THURSDAY
JULY 7TH, 2011
(Ciphers
of the Blind Man's Book)
10:45
AM The hotel room window is a mirror.
10:46
AM The bathroom mirror is a window showing screaming
skulls.
Made me miss the toilet.
10:47
AM I told Donnie not to use the bathroom. She didn't listen.
10:48
AM
"It's fine in there."
What?
Huh. And
it's fine again. Yeah.
Donnie's gone to get ready.
I'm
just.. looking in the mirror now.
10:49
AM
You're fine. Yeah. You're fine.
"Talking to
yourself?"
what
"Don't look out the door. Look in
here. In the mirror."
There's. Someone else in the room.
But only in the mirror.
She waved.
She's. A woman. Actually
a rather normal-looking woman. Like, not a monster or anything.
Uh.
Hi?
"You've been in here a long time."
The
bathroom?
"No. I'm surprised. Normally people who wander in
here find their way back out, unless they die. You two spent the
night?"
Yeah. And
we're gonna keep going. We're looking for a-- wait, maybe I shouldn't
go around telling our plans to every last lady in a mirror.
"Ooh,
you said something smart."
Who
even are you?
10:50
AM
Donnie came and
got me. Mirror was empty again when she came in.
Huh. Weird.
10:51
AM
Setting out!
:D Day 2 of our epic journey into the heart of the rabbit hole! Next
stop: ..somewhere that isn't this hotel world!
10:57
AM WHERE IS THE FUCKING EXIT.
10:58
AM We're lost! We’ve
been walking around this hallway for a while now, passing more and
more hotel rooms, but no elevator or stairway or even window
in sight. And I don’t think either of us feels like stepping into
one of these rooms.
Especially not since all the doors are
number 616.
11:01
AM It's just.. a big maze
of hallways. Frequent turns and branching paths, any one part of this
hallway looks plausible for a hotel, but obviously the layout
is wrong. It's Hell Hotel Hallway here, hard and horrid.
11:02
AM "I hear
something."
Just keep walking, Donnie. I hear it too. It's
probably just distortion or something.
11:04
AM Wait. How the fuck do we hear distortion, that doesn’t
make sense!
I hear a high-pitched whine, a sort of
feedback.
Faint.
In the direction we're going, too.
11:05
AM The hallway’s getting a little narrower. Or is it just
me?
I think the hall's ending.
11:06
AM
The hall’s ended. At the very end is a door. Room
number 558. Opening the door.
..it’s locked!
Oh
god I hear footsteps.
Oh god I hear a lot.
"Do
you still have that rifle?"
It's in one of the boxes, let
me get it.
11:07
AM
Donnie opened 558 while I was getting the rifle.
The
footsteps are sprinting now, sounds like it's behind us, down the
hall.
But inside 558 is the next rabbit hole.
11:08
AM
We just ran in and shut the door behind us.
Now
we're in darkness.
How many of these "too dark" rabbit
holes can one boy go through? Jeez.
Donnie's got a flashlight.
11:09
AM
The walls are bare and grey. Gray? Grey. We’re walking
down a slope.
The slope’s turning.
ope
Donnie
tripped, and dropped the flashlight. No problem, we’ll just
The
flashlight fell off this ledge.
Oh, I can see its beam as it
falls.
…that’s a long drop. o_o;
Safe to assume I’m
not seeing that one again.
"Those, uh. Those helmets we
were given. Do they have nightvision or something cool like that?"
If
we can find them in the box, we can try?
"shh"
I
hear it
a door opening behind us
those footsteps caught up
with us
fuck
well I'll just have to rely on the muzzleflash
of this rifle for light o_o;;
…
step, step, step…
8558885885585885855585888555858885588585855588588555885585558555855885858558858585558588885888888555885585555885855855858555888885585888855855558558555885555885 My
head is killing me.
I'm in a classroom now? At least I can see
again.
"classroomone" just faded
into my field of vision, like a damn half-life chapter title.
I'm
wearing my helmet. When did I put this on?
I don’t see Donnie
anywhere.
There’s a window showing night.
Wait, no.
That’s just a blackboard.
I’m not 100% sure what time it is,
then.
I only see a voice speaks to me: do you want to
see?
It’s dark. The helmet doesn't have
nightvision, but it does have a headtorch.
Writing on the
blackboard reads “Obfuscation.”
The door is
The
Door is
The door is locked
the Door is locked
the door
Is locked
the door Is Locked
The Door is locked
so I
open the door.
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Night
(2) Hallway with tiled floors.
Doors lining the walls.
No room for lockers or posters or anything else.
Numbers ranging
from 101 to 1001. That doorknob just rattled.
Night
(3) Donnie, are you
okay? :c
She’s passed out on the floor next to the door. Looks
like she was thrust against it.
But by what?
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Night
(4) I’m dragging her out of this classroom.
Night
(5) Out in the hallway now. I don’t recall there being two
double doors there. I don’t recall there being an end to the
hallway at all.
Through the doors, I can see a man standing far
in the distance.
He’s wearing a theatrical sadface mask.
Oh,
that guy.
He’s just standing there, feet apart, hands in
pockets, looking at us.
Is he gonna charge at us? Is he gonna
creepily walk away?
..he’s turning around.
And he’s
walking the other way.
There’s another set of double doors
down there, and he’s heading for them.
..I hear noises behind
us.
What
There’s another set of double doors far behind
us, and he just came out of them.
Fuck it, putting Donnie down,
pointing my damn rifle.
"Hey whoa whoa!" hands up,
stopped "Fair play, I wasn't expecting that!"
What do
you want?
"...I, uh, don't have a good answer to
that!"
Okay, well, who are you?
"My name's Omega!
Listen, man, I was just trying to scare you! I'm lost here
too!"
Okay, Omega... do you happen to know where
'here' is, at least?
"We're in Night (5), aren't
we?"
What?
he looks relieved "Oh thank god,
you're here. Help me out, man!"
...what?
Night
(6) ffffffffuck.
My
goddamn head.
Someone else must have come up behind me, but I
didn't hear a thing. Sadface man, or Omega, he ran into a
classroom.
And there's no one behind me now. But I was
definitely hit.
Fuck it. I'm going after him, into that
classroom.
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Night
(7) Oh god, what the fuck.
Donnie’s in here.
Even though she's definitely unconscious on my shoulder. The one up
there, she’s stripped naked, held out like some fucking crucifixion
thing, and held to some orbicular device by ropes.
She's fucking
crucified.
The only things missing are blood and rust. ..and a
crazed religious cult. >_>
I think she’s passed out. For
her sake, I hope she is.
This is
Donnie I'm carrying on my shoulder, right?
…
"Hey,
how's it going."
It's Omega.
"It's me."
Are
we just doing a comedy routine right now?
"I dunno, she's
looking too Silent Hill to be comedic."
Fuck it. I’m
cutting her down from there.
Night
(8) Motherfuckers, I’m gonna kill them.
"Don't
look at me."
On Donnie’s back, she’s been whipped. A
lot.
The lashes form “THE HARLOT?”
"I'm
sure that'll wash off."
Do you have anything
productive to add?!
"No, seriously, this place is a lot
less consequence-y than it seems. It's a lot more like a waking
dream. She'll be fine. Promise!"
Well, how do you. How do
you know?
"You think this is my first time? You're in their
house now. The Musicians' house."
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Day
(1) I awoke on a highway. It's one of those areas where you
can see for miles; the area’s that flat and barren. Nothing
but grey (gray?) for miles and miles. And the road.
And the dark
purple sky.
Donnie's here with me, still unconscious.
Wait,
no, she's waking up!
Donnie!!!
Day
(2) She's okay. Her back's fine. She was baffled for a bit,
but I showed her my journal. Filled her in.
She's looking around
now.
"That Omega guy still here?"
No, no sign of
him.
"What the hell was he doing?"
yeah
I have no clue.
You sure you're okay? Any weird dreams,
psychological stuff?
"No, really, I'm good. I dreamed of
being followed, but, is that really so strange?"
I guess
not. So you're good to walk?
"Yeah. Let's go."
Day
(3) We passed a road sign. It said “The Peisistratos
lies up ahead. Take a break!”
Day
(4) I don’t know how long we’ve been walking, but
absolutely nothing has been happening. It’s just been endless
trekking.
Endless.
Monotonous.
Lots of sighs from both of us.
Rabbit holes,
huh?
"Yeah. Rabbit holes."
Day
(5) A fog has surrounded us.
We can hear things flying
around. Flapping.
I can feel humidity decreasing.
Donnie’s
starting to feel a pain in her back.
We can see our own
breath.
I’m gripping Tiger Stripes. Hard.
Day
(6) Nothing
changed. There's flapping, and we can even make out vague shapes in
the fog circling us, but nothing's coming at
us right now. So we tried simply walking on. That's.. working
so far. We're sticking close together. Back to back.
Day
(7) There's a bigger shape just off the road. Not moving. I
don't think it's a creature.
"I think it's a.. car?"
Are
we approaching civilization, or
gasp "Look!"
what it's
a rectangle to me
"That's a Door! That's got to be a
Door!"
well we can move towards it and see
oh WAIT IT
IS
DOOR YES PLEASE OPEN, GET US OUT OF HERE
the
flying things don't like us getting close to that doorknob
they're
starting to whip at us
furry tails, like giant dragonflies
"I've
got it!!"
DOOR OPEN.
Day
(8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888The
smell of evening papers and mildew, much like you’d find in a
study. Or a.
Library.
We’re in a library.
An
impossibly large library.
Is this...?
"You're here."
o_o
There's a man here, old man, cloaked in gray shawl, wearing
black sunglasses.
He’s the man who can flip through the books
of our lives freely.
"The
time is 8:05 PM.
They call me 'the blind man.' My name is
Tiresias.
I have much
to say to you.
This is the Peisistratos. It is my home, the
foundation of all human knowledge. Not long ago, it was to be found
on Earth. But then the Rapture started, and now it is here, a
waystation deep within this damned labyrinth.
You have come here
because you were summoned. Now that you are here, it is only into yet
more madness that you descend. But you will do it, because you want
to know. You believe that one
can know. I believed
this too, once... and perhaps, in time, I will believe it again. I
cannot believe it right now, as I am forbidden from accessing my
book.
"The
time is 8:06 PM.
My
library, as you can imagine, contains every book that can be
contained. There are more books than have ever been on Earth. I have
a book for every human, with their every thought laid out in
chronological order. I even have some books for Fears... you have
heard of them by now, yes?"
The books?
"The
Fears."
Y..yeah.
"Good."
Are you
a Fear?
smirk "I have been called much worse. As I am a
Fear, as I belong to
the Fears, there is a book for me as well. But this one does not
contain my every thought. I was chosen, perhaps I was born,
to be bookkeeper of this place, and part of that responsibility
includes writing my own book, by hand.
I have done so for a very long time.
"The
time is 8:07 PM.
This
book of mine, it contains the maps of the secret city. It contains
the unpalatable requests of the beast. It contains the dreams of
nothing at all. It contains the true nature of ferocity. It contains
the flood that her evolution brings. It contains the fruits of chaos.
It contains the twilight of the gods. It contains the key to
containing the virus known as Indisen. And, yes, it contains the
truth and true nature of Rapture."
o____o
donnie
raised her hand
"Did you just raise your hand?"
"yes"
"It's
okay, you can speak. You're better off speaking, in fact."
"Sorry.
Uh! Can we.. see this book?"
"But of course. It is the
simplest request. It is only natural." pained smile "No. My
book is locked. With the coming of the red sky, my book became sealed
by seven locks. Each lock is encrypted by a different cipher, for
there are no keys. And only the Lamb can decode the ciphers.
Follow
me.
"The
time is 8:08 PM."
He's
leading us down a narrow aisle of books.
Books in all directions. Even the floor below us is paved with
books.
"There are more books in here than people in all of
history. There are more words here than grains of sand in the
universe.
"I have been doing this for a very
long time."
whoa. o_o "With
the Rapture, I have become trapped in here, but there was once a time
when I roamed the Earth. One day, if you two would be willing, I
would enjoy showing you some chapters I have written. But first we
must open... that."
again:
whoa. o__o
That's
your book? That's.. gigantic…
"I have had to increase its
size with the years, both pagewise and physically. Please, feel free
to describe it in your journal."
It's. I mean, it's a big
book. Hard brown cover. Far too big to hold in my hands, or even
Tiresias's hands. It's currently mounted on a large marble pedestal.
There is no title on the cover, but there are seven jet-black locks
extending across the pages from front to back cover, forbidding
opening. No lock has keyholes, only drawings of.. what look like
weird beasts? I see like a long dragonfly... and a beehive? A torso
on tank treads... a mass of heads... and the last three: a lower-case
t, a thing crawling with eyes and tentacles, and a regal
devil-man-thing.
"Hmph. That's all you have to
write?"
What? How can you tell?
"Oh, don't mind
me, just talking to myself.
"The
time is 8:10 PM. Do
you notice that four of the locks have already been opened?"
Uh.
Wait.
...oh shit! Yeah! Yeah, now I do!
And so there are three
that are actually locking the book shut!
"How
observant. Each lock
corresponds with a cipher located deep within Xanadu."
within
what, sorry?
"You are here." arms stretched out "The
labyrinth of the rabbit holes, feared even by the gods, this is
Xanadu."
donnie "Wow!!!"
yeah. wow. o: So
there's, like. Quote-unquote 'keys' deeper down the rabbit holes?
Three of them.
"Yes. You will know them when you see them.
Find them. Find the Ciphers. If you hurry, you might just catch the
next train."
He gestured towards a nearby Door, through
which we can see the interior of a train.
"But one thing
more.
"The
time is 8:11 PM.
Jordan,
you will return to this library
in time. And you will find the fifth Cipher, though I don't know that
you will decode it. I do know that you have gained the attention of
the Musicians, and for that, I grieve. They are not like any other
Fear. They will hound you inside your own mind. There is no peace
unless it is by their choice. Good luck.
"Donnivan, you
will undergo a great judgment in the months to come. You will be
tested by a Fear no one else alive has even seen.
You will know lowness, and I grieve for you too. Hold on, no matter
what you do. You will ultimately be protected in the carnage. I
promise you this, you will be protected.
"You two will meet
new friends on your journey. You will face creatures and locations so
sinister they can hardly be classified as 'monsters.' And if you're
lucky enough, if you make it through the trauma, if you strain
yourselves and drain yourselves and push yourselves beyond the limits
you thought you had, you can come out the other side.
"Goodbye."
8:15
PM This isn’t just any train; this is the wreckage of one.
It’s freezing cold here.
The pipes look like they’ve frozen
over.
8:18
PM We’re having to bust down frozen doors. It’s like
being in a giant freezer.
8:20
PM Exit, stage left!
Waitwaitwait lemme do this
right.
I’ll be there in 3, 2, 1, KICK THE DOOR
DOWN
oh god does our box have an extra coat? This jacket isn’t
thick enough for fucking Antarctica. And our fancy
military-grade equipment DOES NOTHING FOR THIS
8:24
PM We’re huddling close together while trotting through
the thick snow.
8:40
PM Sounded like some kinda arctic wolf howling away.
8:44
PM And that one sounded like a whole pack.
Oh god, it
hurts to run out here.
8:47
PM Fuck that sounded
close
Keep running, oh god Door where are you.
8:52
PM Cave or more flat tundra? Cave or more flat tundra? Cave
or more flat tundra?
OH HELLO DOGGIES
Cave it is!
8:53
PM The snow on the ground around here isn’t as thick. It’s
easier to run. I just hope the cave doesn’t run out.
8:54
PM The wolves have caught up, all six of ‘em.
We’re
not ready to stand and fight yet. We’re ready to keep running!
8:55
PM The exit to the cave! Light at the end of the
tunnel!
DOG
THAT’s a big black dog.
8:56
PM The dog just fucking slaughtered all six wolves within a
minute. The wolves are easily bigger than it.
Then the dog
growled at us with red eyes and leaped away into the
darkness.
…darkness.
Darkness?
8:57
PM Darkness.
Where are we now.
Good question.
It’s
no longer ice cold. Now it’s pretty warm.
Headtorches back
on.
It's a.. city street. No lights, not even from the sky,
wouldn't even know what this was if it wasn't for our helmets.
Eerily
silent. Just our footsteps on sidewalk.
Now, a city street has a
lot of doors. Just gotta find
one that takes us somewhere unexpected.
9:10
PM That didn't take
too long.
Now we're in…
Look, man.
It's just
eldritch and shit, this time.
We’re talking clouds that are
actually giant, slow, floating spiders. The ground around here looks
like ordinary sand. We’re on a small cliff, just came out of a
green cave with green rocks. The cave happened to have a door on it
that we exited from, but now the door is gone.
Sky is blue,
pulses purple and orange several times a minute. Lightning strikes
from the middle of the sky, not the spiderclouds. Out of the
lightning comes well done hamburgers on fine china resting right
where the shit struck.
Don't see any plants nearby, I don’t
think. I don’t see fauna, either. Thank God.
Y'know, besides
the.. clouds.
9:14
PM The cave behind us, the one that no longer has a door,
actually leads to the interior of a church. There are five beds inside
in rather odd spots. They say “Rael,” “Victoria,” “Nicholas,”
“Juliet,” and “John.”
Donnie walked
right up to the bed labeled "Victoria" and just keeled
over.
I'm not in a rush to get going. It's been a long day.
(Attached:
“Look at me, I sound like a video game prophet character. At
least I get better the more I see people. That library gets to you
after a while; isolation gets to you after a while. It wasn’t
always my library; I had inherited it from.. myself? Which would make
it, indeed, always my library. But its nature is not to be understood
nor reproduced: My library, the Peisistratos, came from the Empty
City. After I escorted a Musician monopole away from his greatest
creation, I woke up in the past. Five minutes, as a matter of fact,
before the apocalypse– on the night of May 20th, 2011. Not wishing
to relive the red sky, I asked the world for a Door and found one
beckoning me in my local library. The Empty City greeted me with the
stagnant but underlyingly living hum that every city has. The yawn of
electricity.
I spent a day in meditation, listening to the
City’s hum and finding its lexemes. For the next five, I learned
its language entirely– it has no written word; its synthetic
syllables exist only in sound– and I communicated with the Fear. We
became friends. I taught it about the laws of time travel, and it in
return gave me my library. I took a day of rest to let books write
themselves, and then the City dubbed me Weneg.
I have been
called many things, but of the titles I consider my names proper,
there are thirteen. I will not live long enough to write my lifetime
in full, so I will simply give a list.
1: , the name
my parents gave me.
2: Thoth, arbiter of the gods, reviver of
the fallen, leader of the Ogdoad.
3: Weneg, defender of Earth
from the great coming chaos, against whom I fell in battle but still
fended off.
4: Odin, or ‘Yggr’ as I preferred to call myself
at the time. This was, in essence, my brooding phase. I
singlehandedly started the trend of gods calling themselves 'Fears’
here. I also started the Sisters of Mercy, but don’t worry about
that.
5: Taucherlunge– 'Aqualung,’ I was
coming out of my new wave appreciation and wanted to call myself
something with a progressive hint as a response– otherwise known as
the time of my life when I grew up and spent a long time in the past
doing stuff to help people. Really, just anything to stop my
reputation from being a creepy old man.
6: Parashurama, or
'Kalki’ as people often called me and I could never figure out why.
My reputation now much more warm and loved, I worked at this period
on voyaging to other universes, bridging out to gods from cultures I
had never heard of. Didn’t go too hot, but I also made a number of
friends. Met Maat here, one of the greatest individuals I could ever
know.
7: Host of People. I went a little abstract in my name,
but at this point I was content to wander through existence with
Maat, talking about the many things we’ve seen, laughing over
history. Before we knew it, we were walking through a time before
matter, and it was here that we met Sbomten, spoke with Rosendower’s
miscarriage, and saw life in a whole new way.
8:
Paineilmalaitteet, tarkkailija maailman– later 'Painkiller’ as an
easier-to-remember but unrelated nickname. Maat and I split here, and
I elected to use my newfound abilities to visit my universe again.
See, all this time I’d had to rely on Tuonela, our nearest
universe, to travel through time, and since there were no Doors in
the world after the apocalypse I had no easy way of going there, but
Rosendower’s miscarriage had taught me how to travel through time
independently of that. All it took was a snap of the fingers. I would
then learn the truth of the limits of time travel and.. well, reckon
with that. After the Azathoth episode, I did more introspection.
9:
Vesisotakone. This was the big one, my longest era. The Sampo
attracted an awful lot of attention to our universe, so I basically
had to fight the great coming chaos battle over and over again. I had
to direct the biggest battle backwards in time, and it culminated in
destroying the Tower of Babel in the carnage. By accident. I knew all
this chaos had to happen, though. I understood the implications and
accepted them gravely. Schrodinger’s Suicide, after all. That’s
the trouble with time travel.
10: Magog. Thanks to all the
carnage, people now regarded me as the harbinger of end times. That
'Kalki' title came back in greater numbers here. I tried to make
amends, I assured people that I had saved the world. But I knew just
as well as they did why I couldn’t go back to the present day
post-2011.
11: Fresca. Lost in the past, Louhi turned me into a
woman for seven years. I answered some age-old questions.
12:
Persse. In which I slept, hoping come eternity never to wake.
13:
Tiresias. My name now.
And that’s my life. I know my death at
the hands of Sanche’s oldest son in that shade of a library in
Nice; I’ve read every text that’s ever been written; I've been
there for the invention of every concept there is to know; I’ve
fucked up this universe just by existing. The world ends in a
The
world
Write the words, dammit.
The way the world ends is not
with a whimper but with the mightiest crash ever
amassed.
Totality.
This is why I’ve long tried to avoid
documenting my life: It risks the events being truly set in
stone. And it hurts to remember.“)
, the name
my parents gave me.