Part 7: The Grove

Chapter 49: To Challenge Oneself

This arc's kind of long, by the by.

I don't own Pokémon.


"It's unfortunate."

"Young...?"

"Sorry, Cadi. I'm not in the mood right now."

"I'm afraid that doesn't change anything. You're upset, and you should be, but Al's not to blame here."

"You're right. I am upset. I should've never let Travis go out there. I thought that, with all those experiments he went through, he'd have learned something by now. I won't blame Al. I won't blame Diancie. I'll blame myself and I'll be left alone to deal with it."

"Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"No. Well, you could always make a cup of chamomile tea for me."

"'Course. I'll get that prepared right away. Will you be in the tree?"

"As always."

"Got it. Before I do that, though, may I ask about Katalyn?"

"You... can..."

"...Um, well, yes. Katalyn's your daughter, isn't she?"

"Yeah."

"And Lee – he's your husband?"

"Yeah."

"Do you three talk at all? I hope I'm not getting too personal."

"What do you want out of this, Cadi?"

"I was hoping I could get you to tell me where Katalyn is. That's all."

"...Katalyn doesn't speak to me anymore. Lee said she's not in the Grove, but she's not far. She's in the woods. Any guess of yours would be as good as mine."

"Oh... Okay. I don't want to be nosy, but why wouldn't your daughter want to see you anymore?"

"I stopped being her mother a long time ago, sometime around when her brother... when Travis happened."

"Travis is her brother?"

"Hah, that's cute. No. He's not her brother, but he is like a son to me. Or, was. He was always so needy."

"Do you think Susano'o is changing him?"

"I don't, but you're the expert, 'Arcadia'."

"Susano'o was never known to alter his host's mentality."

"Then there you go. Travis is... dangerously deceptive. He can put on an act so well that you wouldn't even know it's the same person. He was never easy to work with, that's for sure."

"So 'Flicker' is..."

"Still just Travis. I've known that boy for a long time, and, with all the shit that he's been through, I wouldn't be surprised that he could fool anybody. Even gods – whatever you Symbi types are."

"Ah... I see... Thanks, Young. I appreciate your patience with me."

"Yeah, where's my tea, girl?"

"Hmhm, I'll go look for it for you!"

"Sounds good. If you happen to find Katalyn as well, tell her to stop being so much like me. That might work."

Al

I paced around outside my tent. I didn't get a good sleep, and I was feeling pretty poorly put together because of it. My eyelids felt heavy, eyes itchy, and just about every seam that separated my body parts, stitched only together by static electricity and coagulated blood, was so loose that even a sneeze may have triggered an explosion of luxio pieces. That was mostly why I kept myself active. If I relaxed, any part of me might as well've slid off. As easy as I was to put back together, I hated the sensation of it, the burning and singing of my fur, the electric welding of tissue.

When I did fall apart, I felt at my best. The more pieces I was, the more I felt free, almost like a skywisp again. All of my parts – my head, my legs, my tail – they all had a quota for energy, and the further apart they were, the more room that energy covered, like lines or bolts of lightning connecting dots. The more space I occupied, the better I felt. Another reason why I was pacing. Finally, I was just too fidgety to sit down and wait for news on Kat.

Reflecting on past endeavors didn't help anything. I didn't have many good things to remember, except for the time I took leadership of the Stand, but people probably thought I was some stupid kid who shouted so loud that all of them might as well have listened in. There was also the time after that where I found the Grove. I wasn't the first one here, but there sure were a lot of Pokémon who came and went after me. At least I had Topher and Edge with me, but they were gone now.

I snarled and huffed through my nose when I noticed one of the locals eying me down. I couldn't remember his name, but his Pokémon species was some ice dinosaur. As soon as I made eye contact with him, he turned the other direction. Might've been the fact that I was showing my teeth or glaring, but I didn't mean to scare anybody. It was all just kinda frustrating to be the outcast. Again. I marched away from my tent, passing by some conversations and unsteady eye contact. I walked into the creek and followed the water downstream. The icy water bit into my paws like thousands of little piranhas – the weather even in the Grove was getting worse the longer the sun stayed fractured. Contrasting the film of red that it cast on the sky and the rest of the world below, there was warmth in almost nothing but myself and the Pokémon around me. Every step I made in the water was proof that it was getting colder. I wondered if it was too pessimistic to assume that, soon enough, only folks like that ice dinosaur or Secany could survive. Skywisps were doomed if this kept up.

I came to the spot where Rayse and Cadi had dropped off the large meteorite – 'bout as big as my tent. I suppose this gave off some warmth, but the smell was so sharp that it scratched my nose all the way up to a point behind my eyes, and it sure didn't do anything about the itch I had back there. Still, it was a nice, quiet spot that no one cared to come to. Lots of frogs and crickets sang their songs, some birds chirping a somber plea for companionship in the cold, night unflightly skies – picked that up from one of Patty's poems. She made up a lot of words, but always liked to tell us that if Shakespeare could do it 'willy-nilly', than why couldn't she? Always thought that sounded arrogant and presumptuous, but it was a side of her that she only showed to the Circle.

I let my rump fall into the cold grass, pulling in my hind legs. As much as I didn't want to stay still, the meteorite had its way of changing my mind about things. It was only natural. It was where Gamma came from, and Gamma changed a whole lot of minds. Atti's, Bryan's, Travis'...

"Who else did you mess with, Gamma? Nick... Eh, Nick never did have much of a personality," I said to myself. It sounded better in my head than aloud. "All things considered, Nick and Arcadia actually like each other, so... good on 'em.

But what about Topher? What did you do to Topher?"

Topher Reigh was one of the strangest people I'd ever met before the Wave broke out. This was a person so challenged with identity that no one knew what pronoun to use around him. Her? 'Them'? Something nasty must have happened in that guy's past for him to turn out that way, and yet he was so affectionate and personable with us. He had a lot of charisma, which I appreciated, since Emelina got along with him quick. She loved him. Patty loved him. And, for some reason...

"It's because of Topher that you two are gone," I said. I didn't say it with malice or reprieve. I just said it, because it was fact. If not for Topher, Emelina and Pat may have still been by my side – with Cadi and I, and Rayse and Diancie. "And you took my Crossblade with them. I don't get it, Topher. I don't."

I let my head fall – not literally. I just looked away from the big glowing rock in front of me.

"Kat and Cruce understand you more than anybody else, and they're BOTH out there, but they're a pain in the ass." I smiled. I certainly wasn't happy, but I still smiled.

I smiled, because, even knowing that Cruce was alive somewhere, he wasn't here in the Grove. Maybe he'd caught by Delta Meadow by now. Be that the case, then I may have been the only Circle member who didn't get raked in by 'em. It was also frustratingly possible that I was the last member of the Circle, and I was the one who turned my back on 'em and ran when we first 'turned' together.

Thinking about the past was poison. Every time my mind went back to it and glazed over with fond memories, I had to come back to the present. I had to go through a few different bodies, mindsets, more emotions than I'd ever felt in my entire life in the span of a couple months, and the events that caused those emotions – all of that brought me back to this spot where I stood. The longer the day became, the more I found myself recollecting. I even remembered when I thought I could never be Al again, and when Xima told us to give up on ourselves. I was beginning to see what she meant. It was getting too hard to cope with – to be human any longer, or have the memories of human experiences in a regular world. Those memories were impossible to make now.

I took a long, comforting breath, tightening the grip on my appendages. I sniffed, and another's scent wafted by me. Someone else was approaching. I turned my head slowly, rising to all fours. I managed to turn around about halfway before giving in to the need to stretch my forelegs out, lifting my rear and tail into the air. I made sure my breathing was nice and deep to keep from losing any legs.

"Oh, there's our Flux," Diancie rang, her ribbons and pink diamond posterior popping into view the second I stood back up. I looked up at her. "Your friend requires you!"

"Who, Cadi?" I queried.

"Yes, that's the one! Come along!" she told me, lowering herself and reaching underneath my right leg, just before my paw. She pulled, as if to take me with her, and, well, there was certainly PART of me going with her. I imagined the loud fleshy rip sound paired with the fact that my leg not weighing as much as me led her to believe that I wasn't really following, so much as slouching over on the one leg I had left.

Diancie stopped, hovered there, and looked at the single red and black, yellow-ringed luxio leg she was holding, then checked back to make sure I was still in the same spot. She looked at the leg again, and then retracted her tiny gray hand, dropping my detached limb with the most unamused frown and a disappointed squeak.

"Honestly," she began. "Does that even hurt?!"

"Uh, it-"

"W-wait, no," she turned away, holding her hand out and shaking it to stop me. "I'd much rather not know. Er, just put that back on and follow me." she said, crossing her arms.

"What?! No! You ripped it off, so help me put it back on!" I objected. She looked at me, shocked.

"Ugh! Do not tell me what to do! How dare you! How SIMPLY dare you!" she huffed, oh so offended. I smirked.

"Oh I'm so sorry, your highness – why don't you behead me as punishment?"

She blinked, put a hand up to her mouth, and... giggled. My coy smirk turned into more of a lighthearted smile. I must have won her over, because she flicked her wrist at me playfully, reached for my detached limb, and lowered herself enough, holding it up to my bleeding nub. I sucked in some air, zapped my front leg back on, and things were golden. I stepped around, kneading into the soil a little bit with my claws. Felt alright.

"You would make the most excellent jester." she told me. I wasn't sure how to take it, so I just scoffed.

"Me? Jester? Can't I be a knight?" I asked. To this, she just laughed. Nonstop.

"Oho! Knight?! Wha—ahahahahaha! Ohhhohohoho~!" she went on. I could tell it was all fake, as she floated up stream with her back against me, occasionally turning around to remind herself what she was 'fake-laughing' at. My grin slowly became a straight, toothy face that felt more like a confused grimace than anything else. I followed her through the stream, hear her laughter trail off.

Bitch.

I like her.

I met up with Cadi next to our tents. Diancie was already here, and the two were talkin' about something or other when I got there. They went on about it when I stepped up to them expecting some sort of acknowledgment of my presence, but I guess I wasn't important enough to interrupt talk about how beautiful Cadi's fur was or how much she liked Diancie's 'dazzling' color. Man, my scales were sleek and lovely when I was a skywisp – damn right I was a gorgeous badass. Hmph...

"A'ight ladies, I'm here. What's up?" I asked over a quick spot of silence between them. They looked at me. Diancie did it like I was being all rude 'n shit, but Cadi looked pleased.

"Hello! So, Al, I spoke with a few people on the topic of Kat. I had almost forgotten to account for her invisibility." said our cinccino. She wasted no time getting to some complicated matters.

"Right, only certain people can see her. I could! I still need to know where she would be, though." I replied.

"Only certain people can see her? That's very strange..." Diancie quietly suspected.

"I've learned that she is not within the Grove, and I think that I do not meet the requirements necessary to see her... Large problem, I know." said Cadi.

"I'll take care of it," I offered. I was handling this case anyway. "She's not in the Grove – do you have any clue where she could be other than that?"

"Young told me she can't be far, but the forest is vast. If she is a small Pokémon, finding her won't just be a challenge – it will be next to impossible." Cadi continued.

"Not if we had Cruce. He'd know where she likes to hide." I sighed.

"It's a shame that they kept to themselves so often," Cadi shrugged. "It's also too bad that you lost your phone, Al. I should've checked it beforehand to see the number that he called you from."

"Ah, shit, sorry. I wasn't in the mood to deal with him back then, so... Anyway, Nick's phone should have it in his contacts."

"Oh? Sorry then! I'm terrible with human technology." she smiled shyly.

"Don't sweat it. Still pretty lit to be textin' a goddess," I mused. She chuckled – she never liked it when I called her a goddess, but she was too nice to show it, so I messed with her, and she messed with me, and she was a pretty good friend. "Anyway, 'bout Kat. Should I walk around out in the forest? Might find her if I yell her name loud enough."

"The attention that would attract may become an issue." Cadi argued.

"If you want to find Katalyn," somebody interjected. I turned to the source of the prepubescent boy's voice. "You should've just asked me..."

I hadn't seen this kid in a bit. Didn't see him all day yesterday – er, earlier today before I went to sleep. Blew my mind, too. You always saw a bit of Caden. He was bright and colorful and was always hanging around Anne. Secany, too, when she was still around.

"Ah, Victini!" Diancie cooed.

Caden's big, sharp ears went so flat at the name that any more splay put to 'em looked like it would've been painful. He frowned deep and hard, showed his fangs and a lethargic aggression in the glint of his blue eyes. He really, really hated what Diancie had just said, and she didn't say much. That slumped poise told it all.

"Don't call me Victini..." he growled. He dragged out every vowel with such grueling disdain and resentment. He didn't even look at Diancie. "I'm gonna go see Katalyn. Come with me, or stay here. Do whatever you want..."

"Mmm, he doesn't seem particularly happy." Cadi addressed loudly, as if to shame Caden some.

"I'll go with him," I offered. "If he doesn't mind having a Flux around."

"A Flux...?" Caden inquired, as if contemplating something. He looked right at me while doing so. I would've thought, of all people, Caden knew about Fluxes. He was allowed to go out with some of the other 'designated scouts', since he had a handle over his powers. Maybe he did know and was just not too sure how to think about me.

"Yeah, 'sup," I bobbed my head at him. "Don't freak out – I'm safe."

"Yes, but your body tends to... oh, never mind. I can't spoil it for this courteous little boy." Diancie said, rather mischievously and with sinister intent, as if to scare Caden in some way. He did pretty much tell her to fuck off, and Diancie wasn't one to take it lightly if I knew her. Barely knew her though, and from what I did know, I couldn't tell if she was joking or being serious. Maybe a bit'a both.

...

Drama spared, I took what direction Caden gave me and the two of us left the Grove in search for a shut-in enigma of a girl that I had the pleasure of working with. I said my 'see ya's to Diancie and Cadi, but I didn't ever come across Rayse on the way out, so she must've been on her own out there, which was all good. She could take care of herself, and a lot of the work she wanted to tackle was too complicated for me anyway. Stuff about Secany – Dunno if there were any problems between them, but, for the most part, an independent Rayse might've led to better things than all of us clumping together.

Caden was the quietest kid I knew. We walked through the thickets, crawled out from the least conspicuous spot exiting the Grove, and made our way through the biker trail and onto the bridge. That took at least ten minutes and he said nothing the entire time. I anticipated something out of him, since he clearly had so much to do with Kat and a lot of the events beforehand – right around when I must've turned. Maybe he was like me. I was never open to talk to people about how I felt about changing. That was how a lot of us initial Wave victims were.

I couldn't imagine what Caden was going through and the same came right back around in my direction, so why bother taking the time to explain the inexplicable when you could rather find some common goal, head outside, look around, then get what you needed and go back home? At least the walk was nice. Whereas I'd been pacing around my tent earlier, I felt like actual progress was being made. The red overshadow tinting the canopy created the illusion of late twilight within the depths of the woods, the occasional pockets of crimson sunlight shooting down providing a gradient of light to dark from tunnels of leaves to said pockets. In deep autumn, the forest became darker before the leaves fell for winter, but with the red sky and broken sun, it seemed as though the world was entering a season it had never seen before – the deepest of autumns, or maybe a red winter.

Still, the birds chirped, the frogs belched and croaked, and bugs spun up their webs and littered the dirt. It was almost medicinal. Call it too deep for a walk through the woods, but these things around us were alive, yet humans were the only ones who changed – not taking into account the fact that the woodland had been infected in part to become the Grove, along with Metedia High. But, I meant 'changed'. Land that turned into different land was still land. Trees that became prettier were still freaking trees – like, humans that turned into Pokémon or skywisps or what-the-hell-ever and still being able to interact – to set foot or paw down on this earth (or fly around the same oxygen-filled space) as it always has been... agh, maybe it was too deep for me. I got this way every time I didn't get enough human interaction. I had none of that nowadays though, so there was a lot of deep thinking. Xima, if only I had the chance to talk with you again, if not just for the comfort. The traces of 'human' left in me were the last things I wanted there.

And as we turned toward a less chosen path – one with enough growth and bush to suggest that footsteps were seldom felt here, that yearning for 'human' communication escaped me.

"I've never been to this part of the forest," I said, following the kid into a mess of wooden tangle and shrubbery. "You come here a lot?"

"Yeah." he mumbled.

"So you've never Tripped?" I asked.

"Not here." he said.

"'Kay, that's good. Paige said there was a Trip spot somewhere in the forest." I recalled.

"Okay..." he dismissed it. He didn't care very much. I took a breath, inhaling the frigid air, and breathed out, my own breath alive with static.

At one point, we came near to the river. We hit its bank, greeted with a good portion of bright flora – long stalks of grass, overgrown trees looking to dip their leaves into the water, layers of algae making it difficult to tell whether or not an area was flooded or simply covered in moss. There were a lot of both – moss and algae, and given the storm that had its way with Autumnridge some time ago, water was still at a high level. It wasn't a problem for Caden, since he could flap his butt-wings like nobody's business and get some quick air. Wouldn't have been one for me either if I'd stayed a wisp, but I had to find some other ways around the deeper creeks and puddles. I could hop over some, or walk along fallen logs and trot over rocks with their peeks poking out of the water. All of this led to Caden turning around and waiting for me to figure out how to get around a problem when I met with one. The gesture was confusing. Either he was testing me or he really did care enough to wait for somebody. Maybe he was just used to it – the latter thing.

Eventually, we got to a point where there was no way around the water. We were on the outer rim of the forest, the plants somewhat giving way for urban elements, like stray rusted piping sticking out of a huge slope of concrete, wide open at its base with a river of runoff flowing inward or outward – couldn't tell by all the algae covering it. The whole place was a lot clearer than the rest of the woods, but there were still plenty of vines and willows hanging around, making things hard to find. Not to mention, this spot reeked. I always thought the river smelled bad, but this stank of sewage, mold, and corpses. It was the kind of place that was perfect for a Flux. It got me wondering if Caden actually knew what he was doing. Clearly he didn't think of a way for me to get into that flooded tunnel – and I knew we had to go in that, 'cause he was staring straight down into its dank passage.

"She's here." he said, after a long pause, taking in the sounds of cicadas and thick, syrupy droplets from the roof of the old sewer tunnel. He looked back at me.

"Kat's in there? God..." I groaned.

Seriously, there was no way I could get by without a swim – no objects for me to walk on or anything. I didn't mind water too much. It actually helped keep my body parts together, since it was conductive and all that. Even if it did have corpses and shit flowing through it, I was Flux; I was literally a zombie. It was the COLD that hit me the hardest. A couple degrees Fahrenheit cooler and this whole swampy part of the forest may have looked more like a frozen wilderness. Might've made walking on water a bit easier.

"If you're that worried about the cold, I can heat you up after..." Caden said. Wait, what the hell? Was he reading my mind? "I am and I hate it."

"So you've been doing that this whole time? Good thing I kept it kid-friendly." I smirked.

"Uh-huh," he grumbled. "At least you're still you. A lot of the things I heard you think about are things I've been wondering, too. You're a Flux, and you're still you... I think you and Kat can be friends."

"We're on, uh, unique terms." I said.

"The Crossblade?" he inquired. That nearly made me gasp, but I held myself together – again, literally. Any sudden shift in breath and my head may have rolled into a deep puddle. I was sure I didn't even think about the Crossblade on our whole walk here.

"Y-...Yeah. She told you?" I guessed, gulping, clenching my paws, digging my claws into the soaked mud. My ears went flat. I tried not to remember that moment. I tried not to. I didn't want Caden to see it. It was not easy.

"...Mhm," he hesitated. He noticed me struggling, didn't he? "I'll let you talk to them..."

"'Them'? Who're we seeing?" I blinked.

"Kat..."

"What?" I squinted, then he looked back into the hazy sewer. Wait, he mentioned the Crossblade, so he knew something about it. Did that mean...? "A-are, uhm, Kat's... Is there another Crossblade form of Kat in there?"

"...No," he shook his head, then, with a loud breath, he flew on ahead. He didn't give me any warning. "Let's go."

"'The fu-...?" I inhaled quickly. Didn't want to swear around the kid, but he'd been giving me the impression that he'd already seen too much. He also expected me to sink my legs into gelid liquid crap. I grimaced, bit down, and, like any true cat, followed my tireless curiosity into the murk of rank scents and strange rumors.

The water was a lot deeper than I'd first thought, too. It was very... very cold. I shivered, wading through it slowly. I watched Caden get further and further, my limbs too heavy to catch up, as I passed from the light of the red sun into the unforgiving, frightful shade of dark that complimented the sounds of my own swishing with its eerie, humming wind and droplets. I kept shaking, looking on at the algae parting with every step I took, my chin touching the water, cutting through said algae. It showed me just how filthy the water really was. I lifted my head, overwhelmed by the urge to hold my breath to the smell of decomposing flesh and fecal soup. I couldn't stop breathing, unless I wanted to fall apart and be the meat of the icy stew. I wasn't quite ready to embrace that part of me – that filth that Flux was. I belonged here, in this muck, but I longed more so for the smell of ashes and flowers that I once cringed and gagged at. Thankfully, deep beneath the noxious flood, it was there somewhere – those burnt petals – Gamma. It got weaker the further Caden floated away.

After a few corners turned and some yards of sewage swam, I came across some raised ground. I happily took it, using what little elevation I could get with my back legs to put my front legs on the higher concrete. I pulled, worried that they might've been torn off with the force I was giving. Lucky for me, the water had sunken itself into my body, given my bloated feeling – like I'd drank too much liquid. I let loose some electricity to fry it, and that worked to keep my body in one piece while I pulled myself up, shook my mane and rear as dry as I could get it, and keep on shivering, 'cause I had no answer to the cold. I stood in that spot, looking around for Caden. I didn't find much – there were rays of red light shooting into the sewer from above. I looked up, noticing bars in the ceiling along the way. That was the surface, so where was I relative to it? I couldn't remember any abandoned sewage line in Autumnridge, unless this somehow linked up to Brink. Well, whatever the case, the light provided was enough for me to catch a break. Going anywhere in the dark felt like a lost cause. I couldn't handle places like this all that well.

I decided to go on, and after the first few steps I made, I heard voices. One of them was Caden's. He sounded much more cheerful than with anyone he'd interacted with in the Grove. He did say Kat's name, so I was in the right place. My eyes followed the beams of light and my ears followed the sounds of their banter. I hopped off of the raised platform to a lower platform of concrete that housed all kinds of garbage – big oil barrels that had been overturned and opened, discarded tires from large trucks, and general piles of rubble a lot like the one near my tent back home, 'cept there was some semblance of tidiness to it all with the way the barrels were aligned, the trash was set up in a perimeter, and, most of all, how it was all fairly dry. 'Guess none of the sewage grating above lined up with this little homely pit, but enough light poured through to make most things visible. It wasn't until I got around a stack of mismatched girders when I noticed a few new things. One of those things was Caden. The second was a fetid sounding 'slap' that my paws made when they touched the ground, like I had stepped into an oily, slimy substance. I looked down at it, lifted a paw, and saw long strands of pale red... mucous, connecting my paw to the ground. It was sticky and slick. I kept my paw like that, looked ahead, and noticed that third thing, which had slithered out from around a barrel, leaving a trail of the slime behind.

"Oh God, what is that..." I frowned. I frowned because, if swimming through piss and trash wasn't enough to make me projectile vomit, this next sight put me a lot closer to that. At the same time, I was ashamed to admit that it wasn't even ugly. It was just gross to think about – maybe because of how it shined in the light or... had... things coming out of it. Puss yellow... parasite things.

"Al's here." Caden announced, returning to his drab self the second he saw me. I tried to smile for whatever reason. Couldn't imagine what it looked like.

"Al? No, VC, I told you not to...!" the slug thing spoke. Well, no, it didn't, but one of its wormy parasites did.

This thing was a Flux, no doubt. It had bright red, wet skin, all coming out of from what looked like a big blob of black fluff. With the way the fluff sagged, it must've had a layer of fat beneath it. All this fluff was separating the slug's upper body from its fleshy tail – the upper body, by the way, was stuck straight up, taut and wide, with a slightly thicker head than the rest of its body. By all that I meant it almost looked like a dick. The open sharp-toothed mouth at the top of its head wasn't helping.

The slug had two tall ears – kind of like that eevee's (Nirva, I think). Coupled with that, it still had eyes and a small black nose where I assumed they belonged, but it was missing any trace of a mouth or neck. Or limbs. Obviously. In place of limbs, it had holes in its cheeks where slimy, yellow worms were occupying. They were about the length of its upper body, round, nowhere near as wide, and had faces. They had FACES, each with eyes and a mouth, small fangs, and even little noses. Both of them were looking at me. Couldn't help but notice the red tentacles all flared up and startled, sticking out of that fluff blob. They reminded me of tails. Coming out of a nutsack. Holy shit, this was a Flux and a half, but I wasn't too concerned with anything other than appearances. Victini wasn't afraid of it, so this must have been another 'safe' one. With what Diancie told me, I didn't think I would've run into another easygoing Flux so soon after... myself.

"I-I-I, we-w-uhm, we didn't—Caden, I—you didn't say—hi! I'm... oh God," I turned about and looked around me with such haste and panic that I'd forgotten I was a barely functioning organism. I felt my vertebrae slither against my spine and the skin of my neck flop away from its static bindings. The next sensation was pain in my jaw, as I struck the concrete. It was nice that a layer of slime broke my fall ever so slightly. There it was – that feeling of freedom, where, when I breathed, it was like the entire string of electricity keeping my body remotely connected was the one doing it and I was just an exoskeleton. Of skin. "Shit..."

"Riiight," said another of the slug's parasites slowly, the two yellow 'additions' coming together in front of the slug's chest, their cheeks nearly touching. The way their slanted, beady eyes watched me was so much less 'animalistic' than I'd wanted it to be. The idea that this creature had any bit of common sense or human integrity left inside of it was... uh, 'guess I couldn't judge. "So Al. Mmkay, first off, you and me need to get our shit together."

"Every time we meet, we're something different," the other parasite picked up, owning an identical voice. "But that's not so bad."

"Not when we're always running into the same problems." the first parasite finished, rolling its eyes.

"I didn't know your head could come off..." Caden stated, blasé and uncaring. Was this too much for the kid?!

"Neither did I. Is he actually alive or are we wasting our time?" one of the parasites asked.

"Should be. Remember that time I kicked his ass? He can take it." the second recalled.

Kicked my ass?! Sorry, what?!

"Yeah. Good times," the first parasite agreed. It smiled at me, whereas the other had a stone cold expression. "Hey, Fluxy. What happened to you? Why aren't you cute anymore? Remember? Or... are you one of Al's... 'others'?"

"What?! Yo, I got some SERIOUS complications here!" I blurted, gesturing to my fallen head with my headless body's front paw.

I got myself sorted out. With how moist my body had been left, I managed to magnetize back into place without anybody's help this time. No Diancie around to screw my head back on so that I could finish the job. I was getting better at this dismemberment management. 'Guess I had to, but, for shocker, it wasn't even my biggest issue right now. Once all the frantic dust settled, the slug and Caden invited me back to one of the corners of the pit where they got a nice cozy fire going for me, courtesy of Caden himself. The corner was concealed by barrels and trash, more so than the rest of the pit, as to – I suppose – hide the Flux that lived here away even further, even though it was already tucked pretty deep down. Felt kind of bad for it, actually, and far, FAR more so when I learned that she was Kat.

One of her parasites had an old rag in her mouth. She draped it over me when she noticed I was still shaking. The rag was patchy and had tears and bite marks, but it was dry and comfy, lain over my back. I lay my chest to the concrete, tucked my front legs in, and closed my eyes momentarily as I faced the crackling fire, regaining some control over my breathing, some life and motion put back into my nearly frozen body. I hadn't realized how painful that swim was until I was up against a bright flame, dancing, throwing wild shadows against the walls. 'Guess Flux didn't feel pain until it was too late. It made some sense. Just... look at us.

"Need a drink, bub? Somethin' to eat?" Kat addressed me – again, I wasn't sure which of these parasites was the real 'Kat', but they both responded to the name.

"I'm good. Food goes right through me." I said, keeping my eyes closed. I wasn't hungry, and, well, yeah – food didn't 'work' on me.

"Heh, that sucks," the other Kat worm scoffed. "Sucks like how VC does for bringing someone here."

"I don't suck! He wanted to talk to you! I thought you two were, uh... er-"

"Yes, VC? What did you THINK we were? Huh?" one of the Kats ebbed him. I looked at VC, sitting on his rump closer to the fire than any of us could've gotten. He wasn't angry or bothered. He was actually enjoying the pressure Kat put on him.

"I'unno! You're both safe Fluxes, and you have the Crossblade, soooo..." he shrugged, grinning.

"Tch," the same scoff came from a different mouth. "Al. Which one are you? Naphal? Daemon?"

"Uhh...?" I looked at her blankly – none of her parasites, but that MAIN body that wasn't doing anything. She had eyes and they could clearly see me, but she didn't talk.

"I'm over here, twerp-ass," the same Kat worm smugly called. I looked to her. "That thing you're looking at doesn't have a brain anymore. 'We' sucked it out. Right side and left side."

"Mm," the other parasite grunted affirmatively. "We're the brain now. If we didn't come along, I might've gone crazy."

"Oh!" I gasped. Kat was an eevee, and she was already Fluxed up the last time I saw her. I remembered what Diancie said about eevees. They 'evolved' into Flux. They didn't let it take over their minds. So, it made sense if this saved Kat from being turned into a mindless drone. I didn't really understand how it worked as a whole, but these snaky worm parasite thingies took Kat's mind and broke it apart before it imploded in her, almost like she had adapted, or countered the Flux's biggest effect. Still didn't understand why she looked like a dick slug though, but Diancie did say that appearances couldn't be spared.

"Hrmph, prolly better to say my brain just grew out of me, 'cause it was getting cramped in there. Whatever," a parasite shook her head. "So, hey. Talk to me. What did you want?"

"Yeah, yeah," I nodded. All things considered, I had a job to do here. "Rayse and I are after some answers on the Crossblade. Lemme get you caught up..."

I told her – er, them – everything that happened in and outside of the Grove. I dodged some details about how I liked to smash Fluxes around back when I was a wisp with a killer lightning rod, but I did bring up Bryan, Travis, and Diancie – how that conflict escalated and brought me to the state I was in now. I told her about how I changed into a luxio again. I even went as far back as that confrontation with Topher, how my Crossblade was stolen and used to turn one of Kat's selves into this demon dragon that... ate Emelina...

This was all shit I never told Rayse. She didn't know that I couldn't use my Crossblade anymore. She had no KIND of idea of what happened at the hospital, deep in that weird, sick world with all the body-part flowers. It didn't pose much of a threat to my gag reflex anymore, but at the time, it was nightmare fuel for the hardiest of badasses.

I even told Kat about the time we met up when I was with the Circle. She was talking to Cruce, and I... I approached her. I showed her my Crossblade and she showed me hers. I was so pissed with her for doing what she did to my dad and our fucking dog, but it wasn't the same person. Kat and Katalyn were different, and this Flux in front of made it a mission to get that clear. She'd stomped my face in before, but that was when I was still a shinx and things looked a lot better. I'd've preferred if things stayed that way, with the face stomping and such.

"Huh. Sounds busy over at the Grove." one of the Kats said. The other was looking away, mulling into the fire.

"Why don't you come back?" I asked.

"Really? Tch, can't blame you. Your head fell off earlier. Doesn't surprise me that you'd ask stupid questions." the mulling parasite said, glaring at me.

"What's the matter with stupid questions? Is it so hard to give a stupid answer?" I came back.

"Yeah, when there's more than one." she huffed, angrily taking a piece of fruit out of a nearby barrel with one of the feeler tentacles on the main body's fluff blob and munching it. Another of the tentacles offered Victini a piece of the same fruit. He took it in both hands without question.

"Some of the people in the Grove – I... can't stand them." the other parasite sighed.

"So? A friend and I don't care for a lot of Pokémon there and we're fine. You can set up with us. We live away from everyone else." I told her.

"No," the same Kat declined. "I like it here. This place has... meaning to me."

That parasite gave a quick glance to one of the piles of trash acting as a wall for this corner. Nestled against it was a worn, green plush cobra that had slumped over. I didn't want to ask, because it didn't seem like the sort of thing Kat would've explained with patience.

"But you're... but not everyone can see you, so... those people – what if... they can't? They wouldn't bother you." I thought aloud.

"I don't really get it," the other Kat said upon swallowing her fruit. "Why some people can't see me, I mean. But whatever. I just don't want to SEE certain people."

"Kat...?" VC tuned in, his mouth full. "Didn't you say this place is acting funny? You gotta tell us when you see funny things like that. Secany always knows what to do about it."

"Load of help she's been lately," Kat remarked, sarcasm apparent. "But you're right. From time to time, the walls bend all weird. I know it's not me. I have three sets of eyes and they all see the same things around here. I hear noises – rushing air. Sometimes, when I try to sleep, the floor opens up to a sky, but I never fall, because it's... i-it's like an illusion."

"The floor opens up to a sky...?" I asked her, trying not to make it sound as though I was ridiculing her. Half the shit I'd seen lately couldn't be described with what words I knew.

"Hmph, it's my problem, not yours. Your problem is the Crossblade. And, what, you want me to tell you something about it?" one of the Kats asked.

"Whatever you got, I'll take it." I assured her.

She – both of them – took a pause and looked at one another like they were two individual beings thinking of different ways to respond. Maybe they were. I had no freaking clue how this was anatomically possible. I still had myself to work out, so I wasn't gonna fall into asking about a person who probably didn't know 'herselves' too well. I felt bad about her. 'Guess Caden did, too, since he came in and visited every now and then.

I waited with apprehension. I had high hopes that my wading through sewage was about to be rewarded by some kind of wisdom...

"You're weird." both of the Kats looked at me and spoke in unison.

"I'm weird," I repeated, pulling my front legs out from under my chest, stretching them in front of me, and laying my chin on the ground, eyes up to the fire. "Is that it?"

"You said you'd take whatever I had." one parasite spoke.

"And there it is," the other continued. "It's all I have. Yeah, you get three forms when you have the Crossblade, but if Topher took yours away, I don't know how I can help you. I'm still... tch, you know how Topher and I were."

"You were close. You two and Cruce," I told her. "I don't think Topher turned on us for no reason."

"Mm," the other worm grunted. "That'd be nice... 'Ey, bub. It's your Crossblade. It's part of you. How do YOU feel? Tell me."

How do I feel? Oh, yeah, how's she supposed to help me if I don't tell her what's on my mind?

I can't just explain details. I have to help her understand me.

"I met... two other Als in a place called the Timescape. Xima was... there. Uh, she... taught me about the Crossblade," I paused, the fire's oranges and yellows bringing me back to the sunset painting that decorated the sky of the oceanic view in the Timescape. "A skywisp, a siren, and me – a luxio. I turned into the skywisp – Alli. When I got Fluxed, I turned back into a luxio."

"There's your problem." suggested a Kat.

"It's Xima," suggested another. "I'm after her, too. Mm, well... I was, before I gave up. Look, man, I don't know shit about the Crossblade other than this: you get three forms – Naphal, Icarus, Daemon. The best advice I can give you is to go look for Topher or Xima."

"How'm I supposed to do that?" I asked.

"Carefully," said one of the worms, no hint of amusement, while the statement was clearly meant to be facetious. "Get Rayse's help. She's a Champion. Secany, too."

"And Diancie... and..." I stopped, looking at Caden. Within a second, his gaze locked onto mine. He waited for me to say it. He wanted to ambush me. He glared. Even after I avoided any hot air between us, I still felt his eyes scratching into me. "Nirva...?"

"Nirva pissed off. I thought he was alright 'till he got Fluxed up." the left worm lamented.

"He's with Cruce right now." I said. Just like how Caden reacted, the two Kats did the same instantaneous lock, pointing ahead with eyes wide open – all but the main body looked at me with this intensity.

I sat up, growing uncomfortable.

"What?!"

"Where?!" both the worms said.

"I... don't know? H-he called me earlier. I think he... he turned human? Again? Uhhh..." I stammered.

"Who?!"

"When?!" they went on.

"Cruce! Cruce called me yester-... uh, hours ago, I mean."

"Where's your phone?!"

"Gimme your phone!" she demanded.

"I don't have it! I lost it when I turned into a luxio." I said. Boy, trigger alert.

"Fuck!"

"Shit!" they cursed together, turning inward as if huddling up, but they didn't say anything beyond that.

I didn't know what else to say. I thought it best to leave the two of 'her' alone to get all the gripes out if she needed to. It didn't need saying, but she had a lot of love for Cruce. I almost laughed at the thought of me being jealous of her, but I might'a been lacerated the moment I showed any chuckle or grin. I – Alli – had a weird neediness for Cruce. Just wanted to bite 'im. I just wanted to make sure the world knew who my...

...territory was...?

I gulped. These weren't feelings I wanted to cry out about – I wasn't ATTRACTED to him. It was something else. Maybe it was the same thing Katalyn always had for Cruce. Nothing romantic, just territorial. Dominance. But, where did it come from? I never felt stuff like this before, when we were just casual dudes chillin' by the gym.

Our eyes met, and by that I meant all three pairs of eyes got real involved with my own. It was like we'd been thinking about the same thing and only just realized it.

"You wanna find him, huh?" I asked first.

"What of it?" both worms spoke at once, defensive.

"I'm after him, too."

"I thought you were after answers." one said.

"I'm... after him, too." I said again, standing, the shoddy blanket drifting off of me.

"I'll find him first." another challenged.

"N-..." I stopped, my mouth hanging open. My heart raced. I took a swift breath. "Not if we... find him at the same time?"

It was an offer, not this 'challenge' business that she wanted me to fall into. I stood tall and smiled coyly knowing there was only response to that for someone as passionate as her.

"Mmf!" both parasites grunted loudly, frustrated. Even the main body's facial expression looked bothered... …

Not as bothered as Caden, though, for different reasons. He was floating, his head pointed up at the ceiling. He double-took back at me, then looked up again, his little black nose just poking into view, big ears flopping all the way back. I furrowed what brow I had. Kat must've failed to notice her friend's confusion, since she was still consulting, uh, herself. 'Guess it made you look less crazy when you could literally hold conversations with another you. But they didn't really talk to each other. They just stared at one another and... thought... with their eyes.

An abrupt queasiness welled up within me. It struck my stomach and my ears first, a loud howl of wind giving me the illusion of movement, even when I was standing perfectly still. My legs felt as though they were on uneven ground, when I had been laying on flat concrete. None of the objects in the area agreed to the upset balance in my own equilibrium. It was like I had... personal physics, where I was being pushed around by gusts of wind, the reshaping of the floor. All the barrels and heaps of trash stayed the same – all but the way they shimmered and warped away from me.

"Guys?! Something's wrong – really, REALLY wrong!" Caden blared. Even in flight, he appeared clumsy, trying to compensate for space that wasn't quite there, pushing his small red hands against a wall like it was closing in on him.

"Uh! What's..." Kat gasped. Out of all of us, it must've been the worst for her, since she was nearly rooted to the ground in that she could only slither. "This is it! This is what I was talking about! This shit happens ALL the time now!"

I almost stumbled to the side, like the room was being lifted and tilted. I spread all four limbs out and latched onto the ground as best as I could, as the hard floor wobbled and waved, rippled and lifted my balance from one side to the other.

A sensation like this could only be attributed to one thing. It was unmistakeable.

We were Tripping.

"It's not stopping?!" the other Kat worm fluttered high above her main body.

Not stopping? Tripping doesn't 'stop'. What gave her that idea?

Unless... Can it travel? Can Trip zones... spread?

"Okay," I called out over the illusory rush of air. The room began to glow a hazy red, the streams of light from above expanding, gaps in the bars widening to an open, blank sky of the same hue, as the walls began to unfold like a cardboard box flattening into none more than a square. "This doesn't take long! Close your eyes, hold onto each other, and don't move!"

It took a second or three for the advice to reach them. Apprehensive, I waited for any kind of physical contact before shutting my eyes, the ground beneath my paws practically a sine wave at this point, the loud howling of wind turning into a deafening shriek. I felt something slimy wrap around my front leg. I checked – it was red and gross, but whatever. It was one of Kat's creepy alien feeler things. She'd also reached for Caden and pulled him into her middle body, the two parasites working together to wrap around him protectively like a sort of perverse hug. He didn't object, hugging against Kat. When all pairs of eyes were closed, I knew they trusted me, and only then could it've not felt more perfect to trust in myself and let the world go dark. Once I let my eyelids fall, all the psychedelic motions and drunken reality went to sleep. The air continued to scream. The cold became intense once again, the most unbearable it had ever been, with a striking wind amplifying its chill. It became harder to breathe. My bones and tissue didn't go together well with that, so I bit down, braced myself for separation, and pointed my body against the oncoming wind, letting static roll across my fur in a vain attempt to force the wind to handle respiration for me.

It worked.

I got through it in one piece – all of us, still holding on and sinking our fangs into the rigor as hard as the cold bit into my damp skin.

The clamor of rushing air quieted down, but never relented wholly, instead diminishing to a gentler, ominous and distant howl. Although creepy, it was serene – enough so to lead my eyelids up and my gaze out upon a world I had never before seen. An expanse so vast that it left my equilibrium as stripped as it had been through the Trip, if not more. With my jaw suspended, I looked over the result of the interruption – this strange warp effect that I'd only encountered once prior. I never knew it was capable of something like this.

Shining grass hills rolled onward, sinking beneath immense bodies of floating land, dirt, roots and colorful crystals hanging from the bottom of these airborne islands. They were everywhere – all around us, structures of pearly marble sparkling in the reflection of the marvelous red sunlight, so much clearer without clouds to block its shy beauty. Arching passageways with megalith-sized windows connected some buildings, pillars with structures coiling around them ascended into the red aether. Gardens artificially constructed on these marble bridges crossed the gaps that these hovering islands created, most of them at a slant, long blue strings of water flowing from top to bottom. In spots, the water was falling from the sky, disappearing into the horizon far beyond what I could see from this spot – this island.

And then I found that we were half-encompassed by marble and crystalline statues, abstract in their form, with two vague 'limbs' reaching into the sky. The central statue was clearly a skywisp, albeit headless and ruined, by means of magic or science to be made floating above its pedestal. There was no clear connection. I looked high up. A halo of marble encircled an arbitrary point in the sky, four points of it bound to buildings many miles from this spot by enormous chains hooked to points unseen. Contrary to the white architecture, these chains were black against the red sky, and in comparison to the sheer enormity of the statues 'praising the sky' around us, a tiny pearl obelisk, overgrown with white flowers and leafy vines, stood in the center of this park circle, its base triangular, etched with hundreds of markings, some linear, some fluid and round, others sharp and serrated.

Petals littered the ground around my feet, tickling against my ankles in the unending breeze. They appeared to be exclusively white, stank of a sweet nectar so powerful that I forgot about all of the sludge and waste before this. Matter of fact, everything here was a complete turnaround from before. The oversized architecture, all woven together by chains, bridges, and roots, from which I could see few of, but the few I noticed must've come from the big spouts of green leaves poking over the horizon of our island's incline.

At the apex of it all, somewhere lost in the center of this expanse, a silhouette in the distant crimson mist, a tower so large that it scraped the cosmos, wielding a chain that traveled all the way to the ring-like structure above us. Only one vague shape came to mind on this tower, and it was that of a circle. A clock tower, maybe, presenting its face in all four directions, the shattered sun locked in a state of setting just behind it, paralyzed, static, gorgeous...

A bell rang somewhere, carried by the wind, circumnavigating the sky labyrinth like a coaster, growing lower pitched as it drifted away deep beneath the currents of wind, squeezed by the pressure of the altitude.

Caden and the Kats were okay, if at least stirred up a little. We were fine. Caden poked his head up from Kat's 'belly', dazedly looking high into the abstract symmetry beyond us, while one of the Kats freed Caden from herself, collecting information so quickly that she became the first to comment on it.

...

"We're here? How did we-...

This place...

I saw it once. I fell... from here.

This is where I lost myself." she said.

I had the best view of it from Brink Boulevard, but even then, it still looked like a bunch of thick clouds.

I was always too afraid to fly that high.

Then Gamma changed that, too.

Shaymin

Delta Meadow

Doctor Gauze was gone. I decided to visit his quarters to find out more about what he'd been working on. I knew there were cameras around, so I had to pretend like I was authorized, or just as curious as any maniac scientist was about his peer's work. I knew Chevron – I knew I... was allowed to do that. I could get away with anything... most things.

I flew up to the control panel bound to the door, locking it via touchscreen code – varied swiping motions over a tiny screen got this thing open, and I had to remember Gauze's. It wasn't a problem. A few prods at this coordinate, that one, another one, a swipe up, left, down, poke twice... All of this came with affirming yet discomforting, out of tune beeps that threatened to trigger a buzzer had I slipped up and made an error. By the end of the process, the small metal door, hatched with yellow and black ridges, hissed and lifted itself into the ceiling slot. I passed through.

Gauze's room was nothing spectacular, apart from the choice of interior decoration. Facility provided utilities, appliances, and comforts aside, he had left a row of ballistics gel dummies standing up against the back wall, supported by iron beams thrust through their spinal column. I flew to the middle of the room, the light level automatically adjusting to comply with my presence, but I could see enough, from the pastel green and gray walls to the deceptively shiny floor.

"Doctor G," I addressed casually, namely to the cameras, although I stared straight on, looking at the complex cluster of hardware that made the typical computer technology in each of these rooms. There were six monitors, some mounted on walls. All but one were blacked out. The humming of a computer processor's fan was going. "Kaiser told you to get your door code changed, 'n you didn't. Lookie now – I'm in here and you can't do anything about it. Might wanna check if those bandages are too tight around your head."

I made fun of him, but I wasn't all too confident. I was pretty scared. I had to sound like Chevron. I chained together thoughts that I assumed he came up with regularly. It was fascinating. I wasn't even Chevron anymore. I wasn't Felix. I had to TRY to be Felix. I did overstay my welcome with Gamma.

"Hope you don't mind if I do some reading," I gestured to the mess of hardware, grinning at the ceiling. It was an obligatory thing to do, but I knew the cameras were up there somewhere. "Think of it as, uhhh, what...? Teacher's aid? Maybe I'll go in there and grade some papers for you."

I laughed to myself. Jeez, it was so fake. I would've been surprised if they didn't find out I was faking it.

Am I? I'm faking it, right? I'm not... Chevron anymore...?

I shuddered, approaching the single lit monitor in the center of all the others. This rig looked a lot like Kaiser's down in the Quiet Room, but with less modifications and state of the art technology. Didn't know what that meant, but I heard it from somebody in the tech department. I lifted my hind up, pointing my body at the slanted keyboard, bit my bottom lip with my upper, and started working keystrokes into the device. My paws were small enough to press what buttons I needed to, even if all this was kinda slower than I would've liked.

Accessing experiment logs and files for research wasn't tricky. Gauze followed a lot of the guidelines that everyone else did when they made records. They stuffed things into files within files, locked 'em behind passwords within passwords. Quiet Room members had a special admin code to bypass this, so there was actually not a huge reason for me to be so jumpy. I was more or less... unsettled, with how I couldn't understand what part of Shaymin or Chevron I was.

"Let's see," I mumbled. "Mmm..."

I brought up his strongest field: EGS. Element Gamma Scion was something Gauze had taken to with more compassion since Sam went MIA. Documents and research notes occupied page after page, text, diagrams, and intimidating mathematical equations filling so much space on the software he used that he had to go out of his way to adjust the margins. It wasn't very pretty to look, but I caught a glimpse of a list that had notable names.

Orochi, Susano'o, Arcadia, Solacea... I recognized these ones. Symbis – the 'Champions' of EGS. The list didn't end here. It went on to label a few others, some familiar, others... not so much.

"Amaterasu, the 'Living Fire', harnessed by a Pokémon with a natural affinity for fire. Chevron provided us with a dozen or so tests displaying Amaterasu's potential as being the first of many catalysts required to provoke the 'change factor' out of Gamma that HX is seeking. In summation of these tests, Amaterasu's involvement with HX has subdued Mister Brackor, created a new breed of EGS species when tested with Travis McNeil, and yet another upon persuading its host to unleash its power upon a loved one. Currently, the hypothesis is such that Orochi and Susano'o, respectively, have come from this Symbi. The third case did not result in a Symbi, rather a unique transformation to which the recipient expressed little to no memory of. This subject has been provided to Miss Young for further testing."

I... couldn't ever think to do... what I did back then. Not anymore.

I shuddered again. The cold air was dipping underneath my fur, and... I hated the cold.

But I kept reading.

"Andromeda, the 'Floating Gadget'. Presumably seeks out competitive types. To be updated at a later time.

More information needed. Currently exploring the options lain out for experimentation. Observation required, then detainment. The owner of Andromeda is a boy named Joel Jackle. At the time of submission, he is high priority."

I tilted my head and continued.

"Faustus, the 'PLACEHOLDER'.

Find Sam."

Find Sam?

"Find Sam." I cooed to myself. Hmm. The blank presentation of these notes didn't promise a happy outcome for Sam if Gauze found her first. When any report read, 'find this person', it usually meant they had a few hours to live. So, I had to hope Sam was still okay.

I thought about finding Sam before Gauze could, but anywhere I showed up where Gauze was already assigned could've been seen as a conflict of interests. If my intentions were to find anybody before him, acting on it was the first mistake I would've been making.

I would've never suggested any of it to anybody as Chevron, but as Shaymin, I felt enough care and... love, inside of me. I couldn't ignore that I...

...owed something to Sam.

A granddaughter.

I closed all the files with some departing keystrokes, left the monitor as it was, and took my leave. I went in here with more confidence than what I left with. I was only reminded of how much of a sadistic, living nightmare of a man that I used to be. What did I hope to find? Clarity? Catharsis? There was nothing self-fulfilling about anything in this place. The numbers, the faces, the experiments... They made the human species something to be ashamed of. All that shame turned on its head and started to look like pride again. There was no saving that – no helping it.

Somehow, I had to get out of here.