Torrent - SCP Foundation

I

1

The book was small and thin. Some girl gave it to him on the street, smiling nicely and asking for him to read it. He paid it no mind, threw it into the bag, forgot about it until much later.

He found it again in the evening, when he was undressing before going to sleep. He rarely read books, as they never managed to hold his concentration for long enough. Sometimes he read some things on the internet, short, something he could read in maybe 20-30 minutes. He put his laptop away for now, his full attention on the book.

It was made of printer-quality paper, cheap stuff. The letters inside - and that was a surprise - were written by hand, the text sometimes giving place to black illustrations, all neatly photocopied. He flipped through it, here and there holding the book open for a little bit longer to admire the precision of drawn lines. He returned to the first page, ensured that the position he was in was comfortable enough and started to read.

The story was a bit strange; he felt as if he started in the middle, characters not known to him mentioning names of people he never heard of, making references to events he didn't really care about and doing strange things in places he could only guess about. He grew bored with each finished sentence but every next one somehow forced him to continue his reading, stopping from time to time to wonder how the pictures were connected to the text only to read on and discover the connection.

He finished the book in about half an hour. It was strange, that was all he could say. He never was one for critique aside from describing his own feelings in a few words. He put it aside, turned off the light and went to sleep.

He woke up tired, which was unusual for he had slept his usual eight hours. Maybe he dreamt something strange— but no, he remembered something vague about a field covered in flowers with hundreds of bunnies made out of clay hopping around happily. Like in that old advertisement.

He lied down in bed until the alarm rang but he didn't hear it. He still wondered about that strange field. He snapped out of it after snooze rang again.

During his usual morning rituals his thoughts kept on circling back to that field. There was something elusive in it and fascinating, attracting his attention over and over again, his thoughts circling back to it when brushing his teeth or dressing up or preparing breakfast or waking up his daughter.

He drummed his fingers against the wheel during his morning commute. At work, his pen kept on doodling on his notes, sketches becoming more elaborate as he thought about the field. When he drove home, as his daughter was happily rambling about her day at school, the rhythm of his fingers on the wheel grew less chaotic than before.

Before sleep, he reread the book. He had no reason for that but somehow the vision of his usual evening news-checking was unappealing.

When he woke up, he felt exhausted. His mind was still focused on the field, but this time he paid attention. He noticed a spiderweb hidden in the tall grass, glistening in the sunshine. As he analysed the pattern of it while still lying in bed, somewhere in the distance he could hear a river.

A child

No focus

Gordon, aged 6, stared at his mobile. Strings. Painted paper folded into balls and stuck together with a tape. One shoestring he took from his shoe. Even more tape. Straws, green and red; one was even white with red stripes. Dad told him it shouldn’t be too heavy or else it wouldn't move. After a climb on the mountain constructed of a chair and a stool stacked on top of each other and a complicated process of attaching his finished creation to a shelf (with more duct tape) just above his bed he nodded, happily. It was still swinging back and forth a bit, but if it calmed down, he’ll blow some air on it and (Gordon hoped) it would move.

Gordon then remembered that he forgot to take the crayon back upstairs so he ran (Mom told him to never run, but that crayon was important!) down the stairs, picked it up, remembered something else, ran somewhere else… And didn’t notice that mobile never stopped swinging back and forth. Well. At least he didn’t notice it then. He’ll probably do so much later.

And maybe Gordon will notice that he yet again couldn't differentiate reality from his imagination.

The dance

Dance my love, dance

The warehouse was empty, rays of light flowing through holes in the ceiling, lighting up the dust and spiderwebs. It was late, so the usual cold darkness was won over by warm oranges and long shadows.

She studied the floor, trying to find anything, broken glass or sharp metal that could potentially tear her feet, but she found nothing. The lack of smell of piss and alcohol tipped her off that it was a good place. She didn't really have space for that at home. There were people, of course, for whom their own rooms were enough. Not for her, though. She tried to dance in the gym in her school, but even a large hall was too small for her needs.

She sat down on the cold concrete, taking off her trainers and socks. She noticed a rusty ladder on one of the columns and after a moment of hesitation she carefully climbed it and went out, onto the roof. She left them there, along with her hoodie and bag.

Inside, she stretched, warmed-up a little. Hands, arms, all muscles along the spine, thighs, knees, feeling the warmth spread in her body, blood pump in her veins, flowing steadily across every single tissue from heart to the lungs whenever she inhaled and exhaled. And it was just the beginning.

She raised her hands in the air. Took the first step, then the other. As in the gym, the first moments were a bit awkward, dancing without music playing around or without people surrounding her from all sides. A turn and a slight bend backwards and then a circle in the air drawn by two fingers. Everything was looking perfect in her mind - she had practiced every single movement separately before, the full choreography was ready for a long time and now, now she wanted to finally piece it all together.

It did happen in a gym. She experienced it first-hand. She wanted to go further.

A jump with a half-turn, a bow on a bent knee, hands moving down, fingers scraping against rough surface of the floor. She straightened and again raised her hand above her head, body supported only by toes. Closed her eyes.

A drop of water fell onto her face.

As if on cue, she resumed dancing, this time the flow of her movements steady as never before, not faltering for a second. Silence was broken by sounds of water dripping on the floor, first only in single drops that then turned into steady trickles.

She was at the point that she no longer followed the scenario. At the gym at one point she crashed into the wall because of lack of space, which was when the water stopped falling and she was left with puddles of water soaking into wood. She tried to wipe it out and nearly got caught by a janitor. Now she didn't have to worry.

Movements were natural, fast, no longer under her control, but she didn't mind, dance falling into natural rhythm. Sometimes her steps led her under one of torrents, water soaking her entirely. It was hot, just the temperature she liked under her shower. She briefly wondered if it was her dance that affected that or something else entirely.

As time passed, it was getting more and more difficult to continue the dance. The water sloshed around her feet, now falling not only from the ceiling, but also spilling from the windows, dirty glass producing crystal clear torrents. The surface of the water was steadily rising, her knees already submerged. She struggled to keep up the tempo.

She didn't mind.

Her rapid movements became gradually more and more sluggish, her pace slowed down to a slow walk, hands now only turning and moving in lazy circles. All energy she used in her dance shifted to thundering waterfalls that surrounded her, hundreds of gallons of water spilling from the windows. She walked around, almost idly, letting the currents direct her, allowing the noise to fill her head.

She only realized she was fully submerged when the roar suddenly quieted down, became nothing, but a distant hum. She didn't float though, as she chose not to. It was her creation. She didn't feel like breathing, so she didn't do that, she quieted her lungs which after some time started to burn and scream for air. She raised her hand and glowing silhouettes formed around her, all limited by what she thought and where the water was.

It was her tiny bubble and not a single thing in this world could take it away. Her creation.

Shapes and lights and shadows in the air were her tools and waters around her were her canvas. She moved and danced now not limited by gravity and laws of thermodynamics, swirling in the water, dancing as if she was a siren or a nymph and this were her kingdom, a true world she was born into. There were no rules or patterns here. Just sheer joy of freedom coming from nothing but access to one's own thoughts.

She built worlds, landscapes, her body directing all the shapes, creating bones and meat and fur of hundreds of animals she never saw, but always remembered, rising buildings that had no right to exist in the world outside the dreamscape, spilling everything she saw inside her mind into currents, clean-cut edges between her mind and real world shattering into thousands of invisible pieces.

Finally, she sank to the middle of the warehouse, shadows and lights disappearing before her very eyes. She looked around, wondering how to make it all disappear - in all honesty she wasn't really prepared for this to actually work this well, so she opted out of designing an exit. She swam around nervously, before stopping and taking a deep breath in.

Water made it's way inside her nostrils and mouth, filling her lungs to the full capacity and pushing on, every single drop attempting to find the way inside her body, ripping her apart, liquid yearning to come back to where it came from, filling out her heart and replacing the red of her blood in her veins with fiery pain, all the acids from stomach washed away by pure water, purging everything from her bowels before getting rid of those systems entirely, all of organs and tissues replaced by water

She stood in the same place she stopped in. Breathed out. Blinked. Breathed in and felt her dry lungs expand.

She was entirely wet. Her clothes were soaked through and her hair was dripping, like then, when during a party on a dare she jumped fully-clothed into the swimming pool. She was prepared for that, though. Her sneakers were wet when she left the gym, after all.

Yet again she climbed the ladder, now careful to not slip and went out to the roof. Her shoes and bag and hoodie were all here. They were a bit cold because of cooler air of the night, but they were wonderfully dry. She took all of it and went back inside.

She undressed completely and used the towel she kept inside the bag. She wrung her hair and later her clothes, just to get rid of all of the liquid and put her hoodie on her naked body, then slightly drier panties and lamentably wet jeans. Shoes she put on naked feet, thankfully distance to home wasn't very long, so she hoped her feet won't get chafed too much.

When standing in the line for some coffee in one of those places that were as if nonexistent during the day, but somehow incredibly popular when the last restaurant or bar in the area closed, she checked her phone. Her boyfriend had called about three times before surrendering and sending a text to call him when she could. A mobile operator sent her a new offer she did not care about. Some other spam.

Coffee soon arrived and with a warm cup in her hand she resumed her way home. With a hoodie to protect wet hair from cold air she didn't dare to put her earbuds on, music always adding that slight bounce in her step. But then, she danced enough today and her feet had a bit of skin ripped off by now.

She'll dance in her kitchen tomorrow, when she turns the radio on. She still wasn't sure if she wanted to return to warehouse any time soon.

A corpse

Life

She nudged the dead body with her feet. Funny little fellow, jumped off a building. People had the weirdest ideas sometimes.

It wasn't in a very bad state when it landed but as she moved him around and dragged it to the atelier, it started to mess up. Just more needless work. A lot of needles needed. Some string and maybe paint to make it work. All in all, needless. Needles.

She put it on a sofa after covering it with a plastic sheet and set to work. Soft brushes of paint where skin broke into darker colours, brown and creme slowly drying and cracking under a soft and delicate interior. She resorted to clay, covering the body in filigrane layers of it, before working steel joints just underneath the skin, so it could move. Constructing a crude metal skeleton was a tiresome task and her other half was away, visiting parents. Some people needed that, contact with families, and it was fine, but she'd rather he helped her.

Again, more paint and then more clay, covering up all the damage made by fall instead or repairing it. She replaced his eyes with glass marbles. Covered blood on his skin in more clay. Filled it up from the inside with hay and needles, where it could fit in-between slowly rotting muscles and organs. Far cry from her usual, more traditional method, skinning the man and stuffing up what was left of skin before selling the rest.

Instead of giving the corpse new albeit static life, she chose to keep everything that was old inside and cover in pristine form. One day she will break him open and look for those needles again, just for joy.

She sewed it up with paint, tracing green and golden lines on skin where his veins would be visible. Every stroke of brush and then, later, fingers, brought it closer to her, filling up this colourful and beautiful corpse with sheer nothingness.

It was a sacrilege, heresy. If you wanted to breathe life into your glory, you'd either create it first or allow whatever was left in chunks of flesh to take over. She did none of those things. Her critics would kill her violently with words, maybe even torture her a bit later on paper, unlike the one she killed for this body, with sweet whispers and following the corpse step by step until it jumped.

People had the strangest ideas sometimes.

She helped him get up, when she was done. His movements, she noted, were ungraceful, erratic. He grasped at her skirt clumsily, making a pained noise as his lungs attempted to expand, only to feel clay restrict him and needles shift inside. This isn't what she wanted. Every stumble made her hate him more.

She desired to know the flow. Not a single creature knew what it was, what force was behind making human creativity bend the world in a simple act of creation. Her other half called it The Greatest Critic. Only he can judge what becomes real and what does not. The greatest work in his eyes will become reality.

Except he wasn't an artist and all he knew came from her own stories. His sight was distorted, warped. He knew nothing.

And that body, that dead moving body was supposed to answer her. She struggled to block out any stray consciousness from it during the act of creation but what she faced was… This. Stumbling thing, so much unlike what she imagined the flow itself to be. Where was that force she called upon? She appealed to it, the moving body was enough of a proof, she earned the approval.

Was it mocking her? Did the life in the corpse was just that, a life? Where it came from then?

She detached herself from her work, its clay-covered form dropping on the floor with a loud thud, surface cracking in few places. She severed the flow with a single thought angrily. She had never done that before. Her work infused with flow was always enough, no reason to destroy it.

Except this one.

As her faith into the flow, the god in her mind shattered, she dropped dead on the carpet, and body next to her's again started to move again.

II

2

Dot. Spacebar. Shift and a letter and another and another…

He had a clear construction in his head. Like a spider, he weaved a web of words, except he, unlike the spider, had a vision of how the entire finished piece would look like. There was an image, hidden behind his eyelids, shining like a crystal or a diamond and even more alluring than that.

Every single thin, glistening line constructed around him was another sentence. A few backspaces, again a few words and the meaning of an entire paragraph changed the structure of the web around him. He wanted to smile at every single change, but his work still wasn’t finished, still wasn’t complete.

Hours passed by. Days. The laptop he wrote the story on never changed its spot, always plugged into the charger, never turned off. Its white screen filled with text might have looked eerie for an outside observer, but at the moment the only one who could look at the room was him. And all he saw was web, spanning the entire room. Every time he came back from work he sat down in front of it and wrote. Then he ate, slept. Woke up, went to work, returned home, wrote, slept, woke up, went to work, returned, wrote…

It was a pattern he easily followed – he was proud of his monotony – but the only thing that started to bother him was the still incomplete web in his living room. Still unfinished. The construction was beautiful and a soothing image for his eyes, delicate webbing wrapped around every single thing inside, sofa covered in silver layer like a cape, a few strands hanging from the lamp, thin patterns turning lines into sharp edges, intricate chains, all tangling together into one to form a pattern. Yet unfinished.

Lines after lines of text, the structure of every single sentence analysed over and over again. He paid no attention to meaning, he knew it was gibberish - he never wrote much during his life except what was expected of him during his time in school. As he followed the plan in his hand, though, he swapped words and all constructions he never heard of or thought of with childish ease. Maybe this is what he was born for, he was born to write, he just never realized that. An alluring vision, almost seductive, but he decided it would be best if he finished this work of his first and wonder about that later.

He wrote, went to work, returned, wrote, ate, went to work, returned, wrote, wrote, wrote.

He never saw that silver lines at one point started to climb not only his furniture, but also his body, wrapping around his arms and torso and face and neck. When he did notice, though, he realized he couldn’t move anymore.

A tiny hand-made book that lay next to remote to the TV was the only object not touching the webs.

The art

The artist

The old man looked at the painting hanging in the gallery. His eyebrows were furrowed, as if in anger, his hands nervously rubbing against each other.

The painting was acrylic, probably - the old man didn't bother checking the description thoroughly - and pictured a hellish landscape of an icy apocalyptic world. If the picture wasn't made with thousands of tiny strokes of a brush, it would look as if someone was rather heavily inspired by Beksiński's work. As he stared at the way the paint formed shapes on canvas, he could feel something probing his mind, looking for the way in. For any other person, the force would drill straight into their skull.

So cliché.

The fact that this painting was the only one that occupied the wall almost offended him. The title was even worse: "The Coolest". The old man allowed himself to groan in the lifeless gallery.

All those kids thinking that that was the way to do it. Throw in the word "cool", bastardize some dead artists and drive someone insane. Admittedly, most started this way, but hanging it out in public, for everybody to see? That was just embarrassing.

The painting smelt of nothing, the air around it clear and the old men came closer, his nose almost touching the painted surface. Needles of the artwork again tried to dig into his cranium. He rubbed a finger against it and then wiped it against his coat in disgust. Nothing. The painting was empty, void. A stolen work.

An uncommon practice in artist community but on anomalous side of it, artists who couldn't force their work to differ from dead pieces made of anomalous art supplies, stole unfinished and unsigned paintings from other. This "Kutch", as signature in the left corner announced, was a liar and a thief and the old man in anger ripped a tiny plastic description from next to the painting and threw it away. That explained everything, the cliche, the disgusting simplemindness of this piece of "art". Steal someone's work in progress? Oh, this was rich.

The smell of wooden frame and canvas and paint filled his nostrils, so he took few steps back. A small and frail trickle of smoke appeared in the very center of the painting. A small burnt-out hole in the canvas slowly grew larger and larger, everything it consumed turned into black, viscous liquid that trickled down, to the frame and then slid on the floor.

Soon the dirty frame was empty, slightly burnt on the edges. There was nothing left of the canvas but a black puddle, glistening in sharp lights of the gallery. The old man glanced at it and saw his own reflection in the darkness, distorted by anything the original artists poured into the original piece. This felt so much better.

The old artist put on his blue sunglasses, stepped over the corpses and continued his visit.

A document

Espionage

Agent Jarle was bored out of his mind. Yet another boring day of a boring, boring week of a boring, boring, boring month… Usually at this time there should be at least twenty people shuffling around back and forward, down the corridor he saw through his glass walls. Now it was quiet. Silent. Maybe a national holiday or something along those lines was happening, maybe something else but the fact remained - nothing was happening. He couldn't watch the people pass by and guess what they were doing - just associate faces with things he got from Foundation files and then connect that with what he knew about building planning, which wasn't much, but was enough.

Or maybe a meeting of some sorts was happening? But then, where is Amanda from secretary office? He could see her partner, Jo… Joanna? Josie? Joy? Jody? Something like this. Either way, Jo usually had night shifts, so why was she here now? It was unlikely something happened to Amanda.

He took a sheet of paper from a printer, ripped a part off of it so it was resembling a square, and started to fold it, but then some armed guys passed by, their blue helmets easily attracting his attention. They weren't guards, those didn't parade with those things on heads for starters and their gear was much heavier than the usual one he saw. He kept on folding the paper, movements memorized as he looked around, looking for any trace of any newcomer.

Well, something was happening. Sadly, checking it out was outside his usual duties. Maybe Agent Is-, no, now she was Officer Claudia Nielsen - maybe she will find out what is going on. Not like Jarle would actually get the memo about what was happening but it was still nice to acknowledge that the Foundation will know what was going on.

He stared at tiny turtle in his hand. GOC logo was still visible on one of his paws so he took a pen and started to colour them, carefully, to not damage the paper - if he used one of those kinds of thick papers official documents from UN were printed on, the turtle would look better and last a bit longer. Or the one used on files, those that weren't supposed to be destroyed but those on which copies of documentations were kept under his Site. It was a thick paper, printed on with some sort of high-quality ink so it wouldn't fade and then kept in absolute darkness. Lorck told him a lot about that. She spent quite some time in those dark places where papers were kept, she-

The small turtle in his hand started to move.

No, he didn't imagine that.

Its small paws were moving. Slowly and rather weakly but it was fucking moving.

Jarle placed it on desk in front of him. He tried his best not to panic, tried to be as ineffectual about it as those wackos from research or containment. Breathe in. Out. Now, try to analyze the situation.

He had a small origami turtle on his desk. It was white, with the exception of paws that were covered in blue pen and head that had small pair of blue eyes, also made with pen. It was making small movements, as if was trying to move.

And that was it. But how? How the hell had that happened? Jarle just took paper from the printer and did his usual office origami routine. A random, mini cactus he made for Alexia, tiny swans he sometimes put on his monitor before those thin LCD things replaced the one he had before? None of them ever moved… right? No, probably not.

He nudged it with his pen and it moved a bit faster. So, it reacts to stimuli.

Maybe one of those magic specialists made some sort of a joke? He knew those guys were there, sometimes throwing paperwork at his desk, but that was all. He never annoyed anyone during his long years at GOC, so what was the point?

He carefully reached out and stroked the turtle on its head, carefully, to not poke its eyes. The head moved a tiny bit, as far as the paper allowed it to.

Jarle delicately took the turtle and put it near his monitor, so it was hidden behind stack of papers from anyone who could possibly come in. The turtle's behavior was beyond him and maybe he'll visit thaumaturgists' bureau later. If there is anywhere he could seek advice, it would be there.

The angel

Holy holy holy unholy

The angel made of metal, towering over masses walking by it, passing under the shadows of its wings. None would pay attention. He knew perfectly well what purpose sculptures had in the cities. Placeholders. Just that. And maybe the higher-ups will proudly say on television how they support higher forms of art, how they care, how cultured they are.

His angel was still fragmented, each part carefully created out of scrap metal he got for whatever he found in his wallet. It took him a long while, begging his friends for supplies, selling himself out to get what he wanted and needed. But there, she is done and made, waiting for completion on the streets. He regretted he couldn't see her whole now, but well, he could use that for his own purposes too.

The angel was a piece of glass, multicoloured, with no pattern, no sense in how colours were mixed on its surface. With each day, he added more colours to the glass surface, with each modification to the metal surface.

She was beautiful. He wanted to make everybody look up at her, no matter what.

Early in the morning he carefully installed her. Some other guys from local anartist community helped him out a bit but mostly they watched his struggles, their eyes on his huddled form over one of angel's heads, feet barely keeping the balance. They watched as he carefully welded the form into completeness, "Disgusting", whispered one, "Beautiful", said the other.

Each piece added meant another crack in the glass.

The angel would stand above the people that walked underneath it. One head's hateful stare turned would be turned towards direction of the heavens, one finger accusingly pointing at the clouds. The other head would stare curiously at the human beings beneath it but hands would cover his eyes, both belonging to something else, hands attached as if appearing out of thin air, clear plastic giving way to metal.

It took him much more time than he predicted to weld hidden steel wires with rest of the sculpture.

The crown remained, for the third head, the one with a blank stare. The last piece. Finally. He wanted to see her in her glory and, frankly, he was tired and lanterns in the city were turned off a few minutes ago. A few anartists from underneath the sculpture sat down on the cold pavement, some checking somethings on phones.

All heads went up as one when he fell.

He didn't slip. Some anartists caught him at the last second before he hit the ground, strangely lifeless and unmoving. One blacksmith screamed when she felt blood on her hands from his shoulder. The ladder he was on hit the asphalt.

His body was carefully put on the ground, some anartists who dealt with corpses in their work coming closer to check the body, whispering in excited and surprised hushes. One of inkers cut his clothes open with an x-acto, one of non-artists pressed his hands against his neck to check his pulse - and sighed in relief. He was alive. A designer and another sculptor started to check the wounds, snatching the knife from the inker to dig deeper into them, making the half-conscious man groan in pain.

The rest watched as the designer put bloodied shards of multicoloured glass on pavement.

III

3

He couldn't move.

Not a single finger.

He was stuck.

He could only observe in mute panic as webs wrapped all around him, all the delicate lines stronger than steel, stronger than anything, holding him in place.

He didn't notice when that happened. When his finger started to move more sluggishly, when he couldn't even reach the phone that sat just few meters away from him, ringing again and again and again.

The screen of a phone yet again went black when the shrilling sound of default ringtone yet again cut off. He managed to glance at the time. Seven pm. Yet again.

Once again, uselessly, he tried to move but webs were wrapped too tightly around him. He was hungry, he could barely breathe with webs tight around his ribs and throat, he already soiled himself a few times. At least he could sleep but even when he did, he dreamt around those most beautiful lines around him.

He still ached to finish them, he still needed to end what he started.

The opened document file on the laptop in front of him burned into the surface of his eyes, lighting up thin white lines hanging in the air.

Black letters weren't correct.

He needed to change them. He could do that. He could just rearrange a structure here and there, play with the way accents sound in that one sentence.

Maybe he'd even manage to free his throat, destroy that most beautiful pattern just to take a deeper breath.

He pulled and webs dug into his skin, red and irritated skin for few seconds turning white.

He tried trashing, writhing, anything.

Now it was just hopeful tugs that maybe his movements would make the confining lines at least a tiny bit looser, just to touch the keyboard. Anything.

He took a careful deep breath and winced when he felt something akin to needles dig into his skin. He didn't knew if he bled. He couldn't look down anyway. He'd swallow, but his throat was too dry, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He cried before, but he stopped.

He cried because he didn't finish what he started.

Now he couldn't think straight because of hunger and thirst and all that was left was feeling of a detached sadness, caused by the white screen in front of him.

He died thinking about his unfinished story.

The trap

Body vs mind, part first and last

Blindfold. Not that big of an obstacle. Chains. He moved his hands experimentally, hearing their jingle. Metal was solid, not a single link weak. Glass. Not a plastic but solid and heavy glass. Cold water, flowing into his shoes. Uncomfortable. He moved again. A blade. Just above his torso, ready to fall when the water covers him whole. It's either drowning or getting a blade in his guts. Fun stuff.

Not to mention the fact that he was thoroughly drunk when he suggested the trap, laying out plans to his friends yesterday evening. All five of them had already managed to take in a deadly mix of beer, wine, whiskey, shots and some stuff Marcin had hidden under the sink in unlabeled bottles.

The biggest obstacles here and now were his pounding headache and guts ready to rebel at any given moment. There, normally he would be in no rush to get away from this trap which, really, was designed to be a challenge, but he had enough experience in escaping all sorts of people.

Except whenever he got caught by Suits or Insurgents to cover the asses of anartists that couldn't run fast enough he wasn't suffering through The Mother of All Hangovers. And this cursed goddess had coupled with good ol' Saint of Alcohol Poisoning, to ensure he died a rather painful and embarrassing death.

He felt his stomach cramp violently and that was, comparatively, a much better motivator than a gun to the head or the sight of pliers being way too close to any part of his body. A gag in his mouth would be deadly if he were to choke on his own vomit, and he almost lay on his back. Water was reaching to his thighs.

He inhaled. Exhaled. It was quiet.

He inhaled and exhaled. Trickling of water, moving from open tap into the box he was in. Ambient sound of someone watching television in the distance, maybe upstairs. He couldn't say, with this amount of alcohol in his blood he had trouble determining what is up and what is down anymore. All the sounds were distant and the headache prevented him from focusing.

He inhaled and exhaled. Time slowed down. Between each pulse of pain in his head he had enough time to listen. Sounds came to him this much slower, like in slow motion. The noise in the distance was that much lower but he was used to it. He knew how things sounded when you made them slow enough.

(When he was a kid, he recorded whatever he could on his phone. Memory on it was limited to few precious minutes. Later he got to know how to transfer those sounds to his computer and slow them down and so he relistened to everything he had recorded in slow motion. Perception of reality was subjective, he learned much later on. He dwelled in low frequencies like fish in sped up sound in water.)

He inhaled and exhaled. He searched in the myriad of noises for those responsible for his trap. He moved as much as possible without his body protesting too much and he listened. Rumble of chains. Trickling of water and slow dissolution of oxygen as it fell from bigger height, bubbles burying themselves under the surface. Slide of rope that held the blade above his chest.

He inhaled. Sounds flooded him and he mixed and matched them in his head. It was all about finding the weakest link, the silence in between the sounds and the more the time stretched, the easier it was.

He exhaled and slipped through the silence, the trap unraveling around him, soundwaves rumbling and making the room tremble. The water was always tricky, the ripples on its surface making it that much more difficult to predict how the sound sped up in the water. The blade kept on reverbating, glass trembled, throwing more noise into soundscape.

The difficulties kept piling up. The blade started to swing back and forth. He inhaled.

Exhaled. He pulled the handcuffs, and waited for that high-pitched clink to hit his ossicles.

The glass around him cracked and he managed to capture that as low and deep and possible. The water started to flow out of his trap and he tried to catch that too. As parts of glass fell, slowly enough to look as if they were suspended in the air, he managed to break the chain neatly into two. Inhale.

The sound was enough for the rope holding the blade to cut on the metal and he exhaled and swung himself to the side, colliding with glass. He inhaled and tried to slow his fall with his hands but they slipped on the wet floor and his skin was cut with shards of glass.

A pained exhale when he finally landed. Next to him the blade almost cut him neatly in two. The world finally sped up to his normal speed and the glass clinked under his limbs as he tried to get up from the floor. Broken chain of his handcuffs collided with the shards and the resulting sound made him wince.

But it was okay. He managed to get on all fours and got the gag out of his mouth. He was alive, somehow, again. He was grinning, a smile fueled by adrenaline that only now got released into his bloodstream. A little bit too late, maybe, but that bought him enough time to finally get up, more or less manage his cuts and wonder for few minutes who the hell got him into this mess before vomiting all over the destroyed trap.

A masterpiece

Void

They stared blankly at their empty fingers.

Nothing would come.

They closed their eyes and tried again. And again. And again. And they knew they were forcing themself, mind straining, fingers twitching and yet nothing came.

White paper still was the perfect mindscape that they couldn't budge.

The king

Four corners of the world

Sam and Gabe did a hell of a job with costumes, given time they'd had, maybe two weeks or so. Admittedly, they did work on whatever Jula left before she broke up with Oscar but she was also the reason why they didn't have much time. Still, Hugo couldn't help but awe at the quality of costumes. He could ignore the needles sticking in inconvenient places when his eyes were too focused on the patterns.

He saw all of them during rehearsals but now, as they prepared for the actual show, the marvel bloomed anew. He had to admit he couldn't keep his eyes out off the mirror in their improvised backstage. At this point he no longer felt upset about Jula leaving. She threw the script into his face, screaming, accusing him of fooling her. Hugo did indeed keep her in the dark about exactly what play he wanted to do, but well, what a shame.

The play was particularly infamous in his circles and Jula was the only one that knew why. The rest of the actors and staff? Blind and deaf, just excited about new script, no longer constantly resorting to old plays. A breath of freshness from between half-rotten teeth. There was something amusing about this image. He glanced at a cup in the corner, a prop representing the poison for the fourth act. It was a simple paper cup, with a splash of clay and violet paint. It hurt his eyes if he stared too long.

Hugo wondered if what flowed through his mind would drip from his mouth and turn into a tasteless and scentless liquid.

That was the main deal here. Hugo heard about what could happen to those playing this particular play, all anartists did. But the question was: if you dwell in the territory of pushing reality with anart, how does that affect the play? Of course, anomalous actors exist, like Hugo, but they were so rare Hugo could bet he was the first one to dive into those dangerous waters.

At least he liked to believe he did. He felt like setting a new path and testing out how that would work. He was in a mood to play with forces he barely knew but he considered himself to be a skilled anartist. Even if things went awry, he will survive.

Eszter appeared in his line of sight, grinning at him while twirling in the outfit of a whore. She was still smiling and Hugo nodded at her in acknowledgement. Worst case, she'll die, like the rest.

Hugo was very sure of his little morbid project, always calming himself that no matter where he will swim or where the torrent will take him, he will be able to resurface. Creativity always pushed him on, every step dedicated to that fickle and unreliable force that managed to direct his every step. Now he realized he wasn't sure. He wasn't exactly amoral, like the common stereotype of anartists, but he did like to experiment.

Out of nowhere Oscar appeared behind him. "Jula is here," they whispered.

And here she was, standing in the entrance to the backstage. Hugo would normally get up now and walk to her, but she was staring at something behind him, eyes wide and face carefully blank. He didn't dare to turn around, but he also didn't have to guess what she saw. He looked away and glanced at a violet cup.

Hugo disregarded the clicking of high heels behind his back as he again wondered about the poison. Oscar seemed to not notice how easy it is to poison a well.

At first the play went just right. As he played, he forgot about Jula's carefully blank stare. He was now Gonzalo, for all intents and purposes. Some maybe had a bit more of a distance between the self and the characters but Hugo liked to take the character as a second skin. It helped to tap into things that drove him forward, internalizing to the point of hitting the surface of his mind. And so he tuned in with the to-be-king and walked out of backstage and waited for the curtain to rise.

When the crown touched his head, he felt relief. He allowed himself to dive and let the show slowly waltz around him. He was at the center of it, even when Oscar-Isabella replaced him on the stage. He listened to them-her speak as if through the fog - he knew what she was saying to the audience, he knew the text by heart and they repeated it enough times - but each word was like a punch to a stomach. As it should be.

It went on and Hugo swam deeper and deeper, into darker waters. Gonzalo was him all along, but Hugo was diving alone. It was calm and peaceful. Things went on - or not - as they should. The play was deviating from the script but it was okay, such was the nature of the flow and he accepted that a long time ago. When play wasn't fully done by a troupe, there was little leeway for interpretation.

Not this time.

He was halfway through the second act when he again heard those high heels hit the floor behind him. The sound was distinct enough and sufficed for him to choke on air. Gonzalo turned towards the source of it and allowed himself to bow deeply to the creature in front of him. He didn't want to stare and it felt natural. When he straightened his back, it was staring at him, even though it had no eyes.

He inhaled and the air hit blood on his tongue and in a blind moment of panic he tried to dive deeper, only to find he had no water to dive in.

Hugo found out he was suffocating. He tried again and again to reach into this flow, this torrent that kept him alive and moving for such a long time but he found nothing. The river was dry, empty, as if it never was here in the first place and he felt like a shriveled husk. Maybe he was, at this point. He stared at the creature in front of him, this Ambassador, this- this-

It motioned to him to go backstage and Gonzalo nodded and followed it. He wasn't sure if he did it willingly.

Hugo understood. The moment of clarity was brief, a shining lighthouse in the middle of sea of fear. He knew he would die. He knew he knew he knew but that little light, that knowledge that he understood how that damn play worked and why it worked only sometimes- it was dazzling. It was more than he bargained for. The only regret was that he couldn't share that with anyone.

Gonzalo wondered if his price was high enough for the cup full of poison and Hugo could already imagine a cut body of Eszter divided into neat parts on a dining table as he hung above it, noose cutting out his airflow. He threw one last look at the audience and even through the blinding lights he could see Jula. She shook her head and left and Hugo knew this was it.

He could run from the scene, but his skin was parched, aching. Out of the depths straight into a blinding heat.

Show must go on.

IV

4

Agent Gofr winced at the smell coming from the room before he even crossed the entrance to the apartment. Feuerstein smiled politely at his expression, nodding. With each step he resisted covering his mouth with his tie. Gofr had no idea how she could stand there so calmly.

Feuerstein opened the door for him and Gofr winced again, feeling his lunch rise to his throat.

The man was sitting in the chair in the middle of the living room, his arms and torso unnaturally suspended in the air. The entire body was covered in long slashes, dried blood covered him, the chair and most of the floor. His arms were gangly, thin. Apparently the man had soiled himself at least once, one of sources of the stench. In front of him lay an open laptop. Gofr didn't dare to look at it, just in case.

Gofr waited in the doorway and behind him Sabre whipped out a camera and started to take photos, flash catching everything anew every few moments. They already had photos from the police that called them in here but Sabre knew what to look for, plus and that gave Gofr some time to look around.

The sight of the body made him shiver. It was like watching a live statue, except the guy was a corpse, pale, unmoving. Blood already dried on his clothes. Gofr felt the urge to touch the guy, see if anything did suspend him at all - he looked as if invisible strings held him up, as if they cut into his body and caused the wounds, but Sabre moved around him with a camera freely. Maybe the man was thrashing around, maybe it was some sort of can, who knew. Gofr knew one thing: it already was a bit too much for him.

The room was covered in thick layer of dust. Upstairs, he knew there was a body of a little girl, a daughter. All that happened days, if not weeks ago. Maybe an autopsy could help, or maybe Feuerstein noticed something he didn't. But it didn't matter anymore, did it?

He noticed a book in the corner of the room, the only object not covered by dust. He motioned Sabre to come to him and take a photo of it, but he knew now it was useless. He fished out for the phone from the backpocket of his pants and called his boss. This was a bit too much for them, but Gofr was fairly sure the Foundation would do more here than them.

He sighed and braced himself for insults.

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