INTRAMUSCULAR 2.03 (Patreon)

And we're back! Day one of two of writing VISCERAE! Was having some trouble figuring out where we're going from here, but in the process of the writing (and with some help from friends!) I figured out a little more of what I want to do and what's goin on in the setting!

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It’s easy to assume that everything deserves to live. I want to believe that. I try so very hard to believe that. But it just… it doesn’t fit. The very idea of it feels… offensive. I try, and I try, and I try to believe that every living being exists for a purpose, exists for a reason. 

But I don’t think purpose exists. I think the only thing that matters is what we choose to believe. The purpose we create. And as much as I want to think that mine is to be kind, is to just live, is to just exist, I can’t help but feel that there’s something just so wrong with that. 

So if there’s no reason for so much, no reason for so many… 

Maybe it’s our job to make it. 

No matter the cost.

-Third Scripture, twenty-third verse of the books of Lo-ahnn Daughtler, First Architect of Artistry 

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Jay spends the next thirty minutes or so trying to figure out the trick. 

It’s kind of reassuring, actually. He really goes at it pretty hard, checking my sleeves, the meat, and the wall as thoroughly as I could hope. It’s one thing to see something weird happen, another to confirm, foundationally, that it is, in fact, weird. The fact that he’s not just taking my word for it, actually taking the time to confirm it himself, is weirdly encouraging.

In the end, though, he’s back to the couch, staring at me, and then the wall, and back again intermittently, nursing a cup of tea that has gone quite cold by now.

“Ok. So… tell me again what you see.”

I shrug. “It’s not that much to look at. There’s a crack in the wall, about an inch in diameter, and behind it, there’s some kind of meat.”

“Ok. What kind of meat?”

“It varies. Up near the top and the bottom it’s more muscle, but in the middle it’s got lots of paler parts, like, I don’t know, fat or tendons or something. It looks more like chicken meat than beef, I guess? It’s all sort of pale, rather than like, bright red or darker or anything. It smells like raw meat, so I can’t really tell much from that, and it feels… like warm meat. Not hot, but more than lukewarm, you know?”

He nods, taking it all in slowly. He sips his tea- and grimaces at the temperature, long gone stale.

He opens his mouth as if to speak… and then pauses. Closes it. Opens it again, closes it a second time, and then at last builds up the courage to ask what he wants to ask.

“Have you… have you tried cooking some of it?”

One look at his face, and I break out laughing.

“Really? That’s your main takeaway? Have I tried cooking any? No, you fucking maniac, I have not cooked with the weird wall meat, fuck!”

“Wha- I don’t know, you said you couldn’t tell but if- I mean cooking, you can tell! Like, with taste and stuff! It makes a difference!”

“Well you’re right about that, but no, I am not in the habit of cooking wall meat. That… fucking hell, I’m really glad that’s where your mind went, I needed a laugh right now.”

He snorts, rolling his eyes and getting up off the couch towards the kitchenette. “Well I’m glad I could provide at least a touch of entertainment, weirdo. You want me to top up the cocoa?”

I shake my head. “No, I’m ok. I… haven’t been eating much lately, it would probably mess up my stomach if I drank too much right now. Just water, if that’s ok.”

A shrug. “It’s your kitchen, love.”

Tactfully, he makes sure not to comment on my diet. I think it’s pretty clear, at this point, that I’m not alright, and that talking about it more, so bluntly, isn’t going to help- so he doesn’t. He gets me a glass of water and lets me breathe.

When he makes it back to the couch, hands me the water, watches until I take a drink, then, and only then, does he ask his next question.

“Ok. So you… you mentioned that it had stats. Like a videogame, right?”

“Yeah. Evolution, Adaptation, Canalization, and Synchronicity.”

“Ok. I… actually don’t even know what one of those words means.”

“Canalization, right? Yeah, I had to look it up. It’s a scientific term, one used for analyzing the rate at which the same sorts of traits show up over and over in a species. It’s… kind of the opposite of adaptation, in a way? Adaptation is getting new things in response to your environment, canalisation is getting the same things no matter what environment you’re in.”

“Ok. But still, one of those is not like the others, right? Synchronicity? It’s more of a technical term than anything. Mechanical, not biological.”

“Yup. And it’s the one that looks weirdest in the game. All the rest look like… well, like they’re made of meat. That one, whenever it comes up, was always sort of staticky, weirdly technological. It’s also the one that got a huge boost when I was ‘in’ the game, and the only one that I don’t know for sure what it does. Adaptation, I think, makes it so that I would gain new mutations whenever I ate something or took too much of a specific kind of damage. Evolution… I’m not sure what it did. Never quite got around to figuring that one out. Canalisation, I think, made it so that I could control the mutations a bit better.”

“Ok, and Synchronicity? Did you even figure that out?”

“Kind of. I think it’s… something like how in tune with things I am. When I was in there, making the Symbionts, I think it was easier the higher my synchronicity was, and I think I could do more. The other three… they felt like they belonged in the game. Synchronicity kind of felt like it… was the game. Or it was… me? Something like that.”

“Ok. None of that makes much sense and that’s a lot of unknowns.”

“You keep saying ok.”

“I’m responding with acknowledgement, which is pretty much all I’ve got here!”

I snort, rolling my eyes. “Fair enough.”

He shrugs, sipping at fresh hot tea and rolling his eyes. “It’s what I got. Especially because I feel like we’re running into the issue of, you know… what now?”

I sigh, long and slow.

“I don’t know.”

It sucks extra hard because it’s true. I don’t know. I, quite frankly, have no idea. 

“This whole time, I’ve been running forward on impulse, more or less. I chose to believe that this was something real, and it is, and I kept digging into it, and now… I feel like the floor dropped out from under me. Like I fell down a fucking rabbit hole - except that, unlike Alice, I made it back out before the story was done. Which, you know, good, it sucked there, but I think that just means that the story isn’t done with me. It’s going to drag me back there, or make something happen. If this is real, if I’m not still in the game somehow, then that means that the computer thing? It can reach us here. In the real world, somehow. And then there’s the fact that I found the second cartridge in a real place, so this sort of thing can affect the real world. Or it’s… part of the real world already. It’s not invading, it’s here, it’s been here for fifty fucking years.

“So now… now I have to deal with the fact that the world is different than I thought. Considering how fucking long it took me to get used to dealing with it the first time… it might take me a while.”

Jay looks at me, his eyes soft, his smile calm. “But you will.”

I laugh, but it’s not a laugh. It just comes as a huff. 

“Yeah. I will.”

“And in the meantime…?”

“In the meantime…” I can’t help it. I sigh, long and loud as I can, exaggerating it for effect. “Fuck it. In the meantime, I’m not going to use the headset again. Not for a little while. Not until I’m feeling… more like myself. Whatever that means in this context.”

“Ok. And… what are you going to do about your job?”

This time, the sigh goes on for even longer, and comes across as a lot more like a groan than a sigh.

“I’ll… I’ll call. Tell them I had a death in the family or something. It’s my first time missing this many days in a row, and they don’t exactly have a ton of employees. Still, it’s literally a bar, they can always find new people. I’ll… ugh. I won’t know either way until I call, right?”

“That much is quite true indeed,” he says, rolling his eyes. “What a shock, that until you know, you don’t know.”

“Yeah, fuck you too.”

“Aw, not even if you asked nicely, sweetheart.”

I give him a little shove, and he laughs, holding tight his tea so it doesn’t spill. “Seriously though! I think it’s a good idea. I know you have your savings, but having to deal with horrors beyond comprehension doesn’t stop you from still needing to pay rent, and getting out of the house, doing some regular work, serving boring beers and shots to a bunch of random normies and cleaning shit. Nothing quite so helpful for mental health as new stimulus and repeated action.”

“Oh yeah, little mr psych grad? Is that so?”

“Quite. Why else do you think I came here? From the big city to a little podunk nowhere, serving joy and caffeinated sunshine at the Golden Roast.”

“And here I thought that it’s because Egyptology doesn’t pay.”

“I mean, it does. Just not for black queer people in their twenties. Gotta be mid 60s, white, and already tenured, or literally already in egypt. Everybody else needs to either wait for someone to die or suck some truly prodigious amounts of cock- and I’m not quite that much of a whore, I’m afraid.”

I can’t help but raise an eyebrow- to which I receive a smack in the face from a pillow, sending me falling sideways onto the couch.

“You ass, I didn’t even say anything!”

“You implied it! With your waggling loose eyebrows!”

“My eyebrows are fine!”

“Your eyebrows need a comprehensive spa treatment, stat. The rest of you, quite frankly, could do with the same- you look like ten pounds of microwaved shit in a five pound bag.”

“Hey! You know my weight’s an issue for me!”

“Your weight is lovely, balanced, and fine as hell, hun, it’s your aesthetic that needs work. You’re lucky you’re hot, cause god damn, you can’t dress for shit.”

I fake-gasp, my hand clutching at imaginary pearls. “How dare you! I am traumatized! I am allowed to wear pajamas and blankets in my own home!”

“Oh you’re allowed to walk the streets in fishnets for all I care, baby. You just can’t expect me to acknowledge it as taste.”

I can’t help it- I break out laughing. It’s the stupidest, silliest, dumbest conversation I’ve had all week, and I didn’t even realize how much I need it. It makes me feel awake like I haven’t been in… well, days, minimum, but maybe a lot longer. 

When was the last time I spent time with someone in my own home? When was the last time that I invited someone over? Trans woman in a small town, there aren’t exactly a lot of booty calls available, and I’ve managed to keep mostly to myself in the two years I’ve been here. I’ve never invited anyone from work to my place, and my roommates… I tried. I did. Maybe not as well as I could have, but they come and go. It’s the nature of a place like this; if you don’t own it, then you have to deal with having people who come in and out every year. 

I’ve felt it before, but somehow, in its absence, I feel it all the more strongly.

I’m lonely. 

It’s almost funny. All the pain, the forced consumption, the panic, the dread- and here, now, this hurts worse than all of them combined.

In this moment, I’m not alone, I can feel it- and it just reinforced the fact of what I am. I’m lonely. I wonder how much of it is my fault, how much of it comes from me. I could invite more people. I could try to… I don’t know, push the bar to host queer events, or check fucking facebook, see about biking groups or something. Anything. 

But the thought turns on me. Isn’t that just mindless need? A desperation that could never properly pay out, that could never fix what I feel?

I think back to the meds that I… have not been taking since I “got back”. There’s probably lots of undiagnosed shit going on, but in terms of what I got pills for, it’s just the tasty antidepressants in the bright blue-and-orange pills. 

The problem with depression? The difference between it and anxious panic? Anxiety, at least my anxiety, I can usually argue against. You can logic your way through it. You can track the worst-case scenario, or believe what people are telling you, and go from there. You can still sort-of do that with depression, but… not to the same extent. 

My depression is a reasonable beast. It tells me only the things that it knows, for a fact, I cannot disprove. 

What if it’s all me? What if I’m the reason for the season, the reason why I suffer the things that I do? My own inaction, leading to what I am and what my life has become? This boring, empty sludge of an existence, lit by only a few notes now and again, like Jay. In its own way, it makes it worse by how much it stands out.

And worse again- maybe it won’t get better. Maybe everything that I could do won't work. 

Not trying at all definitely won’t work… but it doesn’t mean the depression is wrong. It doesn’t mean that there’s something I can point to and say “no, for absolutely certain, I know for a fact that if I do this, I’ll be happier”. 

I let the laugh die, the rush of ennui and dark grey emotional sludge that came with it suddenly hitting- and then I’m crying.

I’m crying, like an idiot. Like a stupid little kid. I’m crying as my friend, who only wants to help, who is offering me really good advice, who has come here when he didn’t need to and made me hot chocolate and-

I feel a shock of sensation. A pulse of feeling, loud and visceral and made entirely of nerves reacting to impact, to flesh, bringing me forcefully into my own body, to the heat and tension in my eyes, the pressure in my throat, the heat coming from my tears- and the tightness of the hug my friend is giving me.

I shouldn’t need this. I don’t want to need this. I don’t want to burden him, and I also can’t help but be so happy and so exhausted and so weak- because I need him. 

I’m lonely, and for just a moment, I’m not alone. I called, and he answered.

And he helped. As much as it hurts to have him here… it would hurt more to have ignored him. And it would hurt more to be alone. 

He wants to help me. He called, and came here, because he cares. Because he can help, and because I asked for it, like I know that I should when I need it- and I need it.

I cry for a while, doing everything I can to choke the sobs deep in my own throat. He hugs me, and pats my back, and whispers soothing words.

I’m lonely. I’m hurt. I’m afraid.

My friend is here, and right now, I am not alone.