MONDAY JUNE 6TH, 2011
("Doppelganger")

7:46 AM
This place has a basement.

7:54 AM
I’ve been waiting for a while now. Nothing’s happened. I guess not every basement is a rabbit hole.

7:56 AM
Shit. It was only when I left the house’s front door that the rabbit hole “kicked in.”
This is a library.
The library extends far off into the horizon. It’s one big building.
I guess apocalyptic monsters like to read.

8:01 AM
“British people.” “French people.” “Spanish people.”
…what’s down “American people?”

8:03 AM
Millions and millions and millions of books, oh my god.
The title of each book is someone’s name.
…Rhodes, Annabelle?

8:05 AM
I opened it, but it would only go to one page; every other page felt glued shut. The page was towards the end of the book, and it said
“First they take my family, now they take the cool dudes in the record store? This is starting to turn from scary to stupid real fast. Meh. I gotta find a hotel, I’m sick of sleeping on the streets.“
These books contain our lives. That book contains the life of my ex. It’s.. surreal.

8:10 AM
I found Fentzy’s. I.. I just want to make sure she’s not dead. I mean, the chances of her dying are very slim, but.. I JUST WANNA MAKE SURE.
“Woke up. Dreamed of the Beast. Still finds me even in New York. Is it even real? I’m.. gonna try to go back to sleep. Hopefully when I wake up Dwyn will be back.”
There, she’s alive, that’s all I wanted to know. And it’s a relief.
Now, let’s see what else is around here.

8:17 AM
Other people?
One person.
Old man.
He’s entering the “British people” section.

8:18 AM
..he’s got my book.
Holy fuck. He can flip through all the pages.
“Good morning, young nomad.”
afdijadjsi Hi! Um. ..where am I?
“You’re in my Peisistratos. I let you in, you could say.”
And who are you?
Chuckled. Grinned. “Doppelganger.”

9:53 AM
..I’m in Spain again. I’m in a shop.
The old man looked at me and held out the book.
And.. he said something.
I don’t even remember what.

9:55 AM
What he said was written in my journal. o_o I don’t remember it!

10:25 AM
I miss company.
I’d even settle for Mistress. I’d love to just have someone to talk to.

10:39 AM
Bright sun today.
…wait, that’s not the sun.

10:45 AM
It was a fucking..
You know that thing from Teletubbies, the sun with a baby’s laughing face in it?
Yeah, that’s what that was. Except it wasn’t just laughing; it was in fucking hysterics. But it was about as hot as you’d expect a mini sun to be; I couldn’t let it get too close or it’d burn me up.
But throwing the crowbar at it made the sun disappear.
I don’t get paid enough for this shit.

10:49 AM
..ope, the babyface sun is back
CAN’T TALK GOTTA RUN

10:53 AM
IT’S LAUGHING
SO LOUD
I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING BUT ITS FUCKING LAUGHTER

11:00 AM
CAR
..the Babyface is crying. It’s flying away.
The car, what the fuck.
That’s a pickup truck. And the people inside are waving for me to come in.

11:13 AM
These people speak English. They call themselves “freelance rebels.”
They said Spain is mostly free of the monsters because of the SLCEMs.
The driver asked where I was headed, and I said Manresa. Come to think of it, I don’t even know why the hell I’m going to Manresa. The puppet driver guy told me about Ferdinando in Berga, but I’m only going to Manresa because…. well, the SLCEM messenger was supposed to, I suppose. But whatever. It’s a lead.

11:19 AM
One woman here’s from Finland. I asked how she got here, and she said she was lost in a rabbit hole for days.
Oh god, I hope it wasn’t the Dogscape one.

11:30 AM
Road sign said “Manresa.”
Shit, that was fast.
They’re dropping me off here.
There isn’t a single building over one-story here. Everything that used to have a second floor… well, they seem to.. have been levelled. It’s like a giant sword went through and cut all the tops of the buildings off.

11:37 AM
My paper says the second conversion will be of a guy named Danny Ligato.
Where could he be?

11:46 AM
Asked a person, they pointed at a building nearby.
Let’s do this.

11:51 AM
Found him.

11:54 AM
“Ohhhh Danny Boy, the pipes… the pipes are calling.”
I heard someone singing that as I killed him, I swear I did.
He tried to defend himself with a gas canister, but I thrust my thrusty trusty crowbar forward, through the can, and through his skull. He’s not alive anymore, needless to say.
..I’m sorry.

12:02 PM
Where am I even going now? The paper says my third and last guy is some dude named Gregori Rimara. But where is he?
I’ll ask around.

Lloret de Mar

Right off the bat, people were able to help me. They wrote it down above. Lloret! They told me to keep going south. Said it was a seaside town.

12:09 PM
…gunshots.
I heard “el bufon blanco.”
Fuck.

12:14 PM
RUNNING RUNNING RUNNING
I MADE IT OUT OF CLAY
AND WHEN IT’S DRY AND READY
THEN OH GOD I HEARD A MOTOR START
RUNNING RUNNING FASTER
I MADE IT OUT OF CLAY
AND WHEN THE GUNSHOTS FALTER
THEN RUNNING I’LL DO ALL DAY
RUNNING RUNNING FASTEST
I MADE IT OUT, NO WAY
I’M PROLLY GONNA DIE, THOUGH
SO TELL FENTZY I LOVED HER. …AY.
..THOUGH I’VE ALREADY TOLD HER THAT
SO UH… TELL ANNA.
I DUNNO, TELL SOMEONE.
TELL ANNA, AND THEN TELL SOMEONE.
I GUESS.
..I’M NOT DEAD.

12:39 PM
I’m hiding out in a bathroom. o_o

12:41 PM
Yeah, I think I’m safe for now.
…yep, that was a rabbit hole somehow.
Where the hell is this.
Tripped over something.
..MOVING
I’M MOVING
WHOA LIGHT
THIS IS A ROLLERCOASTER
I AM ON A ROLLERCOASTER
HOW THE FUCK
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

12:56 PM
Oh god, it stopped. The fuck was up with that.
This is some kinda amusement park.

1:11 PM
Okay, I’ve been looking for a while. Can’t find the exit.
There’s a lot of people here, and they’re all shadows.
Freaking Shadow People. Great.

1:12 PM
I asked one where the exit was, and a whole line of them disappeared. The line’s leading in this direction, so let’s check that out.

1:15 PM
This is a hall of mirrors, not an exit.

1:16 PM
All of a sudden, the park is empty.
..maybe the exit’s through the hall of mirrors.
What could POSSIBLY go wrong.

1:19 PM
It’s just one long hall. I see the exit at the other end. A shadow person’s there, waiting for me.

1:20 PM
This is one long hall.

1:21 PM
…wait. That’s n.. the hall’s only half as long as I thought; that’s a mirror. There’s a shadow person at the entrance.
…then where’s my reflection?

1:22 PM
Oh dear god I’m a shadow.
..I need to get out of here, they say. The mirror is what could be.
Where’s the exit, though?

1:24 PM
I fell. Through the floor.
Now I’m in a sewer.

1:28 PM
OH DEAR SWEET
Oh. It’s.. not doing anything. It’s a motherfucking alligator. But it’s not doing anything. It’s not breathing or anything. Just standing there, eyes open. Standing on its fucking hind legs.
The fucking Bipedagator.

1:29 PM
..I can hear breathing. I’m walking faster now.

1:30 PM
Second sound of footsteps in water from far behind me.
From where that Bipedagator was.
Fuck.

1:31 PM
running running running i made it out of sewage and when it’s dry and ready then sewage will be fucking RUN
OH GOD
RUN
ROAR
HEARD
A ROAR
LIGHT
AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
GO
GO GO GO
LET THERE BE LIGHT
THAT’S NOT LIGHT THAT’S A BABYFACE
FUCK BIPEDAGATOR’S THERE
CORNERED
oh god no no no
please I love life please no. >_<
EAT CROWBAR BIPEDAGATOR
KAY BYE
OH GOD
RUN RUN RUN
TAKE A LEFT HERE
NOW A RIGHT
LET’S TRY FORWARD

1:39 PM
Ladder!

1:45 PM
I’m in a warehouse, just.. ohhh my god. I shut the sewer entrance. Now I’m safe.
Safe, that is, except for the man in the room with me.
..that’s the creepy red-jacket man. o_o
I stepped forward, and suddenly, he was just.. gone.
Right, well. Door’s over there.

1:52 PM
I’m walking through loads of hallways.
No windows anywhere.
Big double doors here. This looks promising.

1:56 PM
Holy goddamn.
I’m in space.
The Sun of Nothing’s over there. I’m floating towards it.
It’s actually just a black hole.
Fuck
Okay, I grabbed an asteroid-type thHOW AM I BREATHING, I forgot about that.
Am I really in space? Probably not.
I grabbed an asteroid, though. Now I’m not floating towards the sun, the sun of nothing.
It’s also not really a black hole; I was wrong.
It’s a giant eye ball.
Not sure how the fuck I got the two confused, in retrospect.

2:14 PM
Okay, uh.. fuck. There’s not really much to do except hang on to this asteroid.
HALP?
Fuck it, I’m letting go.

2:15 PM
FARRRRRRRRRTHURRRRRRRRRRRRR
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWAY.

2:17 PM
Yeah, so wherever I am now, I’m looking in a mirror. I see myself. I’m… uh..
This is a bathroom. Okay.

2:20 PM
I’m back in the real world now. No idea where the fuck I am. Guess I’ll keep walking down the only road I’ve ever known, like a drifter I was born to walk aFUCK YOU SHUT UP I WILL SING WHAT I DAMN WANT

3:01 PM
This sign says “Manresa,” and a triple-digit number. Fuck, I’m going the wrong way.

4:41 PM
Oh my god I hate walking.

6:38 PM
I’ve got to be getting close to Lloret, surely.
HEY DON’T CALL ME SHIRLEY LULZ I’M SO WITTY

7:24 PM
“Lloret de Mar, 69.”
…heh. “69.”
Heh heh.
Ha.

8:45 PM
God, I am exhausted. Fuck it, I’ll resume walking tomorrow. I gotta get some sleep. I mean, a Mistress’s bitch has gotta sleep, ain’t he?

9:11 PM
This house looks as good as any. I’ll stop here.

(Attached: ”While ancient Greek heroes lost on adventures through other worlds often had to test their wills and the very idea of who they were, Jordan is not an ancient Greek hero. All he can do is wander through a thousand meaningless worlds until he thinks he sees meaning, and that’s when we can come in. Let me tell you about the time I met myself.
Long ago, during my stay in a country at the time called Aegyptus, I had learned that people worshipped me as an arbiter. I used this as an excuse to step into human affairs and keep the peace; I broke up a fair number of atrocities and gave the people something to believe in for a time. But something about my actions in Ukhu Pacha still left a barb in my heart; how could I be the arbiter when I had revived the greatest threat to the universe? More on that in another note.
At that point, the only thing I thought to be certain was that I had made a mistake. It was with this thought that I heard the unmistakable meow of the Omen marking my arrival home. And it is because of all that I have just written that, after stepping into my home for the first time in months and coming face-to-face with an identical copy of myself, I punched it– myself– in the face.
He had no sunglasses covering his unseeing eyes, this doppelganger. His face had grown over with foliage quite thick: a goatee of pubic lice. His hair brought to mind Skwisgaar Skwigelf on a black dye-it. His clothes, faded surely with time his lonely friend, consisted of a rag so long I mistook it for a dress and shoddy sandals scarcely scraping together. He was exactly as I, a moving mirror, malnourished to the Bones. I felt sure our consciousnesses would merge, but no such mercy could come my way that day.
Who would you say holds the obligation to speak first in a chance encounter between identical selves? How would English grammar allow that question to be answered? I could say I had the obligation, but if he is I, then which I is it that holds the obligation? One would assume, I suppose, that any attempts to communicate would likely result in both speaking as if one. Mirrors, bah. In any case, the sentence two sentences ago is a fallacy– experience, not identity, dictates action. I spoke first. By which, I mean he.
-- What the fuck? Said me, or he.
-- My thoughts exactly, said I the narrator. Who are you?
-- I’m Thoth, arbiter of the gods. Who are you?
-- You am I– Stuttered I, I am you.
-- How is that possible?
-- My thoughts ex– uh, yeah.
-- What the actual fuck?
The conversation went nowhere for a while. I apologized for punching him in the face. He said he understood and asked me what memories I had. I recalled my time in the past and my long walk home. He spoke of galactic fugues and leaving his own: The apocalypse took him or me to a land of confusion, as they said once in the 80s. I or he watched worlds breathe new life from within my or his self-inflicted prison in the skies. I or he felt so proud of them that he or I composed a funeral march for the evil we or they had just vanquished. This guy, I the narrator thought, was more pretentious than I. ..the narrator.
I couldn’t stay there all day– that is, still I the narrator– so I entered Tuonela and immediately found the Colour of Blood, who will always find you. The other me, however, snapped his fingers and went his own way.
Then the Colour of Blood told me we gods had to arrange a thing or two. But enough of my ramblings. I am old, and you came to read the same journals everyone else did.”)