The Squid (2024)

27/08/2023

𝐒𝐄𝐄

“Are you reading tonight?”
“No way, I’m running on fumes right now.” She tied her hair back and slumped into bed, cursed, and then leaned far over to turn off her bedside lamp.

He smiled to himself, watching her shuffling about, before turning off his bedside lamp and wriggling under the covers himself.

“Was that you?” He asked later after the shuffling had tapered off and they were comfortable.

“What?”

“Not you then. I thought something touched my foot.”

Silence.

“Something cold too.”

“Ok, enough,” she said, trying to sound groggy and bothered, “It’s probably just static. Fresh beddings, you know?”

“Hm.”

She didn’t know what to say. She knew the sheets weren’t to blame, they had never been staticky.
She didn’t like how genuine the concern in his voice felt when he described 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥.

She could feel the night deviating from normal and she dreaded how helpless she felt.
She didn’t want to be afraid but somehow, fear was leaking in like water through a rotten ceiling.
First a dribble, soon out of hand if not addressed.

She forced herself to focus.
All this for what? A brush against a foot? It was probably her leg. Right?
𝘙𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵?

He was probably asleep already. This is stupid. This fear is irrational. She raised her head slightly off her pillow.

“Found your boogeyman?” she asked, trying to sound sleepy and not afraid.

Silence.

“John?”
This time, she clearly heard the tremble in her voice. Still, silence.

When she turned around, she realized her hands were shaking and a pit had grown in her stomach so big it threatened to push her supper right back up.

“John?” She squeaked.

“Don’t… Look… a, don’t!” He croaked.
John was seated up, one hand holding the beddings up and another clasped at his throat. His eyes were wide and bloodshot with terror, and his breath was coming out in ragged, pained rasps.

She could see the veins on the side of his neck pulsing on his skin, slick and moist with perspiration, and even though she wanted to leap over to him and help, she was frozen still, watching his neck muscles twitch as he fought himself.

It took a moment for her to process the sudden and dark change in direction the evening had taken, but she still kept enough awareness to know that John had been trying to tell her something.

“John, Oh God!” She could only whisper now, her voice left her mouth hoarse and empty.
She couldn’t help feeling immobilized by more than just her fear and her thoughts were getting heavier and heavier and slower and slow…er.

“Don’t look at… Nancy, don’t!”

Any sooner and she would have. The only sane part of her wanted to see what it was that was doing this to him. 𝘛𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮!

But John was trying to tell her no.
And she could feel her head turning toward it, almost against her control like a stubborn cat.
𝘕𝘖!
She turned her eyes away. Away from the magnetic pull of whatever lay under their sheets trying to claim her sense and sanity.

Turning away from it, she had to look at John.

His eyes had turned blood red. His nails had dug into his skin and trails of blood were making their way down his pajama shirt, smearing against his skin as he je**ed back and forth choking the life out of his own body.

It wasn’t until her vision blurred quite severely that she realized her whole shirt was wet with tears, and more was still gushing out of her eyes.
She was using all her might to try and avoid looking and didn’t know what to do when forced to watch John die right there.

At least her eyes knew to cry.

John, seemingly aware of his fate, gasped his last and tried one last time to give word to Nancy.
But Nancy was having a difficult time grasping the workings of her quickly deteriorating reality and only registered a hoarse, pained gurgle.
Her mind was wading through tar trying to function and her body seemed reluctant to obey her, not to mention having to watch John violently, yet unwillingly, squeeze the life out of himself.

The voices seemed to screech in her mind. She didn’t remember when they started, but it seemed like they had always been there. Always loud, unhappy, and scathing. Screeching, hissing and impatient. She found it deafening.

Please, be quiet. 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦!

John clasped his throat with both his hands before finally keeling over and collapsing off the side of the bed, drawing the covers with him and unveiling the horror that lay there.
Gone.

𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯! 𝘕𝘰! She tried to focus. Now more than ever. 𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦!
All she had to do was let her eyes fall on it and she could feel it calling them to it.

She couldn’t see John now.
The last she saw was the pained look leaving his face as he gave up the ghost, his glassy eyes rolling up into his head as both despair and relief washed over him.
But he had said something first.

What was it?

She tried to remember, past the hissing in her head.
The hissing that had begun from her ears was quickly filling up the spaces in her mind, growing a purpose of its own, spreading like tendrils and intercepting her thoughts.
She tried moving her hand to throw some covers on 𝘪𝘵, but she was shaking too hard her elbow buckled under her, turning her body in its direction.

Oh no!
𝘋𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘪𝘵! He’d said, but it was too late.
The hissing persisted. 𝘚𝘌𝘌!
It was taking over. John had said…

𝘕𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘺𝘺𝘺…𝘴𝘦𝘦! 𝘚𝘦𝘦!

Yes, 𝘴𝘦𝘦, he’d said. See.

Her brain caught fire when she looked at it. She threw her hands to clasp her mouth but they clasped her neck instead.
The inky dark pulsating blob with two pinprick-like eyes, floating formlessly at the foot of their bed, stared with its chill, icy gaze through her eyes and into her very soul.
It appeared black like a pot of tar in a dark room.
Darker than the darkest night, reaching deep into the parts of her mind where even she didn’t explore.

It gripped her gaze like a vice and she knew it would never let go.
She could feel it scratching the back of her skull, a cloud of nails and talons trying to dig through.
Or maybe that was her essence trying to flee.
Its hot dark and humid aura quickly and fully enveloped her, clouding her senses, and leaving her feeling uncomfortably displaced.
The throbbing pinpricks pulsed to the surface to meet her eyes, burning her gaze as the tendrils in her mind seared into her brain like hot tar seeping into her deepest thoughts burning away all that made her herself.

𝘚𝘦𝘦! 𝘚𝘦𝘦…𝘮𝘦, 𝘴𝘦𝘦…𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦…

No more! She wanted to scream and call for someone, anyone, but her hands were at the throat and she could spare no words.
Even her life was almost entirely out of her as she realized her shirt was covered in blood from her neck as well.

Her nails were longer than John’s after all.

She felt like an empty pot, hollow and fragile.
A drained, empty shell that would break if it fell onto the floor. She could not hold on to herself anymore, she didn’t know how much of her was left.

The empty blackness pulsed hypnotically toward her, closer and closer, those pinprick eyes seeing more and more, reaching further and further, occupying more room and squeezing her out until she felt exhausted and dried like kindling.

She tried to think but no thoughts came.
What was this? What was happening to them? It felt like a lifetime ago that they were just trying to go to bed. Now for as far as she could think, she had been losing this arm wrestle to the unknown extradimensional horror that had manifested in their bed, stealing away her mind and being.
But that hardly mattered, her thoughts sounded like echoes from someone else’s experiences now.

Her voice, her scent, the smell of John’s acrid aftershave, it was all leaking furiously out of her no matter how hard she tried to retain any of it. It was starting to feel inevitable like anesthesia kicking in.
Letting go would be such a relief.

𝘚𝘦𝘦!

She was falling into it now.
Pouring out of her body like a thin stream of scrambled consciousness into the great gaping void with its empty eyes and persistent burrowing influence.
She didn’t know where she would fall if she would at all. Perhaps she would join John on the floor if she could remember where he fell.

Aside from a few whispers, she could hear the silence.
Finally.
She could 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 it too. Heavy and dense and empty.
Like a weighted blanket that keeps on sinking.

𝘚𝘦𝘦!

10/04/2023

𝙅𝙪𝙢𝙥.

As expected, moments after the alarms were blaring, there was a scuffle at the door before it hissed open and the Comm Officer poured into the room gasping, barely clothed, dragging one of his overall pants legs behind him.

“Goodness Kael!” He wheezed, “I left you guys for a minute! What happened?”

“Don’t know, but Kael’s dead!”

“Jacob?” the Comm Officer took a moment and slowly zipped up his overalls, before looking his companion straight in the face.
“What the hell Jacob, now you kill him!?”

Jacob had been hunched over a control panel in a cold sweat. His hands and body were shaking visibly. He kept trying to swallow but his throat was dry, so he kept smacking his lips like a catfish pulled out of a river.

He turned and looked at the Officer, keeping one hand on the console,
“That’s not what happened Leonard.” he whispered hoarsely before swallowing. Finally.
“That’s not even the problem right now,” he continued, “Look.”

He directed Leonard’s face to a display, entered a destination into the console, and locked it in by pulling a small lever from its cradle.
The display confirmed the destination but when he released the lever to its natural position, the display blinked, requesting a destination again.

“We can’t lock on to destination Lenny,” Jacob croaked. He tried clearing his throat then finished, dread seeping into his tone, “I think Navigation is shot.”

“Can you hold it manually?”

“Not through a jump Sir, no.”

“And Kael is…”

“Dead, yes. Although I didn’t kill him, Sir, you should know that.”

“Yeah, right. Either way, Captain was the only guy that could reach Central Dispatch.”
Leonard cursed under his breath.

“You know, now we have to negotiate with…it, if we’re going to stand a chance.” He sighed, “She online yet?”

“No, Sir. Whatever happened took down the Ship Computer first before venting compartments. After that, all systems began cascading.
If we lose Navigation we’ll be lost to the Drift!”

“I get it, Mr. “Whatever Happened”! Don’t yell! Manual Nav is a bitch anyway.”

“Better than none. And Kael was probably in the observatory anyways when we lost atmosphere. Instruments only had him for like, a minute!”

“He was vented? Whoa.” Leonard was silent for a moment.
“Did you alert Technical?” He eventually asked, brow furrowed.

“Yes sir.”

“Good, ShipCom should be coming back soon. I’ll see if I can reach anyone within LARDIS.”

“Here?” Jacob squeaked, his voice abandoning him again, but he pushed through.
“We need to jump now! Every minute we spend here, our destinations are losing integrity and our Nav is dying. We need to start the Jump Protocols ASAP!”

“Dammit Jacob!” Leonard exploded,
“It’s bad enough you k… the Captain is dead! Let’s also not try jumping a broken boat. Okay? For Drifts’ sake, we don’t even have the computer yet!”

The main door hissed open again and Serro walked in, her eyes on her forearm display.
“ShipCom should be coming online…now.”

A few more consoles lit up as some more alarms silenced before the computer coldly declared,
𝘕𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺. 𝘕𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺.

“No kidding.” Chirped Leonard.
Serro surveyed the room momentarily, taking in the chaos of the sweaty man hunched smacking his dry lips in the corner to the other lanky, disheveled hardly dressed one, who was dejectedly leaving his console.

“So,” she began, walking slowly through the room, “what in the great void unfurled here?”

“Well,” Leonard started, as he got up from his seat, “Comms are dead. Done. The system won’t even acknowledge the Long-Range array. As you’ve heard from…it, Nav is in decay but we knew that. Jacob is holding onto a manual lock. He lets go, no destination.”

“Well, that is…discouraging.” Her brow, following Leonard’s, curled to a furrow. Leonard finished,
“Oh also, Captain Kael’s dead.”

“What?” She gasped. She thought for a moment, turned to look where Jacob was still stuck to the Nav console before going,
“Bravo Jacob! To be honest, I wasn’t sure you had it in you, man. Hm, good on you.”

“I didn’t kill Kael!” Jacob screeched.

“Hey man, I’m not judging you! I guess grudges where you’re from run deeeep!” She threw her hands up and laughed dryly, “Oh we’re so done for.”
“What?”

“Nothing Jacob. You just keep an eye out for Bruno. I mean Kael may have been insufferable but they were still brothers.”

Her forearm display beeped.
She consulted it, scratching her temple from time to time as she went through it. After a few moments, she looked up grimly.

“Ship’s losing power, critically. Doesn’t show what malfunctioned but if we don’t get a lifeline soon, we’re going to be in the drift.”

“Well,” sighed Jacob impatiently, “shouldn’t we jump now? Or are we waiting for Nav to fail completely?”

Leonard sighed, sat back down on his console seat, and wiped his forehead on an oily rag before looking at it, disgusted.
“It’s not that simple, Jacob.” He spoke quietly, almost resigned.

“With these old boats, the Jump engines will drain the entire ship of power. Usually, the burn engines compensate for things like life support and gravity to keep us you know, alive?”

He looked at Serro, “Are we tumbling?” Serro consulted her forearm, “Yeah. About a minute now.”
“Well,” Leonard continued to Jacob, “I imagine that’s our fuel all spent now.”

“Sh*t, You’re right. Cells are dry.” Serro walked to a wall console nearby and began dialing, “Let me see if Engineering can do something. With any luck, we can hobble to a nearby outpost.”

She began speaking to someone on the other end, and the two could only pick up snippets.
“Hey…yeah, pretty fu…yeah. I know, anything at all? Damn…Oh no, he’s dead. Yeah, Jacob…didn’t believe it myself…”

“Damn Serro!” Jacob began but the ShipCom cut him off,
𝘕𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺. 𝘕𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺.

“Hey, come see this,” Leonard called to Jacob who, waved his free hand at him furiously.
“Not literally, you dingbat, I’m saying there are two reserve fuel cells that might get us somewhere.”

“Can’t” sighed Jacob, “That fuel is contaminated. The lines in those cells leaked Cobalt into the fuel. That’s why they were sealed from the engine.”

“We didn’t have reserve fuel? What the s**t?” The frustration was getting to Leonard and his tough façade began to fade.
“Our odds were bad before the ship started falling apart.”

𝘕𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺. 𝘕𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺.

“This is bad.” Jacob called to Leonard, “Sir, I’m losing manual retention now, the system cannot pin Earth or Luna!”

“Great. Try again Jacob, and look further this time. We couldn't have jumped to Earth Space anyway.”

“Why not? It’s our emergency destination.”

“Integrity, Jacob. Luna and Earth have almost zero spatial integrity left. Last I heard it was 2% or something.”

“What? I was told they stopped at 60%!”

“They lied, of course. Early Jump excursions launched from Luna and Earth almost every week for years before they realized that they were practically poking holes in the spacetime fabric with every jump.
I hear they don’t even look at the same sky anymore there.
A jump to Luna at 2% integrity would potentially fling us to Orion’s Outer Rim.”

“Crap.”

“Yeah, crap.”

A cold inky silence fell upon them.

Shortly, along with a curious look, Leonard leaned forward and asked Jacob quietly,
“How did you do it? How’d you kill him anyways?”

“I didn’t.” Jacob said firmly.

“Right.”

“So, we’re pretty boned,” Serro, off her call, slumped into a nearby seat.

“We’ve got two tanks of s**t fuel that’s more likely to cook us inside the ship than move it anywhere, Burn Engines are fried, Long-Range Comm array cannot be recovered and the Nav core is about to bite it.
So, ideas?”

“What if we target a jump for the Kerberos Gate? That's far enough, right?” asked Jacob.

“Can’t run the Jump engines, not enough charge. Even if we could, once we get there in a ship without fuel, the burn engines would be unable to provide power for life support. We’d be Jumping a tomb to Kerberos.”

“And if we filter the bad fuel?” asked Leonard.

“Not in the time we have. This whole ship will be a cold, dark hunk in half an hour.”

“Well,” sighed Jacob, still hooked to the console, “The Navigation Core is almost gone anyway so even if we fixed the engines and life support later, it won’t matter if we don’t know where we are or where to go.”

“That’s right,” Serro said, consulting her forearm occasionally.

“So, what if we run the Jump engine on the contaminated fuel? We only need one jump, right?”

“Yeah, but once the Jump engine detects the cobalt in the fuel, not to even mention its entirely different chemical composition, it’ll begin venting it immediately.”

“Sure, but the Jump Protocols will be underway. The engine cannot abort an ongoing Jump sequence, right?”

“That was a defective feature, Jacob.”

“Works for us though. We introduce the fuel last!”

“Wherever we’d end up,” Leonard said calmly, “We’d flood the entire Gate Station with Cobalt, radiation, and biofuel residue. It would be useless for years.”

“But at least we’d be somewhere sir. Anywhere is better than here. This place…this far…there aren’t even any stars out. It’s…wrong.”
Jacob finished off quietly.

Silence.

𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘯𝘵.

“Well, the murderous bastard is right.” Serro got up, moved to a console, and began flipping switches.

“Get me a destination, Jacob. Contaminations can be cleaned up. Someone better see us jump in otherwise we are all going to asphyxiate ten minutes after we drop in.”

𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘯𝘵.

“Jump protocols underway,” Serro continued, “we jump in a minute. Leonard, stand by the ShortWave and LARDIS, if the Jump doesn’t scramble you too much, send a Distress to anyone around.
This is going to be one of the worst Jumps I’ve ev…”

“DAMMIT!”

“What the hell, Jacob?”

Jacob removed his hands from the console and turned around to look at the two.
“We’ve lost navigation.”

“But,” Serro grasped for words momentarily, “Jump is underway, where are we going?”

“System reboot reset the destination to its manufacture source. Now it’s locked to Earth.”

“Oh no.” Serro’s face drained, “Earth.”

Jacob looked over to Leonard, pale as a laundered shirt.

“Less than 2% chance, eh Leonard?”
“Do you believe we are that lucky, Jacob?”

𝘑𝘶𝘮𝘱 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦. 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘑𝘶𝘮𝘱 𝘪𝘯 3, 2, 1.
𝙅𝙪𝙢𝙥.

02/02/2023

𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐞.

Ignoring the awkward scientific designation, everyone ended up calling it Sponge.

Sponge was hidden in the tail of a common comet and began tumbling toward Earth when NASA altered the course of its host comet.

The comet (which was nowhere near close to the Earth or even on a course toward it) was successfully diverted and ended up crashing into Venus, forever making a home beneath the impenetrable Venusian atmosphere.

Sponge on the other hand, upon interacting with the Earth's ionosphere, scattered billions of microscopic cosmic organisms over the planet.
It further went on to survive entry into the atmosphere of the Earth in its entirety, before falling into the Pacific and quickly sinking out of reach.

While it was agreed that no one was to blame for the outcome of a Planetary Defense Experiment, (better to have it and not need it...) the events that followed split the opinion of the population of Earth.

Some believed that Sponge delivered the judgement of God and damned the world, others believed it had ushered the next step in the evolution of mankind and the rest were convinced that we should have left all the space stuff alone from the beginning, being too big for the meddling of man.

30/01/2023

The Curse of the Creative

I said I would write every day.
All I do though is stare at a blank page for hours.
And I also doom scroll, a lot.
So blank screen, writer’s block, doom scrolling.

Today I added a little something to the madness,
I researched endlessly for hours… about how to write.
I ended up with debilitating self-doubt.
Blank screen, writer’s block, doom scrolling, imposter syndrome.

Tomorrow I might try again,
Procrastination.
Blank screen, writer’s block, doom scrolling, imposter syndrome, procrastination.

If I do manage to write someday, it will probably be beautiful.
I might even publish it.
Then of course will come the cringe at how bare I have laid my soul for the world to see.
Despair.
Blank screen, writer’s block, doom scrolling, imposter syndrome, procrastination, despair.
All in a decade’s work.

13/01/2023

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧
𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟭 𝗼𝗳 𝟮

The air got thick and turgid, a dreary mix of dust sweat, and a hint of halitosis as screams were surrendered into the slow haze.

“Ten minutes, I’ll tolerate this for ten minutes, no more.”

But the regret was already quite considerable. This was hardly his crowd, but his word was already given.
Now he wondered if he should have held on to some reservation and fought a little more, but he was there for a friend and apparently, that’s the kind of thing you do.

He took some comfort in the predictable nature that this event has taken in the past from accounts and TV, and he could confess to himself to harboring just a hint of curiosity.
Still, he now felt he’d rather be away and catch this some other time, on TV, for example, with open windows everywhere.

But he was here.

His knees were weak already and as his regret mounted, his tolerance waned.
The open field was packed full of excited and eager believers from all corners and nooks, antsy with anticipation to have their beliefs restructured and minds blown.

Their eyes remained fixed on the humble podium up front, waiting impatiently for “The Chosen” to ascend it and address them, even though that has never happened.

The Chosen never spoke, only gestured. Three times, the same thing.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘯
His doubt was not new, but his cynicism rose every time this whole “Chosen” business came up.

𝘊𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘯? 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯? 𝘉𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘮? 𝘋𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘦𝘳?
It hardly mattered, after all, the Chosen never declared themselves as such.

But he believed that whoever finds anything that can pass for the divine or supernatural, could claim it as such and if not disproven, would only gain more belief no matter what it was.
This realization made him a little unsettled but there was no time for that as a small figure in a hood and cloak made its way onto the podium.

There was purpose and deliberation put into the few steps taken that he did not usually associate with walking. It seemed strained and rather laborious.
Although, just as much effort was put into concealing these efforts, and he brushed it away as someone flitted onto the podium, collected the hood and cloak from the figure, and disappeared.

It was time.

The Chosen, a woman with a small birdlike frame under a yellow robe, surveyed the crowd for a moment, her bony hands clasped over each other over her stomach as if shy of her belly button.
She swung slowly left, then right before stopping to face the crowd head-on.

He noticed that she shook, ever so slightly, when she raised her hand to quell the crowd.

He had tried to match the thunderous applause that had accompanied her ascending to the stage with some meager clapping, but it had had as much effect as a candle outside at high noon.
Yet now, at her command, pin drop silence.

Unexpectedly, some dread crept into his bones.

𝘓𝘦𝘵’𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺.
He couldn’t leave quickly enough, and in this crowd, his friend could have left already and he would remain unaware.

From previous events, the chosen would raise her hands and drop them here times, at which point the crowd usually descends into some spiritual frenzy.
Screaming and chanting and yelling, that kind of thing.

Since he had never had this kind of response spiritually, to anything, he had concluded it was a more personal experience that didn’t manifest the same way in everybody.

𝘕𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, 𝘐’𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘰 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦.

Many accept the explanation for the frenzy as the effect of the Spirit descending to commune with the worshippers.
However, since everybody came away with vastly different experiences and accounts, no one could say for sure.
It’s worth bringing your sack of salt from home, with which to take these accounts.

𝘐𝘵 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘚𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘵, 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘶𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘧𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘦 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮.
𝘍𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘪𝘳𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵.

Both her hands were up now, further accentuating her bony frame.
He couldn’t see her eyes clearly from the distance, but from the sunken shadows on her face, he could feel them searching, darting over faces like a flashlight.

A tinge of fear brushed his spine, then her hands came down.

“Whoa.”

One moment. One tiny, brief moment.

It’s like he had blinked with his eyes open.
Someone had turned reality off and on again very quickly.
He had the brief unsettling sensation of not feeling the Earth under him, and his senses extending slightly beyond his body.

The dread pooled further in a pit within him. Instincts began screaming at him before he could gather his reasoning and flee. Quickly!

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴! He thought, and even though his body screamed, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘯𝘰𝘸! he was still confused, unsure of what had happened.

What was going to happen next?

𝘖𝘩 𝘯𝘰.

But it was too late.
He looked up just in time to see her hands rise, along with the dread within him, then slam down her sides.

The pit of dread writhed and twisted inside his belly, threatening to evict his lunch.
He felt like someone had trapped him in a glass jar filled with hot breath.
Humid, dense, and nauseating.
He tried taking deep breaths but that turned out to be a poor idea.

His ears dulled up, his skin became clammy and his arm hair stood on end.
He looked around, panicked, but everything looked the same.

Nothing felt the same though.
He could not hear the noise anymore, even though he could see the people around him yelling, neck veins a-pop and everything, clearly in commune with “the Spirit”.

The tinge of fear grew into terror. This felt…wrong, somehow.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that his senses had been intercepted.
He could see, but he could not focus. Not even on the sky. Like that wasn’t important right now.
𝘚𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰, 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩?

His skin was clammy, but he knew he was getting cold.
Much like being trapped in a freezer, it may not be cold now, but it is going to be much worse in not much time.
Even though the afternoon sun was out.

He did not want to be there anymore. The Chosen and her unnerving hand magics seemed bent on unraveling his reality, and he just could not deal with that right now.

But he didn’t even have to look around to know that making a getaway at that time was practically impossible, deep inside the crowd as he was.
Not to mention how displaced and disjointed he felt.

Furthermore, this person seemed as eager as he was to be done with all this because her hands were already up when he looked towards the podium.
This time, before she brought her hands down, he was able to see them.

Her eyes.

Sunk deep into her face, showing against the muscle in her cheeks as she clenched her jaw, her eyes held wide open.
The whites contrasted sharply with her dull irises, and the shadows below her brow and above her cheekbones.

Her pupils were pinpricks, focused sharply and intensely, just vibrating within their sockets, not blinking; looking right at him.

08/01/2023

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

“Oh God!”
“Take a breath and relax, please. You are okay.”
“Where am I? What is happening here?”

“I’m sorry, but you have died. You are here with me now.”
“Oh.”

How matter of fact a delivery, “…you have died.”
Surprisingly, she was not as offended as she had expected the news would make her.

Hardly at all.

Rather, she felt…renewed. Remade. Reinvigorated even.
A deep breath made her feel a bit more settled, though not very. She was still quite loopy.

“Do you need a moment? How are you feeling?”

She took a moment to observe her new environment as well as study her mysterious companion.
The landscape was beautiful though rather empty. Like a moonlit desert, the eerie light danced on the tiny glass-like particles that comprised the sand, shimmering in dune after dune all the way to the horizon.
She could not see any source of light though, and she wondered if that had always been so normal.
No moon, sun nor starry specks in the sky lighting up their silhouettes.

It was breathtakingly beautiful, even though she was pretty sure they had no shadows.

Her companion felt familiar.

He had the sort of warm and kind face that one gets relieved to see in a crowd. Someone that offers enjoyable and uncomplicated company. She was oddly glad to see him and could not help but smile.
Was she seeing him again?

“Let’s walk this way.” He said before she lost herself in her spiral of thoughts.
He put his hands in his coat pockets and they began slowly walking.

“I’m sorry, did you say how I died?”
“I did not.” He responded calmly, “Would you like to know?”
Did she?

“Yes, please,” she conceded, “If you do not mind.”
“Sure.” He stopped, “but first, what do you remember?”

Not much, she realized.
Like fading memories, she could piece some things together but the pieces were all over the place and quickly disappearing.

“I was at home. There was a party? No.” She paused.
“I was getting ready for one, some friends were coming over…dinner?” She struggled harder and harder to recall details.

You’re correct.” He said after her pauses got longer and less confident.
“What happened?”
She wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to know, but it felt like the kind of thing worth knowing.

How one died.

“You were tired.” He shrugged. “At some point, you fell asleep while taking a short break. Unfortunately, a fire started in the kitchen and the smoke asphyxiated you. Your body was lost with the rest of the house.”
“Oh.”

Oh? That’s it? 𝘖𝘩?!

They resumed walking in silence.
Eventually, her curiosity overcame her.

“May I ask you something?”
“Please, anything.”
“I can’t be sure we’ve met before, but you feel a little familiar to me. Who are you, really? And what is this place? It’s beautifully lit yet without a sun, a moon, or any stars.
And it feels so lonely”

He was smiling softly, as if humored by her confusion, by the time she was done.

“Well,” he began, “your time and experiences in the Living have conditioned you to fear and resist me. Even though, you really shouldn’t.
I am Death.
You know, Thanatos, the Reaper, Dude with the Scythe?”

He chuckled, then continued.

“You are in the Transition. Souls pass here as they move from the Living and to the Living.
Think of it as the palate cleanser between courses.
I’ve spent considerable time in the Living. I was once in your office in someone else’s company, perhaps you felt my presence then and remembered it ever since.
Maybe that is why I am familiar to you."

Death. She has met 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩.

They continued in silence for a while.

"Where is our destination? There is one, right?” she asked eventually.
“Yes. There is one. When the time is right, there will be a door for you to walk through. That is your destination.”
“When I am ready?”
“Yes, take your time. There is no rush here.”

“Tell me something,” she began again after they had been walking a while, “your smell brings memories of my son when he was small, just a few months old. I remember holding and nursing him, even though I can hardly remember anything in my life now.
It is very strange.”

“It’s not very uncommon though,” he replied, a slight mischievous smile on him.
He fluffed his glossy black coat and then continued,
“Think of me as a courier. As I deliver you from the Living, I also deliver new souls to the Living.”

“Wait, like babies?”

“Exactly!” he seemed genuinely excited talking about it. She found it weird yet endearing.
“I keep these little ones with me until they’re ready because they’re so cute! See?”

He opened his coat to reveal rows and rows of tiny glass-like capsules each with a tiny baby curled up, thumb in mouth.

“Oh my God! Baby souls!” she could not believe it.
“Cute, right?”

He buttoned his coat slowly and continued,

“By the time I deliver them, I’ve had them long enough that they smell like my garments and myself. That usually wears off after a while though.”

“Wait,” she exclaimed, “The baby smell?! That’s the smell of Death?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh dear, people actually like that smell!”

This time he laughed. Loudly and fully, his voice carrying effortlessly over the glittering dunes.

“I’ll try not to take that the wrong way,” he said afterward before explaining,
“I am only Death after all. Neither decay nor rot.
What becomes of things that stay after Death, remains for Nature and the Living.
I am usually long gone already.”

“That’s a bit insane.”

“Maybe,” he continued, “But that’s just how I’ve always done things.
You would be surprised how much is forgotten in the Living.
Come, let’s wander some more. There’s a lot of time here.”

The Squid

27/08/2023

10/04/2023

02/02/2023

30/01/2023

13/01/2023

08/01/2023

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