tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick

The clock talks. It did. Sometimes I like tapping against the metal myself.

No, I am not alive. I am merely a coagulation of metal, bones, spines, brain. Whoever I was (I cannot recall anymore) is rotting away with all the others in that cesspit. But yet, I am not quite dead either. They did not let me, and still don't.

Looking at all these documents, this laptop, I've had to use some ingenuity. But my head is old. I know I am beginning to succumb to myself. All these- memories, they're starting to blend together.

This is all out of sequence. (help me remember)

I don't know how many more codes I can crack. Especially not with those damned black lines in the way. Not that I care much about the intricacies of the scientific process. I've always been more interested in literature. I ought to be like the writer, but I am more the monster he invents.
It's happening again


"Log Code: 37849

In Relation: The Gas

Released the Red Mist into the vicinity. After momentary hysteria, hypnagogic effects appear successful, and more salient than those of the defunct tablets. The effects are estimated to last around 48 hours, however this is unconfirmed. We are going to attempt three simultaneous experiments with the subjects as we attempt to instil a…more comfortable measure. As long as one is successful, that is all that matters. End of log.

…Unexpected findings present. 1186 and 1187 unsuccessful, initiating clean-up. 1188 still in progress. I will make this quickly to remember for later. Effects of the Red Mist appear to have provoked an unconditioned response to its hallucinogenic effects in the experiments. Simply seeing something red drove them into a frenzy. If this is what I think it means, then we have a readily-available solution to the Control Hypothesis using basic classical conditioning."


1188? I don't know what you're referring too. Oh. Wait. Is it one of those franchise creatures? Why do you want to hear about them? Why, of course they're still here. We all are. Intact? That is another question. If you want to find them, you've come to the wrong-. I do NOT intervene in their business. In its business, I mean. My replacement. My adorable, filthy, evil, pitiful replacement.

When you have lost an arm, or a leg, you know you have lost an arm or a leg. But when you lose a self- YOUR self- you cannot know it, for you are no longer there to know it.*

I hope I never accidentally touch one of those things.


F,D.

F,D.

Did anything come after that?

The Game Station was quiet now, the children who Moony was supposed to be watching now in bed. But he was never allowed out here. They would find out soon enough. They already did. They always know. But fear rarely triumphs the desire for knowledge.

It wasn't even the note. A certain squeak of a door, a child, metal shattering metal: that brought the memory above the tides. Now, hopelessly yet undespairingly, he turned the cogs in his brain, trying to continue the tune. He didn't even know what it was. He only felt feelings of joy and melancholy as he recalled the sound. Perhaps it was a song he once knew? Or simply the beep of machinery from a car he used to drive. Who knew?

Moony stared, fixated at the black and white tiles, narrowing his inner eyes hidden behind his buttons, attempting to conjure the motor memory that would tell him the next note…

"What do you think you are doing?"

A cold voice seeped into his ears, which reflexively sharpened backwards as cold blood dropped in his chest, quickening his heart beat. A dark figure stood leaning on the doorway to the Game Station.

"...Thinking". Moony answered the question despite the overt rhetoric. He dared not look back, continuing to gaze at the piano tiles. The echoing steps of the human drew nearer (its thud shook the ground beneath my hooves). A sharp pain cut into Moony's escapism as it yanked his plastic antlers towering above his head, shoving him down to its level.

"You don't do that. Get back to work." It spat the order as if it were foul-tasting wine at Moony's face, before pushing him away, back towards the train.

Moony limped away, trembling, as he gazed back at the one human he feared. It merely walked away, without looking back. The reprimand was shorter than he expected. The force perhaps sent most of the meaning. He was as they defined him. Nothing more.


He ripped it away from me (I still have the other). Had enough strength to dislodge it from the bones and wires holding it steadfast. That thing, I didn't know what it wanted but I knew that I couldn't trust it. Somehow. It wasn't long after my switch, and I had been equipped with shiny new features ripe for killing. I don't know why they decided to test me with the others when I would never see them in my duties (ulterior motives). It's like it could sense when I began putting my guard down after a few minutes of nothing, of it hanging from the wall like a spider. That's when it struck. I had no time to defend myself. But rather than killing me (why didn't he do it), it latched onto my arm using its spindly body and swiftly sliced it away from myself. I will never unsee how it skinned it cleanly leaving nothing but the sharp metal talons underneath, attaching it to itself, and immediately using it to disembowl the scientist who had rushed into the room. I never liked her anyway. Alarms blared (a sound I was used to). But it didn't look back at me again.

It always uses my hand now. To taunt me.


"Rest easy, traveller. I hope you find what you are looking for."

The face in the puddle didn't reply.


[*The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat]