MONDAY
AUGUST 1ST, 2011
(Don't
Speak Its true Name I: Peace)
1:03
AM
Along the forest road, we walk at an uneven pace. There's
five of us now, each with different understandings and different
speeds. Danny's excited to have more boys to talk to. Donnie's
looking nervously around and finding any excuse to not have to talk.
Fentzy and I are leading the pack, or trying to. We don't really know
where we're going now?
Whether we encounter zombies, wild
wolves, or cloning shadows from worlds beyond, there's too many of us
now for any idle threats. And Donnie and I still have our hammer and
sword, still stained with alien blood.
Of all the adventures
we've had, that last one feels the most like a dream.
1:39
AM
Bones came up to the front, with us.
"Hey, so.
Next time we find a Door, I wanna show you something."
Oh,
sure. Like, a house, or a rabbit hole door?
"Right, you
call them 'rabbit holes.' Yeah, those."
What do you
call them? o:
"Doors of Oblivion."
Fentzy looked
at him in surprise and then tripped
over a tree root
NOTHING HAPPENED, I DID NOT
GET PUNCHED IN THE ARM
2:00
AM
"There! Between
those trees! It's a Sears!"
dammit Danny we're not looking
for a Sears we're looking for a--
oh
between those trees is
a well-lit superstore aisle of kitchen appliances
Yeah, that's a
rabbit hole.
derek "By the Nine, it's Oblivion."
2:02
AM
He set one foot in the rabbit hole, and now we’re
surrounded by shifting swirly purple.
How the hell did he do
that? :D
2:03
AM
I can feel faces looking down on us with what I hope is
sympathy.
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AM
dawn, I still wait for my god
despite the
self-help of my faith
I see the Final Battle of good and
evil.
The Lamb versus the Beast.
In one corner, standing
tall and thin, is one contender, scarf of blood and hat of shadow.
His sanity dissipated long ago along with what some would call a
soul. would you, Jordan? call it a soul?
In the other
corner, standing everywhere at once with strange headgear and a
weapon crafted from the bowels of the Planck level itself, stands
another contender. I sense great evil buried deep within.
Only
one contender still waits for his God.
Both contenders have
drawn their stairway, and some of us may go up one and some down the
other. Our souls may separate from us as we do so.
As the
movements flow, as John Petrucci paves the background way, as the
Harlot suffers a fate unimaginable, the Beast nears his goal. The
Lamb lies down on Broadway, the Eldritch's Broadway, where puppets
dance for the sake of the Harlot’s trance.
No man can save us
from the world’s two apocalypses.
Cloud’s Rebirth and its
Red Repercussions will have come and gone, leaving a dying dawn on
the lawn of Babylon. All that remains is the untrue spawn; insanity’s
fawn fades with its pawn.
Something like feeling
leaving
your nerves trembling in their cosmically hard battered
scream.
Ready to end, ready to dissolve into atoms
that are no longer your own.
2:13
AM
Purple cave. A mirror figure leads me on.
It is
Bones. Behind me are Fentzy, Donnie, and Danny.
We unearth back
on Earth in yet more woods, but at least the trees are a different
sort here.
2:39
AM
Fentzy was
wise enough to get a flashlight in Los
Angeles, so we're not
entirely in the dark here. Plus the moon's pretty, seen through the
canopy!
But every so often, there's laughter from afar, and from
up above.
2:45
AM
There's birds up above.
They're the ones laughing. But it's just like birdsong. Danny says
maybe they're lyre birds or something.
Where the hell are
we?
3:03
AM
One by one, houses
crept into our environment, until we were undeniably in a suburban
setting. The road came after, and we stepped onto the sidewalk
pavement, cracked in places and sometimes wobbly.
This
is a town.
a bevelled caution draws each foreigner,
ground high, into jurisdiction:
"DOMINIERE
:
Sweet clearing abode!"
The buildings look like a beautiful mixture between European and American. Reminds me of Savannah, but this isn't Georgia. Where are we?
3:08
AM
A scattering of houses
have lights on inside, which only draws attention to the most that do
not. It's three in the morning. This is normal behaviour for a normal
suburb.
The sky is still red. Derek insists we're not in a
rabbit hole.
Why is this place untouched?
3:27
AM
A long walk past
residences, and now we can see different architecture ahead. A town
centre.
We'll cut through a cemetery to reach it.
3:30
AM
"Why is there a
grave for a guitar?"
What
"FRIEND
OF JORDAN
GAVE HIM GOOD THINGS TO REMEMBER HIS ISOLATION BY
HERE
LIES TIGER STRIPES,
PROOF OF THE VALUE IN INANIMATE
PLASTIC."
What???
Who
did.. how did???
And why do I.. need a minute now?
3:32
AM
Good game, Tiger Stripes.
Six Guitar Heroes
together. So much DragonForce, so much Megadeth. “2112.”
Three
Rock Bands together, DLC to the heavens and beyond. The Epic
Symphony in A Flat Minor, “Obfuscation,” Ten, Rust in
Peace, “Free Bird,” “Roundabout,” “Antibodies,”
“Panic Attack,” “Visions,” and everything in between.
Two
and a half months of Hell, it took. You were strong, you were sturdy.
You kept going through the fire and the flames, you killed so many
spidercats. We made it across the Atlantic together, we made it
across the Divided Countries together.
Now we have to end our
playthrough. We couldn’t FC this one, friend, but I’m sure we
passed. .w. And I’m sure we could never do it without you.
Cold
figures laugh at themselves
The ultimate practical joke
They
see skies fading
Their faces regret nothing at all
tonight
Still, they think once of
The last sunset
bitter.
September 2010 - July 2011.
3:48
AM
On we go.
Walking
into a land of normal here where it shouldn't be,
What can it
mean but the return of the shambling dead?
Jordan
leads the pack this time, gangly teens on the prowl, and he
Summons
wit he never had, someone's grit he's always said.
Through
Hapsburg Court, his friends keep up.
Treasure Street, Danny
starts to trail behind.
"Does he know where he's going?
What's up?
"I'm feeling doubts creep into my mind."
3:58
AM
Striding into
this land of normal here, what a shouldn't-be!
Fentzy wouldn't
worry, but Derek looks at her with furrowed brow.
Donnie slows
down to catch up with Danny,
And Jordan starts-- what?-- to
dance down Pine Avenue-- how?
How does he not notice? He's
making a fool.
But Donnie's seen it before. She's the first to
put it a name:
"Guys, wherever we are," she says, "and
'wherever's' the rule,
"We're not safe here. He's being
led. I've seen it. This is the same."
4:03
AM
Into
the George.
It's
a bar! Or, a pub. We're in Canada. I worked it out! (There were
posters on the way.)
The George isn't normally open this late,
but with the Rapture, it helps to have a nightwatch.
Oh hey, the
others have caught up! Hey guys! Check it out, it's a pub!
...they're
winded. :3 Let 'em sit down, let 'em chill a bit.
I'll talk to
the locals.
4:10
AM
Stumbled on a land of
normal, narrated by an unknown voice,
What can it mean but bless
us our daily bread?
Fentzy wants someone to investigate on their
own, but her choice--
Herself-- isn't even raised before Danny
volunteers his head,
Running out the door, telling Derek to
cover him.
But those kids don't even know about me,
The
music in the background, the voice of the cherubim,
And I think
we'll keep it that way for a while, wait and see.
Bait in sea.
4:32
AM
Okay, so! I've gathered
my friends, let me tell you what I've learned!
This is
Dominiere, a township in Alberta! Established in 1953 by the Social
Credits or something! It's a fairly big town! The apocalypse didn't
really hit them, but they send money to their neighbours where they
can! Neighbouring towns
and.
What.
Donnie
"Are you okay?"
Yeah, I'm fine!
Bones
"Hey, uh, Danny's gone out to check out the town."
Oh
shit! Good on him!
So
anyway, these guys know what's up, they have their heads on their
shoulders, this looks like a place where we can settle and not
worry.
…
So yeah! We're here! Let's go!
6:50
AM
Donnie
here. Someone ought to update the journal, and Jordan's not going to
since he went to sleep.
Danny went off on his own to check out
the area two hours ago and never came back. I asked Derek why he took
us here, and he said that he doesn't really have control over the
purple faces, that he just follows where they take him. As if to
prove this, he tried to return to the rabbit hole and get us a path
out of here, to keep our options open, and.. we couldn't even find
the Door, honestly. Whenever we went far enough out into the forest,
we'd hit a crowd of zombies in a line, holding hands, blocking our
path.
I don't like it.
I don't trust
it.
I think Derek just led us into a trap.
And Jordan's not
even recognizing any of it. He found a bed, first chance he could,
and went to sleep.
We're gathered in the same hotel he picked.
The Coach Motel. The others are going to wait up for Danny to come
back, but I'm going to join Jordan and talk to him in the morning.
11:49
AM
Woke
up next to Donnie. :)
My journal next to my bed.
The birds
are singing, someone's mowing a lawn, the sky is a peaceful red, and
I feel... safe.
11:55
AM
Hi
Donnie.
"Mngh.. baby, are you okay?"
Yeah! I'm
grand. I'm happy today.
"Did you read my entry in your
journal?"
Yeah. I think you guys have this one
covered.
"..baby, I don't trust this place. And I don't
know what's happening to you."
Nothing's happening!
Hey,
do you want to take a walk with me? We can see what's here in
Dominiere.
"...yeah. Yeah, let me put some pants on."
:)
12:03
PM
Outside
our room, sitting in chairs in the hallway, are Bones and Fentzy!
Bones was asleep but Fentzy woke him up when we came out.
Hey
guys!
fentzy "So you've had some sleep. Are you gonna help
us look for Danny?"
Oh, is he still out? Sure, we can have
a look. Donnie and I were gonna have a look at the area anyway!
"Then
we're coming too."
Great! :D
12:08
PM
They've been filling me
in on stuff.
They see people coming in and out of the hotel, in
and out of rooms, and it all looks totally normal.
They say
it's like there's no apocalypse outside, but I think it's more like
this is a town that's gotten used to it and thrived! This is
humanity, man! This is what we can do!
And
a circle of zombies on the outskirts of town? Sounds to me like the
townsfolk have pushed the zombies out.
12:10
PM
The
barkeep saw me and waved! Asked if I slept okay.
Like a light!
I love
this place!
12:21
PM
Immediately
outside the Coach Motel are vendors in stalls selling sausages,
selling bedding and pillows, selling hard candies, selling coasters
with all kinds of popular fictional characters on them, selling CDs,
selling fresh strawberries and grapes!
We're not far from a
square where the real
market is out, where there's a hairdresser, a keyfob,
a watch repair shop, an antique store, and some cafes!
Such a
charming little town!
12:35
PM
Farther
out from the town square are furniture stores, with moving vans
coming to and fro, and there are small shops selling fresh produce
and tins, and..
donnie "No sign of Danny anywhere…"
fentzy
"God, where did he go?
How does he just vanish?"
donnie
"Did he ever go out on his own before? When you were traveling
with him?"
fentzy "He's a bit of a bonehead and does
this, yeah, but he only ever takes this long if there's trouble."
Oh
man, there's a model
railway?
…
fentzy
"What the fuck?"
12:38
PM
Donnie's
pulled me aside.
"Jordan."
Yes?
"Jordan,
you're being really
weird right now."
I am?
"You're
not even.. I mean, these are your
friends, not mine. Why am I more concerned about Danny than you
are?"
He's out seeing the town! Like I want to be! He's
fine!
"Jordan, we don't want
to stay,
we want to get out
of here."
What? Really? This place is exactly what you and
I have been looking for! It's precisely
a place to stay!
"What?"
Do
you.. not think so? Is this place really so suspicious?
"It's
surrounded
by zombies!
Where are the people getting all their produce from? What's the
economy? Are they using Z?"
These are things we can just
ask,
Donnie!
"..."
12:39
PM
Donnie's
asked Fentzy and Bones to go on ahead.
She's sat us down on a
bench.
"Please help me understand something."
Okay.
"You..
remember the last few days, right?"
You mean. Do I remember
the writhing nightmare world that was King Real's castle, blood and
faces awakening my every phobia? Do I remember the fight that
threatened your life and got me to feel grief and adrenaline that
sucked my stomach out of my throat? Or do you mean the sheer tragedy
that was San Francisco?
"..yeah. You still remember, you're
not having some kind of memory trouble."
We've seen a lot
of Hell. I feel like I've found somewhere more peaceful, and all that
distress is leaking out the back of my head.
"But, honey.
We don't want
you to lose your distress. You clung to this town as soon as we got
in here.
You didn't have any
doubt whatsoever.
And I don't think you've earned
the trust you have in this place."
..okay.
"Yeah?"
Can
I.. ask something?
"Please do."
Can I.. go back
to my room?
"...are you.. sure? That's what you
want?"
Maybe I'm just.. feeling the exhaustion catch up
with me? Maybe I just need some more time.
"Well. Alright.
I'll tell the others you just need more rest."
Thanks,
Donnie. .w.
"But can I
ask something?"
Yeah?
"Give me your
journal?"
.......yeah, sure.
12:41
PM
He's
gone back to the hotel.
I think he was being honest with me.
That conversation was the most "normal" he's sounded
today.
I don't know if he's aware
of the change happening to himself.
12:44
PM
I've
caught back up with Rauri and Derek.
They're confused by
Jordan's behaviour, and even if they were his online friends or
whatever, they've still only really just
met him, so I have to assure them that he's not normally like this. I
mean, Christ, we wouldn't have gotten this far if this is what he was
like.
But I can't.. worry about this now.
We've got to
get to the bottom of this fucking town.
12:57
PM
It's
so strange. There's cars, there's traffic. There's a postman. There's
police officers. Dominiere has everything but the blue sky, so at
least we're not dealing with Ants.
It's a regular Canadian town,
but just with a red sky.
2:23
PM
We
stopped a policeman and asked him some questions.
"How does
Dominiere stay safe from monsters?"
"We don't let them
in."
"What about the Fears?"
"They
don't mess with us."
"Don't you fear the coming of
Rapture?"
"We don't fear many things here."
All
rather vague, noncommittal answers.
Much like anyone else we ask.
No one had seen Danny either.
We
were making such little progress that Rauri started losing her
temper, and I suggested we all get a little more rest. As Rauri
stubbornly refused this, I just.. asked her to come and have a drink
of tea with me instead. Derek came along, not wanting anyone else to
go off on their own.
We found a cafe, I don't remember the
fucking name, it doesn't matter, but they were decent enough to let
us make the tea ourselves (as we still don't know what to trust). I
agreed to wash up after, in lieu of payment.
I want to be able
to say here that we found some staggering evidence, something out of
place, but, no, everything has been completely normal. The cafe
owners were put upon and polite. The seats were slightly dirty, not
spotless. The tea was.. just... tea. A store brand, Safeway
brand.
And Rauri and I just.. talked.
Derek was there too, drinking silently, but he had nothing to
add.
I've learned that Rauri is sixteen, she was raised in
Connecticut, before all this she wanted to grow up to be a digital
artist, she loves PaintTool SAI and Wacom tablets,
and she had the most to say about video games, and something called
Homestar Runner.
She knows Jordan from their web chat client,
where she started talking to him.. actually almost a year ago? And
she spoke highly of his Sonic... chao... fanfic thing. She cares
deeply about Sonic. And Zelda. And something called Ar Tonelico.
When
she started talking about anime, she lost me a lot more. I grew up
with Cowboy Bebop and FLCL, not much more than that. She was telling
me about this new one that had only just finished before the Rapture
happened, Pulla... um, something about Magical Girls and Witches.
I
tried to find out more about what happened to her sister, but she's
the most guarded about that. She's mad at a lot of Fears more than
she's scared of them. Only when I mentioned the slender man did she
get evasive.
I found that interesting.
After a point, I was able to get Derek
to talk too. I think he feels guilty for leading us here, even though
it doesn't sound like he has control over his strange rabbit hole
travel. (What did he call them? Oblivion...? What Fear is
that?)
These two are warming up to me. Maybe they already were
okay with me, but.. I wasn't sure. I don't do too well with new
people.
2:30
PM
After
we had finished our teas, and after I had washed up after ourselves,
Rauri allowed herself to feel vulnerable, feel the bags under her
eyes. So I took her back to the hotel and got her a room next to
ours.
Now I'm going back out into town. Derek thinks he can
still try something. I want to back him up.
4:44
PM
We
found our way back to the forest surrounding the town. Harlequin
Forest, it's apparently called.
When we reached the layer of
zombies, I pulled out my hammer.
I'll clear a path.
4:47
PM
It..
was trivial.
Equally trivial was finding the Door where we came
in, leading right back to the purple bioluminescent cave.
Derek
is walking in, swirls of wisps flowing around his legs.
I'm following behind.
4:49
PM
Hanging
above us were hollow glowing faces imprinted in the void, eerily
large and subtly expressive. We had seen them on our way in, and
Derek is much more familiar with them, as this is the process he uses
to navigate the Earth via rabbit hole.
But on this occasion, the
faces frowned on us, shadowed from the eyes up.
Derek says
that's new. It's never happened before.
And it means we can't go
back out this way.
4:50
PM
"I'm
sorry. I trusted the faces, and they brought us here. Me, I'm used to
traveling alone, and if I'd have ended up here, I'd.. probably just
bypass the zombies and keep walking? Go until I found another Door.
But this was my first time traveling this way with others. I wanted
to be of use to all of you, and instead I've made things more
difficult."
It's not your fault. You were
useful, you moved us hundreds of miles. This isn't the first time
we've found a town that's tried to trap us, either. We'll make it
through this. I'm not too worried.
"Evidently, we can get
through the zombies. So we're not really all that trapped in that
sense."
Yeah. It's just…
"Jordan."
Yeah.
7:11
PM
On
the way into town this time, we noticed several trucks, all
identically labelled ("Genera Transit"), parked in the
square in a circle. No one was coming in or out of the trucks, they
were all shut, just idling there.
7:15
PM
I
half-expected to find Jordan seated on a stool in the George,
drinking pints of beer.
Instead I found him in our hotel room,
playing on an N64 that was hooked up to the TV. A "hotel model,"
apparently.
Paper Mario. He had made it to Chapter 3.
7:18
PM
Baby,
do you want to stop for a moment?
"What's up?"
I
want to fill you in on what I've been up to. And I'd.. kind of.. like
to...
10:02
PM
We
had sex! :D
Until Derek came in WITHOUT KNOCKING
"Sorry.
Didn't mean to disturb you two. I just wanted to tell you that I
found a blacksmith in town who was interested in making you a new
weapon."
What's wrong with my sword?
"Oh,
nothing, like literally nothing, it's a fine sword. Just, you only
picked that thing up out of an armory, yeah? It might not be.. uh...
tailored? To your specifications. Whereas a blacksmith can... look,
sorry, this is really weird, you're not wearing pants."
Sorry!
10:03
PM
He's
gone.
He delivered the message, at least.
I mean. Having a
weapon that's completely my
own
is really nice.
And I do like the businesses around here…
Okay!
Yeah. A cool thought. Maybe I'll check that out sometime.
donnie
"But not tonight, right?"
Of course not. :3 It's just
you and me tonight, the way it should be.
(Attached:
“Dominiere, a place by any other name.
I remember
coming to Jordan with the blacksmith news. Honestly, it was a long
shot, I was trying to see if I could get him to come for a walk with
me and I chose a really passive way of communicating that. And it was
actually on the way out of the hotel then, by myself, that I
discovered the strangest damn thing. Everything else about the town
so far had been at least harmless, and maybe Jordan was just having a
freak episode, nothing pointed to Dominiere literally being a
dangerous place.
But then I stood in the street, at 10 PM, a
wind threatening to blow my hat off my head, when a group of drinkers
walked past me. They stepped out onto the road, and one said, and I
remember his exact words even now:
---It's such a good night, not
even Candle Jack could scare me!
Followed by his group trying to
shush him.
And then a figure, in the night, bashed in his skull
with a steel baseball bat.
And the rest of his group ran away,
screaming, as Genera officers came to move his dead body into a
truck.”)