INTESTINAL 5.08

Hi! We're back! I'm going to try to stop apologizing- I have improvements to make with scheduling and in my personal life, but, simultaneously, I am still producing, and it does still feel good and mean a lot. It can be better, and it will be, but if it isn't yet- unfortunate! But such is life, and on we go. Destinations, onward!

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Alright. That could have gone better.

“That could’ve gone better,” I say, my throat still aching from the panting, screaming breaths I was taking not too long ago. 

Leisha turns to me, grinning wide, her eyes borderline manic. “I know! Right? That was so scary! I’ve never seen anything like that! Did you see the way he was moving? All the like, jerkiness? Oh man, that was crazy!”

I blink, rocking back from the sheer force of the energy being sent my way. If not for the need to keep my eyes on the road to get us further from that fucking dollhouse, I’d be leaning a lot further- there’s something almost feverish about the way she’s breathing, the intensity that she’s coming from. People react differently under the effects of adrenaline, sure, but… still.

“I- you told me you’d only seen a few things, but nothing like that? I thought you and Dani have been dealing with this for years now, you’ve never seen-”

“No! Never! Like, weird little creatures eating pets, and weird stuff in the woods, and sometimes a spell that’s spreading through a forum or something! I’ve never seen a full person like that, that’s crazy, it’s like he wasn’t even human! Do you think he was wooden? Maybe there were, like, weird bits of wood under his skin? Oh man, that was-”

Fuck. When they said they’d only done a few things before, I’d assumed it was stuff like the shit hitting me, just… I don’t know, less often. It does mean that there’s some degree of sense to the way she was acting earlier- how apparently Dani loaded her up full of spells and protections, the way she talked about the dangers, her excitement now. Everything about their dynamic leads me to think that Dani, who I still have yet to meet, is the one with the powers- why long-term exposure hasn’t awakened something specific in Leisha, I’m not sure, but considering how she’s talking, she doesn’t even seem able to properly see the weirder stuff. My vision might be a whole thing, Glimpse Beyond acting as something above and beyond, but even Jay was starting to see stuff back in the Mill. 

They’re… they’re amateurs. 

Which does explain why Dani is so careful. They’re a professional of some kind at least, at least enough to have competently tripled-down on protections and warnings- they at least seem aware of how little they know. Leisha, on the other hand, is hitting me with the energy of somebody getting their fix, someone enjoying themselves. 

I’m not exactly in too much of a position to judge, obviously. In spite of the fear, the pain, the panic, I’ve enjoyed my time in MEAT. But… if I die in the game, I don’t die in real life. It changes me, it sucks, but it doesn’t kill me for real. 

Michael had a real fucking gun. Nevermind the impossible threads, the puppet-puppetmaster turning everything around its chosen doll into more playthings, he had a real fucking gun.

I survived being pulled apart, but it was at least partially at the expense of the Bloodling, who is currently dead silent inside me. I’d rather not gamble on that a second time, nevermind the goddamn trauma of it all. That doesn’t even factor in the difference between blood loss and traumatic brain damage from a bullet wound. All of my understanding, or at least most of it, is theoretical.

“Fuck it. Fuck it. You and Dani got what you agreed on. I went in to scout the fucking place, met with the thing inside, got some information. I’ll share what I saw if you need, I don’t know, another angle or some shit, but we’re done. Deals up, pay up.”

“Yeah, yeah, no I- no, wait, what about-”

Leisha shudders, freezes, then her eyes blink open and shut and where there were eyes there are now carved wounds. 

“You barely did anything,” Dani’s voice says, echoing out of his partner. “If not for us, you wouldn’t even have gotten out. I’d say that’s pretty even, wouldn’t you?”

“Fuck you. That’s bullshit, and you know it. Leisha told me herself she’s the lesser asshole between the two of you, but I did exactly what you asked me to. You power my arm, keep the big guy from noticing me, I go in and check out whatever new horror you’re trying to get a look at.”

“Deal never included Leisha being in danger. I don’t-”

“Fuck you. Leisha put herself in danger and you know it. I didn’t ask her to go into the house, and I know you didn’t ask her to. I get that you’re protective of her, but I did my part in this. You got the Glove working again, thanks, you gave me the necklace, thanks again, but hey, get this- fuck you. I’m not trying to make this messier than it is, and I know you’d prefer things that way too. You want me to write up an itemized fucking report, we can go ahead and do that, but fuck you, give me my goddamn part of the bargain. I need the Glove to stay on.”

The car sits in silence for a little bit. I know I’ve seen Leisha pop out of this weird shared-possession thing they do, so I know she’s listening, and I have to assume they have some way to communicate or experience each other. I don’t know if they’re conferring, if she’s figured out that it would be better for her to not get in between the two very pissed-off magic users in the car, or if Dani’s got total control right now for some reason. I don’t care. I use the silence as time well-spent driving the fuck away from that house, back to my place. Leisha can walk home. 

“...Fine. Deal. I’ll need a report from you on everything you saw. I don’t care if you think it doesn’t make sense, I-”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll send the tarot-card reader all the weird fucked up artsy shit I saw in that house, alright? How are we doing this?”

“We have your phone number. I’ll send you an address you can send it to. In the meantime-”

There’s this weird pulse through my hand, like a second heartbeat joined beside my own, and the whole limb shudders in a spasm. I almost lose control of the car, and it’s only the fact that my beloved piece of shit vehicle has such a tense steering wheel that I don’t jerk it all the way to the right. At the same time, I feel it come alive, the sensitivity of it heightened to an almost uncomfortable level of sensation. It feels like it twitchers at the slightest impulse, hyper-active in a way it wasn’t before.

“It’s not perfect, but it’ll keep it powered for at least a few days. Best I can do given the circumstances.”

I take my hand off the wheel, lest it completely fuck over my driving, but I nod in thanks all the same. “I’ll take it. Hopefully it’ll tide me over. I… I don’t want this to put us at odds. You’re abrasive as fuck, but I don’t think either of us want to make enemies of each other. You’re fucking good at it, but I don’t think it’s what you want.”

I hear a distinctly Leisha-like snort come from the body Dani’s using to speak with me, but the voice that emerges right after is most decidedly still not her. “That’s not-”

“She’s right, and you know it,” Leisha interrupts. “I keep saying you need to socialize more. Don’t worry, I still love ya.”

“That’s not- ugh. It would be… better for us all to maintain a working relationship than not. We might have need of your services again at some point. Leisha will be in contact.”

And with that, she blinks and her eyes return to normal eyes. It takes her a few seconds to adjust, blinking repeatedly, but then her smile comes back, still bright. 

“Hey, good job with that. You’re getting pretty good at handling them, I think. Most people either snap right away or just write them off.”

I snort. “Yeah, whatever. You don’t get to be that much of an asshole without having something happen to you, and they get brownie points for being protective with you. And it’s not like I don’t get it. Trauma does fuckshit to us all, and being an abrasive dickhead from stress is different than being actively cruel. If they hadn’t paid up, this would be a different conversation.”

“More than fair. You did the job. I figure you got a much better look than I did, being the weirder one and all, but I picked up plenty while you were distracting it. The rest is cherries on top, right?”

“... you’re really the anchor, aren’t you?”

Leisha gives off a bark of laughter, throwing her head back with it. She’s calmer, maybe brought out of whatever manic adrenaline situation was going on, but the consequences of that energy remain- she’s more animated than I’m used to seeing her, active and energized in a way that’s hard to quantify. 

“It’s part of the deal. I love them, but they’re all… high concept. Big picture. Sometimes you need somebody that can just reach up and knock you on the head, remind you that stuff exists now, matters now. They’re all news feeds and theory and lofty ideals- I’m more boots on the ground.”

“Mmh. I’ve noticed. Not exactly much for planning though, are you?”

She laughs again, softer this time. “Nah. It’s why we work well together. They build, I adapt. They plan, I improvise. They pack me full of armor and spells and shit, I go and run over whatever the hell needs running over.”

I pause at that. There’s a thought. Actually, there’s a couple of thoughts. I pick the most important one.

“You said that you’d only seen a few things, right?”

She shrugs, the light from the streetlamps reflecting off of the leather of her jacket. “A couple. You’ve fucked around with most of the really big shit in town, but we’ve gone through little stuff. Dani grew up in town, but I’ve been here a good few years now.”

“Right. You mentioned that the severity has… kinda shifted recently. Do you think that’s why you’re not… weird?”

“You mean why I don’t have powers.”

Well, if she’s just going to come out and fucking say it.

“Yeah, I mean why you don’t have powers. I get that usually don’t see this stuff, somehow, but-”

“I mean they do. I see plenty of shit, it’s just, like… what your brain picks up on. It’s kind of confusing. Dani talks about frequencies and resonances and… well, it’s fine and dandy, but still.

“There’s something a little easier for me to frame it as.  Read an article once, that someone did a study and found out that the human brain notices three things in a room before anything else- sex, danger, and food. We’re hard wired for it, it’s like a survival thing- our brains prioritize information based on different filters. Walk into a room with a bunch of old people and a buffet, you notice the buffet first. Walk into a room with people fucking, even if there’s other stuff going on, and you notice the fucking first. Danger’s also sort of obvious that way. We see all of the same things, get data on all of it, but for most people, their brain just doesn’t really process things they don’t ‘need’. So, for most people, they see your Glove, they think your hand is weird, maybe some scars or damage or extra long fingers, but they don’t get the details. They would if they looked, but they just… don’t.”

“So… what, it’s just some kind of perception filter?”

She chuckles. “Fancy way of putting it, but sure. But what you can’t see can still hurt you. But it’s also, like… when you see it, it can hurt you worse. The more you’re exposed, the more you can see, the more it can touch.”

“Then why aren’t you able to see it?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Honestly don’t. If I had to guess, though? It’s not… It's not personal for me. I don’t know how it is for you, or for that doll guy, but… Dani was into magic and tarot and shit way before things got really weird. They have something they, like, built off of, and now all their stuff works off of that. It’s part of their… their art, I guess. It’s intimate. It’s personal. For me, it’s just… another part of life, you know? It’s not about me.”

“...so, what, the supernatural forces beyond our world exist even if you can’t see them, but they exist more if you can see them, but also they only affect you if it’s something specific to you, but also…”

“Yeah. If you want more ideas about how shit actually works, ask Dani, but to be honest, I think there’s just too much we don’t know and kinda won’t know. How long did our ancestors spend staring up at the storm, wondering what lightning was? Maybe we know it only comes with storms, except when it happens with regular clouds or during a fire, and we know it comes with the rain, except when it doesn’t… so on. We can get the feeling for the rules, get the vibe of it, but the actual reasons why? The underlying mechanics, or the way those mechanics connect to other stuff, or the why and the how- that takes centuries, it takes resources, takes people with inspiration and scientific instruments and blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, we’re down here on the ground level, trying not to let the caves flood and avoiding as much of the big screaming lights in the sky as we can.”

“Damn. You get talkative when you’re in post-action bliss, huh?”

She laughs at that. “Fuck! You know, you and Dani have a lot in common. Humor especially. They got wit so dry it makes crackers look moist.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” 

The conversation on the way home from then is… easier. It stays pretty quiet as we drive, and it’s only a few minutes later that I see my little condo pulling close, illuminated in that artificial and too-bright kind of way that I hate. The streets are dark, low voltage on most of the street lamps, but these places, newer, more commercial, stand out loud and abrasive against the night. We pull into the parking lot, Leisha still in her post life-or-death-struggle glow, me in my thoughts about what I’ve learned. 

I don’t know why Leisha doesn’t seem to have supernatural powers, or the Sight that apparently everyone of us who do comes with. I don’t know why this is happening, or even what’s happening, exactly. Maybe I won’t. Maybe looking for answers is just going to get me killed. 

I don’t know. I want to, but I don’t. I want to get stronger, wiser, understand- but I don’t. And just like any one of a million early scientists and explorers, I’m more likely to die looking into it than not. How many people died of radiation poisoning before Marie Curie and co got together and figured out what the hell was going on? How many people died of mercury and lead poisoning before someone figured that out?

Is that what I want? To be an explorer? To be a scientist? To uncover the secrets of all this?

This whole time, I’ve been moving forward blindly. I’ve made choices, yes, pursued things, yes- but always so that I would know my next step, using the wider picture to figure out the space right around me. I dove back into the game for the sake of self-protection, exploration, to gain power in a way that felt… not safe, but safer, at least, than running around vulnerable in the real world. I explored the mill and the town so I would understand better what to do and what not to do. Maybe… maybe I need an objective beyond “move forward”. 

I exhale, yanking the parking brake up to get the car to stop fully instead of squealing to a stop (really gotta get the brakes checked soon). “I would offer you a ride home, but-”

“But if Dani finds out I told you where we live, they’ll kill me for real.”

“Right. Don’t know where you live, won’t go there till I’m invited and all that. So… have fun walking home? In the dark? Alone?”

She snorts. “Part of the fun of being a part of all this- I might not have superpowers, but flesh-magic iron man armor’s a pretty good trick. If they somehow notice me past all the illusion-magic-whatever, I’ll just keep walking or beat the shit out of them.”

I shrug. “Fair enough, then. Kinda jealous. Now get out, I need sleep.”

She laughs, half-kicking the door to get it open and popping out of the car, languid and predatory, relaxed and yet ready at the same time. I don’t know much about this Dani person, but… fuck, man, I’m pretty sure I can understand pretty clearly why they might find Leisha attractive. Some shit is just self-evident.

I watch her walk off into the night, entirely at ease with herself in a way that I’ve never been, anywhere. She leaves the acerbic lights of my condo’s parking lot, stepping into cooler shades of artificial light and deeper shadow, and I watch until she disappears.

And then I head inside.

The Glove is itching. Hyper-active, hyper-sensitive, like it’s fallen asleep and then woken back up, like it’s been steaming in hot water and lime for a few hours. It’s uncomfortable, and it’ll take me a moment to get used to the new… twitchiness.

That’s fine. I can work with this.

I head inside and head upstairs. I might not know exactly where I want to end up, but I do know that I need to find an ideal, something more than just survival and the vague idea of “forward”. 

That’s a destination in and of itself. The journey to the journey, or whatever. 

And now, with my second-strongest tool awake now rather than just alive… fuck it. There’s more I could be doing. 

So. Priorities.

Tonight, I’m going to sleep early.

Tomorrow, I figure out what I want to do. 

And begin to carve.