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aneurinallday · 17 days ago

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Can I just say I LOVE how much you dislike Ciaran 🤣

2099

The Brain is just the weight of God For heft them, pound for pound, And they will differ, if they do As syllable from sound

~ Emily Dickinson (1862)

1.2 = THE LIE

For a while, they simply hug. She breathes in the scent of him, different and yet, on some subconscious level, as familiar as her own. She can feel the release of tension shuddering through his body.

“He had me locked in there,” he says plaintively. “Your brother…”

“I’m so sorry. You’re safe now.” She examines his face, then his hands, wiping the blood off his knuckles. “We’re together. Whatever’s going on here, we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

The green bug is still scuttling around in her hand; she passes it to him, and he puts it safely in his pocket.

“He took it,” Daniel mourns, “My Shell - my device. It’s gone. I’m useless without it.”

“No, you’re not.”

She kisses his cheek, his temple, his forehead - trying to kiss away her own fears as well as his.

“Daniel,” she whispers, “Am I still dreaming? Am I really awake? My brother - he spoke to me on the computer. He told me this is real life.”

“He’s lying. Science-fiction was always his favourite genre - I recognise this concept as one of his. Interstellar migration in the year 2099.”

“This is a simulation too?”

“Yes,” Daniel says, but there is a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

“So is there still a time loop?”

“Most likely.”

“He was probably hoping the loop would catch us by surprise, and we would be re-set without putting up a fight. But there has to be another exit, doesn’t there? Another pyramid?” Desperately, she shows him the ring on her finger. “I still have the key - the code you gave me. I can use it again.”

“No. It’s a decoy. Ciaran rewrote it. Even if we find a pyramid, the only place it’ll lead you is straight back here.”

“Bastard…”

“When I realised the key had sent you to a different simulation, I tried to follow you. I was crawling through the utility chases when suddenly the air went thick and I couldn’t breathe. Ciaran must’ve done something to the ventilation. I passed out, and when I woke up, I was in that box.”

“Did you see him in person?”

“No, only words on a screen.”

“You’re alright now,” she assures him, “But we need to get to the others. The other passengers - they’re still asleep.”

“You’ve seen them?”

“Yes. I woke up in a room full of people. It was some kind of…passengers’ quarters, I suppose. But instead of cabins, there were these machines, like pods. And everyone was asleep. I couldn’t wake them.”

“They’re still dreaming. Can you take me to them?”

“I don’t know if I can find my way back there, to be honest. I walked for so long, I was completely lost…then your green bug found me and led me to you. I should’ve tried to leave a trail of markers, but I was too overwhelmed by everything. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll find the way.”

“Have you been here before?”

“No. I do recognise the basic design from when it was in development, but I’ve never been inside it before. A lot’s probably changed since then. Ciaran was the one overseeing the creative team, so he must know it like the back of his hand.”

“Well, nothing will be solved by standing here. Let’s go.”

The pair begin to walk, as briskly as they can in their tired state. Maura leads the way, doing her best to retrace her steps, but the rooms are so similar in layout and aesthetic that it’s impossible for her to be certain. At the first port-hole they pass, Daniel pauses, arrested by the cosmos outside; but quickly moves on. The sight of Space and the concept of interstellar flight are much more familiar to him than to her - a twentieth century mind versus a nineteenth century one.

The further they walk, the more she feels the same sense of hopelessness creeping up on her - a lack of direction, of progress, as if they are suspended in time, going nowhere. Daniel cranks open another heavy door, grunting from the effort, while Maura watches. She stares at his dark hair.

“Can we stop?” she asks quietly.

“Why?”

“I just want to…stop.”

“Okay.”

She sits down on the raised threshold, drawing up her knees.

“Tell me what happened to us,” she says, “Tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”

“It won’t be easy to hear.”

“Please. I’m sick of tricks and illusion. I need the truth. I need answers.”

He sits beside her.

“You really are Maura Franklin - that much is true,” he says, “But you used to be Maura Singleton. Daughter of a brilliant and famed neuroscientist. After your mother died, your father…changed. He was always career-focused, but the loss made him obsessed - obsessed with behavioural research…with experiments. Human trials. What he did to his subjects was exploitative, bordering on inhumane. The accusations of abuse piled up, and his company was shuttered. Your relationship broke down, and you changed your surname to Franklin - your mother’s maiden name.”

Daniel stops, trying not to bombard her with information. Maura breathes deeply, exhales with force.

“Okay,” she says, “Tell me more.”

“Our paths crossed alongside our careers. You me, and your brother. I was a cybersecurity technician, and you were a neurologist, and your brother was a Virtual Reality programmer and designer. When we realised how much potential we had, and what we could accomplish if we joined forces, the three of us started a company. Together, we created the world’s most advanced VR program - a program which would enable people to fully immerse themselves in a simulated world, and to interact with artificial intelligences, whether it be historical figures, fictional characters, or dead loved ones. Ciaran suggested we call it Prometheus, because he felt like we were ushering in a new era for humanity. An era of limitless opportunity.”

“We built all of this together?” she marvels, “I can hardly believe that I was capable of that…”

“Oh, trust me. You were capable of so much more. You had the most brilliant mind I’d ever seen.”

Hearing the warmth and love in his voice, Maura is able to smile a little. Then the smile fades.

“I assume it all fell apart,” she says, “What happened?”

“Well, we couldn’t agree on what the technology should be used for. You and I saw it as a medical procedure, a way to help people forget their trauma and grief, even if it was only temporary. Your brother saw it as an entertainment medium, a way to construct fantastical new worlds with no creative limitations. And your father…your father saw it as an opportunity.”

“An opportunity to do what?”

“After his own company shut down, he was left with nothing. He was desperate to carry on his research, but he had no funding, no staff, no premises. And when he saw what we’d built - what you’d built - he wanted to be a part of it. He wanted in on Prometheus. So you hired him behind the scenes.”

“I enabled him?” Maura says in horror.

“Don’t blame yourself. When your mother fell ill and died, you were stricken with guilt. You kept asking yourself if there was something you could’ve done to help her, to fix her. Henry took advantage of that guilt. He convinced you that his research, as controversial as it was, could heal thousands of people. Besides, he was your father, and despite everything he’d done, part of you still trusted him and loved him.”

“So the other people on the Kerberos…the other passengers…Are they his patients? My patients?”

“Yes. All of them were victims and survivors. Traumatised people who wanted to heal - to forget. They came to us for help.”

Maura clenches her hands.

“Tell me where it went wrong,” she says, even though she dreads the answer.

“You and I had a child. A son, Elliot. He was perfect. He was everything. But then he got sick and our lives just…stopped.”

Daniel’s voice trembles, and he struggles to speak.

“Please,” Maura says, “Please continue.”

“The playroom was our escape. A little home away from home. It was a place where we could spend time together, just the three of us, and Elliot could feel like he was healthy and normal again.”

Tears start to run from Daniel’s brown eyes, but he soldiers on.

“As he deteriorated, so did you. You couldn’t bear to watch his illness progress, so you started spending more and more time in the playroom, and less and less time in the real world. Less time with me. You wanted Elliot to be asleep and in a simulation when he died, so that he wouldn’t have to suffer. You even gave him the black syringe to make him forget he was ill.”

For a moment, he is unable to contain his grief.

“Our son was dying, and you left me alone to deal with it. While you were busy playing with him in an imaginary world, I was talking to the doctors. I had to sit there and hold his hand while he stopped breathing, knowing he couldn’t even feel me, couldn’t even hear me, because he was trapped in a dream with you.”

They both sob. Daniel manages to gather himself.

“Elliot was gone, but the digital construction of him remained, and you couldn’t bring yourself to let go of it. You carried on spending time with him like nothing had happened. I should’ve stopped you - I should’ve persuaded you to get help - but instead I enabled you. Our family was broken and our marriage was crumbling, and I thought if I just went along with everything you wanted, you would love me again. I was a selfish coward. You were spiralling, and I just stood there and watched.”

“You were grieving too,” Maura says. “You needed support as much as I did.”

Daniel roughly brushes away his tears with his sleeve.

“Anyway,” he says, “The company couldn’t wait for us indefinitely. People had invested millions of dollars in our work, and they wanted to see results. Your father pressured you into stepping aside as CEO, so that operations could resume. He was probably hoping that you would put him in charge, but you chose Ciaran instead.”

“I was between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

“Exactly. But at the time, there was no reason to suspect that Ciaran would ever act against our interests. He had a different opinion about how the simulations should be used and presented, but as far as we knew, he was loyal.”

“After everything he’s done, I struggle to imagine a time when I ever trusted him.”

“Me too. But soon after he became CEO, you had a falling out. He was frustrated at having to run everything by himself, and he was worried about you and your mental health. But he expressed it…poorly. He’s never had the best interpersonal skills, and being your little brother, maybe he thought he didn’t need to mince words.”

“Oh God,” Maura laughs weakly, wiping the tears from her cheeks, “What did he say?”

“Nothing nice. He said you were a coward for running from your problems, and that you needed to wake up and face reality. He said you should delete both Elliot and the playroom, so that you could finally move on. But when he suggested that, you almost attacked him. You told him never to show his face again.”

“And did he?”

“No. He packed up his office, moved the company headquarters to New York, and left us behind. You agreed to come back to work in a reduced capacity, but things just weren’t the same. As far as I know, you haven’t seen each other since.”

“Did I regret that?”

“I think so. I don’t know.”

Maura groans and rubs her damp face.

“If we hadn’t quarrelled, would any of this be happening? Would he still have turned against us?” she wonders.

“Who knows? I’ve always had trouble getting a read on Ciaran.”

“What is he actually like?”

“That’s the funny thing - I don’t really know. We worked together for fifteen years. There were periods when we would see each other every day and talk for hours. Sometimes he stayed at our place. Yet we were never close, and he never shared any part of himself beyond his work. It’s like he was so consumed by his job that he had no room for anything else - no relationships, no interests, no feelings.”

Maura isn’t sure why, but she feels a twinge of sadness.

“What about the Kerberos? 1899? How did I end up there?”

“I thought time would start to heal our pain, but instead, you fell deeper into depression. The simulations were no longer your passion, but your obsession. You became fixated on one in particular - 1899. You were always fascinated with the nineteenth century - the transition between old and new technology, old and new medicine, old and new science. Curie, Blackwell, Lovelace, Anning - they were some of your childhood heroes. That world became your only escape from your grief.”

Daniel waits patiently while she processes his words, then carries on:

“When you decided to stay in 1899, I went in to stop you. I tried to persuade you to change your mind. I begged you to come back to the real world. But Henry tried to stop me. He wanted to let you stay in there, to see what you would do. To him, it was just another experiment, another opportunity to pick apart the human brain. He even joined the simulation himself, so that he could observe you more closely.”

Daniel’s voice shakes.

“You were desperate to believe that Elliot was a real boy, not just a digital ghost - but as long as he had self-awareness, the illusion would never be convincing. So you erased his memory, so that he would believe he was really alive; and then you erased your own memory, so that you would believe the same.”

“I did that to myself?”

“Yes. Your and Henry’s job was to execute both the memory loss and memory restoration protocols, via an interface made to resemble a syringe. Instead, you turned the syringe on yourself. And Henry…well, he saw no reason to reverse the damage.”

“My God…”

“You forgot everything. You truly believed that you were a woman living in the nineteenth century, on her way to a better life in New York. But by doing so, you trapped everyone else who was also participating in the simulation.”

“I did this to them?” she says in quiet dismay, “I’m the one who put them here?”

She looks down at her hands - a doctor’s hands, bearing the heaviest responsibility for the lives of others - and unconsciously rubs the wedding ring on her finger.

“You weren’t thinking straight,” Daniel quickly tells her, “I’ve known you for fifteen years, and been your husband for twelve. I know how important your patients’ safety and wellbeing is to you, and I know for a fact that you would never deliberately put them at risk. You weren’t in your right mind.”

She looks in his eyes and sees that he means every word; yet she can’t shake the feeling that he’s just trying to spare her.

“The more I learn about myself, the less I recognise the person I thought I was. I don’t know who I am any more.”

Daniel reaches out and brushes the side of her face with his fingers, tucking her short hair behind her ear in a fond caress. Then he rests his forehead against hers. Their eyes close.

“You are Maura Franklin,” he murmurs. “Born in Morefield. You are a scientist, a mother, and the love of my life. You are not crazy.”

“Whether I knew what I was doing or not, it doesn’t matter. I’m still the one who trapped them. I’m still the one to blame.”

In an effort to distract her from this line of thought, Daniel continues:

“Henry was the only exception. He came into the simulation as an observer, not a participant, so he retained all of his memories. But he still needed to get out. He knew that the key was somewhere on the ship, but he didn’t know where. He built himself an office and a computer bank from which he could observe everyone and everything…spy on them, study them…”

“What about you? Did you become trapped too?”

“No, I was spared. I was never a participant, only a visitor. I designed most of the security systems myself, and I knew the back-doors like the back of my hand. So I was able to come and go using ways only I knew.”

For a moment, Daniel looks almost proud. But then his face darkens.

“That’s where Ciaran came in. He didn’t want you or Henry to wake up. He said you were better off staying in the simulation. When I refused to cooperate, he had me fired from the company and barred from the premises.”

“Why? Why would he do this to us?”

“Opportunism. He’s always made it clear that he has a different vision for the company - a different opinion on how the technology should be used. But he was always outnumbered. With you, me, and Henry effectively gone, he saw a chance to make his vision a reality. It was the perfect opportunity - the only opportunity - for him to take control.”

“But to go to such lengths…Even if he hates me, how could he allow the others to stay trapped, suffering…?”

“Only he can answer that.”

“Then we’ll find him and make him answer. How did you manage to access the simulation? If he had you barred…”

“I didn’t give up. I kept finding ways to infiltrate the system, and I kept trying to make you remember. I can’t tell you how many times I failed…You had no idea who I was. To you, I was nothing more than a stranger who was acting bizarrely - why would you believe a word that came out of my mouth? But through trial and error, I finally got through to you. I ended the simulation.”

“So 1899…the Kerberos…the virtual constructs…they’re completely gone? Every trace of them?”

“Yes. The virus I introduced forced the whole simulation to self-destruct.”

“And Elliot…did he…” Maura can’t bear to finish the sentence.

“He’s gone. 1899 was the only place where his simulated consciousness still clung on. When it was deleted, he…”

Maura starts to cry. He rubs her arm, gently squeezes it.

“He was a ghost, Maura. Our son has been dead for two years.”

“I know. It just hurts. I wish we could’ve brought him with us, somehow. At least we could’ve spent more time together.”

“You did. You don’t remember it, but you spent so much time together. And he enjoyed so much of it.”

She draws a deep breath to steel herself.

“And the way out?”

“Elliot’s toy pyramid was the key, and your locket held the code needed to activate it. Henry took the locket from you and tried to activate the pyramid, but it didn’t work…I’d reprogrammed it. I’d transferred the exit code to your ring instead. But Ciaran was always one step ahead of me. He’d already re-written the code. Instead of waking up in the real world, you woke up here instead.”

Daniel puts his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I tried to save you - to save all of us - but all I did was trap us in another nightmare. I failed. Again.”

“No, you didn’t. I might not be awake, but my eyes are open.”

Daniel musters a smile, grateful for her support. Maura looks around the dark ship, and a new thought occurs to her.

“Wait…if my father is a victim too, then where is he? Shouldn’t he be in a pod, sleeping like the others?”

“I’m not sure…”

“We have to find him. He might know something we don’t, or have some kind of special access…something that might help us…anything.”

“This place is massive. If there are other stasis rooms scattered throughout, it could take days to find them, and we don’t have that long.” Daniel stands up and offers her his hand. “We should keep going. We can talk more later.”

She grasps his hand and lets him pull her to her feet. He kisses her tenderly. Their lips are dry, but she doesn’t mind; his kiss is gentle and full of love. Softly, he says:

“Let’s go.”

As they creep through the ship, Maura starts to recognise their surroundings more. Knowing that they are nearing their destination, they quicken their pace, travelling with renewed urgency. Passing through the cafeteria, Maura points to an empty table.

“There was a cup of coffee there. It’s gone now.”

“Ciaran must be somewhere on this ship. Him, or someone under his control.”

“Scurrying around in the shadows. I hate the thought.”

Finally, they make it to the stasis room. Daniel stares around at the sleeping figures in their metal sarcophagi, scanning their faces, perhaps taking note of who’s here and who isn’t. He picks up the discarded piece of paper and reads the message on it.

“Do you think you can wake them up?” Maura asks.

“Without a Shell? I don’t know.”

He turns the paper over to check if there’s anything written on the back, then uses the little strip of tape to stick it on a wall. He inspects the large computer hub occupying the middle of the room.

“Theoretically I could, but I don’t know how long it’ll take. Thousands of lines of code will need to be manually rewritten. Most of the people on this ship will be virtual constructs, just artificial characters designed to make the world feel more populated. But there are almost two-dozen real people that we know of, each of whom will have to be dealt with individually. And we don’t have that long.”

“Okay…” Maura runs her fingertips over the dusty panels of the computer, “What if, instead of destroying the dream world from the inside, we sabotage the machine itself? After all, it’s what’s keeping them asleep, right? If we cause a powercut in this part of the ship, shouldn’t everyone wake up automatically?”

“No. This machine is their life-support system and what enables them to go in and out of a dream state. Without it, they’d be left stuck in whatever simulation they’re in, with no way of waking up. They’d just waste away until the time loop undoes all our actions.”

“In that case, we’d better start with the manual solution. You mentioned rewriting code - is there anything I can do to help?”

“I’m not sure. I trust you and I know you’re a fast learner, but one error might kill them…”

Daniel crouches to peer at the hundreds of cables plugged into the computer. But before he can do a thorough examination, they are interrupted by the unmistakeable sound of approaching feet. A man’s footsteps, heavy and brisk. Daniel and Maura look at each other.

“Ciaran?” she whispers.

The door slides open, and into the room steps a bearded man - not Ciaran, but Sebastian, the First Mate of the Kerberos. His ginger hair is as smoothly slicked as before, though his moustache has somewhat lost the elegant styling of the late nineteenth century.

“Hello, Miss Franklin,” he says calmly.

Daniel steps in front of Maura, instinctively shielding her.

“What do you want?” he demands.

Sebastian ignores him.

“Frau, I have a message from your brother. He would like you to return to your stasis pod so that the voyage can continue with no further interruptions..”

“What about Daniel?”

“The companion stays here.”

“Daniel and I won’t be separated again,” Maura snaps, “Tell my brother: if he wants to give me a message, he can come and talk to me himself. He can stand here, look me in the eye, and explain why he’s doing this.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Sebastian informs her, “You either climb into the pod or I force you.”

“Touch her and I’ll kill you,” Daniel says.

Sebastian looks him up and down with an expression of disgust.

“Fotze,” he mutters. Turning his attention back to Maura, he says, “Don’t be foolish, Miss Franklin. Your brother doesn’t appreciate all the trouble you’ve been causing. You shouldn’t test his patience.”

“Sebastian, listen. I don’t know what arrangement you have with Ciaran, but you can’t trust him. He’s a liar and a coward who hides in the shadows and toys with people from behind screens. Why throw your lot in with him?”

Sebastian sighs and pulls out a Shell. He points it at Daniel, who flinches.

“Move away from her,” the First Mate orders, and Daniel has no choice but to obey.

With his free hand, Sebastian produces a black syringe and tosses it to Maura. She catches it instinctively.

“Use it and get in the pod,” Sebastian says impatiently. “Now! I don’t want to hurt you. Your brother wouldn’t approve of it.”

“Sebastian, stop. Just stop.”

“Get in or I delete the Daniel program.”

Maura looks at Daniel, then at the syringe in her hand, then at her empty pod. With every second that she spends dithering, the risk increases. She steps towards the pod.

“No,” Daniel says, “Maura, don’t.”

“Wake me up when you can,” she says.

“Maura, no! Please. Don’t do it,” Daniel begs her.

She hesitates, but the Shell in Sebastian’s hand remains pointed squarely at Daniel. She backs into the stasis pod. Sucking in a deep breath to steel herself against the pain, she jabs the syringe into the tattooed triangle on her neck and pushes down on the plunger.

“No!”

Before she has time to change her mind, she drops the half-empty syringe, grabs the electrode-bearing contraption above her, and jams it down onto her head.

“Maura!”

youtube

A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes I screamed aloud as it tore through them And now it’s left me blind

The stars, the moon They have all been blown out You’ve left me in the dark No dawn, no day I’m always in this twilight In the shadow of your heart

And in the dark I can hear your heartbeat I tried to find the sound But then it stopped And I was in the darkness So darkness I became

The stars, the moon They have all been blown out You’ve left me in the dark No dawn, no day I’m always in this twilight In the shadow of your heart

I took the stars from my eyes and then I made a map And knew that somehow I could find my way back Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too So I stayed in the darkness with you

The stars, the moon They have all been blown out You’ve left me in the dark No dawn, no day I’m always in this twilight In the shadow of your heart

#i mustn't forget to make a van gogh moodboard for sebastian

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aneurinallday · 17 days ago

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I forgot to reblog your very first reaction 😭💔

2099

The Brain is wider than the sky For put them side by side The one the other will contain With ease, and you beside

~ Emily Dickinson (1862)

1.1 = THE BOX

“Will you be there when I wake up?”

“Always. I’ll always be there.”

Yet in a heartbeat, he is gone.

She opens her eyes to darkness and light, to the sound of machinery whirring and clanking. An environment so strange and unfamiliar that it feels more dream-like than the simulation she just left. She realises that the noise is coming from something above her, and quickly ducks, twisting her head to see some kind of electrode headset suspended above her.

She scrambles away, stepping out of a vertical alcove and into a room of strange, dark metal - a circular chamber that seems to be from a different time, a time that doesn’t exist yet. The curved walls are lined with identical alcoves, in which people are standing, their bodies encased in metal like pharaohs in sarcophagi. Above each pod is a white strip-light, but the one above hers is glowing blue, which she assumes indicates its inactivity.

Directly to her right is Eyk. Having last seen him dead on the floor, she backs away a step or two, staring up at him in confusion. His eyes are shut, but after a few moments, she realises he is breathing. She looks down at her hand, pale and veiny. The wedding ring - the key - is on her finger.

Tentatively, Maura ventures further out into the room, looking up at the sleeping people. She knows their faces. The other trapped passengers from the Kerberos, the ones with whom she has shared her nightmare over and over. They appear to be arranged according to their association - the Danes together, the couples together - yet Henry and Sebastian are absent. She wonders if they are being kept elsewhere.

Huge bundles of grey cables and wires snake across the floor, connecting each pod to a central hub, some kind of computer interface. It must be what’s keeping everyone asleep. Or keeping them alive. She doesn’t dare touch them. She notices her clothes - a shapeless black jumpsuit and comfortable black shoes. Everyone else is wearing the same, as if to strip each person of their individual modes of self-expression before throwing them into the ultimate form of escapism.

Looking at the French passengers, she notices that next to Jérôme is an empty pod. She feels a spark of hope - Daniel? Then her gaze falls on a small, round window, just to the left of the pod. A circle of thick glass, outside which she believes she can see snow falling from a night sky. She hastens to it and looks out, and is greeted by a sight beyond her mind. The night sky is an ocean of galaxies and nebulae, and the falling snow is a multitude of stars. Between the beautiful, colourful swirls of dust and gases lies cold black nothing.

She sees colossal beams and wheels of metal, whose port-holes and hatches reveal them to be hollow and traversable. They rotate steadily, casting moving shadows over themselves in an endless rhythm. Architecture in perpetual motion. Each rotation briefly blocks out the glow of the cosmos - Maura is bathed in light, then darkness, then light again. Is she spinning too, or is she stationary? She has no idea. With equal amounts of confusion, awe, and fear, Maura stares wide-eyed into the starry cosmos, before the jarring start-up sound of a computer draws her attention to the central hub.

Returning to the middle of the room, she sees a piece of ordinary white paper, taped to a small, dark screen. She plucks the paper off, angling it towards the light from the port-hole, and reads it.

May your coffee kick in before reality does.

Something stirs in her brain - a barely formed glimmer of a memory, a twinge of a feeling. A moment in her life when she’d felt calm, breathing in the warm steam and smoky smell of a cup of coffee.

Her eye is caught by movement on the monitor - words appearing as if typed by an invisible hand. White pixels against black.

// PROJECT PROMETHEUS:/ > SURVIVAL MISSION TO 42.043240 - 44.375760 > PASSENGERS= 1423 > CREW= 550 > DATE= OCT. 19TH 2099

The paper sinks forgotten as she lowers her hand, her gaze fully focused on the screen.

// CIARAN: > HELLO SISTER. > WELCOME TO REALITY.

The greeting sends an odd chill through her. A name that’s so familiar, yet in that moment feels so new. Hesitantly, she asks:

“Can you hear me?”

// CIARAN: > YES.

“Where am I? This place - it’s a ship? A spacecraft?”

// CIARAN: > YES. > YOU HAVE QUESTIONS. > ASK.

She recalls what Daniel has told her, but keeps it to herself. She doesn’t know how dangerous Ciaran might be, or how he might react to being confronted.

“Why are we here?”

// CIARAN: > WE HAVE NO HOME. > EARTH IS GONE. > NO AIR. > NO WATER. > NO LIFE. > WE WERE DYING. > WE HAD TO LEAVE. > THIS IS A ONE-WAY TRIP.

As text fills the monitor, the old words begin to disappear to make room for the new words. She stares at them numbly.

“But where are we going? The coordinates - where do they lead?”

// CIARAN: > A NEW HOME. > A NEW EARTH. > US LUCKY FEW. > THIS IS OUR LAST CHANCE. > OUR LAST HOPE.

“And the simulation we were in? What purpose did it serve?”

// CIARAN: > THE JOURNEY WILL TAKE DECADES. > PASSENGERS MUST REMAIN IN STASIS. > NOT AGING. > NOT WAKING. > JUST DREAMING. > THE DREAMS KEEP US SANE. > WE NEED THE SIMULATIONS. > WITHOUT THEM. > WE WOULD LOSE OUR MINDS.

Simulations. Multiple.

Maura looks around the room at the sleeping passengers, who show no signs of regaining consciousness.

“The others - when will they wake up like me?”

// CIARAN: > WHEN WE REACH OUR NEW HOME. > THEY WILL AWAKEN. > UNTIL THEN. > PLEASE DO NOT INTERFERE. > IT WILL COMPROMISE THEIR WELLBEING.

“Not everybody is here. Some are missing. Where are they?”

There is no response.

“Ciaran? Answer me.”

After a few seconds, the screen goes blank and dark. She feels truly alone.

Maura examines the computer more closely, half-hoping she will find a button simply labelled ‘End stasis’. But all she sees are triangles, the same as Daniel’s Shell - some upright, some inverted, some pointing left or right. She reaches out, tempted to test them, but thinks better of it and withdraws her hand.

Leaving the computer, she returns to Eyk’s pod. She reaches up, checking his pulse, patting his cheeks, calling out his name in an effort to wake him; but he is completely unresponsive. She begins to circle around the room, going from pod to pod, stepping awkwardly over the bundles of cables. One by one, she tries and fails to wake the passengers, but is unable to rouse any of them.

“Please,” she whispers, “Why don’t you wake up?”

The uncertainty of what lies outside this room is terrifying, but she knows she can’t stay here forever. She leaves them sleeping and ventures out of the single door. Exploring the module, she quickly discovers that every room is similar to the one she left behind.

Everywhere is grey metal, stark and dull. Some of the doors automatically slide open with a pneumatic hiss, while others have to be manually and laboriously opened by cranking a wheel in the centre, like hatches on a submarine. With each port-hole she passes, she is struck by how a few inches of glass are the only thing separating her from near-instant death in the frozen vacuum of Space - a fact which she tries not to dwell on.

Before long, she enters a room lined with showers, toilet cubicles, and wash-basins - metal like everything else - and a long mirror above the basins catches her eye. She approaches her reflection and is shocked by how haggard she appears. Her face is ghostly pale, and veins stand out beneath her sickly skin like spider-webs. How long was she in stasis for? Weeks? Months? Is she still 37 years old?

She belatedly realises that her long hair has been chopped short. She runs her hands over the back of her head, expecting the familiar mass of thick, ginger waves, but finding little. As she turns her head to examine her hair, she notices a dark mark on her neck, just below her left ear. She attempts to wipe it off before realising that it’s not dirt. It’s ink. She peers closer. An upside-down triangle, struck through with a horizontal line. The alchemical sign for Earth. A company logo? Or an interstellar refugee’s tribute to a lost planet? Was Ciaran really telling the truth?

She squeezes her eyes shut, and tells herself:

“I am Maura Franklin. Born in Morefield. Today is October 19th, 2099. I am not crazy. I am Maura Franklin.”

She opens her eyes again to find that nothing has changed, either within or without. She still barely recognises herself.

Maura turns her attention to the basin below the mirror. She pushes down on the faucet, and clear water runs out. She catches some in her cupped palm, and takes a cautious sip before gulping more.

She presses on.

As she roams the modules and looks out of the port-holes, she begins to make sense of the overall shape of the Prometheus. The bulk of the ship is compartmentalised into dozens upon dozens of self-contained modules, each one the size of an entire building, joined by passages which are themselves linked by airlocks. In the event of a catastrophic structural failure, each compartment would theoretically be able to continue functioning on their own, if only for a while.

These modules are arranged into four colossal, vertical, wheel-like structures - two near the front, two near the rear. The prow and stern themselves remain horizontal and stationary, while the wheels rotate endlessly between them. Her surface-level grasp of physics tells her that the rotation has created a centrifuge-like effect, giving the ship the illusion of Earth-like gravity. If the spinning stops, her feet will leave the floor and she will find herself floating helplessly. Long, straight, horizontal structures serve as axles and spokes, running parallel to the central body, which houses the main power source. On the side of the prow is stamped a single word: P R O M E T H E U S.

If this spaceship is anything like the steamship that preceded it, she assumes that it must have a cargo hold, a medical bay, maybe even a captain’s cabin. Necessities for any voyage, whether it be sea or Space. Maybe Ciaran is in a control room, watching everything on an array of monitors. Does he have as much command of the real world as he did of the simulation? Is this even the real world or is she still dreaming?

“Ciaran?” she calls out, “Can you still hear me?”

No response comes from the darkness. Even if he is still listening to her, there is no computer nearby for him to send messages through. She is completely on her own.

If the information on the computer is to be believed, almost two-thousand people are onboard the Prometheus, yet every room she passes is deserted and silent. Is everyone except her and Ciaran in stasis? Sleeping, dreaming away the long, dark years of Space travel? Is she doomed to wander the ship for weeks, months, years, until finally boredom and loneliness drives her back into stasis? Back into a simulation?

Daniel promised that he would be here when she woke up, yet here she is - isolated, lost, with no clue what to do. The fear of abandonment creeps up on her, but she pushes it away. For all she knows, Daniel could be trapped somewhere else on this ship, in danger, in need of her help. This isn’t the time to be panicking and wallowing.

Next she enters a cafeteria, lined with uniform rows of metal tables and benches, as well as smaller tables with fewer seats for more privacy. Sitting innocently on one of the tables is a single cup of liquid. Steam rises from the surface - it’s fresh. She takes the cup, raises it to her nose, and sniffs it suspiciously.

“I suppose you’ve spiked the coffee,” she says out loud, “The black substance, right? It’ll erase my memory if I drink it.”

She places the cup back down on the table and walks onwards.

There is nothing to denote the passage of time. She develops the curious sense that she has walked for hours without actually moving. Every room looks the same, every corridor and doorway identical, and the constant rotation is disorientating. She begins to wonder if she’s been walking in circles. She glances over her shoulder, considering doubling back to where she started, so that at least she won’t be alone any more - but she decides against it. Perhaps the ship was deliberately designed this way to discourage people from exploring, in which case, she has to persevere.

But slowly, her determination leaves her. For what feels like hours, she has done nothing but walk blindly with no clue of where she’s headed. Perpetual motion, just like the ship itself. Her legs are tired and her feet ache. Finally, she stops.

She sits down on the floor, then eases herself lower until she is lying on her back. She presses her hands to the ground behind her, and feels the thrum of hidden wires and mechanisms through her palms. She stares up - or maybe down - at the ceiling, and tries to feel the wheel of her world spinning. With a stretch of her imagination, she believes that she can feel the rotations as she hurtles head-over-heels through Space.

She closes her eyes.

“I know this place,” she murmurs, “Whether it’s real or not, doesn’t matter. If it’s real, then I’ve lived here for years. If it’s a simulation, then I designed it. Either way, I know this place. I know where to go and how to get there. All I have to do is remember.”

She allows her mind to wander aimlessly down an ever-branching passage of memories, meandering to and fro in time, from one vague image to another.

The Kerberos upon its doomed voyage, spewing dark trails from its massive smokestacks.

The overcast sky, as grey and rugged as the Atlantic waters below it.

A green June beetle balancing on a swaying blade of grass, its shell-like wing-cases catching the sunlight like emeralds before they open up, revealing the delicate, transparent membranes underneath as it flies away.

Black crystals, ever shifting and expanding.

Eyk’s corpse lying dead on the floor, his hazel eyes still open, staring lifelessly at nothing.

A toy space rocket made of colourful plastic.

Cold seawater dripping from dark, wet curls.

Daniel’s face in tranquil repose, sleeping peacefully in bed beside her, his head cushioned on his arm.

The last image crystallises until she can see him clearly, as if she were lying right beside him. In the silence, she whispers:

“Wake up.”

Daniel awakens in the semi-darkness with a gasp, lying flat on his back on an unfamiliar floor. He’s still grubby from crawling around the labyrinthine pipes and shafts of the Kerberos, the dirt and oil staining his hands and knees. His clothes haven’t changed - still the same dark green, long-sleeved top with an asymmetrical collar, and the same black trousers tucked into dark leather boots.

Sitting up, he looks around in panic. He is in a small room of grey metal, windowless and empty, barely more than a box. It is weakly lit by a stark electrical glow. There is no furniture, no ventilation.

In front of him is a single, sealed door. He realises that the source of the meagre light is a single, small, electronic display embedded in one wall. No buttons, no jacks, no way of interacting with it. As he stares up at it, words begin to appear as if on cue.

// CIARAN: > Hello Danny.

Daniel feels in his pockets and find them empty. He spies a tiny pile of junk nearby. Ripped wires, a circuit board, and scattered buttons engraved with triangles. The remains of his Shell.

“No…”

He scrambles onto his knees, desperately gathering up the pieces, but he already knows it can’t be fixed.

“Fuck.”

He jumps to his feet. The door is a solid slab of metal with no window or slot, it’s completely immovable. He pushes and pulls on it with all his strength, but it holds fast in its frame.

“Let me out, Ciaran,” he says. “I don’t have time for this. I have to find Maura.”

// CIARAN: > Maura is safe. > You are no longer needed.

In frustration, Daniel beats on the door.

“Maura!” he shouts. His voice rings out sharply in the enclosed metal room. “Maura, I’m in here! Damn it, Ciaran. Let me out!”

// CIARAN: > No. > You must stay here.

“Please. I’m not here to interfere with your plans. I just want to help Maura. That’s all I want. I’m just here for my wife, the mother of my child.”

// CIARAN: > Maura is not your wife. > There never was a child.

“Ciaran, enough. For God’s sake. I know you love games but you can’t play with people’s lives. This has to stop.”

// CIARAN: > This is not a game.

“Let Maura go,” Daniel says, “I don’t care about me, but let her go. Let her wake up. I’ll stay here forever if that’s what it takes.”

// CIARAN: > This is not about you. > You are not important.

Trapped in a metal box, Daniel fights the panic rising inside him. He begins to examine the walls, searching for seams between the metal panels, anything he might be able to pry away. There is nothing.

“I’ve still beaten you,” he says defiantly, “1899…I erased it and I freed her. The virus worked. You failed.”

// CIARAN: > You are the virus. > You are a piece of malware. > You were placed in 1899. > To corrupt it.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Daniel kicks at the walls, testing for any weakness, but finds none. “Placed by who? By what?”

// CIARAN: > Maura created you. > A backdoor out of 1899. > If she ever became trapped. > You would activate. > You would shut down 1899. > And save her.

The air inside the box is still and heavy. Exhausted, Daniel sinks into a sitting position on the floor, his back to the wall.

“Why am I here? What are you doing to me?”

// CIARAN: > You are being rewritten. > You must stay here. > Until the process is complete. > This will take some time. > I recommend you go to sleep.

Daniel looks down at his hands, sore and reddened from his efforts to pry open the door. He rubs the burn scar which encircles his ring finger.

“The body remembers,” he mumbles. “I am real. I always have been.”

Then he feels it - a tickle under his clothes. Something tiny, clinging to the inside of his top, hidden within the folds of fabric. He recognises it instantly.

Opening his eyes, he rises to his feet and approaches the screen. He stares at it for a moment, then yanks back his fist and punches the thick glass. A large crack forms, distorting the text.

// CIARAN: > Stop.

Another swing, and this time, Daniel punches straight through the screen, into a nest of wires and circuit boards. He withdraws his hand, breathing heavily, and peers into the jagged hole. He can see cables burrowing away into the wall, the usual inner workings, but nothing out of place.

His knuckles are bleeding. He carefully reaches into the smashed glass, feeling his way among the wires, until he finds something that shouldn’t be there. Something small. A listening device. He jerks it out and smashes it on the floor, crushing it beneath his boot. Ciaran can no longer see, hear, or speak to him.

He reaches a hand up inside his top and feels around until he finds the tickle. Withdrawing his hand, he looks at it. A green bug, crawling around in his palm. Too small to be noticed during a patdown. Its metallic green wing-cases are slightly iridescent and, in that moment, the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

He gently extends his hand to the hole he has created.

“Please,” he whispers.

The robotic beetle scuttles from his palm and down his finger, and disappears into the wires and circuits.

Daniel sits back down on the floor. He can’t tell if the air is growing thin or if it’s just his imagination assuming the worst. He slows his breathing to a crawl, and waits. The minutes crawl by at an agonisingly glacial pace. He grows increasingly sure that the door isn’t just electronically locked, but manually locked from the outside. If the beetle could’ve opened the door, it would’ve done so by now.

Daniel lies down on his side, wincing as his muscles protest. He curls up, cushions his head with his arm, and shuts his brown eyes. The hard metal makes it impossible to get comfortable. Maybe if he sleeps for long enough, the air will run out, and he will drift peacefully into oblivion without ever realising.

“Maura, please…” he mutters, “You have to be awake…you have to be…”

He hears the metallic scrape and clank of a manual lock being disengaged. He leaps up, ready to fight. The door slides open, and Maura Franklin’s pale, agitated face stares back at him. She is out-of-breath and dishevelled from running, her short hair in disarray.

“Maura?” he gasps.

She stuffs a hand into the pocket of her black jumpsuit, and pulls out the green bug.

“Thank your friend,” she says, and he falls into her arms.

youtube

They made me put all my things in a silver case Took my blood and my name and asked my age Told me all my friends were on their way When I’m just late in the game

But oh, God I don’t wanna go to Mars What kind of brainwashed idiot does? It’s all a lab rat life in jars They branded the dream of ages I don’t wanna go to Mars Be with me here and return to dust We can borrow your parents’ car And take it to all our places

They made this terrible thing look like a train There’s something sweet in the air. What? I can’t say Would I like a drink to calm the brain? Oh, please stay in the chairs

It’s been another four years and not one birthday cake You sometimes sleep all day and never shake You could hide the abyss with a friend you hate Oh, I miss the news and change

30 notes · View notes

aneurinallday · 17 days ago

Text

I sometimes see 1899 being classified as a horror as well as a sci-fi / mystery, so I thought...why not lean into the horror element a bit? 🥹

2099

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

~ W.H. Auden, Stop all the Clocks (1938)

1.8 = THE BALANCE

“Eyk?”

With the taste of saltwater still on his tongue, Eyk jolts awake in a place where it makes no sense for him to be - a circular metal room which seems to belong to some distant future, dimly lit by a stark electrical glow. The ocean is gone and he’s completely dry, though a phantom ache still burns in his bones from fighting the currents.

It was just a dream, he thinks for a second, but he’s standing upright as if he’d never been asleep at all.

“Eyk! Thank God.”

The first face he sees is Maura’s, pale and sickly in the light, staring up at him from below. Several other passengers are clustered around, including Tove and Olek. They look both glad and worried.

“It’s alright,” Maura continues as they help him out of the stasis pod, “Try to stay calm…”

“Maura,” he utters, and the name feels so familiar on his tongue, even though he could swear it’s their first meeting.

“Yes.” Hearing his voice, she is momentarily overcome with relief, and without thinking she reaches out and touches his cheek. Then she remembers that they aren’t alone, and lowers her hand. “We were worried…we weren’t sure if we’d be able to get you out.”

“I feel like I’m going mad.”

“Don’t worry, we all do.” Her eyes are drinking in his face, recalling the scars, the stubble, the patch of white in his beard, the weary contours with which she’s become so familiar. “You’re no more mad than the rest of us.”

Eyk looks around. Daniel is sitting alone on the floor, his face haggard and sullen, his legs drawn up to his chest. He glances towards the group, then averts his gaze. His left arm is hugging his knees, and his right hand is clutching his stomach, nursing the phantom pain of his stab wound.

“Daniel was telling the truth, then,” Eyk says, “My life wasn’t real. My ship, is she - is she - ?”

“She’s gone. Erased. But it was just a dream. And so is this. None of it will mean anything unless we wake up.”

“Your brother kept me trapped.”

“Yes. I’m so sorry. Ciaran and I…we’re both responsible for this. Myself by error, him by design.”

Eyk looks around at all the empty pods lining the walls.

“Am I the last one to wake up?”

“Yes,” Daniel answers before Maura can, “The men who were trapped with you will be awake now, but we don’t know where they are, and they’ll have no idea what’s going on. Maura, where did you leave the others?”

“In the cafeteria.”

“We should go and join them. Then we can get everybody up to speed.” He rises stiffly to his feet. “Let’s go.”

Without waiting, he leaves, and after a moment they follow. Maura quickens her pace until she’s walking side-by-side with Daniel, and speaks quietly to him.

“I’m simply relieved he’s awake.”

“I know. It’s fine,” Daniel replies tersely. “I just lost Sebastian’s Shell, that’s all. It’s a big setback.”

“We’ll manage without it. Did you get hurt?”

“Yes.” His curt tone tells her that he doesn’t want to go into detail.

“I’m sorry. I’ll keep you safe now.”

Daniel’s expression softens.

“I hate drowning,” he whispers to her, “I fucking hate it. Once we wake up, I’m never going near the sea again.”

“You talk like you’ve done it before.”

“I have. When we were back on the Kerberos, there was one time when I got thrown overboard...”

She clasps his hand, but a sudden noise causes her to let go. The unmistakeable sound of hushed voices and multiple sets of footfalls approaching.

“It must be the others coming to meet us,” she says, “We told them to wait in the cafeteria and not to wander about, but we’ve been gone for a while…”

As they turn a corner, they are greeted by people coming the other way - not the passengers they expect, but five crewmen from the Kerberos - Franz in the lead, Wilhelm bringing up the rear, and Darrel, Landon, and Eugen between them. Seeing each other, both groups freeze in their tracks.

“You!” Eyk exclaims.

“Captain Larsen?” Darrel says, confused.

Franz is wide-eyed and already agitated, gripping a metal pipe which he must’ve wrenched off the wall, ready to wield it as a cudgel; but when he sees his pregnant Tove, the weapon falls from his hand and clatters on the floor. Tove gasps. She rushes towards him and pulls him into a hug, pressing his dirty, bleeding face to her shoulder. She whispers something in a muddle of German and her own Danish. Her pale hair snags in his rough, calloused hands as he tries to stroke it. If he answers, it’s inaudible.

“How did you find us?” Maura asks the sailors. “We had no idea where you were…”

“There was a man in the computer,” Landon blurts out. “In the room where we woke up. He wrote us messages. He told us where to go.”

Her heart sinks. Knowing that their reunion only happened because Ciaran allowed it - or worse, orchestrated it - the joy quickly drains.

“Is this all of them?” Eyk asks, quietly aghast, “All the people I knew onboard the Kerberos…this is all that’s left?”

“I’m afraid so,” Daniel says. “A handful of souls amid thousands of artificial constructs. All trapped together in the same cycle of misery.”

Eyk closes his eyes for a moment, conjuring the image of the post-apocalyptic Kerberos’s rusted decks, the thirty years of life he thought he’d lived, and all the deaths he’d died. Opening them again, he looks around at their faces. The faces of his crew, his passengers, his lover, his rival. He feels an overpowering sense of responsibility for them.

“If it means justice for everyone who’s suffered, tell me everything you know,” he says. “I’ll do whatever I can to help us.”

October 23rd finds twenty-one people gathered in the Prometheus’ cafeteria - passengers and crew alike, plus Daniel. Searching the stark metal kitchen, the main form of sustenance seems to be translucent, rectangular blocks of firm jelly, and squeezable tubes of thick liquid that taste vaguely like fruits and vegetables.

Maura ransacks the drawers and cabinets, hoping to find a knife that she can carry with her as a weapon, but every meal is designed to be eaten with minimal preparation or mess. Gathering together food on a tray, she wanders in search of somewhere quiet to sit.

The four Danes are clustered together, silent, with Franz nearby. Jérôme is sitting next to Lucien and Clémence - not because he wants to share their company, but because they’re the only other French-speakers here. Ramiro and Ángel are by themselves in a corner, talking softly. Maura listens to the gentle murmur of different languages, the scrape of chairs being shuffled around, and the ever-present, oppressive thrum of the ship itself.

She finds an empty table, sits down, and tries a bite of the gelatinous rectangles. Once she overcomes her initial repulsion at the texture, it tastes tolerable. Almost meaty. Whatever nutrients were being pumped into her body while she was in stasis, seem to have left her system, leaving her weak and tired. Looking around, she sees that everyone else feels the same. They chew hungrily but joylessly, eating as much as they can stomach. Ling Yi and Yuk Je are rummaging through the walk-in refrigerator, talking in Cantonese, while Olek hovers nearby.

“Maura.”

A familiar voice causes her to startle. Eyk sits beside her.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“I should be asking you that. You’ve been through more than I have.”

“I doubt that.”

“What you went through on that ship…I can’t imagine. I don’t understand how Ciaran can be so cruel.”

“We survived it, and we’ll survive this.”

“He tortured you. Tortured everybody in that simulation. My own brother...”

He instinctively reaches for her hand - a purely comforting gesture, nothing more - but quickly stops himself. She follows his gaze to Daniel, who is standing at the kitchen sink, wincing as he washes his dirty, bloodstained hands. He splashes water on his face, dries off, and approaches Maura and Eyk’s table. Eyk starts to rise.

“I’ll sit elsewhere,” he says gently.

“No, stay,” Maura catches him, “Please. There’s no need to feel uncomfortable - we’ve got bigger things to worry about right now.”

“But he’s your - ” Eyk trails off.

Daniel slides into an empty seat opposite them. He looks exhausted and irritable, and unlike the others, isn’t carrying food.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Maura asks.

He just shakes his head, resting his elbows on the table. Maura notices Virginia glancing their way, but the other woman averts her gaze before their eyes can meet.

“You should still try to eat something,” she says.

“No need,” Daniel says curtly.

“Did you create this place?” Eyk asks to fill the silence.

“Me? No,” Daniel shakes his head, “This was Ciaran Singleton’s project. I was aware of it, but I never had a part in its design. It probably - ”

He stops, and Maura can see it in his face: the realisation that he’s recalling memories which might not even be real. The seeds of doubt planted by Ciaran have grown into choking weeds, and Daniel no longer trusts the version of events that exists in his own head.

If Eyk notices the sudden hesitation, he lets it pass.

“If you’d designed it, I think it would look a little nicer,” he says, “It doesn’t feel like a ship - more like a prison.”

“That’s true enough. Ciaran always liked his simulations to be…challenging.”

“There’s no challenge that can’t be overcome. Not if we all put our heads together.”

“You’re right.”

Abruptly, Daniel stands up.

“Everyone, please listen,” he raises his voice to catch the others’ attention, “Today is the 23rd of October. That means we’re already halfway through the time loop. Once the loop resets, we’ll forget all of this, and we’ll be stuck here until Ciaran decides to let us out - which is never. But now that we’re all together, we finally stand a chance of getting out of this mess.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Eyk asks.

“There are twenty-one of us here. As soon as we’ve finished resting, I propose that we split into trios and start searching for Ciaran. We can cover more ground that way.”

“But we don’t even know if he is here,” Clémence interjects, her English curling around her thick Parisian accent, “He might be using fakes, puppets...whatever you call them. How will we know if we’ve really found him?”

“We won’t know anything until we start looking.”

“Daniel is right,” Maura says, “The sooner we start, the - ”

“Why should we trust anything you say?” Virginia says sharply, “This is your fault! We’re all here because of you. Why should we listen to you, when you’re the one who put us here?”

Daniel’s hackles raise, and he cuts in:

“Nobody dragged you anywhere. You weren’t kidnapped, you weren’t forced, you weren’t coerced. All of you - every single of you - signed up for this program, signed up to have your memories wiped. You entered 1899 of your own volition. What happened afterwards was...an accident…”

“An accident? We’ve been trapped in this hell for God knows how long, dying over and over, because your wife had a breakdown and decided to drag the rest of us down with her! We’ll probably never know how many times we died, how much we suffered…”

Daniel opens his mouth to argue.

“Don’t, Daniel,” Maura says quietly, “She’s right. None of this would be happening if I didn’t do what I did.”

Daniel’s eyes fill with pain - the desire to console her, to take away her guilt and tell her none of this was her fault. But he can’t. She is the Creator, and he can’t in good conscience downplay her responsibility.

“We still don’t know the full picture,“ he says evasively, “So let’s reserve judgment. Assumptions aren’t going to help anyone.”

“Reserve judgment?” Virginia laughs. “Your virus tore me apart! Do you know what that felt like? And all because of her. What the fuck was she thinking?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking, because I don’t remember,“ Maura responds, “Maybe I was out of my mind, or maybe I was perfectly lucid. Maybe I couldn’t bear the thought of you healing from your trauma while I couldn’t, so I decided to trap you in my misery; or maybe I never meant for any of this to happen. We won’t know until we wake up.”

Her anger is bubbling over - anger at Ciaran, at the endless labyrinth they’re trapped in, at the numbing dark of this void.

“Whatever consequences I’m going to face, I’ll face them,” she continues, “But first, we need to find a way to escape. Regardless of how we got here, we’re all trapped in this situation together, and we don’t stand a chance unless we help each other. So why don’t we save the confrontation for when we’re actually awake?”

“How convenient for you. After everything you did, you still get to emerge as the hero. As if there isn’t a dead body lying next door - a man you killed with your bare hands!”

“I had no choice!”

Ling Yi listens while muttering under her breath, translating in Yuk Je’s ear. With all eyes on her, Maura sighs in frustration.

“Virginia, please! If we don’t find my brother, all of this will be for nothing. Our time is running out, and the longer we sit here arguing, the more he’s laughing at us.”

“Oh yes, your dear brother,” Virginia spits, “It seems the madness runs through your whole family, doesn’t it?”

“Please,” Anker suddenly speaks up, “Please, nok. Er hun her? Min datter, min Ada, er hun her?”

The look in his eyes is difficult to meet. Maura glances at Daniel uncertainly.

“We don’t know where Ada is,” she starts to reply, “But we can search for her too. She might still be in stasis…”

“Ada wasn’t real,” Daniel interrupts, his tone unusually harsh, “Only one child has ever participated in our programs, and we haven’t permitted any since. Ada was a digital construct I placed in the simulation to try and trigger Maura’s memories of motherhood. I even named her after Ada Lovelace, a hero of Maura’s, hoping the name might spark some nostalgia.”

“Hvor er hun?” Anker demands.

“She’s gone. I deleted her to spark a mutiny. I needed something that would disrupt the time loop and galvanise people, and of all the things I tried, killing a little child was the only thing that ever worked.”

They stare at him. Daniel’s fists and jaw tighten with a strange defiance, and Maura realises he is trying to hide his shame.

“You killed her?” Landon says faintly from the back of the room.

“Look, I’m only going to tell you this once,” Daniel snaps, “But at some point or other, every single one of you has been killed by me. That’s how committed I was to ending the 1899 simulation. Thanks to the time loop, none of the deaths ever stuck, so no harm done. But I need you to know that my priority is to get Maura out of here, and if that means somebody in this room has to die, including me, I’m okay with that.”

Maura puts her head in her hands.

“Enough,” Eyk barks, his voice suddenly commanding. They fall silent. “We don’t have time for this. Maura, Daniel, anyone else who wants to find a way off this ship - come with me. Wherever Ciaran Singleton is hiding, we’ll find him and make him answer for what he’s done.”

Franz nods in agreement.

Eyk starts to head for the closest door, when their attention is grabbed by a flicker of light. One of the innocuous control panels by the door, sitting harmlessly halfway up the wall. The small display screen has come to life, pixels exploding with random colours. They all turn towards it, watching as words appear, glitching their way across the screen as if out of sync with the fingers typing them.

// CIARAN:

> Hello everyone.

> Welcome home.

A sound fills the Prometheus, stopping them in their tracks. A rhythmic ticking, almost like a click, gentle yet foreboding.

“What is that?” Virginia demands, her voice shaking with fear. “That noise…it’s like before…”

“Fuck. Ciaran must have triggered it.” Daniel hurries to the control panel and hammers at the buttons. They’re unresponsive. “Fuck…”

The ticking grows louder, as if it’s coming from directly overhead. In the corridors outside, they hear the sound of many footfalls, stepping in unison. Eyk runs to the nearest door and pulls it shut, cranking the wheel to seal it; then turns, ready to block the way with his body.

“Everyone stay where you are!” he orders.

A shudder of fear runs through Ling Yi’s body, and she clings tightly to her mother. Then, suddenly, their faces go blank and their arms fall to their sides. They take a step towards the door. Without hesitation, Olek pushes both of them into the walk-in refrigerator and unceremoniously shuts them inside. Terrified, he braces his back against the door, resisting their attempts to push it open.

“Help! Proszę!”

Ángel and Ramiro run to help him pin the door shut.

Maura crosses the room to a port-hole and looks out. From her angle, she can see one of the neighbouring modules as it rotates in tandem with theirs. Before her eyes, a hatch opens and a man flies out, as limp as a ragdoll. He wears a black jumpsuit like hers, and appears to be a passenger. Whether he’s a participant or merely an artificial construct, she has no idea, but she prays it’s the latter.

As he’s blasted out of the hatch into the vacuum, the air in his lungs explodes out of him in a sudden rush of frozen pink particles. He squirms feebly. Perhaps in pain or perhaps because of the overwhelming cold, he curls up into a foetal position and clutches his head between his hands. She watches as the blood in his veins turn to bubbles, causing the soft tissues of his body to bloat to unnatural proportions. Within seconds of entering her sight, he is dead.

“Oh God,” she says, “Oh God, Daniel, the people. They’re killing themselves again.”

The man’s icy body floats by, frozen in the position in which he decompressed and died. A few moments later, he strikes the side of the Prometheus and shatters into red fragments. Maura averts her gaze.

“We have to do something. We have to stop it.”

“I’m trying.” Daniel continues pressing buttons, desperately seeking a response. “Fuck…fuck!”

Maura watches as the passengers and crew of the Prometheus continue to jettison themselves to their deaths. In a matter of minutes, the stasis modules of the Prometheus have emptied.

“Where are they going?” she asks, “If there are no simulations left, where do they go when they die?”

“Nowhere,” Daniel says, his voice shaking, “They can’t wake up without the proper procedure. Their real selves are left comatose.”

The ticking seems to permeate the entire spaceship - every room, every corridor, every airlock. There’s no escape. A clock counting down to an unknown end, a metronome whose each beat was a death knell.

Maura rushes to the screen, speaks to it.

“Ciaran, I know you can hear me. You have to stop. Whatever you’re doing, whatever you think you’re accomplishing, it’s not worth it. It’s not worth all this misery. Please!”

Words appear on the screen, one letter at a time.

// CIARAN:

> THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.

> CPU UNDER STRAIN.

> SELF-DESTRUCT PROTOCOL NECESSARY.

“Why? Why is it necessary?” she protests, “Why is any of this necessary?”

// CIARAN:

> TOO MANY OBJECTS.

> TAKE UP PROCESSING POWER.

> ONLY ESSENTIAL OBJECTS WILL REMAIN.

“They’re not objects! You’re a fucking monster, Ciaran!”

// CIARAN:

> BALANCE WILL BE RESTORED.

> SYSTEM WILL STABILISE.

> YOU ARE WELCOME.

At a loss, Lucien and Clémence continue to sit at their table, watching the chaos unfold. She squeezes her eyes shut, covering her ears with her hands, waiting for it to end.

“S'il vous plaît, mon Dieu…”

She feels Lucien put his arms around her, comforting her - and then she feels him let go. Her eyes open, and she sees him rising from his chair, his face empty of expression.

“No!” Clémence leaps to her feet. With furious strength, she seizes hold of him and attempts to wrestle him back into his seat. “Lucien, no! Ne me quitte pas! Ne me quitte pas!”

Jérôme watches their struggle without moving.

“Aidez-moi!” Clémence cries out, “Jérôme, aidez-moi!”

He hesitates, then comes to her aid. Together, they restrain Lucien to his seat.

Maura is about to join them when she hears a woman’s scream, and turns. Five crew members - Franz, Darrel, Landon, Eugen, and Wilhelm - have risen to their feet in unison and are walking towards the doorway. Tove is attempting to hold Franz back, clinging white-knuckled to his arm.

“Franz, nej!” she cries, “Nej!”

He silently struggles - not with urgency, but with firm insistence. Tove digs in her heels, but he’s much stronger, and breaks free of her grasp.

“Nej!” She follows him in desperation.

“Tove, no!” Maura shouts, and runs after them.

“Mauta, wait!” Daniel pleads, “Don’t go out there! Maura!”

She ignores him and bursts into the corridor. It is filled with men and women of all ages, wearing black jumpsuits like her own, heading towards the nearest airlock. Their expressions are vacant, emotionless. They march in a trance to the rhythm of the ticking, pushing past her as if she isn’t there. She looks around for Tove and the crew, but they are lost amid the throng.

“Stop!” she says, “Please!”

She grabs at the people’s arms and hands, begging them to wait, trying to dissuade them, but it’s as if she’s invisible. She doesn’t realise that Virginia is among them until it’s too late - the woman has already passed her by and is far beyond reach.

“Virginia, no!”

Maura attempts to chase her down, pushing and shouldering her way through the crowd, but loses her footing. She is shoved to the floor. Before she can get back up, they begin to trample over her - heavy shoes digging into her stomach, her ribs, her back. She sucks in a breath only to have it crushed out of her again.

“Maura!” Eyk reaches through the crowd and grips her arm, hauling her out of the way. “Maura, are you alright?”

Winded and in pain, she leans against him.

“I have to stop them - oh God - I have to stop them - ”

They hear another scream, and see a flash of blonde hair in the crowd. Tove is still clinging onto Franz, and is about to be dragged into the airlock with him.

“Tove, please! Let him go!” Maura begs.

Sobbing, Tove gives up and releases her hold. She turns and attempts to push her way back through the crowd - back towards safety - but she is already exhausted and is unable to fight the flow of people. She screams as she is forced into the airlock.

“Tove!”

They watch helplessly as the crowd piles into the small airlock, dozens of people squeezing into a room meant for a few people. With no sign of emotion on their faces, they climb over each other until they have formed a heap of bodies that reaches almost to the ceiling. Only when there is no more space do they shut the door behind them, sealing themselves inside. A few seconds later, Maura hears the outer hatch open, and a rush of air as they are sucked out into Space.

“No!” she cries.

The people who couldn’t fit inside turn and continue their inexorable march in a different direction, seeking another airlock they can use.

“This is why he reunited us,” Maura realises, “So we could all watch each other die.”

“Maura, let’s go. We need to get out of here,” Eyk urges her, “Come on, let’s go.”

“Why is this happening?” she says as he ushers her back into the cafeteria, “I don’t fucking understand. Why is he doing this again?”

They return to the cafeteria to find a scene of desperation. Lucien is still being restrained, and Olek, Ramiro, and Ángel are still holding shut the fridge door. Anker and Iben are crouched on the floor with their son between them - their arms are around him and their hands are firmly linked, trapping him in place. They are praying. The young man begins to cry. Then the prayers cease. Both parents fall silent, rise to their feet, and join the march. Krester covers his face, trying to blot everything out.

“Tove?” he groans, “Tove, hvor er du?”

Eyk and Maura run from door to door, attempting to block the flow, to stem the tide of people leaving the ship. But it’s impossible - there are too many doors, too many people. They might as well try to hold back a flood. Unable to watch any more, Maura puts her head in her hands and sinks to the floor. The ticking is no longer just a noise, but a hammer and chisel, burrowing deeper through her skin until she can feel her bones shaking. Then it stops. Everyone freezes, listening intently, waiting for the next tick, but it doesn’t come.

Just like that, it’s over. The twenty-one people in this room are now twelve.

Ling Yi and Yuk Je emerge from the refrigerator, bewildered, while Olek slumps in exhaustion from holding the door shut. Krester is cowering on the floor, completely alone.

“Mor!” he sobs, “Mor, Far…”

Daniel leans against the wall for support, resting his forehead against the cold metal. He speaks quietly to the ship as if it were alive.

“Look what you’ve done, Ciaran,” he whispers, “Was it worth it?”

As if in direct response, more words appear on the screen:

// PROJECT PROMETHEUS:/

> SURVIVAL MISSION TO 42.043240 - 44.375760

PASSENGERS=10

CREW= 2

DATE= OCT. 23rd 2099

Then the screen goes dark, and the Prometheus continues to hurtle, almost empty, across the cosmos towards its unknown destination.

youtube

Stay there on your steep cliffs, bid me farewell, bid me farewell. At the top of your blue cliffs, never forget, never forget me.

I want the darkness, I want the loneliness, I want the wide-open space and the destruction. Let it now loosen your tight grip on me, and let me, let me go now.

My happiness, once clear, is now falling apart, and under everything, is the light of the sea. I fall through the sharp gap, down into the current, Away from you.

Maybe you’ll dream yourself down to me, embracing me, embracing me never again

13 notes · View notes

aneurinallday · 17 days ago

Text

"Why is everyone using poor Daniel as a punching bag" Because he has the saddest eyes, that's why 😭

Also, as the song says, "Son, you were made to suffer" (but which man does it refer to? or both?)

2099

And Death, whenever he comes to me, Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!

~ Bryan Waller Procter, The Sea (1837)

1.7 = THE SEA

Out of the cave he emerges, straightening up into the open air with warily hunched shoulders. His dark hair is bedraggled, and his brown eyes have the hollow look of someone who hasn’t slept in days.

“I know this is strange,” he says in English with a hint of a melodious Welsh lilt, holding out his hands in a pacifying posture. “I know you have a lot of questions. But please believe me when I say that we don’t have time to waste. It’s very important that you all come with me.”

“Come where?” Officer Wilhelm demands.

“Through here,” the man points at the tiny cave from which he’s just materialised, “If you come inside, you’ll be warm and safe, and there’ll be food to eat and fresh water to drink, I promise. But if you stay here, you’ll die. Trust me.”

Eyk hasn’t said a word, but is staring at him, wide-eyed.

“I know you,” he finally utters, and his crew glance at him in confusion.

“That’s right,” the man nods, stepping towards him. “We know each other. We - ”

“Don’t come any closer.”

“Please. Just come with me. Any questions that you have, I’ll be happy to answer them.”

“You were there. I remember. You were there when my ship sank. I - ” Eyk stops, arrested by the absurdity of what he’s saying. Yet he can’t deny the clarity of the image in his head: an air pocket in a sunken ship, and a door opening out of nowhere. “How can that be?”

“I don’t have time for this!” the stranger says, and raises his right arm towards Eyk.

Eyk sees the object in his hand, and acts without thinking - grabbing a nearby stone from the ground to throw in retaliation. But Franz is faster. The burly crewman lunges towards the man, and appears to punch him in the stomach. The man stumbles backwards, gasping, clutching at his belly.

“Fuck,” he says.

The object drops from his grasp, clattering pathetically on the rocks. A small device, which to Eyk’s eyes looks like a calculator. The stranger quickly stoops to snatch it back up with fumbling fingers. His pale hands are stained with blood, and only then does Eyk realise he’s been stabbed.

“Every time, you people try and fight me. Every single time. Why can’t anyone just believe me the first time around? Why can’t anyone - ?”

Suddenly he freezes. He looks down at the ground beneath his feet as it begins to flicker in and out of existence. Everyone else sees the same thing, and every heart skips a beat.

“Fuck. Not again. It’s Ciaran, he’s trying to - ”

Just like that, everything vanishes - the skerry, the boat, the crew, even the stone in Eyk’s hand. Eyk and the dark-haired man fall several metres, dropping like stones into the water. Eyk resurfaces, coughing violently.

“Oh God!” the stranger gasps, struggling to stay afloat, “Oh God - my Shell - ”

Eyk swims towards him - the only other object in this ocean - and the two men tread water together. They both swivel their heads, frantically scanning the horizons, but no matter which way they turn, there is nothing but endless blue. Slow, gentle waves carry them inexorably towards nowhere.

“Can you see it?” the stranger demands. “My Shell, can you see it?”

“I see nothing.”

They are anchorless and adrift, completely alone with the water.

“What’s happening?” Eyk asks, defeated. “Is this a dream?”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

Seeing the man up-close, Eyk realises they’re not so different after all. This man is as scared as he is. When they threaten to drift apart, they cling to each other.

“What’s your name?” Eyk asks.

“Daniel. Daniel Solace.”

“My name is Eyk Larsen.”

“I know. You don’t remember it yet, but we’ve crossed paths so many times. Not just here, but in another world as well.”

His words make no sense, but then, neither does any of this. Eyk wonders if the skerry was a hallucination after all. Perhaps he’s still on the lifeboat, dying in the sun along with what’s left of his people. Or perhaps there never was a lifeboat, never was a crew, never was a Kerberos. Perhaps it’s always just been him and the sea, stretching on forever.

“Am I losing my mind?” Eyk asks.

“Only if I am.” Daniel whimpers in pain as the motion of his legs pulls at the wound in his stomach.

“I’m sorry he stabbed you,” Eyk says, “Franz is a good man. He was protecting me.”

“It’s alright,” Daniel says, wincing, “Trust me, it’s not the first time I’ve been misunderstood.”

The pair concentrate on treading water, but they know they can’t keep it up for long. Eyk is too weak from dehydration, and Daniel’s strength is bleeding out of him.

“Don’t be afraid,” says Daniel, “None of this is real. It never has been. It’s all just a dream that somebody else implanted in our heads - a simulation…”

“Simulation…?” Eyk echoes.

“Yes. Everything you see and hear, everything your body feels was programmed, coded, pre-written into a computer. Your misery is real, but this world is fake. You think you lived on that ship for thirty years, and lived another twenty-three years before that, but you haven’t.”

Eyk stares at him, wondering if the salt has got to their brains.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through. This’ll all be over soon. We just have to wait. My virus…it’ll shut this simulation down.”

“Shut it down?”

“Yes. Everything you think you’ve known will be erased. We’ll wake up in 2099 with the others. And once we find the key, the real key, it’ll finally be over. Everything will be okay. Everything will be okay…”

It’s unclear if he’s reassuring Eyk or to himself.

“What happened to them? My people, my crew?” Eyk asks, “Where did they all go?”

“To the only place they can go: 2099. It’s the final simulation program apart from this one, and it’s the final place where their sleeping minds can take refuge. As long as their true selves remain in stasis, they can’t wake up in the real world, in their real bodies - they can only jump from one dream to another, and when all the dreams are gone, they’ll just…sleep. At least, not until we find the key. Or until someone on the outside figures out a way to wake us up. But that won’t happen any time soon. Ciaran’s made sure of that.”

“Who’s Ciaran?”

“The one who’s kept you here, the one who’s tampered with the program. He’s been fighting me every step of the way, trying to quarantine my virus before it can do its job.”

The words are meaningless to Eyk’s brain.

“It wasn’t supposed to go this way,” Daniel continues, “I’m sorry. This concept wasn’t meant to be torture. In the original version, the Kerberos rescued thousands of survivors, enough to restart civilisation. You were heroes. But Ciaran must’ve changed it…He must’ve wanted you to suffer.”

“So he’s the one who sank my ship. That’s all I need to know.”

Onwards they drift into nothing. Slowly but surely, panic is creeping in, crawling up Eyk’s spine - the unique horror of being surrounded by open water. He looks down past his kicking legs into the dark of the ocean, below the sunlight’s reach. He is struck by the knowledge that he is treading water above a vast abyss, with nothing to stop him from sinking for miles and miles until the blackness crushes him. The void seems ready to pull him down into its embrace. Terrified, he starts to kick harder.

“Maura’s been worried about you,” Daniel says to take Eyk’s mind off it.

“I don’t know anyone named Maura.”

“You do. When you see her, you’ll wonder how you could ever forget her.”

Their tired legs are slowing down. With no land or ship to offer it juxtaposition, the sea appears to take on bizarre alien proportions. Eyk is no longer sure where the water ends and where the sky begins, or which way the waves are flowing. Against the vast, grey canvas of the ocean, the two men feel no bigger than atoms.

Daniel’s face has grown white.

“This is it,” he’s muttering, “This is the last one. The last layer. Ciaran’s final trick. Once this is gone, he’ll have nothing left but 2099. We just have to wait…we just have to…”

Losing focus, he dips for a moment beneath the water. He surfaces with a splutter, and Eyk sees that familiar expression - the same glassy, faraway look he’s seen on too many dying faces.

“It’s alright,” says Eyk, “I’m here. Just stay with me.”

“I should probably hate you, shouldn’t I, Captain Larsen?”

“Why? I’ve done nothing to you.”

“But you have. You’re in love with my wife. And I think she might be in love with you too, even if she doesn’t quite know it yet. And the worst thing is, there’s nothing I can do about it, because I’m not even fucking real.”

“I promise I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“All I want is for her to be okay. That’s all. So if she’s happy, I should be fine with it, shouldn’t I? But that’s not how the mind works, is it? I can’t help but hate you.”

He starts to drift away; Eyk pulls him closer.

“Talk to me,” he says, trying to keep the man’s mind focused, “What is she like, this Maura?”

“She’s everything I admire. Brilliant and kind. I love her with my whole being. It’s the type of love that only a beating heart could feel, but how can that be? I’m not real, so how can I love anything, feel anything? Was I designed this way just to gratify my creators? Or is every brain doomed to dream, even brains that are just…lines of code?”

“Tell me more. Tell me about your home. Where did you live before the end of the world?”

“Our home…where should I start?”

“Well, what did it look like?”

“Old-fashioned - that’s what people told us. But that was how we wanted it. Maura always loved a vintage aesthetic. It made her feel nostalgic for a time and place she’d never been. A time when people believed we were just a couple of decades away from flying cars and no more wars. A bright vision of a better world, a naïve dream of the near-future. I think it came from television…lying on the rug in front of the telly, watching endless re-runs of Star Trek with her mother.”

Daniel is rambling aimlessly, staring through Eyk as if he’s no longer there.

“She still loves Star Trek, you know. An optimistic fantasy of future technology, of human advancement. She and Elliot and I would watch The Next Generation together…”

“Who was Elliot?”

“He was our…her son.” Daniel is silent for a moment, then jerks his thoughts away from that dark pit, trying to bury himself in memories of a happy past - one he isn’t even sure ever existed. “You know that episode where Reg locks himself in the holodeck, and surrounds himself with holograms of the crew so he can finally be a master of his own life, while hiding from his real colleagues outside? Oh wait, why do I even ask? Of course you don’t know it. It probably never existed in this world.”

“I remember television,” Eyk mutters, “At least, I think I do.”

“I tease Maura about her style, but I’m the same, really. I love vintage technology. You should see my office. My computer is a bloody cinder-block of a thing, an ancient model I gutted and retrofitted to run modern software. When we were designing the Shell, Ciaran wanted it to be a touchscreen…we got into so many stupid arguments about that. He called me pretentious, I called him soulless…My watch is an analogue because I refuse to go digital.”

Water creeps into his mouth and he coughs it out.

“Fuck. I’m so fucking tired.”

“Me too. Hold onto me.”

As they threaten to drift apart again, they cling weakly to each other. The slow waves are growing larger - huge, gentle swells that lift them up several metres before lowering them back down again. Each time they reach the crest of a wave, Eyk looks out from his vantage point to see that the entire surface of the sea is undulating.

Daniel’s strength is spent. He wavers again, his eyes glazing over.

“Not long now,” he mumbles faintly.

“Until what?”

“Not long…” His eyes roll back in his skull, and their lids droop shut.

“No!” Eyk grabs him, holding his unconscious head above the surface. “Stay with me. Stay with me!”

Desperately, he tries to turn Daniel onto his back so that he can float face-up, but it’s impossible - the water is buffeting them from every direction. The slow waves are growing larger - huge, gentle swells that lift them up several metres before lowering them back down again. Each time he reaches the crest of a wave, he looks out from his vantage point to see that the entire surface of the sea is undulating. A distant storm? He looks up and sees no thunder-clouds, just peaceful blue, then looks down into the darkness again.

This time, it seems different. Before his eyes, it shifts and mutates. The surface distortions are intensifying, growing more violent, as if the whole ocean is bending around them. Great mountainous shapes are born out of nowhere, pushing up out of the roiling water, rising to the height of skyscrapers. As their shrouds of sea-foam dissolve and fall away, he realises that they aren’t waves, but solid structures made of a smooth, jet-black substance.

Eyk’s whole body is exhausted. He can no longer keep Daniel afloat.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

With no other choice, he lets go, dedicating the last few ounces of his strength to keeping his own head above water. Daniel slips from his hands and goes under. As the world folds in on itself, Captain Larsen closes his eyes and waits to die.

“I’m sorry.”

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Moon rising over the ugly moulage Keep talking, who you running from? Tonight, we succumb with the disappearing sun Good fortune gets stuck in your teeth Good-looking, you’re a unicorn Dancing in the flames, anger in your veins

Son, you were made to suffer Oh, but the morning comes Oh, when the light is failing Temptation takes you to

Salvation, swimming with the swarm of electric stars Salvation, deliverance is ours by the light of the stars

Move closer, drink the morning air Don’t embrace, taste of lemonade Suffer then re-set, wallow in regret

Son, you were made to suffer Oh, but the morning comes Oh, when the light is failing Temptation takes you to

Salvation, swimming with the swarm of electric stars Salvation, deliverance is ours by the light of the stars

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aneurinallday · 17 days ago

Text

You're too kind 😭 and I'M glad you've enjoyed it so far! I was worried that these self-contained Eyk chapters would feel too disconnected from the story, but I also really enjoyed (well, not enjoyed, they are grim) writing them.

It's funny you mention horror, I may or may not be trying to write a horror as my next fic!

2099

The sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth’s wide regions round! It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; Or like a cradled creature lies.

~ Bryan Waller Procter, The Sea (1837)

1.5 = THE CAPTAIN

On October 19th 1999, Eyk Larsen is woken - as he too often is - by an urgent pounding on his door, penetrating the thick, dark fog of sleep. His hazel eyes open to the familiar sight of his dingy cabin.

“Wake up, sir!” a man’s voice shouts from outside, “Wake up!”

As he rolls over with a groan, he can hear pounding boots as they run past his cabin, and voices yelling in English, German, and a dozen other languages. Another mutiny, he thinks, and a small part of him almost feels relieved. If it’s another rebellion, perhaps he should just stay in his cabin and wait. Just let them kick down the door and cut his throat. He would finally be free of the heavy burden of captaincy - a burden which he’s carried for far too long.

It’s been thirty years since the world sank - thirty years since he managed to trick himself into thinking that he still had a reason to exist. He can still remember solid earth under his feet - the feel of grass, the sound of leaves rustling and insects’ wings fluttering. Closing his eyes again, he can almost smell it - the past. Spring flowers in the sunshine. Burnt rubber on tarmac. Good food cooking on a city street. Things which nobody has smelled in three decades.

He pictures another version of himself, a long time ago, in another world. He first boards the ship Kerberos as a fresh-faced young sailor, just a boy, happy to leave his home, eager to see the world - not knowing that he will never set foot on dry land again.

First come the emergency broadcasts, interrupting the regularly scheduled radio programs to warn of a sudden, irreversible escalation of the Cold War. Then come the bombs which turn the sky into a roiling sea of fire, and all-consuming shockwaves which shake cities into dust and mountains into rubble.

With the crumbling of landmasses come the great waves - colossal tsunamis caused by millions of metric tons of water being displaced, pushed upwards by the sinking of entire continents. Months later, when the shockwaves finally die down, the planet’s crust has settled into its new shape and the seas have merged into a single, endless sea. Only the strongest and luckiest of watercraft remain afloat, and the largest of them all is the Kerberos.

She’s almost a thousand feet long from aft to stern, and as deep as a high-rise building, and carries enough supplies to last her crew for months. She’s the closest thing the world has to an island, and word of her spreads quickly - a haven for the desperate and drowning. She scours the ocean for any signs of life, picking up hundreds of survivors from cruise ships, merchant vessels, fishing trawlers, mega-yachts, rubber dinghies; and when there is nobody left to rescue, she surrenders to the current and drifts.

As the days of chaos and confusion turn to weeks, the understanding that there is no mainland, no port of call, not even a rock left above sea-level finally sinks in. Many sailors opt to leap from the top deck rather than face the slow, lonely deaths that face them, adrift in an endless sea. Eyk can’t blame them. For the survivors - the ones who choose to carry on, even if carrying on means only suffering - there is little joy to be found. The only comfort comes from the mindless drudgery of their daily routines.

With nowhere to go and nothing else to do, they do their best to carry on. To live. They establish new routines, new training programs, new graduation ceremonies - scraping together some crude semblance of normalcy, while above their heads hangs the question “What’s the point?”. In a few decades - or perhaps less - everyone onboard this ship will be dead. There aren’t enough women, and even fewer children. There is no future in this endless sea.

And so pass thirty years. There are mutinies - more mutinities than Eyk can count. Desperate crewmen attempting to take control of the vessel so they can steer home, back to the families whom they know are dead, but whom they still hope to find alive. Through the bloodshed and terror, he endures. Rebellions come and go, and captains rise and fall, until finally it’s Eyk Larsen’s turn to take the helm of the Kerberos.

Every day is much the same as the one before it. Yet he can’t help but feel like something’s different lately. A change in the air perhaps, a nagging unease which he can’t put his finger on. And now here he is, exhausted and unkempt, with two-thousand lives on his shoulders and someone pounding on his cabin door.

“Sir, wake up!” the voice continues, “We’ve sprung a leak!”

Eyk finally sits up, his shirt unbuttoned and trousers rumpled from sleep. He glimpses himself in the dirty piece of glass that serves as a mirror. The white patch in his beard has grown larger in the past few years, and his scarred and weather-beaten face looks more exhausted than usual.

When he rises to his feet, he notices a subtle, almost imperceptible tilt to the floor which fills him with an indescribable dread. Nothing in this room is of value to him, so he pauses only to pull on his boots before emerging from his private cabin.

The evacuation is already underway. The corridors are filled with men and a smattering of women, moving single-file or double-file, shuffling towards the stairwells that lead to the upper deck and the lifeboats. They’re half-dressed or not dressed at all, some carrying their boots and belongings tucked under their arms, most carrying nothing at all. He sees Darrel among them, and Eugen too. Navigation Officer Wilhelm ushering everybody along.

“Was ist lost?” Eyk yells over the din of the ship, “Haben wir etwas getroffen?”

“Nein, Käpt’n! Nichts!” Wilhelm shouts back.

“Alle raus! Alle in die Rettungsboote!”

“Ja, Käpt’n!”

From here, Eyk has a straight shot at the upper decks and the lifeboats, but he runs straight past it, heading towards danger, barking orders along the way. His thought goes to those unable to save themselves - those confined to the brig and sick-bay. He quickens his pace in their direction. If his act of compassion costs him his life, he doesn’t particularly care - a good captain should go down with his ship, after all, and God knows he has nothing to live for without it.

Each person he passes has the same look on their face - the same numb, stunned disbelief. The unthinkable is happening, and none of them knows what will come next. Many of them are just boys - Sea Babies, born after the apocalypse. They’ve lived their entire lives without dry land, without homes, without knowing how the world is supposed to be - without knowing anything but an empty horizon and the rusty decks of this ship. The rest of them were plucked out of the water as children, rescued from rafts and dinghies, and raised by the crew of the Kerberos.

“You know what to do,” he says encouragingly to those shuffling past him, “Just like the drills - straight onto the lifeboats. There’s enough room for everybody, so no need to shove.”

“What’s going to happen, sir?” someone asks, “Where are we going to go?”

“Not to worry,” Eyk replies, lying through his teeth, “We’ll get her fixed up, good as new. In the meantime, we’ll manage.”

“Yes, sir!” they chorus weakly.

Eyk continues down the line. He can hear the metal groaning around him as the Kerberos strains under her own weight, the vessel tilting further. As chaos and terror spreads, the lines are falling apart. Scuffles are breaking out. Officers are trying to restore order, but the sailors are beyond listening. All they want to do is escape, even if it means pushing and shoving and clawing. Some simply stay where they are, or returns to their cabins. Either they’ve given up the will to live, or they simply can’t conceive of an existence beyond this ship, and are refusing to budge.

“Move! Schnell!” Eyk commands, but they ignore him, and he can’t waste time trying to persuade them. He proceeds deeper into the ship, struggling to balance on the slanted floor. The ocean is pouring into the lower decks. The cargo hold below is already completely flooded, and the orlop is rapidly filling with water.

He finds the way to the brig blocked with debris. He can clear a path through, but it’ll take too long, and the time he’ll spend unlocking the holding cells is time he could spend saving other lives. Rather than waste precious seconds, he gives up and heads for the sick bay - an easier route with a higher chance of success. He comforts himself with the thought that perhaps somebody else has already rescued the prisoners.

To his relief, the sick bay is already emptying. He sees the patients being ushered out - some with broken noses and black eyes from fistfights, some sick from eating bad food, some malingerers who are feigning illness just to skive off their chores. Those who aren’t able to swim by themselves will soon be abandoned.

“Alle raus!” he orders, hurrying them along, “Everyone out, quick as you can!”

With the last man out the door, he scans the rows of empty beds, looking for any stragglers. His gaze falls on the furthest bed, and finds it still occupied. He recognises the fair hair of Landon, a young and lowly sailor.

Some weeks ago, Landon awoke from a nightmare, screaming that the ship was sinking - almost causing his crewmates to raise a false alarm. After that night, he refused to go below-decks, terrified to set foot below the waterline. He begged to be relocated to a higher cabin, one where the port-holes were above sea-level, and Eyk granted his request in order to restore peace and quiet - the last thing he wanted was for Landon’s delusions to spread among his fellow rank-and-filers.

But the nightmares continued, worsening until one fateful morning, Landon was found teetering on the edge of the ship, trapped between despair and fear - clinging white-knuckled to the rusty barrier that was erected to prevent that exact circumstances. A crowd stood around, watching with interest but not much concern. After three decades of people jumping to their deaths, driven mad by claustrophobia or simply overcome by depression, the spectacle of a suicide no longer elicited much reaction.

“It’s a long way down, son,” Eyk said as he squinted up at the young man, shielding his hazel eyes from the sun, “But not long enough for a quick death. Are you sure this is how you want to go?”

“I want to wake up,” Landon cried. “It’s all a bad dream, all of it - I want to wake up now.”

While he wavered on the hand-rail, trying to psyche himself up for that last, longest leap, Eyk did his best to talk him down from the edge - no longer the stern voice of a captain, but the sympathetic voice of a father. In the end, Landon’s cold hands lost their tenuous grip and he slipped - not forwards into the sea, but backwards onto the deck, eliciting spiteful laughter from some of those watching - laughter which Eyk quickly silenced. Landon was immediately restrained and taken below-decks, to be confined to the sick bay.

“I want to wake up!” he cried the whole way, “I want to wake up!”

Now he’s been left behind to die. With the watersplashing around his ankles, Eyk runs to his side, and struggles to unbuckle the straps from around his wrists and ankles.

“Landon!” he barks. “We need to leave! On your feet, now!”

Landon doesn’t move. His glassy eyes staring at nothing. Eyk releases the final strap, jerks him upright by the shoulders, and shakes him.

“We need to leave,” he yells in Landon’s glassy face. “You need to walk. Can you do that for me, sailor?”

No response. Not even a flicker of recognition.

With no time to spare, Eyk grabs him and hoists him up onto his left shoulder. Staggering under the young man’s weight, he makes his way out of the sick bay and towards the life boats. The corridor is now deserted, and the ocean is up to his knees. He finds himself at a steep angle, one foot on the floor and the other foot on the wall - the entire ship is leaning sideways. Keeping his left arm wrapped around Landon’s legs, he braces himself against the wall with his right arm.

“Hallo?” he shouts, but there’s no reply. He and Landon are alone.

Eyk pushes on, but more water comes fast, washing his legs out from underneath him. He falls, Landon on top of him, and barely manages to extricate himself from underneath the crewman’s limp body. He surfaces, coughing and spluttering, and flails for something to hold onto. The shock of the water must jolt Landon from his stupor, because he suddenly panics and begins to struggle. He claws at the wall until he finds a handhold, and hangs on desperately. His eyes are wild.

“I want to wake up,” he says.

“Come with me and you’ll wake up,” Eyk coaxes.

The dim lights begin to die around them. As they wade through the waist-deep water, they hear a man splashing and struggling towards them through the darkness.

“Hello?” the man cries out, “Hello?”

“This way, sailor!” Eyk calls back, “Follow my voice if you can.”

“Captain Larsen? Are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

The splashing draws closer, until finally they are a trio.

“I can’t see your face,” says Eyk, “What’s your name?”

“It’s me, sir - Darrel!”

“Darrel? You should be on a lifeboat. I thought you were getting on one.”

“I came back, sir. I had to come back for Landon.”

“Landon’s here. I got him out of the sick bay.”

“Oh, thank God. I thought he’d gone under…”

“We still might. We can’t stay here. Can we go back the way you came?”

“No, I don’t think so. The water…”

“Alright. Follow me.”

With Eyk in the lead, Darrel in the rear, and Landon in the middle, they push on. They feel their way through the watery semi-darkness - sometimes walking, sometimes swimming - following the wall through hatch after hatch, flooded stairwell after flooded stairwell. They find bodies floating, bobbing gently on the surface. Eyk tries not to look too closely at them, at their slack faces and open eyes and broken fingers.

When he realises what he’s touching, Landon shudders violently and lets out a wordless cry.

“It’s alright, boys,” Eyk says while he clears a path, “They’re sleeping now.”

The further they go, the more dead they find. The narrow corridors are blocked - packed tight with those unable to escape. Overcome by the ocean, they died in one confused tangle - bottle-necked in the mad stampede to get through a hatch that wouldn’t open, or trying to break through port-holes which are too small to fit through anyway. It’s impossible to get past them.

“We have to turn back,” says Eyk.

“Yes, sir.”

Finally, they find a corner that’s large enough to stand up in, but small enough that they aren’t treading water. Eyk pushes the two young men into the highest point of the air pocket, and positions himself lower down. They’re up to their chests, and he’s up to his neck. Above them flickers an electrical light.

“Wait here,” orders Eyk, “I’ll see if there’s more air further ahead.”

“No, don’t,” Landon blurts out, the first coherent words he’s spoken in days. “Don’t leave us. Please.”

“I’m not leaving you. I’ll be back soon.”

“I can go instead, sir,” Darrel volunteers, “I still have strength left.”

“No, stay with Landon. He’s calmer with you than he is with me.”

“Yes, sir…”

Eyk takes a deep breath, and dives. Some of the lights are still working underwater, though dim and flickering violently. On a single breath, he can only swim a few metres through the debris and corpses before he is forced to turn back. He resurfaces, gasping.

“Find anything, sir?” Darrel asks shakily.

“Not yet. But I’ll look again. How’s he doing?” Eyk looks at Landon, whose glassy eyes stare at the light above them.

“He’s calmer.”

“Good. I’ll keep searching.”

Eyk sucks in another breath, and tries again. Dive after dive, groping blindly through the darkness, each path proving fruitless, each direction a dead-end. Then the submerged lights finally die, and he can dive no more. He returns to the air bubble in defeat. Perhaps seeing the look on Eyk’s face, Darrel says nothing.

“Are you injured, you two?” Eyk asks.

“No, sir.”

“Good. Nauseous?”

“A little.”

As the darkness tightens its hold on the Kerberos, they can hear the faint, distant shouts of those trapped further below - those deeper down in the dark. But the screams soon cease. Not wanting to waste oxygen, they make noise any other way they can - banging against the walls and ceilings with metal objects. The staccato beat seems to permeate the whole wreck.

“Maybe someone will come,” says Darrel, “Maybe the people on the lifeboats…They’d come back for us, wouldn’t they, Captain Larsen? Officer Franz and the others…they’d come back for us.”

“I’m sure they will,” Eyk lies, “We just have to be patient.”

The three of them are clinging onto the wall for support - Darrel with his right hand, Landon with his left. Their opposite arms are nowhere to be seen. Eyk realises they’re holding hands underweater. He thinks of the dozens of other souls, likewise trapped in dwindling air pockets inside the wreck. He wonders how many of them are alone, with no-one to hold their hand in the darkness. Maybe they’re cursing his name. Blaming their captain for not steering them to safer waters.

“Did you see how many lifeboats took off, Darrel?” Eyk asks, trying to distract them from their impending deaths.

“I’m not sure, sir. I was in the queue to get on Lifeboat Six, or maybe Seven. But they were still lowering them into the water when I decided to come back.”

“Well, if at least seven lifeboats managed to take off, that’s good. That’s good…”

The light above them flickers violently, then dies, leaving them in total darkness. Landon whimpers.

“Don’t worry, boys,” Eyk says, “I’m still here.”

For what feels like an eternity, they listen to the metallic cacophony of people clanging for help. One by one, the sounds fade. How long, the three men wonder, until they fade too?

“Sir, I don’t feel well,” says Darrel.

“I know. Neither do I.”

The water has grown still and calm around them, and the air bubble is thinning out.

“Start splashing,” Eyk instructs.

“What for, sir?”

“It’ll force out the oxygen molecules, refresh our breathing supply. Come on, do it.”

Darrel and Landon obey. They beat on the surface of the water until their arms grow tired. Despite Eyk’s best efforts, they can still hear the noises of other people, also struggling to survive.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Darrel says, “I can’t move any more.”

“Alright, have a rest. We’ll take it in turns. Me, then Landon, then you, then me again. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Minutes pass in this fashion. Resting, splashing, resting again.

“Keep going,” says Eyk - not because he believes it’s working, but because it’ll keep them occupied - and they obey.

Finally, they stop. Their energy is spent, along with their hope, and now there is nothing to do but wait. It’s silent now. Not just the silence of death, but the silence of resignation as well - anyone who’s still alive has given up, and is waiting to die.

In the pitch black, Eyk listens to Landon and Darrel’s quiet, stifled sobs. Sooner or later, all the oxygen will be gone and they’ll be left with nothing but carbon dioxide. Nausea and death will come soon after that. Eyk wonders if it’ll be quicker to just empty his lungs and dive, and drag the others down with him. Just put them out of their misery.

“It was kind of you to come back, Darrel,” he says, “You’re a good man.”

“Thank you, sir.” Darrel’s voice is shaking. Eyk wonders how much he regrets his decision.

“I want to wake up,” Landon mutters.

“I know, sailor. You’ll wake up soon.”

Through the hush comes a disturbance: a muffled thumping beyond the wall. Debris being washed about, Eyk thinks, before he realises it’s coming from inside the hull, and drawing closer.

“What is that?” Darrel whispers.

As if in answer, the metal wall in front of them suddenly separates: a circular door swinging outwards to reveal a tunnel of pipes and cables. A hatch which they never even knew was there - a hatch which couldn’t possibly be there, because Eyk knows every inch of this ship by heart.

Out of the tunnel peers a man’s face, grubby and streaked with engine oil, his large brown eyes glimmering in the darkness.

“Quick,” he says, “Come with me.”

Eyk stares at him, trying to discern if it’s déjà vu he’s feeling or just confusion. Quickly, he snaps out of it.

“Where does it go?” he asks, “The tunnel?”

“Somewhere else. You’ll be safe.”

“You two - go with him,” Eyk orders, pushing Darrel and Landon towards the tunnel. “Try to get out of here.”

The strange man helps the two sailors clamber into the tunnel. Soaked to the bone, Landon sobs in relief to feel a dry surface under his hands and knees.

“Thank you,” Eyk says.

“You need to come too,” the stranger replies, reaching out towards Eyk, “Please. Take my hand.”

“I can’t. I need to search for the others. I need to help my men.”

“There’s nothing more you can do for them. Trust me. I saved as many as I could, but most of them are dead, and the rest will be erased soon. Come with me, please.”

“I can’t,” Eyk repeats, “I’m the captain. This is my ship. I let her sink. Why should I survive?”

“Please, just come with me. Please.”

But it’s too late. Eyk takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and goes under. He already knows that he won’t find another air pocket - that he’ll just swim and swim until the darkness turns to oblivion - but he still has to try.

The Kerberos’ long voyage has come to an end, and the least he can do is go down with his ship.

youtube

Hello, Earth Hello, Earth

With just one hand held up high I can blot you out out of sight Peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo, little Earth With just my heart and my mind, I can be driving, driving home And you asleep on the seat

I get out of my car Step into the night And look up at the sky And there’s something bright Travelling fast Just look at it go Just look at it go

Hello, Earth Hello, Earth Watching storms start to form over America Can’t do anything Just watch them swing with the wind out to sea

All you sailors Get out of the waves, get out of the water All life-savers Get out of the waves, get out of the water All you cruisers Get out of the waves, get out of the water All you fishermen, head for home Go to sleep, little Earth

I was there at the birth Out of the cloudburst, the head of the Tempest Murderer, murderer of calm Why did I go? Why did I go?

Tiefer, tiefer Irgendwo in der Tiefe Gibt es ein Licht Go to sleep, little Earth

#also i do apologise for The Sebastian Edit...i hope it wasn't too jarring...i just couldn't live with myself hahaha

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aneurinallday · 17 days ago

Text

dark academia let's gooo

Lawrance noticed a young man, incongruously blonde and handsome among those older, dull men that surrounded him

Onstyles featured an ample library, two laboratories, and a series of classrooms with stands, where the lessons were taught. The attic, where the staff slept and, similarly, where the lodgings of the professors were, came to him as a narrow, inaccesible wing and highly prohibitive.

gothic castle with off-limits section let's goooo

Suddenly, the heavy door opened with an agonic screech of its hinges, and with the storm, he entered.

It's me, your future husband

A good and intriguing start to this gothic tale! 🖤

—𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒.

—BOOK I: THE SCHOOL.

“Pale rider to the convent gate. Come, O rough bridegroom, Death”

—Death, Robert Louis Stevenson.

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄: THE OUTSIDERS. -September 2, 1856.

They came with the fog, as if they were ghosts.

Two youths of the same age emerged with a jump from the stagecoach that, like a black raven, had landed before the gates of the institution. It was an unpleasant noon, hazy and quiet, and a tiding of dark magpies traversed the sky, disturbing the man that escorted them with their mournful cries.

The Valley of Wye, such a bewitched place, appeared to still be rousing around them from a long wintry lethargy, even if those were the last dragging days of what had otherwise been a pleasant summer. The recent, however, had been times of storm and restlessness, of nights of wakefulness and winds that howled terrible omens to those willing to hear them, and although acquitted that morning for a few restless hours, the travellers knew that the biblical wrath that the heavens had unloaded upon them was not yet to subside, and the vastness of those fields seemed to darken under the promise of further storms.

But the young lads appeared indolent to that threat. They were both healthful, merry and fortunate, and when they abandoned the safety of the carriage with their wrinkled travel clothes and cheery faces, they were chuckling.

Onstyles rose in front of them with the same proud stance of a legendary monarch. It was an imposing building, a testimony of the English gothic that stretched itself in an encounter of arches, stained glass windows and walls as high as steep cliffs. It was, in a way, an old spiderweb, so much as they were two ingenuous moths fluttering about its tramp. The winding gravel road they walked to cross the gates was framed by oaks whose branches, knotty and grey like old hands, appeared to clench in the damp air.

The youngest, named Lawrance, donned the blue serge wheel cap he wore and smoothened his curls idly; he was as swift and light as a doe, and his taunting gesture allowed to imagine his nature, astute, laughing and doubtlessly bold, that so many times had set him in trouble as it had, artfully, got him out of other. Not many steps ahead of him, Washington, his older brother, glanced at the school with candid fascination.

“What an old place!” he said.

“As old as the village at its feet” someone corroborated.

The three travellers turned around in time to see a group of five men, headed by a respectable and mature gentleman of circumspect smile, approached them without haste.

“Director Holford” flustered, the man that looked after the brothers seemed to have recovered his voice, now painfully high “I am Silas Gant. I am here to escort young misters Pemberton.”

“Mr. Gant. Young misters Pemberton” the director greeted them. In the entourage of men that followed the man, Lawrance noticed a young man, incongruously blonde and handsome among those older, dull men that surrounded him “I trust your journey has been peaceful.”

“Oh, it was not!” Washington replied gleefully, shaking his hand, “the storm surprised us in the middle of the path and the car almost crashed.”

“And twice no less” added Lawrance when the director came to shake his, but seeing Mr. Gant’s face turn pale, the boy regretted his joke.

“Then I am glad you have made it here safely, despite any hardships” the director replied, offering a smile of greyish teeth “The teachers and I have the pleasure to welcome you this fortunate day. Now, come, come with us, gentlemen. We have much to talk about inside.”

Mr. Gant nodded, and the brothers picked their baggage.

Once inside, they knew they had ventured into lion’s den.

Between heavy ebony furniture and the stern faces of his predecessors scrutinising them from their portraits, director Holford showed off his famous hospitality, lavishing this illustrious outsiders as if they were legates from faraway lands. He offered the brothers sandwiches and tea to warm up their stiff limbs; to good Mr. Gant, a topaz-coloured brandy whom he pulled out from his desk, and that he rejected timidly.

“Thank you, director Holford” he said “I trust you have read the letter my client sent to you.”

“Mr. Pemberton, yes”, director Halfords nodded, licking his lips “That I remember well. In simple terms, he said, and I quote, “this sons of mine are the less bright stars in this decadent firmament that the youth of our present is”.

“Tell your master he has nothing to worry about; we will honour the prestige of our institution. The young misters shall be educated to grow into two proper, well to do gentlemen... No matter how unruly and scarcely clever they have proven to be until today”.

“How old are they, Mr. Grant?”

“Sixteen, the both of them. Young mister Washington is to turn seventeen this very winter” replied the man, prudent.

“Then they shall go to different bedrooms?”

“Won’t I share quarters with my brother?” asked Lawrance, indignant. The director looked at him as if he were a fool.

“I am afraid that that is inviable, young Pemberton, as you belong to different years” replied he “You shall have young lads of your age as your companions, and you may meet your brother at mass, meals and the common room in your spare hours.”

Lawrance was profoundly displeased, and so was Washington, who appeared to be about to protest, but Mr. Grant casted a weary glance to them and both resigned themselves to their fate, and it had come the hour for them to bid farewell to him.

“Good bye Mr. Gant” they said, as Sinclair guided them through an endless trail of corridors.

“Good bye, my boys.”

There was a tall oriel window in the shared quarters, overlooking the expanse of neighbouring forests; it gave the fantastical impression of having being carved out of the stalagmites of an ancient cave, and peeping through it, Lawrance felt as if he were some tragic prince overlooking his fate.

The boys Lawrence was to share bedroom with, now too busy with undoing their and discussing their adventures on the way to the school to pay attention to his doings, appeared of the most radically opposed statuses, and so comically mismatched in character and appearance that he could not help to think that such combination had been an intentional trick of the teachers. The first must have been named something along the lines of Jonathan or Jonas, but he replied to the name of Jonesy, and had gentle mess of gingery blonde curls and that kind of freckled, wholesome complexion that suggests long walks under the sun and much activity. The other one, Louis de Morland, whose full title spoke of ancient lineages and was too long a name for him to care —, belonged to the peerage, it seemed, and despite it —or perhaps because of it— was but a sickly looking mite, with wilted brown hair and nearsighted eyes that seemed to fumble through his spectacles. Neither were quite like his friend Ismael, who he had left back in America, but that did not mean they weren’t worth befriending.

Whilst the boys spoke to each other, he decided to leave the bedroom and go to explore the place by himself. Had Sinclair told him the truth, Onstyles featured an ample library, two laboratories, and a series of classrooms with stands, where the lessons were taught. The attic, where the staff slept and, similarly, where the lodgings of the professors were, came to him as a narrow, inaccesible wing and highly prohibitive. For the time being, he would not defy that. While Lawrance wandered through the corridors, brushing with the tip of his fingers those walls of inclement stone, he felt as if he were straying too deep into a labyrinth. His assumptions were not far from being true.

The particular English gothic style made him feel as if he were walking over the skeleton of a prehistoric beast, for whenever he went, the boarding school seemed to be surrounded by an air of quiet and mournful antiquity. It was in that same stroll that Lawrance realised what the director and Sinclair had omitted to tell him: the institution had been stillbirth, frozen in a long past time, without the opportunity to prosper like the rest of schools.

It was during this harmless expedition that he heard of the resurgence of the storm. He thought of his classmates; most them came from diverse parts of England, and but a few —as it was his and his brother’s case— from far away. If there were any remaining students who were yet to arrive, they would only find muddy roads and storm-stricken skies on their way. The strong light of the thunders bathed the dimly lit galleries in short-lived, purple light.

It was nearing dinner time, and he thought he would do good to desist already and go back to his chamber, to change to his uniform and then join ha Washington and the other chaps in the Great Hall, around one of those English dishes that, Ismael had warned him, he’d find quite unappetising.

But then a weak sound stirred the dense, ancient air of the hall. Lawrance opened his ears, unnerved. Behind the silence, there was tapping so feeble he could have as well thought he had imagined it.

A knock knock knock as faint as the throb of an old grandfather clock.

Someone was calling.

Suddenly, the heavy door opened with an agonic screech of its hinges, and with the storm, he entered.

Tagging @queennevercry31 and @aneurinallday . Specially thanks to @catherinemybeloved and @marianadecarlos for their understanding and long time support.

#rmelster #the raven volumes #the night has a thousand eyes #gothic romance #gothic #victorian #dark academia

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