Chapter 14: Can’t go Back (Patreon)

Nancy’s eyes popped open and she sat up, her heart beating so fast.

Where am I? she craned her neck, looking around the room. The walls and ceiling were clean looking except for the smudges above the lamps, which seemed to be made of shiny gold. The walls they attached to were as red as blood, with off-white pillars supporting them. They reminded Nancy of bone.

She felt tears begin to well in her eyes as she realized that she had absolutely no idea where she was.

“Please, don’t cry.” A smooth voice said from her left.

“Eep!” In a flash of movement that even Nancy had trouble following, she catapulted off the red velvet couch and hid behind the back of the furniture. Slenderman was sitting on the chair to her left! She hadn’t seen him yet because he’d been so still!

“My name is Lenos Surpey, I rescued you from a reaper last night. You must have been exhausted, because you slept most of the day.”

Nancy peeped above the edge of the oversized couch.

There, sitting on an extra fancy looking chair, was Slenderman in a black suit. He had no lips and a piercing stare, his boney fingers folded over each other on his lap.

I shouldn’t look away, Nancy thought, keeping her eyes wide. When you look away, that’s when he teleports up behind you and kills you. Daddy sure played the games enough.

Nancy kept silently staring at the monster, her eyes growing increasingly painful until the pain finally forced her to screw her eyes shut.

Oh no, he’ll get me! Nancy dodged the inevitable back-swipe by rolling across the floor, then looking behind herself.

Nothing there?  She glanced back at the chair, and was flummoxed when she spotted Slenderman still sitting where he’d been.

He cocked his head.

Nancy cocked her head.

“Child?”

Now that she got a better look, it was just a keegan. A keegan in a suit. Weird.

“I wanna go home.” Nancy said, standing with her hands clenched into fists.

“Sadly I lack the power to grant that request. I can’t bring your mother and father back to life, just as I can’t un-Stitch your world.”

“that’s not-“ Nancy’s throat choked up at the mention of mommy and daddy.

“Oh? You feel like a small library in an abandoned section of a shopping mall qualifies as a ‘home’? I imagine the pang of hunger in your stomach is nostalgic for you too?”

“Stop it.” Nancy said. He was being mean with his words, without Nancy knowing exactly how he was doing it. He wasn’t calling her names or sticking his tongue out, but all she knew is he was making her feel really bad.

The Keegan’s expression softened.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend, I simply wanted to illuminate a truth.”

“What truth?”

“You don’t have a home, like me.” The keegan said, his eyes looking almost…sad.

“Do too!” Nancy said. “ I’ve got Colt and Damian and Bess and…”

“Those are just strangers you’ve been clinging to, hoping for scraps. They aren’t family. What have they done to help you? No, much more importantly, what have you done to help them?”

“I…” Nancy twiddled her fingers as a wave of guilt crashed over her. She got yelled at when she made the sign out front. She got yelled at when she tried to make book soup, when she peed the bed, when she ate the last of the candy…

“Face it, you don’t have a home.”

“I…guess not,” Nancy admitted.

“That’s not all bad though. There’s one good thing about not having a home.”

“It doesn’t seem like it,” Nancy said, tears welling in her eyes.

“The silver lining here, is that not having a home gives you a chance to make your own.”

“What?” Nancy frowned.

“What do you think your mommy and daddy did? They made their own home, with you included. You can make a home too, it just takes time.”

“Do I have to be a mommy?”  Nancy asked, screwing up her lips. Mommy and daddy did some weird, loud stuff when they thought she was asleep.

“No, no,” The keegan laughed, waving a bony hand. “That’s a different matter altogether.”

Whew.

“You can make a home where you and all your friends can live forever. All you need is the time to do it.”

“How?” Nancy asked, walking around the edge of the couch and sitting back down.

“With a lifetime of effort,” the keegan said, reclining in his seat.

“A lifetime?” Nancy whimpered.

“Youth is the gift of life breathed into us by Mother Vresh’na. This vital energy fades over time, which is what leads to aging, and eventually, the death of all things. But what if I told you, there was a way to beat aging? A way to live forever, gaining the strength and time you need to build a home for you and your friends, never have to see them unhappy ever again?”

“Nuh-uh! Daddy says aging is when damaged ‘Dee Un Ey’ gets copied when cells split, eventually they forget how to fix themselves. He said scientists are about to figure out how to stop aging by fixing ‘Dee Un Ey’ with Crispy but they’re never going to make it pubic because rich people don’t want to share.”

Lenos’s jaw hung upon for a second.

It closed.

It opened.

“Uh…Ahem.” The keegan coughed into his fist. “Humans certainly have active imaginations.”

“Nuh-uh! It’s the truth! Daddy’s never wrong!”

“Except the time he got himself killed, I assume.”

Nancy’s face crumpled, her eyes burning with pain, loneliness and shame. She grabbed a pillow off the couch and started sobbing straight into the soft velvet, heedless of the salty tears and snot working their way into the expensive fabric.

“That’s not a…nevermind. Go nuts.”

About ten minutes later, she had post-meltdown clarity and a case of hiccups. Nancy was ready to talk again.

“Anyway, the people of Pharos have found a way to eliminate aging entirely, and I’m going to help you do it for yourself.”

“Why?”

“I lost my home too,” Lenos said, tapping his chest. “I want to give you the time you’ll need to make your own.”

“You’re mean.”

“I’m practical. I’m too old to do it now, but you…” he gestured to Nancy. “You’re young enough to make it past the O’sut Bottleneck.”

“The What?”

“The O’sut bottleneck. It was named after the scholar O’sut, who discovered that the anti-aging properties of the Body attribute can be used to provide true immortality at high enough potency, and that the required amount is quadratically higher depending on the creature’s current biological age. In essence, at the age where a normal young man could hope to defeat monsters and gain levels, it is already too late. The amount of levels he needs would take longer to acquire than the aging they would prevent. Sure, he could live hundreds of years, but it would be almost impossible to achieve true immortality just playing catch-up with his own aging.”

Lenos spread his hands. “The O’sut Bottleneck.”

“I don’t get it.” Nancy said, shaking her head.

“That’s alright. All you need to know is that it’ll give you the time and strength you need to make a home that no one can take away from you. If you let me help you.”

“…I could invite all my friends over to my home?”

“Of course.” Lenos said.

Nancy peered at him, her mind dancing with the possibility of lazy days spent reading books while hanging off the edge of furniture, chasing each other around a big house, eating together…

“What do I need to do?”

***Jebediah trapper***

“Okay,” Jeb breathed quietly, slipping the ring further up the handle of the hook until he could keep it in place with his right hand.

With his left, he gently placed the very tip of his middle finger against the hook and began feeling around. He used the flat side of the hook to feel for the stitches. From feeling around with his fingertips earlier, he was fairly sure it wasn’t a zipper or legs sunk into his scalp, but stitches securing some wriggling…thing to his skull.

There’s one, Jeb thought, feeling it out using the hook as a medium. He guided the edge to the stitch, took a deep breath, and began gingerly sawing at the material. He kept perfectly still, expanding all his senses outward as he tried to keep track of every tiny sensation.

Damage to the brain won’t register as pain, it’ll register as dizziness or a funny taste, maybe even a sudden change in mood, Jeb thought, his heart thudding out a heavy beat as he sawed.

Pop.

There was a sudden loosening as the hook sawed through the stitch, a relaxing that rippled through his consciousness and his Myst Core. Instantly, the sensations faded, before he could even put a name to what was different.

Da fuck was that? Jeb thought, blinking. He paused a moment to take store of his mental faculties. I don’t feel like I have brain damage, but then again, who does? No time like the present.

Whatever it was existed in another dimension and was not naturally occurring. Jeb was determined to remove it and anything else that had been soldered onto him without his knowledge or consent.

There’s always a chance this’ll turn me into a drooling vegetable or bleeding out on a plane of existence I can’t even interact with…Worth it.

The eww factor was just too high, having something alive strapped to him. possibly influencing his decisions on a level he couldn’t even understand. Nobody wanted to be a cordyceps zombie.

After he tested his smell, taste, balance and ability to count backwards from ten, Jeb resumed the work.

Pop.

Another stitch came loose, accompanied by a quickly fading sensation of loosening.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

The stitches began to move back and forth, making it difficult to work. Frowning, Jeb took the hook away and slipped the ring onto his finger, feeling around the area. The long lump was thrashing back and forth, struggling against the loosening stitches.

Alright, Jeb thought, slipping the ring back onto the hook, rattling all the way down to the handle.

Rattling? Jeb peered closer at the steel hook and noticed its surface was pitted and worn. It wasn’t rusted out, but seemed as though it had been eaten away by acid, with pinhole sized pits in the surface.

Worry about it later. Jeb needed to strike while the iron was hot with the lump.

He found his spot again, working from the other side, pushing the wormlike thing down with the handle while he sawed away at the stitches.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop pop pop pop pop pop pop!

Here it comes! Jeb thought, barely keeping his presence of mind through the series of ripples travelling through his being. The last stitches were coming undone on their own, and the creature, whatever it was, would soon be free to get the hell off of him.

But we’re not gonna let this go that easily.

Pinning the creature down as best he could with the handle while making sure the rest of the stitches really were gone, Jeb flipped the hook around, sliding the blunt side around the worm-like creature’s midsection.

He released the ring with his right hand, letting it slide down the handle until it was bumping up against the invisible thing he’d trapped against the side of his head. Jeb grabbed the ring with his left hand and began drawing the creature through the ring-hole with his right.

The hook and ring combo began to buck in his hands, shaking violently as some implacable force resisted the transition.

Jeb pulled the whole thing away from his head, the creature effectively trapped between the ring and the hook. He leaned forward, holding the two close to his chest and putting leverage to work, straining with a level of effort reserved for the most stubborn of pickle jars.

The invisible thing continued to thrash, jerking his hands from side to side, seemingly with the weight of a full-grown man thrown into it. Jeb was concerned about the damage the thing might be doing to his fifth-dimensional body that he couldn’t even perceive.

Still, he wanted to see the damn thing with his own eyes, and so he continued to pull, struggling to tug the worm through the ring.

Despite putting all his leverage and strength into it, the creature refused to cross dimensions.

Go figure, Jeb thought, scowling. He only had one thing left to try at this point.

Jeb took a deep breath and funneled out the thickest strand of Myst he could possibly manage, sending it through the ring and seizing everything on the other side and yanking it back through.

Well, he tried.

As soon as the Myst made contact with the center of the ring, a flash of light stabbed into Jeb’s retinas, along with a bloom of heat that singed the tips of his fingers that were fixed around the edge of the Appraiser.

“Gah!” Jeb dropped the burning-hot ring to the floor, rubbing his eyes with his seared left hand.

“Damnit,” Jeb muttered, blinking the tears out of his eyes. At least I got rid of the thing.

“Um, Jeb…” Smartass called his attention, and Jeb glanced at her dim shape. She pointed toward the metal tool in his hand.

Jeb glanced down, trying to see through the afterimage dimming his vision. It actually looked like there was something wrapped around the hook…

“Crap!” Jeb tried to drop the stick, but the snake-like creature recovered first, flashing up the metal rod and onto his forearm. Out of the undamaged periphery of his eyes, he could make out green scales and a strange jawless mouth.

The creature reared back, revealing fangs, and Jeb felt a sting on the flesh of his forearm. In panic mode, Jeb tore the creature off and threw it across the room. It hit the back of the room and wriggled under his desk.

“Master Kanoth, I don’t feel so good,” Jeb heard himself mutter as he stumbled backwards, his shoulders ramming up against the unpainted wall.

“Jeb, are you okay?” Smartass asked, fluttering up into his face.

Jeb couldn’t manage to find the ability to answer Smartass. He knew he probably could, but there was a strand of thought in his head that didn’t want to do that, and it stood between him and the fairy.

There was no strand of thought preventing him from watching the desk, though. He needed to be ready in case the creature came crawling out.

Gotta be ready.

Why is the room sliding sideways? Oh, right, it’s bedtime in the academy.

Mevar closed his eyes, relaxing into the itchy woolen beds of the academy. Apprentice wizards were denied all but the most basic comforts. ‘To better enhance their studies,’ they said. Mevar thought it was because they were cheap.

Mevar’s fingers scrunched the silk covers.

Wait, silk?

The tiny inconsistency allowed something older and darker to peel away the facade of Mevar, reeling in the darkness.

Nope, nope, nope! Jeb thought, sitting back up with everything he had. organizing and fortifying his thoughts and identity, shoring them up against the strange thoughts and sensations.

Jeb tugged all his thoughts and feelings, all his memory, close to the gaping wound in his mind, choosing his PTSD as the battlefield, so he would feel the strange thoughts approaching a mile away. As painful as it was, it was one of the cores of his identity and it wouldn’t go away from a little Mevar juice.

He ran his thumb over the scar on his palm, focusing his thoughts on The Spike.

Am I dying right now? My chest feels heavy. I promised him. Did Tyler take my place? Do I deserve to die instead?

Chuckling, Jeb dragged his mind into the dark well of PTSD. He’d been here before, after all, but young Mevar had no tolerance for that sort of bullshit, and the invisible strands of the young man’s thoughts began were viciously torn apart by the burgeoning weight of Jeb’s damage.

Just one problem.

Tyler was standing outside the door. Jeb’s eyes ached from the strain as he watched the ghost of his past rush to his side, struggling to pull the beam out of Jeb’s chest.

“Jeb! Hold on, man! I’ll get you outta there!”

“Am I gonna die?” Jeb heard himself whisper. He couldn’t move air through his lungs, only the blood-soaked oxygen already in his throat.

You’re not gonna die, I promise!” Tyler said, grabbing his hand. The blood from the cut on Tyler’s hand mixed with Jeb’s. “I’m gonna get you out of here!”

Jeb was jettisoned out of his own body as a ball of burning golden fire. The scene below him was frozen in place, two men, one on his deathbed, the other clutching his hand. A scene that had played out time and time again in Jeb’s mind, always with the wrong actors.

Tyler is the one who died, not me. Why do I dream about myself being the one dying so often? The scraps of Jeb’s consciousness wondered.

There was a strange web between the two frozen men, a gossamer promise, made of glowing, immaterial, woven gold. Something in Jeb’s core told him that it really was Tyler’s promise. Or perhaps powered by it?

The scene began to play in reverse, and Jeb watched in fascination from his strange, omniscient viewpoint, as the world rewound like an old VHS tape, the gossamer thread travelling with the two actors.

It rewound, showing the two of them prepare for bed, getting all their gear squared away in the nitpicky way their drill sergeant had, well, ‘drilled’ into them. It rewound further, showing the two hours of R&R before bed, where they had been drinking and playing Mortal Kombat.

Like a living thing, the gossamer gold seemed to sense an opportunity, jumping into Jeb’s body with a soft flash of light.

The scene resumed in regular time, and Jeb watched himself get beat by Tyler repeatedly, a gold flash in his eyes appearing every now and then just before a critical error. Of course, every game in the army is also a drinking game, and Jeb was forced to imbibe an inordinate amount of beer, sending him into a spiral of defeat.

The exact same scene replayed itself as they stowed their gear, got ready for bed, laid down…

But this time, Jeb was the one who got up in the middle of the night and went to take a piss…not Tyler.

What the hell am I looking at? Jeb thought, reaching for the scar on his palm.

The power of a promise. Do not make them lightly, Scion.

Unfortunately, as a ball of bright orange light, he didn’t exactly have a palm to check his scar, sending a wave of dread through his…ball. Am I dead? Did I finally manage to kill myself, and this is what I wanted to happen? Or is it just omniscience in death that allows me to see all the ways things could have been?

Jeb glanced up and spotted wood above him, the cracks in the ceiling slowly growing. Any second they would send beams crashing down into his chest. He needed to get out, Right NOW.

But I don’t have a body, how the fuck am I supposed to get out of here?

The beam fell through the ceiling and slammed into his chest, which he now had.

Tyler was standing outside the room.

“No, fuck this, this already happened! I’m alive!” Jeb shouted, his body fueled by pissed-off outrage, beating back the fear for a couple seconds. long enough to hear what Tyler was really saying.

“Jeb! Jeb, wake up!”

Wake up?

I can’t open my eyes. My eyes are already open. I’m not dreaming. I can’t be dreaming, my eyes are already open…This is real?

It’s not real. Can’t be real.

Jeb looked up at Tyler, really looked.

Tyler had white hair and crow’s feet around his eyes.

Tyler wasn’t Tyler at all. It was Mr. Everett shaking the shit out of him.

Jeb’s throat was hoarse, probably from screaming.

“Anybody see the thing that bit me?” Jeb whispered, his voice not quite working as he tried to sit up.

“huh?” Mr. Everett asked, frowning. “Something bit you?”

“Under the cabinet,” Jeb whispered, pointing, his limbs weak from adrenalin backlash.

Cautiously, Mr. Everett knelt down and peered under the desk, scanning back and forth. A moment later, the old man grunted, leaning down further and reaching under the cabinet.

Is this dude crazy? Jeb thought. The thing obviously had sent Jeb on a hell of a trip and nearly killed him.

“Nothing under here but this,” the teacher said, pulling out a book.

“Looks like an unused diary or something,” Everett muttered, flipping through the pages. “Doesn’t have anything written on it.” He tossed the book onto the bed.

“I’ll check under the bed.” Everett.

“Nevermind,” Jeb said, finding his voice as he stared at the book. Its cover was made of green scaly skin, with two long fangs bracing either side of the binding, and rib-like bumps on the sides. “I had a flashback.”

“You sure?” Everett asked, raising a brow. “No trouble at all.”

“I’m sure, I get flashbacks every now and then. I’ll live.” Jeb shrugged. “But if you wanna check under my bed for spooks, more power to ya.”

The teacher chuckled and checked under Jeb’s bed and end table, declared the room clean, and bid Jeb a good night.

Jeb picked up the book.

Principles of Myst sensors and behavior programming 101

Jeb cracked the book open, studying the first page.

“Can you read this part too?” Jeb asked, pointing to the signature at the bottom.

“What part?” Smartass asked, frowning as she studied the paper.

This book is owned by Mevar Salis, If found, please return to room 113 of the Mestikos Myst Academy.

“Huh. That’s odd. I wonder…”

Jeb took the appraiser and blew a cloud of smoke, stepping into its effect.

Jebediah Trapper

Mystic Trapsmith, Level 39

Accolades: Krusker’s Brawn, Siren’s Cunning, R-R-RubU’s Mysteries, Gresh’s Subtlety, Innovator, Lagross’s Power.

Body 21 (9)

Myst 71 (16+3)

Nerve 26 (10)

Abilities: >>FATAL EXCEPTION. Ability missing or corrupted. Awaiting resolution by Administrator.<<<

Accolade Pending: Lagross’s Power suspended due to multiple instances. Awaiting resolution.

Attention, this User has been flagged for exclusion from the System by executive order.

Jeb raised a brow, thumbing his chin.

He glanced between the book on the bed and the missing Ability.

Mystic trigger.

Principles of Myst sensors and behavior programming 101

So I had…information and experience stitched to my head? Jeb thought. The information was the book, the experience was the memories of the Mevas kid.

Why am I the only one who can read it? Why was it a snake-thing?

Why should I care?

Jeb picked up the book, sat down on the bed, and started reading.