“Well if you say so boss. Here’s how it went down. We were outside 
this big stilt house. Like the ones in Florida, for floods. There’s a field 
behind it, but something’s a bit different. Far off in the end we see 
something towering, white, and fuzzy, and on the field are these 
large, white markings, like someone went over the grass with paint. 
They’re humanoid shapes, placed adjoining. The markings are 
difficult to see at certain angles. It was like crop circles, but if the 
aliens were satanists, or something.” 


He laughed nervously, wiping his nose on his arm. 


“So... We stand there looking at each other like assholes. Certainly 
we don’t wanna go back inside the house. | looked at that big white 
fuzzy thing standing across the field. Wasn't moving. Swaying a bit, 
softly in the breeze, like a discarded trash bag. Looks like a chubby 


yeti. Too fuzzy, like uh, made me think of an old memory. Probably 
not as freaky as | might describe something to be, but still, that's 
how it was.” 


"I'm still listening, go on." The doctor in the small observation cell 
wrote down his accounts with great interest. While the subject 
paused, he tried his best to doodle a representation of the monster. 


“The back noises in the house got louder, the ones we were running 
from, you know. So. We’re more motivated to traverse the field. It 
was dark out, but the moon was bright, so we wouldn’t have had 
difficulty navigating. Except... Except here’s the thing, right.” 


“The thing is, Jake began jogging off toward the end of the field. 
Something happened. One of these wobbling, fluffy yeti things 
emerged from the ground like a cartoon Christmas tree and reaches 
out with its long, fluffy knobs. Emerged from the marking, like some 
kind of trap. Jack is impaled by its wispy hair, and the creature pulls 
him inside of it. Some kind of marshmallow, but in reverse you know. 
Like it ate him instead? “ 


"Oh do | ever know," the doctor laughed, absently adjusting his 
glasses. "Marshmallows are awful!" 


“Yeah. Yeah they are | guess. Never realized that till now. Huh. 
Well. Jake screamed for a moment, just a moment, and it was cut off 
once he disappeared. The screaming stopped at the same moment 
the marshmallow thing begins turning red. Hello, Barbara, I’m all full 
now. Right? All full and big and red like the Kool Aid man, or an 
Easter marshmallow. You remember those? Pink marshmallows. 
Were those good?” 


The doctor shook his head, biting the insides of his cheeks to 
restrain a smile. He needed to maintain composure. Marshmallows 
weren't good. He housed a lot of terrible memories associated with 
pink, Easter marshmallows, and this man across the glass knew this 
to be true. He had somehow adopted this fear. 


“Ashley was petrified, shrieking. I’m handling my... terror like a 
flaming donkey. Damian is holding Jessie back from diving into this 
thing. Desperately he’s holding her back. He wants to save Jake. | 


wonder if she knows about those two. Did you know? | don’t think 
she did.” 


“This is how Hometown worked. The guy we checked around. | call 
his mind Hometown. It’s like how he remembers it, maybe? If you 
want to survive the first rule is not to go first. You need to sacrifice 
your friends. There are no warnings for when something is going to 
reach up and grab you. It just happens. The director of this dream is 
a sick child. He just throws out the monsters, stomps on the ants. 
His mind is a snuff film. People just die, you Know. | don't think | 
wanna meet this guy." The man laughed. 


The doctor laughed with him. "We have some characters working 
here, it's true." 


“They are still ina coma, yeah?" the man looked away. "| wasn’t 
intentionally sacrificing my friends. I’m just a coward. I’ve always 
been that way. | was too scared to move. When the big yeti with the 
red flowing through it was wobbling at me, | just stood there looking 
at it. It was magical, | got a headrush just looking at it. It felt great, 
like a fountain of saline right into my skull. No it’s bad. It isn’t funny, 
right?” 


The doctor scratched under his eye. "Not ideal, no." 


“So Damian urges us toward the treeline. | couldn’t think of why at 
the time, but | think that he seemed to think that the emergence of 
the dandelion monsters was due to our stepping on the markings. 
There weren't any markings near the treeline. So he did that. He 
went over there.” 


“| didn’t want to go near the treeline. Maybe it’s because I’m a 
coward, or maybe it’s because | was just becoming savvy. Me, 
right? This felt like one of those dreams where you wake up 
screaming, but | wasn’t waking up. It had all the markings of some 
sort of night terror, but when | pinched myself | was still in the thick 
of it.” 


“| couldn't tell ya where this all began, or when |... Oh god, entered 
the guy.. It wasn’t a dream, though. | assure you that all of my 
friends are dead. They have obituaries in the Hometown Flyer. I’m 


not goin’ back to read them. | wonder what they’d say though? 
Hmm. Something scary, right? Patronizing? Inclusive. | think 
Hometown has its own culture. Likes its terror. Learned to like it. No 
other choice.” 


Dr. Glass opened the door of the observation room slightly, holding 
a cup of coffee. "Everything good here? Good stuff?" He whispered. 


The doctor nodded quickly. "Yeah, yeah he's still talking now. 
Almost done." 


“Yeah. We get to the treeline. | get as close as I'll get to the treeline. 
Sure as shit, | begin to hear whispering. Everyone else hears it too. 
It sounds like things voices are coming from just beyond the 
darkness. Legends of the Hidden Temple shit. | take that moment to 
notice this entire field is covered in treeline, and the bit we have to 
get through to make it onto the main road is just as dark as 
everything else.” 


“Ashley and Jessie are absolutely hysterical. Ominous gibberish to 
our left, cotton candy monster to our right, and... Something behind 
us in the house. Did we want to go back past the house? | brought 
this up to Damian, and he seemed like it was probably the better 
idea. In retrospect I’m not sure why we immediately just didn’t jump 
in the car. “ 


“We didn’t know how to leave Hometown. Thanks for telling us that 
bit. That’s a joke, though. That was a bad move on your part. | 
closed my eyes for moments, and learned that | couldn’t close my 
eyes for very long. Not because | was incapable, but because of the 
things that | saw when | closed them.” 


“We make it to the car without incident, which when, of course, 
Damian learns that the keys are in his bedroom on the 2nd story. 
Damian wanted to go in and get them alone. The man had good 
intentions, but he was an asshole. | insisted | go with him because | 
did not want to split up, and, if | went, the two spazzballs 
accompanying me were more likely to go too. Waste of time and 
money, those two.” 


“We get back inside and there’s still the gurgling, the sound of some 
woman screaming in some perpetual loop. The shepard’s tone of 
her voice, layered in and over itself was bad stuff. | ran up the stairs 
with Damian, fully expecting something new, some eldritch troll to 
pop up around every corner. Think I’d get used to it. The law of 
diminishing returns is bullshit in headspace.” 


“We grabbed the keys in the bedroom and turned back toward the 
hallway. | heard Ashley scream. Great, | was thinking, round two. I’m 
gonna punch this thing. Fuckin’ A & Fuckin’ B. My fear is all mixed 
with anger at this point. | hustle down the stairs and Jessie is sitting 
on the ground, Ashley is pointing at the window at a white monster 
and a red fluffy monster. They don’t seem to be trying to get in, or, 
they don’t know how. Peeping.” 


“We make for the door. What I’m about to say seems strange. On 
the floor, in front of Ashley, without ceremony, appeared the corpse 
of Ashley. Instantaneously. It was just there. This corpse righted 
itself, and began to move backward toward Ashley. It appeared to 
be running in reverse. Ashley stops running, the mimic stops 
running. Ashley is staring at the back of her head in shock.” 


“Damian and | move toward the door and grab baseball bats. Ashley 
is behind the Mimic in the hallway. She starts to move forward, and 
the Mimic moves in reverse. Damian throws her the baseball bat 
and she catches it. Damian wouldn’t hit the mimic, | wouldn’t either. 
It wouldn’t have mattered if we did.” 


“| felt a sense of resignation. No matter what | did, how | played my 
cards, something like this could just happen and fuck us over. | can’t 
explain anything going on in that town, scientifically, not that I’m 
even a scientist. The behavior of the town. We couldn’t win. 
Something was just having fun with us.” 


“Ashely moved within range of the Mimic and swung the bat at the 
thing’s head. The metal went straight through. She swings at it a few 
more times. Nothing happens, and it’s just standing there blank as 
ever, advancing backward more slowly with every misstep Ashley 
makes.” 


“It sucked her body right off. It was like deli meat put through a wind 


turbine. Sucked everything right into itself. Ashley was gone, there 
was no blood or nothing. Just this new Ashley. Ashely smiled at us, 
nervously, like she was confused. ‘What’s wrong guys? Why are you 
looking at me like that, guys? We’ve got to get out of here!” 


“She’s in a coma, right? God | hope so. Fuck Ashley. Obviously we 
didn’t take her with us.” 


“Is that everything? What happened to Damian?” Asked the doctor. 
“He just kind of shrunk, no reason. In the car. That was it.” 

“What about Jesse?” The doctor asked. 

“Oh, shit, | forgot about her. Haha.” 


The doctor spoke slowly. “The rest of the team are healthy and 
awake. Your stories all match right up. They seem to think you were 
killed as well.” The man responded, hesitantly. “...But they are no 
longer capable of entering other minds. We used my mind as a 
training area. | can confirm their, er. We don't have a word for it. 
Their... Subconscious counterparts no longer exist. Yours doesn't 
either.” 


The body of the first Foundation oneironaut looked at the empty, 
black glass, and saw nothing. 


"Do you believe in a soul?" The doctor asked. 
The man shook his head. 
"How do you feel?" Asked the doctor. "Is it any different at all?" 


The body shook its head, and raised its upturned hands. “Hey man, 
can | get a cigarette? Fuck.” 


Oops 


"An ordnance technician at a dead run outranks everybody." - 
Unknown 


Everything was going swimmingly. His research team had finally 
gotten authorization to use 914 for ordnance testing. Set to "Fine" 
and "Very Fine", agents were processed and tested for the stated 
aim of equipping Nu-7 with more capable means of containing or 
neutralizing hostile Keters. His team worked efficiently, and without 
succumbing to the temptation to abuse it for their own gain. He 
smiled and a plan was hatched. 


The large man walked up to the machine amidst research staff 
engaged in their work and emptied a small canvas bag on the in 
side and set 914 into motion. Moments later, he quietly gathered the 
product on the other side of the infernal device and left without 
fanfare. 


[Interviewer] What did you put through 914? 


Returning to an isolated laboratory at the far end of a hallway and 
closing, but not locking, the armored blast door behind him, he 
prepared a large standing erection of glassware, tubing, burners and 
unidentifiable components off to one side. Emptying the pouch into a 
ball mill, he set it to pulverize the contents and waited patiently for it 
to finish. In the meantime, he finished filling out the requisition form 
for another batch of dicyanoacetylene. 


The noise stopped with a soft "ding", and he rose from his desk, 
pouring the contents into a series of hoppers on the nightmare of 
glassware in the corner and opened a series of valves with hands 
shaking with anticipation and excitement. 


[Dr. John Williamson] Beans. 
[Interviewer] Beans? 
[Dr. Williamson] Yes. 


Slowly a ceramic collection vessel on the end massive system filled 
with a thick, black liquid that filled the room with a characteristic and 
very familiar odor, albeit one considerably stronger than he'd known. 
A soft smile again grew on his worn face as he closed the stopcock 
and lifted the collection vessel by its handle. The reservoir on the 
assembly continued to fill with the thick, oily black liquid as he turned 
to walk back to his desk, unaware of the filling reservoir that his 
labcoat had snagged on a handle. He dared a sip of the liquid, 
bringing the mug up to his lips with trembling hands. It was 
marvelous. Better than anything he'd produced yet. Perfection. 


On his way to his desk, out of the corner of his eye Dr. Williamson 
saw his masterwork begin to tilt, the liquid sloshing in the almost full 
reservoir. Tilt and begin to fall impossibly slowly. Time seemed to 
drag on. 


He ran for the door. 


In the hallway, staff seemed to be moving in slow motion as he ran. 
He was almost to the end of the hallway when he heard the crash 
and deafening low order blast. 


[Dr. Williamson] Coffee beans. 


Opening Night 


You still see them here and there, but they're more zombies than 
anything else. Nothing but corpses coated inch-deep in makeup, 
hoisted up by strings, and made to perform broken dances. They're 
not really alive. No, the circus, the proper circus, died a painful death 
some time ago. The close-up intimacy of a single ring performance, 
the smoke-hardened scream of a Ringmaster's voice, and the heart- 
stopping terror of a truly death-defying act are all things that the true 
circus took to her grave. 


And yet here we are. We are not zombies. Not ghosts. Neither 
echoes nor afterimages. We're more immortal than any spectre, 
more timeless than any vintage photograph. We're the ones who've 
forgotten that they were supposed to have faded into obscurity. 
We're the ones who missed the memo that electric lights and 
synthetic sounds are superior to colored flames and pipe organs. 
We're the kind of circus that died decades before you were born. We 
are pure romance, and the crowd loves us. 


Not an eye sees our caravan pull up in the moonlit lot. Not a soul 
hears the sound of our spikes driven into the earth. One day we're 
not there, the next day we are. The moment the sun hits the bigtop, 
the candy-striped curtain rolls up and we pour out into the light. 
What was before an empty lot instantly comes alive with the din and 
activity of hundreds of subhuman creatures with multicolored faces. 


You step out of your car and onto the circus grounds. The sound of 
the calliope is omnipresent, coming from nowhere and everywhere 
at once. Smiling figures that almost succeed at looking human 
surround you, laughing, chatting, dancing, singing, juggling, selling 
cotton candy that's just a little too sweet, and running games that 
are a little too easy to win. But don't be too distracted by the clowns, 
there's so much more to see. Your expectations aren't very high. 
You think that a dancing monkey or a bear on a motorcycle would 


timeline. Various figures are interviewed in a featureless 
white room by what appears tobe ayoungK R_- .Of 
note is a joint interview of Samuel Clemens and Joseph 
Campbell. 


Note 1: 04/01/10 - Dr. —__, anoted film enthusiast, 
entered a destructively excited emotional state upon 
learning of breadth of content, and, for project's 
protection, has been denied access to lab for study's 
duration. Requests for specific data from the object, 
however, are not to be rejected. No extraordinary data 
handling rules currently require enforcement, although 
this may change if Dr. _ 's interest becomes a 
dangerous obsession.