Memory horror my beloved. It's the feeling of something missing. You're alive and yet everyone looks at you like you're dead. Or they look at you expecting something. You don't know what that is. You don't know this person. Do you? Do you? You don't remember. Should you remember?
It's a blank space. It's not death, but it's not not death. What is a person but memories and experiences? Without those are they the same? Can they go by the same name if they aren't that person anymore? You're told you used to love this thing. You're told you used to love this person. There's nothing attached to either anymore. The expectation is there though. They're expecting a song and dance. Dance, and pretend to be human. Pretend to be something you're not. Something you don't remember being.
What else have your forgotten? Is this the first time your mind has been emptied like a rain-filled bucket? They all look at you like they know you. Did they? They all expect things from you. You look fine, so you must BE fine, right? Right? Remember, silly, it isn't so hard. Remember, just write it down. Remember, stop fooling around. Remember this time, it's important.
The blank spaces where memories should be pull at you like a cliff's edge.
-D- This is Major David speaking, come in ground control, I have lost co-ordinates of my location over.
-G- This is ground control. Describe your location Major David, over?
-D- It appears to be jungle, based in fungal life. Lifeforms resembling terrestrial "stinkhorn" fungus, flourescent mushroom caps, psilocybin. Bioluminescence prominent. Breathing is labored, apparattus appears to be intact. There appears to be moving entities, over.
-G- Describe the moving entities, over.
-D- They are like... ants, some of them riding larger metallic creatures.. Majority appear to be retreating. Some of them are approaching, request per-
-There is static, temporarily, for one hour and twenty-nine seconds-
-D- Contact re-established, approaching entities hostile, used secondary sidearms to dispatch most aggressive, foliage regenerating from stray fire, permission to continue-
-G- NO. I mean, permission denied Major David. Orders to retreat given. Over.
-D- Retreat initiated, entities pursuing aggressively. God, these things don't fucking let up, do they Tom? Over.
-There is static, temporarily, for three hours and five seconds-
-D- Retreat enacted. A few of them follow, but I think I've crushed 'em. I am out of rations. I have a feeling. An urge to [SPEECH INDECIPHERABLE], permission to do so? over.
-G- Permission granted.
-D- Oxygen tank on standby mode, filters at 10% capacity. Still breathing. Biological consequence of this world noted? Over.
-G- Noted, over.
-D- Sleepy. But cannot sleep. It's too bright. The days go on and move, but it's too bright. Over.
-G-.[Sound of shuffling papers] Easy Dave, Major David, easy. Just. breathe. think about your breathing. your lungs taking oxygen. your heartbe- believing you can get home. Just stay with me. Breathe. Breathe. Over.
-D- My heart. My heartbeat. I can't feel my heartbeat. All I can feel is my [SPEECH INDECIPHERABLE]. I feel. I feel...
-there is a ten second pause-
-D- Ground control, is my wife there. I can hear her there. Permission for her to speak. Over.
-G- This is ground control. Your wife is not in the room with us. Keep breathing. Over.
-D- Tom, I mean ground control, I can hear her. I can hear her saying things about me. Is she angry with me? She is screaming at me.
-Increasing sound of respiration-
-D- I've been gone for so long, so long, she sounds like buzzing, she sounds like insects, she- she-
-G- YOUR WIFE IS DEAD. I cannot keep this charade going any longer Dave, she is dead! You ate her when you came back, because you came back wrong, and we've all been living this lie to keep you out of everyone's hair. I stayed on because I thought I... I...
...I thought that we could save you.
-The sound of a chair being flipped in the background is heard-
-G- Oh, don't look at me like that, you can keep this shit up if you want to, it's another fucking loop, I'm done, I'm fucking done! Over!
-D- I... ate her?. Oh god. Those weren't bugs. Those were people. and that jungle. And these hands. these aren't my hands. Where are my hands?! why can't I feel my fucking hands. This isn't my face, this isn't my face, I feel my face, I feel it, I feel it, I feel it inside me, I feel the [SPEECH INDECIPHERABLE], it is-
[Static for exactly ten hours. There is the sound of screaming intermittent. Matches David Thomas 50 % of the time, Alice Thomas 20%, 25% Mixed unknown, 5% amplified anaerobic respiration]
-D- This This is Major David speaking, come in ground control, I have lost co-ordinates of my location over.
[CURRENT LOOP: 513. RECORD LOOP TIME: 91 DAYS.]
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Ability Notes: Along with whipping fungal tendrils on one of his hands, he is able to produce an extreme variety of fungal toxins, as well as produce "cannonballs" of fungal matter fired by spores. Also is able to heal by way of fungal metabolism, as well as infesting larger organisms with his parasitic spores, though this is more localized; temporary and less... extensive than his case.
Bonus Trivia: The type of fungus infesting poor Dave is... not normally this physically and psychologically extensive in its effects, nor is it permanent like this. There are multiple factors involved in this, one of them Liquid Miracle in his ship but also multiple others (including at least one other paranatural cause).
This is very likely due to a failure by his high command, if not an actively malicious effort to use him as a guinea pig gone wrong, though we cannot say for sure. Those files are classified if not destroyed, but DW Devlin has been digging...
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So, this one actually started as one of my earliest sculptures for Kaijune, and again was kind of a sonovabitch and a slow project due to the nature of building up all those layers of epoxy putty and some ill-fated experiments with model magic.
I was going for that classic trope of "astronaut who came back fucked up" with a side of "person fucked up by fungus" ala Jamila for the former, Matango for the latter and The Quatermass Xperiment for a bit of both, a classic trope I think I at least did visually decently.
And yes, me not doing the song reference by naming the main guy Major Tom was intentional, I worried that might be a bit too on-the-nose. though, then again I tend to never not be on-the-nose, so I may not be the best judge of that.
...And, in Kaijune tradition, this character and all related narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator. Have fun!
