"I don't understand how I'm losing," Reigen said, his hands flying over his keyboard. It was so late now—too late, maybe—if only he'd used the same technique as with the Player Killer from the beginning, he might have stood a chance, but he hadn't seriously thought he'd lose—
"Shishou," Mob said, "why is this so important? You already have second place from Twitter."
Reigen laughed, not at all nervously, and splayed a hand across his forehead. "You don't understand, Mob. The publicity from something like this, even a rematch, would do wonders for Spirits and Such. This is about business."
(He would never admit to his pride being on the line.)
"And anyway, who is this guy? A radio host? I've been on TV, you know."
Mob carefully did not bring up what had actually happened when Reigen made his television debut.
Ritsu had no such qualms. "When they exposed you as a fraud? That was publicity too, right?"
"Hey—!"
Serizawa leaned over Reigen's shoulder to see the computer screen, careful not to spill the tea he placed on the desk. "Oh, Cecil from Welcome to Night Vale? It's been a while since I listened to that, maybe I should catch up."
Reigen stared at him. "You? What? Serizawa?"
"Ah... yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Back when I was... well, when I didn't leave my room much, the podcast was popular. I guess it gave a sense of... community? Feeling less alone, even when you are." He shrugged. "Plus, hearing another gay man in a show like that was comforting."
"He's gay? Canonically?" Why can't I be gay canonically?
"Sure, he got married in episode 100. It was very emotional."
"I nearly died in our chapter 100—"
-- -- -- -- --
Well, listeners, there's still a few hours left on the poll, but I'm now leading at 56%! I must say, I did not expect this, especially after Twitter users so clearly forgot—or perhaps never knew—about my Tumblr Sexyman Origins.
But, that's neither here nor there. I certainly am grateful, if a bit bemused, about all of this, but let us not forget that this is all a friendly competition. Unlike the annual War On Christmas—and let us all take a moment to remember our fallen allies against that terrible holiday foe—this is a battle of kindness. Love, even. The love we feel for Tumblr, for our favorite sexy men, for pressing a button on a meaningless internet poll. The love we feel, listeners, for each other.
And in the spirit of that love and friendliness, I figured I'd get to know my opponent a little better! A bit of googling, which of course you know means searching via every search engine but Google, what with the Town Council imposing the Google Search Tax and getting all Night Vale IP addresses shadowbanned, has led me to... oh my, listeners. I do not know who made this, but Reigen Arataka has the single most beautiful professional web page I have ever encountered. It's... words do not do it justice. I am tearing up. This... I could not make anything better myself.
A-hem. Listeners, now that I've wiped away the tears such beauty inspired in me, I can now see that Reigen's website advertises his business, one Spirits and Such Consulting. Well! We may be rivals in this moment, but I am overjoyed to learn that Reigen runs such an innovative and important business! I am nearly ashamed that, while my opponent works to make the world a better place, I, a mere community radio host, am winning the sexyman contest.
Nevertheless, we must respect the polls. Not respecting polls could get us in hot water with the Town Council, or with the demigods of numbers who lurk in the sharp edges of percentages. So since I can't hand my victory over to him, I think I'll do what I can as a community radio host, and promote Reigen Arataka's important business!
So if you're a spirit in need of counseling, a ghost in need of therapy, or an eldritch beast in need of a shoulder to cry on, head on over to Seasoning City and pay our good friend Reigen a visit! I'm sure he'll be pleased as anything to see you.
Time has been repeating.
You don't know how long this has been happening. You don't know how many times you have lived through this—or how many times you didn't live through it.
You know you have been here before. You know that while the broad strokes of the loop remain the same, exact events differ each time. You know you have hazy memories of what happened in some loops, but—whether because of your current reality asserting itself, or because of some power (or powers) struggling for control of the timeline, or because your tiny human brain can't hold that many versions of reality—you can't remember everything.
You know you aren't alone.
And you know you will never be here again. The timeline is done repeating, stretched almost to its breaking point. Whatever happens now, happens forever.
So you're going to have to make this one count.
i have finally put together the core mechanics, which means this weird little game is technically in a playable state. i have yet to write up the gm's guide, which will consist of explanations of how to play ttrpg as scenes, suggestions of actions the gm can take in response to failures and successes, prolly some advice about making time weirder as continuity gets low, some npc suggestions, maybe a module of pre-made setting and loop info? we'll see.
HOWEVER. if you as a gm feel like you've played similar games and think u wanna give this one a shot, by all means! i am hungry for feedback. like genuinely if u have feedback or questions or something you'd like clarified or think would be helpful for playing the game. pleaseeeeeee.
once i get the gm stuff together i will prolly put out an actual call for playtesters, but dont let that stop u from playing or whatever. blease.
text of the game under the cut; apologies for any typos i haven't caught, i keep working on this while at work or when v sleepy.
EDIT: made significant edits to the game, partly based on feedback and partly based on spinning ideas around in my brain and rubber ducking em at my friends.
it does appear that readmore on dash of reblogs specifically keeps the old text instead of the new reblog.... it didnt always used to do that.... anyway fresh new edits on THIS version.
Setup:
You will need:
at least 3 players, one who will be the GM
something to write or otherwise record information about the fame, including both a shared record and individual character info
2d6, 2d4, and so, so many d12s; i think you roll at minimum 1 and at maximum 20 if you're really gaming the dice pool. an online roller may be useful
Creating the Loop:
Before playing, create the Loop your PCs are stuck in. [there will be premade loops added later, but at base there are instructions for creating it as a group:]
First, decide where and when it occurs—pick a setting, a genre, a location. Keep it as vague or specific as you like; the rest can be filled in as you play.
Have each player name a place within your larger setting, with a 1-sentence description.
Have each player name an NPC who exists within the loop, with a 1-sentence description.
Moments:
As a group, name twelve Moments—significant events you have encountered on previous loops and have vague knowledge of. Keep these names short, a handful of words or a short sentence at most, leaving room for interpretation. These aren’t necessarily all problems, either— they might turn out to be dangers you faced, tragedies you suffered, wonders you saw, triumphs you won—any event of significance. Make sure everyone at the table gets to decide on at least one Moment, and write them down.
These Moments will form the bones of your loop. They may occur in any order, and perhaps in unexpected ways, but the PCs must encounter and fulfill all twelve—whether “fulfill” means accepting, altering, or averting them—to complete this final loop.
Whenever the players fulfill a Moment, the GM will check it off the list and roll 1d12 against the remaining Continuity. If it is higher than the current Continuity, subtract the difference between those two numbers from the current Continuity.
—
Character creation:
Every player except the GM will create a player character, or PC, to play. You will likely want to create a backup character, just in case.
Give your character a name and a brief description.
Write down three Memories, small details you remember from previous loop(s) (not one of the twelve Moments shared by all players).
Write down your Keepsake, a seemingly unremarkable item with emotional significance to you, which you carry with you.
Write down two Goals you want to accomplish, and name something that has stopped you from accomplishing each of them in a prior loop.
Write down two Promises you made in previous loops, and name who you made those promises to.
If you break a Promise or abandon a Goal, roll 2d4; add that amount to the Continuity pool, and subtract the same amount from your stat health, distributed as you wish.
Choose one (nontime) Special Ability; you can use this once to start. More uses can be gained with Continuity points.
roll 1d6; heal that amount of stat health, total, across your own or someone else’s stats
teleport instantly to another PC
everyone who can hear your voice is knocked unconscious until the end of the scene
name a stat. you may automatically succeed at one roll of that stat. the stat remains the same for future uses.
set one thing you touch on fire; this lasts until the fire is put out or burns itself out.
change the weather; this lasts until the weather would naturally change.
create an illusion, perceived normally by sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste, but can’t physically impact anything; it lasts until the end of the scene
read someone’s mind
levitate one person or object, up to 2d6 feet off the ground, until the end of the scene
turn invisible until the end of the scene
summon an animal until the end of the scene; you can roughly communicate with the animal you summoned.
negate a (non-time) power used by another character (including NPCs).
Finally, distribute 12 points among the following stats, however you want; you may make a stat negative in order to add more points to another stat. These will be the maximum possible health of each of your stats. You begin the game at maximum stat health.
Stats
Stunt: do something daring or dangerous
Skew: change someone else’s perception
Swerve: dodge or hide from something coming at you
Star: bring the drama; draw attention to yourself
Sense: recognize what’s really here, right now
Shatter: break something; ruin something
Survive: clench your teeth and hold on
—
Gameplay:
Your characters will make their way through this final loop, working to fulfill the group's Moments while trying to achieve their individual Goals and Promises along the way. The GM will is responsible for describing and roleplaying as the environment and NPCs involved in the loop, including describing the instability of the decaying loop, and deciding the effects PC's actions (and success or failure) have on the world.
Play will mostly consist of a series of scenes, which you will roleplay freely until you use one of the special game mechanics or do something which requires a roll.
Rolling:
When you try to do something risky or uncertain, the GM will ask you to roll to determine whether or not you succeed, using one of your stats.
To roll, create a pool of d12s as follows:
+1d12 for every fulfilled Moment
+1d12 if you are using information from a Memory
+1d12 if you are using your Keepsake
+1d12 for every Goal and Promise you have not abandoned
Take the highest d12, and add the current health of the stat you are using to determine your result (if the health is negative, you'll be subtracting).
If you are ever rolling with zero dice, roll 2d12 and take the lowest.
Any result above zero will be a success of sorts, but the higher your roll, the greater the impact of your action; lower rolls, while technically successful, will be less effective.
How a low result is less effective will be determined by the GM, but may include things like your action working for only a limited time, an attack doing less damage to a target, taking more time to accomplish something, or taking damage to your stat health.
Likewise, the greater effects of higher rolls will be narrated by the GM, with extremely high rolls potentially having effects beyond what the player intended.
A zero or less is a failure, with a corresponding scale of impact down into the negative numbers. The GM will narrate your failure, whether you simoly don't do what you were intending, or you make things worse.
Continuity:
Time, forced to warp and repeat and stretch over and over, is fraying. Too fragile to start over again—but not quite broken yet. It’s holding together enough for one last loop, with just enough extra slack for a handful of tricks.
The group begins with a shared pool of 24 Continuity points—simultaneously a meter of how stable this last loop is, and a resource you can use to manipulate the timestream, from pulling knowledge from a previous loop to rewinding time in small, vital increments.
At any time, a player may spend a Continuity point to:
rewind time a small amount (up to the beginning of a scene) (multiple points spent = multiple scenes back)
gain 1d4 charges of your special ability
remember something about a previous loop’s iteration of one of your 12 Moments (add this to your Memories)
reroll a roll before the results take effect
fully heal one stat
add 1d4 to a stat’s max
state a minor event (something that wouldn’t take more than 6 seconds to happen) that will occur before the end of the session; it can happen at any time this session
Paradoxes:
When you use Continuity, you are altering the already fragile timeline, resulting in paradoxes big and small. Whenever a player spends a Continuity point (but not for any lost in other ways), they roll 2d12 on the following table and take the effect:
(there is no 1 but tumblr wouldn’t let me start at 2)
Move into a timeline where you didn’t make it—died, or left, or are just not here. Remove your character from play and create a new character; one of your Promises is to your old character.
Erase an unfulfilled Moment and create a new one. Everyone with a Memory of that Moment keeps the Memory.
Gain a second Keepsake.
Lose 1d6 Continuity.
Lose your special ability; roll 1d12 and gain the special ability with that number, with one more ability charge than you had.
A new NPC appears.
Swap the maximums of two of your stats.
Gain a new Memory.
Swap the current health of two of your stats.
Something changes about an NPC. You still remember them as they were.
Heal 2d4 stat health, distributed as you choose.
Nothing seems to happen… (The GM rolls secretly on this table. If they get another nothing happens, nothing really happens; if they get a different effect, it happens, but you find out about it later.)
Lose 2d4 stat health, distributed as you choose.
An inanimate object near you is altered.
Change something physical about your character.
Forget a Goal or Promise, and replace it with a different one.
Lose your special ability; roll 1d12 and gain the special ability with that number, with the same number of ability charges you had.
Your Keepsake never existed; replace it with a different Keepsake.
You are suddenly in a different location.
Erase one of your Memories.
Gain 1d6 Continuity.
An NPC you know has forgotten you.
A double of you from another timeline appears. Choose which one to play as; both have the same stat health, but you may alter any other character information you want.
Stat Health and Character Death:
Your characters don’t have regular health to track. Instead, when you get hurt, your GM will have you remove points from one or more of your stats. This doesn’t change the maximum, but you will always roll with current health of your stats.
If any stat reaches -12 health—when, no matter what you cannot roll high enough to succeed—your character dies, retires, vanishes, or is otherwise removed from play. Refer to this list to decide how that happens:
-12 Stunt: your body breaks; your courage fails.
-12 Skew: the truth is unbearable
-12 Swerve: something has caught up with you, and you can’t run anymore
-12 Star: you’ve faded from everyone’s awareness. maybe even your own.
-12 Sense: reality is unrecognizable
-12 Shatter: you can’t ruin anything else. you can’t ruin anything else. you can’t ruin anything else.
-12 Survive: give up. let go.
Create a new character to play.
—
Ending the Game:
If the Continuity pool reaches zero, the loop fails and time fractures.
If you fulfill all twelve Moments without depleting all your Continuity, you exit the loop and move forward into your new future—with this final route behind you as the definite past.
what up besties sorry i haven't been online much but would u like to read the piece i wrote for my final for creative writing? it's metaporically about being trans n neurodivergent n disabled n ppl loving an idea of you more than you, but also it is about a zombie who comes back, not wrong, but not quite what anyone wanted..
(cw for death, electrocution, being buried (not quite alive), and complicated feelings about gender & name but that journey not being completed yet.)
- - -
Grave News
Amelia Marquez, 34, passed away in a tragic accident…
Later, when anyone learns she woke up already buried, she can see the horror movie assumptions playing out behind their eyes. The thought of waking up, trapped in a tiny, dark, airless space, scrabbling at the walls, gasping for breath, the weight of the earth above pressing down, down, down…
She smiles and accepts their pity, their horrified dismay, and does not tell them about lying awake, perfectly motionless, trying to figure out how to move. About how easy it is not to struggle for breath when pulling air into your lungs takes conscious effort. About pushing at different groups of muscles, her body twitching and twisting in the dark, until she works out forward, works out force, works out the flex of her hand as it pushes through velvet, then oak, then dirt, then dirt, then dirt.
Amelia claws her way out of her own grave, not frantic, not berserk, but deliberate. Gradual. Almost mechanical, as she practices moving by repeating the same thing again and again, her patient hands working their way through wood, through earth, to the surface.
(It isn't until later, standing in her parents' doorway and listening to the screams, that she realizes what ceaseless digging does to the human hand. She realizes that she somehow did not feel the pain as she dug. She realizes she needs to buy gloves.)
…the home she shared with her fiancé…
Cole had been so certain about his repairs. Fifty bucks at Home Depot and a couple of days of work, and Amelia’s concerns brushed aside.
“I’ve got this, Ames. Way better than hiring a contractor.” And she had agreed, had let him do it himself, had made dinner for a week while he spent his evenings messing with wires and fuses, assuring her that he was nearly done, that the video on YouTube made it so easy.
Cole hadn’t been home when the lights went out, when Amelia went to the fuse box and tried to flip everything back on. When the jumble of wires in their walls shorted and flared and spread electricity through her body.
When it killed her.
Once her parents call, Cole drops everything to rush over. He falls to his knees in front of her, staring up into her face through a haze of tears and hope and shock.
“You’re back. Ames, Amy, you’re back, how…”
She stares down at her lap, making sure her hands are covered by the blanket her mother had nestled around her.
…a beautiful light in our lives, extinguished too soon. Her friends and family…
Her memorial photo, the black clothes, the incense on the table, are all gone the morning after she comes back, packed away in boxes or thrown out in opaque garbage bags. Hands hesitate before touching her. They keep her at home, talking about rest, about recuperating.
“Since you’ve been…” She sees the glances, the mouthed no, don’t say it. “…in your condition. It’s important to rest up.”
It’s as though they think one wrong move, one wrong word, will kill her again.
She wonders a little bit if they’re right.
Her mother is the gentlest she’s ever been brushing Amelia’s hair, her hands careful, her voice filling the air. “And I unpacked some of your nice clothes,” she says, working through a tangle. “You don’t have to wear sweatpants anymore, I found your skirts…”
Amelia looks down at her loose, comfortable clothes, the t-shirt worn and soft against her skin. She thinks about struggling with buttons on a nice blouse, thinks about whether ruffles will still itch the way they did when she was alive. Thinks about the way the mottled colors on her legs have lasted too long to be called bruises. Maybe she should call it decay.
Her mother clicks her tongue sadly as a few strands of hair pull loose from her head. “These knots…”
“What if I cut it?” Amelia asks. She’d been thinking about short hair back when she was alive. And it would be easier. “I can’t make you brush it for me every day.”
Concern melds with distress on her mother’s face. “You can’t cut it,” she hisses. “What if it never grows back?”
...bright, funny, resilient, the first to volunteer...
Once, she accidentally sleeps for three days. That’s the kind of thing the living joke about—so tired I could sleep for a week, as impossible as that would actually be. Turns out it’s easy for the dead—easy to lie still, easy to stop pushing, easy to drift away into forgiving darkness.
She wakes to her mother weeping, her father pacing in the hall, Cole pale and haunted and clenching his phone in two hands. The funeral home’s phone number must be burned into the screen by now, but he hasn’t pressed the call button. Not yet.
Amelia makes herself sit up in bed, reaches out to him, and sees him flinch.
Right. Gloves.
Even as she twists her face into a smile, she knows she's done it wrong. Her eyebrows are at odd angles, her lips curled strangely. She tries for light-hearted: "Whoops, close one! Don't want to wake up in a grave again."
No one laughs.
...kept forever in our memories and our hearts...
Late at night, she hears her parents whispering. “Is she all right?” her mother asks. “My little girl, my Amelia—she’s not acting like herself. She’s so tired, so...”
“She just came back,” her father says. His voice is firm, comforting. Determined not to let any uncertainty slip through. The same voice he’s always used when her mother worries—the same voice he used when Amelia told him her own worries, her doubts about the future, about Cole. She always ended conversations with her father sure that he was right.
“She’ll be back to herself soon enough,” he says. “We just have to keep her active. Remind her about being alive.”
“But what if she’s not herself? I know we said not to bring up…” Her mother’s voice drops, furtive. “…the Z word…”
“We’re keeping an eye on her. We’ll notice if she does anything that needs… intervention.”
She closes her eyes. Wonders if she can turn off her hearing. Wonders if it would have been easier, staying in her grave.
The next day, she brings up moving back in with Cole. He says he'd be happy to have her, and she pretends not to notice the look he exchanges with her parents.
…brought out the best in people, always ready to help, to listen…
Cole is attentive. He brings her pastries from the bakery near their apartment and tells her about his day—work, his hobbies, a dog he saw at the park. Shows her pictures and videos on his phone. Mentions people by name, and she's not sure if they're new, since her death, or if she managed to forget people she knew about before.
She knows which muscles to move for an understanding nod, an encouraging smile. She knows how to make herself chew and swallow food, how to bring it back up later so it doesn’t just sit and rot in her stomach. She still remembers the right way to ask questions so Cole shares more.
There’s no real reason not to do it, but the more she thinks about it—the more she imagines forcing her body into the right place, the ordeal she’ll have to go through later—the less she wants to do it. She sits silently, pastries untouched, letting the muscles in her face go slack.
“Ames? You okay?”
It takes a second; she has to fill her lungs to respond. She tips one side of her mouth up in what could have been a reassuring smile, once. “Fine. Just tired.”
He sits next to her, worry pinching between his eyebrows. "Of course. I'm sorry. Let's just sit here and watch TV? There are new episodes of all our favorites."
The shows all feel distant, the plots blurred, the characters unfamiliar. She watches with him for hours anyway.
...a kind and giving spirit, she wanted to create...
Shattering the mug isn't intentional. Even if she's started to resent the comforting cups of tea Cole brings her. Even if she's sick of pulling latex gloves over her cloth ones so she can wash the dishes. Even if the cutesy blobs of yellow and pink painted on it have always been too much, too bright, too false-forced-cheer, from the moment she was gifted it eight years ago.
She still doesn't mean to let go of it, the muscles in her hand (and there are so many muscles in the human hand, so many to keep track of, and most of hers are damaged already) loosening and spasming as she's walking to the sink.
The jagged pieces of it surround her, and Cole's hysterical babble of questions and assurances—"Are you okay, I've got it, just hold still"—fades into background noise as Amelia leans down to try and gather the shards.
A hand wraps around her wrist and she turns to meet Cole's wide, frightened eyes. "Amy, your foot."
A full inch of jagged ceramic is buried in her heel.
She does not bleed, even after Cole pries it out.
...although she will never fulfill those plans, her dream will live on...
"Ames, I'm worried." Cole reaches out, stops with his hand just over her thigh. Puts it down on the chair next to her, not touching. "This is... I know you've been through a lot. But you're acting like—"
She turns her head until she can look at his face. Her neck jerks in the wrong direction a couple of times, but she's getting better at it, faster. "Like?"
Cole's eyes are red, and can't quite meet hers. "Like..." His shoulders drop. "Not like yourself."
He waits a beat—two—and gets up, breathing out harshly. "Ever since you came back, Amy. You barely look at me. You barely talk to me. You don't even like doing the things you used to like. I understand about your... condition, but..."
...pray she rests well, and waits in peace for her loved ones...
She sits in their apartment—Cole's apartment—long after he's gone, watching the afternoon sunlight shift across the space they used to share. Her books are still on the shelf. She remembers packing up her childhood bookshelf to bring to their new home. The painting she bought at a flea market is still hanging on the wall. She remembers joking with Cole about picking up a masterpiece for two dollars.
Looking at them now, she doesn't even particularly want to bring them with her.
...invited to celebrate her life at...
Merely dragging her body across the ground would be easier. But, even though she's wrong, even though she's not the person they think about when they look at her, she's still not a mindless, lurching zombie. Mostly.
She walks. One step forward.
Was she ever the person they thought about when they looked at her?
One step.
Maybe now she'll find out.
One step.
...in lieu of flowers, the family asks...
She settles into her seat on the train, making sure her hands are covered. A new start doesn't mean much if she sends an entire train into a panic.
Someone sits next to her, bouncing in their seat. "Hey there! Looks like we've got eight hours ahead of us. What's your name?"
She hesitates. Amelia. Amy. Ames.
"Mel," she says. It's strange in her mouth. Just slightly wrong, the same way she's just slightly wrong. Maybe that’s the right fit.
like, listen, the best dynamic for tma/wtnv crossover is cecil being cheerfully oblivious and jon being at first all serious & sinister like he is abt statements and then gradually being more and more confused by this strange happy man. like. for example.
jon: statement of cecil palmer, regarding...
cecil: oh, idk, i guess i went to target last week?
jon, ominous: ...regarding a trip to target. statement recorded direct from subject.
cecil, with that 'never mind all that' tone: o...kay! so as always the target greeters saw me at the door and were all like 'our dark lord shall feast on those who enter here' and i was like 'great! do you guys have those infuser water bottles?' because carlos saw some on tv and was telling me--
jon: i'm sorry, the target greeters said what?
cecil: you know, their standard greeting! it's been standard since the 90s, when they changed it from 'beware the burden your soul will bear'!
jon, getting less ominous as he gets more confused: ...right. continue?
cecil: anyway, carlos was telling me all about how proper hydration can help deter throat spiders--
oh i'm gonna go to bed in a sec but anyway here's my homework i did for class, we were allowed precisely 300 words and my teahcer said i made good use of thtem :)
--------
The best homunculi are made with blood. It's possible to use other things—hair, or skin, or teeth—but blood is better. And if Eva is going to make a homunculus, she is going to make the best.
She drinks a glass of orange juice after, because better safe than fainting mid-ritual, then dribbles the syringe into the glooping pot on the stove, stirring her own life into the ingredients she's been preparing for weeks. Herbs grown in each season. Clay dug from a riverbed. Beeswax collected without a single sting. The powdered shell of a wild bird's egg.
The olive oil is from the grocery store, but that's just for texture.
It seems right when it cools: soft enough to mold, firm enough to hold its shape. Eva breathes in the heavy scents of honey and iron and dirt, breathes out the words of the ritual. She knows the shape she pulls her mixture into; she has dreamed it for months. Sturdy arms to carry baskets. Curling fingers to forage ingredients. Sharp ears to hear commands. Swift feet to run errands.
The last syllable falls from her lips, the homunculus stands, and Eva inspects what she's made.
She wants to cry.
The elegance she imagined has turned lumpy and lopsided. Its surface cracks oddly, uneven crescents dug into it where her fingernails pressed in too hard. Its eyes glance dully around until it sees Eva and stumbles towards her.
She lifts a hand, but isn’t that every homunculus horror story, skin—or teeth—or blood—twisting if the thing is destroyed by its creator? Eva may be repulsed by this thing—made of her, but not hers, not what she wanted—but she isn't stupid.
She nudges it into her closet with her foot. She can always try again.
oh would u all like another bit i wrote for creative writing homework? the assignment was 'write a nonlinear/fragmented narrative' and i had a blast with it.
(currently entitled 'One last chance to be a hero' bcos on god am i bad at titles)
- - -
In spite of everything, the world does not end. It's touch and go for a little while, no one really sure if the heroes will succeed—but they do. They battle against the strange forces threatening the world; they push back the encroaching destruction; and they die noble, meaningful deaths.
They save the world. Everyone else has to live in it.
- - -
The day before the end of the world (projected), the hero Peregrine watches TV with her girlfriend, both of them snuggled up on their old green couch. They're so lucky, really, to live somewhere broadcasts can still get through. So lucky to have this together.
"Why do you have to go?" her girlfriend whispers against her shoulder.
"The whole world, Laine." Their argument is too well-worn to be angry, familiar words spoken in a ritual of love, of misery. "We have to."
"But why do you have to go, Beckett?"
"Because I'm a hero. I have to be a hero. Even if this is my last chance." A smile, a hand through her beloved's hair. "Promise to wait for me?"
- - -
The world is saved, but it is strange. The ground warps and reshapes itself. The ocean rises in endless storms.
Humanity survives, as best they can, as humanity always has.
- - -
In conference rooms around the world, men in suits hem and haw over stopping the world from ending. But the expense, is the refrain. Think about the economy. If we spend it all now, how can we help the survivors later?
It is determined that the resources of the men in suits are too valuable to use now. They lock them away underground, in the reinforced rooms the men will hide in themselves. Nowhere safer.
- - -
"Sorry to ask you to help out again," the clinic doctor says. "I don't know why these machines keep acting up, but they seem to behave themselves with you."
Laine smiles. She's good at smiling, even if she can never manage a laugh anymore. "I've always liked electronics," she says.
The doctor holds the door open for her. "And we're lucky to have you around. God knows the government offices would love to snatch you up instead, the knack you've got for tech."
"Oh, I'd really rather..." She stops in the doorway—just for a second—until she can breathe again. It's been months, now, but she's still not used to seeing her old couch in the clinic.
(Their old couch. When the community association had come around asking for donations, she couldn't wait to give it away, as though it would take all her memories with it. When they showed up with a pickup truck, she stood outside and watched until she could no longer see the green of it in the distance.)
"...not," she finishes. "Can't imagine working for the government, honestly."
- - -
The night before the end of the world (projected), the supervillain Technobabbler robs a bank. It's not her usual MO, no high-tech target, no flashy robotics, practically sloppy. Peregrine stops her before she even opens the vault.
"Was there a point to this?" the hero asks, her voice weary as she leans against the vault door. "Or just one more piece of trouble before I go and try to save the world?"
Technobabbler's entire face is covered in a mask, opaque lenses over her eyes, voice modified until not an ounce of human emotion seeps through. Her shoulders are tense.
"Or you don't go," she says.
When Peregrine is silent, the villain continues, words falling out in a mechanical rush. "If you go—if you don't come back—I'll rob a bank every day. I'll kidnap government officials. I'll—I'll turn people into androids. No one will be there to stop me."
"I hope," Peregrine says slowly, "you'll stop yourself."
"I'm a villain."
"You don't have to be." She pushes off the door and takes a step forward, watches Technobabbler stumble back. Holds out a hand. "Come with us. Help us, and I'll put in a good word for you. It's never too late to change."
It feels like hours that she stares at that hand.
"I can't," she says at last. "I made a promise."
- - -
When the storms make land, the ramshackle community center floods. The clinic, especially, asks for help: beds for their patients, food and transportation for their doctors, dry storage space for their remaining equipment. Laine finds herself called for at midnight, frantically swapping out soaked and faulty wiring for nearly-new parts she hopes will fix everything.
It's dawn when she starts making her way home. The frigid, muddy water swirling through the streets and flooding her boots looks almost beautiful, shimmering with the first rose-gold rays of sunrise.
Its eddies catch and twist around something musty and green, just barely poking out of the water.
- - -
The day the world is expected to end, Laine nudges broadcast towers in her direction, strengthens the receptors in the television. She will watch this. She has to watch this.
The news crews grab as many interviews as they can—pre-fight interviews, they say, avoiding final, avoiding memoriam. Beckett shines in her Peregrine suit. She always has.
The cameras can't follow the heroes all the way, can only show the battle from a distance. It's too dangerous, could interfere with the fight. More importantly, cameras stop working if they get too close. Laine wonders if she could have made the cameras work, if she'd gone. If Technobabbler had chosen the heroes' side, in the end. Probably she would have had more important things to do.
She sits on the green couch for hours, alone, and watches her own world end.
- - -
Most of the conference rooms have been destroyed, and the suits are shabbier now, too. But the men still hem and haw just the same when people come to them for help rebuilding and resupplying. That hardly seems fair, they bluster. Why didn't you simply preserve your resources like we did? If we help you now, how will you help yourselves?
- - -
Technobabbler does not rob a bank every day. She does not kidnap government officials, or turn people into androids.
- - -
Underground, in their reinforced rooms, with their hoards of resources, the men smile. We did well, they tell each other. This is what we are meant for. The world needs us, just like this.
They don't notice the controls of their high-tech security systems start to move.
- - -
"An anonymous donation," the clinic doctor tells Laine, beaming. "We'll be able to ride this one out, rebuild, maybe even set up a backup location."
Laine smiles, and it feels like it could be a laugh.
jonny made the fears separate & sentient, a little too sentient, and i am going to be a problem about this.
---
It speaks, and its voice hurts, like a thousand screaming voices, like the pressure of an entire ocean, like staring into a supernova. Its voice is torture, and despair, and death, and life. Its voice is impossible.
It looks a bit like Jon.
“We have found it,” it says in that terrible voice, “we have... I have found it. Before any of the others.”
They shouldn’t be hearing its words. That noise shouldn’t be anything approaching comprehensible. And yet...
“Found... what?” Jon manages, gritting his teeth against the pain, the perception of that which cannot be perceived.
“I have found,” it declares, and it sounds like the universe, “humanity. And none of my siblings, my other-selves, have found it. I win.”
Annabelle’s breath whistles through her teeth as she forces it—in, out, in, out—of her lungs. “I don’t think,” she says, panting, “you found humanity.”
“Of course I have,” it says. It smiles, and the smile is a heartbeat, the smile is a black hole, the smile is the lights behind everyone’s eyelids. “I have Learned. I thought I was not to Understand, but then I found my Archivist, and he has Taught Me. I Know humanity, now.”
It twists its body like the plasma around a solar eclipse, and casts its gaze upon them. “It took me so long, to Learn it. Aeons. Seconds. Miles, and minds, and feasts. But now I know.”
It holds up one long finger, and it has only one finger, and it has an infinitude of fingers.
“To be humanity, you should not kill, unless it is for a Righteous Cause. I understand a Righteous Cause, now; that is why no one in my apocalypse died, unless my Archivist Knew they should.”
It holds up a second finger, or perhaps the first finger doubles, or perhaps the blood of their eyes is another finger.
“To be humanity, you should not eat lives. Only dead fear, taken from far away. We... I gave my Archivist the power to Watch, from far off, and speak the Statements without pulling them from others, and I fed that way as well.”
It holds up a third finger, and the finger is a song the universe sings to itself, the finger is the secret thoughts in your mind, the finger is hydrogen exploding into helium.
“To be humanity, you should love Martin Blackwood. He is an Anchor. He is a Keeps You Human. He makes Tea.”
It smiles at them again, and they begin to weep, and their eyes are dry, and they will never stop weeping.
