her home in a sea before stars. Lola listened and looked into the dark and thought she might be there, too. Ursula spoke of her brothers and sisters under the sea, mostly dead, others dying. Ursula whispered around the edges of a name she did not speak. Instead, she spoke of the castle and its sea spires. The walls were made of pearl and ivory, sealed with sand and clay. Ursula told stories out of order and when she reached back too far, Lola felt something hot and sharp in her eye. She listened as though she were in a trance, staring up at the cold light of space. Ursula, with a strange edge in her trills, warned Lola that something large was stalking towards her at that very instant. At the same moment, June appeared in the doorway. She ran barefoot down the stairs, still half-asleep and more tired than scared. She jumped the last steps and jogged to be beside Lola, sweeping the area with a now practiced precision. “What happened? What did you see?” Her voice slurred slightly, drowsily. She squatted down beside Lola, getting dirt on her legs. Lola crawled backwards into the fairy ring, using one hand to point towards the forest and the other to grab June’s hand. Yes, there was definitely something moving around in there. It was large and moved unrestrained, perhaps unaware of its bulk. It was too dark to know much else. June let out a low whistle, stretching herself upwards. She started back inside, towards her gun. Lola followed, glancing back thrice in the thirty second walk. No more was revealed to her and eventually the woods grew silent. Lola said to June: “I wish it would snow.” June took aim from over the side of the patio. Lola said: “We’d need something stronger and a better reason to kill.” The round fired off anyway, but no cry was heard. Just the sound of heavy running, growing more distant by the second. June leaned the gun against the wall and her head against Lola’s bare shoulder. Her skin was chilled to the touch and it felt nice to Lola’s feverish body.

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(4/12) Elements''] It had stormed all day long, from sunrise to sunset, the sky changing colors from orange to blue and finally to purple - each shade muted and then lit up by the lightning that was never gone for longer than ten minutes at a time. The rain hammered down on the roof of the cabin, deafening at first and then just background noise. June pushed up buckets beneath the cracks that appeared in the ceiling. For most of the day, Lola sat watching the rain smack up against the glass of the bedroom window. Lola found she didn’t get bored anymore. A new and deep well of patience had sprung up within her. She could sit in one spot for hours at a time, just feeling the air on her skin. With the patience came the calm, a necessary form of self-soothing that she had to develop not to be driven mad by the psychophysical sensations accompanying possession. Watching the water droplets race kept her busy for hours, but it soon grew too dark to see the storm well and the rain was beginning to slow. She went downstairs. The night had been fairly benign. June was almost asleep on the couch, a half-read copy of Trout fishing in America splayed out on her chest. Micah was in the kitchen, scribbling down notes he would not show to anyone. The house was quiet. Lola turned on the kettle, slipped into the chair beside him. Micah looked up - casually swept a strand of her hair out of her face. He noticed that some of her hairs were turning black at the edges. Lola smiled, a little bit amused, mostly calm. She poured the boiling water into three cups with green tea and lavender sprigs. The sound of running water was different depending on its temperature. She noticed this and noticed that overhead, the last drops of rain had stopped but the sound of water falling into buckets could still be heard. The latter was closer, less rhythmic, more melodic. There was a knock at the door. All of them whipped around to it in a second. And at first, they thought they saw nothing at all. Dressed all in black, with dark skin and dark hair, all that was visible in the night’s storm was the glint of his eyes. He stood on the other side of the glass door, still mostly hidden even as their eyes adjusted. At night time, the glass became a mirror. As Lola cautiously treaded up to look, she saw mostly her own visage reflected back at her - messy hair, bloody lips, an evening dress. But what was not her was him. He stepped closer to the glass, tapped against it. He said something to the effect of “Hello, Lola Nikolav? You’re in a lot of danger.” Lola realized at that very moment that the door was unlocked. She crossed the threshold in a second, slamming against the glass in the rush. The boy on the other side did not even touch the handle, but leaned his arm against the door while he spoke to her. Standing right in front of him, she saw he was a good deal taller than her. He had to look down at her to make eye contact, which he did. “I didn’t intend to invite myself in. I was actually hoping you might come out here.” He said this low enough that only she heard it. As the others approached, he straightened back out, stepping further back into the darkness. He said, “But maybe you’d like to calm down first.” The tendrils had slipped out from between her shoulder straps, sat poised and ready to strike a few feet above her head. June said something to the effect of “Who the fuck is this supposed to be?” He raised an eyebrow to June, said nothing. This small act of contempt bothered Lola more than she could stand. The tentacles kicked and danced, while her own body remained rigid. He turned his attention back to her, looking a little sad, and the sadness looking a little affected. “My name is Ezekiel Cheruiyot. I was sent here to help you, if you’d let me.” Lightning flashed again in the background, though no thunder was heard. June was shaking her head before he had even finished his sentence. She had wrapped a hand around Lola’s arm, lowering her voice so only she could hear, afraid she wouldn’t listen. June hated this idea so much she thought it might kill her. The storm’s energy was getting to all of them, the electric air having infiltrated the house. All her hairs stood on end. She hated him, would not speak to him. But Lola’s tendrils had retreated back into her body. She spoke softly: “I don’t need your help. I can’t accept it.” “I thought you might say that,” Ezekiel said. Quick and quietly, he added, “They all do.” Lola, in a strange show of courtesy, pretended not to hear it. He went on: “Would it change your mind to know that you’re in hostile territory? And do you know that if you leave this forest again, you will not be able to return?” With no conscious thought, they all glanced back at the woods. Ezekiel got a bad look in his eyes, toying with a bandage on the edge of his hand. Micah’s eyes narrowed. “He’s been watching us for weeks,” Micah said. Ezekiel turned to him with a look of mock surprise. A small smile appeared on his face when he said, “That’s a nice birthmark you’ve got there.” At this, Micah paled. June glanced over, but he had instinctually covered his neck with his hand, concealing the mark on his mastoid bone. The two of them distracted, Ezekiel turned his attention back to Lola. He repeated himself: “I’ve been asked to protect you. I will bring you whatever you need for as long as you are out here. All I ask for in return is information.” “Why?” Lola asked, a little breathy. “I’d like to know you,” Ezekiel shrugged, “Do we have a deal?” “No,” Lola shook her head. “I’d like it if you stayed far away from me.” “I’ll give you time to think about it.” Ezekiel responded. He produced a card from his pocket, pressed it up against the glass. The static held it there. “Call me if you change your mind.” He walked back into the darkness. As soon as he faded from view, the storm started up again. Rain splattered up against the glass in a violent rush. Lola moved to unlock the door, retrieve the card, but was immediately called back. They’d retrieve it in the daylight. June ran to lock every other door in the house, ranting the whole time about how much water was getting in. Lola turned to Micah, examined the birthmark he’d been hiding. Three concentric circles tucked up behind his ear. You’d need to be right up against him to see it - or to already know what you were looking for.

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(5/12) Animals''] Something strange happened in the following days. The storm came and went; it brought sweet smells and a light coolness to the air. Lola felt romantic - even more than usual. She ventured into the forest much more often, this time in full control of her facilities. She would bring June and Micah with her often - whoever was currently on watch at the time. June was willing to go out at virtually any time. She had gotten more serious about hunting when it was not an urgent priority. Though she had never hunted before, she was quick to get into the character of. She dressed up in the clothes of Lola’s father, loose-fitting camouflage and heavy boots, a mask pulled up to her eyes and a hat pulled down to them. She had only one gun and only 500 rounds. It didn’t matter so much. She was a good shot. Lola and June would spend all day out on the hunt. Though it was the height of summer, the tree canopy could make the woods unbelievably dark and cold at times. For this reason, among others, they tried not to stay out for too long after nightfall. But one night, they had lost track of the time. They were in a field a good distance from the house just as the sun was setting. June pointed out how clear the sky looked then - it was the first time all week that there seemed to be no chance of rain. In only a couple of minutes, the stars would be out. Lola fell down into the grass. Flowers were pushing through the dirt. June knelt down beside her, sliding the rifle off her back. She smiled. They must’ve been at a higher altitude - the air was so light. The two of them felt a girlish playfulness they had not experienced in some time. The stars appeared one-by-one over their heads. They were unafraid. It may have been foolish - probably. It may have been a trick. Lola had brought rosemary sprigs in her pockets, braided yarrow in her hair, but they could only do so much against a willful enemy. This was a time of nameless enemies. They did not know what they even had to fear, let alone how to ward against it. The ignorance in the days of House was so dark that no light from the future could have touched it. It could not be made safer or less painful if you worked backwards in time. Lola’s cradle was locked from the outside. All this is to say the idiotic sense of immunity had no clear origin. They laid in that field for hours and carried it still even as they embarked on the long walk back. Under the shade of the trees, Lola could not see more than a foot in front of her eyes, stumbling often. Her bare legs caught on the shrubs and thorns; leaves got stuck in her long hair. June seemed to fare a little better, though she could see no clearer. She kept calling behind her to see if Lola was still there - she had no free hands. Lola coughed in response, running her fingers over her body in search of ticks. June shrugged - the night was only so long. She found it unlikely that the sun would rise before they could make it back home; if it did, then the problem would solve itself anyway. She stared into the dark ahead and began to see colors in her vision - floating microfauna on the surface of her eyeballs and burnt-in light against her retinas. The dark played tricks on her, so that when a small wispy light moved right in front of her, she did not immediately recognize it as real. It was only the sound of the earth shifting beneath its weight, the subtle change in the windstream, and the gentle breathing of the new animal that gave it away. Lola bumped into her, looking up from the places she’d been busy untangling. She saw too - a blinking and fading white light only meters away. Another joined it. Something had turned its head from profile, now looked at them straight on. It had white vapor for eyes. June pulled the gun from her shoulder at the first step, with a remarkable quickness to draw. Yet as the being stalked closer, she hesitated to pull the trigger. The eyes were only a few feet from the ground. The light in its eyes glowed brighter and confirmed it had the body of a deer - or at least the general shape of one. She looked to Lolly for confirmation to shoot it, knock the light out for good. Lola had no better idea of what was before her than June did, just a knot in her stomach. One by one, more small balls of light appeared around them. They came in pairs, sometimes in threes. June’s grip tightened. Lola walked in close behind her. They walked slowly and evasively away from the scene, scared to make sound in the quiet forest. Lola realized that June’s footsteps were the only things she could hear - there was no wind, no insects sounding off in the night. She began to walk a little faster. When they got around the edge of the mob, they had to walk backwards to keep their eyes on it. Lola remembered what Ezekiel had told her, which she had taken for a bluff: they were in hostile territory. She hallucinated the rest in the darkness. All the animals of the forest would rise against her. Nature would become Satan’s church. All of this seemed awfully real to her at the time and yet less of a priority than the inane stillness at her back. It was as though her senses had been deadened - she felt nothing within her at all, no connection to the creature she’d known as Ursula. Was it a trick of the forest? Why could she not will the tendrils or even talk to Her? The loneliness she felt in that instance scared her much more than the scene before her. June, ever the realist, did not have to worry about things like this. What she worried about was a low rumbling seeming to come from all directions and the quickened agitation in the sea of eyes. They were all at different heights, inches from the ground or meters. They seemed to flicker and trade places, bleed in, fade out. They only partly illuminated the faces and bodies in which they occupied. Whenever she focused in on just one, tried to identify the exact animal it may have been, the others all quickened their pace as if to take advantage of the distraction. She lost track of the first deer she had seen and after that could not identify a single form in front of her, just vague outlines of each. She tried to remember any wilderness preparation she had had in all her life, thought back to the manuals laying around back in the cabin. She knew they would not have a plan for this situation, but remembered you could not outrun a bear, and knew a bear may be in the crowd before her. She had a better chance of scaring them or playing dead. Delaying long enough, she fired rounds straight into the cluster. Everything that was hit screamed in the same voice. June jumped back, startled, but it was Lola who could take no more and then took off at a sprint. She dragged June along with her by the fabric of her shirt. June could normally run faster, but kept looking back and up. The light moved above them in the skulls of birds. She mixed it up with the starlight. She was out of breath with the exhilaration, but still tried to speak to Lola as they ran. These words tended to fail, because as stated before, it was the time of nameless enemies. Each time she came back from the brink, the most June could ever say was “That was some crazy shit, huh? What a weird thing to happen. Wow. What the fuck was that?” She said something like that now, louder, even less coherent with the sudden return of wind to the forest drowning out most of her speech. Lola’s reply was even less helpful. She had meant to share the thought she had earlier, to tell June that all the animals of the forest would turn against them, that they were surrounded on all sides. What she instead shared was bile with the earth, blood and black ichor pouring from the mouth in late discharge, her dress torn almost to shreds as thick and ropey tendrils burst from her back. June had been standing behind her and with miraculous instinct slammed to the ground just before she could be ran through with them. Lola kept running for a few steps as the force of the explosion pushed her forward, then to the ground as well. June crawled to get outside of their range, though she did not yet know what that range was. Mostly, she tried to get closer to Lola’s original body, praying it had not been torn apart from the pressure. She got around to the front of her, wiped the blood from her face with the sleeves of the jacket, secured both her hands around Lola’s own and pulled her to her feet despite the massive weight and frenzied movement of the tentacles. Once she was standing, leaning against June, they seemed to calm down somewhat. She started to stuff them back into her body with a new forcefulness, learning to pull a muscle she could only push before. Thinking of it now, aided by knowledge, names, and language, the two of them could recognize in retrospect that the explosion was the result of the deadening field that the forest mass had produced. It had dampened Lola’s connection to Ursula and thus squashed her ability to fight them effectively. This was, for one, mostly unnecessary. Lola had not yet evolved to control the movements of her body and could not hope to use them for serious combat against a malicious enemy. This was also - at the time - completely inscrutable to them. They didn’t know what a deadening field was or how it affected them. They didn’t understand that once outside the range of it, the energy that had been repressed would emerge all at once in a violent outburst comparable to a bomb. They didn’t have this knowledge at the time and so they added “spontaneous human combustion” to the list of things they could not predict or defend against, another thing to worry about in the middle of the night when Lola’s breath hitched or she tossed around too much. At any rate, they did not know they had just exited the deadening field, and still ran the entire way home. They didn’t notice if they were being followed or not, though they probably weren’t. They broke through the clearing, June arriving first and immediately pulling Lola along as if scared the trees themselves would cut her off from her - not a terrible assumption to make. The cabin glowed like a lighthouse through the dark night. They jogged into the fairy circle, limped the rest of the way. Micah was smoking on the steps. He stood up as they approached, looking more than a little afraid. June opened her mouth to speak when she suddenly looked past him to find Ezekiel in one of the porch chairs, with one of Micah’s cigarettes in between his fingers. Lola saw too. He waved. She stomped past all three of them without saying a word, leaving a small trail of blood as she did. “I didn’t call him,” Micah spoke beneath his breath, “What happened to you?” They didn’t yet have the language for it. June thought she might vomit from running so hard. “Hell of a deer season,” she coughed.

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(6/12) Human Enemies''] They did not see Micah often after that. He never said when he was leaving or made a big show of reappearing. But oftentimes Lola would wake and find the house empty and dark, all the other rooms but her own deserted. Only once did she catch him on the way out. It was the dead of night, but Lola was too hot to sleep. She laid in bed listening to the sounds of the forest, the soft rhythm of June’s breath. As she listened closely, she heard a gentle and irregular tapping. She realized she was hearing pebbles landing against the window of the adjacent room. Careful not to show herself, she peeked out the window to see Ezekiel standing in the garden. Micah was leaning out of his window. The two of them had a conversation which she could not make out. Micah disappeared from the window. She heard him walking around through the wall that separated them, footsteps down the stairs, and the glass door sliding open. Micah walked out into the garden and followed Ezekiel into the woods. Lola did catch him on the way home, several times. In the shining midday, he’d emerge from the tree line, trudging over the ring and up the stairs like he hadn’t slept in days. He came back with books and artifacts. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, but his expression was manic and bright. Lola watched him enter from the porch. Often, she’d spot Ezekiel in the shade. He would watch to see Micah cross the threshold, but came no further. He would not approach the house while she was inside it. These disappearances went on nearly every other day over the course of two weeks. On a day where Micah been missing for over 24 hours, Lola sat up in wait by the edge of the ring. The sun was setting when Micah emerged from the woods. She only paused to see if he was injured, which he was. After that she strode past him straight to where Ezekiel had flickered in and out of view. As she approached, he was already walking away into the woods. “This is underhanded as fuck, you know,” She called after him. He stopped, looked over his shoulder at her. “I was already upfront with you. I didn’t have to be,” There was a slight edge to his voice. “It’s not cute or clever what you’re doing here. It’s just mean.” Lola’s hands clenched and unclenched. Ezekiel spun around. “Mean?” He raised his eyebrows, “You think I’m the one being cruel, Lola? I’ve your best interests at heart.” Her voice came out like she had been choking. “I don’t even know who you are.” “Come find out. He has. Why don’t you ask him?” Ezekiel tapped his watch, a black bangle half covered by his sleeve, “I need to go. Do you need anything while I’m out? Anything at all.” She thought for a second. “Conditioner. Bandages. Bleach.” He gave her a thumbs up, turning back to the woods. “Do you live out here?” Lola asked. “Ha! Good one.” He disappeared into the trees. … A few days earlier, June had found a 7/11 cup in the trash. It had been her last straw. She caught Micah as he was walking into the den. When he saw her, he made a point to walk past her. She blocked his way. “You know he’s using you,” June said in a measured tone. Micah leaned his head back like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. He sighed, pushing her out of the way. It was the first time he’d ever touched her. “Hey!” She said much louder than she meant to, “I don’t care if you hate me, you don’t get to switch up like this. It’s not right. What have you been doing with him?” “Love is melting your fucking brain.” He sighed. This was such a strange thing for him to say that June stood momentarily shocked. She wasn’t even sure he was talking to her. This nonreaction only irritated him more. His voice got low and uncomfortably close. “Yes, you. Stop acting so damn smug. You think I’m jealous of you? You could not pay me to date Lola again. You can have her.” June smiled, her eyes burning, “You’re bitter. You’ve been bitter. I don’t care. You don’t get to betray us because of it.” “Nobody’s betraying shit,” he reached for a cigarette even though they were inside. He fumbled within his bag for several moments as June went on. “What do you do when you go with him? I know you’re mad, okay, I know you’re not that happy to be here. But you don’t even know him. How can we be that bad that you’d go off and do this?” “Do what?” He found a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth. “Snitch.” She said plainly. Micah lit up. June half expected him to blow the smoke in her face, though he exhaled to the side. He seemed to think for a minute. “I’m not mad. I feel bad for you. She’s not gonna love you back the way you want her to. She’s incapable of it; she’s inhuman.” “Lola is the nicest person I’ve ever met,” June responded. “She’s just cute. It’s cute that she’s ethereal and uses dreams to make decisions. But it’s not a basis for a good relationship. She’s dead serious about all she does in a way you never will be and she looks down on you for that. She’s not human. She thinks you’re silly.” He had clearly been thinking of this for a long time. He took another drag, said: “She’s crazy, June. When it hits you, you won’t be able to ignore it anymore.” “Didn’t you meet in the psych ward?” She asked. He walked away. … Lola followed Micah into the house. He dropped his duffel bag by the door, by the gun. Lola said, “Maybe we should talk about this.” Micah looked at her sideways. “Anything you want.” June entered from the other side of the room. “Not her,” Micah said. “All of us,” Lola closed her eyes, “Please? Micah, I’m sick. I don’t have the energy to fight with you. Can you just tell me what’s going on here? Are you doing this to spite me?” “I think you should give him a chance,” Micah rolled his shoulder. He kept looking between them as if scared of an ambush. June crossed the threshold so as to not linger in his periphery, though she secretly wished to linger in the periphery of every person she met. She listened to his inflection more than his words. “I’m sorry if this comes across as critical but I think you’re both acting really dumb about this whole thing,” Micah went on, “It just feels incurious. You don’t intend to stay up here forever, do you? Don’t you want to know what’s going on? Lola, really - what’s your plan?” Lola closed the glass door, pressing her body against it. She was humming to herself quietly. A subtle blush rose to her face, “I think there is a plan. I know what you mean, I guess, I understand why you would think that way. I do feel as though there’s something important I have to do. It’s just that I can’t think of it yet. I feel like I’m forgetting something important, yeah.” Micah’s whole demeanor softened. He started to speak just as Lola looked back up at him. Her stare made him stop dead. “I don’t think you know what it is, though,” she said, “I’d be shocked if you knew what it was.” He did not respond to this. June chimed in, though she felt she was intruding in some dark and shared space between the two of them. She spoke anyway, to ask where he really went at night. Micah explained that it was mostly surveying the forest, but that it varied by the day. He corrected himself to say that it was mostly work. Ezekiel took him along on jobs, gathering data and clearing up the blight of the earth. Ezekiel would take Micah out of the woods the same way he himself appeared in and out of them - instantaneously, with a small click of the watch he wore beneath his clothes. That part of it was too large a question for the conversation and so it was left out at the time. June asked what they talked about. She asked the important question now: “What did you tell him?” Her voice sounded whiny to herself; she did not know if it sounded the same to them. Micah shrugged, rolled his shoulder again. “I honestly don’t remember,” He said, “Really basic shit.” “You said we’re incurious. Don’t you wonder why he wants to know? Where’s your fear?” June crossed her arms. “I think it’s just his job.” “His employers, then. Why do they want to know?” “You should talk to him,” Micah cut her off, “It’s more than I can get into. I think you should speak to him. He’s polite.” “Are you mad at me?” Lola asked. Micah actually laughed at the abruptness of it. Lola didn’t. She said she was serious and he had to think about it for a second. June watched on. After a moment, he conceded. “It was fucked up of you to bring us both here,” Micah said, “It’s uncomfortable.” “That’s not fair,” Lola said, “Do you even remember how it happened? It wasn’t my choice. I needed you both and you were both there. I didn’t have time to plan it. If either of you want to leave now, I won’t keep you. I’ll be fine by myself.” “No you won’t,” they said in unison. “Then I won’t be! That doesn’t mean you need to stay here. I’m not anyone’s jail.” Lola threw her hands up. “I’m staying,” June said. “I might go, then,” Micah ran his fingers through his hair, “I need to like, get my GED and shit.” June nodded, the thought appealing to her very much. Lola pressed her thumb to her lip. "I wonder if it would follow you." She said quietly, mostly to herself. When she looked up, June saw her eyes were watery and silver in the light. June saw that small scales had been forming around Lola's neck and wrist. She saw this and began to feel itchy.

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(7/12) Barrenness''] There was something wrong with the forest. She noticed it little by little, piece-by-piece. Of course, she had already known something was wrong with the forest, based on the light-mass she had encountered before - and based on the lumbering sounds she heard at night - and the way there were scratch marks on all the trees of the cabin’s perimeter. The problem, upon closer examination, was that all the animals of the forest were now just //pretending// to be animals. Lola noticed this as she sat alone in the glen, unwisely. A marmot crawled out from beside a stream and beneath its rockpile. She saw the small glint in its eye. Another emerged, then another. This was not unusual, as they were known to travel in family groups. The one stood watch as the others went to the grass to feed. But it was clear to Lola that they were only pretending to feed. They bent down to eat the grass but did not actually tear it from the dirt. They pinned down insects but ended up releasing them soon after. When she first noticed this, she began to see it everywhere. The birds flew all day and all night without stopping to rest. The deer would bend their heads down to the river but they would not drink. They all went through the motions of the lives they had once had, but now drew their strength from a separate and internal engine that defied their nature. She could not keep herself from crying when she saw the dead robins in their nest. Their mother had only pretended to take care of them. They had starved to death without ever learning to fly. The others noticed the changes to the forest; Micah said a great deal of the surveying had been to track the ecological impact of the high-strangeness zone on the space it had landed in. He pointed out some things to Lola that she had not noticed before: there were less flowers and fruits in the forest because the pollinators did not stop to see them. The flowering plant families all stood clustered close together with no animals to disperse their seeds. Parts of the woods became sickly and dead when no nutrients were recycled back into their soil. Other parts became dense and overgrown when they were not grazed upon. The insect population had exploded, ticks and weevils clinging to their clothes regularly without their natural predators finding them so enticing anymore. Micah explained this with the detachment of a scientist, a manner he had clearly picked up just recently. Lola cried in front of him and he didn’t understand. Neither June nor Micah could comprehend blaming her for the devastation. They did not understand when she blamed herself. Undeterred from things like sentimentality, Ezekiel understood her perfectly. On a morning that the sky shone pink from the sunrise, a crowd had formed around the ring. It was mostly rabbits, with some foxes and deer scattered throughout. Lola looked out at them through the glass door with harsh dread. Ezekiel appeared at the treeline and pushed past them. He stepped over the mushroom ring like he hadn’t noticed it was there, leaving all the animals by the edge of it. When he looked up to see Lola already watching, he mouthed out “They’re all here for you!” Maybe he thought that was funny. She found him very disturbing at times and realized much later that he was trying to get even with her. At the time, in such an isolated place, Lola was not aware of the fear she inspired in people just by being in their presence. Micah had long since become immune to it and now failed to react in most instances; June seemed to have never felt it at all. Ezekiel did a good job at hiding it, but was never quite immune. He always thought she was doing it on purpose. But that morning, he had brought what she asked of him. Really, he’d brought what June had asked of him. The rifle was slung over one shoulder. He wore gloves the entire time - the first time she had seen them on him - as if he was hesitant to handle the gun with his bare hands. A medium-sized guitar case rested on his other shoulder. He placed both of them down on her kitchen table, began unpacking the other equipment he had brought with him: a stethoscope, a microscope, needles, a thermometer, a camera, a journal, and several large tomes. She had not asked him to bring these. He looked at her apologetically, told her that he would make it as painless as he could manage. Painless, but not pleasant. The sleepiness of the early morning made it all a bit more bearable and it made Lola a bit more honest than she may have been otherwise. She sat on the porch with him, though the animals still crowded the ring’s circumference. They ignored them as Lola showed him all the tricks of her body she had not shown the others. Most of it was fairly upsetting to witness. She popped her nails off and Ezekiel watched as they grew back a dark black color, sharpened into short points. She showed him where her hair was changing color at the edges. She thought for a second and then disappeared into the house, coming back with a large jar of small guppies. She explained that she had been vomiting them into the toilet before but pitied them, so she began to keep them as pets. Ezekiel asked her how attached she was to them. When she answered “Not at all”, he stuffed the jar into his bag to take home. He said he wished he’d brought imaging equipment, that he would’ve loved to run X-rays on her if he was able. “Do I get to know about you?” Lola asked, “What do you think you’re doing here, how did you find me, should I keep repeating myself until I wear you down?” He said he would let her in on it very shortly. He explained, rather sheepishly, that he had never had to explain it before. He told her that knowing wouldn’t make this any easier. She asked him why he was here at all, if that was the case. When he did not answer, she asked him “Easier for who?” It was June who saved him, inadvertently. She had woken up later than usual; she picked up the gun while still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She released the magazine with one hand, examined it. The glass door was open; she called out from the kitchen partway in greeting, but mostly out of anxiety. Lola hurried back in to meet her. Ezekiel hung in the doorway. “It’s nice, right?” He asked softly. “Did you see the crowd this morning?” Lola leaned in close to her, then tilted her head towards the door. June caught a glimpse of the animals for the first time. She joined the two of them on the porch with the gun on her lap. “Fuck are we gonna do about this?” June asked. Ezekiel stood up, gestured for the rifle back. June gave it up reluctantly. He walked down the steps and towards the circle. Lola cried out for him to stop too late. He nailed the deer straight in its neck. Its body crumpled instantly, but a silver silhouette of it remained in all their vision. It moved amorphously, stretching and rolling until it eventually returned into a rough ball shape that sunk into the earth and disappeared. The other animals did not startle or scatter at the violence. Lola frowned, looking more upon the dead doe than anything else. “Don’t do that again,” Lola said. Ezekiel looked up, briefly shocked that she had just tried to give him an order. After a moment, he shrugged it off, placing the gun back into June’s hands. He moved back up the steps to Lola. “See how the others didn’t even flinch? The hivemind has a central source. It branches out and the nodes don’t connect,” He paused, trying to process, “I had to test it.” “If we kill the source, will the rest of them be free?” Lola asked. “You’ve seen this before?” June had clicked the safety back on after he failed to. He clearly was not ready to explain where he had seen it. He looked back to the gun - an assault rifle, semi-automatic, clearly not intended for deer. “You need to cut it off at the source. Don’t bother hunting. I have to go,” He added the last part without even pretending to check his watch. June clicked her tongue, still half-asleep. She’d been woken from a dream of a flood. June did not like Ezekiel being where she could not watch him. She did not like the new friendliness that had been developing. But this morning she did not say anything in protest; her fear of it had receded. She sensed the impermanence of this union on that glittering morning. She sensed something they would not resolve for as long as he wore that watch. Lola watched as he collected what was now his - guppies and blood samples, hair and spit, ichor. Her heart beat a little irregularly to see them go. She had to believe that he really wanted to help her. In that instance, she forced herself to remember how gentle he’d been when he put the needle in her arm. How he had listened when she spoke about Baikal. As he walked away, she thought this kind of leniency towards him might get her killed. She thought dying while giving her murderer the benefit of doubt might make her a saint. She thought of this often, even as a child, and it biased her more strongly towards patience than ever before. She thought of it now and hoped that her sainthood might erase the awful histories lodged in her spine.

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(8/12) Obstacles''] The fireflies came out at twilight. The insects of the forest seemed to be unaffected by the gleam and still acted as insects. Lola willed them into the ring - they came up on the porch and fell into mason jars. There were more of them than she had ever seen on that night. She took one of the jars and brought it back inside. June leaned back on the couch, picking at the guitar. It had clearly been handmade for someone. It looked ancient, styled with turquoise and emerald, but they could find no more information about it. She kept playing the same notes over and over again - the Andalusian cadence up and down the fretboard. She was completely immersed in the work. Her hunting hat was pulled over her eyes, blocking out almost everything else in the room. Lola put the lightning jar on the couch arm beside June, who did not look up but smiled from beneath the brim. Micah was reading on the couch opposite her. It was an older demonology tome, an actual medieval copy. Ezekiel had brought him for it, had insisted he read it just as much as he insisted it not be taken so seriously. It was outdated, apparently. That should’ve been obvious. Ezekiel himself leaned against the wall besides the lit fireplace. The fireplace was lit despite the summer heat because Lola had been freezing and because she had wanted to burn sage over top of it. All the windows were open, letting the sound of wind and a lot of spiders in. There were no more bird sounds from the forest during the day, but they could still hear the cicadas at night. The faint hum had begun at the edge of twilight. Micah seemed as though he might fall asleep right there, with slow and labored movements of the neck and wrists, but Ezekiel kept talking to him in a low voice. June only listened faintly at the time, devoting most of her focus to the song. She recognized he was speaking about witchcraft in the Middle Ages, then about the magicians in the pharaoh's house, then Ecclesiastes 10. June had decided he was not anyone’s threat tonight. Once she decided this, she too felt comfortable enough to fall asleep right on the couch as if she were a child. Her hands still moved semi-autonomously, but her eyes were drifting shut. When Lola came back into the living room, June placed the guitar down on the rug and laid her head in her lap. Lola ran her fingers through her hair and June fell asleep almost instantly. However, Lola kept speaking from right above her. The sounds of the room and all the talk of magic continued as she fell asleep. She came in and out of consciousness; the voices around her seeped into her dreams. Again, she dreamed of water. She stood knee-deep in the green river at dusk. The water was clear enough that she could see her bare feet half-buried in the pebbles of the riverbed. Little minnows darted through the rushing water. The sound of the stream where she stood was deafening. It was compounded with a dull rhythm that she could not place. Her view was fixed downward, still. Her hair - longer than it ever had been in the waking world - fell in black streaks across her vision. The edges of her linen dress had grown dark where they touched the stream. The fish of the river reflected starlight in their scales. They were blinding silver. There were more of them in the riverbed than she had ever seen in one place. Her view angled upwards with no conscious choice, over to the edges of the river. The still-living bodies of the fish washed up on the shore. They thrashed in the dirt. The whole forest was covered with them. Back in the river, an eel wrapped itself around her ankle. The river turned silver and black as it flooded. June kicked the eel from her leg and hiked the dress up further, stepping onto a small stone jutting out of the water. She stood for a moment unmolested. She looked skywards and saw the black star, a small hole burned into her vision. It hung heavy against the twilight. She squinted, disbelieving. These were not her stars. They were older. At the midpoint between water and sky, there lie a forest. It was quickly darkening. June had no flame, knew she had not long to escape it. She looked into the trees and was surprised to see a woman standing half-concealed behind a tree. Her skin was pale and colourless. Long blue hair flowed out from beneath one-half crown and down all the way to her hips. On the visible half of her face, her one eye stood wide and unblinking. She stood deathly still. June took a half-step closer to see better and lost her balance on the rock moss. She plunged backwards into the river. June jumped up, scaring everyone in the room. Groggily, with extreme dryness in the back of her throat, she asked how long she had been out. As it turned out, thirty seconds had passed.

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(9/12) Illusions''] The nightmare hung on the edge of her memory, without substance but with lingering thought. June woke up to a room dark and empty. She did not know where she was. She could not tell whether her eyes were opened or closed. It was muscle memory that sprung her from the bed in half panic. But that reflex had been trained for a different bedroom. When she reached for the door and found only the wall, a gripping claustrophobia begun to take hold. She fumbled around in the darkness, praying a doorknob would appear. It was only when she let the light of the hallway blind her did she remember whose house she was in, whose hallway this was, whose bedroom. But as she turned to look back, she did not see Lola. She walked down the hallway and still did not see Lola, just doors. Behind the doors, there were rooms whose darkness seemed to scurry and pulse. In the back of her skull, she thought that there were more doors in this hallway than she remembered. She had bright thoughts of things crawling in and out of the doorways and disappearing into others. Was this a dream or a memory? Behind the doors, she did not see Lola. She made it to the steps and made out the pieces of a conversation that did not reassure her. “The visualization- when you have it - is it more or less vivid than when you imagine something on your own?” A voice she did not recognize. “It’s definitely blurrier. Sometimes it’ll replay itself, or get stuck in a loop, and then it gets clearer over time. The visuals aren’t common. I don’t like to have them.” Micah’s voice, probably. “Why?” “They’re just unsettling. It was really bad when I was younger. I’d see them whenever I closed my eyes. I couldn’t sleep unless I was sedated.” “From what I’ve heard, the childrearing is the most difficult part. The priests have to teach kids not to flinch.” It was Ezekiel’s voice. It took June several moments to piece to remember who Ezekiel was. “I don’t know if this is universal, but it definitely felt like they were scaring me on purpose. I didn’t have any defense against it. That’s why I liked Lola. She’s been protected her whole life and when we were close, she pulled me into the sphere. Made me this bracelet and the nightmares went away.” June was down the stairs now. She watched them in the kitchen, talking over the counter. Micah was wired up to his headset. Ezekiel played with a camera as he spoke. He looked up as June stood in the threshold. June saw his lips move in greeting, but did not hear the sound. This unnerved her greatly. Micah slid a cup across the table. The sound of the cup sliding across the table was delayed by several seconds. There was a faint glimmer in her vision - oil slick colors. She tried to tune back into the conversation, but it sounded further away than it had been upstairs. She focused, very hard. She realized they were now talking to her directly and she had missed most of it, realized more alarmingly that she had replied but could not remember what she had said. “Why are you tweaking right now?” Micah asked her, not looking straight on. She didn’t mark it as an insult. If it wasn’t concern, it was fear. “Don’t give her a hard time.” Ezekiel scolded him, “She’s having a night terror.” This wasn’t true. June knew she was awake. It was everything else that was wrong. Ezekiel was eyeing her cautiously. He didn’t want to put his hands on her, clearly, didn’t want to even take them off the camera. But he looked ready to do //something//, which for all she knew could have been worse. “Where is Lola?” June asked. “I thought she was with you?” Micah responded, scanning the room as if he might have missed her. “She’s not. She’s not in the house.” June swallowed roughly. “We’ve been here all night,” Ezekiel said, “She didn’t leave. At least not through the front door.” He walked over to the window, which did nothing. You couldn’t see more than a foot out of it this time of night. “She’s not upstairs,” June said slowly, “She’s not here. You say she’s not outside. So where can she be?” The basement. “We don’t have a fucking basement,” Micah said, crossing over to it before she could. Nevertheless, the door was there. It was hidden behind a corner, nestled into the side of the wall that held the story stairs. The door was wide open. The stairs led into the darkness. Though Micah had gotten, he stood a good deal off from them. It was June who stood just at the top of them, hand hovering by the door. She stared into the dark for what felt like a very long time. “Ezekiel, can you see it?” Micah asked with the same nervous edge. Ezekiel did not respond. The flash of his camera ran out, agitating the both of them. “What’s up?” Lola walked into the room. June jumped badly. She’d been caught in the dark spiral of paranoia and the dread-thoughts that accompanied Lola’s return only plunged her deeper. June found herself examining the wrists, the hair, the eyes. She could not overcome the secret suspicion in her head - that this was not the girl she had known. Lola was smiling placidly. “Where did she just come from?” Micah whispered to her. He felt it too, or was trying to freak her out worse. She couldn’t tell. Ezekiel pressed the shutter on the camera. The figure lit up bright white for a glistening second and then was gone. June slumped against the wall, covering her face with her hands. She desperately wanted the sun to rise. From upstairs, a voice called out “June!” And upstairs, Lola had woken up beneath her bed, arm in mouth, mouth filling with blood. She’d bitten herself down nearly to the bone without waking up. When she did, her surroundings had been dark and suffocating. She did not know where she was. She felt as though she were a shark in a fish bowl. When she crawled out from beneath the bed, the sensation did not go away. A trail of blood followed her. At this point, she would have been more surprised if it hadn’t. She called out for June when she found the bed was empty. She found this mostly by touch. There was no light in the room, no light at all. “Juuuune, what the fuck?” She called out. She had a splitting headache. Only seconds later, June pushed the door open. Though the hallway light was on, it seemed to not even enter the room. Lola walked into the light’s threshold. June didn’t flinch at the sight, even as Lola pressed a hand up to her bloodied lips and spit a pointed tooth into them. She looked to June for any indication of what was going on, what had happened when she’d been out. She got nothing at all. June led her downstairs, ignoring that the hallway had more doors than it used to. Lola wet a towel from the kitchen and began to remove the blood. She sat on the floor with her back against the couch. After a second of consideration, she crawled forward to light the fireplace. She had wanted to ward against something. She wanted, really, to go check on the mushroom ring. She was sure she would find it broken in parts. “Status?” She asked faintly. Micah picked up on it, nodding his head to where June now stood - again at the top of the basement stairs. “We have a basement now,” He shrugged. Lola flinched. Though she didn’t think she could stand right then if she had wanted to, she said, “We should probably leave.” She, without meaning to, had turned to Ezekiel. He was still messing with his camera, trying to get a good shot of the place. It kept coming up blank. When he realized she was looking at him, his hand shot to his wrist in a nervous tic she was coming to recognize. “I don’t have the clearance to relocate you,” He said slowly, “Only to archive or commit. You wouldn’t enjoy it.” “What about them?” She said. “What?” June snapped her head back so fast she got whiplash. Ezekiel gave a small shake of his head. There were the sound of heavy footsteps overhead and the fire went out. June moved away from the stairs, closer to where Lola was curled up on the floor. She noticed first the tendrils creeping out of Lola’s head, disguising themselves as black streaks in her hair. Larger tendrils flicked in the air behind her, extending out from the top of her dress. Lola pressed the wet towel back to her face, gnawed at it. The hunger seemed to hit her all at once. (click: ?page)[== The footsteps continued quadrupedaly. Lola listened close and was sure she now heard them from below. The lights in the house began to flicker. Ezekiel turned the camera light on without much fuss just as they went out entirely. (click: ?page)[== “Relax,” he said as the footsteps got closer. The camera was still fucked up, though. The light wouldn’t stay. He took flashes in bursts. In between glimpses of light, Lola stumbled back to her feet. As her body shifted upright, there was the sound of water hitting the ground as if an aquarium had been emptied. (click: ?page)[== The camera caught the tentacles snapping into action. Lola didn’t need the light to see by; she could feel the thing drawing closer. She had been ready for it to walk up from the basement. Then the room span so quickly she got vertigo. (click: ?page)[== The next time the camera flashed, they were looking down a dark hallway. (click: ?page)[== (It should go without mentioning that this hallway did not actually exist in the cabin.) (click: ?page)[== The walls were decorated with pearl and hair. The camera flashed on and off. Steady and light footsteps made their way towards them. The figure emerged slowly from the darkness, its toothy head the size of Lola’s whole body. Its eyes the size of saucers. Each step was caught on tape. (click: ?page)[== Closer. (click: ?page)[== Closer, still. (click: ?page)[== The bloodthirsty tendrils made their way towards its neck and the hallway collapsed in on itself. (click: ?page)[== The lights came back on all at once. June screamed as though she had been unable to before, fell forward as if she had been frozen, which she had. Micah just looked around, unsure if anyone else had even seen that. “Fuckin’ piece of shit,” Ezekiel muttered to himself, hitting the camera a few times, “I took out a loan for this.” Lola was breathing heavily, still poised, but with tendrils withdrawn. She moved towards where the basement had been and found it once again nonexistent. She ran out the backdoor to the garden, walking carefully around the perimeter of the ring. She found it unbroken. She vowed to reinforce it just as soon as she could. She looked up at the woods. The first light of morning was creeping through them. She walked back inside, sniffling. “Did you get any of that?” She asked Ezekiel. She had meant to tease him, but he didn’t seem to notice. He showed her the camera’s gallery. Only three pictures showed anything but pitch black. They had caught the face of it. June was sitting on the edge of the fireplace with her head in her hands. Lola rushed over to her, still holding the camera. “You’re not crazy,” she said quietly, “You’re not crazy, it was real, it actually happened.” Lola meant this to be reassuring. But it was June who had never doubted her eyes for even a second, who placed full faith in her senses. The impossibility of what she saw was what stunned her. This was a harder thing to reassure. Across the room, Ezekiel seemed to object. “Well, it wasn’t. It didn’t actually get inside. Just the aura. A powerful aura, though. Really noteworthy. Really, really noteworthy. But incapable of physical harm,” He was writing something down on the palm of his hand. Lola considered this, looking down at the self-inflicted bite marks on her arm. They were already scabbing over. June was trembling slightly, but flexed her fingers in and out of fists, slowed her breathing. Lola spoke lower, thought differently. “It’s not going to hurt me,” She said so that only June could hear, “And it’s definitely not going to hurt you. We’ll stay bound to this Earth and unmoved by extraterrestrial forces.” June took hold of her bloodied hand, drawing circles by the nails that now looked more like claws.

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(10/12) Darkness''] I’d like to tell this part of the story alone, if that’s okay? I’ll even write in first person. This is what happened to me. This is what I did that night. I was in search of a way to bring it closer to me. I had gotten tired of being yanked around by it, of the visions coming to me at their own leisure, and half-legible whispers. They had gotten to me, both the half-thoughts and the increasing scrutiny I faced for what little I could tell. I felt ignorant and in the dark about my own body and my own life. I felt like an animal - that I was an animal within an animal. I wanted the fruit of knowledge. I went on old familiar ways. Baikal had come to me first. All the creatures of the dark had been forthcoming. I watched them above my mobile before I had even learned to sit up. I didn’t have a choice when it first happened. But as I got older, I learned the methods of induction and enticement. On that day, I started with facsimile. Old tricks. I sat in the dark for a long time with my hands bound behind my back so I could be more open to the possibilities. I drank salt water. I arranged the garden’s herbs so that they spelled out names I thought I knew. I crossed out vowels and arranged the consonants so that they were pleasing to me. I drew out the shapes in black tipped markers against my skin, pleaded with June to fill in the spots of my body I could not reach. I went for the razor blades and was pleaded with to stop before I could even hold them. I sat and I prayed. I did headstands against the wall until I was dizzy. I gathered 12 rocks from the riverbed and put them in my dress’s pockets. It had started to work. I felt I was trudging a long road and that the road was starting downhill. The further I got, the easier it became to continue. And as I looked down at the road from its peak, I saw it for what it was. And I began to feel cute. I wanted my knives back. The prayers and the crystals had been fun at first but I knew I had found something deeper now, something darker. I was drawing closer to it and to get any further would require a greater sacrifice. I couldn’t draw blood in that house; the others were watching too closely. But the desire was so strong within me that I woke up with bite marks on my arm and blood in my mouth. And I guess that was good enough for it. I smeared the blood across the mirror and waited in the dark of the bathroom. After some time, though I can’t say how much, I saw the surface of the mirror shimmering like water. It was reflecting a light from within it. In the dark, I turned the bathtub faucet on and sunk into the cold water still clothed. I did not hit the bottom of the bathtub. I just kept sinking down. There was algae in the abyss. Little glowfish swam around me and they looked just like stars. They were more or less surprised to see me. Beyond them, black against black, much larger shapes shifted. On miraculous instinct, I shut my eyes. In the next instant, they were upon me, all around me. I squeezed my palms against my shut eyes until I saw colors appear. There was pulsation through the water. There was the feeling of something wrapping around my leg. I recognized the touch. This was Ursula and another, which could have been # but could just have easily been more of Ursula. I could not bring myself to look and to see because I knew I would not come back if I did; there’d be no more of me left at all. I knew where I was based on touch alone. I felt the touch. And then I felt myself touching. It was like I was hitting myself. It was like I was licking myself. I felt my own tendril wrapped around my own leg and my own leg tucked within my own tendrils. Then, dreadfully, I felt the sensation all along the length of her body - a length I would estimate to be the distance of the Earth to its moon. I screamed and swallowed water. It got no easier. I became aware of the entrance some miles above me - a little pocket of light to lead me back to the house. I did not open my eyes to see it - I did not open any of them. I simply became aware of it. It was at that point that I realized what I had been experiencing as “instinct” was really just //awareness//. It was not foreknowledge. It was simply knowledge that was not mine. It belonged to Ursula. Under this excruciating pressure, that awareness flooded back with the force of flood. I was lucky that my head did not explode, probably because she was still holding onto me. I did not retain even half of what I knew then - most of it was too alien to consider. But I got what I needed. This was how I became aware of the pantheon and the partition, like sped-up footage against the back of closed eyelids. This was how I came to know and remember @. Scio. And another name he now goes by that I still am scared to say. I saw it for what it was. In that water I was closer to the kingdom than I ever had been. But the kingdom was still far, far away. And I was inconsolable. I was a shipwreck. Still, I tried to gather myself, tendrils covering my eyes, water flooding my lungs. I asked Ursula what I was supposed to do. What could I do? But I guess I already knew the answer. Even with my eyes closed, I could tell she was looking at me funny. In spite of it all, I laughed. I coughed bubbles into the abyss. She unfurled from me and I clawed up the side of the bathtub, coughing my lungs out. I rolled onto the bathroom tile, soaking it beyond hope. I was so cold that its middling temperature seemed to burn me. Water was pouring from me in all directions. It was brackish. I slowly realized the dull pounding was not just in my head, but at the door. June was outside, scared out of her wits. I let her in. She saw the black water of the bathtub and pulled the drain without a second thought. The water had condensed onto the bathroom mirror, making my blood drip down in pink and impotent streaks. The waters receded and there was only porcelain at the bottom.

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(11/12) Illness''] What I had gotten for my trouble was a chain of blue rings around my body and two lungs filled with blood. There were suction cup marks all across the skin that the tentacles had touched. There was a deep and low rumble in my throat from all the salt water I had swallowed. I coughed blood, vomited blood, pissed blood. I’d had days as bad as this before, but none so relentless. I waited each day for the symptoms to let up, then realized they might never let up again. This was a hard thing to grasp. I now had a burning fire in my head. @ came through to me in embers. I no longer lit the fireplace because it made me too paranoid. I don’t think he knew about me back in the summer, I don’t think he levied any attacks. The burning awareness was dangerous all on its own and now impossible to forget. That’s why I didn’t tell Micah what I had seen. But I told June because June is hard-headed and no pearl diver. Because June needed an explanation as to why I had locked myself in the bathroom and my health immediately started failing, much worse than it had been failing already. It seemed less as though my illness was actually getting worse and more that I was no longer numb to it. I couldn’t brace myself against it in the way that I could. I began to experience anxiety attacks for hours at a time. At night, terrors. I experienced several screaming fits, apparently, though I don’t remember having them. I just remember the sensations that led up to long periods of darkness. One particularly bad one was the familiar slickness in my back traveling up my spine to my neck. I felt as though my throat was being choked from within the layers of skin and blood, but that’s not why I panicked. I panicked when it traveled up further, right behind my face. I felt it slithering right on top of my skull and physically wrapping itself around my brainstem. I was so sure it would poke my eyes out from within. I guess I lost it. The world was my body and my body the world. I felt a keen sense of violation. Though I knew then and knew now that it was Ursula beneath my skin, Ursula who had chosen and raised me to be hers, I did not recognize it as her. (This may have been a psychophysiological hardstop, which I’d also be incapable of recognizing.) I recognized it as @. I recognized him as the reason for all of these defenses, of the hard rigidness of my frame and the slickness and constant movement that lie inside of it. Anger was not the word. Fear is closer, but gives the wrong impression. Is despair too ingratiating? God forbid it ever reaches him. That’s not right, either. I was daunted. I’ll give him that. I was pale and cold at twilight and would not leave my bed. I watched the orange glow of sunset fade from between the white blinds of my window. I watched a spider build her web in the northwest corner of the ceiling. I hid my face in the pillow so that it did not matter if my eyes were opened or closed. My whole body ached, the pain concentrated in my skull and my stomach. I remember thinking a lot of things that night. They all followed the same pattern: This was a terrible thing to be happening. That this was a terrible thing to have done to myself - to have been at risk already and to have made it worse on purpose. I thought, “What a terrible thing I have done to myself.” And then I would think, “What a terrible thing I have done to them.” Because as bad as it was, I was still thinking that maybe I could bear it. I had that fire within me now and I thought I would give anything to keep it lit. I was starting to not care if I lost myself completely. I had begun to accept it as the most likely scenario. What was left would be the ocean and the fire it meant to consume. The ocean would rise up. I’d be swept up in the wave long enough to see every light that it touched go out. We’d win. I would live that long and I would win and after that it wouldn’t matter what happened to my mortal body because I had done something much more important with it, I had given her what she wanted. That was the thought process as I stared into the dark. And then June would bring me water from the sink. She kept adjusting my blanket so that I wouldn’t get tangled up in it. She checked to see if I was still breathing even though I wasn’t speaking. She brought me tea I knew she had not made herself. Micah was still there, even after he swore to leave. I could hear the distant sounds of their speech whenever June walked away. It blended into the night’s chorus. I was calm. I was awash with feelings I was too embarrassed to give names to. I was humbled. I felt horrible. I had taken them prisoner before they were even out of childhood. I thought of their families back at home. And I thought most often of the road ahead. It was mine alone. How could I ask for more? I wondered if Ursula would ever apologize to me. I wondered if I had the right to ask that of her. Did I seem ungrateful for what I was given? Did I seem unworthy of it? If I flinched, I would be. If I hesitated at all, I feared it would be ripped from me. Would that be a gift or a punishment? It was an impossibility. The most I could admit was that the rituals of Aquarius had been a lot to ask of me. To continue with it was asking a lot of myself. And to ask anyone to come with me was simply unthinkable. It’s hard for me to think of this even now. I haven’t resolved these feelings. I have overpowered nearly everything that has crossed my path. I don’t think I know how to stop - the mechanics of my body don’t allow for it. I just know the people I do not want to override, or to burden, or to abuse. It’s her, obviously. It’s everyone. … (click: ?page)[== (text-style:"buoy")[(It’s everyone, but it’s really her.) ] … (click: ?page)[== (text-style:"buoy")[…I’m doing it right now. I forgot to switch back. ] (click: ?page)[== (text-style:"buoy")[What do you think, June? ]

(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''(12/12) DEATH///MORI''] Well I think I had made up my mind by then. My mind is still made up. I don’t care if they see me as a prisoner or an acolyte. I know what I am and I know what you are. You’d never make me. You couldn’t make me even if you wanted to. There is nothing alive or dead that could ever force my hand. Behold the abominable force of will I possess. I will now use it to lock myself inside of this life forever. (To the reader: Do you know what it’s like to move the needle? I bet you don’t. Do you know what it’s like to be at ground zero of the new earth? Do you know what it’s like to want something so bad you’ll risk death every day until you have it? I bet you don’t. But I do. I always do. And you can’t change my mind, not for a second.) What I wanted was to take care of you, Lola. If I was upset, it wasn’t from the obligation itself. I only hurt when I felt I was failing to accomplish what I wanted - when your safety was outside of my reach. It was a different kind of helplessness. That’s what upset me. I was upset because Micah told me you were dying, again. I didn’t want to believe it. You were already doing so bad that the possibility of you getting worse seemed impossible. But you did! You got worse and the forest got darker until there was only one thing to do about it. Do you remember that night, Lola? You got up from your sickbed and you sat with me on the porch and we watched the deer bang their skulls against the trees until their necks led to stumps. Later we said it was love but looking at you then, I knew it was anger. Righteous fury I had never seen before. I knew I should’ve been scared, but I wasn’t. I was angry too. I *liked* those woods. I took ecology, okay? I can recognize an invasive species. I’d also been having nightmares about the bear ever since it appeared. I didn’t know if killing it would stop them, but I thought it was worth a shot. You weren’t doing so good, though. I knew you weren’t. The sun was setting. I knew you weren’t supposed to hunt at night. I watched you dress up in layers because it could get cold at night: cargo pants over red stockings, my jacket over an old camp T-shirt, a red babushka. I wore what I had been for as long as we’d been up there - jungle camo and a ushanka. I had the new gun slung against my hip, the salt rounds on my shoulder. Micah was curled up on the couch. We didn’t need to tell him what was up; he’d been annoyingly sibylline recently. But when you extended the invitation, I could tell he had agreed on the spot. He didn’t even dress for it. He only brought a first aid kit, which he made me carry. Ezekiel hadn’t been back in a week. I saw both of you scan the horizon for him as we walked out the door, but he didn’t come. The radio silence unnerved me, but I think it scared the hell out of you. (He danced around the subject of confinement so quickly that you understood immediately how bad it would be.) Not knowing was worse. The emptiness of the woods knocked you off-kilter. The smashed deer heads were half-buried in the grass. Their bodies had walked off. We plunged into the woods as quick as we’d have plunged into water, meeting no resistance at all. The forest was empty but for the occasional set of eyes - and the insects who had not yet been assimilated. They were expectant. I asked you why it had to be today and you said that today was the best you had felt in a while. In a lower voice, you said you couldn’t stand it anymore. A long time after, in which there were no words, you said that you were hungry. Micah looked at me and said that if we didn’t get rid of it tonight, it was probably going to come for us instead. Just a hunch, he said. You didn’t respond to that, but I saw a slight movement in your shoulders. I could tell what /she/ was thinking, even if I could only understand it through human terms. I was beginning to like her, y’know. I liked it when she got protective. But I wasn’t feeling so good about that night. The forest got deeper the further we went into it and the walk went on so long that I felt my adrenaline running off. Was it moving away from us? I gave Micah my flashlight so I could hold onto the gun. You walked on unperturbed. The cavern rose up from the ground like the mouth of hell. I did not know a lot about cave entrances but this one struck me as both huge and inviting. I knew there was something large living inside of it and I noticed the way the light didn’t follow me, how Micah hid back among the trees and how you stopped much further from the entrance than I did. Really, I don’t know what I was thinking. I thought it was a nice cave, nice and dark. I was curious about it. I could tell you both really, really didn’t want to crawl into it the way I did. I thought, maybe I’ll come back here someday after we kill this thing. Just as soon as I thought that, the darkness deep inside the cave mouth - where I think the uvula would be - started to move around. Oh, it was so much bigger in person. (Reader, have you ever seen a bear climb up a tree? They’re a lot faster than you’d ever expect them to be. The darkness moved and then a mouthful of teeth were right below me, right at the edge of the crag. My foot caught on its bottom jaw but not inside it. It pushed me up into the air and in an uncoordinated motion, knocked me sideways and away from it. I landed with a roll, but not a good one. I hit my shoulder on a tree root and lost all feeling in it.) Lola, you looked so scared. You hadn’t been expecting it either. The tentacles lashed out in defense with a cobra’s poise. They then hung limp and dead from the bear’s mouth when it caught your ribs between its teeth. Dead. With flesh rendered from the spine and your heart hanging in the dirt a few meters away, your body dropped back down the ground. The tentacles were inanimate and splayed out in a halo around you. Your hair covered your face, bloody and golden. I think I screamed, again. I reacted so poorly to the bear - it was not the kind of bear you screamed at. Though I knew you were dead, it seemed important to me that I should prevent you from being eaten or from experiencing further mutilation. This feeling drove me close to you before I had time to really think about what was happening. The bear still stood between us. The gun was still at my hip; it had bruised my side on the fall. I fumbled with it stupidly, fingers absorbing shock. I thought I might piss myself. The rounds were already chambered. I nearly broke the safety off. I let off several shots directly into its eyes. The bullets exploded into smoke upon contact. For some reason I’ve never understood, the air at that moment smelled like wet grass. The wind parted the trees and I saw the stars very briefly. They seemed to glow from behind a cool mist. I got the sense that I was at a late night football game. That we were both back in high school and there was dew forming on our skin. The feeling ended just as quickly as it came on, but I remember it so clearly to this day. I fired off more shots, which only served to enrage it. I cursed the fact I even had a gun and wished for a spear, a thought that I also couldn’t understand why I was having. My body must have thought it was about to die and instead of flashing my life before my eyes, it kept coming up with really stupid ideas. I tried to serpentine the bear and ended up tripping over roots again, back into a roll, protected only by the thick cover of trees. It crashed into them with a horrific cacophony of sound. I thought the whole forest might fall at once. Giant paws batted through the treeline, hungry and frustrated. I weaved in and out as best I could, looking for any better angle to go at. I repeatedly found nothing and thought I might be forced deeper into the forest or backwards into a hole, down into the cave. I could only fend it off and maintain my own ground. I couldn’t reclaim any of it and I couldn’t hold on forever. When I tried to fire, the shells ricocheted right back in my direction. Finally, a large oak that had been guarding me well gave way, falling straight towards me. The bear had paused to admire its handiwork. It was the opening I needed. I dodged the tree, which was large but not wide. I got out from the tree cover and emerged on the bear’s unshielded side. Its head was in the treeline, looking for me, while its body still stood wide open in the clearing. I leveled my gun at it. But by then you had come to. I didn’t understand what I was seeing at first. Against the dark, your body seemed to be hovering off the ground several feet up. As my eyes adjusted, I realized you were actually suspended by the tentacles that now seemed to pour from you. There was a hole straight through your torso and nearly the size of it. There were smaller holes all along your limbs and in the palms of your hand. There was a void where your face used to be. And the flood was coming out on all sides. It was like watching eels drain out of the river. As the bodies coagulated, it occurred to me I was watching an octopus contort its body to fit through a pinhole. I was mesmerized with the movements. It was hard to recognize them as being part of you. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you recognized me either. Micah was the one who pulled me away from you, narrowly avoiding the flood at my ankles and whiplike movement just above my head. You had become a creeping death. I was almost oblivious to it. It was then that you turned to the bear and began a strange dance. Your left hand led and the left foot followed, moving sideways through the air to where the creature stood. You only moved one side of your body at a time, Left hand, left foot upwards. Right hand, right foot upwards. Grasping motions at empty space as if you were scaling something. You climbed up into the sky, still suspended by the tentacles. I realized that Micah had not just pulled me away from it, but had made a point to place me between himself and the scene. I blocked his vision and felt his stare burning into the small of my back. He couldn’t take it. I didn’t think I could either. Your movements were jerking and half-formed, unfamiliar. The reanimation was dreadful; I did not know if you were alive or dead. You looked to me like a marionette still suspended in the air. The bear howled as if it was afraid. More poured out of your body. The tentacles looked like they were coming from you but at times it looked as though you were coming from them. You would disappear under them and then re-emerge somewhere else. The whole clearing seemed like it was transforming into a black ocean. The tendrils wrapped around the bear’s feet. It raked its claws against them and water poured out, joining the water that was already flooding the land. You were unimpeded. The tendrils crawled up the bear’s legs and to the underside of its stomach. You split it cleanly open. It fell over onto its side and I saw the cut - a straight line from the neck to the anus, a field dressing. It was incredible. I wasn’t looking close for the bowels, but I did notice when they weren’t there. The insides of the bear looked like white stuffing. I didn’t have much time to think about this because then you hit the ground too. The dirt was still wet with you. The tentacles, for the most part, had receded again. But it wasn’t all of them this time. Many still clung to your skin and laid flat against it, leaving soft and iridescent whorls around your neck and arms. Your shirt had been pulled back graciously over the hole in your torso. Your face had been replaced as good as new. Your eyes were closed - for a second - and I thought you were dead again. When you opened them, I was surprised to see they were still white around the edges. I was kneeling beside you, almost over you, trying to be as close as I could without suffocating you. You looked up at me in a kind of daze. Exhaustion did not begin to cover it. Your eyes were the same black against white but I knew they were different somehow. I thought, of course, she’s probably further away from me now. But when I really looked, I knew you were more present than you had been in a long time. You were exhausted, I know, but you were wide awake. When I got you to your feet, there was barely even a struggle. You still leaned against me. Micah was half-hidden behind a tree and I got a sick sense of déjà vu just before he emerged. He didn’t come much closer, though. He didn’t want to touch you. We all walked back the way we came without speaking. All around us, the forest was waking up from a nightmare.