A Veritable Ink Storm

The few polished thoughts of a generally unpolished mind.

[veritableinkstorm]

Another set of signed cards for the cube and some for my decks. This batch all bears the art and signature of Anson Maddocks. I'm thrilled to have signed copies of the original Llanowar Elves, and the drawing he did on the return envelopes was a fun touch. This copy of Scarecrow is the second oldest card in my entire collection, and all of these were cards I grew up with. Can't wait to play!

[markrosewater]

Hey mark, I seem to remember people mailing you cards to sign at some point in the past. Is that still a thing you're willing to do? I built a cube earlier this year and I'd love to have my copy of Maro signed, as it's one of my top nostalgia cards that I included.

I am. Here's the address:

Wizards of the Coast

attn: Mark Rosewater

1103 Lake Washington Blvd. N

Renton, WA 98056

Please include a self-addressed stamped envelope.

[veritableinkstorm]

Just got back from an out of town contract, found this waiting for me at home when I got in. Thank you for your time Maro, I can't wait to show my friends your addition to my cube.

[markrosewater]

Hey mark, I seem to remember people mailing you cards to sign at some point in the past. Is that still a thing you're willing to do? I built a cube earlier this year and I'd love to have my copy of Maro signed, as it's one of my top nostalgia cards that I included.

I am. Here's the address:

Wizards of the Coast

attn: Mark Rosewater

1103 Lake Washington Blvd. N

Renton, WA 98056

Please include a self-addressed stamped envelope.

[veritableinkstorm]

So I just looked up and it's Jan 1, 2021. I missed New Year's without even thinking about it. A year ago I wouldn't have thought it possible to just let it slip by without dwelling on all the shit that the holiday usually brings up for me. I suppose you could chalk it up to me being just exceptionally tired right now due to traveling so much in the last few days, or that I haven't looked at a calendar in about a week, but still. I just spent New Year's sitting at my desk playing Terraria and ignoring the rest of the world. Wild.

[writing-prompt-s]

You’ve just realized something strange about the humans. They’re a race that joined the galaxy recently, but you’ve just found evidence of them already been part of it for many millennia before, but it feels like everybody’s forgotten.

[elidyce]

We were delighted when the people calling themselves ‘humans’ joined the spacefaring races. They were clever and agile, hot-tempered and humorous, fierce and yet friendly, a young species with much to offer us. 

Most species are still delighted. But we are the Bybleotekar, the recorders of the spaceways, and we have begun to wonder. Our merry companions are… not different, but too much the same. They understand so readily, accept so quickly - most new species have trouble adjusting to dealing with aliens, to the realities of space travel, to the sheer bigness of the universe. But the humans are so adaptable, so ready for it all, they might be remembering something they’ve forgotten, not learning something new. 

Some of us, the Izaslanik of the Bybleotekar, the gatherers of information for the record keepers, began encouraging humans to join us, that we might study them more closely. They like the work - they are a curious species, delighting in new knowledge, and they make able assistants. My human companion is named Mira, a young female. She is a good companion, who sings sweetly and laughs often. 

When Mira struck the first blow against what I thought I knew of the universe, against illusions soon to shatter that I had thought were truth, we were attending the coronation of a lesser Netar of the Kktil, recording the customs and ceremonies and unofficially enjoying the colourful celebrations. Mira was watching the dancing, her mouth widened in a ‘smile’. “It’s so pretty,” she said, her hairless face sheened with sweat under the hot sun. “I love the turquoise jewellery.” She pointed to the bright blue stones that bedecked the dancers. “I should buy some. Our homeworld doesn’t have any turquoise, you know. Only a few pieces we brought with us when we came.” 

It takes me a little while to understand what she said. It is only later, during the feasting, that I turn to her again. “You said your homeworld doesn’t have turquoise. Only… what you brought with you. Do you mean turquoise you have bought offworld, since you joined the spaceways?” 

Keep reading

[veritableinkstorm]

Solid twist on the prompt, and the name of the race hinting at the history was a great touch.

[nightharishly]

And here it is! The last in @veritableinkstorm‘s commission series! I had so much fun working with him over the last several months <3 Thank you for being so awesome, dude!

[veritableinkstorm]

God I can't wait to get these up on my wall. I'm definitely going to be in contact in the future, you've done such awesome work on so many levels.

[writing-prompt-s]

At 18, everyone receive a superpower. Your childhood friend got a power-absorption, your best friends got time control, and they quickly rise into top 100 most powerful superheroes. You got a mediocre superpower, but somehow got into the top 10. Today they visit you asking how you did it.

[inkskinned]

“Power absorption?” you ask him over your pasta, which you are currently absorbing powerfully. in the background, a tv is reading out what the Phoenix extremeist group has done recently. bodies, stacking.

tim nods, pushing his salad around. “it’s kind of annoying.” he’s gone vegan ever since he could talk to animals. his cheeks are sallow. “yesterday i absorbed static and i can’t stop shocking myself.”

“you don’t know what from,” shay is detangling her hair at the table, even though it’s not polite. about a second ago, her hair was perfect, which implies she’s been somewhere in the inbetween. “try millions of multiverses that your powers conflict with.” 

“did we die in the last one?” you grin and she grins and tim grins but nobody answers the question.

now she has a cut over her left eye and her hair is shorter. she looks tired and tim looks tired and you look down at your 18-year-old hands, which are nothing. 

they ship out tomorrow. they go out to the frontlines or wherever it is that superheroes go to fight supervillains; the cream of the crop. the starlight banner kids. 

“you both are trying too hard,” you tell them, “couldn’t you have been, like, really good at surfing?”

“god,” shay groans, “what i’d give to only be in the olympics.”

xxx in the night, tim is asleep. on the way home, he absorbed telekinesis, and hates it too. 

shay looks at you. “i’m scared,” she says.

you must not have died recently, because she looks the same she did at dinner, cut healing slowly over her eye the way it’s supposed to, not the hyper-quickness of a timejump. just shay, living in the moment when the moment is something everyone lives in. her eyes are wide and dark the way brown eyes can be, that swelling fullness that feels so familiar and warm, that piercing darkness that feels like a stone at the back of your tongue.

“you should be,” you say.

her nose wrinkles, she opens her mouth, but you plow on.

“they’re going to take one look at you and be like, ‘gross, shay? no thanks. you’re too pretty. it’s bringing down like, morale, and things’. then they’ll kick you out and i’ll live with you in a box and we’ll sell stolen cans of ravioli.”

she’s grinning. “like chef boyardee or like store brand?”

“store brand but we print out chef boyardee labels and tape them over the can so we can mark up the price.”

“where do we get the tape?” 

“we, uh,” you look into those endless dark eyes, so much like the night, so much like a good hot chocolate, so much like every sleepover you’ve had with the two of your best friends, and you say, “it’s actually just your hair. i tie your hair around the cans to keep the label on.”

she throws a pillow at you. 

you both spend a night planning what you’ll do in the morning when shay is kicked out of Squadron 8, Division 1; top rankers that are all young. you’ll both run away to the beach and tim will be your intel and you’ll burn down the whole thing. you’re both going to open a bakery where you will do the baking and she’ll use her time abilities to just, like, speed things up so you don’t have to wake up at dawn. you’re both going to become wedding planners that only do really extreme weddings.

she falls asleep on your shoulder. you do not sleep at all.

in the morning, they are gone.

xxx

squadron 434678, Division 23467 is basically “civilian status.” you still have to know what to expect and all that stuff. you’re glad that you’re taking extra classes at college; you’re kind of bored re-learning the stuff you were already taught in high school. there are a lot of people who need help, and you’re good at that, so you help them. 

tim and shay check in from time to time, but they’re busy saving the world, so you don’t fault them for it. in the meantime, you put your head down and work, and when your work is done, you help the people who can’t finish their work. and it kind of feels good. kind of.

xxx

at twenty, squadron 340067, division 2346 feels like a good fit. tim and you go out for ice cream in a new place that rebuilt after the Phoenix group burned it down. you’ve chosen nurse-practitioner as your civilian job, because it seems to fit, but you’re not released for full status as civilian until you’re thirty, so it’s been a lot of office work.

tim’s been on the fritz a lot lately, overloading. you’re worried they’ll try to force him out on the field. he’s so young to be like this.

“i feel,” he says, “like it all comes down to this puzzle. like i’m never my own. i steal from other people’s boxes.”

you wrap your hand around his. “sometimes,” you say, “we love a river because it is a reflection.”

he’s quiet a long time after that. a spurt of flame licks from under his eyes.

“i wish,” he says, “i could believe that.”

xxx

twenty three has you in squad 4637, division 18. really you’ve just gotten here because you’re good at making connections. you know someone who knows someone who knows you as a good kid. you helped a woman onto a bus and she told her neighbor who told his friend. you’re mostly in the filing department, but you like watching the real superheroes come in, get to know some of them. at this level, people have good powers but not dangerous ones. you learn how to help an 18 year old who is a loaded weapon by shifting him into a non-violent front. you get those with pstd home where they belong. you put your head down and work, which is what you’re good at. 

long nights and long days and no vacations is fine until everyone is out of the office for candlenights eve. you’re the only one who didn’t mind staying, just in case someone showed up needing something. 

the door blows open. when you look up, he’s bleeding. you jump to your feet. 

“oh,” you say, because you recognize the burning bird insignia on his chest, “I think you have the wrong office.”

“i just need,” he spits onto the ground, sways, collapses. 

well, okay. so, that’s, not, like. great. “uh,” you say, and you miss shay desperately, “okay.”

you find the source of the bleeding, stabilize him for when the shock sets in, get him set up on a desk, sew him shut. two hours later, you’ve gotten him a candlenights present and stabilized his vitals. you’ve also filed him into a separate folder (it’s good to be organized) and found him a home, far from the warfront.

when he wakes up, you give him hot chocolate (god, how you miss shay), and he doesn’t smile. he doesn’t smile at the gift you’ve gotten him (a better bulletproof vest, one without the Phoenix on it), or the stitches. that’s okay. you tell him to take the right medications, hand them over to him, suggest a doctor’s input. and then you hand over his folder with a new identity in it and a new house and civilian status. you take a deep breath. 

he opens it and bursts into tears. he doesn’t say anything. he just leaves and you have to clean up the blood, which isn’t very nice of him. but it’s candlenights. so whatever. hopefully he’ll learn to like his gift.

xxx

squadron 3046, division 2356 is incredibly high for a person like you to fit. but still, you fit, because you’re good at organization and at hard work, and at knowing how to hold on when other people don’t see a handhold.

shay is home. you’re still close, the two of you, even though she feels like she exists on another planet. the more security you’re privy to, the more she can tell you. 

you brush her hair as she speaks about the endless man who never dies, and how they had to split him up and hide him throughout the planet. she cries when she talks about how much pain he must be in.

“can you imagine?” she whispers, “i mean, i know he’s phoenix, but can you imagine?” 

“one time i had to work retail on black friday,” you say.

she sniffles.

“one time my boss put his butt directly on my hand by accident and i couldn’t say anything so i spent a whole meeting with my hand directly up his ass,” you say.

her eyes are so brown, and filling, and there are scars on her you’ve never noticed that might be new or very, very, very old; and neither of you know exactly how much time she’s actually been alive for. 

“i mean,” you say, “yeah that might hurt but one time i said goodbye to someone but they were walking in the same direction. i mean can you imagine.”

she laughs, finally, even though it’s weakly, and says, “one time even though i can manipulate time i slept in and forgot to go to work even though i was leading a presentation and i had to look them in the face later to tell them that.”

“you’re a compete animal,” you tell her, and look into those eyes, so sad and full of timelines you’ll never witness, “you should be kicked out completely.”

she wipes her face. “find me in a box,” she croaks, “selling discount ravioli.”

xxx

you don’t know how it happens. but you guess the word gets around. you don’t think you like being known to them as someone they can go to, but it’s not like they’ve got a lot of options. many of them just want to be out of it, so you get them out, you guess.

you explain to them multiple times you haven’t done a residency yet and you really only know what an emt would, but they still swing by. every time they show up at your office, you feel your heart in your chest: this is it, this is how you die, this is how it ends. 

“so, like, this group” you say, trying to work the system’s loopholes to find her a way out of it, “from ashes come all things, or whatever?”

she shrugs. you can tell by looking at her that she’s dangerous. “it’s corny,” she says. another shrug. “i didn’t mean to wind up a criminal.”

you don’t tell her that you sort of don’t know how one accidentally becomes a criminal, since you kind-of-sort-of help criminals out, accidentally. 

“i don’t believe any of that stuff,” she tells you, “none of that whole… burn it down to start it over.” she swallows. “stuff just happens. and happens. and you wake up and it’s still happening, even though you wish it wasn’t.”

you think about shay, and how she’s covered in scars, and her crying late at night because of things nobody else ever saw.

“yeah,” you say, and print out a form, “i get that.”

and you find a dangerous woman a normal home.

xxx

“you’re squadron 905?” 

“division 34754,” you tell him. watch him look down at your ID and certification and read your superpower on the card and then look back up to you and then back down to the card and then back up at you, and so on. he licks his chapped lips and stands in the cold.

this happens a lot. but you smile. the gatekeeper is frowning, but then hanson walks by. “oh shit,” he says, “it’s you! come right on in!” he gives you a hug through your rolled-down window.

the gatekeeper is in a stiff salute now. gulping in terror. hanson is one of the strongest people in this sector, and he just hugged you.

the gate opens. hanson swaggers through. you shrug to the gatekeeper. “i helped him out one time.” 

inside they’re debriefing. someone has shifted sides, someone powerful, someone wild. it’s not something you’re allowed to know about, but you know it’s bad. so you put your head down, and you work, because that’s what you’re good at, after all. you find out the gatekeeper’s name and send him a thank-you card and also handmade chapstick and some good earmuffs.

shay messages you that night. i have to go somewhere, she says, i can’t explain it, but there’s a mission and i might be gone a long time.

you stare at the screen for a long time. your fingers type out three words. you erase them. you instead write where could possibly better than stealing chef boyardee with me?

she doesn’t read it. you close the tab. 

and you put your head down. and work.

xxx

it’s in a chili’s. like, you don’t even like chili’s? chili’s sucks, but the boss ordered it so you’re here to pick it up, wondering if he gave you enough money to cover. things have been bad recently. thousands dying. whoever switched sides is too powerful to stop. they destroy anyone and anything, no matter the cost.

the phoenix fire smells like pistachios, you realize. you feel at once part of yourself and very far. it happens so quickly, but you feel it slowly. you wonder if shay is involved, but know she is not.

the doors burst in. there’s screaming. those in the area try their powers to defend themselves, but everyone is civilian division. the smell of pistachios is cloying. 

then they see you. and you see them. and you put your hands on your hips.

“excuse me, tris,” you say, “what are you doing?”

there’s tears in her eyes. “i need the money,” she croaks.

“From a chili’s?” you want to know, “who in their right mind robs a chili’s? what are you going to do, steal their mozzarella sticks?”

“it’s connected to a bank on the east wall,” she explains, “but i thought it was stupid too.”

you shake your head. you pull out your personal checkbook. you ask her how much she needs, and you see her crying. you promise her the rest when you get your paycheck.

someone bursts into the room. shouts things. demands they start killing. 

but you’re standing in the way, and none of them will kill you or hurt you, because they all know you, and you helped them at some point or another, or helped their friend, or helped their children.

tris takes the money, everyone leaves. by the time the heroes show up, you’ve gotten everyone out of the building.

the next time you see tris, she’s marrying a beautiful woman, and living happily, having sent her cancer running. you’re a bridesmaid at the wedding.

xxx

“you just,” the director wants to know now, “sent them running?” 

hanson stands between her and you, although you don’t need the protection.

“no,” you say again, for the millionth time, “i just gave her the money she needed and told her to stop it.”

“the phoenix group,” the director of squadron 300 has a vein showing, “does not just stop it.”

you don’t mention the social issues which confound to make criminal activity a necessity for some people, or how certain stereotypes forced people into negative roles to begin with, or how an uneven balance of power punished those with any neurodivergence. instead you say, “yeah, they do.”

“i’m telling you,” hanson says, “we brought her out a few times. it happens every time. they won’t hurt her. we need her on our team.”

your spine is stiff. “i don’t do well as a weapon,” you say, voice low, knowing these two people could obliterate you if they wished. but you won’t use people’s trust against them, not for anything. besides, it’s not like trust is your superpower. you’re just a normal person.

hanson snorts. “no,” he says, “but i like that when you show up, the fighting just… stops. that’s pretty nice, kid.”

“do you know… what we are dealing with…. since agent 25… shifted….?” the director’s voice is thin.

“yeah,” hanson says, “that’s why i think she’d be useful, you know? add some peace to things.”

the director sits down. sighs. waves her hand. “whatever,” she croaks, “do what you want. reassign her.”

hanson leads you out. over your shoulder, you see her put her head in her hands. later, you get her a homemade spa kit, and make sure to help her out by making her a real dinner from time to time, something she’s too busy for, mostly.

at night, you write shay messages you don’t send. telling her things you cannot manage.

one morning you wake up to a terrible message: shay is gone. never to be seen again.

xxx

you’re eating ice cream when you find him.

behind you, the city is burning. hundreds dead, if not thousands.

he’s staring at the river. maybe half-crying. it’s hard to tell, his body is shifting, seemingly caught between all things and being nothing.

“ooh buddy,” you say, passing him a cone-in-a-cup, the way he likes it, “talk about a night on the town.”

the bench is burning beside him, so you put your jacket down and snuff it out. it’s hard sitting next to him. he emits so much.

“hey tim?” you say. 

“yeah?” his voice is a million voices, a million powers, a terrible curse. 

“can i help?” you ask.

he eats a spoonful of ice cream. 

“yeah,” he says eventually. “i think i give up.”

xxx

later, when they praise you for defeating him, you won’t smile. they try to put you in the media; an all-time hero. you decline every interview and press conference. you attend his funeral with a veil over your head.

the box goes into the ground. you can’t stop crying.

you’re the only one left at the site. it’s dark now, the subtle night.

you feel her at your side and something in your heart stops hurting. a healing you didn’t know you needed. her hands find yours.

“they wanted me to kill him,” she says, “they thought i’d be the only one who could.” her hands are warm. you aren’t breathing.

“beat you to it,” you say. 

“i see that,” she tells you. 

you both stand there. crickets nestle the silence.

“you know,” she says eventually, “i have no idea which side is the good one.”

“i think that’s the point of a good metaphor about power and control,” you say, “it reflects the human spirit. no tool or talent is good or bad.”

“just useful,” she whispers. after a long time, she wonders, “so what does that make us?”

xxx

it’s a long trek up into the mountains. shay seems better every day. more solid. less like she’s on another plane.

“heard you’re a top ten,” she tells me, her breath coming out in a fog. you’ve reclassed her to civilian. it took calling in a few favors, but you’ve got a lot. 

“yeah,” you say, “invulnerable.”

“oh, is that your superpower?” she laughs. she knows it’s not.

“that’s what they’re calling it,” you tell her, out of breath the way she is not, “it’s how they explain a person like me at the top.”

“if that means ‘nobody wants to kill me’, i think i’m the opposite.” but she’s laughing, in a light way, a way that’s been missing from her.

the cabin is around the corner. the lights are already on. 

“somebody’s home,” i grin.

tim, just tim, tim who isn’t forced into war and a million reflections, opens the door. “come on in.” xxx squadron one, division three. a picture of shay in a wedding dress is on my desk. she looks radiant, even though she’s marrying little old me.

what do i do? just what i’m best at. what’s not a superpower. what anyone is capable of: just plain old helping.

[hornyjail23]

Written art. Beautiful. Better than most movies. Please read and share.

[veritableinkstorm]

Utterly fantastic.

[veritableinkstorm]

Being as overworked as I am results in fun things like spending the whole day thinking about my characters and stories only to get home exhausted and write down some bullshit detail I hung onto from earlier, like what Fennen's favorite flavor of ice cream is, and then crash the fuck out and forget everything else I spent the day on.

It's strawberry oreo, by the way.

[nightharishly]

two more of @veritableinkstorm​ ‘s lovely characters, this time its Gianna and Hale!!

I continue to be endlessly thankful to you for commissioning me <3 I’m super excited to continue bringing your characters to life the best I can!

[veritableinkstorm]

My beautiful angry babes! They turned out fantastic, but that's no surprise coming from you.

[c3rvida3]

I'm not saying I'm meticulously writing an IT-inspired Kid On Bikes oneshot; I'm just saying it would be stupid not to.

[veritableinkstorm]

I'm writing something similar, though I'm using KOB for only the kids' portion and I'm using Monster of the Week for the adults' part of the story.

[nightharishly]

Yet another commission for the awesome @veritableinkstorm ! Two more of his awesome characters!

I loved worked on this honestly, all the little fun details I got to add to the characters made this super fun (on top of getting to color someone in the brightest colors I could muster)

[veritableinkstorm]

They look so good! You really captured both of their personalities, it's fantastic!

[veritableinkstorm]

The First Path, Prologue

There are few things more instinctually unsettling than a location once filled with people being empty of life. The example that most relates to the story being told is that of a derelict shopping mall. In this case, the mall manages both to be open for business and empty of businesses. Some few still remain, the nail salon and home goods stores defying all logic by making rent each month. One chain restaurant sold burgers and fries to the few patrons that walked through their doors. Otherwise the mall's fountain and the sound of the escalators were deafening against the silent storefronts. 

Only three types of people visited this relic of decades past. The first was the regulars, who had come to think of this place as part of themselves. The stores that made them return time after time in their younger days were long gone, but they found themselves coming back year after year to walk around and make a purchase out of a sense of obligation or pity. 

The second were the employees themselves, and of course their families. One particularly rambunctious member of this group was the young son of a nail artist. His running feet wore the tile more than any other did these days, and his soccer ball bouncing against the shuttered gates of the empty storefronts was the closest thing to business those rooms had seen in years.

The third are the most interesting or, from certain points of view, the most troubling. Much to the disapproval of various meddling parents unrelated to the teens in question this mall was a frequent rendezvous for small "gangs" of "vagrants" that took advantage of the seating in the upper floor, far from the eyes of employees and any rare customer traveling the halls. 

This third group is technically where our focus is drawn. Only in technicality, because none of the players on our stage had ever been among the gangs of aforementioned vagrants. However they were within the unfortunate bounds of the years known as the "teenage" and were, as such, indistinguishable from the others to the outside viewer. 

The first to arrive were the twins, Fall and Retanna. Their vehicle of choice was once their great-grandmother's, a small sedan they shared ownership of after the former owner's passing. Both the meeting place and the meeting itself was their idea.

--

They ducked out of the heat of their car and into the greater heat of the scorching pavement between them and the entrance of Tanglewood Shopping Center. Respite came as they stepped past the glass doors into the cool air of the entryway. Fall spoke. 

"You think anyone's here yet?"

"Didn't see their cars. The ones getting dropped off are the ones that would be late, so I doubt it."

"Yeah."

As they passed the dropped gates of the shoe store and dessert shop that once flanked the entrance Retanna stopped and turned back. 

"I can hear Ino's bike. You head up, I'll be right there."

Fall couldn't hear it yet, but there wasn't a chance she was wrong. The sound of a motorcycle's engine is distinct and travels much further than most would expect. His footfalls echoed slightly as he turned the corner and caught the first notes of the pop radio playing from the nail salon. Both the escalator and the fountain beside it were turned off today. Without the fountain's diffusion of thin chlorinated mist the musty smell of dust and disuse hit full force, causing Fall to grimace slightly before he walked up the unmoving escalator. 

The seating area was, unsurprisingly, empty. This was probably meant to be a food court at one point, but the involved parties neglected to take into account the relatively cramped space and the complete lack of interest that the average mall goers had for the three former restaurants that faced the swarm of tables. Whatever name those businesses once had was stripped away at the same time as the stoves, freezers, and other reusable implements. 

Fall moved some chairs into place, then sat. It was time to confront the truth. They were all going to die. It was his fault. He had no idea what they were going to do about it. 

[nightharishly]

@veritableinkstorm was super awesome and commissioned me to draw his characters Fall and Retanna! 

I had so much fun working with you and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed working on it! Thank you again for being so awesome and patient!

[veritableinkstorm]

AHHHHHHH IM SO HAPPY this is so great dude!

[veritableinkstorm]

I had a dream

I met a man. He had a name, but it was meaningless. As I spoke with him the dread began. We moved away, sitting on opposite sides of a crowded cafe. My table held a man I knew well, a woman I loved, and a girl I had met that day. We spoke of few things, preferring to eat and exchange looks that held a depth of meaning impossible to achieve in our world.

This was when the screaming began. I stood, looking across the cafe. There was not one of the man. They were all the man. As I watched another became him, features distorting and shifting into short-cropped hair, a pronounced nose, and a winning smile. They each wore the same shirt and tie. I looked back to my own. The girl had changed. I was scared. The walls shifted in the way they only can in dreams, and we now stood in a black room, every surface made of roughly painted black wood that splintered and cracked throughout.

My friend stood, and we discussed what we should do. The men were friendly, and they answered our questions readily. They were happy now. They knew that before they had been other people, but they did not wish to return to that, to retrieve their memories and lost identities. It was better to be the man, for the man was happy.

One man did not stay happy. I noticed this, and as I did the man changed, revealing the girl. My friend and I were excited, and my love was happy to have the girl back. We talked, and found that with some work my friend could make a cure from the girl. While he did I walked with my love into the halls of black outside of the room. I suddenly saw things through her eyes. I walked as her, and looked out at a man that was me.

I spoke with him, about how I had feelings for the girl. He said it was the first time I had chosen my own companion, and it was natural that I was so attached. We ended up in a small room, only a few feet across. There was a small round pedestal in the center of the room. Somewhere during the walk I had become myself again. After a moment the girl walked into the room. Something was wrong. Her eyes were dead. She vomited a black and oily slime that I instinctively knew was the man. She had chosen to become him again.

My friend had failed to find a cure. We ran through the black halls, trying to escape the man. Fear pounded through the place, shaking and splintering the walls until they split and fell away. We stood on a flat island rising above a cloudy and tainted sea. Across the island was a floating sphere, bleeding the oily ink that formed it onto the ground in waves. My friend, still trying to save us, started to work on something in his mind. He warned us that the sphere must weigh hundreds of tons to hold as much compressed darkness as it did.

As I waited in frozen silence for my friend to find a solution my love stepped forward. I couldn't stop her from walking up to the sphere, couldn't stop her from reaching out and taking it in. She consumed it, taking in the weight of that darkness. She was thrown back as the dark burst out from her mouth in a thick and sinewy rope, disappearing over the side of the island. I became her again as she woke from unconsciousness to find herself alone. I heard the voices of my companions in my head for a moment, telling me that they could save me but I had to unravel the beast.

As I looked up I saw the dark cord coming out of the ground before me, stretching out down the slope of the island and off into the sea. It grew thicker as it went, bigger around than I was before it reached halfway to the water. I began to tear it apart, pulling it open like a twisted bedsheet. The further I went the harder it was to pull. I knew I was running out of time. I glimpsed a figure made of smoke at the edge of my vision, and I was suddenly waking up again.

I received the same instructions, and picked myself up to try again. As I did I saw the shadow figure again before it vanished. The cord was even thicker this time. I pulled at it, dread filling me as I felt the cord move beneath my hands. It was growing stronger, shaping itself below the water. I woke up on the ground again.

This was my last try. I somehow knew that if I failed this time I would never be able to beat it. I didn't try to pull the cord apart. It was simply too strong for me to handle it now. I walked to the edge of the water. The island dropped off as soon as it touched the ocean, endless depth beginning immediately. I felt a rush of panic as I realized I was falling. The water was cold, filthy and clouded with the black of the beast. I could see the cord disappear into the depths, the blackness below hinting at the monstrous size of my adversary.

My fear propelled me through the water and I climbed back onto the island. As I did I caught another glimpse of the shade, and I turned to see it coalesce into a solid figure. It stood still for a moment as I was frozen in fear. Then it attacked. I woke up.